In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter the erosion of humanistic education.

In an age of internet scrolling and skimming, where concentration and attention are fast becoming endangered skills, it is timely to think about the act of reading and the many forms that it can take. Slow Philosophy: Reading Against the Institution makes the case for thinking about reading in philosophical terms. Boulous Walker argues that philosophy involves the patient work of thought; in this it resembles the work of art, which invites and implores us to take our time and (...) to engage with the world. At its best, philosophy teaches us to read slowly; in fact, philosophy is the art of reading slowly – and this inevitably clashes with many of our current institutional practices and demands. Slow reading shares something in common with contemporary social movements, such as that devoted to slow food; it offers us ways to engage the complexity of the world. With the help of writers as diverse as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Woolf, Adorno, Levinas, Critchley, Beauvoir, Le Dœuff, Irigaray, Cixous, Weil, and others, Boulous Walker offers a foundational text in the emerging field of slow philosophy, one that explores the importance of unhurried time in establishing our institutional encounters with complex and demanding works. (shrink)

In an age of internet scrolling and skimming, where concentration and attention are fast becoming endangered skills, it is timely to think about the act of reading and the many forms that it can take. Slow Philosophy: Reading Against the Institution makes the case for thinking about reading in philosophical terms. Boulous Walker argues that philosophy involves the patient work of thought; in this it resembles the work of art, which invites and implores us to take our time and (...) to engage with the world. At its best, philosophy teaches us to read slowly; in fact, philosophy is the art of reading slowly – and this inevitably clashes with many of our current institutional practices and demands. Slow reading shares something in common with contemporary social movements, such as that devoted to slow food; it offers us ways to engage the complexity of the world. With the help of writers as diverse as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Woolf, Adorno, Levinas, Critchley, Beauvoir, Le Dœuff, Irigaray, Cixous, Weil, and others, Boulous Walker offers a foundational text in the emerging field of slow philosophy, one that explores the importance of unhurried time in establishing our institutional encounters with complex and demanding works. (shrink)

In a famous 1964 interview with _Le Monde_, Jean-Paul Sartre describes the evolution in his thought from the writing of _Nausea_ up to the publication of his autobiographical Les Mots. While not rejecting his earlier literary and philosophical work, he does recontextualize it in light of his own existential growth in the previous two decades, which he attributes to his confrontation with the reality of human suffering – specifically, that of a child dying of hunger. In this essay, I use (...) Sartre’s interview as an entrée to a discussion of some of my students’ and my own existential development, by way of my emerging use of a variety of pedagogical practices (service learning, narrative teaching, civic engagement) in an interdisciplinary philosophy course called “Religion, Suffering, and the Moral Imagination.”. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have critiqued norms of neoliberal higher education by calling for embodied and anti-oppressive teaching and learning. Implicit in these accounts, but lacking elaboration, is a concern with reformulating the notion of ‘time’ and temporalities of academic life. Employing a coloniality perspective, this article argues that in order to reconnect our minds to our bodies and center embodied pedagogy in the classroom, we should disrupt Eurocentric notions of time that colonize our academic lives. I show how (...) this entails slowing down and ‘being lazy’. (shrink)

Purpose– This paper aims to provide an overview of clean information and communication technology, including a brief review of recent developments in the field and a lengthy set of possible reading matter. The need to rethink the impact of ICTs on people’s lives and the survival of the planet is beginning to be addressed by a Slow Tech approach. Among Slow Tech’s main questions are these two: Is ICT sustainable in the long term? What should be done by (...) computer ethics scholars, computer professionals, policy makers and society in general to ensure that clean ICT can be produced, used and appropriately disposed of?Design/methodology/approach– The paper is based on a comprehensive review of clean tech-related literature and an investigation of progress made in the clean tech field.Findings– This opening paper of aJournal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Societyspecial session aims to provide an overview of clean ICT, including a brief review of recent developments in the field and a lengthy set of possible reading matter. As a result, it is anticipated that Slow Tech – and in this case, its second component of clean ICT – can provide a compass to steer research, development and the use and reuse of environmentally friendly, sustainable ICT.Originality/value– This conceptual paper emphasises that, until only recently, no one questioned the potential long-term sustainability of ICT. This issue is, however, now very much a matter that is on the research and teaching, and action, agenda. (shrink)

We are much better equipped to let the facts reveal themselves to us instead of blinding ourselves to them or stubbornly trying to force them into preconceived molds. We no longer embarrass ourselves in front of our students, for example, by insisting that “Some Xs are Y” means the same as “Some X is Y”, and lamely adding “for purposes of logic” whenever there is pushback. Logic teaching in this century can exploit the new spirit of objectivity, humility, clarity, (...) observationalism, contextualism, and pluralism. Besides the new spirit there have been quiet developments in logic and its history and philosophy that could radically improve logic teaching. One rather conspicuous example is that the process of refining logical terminology has been productive. Future logic students will no longer be burdened by obscure terminology and they will be able to read, think, talk, and write about logic in a more careful and more rewarding manner. Closely related is increased use and study of variable-enhanced natural language as in “Every proposition x that implies some proposition y that is false also implies some proposition z that is true”. Another welcome development is the culmination of the slow demise of logicism. No longer is the teacher blocked from using examples from arithmetic and algebra fearing that the students had been indoctrinated into thinking that every mathematical truth was a tautology and that every mathematical falsehood was a contradiction. A fifth welcome development is the separation of laws of logic from so-called logical truths, i.e., tautologies. Now we can teach the logical independence of the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction without fear that students had been indoctrinated into thinking that every logical law was a tautology and that every falsehood of logic was a contradiction. This separation permits the logic teacher to apply logic in the clarification of laws of logic. This lecture expands the above points, which apply equally well in first, second, and third courses, i.e. in “critical thinking”, “deductive logic”, and “symbolic logic”. (shrink)

