The editor of Political Theory asked us to respond to the question, 'What is political theory?' This question is as old as political theory or political philos- ophy. The activity of studying politics, whether it is called science, theory, or philosophy, always brings itself into question. The question does not ask for a single answer, for there are countless ways of studying politics and no univer- sal criteria for adjudicating among them. Rather, the question asks, 'What comparative difference (...) does it make to study politics this way rather than that?' Political theory or philosophy not only spans three millennia of study- ing politics in innumerable ways but also three millennia of dialogues among practitioners over various approaches, their relative merits, and the contest- able criteria for their comparison. Because there is no definitive answer, there is no end to this dialogue. Rather, it is the kind of open-ended dialogue that brings insight through the activity of reciprocal elucidation itself. Dialogue partners gain insight into what ruling, being ruled, and contesting rule is through the exchange of questions and answers over different ways of study-ing politics and different criteria for their assessment in relation to how they throw light on different aspects of the complex worlds of politics-and what counts as the 'different aspects of the complex worlds of politics' is also ques- tioned in the course of the dialogue.'. (shrink)

The examination of "Taiwanese Philosophy" is intricately influenced by the complex meanings of its terms4, fostering a range of interpretations and understandings that play a crucial role in the methodological discussions on how Taiwanese philosophical ideas are analyzed and developed. I highlight that the conventional approaches to interpreting "Taiwanese Philosophy" are mainly divided into two models: the PIT framework, signifying "Philosophical activities in Taiwan," and the TP framework, indicating "Taiwanese Philosophy noted for its unique subjectivity" (see Hung (...) & Gao 2018)5. In the early twentieth century, Mou Zongsan's emergence of New Confucianism shaped the academic reception towards the PIT model and elicited critiques of the TP perspective. This trend guided scholars in Chinese philosophy towards the CPIT (Chinese Philosophy in Taiwan) approach for deciphering "Taiwanese Philosophy," typically viewing it as a form of "Chinese philosophical endeavors in Taiwan." The prevailing contemporary academic opinion posits that initial supporters of New Confucianism failed to recognize Taiwanese philosophy’s unique characteristics and position following colonialism, reducing it to the CPIT model. This stance places "Taiwanese Philosophy" within the broader realm of Chinese Philosophy, highlighting the hierarchical differences between Chinese and Taiwanese philosophical traditions, which later drew substantial critique from supporters of Western liberalism and decolonization efforts. Recently, the importance of "Taiwanese Philosophy" and "Taiwanese Theory" has been increasingly acknowledged, with a growing agreement that "Taiwanese Philosophy," ideally interpreted through the TP model6, mirrors Taiwan's collective ethos and academic value rather than the more exhaustive PIT classification, which encompasses diverse philosophical lineages. Proponents of TP recognize the historical importance of the PIT model in documenting the evolution of Taiwanese Philosophy but strongly dispute its completeness for grasping the essence of "Taiwanese Philosophy." I intend to argue that, notwithstanding the recent criticisms against the PIT approach, revisiting PIT with the aid of extensive textual collections, cultural archives, and the study of intellectual history might offer a solid basis for a deeper appreciation of TP. It will explore how the PIT model can lead to significant misunderstandings by introducing two main biases: the belief that PIT sufficiently encapsulates "Taiwanese Philosophy," and the limitation of PIT to a mere geographical context. In addressing these biases, I offer a potential amicable reinterpretation and reassess the critical elements for a metaphysical description of the subjectivity emphasized in TP. -/- Keywords: Optimal interpretation of Taiwanese Philosophy, Subjectivity and Agency, Genealogy of Knowledge, Methodology of Constructing Theories, Characteristics of Regional Philosophy. (shrink)

