Wilfred Cantwell Smith, maintained in this vastly important work that Westerners have misperceived religious life by making "religion" into one thing.

Wilfred Carr; What is an Educational Practice?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 163–175, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14.

Originally published in 1913. Author: Henri Lichtenberger Language: English Keywords: History Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.Keywords: English Keywords 1900s Language English Artwork.

While it is generally accepted that we need to use our intelligence in order to get what we want, it is thought to be a cardinal error to imagine that by reasoning we can discover what we ought to want. Reason can in no way constrain the choice of ends, it can only constrain the choice of means once an end has been adopted. In Plato's philosophy we find a view strongly opposed to this attitude towards reason. It is widely (...) held, however, that to arrive at a position which is plainly opposed to common sense, Plato must have grossly confused reasoning about means with reasoning about ends. Evidence of this confusion is found in Plato's use of analogies between statecraft and navigation, and between virtue and skill. But the diagnosis of confusion rests on a misunderstanding of how Plato wanted to use the word translated ‘skill’, i.e. ‘ technē ’, and this misunderstanding is shared even by those who see Plato as rejecting the virtue/skill analogy. (shrink)

This paper argues that the anxieties being expressed in the UK and elsewhere about the lack of impact that philosophy now has on education are nothing other than the inevitable manifestation of a fundamental intellectual disorder deeply rooted in our contemporary understanding of the philosophy of education. In trying to substantiate this claim, the paper offers an historically informed philosophical analysis of how philosophy is related to education and education to philosophy that concludes by clarifying how any debates about the (...) current problems and future development of the philosophy of education ought to proceed. (shrink)

The concept of social capital helps to explain relations within and between companies but has not crystallized yet. As such, the nature, development, and effects of such relations remain elusive. How is social capital created, how is it put to use, and how is it maintained? Can it decline, and if so, how? We argue that the concept of social capital remains a black box as the mechanisms that constitute it remain underdeveloped and that it is a black hole as (...) many empirical phenomena are attributed to its presence. We use and develop the literature on gift exchange to provide a firmer theoretical basis for the concept of social capital. (shrink)

The concept of social capital helps to explain relations within and between companies but has not crystallized yet. As such, the nature, development, and effects of such relations remain elusive. How is social capital created, how is it put to use, and how is it maintained? Can it decline, and if so, how? We argue that the concept of social capital remains a black box as the mechanisms that constitute it remain underdeveloped and that it is a black hole as (...) many empirical phenomena are attributed to its presence. We use and develop the literature on gift exchange to provide a firmer theoretical basis for the concept of social capital. (shrink)

The phenomenon of consumption has increasingly drawn attention from economists. While the ‘sole purpose of production is consumption’, as Adam Smith has claimed, economists have up to recently generally ignored the topic. This book brings together a range of different perspectives on the topic of consumption that will finally shed the necessary light on a largely neglected theme, such as Why is the consumption of symbolic goods different than that of goods that are not constitutive of individuals’ identity? How does (...) the consumption of symbolic goods affect social processes and economic phenomena? Will taking consumption seriously impact economics itself? The book discusses these issues theoretically, and, through analyses of such cases as food, religion, fashion, empirically as well. It also discusses the possible role in the future of consumption. This book was previously published as a special issue of _Review of Social Economy_. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Foundations and Logical Foundations Foundations for Mathematics Mathematics and Set Theory Sets, Classes, and Logic.

African philosophy has for long been rejected on the basis that it is not known, or has not been written down. Behind this view is the idealist presumption that for something to exist, it must first be perceived. However, for something to be perceived, it must first exist. African Philosophy: Critical Dimensions examines what constitutes African philosophy in terms of its meaning, foundation, sources, methodology, characteristics, and relevance. The book analyses traditional African philosophy from the political, social, ethical, epistemological and (...) metaphysical angles. The book further critically discusses modern African political philosophy, modern African social philosophy, modern African economic philosophy, and modern African philosophy of religion. It ends with the identification of the different conclusions that were derived from the study and general recommendations, some specifically for researchers and writers, especially in the area of African philosophy. Wilfred Lajul joins other authentic voices examining African Philosophy. (shrink)