The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy was published in 2016 to critical acclaim. Rejecting outright the marketisation of the modern university, the book proposed a countercultural approach which denounced the seductive imperatives to overwork and competition and called on academics to make a more deliberate moral choice. In this paper, I critically engage with The Slow Professor's ethical vision. I draw on the work of writers Sally Rooney, John Williams and David Foster Wallace (...) in careful exploration of ‘slowness’ and its cognate terms. I am interested not only in the importance of slowness for university academics but for students in the 21st century university. These students, as pointed out recently by Bruce Macfarlane, are made to carry a plethora of conflicting identities and yet it is perhaps more important that we begin to demand less of our students and not more. Thus, in an era of audit and accountability, this paper explores the possibilities for a less frenetic approach to university teaching and learning. (shrink)

The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy was published in 2016 to critical acclaim. Rejecting outright the marketisation of the modern university, the book proposed a countercultural approach which denounced the seductive imperatives to overwork and competition and called on academics to make a more deliberate moral choice. In this paper, I critically engage with The Slow Professor's ethical vision. I draw on the work of writers Sally Rooney, John Williams and David Foster Wallace (...) in careful exploration of ‘slowness’ and its cognate terms. I am interested not only in the importance of slowness for university academics but for students in the 21st century university. These students, as pointed out recently by Bruce Macfarlane, are made to carry a plethora of conflicting identities and yet it is perhaps more important that we begin to demand less of our students and not more. Thus, in an era of audit and accountability, this paper explores the possibilities for a less frenetic approach to university teaching and learning. (shrink)

This article addresses the pedagogical practices of the Worshipful Company of Barber-Surgeons of London during the seventeenth century. As artisans—trained by apprenticeship—their teaching and learning was embedded in the embodied actions performed in their anatomy theatre. The Barber-Surgeons held regular public anatomies for the benefit and ‘greater learning’ of the masters and apprentices of the Company, performed on the bodies of up to four felons per annum granted to them by the sovereign. The space in which these anatomies were (...) performed and the practices by which that knowledge was imparted, shaped the ways in which the human body was understood—in a slow and uneven process—by which the body was subjected to a process of abstraction. (shrink)

The orientation and leadership of the revolutionary “renewal of the German mind,” whose witnesses and participants we are, point in two directions. On, after seizing power, would like to talk the mind into helping out with internal development and promises it a golden age if it joins up; indeed it even offers it the prospect of a certain voice in decision making. The other direction, on the contrary, attests its mistrust of the intellect by declaring that the revolutionary process will (...) continue indefinitely, and has room for the mind in its task; or it might also assure the intellect that it is not needed at all because a new mind has already turned up, and that the old one might as well jump into the fire and either burn to ashes or purify itself into its elements. What has happened up to the moment these words are being written leaves no doubt that the second direction is on the march, the first its musical accompaniment. Nor can it be otherwise than that a Movement [National Socialism] that has manifested itself so powerfully demands above all that the intellect complete assimilate and subordinate itself to the Movement. But then again, it is possible that the intellect cannot do this without renouncing itself. Surely there must be some sort of boundary here, since nothing happens that is not contingent; so it is a good test for the intellect that today it has everywhere been saddled with a kind of kangaroo-court mentality that judges it not according to its own laws, but according to the law of the Movement. Robert Musil made a decisive contribution to twentieth-century European literature. Among his works available in English are Young Törless, Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, and The Man Without Qualities. Burton Pike is professor of comparative literature at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. With Sophie Wilkins, he has edited and translated a new edition of Musil’s novel The Man without Qualities, available in 199. He is the author of Robert Musil: An Introduction to His Work and The Image of the City in Modern Literature . David S. Luft teaches modern European intellectual history at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Robert Musil and the Crisis of European Culture, 1880-1912. (shrink)

Daniel Sennert is one of the more neglected big figures of that seventeenth-century process that goes by the shorthand name of Scientific Revolution. Born in Breslau/wroclaw in 1572, he was professor of medicine at the University of Wittenberg from 1602 until his death in 1637. However, his fame and importance were not due to his classroom teaching but to his writings, which were reprinted throughout the century in Germany, France, England, Italy, and the Netherlands, and partially translated into English. (...) His reputation among both his contemporaries and today’s historians of science has to do with the highly innovative synthesis of natural philosophy, medicine, and chymistry, which he presented notably in the two editions of his De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu and in his late Hypomnemata physica, both of which relied on a novel type of atomistic matter theory. His influence, generally underestimated in today’s scholarship, was felt throughout the century and, as William R. Newman has demonstrated, is particularly important in the case of Robert Boyle, who was “plundering Sennert’s œuvre for proofs of the corpuscularian hypothesis,” albeit without acknowledging his source. (shrink)

A collection of essays written by arts and humanities scholars across disciplines, this book argues that higher education has been compromised by its uncritical acceptance of our culture's standards of productivity, busyness, and speed. Inspired by the Slow Movement, contributors explain how and why university culture has come to value productivity over contemplation and rapidity over slowness. Chapter authors argue that the arts and humanities offer a cogent critique of fast culture in higher education, and reframe the discussion of (...) the value of their fields by emphasizing the dialectic between speed and slowness. (shrink)

