Open peer commentary on the article “Examining the Role of Re-Presentation in Mathematical Problem Solving: An Application of Ernst von Glasersfeld’s Conceptual Analysis” by Victor V. Cifarelli & Volkan Sevim. Upshot: Education researchers often explain student activity in terms of general thinking and learning processes, including those identified by Cifarelli and Sevim. In this commentary, I refocus Cifarelli and Sevim’s discussion in order to hypothesize the organization of mental actions that comprise and support those learning processes.

Contemporary critical social theories face the question of how to justify the ideas of the good society that guide their critical analyses. Traditionally, these more or less determinate ideas of the good society were held to be independent of their specific sociocultural context and historical epoch. Today, such a concept of context-transcending validity is not easy to defend; the "linguistic turn" of Western philosophy signals the widespread acceptance of the view that ideas of knowledge and validity are always mediated linguistically (...) and that language is conditioned by history and context. In Re-Presenting the Good Society, Maeve Cooke addresses the justificatory dilemma facing critical social theories: how to maintain an idea of context-transcending validity without violating anti-authoritarian impulses. In doing so she not only clarifies the issues and positions taken by other theorists--including Richard Rorty, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Judith Butler--but also offers her own original and thought-provoking analysis of context-transcending validity.Because the tension between an anti-authoritarian impulse and a guiding idea of context-transcending validity is today an integral part of critical social theory, Cooke argues that it should be negotiated rather than eliminated. Her proposal for a concept of context-transcending validity has as its central claim that we should conceive of the good society as re-presented in particular constitutively inadequate representations of it. These re-presentations are, Cooke argues provocatively, regulative ideas that have an imaginary, fictive character. (shrink)

This article considers issues of authorship and textual development over the generations, focusing on the contributions of the erudite scholar/lama Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, to the revelations of Bhutan’s national saint, Pema Lingpa, on the tantric deity Vajrak?laya. Dudjom Rinpoche compiled a number of ritual practice texts for this revelation cycle, also writing commentarial instructions on them. Here, two of his compilations are examined in detail, considering how they relate to the original revelation, what they add, and what they neglect, (...) reflecting on what they might tell us about Tibetan approaches to continuing textual production in revelatory traditions. Much of Dudjom Rinpoche’s ‘Ultra Secret Razor Lifeforce’ Framework text for the Major Practice session reproduces virtually unchanged his earlier Framework text for the Dudjom tradition ‘Meteoric Iron Razor’, which itself draws on Guru Chöwang’s ‘Ultra Secret Razor’, as presented by Terdak Lingpa, the founder of Mindroling Monastery in central Tibet. On the other hand, Dudjom Rinpoche’s main Ritual Manual for Pema Lingpa’s cycle is more clearly rooted in the Pema Lingpa cycle, but there has been considerable re-working of the phrasing and even of some key visualisations. Some of the significant modifications were already present in an earlier Ritual Manual of the third Sungtrul or Pema Lingpa reincarnation, Tsultrim Dorje, and Dudjom Rinpoche acknowledges this source. In assessing Dudjom Rinpoche’s two texts, various aspects of the productive process are highlighted, such as: the ‘blessings’ of a current generation high status lama connected with the tradition; the needs of the ritual community for familiar textual structures and liturgies; beautiful metrical verses for chanting; the integration of materials from the broader tantric heritage, but also the preservation of some highly individual elements of the revelation. (shrink)

UNESCO pub. Monograph on the impact of science and technology on society and culture - presents a critical appraisal of the cultural significance of science and technology, notably with regard to ethics and aesthetics, and speculates on future prospects. List of participants. Conference held in Paris 1974 jul 9 to 14.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2012v16n2p341 Current supervaluation models of opinion, notably van Fraassen’s (1984; 1989; 1990; 1998; 2005; 2006) use of intervals to characterize vague opinion, capture nuances of ordinary reflection which are overlooked by classic measure theoretic models of subjective probability. However, after briefly explaining van Fraassen’s approach, we present two limitations in his current framework which provide clear empirical reasons for seeking a refinement. Any empirically adequate account of our actual judgments must reckon with the fact that these are typically neither uniform (...) through the range of outcomes we take to be serious possibilities nor abrupt at the edges. (shrink)

A leading philosopher presents a radical manifesto for the future of art andfilm.

