Accountability policy and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue, particularly in England. Research suggests that the school inspection system Ofsted impacts negatively on the health and well-being of staff and negatively influences teachers’ working practices, which can affect teacher retention. This paper examines the findings of a recent English research project entitled ‘Beyond Ofsted’ (2023) which aimed to gather a wide (...) range of views on both the current inspection system and potential alternatives. The data discussed in this paper is from part of the data collection which was a large-scale survey of teachers and school leaders. One of the findings of the Beyond Ofsted report was that 76% of our survey respondents thought that Ofsted had a negative effect on retention, with 30% considering leaving as a result of their most recent inspection. We found many reasons for this: the overall experience of inspection, the work in preparing for inspection, and many describing the regime as ‘toxic and brutal’. We argue that this is a compelling argument for urgent reform. (shrink)

Philosophers are intellectual cannibals; they feed on the supposed errors of their colleagues. No harm in that, it might be said. With a sophistical argument like that of the Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass to support the punishment of the innocent, progress in philosophy might be thought dependent on such voracious activities. The Queen thought that in replying to the claim that punishing the innocent was wrong one could say that if the victim really was innocent then (...) that produced a better universe than one which contained both the pain of the punishment and that of the original crime. In a similar way it might be argued that if the supposed errors of a colleague really exist, then their correction is beneficial; while if the errors do not exist then at least there is underlying agreement among philosophers, though perhaps not harmony. The sophistry, however, arises from the fact that in both cases there are other, and better, alternatives. The Queen unaccountably forgets that it would be still better in the case of innocence not to punish at all; and the philosophical apologist for intellectual cannibalism forgets, unaccountably, that it might be still better to advertise agreement rather than to feed on supposed errors which do not exist. For one thing, in that latter case the spurious conflict might positively conceal the real disagreements. Something of that latter kind happens in Timothy Sprigge’s comments on my views about William James ; James and Bradley:American Truth and British Reality, Open Court, 1994 ). I cannot, however, take much credit for stimulating Sprigge to adopt positions similar to mine for two reasons. First the apparent conflicts which conceal real agreement are relatively few, although quite important; second his own considered general view of James is certainly different from mine and marks the real disagreement between us. Accordingly I take two bites at this particular cherry; first to consider my supposed errors and second to identify the real differences between us. Timothy Sprigge claims to find a number of minor errors in my account, but I concentrate on the two major cases. (shrink)

The significance of big data for driving health research and improvements in patient care is well recognised. Along with these potential benefits, however, come significant challenges, including those concerning the sharing and linkage of health and social care records. Recently, there has been a shift in attention towards a paradigm of data sharing centred on the ‘trusted research environment’ (TRE). TREs are being widely adopted by the UK’s health data initiatives including Health Data Research UK (HDR UK),1 Our Future Health2 (...) and Genomics England.3 A recent review commissioned by the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (hereafter referred to as the ‘Goldacre Review’) places TREs at the heart of its recommendations around the future of National Health Service (NHS) health data sharing for research, describing them as the ‘clear path forward’ to a health data system in which trust is ‘earned’ through ‘provable, credible steps to protect patient privacy, and by being transparent with everyone about everything that is done with their deepest medical secrets’.4 We argue that rather than building public trust, the TRE model actually reduces the need for trust in the use and sharing of patient health data. This is because trust is importantly connected to vulnerability and uncertainty; an essential part of trusting someone is accepting that one’s trust could be disappointed or betrayed. In attempting to provide assurances or guarantees of data privacy and security, TREs strive to remove this vulnerability, and so remove the need for trust. We do not see this as a problem and are broadly supportive of this kind of data sharing model because of the increased security and oversight it provides. However, having argued that TREs are not actually concerned with trust, we consider the importance of being precise about the words that we use …. (shrink)

This book examines six plays by Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost, Hamlet, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest) as dramatizations of the Renaissance court in its developing history - a history searched by Shakespeare to disclose its most characteristic gains and losses. For these plays do not simply celebrate Tudor and Stuart rule: they scrutinize it too, in the centre of its institutional theatre of power, the court. This book shows how, if the plays came (...) into the court, the court also came into the plays, with its most salient features - its competitiveness, its inner tensions and its contradictions, its language, its cultural life and its entertainments - exposed to the scrutiny of an art-form that proved itself to be a new mode of historical understanding. (shrink)

A poetic visual meditation on creativity and the nature of imagination and experience.

