How should rational believers pursue the aim of truth? Epistemic utility theorists have argued that by combining the tools of decision theory with an epistemic form of value—gradational accuracy, proximity to the truth—we can justify various epistemological norms. I argue that deriving these results requires using decision rules that are different in important respects from those used in standard (practical) decision theory. If we use the more familiar decision rules, we can’t justify the epistemic coherence norms that epistemic utility theory (...) had hoped to justify. In short, those of us who are attracted to the project of epistemic utility theory face a dilemma. If we choose “consequentialist” rules, then we can vindicate the idea that rational belief has the aim of accuracy—but at the cost of giving up attractive epistemic norms. (shrink)

The subjective deontic "ought" generates counterexamples to classical inference rules like modus ponens. It also conflicts with the orthodox view about modals and conditionals in natural language semantics. Most accounts of the subjective ought build substantive and unattractive normative assumptions into the semantics of the modal. I sketch a general semantic account, along with a metasemantic story about the context sensitivity of information-sensitive operators.

In this paper, I characterize visual epistemic representations as concrete two- or three-dimensional tools for conveying information about aspects of their target systems or phenomena of interest. I outline two features of successful visual epistemic representation: that the vehicle of representation contain sufficiently accurate information about the phenomenon of interest for the user’s purpose, and that it convey this information to the user in a manner that makes it readily available to her. I argue that actual epistemic representation may involve (...) tradeoffs between these and is successful to the extent that they are present. (shrink)

Qualities of personal character would appear to play a significant role in the professional conduct of teachers. It is often said that we remember teachers as much for the kinds of people they were than for anything they may have taught us, and some kinds of professional expertise may best be understood as qualities of character After (roughly) distinguishing qualities of character from those of personality, the present paper draws on the resources of virtue ethics to try to make sense (...) of the former. In the course of this, it is argued that while the key virtue ethical concept of phronesis orpractical wisdom has been widely deployed to account for aspects of professional teacher expertise, it has also been subject to rather un-Aristotelian interpretation as a kind of situation specific productive reasoning. The present paper seeks to show that it is better employed for understanding character in general and character in teaching in particular. The paper concludes with some observations about the professional education or cultivation of character. (shrink)

This book takes a major step in the philosophy of education by moving back past the Enlightenment and reinstating Aristotelian Virtue at the heart of moral education.

The purposes of higher education in general and of university education in particular have long been subject to controversy. Whereas for some, the main role of universities is to provide professional and vocational education and training and their benefits are to be measured in terms of social or economic utility, their value for others is to be seen more in terms of the liberal development and promotion of certain intrinsically worthwhile qualities of mind and intellect. In this context, indeed, much (...) recent literature on university education has been concerned to reaffirm what are usually taken to have been the liberal purposes of bygone university education over the more instrumental or vocational agendas of much contemporary university and higher education. While recognising, along with other treatments of this issue, that it is to some extent implicated in a false dichotomy between the liberal and the vocational, this paper seeks a clearer rationale for the liberal dimensions and aspirations of university education. (shrink)

In the contemporary literature of educational philosophy and theory, it is almost routinely assumed or claimed that 'education' is a 'contested' concept: that is, it is held that education is invested – as it were, 'all the way down' - with socially constructed interests and values that are liable to diverge in different contexts to the point of mutual opposition. It is also often alleged that post-war analytical philosophers of education such as R. S. Peters failed to appreciate such contestability (...) in seeking a single unified account of the concept of education. Following a brief re-visitation of Peters' analytical influences and approach and some consideration of recent 'post-analytical' criticisms of analytical educational philosophy on precisely this score, it is argued that much of the case for the so-called 'contestability' of education rests on a confusion of different concepts with different senses of 'education' that proper observance of well-tried methods of conceptual analysis easily enables us to avoid. (shrink)

