In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justifying the Arts:Drama and Intercultural EducationMike Fleming (bio)IntroductionFor teachers of arts subjects, questions about justification can be tiresome in the same way that contemporary aestheticians may feel fatigue about defining art.1 Providing justification can feel more like an exercise in rhetoric than theoretical enquiry, induced more by political necessity than intellectual challenge. If the value of the arts is not self-evident, it is difficult to advance arguments to convince (...) those who have no knowledge or affinity with them. Not that many educationists admit to falling into the latter category. As Eisner has said, nobody wants to be seen as a philistine.2 Yet to those with a deep commitment to the value of the arts in education and wider society, the arts are rarely thought to be taken as seriously as they should be.3 This paper will describe five approaches to the question of justifying the arts before examining the specific case of drama and intercultural education.Approaches to Justifying the Teaching of the ArtsFaced with questions of justification, providing a list of reasons for teaching the arts is one approach but not the only one. Instead, looking for broader categories of justification within possible lists (e.g., between art and entertainment, feeling and cognition) exposes differences of emphasis more easily. Exploration of the tension between such concepts as "creating" and "responding" may help get behind bland claims of the kind that the arts can "develop creativity." In this way, the relevance of aesthetic theory, which often centers on the tension between competing concepts, can be demonstrated more readily. Another approach to the question of justification is to reject the idea that the arts should serve instrumental goals at all by advancing an argument in favor of their intrinsic rewards. A fourth approach is to [End Page 54] question whether it is appropriate to seek justification for the arts as a generic concept, rather than looking instead at individual art forms; the benefits of dance may be different in certain respects from those of visual arts. Finally, a priori enquiry could be abandoned altogether in favor of seeing what teachers actually say about their reasons for teaching the arts. Each of these positions will be examined briefly.Mortimer includes physical education and personal and social education among the areas of benefit he attributes to the arts.4 Within five broad categories, he describes further subcategories, amounting to more than seventeen reasons for teaching the arts. He also claims that the arts are a way of developing life skills and attitudes that are transferable across the curriculum and are a way of contextualizing other learning. It is easy to sympathize with someone who is passionate about the arts and concerned that they should be seen as a "fundamental" not as a "frill," but such general claims do not always bring clarity or insight. It is difficult for example to see how poetry "encourages physical confidence in balance." A visit to a children's home may be more fruitful in "developing sensitivity to others." The benefit of "using imagination and creativity" (a catchall phrase that on its own says very little) may in practice find tension with other stated benefits such as "discriminating, selecting, editing." The latter concepts suggest a more constrained, skills-oriented form of teaching rather than an approach that encourages free flow of imagination. Long lists of justifications can obscure theoretical differences and from a tactical point of view in the political arena can appear overblown. They are well meant but not always helpful. Nor do they go far in explaining the deep importance of the arts in so many people's lives.The influential Gulbenkian report in the United Kingdom was wide-ranging in its claims but reinforced the idea of the arts as being an alternative to academic study and what it termed "logico-deductive thought."5 "Society," it argued, "needs and values more than academic abilities." In the 1980s, many writers were keen to free themselves from the influence of narrow theories of self-expression to embrace a wider discipline-based approach but continued to underplay the cognitive dimensions of work in art.6 Of course an emphasis... (shrink)

This article intends to show that the defense of “understanding” as one of the major goals of science education can be grounded on an anti-reductionist perspective on testimony as a source of knowledge. To do so, we critically revisit the discussion between Harvey Siegel and Alvin Goldman about the goals of science education, especially where it involves arguments based on the epistemology of testimony. Subsequently, we come back to a discussion between Charbel N. El-Hani and Eduardo Mortimer, on the (...) one hand, and Michael Hoffmann, on the other, striving to strengthen the claim that rather than students’ belief change, understanding should have epistemic priority as a goal of science education. Based on these two lines of discussion, we conclude that the reliance on testimony as a source of knowledge is necessary to the development of a more large and comprehensive scientific understanding by science students. (shrink)