This paper outlines a multidimensional conception of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) that differs from the 'orthodox' conception in terms of the content of its commitment to the reality of the self. Unlike the orthodox conception it recognizes that selves are fuzzy entities. By appreciating the possibility that selves are fuzzy entities, it is possible to rebut a form of fictionalism about the self which appeals to clinical data from MPD. Realism about self can be preserved in the face of multiple (...) personalities. (shrink)

An exploration of our fall from the pinnacle of human evolution 200,000 years ago and how we can begin our return. Explores recent neurological and psychological research on the brain and the role of plant biochemistry in human brain expansion. Explains how humanity's prehistoric diet change led to a neurodegenerative condition characterized by aggression and a fearful perception of the world. Outlines a strategy of raw foods, tantric sexuality, shamanic practices, and entheogens to reverse our mental degeneration and restore our (...) advanced abilities. Over a period of a million years the human brain expanded at an increasingly rapid rate, and then, 200,000 years ago, the expansion abruptly stopped. Modern science has overlooked this in order to maintain that we are at the pinnacle of our evolution. However, the halt in brain expansion explains not only recently uncovered anomalies within the human brain but also the global traditions of an earthly paradise lost and of humanity's degeneration from our original state of perpetual wonder and joy. Drawing on more than 20 years of research, authors Tony Wright and Graham Gynn explore how our modern brains are performing far below their potential and how we can unlock our higher abilities and return to the euphoria of Eden. They explain how for millions of years early forest-dwelling humans were primarily consuming the hormone-rich sex organs of plants--fruit--each containing a highly complex biochemical cocktail evolved to influence DNA transcription, rapid brain development, and elevated neural and pineal gland activity. Citing recent neurological and psychological studies, the authors explain how the loss of our symbiotic fruit-based diet led to a progressive neurodegenerative condition characterized by aggressive behaviors, a fearful perception of the world, and the suppression of higher artistic, mathematical, and spiritual abilities. The authors show how many shamanic and spiritual traditions were developed to counteract our decline. They outline a strategy of raw foods, tantric sexuality, shamanic practices, and entheogen use to reverse our degeneration, restore our connection with the plant world, and regain the bliss and peace of the brain of Eden"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

If you thought you knew who you were, THINK AGAIN. Did you know that half your DNA isn't human? That somebody, somewhere has exactly the same face? Or that most of your memories are fiction? What about the fact that you are as hairy as a chimpanzee, various parts of your body don't belong to you, or that you can read other people's minds? Do you really know why you blush, yawn and cry? Why 90 per cent of laughter has (...) nothing to do with humour? Or what will happen to your mind after you die? You belong to a unique, fascinating and often misunderstood species. How to be Human is your guide to making the most of it. (shrink)