Based on the assumption that phenomenology is a style not just of thinking, but also of perceiving and acting, this paper shows how, through specific assignments and practices, phenomenological research can become personally as well as professionally meaningful for students. Disciplined practice helps students to attend to experience even though culturally and educationally ingrained habits devalue its importance. By working together in groups, the phenomenon under study is more likely to come alive for the student researchers, and articulating the core (...) of an experience no longer to seem so daunting. The practice of phenomenology also helps students to recognize that slowing down and giving their full attention to experience is restorative, productive, and deeply satisfying. (shrink)

This paper argues that two fundamentally incompatible shifts are taking place in higher education institutions in the UK, and beyond: Firstly, there is a move towards appreciation of, and focus on, interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research. Secondly, the university institution is undergoing neoliberal reforms, in the spirit of New Public Management. It is argued that the latter leads to an intensification of pressures to specialise into increasingly narrow disciplinary niches, which in terms is detrimental to the possibilities for interdisciplinary (...) cooperation. introduction of a feminist ethics of care into the university, as suggested by the feminist slow scholarship movement, is proposed as a possible solution to what is perceived to be negative developments in the higher education sector. (shrink)

In the evaluation of teaching quality, aiming at the shortcomings of slow convergence of BP neural network and easy to fall into local optimum, an online teaching quality evaluation model based on analytic hierarchy process and particle swarm optimization BP neural network is proposed. Firstly, an online teaching quality evaluation system was established by using the analytic hierarchy process to determine the weight of each subsystem and each index in the online teaching quality evaluation system (...) and then combined with actual experience, the risk value of each index was constructed according to safety regulations. The regression model is established through BP neural network, and the weight and threshold of the model are optimized by the particle swarm algorithm. Based on the online teaching quality evaluation model of BP neural network, the parameters of the model are constantly adjusted, the appropriate function is selected, and the particle swarm algorithm which is used in the training and learning process of the neural network is optimized. The scientificity of the questionnaire was verified by reliability and validity test. According to the scoring results and combined with the weight coefficient of each indicator in the online course quality evaluation index system, the key factors affecting the quality of online courses were obtained. Based on the survey data, descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient method are used to verify the research hypothesis and obtain valuable empirical results. By comparing the model with the standard BP model, the results show that the accuracy of the PSO-BP model is higher than that of the standard BP model and PSO-BP effectively overcomes the shortcomings of the BP neural network. (shrink)

While psychologists and political scientists have long investigated issues of interest to philosophers, the development of political experimental philosophy has remained limited. This slow progress is surprising, given that political philosophers commonly acknowledge the relevance of empirical data for normative theorizing. In this chapter, we illustrate the importance of empirical data by outlining recent developments in three domains related to theories of justice, where empirical results reinforce or endanger popular philosophical theories. Our first showcase concerns the boundaries of the (...) concept of fairness. While both libertarian thinkers and social egalitarians have united in rejecting the concept of natural injustice, we show that people do consider that unpreventable natural inequalities can be described as unfair. Second, we take the example of impartiality devices, such as the veil of ignorance or the idea of an impartial spectator, to show that such devices are efficient at shifting people’s intuitions in a more impartial manner. Third, we review empirical data on fairness intuitions to show that people conform to a pluralist theory of justice, valuing desert, needs-satisfaction, and equality at the same time. However, distribution according to desert enjoys a privileged position: people mostly care for the satisfaction of basic needs of deserving recipients, and people are willing to tolerate large inequalities in meritocratic contexts. The centrality of desert leads to dilemmas for mainstream egalitarian theorists, as theories that do not recognize the value of desert could fail to find support or legitimacy within the population. (shrink)