Given a three-valued definition of validity, which choice of three-valued truth tables for the connectives can ensure that the resulting logic coincides exactly with classical logic? We give an answer to this question for the five monotonic consequence relations $st$, $ss$, $tt$, $ss\cap tt$, and $ts$, when the connectives are negation, conjunction, and disjunction. For $ts$ and $ss\cap tt$ the answer is trivial (no scheme works), and for $ss$ and $tt$ it is straightforward (they are the collapsible schemes, in which (...) the middle value acts like one of the classical values). For $st$, the schemes in question are the Boolean normal schemes that are either monotonic or collapsible. (shrink)

O'Regan & Noë (O&N) present the most radical departure yet from traditional approaches to visual perception. However, internal representation cannot yet be abandoned. I will discuss: (1) recent evidence for very short-term pictorial representation of each fixation; (2) the possibility of abstract representation, largely unconsidered by the authors; and (3) that sensorimotor contingency theory requires internal visual retention and comparison.

Context: The paper utilizes a conceptual analysis to examine the development of abstract conceptual structures in mathematical problem solving. In so doing, we address two questions: 1. How have the ideas of RC influenced our own educational theory? and 2. How has our application of the ideas of RC helped to improve our understanding of the connection between teaching practice and students’ learning processes? Problem: The paper documents how Ernst von Glasersfeld’s view of mental representation can be illustrated in the (...) context of mathematical problem solving and used to explain the development of conceptual structure in mathematical problem solving. We focus on how acts of mental re‑presentation play a vital role in the gradual internalization and interiorization of solution activity. Method: A conceptual analysis of the actions of a college student solving a set of algebra problems was conducted. We focus on the student’s problem solving actions, particularly her emerging and developing reflections about her solution activity. The interview was videotaped and written transcripts of the solver’s verbal responses were prepared. Results: The analysis of the solver’s solution activity focused on identifying and describing her cognitive actions in resolving genuinely problematic situations that she faced while solving the tasks. The results of the analysis included a description of the increasingly abstract levels of conceptual knowledge demonstrated by the solver. Implications: The results suggest a framework for an explanation of problem solving that is activity-based, and consistent with von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivist view of knowledge. The impact of von Glasersfeld’s ideas in mathematics education is discussed. (shrink)

Popular movies present chunk-like events that promote episodic, serial updating of viewers’ representations of the ongoing narrative. Event-indexing theory would suggest that the beginnings of new scenes trigger these updates, which in turn require more cognitive processing. Typically, a new movie event is signaled by an establishing shot, one providing more background information and a longer look than the average shot. Our analysis of 24 films reconfirms this. More important, we show that, when returning to a previously shown location, the (...) re-establishing shot reduces both context and duration while remaining greater than the average shot. In general, location shifts dominate character and time shifts in event segmentation of movies. In addition, over the last 70 years re-establishing shots have become more like the noninitial shots of a scene. Establishing shots have also approached noninitial shot scales, but not their durations. Such results suggest that film form is evolving, perhaps to suit more rapid encoding of narrative events. (shrink)

Over the past fifty years the philosophy of language and mind has been dominated by a nondescriptivist approach to content and reference. This book attempts to recast and systematize that approach by offering an indexical model in terms of mental files. According to Recanati, we refer through mental files, the function of which is to store information derived through certain types of contextual relation the subject bears to objects in his or her environment. The reference of a file is determined (...) relationally, not satisfactionally, so a file is not to be equated to the body of (mis-)information it contains. Mental files are the mental equivalent of singular terms, and the reference of linguistic expressions is inherited from that of the files we associate with them. On this approach, mental files, the vehicles of singular thought, do all the work of so-called 'modes of presentation' in Fregean and neo-Russellian theories. (shrink)

What has philosophy to do with the poor? If, as has often been supposed, the poor have no time for philosophy, then why have philosophers always made time for them? Why is the history of philosophy—from Plato to Karl Marx to Jean-Paul Sartre to Pierre Bourdieu—the history of so many figures of the poor: plebes, men of iron, the demos, artisans, common people, proletarians, the masses? Why have philosophers made the shoemaker, in particular, a remarkably ubiquitous presence in this history? (...) Does philosophy itself depend on this thinking about the poor? If so, can it ever refrain from thinking for them? Jacques Rancière’s The Philosopher and His Poor meditates on these questions in close readings of major texts of Western thought in which the poor have played a leading role—sometimes as the objects of philosophical analysis, sometimes as illustrations of philosophical argument. Published in France in 1983 and made available here for the first time in English, this consummate study assesses the consequences for Marx, Sartre, and Bourdieu of Plato’s admonition that workers should do “nothing else” than their own work. It offers innovative readings of these thinkers’ struggles to elaborate a philosophy of the poor. Presenting a left critique of Bourdieu, the terms of which are largely unknown to an English-language readership, The Philosopher and His Poor remains remarkably timely twenty years after its initial publication. (shrink)

