A pergunta pelo ser do homem é a origem da antropologia tanto filosófica quanto pedagógica. Neste horizonte, pode-se resumir a resposta à pergunta dizendo: o ser humano não só é efeito do diálogo, mas humaniza e se humaniza por meio do diálogo. Quando se planeja ambientes orientados a desenvolver as potências anímicas do diálogo em todos, e em cada um dos participantes da cena pedagógica, igualmente se está tanto em meio a uma antropologia pedagógica quanto a uma didática antropológica. Esta (...) foi a tradição que Christoph Wulf, na segunda metade do século XX e no começo do século XXI, sistematizou. Dentro desta corrente de pensamento se enquadra a investigação intitulada Diálogo: condição de formação. Assim, pode-se afirmar que este projeto se baseia na tradição alemã que põe a Bildung no centro, como uma categoria que, ao mesmo tempo, tem uma fundamentação filosófica e alguns efeitos tanto na concepção quanto na ação pedagógica. Palavras-chave: Diálogo. Antropologia pedagógica. Christoph Wulf. Gadamer. (shrink)

This article suggests that the notion of an educational ‘trading zone’ is an analytically helpful way of describing a space in which ideas about learning and teaching are shared within and between disciplines. Drawing on our knowledge of anthropology and the Humanities, we suggest three possible reasons for the limited development of such zones within academia in the UK and US. The first is the relatively low status of education as a discipline, and its perceived dependence on individualist theories of (...) learning drawn from psychology. The second is that disciplinary pedagogies are often deeply embedded in academic identity and practice, making engaging with an educational ‘trading zone’ an epistemologically unfamiliar habit. A final, and more overtly political, reason is the strategic resistance of many faculty members to engaging with the new visions of teaching ‘professionalism’ offered by ‘faculty development’ and ‘training’ units within universities. We end by exploring whether the emerging debate around the ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’ might circumvent some of these barriers. (shrink)

This publication is an article 2, expanding on the topic, outlined in article 1, published earlier in “Philosophical thoughts” (1019, No. 1). The author considers the constitutional prerequisites of the anthropological anti-Utopia of the Third Reich, the main principles of which were deduced from the folk-political and folk-cultural versions of the German philosophical anthropology completed with ideological statements of the industrialism. The functional potential of the human ideals is regarded. These ideals are canonized in the ideology of the national-socialism with (...) the symbolic representation as Leader, Worker and Soldier as practical persons are conceptualized as antipodes, which in the further myth creations of the national-socialism are concretized and became the features of heroes. The idea and realities of the folk educational state are analyzed including the chronological and topological characteristics of this anti-utopia with the practically unrestricted life-time and the dialectic of the European idea with paradox prescribing to it the Nordic origin. The significance of sacral meaning of the Third Reich is clarified in the categorical schemes of the political romantic. The consequences of intentional primitivism of the world view culture of the youth are detected in the landscapes of the anthropological anti-utopia with the transforming of the normal student into “the political soldier” and recognition of the masculine community as a structuring model of society. The anti-human intentionality of biological reduction of the new world view, which is founded on the myth of the origin and the race theory, is unveiled as a distinction between a “worse” and “non- worse” life what makes this anti-utopia a repressive one and legitimates the crime practices of the re-education and liquidation. (shrink)

There is a difference between that which is and that which is to be. Anthropologically: there is a way I am, and the way I am to be, or not to be. How are we to explain this? This book presents the argument that human nature is both complex and complicated in at least two specific ways--ontologically and ethically. In our being we are indisputably good, dignified, worthy, important, or even noble. But in our morality we are ambivalent--capable of both (...) good and evil, the humane and the inhumane. In his paramount work Jan Amos Comenius expresses the goal of his lifelong endeavor: "to help keep man from falling into a non-man" (Pampaedia). If human beings are to become what they ought to be, they need to be educated towards humanity, says Comenius. But the fundamental question is, what is a human being? And what ought one to be? "Salt ought to be salty. A river ought to be clear. A knife ought to be sharp. But what ought a person to be?" What is the essence of our humanity? And how can that be cultivated or educated? This book presents Comenius's answers to these questions. (shrink)