This volume, modeled after those published in The Library of Living Philosophers, attempts to provide a coherent statement of the work of Abraham Edel in moral and political theory, and on the impact of his work on such diverse areas as education, law, and social science. The methodological element of Edel's work is to see ethical and social theory in the full context of human life; specifically how twentieth-century modes of analysis impact classical concerns about right and wrong, good and (...) evil. The volume is tightly integrated from start to finish, and has the benefit of Edel's thoughtful and thoroughgoing response to critics. In short, while this work is a tribute to the work of a scholar, it aims to serve as a basic guide through the labyrinthian world of contemporary ethical theory and social practice. Contents: Beryl Harold Levy, "Reflective Culture as Philosophy of Law"; Betty A. Sichel, "Abraham Edel's Contribution to Philosophy of Education"; Gerald E. Myers, "Person and Personality--and Respect for Both"; Mihailo Markovic, "Abraham Edel on the Method of Ethical Theory"; Helen Block Lewis, "Consequences for Ethical Theory of a Focus on the Psychology of Shame and Guilt"; Edmund L. Pincoffs, "Ethics as an Explanatory Undertaking"; Standish Thayer, "The Network of Concepts: A New View of Aristotle"; Mortimer R. Kadish, "Abraham Edel and the Dream of Science"; Michael Levin, "Reflections on Non-Cognitivism"; Ralph W. Sleeper, "Naturalizing Legal Positivism"; Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Political Philosophy of Abraham Edel"; Finbarr W. O'Connor, "Network Analysis in Ethics"; Elizabeth Flower, "A Moral Agenda for Ethical Theory"; Abraham Edel, "Responses to Critics"; "An Edel Bibliography.". (shrink)

Humans are fundamentally social and tend to create emergent organizations when interacting with each other; from dyads to families, small groups, large groups, societies and civilizations. The study of the neuronal substrate of human social behavior is currently gaining momentum in the young field of social neuroscience. Hyperscanning is a neuroimaging technique by which we can study two or more brain simultaneously while participants interact with each other. The aim of this article is to discuss several factors that we deem (...) important in designing hyperscanning experiments. We first review hyperscanning studies performed by means of electroencephalography (EEG) that have been relying on a continuous interaction paradigm. Then, we provide arguments for favoring ecological paradigms, for studying the emotional component of social interactions and for performing longitudinal studies, the last two aspects being largely neglected so far in the hyperscanning literature despite their paramount importance in social sciences. Based on these premises we argue that music performance is a suitable experimental setting for hyperscanning and that for such studies EEG is an appropriate choice as neuroimaging modality. (shrink)

CAPPE LPO Box 8260 ANU Canberra ACT 2601 Australia Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 4355, Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 6579; Email: michael.selgelid{at}anu.edu.au ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract This article reviews ethically relevant history of tuberculosis and recent developments regarding extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). It argues that tuberculosis is one of the most important neglected topics in bioethics. With an emphasis on XDR-TB, it examines a range of the more challenging ethical issues associated with (...) tuberculosis: individual obligations to avoid infecting others, coercive social distancing measures, third-party notification, health workers' duty to treat contagious patients, and international justice. In each of these cases, key philosophical questions are highlighted and the need for empirical research/information is demonstrated. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect has a firm, respected position within Roman Catholic medical ethics. Neil M. Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, believes that this doctrine also enjoys a central place within U.S. law. This essay examines and assesses Gorsuch’s thesis. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 31–40.

Radical ecology typically brings to mind media images of ecological activists standing before loggers' saws, staging anti-nuclear marches, and confronting polluters on the high seas. Yet for more than twenty years, the activities of organizations such as the Greens and Earth First! have been influenced by a diverse, less-publicized group of radical ecological philosophers. It is their work—the philosophical underpinnings of the radical ecological movement—that is the subject of _Contesting Earth's Future_. The book offers a much-needed, balanced appraisal of radical (...) ecology's principles, goals, and limitations. Michael Zimmerman critically examines the movement's three major branches—deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. He also situates radical ecology within the complex cultural and political terrain of the late twentieth century, showing its relation to Martin Heidegger's anti-technological thought, 1960s counterculturalism, and contemporary theories of poststructuralism and postmodernity. An early and influential ecological thinker, Zimmerman is uniquely qualified to provide a broad overview of radical environmentalism and delineate its various schools of thought. He clearly describes their defining arguments and internecine disputes, among them the charge that deep ecology is an anti-modern, proto-fascist ideology. Reflecting both the movement's promise and its dangers, this book is essential reading for all those concerned with the worldwide ecological crisis. (shrink)

Let K be a finite set of finite structures. We give a syntactic characterization of the property: every element of K is injective in ISP(K). We use this result to establish that A is injective in ISP(A) for every two-element algebra A.