Fifteen to twenty years ago one might have been forgiven for thinking that both the philosophy and history of science constituted specialized academic backwaters, far removed from debates in the forefront of either philosophic or public attention. But times have changed; science and technology have in many ways and in many guises become central foci of public debate, whether through concern over nuclear safety, the massive price to be paid for continued research in areas such as high energy physics, the (...) cost of high technology medicine, the spectre of genetic engineering, or the wonders of information processing and the computer revolution. At the same time that there is public questioning of the authority of expert scientific pronouncements and debate about the wisdom of courses of action proposed in the name of technology and progress, there is political pressure to direct eduction in an increasingly scientific and technological direction. But even so, in this country, the history and philosophy of science remain peripheral disciplines, not only in relation to the total academic scene but even in relation to philosophy, which is itself being academically marginalized. (shrink)

Wilfred Carr; Theories of Theory and Practice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 177–186, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

A recent review of his work describes Wilfred Carr as 'one of the most brilliant philosophers now working in the rich British tradition of educational philosophy ... His work is rigorous, refreshing and original ... and examines a number of fundamental issues with clarity and penetration'. In For Education Wilfred Carr provides a comprehensive justification for reconstructing educational theory and research as a form of critical inquiry. In doing this, he confronts a number of important philosophical questions. What (...) is educational theory? What is an educational practice? How are theory and practice related? What is the role of values in educational research? Is a genuinely educational science possible? By appealing to developments in critical theory, the philosophy of science and the philosophy of the social sciences, Wilfred Carr provides answers to these questions which vindicate the idea of an educational science that is not 'on' or 'about' education but 'for education' - a science genuinely committed to promoting educational values and ideals. (shrink)

This book seeks to advance social economic analysis, economic methodology, and the history of economic thought in the context of twenty-first century scholarship and socio-economic concerns. Bringing together carefully selected chapters by leading scholars it examines the central contributions that John Davis has made to various areas of scholarship. In recent decades, criticisms of mainstream economics have rekindled interest in a number of areas of scholarly inquiry that were frequently ignored by mainstream economic theory and practice during the second half (...) of the twentieth century, including social economics, economic methodology and history of economic thought. This book contributes to a growing literature on the revival of these areas of scholarship and highlights the pivotal role that John Davis's work has played in the ongoing revival. Together, the international panel of contributors show how Davis's insights in complexity theory, identity, and stratification are key to understanding a reconfigured economic methodology. They also reveal that Davis' willingness to draw from multiple academic disciplines gives us a platform for interrogating mainstream economics and provides the basis for a humane yet scientific alternative. This unique volume will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers across social economics, history of economic thought, economic methodology, political economy and philosophy of social science. understanding a reconfigured economic methodology. They also reveal that Davis' willingness to draw from multiple academic disciplines gives us a platform for interrogating mainstream economics and provides the basis for a humane yet scientific alternative. This unique volume will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers across social economics, history of economic thought, economic methodology, political economy and philosophy of social science. (shrink)

David Hilbert famously remarked, “No one will drive us from the paradise that Cantor has created.” This volume offers a guided tour of modern mathematics’ Garden of Eden, beginning with perspectives on the finite universe and classes and Aristotelian logic. Author Mary Tiles further examines permutations, combinations, and infinite cardinalities; numbering the continuum; Cantor’s transfinite paradise; axiomatic set theory; logical objects and logical types; independence results and the universe of sets; and the constructs and reality of mathematical structure. Philosophers and (...) mathematicians will find an abundance of intriguing topics in this text, which is appropriate for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses. 1989 ed. 32 figures. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of methodology in action research. It begins by showing how, as a form of inquiry concerned with the development of practice, action research is nothing other than a modern 20th century manifestation of the pre‐modern tradition of practical philosophy. It then draws in Gadamer's powerful vindication of the contemporary relevance of practical philosophy in order to show how, by embracing the idea of ‘methodology’, action research functions to sustain a distorted (...) understanding of what practice is. The paper concludes by outlining a non‐methodological view of action research whose chief task is to promote the kind of historical self‐consciousness that the development of practice presupposes and requires. (shrink)

This volume provides a thought-provoking critique the main, existing school of environmental ethics and seeks to build a more coherent and rigorous philosophical basis for future environmental policy.