Nowadays, nature is something foreign to the human being. It is material that the human being uses, makes available, and exploits without scruples. But the human being is never a subject outside of space: he is always in lived and experienced relations to space, which determine and influence him. The individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. In order to fulfil his or her life, the human being has to be able to listen to the voice of (...) nature, and abstain from the wish to control it. In such a field the lost reverence for the living world can be cultivated. Responsibility for nature is not an empty phrase, but a moral imperative that is directly connected with human life and survival. This is why we must protect the integrity of nature, and demand there be a better relationship between the human being and nature. This paper discusses the bioethical principle of 'reverence' (German Ehrfurcht ) for the living world, a concept initially presented by Albert Schweitzer using anthropological-pedagogical methods. The point of view advanced here is based on the anthropological approach of the philosopher and pedagogue O. F. Bollnow, and makes use of work by the pedagogue Yukichi Shitahodo about the anthropological preconditions of relations between a human being and the exterior world. The thesis that 'reverence' could be the basic bioethical principle governing the relationship between a human being and his environment is also founded on the modern bioethics, particularly the 'principle of responsibility' and the 'ethical imperative of prudence' as these have been formulated by philosophical biology and anthropology. (shrink)

In the predominant pedagogical frameworks of our days, rationalist, voluntarist or sentimentalist reductionisms are seen, from which it is about educating people regardless of their Origin and the singular and unrepeatable originality with which they have been given to existence. Faced with this anthropocentric confinement, Sensitive Education arises so that every person, regardless of their culture and creed, remains sensitive to their Origin and captures their own originality, which in the end is what they must accept and try to (...) manifest with education. When educational systems are not sensitive to the original, they develop falsehood. With the aim of consolidating the validity of the pedagogical-anthropological foundation of Sensitive Education, this study seeks to show how Edith Stein’s argument explains Sensitive Education, although Stein, after her conversion, uses explicitly Christian terminology. Stein’s direct terms serve to describe Education Sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but for those who do not start from a Christian worldview, Education Sensitive to Origin can be a more non-denominational way of approaching the Original. To achieve this objective, an analytical-synthetic methodology has been followed in which essential features of Sensitive Education are proposed and in a hermeneutic manner, arguments are extracted from the writings of Edith Stein that offer support for these essential features. In conclusion, it is sufficiently shown that Edith Stein’s thought provides a pedagogical foundation to Sensitive Education. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the memory of Kostiantyn Dmytrovych Ushynskyi (1823-1871), an outstanding Ukrainian teacher-philosopher, founder and developer of the theoretical foundations of education based on the cooperation of pedagogy and psychology (the middle of the 19th century). In general, the purpose of the article is to update the scientific achievements of prominent compatriot. The article’s goal is detailed in such tasks: the assertion of Ukrainianness as the source or origin of K. Ushynskyi’s personality and creativity; the substantiation of (...) the features of his life philosophy, mentality (the priority of the value of the human soul, heartcentred meaning of human being in the comprehension of life; high personal emotionality, but subject to will; love for the native foundations), which total combination nourished the thinker’s ideas about pedagogical anthropology; substantiation of the peculiar intertextuality of the K. Ushynskyi’s book “Man as an object of education. An attempt at pedagogical anthropology” (1868–1869); an attempt to characterize the worldview and philosophical meanings of K. Ushynskyi’s construction of the psychological and pedagogical foundations of the educational process (cultural conformity, nature conformity, activity as the basis of education), which remains not only the historical heritage of Ukrainian humanitarian thought, but also a variant of an anthropologically sharpened worldview landmark for modern educators. It has been established that in the documentary substantiation of K. Ushynskyi’s belonging to Ukrainian culture, the contribution of the modern local historian and teacher V. Terletskyi became the most important. It is shown that the appeals made by K. Ushynskyi to the thoughts, ideas, opinions of numerous European scientists, writers, historical figures, polemics and dialogues with them on the pages of the book ensured the transition to the creation of a text as a stereophonic intersection with other texts. The author of the article tries to substantiate this feature of the book as a kind of intertextuality of the analyzed scientific work. (shrink)

