This article examines the definitions of literacy in operation in secondary schools, and the relationship between official literacy policy and the practices of the agents responsible for implementing this policy. We trace the history of national 'policy' back to the Language Across the Curriculum movement of the 1970s as it provides an illustrative point of comparison with the first five years of the National Literacy Strategy. Drawing on empirical data which illuminate the views, perceptions and practices of key agents on (...) a number of levels, we critically review the concept of 'school literacy' promoted in government policy, defining it as 'school-centric literacy' and question its ability to facilitate participation in the practices associated with the media and technological literacies which are increasingly a feature of school life. There is evidence of some unplanned effects of the current national policy but also that levels of agency, for literacy teachers in particular, may be rapidly diminishing. (shrink)

In 2006, and again in 2007, I suffered the miscarriages of two wanted and painstakingly planned pregnancies. In the aftermath of each, I found myself unprepared, as do many women who miscarry, for the devastation I would feel. In my attempts to cope, I sought solace in the written testimony of other women who had miscarried, in the medical statistics that reassured me I still had a strong chance of carrying another pregnancy to term, in the experiences of friends and (...) colleagues who had dealt with miscarriage and other reproductive difficulties, and in the expertise of counselors who helped me process my thoughts and feelings. While each of these avenues was helpful in its own right, I still found myself struggling.. (shrink)

In his published texts and lectures on moral philosophy, Kant repeatedly singles out gratitude for discussion. Nevertheless, puzzles about the derivation, content, and nature of this duty remain. This paper seeks to solve some of these puzzles. Centrally, I argue that it is essential to attend to a distinction that Kant makes between well-wishing benevolence (Wohlwollen) and active beneficence (Wohlthun) on the part of a benefactor. On the Kantian account, I argue, a different type of gratitude is owed in response (...) to each. With this distinction in place, I argue further that we can construct what many have thought to be missing from Kant’s discussion of gratitude – an argument explicating the precise contradiction generated by a maxim of ingratitude. (shrink)

This paper explores the ways in which a fuller attention to suffering in the tradition of the early Frankfurt School might valuably inform international political thought. Recent poststructural writing argues that trauma is silenced to prevent it disrupting narratives of order and progress and instead advocates a continual ‘encircling’ of trauma that refuses incorporation into a broader historical narrative. This paper welcomes this challenge to mainstream international ethics: attention to particular suffering provides an important challenge to the abstraction, instrumentalism and (...) universalism of modernity. However, if we simply mark trauma and refuse to incorporate it into any kind of narrative, we cannot profit from the ways in which suffering can illuminate the structures and ways of thinking that create it. Drawing on Adorno's negative dialectics, the paper argues that a dialectical understanding of the relationship between universalising order and disrupting particularity can lead from individual suffering towards a political re-engagement with the universal. (shrink)

Richly illustrated study drawing on art, literature and science to explore Victorian attitudes towards sight.