My subject today is the philosophical significance of the concept of activity. I shall not be talking about philosophical consequences of empirical work done by activity theorists; there are no doubt many such consequences, but they are not my subject. I want to ask whether activity theory incorporates a fundamental philosophical vision. The activity approach obviously represents a certain way of seeing human subjects and their relation to the world. To what extent does this perspective cast (...) light on central questions of philosophy? I shall focus on the work of Eval'd Il'enkov, a philosopher whose ideas are sometimes represented as expressing the distinctive philosophical premises of the activity approach. Il'enkov is not, of course, the only thinker one might cast as a "philosopher of activity," but his association with A.N. Leont'ev makes his work the obvious starting point for an exploration of the philosophical dimensions of activity theory. (shrink)

Beginning in earnest in the late 1990s, educational researchers devoted increasing attention to the study of “active learning,” leading to a robust literature on the topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, during largely the same period, political theorists discovered the radical philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, which soon after began to ripple through more radical forms of philosophy of education. While both the SoTL works on active learning and writings of “Agambenian” philosophers of education have offered (...) new insights into their respective fields, active learning has not yet received a systematic philosophical reflection and the community of Agambenian philosophy of education has not yet been systematized. This article addresses both gaps, first through an outline of existing Agambenian approaches to the philosophy of education and second by theorizing active learning as a form of “destituent potential.” The systematic reflection on the three threads of Agambenian philosophy of education—whatever, potentiality, and study—offers an introduction to less familiar readers, and the second section offers a model for how philosophical concepts can become theoretical tools for SoTL analysis. (shrink)

It is often argued that a study of the history of philosophy is not itself philosophical. Philosophy, it is claimed, is an active, productive enterprise, whereas history is taken to be imitative and therefore passive. My aim in this paper is to argue against this view of the history of philosophy. First, I describe a famous criticism of historians of philosophy—Kant’s critique of the “spirit of imitation.” I claim that the source of this criticism is the (...) received view of mimesis. Since the received view has been widely discredited, I propose a different one—one that sees imitation not as passive but as active. Finally, I suggest that adopting this new view of mimesis demands that we rethink what it means for a history of philosophy to be true. And I propose that the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer might help us to do so. (shrink)

The importance of enchancing metacognition and encouraging active learning in philosophy teaching has been increasingly recognised in recent years. Yet traditional teaching methods have not always centralised helping students to become reflectively and critically aware of the quality and consistency of their own thinking. This is particularly relevant when teaching moral philosophy, where apparently inconsistent intuitions and responses are common. In this paper I discuss the theoretical basis of the relevance of metacognition and active learning for teaching moral (...) philosophy. Applying recent discussions of metacognition, intuition conflicts and survey-based teaching techniques, I then outline a strategy for encouraging metacognitive awareness of tensions in students’ pretheoretical beliefs, and developing a critical self-awareness of their development as moral thinkers. (shrink)

In the formation of the multi-disciplinary field that investigates the participation of disabled persons in all forms of physical activity, little ethical and philosophical work has been published. This essay serves to contextualise a range of issues emanating from adapted physical activity (APA) and disability sports. First, we offer some general historical and philosophical remarks about the field which serve to situate those issues at the crossroads between the philosophy of disability and the philosophy of sports. (...) Secondly, we bring brief but critical attention to the contestation of key concepts such as ?ability? and ?normality? and the recent criticisms of polarisation of the medical and social models of disability. Finally, we show how these conceptual issues are implicated in the whole spectrum of contexts of APA and disability sports from the ethics of research with and for the disabled, to coaching, rehabilitation and teaching, and sports administration, that are predicated on key ethical concepts including empathy, entitlement and equity. (shrink)

