Presents a self-contained introduction to logic suitable for majors and nonmajors, and can be covered entirely in a one-semester course. Natural deduction systems of sentential logic and of first-order logic, truth tables, and the basic ideas of model theory are presented without superfluous discussion.

The ‘new school system’ described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, 2010) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith‐based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opportunity to develop innovative, religiously distinctive curricula whilst eschewing the activity of confessional (...) religious education. I show how non‐confessional, faith‐based curricula are possible and offer some suggestions about what they might include. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Hedonistic Arguments The Transcendental Arguments The Instrumental Worth of Theoretical Activities Note References.

This chapter contains sections titled: How Should Patriotism be Handled in Schools? Current Views and Practices in British Schools The Media Reaction to the Research Note References.

It is widely recognized that Immanuel Kant was one of Karl Barth's most important intellectual influences, but how and to what extent this is the case remains an open question. In Presupposing God, Robert Hand demonstrates a deep consistency between Kant's and Barth's theological epistemologies, with this issue in mind. After arguing for a number of positive emphases in Kant's critical philosophy and religious epistemology in conversation with modern Kant scholarship, Presupposing God demonstrates how these emphases were obscured in Kant's (...) reception in the decades between Kant and Barth, and then explores the intellectual conditions under which Barth first encountered Kant. The argument proceeds to show how Barth wrestled with these varying interpretations and continued to utilize Kant with increased sophistication as his thought developed across the Romans commentaries, Anselm, and the Church Dogmatics. Presupposing God suggests that Kant can be an asset to theology, rather than the liability he is often taken to be, and that Barth is one of the better available examples of this in practice. (shrink)

本書首先介紹了斯賓諾莎的時代、生平和著作考釋，然後從形而上學、認識論和倫理學三方面對斯賓諾莎哲學體系進行分析和解釋，作者力圖從當代哲學認識成果出發，對斯賓諾莎哲學進行全面而系統的評價。書後並附有詳盡的 斯賓諾莎哲學參考文獻，以便讀者作更深一層的研究。.

Das 19. Jahrhundert ist zu Recht das lange Jahrhundert genannt worden. Wie es mit einem Epochenumbruch, dem der Revolution, beginnt, so endet es: mit dem Ersten Weltkrieg und dem Eintritt der beiden späteren Weltmächte, den USA und Sowjetrussland, in die Weltgeschichte. Dazwischen bestimmen andere Revolutionen und Restaurationen, Kriege und Friedenszeiten das politische Geschehen. Die Geistes- und Philosophiegeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts kennt weder eine dominierende Strömung noch eine kontinuierliche Entwicklung. Karl Löwith spricht vom revolutionären Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts, der (...) vor allem von Marx und Kierkegaard markiert werde. Beider Opposition zu Hegel und zum Idealismus wird begleitet vom gleichzeitigen Aufschwung des Positivismus, dann vom Neukantianismus, Materialismus, Darwinismus, Pragmatismus und vielerlei weiteren Ismen, für die das Zeitalter kennzeichnend ist und für die es den neutralen Oberbegriff Weltanschauung bereithält. Mehr als vorangegangene Epochen wird das 19. Jahrhundert von Begriffen geprägt, die die öffentlichen Debatten bestimmen, von solchen der Wissenschaften wie denen der Politik. Viele Termini werden über den engeren fachlichen Rahmen hinaus populär: Wer spricht nicht um 1900 in vielfältiger Bedeutung von >EnergieEntwicklungMechanisierungUnbewusstem. (shrink)

Children must be taught morality. They must be taught to recognise the authority of moral standards and to understand what makes them authoritative. But there’s a problem: the content and justification of morality are matters of reasonable disagreement among reasonable people. This makes it hard to see how educators can secure children’s commitment to moral standards without indoctrinating them. -/- In A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand tackles this problem head on. He sets out to show that moral education (...) can and should be fully rational. It is true that many moral standards and justificatory theories are controversial, and educators have an obligation to teach these nondirectively, with the aim of enabling children to form their own considered views. But reasonable moral disagreement does not go all the way down: some basic moral standards are robustly justified, and these should be taught directively, with the aim of bringing children to recognise and understand their authority. -/- This is an original and important contribution to the philosophy of moral education, which lays a new theoretical foundation for the urgent practical task of teaching right from wrong. (shrink)

Reflection without Rules offers a comprehensive, pointed exploration of the methodological tradition in economics and the breakdown of the received view within the philosophy of science. Professor Hands investigates economists' use of naturalistic and sociological paradigms to model economic phenomena and assesses the roles of pragmatism, discourse, and situatedness in discussions of economic practice before turning to a systematic exploration of more recent developments in economic methodology. The treatment emphasizes the changes taking place in science theory and its relationship to (...) the movement away from a rules-based view of economic methodology. The work will be of interest to all economists concerned with methodological issues as well as philosophers and others studying the relationships between economics and contemporary science theory. (shrink)