Although the implications of Hume's distinction between philosophical anatomy and painting have been the subject of lively scholarly debates, it is a puzzling fact that the details of the distinction itself have largely been a matter of interpretive presumption rather than debate. This would be unproblematic if Hume's views about these two species of philosophy were obvious, or if there were a rich standard interpretation of the distinction that we had little reason to doubt. But a careful review of the (...) literature shows neither to be the case. We are far from scholarly consensus about Hume's vision of philosophical anatomy and painting, and what unity there is rests on extremely unsteady ground and leaves important questions unanswered. In this article, my aim is three-fold: first, to show that the appearance of well-grounded scholarly unity about Humes distinction is illusory; second, to dispose of those misinterpretations of Hume's distinction that are sufficiently at odds with the text that they can be demonstrated to be false in this context; and third, to explore in sufficient detail the numerous questions one might raise about the content of Hume's distinction so that the stage might at last be properly set for a truly full account of Hume's distinction between philosophical anatomy and painting. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is rarely discussed in the philosophy of religion. In 2009, however, Jerome Gellman broke the silence, publishing an article in which he argued that the source of Sartre’s atheism was neither philosophical nor existential, but mystical. Drawing from several of Sartre’s works – including Being and Nothingness, Words, and a 1943 review entitled ‘A New Mystic’ – I argue that there are strong biographical and philosophical reasons to disagree with Gellman’s conclusion that Sartre was a ‘mystical atheist’. Moreover, (...) I question the likelihood of drawing any definitive conclusions regarding the sources of Sartre’s ambiguous atheism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Turning the Tables on the Audience:Didactic Technique in Solon 13WKate StoddardSolon's great elegiac poem, variously called the "Hymn to the Muses" and the "Elegy Eis Heauton," is an odd work, one that has been the subject of exhaustive and varied study. Owing in part to its considerable length and to its complex paratactic style, the poem's unity continues to be the single most important issue for the scholars who (...) study it. The apparent interruption of the elegy's train of thought at line 33, as well as the puzzling statement about atē in lines 63-70 that seems to contradict the description of divine justice earlier in the poem, has caused many scholars to doubt the poem's integrity altogether.1 The interpretations of the elegy's structure range from those that discover in it little more than a rambling patchwork of philosophically inconsistent reflections to others that seek to demonstrate that the elegy is in fact a closely knit and conceptually coherent unity.2 [End Page 149]The great majority of scholars now accept the premise that Solon 13W is a unified whole that Solon composed more or less in the form that survives to us today. As a consequence of this admission, scholars are faced with the question of how to explain the breaks at lines 33 and 71. Beginning with Wilamowitz, the traditional way of explaining the structure of the elegy is to see it as a paratactic "chain" of observations in which each idea springs from the one that precedes it but is not necessarily connected to the other ideas in the poem.3 Wilamowitz argues that the poem's unity is rooted in the idea of the desire for wealth, which he sees as permeating every aspect of the elegy.4 Subsequent scholarship finds [End Page 150] different unifying themes of the elegy, with several scholars focusing on the last three lines of the poem (74-76) as the key to the poem's unity.5Allen, who argues that lines 74-76 restate the ideas of the first half of the poem and thus unify the poem by ring-composition, believes that the real unity of the poem depends on the content of the opening prayer: olbon moi pros theōn makarōn dote kai pros hapantōn / anthrōpōn aiei doxan echein agathēn (3-4). Allen interprets the prayer as a prayer not for wealth, over which the Muses have no jurisdiction, but for wisdom, specifically the wisdom needed to avoid committing injustice and falling victim to atē. In order, however, to make the content of the prayer harmonize with the last three lines of the poem Allen translates the kerdea of 74 to mean "unjust gains"6 rather than simply "gains," a qualification that is not at all justified by the text:7[End Page 151].8No limitation of wealth is visible for men,For those among us who now have the most abundant meansStrive twice as hard [to gain more]. Who could satisfy them all?The deathless gods grant gains to mortals,But ruin arises from these gains, which, whenever Zeus sends itAs punishment, afflicts now one man, now another.