When learning a new math concept, should learners be first taught the concept and its associated procedures and then solve problems, or solve problems first even if it leads to failure and then be taught the concept and the procedures? Two randomized-controlled studies found that both methods lead to high levels of procedural knowledge. However, students who engaged in problem solving before being taught demonstrated significantly greater conceptual understanding and ability to transfer to novel problems than those who were taught (...) first. The second study further showed that when given an opportunity to learn from the failed problem-solving attempts of their peers, students outperformed those who were taught first, but not those who engaged in problem solving first. Process findings showed that the number of student-generated solutions significantly predicted learning outcomes. These results challenge the conventional practice of direct instruction to teach new math concepts and procedures, and propose the possibility of learning from one's own failed problem-solving attempts or those of others before receiving instruction as alternatives for better math learning. (shrink)

When teaching a novel mathematical concept, should we present learners with abstract or concrete examples? In this experiment, we conduct a critical replication and extension of a well‐known study that argued for the general advantage of abstract examples (Kaminski, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2008a). We demonstrate that theoretically motivated yet minor modifications of the learning design put this argument in question. A key finding from this study is that participants who trained with improved concrete examples performed as well as, or better (...) than, participants who trained with abstract examples. We argue that the previously reported “advantage of abstract examples” manifested not because abstract examples are advantageous in general, but because the concrete condition employed suboptimal examples. (shrink)

This paper reports on an ongoing ARC Discovery Project that is conducting design research into learning in collaborative virtual worlds (CVW).The paper will describe three design components of the project: (a) pedagogical design, (b)technical and graphics design, and (c) learning research design. The perspectives of each design team will be discussed and how the three teams worked together to produce the CVW. The development of productive failure learning activities for the CVW will be discussed and there will be an interactive (...) demonstration of the project's CVW. (shrink)

This essay asks if a cosmopolitan—who we take to be generally supportive of freer international migration—should worry about the adverse effects on those remaining behind in poor countries.

I take friendship to be a practical and emotional relationship marked by mutual and (more-or-less) equal goodwill, liking, and pleasure. Friendship can exist between siblings, lovers, parent and adult child, as well as between otherwise unrelated people. Some friendships are valued chiefly for their usefulness. Such friendships are instrumental or means friendships. Other friendships are valued chiefly for their own sakes. Such friendships are noninstrumental or end friendships. In this paper I am concerned only with end friendships, and the challenge (...) they pose to consequentialism. In an end friendship, one loves the friend as an essential part of one's system of ends, and not solely, or even primarily, as a means to an independent end - career advancement, amusement, philosophical illumination, or greater happiness in the universe. In such love, one loves the friend for the person she is, i.e., for her essential rather than incidental features. These include both her character traits - the fundamental intellectual, psychological, moral, and aesthetic qualities that constitute an individual's personality - and her unique perspective on herself and others: her view of the important and unimportant, her interest in herself and others. Thus in end friendship the friend cannot be replaced by another, for no other can have her essential features. Nor can she be replaced by a more efficient means to one's ends, or abandoned on their achievement, for it is not as a means that one 2 loves her. It is this necessary irreplaceability that most obviously marks off end friendship from means or instrumental friendship, in which the friend is replaceable.i Hence to love a friend as an end is to place a special value on her - to believe that her value is not outweighed, say, simply by the greater needs of others - or the needs of a greater number of others ("Sorry dear, there are more drowning on this end").ii End friendship (hereafter simply "friendship") is a cardinal human value.. (shrink)

Kebahagiaan adalah tema abadi yang selalu dibicarakan manusia. Banyak filosof yang membicarakan kebahagiaan, dihitung dari zaman Yunani kuno hingga zaman filosof muslim. Al-Farabi, seorang filosof muslim di masa awal, menawarkan pandangan menarik tentang kebahagiaan: Negeri Utama sebagai pondasi meraih kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaan didefinisikan sebagai kebaikan tertinggi yang membuat manusia terlepas dari alam materi dan hidup bersama dengan makhluk non-materi selama-lamanya. Negeri Utama yang diumpamakan dengan sebuah tubuh, memiliki pemimpin yang telah mencapai kesempurnaan manusiawi. Melalui pemimpin itulah, masyarakat Negeri Utama berusaha secara (...) kolektif membangun negerinya demi mencapai kebahagiaan yang hakiki. Tulisan ini meneliti literatur yang ada, demi memberikan sebuah pandangan yang baik tentang kebahagiaan perspektif al-Farabi. Diharapkan, tulisan ini bisa menjadi jendela bagi yang lain dalam meneliti tema ini. (shrink)

Articles on Sikh ethos, history, and philosophy.

