We are teacher educators trying to recalibrate to the world of Trump. As we search to find our new bearings, we recognize that the markers of meaning that we relied on (such as civility and...

Literary texts activate ones’ metaphorical sensibilities to the myriad possibilities for reflecting on our own lives while inviting us to imagine the complex experiences of others. Readers’ ability...

Joseph Butler was an Anglican priest and later a bishop who wrote about ethics, religion, and other philosophical themes. He is not well known today. During his lifetime and into the early part of the twentieth century he was better known especially for his major work the Analogy of Religion (1736). Today he is known mostly for his sermons which are interpreted as essays on ethics and for his essay on identity. Butler had a profound effect on J. H. Newman, (...) Matthew Arnold, and W. E. Gladstone and some effect on many other popular, academic, and professional readers. This book is as much about Butler’s sources and his reception as it is about the way he arranged and presented the evidence in the first half of the 18th century. He was a good man and is recognized by the Anglican church as a divine. We have no interest in taking a nostalgic look at a quaint figure in English church history. To those who claim Butler is unknown, that he was “blown out of the water” by John Wesley or Karl Barth, or Cornelius van Til, we can only say Butler is not as well known in the 20th and 21st centuries as in the 19th, but he is certainly not unknown to those who have taken any interest in philosophy, religion, or ethics. Today there has been a revival of interest in Bishop Butler. Our concern is to build and maintain a bridge that will help to keep this momentum. He offers an ethic that is universal and clearly Christian, yet it is based on the nature of man. Kant had a similar project, but in our opinion, Butler makes more compelling arguments. What is of interest to the Christian apologist is Butler’s work in this area. The purpose of this book is to present Butler’s ideas. We believe that his ethics have a universality that is applicable to people of all religious faiths and those that have none. It is common sense way of looking at ethics for everyday interaction. This book is a narrative argument presenting in detail how Butler’s creative arrangement of the evidence served as a bridge between the ancients as known in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew originals, and the moderns, mostly Anglophone, who constituted Butler’s work environment and his reception in the latter day down to the present. We can hardly expect everyone to agree with Butler on all points, we certainly do not. The point at issue is rather whether he merits a seat at the present-day round table of deliberation on matters pertaining to philosophy, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

But Williams had created a field of historical study, where his white counterparts had not. Single-handedly and without the blessing or approval of the academic community, Williams had called attention to the importance of including Afro-Americans in any acceptable and comprehensive history of the nation long before the historians of various groups of European-Americans or Asian-Americans had begun to advocate a similar treatment for their groups. And if Williams did not impress the white professional historians, he gave heart (...) and encouragement to future Afro-American historians. When the History of the Negro Troops appeared in 1887, nineteen-year-old W. E. B. Du Bois was a college senior at Fisk University and editor-in-chief of the student magazine, The Fisk Herald. In the columns of the Herald Du Bois wrote, "At last we have a historian; not merely a Negro historian, but a man who judged by his merits alone has written a splendid narrative. The Herald congratulates George W. Williams, and the race, which may justly be . . . [proud] of him."1 Many years later, Carter G. Woodson, the founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and of the Journal of Negro History, described Williams' History of the Negro Troops as "one of the most valuable accounts of the Civil War."2 With words like these from Du Bois and Woodson, on whose shoulders much of the second stage of Afro-American historiography would rest, it is not too much to say that George Washington Williams was responsible for the beginnings of Afro-American historiography. · 1. The Fisk Herald, January 1888, p. 8.· 2. Woodson's appraisal of Williams was found among his papers and made available to me by Dr. Charles H. Wesley when he was executive director of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which had been founded by Woodson in 1915. John Hope Franklin, president-elect of the American Historical Society, has written a biography of George Washington Williams. He is the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor of History at the University of Chicago and the author of, among other works, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans and A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North. (shrink)

La educación cristiana se encuentra en un mundo posmoderno, que presenta oportunidades y desafíos. En este nuevo entorno, educadores cristianos tienen que pensar profundamente sobre sus creencias y convicciones. En este ensayo se examinan los fundamentos desmoronantes del modernismo: la autonomía hu..

