In the past half‐century critical historiographies of philosophy have challenged the exclusionist Eurocentric and masculinist presumptions of “history of philosophy,” and we have witnessed the multiplication of philosophical worlds in the relation of indigenous to Western scholarship and in critical philosophical anthropologies. Does this mean that there is, or can be, no unity to the history of philosophy? In this article, I argue that these challenges are not incompatible with our thinking the unity of the history of philosophy, so long (...) as we understand it to be an historical “distributive unity,” constitutively related to other histories and to social, political, and institutional realities, and open to continuous transformation. The idea of a “critical history of philosophy” emerges from this. I argue that a critical history of philosophy proceeds via the problematizations of contemporary thought, which are then themselves challenged by that critical history and that it can and must include what remains marginal to its canonical history, working in conjunction with the theory and practices of other disciplines. These general claims are illustrated by showing how a critical history of philosophy could proceed in practice in relation to the contemporary problematization of the concept of “sex.”. (shrink)

La institución de la Bauhaus en la República de Weimar es uno de los acontecimientos más significativos en el Arte del siglo XX. Su importancia radica en la absoluta transformación de los planteamientos estéticos. El aspecto humano de la Bauhaus va unido a los itinerarios de vida de los maestros. Walter Gropius fue el alma de la Escuela. Tanto la ideología socialista de sus miembros como el ideario artístico vanguardista precipitaron su éxito pero también su fracaso y persecución por el (...) nacionalsocialismo. La mayoría de sus maestros tuvieron que buscar refugio en el exilio. (shrink)

Lagos-based Raypower Radio is one of the very few stations in Nigeria that is offering broadcasts in Nigerian local languages and tribal dialects. Due to the pre-dominant use of English in the education system native Nigerian languages tend to be considered as inferior, especially among social circles of higher education and wealthy background. This research attempts to analyse the influence of parental attitude towards tribal dialects as a barrier or motivational source for Nigerian youth in terms of the use and (...) acquisition of local languages and the reception of radio stations offering local content. (shrink)

Cet article explique pourquoi et comment introduire la naissance dans le canon des sujets explorés par la philosophie. Il porte sur l’épistémologie de la naissance, c’est-à-dire sur la nature, l’origine et les limites des connaissances produites par et/ou liées à l’accouchement. L’autrice offre un regard sur la philosophie de la naissance et explore une nouvelle généalogie – un nouveau logos pour le genos –, une méditation radicale sur notre origine et notre naissance.

Gary Kitchen; Discussion: Habermas's Moral Cognitivism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 97, Issue 1, 1 June 1997, Pages 317–324, https://doi.org.

Prior research has investigated the recruitment of inhibition in the use of science/mathematics concepts in tasks that require the rejection of a conflicting, nonscientific initial concept. The present research examines if inhibition is the only EF skill recruited in such tasks and investigates whether shifting is also involved. It also investigates whether inhibition and/or shifting are recruited in tasks in which the use of science/mathematics concepts does not require the rejection of an initial concept, or which require only the use (...) of initial concepts. One hundred and thirty‐three third‐ and fifth‐grade children participated in two inhibition and shifting tasks and two science and mathematics conceptual understanding and conceptual change (CU&C) tasks. All the tasks were on‐line, and performance was measured in accuracy and RTs. The CU&C tasks involved the use of initial concepts and of science/mathematics concepts which required conceptual changes for their initial formation. Only in one of the tasks the use of the science/mathematics concepts required the concurrent rejection of an initial concept. The results confirmed that in this task inhibition was recruited and also showed that the speed of shifting was a significant predictor of performance. Shifting was a significant predictor of performance in all the tasks, regardless of whether they involved science/mathematics or initial concepts. It is argued that shifting is likely to be recruited in complex tasks that require multiple comparisons of stimuli and the entertainment of different perspectives. Inhibition seems to be a more selective cognitive skill likely to be recruited when the use of science/mathematics concepts requires the rejection of a conflicting initial concept. (shrink)

The notion of authority in education has become an increasingly negative concept, regarded by some as championed only by rigid traditionalists and those who cling on to outdated educational theory and philosophy. Authority and the Teacher seeks to overturn the notion that authority is a restrictive force within education, serving only to stifle creativity and drown out the voice of the student. William H. Kitchen argues that any education must have, as one of its cornerstones, a component which encourages (...) the fullest development of knowledge, which serves as the great educational emancipator. In this version of knowledge-driven education, the teacher's authority should be absolute, so as to ensure that the teacher has the scope to liberate their pupils. The pupil, in the avoidance of ignorance, can thus embrace what is rightfully theirs; the inheritance of intellectual riches passed down through time.By invoking the work of three major philosophers - Polanyi, Oakeshott and Wittgenstein - as well as contributions from other key thinkers on authority, this book underpins previous claims for the need for authority in education with the philosophical clout necessary to ensure these arguments permeate modern mainstream educational thinking. (shrink)

This article presents a new argument concerning the relation between Kant’s theory of race and aspects of the critical philosophy. It argues that Kant’s treatment of the problem of the systematic unity of nature and knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment can be traced back a methodological problem in the natural history of the period – that of the possibility of a natural system of nature. Kant’s transformation of the methodological problem (...) from natural history into a set of philosophical problems proceeds by way of the working out of his own problem in natural history – the problem of the natural history of the human races – and specifically the problem of the unity in diversity of the human species, in response to which he develops a theory of race. This theory of race is, further, the first developed model of the use of teleological judgment in Kant’s work. The article thus argues that Kant’s philosophical position on the sy... (shrink)