The article discusses the definition of reflection as an activity and examines the main factors that determine the kinds of reflection. According to the author of the article, reflection as an activity can be defined by the following formula: the direction of attention to EXPERIENCE for the “detection” of its FORMS and their fixation by means of certain SEMIOTIC TOOLS carried out for the sake of achieving some PURPOSE. In this formulation, the terms “experience”, “form”, “semiotic tools”, “purpose” (...) are understood as parameters, the specification of which sets the description of certain kinds of reflection. In addition, the structure of “detection” participates in the formation of reflection, which consists of the languages of description, conceptual and terminological apparatus, knowledge and other conceptual means of the reflecting subject. Variants for specifying the parameters of the definition are considered in the article on the material of various philosophical techniques (mainly domestic tradition) and a number of general cultural reflexive practices. The author correlates his understanding of reflection with a number of ideas of the Moscow Methodological Circle (MMC), in which reflection techniques were given great importance. In particular, the author schematizes his understanding as a special case of an “act of activity”, the idea of which is the development within the MMC of some of K. Marx’s ideas. In connection with the clarification of the temporal structure of reflection (which is not grasped by schematization of reflection as an act of activity), the author introduces the idea of an elementary cycle of reflection and fixes it in the form of a scheme. In conclusion, the author examines the question of the correlation of reflection and thinking and considers the possibilities of correlating his definition of reflection with the typology of reflection set by the scheme of the thinking-communication-activity-system (proposed in MMC in 1983). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Circumscribing the Claims of Theory Plato's Reversal of the Precedence of Practice A Lesson about Learning Philosophy as a Way of Life and as the Pursuit of a Specialism From Epistemology Back to Practice Questions of Interpretation Reinterpreting Theory The Uses of Practical Philosophy.

The aim of the present work is to show the roots of the conception of perception as an active process, tracing the history of its development from Plato to modern philosophy. The contributors inquire into what activity is taken to mean in different theories, challenging traditional historical accounts of perception that stress the passivity of percipients in coming to know the external world. Special attention is paid to the psychological and physiological mechanisms of perception, rational and non-rational perception (...) and the role of awareness in the perceptual process. Perception has often been conceived as a process in which the passive aspects - such as the reception of sensory stimuli - were stressed and the active ones overlooked. However, during recent decades research in cognitive science and philosophy of mind has emphasized the activity of the subject in the process of sense perception, often associating this activity to the notions of attention and intentionality. Although it is recognized that there are ancient roots to the view that perception is fundamentally active, the history remains largely unexplored. The book is directed to all those interested in contemporary debates in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive psychology who would like to become acquainted with the historical background of active perception, but for historical reliability the aim is to make no compromises. (shrink)

The idea of active power played central role in the 17th Century philosophy and science. The idea is as follows: if not prevented, bodies necessarily do certain things in virtue of their power. This kind of thought naturally arose from what might properly be called the law of persistence, according to which moving bodies continue their motion unchanged if no new external force intervenes.1 What bodies do in virtue of their power was called actions, and in terms of actions (...) such things as resistance, pressure and affections were explained. What is this active power? One of the main aims of philosophers in the 17th and 18th Centuries was to find a good answer to this question. (shrink)

From the Introduction: This inquiry is concerned with the themes of praxis and action in four philosophic movements: Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. It is rare that these four movements are considered in a single inquiry, for there are profound differences of emphasis, focus, terminology, and approach represented by these styles of thought. Many philosophers believe that similarities among these movements are superficial and that a close examination of them will reveal only hopelessly unbridgeable cleavages. While respecting the (...) genuine fundamental differences of these movements, this inquiry is undertaken in the spirit of showing that there are important common themes and motifs in what first appears to be a chaotic babble of voices. I intend to show that the concern with man as an agent has been a primary focal point of each of these movements and further that each contributes something permanent and important to our understanding of the nature and context of human activity. (shrink)

This paper aims to defend a dialectical account of selfhood in the context of the contemporary debates on personal identity in Anglo-American philosophy. I interpret Reductionism and Non-Reductionism—the two dominant positions in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy—as forming something analogous to an antinomy. Reductionists argue that the self is merely an identity that is reducible to a set of facts, while Non-Reductionists argue that the self is a separate entity beyond any set of facts. I argue that a comprehensive view (...) of the self requires aspects from both of these positions. The self, then, should be understood as an ongoing activity that relates the various features of one’s identity together. (shrink)