Efforts to reform medical education have emphasized the need to formalize instruction in medical ethics. However, the discipline of medical ethics education is still searching for an acceptable identity among North American medical schools; in these schools, no real consensus exists on its definition. Medical educators are grappling with not only what to teach (content) in this regard, but also with how to teach (process) ethics to the physicians of tomorrow. A literature review focused on medical ethics education among North (...) American medical schools reveals that instruction in ethics is considered to be vitally important for medical students. Agreement by medical educators on a possible core curriculum in ethics should be explored. To develop such a curriculum, deliberative curriculum inquiry by means of a targeted Delphi technique may be a useful methodology. However, the literature reveals that medical curricular change is notoriously slow. General implications for medical ethics education as a discipline are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Your Cell Will Teach You Everything":Old Wisdom, Modern Science, and the Art of AttentionNoreen HerzfeldA brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him "Father, give me a word." The old man said to him "Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." 1 Among the Desert Fathers, Christian monks of the fourth and fifth centuries, it was customary for a novice to (...) go to an elder and ask for "a word," a word of advice, of counsel, a word to take home and reflect on. What does this word of advice say to us today?A Multitasking World"Your cell will teach you everything." To my students, this seems like very strange advice indeed. "Your cell?" When I quoted Abba Moses to a colleague he instinctively reached for his phone. But a monk's cell? Isn't a monk's cell empty, isolated? What can that cell possibly have to teach? And how? The lives of the young men and women I teach are the very antithesis of sitting in a cell. Their attention is fragmented, divided by an array of modern technologies. I watch them walk by my office window, iPod plugged into the ears, cell phone or Blackberry in hand as they check e-mail or send a text message. Time in their rooms is characterized by one eye on the television and another on the computer, on which are open their theology paper, an instant messaging box or two connecting them to friends, their Facebook page, in case one of their friends should post a status update, and perhaps a Twitter feed or their favorite blog. They assure me that they have grown up multitasking. Young Americans spend an average of six hours a day using nonprint media, and at least a quarter of that time they are using more than one screen, device, or channel.2 They are connected, linked in, logged on.It is not just the student who multitasks while doing homework. The average office worker is interrupted roughly every three minutes during the workday, interruptions that the worker herself often initiates.3 These include the phone, e-mail, [End Page 83] checking websites. As more jobs move to the knowledge and service sectors, more of us find the temptation to multitask at work irresistible.But what effect does all this multitasking have on the person? We're not getting more done, for one thing. Several recent studies have shown that, contrary to self-perception, people really can't multitask. The brain cannot concentrate on several things simultaneously. Instead it switches focus from task to task the same way a computer does. This means that all tasks are slowed down somewhat by the switching process, and the attempt to coordinate too many tasks can lead to more time being devoted to the switching than to the tasks at hand, a phenomenon computer scientists have long been aware of, known as "thrashing." Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT, notes: "Think about writing an e-mail and talking on the phone at the same time. You cannot focus on one while doing the other. That's because of interference between the two tasks."4 Miller notes that in an MRI you can actually see the brain struggling as it shifts rapidly from one to the other.One can see that this might have a deleterious effect on one's work life. Research shows that, once interrupted by an e-mail or a phone call, the average worker can take up to half an hour to return to full concentration on the task at hand.5 But why does this matter for the spiritual life? Over time, multitasking erodes our ability to pay focused, close attention, and this eventually eats away at traits such as patience, tenacity, judgment, and problem solving. This is most evident in the latter. In a test of fifteen-year-olds, the United States ranks twenty-fourth out of the twenty-nine developed countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on problem solving skills, with nearly 60 percent of them scoring below the most basic level of using a single... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Art of Teaching in the MuseumRika Burnham (bio) and Elliott Kai-Kee (bio)A class is studying a small painting by Rembrandt in the galleries of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum educator has been inviting the assembled visitors to look ever more closely, guiding the class toward an understanding both of the painting itselfand of our reasons for studying it. The class has been (...) anything but passive—indeed, it has been lively. The painting is The Abduction of Europa (1632), a picture that depicts in delicate detail a story from Greek mythology, the kidnapping of the Phoenician princess Europa by Zeus in the guise of a white bull. The visitors have shared their observations, speculations, ideas. As the class concludes, the museum educator asks the participants to speculate on the painting's larger meaning, to say what they think this work is, finally, about, as revealed by their long discussion. The group's experience has clearly moved beyond the telling of a single story. One participant suggests that Rembrandt's work is about the fearlessness of traveling into the unknown. Another says that it concerns the story of the soul's leaving the earthly for the heavenly realm. When the class comes to an end, people move closer to the painting and continue their discussions.In the same museum, another museum educator is also conducting a group of students through the galleries. He begins with a Roman statue of Venus, followed by an eighteenth-century French terra-cotta bust of Madame Récamier by Joseph Chinard. For each sculpture, he asks the students to focus on only one detail, the hands. The students are encouraged to observe and take note of the sculpted figures' gestures, much as if they were studying a person. Time seems to slow as perception sharpens. The educator listens patiently as the students begin to "read" the sculptures as a whole through the expressiveness of the hands. The group moves on to a mysterious portrait by Millet in which the students discuss the nature of love, and [End Page 65] then to a painting of a Russian princess by Winterhalter, in which the artifice of all the details is suddenly theatrical, dazzling, and delightful. At the end, no one wants to leave.As museum educators we teach in many kinds of programs, and teach in many ways. Every museum educator brings unique gifts to the art of teaching through works of art. The two classes described above might seem at first glance quite different. The first museum educator stays with a single work of art for the entire session, constructs her class around the observations and ideas of the students, and trusts that through their collective experience, a larger meaning will emerge. The second educator inspires his students with a feeling of confidence by guiding their observations of a single feature common to several works, and then allows a main idea to emerge. The two classes, however, are also alike in certain essential ways. In both cases, the students and the instructor are animated, concentrated, focused, and active. Their investigation is tightly focused on the works under discussion, and the group together reaches for a sense of the artworks as a whole. At the end, when the participants cluster around the works of art, still wanting to continue the experience of discovery, the instructors know that theirstudents have understood that engagement with a work of art is a beginning, not an end.The opportunities museum educators have to teach and learn are granted to us by the collections of objects in the care of the institutions in which we work, and by the students and visitors we invite to consider these objects. These artworks also impose upon us a great obligation, to bring them alive for those we lead through the galleries. For ultimately, it is our devoted attention that keeps artworks alive generation after generation.This essay is the result of our work as museum educators. It began with a casual discussion about what constitutes good teaching, and what we can do to guide ourselves and our docent colleagues toward consistent and principled teaching in our museums. We... (shrink)

Review of "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.

As the title of this article suggests, I feel the need to contribute to the process of revitalizing the teaching of ethics and/or any other kind of applied ethics as well. The methods, forms and aims of these disciplines have to be revived, revitalized and actualized in order to increase the moral consciousness and understanding of moral agents. I consider the increasing of moral consciousness as the basic precondition for the moral progress of the whole society and mankind as (...) well. It is not an easy task in a world where technological, informational and scientific progress is moving forward rapidly and brings many benefits to people. On the other hand, it also brings up new complicated and delicate issues, moral dilemmas and questions for which a suitable and sustainable answer has to be found. Therefore, there is an obligation to guarantee that the moral progress will not slow down in this process of rapidly changing circumstances of human existence. This can be achieved by implementing some new methods of teaching or at least the flawless usage of older methods as well as using ethics of social consequences as the basis of our critical reflections and our decision making process in order to improve the contemporary situation of moral stagnation. (shrink)

