When Mathew Lipman first introduced Philosophy for Children (P4C) to the world, his goal was not to sneak a little academic philosophy into the typical school curriculum, as one might expect from the titles of his first books: Philosophy in the Classroom (Lipman et al., 1980) and Philosophy Goes to School (Lipman, 1988). His goal, rather, was to create a paradigm shift in the field of education itself: namely, to transform the typical hierarchical model into one in which the teacher/facilitator (...) solicits responses from students and hence, in that sense, meets them where they “are at.” This non-hierarchical model, however, has stumbled in taking root, which is, perhaps, not surprising given that the hierarchical model, whether in school, in sport or in the home, appears to be so much easier and so much more efficient. If those of us who support a non-hierarchical model in all these arenas are serious about furthering this approach, it would appear that the onus lies with us to articulate precisely in what ways a hierarchical model falls short. In so doing, we will not only provide ourselves with a precise framework by which to make the case for the importance of adopting a non-hierarchical approach, we will also provide ourselves with a metric whereby we can measure whether our own non-hierarchal practice is true to its justification; and that the approach is not simply non-hierarchal for sake of being non-hierarchical, nor quasi-authoritarianism for the sake of more wide-spread acceptance. It is the articulation of the flaws of a hierarchical model that non-hierarchal model can (and should) correct that will be the focus of the analysis here. (shrink)

What is property? Not so long ago, at least in the western legal tradition, answering this question might have been possible by adverting to a very small number of resources – perhaps as few as the...

Christian ideas have continued to inspire European bioethics until now. The central thesis of this essay is that the open-mindedness of Roman Catholic and other Christian denominations in Europe is crucial for understanding why Christian ethics is so well integrated in the European culture. The essay describes first the institutional frameworks in which these Christian mainly Roman Catholic ideas are developed. It analyzes further the difference between the secular Anglo-American and European bioethics as it has been influenced by these Christian (...) ideas. It finally summarizes the challenges to which Europe's Christian bioethical identity is presently exposed to. The essay states that the Christian inspiration of European bioethics is mainly connected with the ideologically moderate, tolerant, and dialogical participation of Christian bioethicists in the bioethical debate in Europe. (shrink)

It is shown, assuming the linear case of Schinzel's Hypothesis, that the first-order theory of the structure $\langle \omega; +, P\rangle$ , where P is the set of primes, is undecidable and, in fact, that multiplication of natural numbers is first-order definable in this structure. In the other direction, it is shown, from the same hypothesis, that the monadic second-order theory of $\langle\omega; S, P\rangle$ is decidable, where S is the successor function. The latter result is proved using a general (...) result of A. L. Semenov on decidability of monadic theories, and a proof of Semenov's result is presented. (shrink)