This paper examines what, if anything, "Eastern philosophy" can teach us about business ethics. The whole idea of "Eastern ethics" or so-called "Asian values" is suspect on a number of scores. The paper argues that It is better to refer to specific ideas of particular thinkers influential within one country or tradition. The paper concentrates on the philosophy of two such thinkers – Watsuji Tetsuro of Japan and Confucius. When this more "micro" approach is adopted, we can learn (...) some important lessons with respect to the meaning of trust, the longterm nature of relations, and ethics that extend far beyond the limited idea of rights. The paper considers these lessons in the business context. (shrink)

This article analyzes how public policies and regulations have affected the meaning of teaching philosophy in Colombia in the last two decades. Here, we analyze “Document 14”, the Critical Reading test in the “Saber 11” tests, the reform of the Bach- elor’s Degrees and the recent regulations on Qualified Registration and High Quality of university programs, which are structured from the notion of “learning outcomes”. The paper analyzes the norms and their reflection on the national philosophical community. Following (...) Tovar’s hypothesis, we intend to show that, as a consequence of these regula- tions, philosophy has been given an operative meaning oriented to the labor demand and “living together” education. This has occurred by sacrificing the richness and breadth of philosophy. Finally, the text reveals that the philosophical community has critically assumed the norms, constituting philosophical reflection on political action. (shrink)

Standard approaches to teaching philosophy tend to focus on teaching aspects of philosophy that are important to doing professional philosophy. This paper suggests an alternative to this approach by preparing college students to teach philosophy to elementary school children. After arguing that classics in children’s literature ought to be the primary vehicle for initiating philosophical discussion in elementary school children, an upper-level seminar for undergraduates at Mount Holyoke College that takes this alternative approach is (...) described. Finally, the paper evaluates this alternative approach, contending that this method is more effective than the traditional approach due to the fact that it provides a multi-dimensional learning experience for college-level students. (shrink)

In the current climate of high-stakes testing and performance-based accountability measures, there is a pressing need to reconsider the nature of teaching and what capacities one must develop to be a good teacher. Educational policy experts around the world have pointed out that policies focused disproportionately on student test outcomes can promote teaching practices that are reified and mechanical, and which lead to students developing mere memorisation skills, rather than critical thinking and conceptual understanding. Philosophers of dialogue and (...) dialogic teaching offer a different view of teaching, one that counters mechanical, transmissive or ‘monologic’ teaching. In this paper, I seek to extend the notion of dialogic teaching as a method of supporting social and moral learning processes. Specifically, my focus is on answering the question: What capacities must a teacher have to engage students dialogically? Drawing on Paulo Freire and other contemporary philosophers, I examine dialogic interaction as involving a way of ‘being with learners’ and put forth three teacher capacities necessary for dialogic teaching: self-critique, narrativity and building community. I then examine further what is concretely entailed in the practice of dialogic teaching using research in educational psychology. I aim to highlight how dialogic teaching, unlike monologic teaching, involves the teacher's active ability to support learners’ identification and exploration of their own blind spots—that is, the limits of knowledge and ability—and those of others. Following this, I consider implications of my discussion for international policy on teacher assessment. I close the paper with considerations for future research on teacher capacity and teacher evaluation. This paper contributes to our understanding of teacher capacity and the nature and aims of good teaching. (shrink)

Teaching is not testimony. Although both convey information, they have different uptake requirements. Testimony aims to impart information and typically succeeds if the recipient believes that informationon account of having been told by a reliable informant. Teaching aims to equip learners to go beyond the information given—to leverage that information to broaden, deepen, and critique their current understanding of a topic. Teaching fails if the recipients believe the information only because it is what they have been told.

In traditional Chinese philosophy, silence occupies a pivotal position by not being merely treated as the absence of speech, but also as the transcendence of it. Silence in early Confuciani...