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis states, “the development of economic analysis would (...) look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas has been Professor of Philosophy at the Sorbonne and the director of the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale. Through such works as "Totality and Infinity" and "Otherwise than Being", he has exerted a profound influence on twentieth-century continental philosophy, providing inspiration for Derrida, Lyotard, Blanchot and Irigaray. "The Levinas Reader" collects, often for the first time in English, essays by Levinas encompassing every aspect of his thought: the early phenomenological studies written under the guidance and inspiration of Husserl and (...) Heidegger; the fully developed ethical critique of such totalizing philosophies; the pioneering texts on the moral dimension to aesthetics; the rich and subtle readings of the Talmud which are an exemplary model of an ethical, transcendental philosophy at work; the admirable meditations on current political issues. Sean Hand's introduction gives a complete overview of Levinas's work and situates each chapter within his general contribution to phenomenology, aesthetics, religion, politics and, above all, ethics. Each essay has been prefaced with a brief introduction presenting the basic issues and the necessary background, and suggesting ways to study the text further. (shrink)

This paper examines methodological issues raised by revealed preference theory in economics: particularly contemporary revealed preference theory. The paper has three goals. First, to make the case that revealed preference theory is a broad research program in choice theory—not a single theory—and understanding this diversity is essential to any methodological analysis of the program. Second, to explore some of the existing criticisms of revealed preference theory in a way that emphasizes how the effectiveness of the critique depends on the particular (...) version of revealed preference under consideration. Finally, three additional criticisms are presented that are aimed specifically at contemporary revealed preference theory. (shrink)

The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I consider some of the (...) issues that might jeopardize the success of this philosophical project. (shrink)

In this inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham in January 2014, I sketch the outline of a theory of moral education. The theory is an attempt to resolve the tension between two thoughts widely entertained by teachers, policy-makers and the general public. The first thought is that morality must be learned: children must come to see what morality requires of them and acquire the motivation to submit to its authority. The second thought is that morality is controversial: there (...) is deep uncertainty about both the requirements of morality and the reasons to comply with them. I draw distinctions between two kinds of moral education and between two kinds of moral inquiry . I argue that some basic moral standards are robustly justified and that schools should promote subscription to these standards by means of both moral formation and directive moral inquiry. (shrink)

A collection of original philosophical essays that together make a robust case for the teaching of philosophy in schools. >.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper supports the literature which argues that derivational robustness can have epistemic import in highly idealized economic models. The defense is based on a particular example from mathematical economic theory, the dynamic Walrasian general equilibrium model. It is argued that derivational robustness first increased and later decreased the credibility of the Walrasian model. The example demonstrates that derivational robustness correctly describes the practices of a particular group of influential economic theorists and provides support for the arguments of philosophers who (...) have offered a general epistemic justification of such practices. (shrink)

This book brings together ten previously published essays on the philosophy of economics and economic methodology. The general theme is the application of Karl Popper's philosophy of science to economics -- not only by Popper himself but also by other members of the "Popperian school." There are three major issues that surface repeatedly: the applicability of Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science; the applicability of I. Lakatos's "methodology of scientific research programs" to economics; and the question of Popper's "situational analysis" approach (...) to social science. (shrink)

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to (...) it. (shrink)

Schools plausibly have a role to play in countering radicalization by taking steps to prevent the acquisition of extremist beliefs, dispositions, and attitudes. A core component of the extremist mindset is aversion to compromise. Michael Hand inquires here into the possibility, desirability, and means of educating against this attitude. He argues that aversion to compromise is demonstrably undesirable and readiness to compromise demonstrably desirable, so discursive teaching of these attitudes should guide pupils toward these verdicts. And he identifies three methods (...) of formative teaching by which readiness to compromise can be cultivated in pupils. (shrink)

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis states, “the development of economic analysis would (...) look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”. (shrink)

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to (...) it. (shrink)

In the face of rising concerns about citizenship, national identity, diversity and belonging in Britain today, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have looked to schools to inspire and invigorate a strong, modern sense of patriotism and common purpose, which is capable of binding people together and motivating citizens to fulfil their obligations to each other and to the state.In this timely and astute analysis, Michael Hand unpacks the claims made on both sides of the debate to assess (...) whether love of country is a defensible aim of education. Remarking on the curious failure of engagement between defenders and opponents of patriotic education, he looks beyond the usual arguments for and against, to offer original insight into whether teaching patriotic attachment can be defended on rational grounds. Rather than looking merely to the practical difficulties of cultivating common bonds without misrepresenting or distorting the country's history, Hand's tightly argued conclusion is that reasonable disagreement about the desirability of loving one's country rules out the explicit teaching of Patriotism in schools, and therefore, it should not be actively promoted but rather taught as a controversial issue in the classroom.Breaking new ground in the intellectual debates around teaching citizenship and promoting common patriotic purpose, Patriotism in Schools is an illuminating treatment of a pressing contemporary issue, which will animate and provoke debate amongst parents, teachers, students, academics, politicians and policy-makers alike. (shrink)