(71-76)It is this striking contradiction between the opening prayer for olbos (1-6) and the closing statement that atē arises from god-given wealth that is the subject of this article.9 In it I hope to demonstrate that the first half of the poem, and most especially the prayer itself, is "ironic" and set forth for the purpose of instructing the audience that the mindset it depicts represents a dangerous trap for mortals.At the beginning of Solon 13W the narrator prays for the traditional blessings of olbos and good repute:105Shining children of Memory and Olympian Zeus,Pierian Muses, hear me as I pray:Grant me to have wealth from the blessed godsAnd from all men always to have good repute;5 To be thus sweet to friends but bitter to enemies;An object of respect to the former, but to the latter an object ofdread to behold.(Solon 13.1-6)Although... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Models of Psychopathology and ReligionSuffering, Psychosis, and NeurodiversityKate Finley, PhD (bio)To draw out some implications of Scrutton’s paper, I will address a few points of clarification and objection as well as connections to empirical literature and topics for further research. Scrutton frames her discussion as an exploration of ‘both–and’ (BA) accounts, according to which “someone might experience both a religious experience and psychopathology” in contrast to an ‘either/or’ account, (...) which “presupposes that a person’s experience can be either psychopathological, or else a genuine religious experience” and focuses on instances of ‘voice hearing’ which may be a religious experience (i.e., God talking to you) and/or an instance of psychopathology (i.e., an auditory hallucination). She then defines religious experience as one which “comes from God... [specifically as] an instance of special divine action” and mental illness as dys-functional emotional, cognitive, and/or perceptual processes resulting in suffering that is in need of healing and/or treatment.1One potentially ambiguous point concerns the potential causes of psychopathology—while in some places, Scrutton seems to assume that psychopathology can only be caused by natural (biopsychosocial) causes, in others, she highlights “conjunctive causal explanations” on which divine action can occur within and through ‘natural’ (e.g., psychological, neurological) phenomena and processes. It is important to note that this latter approach is needed in order to truly entertain BA accounts which posit both natural and supernatural causes for the psychopathological experience in question. Relatedly, although Scrutton cites an intuitive view that a hallucination is a “distorted perception of reality,” instead an account of hallucination which allows for veridical as well as non-veridical hallucinations is needed.2 Without these assumptions, the categories of religious experience and psychopathology may seem to be mutually exclusive and thus an either/or account trivially true. For example, one might think that an instance of ‘hearing voices,’ if it is an auditory hallucination (and thus results from solely natural causes and is non-veridical), then cannot also be a religious experience (brought about by divine [End Page 261] action and veridical). These are friendly clarifications of Scrutton’s setup which also highlight the need for further explanation of the relationship between human and divine causation in such cases.There is also some ambiguity about what counts as a singular experience for Scrutton’s purposes—for example, ‘hearing voices over the course of a few minutes or hours’ or ‘hearing voices off and on over a period of a few months and reflecting on these occurrences.’ Scrutton seems to favor the latter, using ‘experience’ in a “diachronic and holistic sense,” and sees the former as too narrowly focused on only part of an experience. On Scrutton’s understanding, much more, perhaps even all of what is recounted about Abeo would count as parts of her experience—thus, a BA account of this experience being correct would mean that all of the individual instances of voice hearing would be both psychopathological and genuine religious experiences (in some sense). In contrast, on the former more circumscribed understanding, each instance in which Abeo “seem[ed] to hear God talk to her” would count as a distinct experience—and thus, a BA account might be correctly applied to only some of these instances. While Scrutton’s approach can sidestep skeptical worries stemming from this view—what to make of the fact that Abeo may genuinely hear God speak to her on one day, but only seem to hear God speaking to her on another—I believe the former understanding of ‘experience’ allows for important nuance and specificity when addressing these issues. As a friendly clarification, this point mainly draws attention to the different implications of understanding Scrutton’s models as employing either the first or the second understanding of ‘experience.’In objecting to the Mysterium Tremendum Model 1, she claims that because Christians (qua Christians) “do not undergo suffering pointlessly [(i.e., in a way that does not further their spiritual life)],” genuine (salutary) religious experience would not lead to psychopathology (presumably pointless suffering). Notably, the claim that psychopathology results in pointless suffering is seemingly challenged both by Scrutton’s preferred Model 4... (shrink)