When invited to describe what the experience of illness taught them, a select group of bioethicists took eagerly to the task. This commentary culls three themes from their reflections: responsiveness to vulnerability, love as the proper motive for care, and reflective practice. U.S. bioethics was slow to appreciate the importance of recognizing and responding to human vulnerability. These essays describe its central importance for those suffering illness and make educating a more empathic and responsive generation of caregivers a priority. (...) Descriptions of how family and friendship bonds with an ill person created a unique sense of their inherent dignity and needs clearly raises the question of whether or not love is a necessary motive for professional caregivers. Will our professional care always fall short if not motivated by genuine human love? Finally, each essay teaches anew the importance of the life lessons human experience can teach if we value reflection and seek to experience, understand and learn from our experience. (shrink)

The pedagogical function of science teaching may benefit from an analysis of the historical-epistemic dimension, without neglecting the socio-political context in which a given research was carried out. In the case of DNA structure, the background of its discovery is particularly complex. Starting from the analysis of some papers, the view on the circumstances that led to their drafting broadens. We try to answer the fundamental question for any educator: why teach all that? Ethics issues are related to the (...) general organisation of research, increasingly focused on speed and competition. Even teaching is affected by these dynamics, not only in higher education, but also at secondary level; students should be made aware of this trend. The history of science could therefore favour a more general awareness. _SUNTO_ La funzione pedagogica dell’insegnamento scientifico può trarre vantaggio da un’analisi della dimensione storico-epistemica, senza trascurare il contesto socio-politico nel quale una determinata ricerca è stata condotta. Nel caso della struttura del DNA, i retroscena della sua scoperta sono particolarmente complessi. Dopo l’analisi di alcuni articoli, si allarga gradualmente la vista sulle circostanze che hanno condotto alla loro stesura. Si cerca di rispondere a una domanda fondamentale per ogni educatore: perché insegnare tutto ciò? Le questioni etiche riguardano l’organizzazione generale della ricerca, sempre più tesa alla velocità e alla competizione. Persino l’insegnamento è influenzato da dinamiche simili, non solo in ambito accademico, ma anche a livello secondario; gli studenti dovrebbero essere a conoscenza di questa tendenza. La storia della scienza può dunque favorire una maggiore consapevolezza. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical examination of philosophy teaching at all levels in Australian schools. It looks at the points of difference and congruence between the States and Territories and argues that teaching philosophy through the philosophical community of inquiry should be a core element of school curricula. In spite of a growing interest in philosophy in schools, its documented benefits and the high degree of “fit” with a revised curriculum in at least two states, the implementation of (...) philosophy by education departments has been relatively slow and piecemeal. There are discrete courses available in upper secondary school, but approaches differ between the various education jurisdictions. The work of the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Associations, and the branches at State level, provide training and networking for interested educators but this has not translated into policy. An education policy that gives a central role to good, clear philosophical thinking will give children the tools they need to succeed in the rapidly changing cultural, technological, social and cultural environment of the 21st Century. (shrink)

There are many algorithm texts that provide lots of well-polished code and proofs of correctness. Instead, this book presents insights, notations, and analogies to help the novice describe and think about algorithms like an expert. By looking at both the big picture and easy step-by-step methods for developing algorithms, the author helps students avoid the common pitfalls. He stresses paradigms such as loop invariants and recursion to unify a huge range of algorithms into a few meta-algorithms. Part of the goal (...) is to teach the students to think abstractly. Without getting bogged with formal proofs, the book fosters a deeper understanding of how and why each algorithm works. These insights are presented in a slow and clear manner accessible to second- or third-year students of computer science, preparing them to find their own innovative ways to solve problems. (shrink)

El confinamiento vivido durante la pandemia de Covid 19 nos obligó a afrontar la vida con un ritmo más tranquilo. En este contexto, desde el Grupo de Estudios Interdisciplinares de Literatura y Arte (LyA) (UCLM) se planteó desarrollar un proyecto donde abordar nuestra docencia desde una perspectiva más pausada siguiendo la filosofía del Slow Movement. El objetivo de este texto es dar a conocer el trabajo que se viene desarrollando en asignaturas de Historia del Arte en los Grados de (...) Humanidades y Estudios Sociales de la Facultad de Humanidades de Albacete y de Historia del Arte de la Facultad de Letras de Ciudad Real (UCLM). (shrink)

In studies of early Christian thought, 'philosophy' is often a synonym for 'Platonism', or at most for 'Platonism and Stoicism'. Nevertheless, it was Aristotle who, from the sixth century AD to the Italian Renaissance, was the dominant Greek voice in Christian, Muslim and Jewish philosophy. Aristotle and Early Christian Thoughtis the first book in English to give a synoptic account of the slow appropriation of Aristotelian thought in the Christian world from the second to the sixth century. Concentrating on (...) the great theological topics - creation, the soul, the Trinity, and Christology - it makes full use of modern scholarship on the Peripatetic tradition after Aristotle, explaining the significance of Neoplatonism as a mediator of Aristotelian logic. While stressing the fidelity of Christian thinkers to biblical presuppositions which were not shared by the Greek schools, it also describes their attempts to overcome the pagan objections to biblical teachings by a consistent use of Aristotelian principles, and it follows their application of these principles to matters which lay outside the purview of Aristotle himself. This volume offers a valuable study not only for students of Christian theology in its formative years, but also for anyone seeking an introduction to the thought of Aristotle and its developments in Late Antiquity. by a consistent use of Aristotelian principles, and it follows their application of these principles to matters which lay outside the purview of Aristotle himself. This volume offers a valuable study not only for students of Christian theology in its formative years, but also for anyone seeking an introduction to the thought of Aristotle and its developments in Late Antiquity. (shrink)