The so-called knowability paradox results from Fitch's argument that if there are any unknown truths, then there are unknowable truths. This threatens recent versions of semantical antirealism, the central thesis of which is that truth is epistemic. When this is taken to mean that all truths are knowable, antirealism is thus committed to the conclusion that no truths are unknown. The correct antirealistic response to the paradox should be to deny that the fundamental thesis of the epistemic nature of truth (...) entails the knowability of all truths. Correctly understood, the antirealistic conditions on a proposition's truth do not require that the proposition possess a verification-procedure which, when executed under the given conditions, issues in an agent's recognition of truth, but merely that there be a verification-procedure which, under these conditions, takes the value true . The knowability paradox and the related idealism problem (that antirealism seems, but is not, committed to the necessary existence of an epistemic agent) draw attention to the fact that certain propositions, those that are about verification-procedures themselves, may under certain conditions take the value true despite their unperformability under these circumstances. Thus these propositions' procedures can only be performed when the propositions are false, and they gain the appearance of antirealistic impossibility (e.g., that there is an unknown truth). This differs from the unperformability that antirealists object to, pertaining merely to matters of execution rather than to the logical structure of the procedures themselves. The force of antirealism's notion of epistemic truth is piecemeal, rather than consisting in a blanket characterization of truth as knowable. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the normative interpretation of the fast-and-frugal research program and in particular to contrast it with the normative reading of rational choice theory and behavioral economics. The ecological rationality of fast-and-frugal heuristics is admittedly a form of normative naturalism – it derives what agents “ought” to do from that which “is” ecologically rational – and the paper will examine how this differs from the normative rationality associated with rational choice theory. I will also (...) attempt to assess the relative adequacy of normative ecological rationality. (shrink)

Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report on a recent empirical study of the Perspectives (...) on Science AS-level course, focusing on what it revealed about aids and impediments to discussion of controversial ethical issues. (shrink)

In this brief comment on Educational Goods, I raise two worries about the authors' proposed normative framework for educational decision-makers. The first concerns the omission of rationality, or responsiveness to reasons, from the list of educational goods; the second concerns the inclusion of parental interests in the list of independent values.

Building on Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice, Karin Murris has recently argued that children in school characteristically receive a credibility deficit based on a disparaging stereotype of children, and charged teachers with eschewing such stereotypes and committing to epistemic equality. I raise some objections to Murris’s argument.

R.S. Peters' arguments for the worthwhileness of theoretical activities are intended to justify education per se, on the assumption that education is necessarily a matter of initiating people into theoretical activities. If we give up this assumption, we can ask whether Peters' arguments might serve instead to justify the academic curriculum over other curricular arrangements. For this they would need to show that theoretical activities are not only worthwhile but, in some relevant sense, more worthwhile than activities of other kinds. (...) I argue that Peters' hedonistic and transcendental arguments do not show this, but that his account of theoretical activities is suggestive of an instrumental argument which might fit the bill. (shrink)

This paper challenges Mäki's argument about commonsensibles by offering a case study from contemporary microeconomics – contemporary revealed preference theory (hereafter CRPT) – where terms like "preference," "utility," and to some extent "choice," are radical departures from the common sense meanings of these terms. Although the argument challenges the claim that economics is inhabited solely by commonsensibles, it is not inconsistent with such folk notions being common in economic theory.

The ‘new school system’ described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, ) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith-based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opportunity to develop innovative, religiously distinctive curricula whilst eschewing the activity of confessional (...) religious education. I show how non-confessional, faith-based curricula are possible and offer some suggestions about what they might include. (shrink)

Should philosophy be a compulsory subject in schools? I take it as read that philosophy has general educational value: like other academic disciplines, it cultivates a range of intellectual virtues in those who study it. But that may not be a good enough reason to add it to the roster of established school subjects. The claim I defend in this article is that philosophy also has distinctive educational value: there are philosophical problems that feature prominently and pressingly in ordinary human (...) lives and that all children should be equipped by their education to tackle. Among these are the problems of justifying subscription to moral, political and religious standards. The significance of these problems for everyone is sufficient to warrant the inclusion of philosophy in the school curriculum. (shrink)

Alexander Rosenberg (1983) has argued, contrary to his previous work in the philosophy of economics, that economics is not science, and it is merely mathematics. The following paper argues that Rosenberg fails to demonstrate either of these two claims. The questions of the predictive weakness of modern economics and the cognitive standing of abstract economic theory are discussed in detail.

Serious difficulties attend the reading of David Hilbert's 1925 classic paper ?On the infinite?. I claim that the peculiarities of presentation plaguing certain parts of that paper, as well as of the earlier ?On the Foundations of Logic and Arithmetic? (1904), are due to a tension between two incompatible semantical approaches to numerical statements of elementary arithmetic, and accordingly two incompatible metaphysical conceptions of the natural numbers. One of these approaches is the referential, or model-theoretical one; the other is the (...) iterativist's approach. I draw out the two tendencies in these works, with more attention paid to Hilbert's iterativistic tendency because of the unfamiliarity of iterativism generally. I begin with an exposition of this view. (shrink)