By drawing on the work of Ivan Illich, John Holt, and Jacques Ellul, one can see that alternatives to the modern concept of education are desirable and practical. The homeschooling movement enables teachers, parents, and children to step outside the concept of education and discover how it is possible to teach and learn in various ways throughout their lives, not just through organized learning in conventional schools. By using homeschooling as the lens to view the concept of producing "good citizens" (...) (the stated purpose for compulsory schooling), new possibilities for achieving lifelong learning can be seen. This analysis also suggests how technology can become a means to achieve various personal ends, rather than just an expansion of educational techniques to use on people. (shrink)

Die jüngsten Arbeiten zur wieder verstärkt rezipierten philosophischen Anthropologie haben deren umstrittensten Vertreter, den Philosophen und Soziologen Arnold Gehlen, meist stiefmütterlich behandelt. Auch Untersuchungen zum Einfluss politisch belasteter Autoren auf das intellektuelle Leben der Nachkriegszeit mieden ihn weitgehend. Diese Arbeit schließt eine doppelte Lücke, indem sie - vor allem mit Blick auf überraschend aktuelle handlungstheoretische Einsichten - die analytische Kraft seiner beiden Hauptwerke "Der Mensch" und "Urmensch und Spätkultur" rekonstruiert, ohne deren ideologische Dimensionen zu verschweigen. Daran anschließend wird erstmals die (...) enorme, aber oft verdeckte Wirkung nachgezeichnet, die das so kontroverse Denken Gehlens auf bedeutende Sozialwissenschaftler nach 1945 hatte, unter anderem auf Jürgen Habermas und Niklas Luhmann. (shrink)

In this contribution we examine the various amoral types of reasoning that have long predominated in the history of tolerance. In doing this we also hope to show that these amoral notions of tolerance are always far removed from, and in conflict with, the idea of freedom of religion as a moral and political right. In conclusion we show that when the liberal notion of freedom as a personal and moral right predominates, then the notion of tolerance loses some of (...) its meaning. (shrink)

Key ethical issues arise in association with the conduct of stem cell research by research institutions in the United States. These ethical issues, summarized in detail, receive no adequate translation into federal laws or regulations, also described in this article. U.S. Federal policy takes a passive approach to these ethical issues, translating them simply into limitations on taxpayer funding, and foregoes scientific and ethical leadership while protecting intellectual property interests through a laissez faire approach to stem cell patents and licenses. (...) Those patents and licenses, far from being scientifically and ethically neutral in effect, virtually prohibit commercially sponsored research that could otherwise be a realistic alternative to the federal funding gap. The lack of federal funding and related data-sharing principles, combined with the effect of U.S. patent policy, the lack of key agency guidance, and the proliferation of divergent state laws arising from the lack of Federal leadership, significantly impede ethical stem cell research in the United States, without coherently supporting any consensus ethical vision. Research institutions must themselves implement steps, described in the article, to integrate addressing ethical review with the many legal compliance issues U.S. federal and state laws create. (shrink)

The mechanical aspect of momentum, basically its role as a tangent vector of the trajectory of the particle, is related to properties of the momentum found in the contexts of Hamilton's optico-mechanical analogy, de Broglie's matter waves, and quantum mechanics. These properties are treated in a systematic way by considering an approximation of the particle mechanical action of the particle by a step function. A special method of discretizing partial differential equations is shown to be required. Using this method, a (...) discrete dynamics is developed. It is shown that particle dynamics can be regarded as the limit case of the discrete dynamics as the step functions tend to the continuous ones. The equation of motion of a free particle in an arbitrary reference system is deduced in two ways: (i) in continuous dynamics by making use of the invariance of action within changes of reference systems, and (ii) by taking the mentioned limit in discrete dynamics of an equation which expresses that the mechanical and wave-theoretical aspects of the momentum are interrelated in specific way. (shrink)

A wealthy eccentric bought a house in a neighborhood I know.  The house was surrounded by a beautiful display of grass, plants, and flowers, and it was shaded by a huge old avocado tree. But the grass required cutting, the flowers needed tending, and the man wanted more sun. So he cut the whole lot down and covered the yard with asphalt. After all it was his property and he was not fond of plants. (Hill 1983: 98).