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)

Teachers are no longer simply being told what to teach, but also how to teach it. It is important therefore to examine whether some prescriptions of teaching methods are acceptable while others are not, and to justify opposition to certain forms of prescription. I show that some attempts to prescribe teaching methods are either empty, or incompatible with holding teachers to account for the pupil learning which is supposed to result. My argument does not depend on making any (...) value assumptions about ultimate educational aims. Examples from the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies are discussed. (shrink)

In the classroom, philosophers face not only the perennial problems of philosophy, but the problems of _teaching_ philosophy, and specifically the problems of teaching philosophy today: how to make philosophy interesting and relevant to students who are resistant to, or unfamiliar with, the discipline; how to bring classic texts to life within our current socio-cultural context; how to serve all students regardless of their abilities, backgrounds, or declared majors; how to sustain our discipline in light (...) of support for more "vocational" pursuits. In these essays, 24 of our most celebrated professors of philosophy offer perspectives on and solutions to these questions and more. Selected and introduced by three leaders in the world of philosophical education, the insights contained in this inspiring collection illuminate the challenges and possibilities of teaching the academy’s oldest discipline. (shrink)

Building on the success of her classic, bestselling book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life (over 100,000 copies sold), Marilee Adams shows in this new book how teachers and other education professionals can change their own and their students' lives by developing an active, inquiring mindset and igniting a lifelong love of learning.

The paper attempts to provide a basis for exploring the continued relevance of Catholic social teaching to business ethics, byinterpreting the historic development of a Catholic work ethic and the traditions of Catholic social teaching in light of contemporary discussions of economic globalization, notably those of Robert Reich and Peter Drucker. The paper argues that the Catholic work ethic and the Church’s tradition of social teaching has evolved dynamically in response to the structural changes involved in the (...) history of modern economic development, and thus is well poised to speak to the ethical challenges implicit in the advent of a knowledge-based society. In order to test this thesis, the author sketches an approach to the ethical challenge of corporate downsizing that he believes illustrates the continued relevance of Catholic social teaching to business ethics. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of teaching philosophy for children (P4C) on the development of non-cognitive skills among students. Although the main focus of modern schooling is on attainment, non-cognitive skills and attitudes are still within the scope of modern education. The Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia introduced a new policy to teach critical thinking and philosophy in its public schools in 2017. Although the effects of teaching philosophy on cognitive skills have been well-researched, (...) fewer studies have studied the effects the teaching philosophy has on non-cognitive skills. The current study is the first to explore this issue in the Saudi educational context. This paper presents findings from a quasi-experiential design using 28 students in a Saudi elementary public school. An experimental group of sixth-graders participated in Philosophy for Children (P4C) sessions for 3 months, while the other group of sixth-graders did not receive any philosophy-related training. To collect data, the researchers used a survey designed for non-cognitive outcomes. The results show that the P4C group ranked higher in measures of communication, sociability, self-confidence, determination, willingness to try new things, happiness, and solving problems. On the other hand, the results show that the P4C group lagged behind in terms of empathy, democracy, and diversity compared to the experimental group. However, the differences are minor, and the sample is small. Nonetheless, the results are promising in indicating that P4C can improve students’ non-cognitive skills. (shrink)

How do young children learn how to talk about ethical concepts, such as fairness and equity? The current research assesses the effects of philosophy-based anti-bias lessons aimed at three to five-year-olds in a laboratory preschool and explores the relationship between socioemotional skills, language development, and understanding of ethical concepts. The constructivist curriculum was grounded in storybook lessons with corresponding activities. In a pre-posttest design, we interviewed children before and after lessons in fairness education that included book reading, related games, (...) and philosophical discussions. We found that children showed a significant increase in comprehension of equity-related terms and skin color awareness, and we found a positive relationship between children’s observed levels of community membership skills and their receptive vocabulary. In addition, receptive vocabulary skills predicted participant’s skin color awareness and their ability to tell a fairness narrative involving skin color following the lessons. The current study provides a framework for teachers to integrate ethical reasoning into a preschool curriculum and identifies some abilities occurring earlier than predicted by Jean Piaget. Given the divisive political climate surrounding anti-bias education, we hope that the present study encourages educators to put social emotional learning at the forefront of preschool pedagogy. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper the marked differences between the stances of some philosophers of education who view the field as a self-contained discipline and MacIntyre's contrasting view are outlined and discussed, with the author seeing the greater merit in MacIntyre's position. This leads on to a review in the second part of the paper of the differences between MacIntyre and Dunne on teaching as a practice and on the range of issues that underlie these differences. Again, (...) the paper argues in favour of MacIntyre's claim that teaching is subservient to the good it serves, in this case the good of the learner and of the community. Criticisms are then made, however, of how MacIntyre conceives of the good of the community, and of its promotion by learning. In particular, his advocacy of partisan universities and his arguments for rationalising the rivalries between them are faulted. In its concluding part, the paper finds more merit in the pedagogical features of MacIntyre's late work Dependent Rational Animals, particularly the rationale advanced for educating independent practical reasoners. (shrink)