Nishida Kitarō is considered Japan's first and greatest modern philosopher. As founder of the Kyoto School, he began a rigorous philosophical engagement and dialogue with Western philosophical traditions, especially the work of G. W. F. Hegel. John W. M. Krummel explores the Buddhist roots of Nishida’s thought and places him in connection with Hegel and other philosophers of the Continental tradition. Krummel develops notions of self-awareness, will, being, place, the environment, religion, and politics in Nishida’s thought and shows how (...) his ethics of humility may best serve us in our complex world. (shrink)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1752 edition. Excerpt:... to which the original Exclusion had been owing, the Points of two short and slender Hairs appear'd protruding themselves from its oval Surface. The thicker butoblong Bodies, from whose Extremities these grew, next forc'd themselves out, and it was evident to a-'n accustom'd Eye, that they were (...) the Antennze of a two wing'd Fly; next presented themselves the anterior Surfaces of two chequeffd Orbs, which were plainly the complex Eyes of anlnsect' of the same Species, separated by a plain Portion of a Forehead; and soon after the whole Head. This was no sooner all in View, than it swell'd to a Diameter equal to twice the Measure of that of the Breast. lt might have appear'd from the first, that the Head was growing under the Eye of the Observer, from the Extremity of the Thorax, but tho' a more rational Enquiry could not but produce for its Answer, that it was only now thrust forth out of the Cavity of the Breast in which it had before been lodg'd; it yet appear'd singular after this sudden Change in Size to conceive how a Thing should have been till that Moment lodg'd in a Cavityz not equal to half its own Diameter. P a The The Head was now entire and in its Place, and the Legs were firm, and supported the Body well, but the Wings did not yet appear. On examining the Place where they were to be expacted, I discover'd two irregular Protuberances of a wrinkled Surface, and considerably large, and under them the two oblong Pedicies which we see supporting the Balls under the Wings of all the two wing'd Flies. It was evident from this, that the Protuberances at the two Sides of the Base of the Thorax were the very Wings in their folded State, and this was soon prov'd by their expanding. The Wings in all this Race of Creatures are the last Part... (shrink)

The success of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for movement disorders and the improved understanding of the neurobiologic and neuroanatomic bases of psychiatric diseases have led to proposals to expand current DBS applications. Recent preclinical and clinical work with Alzheimer's disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example, supports the safety of stimulating regions in the hypothalamus and nucleus accumbens in humans. These regions are known to be involved in addiction and overeating associated with obesity. However, the use of DBS targeting these areas (...) as a treatment modality raises common ethical considerations, which include informed consent, coercion, enhancement, threat to personhood, and manipulation of the reward center. Pilot studies for both of these conditions are currently investigational. If these studies show promise, then there is a need to address the ethical concerns related to the initiation of clinical trials including the reliability of preclinical evidence, patient selection, study design, compensation for participation and injury, cost-effectiveness, and the need for long-term follow-up. Multidisciplinary teams are necessary for the ethical execution of such studies. In addition to establishing safety and efficacy, the consideration of these ethical issues is vital to the adoption of DBS as a treatment for these conditions. We offer suggestions about the pursuit of future clinical trials of DBS for the treatment of addiction and overeating associated with obesity and provide a framework for addressing ethical concerns related to treatment. (shrink)

This commentary analyses the quantitative parameters of Reichle et al.'s model, using estimates when explicit information is not provided. The analysis highlights certain features that appear to be necessary to make the model work and ends by noting a possible problem concerning the variability associated with oculomotor programming.

John White; The Medical Condition of Philosophy of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 155–162, https://doi.or.

Nearly all success is due to some mix of ability and luck. But some successes we attribute to the agent’s ability, whereas others we attribute to luck. To better understand the criteria distinguishing credit from luck, we conducted a series of four studies on knowledge attributions. Knowledge is an achievement that involves reaching the truth. But many factors affecting the truth are beyond our control and reaching the truth is often partly due to luck. Which sorts of luck are compatible (...) with knowledge? We find that knowledge attributions are highly sensitive to lucky events that change the explanation for why a belief is true. By contrast, knowledge attributions are surprisingly insensitive to lucky events that threaten but ultimately fail to change the explanation for why a belief is true. These results shed light on our concept of knowledge, help explain apparent inconsistencies in prior work on knowledge attributions, and constitute progress toward a general understanding of the relation between success and luck. (shrink)

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career- long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces-extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions-so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field. Emeritus Professor John White has spent the last 35 years researching, thinking (...) and writing about some of the key and enduring issues in education. In this book, he brings together 16 key writings in one place. Starting with a specially written Introduction, which gives an overview of John's career and conceptualizes his selection within the development of the field, the chapters cover: · Mind · State and Curriculum · Well-being · Politics · Curriculum subjects. This book not only shows how John's thinking developed during his long and distinguished career; it also gives an insight into the development of the fields to which he contributed. (shrink)