Since literary historian Robert Bone published his seminal essay ‘Richard Wright and the Chicago Renaissance’ in 1986, scholars have created new cartographies of previously unexplored terrain in American cultural history. The earliest studies focused on literature, but more recently attention has turned to other disciplines, including visual arts. Recent publication of The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932–1950 (2011) by Robert Bone and Richard A. Courage promises to decisively broaden scholarly understandings of the scope and significance (...) of Chicago-centred cultural production during the Great Depression and post-war years. Of particular relevance to contemporary studies of new media art is the manner in which then-emergent ideas and practices – centring on racialized subject matter, elite and mass audiences, traditional and new mediums of expression, private vs public sponsorship, and passive vs active reception of art objects – converged to create new paradigms and possibilities for visual artists to reshape consciousness in a period of institutional collapse and change. Chicago’s New Negro artists of the 1930s and 1940s, like their counterparts in 1920s Harlem, sought to reframe perceptions of African American life, to re-present the black subject as something other than an object of contempt or amusement beneath the privileged gaze of the white viewer. Just as these artists sought to revise perceptions of racial reality, examination of the wide range of actual images they created and the mediums and styles they explored revises reductive notions about creative expression in this period, which often portray a mere subordination of art to propaganda and an embrace of representational aesthetics and simplistic narratives in a fruitless detour in the evolution from modernism to postmodernism. On the contrary, Andrew Hemingway notes the range of stylistic experiment and characterizes so-called ‘social art’ as ‘a hybrid and unstable mode [which] had to carry the imperative to be an art equal in formal achievement to both the great art of the past and the modern tradition … [and] to suggest a political orientation without becoming overt revolutionary propaganda’ (2002).New media theorist Oliver Grau observes thatIn many quarters, virtual reality is viewed as a totally new phenomenon… but it did not make its first appearance with the technical invention of computer-aided virtual realities. On the contrary, virtual reality forms part of the core of the relationship of humans to images… grounded in art traditions that have receivedscant attention up to now.(2004)In the midst of another period of change, of transformed and transforming ideas and practices in the arts, we have much to learn from the attempts of Chicago’s New (Media) Negro artists to create ‘art for the people’, to immerse broad audiences in such accessible media as mural painting, photography and graphic arts. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to study the notion of derivability and its semantic counterpart in the context of non-transitive and non-reflexive substructural logics. For this purpose we focus on the study cases of the logics _S__T_ and _T__S_. In this respect, we show that this notion doesn’t coincide, in general, with a nowadays broadly used semantic approach towards metainferential validity: the notion of local validity. Following this, and building on some previous work by Humberstone, we prove that in (...) these systems derivability can be characterized in terms of a notion we call absolute global validity. However, arriving at these results doesn’t lead us to disregard local validity. First, because we discuss the conditions under which local, and also global validity, can be expected to coincide with derivability. Secondly, because we show how taking into account certain families of valuations can be useful to describe derivability for different calculi used to present _S__T_ and _T__S_. (shrink)

In recent years, some theorists have argued that the clogics are not only defined by their inferences, but also by their metainferences. In this sense, logics that coincide in their inferences, but not in their metainferences were considered to be different. In this vein, some metainferential logics have been developed, as logics with metainferences of any level, built as hierarchies over known logics, such as \, and \. What is distinctive of these metainferential logics is that they are mixed, i.e. (...) the standard for the premises and the conclusion is not necessarily the same. However, so far, all of these systems have been presented following a semantical standpoint, in terms of valuations based on the Strong Kleene truth-tables. In this article, we provide sound and complete sequent-calculi for the valid inferences and the invalid inferences of the logics \ and \, and introduce an algorithm that allows obtaining sound and complete sequent-calculi for the global validities and the global invalidities of any metainferential logic of any level. (shrink)

