This volume addresses the issue of the human encounter with the Mystery of God and the purpose of human life. It explores major themes from diverse cultural and philosophical traditions, starting with questions about the possibility of belief in God, His transcendence as seen in both East and West, and ending with questions about ethics and about personhood, human dignity and human rights. Taking an eclectic approach, the chapters in this book each uniquely address aspects of the human encounter with (...) the Mystery of God, drawing from specific cultures and traditions, and using a particular philosophical and theological style. Together, the chapters provide a fresh approach and a synergy that ensures that each topic contributes something new to the dialogue between religion and culture. (shrink)

R. S. Peters never explicitly talks about wisdom as being an aim of education. He does, however, in numerous places, emphasize that education is of the whole person and that, whatever else it might be about, it involves the development of knowledge and understanding. Being educated, he claims, is incompatible with being narrowly specialized. Moreover, he argues, education enables a person to have a different perspective on things, ‘to travel with a different view’ [Peters, R. S. (1967). What is an (...) educational process? In R. S. Peters (Ed.), The concept of education (pp. 1–23). Routledge and Kegan Paul]. In asserting this about education, Peters has more in common with another great English educator, John Henry, Cardinal Newman, than one might expect, given they are separated by about a century and start from different philosophical perspectives, namely Kant to a significant degree in the former and Aristotle in the latter. Both nevertheless acknowledge the importance of reason and its development in any education worthy of the name. I will argue that in describing the ‘educated person’ Peters is not far from the view of Newman, who saw education as being about the ‘enlargement of mind’. Although Newman hesitates to call ‘enlargement of mind’ wisdom, and Peters does not use either term, there are good grounds for proposing that in distinguishing between education and training, and in asserting education is moral education because it is concerned to improve persons, Peters acknowledges the higher purposes of education and hence, we can add, its connection with wisdom. Significantly, what such a reading of Peters emphasizes is his insistence on the intrinsic value of education, a view seemingly lost in modern market-driven conceptions of education. (shrink)

Education needs to prepare students to have understanding of themselves, of their relationships to others, to have an ability to make good moral and other judgements and to act on these. If education has a role to play in the alleviation of the crises facing the world, then there is some urgency in reflecting on what kind of education is needed in order to prepare young people to tackle these many crises. It is our contention that the major problem with (...) modern education is that it has forgotten that its main task is helping students to learn to be wise. That is, in considering the aims of education, it is proposed that it is wisdom which is the main aim of education. This will be so whatever level of education we are discussing, though much of our discussion refers to higher education. (shrink)

Education has been widely criticised as being too narrowly focused on skills, capacities and the transference of knowledge that can be used in the workplace. As a result of the dominance of economic rationalism and neo-liberalism, it has become commodified and marketed to potential customers. As a consequence, students have become consumers of an educational product and education has become an industry. This volume draws together a number of different perspectives on what is meant by 'human formation', argues that for (...) a much richer conception of education, and addresses the lack of attention to human fulfilment. (shrink)

The CoVid-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted schooling and education more generally through the shift from face to face teaching in classrooms and lecture theatres to an online mode of teaching a...

A recurring theme in many places concerns the nurturing and maintenance of a civil society that is committed to justice, to human fulfilment and a community that actively pursues the good of all its members. The creation of a civil society where there is respect for persons and a concern for the good of others is an important social aim and though it is not the sole responsibility of educational institutions, they have a crucial role to play in its development. (...) It also evident that the creation of a civil society includes the family and the wider community and so in order to understand how a civil society is to be fostered, we need to understand relationality, a central concept in both the Western and Eastern understandings of human nature. If we reflect on contemporary education in both the East and the West, an important question to consider is the extent to which education measures up to developing in young people a sense of their responsibilities to one another, their families and to the wider community. In short the question of how well we are developing humane persons who are able to relate to one another and build a civil society. This article argues that there needs to be a rebalancing of the aims of education to include the development of those values and dispositions that will foster a civil society. (shrink)