Centuries ago, Descartes and Locke initiated a foundational debate in epistemology over the relationship between knowledge, on the one hand, and practical factors, on the other. Descartes claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally separate. Locke claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally united. After a period of dormancy, their disagreement has reignited on the contemporary scene. Latter-day Lockeans claim that knowledge itself is essentially connected to, and perhaps even constituted by, practical factors such as how much is at stake, (...) how important the situation is, or how one should act. Latter-day Cartesians claim, by contrast, that knowledge is entirely constituted by truth-related factors such as truth, belief, and evidence. Each side has supported its case with claims about patterns in ordinary behavior and knowledge judgments. Lockeans argue that these patterns are best explained by positing a fundamental and direct link between knowledge and practical factors. Cartesians argue that the patterns can be equally well explained by positing an indirect link, entirely mediated by the traditional factors of truth, belief, and evidence, thereby rendering the Lockean hypothesis unnecessary. We argue that Cartesians are right about some practical factors, in particular stakes and how important a situation is, which have, at best, a modest indirect relationship to knowledge. However, Lockeans are right about actionability: whether a person should pursue a course of action is unquestionably very powerfully and directly connected to knowledge. (shrink)

We distinguish between two categories of belief—thin belief and thick belief—and provide evidence that they approximate genuinely distinct categories within folk psychology. We use the distinction to make informative predictions about how laypeople view the relationship between knowledge and belief. More specifically, we show that if the distinction is genuine, then we can make sense of otherwise extremely puzzling recent experimental findings on the entailment thesis (i.e. the widely held philosophical thesis that knowledge entails belief). We also suggest that the (...) distinction can be applied to debates in the philosophy of mind and metaethics. (shrink)

A standard view in contemporary philosophy is that belief is involuntary, either as a matter of conceptual necessity or as a contingent fact of human psychology. We present seven experiments on patterns in ordinary folk-psychological judgments about belief. The results provide strong evidence that voluntary belief is conceptually possible and, granted minimal charitable assumptions about folk-psychological competence, provide some evidence that voluntary belief is psychologically possible. We also consider two hypotheses in an attempt to understand why many philosophers have been (...) tempted to view belief as involuntary: that belief is a prototype concept and that belief is a dual character concept. Altogether, our findings contribute to longstanding philosophical debates about the relationship between the will and the intellect, while also advancing scientific understanding of important social judgments. (shrink)

Researchers recently demonstrated a strong direct relationship between judgments about what a person knows and judgments about how a person should act. But it remains unknown whether actionability judgments cause knowledge judgments, or knowledge judgments cause actionability judgments. This paper uses causal modeling to help answer this question. Across two experiments, we found evidence that actionability judgments cause knowledge judgments.

Intelligent design theorist William Dembski hasproposed an ``explanatory filter'' fordistinguishing between events due to chance,lawful regularity or design. We show that ifDembski's filter were adopted as a scientificheuristic, some classical developments inscience would not be rational, and thatDembski's assertion that the filter reliablyidentifies rarefied design requires ignoringthe state of background knowledge. Ifbackground information changes even slightly,the filter's conclusion will vary wildly.Dembski fails to overcome Hume's objections toarguments from design.

It is often thought that judgments about what we ought to do are limited by judgments about what we can do, or that “ought implies can.” We conducted eight experiments to test the link between a range of moral requirements and abilities in ordinary moral evaluations. Moral obligations were repeatedly attributed in tandem with inability, regardless of the type (Experiments 1–3), temporal duration (Experiment 5), or scope (Experiment 6) of inability. This pattern was consistently observed using a variety of moral (...) vocabulary to probe moral judgments and was insensitive to different levels of seriousness for the consequences of inaction (Experiment 4). Judgments about moral obligation were no different for individuals who can or cannot perform physical actions, and these judgments differed from evaluations of a non-moral obligation (Experiment 7). Together these results demonstrate that commonsense morality rejects the “ought implies can” principle for moral requirements, and that judgments about moral obligation are made independently of considerations about ability. By contrast, judgments of blame were highly sensitive to considerations about ability (Experiment 8), which suggests that commonsense morality might accept a “blame implies can” principle. (shrink)

John White; In Defence of State-Controlled Curricula, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 255–259, https://doi.org/10.111.

Epistemic modal predicate logic raises conceptual problems not faced in the case of alethic modal predicate logic : Frege’s “Hesperus-Phosphorus” problem—how to make sense of ascribing to agents ignorance of necessarily true identity statements—and the related “Hintikka-Kripke” problem—how to set up a logical system combining epistemic and alethic modalities, as well as others problems, such as Quine’s “Double Vision” problem and problems of self-knowledge. In this paper, we lay out a philosophical approach to epistemic predicate logic, implemented formally in Melvin (...) Fitting’s First-Order Intensional Logic, that we argue solves these and other conceptual problems. Topics covered include: Quine on the “collapse” of modal distinctions; the rigidity of names; belief reports and unarticulated constituents; epistemic roles; counterfactual attitudes; representational vs. interpretational semantics; ignorance of co-reference vs. ignorance of identity; two-dimensional epistemic models; quantification into epistemic contexts; and an approach to multi-agent epistemic logic based on centered worlds and hybrid logic. (shrink)

