This book presents a novel theory of probability applicable to general reasoning, science, and the courts. Based on a strongly subjective starting-point, with probabilities viewed simply as the guarded beliefs one can reasonably hold, the theory shows how such beliefs are legitimately "projected" outwards as if they existed in the world independent of our judgements.

The author advocates for teaching about varieties of ignorance with a psychoanalytic sensibility as one strategy with which to engage the emotional investments that sustain apathy and the ignorant refusal to care in this new era of suffering and spectatorship. Ignorance, here conceived, is complex, far from consisting only in some passive lack of knowledge. It is understood multidimensionally, as activity, rarely innocent, always inevitable, and entirely ineradicable; it is a powerful agent in the maintenance of oppression, but it is (...) also an important resource on which we can draw to promote curiosity and less defensive encounters with difficult knowledge and different Others. In diagnosing different forms of ignorance, we can distinguish between the varieties that are culturally produced and disseminated for profit from those forms which might serve as impetus for investigation. (shrink)

This paper addresses and rejects claims that one can demonstrate experimentally that most untutored subjects are systematically and incurably irrational in their probability judgements and in some deductive reasoning tasks. From within a strongly subjectivist theory of probability, it develops the notions of resiliency —a measure of stability of judgements—and robustness —a measure of expected stability. It then becomes possible to understand subjects' behaviour in the Wason selection task, in examples which have been claimed to involve a 'base-rate fallacy', in (...) appearing to ignore laws of large numbers and to overestimate their own success rate as entirely rational: a matter of combining first-order probability assignments with judgements about the robustness of those assignments. (shrink)

The authors review Judith Suissa's provocative book, Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective, a text that demonstrates the central role of education in anarchist theory. Suissa compellingly argues against the charges that anarchism is overly idealistic and impractical, instead seeing its potential for innovative and liberatory educational change. The authors suggest, however, that an enhanced conversation among critical pedagogy, antiracist pedagogy and anarchist thinking on education can help to show both the continued relevance of radical and creative thinking, and that (...) anarchist thought has been part of the development of oppositional, critical, collaborative, teaching and learning projects. (shrink)

The authors review Judith Suissa’s provocative book, Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective, a text that demonstrates the central role of education in anarchist theory. Suissa compellingly argues against the charges that anarchism is overly idealistic and impractical, instead seeing its potential for innovative and liberatory educational change. The authors suggest, however, that an enhanced conversation among critical pedagogy, antiracist pedagogy and anarchist thinking on education can help to show both the continued relevance of radical and creative thinking, and that (...) anarchist thought has been part of the development of oppositional, critical, collaborative, teaching and learning projects. (shrink)

Below I will review a number of recent publications in philosophy of art and aesthetics. Since aestheticians and philosophers of art currently have a wide selection of texts available to them that would be appropriate for instructional use, it seems useful to evaluate some of these recent texts. The texts I have chosen to review vary in style, organization, and type. Because there are so many ways one could teach an aesthetics or philosophy of art course, it is useful to (...) pursue a diversity of content in assessing some of the more recent offerings in the discipline. (shrink)

On April 30, 1982, the Eleventh Session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea endorsed the final version of the Draft Convention of the Law of the Sea by a vote of 130 to 4, with 17 abstentions.1 The Session met at UN Headquarters in New York from March 8 to April 30.2.