This paper will consider the role of schools, as a particular moral habitat in the formation of moral virtues and how the inculcation of a comprehensive private moral system of beliefs, values and practices leads to public values in a multicultural, pluralist society. It is argued that the formation of good persons ensures the formation of good citizens and that governments should therefore support good moral education rather than seek to impose national public values or to concentrate on developing good (...) citizens only. The recognition that moral values are learnt within particular private moral systems of values, that it is these on which common public values rely for support and that there are a variety of such comprehensive private moral systems also means that a variety of schools need to be supported. One condition which such schools need to fulfil is that the comprehensive private moral system of beliefs which they inculcate in their students is based on a recognition of the universal applicability of the moral principles that they endorse. (shrink)

In the mind of many governments the aim of education is not just to develop the potential of each young person and adult, but to also develop their creativity. Part of the logic of the rhetoric of constant improvement is that the improvement of literacy and numeracy is not enough, but that education must also unlock thepotential of every human being. Though few, if any, would dispute this as a laudable aim of education, the equating of creativity with the development (...) of a person’s full potential is misguided. Though creativity does admit of degrees, at its highest level, it breaks new theoretical ground, solves formerly intractable problems and inspires new approaches to practical problems; at this level it cannot be taught and doubtful whether anyone can be taught to be creativeat any level. Moreover, the products of creative work will not always have economic value. It is argued that though it is important to encourage creativity, it should not be expected that creative outcomes will follow from such encouragement. The nature of creativity is such that governments should be careful what they wishfor. (shrink)

The 'post-truth' world in which we live has been beset by fake news, lies and a cavalier disregard for truth. If truth is neglected then an alternative is an appeal to the emotions in order to validate a particular position, which can quickly turn to the use of power to impose a particular view. The loss of truth results in the loss of freedom. This book contends that if we want to preserve our freedom then we have a serious obligation (...) to pursue truth. One way to do this is through an adequate moral education. Education in an Age of Lies and Fake News: Regaining a Love of Truth makes an argument for the importance of truth. It explores how we can retrieve the concept of truth and how moral education can be deployed in order to re-establish a commitment to truth. It introduces Eastern perspectives on the question of truth and how we view reality, and presents a realist position on the nature of truth as a counter to scepticism, drawing on Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, amongst others. Further, the chapters are mindful of the significance of developing a pedagogy which not only enables students to be critical thinkers, but to foster a genuine concern for truth and for its pursuit. This book will be essential reading for students, educators, philosophers and researchers pursuing the question of truth in the modern age. (shrink)

If we accept Popper's idea that the human habitat is described in terms of three worlds, and that there are overlaps between these three worlds, our moral actions and values will also be subject to the same kinds of consideration as a repertoire of behaviours exhibited in a physical environment. We will develop moral habits in a moral habitat and our moral behaviours will also be dependent on the kind of moral habitat in which we find ourselves.There are three main (...) problems to which this analysis leads and on which we will focus in this paper. Firstly, there is the problem of the kind of moral environment—habitat—that we need to provide for human beings if they are to develop the kinds of moral values that we hold to be important. Secondly, there is the question of how we are to develop the kinds of moral habits themselves and thirdly, there is the question of how these moral habits and habitat are to be maintained. If we take Popper seriously then human beings have a crucial responsibility in the creation of a moral third world—that is, a habitat in which human beings can flourish. Schools have an important role as a moral habitat for the inculcation of good moral habits. (shrink)

The place of physical education has been contested in recent times and it has been argued that its justification as part of school curricula seems to be marginal at best. Such justifications as have been offered, propose that physical education is justified because of its contribution to moral development or because it is capable of being studied as a theoretical subject. Other justifications have centred on the embodied nature of the human being. In this article we draw on some classical (...) thinkers, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Augustine and Benedict, to argue for a strong, integrated view of the human person. From this it is concluded that physical education is a necessary component of education and that a complete education therefore involves physical education. Physical education is understood in a broad sense as a family resemblance concept which incorporates a wide variety of physical activities. Disciplined physical activity which enables individuals to gain those physical skills required for learning, it is proposed, is essential for intellectual development. Benedictine education, which involves hard physical work, reading, prayer and reflection, illustrates how the physical and mental aspects of a person are to be integrated in order to attain the ends of the committed Benedictine monk. (shrink)

