The multiverse hypothesis is the leading alternative to the competing fine-tuning hypothesis. The multiverse dispels many aspects of the fine-tuning argument by suggesting that there are different initial conditions in each universe, varying constants of physics, and the laws of nature lose their known arbitrary values; thus, making the previous single-universe argument from fine- tuning incredibly weak. The position that will be advocated will be that a form of multiverse could exist and that any level of Tegmark's multiverse does not (...) circumvent the fine-tuning argument for the existence of a fine-tuner. An argument will be presented suggesting that the multiverse could strengthen the fine-tuning argument by narrowing down the parameters of the data to a more fundamental description needed for the multiverse to function as it does since it may be the case that some physical descriptions are not the same in every universe. That is, the task of explaining how the multiverse mechanism functions cannot be accounted for by the multiverse itself. Fine-tuning by a mind serves as a sufficient and best explanation for the data. (shrink)

Historically, Thomas Aquinas has been controversial for his use of Averroistic-Aristotelian metaphysics. Because of his doctrine of simplicity many of argued that this entails a necessitarian view of nature—a debate that would pass through Spinoza, Descartes, and even to this day. Nevertheless, Thomas would prevail, not only to sainthood, but to become the patron of education and the Teacher of the Church. The task in this paper is to demonstrate that, contrary to many current contentions in Protestant, and especially Evangelical (...) circles, Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics remains a suitable, viable, even preferable framework for Christian Theism and, for the purposes of this paper, scientific thought. The specific focus will be on creation metaphysics and the relationship between current science and Christian thought raised by Lydia Jaeger. I will conclude with an example of the ability of radical contingency in Thomas to both satisfy contemporary physics and frame a consistent and coherent Christian Theism. (shrink)

This book examines the formation of the Chinese empire through its reorganization and reinterpretation of its basic spatial units: the human body, the household ...

Through an immanent critique of Peter McLaren's recent work, the author demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of critical-revolutionary paedagogy. This review reveals internal lacks, gaps, and contradictions emerging from within the three main dimensions of McLaren's overarching manifesto including passion, reason, and revolution. Although McLaren is an important voice in linking Marxist political and cultural theory to the practice of education, his work ultimately cannot complete its own project and as such needs further development.

In several enigmatic passages, Paulo Freire describes the pedagogy of the oppressed as a ‘pedagogy of laughter’. The inclusion of laughter alongside problem‐posing dialogue might strike some as ambiguous, considering that the global exploitation of the poor is no laughing matter. And yet, laughter seems to be an important aspect of the pedagogy of the oppressed. In this paper, I examine the role of laughter in Freire's critical pedagogy through a series of questions: Are all forms of laughter equally emancipatory? (...) Certainly a revolutionary pedagogue can laugh, but should he or she, and what are the political (if not revolutionary) implications of this laughter? In order to shed new light on Freire's fleeting yet provocative comments, I turn to Jacques Rancière for his emphasis on the aesthetics of politics, and Paulo Virno who connects joke telling with critical theory. Overall, I argue that we need to take Freire's gesture toward a pedagogy of laughter seriously in order to understand the aesthetics of critical pedagogy and the fundamental need for a redistribution of the sensible that underlies educational relations between masters and pupils. (shrink)

: Here it is demonstrated how, in the early ru philosophical discussions of human nature and the pivotal role of education, the concept of "custom" came to play a crucial role. This concept became the standard rubric for all defective education or upbringing. Custom was defective because it was partial, tied to the character of place, and dominated by the attraction of material objects. This contrasted with the "classicist" education of the ru that was all-encompassing, grounded in the refined culture (...) of the Zhou literary and musical heritage, and detached from the desire for material goods. (shrink)

Italian critical theorist Giorgio Agamben is well known for his rigorous attempts to redefine political, aesthetic, and theological concepts through messianic categories. For Agamben, the messianic is not concerned with perpetual waiting for a savior to come and redeem the world. Rather, it concerns the radically open potentiality for action within the contemporary moment. While the temporality of the messianic moment has been emphasized both by Agamben and by the vast secondary literature that has provided ample reflections on his body (...) of work, the important concept of messianic space has not been given equal treatment. Space and time must be thought together if we are to appreciate the unique qualities of .. (shrink)

