This selection consists of extracts from writings of women concerned solely with the pursuit of abstract ideas, historically contextualized. The texts, for the most part, reflect issues widely debated in their contemporary societies. Extracts from lesser-known writers are also included, providing a diversity of arguments spanning four centuries and including some notable contemporary philosophers.

(2007). A Rview Of “Asian Americans in Class: Charting the Achievement Gap Among Korean American Youth”. Educational Studies: Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 68-71.

I. Immanuel Kant claims that the existence of God cannot be proved by speculative theology, yet that speculative theology is the only means by which the existence of God can definitively be proved. All knowledge, Kant argues, including that of God’s existence, must be based on the forms of possible experience or deduced from premises known to be true: in the case of the existence of God, however, the former is impossible because God transcends experience, and the latter is impossible (...) because the premises themselves, to be known to be true, would have to be grounded in possible experience, while, by the very nature of the question, possible experience has been excluded. Thus, the existence of God cannot be known in the usual sense, that is, by means of the theoretical employment of reason. (shrink)

In his De Natura et Origine Animae, an answer to a work by Vincentius Victor, Augustine was drawn into attempting to answer some questions about what kind of reality dream-bodies, dream-worlds and dream-pains have. In this paper I concentrate on Augustine's attempts to show that none of Victor's arguments for the corporeality of the soul are any good, and that Victor's inflated claims about the extent of the soul's self-knowledge are the result of mistaking self-awareness for self-knowledge. Augustine takes the (...) position that the feelings we have in dreams and the feelings of the dead, although they are real feelings, are not always the feelings they seem to be. This position is consistent with Augustine's later works, though it departs from his understanding of these issues in his earliest works. (shrink)

Aristotle on Teaching examines teaching in general, and analyzes the objects, procedures, and order found in all student learning, furnishing the guidelines for the culminating section on the inductive and deductive procedures underlying all teaching. It explores Aristotle's doctrine to discover its relevance for the art of teaching, defined as the act of explaining the truth to those being taught, through the lucid explanations of Thomas Aquinas on the writings of Aristotle.

This volume explores two questions of interest to a larger intellectual community: (1) what constituted knoweldge in the context of early modern Germany and (2) how knowledge was gathered, assembled, organized, deployed, and interpreted. The perspective is interdisciplinary and the contributions represent several fields of scholarly inquiry.

The thesis of underdetermination of theory by evidence has led to an opposition between realism and relationism in philosophy of science. Various forms of the thesis are examined, and it is concluded that it is true in at least a weak form that brings realism into doubt. Realists therefore need, among other things, a theory of degrees of confirmation to support rational theory choice. Recent such theories due to Glymour and Friedman are examined, and it is argued that their criterion (...) of "unification" for good theories is better formulated in Bayesian terms. Bayesian confirmation does, however, have consequences that tell against realism. It is concluded that the prospects are dim for scientific realism as usually understood. (shrink)

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft ranged from the early Thoughts on the Education of Daughters to The Female Reader, a selection of texts for girls, and included two novels. But her reputation is founded on A Vindication of the Rights of Woman of 1792. This treatise is the first great document of feminism—and is now accepted as a core text in western tradition. It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft's great work came out of an earlier (...) and much shorter vindication—A Vindication of the Rights of Men , written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition, which follows the model of other Broadview Editions in including a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era out of which it emerged, is arranged chronologically, opening with Wollstonecraft's "other vindication." It also includes a wide range of other documents in appendices, as well as a comprehensive and authoritative introduction, chronology, and full index. (shrink)

This edited text recaptures many of Joe L. Kincheloe's national and international influences. An advocate and a scholar in the social, historical, and philosophical foundations of education, he dedicated his professional life to his vision of critical pedagogy. The authors in this volume found mentorship, as well as kinship, in Joe and express the many ways in which he and his work made profound differences in their work and lives. Joe's research always pushed the limits of what critically reflective and (...) informed teaching entailed, never diluting the import of comprehending the complexity of sociopolitical, cultural, economic, and educational discourses and practices. Dedicated to a praxis of social and political activism rooted in students' development as citizens and workers, the labor of teachers as action researchers, cultural workers, and social mediators is always at the heart of all he achieved. We who were so influenced directly and indirectly by him knew his genius and relished the generosity with which he shared his ideas, advice, encouragement, and art. The world is better because of Joe L. Kincheloe scholarship-inextricably related to "critical" critical thinking and enactment of education that tenaciously interrupts complacency, mediocrity, always responding thoughtfully to particular educational contexts. (shrink)

This paper: (1) gives a schema of the logical structure of functional explanation in biology; (2) shows that it falls under the covering law model of explanation by proving that the explanandum follows from the explanans; and (3) supports the claim that it captures the logical structure underlying the biological usage by analyzing in detail two cases from biology.

