This article looks at how various political cultures and imaginaries occlude the public’s deeply democratic political role, especially the currently reigning anti-political culture of neo-liberalism. Even in an era when millions of people the world over take to the streets in protest, dominant political imaginaries position most of the world’s people as largely powerless. What is needed is a radical political imaginary along the lines that Cornelius Castoriadis suggests. This imaginary foregrounds the ways in which all social and political (...) formations are already constituted by human beings’ ability to create new formations in the absence of foundations. But ignorant of this power, people are trapped in imaginaries where it seems that power resides elsewhere, only in halls of state or corporate boardrooms. This article offers an account that identifies where power originates and how it can be reclaimed through a more radical democratic political imaginary. The article proceeds as follows: the first two sec... (shrink)

Considerable research on helpers-at-the-nest demonstrates the positive effects of firstborn daughters on a mother’s reproductive success and the survival of her children compared with women who have firstborn sons. This research is largely restricted to agricultural settings. In the present study we ask: “Does ‘daughter first’ improve mothers’ reproductive success in a hunting and gathering context?” Through an analysis of 84 postreproductive women in this population we find that the sex of the first- or second-born child has no effect on (...) a mother’s fertility or the survival of her offspring. We conclude that specific environmental and economic factors underlay the helpers-at-the-nest phenomenon. (shrink)

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Though there is much interest nowadays in "aporias" there is relatively little research on the relation between these aporias and deconstruction, and further, between these two and the philosophy of education. First, it will be argued here that a sufficient understanding of the aporias must preserve the complexity of Aristotle’s own understanding and explications, or in other words, must avoid the reductive approaches one sometimes finds in some recent commentaries on studies of Aristotle’s aporias. Second, it will be argued that (...) some critiques of Aristotelian aporias, such as a deconstructive critique, require careful scrutiny. Third it will be argued that the complex Aristotelian understanding of aporias is by no means a tired or exhausted paradigm - far from it; it has rather some significant implications for educators and in relation to educational thinking in the twenty first century, especially when understood in relation to Wittgenstein’s work on some questions, some language games, as knots in our understanding (significantly, Aristotle used just the same kind of metaphor in relation to aporias). (shrink)

Allegations of bias against senior judges have not been common in English courts, so the House of Lords had little material to draw on when the Pinochet case was decided. It is therefore worthwhile to compare their Lordships» approach with that of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. This court has been selected because: (a) it has a comparable number of judges to the House of Lords and its decisions are unappealable, and (b) its cases have a constitutional and (often) (...) political content—as did the Pinochet case. The Federal Constitutional Court case law is comparatively prolific, so this study has been limited to the last 15 years. The case law covers a wide variety of issues, for example provision of legal opinions or representation, membership of associations, holding of public offices, public statements of opinion. If the standards set in this case law were applied to Lord Hoffmann's position in the Pinochet case, there are grounds for saying that he might not have been excluded. (shrink)

We do indeed “live and work in a time when the issues facing education, many of which have been with us for a considerable period, are being approached primarilythrough measurement – classroom assessment, research methods, standardized testing, international comparisons”. It is also true that “we do not often stop to consider what counts – and alternatively, what doesn’t count – in a climate where measuring up to a standard is the name of the game. At a deeper level, we rarely (...) raise questions about measurement itself.” Heidegger argued that what is “most thought provoking [in this ‘thought provoking age’] is that we are still not thinking,” in What is called thinking? . This somewhat startling assertion deserves careful attention especially in relation to the quote above . Heidegger’s assertion is pertinent for a number of reasons: he associated this “not thinking” with a “critical moment in history”, with a “call”, and with a “miscalculation”. I will argue that it is important to reflect on a number of questions: what is thinking, especially in relation to measurement? Was Heidegger correct in arguing that we have “miscalculated” in so far as we have sought “the safety of the mere drive for calculation” ? And how does the desire for a higher form of “representational thinking” in these contexts serve and promote a number of aims in higher education, such as learning and even “flourishing”? I will attempt to provide answers to a number of these questions by reflecting on the broad but fundamentally important question of measurement and its limits. (shrink)

A lucid, elegant, and complete survey of set theory, this three-part treatment explores axiomatic set theory, the consistency of the continuum hypothesis, and forcing and independence results. 1996 edition.

The family, like so many other modern institutions, often looks more like an arena of competing wills than an ordered life in common. If we hope, therefore, to protect the special role that parents should have in relation to their children, and that the family in general should have in relation to its members, we will need a much more developed account of the goods that are at stake and why we think they are important enough to require authority, even (...) when members of the family oppose the decisions of that authority. This essay develops an older account of authority, one rooted in the thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, and applies this account to our present difficulties concerning the authority of the family over its members in health care decision making. (shrink)

A critical account of "Humanism" and some of its extreme forms and manifestations; reflection on some of the important challenges these raise in relation to higher education in the 21st century.