We need to rethink our attitudes to the bodies of the dead in order to increase our willingness to donate organs and tissuesMy father died aged 87 on January 20, 1998. It was the day of his 42nd wedding anniversary. He been admitted to a major teaching hospital with jaundice of unknown origin. He died after a medical procedure and a delay in diagnosis and management of bleeding after the procedure. I believed it was important to understand why he (...) had died and what the underlying cause of his jaundice had been. I requested an autopsy.My father was not only the best father a person could have had, but my closest friend. The circumstances of his death were especially sad for me. I was on a plane while he was allowed to die of blood loss in intensive care over a period of hours, becoming progressively more delirious and experiencing the slow motion throes of death. I was told he had died while I was still in the air. My first thought was that I would never again see him or hear his deep chuckle. I would never again feel the gentle touch of his large hands. He would never see my daughter grow up as he had wanted to, playing, and laughing on the beach.I have witnessed many autopsies. As medical students, we had to attend autopsy each morning at 8.30 am as a part of pathology in fourth year medicine. Before this, we had two years of anatomy dissection, probing every crevice of the formalin fixed human body. I learnt an immense amount from these activities. But I also knew how gruesome the autopsy is. I knew that an autopsy would mean that my father would be dismembered. But I had no hesitation in requesting …. (shrink)

Plants are silent, still, or move slowly; we do not have the sense that they accompany us, or even perceive us. But is there something that plants are telling us? Is there something about how they live and connect, how they relate to the world and other plants that can teach us about ecological thinking, about ethics and politics? Grounded in Thoreau's ecology and in contemporary plant studies, Thoreau and Vegetal Thought offers answers to those questions by pondering such concepts (...) as co-dependence, the continuity of life forms, relationality, cohabitation, porousness, fragility, the openness of beings to incessant modification by other beings and phenomena, patience, waiting, slowness and receptivity. (shrink)

Objective: To determine cryopreservation-induced alterations in the cytoskeleton of metaphase II mouse oocytes and the implications of these alterations in functionality of the cytoskeleton and polyploidy after fertilization.Design: Comparative study.Setting: Clinical and academic research environment at a medical school teaching hospital.Intervention : Oocytes were frozen using a slow-cooling and slow-thawing protocol in 1.5 M dimethyl sulfoxide and 0.2 M sucrose and were analyzed before and after fertilization.Main Outcome Measure : Cytoskeletal alterations, fertilization, and polyploidy rates.Result : When (...) analyzed immediately after thawing, the oocytes displayed dramatic cytoskeletal alterations. Only slight recovery was observed upon removal of the cryoprotectants. However, incubation after thawing of 1 hour at 37oC completely reestablished a normal microfilament and microtubule pattern while partially restoring normal spindle morphology and chromosome alignment. Accordingly, insemination immediately after removal of cryoprotectants resulted in a significantly decreased fertilization rate and aberrant dynamics of cytoskeleton-dependent events, whereas oocytes inseminated after the post-thaw incubation displayed fertilization rates and cytoskeletal dynamics comparable to those in controls. Cryopreservation did not increase polyspermy but significantly increased digyny when the oocytes were inseminated after the post-thaw incubation. All digynic eggs displayed an abnormal spindle remnant in comparison with diploid or polyspermic eggs.Conclusion : A brief period of incubation after thawing allows recovery and positively affects fertilization and cytoskeletal dynamics. Cryopreservation does not impair the functionality of microfilaments and cytoplasmic microtubules during postfertilization events. Our findings suggest that the increased rate of digyny in cryopreserved oocytes may be related to the spindle disorganization, leading to failure in segregation of the chromosomes, rather than to direct malfunction of the microfilaments in polar body formation. (shrink)

In his writings, Pope Francis describes a culture of interfaith and intercultural encounter as the foundation of lasting peace, friendship, and reconciliation among peoples. Far from superficial, a culture of encounter is built upon the slow work of honoring differences and forming social bonds across differences. In the first part of this paper, the authors investigate correspondences between the theology of encounter in the teaching and witness of Martin Buber and Pope Francis, in which the sacred, the ground (...) of reality, and the potential for redemption are revealed in the engaged space “between” self and other. In the second part of the paper, they explore how these ideas are actualized in practices of nonviolence, such as dialogue. In conclusion, they identify how these ideas and role models suggest a road map to build a culture of nonviolence and just peace through encounter within fractured societies throughout the world today. (shrink)

This chapter revisits the classic questions whether absolute music can express extra-musical meaning and whether such meaning should be thought of as playing an important role in our understanding and appreciation of music. It argues that music’s expressive ability plays a central role in our conception of its phenomenology and value—in our perception of music as expressive and in its capacity to move us, both in the understudied generic sense, and in the sense of arousing specific emotions in us. It (...) examines a type of scepticism about music’s expressive ability made influential by Eduard Hanslick and considers to what extent it can be answered. The chapter concludes that, while the extreme scepticism espoused by Hanslick cannot be sustained, his discussion teaches us deep lessons about the expressive indeterminacy involved in music. The chapter illustrates some of the issues it deals with through an analysis of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major and explores the connection between meaning in music and meaning in poetry. (shrink)

Achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education will depend on enrolment in schools and the quality of teaching. Funds are needed, and there is reason to fear that the global economic crisis will slow down progress.