Philosophical personalism has generated a very powerful field of study in the twentieth and twenty first centuries but has not produced a systematic exposition. This book fills this big gap by offering for the first time a full systematic personalistic vision of the human person. This ambitious volume offers a pedagogical and integrated exposition of philosophical personalism, answering vital questions about human identity and existence in a way that the reader can achieve an integrated view of the person. The (...) book points to the real life of each person so that, by partially unraveling the mystery of the personal being, it becomes a philosophical guide for life. For these reasons, the book can be used both for academic purposes, as a manual of philosophy of man or for personal enlightenment. Divided in five parts, the first part of the book works as an introduction, offering an overview of the human person and of the notion of person. The second part describes the internal structure of the human being addressing topics as corporeity as a personal fact; sensibility and the senses; affectivity; intelligence; freedom understood as choice and self-determination and, finally, the personal self. The third part analyses the person in action and some special types of action such as work and language. The fourth part deals with interpersonal relationships beginning with I-You relationship and following with the family and the social structure. Finally, part five deals with the so-called ultimate questions, that is, those that decide the final meaning of each person's life, namely, time, death, immortality, and religion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The paper undertakes a critical analysis of the so-called Presupposition of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, which prescribes the benevolent interpretation of the other’s words. We aim to identify the anthropological and epistemological background of the pedagogical guidelines contained therein and to explicate the intellectual and moral virtues needed to put them into practice. We argue that practising the Presupposition is both virtuous and mutually beneficial in pedagogical practice.

Agenda 21 of United Nations demands better situation of ecology, economy, health, etc. in all countries. An evaluation of scientific contributions in international congresses of fundamental anthropological sciences (philosophy, psychology, psychosomatics, physiology, genito-urology, radio-oncology, etc.) demonstratesevidence of large discrepancies in the participation not only of developing and industrial countries, but also between the last ones themselves. Low degree of research and education leads to low degree of economy, health, ecology, etc. [Lit.: Neu, Michailov et al.: Physiology in Agenda 21. Proc. (...) Int. Un. Physiol. Sci. San Francisco, Faseb J. 19/5, A1355, 2005; Agenda 21 in Psychol. 28th Int. Congr. Psychol. Beijing, 1028.62/3028.96, 2004]. CONCEPTION: The science is leading in the social and economic development of humanity, but the misuse of science causes disastrous repercussions (ecological and self-destruction). New models for scientific education, beginning with philosophy, followed by philosophical, pedagogical, medical, theological anthropology, and research are necessary tosupport Agenda 21 and prevent misuse of science. According to proposals on foundation of experimental schools (Immanuel Kant) and international universities (Bertrand Russell) the International Academy of Science/ICSD supports these ideas and initiated the creation of first (interdisciplinary) International Faculties forAnthropology as paradigm for humanization, higher effectiveness and pluralistic internationalization of science, leading to better education ("Erziehung und Ausbildung") and research in all countries, i.e. decrease of the gap between industrial and developing countries. CONCLUSION: Foundation of international institutes for general (philosophy, pedagogy, medicine) as well as for special anthropology (theology, informatics-logic-mathematics, culture, biology, (bio-) physics/chemistry) in context of an integralanthropology via networks of national ones from selected countries of Africa, America, Asia, Australia, Europe can permit the necessary implication of philosophy in education of anthropological sciences as well as research and education (post graduate) by common international research and educational programmes, lecturers, students, etc. in one country. This project needs political and financial support by UNO, European Union, governments, banks, industries to support the education of a homo sanus, humanus et spiritualis for the future humanity. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the few major phenomenologists to engage extensively with empirical research in the sciences, and the only one to examine child psychology with rigor and in such depth. His writings have recently become increasingly influential, as the findings of psychology and cognitive science inform and are informed by phenomenological inquiry. Merleau-Ponty’s Sorbonne lectures of 1949 to 1952 are a broad investigation into child psychology, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, phenomenology, sociology, and anthropology. They argue that the subject of child (...) psychology is critical for any philosophical attempt to understand individual and intersubjective existence. Talia Welsh’s new translation provides Merleau-Ponty’s complete lectures on the seminal engagement of phenomenology and psychology. (shrink)