This important book on Land Education offers critical analysis of the paths forward for education on Indigenous land. This analysis discusses the necessity of centring historical and current contexts of colonization in education on and in relation to land. In addition, contributors explore the intersections of environmentalism and Indigenous rights, in part inspired by the realisation that the specifics of geography and community matter for how environmental education can be engaged. This edited volume suggests how place-based pedagogies can respond to (...) issues of colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty. Through dynamic new empirical and conceptual studies, international contributors examine settler colonialism, Indigenous cosmologies, Indigenous land rights, and language as key aspects of Land Education. The book invites readers to rethink 'pedagogies of place' from various Indigenous, postcolonial, and decolonizing perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Environmental Education Research. _. (shrink)

The work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy shares with the thinkers of the ‘theological turn in phenomenology’ the programmatic desire to place the ‘theological’, in the broad sense of rethinking the religious traditions in our secular time, back on the agenda of critical thought. Like those advocating a theological turn in phenomenology, Nancy’s deconstructive approach to philosophical analysis aims to develop a new sensibility for the other, for transcendence, conceptualized as the non-apparent in the realm of appearing phenomena. This (...) is why Nancy launches a project looking for the ‘unthought’ and unexpected within the Christian traditions, called deconstruction of Christianity. However, the deconstructive approach to the non-apparent differs fundamentally from that of the thinkers of the turn (1) in its being non-apologetic and non-restorative with regard to religion, because it starts from a problematization of the—typically modern, that is romantic—desire to defend and protect what would be ‘lost’ and possibly to restore this, (2) in its focus on the complex difference-at-work (différance) between religion and secularism, a difference that can be termed entanglement and complicity between these two, (3) in its hypothesis that this entanglement is essentially one between (the meaning and experience of, the rituality around) presence and absence in modern culture, (4) in its conviction that the philosophy and history of culture must join, support, complete and maybe even turn around phenomenology when dealing with the difficult task of determining what exactly would be ‘left’ of the ‘theological’ in our time. In this article, both positions are compared and confronted further, leading to an account of Nancy’s re-readings of the Christian legacy (its theology, doctrine, art, rituals etc.), and ending in a more detailed, exemplary inquiry into the tension between distance and proximity, characteristic of the Christian God. (shrink)

This book deals with the relationship between feminism and liberalism in theory and practice. The author argues that rather than seeing liberalism as exclusionary of women's specificity, as many contemporary feminists do, we should look at variations in liberalism, and in particular at its democratization in the nineteenth century and how feminists have used liberalism as a resource. Liberalism is analyzed using a post-structuralist theory of hegemony: texts of liberal political philosophy are deconstructed to show how the term "women" is (...) used as an "undecidable" in the Derridean sense to produce the opposition between feminine private and masculine public spheres; these texts are then linked to liberal-democratic social and political practices, including feminism as a social movement. (shrink)

Binz et al. argue that meta-learned models are essential tools for understanding adult cognition. Here, we propose that these models are particularly useful for testing hypotheses about why learning processes change across development. By leveraging their ability to discover optimal algorithms and account for capacity limitations, researchers can use these models to test competing theories of developmental change in learning.

This dissertation examines the evolution of David Hume's ethics, focusing on moral judgment, moral motivation and ethical normativity. In chapter one, I argue that previous scholars have missed a crucial distinction between two different sympathetic processes at work in the Treatise. The first sympathetic process, "particular sympathy" is analogous to ordinary empathy and variable in just the way empathy is, but a second, non-variable process, "extensive sympathy" is the source of our moral sentiments. In chapter two, I give an account (...) of Hume's understanding of ethical normativity in the Treatise, arguing that he holds that society, our intimate relationships, and even our ability to be actively concerned with our long-term interests all depend on our adopting extensive sympathy as a standard by which to regulate our character and our passions. The view of moral motivation which then emerges is one on which our moral sentiments play the role of redirecting our natural passions and desires. ;In chapters three and four, I consider the second Enquiry, arguing that what had changed by the time of that work was not primarily the doctrine of Hume's ethics, but his view of the project of writing moral philosophy. In the Treatise, Hume seeks to explain and justify moral standards and judgments, while in the second Enquiry Hume also seeks to inspire people to regulate their lives by those standards and judgments. Only if we are alert to Hume's project in the second Enquiry will we at last resolve debates over whether Hume abandoned the doctrine of sympathy by the time of that work. Similarly, we need to understand the project of that work if we are to understand the section therein on our "interested obligation to virtue," and the appendix to that work called, "A Dialogue." ;In concluding, I place Hume against the map of contemporary ethics, arguing that philosophers with a broad variety of non-Humean and Humean committments have reason to take Hume's ethics seriously, in part because the account of Hume's ethics for which I have argued changes the map of contemporary ethics. (shrink)