This symposium begins with a critique by Paul Hirst of Wilfred Carr's ‘Philosophy and Education’(Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2004, 38.1), where Carr argues that philosophy of education should be concerned with ‘practical philosophy’ rather than ‘theoretical philosophy’. Hirst argues that the philosophy of education is best understood as a distinctive area of academic philosophy, in which the exercise of theoretical reason contributes critically to the development of rational educational practices and their discourse. While he acknowledges that these practices (...) and their discourse must of their nature be directly developed in the exercise of practical reason, or phronesis, the notion of ‘practical philosophy’ is rejected as ultimately incoherent and illusory. In his reply to Hirst's critique, Carr identifies three central claims in Hirst's argument and takes issue with each of these. He reaffirms the need to draw upon the resources afforded by the Aristotelian tradition of practical philosophy in order to identify inadequacies in our present understanding of how philosophy is related to education. He suggests that it is only through bringing their own ‘prejudices’ into critical confrontation with this tradition that philosophers of education will be able to assess whether practical philosophy is incoherent and illusory, as Hirst claims, or whether it is indispensable to the future development of their discipline. In a rejoinder to Carr, Hirst, defends the claim that philosophy of education is a social practice concerned with developing justifiable propositional accounts of the conceptual relations, justificatory procedures and presuppositions of educational practices. He rejects the argument that this ‘theoretical philosophy’ approach must be replaced by that of a new ‘practical philosophy’. (shrink)

For as long as there has been anything worthy of the name of science, there have been those who have criticized its claim to superior knowledge. With the birth and prodigious growth of modern science, the corresponding growthof critical opinion led, in the eighteenth century, to a divorce of the sciences from the humanities around which our educational institutions, and our universities in particular, have been built. It is this divorce which renders problematic the status of the social or human (...) sciences. For the extent to which Man can be an object of scientific knowledge will be questioned by those insisting on an opposition between human knowledge and values as embodied in the humanities, and the dehumanized objective knowledge proclaimed within the natural sciences. (shrink)

To translate the Aristotelian square of opposition into Chinese requires restructuring the Aristotelian system of genus-species into the Chinese way of classification and understanding of the focus-field relationship. The feature of the former is on a tree model, while that of the later is on the focusfield model. Difficulties arise when one tries to show contraries betweenA- type and E-type propositions in the Aristotelian square of opposition in Chinese, because there is no clear distinction between universal and particular in a (...) focus-field structure of thinking. If there could be a chance to discuss the analytic identity between the two logical systems, then it might be only constituted during a face to face conversation in the present, or, in other words, in the translation of particular propositions (singular subjective,I-type, andO-type propositions) in a particular case. The best hope for a translator is that in the actual temporally situated practice,now he or she might find a temporary way to map the concepts of one to the other with relatively little loss of structure. (shrink)

Wilfred Carr; Critical Theory and Educational Studies, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 287–295, https://doi.org/10.11.

This is the first critically evaluative study of Gaston Bachelard's philosophy of science to be written in English. Bachelard's professional reputation was based on his philosophy of science, though that aspect of his thought has tended to be neglected by his English-speaking readers. Dr Tiles concentrates here on Bachelard's critique of scientific knowledge. Bachelard emphasised discontinuities in the history of science; in particular he stressed the new ways of thinking about and investigating the world to be found in modern science. (...) This, as the author shows, is paralleled by recent debates among English-speaking philosophers about the rationality of science and the 'incommensurability' of different theories. To these problems Bachelard might be taken as offering an original solution: rather than see discontinuities as a threat to the objectivity of science, see them as products of the rational advancement of scientific knowledge. Dr Tiles sets out Bachelard's views and critically assesses them, reflecting also on the wider question of how one might assess potentially incommensurable positions in the philosophy of science as well as in science itself. (shrink)

In this paper it is suggested that Canguilhem's examination of the history of the distinction between the normal and the pathological contains material of relevance to current debates about the nature of medicine, in particular concerning the status of quantitative indicators as indicators of the need for medical intervention. His arguments against the equation of health with normality are presented, together with his own suggested definition of health and the implications of this definition for physiology and medicine.