The stage-like “exhibitionary space,” which members of the public visit, has received more scholarly scrutiny than the pedagogical and curatorial activities that take place in the back rooms of museums. This essay draws attention to the behind-the-scenes places in university museums as a pedagogic site where students learn through the close examination of artefacts. It addresses the social context of learning through the study of incomplete objects, which may involve handling them. This process of using artefacts to engage with (...) different groups of people (collectors, curators, teaching staff and students) contributes to the physical and intellectual development of academic disciplines. It enhances the museum's institutional mission and survival as an incorporated body that is embedded in a greater whole, the university itself. The Ashmolean Museum, in the University of Oxford, and the Balfourian and Sibbaldian Museums, in the University of Edinburgh, were founded in the seventeenth century. But whereas the Ashmolean survived as an institution, the first Edinburgh collections did not. These historical antecedents serve as a backdrop to a discussion of how one particular example, the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CUMAA), trains new generations of learners to evaluate empirical evidence and by working with different communities of users—students and the wider public—it ensures its survival. (shrink)

Within anthropology, as elsewhere in the human sciences, there is a tendency to divide knowledge making into two separate poles: conceptual (theory) vs. empirical (ethnography). In Theory Can Be More than It Used to Be, Dominic Boyer, James D. Faubion, and George E. Marcus argue that we need to take a step back from the assumption that we know what theory is to investigate how theory—a matter of concepts, of analytic practice, of medium of value, of professional ideology—operates in anthropology (...) and related fields today. They have assembled a distinguished group of scholars to diagnose the state of the theory-ethnography divide in anthropology today and to explore alternative modes of analytical and pedagogical practice. Continuing the methodological insights provided in Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be, the contributors to this volume find that now is an optimal time to reflect on the status of theory in relation to ethnographic research in anthropology and kindred disciplines. Together they engage with questions such as, What passes for theory in anthropology and the human sciences today and why? What is theory's relation to ethnography? How are students trained to identify and respect anthropological theorization and how do they practice theoretical work in their later career stages? What theoretical experiments, languages, and institutions are available to the human sciences? Throughout, the editors and authors consider theory in practical terms, rather than as an amorphous set of ideas, an esoteric discourse of power, a norm of intellectual life, or an infinitely contestable canon of texts. A short editorial afterword explores alternative ethics and institutions of pedagogy and training in theory. Contributors: Andrea Ballestero, Rice University; Dominic Boyer, Rice University; Lisa Breglia, George Mason University; Jessica Marie Falcone, Kansas State University; James D. Faubion, Rice University; Kim Fortun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Andreas Glaeser, University of Chicago; Cymene Howe, Rice University; Jamer Hunt, Parsons The New School for Design and the Institute of Design in Umea, Sweden; George E. Marcus, University of California, Irvine; Townsend Middleton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Deepa S. Reddy, University of Houston–Clear Lake; Kaushik Sunder Rajan, University of Chicago. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the applicability of a principalist approach for a global, or cross-cultural, bioethics. We focus especially on the principle of individual autonomy, a core value in ethical discourse. We echo some long-standing criticisms of other anthropologists, sociologists, and many medical ethicists that the individualistic approach to autonomy is a Euro-American value and cannot be ethically applied in all settings. As a remedy, we suggest an adaptation of Kleinman's Explanatory Model approach to questions of decisionmaking. We (...) argue that the analysis and resolution of ethical dilemmas might also benefit from forms of pedagogy that integrate anthropological and other social science perspectives, and the incorporation of ethnographic techniques in ethical practice. (shrink)

What are the actual practices of intellectual co-laboring? In the spring of 2006, we began an experiment in collaborative anthropology. There was a dual impetus to our efforts: a desire to deal head-on with inadequacies in our academic environment; and a strong feeling that the classic norms of qualitative inquiry needed to become contemporary. Collaboration struck us as potentially key to both. We drew a parallel to laboratory experiments. In the textbook version, one begins with a question, formulates a hypothesis, (...) then tests it by adapting or inventing techniques and practicing them. With a certain irony, we nicknamed our experiment the “labinar,” lab plus seminar. From the beginning, we understood the “labinar” as an experiment in venue construction and form. We understood it as an intervention into pedagogic practice, as well as anthropological inquiry. Our reasoning was that the world is different than it was when the standards of qualitative human or social science became codified in the heyday of traditional anthropological fieldwork. (shrink)