Why should we seek and tell the truth? Does anyone know what truth is? Many are skeptical about the relevance of truth. Truth Matters endeavours to show why truth is important in a world where the very idea of truth is contested. Putting philosophers in conversation with educators, literary scholars, physicists, political theorists, and theologians, Truth Matters ranges across both analytic and continental philosophy and draws on the ideas of thinkers such as Aquinas, Balthasar, Brandom, Davidson, Dooyeweerd, Gadamer, Habermas, Kierkegaard, (...) Plantinga, Ricoeur, and Wolterstorff. Some essays attempt to provide a systematic account of truth, while others wrestle with the question of how truth is told and what it means to live truthfully. Contributors address debates between realists and anti-realists, explore issues surrounding relativism and constructivism in education and the social sciences, examine the politics of truth telling and the ethics of authenticity, and consider various religious perspectives on truth. Most scholars agree that truth is propositional, being expressed in statements that are subject to proof or disproof. This book goes a step farther: yes, propositional truth is important, but truth is more than propositional. To recognize how it is more than propositional is crucial for understanding why truth truly matters. Contributors include Doug Blomberg (ICS), Allyson Carr (ICS), Jeffrey Dudiak (King’s University College), Olaf Ellefson (York University), Gerrit Glas (VU University Amsterdam), Gill K. Goulding (Regis College), Jay Gupta (Mills College), Clarence Joldersma (Calvin College), Matthew J. Klaassen (ICS), John Jung Park (Duke University), Pamela J. Reeve (St. Augustine’s Seminary), Amy Richards (World Affairs Council of Western Michigan), Calvin Seerveld (ICS), Ronnie Shuker (ICS), Adam Smith (Brandeis University), John Van Rys (Redeemer University College), Darren Walhof (Grand Valley State University), Matthew Walhout (Calvin College), and Lambert Zuidervaart (ICS). (shrink)

Dream lucidity, or being aware that one is dreaming while dreaming, is not an all-or-none phenomenon. Often, subjects report being some variant of “a little lucid” as opposed to completely or not at all. As recent neuroimaging work begins to elucidate the neural underpinnings of lucid experience, understanding subtle phenomenological variation within lucid dreams is essential. Here, we focus on the variability of lucid experience by asking participants to report their awareness of the dream on a 5-point Likert scale. Participants (...) implemented a combination of mnemonic training lucid dream induction methods at home for one week and provided detailed reports about their dream experiences each morning. Consistent with previous research, cognitive induction methods led to about half of participants reporting at least one lucid dream and about half of all dreams including some level of lucidity. However, we also show that induction success rate varies significantly depending on the minimum criteria for lucidity. Participants also reported how much they adhered to specific components of each induction method, and the amount of mnemonic rehearsal during a brief early awake period was predictive of lucidity level. Furthermore, lucidity levels were positively correlated with dream control, dream bizarreness, and next-morning positive affect. Lastly, we asked participants open-ended questions about why they chose particular levels of lucidity. We focus a qualitative discussion on responses to those “semi-lucid” dreams to explore why participants rate their dreams as having intermediate levels of awareness. Together, the present study explores the frequency of semi-lucid dreams, what they are, why they might arise, their correlates, and how they impact methodological concerns in lucid dreaming research. (shrink)

It is well known that Husserl and Foucault use the striking phrase “the historical apriori” at certain key points in their work. Yet most commentators agree that the two thinkers mean very different things by this expression, and the question is why these two authors would employ the same terms for such different purposes. Instead of pursuing this question directly I want to look from a broader perspective at the views of history that are reflected in the different uses of (...) this expression. Husserl and Foucault may be said to represent teleological and anti-teleological views of history respectively. Foucault often says that phenomenology represents the view to which he is most opposed, and in most of these remarks it is the subject-centered character of phenomenology to which he most objects. But I think he also sees Husserl as the latest representative of a teleological view of history and of knowledge that descends from Hegel and the enlightenment and is characteristic of modernity as a whole. Foucault’s work mounts a full-scale attack on this view of history, and this is one of the ways in which Foucault’s thought contrasts with Husserl’s. I argue that Foucault’s view is anti-teleological rather than simply non-teleological, since almost invariably he develops his view by uprooting the assumptions of his opponents. At the end of the paper I come back to the expression “historical apriori,” as used by Husserl and Foucault, and discuss it briefly in light of what I have said. (shrink)