La foi chrétienne propose une interprétation de la condition humaine selon laquelle le sens de la vie présente est son inscription dans une perspective eschatologique, c'est-à-dire son rapport à une réalité qui est à la fois encore à venir mais qui cependant, en même temps, est déjà présente parmi nous. Cette réalité est annoncée, dans les textes fondateurs de la foi chrétienne, par l'expression " le Royaume de Dieu ". La foi chrétienne se comprend elle-même comme adhésion, dans la pratique (...) qu'elle inspire à la grande œuvre de la construction du Royaume de Dieu. L'existence humaine reçoit ainsi une " destinée ", au sens de " destination ". Par ailleurs, à partir de certaines expériences historiques, comme celles de la géométrie ou de la cité, s'est élaborée une perspective qui s'est définie elle-même par le concept de raison. Cette perspective est de portée eschatologique, en ce sens proprement philosophique qu'elle ouvre sur un horizon indéfini, en lequel s'annonce l'accomplissement de la tâche historique de la construction de la raison. Comment penser le rapport entre ces deux perspectives? Que nous apprend à ce propos l'histoire dont nous héritons? Peut-on se borner à reconnaître que l'on se trouve en présence de deux processus totalement différents et dès lors totalement étrangers l'un à l'autre? Et, d'autre part, si l'on reconnaît que ces perspectives se rencontrent nécessairement, comment penser et vivre cette dualité sans tenter de la ramener à un seul de ses termes? Mais d'abord, comment, pour chacun d'entre eux, se détermine son essence? Les textes recueillis dans le présent volume tentent de rencontrer ces questions, en évoquant d'abord ce qu'est " l'univers de la rationalité ", en exposant ensuite la problématique du rapport entre la destinée selon la foi et la destinée selon la raison, en suggérant enfin une interprétation selon laquelle la destinée de la raison est inscrite dans le 'fait chrétien, et en illustrant cette proposition par l'évocation de problématiques plus particulières, concernant les rapports entre foi, science et philosophie. (shrink)

This paper is an argument to the effect that a certain view about mental representing, together with some very liberal constraints on the brain as a dynamic system, entails that the organism will tend to form adaptive mental representations of its environment. To show this, it will first be argued that although mental representing is a common thing indeed, representationalism, in the most important sense of that term (indirect representationalism), is false. Three different views about pictorial thinking (mental imagery, intuitive (...) representing) are then contrasted, two of which are tied to this brand of representationalism and one of which is not. The latter view, versions of which have sometimes been presented as ”simulation” theories of imagery, is here generalised to cover all kinds of mental representation. Two models of the brain are then presented in which learning of adaptive representations follows from this theory together with certain biologically plausible constraints. (shrink)

In the literature, Weak Kleene logics are usually taken as three-valued logics. However, Suszko has challenged the main idea of many-valued logic claiming that every logic can be presented in a two-valued fashion. In this paper, we provide two-valued semantics for the Weak Kleene logics and for a number of four-valued subsystems of them. We do the same for the so-called Logics of Nonsense, which are extensions of the Weak Kleene logics with unary operators that allow looking at them as (...) Logics of Formal Inconsistency and Logics of Formal Underterminedness. Our aim with this work, rather than arguing for Suszko’s thesis, is to show that two-valued presentations of these peculiar logics enlighten the non-standard behavior of their logical connectives. More specifically, the two-valued presentations of paraconsistent logics illustrate and clarify the disjunctive flavor of the conjunction, and dually, the two-valued presentations of paracomplete subsystems of Weak Kleene logics reveal the conjunctive flavor of the disjunction. (shrink)

Maeve Cooke’s new book is about the nature and prospects of critical social theory in the broad sense of “any mode of ethically oriented reflection that looks critically at social arrangements from the point of view of the obstacles they pose for individual human flourishing, or that reflects on what it means to do so”. -/- The book succeeds in its aims admirably. There are good reasons to agree with Cooke’s central arguments (contra Rorty et al.) that moral validity is (...) context-transcending, and (contra Habermas) that moral validity is not reducible to consensus in justifi catory argumentation. I also fi nd her pragmatic views on the relation between theory and praxis quite sensible (she is opposed to grand explanatory theories), and the idea to approach the topic of utopias with the distinction between transcendent objects and fallible representations does not seem unreasonable. Centrally, her stress on the anti-authoritarian nature of openended, public justifications, and a view of personal autonomy that goes with it, are well grounded. -/- Where I find myself hesitant to follow Cooke is the postulation of a “transcendent ethical object”. My central worry is: should not critical theorists focus on the normatively relevant (desirable and undesirable) characteristics of societies as they are, or could be, or should be, and not worry about any transcendent objects beyond our grasp? (shrink)

