In 1886, Nietzsche wrote: ‘I am still waiting for a philosophical doctor in the extraordinary sense of the term’: a doctor who pursues not truth, but an exceptional kind of health. Nietzsche's will to health, his theory of drive organisation, and his insistence that the philosopher put himself at risk, all work together in his overall project, which consists of taking up the very role of the highly revalued physician for whom he is waiting. Deleuze and Guattari engage this same (...) task of a revalued doctoring in the Capitalisme et Schizophrénie books, attacking the disease of oedipality and providing instructions for the deorganisation of the organism as self-cure. Offering tips on this radical treatment, they employ the figure of the hypochondriac to show how it can fail. Both Nietzsche and Deleuze and Guattari perform a revaluation of health as a condition of chronic critique, a condition that wraps itself around illness to keep itself critical. (shrink)

In this article, Aislinn O'Donnell offers a set of reflections on the relation between therapy and education. In the first section, she examines criticisms of therapeutic education, mobilizing the example of prison education to highlight the difficulties that arise from imposing prescriptive modes of subjectification and socialization in pedagogy. In the second section, she addresses the relation between therapy and education by focusing on just one element of the experience of education: those moments at which a subject has the (...) potential of becoming significant in the life of a student. An important dimension of the educator's authority involves noticing such moments, fostering the conditions that make them more likely, and engaging in the creative process and practice of deciding how best pedagogically to respond to these moments. In the third section, O'Donnell develops this idea by detailing a philosophical approach and practice that understands “effectiveness” in education as bound to practice, creative responsiveness, and the judgment of the educator in concrete, singular pedagogical situations, rather than construed in terms of generic models of “best practice.”. (shrink)

The title of this congress begins with the word “identity”. It also includes the word “reciprocity,” which indicates a form of relationship and finally, “gift of self”. This would lead us to conclude that the identity of the human person has something to do with reciprocity and that reciprocity involves giving of oneself to others. This talk will attempt to shed light on how the concept of gender might in some way be incorporated into these three concepts. Defining what constitutes (...) the identity of the human person has been explored, and attempts to define it have been made by every major theorist in the field of psychology. At a previous Psychology and Communion congress one of the talks spoke of loving and being loved in return as the basic foundation of human identity. In that presentation we find the following observation: “The identity of the human person can be compared to the identity of a book: we know where and when it was printed; but the author is certainly not the publishing house, nor is the typesetter who prepared the text…The same is true for us human beings: we know the time and date of birth. But who is author?”. We ask ourselves, therefore: what lies at the core of the identity of this being who is born at a certain time on a certain date? Before proceeding, I think it is important to note that the basic idea regarding the identity of the human person, as we have defined and understood it from the inception of psychology and communion and explored in previous encounters, remains unchanged. I will use a quote of Chiara Lubich here that perhaps many of you know but which can serve the purpose of laying the foundation for what follows: Human beings are “ all equal but distinct. To each person [God] gave his own beauty so that they would be desirable and lovable by others; and so that in love they would be recomposed into the One who had created them with his Light, which is Himself.” Now we ask ourselves: What exactly is this “beauty” that Chiara is speaking of? What are the components, if you will, of our identity that makes us “… desirable and lovable by others…”? (shrink)

The position and power of women in the early church has been much explored by scholars such as Karen Jo Torjesen and Virginia Burrus. Research has often indicated that women had little power, especially sacramental power, at this time. This article challenges such a perspective by examining and comparing three accounts of women’s experience of the Eucharist in the private sphere during the third century. Drawing on Gregory of Nyssa’s account of Macrina, his sister, and her making of the eucharistic (...) bread, Pseudo-Athanasius’ instructions to virgins celebrating their own eucharistic meals, and Gregory Nazianzus’ description of his sister, Gorgonia, anointing herself for healing with the Eucharist, this article demonstrates that, in the private setting, sacramental power was not the preserve of the male. The Eucharist, in far more varied forms than might be anticipated, is potent in the domestic setting of these women of the early Church. (shrink)