The use of narrative – in this case a fictional dialogue – has been a time-honoured way of exploring ideas and most importantly indispensable for learning, at least since the time of the Sophists. Indeed, the dialogues of Plato exemplify this thesis because the qualities and characteristics of philosophy and philosophising are revealed through their lives. Extending on this premise, we would argue that we learn to understand both the unity and complexity of philosophy – particularly in education and educational (...) research – not by formal philosophical arguments, necessary as they are in some contexts, but by narratives that are relevant, narratives that make the actions of one or more characters intelligible and justifiable. As a result, this article uses a narrative approach for the dual purpose of exhibiting the relevance of philosophy intelligibly exhibited through the examples of the characters put forward, but at the same time characters we our... (shrink)

The world is beset by what seem to be an interminable set of problems. Many of these, increasingly, are transnational, which is to say, that they transcend the borders of individual nations. Issues such as climate change and apparent global warming are fiercely debated, with many arguing that without a change in the way in which human beings abuse the environment, we are all doomed. The crisis surrounding the destruction of the nuclear reactor in Fukuyama, Japan as a result of (...) the devastation wrought by the massive earthquake and tsunami points to human powerlessness in the face of the forces of nature. It also points to the need to show respect for those same forces. Other crises, such as the global financial crisis, also have had a profound impact on human lives. While it is difficult to quantify, the global financial crisis has undoubtedly been responsible for many deaths also, as aid money decreases and projects which may have helped solve housing shortages, provided sanitation and clean water are unable to proceed. There is a need to reconfigure capitalism so that it serves the common good, rather than the self indulgent needs of venal speculators. Glaring inequalities in the distribution of the common wealth of countries are just as evil in the United States, China, India, Australia and the United Kingdom, to name a few of the G20 nations, as they are anywhere else. The recent wave of protest throughout the Middle East which saw the ousting of the Libyan dictator, Gaddafi and the Egyptian president Mubarak, should not be seen as simply a sign of the inherent instability in those countries, but as a sign that oppressive policies wherever they are met will eventually result in the overthrow of corrupt regimes.The situation in Syria is, of course, particularly parlous and points to the need for stronger international law. This paper argues that philosophy has a serious role to play in thinking about global issues and, using the example of global ethics, shows how it is central in the explication of the values that underpin proposed solutions to global problems. Though cultures are different, it is proposed, recent history shows that human beings share common values and purpose. (shrink)

It is a commonly held view, buttressed by utilitarian considerations, that pain and suffering are valueless and not to be borne. Moreover, it is this thought, that they are valueless, which is often deployed in arguing for euthanasia for the terminally ill or those with mental or physical disability. This essay argues that suffering is inextricably part of the human condition and that it is our response to it that determines whether we are ennobled or degraded by it. While it (...) is not sought for itself, suffering provides human beings with the opportunity to be ennobled, to be given unexpected experiences of love and to gain improbable sources of strength and so it can have a use which can make it valuable. (shrink)

This paper revives the idea that what is central to education is not facilitating the acquisition of information or skills to use in the marketplace, but the encounter between teacher and learner which enables the student to acquire a richer and deeper appreciation of the human world which he or she inhabits. Knowledge is a human artefact which is created in the initiation of a learner into a common form of life, and this is not something which can be carried (...) out without the involvement of other human beings. It is argued that teaching is a vocation, where this implies a love of truth and of learning for its own sake. A passionate regard for these will not be imparted by the use of technology, but through the experience of sharing in a journey of discovery with another human being. (shrink)

While human beings generally act prosocially towards one another — contra a Hobbesian “war of all against all” — this basic social courtesy tends not to be extended to our relations with the more-than-human world. Educational philosophy is largely grounded in a worldview that privileges human-centered conceptions of the self, valuing its own opinions with little regard for the ecological realities undergirding it. This hyper-separation from the ‘society of all beings’ is a foundational cause of our current ecological crises. In (...) this paper, we develop an ecosocial philosophy of education based on the idea of an ecological self. We aspire to consolidate voices from deep ecology and ecofeminism for conceptualizing education in terms of being responsible to and for, a complex web of interdependent relations among human and more-than-human beings. By analyzing the notion of opinions in light of Gilles Deleuze’s critique of the ‘dogmatic image of thought,’ we formulate three aspects of ESPE capable of supporting an ecological as opposed to an egoistic conception of the self: rather than dealing with fixed concepts, ESPE supports adaptable and flexible boundaries between the self and the world; rather than fixating on correct answers, ESPE focuses on real-life problems shifting our concern from the self to the world; and rather than supporting arrogance, EPSE cultivates an epistemic humility grounded in our ecological embeddedness in the world. These approaches seek to enable an education that cultivates a sense of self that is less caught up with arbitrary, egoistic opinions of the self and more attuned to the ecological realities constituting our collective life-worlds. (shrink)

The inaugural volume of the Pitt-Konstanz series, devoted to the work of philosopher Adolf Grünbaum, encompasses the philosophical problems of space, time, and cosmology, the nature of scientific methodology, and the foundations of psychoanalysis.