In diesem Beitrag wollen wir zeigen, wieso die Fachdidaktik Philosophie und Ethik (neue) Ansätze entwickeln muss, um dem Anspruch auf (philosophische) Bildung von Menschen mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf gerecht zu werden. Dafür zeigen wir anhand von Schüler_innen mit eingeschränkten Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten auf, wie Philosophieren mit ihnen dennoch möglich ist. Gleichzeitig wenden wir uns im Beitrag dem Haupteinwand zu, der darin besteht, dass Philosophieren mit dieser Schüler_innengruppe nicht möglich sei. Wir erklären unter welchen Umständen dieser Einwand nicht aufrecht erhalten werden sollte, sondern vielmehr (...) eine moralische Pflicht besteht, Menschen mit Behinderung philosophische Bildungsprozesse zu ermöglichen. (shrink)

Une série particulière de communications présentées, sous forme d’exposés ou de posters, dans le cadre du Colloque qui s’est tenu à Argos en 2011 (La Monnaie dans le Péloponnèse) complète ici la publication des Actes proprement dits (sous le double label BCH Suppléments 57 et Obolos 10). L’essentiel, en cela homogène, porte sur des trouvailles monétaires sporadiques réalisées en fouilles, à l’exception du signalement de deux collections particulières, l’une conservée au Musée de Nauplie, l’autre constituant la partie péloponnésienne d’une riche (...) collection acquise par la Fondation du monde hellénique. Il est opportun, à cette occasion, de souligner combien sont plus valables pour le travail scientifique les informations livrées par une trouvaille réalisée au cours de fouilles officielles que celles tirées abusivement des « trésors » reconstitués à partir de lots repérés dans le commerce des Antiquités. (shrink)

This study primarily aims at bringing together the various observations that resulted from the preparation of the model of the site of the agora at Argos. Since an identification of the different monuments is closely dependent on Pausanias' account, we first present the larger complexes corresponding to the sections of his Description. To assist in identifying the site of the sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios on the terrace north of the nymphaeum and the orchestra, a summary is given of what we (...) know about the terrace; in the appendix a reevaluation is made of the evidence from the inscription for the location of the sanctuary. To make it easier to follow the different evidence relating to the site, plans of the agora are included for the three periods: the 5th c. BC, 2nd c. AD and Late Empire. An attempt is also made to show how the plan of the buildings that formed the Classical agora conformed to a coordinated, ambitious design, whose broad axes it is possible to recover. Since all the known buildings are contained. within this area, it is possible to go back in time and to understand the conception of those who planned the public spaces of Argos when they redesigned the city after 460 BC. (shrink)

This chapter analyses the views of Soren Kierkegaard about the concept of death. It examines the historical reasons why death might have featured with especial prominence in the work of a writer concerned with the parlous state of post-Hegelian Christianity and explains that Kierkegaard saw more of death before his thirtieth birthday than most people see in a lifetime. The chapter also explains the meaning of death in the mention of death in some of his works, including Either/Or, For Self-Examination, (...) and The Sickness Unto Death. (shrink)

We believe that the task goal in voluntary movements provides meaning to existing information sources in the environment and determines, in a dynamic way, the use and relative importance of these different sources. This task-centered meaning bridges the apparent controversy between what information is available in principle (i.e., specification), and what information is perceived.

Philosophy's only celebration of photography's 150th, the long-neglected philosophical job of clarification: drawing basic distinctions and defining basic conceptions, including photographic depiction, photographic detection, 'photograph of', 'documentary'. More than a lexicon, it explains why photography is important, by historically characterizing it through its uses for depiction, detection, reproduction, all of which have shaped the modern world. By consideration of it as 'mechanical', the paper explains photography's differences from practices with which it shares these functions. Happy birthday, photography.