The Crying of Lot 49 is widely recognized as a significant contemporary work that frames the desire for meaning and the quest for knowledge within the social and political contexts of the '50s and '60s in America. In the introduction to this collection of original essays on Thomas Pynchon's important novel, Patrick O'Donnell discusses the background and critical reception of the novel. Further essays by five experts on contemporary literature examine the novel's "semiotic regime" or the way in which (...) it organizes signs; the comparison of postmodernist Pynchon and the influential South American writer, Jorge Luis Borges; metaphor in the novel; the novel's narrative strategies; and the novel within the cultural contexts of American Puritanism and the Beat movement. Together, these essays provide an examination of the novel within its literary, historical, and scientific contexts. (shrink)

The existential, experiential, ethical, pathic and pre-pathic dimensions of education are essential for the creative composition of subjectivities in institutional spaces, yet educational research and policy tend increasingly to privilege technical discourses and prescriptive approaches both when evaluating ‘what is effective in education’ and when determining educational policy. This essay explores those aspects of the educational experience and educational institutions that are often felt and sensed pre-cognitively by students, parents and teachers, but are seldom given further elaboration or articulation in (...) educational research. We will reflect on what is meant by the experience of education and experience in education, including the struggles to make sense of or understand something, the surprises that strike pre-reflectively, and the ways in which such moments are noticed, pursued, and explored rather than reflexively ‘evaluated’. We then explore the idea of experimentation in institutions, in particular in relation to the range of concepts that Jean Oury introduces in order to move our attention and awareness to questions of experience, existence, atmosphere, and the pathic—the way in which we undergo, sense and participate in the world prior to cognition and the desire for mastery and control of our encounters. Finally, we address the question of the ethics of institutions. (shrink)

DIVUses a discussion of contemporary films and literary works to present an understanding of paranoia as a defining element in postmodern late-capitalist structure./div.

Key to Rahner's understanding of Easter is his linking faith in the resurrection with anthropology. The human person is transcendence, always moving beyond self to the ever-greater God. The subject therefore seeks a definitive realization of freedom, and this realization must be bodily, since the human person is spirit-in-matter. Rahner makes an original point about the credibility of the resurrection, in that our human hope, under the influence of grace, enables us to open ourselves to the truth of Christ's resurrection. (...) Another original point of Rahner's theology is that he can accept either the theory of an intermediate state between death and final resurrection, or a resurrection which is simultaneous with death. According to Rahner, the virtue of hope functions as the link between faith and love, enabling the subject to project himself into God's future. (shrink)

(2000). Of loaded dice and heated arguments: Putting the Hansen?Michaels global warming debate in context. Social Epistemology: Vol. 14, No. 2-3, pp. 109-127.

Failure is seen as a problem in education. From failing schools, to failing students to rankings of universities, literacy or numeracy, the perception that one has failed to compete or to compare favourably with others has led to a series of policy initiatives internationally designed to ensure ‘success for all’. But when success is measured in comparison with others or against benchmarks or standards, then it is impossible to see how all could be successful given the parameters laid down. What (...) are the implications of a culture that values success and achievement? How difficult is it to become the kind of individual who is flourishing, autonomous and becomes ‘all she can be’, in particular under the precarious conditions of contemporary capitalism? Samuel Beckett was sceptical of the quest for progress, production and prestige. His philosophy invites another way of thinking about failure, not as something one is, but rather as something one does: the pain and fear of inadequacy that can mark educational relations and experiences is alleviated by a more renunciative, gentle philosophy of education. There are two interwoven strands in this article. One questions the emphasis on competition and achievement in contemporary education and explores its implications for our relationship to failure. The second, strongly influenced by Beckett, explores ways of reimagining our relationship to failure in such a way that allows us to reflect on what matters in life. (shrink)