"Despite a dramatic rise in average income in the last 40 years, people are no happier. Since the millennium personal well-being has recently shot up the political and educational agendas, with schools in the UK even including "Personal Well-being" as a curriculum topic in its own right.This book takes teachers, student teachers and parents step by step through the many facets of well-being, pausing at each step to look at the educational implications for teachers and parents trying to make our (...) children's lives more meaningful. With his renowned talent for distilling the most complex of philosophical arguments into accessible laymen's terms, John White addresses the moral maze of well-being through three distinct parts:Part 1 describes the remarkable growth of interest in children's well-being in the UK since 2000, and suggests that a philosophical look at the concept of well-being is essential, so that teachers and parents can avoid confusion and misunderstanding.Part 2 takes the reader step by step through the intricacies of the concept in a deliberately accessible way with each chapter containing a substantial section showing how the new ideas just introduced can be taken up in education, especially in schools.Part 3 is about the future of education for well-being, pulling together, expanding on home as well as school, discussing the main aims and emphases of an education focussed on personal well-being. The author also looks at how school's traditional practices will have to change, given the new focus on well-beingAs well as looking at educational implications of all these questions step by step, the book concludes with an extensive practical guide for families and schools wanting to realise the new well-being agenda.This short, engaging book takes the reader with little or no background in philosophy into these issues. It is of special interest to teachers and parents, since they are now at the sharp end of the culture change we are now experiencing"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Approximation involves representing things in ways that might be close to the truth but are nevertheless false. Given the widespread reliance on approximations in science and everyday life, here we ask whether it is conceptually possible for false approximations to qualify as knowledge. According to the factivity account, it is impossible to know false approximations, because knowledge requires truth. According to the representational adequacy account, it is possible to know false approximations, if they are close enough to the truth for (...) present purposes. In this paper, we adopt an experimental methodology to begin testing these two theories. When an agent provides a false and practically inadequate answer, both theories predict that people will deny knowledge. But the theories disagree about an agent who provides a false but practically adequate answer: the factivity hypothesis again predicts knowledge denial, whereas the representational adequacy hypothesis predicts knowledge attribution. Across two experiments, our principal finding was that people tended to attribute knowledge for false but practically adequate answers, which supports the representational adequacy account. We propose an interpretation of existing findings that preserves a conceptual link between knowledge and truth. According to this proposal, truth is not necessary for knowledge, but it is a feature of prototypical knowledge. (shrink)

Pedagogy is a pillar of human culture and society. Telling each other information and showing each other how to do things comes naturally to us. A strong case has been made that declarative knowledge is the norm of assertion, which is our primary way of telling others information. This article presents an analogous case for the hypothesis that procedural knowledge is the norm of instructional demonstration, which is a primary way of showing others how to do things. Knowledge is the (...) norm of telling and showing. It is the prime pedagogical principle. (shrink)

It is widely accepted in epistemology that knowledge is factive, meaning that only truths can be known. We argue that this theory creates a skeptical challenge: because many of our beliefs are only approximately true, and therefore false, they do not count as knowledge. We consider several responses to this challenge and propose a new one. We propose easing the truth requirement on knowledge to allow approximately true, practically adequate representations to count as knowledge. In addition to addressing the skeptical (...) challenge, this view also coheres with several previous theoretical proposals in epistemology. (shrink)

1. 1735-1738 -- 2. 1738-1743 -- 3. 1743-1754 -- 4. 1755-1765 -- 5. 1765-1775 -- 6. 1776-1786 -- 7. 1787-91.

The paper looks at arguments for and against private schools, first in general and then, at greater length, in their British form. Here it looks first at defences against the charge that private schooling is unfair, discussing on the way problems with equality as an intrinsic value and with instrumental appeals to greater equality, especially in access to university and better jobs. It turns next to charges of social exclusiveness, before looking in more detail at claims about the dangers private (...) schools pose for democratic government. It then examines complications arising from shifts in the notion of ‘private’ education since the 1980s, before concluding, in the light of recent articles in JOPE about criteria for admission to university, with a discussion of Brighouse's proposal for the reform of private schooling. There are also shorter discussions of other suggestions for such reform. (shrink)

Moderate scientism is the view that empirical science can help answer questions in nonscientific disciplines. In this paper, we evaluate moderate scientism in philosophy. We review several ways that science has contributed to research in epistemology, action theory, ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. We also review several ways that science has contributed to our understanding of how philosophers make judgments and decisions. Based on this research, we conclude that the case for moderate philosophical scientism is strong: scientific (...) practice has promoted significant progress in philosophy and its further development should be welcomed and encouraged. (shrink)