En 1974 Jacques Rancière examinait la leçon de marxisme donné par le philosophe Louis Althusser à un collègue anglais et en faisait l'occasion d'un bilan sur l'althussérisme lui-même. Althusser avait imposé dans les années 1960 l'idée d'un retour à la vraie pensée de Marx, en phase avec les formes nouvelles de la pensée structuraliste (ethnologie de Lévi-Strauss, psychanalyse lacanienne, archéologie du savoir de Foucault) mais aussi avec les nouveaux espoirs révolutionnaires qui secouaient la planète à l'heure des luttes de décolonisation (...) et de la révolution culturelle chinoise. Or les événements de 1968 avaient montré le total décalage de ce marxisme renouvelé par rapport aux aspirations portées par les mouvements de la jeunesse et aux formes prises par la mobilisation populaire. La pensée du renouveau théorique et politique s'était transformée en pensée de l'ordre. Mais aussi, dans le contexte de l'après-68, cette pensée de l'ordre ne pouvait trouver son efficacité qu'en s'exprimant dans le langage de la subversion. La Leçon d'Althusser s'attachait à dégager les conditions de ce renversement en examinant le coeur politique de la philosophie althussérienne, l'opposition de la science et de l'idéologie, à la lumière de l'histoire récente mais aussi à celle de la tradition ouvrière et révolutionnaire. Ce texte devenu introuvable est aujourd'hui réédité avec une préface de l'auteur qui en souligne l'actualité : le destin de cette pensée de la subversion devenue une justification de l'ordre existant n'est que le premier épisode d'un mouvement politique et intellectuel bien plus vaste. Des années 1970 jusqu'à notre présent nous avons été témoins d'une vaste contre-révolution politique et intellectuelle dirigée contre tous les acquis des mouvements populaires d'un siècle et contre toute idée d'émancipation. Or cette contre-révolution a continuellement recyclé à son profit tous les thèmes de la pensée marxiste et critique d'hier. La Leçon d'Althusser mettait en lumière le mécanisme fondamental de ce processus et anticipait en ce sens le travail poursuivi par Jacques Rancière jusque dans des livres récents comme La Haine de la démocratie et Le Spectateur émancipé. Ce travail est donc propre à aider à la compréhension du présent et à la reformulation d'une pensée de l'émancipation. (shrink)

Le projet dont cet ouvrage est l'aboutissement n'a pas été d'établir une théorie du droit, mais d'en rechercher la signification au plus près de la pratique quotidienne des juristes. Chaque fois que l'un d'eux emploie le mot droit, il le fait sans s'expliquer comme s'il s'agissait là d'une chose commune qu'il suffirait de désigner pour être compris. Pourtant, dans sa brièveté même, il renvoie à des contenus divers qui ne font sens qu'à un haut degré d'élaboration. C'est à la recherche (...) de ces significations que l'on a voulu partir, en examinant le réseau complexe de représentations que les juristes mobilisent quand ils parlent de droit. On doute qu'il y ait une essence du droit, intemporelle et transcendante, qui en figerait la définition par-delà les époques et les climats. Mais il y a des constantes que l'on a voulu explorer. Un lieu, qui rend possible le développement d'un système de droit : l'ordre juridique, qui en réunit les conditions institutionnelles. Une matière commune à tous ses énoncés : la norme, règle ou décision, qui est au droit ce que l'atome est à la matière, la cellule au vivant. Enfin, par-delà l'unicité de l'énoncé des normes, il y a la diversité des pratiques d'application, qui en bouleversent la signification sociale et la compréhension. Tout cela permet, par des approches successives, de découvrir la texture du droit et d'examiner le singulier discours que tient l'ordre juridique. En première approximation, on appelle droit tout ce qui circule dans un ordre juridique. Plus profondément, le discours tenu par cet ordre permet à une société de décliner ses valeurs : l'exposé de son fonctionnement de principe doit permettre aux individus de s'y insérer sans la troubler. S'agit-il d'un discours qui dirait la vérité de la collectivité? Pas forcément : par son droit, toute société propose un miroir qui la reflète, mais seulement telle qu'elle se voit. On le constate, certains miroirs se révèlent déformants. Il en va ainsi pour la France, dont le droit présente à la fois un modèle de construction rationnelle et un véritable trompe-l'oeil ménagé par l'Etat, pour égarer sur la régulation véritable de la société. (shrink)