The article addresses the implications of Prevent and Channel for epistemic justice. The first section outlines the background of Prevent. It draws upon Moira Gatens and Genevieve Lloyd’s concept of the collective imaginary, alongside Lorraine Code’s concept of epistemologies of mastery, in order to outline some of the images and imaginaries that inform and orient contemporary counter-terrorist preventative initiatives, in particular those affecting education. Of interest here is the way in which vulnerability is conceptualised in Prevent and Channel, in particular (...) the way in which those deemed ‘at risk of radicalisation’ are constituted as vulnerable and requiring intervention. The imaginary underpinning such preventative initiatives is, I argue, a therapeutic/epidemiological one. If attention is paid to the language associated with these interventions, one finds reference to terms such as contagion, immunity, resilience, grooming, virus, susceptibility, therapy, autonomy, vulnerability and risk—a constellation of images/concepts resonant with therapeutic and epidemiological theories and practices. I outline some of the implications of this therapeutic/epidemiological imaginary for epistemic injustice. If people, in this case, students, teachers and parents, feel that their voice will not be given credence, this leads to testimonial injustice. If one group is constituted as a suspect community, this risks hermeneutical injustice for that group—a situation facing Muslims at present. Given the requirements for educators and educational institutions to enact this particular iteration of preventative counter-terrorist legislation, the way in which vulnerability is understood and operationalised has direct bearing upon education and the educational experience of all stakeholders, in particular in relation to the conditions for epistemic justice. (shrink)

It is difficult to respond creatively to humiliation, affliction, degradation, or shame, just as it is difficult to respond creatively to the experience of undergoing or inflicting violence. In this article Aislinn O'Donnell argues that if we are to think about how to address gun violence — including mass shootings — in schools, then we need to talk about violence inside and outside schools. Honest, and even difficult, conversations about violence and vulnerability can take place in schools, and there (...) are ways of working with curricula and student voice that can allow for this. If pedagogy is to play a role in reorienting responses to violence and vulnerability, discussion of equivocal and ambivalent responses to corporeal vulnerability, and of histories and genealogies of violence, must be invited. We need to acknowledge that we do not have, and we may well never have, a world without violence. Drawing upon the experience of teaching philosophy in nontraditional learning environments, including prison, O'Donnell argues for an approach to pedagogy and curricula that invites difficult conversations about the complexity of violence. (shrink)

This paper has two objectives, neither previously attempted in the published literature—first, to outline J. M. Keynes's theory of knowledge in some detail, and, secondly, to justify the contention that his epistemology is a variety of rationalism, and not, as many have asserted, a form of empiricism. Keynes's attitude to empirical data is also analysed as well as his views on prediction and theory choice. 1This paper is partly based on ideas initially advanced in O'Donnell [1982], a revised and (...) expanded version of which is to be published as O'Donnell [1989]. I should like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful comment, and King's College, Cambridge for permission to quote from the Keynes Papers. (shrink)

This essay focuses on three primary issues i. The conceptual resources offered by Spinoza to challenge the idealism and perfectionism underpinning much educational theory and dominant educational imaginaries; ii. His descriptions of a non-ideal, practical and systematic approach to developing understanding that could be applied to educational theorising and practice; and iii. The potential for a different vision of education premised upon understanding the human as simply a part of nature. Decentring the human and treating affective and mental life as (...) one would lines, planes, and bodies, as Spinoza claims we must in Ethics, invites another way of thinking about the politics and ethics of educational practice. Enacting experimental approaches to pedagogy produces new subjectivities and also invents new connections and relations between different bodies and different ideas. I argue that a properly Spinozist understanding of education would require it to be understood through practices of experimentation, in short, developing capabilities to compose relations in such a way that one also develops a the awareness of oneself as finite, dependent, vulnerable and as a part of nature. Seemingly paradoxically then, having understood how and that one is determined, and which bodies agree or disagree with one, one becomes more capable of agency and thus an ethical life. (shrink)

L'article commence une analyse de la vertu théologique de l'espérance par une phénoménologie de l'espérance. En plus d'un regard donné aux considérations philosophiques sur l'espérance chez des auteurs tels Gabriel Marcel et Ernst Bloch, il étudie les oeuvres dramatiques de Marcel ainsi qu'un certain nombre d'auteurs utopistes tels Thomas More, Henry David Thoreau et Charles Péguy. Des métaphores de la situation humaine, tels l'emprisonnement et l'exil, sont examinées ainsi que la lumière que les auteurs concernés trouvent dans des expériences d'obscurité. (...) La crise de l'histoire est aussi examinée particulièrement dans les écrits de l'auteur italien, Sergio Quinzio: comment pouvons-nous continuer à espérer deux mille ans après la mort du Christ tandis que l'histoire de la souffrance humaine continue, apparemment sans solution ? Après avoir posé la question de l'espérance, la réponse chrétienne est examinée surtout à travers les oeuvres de Jürgen Moltmann qui base sa théologie sur le Dieu qui vient à nous comme futur, le Dieu qui renouvelle toutes choses, le Dieu créateur qui fait être a partir de rien et ressuscite les morts. Tandis que l'optimisme se base sur les resources humaines et la croyance que les choses iront inévitablement mieux, l'espérance s'enracine en ce que Dieu peut faire dans une situation de souffrance, de mort et de destruction. Une telle espérance ne nous conduit cependant pas à fuir le monde. Au contraire, notre espé. (shrink)