A recent paper by Leclerc et al(1) describes how recombinant hamster prion protein can undergo a spontaneous change in conformation to a structure that has features in common with PrPSc. Structural change in the host prion protein, PrPC to an insoluble and aggregated form with increased β‐sheet content (PrPSc) is central to the pathology of prion diseases.(2) A detailed understanding of the nature of these conformational changes will increase our knowledge of the molecular basis of prion pathology. These findings may (...) have implications for how the disease is initiated and provide a format for further investigation. BioEssays 23:772–774, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In the friendly dispute between the philosophers of science Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos, both authors proclaim their allegiance to fallibilism: a term first coined by Charles Sanders Peirce, though often associated more strongly with Karl Popper. Yet Lakatos charges that Feyerabend’s position amounts to scepticism rather than fallibilism, given that the latter accounts for theoretical change but not theoretical progress. Famously, progress for Lakatos occurs by way of a progressive research program, one that expands in scope over time, tackles (...) an ever more challenging range of problems, and often yields surprising verifications of its theories. But fallibilism is cheap if it merely entails the truism that the scientific consensus of any given moment might turn out to be false. If we describe knowledge in terms of the ancient and still influential formula “justified true belief,” there is good reason to hold that neither justification nor truth are attainable goals, and that they cannot even be approached asymptotically (as in the very different proposals of Alvin Plantinga and Martin Heidegger). Contra Lakatos this is not grounds for scepticism, but for what I term “weird fallibilism,” using “weird” in a technical sense drawn from my book on the American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Weird fallibilism is characterized by two fundamental claims: (1) truth never corresponds to reality, and (2) objects never correspond to their own qualities, a point in direct conflict with the “bundle of qualities” theory of objects handed down from British Empiricism. On this basis, a modification of the “justified true belief” criterion for knowledge is briefly sketched. (shrink)

Hylomorphists claim that substances—human beings, oak trees, chemical compounds—are compounds of matter and form. If a house is a substance, then its matter would be some bricks and timbers and its form the structure those bricks and timbers take on. While hylomorphism is traditionally presented as a theory of change, it only treats the coming-to-be and passing-away of matter-form compounds. But many hylomorphists understand forms to be entities in their own right, as parts or constituents of substances. So, a neglected (...) question arises: how, when, and from where do forms come to be? I take up the view of one prominent and representative hylomorphist, Kathrin Koslicki, and argue that she cannot answer these questions satisfactorily. I close with a proposal for an account of the generation of forms based on machinery many hylomorphists already accept, namely, causal powers, that points to a deflationary metaphysics of form. (shrink)

The concept of transformative experience (TE) has been widely explored by several disciplines from philosophy to neurobiology, and in different domains, from the spiritual to the educational one. This attitude has engendered heterogeneous models to explain this phenomenon. However, a consistent and clear understanding of this construct remains elusive. The aim of this work is to provide an initial comprehensive interdisciplinary, cross-domain, up-to-date, and integrated overview on the concept of TEs. Firstly, all the models and theories on TEs were reviewed (...) to extract and analyze TEs’ main components emerging from different disciplines. Then, this preliminary analysis was integrated with an in-depth examination of redundancies and particularities across domains and disciplines, to provide an integrated theoretical framework of TEs and a preliminary interdisciplinary operational definition of TEs. This examination, in turn, can help organize current research and theories, thus providing suggestions for operationalizing TEs as well as encouraging new interdisciplinary research endeavors. (shrink)

The threshold view says that a person forms an outright belief P if and only if her credence for P reaches a certain threshold. Using computer simulations, I compare different versions of the threshold view to understand how they perform under time pressure in decision problems. The results illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the various cognitive strategies in different decision contexts. A threshold view that performs well across diverse contexts is likely to be a cognitively flexible and context-dependent fusion (...) of several of the existing theories. The results of the simulations also cast doubts on the possibility of a threshold view that is both simple enough to streamline our reasoning while also allowing us to form good action-guiding beliefs. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s treatment of objects in Logics of Worlds is both rich and highly technical, though its terminological challenges are softened by his use of illuminating examples. This article takes a twofold approach to the topic. In a first sense, the theory of objects developed in Logics of Worlds by way of an imagined protest at the Place de la République in Paris exhibits two questionable aspects: (1) the notion that the object is a bundle of qualities (found proverbially in (...) Hume, but also in Kant’s “transcendental object=X”), and (2) the ultimately idealist assumption of a possible isomorphy between appearance and reality. But in a second sense, Badiou’s transcendental account of worlds leads him to a fascinating theory of exemplary entities, one that is immune to the critiques of onto-theology made by Heidegger and Derrida. This can be found in his account of the “transcendental functor” in Alexander the Great’s decisive victory over Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C.E. (shrink)