In this comment I consider Jack Balkin’s general argument for his method of constitutional interpretation – the question of why interpret (the United States Constitution) in this way (as presented in his book Living Originalism). I contrast this question with the way in which the conclusion of this argument should be implemented with regard to specific clauses – the question of how to interpret (the United States Constitution). While the former question is concerned with the general form of the argument, (...) the latter is concerned with a substantiation of one premise in the argument. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to make a comparative study of Chang Yi-mou’s films and the novels of a Taiwanese regionalist novelist— Wang Chen-ho, for both of the two artists reveal great impulse of postcolonialist view in representing history and gender/class, though with different emphasis. Chang. is now one of the most successful movie directors in the Asia-Pacific region, just like Ang Lee, and enjoys high prestige and international fame—a great example of “globalization” and “multiculturalism,” whereas Wang has always been (...) recognized as one of the most successful Taiwanese nativist novelists because of his experimental representation of the hybridized Taiwanese languages by skillfully blending “Chinglish,” Japanese, and other Taiwanese dialects within his story-telling. In other words, in this paper, I intend to make a comparative study of the micropolitics of how Chang’s and Wang ’s works reveal a postcolonial discourse/condition in representing history/gender/class. Critical approaches that will be employed in this project are mainly the micropolitics in the postcolonialist poetics of Homi Bhabha, Said, and Deleuze and Guattari. (shrink)

La pensée et la sagesse sont universelles, traversent les lieux et les temps, en unissant les hommes. Bouddhistes et philosophes examinent ici " la merveilleuse concordance " que Schopenhauer, à l'aube du monde contemporain, relevait entre sa philosophie et la sagesse millénaire du Bouddha. Les textes présentés ici sont les versions intégrales des conférences prononcées lors du colloque " Sakyamuni et Schopenhauer " qui s'est tenu au Dharma Ling de Paris les 13 et 14 mars 2004 sous l'égide de L'UDHAO.

This book explores the implications of knowing our place in the universe and recognising our hybridity. It is a series of self-reflections and essays drawing on many diverse ways of knowing. The book examines the complex ethical challenges of closing the wide gap in living standards between rich and poor people/communities. The notion of an ecological citizen is presented with a focus on protecting current and future generations. The idea is to track the distribution and redistribution of resources in the (...) interests of social and environmental justice. The central argument looks for ways to hold the powerful to account so as to enable virtuous living by the majority to be demonstrated in what the author calls a "planetary passport" - a careful use of resources and a way to provide safe passage to those in need of safe habitat. The book argues that nation states need to find ways to control the super-rich through the governance process and to enhance a sense of shared ecological citizenship and responsibility for biodiversity. The fundamental approach is collaborative research. Planetary Passport: Representation, Accountability and Re-Generation is comprised of six chapters. Chapter 1 begins by making a case for a paradigm shift away from business as usual and the pursuit of profit at the expense of the social and environmental fabric of life. The aim is to explore alternatives and to discuss some ways of achieving wellbeing whilst the focus is on human rights, discrimination and outlining the notion of a planetary passport. Chapter 2 makes a specific link between people and the planet as a basis for understanding the nature of hybridity and interconnectedness and the implications for ethics. Chapter 3 focuses on building this planetary passport for social and environmental justice in order to enable people with complex needs to consider the consequences of either continuing to live the same way as before or making changes to the way that they live. Meanwhile Chapter 4 does the same as the previous chapter, but explores the political context of consumption and short term profit Chapter 5 examines the challenges and opportunities that come from explorations within a cross-cultural learning community. This includes a look at co-creation and co-determination. Finally Chapter 6 ends with a look to the future and a potential new framework for people and the planet through a planetary passport.. (shrink)

