In this first part, Matthew Lipman offers the reader a glimpse at the thought processes that resulted in Philosophy for Children and, in so doing, ...

Ronald S Laura, Michael Leahy; Religious Upbringing and Rational Autonomy, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 253–265, h.

This article provides an overview of current knowledge about the relationship between mental illness, violence, homicides, and suicides, with a view towards crafting sensible public policy options for reducing gun violence towards self or others. With this knowledge as a backdrop, the limitations of the federal National Instant Background Check System as both over-inclusive and under-inclusive in identifying people with mental illness who pose potential risks are discussed. Finally, the article describes emerging approaches for identifying and removing firearms from persons (...) who pose potential risks of gun violence towards self or others, including Extreme Risk Protection Orders and other options. (shrink)

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Harvard University, 1985).

The authors of this book show that the failure of public health arises, not from a failure of contemporary medicine, but from a failure of the philosophical assumptions upon which it rests. They suggest an alternative approach to health care that derives from a ecological and holistic philosophy of nature.

The Daoist–Buddhist syncretism movement helped popularize Buddhism, which in turn enabled monks to exercise social influence. Such influence eventually contributed to the four major Buddhist persecutions in China and further shaped the development of Buddhist philosophy in East Asia. This chapter indicates the shift from Indian and Central Asian to Chinese founders, which is not only an ethnic change but a doctrinal one. The philosophies of these East Asian Mahāyāna schools and the Zhenyan tradition are described in the chapter. The (...) traditions discussed include New Sanlun, Tiantai, Huayan, Pure Land, Chan, and Faxiang traditions. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the language of ‘rights’ to secession is not helpful in dealing with the complexities of national self‐determination and is unnecessarily inflammatory and oppositional.

I propose to show that the use that has often been made of wittgenstein's work in the philosophy of religion is innocuous. the notion that the meaning of a word or a sentence is the use to which it is put has been exploited in such a way that it neither does justice to religious belief nor to wittgenstein's thought. i endeavour to show that the burden of the positivist programme was not to withold from religious language the accolade of (...) 'meaning'. it was to show that no piece of language could be both meaningful and true (or false) which did not satisfy the conditions of either the analytic or the synthetic category. i conclude that wittgenstein's work can provide an effective liberation from positivism if it can be shown that wittgenstein gives us sufficient reason to reject the analytic-synthetic distinction not only as an inadequate criterion of 'meaning', but as an inadequate criterion of 'truth' as well. (shrink)

(1985). The Philosophical Foundations of Medical Education* Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 29-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.1985.tb00027.x.

The New Social Disease is about how we personalize our computers and associated technologies while depersonalizing others and ourselves.

Although in most situations approaching desired end-states entails decreasing distance between oneself and an object, and avoiding undesired end-states increases such distance, in some cases distancing can also be a means to approach a given goal. We highlight examples involving responses to obstacles to achievement and self-control dilemmas, showing that motivational direction is not equivalent to the motivational strategy involved when people pursue their goals.

In a recent essay, Tasos Kazepides has used the later Wittgenstein’s account of religious beliefs as either ‘superstitions’ or non-rational to condemn such beliefs as ‘doctrines’. By this term he means teachings which close minds to alternative truth-claims. In this paper we criticise his interpretation and use of Wittgenstein and argue that, far from closing minds, an appropriate education in religious beliefs can open minds to possible realms of existence unconsidered in other subjects of the curriculum.