Spirituality in the workplace is gaining recognition and value among researchers, academicians, and business professionals. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of spirituality in the workplace on job satisfaction by measuring four dimensions of spirituality in the workplace: meaningful work, sense of community, organizational values, and compassion. The impact of each dimension on job satisfaction is hypothesized. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 100 payroll employees in private insurance companies in Punjab. A correlation (...) analysis showed a positive relationship between all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace and job satisfaction. A regression analysis revealed that although all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace are important, organizational values and a sense of community are the most important in terms of the job satisfaction level of employees. This work will help insurance companies to better understand the concept of spirituality in the workplace and its importance. Insurance companies can improve their functioning by encouraging employee spirituality in the workplace. (shrink)

At the height of the Nazi Holocaust in 1942, children in an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto performed Rabindranath Tagore’s 1912 play Dak Ghar (The Post Office). They were in the care of Janusz Korczak, a socialist, pedia­trician, and one of the world’s first child rights advocates. The play centers on a young boy, Amal, who is confined in quarantine and on his death bed. This article attempts to understand why Korczak may have chosen Dak Ghar and how this play (...) may have resonated in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he confronts two painful questions: is there anything worse than death? And, how to prepare children for death? This essay draws on Walter Benjamin’s concept of play, Han Jonas’s concept of eternity, Tagore’s expansive sense of humanity, and Korczak’s philosophy of child rights to argue the following: that in choosing a play from another time and place, Korczak empowers the children of the Warsaw orphanage to experience the radical unity of all humanity as inhabitants of this earth—and our arts as a way to transcend the boundaries of space and time. In consequence, the children may have tasted eternity through a play and memorialized in community that which would be denied by the Nazis—their deaths and, thus, their existence. (shrink)

Lawrence Haworth's book, Autonomy, discusses “Autonomy as a Psychological Idea”, and “Autonomy as a Normative Idea”. Part 1 discusses autonomy in relation to rationality, agency, and responsibility, defends it against Skinnerian sceptics, and outlines a theory of autonomous decision-making and the autonomous task environment. Haworth's conception of autonomy integrates and builds on the concepts of S. I. Benn, G. Dworkin, H. Frankfurt, and R. W. White. Part 2 centres on social/political theory, and not, despite the book's subtitle, on ethics as (...) such. Haworth argues that only autonomy, and not liberty or happiness, is an intrinsic value, and fundamental right. His “autonomist” theory of liberty rights, a form of revisionary liberalism derived from the later idealists, is opposed to the classical liberal/libertarian theory. The arguments prompt a re-examination of the role of autonomy in the arguments for liberty, but do not, in my view, make a persuasive case for “autonomism” against classical liberalism. The book is chiefly noteworthy for its success in covering many important topics connected with autonomy, in an impressively short space, and in an always clear and often very insightful way. (shrink)

This book offers fresh academic insights, reflections, questions, issues, and approaches to development ethics, taking into account, African values and ethics. Development ethics is an area of applied ethics that examines the moral issues involved in global, social, and economic transformation. While it is a relatively new discipline, there have been numerous scholarly publications on it from Western perspectives. However, only a few studies that focused on development ethics from the African perspective. To address this gap, the book seeks to (...) answer critical questions such as "What does development mean to Africans?", "How can we measure development?", "Who gets to decide?", and "What constitutes just development in Africa?" With contributions from African scholars from diverse backgrounds, the book covers various development themes such as Theories and approaches to development ethics in Africa, Environmental Ethics and African Development, Ethics, Politics and African Development, Migration and African development, Gender, Ethics and Socio-economic Development in Africa, Education, Ethics and African development. It is an essential resource for researchers, lecturers, and students interested in political philosophy and African culture studies. (shrink)