This paper explores the concept of time in education. It argues that the neoliberal capitalist construct of time as a resource to be deployed in service of labour—ever-accelerating—has permeated education, with implications for curriculum, teaching, and learning. To slow the effects of neoliberal capitalism in schools requires a reconsideration of time that permits both different understandings of how time is encountered and different values orienting how one spends one’s time. Using Hägglund’s argument for finitude and Levinas’ idea of (...) time as a gift, the paper articulates the philosophical rationale and pedagogical implications for making the most of one’s educational time. (shrink)

Various consequences of social networks in virtual space are expanding as a new phenomenon in Islamic societies in line with other societies. Social science thinkers point to the two-sided role of the Internet and virtual space in economic, cultural and religious development. Humans need to communicate collectively based on their inherent nature. The media and means of mass communication, which had a slow growth in the past, have faced significant changes in the present era, in such a way that (...) the present age is called the age of information and communication. At such a time when virtual space and social networks have turned the world into a small village and people with different cultures and beliefs are connected with each other, the issues of children’s education (especially in Islamic societies where the focus is on Islamic education) has faced the challenge, what is important for parents in this age is to get familiar with the basics of education and to pay attention to the educational challenges of social networks in the virtual space. One of the necessities of the era of information and communication in Islamic societies is the need for education in accordance with religious teachings that prepares people to face the changing and unpredictable challenges of life. New media are accused of creating new challenges in life from two perspectives. On the one hand, the media are competitors of educational activities in the field of education, and on the other hand, they are considered to be the foundation of many new challenges. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the religious teachings that form the basis of Islamic governments are the answer to all the problems of the human society and its requirements in every age. Contribution: This research presents the effectiveness of religious teachings (Qur’an, Sunnah and Hadiths) as the best sources of Islamic education, which can be used in the cultural policy of virtual space and raise the level of awareness of families and individuals in knowing the points of threat and opportunity in the virtual space. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition ed. by Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia NassarAlison StoneKristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar, editors. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 336. Hardback, $99.00."How plausible, [Dalia Nassar and I] kept asking, is it that women published philosophy in the early modern period and then simply ceased to think and publish (...) philosophy in the nineteenth century?" remarked Kristin Gjesdal recently (interview with Richard Marshall, 3:16am [blog], https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/gadamer-herder-and-the-womenphilosophers-of-the-long-nineteen-cent ury?c=end-times-series). Not plausible at all—yet this is what historians of women in philosophy often seem to have assumed, judging by the remarkably small amount of scholarship on nineteenth-century women philosophers compared with those of the early modern period or the twentieth century. Eileen O'Neill, for instance, claims that it was "not a particularly friendly century for women philosophers" (1). In fact, as Gjesdal and Nassar observe, women were "significant contributors" to the "thriving intellectual cultures in German-speaking countries" at this time (1). Gjesdal and Nassar contrast Germanic countries to France and Britain in this regard, yet I would add that nineteenth-century Britain too had a vibrant print and periodical culture that created openings for women philosophers such as Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, and many others. The broader point remains: the nineteenth century has only seemed empty of women philosophers because we have not yet investigated the women thinkers of this period or challenged the canons and narratives from which they have been excluded.Recognizing German women philosophers is particularly important because the vast majority of scholarship on the nineteenth century focuses on the German tradition. Consequently, unless we recover the work of German-speaking women, we will never change the narrative about this period. This makes the present anthology invaluable for both teaching and research. Edited by Gjesdal and Nassar, it contains new translations, nearly all by Anna Ezekiel, of texts by historical German-speaking women philosophers.Regarding teaching, many courses on post-Kantian European philosophy include no women until Beauvoir or Arendt. Such courses typically cover Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. The editors have clearly designed this volume to enable instructors easily to bring women into such courses, by providing extracts—of suitable lengths for teaching—from women affiliated respectively with German idealism and Romanticism (Germaine de Staël, Karoline von Günderrode, and Bettina von Arnim), Marxism (Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg), Nietzscheanism (Hedwig Dohm, Lou Salomé), and phenomenology (Edith Stein, Gerda Walther). Some of these women are already well-known as political activists, as with Luxemburg and Zetkin, or under the elastic heading of "writers," as with Staël and von Arnim. But this collection presents these women's writings in a new light, showcasing their philosophical side. After all, we have learned to read Marx and Nietzsche philosophically: why not extend the same courtesy to Staël or Luxemburg?For researchers, this collection will likewise be invaluable. Post-Kantian European philosophy has been slow to respond to the wider questioning and broadening of the traditional philosophical canon. It remains sadly common for narratives of nineteenth-century German philosophy to discuss men only—a position that this book makes untenable. [End Page 336] Hopefully it will galvanize philosophers to integrate these women into the historiography of the post-Kantian tradition at last.In the introduction, the editors helpfully contextualize the selected writings, arguing that these women's exclusion from academic institutions led them to philosophize in ways that spoke to general audiences, connected with lived experience, and addressed practical and political concerns. In short, these women did a type of philosophy that was not purified but socially engaged, and can be a model for us today. Thereafter the book consists of sections on nine women philosophers, ordered chronologically. Each section begins with an editorial introduction to the philosopher and her interests, ideas, writings, and interlocutors.The writings included from Staël—whose work spans the period from the French Revolution into Romanticism—are "On Women Writers" from... (shrink)

Steven Connor, one of the most influential critics of twentieth-century literature and culture, has spent much of his career writing and thinking about Samuel Beckett. This book presents Connor's finest published work on Beckett alongside fresh essays that explore how Beckett has shaped major themes in modernism and twentieth-century literature. Through discussions of sport, nausea, slowness, flies, the radio switch, religion and academic life, Connor shows how Beckett's writing is characteristic of a distinctively mundane or worldly modernism, arguing that it (...) is well-attuned to our current concern with the stressed relations between the human and natural worlds. Through Connor's analysis, Beckett's prose, poetry and dramatic works animate a modernism profoundly concerned with life, worldly existence and the idea of the world as such. Lucid, provocative, wide-ranging, and richly informed by critical and cultural theory, this book is required reading for anyone teaching or studying Beckett, modernism and twentieth-century literary studies. (shrink)