One of the most traditional ways to teach philosophy in secondary school is a historical approach”, which takes a historicist view of philosophy and uses teaching practice based on teacher-centred lessons and textbook study by students. Only recently a debate on different approaches to teach philosophy is developing, considering the discipline as practical and dialogical activity to be fostered in the classroom. What could mean “doing philosophy” in the classroom from an instructional perspective? What are (...) the premises and constraints which allow the transformation of philosophy from a discipline to a community activity? In this paper a teaching model based on cultural-historical theory is proposed and discussed. The model is composed by three level of specification of the activity, from lower to higher, which correspond to three different analysis plans of the philosophical practice in an instructional context. Each level is composed by seven fundamental dimensions which highlight the meanings, the constraints, and the tools implied and developed in philosophizing as socio-cultural activity. Finally, if and how Philosophy for Children should be considered an activity respondent to the model and its educational aims is discussed. (shrink)

Of all of his works, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity is the one that Steiner himself believed would have the longest life and the greatest spiritual and cultural consequences. It was written as a phenomenological account of the results of observing the human soul according to the methods of natural science. This seminal work asserts that free spiritual activity - understood as the human ability to think and act independently of physical nature - is the suitable path (...) for human beings today to gain true knowledge of themselves and of the universe. This is not merely a philosophical volume, but rather a warm, heart-oriented guide to the practice and experience of living thinking. Readers will not find abstract philosophy here, but a step-by-step account of how a person may come to experience living, intuitive thinking - the conscious experience of a purely spiritual content. During the past hundred years since it was written, many have tried to discover this new thinking that could help us understand the various spiritual, ecological, social, political, and philosophical issues facing us. But only Rudolf Steiner laid out a path that leads from ordinary thinking to the level of pure spiritual activity - intuitive thinking - in which we become co-creators and co-redeemers of the world. When, with the help of Steiner's book, we recognize that thinking is an essentially spiritual activity, we discover that it can school us. In that sense - Steiner's sense - thinking is a spiritual path (Gertrude Reif Hughes). (shrink)

This paper looks at the case of moral philosophy in order to assess the extent to which and ways in which teacher education should respond to the liberal principle of justification. This principle states that moral and political decisions made by citizens with special kinds of influence and other coercive powers should be accountable to other citizens on the basis of good reasons. To what extent should teachers, who are empowered by the state with such special kinds of influence, (...) be held accountable to this principle and what kind of education is needed in order to prepare teachers for such accountability? Moral philosophy stands as an informative test case because it expressly deals in the justification of judgements and actions and so it stands to reason that arguments for moral philosophy in teacher education are likely to appeal to educational values that dovetail with demands of this principle. I first identify some preliminary criteria under which activities are understood to be educationally worthwhile in the context of the broader principle of justification. I then argue that the justificatory obligations incurred by liberal citizens who adopt the role of teacher not only allow for, but also require, moral philosophy as an activity in programmes of teacher education. (shrink)

Santayana the Philosopher: Philosophy as a Form of Life highlights the far-ranging nuances of Santayana’s philosophical system, while also discussing his ever-present concern for contemporary human affairs. Santayana understood the activity of philosophy in a Greek manner, as a form of life, but his interests always included the perennial philosophical questions and how they related to the present.

The academy is in a mess. The cultural theorist Bill Readings claimed that it is in ruins, while the political scientist Michael Oakeshott suggested that it has all but ceased to exist. At the very least, we might argue that the current financial squeeze has distorted the University into a shape that would be all but unrecognizable to Oakeshott and others writing in the 1950s and 1960s. I will begin this paper by tracing the development of the modern Enlightenment University (...) over the past 200 years from its roots in late 18th century Berlin to its current predicament. I will then turn my attention to the introduction during the 1990s of nursing education into the University, and examine the particular difficulties and tensions encountered at the interface between a professional practice and an academic discipline. Finally, I will propose philosophy as a way of dwelling in the ruins of the Enlightenment University and of reconciling the corporate demands of the University with the obligations of the nursing profession. (shrink)