This article focuses on Francis Hutcheson'sReflections Upon Laughter, which was originally published in 1725 as a series of three letters toThe Dublin Journalduring his time in the city. Although rarely considered a significant example of Hutcheson's published work,Reflections Upon Laughterhas long been recognised in the philosophy of laughter as a foundational contribution to the ‘incongruity theory’ – one of the ‘big three’ theories of laughter, and that which is still considered the most credible by modern theorists. The article gives an (...) account of Hutcheson's text but, rather than evaluating it solely as an explanation of laughter, the approach taken is an historical one: it emphasises the need to reconnect the theory to the cultural and intellectual contexts in which it was published and to identify the significance of Hutcheson's arguments in time and place. Through this, the article argues that Hutcheson's theory of laughter is indicative of the perceived significance of human risibility in early eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland and, more broadly, that it contributed both to moral philosophical debate and polite conduct guidance. (shrink)

In conceptualizing vulnerability, it is common for researchers to assume that some participants are more vulnerable on the basis of their membership of a particular group or because they exhibit particular characteristics. Older people are often viewed as inherently more vulnerable by ethics committees and the ethical guidelines committees construct. Because age alone does not confer or cause vulnerability, risk of harm to older research participants is not purely associated with their intrinsic connection to a vulnerable group, and classifying older (...) research participants as vulnerable may not necessarily protect them from harm. Drawing on the preliminary findings of a qualitative study of older people who had survived a suicide attempt, we reflect on how the specific context of our study had the potential of framing older people as vulnerable, and describe ways in which these were managed and resolved. Specifically, we discuss potential for harm through the ethical principles of coercion and distress. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist Women and Interfaith Work in the United StatesKate DuganWomen from a wide array of backgrounds and interest areas continue to shape the face of Buddhism in the United States—from women who encountered Buddhism during the women's movement in the 1960s to ordained women founding temples for large immigrant populations; from women carving out a space for Buddhism in colleges and universities to Buddhist women engaged in interfaith dialogue (...) and working in interreligious settings. As Buddhist scholar Rita Gross notes, the experiences of women in Buddhism in the United States are wide and varied.1Increasingly, whether they are ordained Buddhist nuns or are Buddhist activists, women in the United States are engaging with questions of interfaith conversations within this multireligious nation. Around the country, Buddhist nuns dialogue with their Catholic counterparts. In local communities, Buddhist women assume leadership roles in interfaith groups. Behind prison walls, women offer Buddhist meditation instruction. Some women introduce tenets of Buddhism to their communities, while others promote justice with people from various faith traditions. On college campuses, Buddhist women work as chaplains and women Buddhologists integrate Buddhism and interfaith dialogue into their academic interests. This article aims to explore several snapshots of Buddhist women engaged in interfaith dialogue and working as Buddhists in interreligious settings; it is not intended to provide all-inclusive coverage of the many and diverse women in Buddhism in the United States engaged with an increasingly religiously diverse country.2Historical Glance: Buddhist Women and Interfaith Dialogue in the United StatesRita Gross suggests that women in the United States began practicing Buddhism in the 1960s and 1970s because "the basic teachings [of Buddhism] were gender-free and gender-neutral, and many found the practice of meditation... intensely liberating."3 Yet, the history of Buddhism is dominated by patriarchal structures and male-centered liturgical and ordination practices. As Buddhism [End Page 31] grew American roots, women found that "deeper explorations into the traditional texts revealed misogynistic passages as well as a strong overall tendency to favor men over women in matters of study and practice."4 No longer certain that Buddhism was any less fettered by patriarchy than other traditions, uneasiness bubbled within the experiences of Buddhist women.In the early 1980s, Cambridge Buddhist Association member Suzie Bowman noted the similarities among women's experiences of American Buddhism—including struggles of motherhood in a tradition that emphasizes the quiet of meditation halls and an alarming number of stories about abusive male teachers. In 1983, Bowman and the Providence Zen Center hosted a conference called "The Feminine in Buddhism"; seventy women attended. A two-day conference, with 120 participants, followed in 1984. In 1985, they hosted a three-day gathering.5These inspired budding Buddhist Sandy Boucher to take to the road to understand Buddhism in women's lives. She interviewed more than one hundred Buddhist women in their homes, workplaces, sangha. In Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism, Boucher paints portraits of women in Buddhism in the United States in the mid 1980s—immigrant women from Asia who transplanted their Buddhism, white women who discovered Buddhism in tandem with feminism, women of color who encountered a white-dominated Buddhism. In these women's experiences, she suggests, is American Buddhism with "the possibility for the creation of a religion fully inclusive of women's realities."6Against this background, Rita Gross was blazing a trail for Buddhist women in interfaith dialogue. In 1980, an eager Gross attended the first International Buddhist-Christian Dialogue conference. She presented ideas that, twenty years later she says, encompassed "everything to which I have devoted my scholarly attention:... feminism, non-Christian religions, accurate information about world religions, Buddhism, Buddhism and feminism, interreligious interchange, even theology of religion."7 After this first splash, Rita Gross attended the 1984 International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter—the only woman in attendance.8 The organizers were eager to have more women participate; so was Gross. After that conference, she made her further involvement contingent upon more women's involvement. Because of this insistence, members did, and continue to, work toward equal gender representation.9 In 1992, Gross explained, from a personal perspective, the potential... (shrink)