A decolonial practice and understanding of education (whether theological or otherwise) requires engaging, subverting, deposing and reimagining a whole ecology of imaginaries, practices, structures, institutionalities, traditions, power asymmetries etc.: a task that is far beyond the capacities of any individual, community or even generation. Cognisant of this reality, the article foregrounds the question of pedagogy in theological education (but only as an integral part of the colonial/decolonial ecology of education) and argues that in so far as our pedagogies in theological (...) education treat students primarily as ‘thinking creatures’, we are engaging in a dis-membering pedagogy that reproduces the coloniality of being. I identify a Cartesian anthropology (‘ego cogito sum’) – engendering a host of dualisms giving artificial supremacy to certain dimensions of reality over others – as a key animating source of dis-membering pedagogies. Drawing on the ‘pedagogical excess’ (i.e. underexplored pedagogical themes) in the theological anthropology of Simon Maimela in conversation with pedagogical visions that cohere and extend his anthropological commitments, I argue that a re-membering pedagogy is, at minimum: a pedagogy of performative action, embodiment and (community based) liminality. I argue throughout the article that in the work of re-sourcing our animating anthropologies and re-imagining our pedagogies, we are engaged in the healing work of re-membering that which coloniality has torn apart: theory and practice, mind and body, the individual and relationality, the student and the teacher, the theological school and society. Contribution: This article outlines my attempts to theoretically and theologically ground (and extend) my espoused pedagogical commitments forged at the intersection of my community work and teaching as a theological educator in an undergraduate BTh programme. This article invites other theological educators to become conscious of the theological anthropology that their espoused pedagogical commitments assume and reflect on the pedagogical commitments that their theological anthropology entails, especially as it relates to the ongoing calls for the Africanisation/decolonisation of theological education in South Africa. (shrink)

The subject of the proposed paper is the disclosure of prerequisites and determinants of the implementation of the soteriological concept of studying the interdisciplinary course of bioethics, the structural model and synectic algorithm of its comprehension and epistemological map of formation of soteriological competence of the future specialist during the study of bioethics. The methodological basis for the implementation of the proposed project is the theory of research-oriented professional education and, thereafter, technology of advanced learning, which provide wide opportunities to (...) study the course of bioethics in the form of observation of remote virtual experiments on the portal Go-Lab; GRAASP environment for the implementation of author's developments and pedagogically structured programs in the process of performative interaction between teacher and students. The scientific novelty of the material is to substantiate the content of anthropological competencies of future specialists in biomedical specialties and the strategies of obtaining them on the basis of the principles of hermeneutic didactics. Conclusions. Today, obviously, the task of bioethics is not only to protect nature and human life, but also to participate in the realization of the high mission of Salvation. This defines the research field of bioethics as a space of secret dialogue, in which it is desirable to find a place not only for the voice of clinicians, pharmacists, engineers, philosophers, public figures, but also the pastoral voice of the Church. (shrink)

In the field of education for sustainable development (ESD), the theoretical background is often absent (Considère and Tutiaux-Guillon, 2013 ; Tutiaux-Guillon, 2013), suggesting that a shared culture would be established and practices would be self-evident. Indeed, the exploration of ESD pedagogies highlights epistemological bases that are absent, incomplete or very personal and ideologically marked. We base our argument on the results of our thesis, defended in 2018 and based on a methodological device that has enabled us to collect the statements (...) of more than a thousand French primary and secondary school teachers about their practices in ESD. The instrumented analysis of the concepts of the anthropological theory of didactics (ATD) developed by Chevallard (2011a) with the notion of « praxeology » highlights a clear gap existing between the pedagogical modalities implemented and the theoretical support at the origin of these pedagogies. In this context, the highlighting of a certain number of references from the scientific literature suggests that certain supports can be identified (and that certain obstacles can be overcome) in order to work towards a shared pedagogical culture and effective professional development for teachers. (shrink)

This paper presents a pedagogical framework for teaching cross-cultural clinical ethics. The approach, offered at the intersection of anthropology and bioethics, is innovative in that it takes on the “social sciences versus bioethics” debate that has been ongoing in North America for three decades. The argument is made that this debate is flawed on both sides and, moreover, that the application of cross-cultural thinking to clinical ethics requires using the tools of the social sciences within a principles-based framework for (...) clinical ethics. This paper introduces the curriculum and provides guidelines for how to teach cross-cultural clinical ethics. The learning points that are introduced emphasize culture in its relation to power and underscore the importance of viewing both biomedicine and bioethics as culturally constructed. (shrink)