It is argued that 'sustainable development' has been defined in such a way as to be either morally repugnant or logically redundant. 'Strong' sustainability, overriding all other considerations, is morally unacceptable as well as totally impractical; and 'weak' sustainability, in which compensation is made for resources consumed, offers nothing beyond traditional economic welfare maximisation. The 'sustainability' requirement that human well-being should never be allowed to decline is shown to be irrational. Welfare economics can accommodate distributional considerations, and, suitably defined, the (...) concept of welfare can include the subjective effects of changes in – as well as the levels of – well-being. Hence there is no reason why welfare maximisation should not remain an overriding policy objective. Nor can sustainability be regarded as a 'constraint' on welfare maximisation unless there is a clear conflict between the two – which has yet to be demonstrated. This is not to deny the importance of intergenerational justice, nor the need for economic incentives to correct market imperfections if the environment is to be managed in a socially optimal manner. Apart from a few small developing countries heavily dependent on minerals or other finite primary products, the measurement of some wider concept of 'sustainable' GNP is a waste of time and such estimates as have been made are virtually worthless. (shrink)

This is the first critically evaluative study of Gaston Bachelard's philosophy of science to be written in English. Bachelard's professional reputation was based on his philosophy of science, though that aspect of his thought has tended to be neglected by his English-speaking readers. Dr Tiles concentrates here on Bachelard's critique of scientific knowledge. Bachelard emphasised discontinuities in the history of science; in particular he stressed the ways of thinking about and investigating the world to be found in modern science. This, (...) as the author shows, is paralleled by those debates among English-speaking philosophers about the rationality of science and the 'incommensurability' of different theories. To these problems Bachelard might be taken as offering an original solution: rather than see discontinuities as a threat to the objectivity of science, see them as products of the rational advancement of scientific knowledge. Dr Tiles sets out Bachelard's views and critically assesses them, reflecting also on the wider question of how one might assess potentially incommensurable positions in the philosophy of science as well as in science itself. (shrink)

Collected here for the first time is a history of images of Oman, one of the most developed and stable countries in the Arab world and among the earliest adherents to Islam. A sultanate, the country sits along the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. From early days of world trade through the port of Muscat to contemporary engagement with international diplomacy and the West, Oman has always evoked beauty and mystery in equal measure. This art-house quality volume reveals an (...) intimate picture of the country as its contours emerged over the last 80 years in the eyes of the West, as captured in images by English explorer Wilfred Thesiger in the 1940s and ‘50s, British Army major Charles Butt in the 1960s, and award-winning American documentary photographer Edward Grazda in the first decade of this new century. (shrink)

The man or woman of faith living in today's pluralist world must have a theology that will do justice to his or her own faith, and also to the neighbours' - and to the differences between them. Similarly, humanists must have a theory that does justice to their own vision and also to the fact that for most of their fellows on earth the proper way of being human has been one or another of various `religious' ways. Any interpretation of (...) human history, both past and present, must take into serious account the self-consciousness of each major part, as well as the diversity and the dynamic of the whole. This exciting book, first published in 1981 and now also available in paperback, is perhaps our world's first serious endeavour towards a theology in global perspective. Here is a wrestling with the demands of an authentic theology of the comparative history of religion. (shrink)

This paper proceeds through four stages. First, it provides an account of the origins and evolution of the concept of educational theory. Second, it uses this historical narrative to show how what we now call 'educational theory' is deeply rooted in the foundationalist discourse of late nineteenth and early twentieth century modernity. Third, it outlines and defends a postfoundationalist critique of the foundationalist epistemological assumptions on which our understanding of educational theory has been erected. Finally, it argues that the only (...) conclusion to draw from this postfoundationalist critique is that educational theory has run its course and should now be brought to a dignified end. (shrink)

The Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards will not of course stop humanitarian crises from happening, nor can they prevent human suffering. What they offer, however, is an opportunity for the enhancement of assistance with the aim of making a difference to the lives of people affected by disaster” Ton van Zutphen, Sphere Board Chair and John Damerell, Sphere Project Manager in the Foreword to the new edition of the Handbook. The Sphere Project is an initiative to determine and promote standards (...) by which the global community responds to the plight of people affected by disasters. What’s new in the 2011 edition of the Sphere Handbook The new edition of the Sphere Project’s Handbook updates the qualitative and quantitative indicators and guidance notes and improves the overall structure and consistency of the text The new version has: * a rewritten Humanitarian Charter * updated common standards * a stronger focus on protection * revised technical chapters. (shrink)