St. Augustine of Hippo wrote the ’De Trinitate’ to explain to critics of the Nicene Creed how the Christian doctrine of the divinity and coequality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is present in Scripture. He also wanted to convince philosophers that Christ is the Wisdom they sought. Augustine’s third purpose was to correlate the biblical truth that all human persons are created to image God, a Trinity, a communion of love, with the first two Commandments of the Old and (...) New Testaments. Augustine succeeded in showing the need for combining faith and reason for a greater understanding of Scripture as well as for a greater understanding of the true nature and destiny of human persons. Augustine emphasized the scriptural revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and used reason to convince philosophers that the one and three-Personed God is philosophically and logically defensible. He concluded that the likeness of human persons to Christ and to the Trinity is accomplished not onl. (shrink)

If Kant's account of rights had continued the "early modern Natural Law tradition", basing rights on some notion of human flourishing, there would be no difficulty about including socio-economic rights for the needy in his theory. However, his division of moral philosophy into Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre limits Rechtspflichten to duties that a moral agent can be coerced to fulfill. If a state is to give the needy statutory rights, the justification for using coercion on its citizens cannot be that they (...) have a duty of virtue to assist the needy. In order to determine whether such a justification can be found, the one innate socio-economic right Kant admits, a child's right to be cared for and educated, is examined and found to be a right against its parents, not against the state. Kant does, however, hold that a state should establish institutions to provide for abandoned children and for the poor in general. His justification for a state's use of coercion with regard to such statutory rights is considered and a criterion is suggested for the possible consent of its non-virtuous citizens to proposed measures for assistance to the needy. It is suggested that if advocates of aid to the needy cannot justify their proposals by such a criterion they will have to provide a very different account of rights than Kant gives in his Rechtslehre , which is concerned with the moral permissibility of using coercion. Wenn Kants Lehre von den subjektiven Rechten nichts anderes wäre als eine Fortsetzung der "ihr vorangehenden modernen Naturrechtstradition" und die subjektiven Rechte infolgedessen auf das eine oder andere Konzept von menschlichem Wohlergehen gestützt hätte, dann wäre es nicht sonderlich schwierig, sozio-ökonomische Rechte für die Bedürftigen in diese Lehre einzubauen. Nun schränkt Kants Einteilung der Moralphilosophie in Rechtslehre und Tugendlehre den Begriff der Rechtspflicht allerdings auf diejenigen Pflichten ein, zu deren Erfüllung ein Mensch gezwungen werden kann. Deshalb kann, wenn ein Staat den Bedürftigen durch ein positives Gesetz irgendwelche Rechte auf Hilfe gewährt, die Rechtfertigung der Anwendung von staatlichem Zwang nicht darin gesucht werden, daß die dadurch in Anspruch genommenen Personen die Tugendpflicht haben, die Bedürftigen zu unterstützen. Um festzustellen, ob sich staatlicher Zwang in bezug auf solche Hilfspflichten überhaupt rechtfertigen läßt, erörtert der Beitrag das Recht des Kindes auf Fürsorge und Ausbildung als das eine und einzige angeborene sozio-ökonomische Recht, das Kant akzeptiert. Freilich ist das Recht des Kindes ein Recht gegen seine Eltern und nicht gegen den Staat. Gleichwohl nimmt Kant an, daß der Staat Einrichtungen schaffen sollte, die für verlassene Kinder und für die Armen im allgemeinen zu sorgen haben. Der Beitrag untersucht die Rechtfertigung, die Kant für die Anwendung von staatlichem Zwang zur Durchsetzung solcher positiv-gesetzlicher Rechte gibt, und arbeitet die Gründe dafür heraus, warum der nicht tugendhafte Staatsbürger in die vorgesehenen Hilfsmaßnahmen für die Bedürftigen einwilligen könnte. Wenn sich die Verfechter von Hilfsmaßnahmen für die Bedürftigen außerstande sehen, ihre Vorschläge auf Gründe dieser Art zu stützen, dann werden sie mit einem Konzept von subjektivem Recht aufwarten müssen, das sich von dem Konzept Kants von Recht und Rechtslehre , bei dem es allein um die moralische Erlaubtheit von Zwangsmaßnahmen geht, ganz erheblich unterscheidet. (shrink)

Pressure is mounting to hold researchers and research institutions accountable for the protection of human subjects. When subjects or their family members believe they have been injured, they are increasingly willing to file lawsuits. Recent cases indicate that institutional review boards and their members may be pulled more and more into the legal fray.On September 17, 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died while participating in research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Gene Therapy. Gelsinger was involved in a Phase (...) I clinical trial testing a new approach to treatment of ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, a rare metabolic disorder. Although infants affected by the severe form of OTC die shortly after birth, Gelsinger suffered from a relatively mild form. It appears undisputed that the cause of Gelsinger's death was not the disorder itself, but multiple organ system failure triggered by the virus used to carry new genetic material into his system. (shrink)

A SKETCH OF THE MORAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY Introduction Ethics is generally denned as the theoretic study of human morality; but the word is also used to cover the scheme of behaviour approved by a community or civilization and ...