We correct a misunderstanding by Hale and Wright of an objection we raised earlier to their abstractionist programme for rehabilitating logicism in the foundations of mathematics.

These new studies of Wittgenstein's Tractatus represent a significant step beyond recent polemical debate.

Offers a comprehensive and accessible exploration of the scope and importance of Gottlob Frege's work.

Crispin Wright and Bob Hale have defended the strategy of defining the natural numbers contextually against the objection which led Frege himself to reject it, namely the so-called ‘Julius Caesar problem’. To do this they have formulated principles (called sortal inclusion principles) designed to ensure that numbers are distinct from any objects, such as persons, a proper grasp of which could not be afforded by the contextual definition. We discuss whether either Hale or Wright has provided independent motivation for a (...) defensible version of the sortal inclusion principle and whether they have succeeded in showing that numbers are just what the contextual definition says they are. (shrink)

Self‐evidently the standard work on the topic its whole title defines, Sir Michael Dummett’s Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics (FPM) is also the most profound and creative discussion in recent decades of the problems confronting the branch of philosophy mentioned after the colon. Chapters 14‐18 and 23‐24 of this book constitute a continuous and challenging diagnosis of these problems.1 They culminate in the proposal that these problems present an impasse that can be escaped only by adopting a constructivist understanding of (...) mathematical generality. Dummett’s case for that conclusion is no less complexly over‐layered than the problems themselves. By contrast my aims in this discussion of his case are limited in various ways, and three of these should be mentioned straightaway. In the first place, I will aim to consider a case that, if sound, would warrant a constructivist understanding of generality in mathematics generally (and so I will not be considering lines of argument specific to set theory, or to those parts of mathematics plausibly dependent on notions intrinsic to set theory). Secondly, I aim to consider a case which, while general in its application within mathematics, is not more general than that (and so would not warrant a broader anti‐realism). Reasons for these first two limitations are discussed in section 1. A third limitation is that I will aim only to understand Dummett’s case, and not to assess it. Perhaps some will think this third limitation calls for explanation or excuse. I think it needs no excuse and that the explanation is obvious. When we are dealing with fundamentally important work by a great philosopher, understanding is often ambition enough. In Michael Dummett’s work, that is what we are dealing with. (shrink)

Ever since the publication of 'Truth' in 1959 Sir Michael Dummett has been acknowledged as one of the most profoundly creative and influential of contemporary philosophers. His contributions to the philosophy of thought and language, logic, the philosophy of mathematics, and metaphysics have set the terms of some of most fruitful discussions in philosophy. His work on Frege stands unparalleled, both as landmark in the history of philosophy and as a deep reflection on the defining commitments of the analytic (...) school.This volume of specially composed essays on Dummett's philosophy presents a new perspective on his achievements, and provides a focus for further research fully informed by the Dummett's most recent publications. Collectively the essays in philosophy of mathematics provide the most sustained discussion to date of the role of Dummett's diagnosis of the root of the logico-mathematical paradoxes in his case for an intuitionist revision of classical mathematics. The themes of other essays include a fundamental challenge to Dummett's Fregean understanding of predication, and a criticism of his case for logical revision outside of mathematics. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

Since the first publication of Insight and Illusion in l972, a wealth of Wittgenstein's writings have become accessible. Accordingly, in this edition Professor Hacker has rewritten six of his eleven original chapters and revised the others to incorporate the new abundant material. Insight and Illusion now fully clarifies the historical backgrounds of Wittgenstein's highly different masterpieces, the Tractatus and the Investigations, and traces the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought. Hacker explains all of Wittgenstein's writings in detail, focusing on his critique of (...) metaphysics, his famous "private language argument," and his account of self-consciousness. (shrink)