Formal training in clinical ethics must become a central part of residency curricula to prepare practitioners to manage the ethical dimensions of patient care. Residency educators must ground their teaching in an understanding of the conceptual, biomedical, and psychosocial aspects of the important ethical issues that arise in that field of practice. Four aspects of professional competence in clinical ethics provide a useful framework for curricular planning. The physician should learn to: (1) recognize ethical issues as they arise in (...) clinical care and identify hidden values and unacknowledged conflicts; (2) think clearly and critically about these issues in ways that lead to ethically justifiable courses of action; (3) apply those practical skills needed to implement an ethically justifiably course of action; and (4) judge when the management of a clinical situation requires consultation with individuals or institutional bodies with additional expertise or authority. We argue that these practical goals can be accomplished with a relatively modest emphasis on the theoretical aspects of medical ethics. (shrink)

To successfully transform Ender Wiggin from a bright six‐year‐old child into the most effective military strategist and space commander the world had ever known, teachers at the Battle School needed to teach him to discipline himself to think and behave like a soldier. In Ender's Game the International Fleet's Battle School subjected children to a rigorous and grueling educational program. This put the Battle School's administrators and teachers in an incredibly powerful position: they had the unilateral power to determine what (...) knowledge and skills were necessary to be a successful soldier. The work of French philosopher Michel Foucault is invaluable in showing how power and knowledge are interdependent in governing the I.F.'s soldiers and in teaching them to be self‐governing at the I.F.'s Battle School, which mirrors the Panopticon. (shrink)

This book presents a survey of approaches to dealing with 'rival histories' in the classroom, arguing that approaching this problem requires great sensitivity to differing national, educational and narrative contexts. Contested narratives and disputed histories have long been an important issue in history-teaching all over the world, and have even been described as the 'history' or 'culture' wars. In this book, authors from across the globe ponder the question "what can teachers do (and what are they doing) to address (...) conflicting narratives of the same past?", and puts an epistemological issue at the heart of the discussion: what does it mean for the epistemology of history, if it is possible to teach more than one narrative? Divided into three sections that deal with historical cultures, multicultural societies and multiperspectivity, the chapters of the book showcase that dealing with rival histories is very much dependent on context, and that diverse teaching traditions and societal debates mean that teachers' abilities in engaging with the teaching of rival narratives are very different. The volume will be compelling reading for students and researchers in the fields of education, history, sociology and philosophy, as well as practising teachers. (shrink)

In this article I explore the pedagogical value of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s philosophical concepts for helping make an ‘event’ of thought, with a view towards fostering deep learning in Chinese students' learning theory and criticism in a second language. Paying attention to the qualitative role of bodies, humour and creativity alongside an expanded trans-personal concept of ‘educational life forms’ that stretches out to include an affective assemblage of inhuman elements (such as art and technology), I explore how Deleuze (...) and Guattari’s philosophical models provide a ethical alternative to corporate, Confucian and Cartesian models otherwise inhibiting students and teachers in the modern Sino-international university context. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show how meditation can be used to help a student to become an ethical person. Discursive and non-discursive meditation give the student an awareness of ethical issues and lead to the discovery and application of models of ethical conduct. In part one, the student is led through non-discursive meditation to discover him/her self as an ethical person. The student is also given the tools to explore ethical issues. Part two discusses a transition stage (...) from non-discursive to discursive meditation. The student is led to use non-discursive meditation to construct an ethical value system and apply it to his/her own life. An art medium is especially helpful at this stage. Discursive meditation gives the chance for the student to compare who he/she is with what he/she should be. Part three discusses four elements in the construction of an ethical vision with discursive meditaton: First, a picture of reality; second, models of ethical rules; third, models of ethical conduct; fourth, current personal and social values. The conclusion contains a description of the ethical person. (shrink)