Auch der Philosoph Michael Pauen, Professor an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und Sprecher der Berlin School of Mind and Brain betont die menschliche Verantwortung für virtuelles Handeln. Sein Credo: Statt uns Angst vor Algorithmen einjagen zu lassen, sollten wir erkennen, dass hinter den Computern letztlich immer Menschen stehen. Wenn die Digitalisierung unsere Autonomie einschränkt, statt neue Freiheitsspielräume zu eröffnen, dann liegt dies also lediglich an unserem Umgang mit Computern. Pauen entlarvt allerdings auch die sozialen Dynamiken, die Autonomie erschweren.

The contribution deals with the sources of Kant's criticism of the historical knowledge of philosophy. This criticism is an important motif in Kant's thought. Its contents are directed against Wolffianism. Nevertheless it was Christian Wolff who gave Kant the concept of the historical knowledge of philosophy. This concept is of great importance for Wolff, too. It can be traced back to the fight against Aristotelian scholastic philosophy. The reading of the traditional handbooks was criticized early, and the individual's own meditation (...) was challenged. Wolff formulated these intentions in his term: the historical knowledge of philosophy. Christian Thomasius and his followers, on the other hand, continued to criticize learning with the help of the memory, and they demanded the individual's own meditation. From this the slogan 'Selbstdenken' originated. Because of the opposition between the Wolffians and their opponents, for a long time 'self-thinking' and 'historical knowledge of philosophy' were treated side by side and independently of each other. Kant was the first to connect them definitively. He acknowledges the clarity of Wolff's terminology, but fills it up with the old content. (shrink)

Chapter One distinguishes the early, individualistic, writings from the later, more socially conscious ones. The metaphysical language of impermeable surfaces and levels, and rigid hierarchies, is consonant in James's writing with the assumption of what Dewey calls an individual/society split. ;Chapter Two focuses upon the relational self from the Principles of Psychology. The central pair of terms is that of strength/fragility, in which a self is revealed that is both functionally efficacious through activities of emphasis, selection, and negation, and permeable (...) to context. ;Chapter Three discusses the "social organism" and the "intellectual republic" from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. James uses more socially conscious metaphors, and discusses the public and the private; "inner" and "outer" tolerance; and the "personal contribution," "X," which must be added to the "world," "M." ;Chapter Four discusses the "nucleus" of relations from Essays in Radical Empiricism. The personal aspect of social experience falls within the realm of "co-conscious relations" and the public falls within the sphere of the "conterminous." The strong side of the self, from Chapter Two; the private, or personal; inner tolerance; and the personal contribution, "X," from Chapter Three, belong to the sphere of co-conscious relations, as discussed in Chapter Four, just as the fragile side, the public; outer tolerance; and the world, "M," all belong to the sphere of conterminous relations. ;Chapter Five discusses the metaphor of Papini's corridor from Pragmatism. The adjoining rooms can be seen to symbolize the sphere of co-conscious relations, and the corridor of conterminous ones. The metaphysics of background and foreground points to an instrumentalist interpretation of the self, which represents a complete departure from James's early individualism. (shrink)

This article intends to show that the defense of “understanding” as one of the major goals of science education can be grounded on an anti-reductionist perspective on testimony as a source of knowledge. To do so, we critically revisit the discussion between Harvey Siegel and Alvin Goldman about the goals of science education, especially where it involves arguments based on the epistemology of testimony. Subsequently, we come back to a discussion between Charbel N. El-Hani and Eduardo Mortimer, on the (...) one hand, and Michael Hoffmann, on the other, striving to strengthen the claim that rather than students’ belief change, understanding should have epistemic priority as a goal of science education. Based on these two lines of discussion, we conclude that the reliance on testimony as a source of knowledge is necessary to the development of a more large and comprehensive scientific understanding by science students. (shrink)