Introduction: education, philosophy and politics -- Writing the self: Wittgenstein, confession and pedagogy -- Nietzsche, nihilism and the critique of modernity: post-Nietzschean philosophy of education -- Heidegger, education and modernity -- Truth-telling as an educational practice of the self: Foucault and the ethics of subjectivity -- Neoliberal governmentality: Foucault on the birth of biopolitics -- Lyotard, nihilism and education -- Gilles Deleuze's 'societies of control': from disciplinary pedagogy to perpetual training -- Geophilosophy, education and the pedagogy of the concept - (...) Humanism, Derrida and the new humanities -- Politics and deconstruction: Derrida, neoliberalism and democracy -- Neopragmatism, ethnocentrism and the politics of the ethnos: Rorty's 'postmodernist bourgeois liberalism' -- Achieving America: postmodernism and Rorty's critique of the cultural left -- Deranging the investigations: Cavell on the philosophy of the child -- White philosophy in/of America. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

With an up-to-date synopsis, review, and critique of his writings, this book demonstrates Derrida's almost singular power to reconceptualize and reimagine the ...

This essential introduction to the philosopher and his thought, combines passages from Wittgenstein with detailed interpretation. Hacker leads us into a world of philosophical investigation in which "to smell a rat is ever so much easier than to trap it". Wittgenstein defined humans as language-using creatures. The role of philosophy is to ask questions which reveal the limits and nature of language. Taking the expression, description and observation of pain as examples, Hacker explores the ingenuity with which Wittgenstein identified the (...) rules and set the limits of language. (shrink)

This collection is the first book devoted to Paulo Freire's ongoing global legacy to provide an analysis of the continuing relevance and significance of Freire's work and the impact of his global legacy. The book contains essays by some of the world's foremost Freire scholars - McLaren, Darder, Roberts, and others - as well as chapters by scholars and activists, including the Maori scholars Graham Hingangaroa Smith and Russell Bishop, who detail their work with the indigenous people of Aotearoa-New Zealand. (...) The book contains a foreword by Nita Freire as well as chapters from scholars around the world including Latin America, Asia, the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. With a challenging introduction from the editors, Michael A. Peters and Tina Besley, this much-awaited addition to the Freire archive is highly recommended reading for all students and scholars interested in Freire, global emancipatory politics, and the question of social justice in education. (shrink)

Poststructuralism--as a name for a mode of thinking, a style of philosophizing, a kind of writing--has exercised a profound influence upon contemporary Western thought and the institution of the university. As a French and predominantly Parisian affair, poststructuralism is inseparable from the intellectual milieu of postwar France, a world dominated by Alexandre Kojève's and Jean Hyppolite's interpretations of Hegel, Jacques Lacan's reading of Freud, Gaston Bachelard's epistemology, George Canguilhem's studies of science, and Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. It is also inseparable from (...) the structuralist tradition of linguistics based upon the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jacobson, and the structuralist interpretations of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, and the early Michel Foucault. Poststructuralism, considered in terms of contemporary cultural history, can be understood as belonging to the broad movement of European formalism, with explicit historical links to both Formalist and Futurist linguistics and poetics, and with aspects of the European avant-garde, especially André Breton's surrealism. Each essay in this unique collection by and for educators is devoted to the work and educational significance of one of ten major poststructuralist philosophers. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger is, perhaps, the most controversial philosopher of the twentieth-century. Little has been written on him or about his work and its significance for educational thought. This unique collection by a group of international scholars reexamines Heidegger's work and its legacy for educational thought.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Citation Information -- Introduction -- 1 The Philosophy of Early Childhood: Examining the Cradle of the Evil, Rational and Free Child -- 2 Child-Rearing: On Government Intervention and the Discourse of Experts -- 3 Out of Place: Economic Imperialisms in Early Childhood Education -- 4 The Politics of Processes and Products in Education: An Early Childhood Metanarrative Crisis? -- 5 Narrative Identity and Early Childhood Education -- 6 Global Crisis: Local Reality? An (...) International Analysis of 'Crisis' in the Early Years -- 7 Otherness 'Without Ostracism or Levelling': Towards Fresh Orientations to Teacher Foreigners in Early Childhood Education -- 8 Meetings Across the Paradigmatic Divide -- 9 An Encounter with 'Sayings' of Curriculum: Levinas and the Formalisation of Infants' Learning -- 10 My Feelings: Power, Politics and Childhood Subjectivities -- 11 In Early Childhood: What's Language About? -- Index. (shrink)

Explores the human subject in the first decade of the 21st century in relation to changing social circumstances, globalisation and postmodern theory.

Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies consists of thirteen thematically linked essays on different aspects of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by one of the leading commentators on his work. After an opening overview of Wittgenstein's philosophy the following essays fall into two classes: those that investigate connections between the philosophy of Wittgenstein and other philosophers and philosophical trends, and those which enter into some of the controversies that, over the last two decades, have raged over the interpretation of one aspect or another (...) of Wittgenstein's writings. The connections that are explored include the relationship between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the humanistic and hermeneutic traditions in European philosophy, Wittgenstein's response to Frazer's Golden Bough and the interpretation of ritual actions, his attitude towards and criticisms of Frege, the relationship between his ideas and those of members of the Vienna Circle on the matter of ostensive definition, and a comparison of Carnap's conception of the elimination of metaphysics and of Strawson's rehabilitation of metaphysics with Wittgenstein's later criticisms of metaphysics. The controversies into which Hacker enters include the Diamond-Conant interpretation of the Tractatus, Winch's interpretation of the Tractatus conception of names, Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's discussion of following a rule, and Malcolm's defence of the idea that Wittgenstein claimed that mastery of a language logically requires that the language be shared with other speakers. These far-ranging essays, several of them previously unpublished or difficult to find, shed much light upon different aspects of Wittgenstein's thought, and upon the controversies which it has stimulated. (shrink)

By focusing on the conceptual issues faced by nineteenth century physicists, this book clarifies the status of field theory, the ether, and thermodynamics in the work of the period. A remarkably synthetic account of a difficult and fragmentary period in scientific development.

This distinctive collection by scholars from around the world focuses upon the cultural, educational, and political significance of Richard Rorty's thought. The nine essays which comprise the collection examine a variety of related themes: Rorty's neopragmatism, his view of philosophy, his philosophy of education and culture, Rorty's comparison between Dewey and Foucault, his relation to postmodern theory, and, also his form of political liberalism.

This first volume focuses on a collection of texts from the latter twenty years of Educational Philosophy and Theory, selected for their critical status as turning points or important awakenings in post-structural theory. In the last twenty years, the applications of the postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives have become less mono-focused, less narrowly concerned with technical questions and also less interested in epistemology, and more interested in ethics. This book covers questions of genealogy, ontology, the body and the institution, giving examples (...) of theoretical applications of post-structural theory that testify to the generative and endlessly applicable potential of this work to different fields and avenues of thought. While informed by Foucault’s thinking of the political subjugation of docile bodies to individuals as self-determining beings, the chapters in this book culminate in amalgamations of different schools of educational philosophy, which explore poststructuralist approaches to education. Beyond the Philosophy of the Subject will be key reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, philosophy, education, educational theory, post-structural theory, the policy and politics of education, and the pedagogy of education. (shrink)

Living Reference Work. Continuously updated edition.

Since the first publication of Insight and Illusion in l972, a wealth of Wittgenstein's writings has become accessible. Accordingly, in this edition Professor Hacker has rewritten six of his eleven original chapters and revised the others to incorporate the new abundant material.Insight and Illusion now fully clarifies the historical backgrounds of Wittgenstein's highly differing masterpices, the Tractatus and the Investigations, and traces the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought. Hacker explains all of Wittgenstein's writings in detail, focusing on his critique of metaphysics, (...) his famous "private language argument," and his account of self consciousness. (shrink)

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...