Toward a Philosophy of Organized Student Activities was first published in 1964.The increased scope and complexity of student personnel work in colleges and universities in recent years has emphasized the need for a more mature philosophy in the field. This book outlines such a philosophy, after tracing the growth of student activities in American institutions of higher education.The author develops a number of themes to illustrate the present lack of coherent doctrine in organized student activities, to analyze (...) the problems involved, and to make proposals for their solution. He attacks some misconceptions of the proper function of student activities - he does not believe, for example, that the development of the "whole personality" is a proper concern of the discipline nor, on the other hand, that its function is purely custodial. He is concerned with defining the nature of the authority of the university in relation to the student, and he shows that much of the difficulty in maintaining control of students stems from social and economic changes, such as the decline of the hierarchical family, loose notions of individualism, and the view of education as a commodity. He makes clear his conviction that student activities, given the proper objectives and the means of realizing them, can contribute greatly to the educational process.Administrators and faculty members outside the field may gain insight into organized student activities through this book, and it will, of course, be of particular interest to workers in the field.This is volume 7 in the Minnesota Library on Student Personnel Work, of which E.G. Williamson is editor. (shrink)

The article focuses on some issues of a practical nature related to the implementation of activities for general and additional support for personal development of children and students in kindergartens and schools in Bulgaria. The authors hereby express their personal position based on discussion comments by deputy principals, teachers and other pedagogical specialists, during trainings on inclusive education in the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria. Emphasis is placed on the modern dimensions of inclusive education, as well as on specific (...) features of the activities of pedagogical specialists in their work with children and adolescents. The philosophical concept of inclusive education at present in the context of normative documents and practice is presented. The article does not claim to be exhaustive. (shrink)

The study of dis/misinformation is currently in vogue, however with much ambiguity about what the problem precisely is, and much confusion about the key concepts that are brought to bear on this problem. My aim of this paper is twofold. First, I will attempt to precisify the (dis/mis)information problem, roughly construing it as anything that undermines the “epistemic aim of information.” Second, I will use this precisification to provide a new grounded account of dis/misinformation. To achieve the latter, I will (...) critically engage with three of the more popular accounts of dis/misinformation which are (a) harm-based, (b) misleading-based, and (c) ignorance-based accounts. Each engagement will lead to further refinement of these key concepts, ultimately paving the way for my own account. Finally, I offer my own information hazard-based account, which distinguishes between misinformation as content, misinformation as activity, and disinformation as activity. By introducing this distinction between content and activity, it will be shown that my account is erected on firmer conceptual/ontological grounds, overcoming many of the difficulties that have plagued previous accounts, especially the problem of the proper place of intentionality in understanding dis/misinformation. This promises to add clarity to dis/misinformation research and to prove more useful in practice. (shrink)

The article focuses on the concept of active power as an ability that activates the agent, who is the implementer of common sense principles in Thomas Reid's philosophy. Reid argues that the use of active power in the process of realizing the principles of common sense in action is very important for the morality of the agent. While the correct use of active power ensures the emergence of honorable and moral actions, the wrong use of this power causes the (...) emergence of evil and immorality. For this reason, Reid defines the concept of active power as a distinctive feature of humans, such as the ability to think. In addition, Reid argues that people are conscious of the existence of their active power. Thus, people are also aware of their own limits. By being aware of other people's active powers, they can regulate their moral relationships. After briefly summarizing Reid's philosophical method in the article, the relationship between common sense principles and active power, which are presented as two important components of action, is discussed. (shrink)

The necessity of reconsidering and rethinking the aesthetics of a literary genre is not a novelty. Now that the traditional distinction between argumentative theory patterns and narrative styles of thinking has blurred, the relationship between philosophy and literature raises a principal question: the definition of philosophy itself and of philosophical activity. Modern literature, and in particular the novel of the last century, embodies a polyphonic, complex cognitive enterprise which includes both original uses of language and sophisticated patterns (...) of moral reflection. Modern literature thus represents a new model of paradigmatic thinking for philosophical activity, and both philosophy and literature can be.. (shrink)

