In Veritas, Gerald Vision defends the correspondence theory of truth -- the theory that truth has a direct relationship to reality -- against recent attacks, and critically examines its most influential alternatives. The correspondence theory, if successful, explains one way in which we are cognitively connected to the world; thus, it is claimed, truth -- while relevant to semantics, epistemology, and other studies -- also has significant metaphysical consequences. Although the correspondence theory is widely held today, Vision points to (...) an emerging orthodoxy in philosophy that claims that truth as such carries no significant weight in philosophical explanations. He devotes much of the book to a criticism of that outlook and to a less vulnerable formulation of the correspondence theory.Vision defends the correspondence theory by both presenting evidence for correspondence and examining the claims made by such alternative theories as deflationism, minimalism, and pluralism. The techniques of the argument are thoroughly analytic, but the problem confronted is broadly humanistic. The question examined -- how we, as thinking beings, are connected to and manage to cope in a world that was not designed for our comfort or convenience -- is more likely to be raised by continentalists, but is approached here with the tools of clarity and precision more highly prized in analytic philosophy. The book seeks to avoid both the obscurantism that infects much continental thought and the overly technical concerns and methodology that limit the interest of much work in analytic philosophy. It thus provides a rigorous but largely nontechnical treatment of the topic that will be of interest not only to readers familiar with philosophy but also to those with a background in literary theory and linguistics. (shrink)

Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure writing, but (...) by the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives. (shrink)

This volume is a “state-of-the-art‘ assessment of comparative philosophy written by some of the leading practitioners of the field. While its primary focus is on gaining methodological clarity regarding the comparative enterprise of “interpreting across boundaries,‘ the book also contains new substantive essays on Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and European thought. The contributors are Roger T. Ames, William Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, A. S. Cua, Eliot Deutsch, Charles Hartshorne, Daya Krishna, Gerald James Larson, Sengaku Mayeda, Hajime Nakamura, Raimundo Panikkar, (...) Karl H. Potter, Henry Rosemont, Jr., Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Ninian Smart, Fritz Staal, and Frederick J. Streng. Comparative or cross-cultural philosophy can be seen as a relative newcomer to the field of philosophy. It has its antecedents in the emergence of comparative studies in nineteenth-century European intellectual history, as well as in the sequence of East-West Philosophers’ Conferences at the University of Hawaii, which began in 1939. This book will prove to be of great significance in helping to define a field that is only now becoming fully self-conscious, methodologically and substantively, about its role and function in the larger enterprises of philosophy and comparative studies. (shrink)

Limited Inc. is a major work in the philosophy of language by the celebrated French thinker Jacques Derrida. The book's two essays, 'Limited Inc.' and 'Signature Event Context, ' constitute key statements of the Derridean theory of deconstruction. They are perhaps the clearest exposition to be found of Derrida's most controversial idea.

This is a profound study of Aristotle's concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Carlo Natali critically reconsiders Aristotle's famous doctrine of contemplations, relating it to contemporary theories of the good life. In Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle appears to claim that the best possible life is that which is engaged in theoria, usually translated "contemplation." Quite a few commentators have criticized what they call Aristotle's "intellectualism," suggesting that when he makes the intellectual life superior to all other human (...) goods he opens the door to a Raskolnikov-like immoralism. Natali threads his way very carefully through the tangle of recent arguments on the topic, and presents a persuasive resolution that preserves the primacy of the life of the mind without giving any room for justifications of amorality. In Natali's discussion, Aristotle's analysis of wisdom comes into focus for us today as an attractive and well-argued ideal, to be kept in mind when we are deciding how to live. (shrink)

Much of the political and public debate about faith-based schooling is conducted at the level of generalised assertion and counterassertion, with little reference to educational scholarship or research. There is a tendency in these debates to draw upon historical images of faith schooling (idealised and critical); to use ideological advocacy (both for and against) and to deploy strong claims about the effects of faith-based schooling upon personal and intellectual autonomy and the wider consequences of such schooling for social harmony, race (...) relations and the common good of society. This paper will attempt to review some of these controversies in the light of recent educational and research studies. Particular attention will be given to research investigations of Catholic schooling systems in various cultural and political contexts, studies which are largely unknown outside the Catholic community. In addition to reviewing educational studies of faith-based schooling, the paper will offer critical appraisal of the main arguments in the debate and it will also outline a possible research agenda for future inquiry in this sector of educational studies. (shrink)

The study of school leadership is in danger of being reduced to a set of technical and management considerations. School leadership is not simply about management. It is about moral values, educational values and professional principles. There is an urgent need to place the study of school leadership in broader social, cultural, political and historical contexts in particular societies. This paper attempts to do this in relation to English schooling.

Ce premier volume de La Nuit des Olympica. Essai sur le national cartésianisme (deux livres en quatre tomes) inaugure l'une des plus saines entreprises de la pensée contemporaine : que cesse le mythe Descartes! Finissons-en avec l'imagerie nationale. Suivons René Descartes dans les moments clés de sa vie, ancrons-le dans son époque de reconquête catholique et de consolidation de l'absolutisme. Traquons en ses feintes le premier de ces hommes en qui Nietzsche dénonçait un " prêtre masqué ", le philosophe. Multipliant (...) points de vue et rapprochements, enrichissant le texte de très abondantes notes, souvent surprenantes, l'auteur instruit le procès de cette source vive de la tradition française, rationaliste et spiritualiste, tant avec insolence et humour que dans une écriture aux antipodes de tout académisme. (shrink)

Die Genese einer im rechten Sinne verstandenen „Culturwissenschaft“, als einer Theorie, die es erlaubt, die Probleme des Prinzipienrelativismus’ in Logik, Ethik, Religion etc. anzugehen, beleuchtet Gerald Hartung in seinem Beitrag „Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft – eine Kontroverse um die Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft“ im Ausgang von Wundts Völkerpsychologie, indem er die Diskussionen rekonstruiert, die sich um dieselbe in den Jahren zwischen 1860 und 1901 ereigneten. Als Ausgangspunkt für seine Untersuchungen nimmt Hartung die von Steinthal und Lazarus herausgegebene „Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und (...) Sprachwissenschaft“, in deren Bemühungen um eine Methoden- und Gegenstandsbestimmung der Völkerpsychologie, gleichsam das „Profil einer ‚Culturwissenschaft‘“ sichtbar wird. Der grundlegenden Skizzierung des Programms der Zeitschrift in Hinblick auf die Frage nach der Funktion der Sprache für die Genese von Geist und Kultur im Allgemeinen folgt die Verortung der konstitutiven Funktion von Sprache innerhalb Wundts Völkerpsychologie, die Hartung aus den Kontroversen zwischen Wundt und Paul, der Kritik Steinthals an Wundt und Paul als auch der späten Auseinandersetzung zwischen Delbrück und Wundt herausarbeitet. So zeigt Hartung, dass Delbrück 1901 keinerlei Interesse mehr an der Völkerpsychologie hatte, da diese wie auch deren Organ längst in der Völkerkunde aufgegangen war. Während Wundt im Ausgang von Delbrücks Vorstoß erneuert die Verbundenheit von Psychologie und Sprachwissenschaft hervorhob und die Psychologie nicht allein als eigenständige Disziplin, sondern darüber hinaus als Leitwissenschaft der Sprachwissenschaft zu etablieren suchte, sah Steinthal in der Völkerpsychologie – so Hartung abschließend – die Möglichkeit einer Kulturwissenschaft, in der die „Gebilde des objektiven Geistes“ behandelt werden. (shrink)