This book examines and clarifies the nature, meaning, significance, richness and vitality of the sacred, and several key theories of the sacred, in the context of science and religion, and philosophical ontology.

Treating mathematical science as a distinct cultural entity subject to environmental factors which influence its evolution, the author examines the creation and development of its major concepts since early times.

Background: One of the ethical imperatives for a valid consent process in clinical medication trials is that the process be guided by and recorded in an informed consent document (ICD). Concerns have been expressed, however, about readability and participant understanding of ICDs, which are often 10–20 pages long. Objective measures of readability and understanding have been used to support these concerns in several articles, but surprisingly the voice of trial participants on ICDs has not been heard in previous studies. Hence, (...) this study compares participants' subjective views on readability and their understanding of ICDs with those ICDs' objective readability scores. It also evaluates whether family, friends, and additional aids would foster better understanding of the ICD. Methods: Sixty current trial participants rated the readability and their understanding of deidentified standard ICDs. These had been sourced from two multicenter international Phase III trials on medication for diabetes mellitus and cancer. Results: Less than 10% of participants considered the ICDs difficult to read or difficult to understand in spite of objective readability scores at levels of about 12th grade education, but about a quarter considered the ICDs to be too technical. Participants gave mixed responses about friends or family members helping or the need for videos, pictures, additional reading material, and frequently answered questions (FAQ) sheets as an aid to their understanding. Conclusions: These findings suggest individual clinical trial participants should be engaged on their views of an ICD, for doing so is part of informed consent as a process rather than consent being merely focused on written information. Such participant-specific engagement should guide whether family and friends, videos, pictures, additional reading material, and FAQ sheets would be of assistance in improving understanding. (shrink)

Extensively updated to include clinical findings over the last two decades, this third edition of A Practitioner's Guide to Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy reviews the philosophy, theory, and clinical practice of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. This model is based on the work of Albert Ellis, who had an enormous influence on the field of psychotherapy over his 50 years of practice and scholarly writing. Designed for both therapists-in-training and seasoned professionals, this practical treatment manual and guide introduces the basic principles of (...) rational-emotive behavior therapy, explains general therapeutic strategies, and offers many illustrative dialogues between therapist and patient. The volume breaks down each stage of therapy to present the exact procedures and skills therapists need, and numerous case studies illustrate how to use these skills. The authors describe both technical and specific strategic interventions, and they stress taking an integrative approach. The importance of building a therapeutic alliance and the use of cognitive, emotive, evocative, imaginal, and behavioral interventions serves as the unifying theme of the approach. Intervention models are presented for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, anger, personality disorders, and addictions. Psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors, psychotherapists, and students and trainees in these areas will find this book useful in learning to apply rational-emotive behavior therapy in practice. (shrink)

The author posits that greed and insensitivity to the needs of others are corrosive values that have engendered the global economic crisis. Examples are cited to support the thesis that it is primarily an ethics crisis that has resulted in the distortion of the US economy, such that the middle class is sliding into poverty while the wealthiest 1 per cent is ever more powerful and wealthy. The irony of the predatory capitalism being practised is that it is ultimately self-destructive (...) to the practitioners. The unsustainability of the present system is discussed along with solutions, including stakeholder management, corporate and personal altruism and spiritual awakening. (shrink)

The author offers a modification and extension of existing organizational transformation approaches by drawing on values-oriented and stakeholder management paradigms currently popular in literature. Many of the current values-based change paradigms offer vague guidance as to how to actually create, implement and sustain a strategically and operationally excellent organization as an extension of a stakeholder-based cultural mindset. Sharing the belief that organizations should be operationally and strategically sound in addition to being stakeholder centred, the suggestions presented represent an attempt to (...) combine the altruism of stakeholder-based management with practical organizational transformation theory to suggest steps for transformation. The approach suggested here, which places a primary emphasis on the organization's moral standing from the individual employee's perspective, is also supported by existing literature on the need for values congruence between organizations and individuals. Thus, the paper's central premise is that organizational transformation, commonly called OT, should begin with a cultural transformation, aimed at raising the level of moral reasoning of the firm as a necessary precursor to a subsequent operational and strategic transformation. (shrink)

The article discusses the failure of the current positivistic and materialist business ethics paradigms to adequately deal with the enormity of the contemporary business ethics crisis. Citing behavioural research into the linkage between beliefs, values and behaviour, the author suggests spiritual renewal as a solution based on the ‘fallenness’ of mankind and the reality of human evil. The concept of faith, obedience and the resulting ‘kingdom consciousness’ (May and Whittington 2003) is explored as a basis for spiritual renewal leading to (...) behavioural change. The process of renewal is depicted as a synergistic, mutually supportive relationship between faith and action. (shrink)