Philosophy as Fiction seeks to account for the peculiar power of philosophical literature by taking as its case study the paradigmatic generic hybrid of the twentieth century, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. At once philosophical--in that it presents claims, and even deploys arguments concerning such traditionally philosophical issues as knowledge, self-deception, selfhood, love, friendship, and art--and literary, in that its situations are imaginary and its stylization inescapably prominent, Proust's novel presents us with a conundrum. How should it (...) be read? Can the two discursive structures co-exist, or must philosophy inevitably undermine literature (by sapping the narrative of its vitality) and literature undermine philosophy (by placing its claims in the mouth of an often unreliable narrator)? In the case of Proust at least, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Not only can a coherent, distinctive philosophical system be extracted from the Recherche, once the narrator's periodic waywardness is taken into account; not only does a powerfully original style pervade its every nook, overtly reinforcing some theories and covertly exemplifying others; but aspects of the philosophy also serve literary ends, contributing more to character than to conceptual framework. What is more, aspects of the aesthetics serve philosophical ends, enabling a reader to engage in an active manner with an alternative art of living. Unlike the "essay" Proust might have written, his novel grants us the opportunity to use it as a practice ground for cooperation among our faculties, for the careful sifting of memories, for the complex procedures involved in self-fashioning, and for the related art of self-deception. It is only because the narrator's insights do not always add up--a weakness, so long as one treats the novel as a straightforward treatise--that it can produce its training effect, a feature that turns out to be its ultimate strength. (shrink)

This collection of essays discusses a central feature of European philosophy: the idea of a universal active power as the ultimate world-explanation.

Introduction to philosophical issues such as free will and morality. Includes suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter.

Intersubjectivity refers to one person’s awareness in relation to another person’s awareness. It is key to well-being and human development. From infancy to adulthood, human interactions ceaselessly contribute to the flourishing or impairment of intersubjectivity. In this work, we first describe intersubjectivity as a hallmark of quality dyadic processes. Then, using parent-child relationship as an example, we propose a dyadic active inference model to elucidate an inverse relation between stress and intersubjectivity. We postulate that impaired intersubjectivity is a manifestation of (...) underlying problems of deficient relational benevolence, misattributing another person’s intentions, and neglecting the effects of one’s own actions on the other person. These problems can exacerbate stress due to excessive variational free energy in a person’s active inference engine when that person feels threatened and holds on to his/her invalid beliefs. In support of this dyadic model, we briefly describe relevant neuroimaging literature to elucidate brain networks underlying the effects of an intersubjectivity-oriented parenting intervention on parenting stress. Using the active inference dyadic model, we identified critical interventional strategies necessary to rectify these problems and hereby developed a coding system in reference to these strategies. In a theory-guided quantitative review, we used this coding system to code 35 clinical trials of parenting interventions published between 2016 and 2020, based on PubMed database, to predict their efficacy for reducing parenting stress. The results of this theory-guided analysis corroborated our hypothesis that parenting intervention can effectively reduce parenting stress if the intervention is designed to mitigate the problems of deficient relational benevolence, under-coupling, and over-mentalizing. We integrated our work with several dyadic concepts identified in the literature. Finally, inspired by Arya Nagarjuna’s Buddhist Madhyamaka Philosophy, we described abstract expressions of Dependent Origination as a relational worldview to reflect on the normality, impairment, and rehabilitation of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

This volume examines Gilles Deleuze's philosophy as it relates to the study of the physically active body. It explores theoretical and practical examples of how the physically active body can be examined as a material, social, political, and cultural entity using a Deleuzian perspective. Examining topics such as, the formation of thought within a capitalist system; sport, exercise, and dance as cultural arrangements; researching the physically active body from a Deleuzian perspective; and Deleuze on Foucault, this book shows ways (...) of investigating the moving body as an agent for initiating social change. This is fascinating reading for students and researchers working in the fields of the Sociology of Sport, Sport and Politics, and Sport and Social Theory. (shrink)