Michael Peters, Sonja Arndt & Marek TesarThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, including its Executive Committee, asking questions of the Philosophy of Education in a New Key. Co...

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely volume that creatively examines communication ethics, philosophy of communication, and "the other.".

The contingency of biological regularities—and its implications for the existence of biological laws—has long puzzled biologists and philosophers. The best argument for the contingency of biological regularities is John Beatty’s evolutionary contingency thesis, which will be re-analyzed here. First, I argue that in Beatty’s thesis there are two versions of strong contingency used as arguments against biological laws that have gone unnoticed by his commentators. Second, Beatty’s two different versions of strong contingency are analyzed in terms of two different (...) stabilities of regularities. Third, I argue that Beatty and his commentators have focused on the more ineffective trajectory stability version of the argument, whereas the constancy stability version provides a more substantial and applicable argument against the existence of biological laws. Fourth, I develop a counterexample to Beatty’s thesis. Finally, I discuss the possibility of evolution producing repeatable and general non-lawlike regularities and patterns by utilizing the notion of generative entrenchment and by criticizing the thesis of multiple realizability of biological properties. (shrink)

Volume 10, Issue 4, December 2019, Page 588-596.

The integrative memory model contains multiple subsystems. In this commentary, the processes within these subsystems are questioned. First, the assumption that familiarity largely reflects perceptual fluency is examined. Next, the distinction between “process” and “representational” models of temporal lobe function is challenged. Finally, the “relational representation core system”, which is central to the model, is especially sketchy. Here, I highlight key questions to be addressed in order to understand this system's role in trace formation.

Levack, John Having just read another poem about how a city-bred agnostic finds God after spending a weekend away in the Australian bush..

John Searle begins his ``Consciousness, Explanatory Inversion and Cognitive Science'' with " ``Ten years ago in this journal I published an article criticising what I call Strong AI, the view that for a system to have mental states it is sufficient for the system to implement the right sort of program with right inputs and outputs. Strong AI is rather easy to refute and the basic argument can be summarized in one sentence: {it a system, me for example, could (...) implement a program for understanding Chinese, for example, without understanding any Chinese at all.} This idea, when developed, became known as the Chinese Room Argument.'' " The Chinese Room Argument can be refuted in one sentence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John Allman PAUL DE MAN, DECONSTRUCTION, AND DISCIPLESHIP God may be dead, but his vocabulary lives on, oddly enough, in the militandy secular pages of recent literary theory. Just when we thought it was safe to plunge the depths of postmodernism without the muddying mystifications of worship, religious language seems to have resurrected itself and is walking once again on the troubled waters of literary criticism. In an (...) essay on "The Institutional Control of Interpretation," forexample, Frank Kermode suggests that the Church offers us the best model for understanding the "exegetical activities" ofliterary critics everywhere: "self-perpetuating, hierarchical, authoritative, much concerned with questions of canon, and wont, as we are, to distinguish sharply between initiate and uninitiate readings, the Church is a model we would do well to consider as we attempt to understand our own practice."1 We can find traces of sacred vocabulary in the description not only of the Church of Criticism in general, but also of particular sects within this institution, even those determined to undermine the notion that anything is sacred. In fact, religious language seems most abundant in critical assessments ofdeconstruction, by all appearances the most iconoclastic of recent modes of interpretation. Gerald Graff, for example, argues that the deconstructive project transforms literature into "a vehicle for a nihilistic metaphysics, an anti-didactic form of preaching." Literature becomes "once again the great oracle of truth, but now the truth is that there is no truth. In a curiously inverted restatement of the religion of literature, the literary work is made the sole source of truth only in the sense that it alone refuses to succumb to the delusion that the truth can be spoken."2 Focusing on the style rather than the Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 324-339 John Allman325 dogma of deconstruction, Mark Felperin echoes a number of theorists (both radical and conservative) when he comments that de Man, Derrida, and their brethren, much like "high priests ofa new mystery cult," are guilty of "a deliberate obscurantism designed to exclude all but an elite—only those who already know will understand and be saved."3 And John Ellis suggests that "deconstructive logic" is simply a crude version of "a standard formula in many branches of religious mysticism."4 Clearly, Ellis, Graff, and others so stigmatize deconstruction not by way of providing neutral descriptions of an interpretive approach, but rather as part of a polemical strategy intended to expose flaws in deconstruction—its hypocrisy, its elitism, its unoriginality. Despite this appropriation of religious language in the rhetoric denouncing deconstruction, it seems to me to be both possible and useful to examine how religious vocabulary might offer a fair as well as illuminating means of describing rather than proscribing the critical phenomenon known as deconstruction. In particular, I would like to look at the ways in which the relation between the originators ofdeconstruction and their successors resembles that between master and disciple. To those sympathetic to deconstruction, such an approach may seem inappropriate, if not hostile; deconstructionists, accustomed to charges that they are presenting a metaphysics of absence, a religion of antirepresentationalism, have consistentiy denied that their practices are in any way religious. What I would like to suggest, however, is that deconstruction, like the texts it reads, is governed by the very forces it resists. By studying the relation between one "exemplary" deconstructive critic— Paul de Man—and one of his influencial students—Barbara Johnson—I hope to illustrate how the survival of deconstruction depends paradoxically on its ability to both resist and restore the powers that shape the relation between master and disciple. Particularly useful in the context ofmy argument are the observations of two sociologists of religion, Joachim Wach and Max Weber, whose sociological perspective permits them to comment on the dynamics of the master-disciple relationship without referring to any particular set of beliefs or teachings. Wach's essay "Master and Disciple" is especially helpful, for he begins his discussion of this dynamic by contrasting the relation between master and disciple with that between teacher and student. For Wach, the essential difference between master and teacher is that the teacher "gives a definite subject matter" while the master "provides only... (shrink)