The word ‘development’ can mean different things to different people. It is one of the most elusive concepts to define, alongside the concept of modernization. Often and perhaps due to its elusive nature, people tend to rely on an economic definition of development where definite parameters and indices can be used to assess and determine levels of development ‘objectively’. Thus, a nation’s development is measured in terms of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Income (GNI), Per-Capita Income and Foreign (...) Exchange Reserves. But does the attainment of these economic parameters really translate into development qua development? Historical and current development predicaments of many sub-Saharan African nation points to a negative response to the question. How, then, do we define or approach development that encompasses all the relevant development factors? Is there anything like an ideal definition of development at all or do we need to contextualize what development should mean for each society, culture, or nation? What does development ethics in an African context look or should like? This chapter explores these questions at an introductory level. (shrink)

Does shame have any role in politics? Far too often, shame is used as a weapon to dominate those who lack social power. For which reason, it is often regarded with skepticism by its many critics. But in an era where lying in order to get ahead in political contests seems to go unpunished by voters, where the sale of life-saving drugs is increased to astronomical proportions in the pursuit of profits, and where daily infractions against the dignity of individuals (...) is both widespread and quickly forgotten, the seeming lack of shame threatens to undermine the shared values on which a democratic world depends. Drawing on the political thought of Hannah Arendt, especially her writings on Jewish and world politics, Worldly Shame constructs a political category of shame that can help us respond to the crises of the present moment. "Worldly shame" can return to us our sense of judgment, can be an inducement to action, and is a panacea for a world torn apart by horrors that diminish humanity. By developing a capacity for "worldly shame," we can create political spaces that are hospitable to a plurality of voices and viewpoints, and which can thus be a bulwark against the world-destroying trends that engulf our world every day. (shrink)

This Article examines how the legal subjectivity of the migrant subject is intimately connected to the construction of the citizenship subject and how both have been products of the colonial encounter. Deploying the lens of postcolonialism, I argue that the migrant is addressed through a spectrum of legal rules based on normative criteria reminiscent of the colonial encounter. These criteria reinscribe citizenship within dominant racial, sexual, and cultural norms as well as claims of civilizational superiority. That which does not fall (...) within the boundaries of citizenship is regarded as outcast, an "Other," and subject to restraint, persecution, censorship, social stigma, incarceration, and even annihilation. The discussion draws examples from recent judicial decisions in the context of postcolonial India, dealing with migrant bar dancers and migrant Muslims, highlighting the deep and lasting impact of the colonial encounter and the imperial imagination on understandings and constructions of citizenship in the contemporary period. The cases further illustrate how notions of "global" or "world" citizen, unbound by territory or the nation-state, are unable to account for the complex and contradictory understandings of citizenship that have emerged from within a postcolonial context. The arguments force us to inquire into the role of citizenship, its relevance or meaninglessness in the lives of the migrant once its exclusionary potential has been exposed. (shrink)

This article addresses Hannah Arendt’s controversial engagement with European imperial ventures in Africa. For many of her critics, Arendt’s description of imperialism either duplicates the ideologically inflected accounts and justifications of mass-murder, or conveys her own personal views of Africans and peoples of African descent. I argue that Arendt’s account in the “Imperialism” chapter of the Origins of Totalitarianism must be read parallel to her discussion of the conflict in Palestine between Jewish settlers and native Arabs. Rather than provide us (...) with an anthropological account of Africans, Arendt provides a political account of the necessity for cooperation in order to blunt imperial power-politics. In a second move, I develop a normative critique from Arendt’s remarks by relying on Heideggerian aspects of “World.” I argue that Arendt’s criticisms are really directed at Europeans who were unable to take the Africans’ point of view. (shrink)

A place in the sun -- A human revolution -- Dwelling poetically on this earth -- Epilogue.

_Therapy & the Counter-tradition: The Edge of Philosophy_ brings together leading exponents of contemporary psychotherapy, philosophers and writers, to explore how philosophical ideas may inform therapy work. Each author discusses a particular philosopher who has influenced their life and therapeutic practice, while questioning how counselling and psychotherapy can address human ‘wholeness’, despite the ascendancy of rationality, regulation and diagnosis. It also seeks to acknowledge the distinct lack of philosophical input and education in counselling and psychotherapy training. The chapters are rooted (...) in the Counter-Tradition, whose diverse manifestations include humanism, skepticism, fideism, as well as the opening of philosophy and psychology to poetry and the arts. This collection of thought-provoking essays will help open the discussion within the psychological therapies, by providing therapists with critical philosophical references, which will help broaden their knowledge and the scope of their practice. Therapy & the Counter-tradition: The Edge of Philosophy will be of interest to mental health professionals, practitioners, counselling and psychotherapy trainees and trainers, and academics tutoring or studying psychology. It will also appeal to those interested in psychology, meditation, personal development and philosophy. (shrink)

Some of the assumptions underlying the arguments in Aggleton & Brown's target article are reviewed; discrepancies/predictions are pointed out in relation to human lesion studies. A&B's proposal is interesting, but it may require harder, confirmatory evidence before it can be considered to be all-encompassing.