Among the thousands who arrive in Europe to seek asylum each year, a significant number are children traveling on their own. Like adults, they are fleeing from war and armed conflict situations, persecution, severe poverty, and deprivation. Some arrive because they have been trafficked and some are fleeing for reasons specifically related to their status as children. They need special attention, not only in terms of specialized care and assistance, but also in terms of the refugee status determination procedure. When (...) they arrive in a country of asylum they risk further violations of their rights. This paper intends to outline the rignts of these children under international law; to highlight key protection concerns facing them, particularly in the European context; to summarize ways of how a UN/ngo program has attempted to address these problems; and to make some specific recommendations. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the twentieth century's most prominent atheists. But his philosophy was informed by theological writers and themes in ways that have not previously been acknowledged. In Sartre and Theology, Kirkpatrick examines Sartre's philosophical formation and rarely discussed early work, demonstrating how, and which, theology shaped Sartre's thinking. She also shows that Sartre's philosophy - especially Being and Nothingness and Existentialism is A Humanism - contributed to several prominent twentieth-century theologies, examining Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Liberation theologians (...) rebuttals and appropriations of Sartre. -/- For philosophers, this work opens up an unmined vein of influence on Sartre's work which illuminates his conceptual divergences from the German phenomenological tradition. And for theologians, it offers insights into a theologically informed atheism which provoked responses from some of the twentieth-century's greatest theologians - an atheism from which we can still learn much today. (shrink)

This article is concerned with post-Marxism and materialism in the work of Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. As `post-Marxists' these writers use `material' in a variety of ways, all of which indicate limits and constraints. The article focuses on one version of `materialism' in this work, a version that is more implied than elaborated, in which `material' is equivalent to institutionalized performativity or sedimented discourse: to `objective' social structures and institutions. Post-Marxists often use `the social' as equivalent to (...) `material' in this sense, to gesture towards the context in which politics succeeds or fails. I argue that the specificities of `the social' cannot be theorized from within the terms of post-Marxism itself and that Butler and Laclau acknowledge this limitation in their most recent work. I therefore conclude that post-Marxism needs a supplement that I call political sociology. This is a dangerous supplement in the Derridean sense: a necessary addition that destabilizes the value post-Marxism gives to the distinction between `social' and `political' in which the latter is the privileged term. (shrink)

White, Shelton, and Rivais (2018) invite us to consider the history of clinical ethics consultation and some of the key ideas that continue to inform professional ethics practice. That history now...

The increasing impact of humans on the earth might be expected to unite campaigners on behalf of animals and the environment. This is not always the case. There's more than a difference between animal welfare and conservation movements: identifying and understanding these differences will be an important factor in attempting to reconcile these two groups of people. Such reconciliation is worth aiming for, since the human threat is in many ways a real one, and animal and environmental campaigners would be (...) better off allied than divided. (shrink)

This collection of essays on the social history of disciplinary practices in education in North America, Northern Europe, and Colonial Bengal coverage upon an understanding that schools regulate the behavior of beliefs of students, teachers, and parents by enforcing certain disciplinary social norms.