The purpose. Explore the major ideological patterns of development of a socially philosophies of education in the context of the problems of institutionalization of knowledge about human and social development. To analyse system-integration aspect of social philosophy and education management in interaction of concepts of an instrumentalism of a pragmatism and a neopragmatism with model of «new humanism» in formation of socially valuable orientations. Methodology. Classification existing in the western philosophy of education and education of directions is spent, proceeding from (...) basic principles of philosophical school or a current, first of all considering those the purpose and means which are really involved by them in process of education, social development and socially-moral education and being based on the basic installations, the purpose expressed by that or other direction, how its supporters imagine the person, its requirement, a social role, модус behaviour which the education system and education urged to form. Scientific novelty. In conditions when against crisis of an education system of the government of the USA and the leading countries of Europe are compelled to begin its long-term reform, its theorists substantially pay attention to democratic workings out of concepts of an instrumentalism of a pragmatism/neopragmatism in modern social philosophy of education, in particular on their aspiration to introduce in process of social development, education and education idea and practical model both educational, and a social equality. Considering growing requirement of a practical embodiment of ideas of freedom, justice, aspiration to realization of the human rights proclaimed a society, supporters of the concept of «new humanism» see the main objective in blocking a way to conformism, to a manipulation behaviour of the person and to create conditions for its free self-expression, for realization by the person of a fundamental choice of acts in a concrete situation and by that to warn danger of formation of the unified form of behaviour. In it principles of «new humanism» approach with a position of «new humanism» instrumentalism and neopragmatism. Conclusions. Before social philosophy of education/education it is necessary to define a problem factors which cause achievement of its main objective, to state an estimation to moral principles and personal qualities with which actually the education/education theory connects realization of the problems, to show, why these, instead of any other principles and qualities open to the person possibility to choose in a concrete situation socially powerful both morally defensible and comprehensible line of conduct in public the relation. Statement of a question on necessity of the philosophical analysis of problems of education and education in a social context serves as an indicator of understanding philosophers, teachers of an increasing role of the human and moral factor in society development. And, at last, the aspiration to develop socially-philosophical bases of pedagogics in general and education in particular, testifies that the western and domestic philosophers, teachers, representatives of social and psychological sciences, at least, the majority of them, have realized the public importance of an education system and education, its global character. (shrink)

We are told in the introduction to this volume that what holds together such an apparently diverse collection of essays under a single rubric is the theme of "human nature." And this is fair enough: themes ranging from Kant's reflections on physiology, to his investigation of the vexed notion of what it is that constitutes a race, to his reflections on philosophy of history, to his lectures on pedagogy all fit reasonably enough under the rubric of "human nature." All point (...) us, that is, toward a clearer understanding of how Kant would have answered the question, "What is a human being?" Yet this straight-laced, somewhat mundane description of this volume's contents belies the quirky, unexpected, and downright strange reflections that can be found therein. Perhaps those familiar with Kant's famous dinner parties would have expected him to say that "[b]odily motions prescribed by a doctor who is not a philosopher weaken the invalid's body, unless they are seasoned with some social amusement and affect the body favorably". But who would have expected Kant to recommend that "[i]n. (shrink)

In this article Cristoph Wulf examines the basic concepts of pedagogy and educational science in the German-speaking world, looking at education and socialization from the perspective of educational anthropology. He makes evident that the complex German concept of Bildung, in particular, can only be fully understood by means of a historical and philosophical analysis.

Historians have long since rejected the dubious assertions of the conflict model, with its narratives of perennial religion versus science combat. Nonetheless, this theory persists in various academic disciplines, and it is still presented to university students as the authoritative historical account of religion–science interactions. Cases of this can be identified within modern anthropology textbooks and reference materials, which often recapitulate claims once made by John W. Draper and Andrew D. White. This article examines 21st-century introductory anthropology publications, demonstrating how (...) such works perpetuate religion–science myths and the notion that history has been replete with inevitable religion versus science warfare. In particular, this study reveals how such introductory materials propagate discord narratives associated with the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. Affiliated with these anecdotes are oversimplified accounts of religious responses to heliocentrism and evolutionary theory, as well as claims that science has invariably led to the usurpation of religious belief and secularization from Galileo onwards. (shrink)

