The purpose of this article is to provide a comment on Simone Weil’s brief but seminal essay ‘Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.’ It complements an earlier one on Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy. The essay was sent via a letter to her friend and mentor, the Catholic priest, and Dominican friar, Father Joseph-Marie Perrin O.P. It set out her belief that school studies should provide the individual pupil or student (...) with an education in the value and acquisition of attention. This, Weil believed, would be of fundamental value when reaching out to God through prayer. Such a capacity for attention would also enhance the student’s general academic and social learning providing a basis for authentic dialogue with others, and not only teachers and schoolfellows. The article introduces her as a religious philosopher, explains the origins of the essay, and Weil’s friendship with Father Perrin, who was her Christian religious mentor, examines the text itself, considers some critical commentaries, and assesses its relevance to the philosophy and practice of education today. (shrink)

Review of Joseph Y. Halpern (ed.), Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning About Knowledge: Proceedings of the 1986 Conference (Los Altos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1986),.

Research in education and cognitive development suggests that explaining plays a key role in learning and generalization: When learners provide explanations—even to themselves—they learn more effectively and generalize more readily to novel situations. This paper proposes and tests a subsumptive constraints account of this effect. Motivated by philosophical theories of explanation, this account predicts that explaining guides learners to interpret what they are learning in terms of unifying patterns or regularities, which promotes the discovery of broad generalizations. Three experiments provide (...) evidence for the subsumptive constraints account: prompting participants to explain while learning artificial categories promotes the induction of a broad generalization underlying category membership, relative to describing items (Exp. 1), thinking aloud (Exp. 2), or free study (Exp. 3). Although explaining facilitates discovery, Experiment 1 finds that description is more beneficial for learning item details. Experiment 2 additionally suggests that explaining anomalous observations may play a special role in belief revision. The findings provide insight into explanation’s role in discovery and generalization. (shrink)

This work is an examination of teleological attributions i.e. ascriptions of proper functions and natural ends) to the features and behavior of living things with a view to understanding their application to human life.

This work is an examination of teleological attributions i.e. ascriptions of proper functions and natural ends) to the features and behavior of living things with a view to understanding their application to human life.

Recently, the work of philosopher-psychologist William James has undergone something of a renaissance. In this contribution to the trend, William Gavin argues that James's plea for the "reinstatement of the vague" to its proper place in our experience should be regarded as a seminal metaphor for his thought in general. The concept of vagueness applies to areas of human experience not captured by facts that can be scientifically determined nor by ideas that can be formulated in words. In (...) areas as seemingly diverse as psychology, religion, language, and metaphysics, James continually highlights the importance of the ambiguous, the contextual, the pluralistic, or the uncertain over the foundational. Indeed, observes the author, only in a vague unfinished world can the human self, fragile as it is, have the possibility of making a difference or exercising the will to believe. Taking James's plea seriously, Gavin traces the idea of the vague beyond the philosopher's own texts. In "conversations" with other philosophers--including Peirce, Marx, Dewey, and, to a lesser extent, Rorty and Derrida--the author shows that a version of James's position is central to their thought. Finally, Gavin looks for the pragmatic upshot of James's plea, reaffirming the importance of the vague in two concrete areas: the doctor-patient relationship in medicine and the creation and experiencing of modern art. In conclusion, Gavin argues that James's work is itself vague, in a positive sense, and that as such it functions as a "spur" to the reader. (shrink)

In the last century, science fiction has become an incredibly powerful tool in depicting alternative social imaginaries, particularly those of the future. Extending beyond their fictious nature is a commentary on the stark realities of modern society. The ‘cyberpunk’ subgenre, for example, offers a dystopian critique on the dangers of technological dependence and hypercapitalism. In studying science fiction, future imaginaries can be developed as utopian goals for governance systems to strive for. In contrast to cyberpunk, the subgenre of ‘solarpunk’ depicts (...) a utopian society where humanity lives locally, sustainably, and in harmony with nature. This paper deconstructs solarpunk media to describe three guiding principles of solarpunk: anarchism, ecology, and justice. As an anarchist community, solarpunk strives for a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society devoid of hierarchy and domination. As an ecological community, solarpunk strives for local, self-sufficient, and sustainable living where both the human and non-human flourish. Finally, as a just community, solarpunk strives to rid society of marginalization and celebrate authenticity. These three principles can be used to guide humanity towards a utopian, solarpunk future. (shrink)

The degradation of modern sport--its commercialization, trivialization, widespread cheating, cult of athletic stars and celebrities, and manipulation by the media--has led to calls for its transformation. William J. Morgan constructs a critical theory of sport that shores up the weak arguments of past attempts and points a way forward to making sport more humane, compelling, and substantive. Drawing on the work of social theorists, Morgan challenges scholars and fans alike to explore new spaces in sport culture and (...) imagine the rich cultural and political possibilities to be found in the pastimes we follow with such passion. (shrink)

A great deal of research has demonstrated that learning is influenced by the learner’s prior background knowledge (e.g. Murphy, 2002; Keil, 1990), but little is known about the processes by which prior knowledge is deployed. We explore the role of explanation in deploying prior knowledge by examining the joint effects of eliciting explanations and providing prior knowledge in a task where each should aid learning. Three hypotheses are considered: that explanation and prior knowledge have independent and additive effects on learning, (...) that their joint effects on learning are subadditive, and that their effects are superadditive. A category learning experiment finds evidence for a superadditive effect: explaining drives the discovery of regularities, while prior knowledge constrains which regularities learners discover. This is consistent with an account of explanation’s effects on learning proposed in Williams & Lombrozo (in press). (shrink)