This fifty-page essay treats Marx's concept of action as the principle underlying his whole system. Activity for Marx is described as both a philosophical concept and an element of human experience demanded by his system. The principle of activity is present as early as in Marx's doctoral dissertation and its influence is traced on his materialism, epistemology, and conception of philosophy. In the process, some strong similarities are shown with Dewey's concept of action, despite the difference in (...) goals of the two philosophers. The concept of action was not original with Marx as the author demonstrates in his discussion of Kant's epistemology and Hegel's dialectics. What distinguishes Marx's concept of action is the unification of theory and practice, and the interrelationship of the two on a materialist foundation. To Marx, there was no meaningful theory without practice and no effective action without theory. Furthermore, the oft-quoted statement by Marx that philosophers have only interpreted the world whereas the point is to change it asserts only half of the case. Marx is not advocating change for the sake of change or change in accordance with any interpretation of the world. He is proposing change of a very specific kind and his concept of action cannot be separated from its content. This point does not emerge as clearly as it should in the essay under consideration because the author tends to treat the concept of activity in isolation and as an uninfluenced influence on the rest of Marx's thought. The author welcomes Marx's emphasis on practice as a much-needed antidote to the trend that makes philosophy a world apart. He also approves Marx's active personal role in society and his unhesitating entry into debate with the finest minds of his time. Of great value to those interested in the young Marx is the author's translation of Marx's doctoral dissertation on The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. This is the first complete translation to appear in English. It occupies half the space of the present volume.--H. B. (shrink)

In Practical Philosophy Education, besides the learning of conceptual knowledge and working with an introspective method, students are actively engaged whereby they are played in a new form as a language game. The negative attitudes and the pretending performances were revised from the exercise of answering questions to asking question, and then to continue asking. 1957 Coffee proposes the “cross-questioning” model of using knowledge to play the “game” of philosophy. This playing experience is passed down intellectually in the (...) form of language game, which is to be replayed sentimentally in a theater game. As a pedagogic, the previous philosophical activities are exemplified in the younger generation’s way of learning and “replaying”. As a lifestyle, the historical classical thinking is continued, while the old games of philosophers are played with new and refreshing rules. (shrink)

The well-known game of chess has traditionally been modeled in artificial intelligence studies by search engines with advanced pruning techniques. The models were thus centered on an inference engine manipulating passive symbols in the form of tokens. It is beyond doubt, however, that human players do not carry out such processes. Instead, chess masters instead carry out perceptual processes, carefully categorizing the chunks perceived in a position and gradually building complex dynamic structures to represent the subtle pressures embedded in the (...) positions. In this paper we will consider two hypotheses concerning the underlying subcognitive processes and architecture. In the first hypothesis, a multiple-leveled chess representational structure is presented, which includes distance graphs (with varying levels of quality) between pieces, piece mobilities, and abstract roles. These representational schemes seem to account for numerous characteristics of human player’s psychology. The second hypothesis concerns the extension of the architecture proposed in the Copycat project as central for modeling the emergent intuitive perception of a chess position. We provide a synthesis on how the postulated architecture models chess intuition as an emergent mixture of simultaneous distance estimations, chunk perceptions, abstract role awareness, and intention activations. This is an alternative model to the traditional AI approaches, focusing on the philosophy of active symbols. (shrink)

In the effort to defend and demonstrate the (prime) role of philosophy as an activity aiming at uncovering and questioning dogmas underlying our cognitive practices, the present article places under critical scrutiny the epistemic axiology informing organisation/management studies. That is, the plausibility of the largely unquestioned presumption that it is only the quest for truth that matters. This critical endeavour is effected by juxtaposing the conditions under which this would be the case, and in the prism of present (...) conditions concludes that this is not unquestionably the case. Throughout the line of analysis developed, important implications for the present role of philosophical discourses are drawn. (shrink)