This text aims to rethink educational activity inspired by the thought of the philosopher Ignacio Ellacuría, in what we have synthesised as a pedagogy of poverty. This should be understood as a pedagogy that, in the neoliberal context of Western societies, takes poverty as its motor—its efficient cause—and as its essence or fundamental structure—its formal cause –, in the duality of dimensions of its genitive. It is concretised in what is presented as Problem-Based Service-Learning (PB-SL). Through specific pedagogical guidelines (...) for implementing this methodology, this study indicates how the teaching action can show the learner what is immediate, what is not constructed, what consciousness does not establish but rather encounters: reality—weak, limited, imperfect, needy; in short, poor—as a problem and, in its deficiency and insufficiency, as a task towards which the subject has a responsibility. This reveals the fundamental anthropological structure to the learner: its intrinsic relational character—its reality as a being-in-a-suffering-world, who lives-with and lives-to save the needy who share its humanity. It is then possible to perceive the scale of the ultimate aim of PB-SL: the need to create the social conditions for a praxis that enables a dignification of reality. (shrink)

As the number of medical and health humanities degree programs in the United States rapidly increases, it is especially timely to consider the range of specific disciplinary perspectives that might benefit students enrolled in these programs. This paper discusses the inclusion of one such perspective from the field of Science and Technology Studies The author asserts that STS benefits students in the medical and health humanities in four particular ways, by: challenging the “progress narrative” around the advancement of biomedicine as (...) scientific practice, evaluating the meaning of technology, especially in how technology orients us towards sickness and how health technology is in turn shaped by social and cultural values, assessing the plurality of biomedical epistemologies, rather than assuming biomedicine is one, cohesive body of knowledge that does not differ across contexts, and critiquing bias in biomedical practice and science, especially in the marginalization of women’s voices and in the racial and postcolonial trajectories of contemporary biomedicine. The paper discusses the theoretical importance of these four trajectories to the medical and health humanities, as well as the venues for inclusion of STS within coursework and programming at Case Western Reserve University. The paper also comments on how programming at other institutions might be adapted to incorporate STS scholarship. By drawing on numerous examples of research in the anthropology, sociology, history, and the philosophy of science, this article seeks to open a conversation about the value of science and technology studies to health humanities pedagogy. (shrink)

This article examines Kant’s pragmatic anthropology as a specific model of perceiving a human, his nature which German philosopher started to elaborate in the beginning of 1770s. This issue found its reflections in the new course of university lectures on pragmatic anthropology that Kant read before his retirement in 1796. Basic ideas of this academic course Kant has presented in his treatise “Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View” (1798) which highlights a new model of studying human nature. Based on (...) the thorough analysis of this particular tractate and on the materials for the lectures, as well as Kant’s notes, the research on conceptual differences between pragmatic anthropology model and other human studies that German philosopher developed in his transcendental philosophy, as well as in metaphysic and naturalistic subjects, which he also taught in University of Königsberg, can be conducted. Theoretical backgrounds that enabled genesis of pragmatic view on a human are a part of this investigation. On this connection, a special attention is paid to the role of physical geography, its conceptual language in the genesis of pragmatic view on a human. It was physical geography, which Kant taught long before a new model of anthropology, which has led to a gradual metaphysical interpretation of Kant's view on a human, his soul and freedom. Conceptual matter of pragmatic anthropology model, its connection to perceiving a human as an active subject who with his own efforts constitutes his own nature, which, in its turn, is the part of the nature, is studied. Basic concepts of Kant’s anthropology are analyzed in this regard; their dissimilarities to empirical and moral dimensions with the help of which German philosopher is trying to answer the question: “What a human is?” are deliberated on. However, the answer to this question is fundamentally differing from the answers offered by Kant's pragmatic anthropology. Anthropological ideas of the German philosopher have essentially affected its pedagogical doctrine. (shrink)

This text represents an exploration of the possible significance of Bernard S. Cohn's 1980 essay, `History and Anthropology: The State of Play', for understanding the present of historical anthropology and its futures. My discussion has two aims: (1) to reflect on both Bernard S. Cohn's pedagogy and mode of inquiry; and (2) to explore the complexity and nuance of citationality as a generative principle within the constitution of historical anthropology's subject. Toward this, I examine Cohn's notion of `the colonial situation' (...) and reflect on how the emergence of the human sciences is intertwined with the proliferation of colonialism's enduring legacy within postcoloniality. (shrink)