Lagos-based Raypower Radio is one of the very few stations in Nigeria that is offering broadcasts in Nigerian local languages and tribal dialects. Due to the pre-dominant use of English in the education system native Nigerian languages tend to be considered as inferior, especially among social circles of higher education and wealthy background. This research attempts to analyse the influence of parental attitude towards tribal dialects as a barrier or motivational source for Nigerian youth in terms of the use and (...) acquisition of local languages and the reception of radio stations offering local content. (shrink)

In this article, I am concerned with the ethical foundations of behavior therapy, that is, with the normative ethics and the meta-ethics underlying behavior therapy. In particular, I am concerned with questions concerning the very possibility of providing an ethical justification for things done in the context of therapy. Because behavior therapists must be able to provide an ethical justification for various actions (if the need arises), certain meta-ethical views widely accepted by behavior therapists must be abandoned: in particular, one (...) must give up ethical subjectivism, ethical skepticism, and ethical relativism. An additional task is to show how it is possible to provide a nonsubjective, nonskeptical, and nonrelativistic moral justification for an ethical statement. Although this is a monumental task, I provide a rough sketch of such a model, one that is congenial to the value judgments underlying behavior therapy. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 143-162, January 2022.

The emerging area of philosophy of birth is invaluable, first, to diagnose fallacious assumptions about the relation between the womb and reason, and, ultimately, to challenge potentially damaging narratives with major impact on birth care. With its analysis of eighteenth-century epistemic and medical discussions about the role of the uterus in women's reasoning, this article supports two arguments: first, that women's “flawed thinking” was a premise drawn by many modern intellectual men, one that was presented as based upon empirical evidence; (...) and second, that the pervasive construction of the uterus as an element that renders women wild, uncontrollable, and irrational continues to influence contemporary obstetrics, even as today's medicine and science consider themselves to be free of any such prejudices.This article shows the role that Giacomo Casanova played in debunking these prejudices and presents his short manuscript on the issue as an important contribution to the literature of the Enlightenment, with its argument against women's supposed “natural” inferiority and for the idea that differences in education were to blame for women's subordinate position in society.Detailed analysis of the “thinking uterus” debate illuminates the different ways in which various arguments from/by the “anti-uterine” lobby were used to justify the subordination of women: sometimes emphasizing the connection between the uterus and thought and sometimes negating it, but always concluding that women's inferiority is to be found in some known or yet-to-be-discovered anatomical, and mainly sexual, deficiency or problem. (shrink)

This article critically extends Kant's 1786 discussion of “orientation in thinking” to ask what it means to “orient oneself in thinking” around the concepts of race and sex, addressed in the context of 1) the central place and historical importance of Kant in Western philosophy; and 2) Kant's theory of race and its relation to his critical philosophy. As presumptions about race and sex are already built into the history of philosophy, taking these concepts as an explicit orientation is not (...) the expression of subjective interests, but a reflection and criticism of some of the objective forces that shape the world and have shaped the history of philosophy. An intellectual orientation around the concepts of race or sex can thus be understood as a critical position in relation to the problematic “historical universality” of these concepts, with the aim of transforming the false universality of biological race thinking, in particular, into the historical universality of critical social analysis. (shrink)

Neuroscience, brain based learning and education -- Collaborative reports in neuroscience and education -- A local paradigmatic example, founded on an international research phenomenon -- The mereological fallacy -- First-person/third-person asymmetry -- Neuroscience and irreducible uncertainty -- Inner and outer : the epistemology of the mind -- Inner and outer : the challenges of crypto-cartesianism, materialism and reductionism -- Intrinsic and relational models of education -- Education, psychology and physics -- Bohr's philosophy of physics and its application to psychology and (...) education -- A new educational philosophy based on Bohr's interpretation of quantum physics -- Conclusions : wittgenstein-bohr model of education. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relationship between feminist theory and critical theory in Gillian Howie’s Between Feminism and Materialism, and the relation of both to philosophy. The chapter suggests that the relation between feminist theory and critical theory is a contradictory one in which the partners are at the same time close and yet estranged. It examines how Howie characterises this state of affairs and affirms her aim of 'putting Critical Theory to work for feminist theory’, explaining how her return to (...) a set of revivified Marxist categories does this. However, it also argues that Howie’s specific attempt to bring a certain aspect of critical theory to bear on the understanding of sex and gender is limited by its relation to feminist philosophy. But it ends by suggesting that the work undertaken in Between Feminism and Materialism can be extended in another direction to begin the project of a critical theory of sex and a critique of the gender industry. (shrink)

Adult humans show exceptional relational ability relative to other species. In this research, we trace the development of this ability in young children. We used a task widely used in comparative research—the relational match-to-sample task, which requires participants to notice and match the identity relation: for example, AA should match BB instead of CD. Despite the simplicity of this relation, children under 4 years of age failed to pass this test (Experiment 1), and their performance did not improve even with (...) initial feedback (Experiment 2). In Experiments 3 and 4, we found that two kinds of symbolic-linguistic experience can facilitate relational reasoning in young children. Our findings suggest that children learn to become adept analogical thinkers, and that language fosters this learning in at least two distinct ways. (shrink)