The current trajectory of artificial intelligence development suffers from fundamental epistemological shortcomings, resulting in the systematic operationalization of bias against non-white, non-male, and non-Western peoples. We argue that these failings are, in part, the result of certain Western rationalist epistemologies that exclude many ways of knowing about the world, and therefore they cannot provide a sufficient foundation on which to adequately, robustly, and humanely conceptualize intelligence. We present a new research agenda, Abundant Intelligences, an Indigenous-led, Indigenous-majority international, interdisciplinary research program (...) that imagines anew how to conceptualize and design artificial intelligence (AI) based on Indigenous knowledge (IK) systems. Abundant Intelligences draws on the rich plurality of Indigenous knowledge systems, bringing together diverse sets of thought, culture, and protocol together. We show IK systems provide one way to rebuild AI’s epistemological foundations and transform these tools’ current role in reinforcing colonial practices of exclusion, extraction, manipulation, and eradication into engines of abundance that enable us to care better for ourselves, our communities, and our world. Our proposition is to fully engage with AI to explore how different conceptions of intelligence could be embodied in these technologies. In this paper, we present the tenets of the research program in detail, account for our methodological approach, describe the impact and limitations, and conclude on a discussion of the implications of the program. (shrink)

In this article I re-examine the role that aesthetics play in Paulo Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed. As opposed to the vast majority of scholarship in this area, I suggest that aesthetics play a more centralised role in pedagogy above and beyond arts-based curricula. To help clarify Freire's position, I will argue that underlying the linguistic resolution of the student/teacher dialectic in the problem-posing classroom is an accompanying shift in the very aesthetics of recognition. In order to demonstrate the always (...) already aesthetic nature of all education, I will turn to the aesthetic philosophy of Jacques Rancière. Through Rancière we can begin to understand how the pedagogy of the oppressed is predicated on an aesthetic redistribution of the sensible, of what can be seen and what can be heard. As Rancière will confirm, if we truly want to understand the aesthetics of pedagogy, we cannot simply see aesthetics as external to teaching and learning. Rather, education as an aesthetic event has to be taken seriously, and aesthetics should regain primacy in discussions of critical pedagogy. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the importance of Giorgio Agamben’s theory of potentiality for rethinking education. While potentiality has been a long-standing concern for educational practitioners and theorists, Agamben’s work is unique in that it emphasizes how potentiality can only be thought of in relation to impotentiality. This moment of indistinction—what I refer to as im-potential—has important implications. First, I argue that if potentiality and impotentiality are separated from one another, the result is a stratified educational system where some students (...) are commanded to actualize their potentiality in the form of standardized tests while others are abandoned by the system. Second, thinking im-potentiality enables us to move beyond problematic formulations of learning and rediscover the uniqueness of studying. Here, I offer a brief example of study through an analysis of ‘Tinkering Schools’, an alternative program founded by Gever Tulley in San Francisco. And finally, without a concept of im-potentiality, the discourse of the ‘child genius’ becomes commodified as a power to be harnessed and actualized in the name of neoliberal entrepreneurialism. Only through a return to im-potentiality can we reclaim Genius and its relationship to the question of educational freedom. (shrink)

Eric Lewis - God and Reason in the Middle Ages - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 393-394 Book Review God and Reason in the Middle Ages Edward Grant. God and Reason in the Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 397. Cloth, $64.95. Paper, $22.95. History has not been kind to the vast era we call the "Middle Ages." The name designates an intellectual hiatus between (...) the philosophical and technical genius of ancient Greece and Rome and the "rebirth" of knowledge in the Renaissance. Edward Grant wants this to change. He suggests that we consider the period following the establishment of scholasticism until the sixteenth century the pinnacle of an "Age of Reason." In this vein, Grant's latest book is pure apologetics for the Middle Ages. Grant.. (shrink)

Are morals subjective? -- Ancient moral thinkers -- Socrates (469-399 bce) -- Aristotle (384-322 bce) -- Epicurus (342-270 bce) -- Epictetus (55-135 ce) -- Modern moral thinkers -- Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) -- Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) -- Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) -- David Hume (1711-1776) -- Adam Smith (1723-1790) -- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) -- Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).

ABSTRACT This paper explores the neglected manuscripts and publications of Edward Hart, an early eighteenth-century Nonjuring bricklayer, whose determination to promote his cause ultimately led to his death. By discussing Hart’s support for High Church doctrines, such as the apostolic succession and non-resistance, this study challenges traditional historiographical associations between artisan theology and ‘radical’ anticlericalism, while also illuminating the fundamental role played by the Nonjuring laity in the dissemination of conservative politico-theological ideas. Moreover, by discussing Hart’s defence of Anglican (...) ‘orthodoxy’, this paper shows that the Nonjurors operated not on the fringes but in the very centre of the early eighteenth-century politico-theological arena. Despite his fierce opposition to the perceived anticlericalism of Latitudinarians and Dissenters, Hart was not entirely subservient to Nonjuring divines. Rather, Hart openly challenged the liturgical reforms proposed by some Nonjuring clergymen, which, he believed, threatened the dwindling communion’s survival. (shrink)

Edward Elliott and Jessica Isserow argue that it is not usually in the best interests of ordinary human beings to learn the truth of moral nihilism. According to Elliott and Isserow, ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism that are unlikely to be fully compensated for by any benefits. Here I provide reasons to doubt that ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism and present a dilemma for (...) Elliott and Isserow’s view. (shrink)

For many years there has been a good deal of scholarly and ideological writing on the correspondence which is said to have taken place between Karl Marx and Charles Darwin. The two presumed letters from Charles Darwin to Karl Marx have been published several times, and their significance appraised. In this article their authenticity as letters to Marx is discussed and questioned, and the possibility that Edward Aveling is the addressee of at least one of them is argued.