In this volume, prominent political theorist Michael Zuckert presents an important and pathbreaking set of meditations on the thought of John Locke. In more than a dozen provocative essays, many appearing in print for the first time, Zuckert explores the complexity of Locke's engagement with his philosophical and theological predecessors, his profound influence on later liberal thinkers, and his amazing success in transforming the political understanding of the Anglo-American world. At the same time, he also demonstrates Locke's continuing relevance (...) in current debates involving such prominent thinkers as Rawls and MacIntyre. Zuckert's careful reconsideration of Locke's role as "launcher" of liberalism involves a sustained engagement with the hermeneutical issues surrounding Locke, an innovator who faced special rhetorical needs in addressing his contemporaries and the future. It also involves highlighting the novelty of Locke's position by examining his stance toward the philosophical and religious traditions in place when he wrote. Zuckert argues that neither of the dominant ways of understanding Locke's relations to his predecessors and contemporaries is adequate; he is not well seen as a follower of any orthodoxy nor of any anti-orthodoxy of his day, either philosophical or theological. He found a path to innovation that was philosophically radical but which was also able to connect with prevailing and accepted traditions. That allowed him to exercise a practical influence in history rarely, if ever, matched by any other philosopher. Zuckert illustrates that influence by showing how William Blackstone used Lockean philosophy to reshape the common law and how the Americans of the eighteenth century used Lockean philosophy to reshape Whig political thought. Zuckert argues that Locke's philosophy has continuing philosophic and political force, a proposition he demonstrates by arguing that Locke presents a form of political philosophy superior to that of the liberal theorists of our day and that he has solid rejoinders to contemporary critics of liberalism. (shrink)

How is devotion (bhakti) related to knowledge (jñāna)? Does one lead to the other? Do they correspond to different paths for different people? Commentators on the Bhagavad-Gītā have debated these questions for centuries. In this essay I will suggest, as many Indian commentators have, that the paths of devotion and knowledge described in the Gītā can be harmonized. I will not draw from Indian texts, however, but from a suggestive parallel in the history of Chinese religions: namely, the development of (...) a tradition of “dual cultivation” of Pure Land and Chan 禪. I will focus in particular on the works of Yunqi Zhuhong 雲棲祩宏 (1535–1615) and his use of the distinction between principle (li 理) and phenomenon (shi 事) to reconcile seemingly divergent religious paths. I will conclude by considering the implications of this synthesis for nondualist interpretations of the Gītā. (shrink)

In the third act of his journey, Michael McLeod, a beloved physician and professor emeritus of medicine at Duke University, has shown why he's an even more beloved professor of life. In a manner that is clear, practical, and inspiring, this book is an invitation to grow and flourish during what can be one of the most challenging periods in our lives. McLeod demonstrates his courage to share his journey and his willingness to learn from his medical students and (...) from the participants in his conscious aging workshops. As you read his words, you can learn alongside this respected elder. He has put together a powerful guide for living your life fully. (shrink)

Albert of Saxony was one of the great logicians of the Middle Ages, on a par with William Ockham and John Buridan. The Twenty-Five Disputed Questions on Logic treat of central issues in logic, both then and now, such as the nature of meaning, of universals, of truth, and of tense and modality; and the quality and quantity of propositions, the role of negation, and the relations of contradiction and equivalence between them. Dr. Fitzgerald has studied Albert's work extensively, and (...) previously edited the Twenty-Five Disputed Questions from the original manuscripts. This translation makes available for the first time in English this careful and exemplary examination of logical notions by an outstanding medieval thinker.-Stephen Read, University of St. Andrews. (shrink)

This volume consists of 21 essays on Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus-priest who was the architect of Renaissance Platonism.