Taking a critical perspective more political than that usually adopted by classicists, John Alvis demonstrates in this study that the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid each present a distinct political teaching regarding human ends and the form of civil society most conducive to the realization of those ends. Referring to the mysterious "plan of Zeus" announced in the opening lines of the Iliad but never explained, Alvis argues that both Homer's Zeus and Virgil's Jupiter guide their heroes to embody principles (...) of natural justice that in turn found political constitutions. The Political Plan of Zeus represents the first comprehensive theory of the meaning of Zeus's providence in both Homeric poems, a new interpretation of the muse in Homer, and the first attempt to compare the Aeneid with Platonic-Aristotelian teaching on the nature of man and the problem of empire. This book will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and scholars of politics, philosophy, and the classics. (shrink)

In all the literature about ethical dilemmas facing the accounting practitioner little attention has been paid to those which arise from the accountant's role in the process of accounting regulation. This treatment explores that role in the light of differing national modes of accounting regulation, economic impact issues in accounting regulation, some ethical principles and a number of different national illustrations. John Blake is Professor of Accounting in the Department of Accounting and Financial Services at the University of Central (...) Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, in which Catherine Gowthorpe is Principal Lecturer, while Julia Clarke is a member of the Department of Business Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH. (shrink)

Preface par PIERRE FORCE I have a very precise recollection of my first encounter with John Boi- tano. It was during the spring semester of 1988, ...

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Collins, John Francis; Carroll, Sandra In the April 2012 edition of The Australasian Catholic Record John Duiker presented a useful overview and history of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal titled 'Spreading the Culture of Pentecost in the Midst of Disenchantment.' According to Duiker the CCR as an ecclesial movement 'has its origins in a retreat that was held at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the USA in February 1967.' Describing this event as a Pentecost experience Duiker writes that (...) the movement that was started by this event 'spread to other college campuses and continued to spread right across the world, and now exists in over 220 countries and has touched the lives of over 120 million Catholics.' Duiker's article draws on Charles Taylor's thesis that our post-enlightenment Western culture has been emptied-out of the idea of God's providence leading to 'a diminishing of the necessity of grace and a fading of the sense of mystery.' Duiker then presents a case for CCR being recognised 'as an example for the re-enchantment of a post-Enlightenment secular world.'. (shrink)