The lead-off essay by Kenneth Minogue is an Oakeshottian reflection on the extent to which modern people have become passive spectators of action, detached from traditional loyalties and modes of identity and thus a kind of new Epicurean, shorn of the genuinely contemplative character of the originals. Eric Ormsby follows this with a judicious appraisal of the possibilities and perils for culture associated with the advent of the new information technology. Anthony Daniels provides a similarly sober account of the many (...) consequences and dilemmas of medical technology for the noble Hippocratic art. David Pryce-Jones’s essay recounts the antipolitical utopianism of the totalitarian ideologies that shadowed most of the twentieth century and worries about the potentially destructive utopian tendencies in the contemporary project of European integration. Keith Windschuttle surveys the range of ideologies currently deployed in the academy, most of which derive from vulgarizations of Nietzsche. Edward Said’s influential body of work comes in for particular scrutiny here. Mark Steyn contributes a discussion of the now all-too-familiar self-hatred of Western intellectuals with the blunt precision and wit so characteristic of his splendid newspaper columns. Martin Greenberg’s essay on Burke manages to educe in brief compass the understanding of freedom that is the animating heart of that exemplary statesman’s thought and practice. Diana Schaub makes a case for the importance of political philosophy to the practice of modern politics centered on the statesmanship of Lincoln. Robert Bork’s chapter on the “adversary judiciary” limns the extent to which judges have gone from being the guarantors of the rule of law to the most effective antagonists of traditional institutions and values. Finally, Roger Kimball fittingly recalls the original Ciceronian understanding of culture as the development of the mind analogous to the cultivation of the earth, and connects it with the celebrated program of criticism proposed by Matthew Arnold. (shrink)

The views of David Lewis and the Meinongians are both often met with an incredulous stare. This is not by accident. The stunned disbelief that usually accompanies the stare is a natural first reaction to a large ontology. Indeed, Lewis has been explicitly linked with Meinong, a charge that he has taken great pains to deny. However, the issue is not a simple one. "Meinongianism" is a complex set of distinctions and doctrines about existence and predication, in addition (...) to the famously large ontology. While there are clearly non-Meinongian features of Lewis' views, it is our thesis that many of the characteristic elements of Meinongian metaphysics appear in Lewis' theory. Moreover, though Lewis rejects incomplete and inconsistent Meinongian objects, his ontology may exceed that of a Meinongian who doesn't accept his possibilia. Thus, Lewis explains the truth of "there might have been talking donkeys" by appealing to possibilia which are talking donkeys. But the Meinongian need not accept that there exist things which are talking donkeys. Indeed, we show that a Meinongian even need not accept that there are nonexistent things which are talking donkeys! (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 6, September 2019, Page 662-683.

This paper describes an episode in the life of the prominent plant radiation geneticist, Lewis J. Stadler during which he became a target of the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning loyalty to the United States due to possible associations with the communist party. The research is based on considerable private correspondence of Dr. Stadler, the FBI interrogatory questions and Dr. Stadler’s answers and letters of support for Dr. Stadler by leading scientists such as, Hermann J. Muller.

Spanning some twenty-five years of work, an intriguing study of the photography of Charles Lutwidge Dogson presents a rich array of more than 450 images that capture diverse facets of Victorian society, his relationship with the children he photographed, portraits of famous personalities of the time, narrative tableaux, and bizarre studies of anatomical skeletons.

In this paper, we propose analogies between medical discourse and Edward Said's “Orientalism.” Medical discourse, like Orientalism, tends to favor institutional interests and can be similarly dehumanizing in its reductionism, textual representations, and construction of its subjects. To resist Orientalism, Said recommends that critics—“intellectuals”—adopt the perspective of exile. We apply Said's paradigm of intellectual-as-exile to better understand the work of key physician-authors who cross personal and professional boundaries, who engage with patients in mutually therapeutic relationships, and who take on (...) the public responsibility of representation and advocacy. We call these physician-authors “medical intellectuals” and encourage others to follow in their path. (shrink)