This essay explores the ways in which the definition of Indian culture has become a site of contest, and how this contest played out in the controversy that erupted over the release and screening of Deepa Mehta's diasporic film, Fire, in India. I locate this controversy within the broader controversies that are taking place over culture, particularly when issues of sex and sexuality are involved. The continuous targeting of representations of sex and sexuality, betrays an underlying fear that sex is (...) something that is threatening to Indian cultural values, to the Indian way of life, to the very existence of the Indian nation. I discuss the responses to the release of the film by the forces of the Hindu Right as well as feminist and lesbian groups and critique the uncomplicated understandings of culture that informed these positions. Contingent upon these responses rests the story in Fire and the way in which the lesbian subject, a sexual subaltern, is constructed in the cultural space represented in the film. I challenge the positions that suggest that the women are represented as victims in the film, and draw attention to the cultural, sexual and familial ruptures brought about by the main protagonists through their desire for one another. I explore the complicated understandings of agency and desire that are represented through the assertion of this relationship. (shrink)

This article is a contribution to overpopulation discourse in environmental ethics. It is based on the hypothesis that, even though the idea and reasoning behind Garret Hardin’s lifeboat metaphor are crucial within the current environmental crisis, from an African perspective, the metaphor raises a number of questions. The article argues that the lifeboat metaphor poses an ethical challenge to most communities particularly in Africa because it runs contrary to their political and cultural worldview. I advance two central claims in the (...) framework of insights from an African worldview. First, the ethics behind the lifeboat metaphor is deeply dependent upon political power differentials, particularly between affluent and poor nations. Second, the metaphor fails to take into consideration the cultural understanding of population in Africa. (shrink)

The concept of well-being has been and continues to be topical and a contested subject among scholars. It has generated different meanings and conversations within disciplines such as Economics, Ethics, Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology. Furthermore, well-being has been more conceptualised within Western literature than African literature. In an attempt to define the concept, Ruggeri et al, say that ‘It is a sustainable condition that allows the individual or population to develop and thrive’’ (2009:2). The definition provided above suggests that the (...) concept goes beyond the conditions of being happy, flourishing, and even the absence of ill-being to anything that helps the individual’s or population’s mental health or helps them to prosper. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined positive mental health as ‘a state of well-being in which the individual realises her or his own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution to his or her community’ (2001). Whereas the Western understanding encapsulates various themes such as happiness, flourishing and mental health with a focus on the individual, the traditional African understanding of well-being is often understood to be a harmonious interconnectedness of the self with the community, the natural environment and the spiritual beings. The question of which of these three ought to be given primacy has never been a vexation for the traditional African, who naturally understands that her or his well-being, sustainability and progress rely on all of these three simultaneously. Regardless of what well-being is taken to mean, whether happiness or fulfilment, the traditional African finds it in living a shared social life with members of her or his community, in a good human-nature relatedness, and in maintaining a cordial relationship with her or his spiritual beings. However, a critical look at our society today, portrays that a large number of Africans are failing to either achieve or maintain the traditional African notion of well-being. There seem to be two ways of looking at the current situation: The first is to place the blame on colonialism, modernity and the making of Africa and its communities, a capitalist society. Colonialism and modernity as political agendas severely altered the African way of life and promoted Western individualistic norms. The second way of looking at the current situation is to blame it on ourselves. Africans seem to have ignored the important values and principles handed down to us by our forefathers, which define who we are. In this chapter, we aim to show what well-being in contemporary Africa should look like. We contend that contemporary Africans have ignored the essential aspects found in the traditional African understanding of well-being. Thus, there is a need for contemporary Africans to reassess their values and perception of well-being if they are to properly address their current needs and reach their aspirations. We argue that these ignored factors of the African notion of well-being in the traditional social setting could be integrated into the dominating global discourse/Western notion. This could be done to develop a plausible notion of well-being that will suit contemporary African societies. (shrink)