This paper explores how work in the philosophy of science can be used when teaching scientific content to science students and when training future science teachers. I examine the debate on the concept of fitness in biology and in the philosophy of biology to show how conceptual pluralism constitutes a problem for the conceptual change model, and how philosophical work on conceptual clarification can be used to address that problem. The case of fitness exemplifies how the (...) class='Hi'>philosophy of science offers tools to resolve teaching difficulties and make the teaching of scientific concepts more adequate to the actual state of affairs in science. (shrink)

It is well known that the largest philosophers differently explain the origin of mathematics. This question was investigated in antiquity, a substantial and decisive role in this respect was played by the Platonic doctrine. Therefore, discussing this issue the problem of interaction of philosophy and mathematics in the teachings of Plato should be taken into consideration. Many mathematicians believe that abstract mathematical objects belong in a certain sense to the world of ideas and that consistency of objects and theories (...) really describes mathematical reality, as Plato quite clearly expressed his views on math, according to which mathematical concepts objectively exist as distinct entities between the world of ideas and the world of material things. In the context of foundations of mathematics, so called ‘Gödel’s Platonism‘ is of particular interest. It is shown in the article how Platonic objectification of mathematical concepts contributes to the development of modern mathematics by revealing philosophical understanding of the nature of abstraction. To substantiate his point of view, the author draws the works of contemporary experts in the field of philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Multiculturalism is an increasingly important topic for philosophers, largely because of the practical problems posed by diversity. Traditional political philosophy had little to say about cultural difference, taking the existence of a shared language and culture pretty much for granted. The multicultural societies of the contemporary world make such assumptions untenable. Traditional questions of fairness and sovereignty find hard cases in such policy issues as immigration, education, criminal law, and freedom of expression.