Managing Business Ethics: Solving Ethical Dilemmas teaches students how to navigate ethical issues they will inevitably encounter using the weight-of-reasons approach. This decision-making framework can be applied at the individual, organizational, and stakeholder levels. Authors Alfred Marcus and Timothy Hargrave underscore the need for employees at all levels to carefully consider the ethical implications of their actions. Each chapter provides a case to walk through application of the framework. Mini-cases within each chapter allow students to practice applying this framework on (...) their own. A wide range of longer, real-world case studies are presented, featuring companies relevant to students such as Facebook and Amazon. This practical, down-to-earth text delves into topics not covered extensively by other books such as slow and fast thinking, the inherent conflict between the individual and organization, conformity, and the difficulties of speaking truth to power. This compelling new text offers ample opportunity for students to engage in thoughtful reflection, discussion, and application as they grapple with ethical issues big and small. Key Features: - Presents a weight-of-reasons ethical decision making framework to help students understand the steps for making the right decisions and the importance of thinking through both short-term and long-term effects - In-text examples and end-of-chapter cases applications provide ample opportunity for students to see and apply the ethical decision making framework - 20 Real-World Cases on timely topics like Sexual Harassment at Google, pharmaceutical companies and the Opioid Epidemic, and Whole Food's Conscious Capitalism. (shrink)

Fundamental Theology has undergone a slow evolution, as many other theological disciplines, since its inception in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The lapsed time invites us to reflect about the current situation in this field and to what extent that theological section is pursuing its main objectives, especially for its teaching at different levels. After examining several issues that could have influenced that development, some suggestions for advancing the field and its teaching will also be (...) given. Indeed, both the internal and external contexts have changed quite a lot in the last 60 years, and this probably will influence a treaty that should be more contextually sensitive and very bound to developments in religious education. (shrink)

This chapter offers a character-based criticism of ‘the culture of speed’ condemned by the Canadian literary scholars, Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber in their influential polemic, The Slow Professor. Central to their criticisms of speed and praise of slowness are, I argue, substantive concerns about their effects on moral and intellectual character. I argue that a full reckoning of the wrongs of academic cultures of speed must include appreciation of the ways they promote a host of accelerative vices and (...) failings while also impeding exercise of a range of the virtues vital to enactment of our core academic commitments to teaching, scholarship, and collegiality. (shrink)

The term „Latin Averroism" was introduced by P. Mandonnet to define a heretical version of Aristotle's teaching inspired by Averroes' philosophy. Latin Averroism separated philosophy from theology, negated free will, and stated that there was an eternal world and one intellect for all mankind. Those statements were taken from Averroes' commentaries on De anima by Aristotle. It was agreed that it was enough for any statement to bear rational truth and not necesserly Church dogma. That opinion was criticized by (...) theologians. The Latin Averroism was introduced in 13th century at the university in Paris in the faculty ofartes liberales — Siger from Brabant, Boethius from Sweden and others - as well as at Oxford University and Hohenstaufen School. The development of Latin Averroism was slowed by criticism of this doctrine in 1270 and 1277. However, it did not stop it. (shrink)

The most translated book in the world after the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, or "Book of the Way," is a guide to cultivating a life of peace, serenity, and compassion. Through aphorisms and parable, it leads readers toward the Tao, or the "Way": harmony with the life force of the universe. Traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher who was a contemporary of Confucius, it is the essential text of Taoism, one of the three great religions of ancient (...) China. As one of the world's great works of wisdom literature, it still has much to teach us today, offering a practical model based on modesty and self-restraint for living a balanced existence and for opening your mind, freeing your thoughts, and attaining enlightenment and self-awareness. With its emphasis on calm, simplicity, purity, and non-action, it provides a time-tested refuge from the busyness of modern life. This new translation seeks to understand the Tao Te Ching as a guide to everyday living and encourages a slow, meditative reading experience. The Tao Te Ching's eighty-one brief chapters are accompanied by illuminating commentary, interpretation, poems, and testimonials by the likes of Margaret Mead, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. Specially commissioned calligraphy for more than two hundred Chinese characters illustrates the book's essential themes. (shrink)

We need to rethink our attitudes to the bodies of the dead in order to increase our willingness to donate organs and tissues My father died aged 87 on January 20, 1998. It was the day of his 42nd wedding anniversary. He been admitted to a major teaching hospital with jaundice of unknown origin. He died after a medical procedure and a delay in diagnosis and management of bleeding after the procedure. I believed it was important to understand why (...) he had died and what the underlying cause of his jaundice had been. I requested an autopsy. My father was not only the best father a person could have had, but my closest friend. The circumstances of his death were especially sad for me. I was on a plane while he was allowed to die of blood loss in intensive care over a period of hours, becoming progressively more delirious and experiencing the slow motion throes of death. I was told he had died while I was still in the air. My first thought was that I would never again see him or hear his deep chuckle. I would never again feel the gentle touch of his large hands. He would never see my daughter grow up as he had wanted to, playing, and laughing on the beach. I have witnessed many autopsies. As medical students, we had to attend autopsy each morning at 8.30 am as a part of pathology in fourth year medicine. Before this, we had two years of anatomy dissection, probing every crevice of the formalin fixed human body. I learnt an immense amount from these activities. But I also knew how gruesome the autopsy is. I knew that an autopsy would mean that my father would be dismembered. But I had no hesitation in requesting …. (shrink)