A philosopher of education, Jim Garrison, has suggested that John Dewey's philosophy is a philosophy of cultural retooling and that Dewey adopted both his conception of work and the idea of tool as "a middle term between subject and object” from Hegel. This interpretation raises the question of what the relationship of the idea of cultural retooling in Dewey’s work is to his naturalism and to his allegiance to Darwinian biological functionalism. To deal with this problem, this paper (...) analyzes how the idea of cultural retooling is elaborated in Dewey’s logic and in his theory of reflective thinking and compares it to the concept of retooling in Vygotsky and activity theory. Dewey does recognize the significance of tools in human practice and the role of language in the formation of meaning. However, in his theory of thinking and problem solving, he primarily resorts to the biological or ecological language of the organism–environment, in which the concepts of habit and situation play a central role. It is argued that this language does not deal with the functions and relationships of different kinds of tools and artifacts in changes of activity nor supply satisfactory means of analyzing the historical, institutionalized and cultural dimensions of human activity. (shrink)

Philosophy of epidemiology has recently emerged as a distinct branch of philosophy. The field will surely benefit from pluralism, reflected in the broad range of topics and perspectives in this special issue. Here, I argue that a healthy pluralistic field of philosophy of epidemiology has social responsibilities that require the field as a whole to engage actively with research on social determinants of health and health disparities. Practicing epidemiologists and the broader community of public health scientists have (...) gradually acknowledged that much of their attention ought to be paid to these, i.e. inequitable between-population health variations that largely reflect the world’s inequitable distribution of resources and social conditions. The paper illustrates how and why health disparities and social determinants of health, through no ill will, become de facto secondary concerns in Alex Broadbent’s field-defining Philosophy of Epidemiology, showing the ease with which these topics can be incidentally sidelined. As means for philosophy of epidemiology to meet its social responsibility obligations, I suggest philosophy of epidemiology expand its attention to two particular lines research. First, the paper discusses Geoffrey Rose’s concept of “causes of incidence”—causes of disparities between populations—and argues for the importance of engaging with these causes. Second, the paper argues for the value of engaging with Bruce Link and Jo Phelan’s “fundamental causes” model of how flexible social resources serve as buffers from harms, generating a plethora of shifting and locally-contingent health effects. (shrink)

Nursing claims a significant history of engaging philosophical inquiry. To better understand the rationale for this engagement, and what nursing understands itself to achieve through philosophical inquiry, we conducted an interpretive synthesis of the recent nursing literature to identify what nurses are doing when they say they are doing philosophy. The overarching finding was that while vanishingly few articles articulated any definition of philosophy, the synthesis showed how nursing considers philosophical engagement a generative mode for asking and answering (...) questions in/for nursing. Whatever aspects of nursing were focused on in these articles, and they were myriad, philosophy was invoked as an appropriate modality to work through that aspect rigorously, critically, and with an expectation that something “knowledgeable” would result from the effort. Based on the synthesis, we conclude that nursing philosophy could be considered a specific modality of nursing practice by which nursing is both done and delineated, a discursive practice in which we continually assess and explore and adapt and advance our understanding of the discipline in service to advancing our unique efficacy. This definition of “nursing philosophy” provides an opening for further inquiry helping to illuminate its functionalities and potentialities for outputs that can facilitate rigorous practice, education, and scholarship. (shrink)

I present a reading of Marx’s critique of what he terms ‘intuitional materialism’, an expression which suggests a close link to Kant’s account of intuition. On my account, Marx advocates a view of sensibility as active, whereas Kant’s account of sensibility has often been interpreted as passive. In so doing, I claim that Marx offers an implicit critique of the conventional distinction between the ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ faculties, encompassing Wilfrid Sellars’ attack on the myth of the given. Marx claims that (...) limiting the contribution of cognition to the abstraction of particulars into concepts is a symptom of alienation under capitalism, while unalienation consists in the aesthetic attunement of sensible activity to the particularity of experience. This view is importantly related, I claim, to the cue Marx and Engels took from Darwin in reconceiving biological science, including the study of human material life, as dynamic and organic rather than mechanical. (shrink)