The moral presentation: an essay on Merleau-Ponty's notion of time in the Phenomenology of Perception: The purpose of this essay is to investigate the notion of memory in Merleau-Ponty, suggesting a possible interpretation of the time and memory within Merleau-Ponty’s genetic phenomenological analysis. Ultimately, our hypothesis is that Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the problem of representation and perception - particularly the problem of retention - places an ethical ground in perception. We will suggest that the phenomenological approach to memory might (...) pave a different undertaking of morals as constructed in the living-present. Our objective is then to point a moral dimension to the process of presentation-representation that happens in consciousness, and establish that our way into the comprehension of values has both a passive and active dimension that is often underdeveloped in studies of how we establish moral and political convictions. Keywords: Time, Memory, Representation, Perception, Ethics A presentação moral: um ensaio sobre a noção de tempo de Merleau-Ponty na Fenomenologia da Percepção Resumo: O propósito desse ensaio é instigar a ideia de memória em Merleau-Ponty, sugerindo uma possível interpretação de tempo e memória dentro da análise genética-fenomenológica de Merleau-Ponty. Em última medida, nossa hipótese é que o entendimento de Merleau-Ponty sobre o problema da representação e da percepção - particularmente o problema da retenção - coloca um fundamento ético para a percepção. Nós iremos sugerir que a abordagem fenomenológica para a memória pode nos dar um diferente modo de análise da moral enquanto construída no presente-vivido. Nosso objetivo é então apontar para uma dimensão moral para o processo de apresentação-representação que acontece na consciência e estabelecê-lo como um caminho para nossa representação consciente, entendendo que nosso modo de compreensão tem tanto uma dimensão intencionalmente ativa quanto passiva que é frequentemente pouco desenvolvida em estudos sobre nossos estabelecimento de convicções morais e políticas. Palavras chaves: Tempo, Memória, Representação, Percepção, Ética La presentación moral: un ensayo sobre la noción de tiempo de Merleau-Ponty en la Fenomenología de la Percepción Resumen: El propósito de este ensayo es instigar la idea de memoria en Merleau-Ponty, sugiriendo una posible interpretación del tiempo y la memoria dentro del análisis genético-fenomenológico de Merleau-Ponty. En última instancia, nuestra hipótesis es que la comprensión de Merleau-Ponty del problema de la representación y la percepción, particularmente el problema de la retención, sienta una base ética para la percepción. Sugeriremos que el enfoque fenomenológico de la memoria puede darnos un modo diferente de análisis moral a medida que se integra en el presente. Nuestro objetivo es, entonces, señalar una dimensión moral al proceso de presentación-representación que tiene lugar en la conciencia y establecerlo como un camino hacia nuestra representación consciente, entendiendo que nuestro modo de comprensión tiene una dimensión intencionalmente activa y pasiva que a menudo se entiende mal. desarrollado en estudios de nuestro establecimiento de creencias morales y políticas. Palavras clave: Tiempo, Memoria, Representación, Percepción, Ética Data de registro: 03/09/2019 Data de aceite: 22/07/2020. (shrink)

The essence of the moral luck question is whether the responsibility of persons is determined only in light of actions that are within their control or also in light of factors, such as the consequences of their actions, which are beyond their control. Most people seem to have contrasting intuitions regarding this question. On the one hand, there is a common intuition that the responsibility of persons should be judged only in light of what is within their control. On the (...) other hand, there is a strong intuition that the consequences of actions sometimes affect the responsibility of agents even when these consequences depend on factors that are beyond their control. A parallel dilemma is present in the law. Legal rules, particularly criminal law rules and tort rules, often differentiate between agents in light of factors that are beyond their control, and in this sense involve legal luck. Of course, factors beyond the control of persons, including the consequences of their actions, can be significant, with respect to the evaluation of the responsibility of persons for instrumental or epistemic reasons. The question is thus only with respect to the independent significance of factors beyond the control of agents, and particularly the consequences of actions, to the evaluation of the (extent of the) responsibility of agents. Benjamin Zipursky offers an interesting argument in order to support the intuition in favor of moral and legal luck, particularly with regard to consequences, especially the rule according to which the punishment of completed offences is more severe than the punishment of attempts and the rule that tort liability applies only to actions that have caused harm. The aim of this Comment is to evaluate this argument. I will try to consider to what extent Zipursky's explanation merely reiterates the familiar intuition that the normative evaluation of the conduct of persons should be influenced by consequential luck, and to what extent it provides new insights that might appeal also to those who are more forcefully drawn to the contrasting intuition that we should judge people only in light of factors that are within their control. I argue that while Zipursky's suggestions might appeal to those who already share the intuition in favor of (consequential) moral and legal luck, they would not convince those who have doubts regarding moral and legal luck. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo se desarrolla una aproximación epistemológica a las significaciones sociales, comprendidas como una entidad central que urde la composición simbólica de la realidad. Para ello, se despliega un trabajo teórico y reflexivo con el objetivo de esclarecer las tres significaciones sociales que aquí se establecen: imaginarios sociales, representaciones sociales y re-presentaciones discursivas. Al mismo tiempo, se procura presentar una taxonomía en planos de significación, correspondiente a las particularidades y ámbitos de acción de los imaginarios sociales (plano profundo), (...) representaciones sociales (plano medio de transición) y re-presentaciones discursivas (plano superficial). Este trabajo epistémico, que aporta en la clarificación conceptual de las tres nociones tratadas, ofrece un sustento teórico para futuras investigaciones y una nueva forma de abordar las significaciones sociales. Abstract In this work, an epistemological approach to social meanings is developed, understood as a central entity that weaves the symbolic composition of reality. To do this, a theoretical and reflective work is deployed with the aim of clarifying the three social meanings established here: social imaginaries, social representations, and discursive re-presentations. At the same time, it seeks to present a taxonomy in planes of meaning, corresponding to the particularities and fields of action of social imaginaries (deep plane), social representations (middle plane of transition) and discursive re-presentations (superficial plane). This epistemic work, which contributes to the conceptual clarification of the three notions discussed, offers theoretical support for future research and a new way of approaching social meanings. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Venu du marxisme, dont il a constaté très tôt les impasses, Cornelius Castoriadis a voulu réinventer la révolution. Selon lui, la modernité voit s'affronter deux projets de société : celui d'une maîtrise rationnelle du réel et celui d'une autonomie de toutes et de tous. Le premier a donné des résultats désastreux en engendrant le règne de la technique et de l'économie. Le second reste encore à construire pour qu'advienne une société vraiment démocratique dans laquelle le peuple se gouverne lui-même, se (...) passant de toute classe dirigeante. Castoriadis a mis en lumière les origines de ce projet d'autonomie qui remontent à la Grèce antique. Il en a analysé les expressions modernes, de la révolution russe de 1917 aux révoltes des années 1960. Mais surtout, il en a examiné les conditions pour que se développe une politique émancipatrice aujourd'hui : auto-organisation des luttes, pratique de l'égalité et sens des limites. Ce projet d'autonomie n'est pas un programme clés en main. Il est un imaginaire autant qu'une expérience. Il est un horizon, celui d'une société consciente du fait que le pouvoir est l'affaire de tous. C'est cette réflexion multiforme et souvent complexe que présente et questionne ce livre qui offre pour la première fois une synthèse claire, accessible et percutante de la pensée politique de Castoriadis. (shrink)