Contemporary educational policies have recently prioritised the development of generic, core, and transferable skills. This essay reflects on this tendency in the context of the ‘algorithmic condition’ and those discourses that tend toward an image of education that privileges dematerialised skills, practices, and knowledge. It argues that this turn towards dematerialisation is resonant with shifts in a number of diff erent domains, including work, and explores some of the implications of this shift. Instead I suggest an approach to education that (...) understands it as turning towards the world, loving the world, and creating a common world. In order to understanding thinking and knowing as material practices, the concept of ‘material thinking’ is developed that refuses binaries of theory and practice, but that instead understands thinking, particularly in educational contexts, as material and a practice of thinking with something, and a turning towards the world. I draw upon the work of Susan Oyama, Elizabeth Grosz, Tim Ingold and Isabelle Stengers, and explore the example of Barbara McClintock’s research as a cytogeneticist researching maize. Here I am particularly interested in the importance of deep engagement with a subject matter in terms of developing the skilfulness that is associated with what I am calling ‘material thinking’. This allows us to think about education in a way that pays attention to the plurality of practices of material thinking that engage with the natural history of humankind, and the story of the world. (shrink)

Popper's paradox of ideal evidence has long been viewed as a telling criticism of Keynes's logical theory of probability and its associated concept of the weight of argument. This paper shows that a simple addition to Keynes's definitions of irrelevance enables his theory to elude the paradox with ease. The modified definition draws on ideas already present in Keynes's Treatise on Probability (1973). As a consequence, relevant evidence and the weight of argument may increase, even when new evidence leaves the (...) probability unaltered. (shrink)

The ramified legacy of Bernard Berenson’s writings within 20th century art historiography is both celebrated and maligned. In an effort to help reconcile this situation, this essay argues for the partial validity of Berenson’s peculiar version of art historical formalism by detailing its historical connections to the Pragmatist philosophy and psychology of William James and by analytically correlating Berenson’s arguments with recent work in aesthetics and the philosophy of perception. The essay examines the specific example of Berenson’s analysis of Giotto’s (...) paintings and leverages a Pragmatist interpretation of Berenson’s writings to frame Berenson’s known connections with other writers: including Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli, and Walter Pater. In conclusion, the failure, potential, reception, and legacy of Berenson’s art historical scholarship are assessed in relation to Pragmatist ideas. Der vielfältige Einfluss von Bernard Berensons Schriften auf die Kunstgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts wird ebenso geschätzt wie verachtet. In dem Bestreben, diese Divergenzen zu berichtigen, versucht dieser Beitrag den Nachweis für die bedingte Gültigkeit von Berensons eigentümlicher Variante eines kunsthistorischen Formalismus zu erbringen, indem er einerseits seine historischen Verbindungen zur pragmatischen Philosophie und Psychologie von William James aufzeigt und indem er andererseits Berensons Argumentation ins Verhältnis zu aktuellen Debatten der wahrnehmungstheoretischen Ästhetik und Philosophie setzt. Am Beispiel von Berensons Interpretation der Gemälde Giottos führt dieser Essay eine pragmatische Analyse von Berensons Schriften durch und stellt diese ins Umfeld seiner Kontakte zu anderen Autoren: darunter Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli und Walter Pater. Schließlich soll das Scheitern, das Potenzial, die Rezeption und das Erbe von Berensons kunsthistorischen Studien unter pragmatischen Gesichtspunkten bewertet werden. (shrink)