(2004). Second thoughts on Gedachtes Wohnen. Philosophy & Geography: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 253-256.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 284-303 [Access article in PDF] Accidental Art:Tolstoy's Poetics of Unintentionality Michael A. Denner I ART'S ABILITY TO INFECT another with an emotion, the concept that has come to be probably the most readily identified catchphrase in What Is Art? (though it crops up in his earlier writings on art), derives from L. N. Tolstoy's dynamic identity claim about art: we know an artist (...) has created a genuine work of art when he "hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them." 1 "What is art?" is then a taxonomical question, and, according to Tolstoy, art is identifiable from non-art not by some set of external characteristics—the way, say, Aristotle categorized animals in his natural history—rather art is recognizable by its function, by what it does. In this sense art is like a tool: A given thing is art because it performs a certain task, much as one might claim a screwdriver is anything that sets and removes screws, regardless of its external characteristics. Tolstoy, in fact, repeatedly refers to art as "orudie," "a tool," or even "a weapon."It is worth noting from the outset that this metaphor of contagiousness is one of sublimated violence. For its passive "perceiver" (Tolstoy's characteristic term for the consumer of art), art amounts to irresistible, surreptitious emotional manipulation by an external entity. Tolstoy is ever attentive to the underlying meanings of the words he chooses, and I think he means to emphasize the latent, etymological meaning of the zarazit', to infect, the root of which is razit', to strike, a military term that likely resonated with Tolstoy, a war veteran. 2 Etymological arguments aside, Tolstoy makes explicit the psychological violation that goes hand-in-hand [End Page 284] with the experience of a work of art in a diary entry from a period of work on an earlier variant of What Is Art?: "One must hone the artistic work so that it penetrates. To hone a work means to make it perfect artistically, in which case it will pierce through the indifference...." 3 In an earlier version of the essay, Tolstoy offers "hypnotism" as a synonym for infection (p. 53).With its ability to "penetrate" through indifference and colonize, willy-nilly, the other, art accomplishes directly and immediately what no amount of rational argument could accomplish: "Art is differentiated from the activity of rational activity, which demands preparation and a certain sequence of knowledge (so that one cannot learn trigonometry before knowing geometry), by the fact that it acts on people independently of their state of development and education, that the charm of a picture, of sounds, or of forms, infects any man whatever his plane of development" (p. 178).The effect of art does not depend on some graduated, sequential process as it does for rational activity: art's infectiousness is immediate and irresistible. According to What Is Art?, the summum bonum of art's infectiousness, its best use, but notably not its only, is bringing about the Kingdom of God by effecting a change in the psychology of all the individuals who experience it. "Religious art," Tolstoy's supreme category of art, surmounts the (ultimately illusory for Tolstoy) individuality of the perceiver by inducing in him or her an emotional union with the artist and all others who have experienced the work of art, thereby inducting all perceivers into the universal collective of humankind: "In this freeing of our personality from its separation from other people, from its isolation, in this uniting of personality with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art" (p. 228). Art is a sacrament and the artist a priest of sorts.It is often said, even by those who have read the work, that Tolstoy "rejected" art in the last decades of his life, and What Is Art? is often cited as evidence. Granted, much of the book excoriates much of the art of the ages, but one must not... (shrink)

This essay examines Tocqueville's interest in statistics, and how it informed his analysis of democracy. It explores his early engagement with the discipline and shows how this proved critical to his and Beaumont's 1833 study of the American penitentiary system. It shows that Tocqueville's interest in statistics was long lasting. And it pays particular attention to his links with the British Association for the Advancement of Science, examining his attendance at the statistical section meetings of the BAAS conference in Dublin (...) in 1835. It shows how material presented at this conference appeared in a number of Tocqueville's works. The essay argues against the thesis that Tocqueville resisted the primacy of the social. Rather, it shows that his interest in statistics underscored the importance he attached to the social in his analysis of modern democracy. (shrink)

ArgumentWhat kind of mathematical research activities took place in prisoner of war camps in Germany during the Second World War? And can one inspect such activities in order to re-examine, on the one hand, Herbert Mehrtens’ analysis of the modernism/counter-modernism divide of early twentieth-century mathematics, and on the other, his research on the instrumentalization of mathematics during the war? Closely examining the work carried out in the field of algebraic geometry by the French mathematician Bernard d’Orgeval, who was held in (...) three of such camps between 1940 and 1945, the paper aims not only to unfold this unique episode in the history of mathematics, presenting it as an ephemeral configuration, but also to show the limitations of Mehrtens’ approach and the narrative of modern and counter-modern mathematics. (shrink)

Étude de l'influence sur les commentateurs du Haut Moyen Âge des ouvrages d'Ambroise sur la Genèse. Leur impact fut profond, mais d'un autre côté il semble qu'ils n'étaient pas amplement lus. Cette impression est confirmée par la tradition manuscrite. Claude de Turin découvrit certaines des sources des commentaires d'Isidore sur la Genèse, au nombre desquelles figure Ambroise.

Depth perception -- The difference is in the SQ -- What's the problem? -- The gift that keeps on giving -- Turning a blind eye -- Faith by any other name -- Hope springs eternal -- Can a smart person believe in God? -- What's your SQ? -- Key to the SQ test.