This paper discusses how to use cognitive developmental psychology to create a business ethics course that has philosophical integrity. It begins with the pedagogical problem to be overcome when students are not philosophy majors. To provide a context for the practical recommendations, Kohlberg's cognitive developmental theory is summarized and then the relationship between Kohlberg's theory, normative philosophy, and teaching is analyzed. The conclusion recommends strategies that should help overcome some of the vexing pedagogical problems mentioned in the (...) first section. In particular, the approach is designed to teach an appreciation for the practical necessity of philosophy in a pluralistic society. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Nikolaj Nottelmann, ‘Belief‐Desire Explanation’. Philosophy Compass Vol/Iss : 1–10. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2011.00446.xAuthor’s Introduction“Belief‐desire explanation” is short‐hand for a type of action explanation that appeals to a set of the agent’s mental states consisting of 1. Her desire to ψ and 2. Her belief that, were she to φ, she would promote her ψ‐ing. Here, to ψ could be to eat an ice cream, and to φ could be to walk to the ice cream vendor. (...) Adherents of belief‐desire explanation, often labelled “Humeans”, standardly assume that appeals to such belief‐desire pairs sufficiently explain many human and animal actions, and also that all actions are explainable thus, at least in so far as they are guided by the agent’s intentions. Humeans take their lead from David Hume’s famous dictum that “Reason...is only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” In its original context, this passage from the Treatise is naturally taken to convey the thesis that mental states subservient to epistemic rationality – such as beliefs – are never in themselves sufficient to motivate action. Thus, an appeal to an agent’s beliefs is never in itself sufficient to lay bare her motivations and explain her actions, but must be supplemented by an appeal to “passions” such as desires. Many philosophers, so‐called Anti‐Humeans, have sharply disagreed. Some have pointed to certain beliefs with alleged motivational force in isolation from desires, most commonly evaluative beliefs. Others have argued that belief‐desire psychology fails to cut up mental space in a way fruitful to action explanation. Instead, only appeals to other types of mental state will adequately explain many types of intentional action. The debate for and against Humeanism is a highly complex one, which is likely to persist along with any general interest in the theory of action explanation.Author RecommendsHume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. 2nd ed. Edited and with an Analytical Index, by L. A. Selby‐Bigge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.Part III. Sect. III. of the Treatise is the classical source of the Humean view. Any in‐depth understanding of contemporary Humeanism must take it as its starting point.Stroud, Barry. Hume. London: Routledge, 1977.This is an excellent introductory text. Chap. VII treats on Humeanism and the key part of the Treatise listed above.Smith, Michael. ‘The Humean Theory of Motivation.’Mind 96.381 : 36–61.This is an authoritative modern account of Humeanism. Even if a bit imprecise in some regards, the text is lucidly written and nicely captures the structure of the debate over Humeanism.Schaefer‐Landau, Russ. Moral Realism. A Defence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.Chapt. 5 contains another fine, more recent, introduction to Humeanism and the typical arguments for and against it. This introduction is particularly recommendable in virtue of its clarity and comprehensiveness.Ratcliffe, Matthew. Rethinking Commonsense Psychology. A Critique of Folk Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.This monograph treats on a very wide number of subjects pertaining to action explanation and harbours many highly controversial theses. Still, it is a refreshing eye‐opener re the immense complexity of the topic of action explanation and the great variety of such explanations in our folk practices. On my view Ratcliffe makes plausible the view that neither our folk practices nor our scientific practices single out a unique model of action explanation as the only appropriate one. Rather our practices of action explanation constitute a rather motley family. The consequence of this to the debates over Humeanism is obvious: The combatants must get clear on the exact models of action explanation within which they discuss the place of belief‐desire references instead of pretending to fight over action explanation in general.Gendler, Tamar Szabó. ‘Alief and Belief.’Journal of Philosophy 105 : 634–63.This paper, together with Gendler’s contemporary sister paper ‘Alief in Action ’, is an engaging proponent of the view that belief‐desire psychology and its associated practice of Human action explanations gets psychological reality radically wrong. Gendler presents a number of cases where, allegedly, relevant human actions are only explicable by appeal to a type of mental state, which Gendler dubs “alief”. Aliefs are neither beliefs nor desires; but share certain characteristics with both.Online MaterialsSample SyllabusWeek I: David Hume’s viewHume, Treatise, Part III. Sect III.Stroud: Hume, Chapt. VII.Week II: Modern HumeanismSmith, ‘The Humean Theory of Motivation’.Nottelmann, ‘Belief‐Desire Explanation’.Week III: Modern Humeanism continued: The Dialectics of the DebateSchaefer‐Landau, ‘Motivational Humeanism’.Week IV: Intention, Agency and CausationDavidson, Donald. ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’ & ‘Freedom to Act’, both in: Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.Week V: Modern Anti‐Humeanism, The Neo‐Kantian VersionScanlon, T. M. What we Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1998, Chapt. 1. ‘Reasons’.Week VI: Modern Anti‐Humeanism, The Cognitive Science VersionGendler, Tamar Szabó. ‘Alief and Belief’, supplemented with excerpts of her ‘Alief in Action ’. Mind and Language 23.5 : 552–85.Focus Questions1 Which kinds of explanation do belief‐desire explanations belong to?2 In so far as belief‐desire explanations provide causal explanation of action, how are we to understand the causal nexus between belief‐desire pairs and successful agency?3 How are we to understand the notions of belief and desire as appealed to in belief‐desire explanations? Are they even conceptually distinct from the concept of a belief‐desire explanation of human action?4 May evaluative judgments such as moral judgments motivate and/or rationalize action in isolation from accompanying distinct co‐native states of the agent?5 Are certain types of intentional action better explained with sole reference to mental states different from belief as well as desire? (shrink)