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, diverse sciences grounded in natural history made a virtue of field research that somehow tested scientists' endurance; disciplinary change derived from the premise that witnesses were made reliable by character-molding trials. The turn to the field was a function of structural transformations in various quarters, including (but hardly limited to) global politics, communications systems, and scientific institutions, and it conduced to biogeographical explanations, taxonomic schemes that admitted of heterogeneity, and affective research styles. (...) Sociocultural anthropology, which took specialized shape at the beginning of the twentieth century, shared many properties with other field sciences, but its method—participant observation—was distinctive. Critical to the method's definition were the efforts of the British experimental psychologist-anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers, who relied on notions then widespread in Europe and the United States. The discipline's future mythic hero, Bronislaw Malinowski, embraced Rivers's model. For both men, proper fieldwork meant using the researcher's body as an instrument and entailed understanding both the anthropologist's body and the research subject's body as energy systems; this symmetry facilitated a relativist perspective. Participant observation remains central to sociocultural anthropology, but the discipline's pedagogic habits contributed to loss of memory of its energetic conceptualization. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 445-446 [Access article in PDF] G. Felicitas Munzel. Kant's Conception of Moral Character: The "Critical" Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp. xxii + 378. Cloth, $53.00. Paper, $24.00. Given the recent trend in Kant scholarship to seek a kinder, more caring philosopher behind the familiar rules and imperatives, a study focusing on the (...) place of "character" in Kant's thought is a timely contribution to a growing body of work. Indeed, G. Felicitas Munzel intends to go where no Kantian has gone before and show not only that Kant has a conception of character, but that it is "rich" (1) and "unique in the history of philosophy" (5). Considering his "corpus as a whole" (6), she sets out to demonstrate the "systematic importance" of the concept for Kant's thought (1) and reveal "a richer sense of familiar notions of his moral philosophy than is generally appreciated" (11).From the outset, however, high hopes prove hard to sustain. In Chapter 1, Munzel's exegetical efforts to link "character" with Denkungsart ("conduct of thought") and Gesinnung ("comportment of mind"), either delineate only familiar elements of Kant's thought or attribute to him views which philosopher and non-philosopher alike could hardly deny: in Kant's "rich" conception, character involves clear thinking and perfection, and is an "accomplished state" (67) presupposing sound reasoning and the capacity to think. In what becomes the dominant theme of the study, Munzel concludes that, for Kant, character is an activity in which the objective moral law is realized in subjects acting on maxims and from firm principles.In Chapter 2 the reader is subsequently led across a familiar terrain of causality, desire, and feeling, to learn that Kant is disinclined to inclination, but very much inclined to reason (71-2); and that character has a foot in both the empirical and intelligible orders of causality (74). The same goes for desire (95ff.) and aesthetic capacity (126ff.), where the "moral form" of character represents the union of reason and nature. A [End Page 445] similar story continues in Chapter 3 where Munzel considers Kant's view of religion and hopes to cast "new light" (142) upon and foster "fresh appreciation" (182) for "radical evil." Again, the reader spots comforting landmarks along the way and emerges into a world unchanged: for Kant, Munzel concludes, human conflict is a manifestation of evil with its roots in human nature; virtue involves progress or advance; and a well-established character brings inner and outer peace to human life (134-6).In the remainder of the book Munzel turns to the "structure and cultivation of character." Chapter 4 focuses on orientation, reflective principles, conscience, and discourse where, rambling through the Kantian landscape, one learns that common sense is a source of principles (198ff); maxims should be steadfastly adopted (208-9); and that morally upright persons should know their duty (210), tell the truth (246), and develop their capacities to the full (249). By this stage, that "character must be made subjectively rational" (252) has become a mantra, but lest the point remain unclear, Munzel expounds a metaphor (from Mendelssohn's Morgenstunden) of a traveler on life's journey, in order to emphasize that moral character involves being rational, competent, and accountable for one's actions (191ff.).In the final chapter, pedagogy becomes the main focus. It is a practice, Munzel contends, which determines the conditions under which character is formed (260). Mixed in the appropriate fashion, its elements combine to make "cultivation of moral judgment" the "essence of moral character" (259). Again, Munzel connects character to well-known Kantian doctrines, linking pedagogy to self-mastery (292) and a community of civic-minded citizens (258) in which the good of one promotes the well-being of all (288). In the world according to Kant, reason "grafts" virtue onto the stuff of nature to create an organic unity as—in Munzel's favorite metaphor (see 335-45... (shrink)