In the context of non-classical logics, many philosophers have been particularly interested in the paraconsistent logics. In addition to traditional definitions, in recent years, new ways of characterizing the notion of paraconsistency have been proposed. In all of these definitions the rule or the meta-rule of explosion is abandoned. In this article, I present those definitions and evaluate the role that the negation and the transitivity play in each of them. Finally, I propose a new definition of paraconsistency which I (...) call total paraconsistency and show that the rule of weakening plays a crucial role in all of the characterizations of such a concept. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to generate knowledge about parents’ participation in life-and-death decisions concerning their very premature and/or critically ill infants in hospital neonatal units. The question is: what are parents’ attitudes towards their involvement in such decision making? A descriptive study design using in-depth interviews was chosen. During the period 1997-2000, 20 qualitative interviews with 35 parents of 26 children were carried out. Ten of the infants died; 16 were alive at the time of the interview. The (...) comparative method (grounded theory) was used to analyse the data. The analysis was carried out continuously and in parallel with data collection. Six categories were revealed by the analysis: indecision and uncertainty (ambivalence); information and communication; participate, but do not decide; seeming to be included; the parents’ child; and individual consideration. The findings appear to indicate that parents agree that they should not have the final word in decisions concerning their infants’ future life or death. Such a responsibility would put too heavy a burden on parents who lack the medical knowledge and the professional experience needed to make such a decision, and would be likely to lead to them experiencing strong feelings of guilt. The findings show that parents should be well informed and listened to during the whole decision-making process. Their primary concern was how nurses and physicians communicate with parents who are experiencing a crisis, and how this serious information is presented. (shrink)

Our aim is to provide a sequent calculus whose external consequence relation coincides with the three-valued paracomplete logic `of nonsense' introduced by Dmitry Bochvar and, independently, presented as the weak Kleene logic K3W by Stephen C. Kleene. The main features of this calculus are (i) that it is non-reflexive, i.e., Identity is not included as an explicit rule (although a restricted form of it with premises is derivable); (ii) that it includes rules where no variable-inclusion conditions are attached; and (iii) (...) that it is hybrid, insofar as it includes both left and right operational introduction as well as elimination rules. (shrink)

Autism is a widely researched area and much emphasis has been placed in research on the differences between the autistic and non-autistic populations. Such research commonly draws on proposed deficits within people with autism in order to explain differences. This paper seeks to present an alternative understanding of differences and draws on writings of people with autism in such a discussion. The construction of ‘Neurologically Typical syndrome’ (NT) will be presented as an inverted construction of diagnosis, which serves to challenge (...) the dominant position of ‘NTs’ and ‘NT traits’ over autistic traits. It will be argued that such an alternative representation of people with and without autism has important implications for our construction of and understanding of autism. (shrink)