This chapter contends that Husserl's view of history is typical for the early twentieth century, even while the specific form of Husserl's crisis is intimately connected to his personal situation as a Jew in Nazi Germany and to the situation of German philosophy as a whole at this time. It considers the analytical and epistemological aspects of Husserl's theory, examining whether it can also be regarded as a contribution to the critical philosophy of history. It also argues that Husserl cannot (...) affirm the absolutely universal character of philosophy, but he was similarly aware that in conceiving of philosophy as a European tradition, he opened it to the charge of cultural relativism. (shrink)

Plato is usually credited as the source of the "ancient quarrel" between reason and rhetoric—and, for him, the arts fall mostly on the less favorable side of rhetoric.1 To be sure, Plato's harsh verdict on the arts rests on an idealist metaphysics and epistemology (or realism about universals)—enshrining a general pessimism about the epistemic prospects of sense experience—which few, nowadays, would consider persuasive. For Plato, since what is presented to us by the senses is no more than an inaccurate copy (...) of truth as revealed by the intellect, and since the artist merely reproduces such copies, the productions of artists are not once but twice removed from any genuine knowledge of reality. To be sure, Plato is .. (shrink)

For every uncountable regular cardinalκ and any cardinalλ≧κ,P κ λ denotes the set $\left\{ {x \subseteqq \lambda :\left| x \right|< \kappa } \right\}$ . Furthermore, < denotes the binary operation defined inP κ λ byx (...) + denotes the setP κ λ−I, andI * the filter dual toI.An idealI overP κ λ is said to benormal iff every functionf:P κ λ→λ with the property that {x∈P κ λ:f(x)∈x}∈I + is constant on a set inI +.I is said to bestrongly normal iff every functionf:P κ λ→P κ λ with the property that {x∈P κ λ:x∩xκ≠Ø∧f(x)shrink)

Hoffnung als einer Form der Kontingenzbewältigung kommt im menschlichen Existenzzusammenhang eine zentrale Funktion zu, weshalb sie in zahlreichen theoretischen und literarischen Texten verhandelt wird. Dennoch bildet eine wissenschaftliche Analyse des Hoffnungsdiskurses bislang ein Desiderat. Der vorliegende Band verfolgt ausgehend von diesem Befund eine doppelte Zielsetzung: In einer historischen Perspektivierung nimmt er zunächst eine Archäologie des Hoffnungsdiskurses vor, indem wesentliche kulturgeschichtliche Stationen von den mythischen Anfängen bis in die Spätmoderne nachgezeichnet und Traditionsstränge offengelegt werden. In systematischer Hinsicht erfolgt dann eine typologische (...) Annäherung an Verfahrensweisen mit der Hoffnung in Philosophie und Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Denn in der Spätmoderne mit ihren historischen Bedrohungen und Katastrophen findet eine paradigmatische Umwertung der Hoffnung statt. Bislang gültige Attribute wie Komplexitätsreduktion und Linearität werden verabschiedet. Stattdessen rückt nun vermehrt der ungewisse Prozess des Hoffens in den Fokus, der in absurden, dialektischen und paradoxen Denkmodellen seinen Ausdruck findet und eine sprachliche Annäherung an die unsichere Zukunft ermöglicht. (shrink)