"Fractal" is a term coined by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot to denote the geometry of nature, which traces inherent order in chaotic shapes and processes. Fractal concepts are part of our emerging vocabulary and can be useful in identifying patterns of human behavior, culture, and history, while enhancing our understanding of the nature of consciousness. According to William J. Jackson, the more one studies fractals, the more apparent their connections to the humanities become. In the recursive patterns of religious music, (...) in temple architecture in India, in cathedral structures in Europe and America, in the imagery of religious literature depicting infinity and abundance, and in poetic descriptions of the nature of consciousness, fractal-like configurations are pervasive. Recognition of this structure, which is also found in social organizations and ritual symbolism, requires only that one develop "an eye for fractals" by studying the work of researchers and observing nature. One then begins to see that the separation of humanities and science is convenient oversimplification, not an ultimate fact. Includes a DVD of animated fractals. (shrink)

Functional contexts have long been recognized to support evaluative judgments of a certain kind, even where there is no element of design: we speak, for example, of such things as good roots or defective hearts in connection with judgments about proper functions; an animal might even be judged defective for failing to possess a certain species-typical, functional behavioral disposition. These are obviously not moral judgments, but it is interesting to wonder whether the latter might be understood in a similar way. (...) Can moral virtues, for example, be understood as dispositions to function properly in certain spheres of human life involving the will, so that someone lacking them might be said to have a defective character? ;One possibly tempting way of pursuing this broadly Aristotelian line, which has been proposed in recent work by Philippa Foot, would be to argue that there is a single type of functional framework within which to understand both function-related evaluations in biology generally, and function-related evaluations pertaining to ethics and practical rationality; in both cases, it might be thought, talk of species-typical functions and proper functioning is to be understood in relation to the flourishing of the organisms in question, the difference being that the functions relevant to ethics would involve the will. ;I argue that this way of fleshing out a neo-Aristotelian approach to ethics and practical rationality is misguided. Much of the dissertation is devoted to showing this by developing a positive account of functional teleology in biology which makes clear that the flourishing or welfare-promotion of organisms is neither a general nor an ultimate end within the biological functional framework. The view I defend recognizes the crucial role played by natural selection history in shaping facts about present functional teleology, but it is importantly different from what are generally known as "etiological" views. In particular, it does not involve any direct reduction of facts about function to facts about causal history, and it suggests a non-reductionist view of functional teleological explanation, which I also defend. The rejection of etiological views of function in general leaves open the possibility that there is some kind of functional framework, distinct from the biological one, that might be relevant to ethics; I explore this in the last chapter. (shrink)

Study of the foreign magistri and protomagistri of the medieval cathedral of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) (ca 1130-1350, rebuilt after 1693) reveals the social dynamics of artists’ travel in Mediterranean ports. Building on previous research of the builders’ artistic contexts and references, this analysis combines close reading and comparison of contract documents, discussion of Ragusa’s foreign citizenship law, and questions informed by the sociology of mobility. The study concludes that the governor patrons of Ragusa Cathedral exploited the increased physical and occupational mobility (...) of Adriatic builders, then arrested that mobility by offering the builders social advantages in the form of professional security and a path to citizenship. This balance of mobility at multiple levels manifested in the cathedral’s cosmopolitan and open-ended design. (shrink)

I have gathered and studied these Sanskrit and Telugu writings by South Indian poets, and I’ve thought about them, and researched them for a few years. My highest priority in this piece is not to make the most simple literal word-for-word translation. I am trying not only to be faithful to the original texts, but to find a way in English to tell the detailed century-old stories more naturally, conveying them in a way that gives them a flow and literary (...) charm. I want to make a new attempt to convey these century-old stories which suggest the rich feelings of human life, in refreshing ways. I hope people who are not professional Indologists, but who are humanists, can enjoy the nuances of the topic. So this article based on translations is literary and frankly experimental; it is about natural experiences told in natural language. Often, translations from centuries ago seem stilted, dry and archaic, literally correct and academically adequate, but lacking such touchstones of basic humanity’s life as inner feelings and visceral intuitive sensations. I am exercising a hope of offering a fresh telling, and a chance to provide some imaginative reflections on this topic I have chosen. The theme is sweat—and other natural human responses. Why explore sweat? This is a pertinent question. For one thing, I’ve been struck by how the experience of sweat meant something different centuries ago in India, in comparison with what it means to many people today. As reflected in Sanskrit literature, it had associations with desirable feelings—thrills, soulful exertions, arousal, passionate intensity. It is distinctive, and I seek to know what it might tell us about life, both to Hindus and non-Hindus. It offers a chance to contemplatively play around with beauty, too. It is an aesthetic exploration, an artistic challenge, an alluring human mood, of loving joy. The longer texts I am working with are Tirumalamba’s Sanskrit text Varadambika Parinaya Campu and Pingali Surana’s Telugu text Kalapurnodayam. Shorter texts I refer to include a verse from the Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita, and Jayadeva’s Sanskrit Gita Govinda, and a Telugu song by Annamacharya. (shrink)

This article examines gender discrimination in earnings and promotions in a sample of 451 computer professionals employed by 14 organizations in a western Canadian city. The data suggest that women computer professionals do less well than their male counterparts in terms of income and job status; the differences are largely attributable to differences in work experience. Strength apparently does not lie in numbers, however. Organizations that hire relatively more women computer professionals seem to choose those who are less well educated (...) and less experienced than their male employees; they reward them correspondingly less well. The authors argue that the different proportions of women are the result of predictable strategies of recruitment aimed at limiting women's access to positions of authority. (shrink)