A Rose Hill book. Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-302) and index.

THE ARGUMENT FROM design for the existence of God has been subject to assault on all flanks and is often thought to have lost all strategic importance in debates within philosophical theology. Yet it exhibits a remarkable resilience. Not only is it an argument of choice for ordinary believers, but its conclusions, if not its overt procedures, are presumed valid by all theists; one could hardly hold for the existence of a divine providence or plan governing created reality without drawing (...) on the intellectual capital of this argument. (shrink)

Une des façons de demander ce qu'est la philosophie est de demander simplement « qu'appelle-t-on penser ». Car en un sens, la philosophie n'est que la pensée prenant pleine conscience d'elle-même. Le fait que deux penseurs hautement originaux, suivant pourtant des chemins indépendants, révèlent de frappantes similitudes dans leur réponse à cette question, peut apparaître comme une confirmation de l'authenticité de leur pensée respective.

Not only that, but the very attempt to do so is impossible of attainment, for the human mind cannot, even in pure thought, reach the central observatory of the absolute looker-on, for the startlingly simple reason that it is only by participating in reality that it exists at all. A system is a spectacle which is there for a disengaged mind, a mind which is not itself enclosed within the panorama it beholds. For the human subject such a disengagement is (...) unthinkable. Where its possibility seems plausible --for pure reason--it is only because the systematizer neglects the one element which can never be included within his structure: his own act of thinking. Our thought does not lie open to our gaze-we cannot stand outside it and treat it as an object, and it is only the objectified which is systematizable. Because I am altogether engaged in being, no merely "objective" judgment upon it is possible. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's move is admirably motivated and directed, but it suffers from basic flaws which involve it in as many problems as it has warded off. This paper will attempt to trace out some of these flaws, and also to suggest how they might have been avoided. In the process, it will invoke the aid of the ancient aphorist who seems in some ways to have been a kindred spirit of Wittgenstein, and who shares with him a stress upon the public (...) or the "common" as the key to overcoming philosophy's perplexities: Heraclitus of Ephesus. The sage who, wearied by the abstruseness of vain speculation and by the chatter of the marketplace, went off to play with the children in the temple of Artemis, may have some useful hints for the gardener in the Irish monastery, wearied by the hum of the idling engine forever "gunned" by the professional philosophers. (shrink)

Critical thinking, defined as a person's ability and inclination to make and assess conclusions based on evidence is a commonly studied area of education. This issue focuses on using the case study method to promote critical thinking. The goal of critical thinking, i.e. leading others to become critical thinkers, can best be reached and, indeed, perhaps can only be reached in a learner-centered climate. Today's curriculum reform is calling for teachers to align their curricula with state and national standards, and (...) central to this goal is the ability to evaluate the curriculum. While the case study method is an ideal vehicle to promote critical thinking in the classroom, its application need not be limited to the classroom. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)