Despite the 'progressive' influence of the English Plowden Report and Scottish Primary Memorandum on British primary curricula from the 1960s onwards, secondary education has generally continued to follow a more traditional subject-centred route and post-war educational theorists have not generally been favourably inclined to other than subject-based modes of curriculum planning and organisation. However, in the light of current curriculum reviews on both sides of the Scottish border-callingfor more educationally meaningful curricula-the perennial issue of how school knowledge might best be (...) ordered for the coherent educational experience of pupils seems worth revisiting. To this end, this paper examines some of the influential post-war philosophical arguments against integrated and interdisciplinary approaches to the curricular organisation of knowledge, concluding that they are not as compelling as they might formerly have seemed. (shrink)

Psychologists, philosophers, theologians and educationalists have all lately explored various conceptual, moral, psychological and pedagogical dimensions of gratitude in a rapidly expanding academic and popular literature. However, while the distinguished contributors to this work hail from these distinct disciplines, they have been brought together in this volume precisely in recognition of the need for a more interdisciplinary perspective on the topic. While further developing such more familiar debates in the field as whether it is appropriate to feel grateful in circumstances (...) in which there is no obvious benefactor, whether it is proper to feel grateful to those who have benefited one only from a sense of duty and whether it makes sense to be grateful if so doing colludes with injustice, the essays in this collection explore a wide variety of fresh conceptual, psychological and moral issues. For example, in addition to identifying some new moral paradoxes about gratitude and seeking a generally more morally discriminating approach to gratitude education, relations are explored between gratitude and humility, forgiveness and appreciation and the religious and spiritual dimensions of the concept are also given much overdue attention. By drawing together serious academic engagement with the study of gratitude and a serious attempt to undertake this within an interdisciplinary perspective,_ Perspectives on Gratitude _will be of value to academics and graduate students in the fields of philosophy, psychology and theology, as well as other research-based disciplines. (shrink)

Nurses’ religious beliefs influence their motivations and perspectives, including their practice of ethics in nursing care. When the impact of these beliefs is not recognized, great potential for unethical nursing care exists. Thus, this article examines how the theology of one religious tradition, Seventh-day Adventism (SDA), could affect nurses. An overview of SDA history and beliefs is presented, which explains why ‘medical missionary’ work is central to SDAs. Theological foundations that would permeate an SDA nurse’s view of the nursing metaparadigm (...) concepts of person, health, environment (i.e. community), and nursing (i.e. service) are presented. The ethical principles guiding SDA nurses (i.e. principled, case-based, and care ethics) and the implications of these theological foundations for nurses are noted in a case study. (shrink)

On doit sans doute admettre que le discours de l’évaluation vient de l’intérêt de quelques hommes pour la production et son contrôle. Ce sont eux qui ont facilité l’implantation du discours de la science dans l’industrie un peu avant et un peu après la Seconde Guerre mondiale.C’est aux États-Unis, dans les années 1930, que Walter Shewhart2 et trois autres scientifiques américains3..

(1981). Professionalism in education and physical education: A reply to David best. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 152-158.

It is argued that physics must eventually expand to accommodate mind and consciousness but that this will require a new paradigm. The paradigm required will impinge on two problems on the borders of physics and philosophy: the relationship between physical space and perceptual space and the nature of the passage of time. It is argued that the resolution of both these problems may involve a 5-dimensional model, with the 5th dimension being associated with mental time, and this proposal may relate (...) to recent developments in brane cosmology. A description of consciousness must also entail a proper understanding of the specious present, the minimum timescale of conscious experience, this possibly being associated with a compactified extra dimension. There could even be a hierarchy of levels of consciousness, associated with a hierarchy of extra dimensions. (shrink)

This paper analyses the relations between Pragmatism and Brazilian culture, nowadays defined as a plural culture. It shows that the introduction of Pragmatism into Brazilian educational movements in the past actually made such culture much more receptive to pragmatist ideas. After discussing the concepts of truth and minimalism on Richard Rorty’s Philosophical Papers, the authors conclude that Brazilian education today is receptive to the conception in which new narratives can be used as a powerful instrument to change the world.