Introduction to Education provides pre-service teachers with an overview of the context, craft and practice of teaching in Australian schools as they commence the journey from learner to classroom teacher. Each chapter poses questions about the nature of teaching students, and guides readers though the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Incorporating recent research and theoretical literature, Introduction to Education presents a critical consideration of the professional, policy and curriculum contexts of teaching in Australia. The book covers theoretical topics in chapters (...) addressing assessment, planning, safe learning environments, and working with colleagues, families, carers and communities. More practical chapters discuss professional experience and building a career after graduation. Rigorous in conception and practical in scope, Introduction to Education welcomes new educators to the theory and practical elements of teaching, learning, and professional practice. (shrink)

This series of responses was commissioned to accompany the article by Singer et al, which can be found at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/2/1. If you would like to comment on the article by Singer et al or any of the responses, please email us on [email protected].

After September 11, Sullivan wrote that while he wasn’t worried about the heartland, “decadent coastal liberals may well mount a fifth column.†This in response, as is well known, to a thoughtful New Yorker essay by Susan Sontag. Sullivan, who Eric Alterman—not usually a sharp wordsmith—memorably calls “Young Roy Cohn†later issued “Sontag awards.†His attitude and his popularization of a sort of Lynne Cheneyist position on what “Views†are improper and thus should not be publicly aired, probably did far (...) more damage to civil liberties than Joe McCarthy’s pal Roy, who at the very least didn’t take himself seriously. (shrink)

The ethical ideologies of psychologists and physicians were compared using the Ethics Position Questionnaire. The findings reveal that psychologists tend to be less relativistic than physicians. Further, we explored the degree to which physicians and psychologists report being influenced by a variety of factors in their ethical decision making. Psychologists were more influenced by their code of ethics and less influenced by family views, religious background, and peer attitudes than were physicians. We argue that these differences reflect the varied professional (...) cultures in which practitioners are trained and socialized. (shrink)

This article presents a critical examination of Igor Soikhedbrod’s Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality, and Rights. We argue that the book presents an important criticism of antinomian forms of critical theory, which underplay the extent to which Marx engaged in an imminent critique of liberal societies, including the rule of law, and upheld that progressive advances enshrined in this rule should be carried over or sublated in a communist dispensation.

This article challenges the recurrent critique that Pierre Hadot’s identification of ancient philosophy with the practice of spiritual exercises introduces a non- or irrational dimension into metaphilosophy. The occasion to do this is provided by Kerem Eksen’s recent reading of Descartes’s Meditations as consisting of solely intellectual, rather than spiritual, exercises—since the latter, Eksen claims, involve extrarational means and ends. Part 2 presents an alternative account of the role of cognition in the ancient meditatio at issue in understanding Descartes’s antecedents. (...) This account is indebted to Michel Foucault’s characterization of ancient meditation as involving two cognitive mechanisms: an appropriation of thought, and an experiment in identification. Part 3 argues that attempts such as Eksen’s to depict spiritual exercises as wholly noncognitive themselves are the product of an “unexamined Cartesianism” that is fundamentally at odds with the monistic psychology of ancient Stoics like Marcus Aurelius as discussed in Hadot’s studies. (shrink)

Three arguments are proposed against the idea that ordinary talk about the mind constitutes a folk psychology, a sort of prescientific theory which explains human behaviour and which is ripe for replacement by a neurological or computational theory with better scientific credentials. First, not all talk of the mind is introduced to explain in the way assumed by those who think that mental talk hypothesizes inner processes to explain behaviour. Second, the individuation of the behaviour which is explained by the (...) inner processes itself requires reference to ?mental? states such as intentions or desires. Consequently the project is circular. Finally, scientific theory is a practice with a history which may be matched in the case of ordinary talk of the mind. Certainly ordinary talk of motives, intentions, and thoughts may be infected by the theorizing of economists and sociologists et al., but it is impossible that all talk of the mind should be theoretical in this way. (shrink)

David Bohm is a physicist with a broad range of other interests including religion, philosophy, education, art, and linguistics. This book surveys Bohm's physical theories including the quantum potential theory and the implicate order or holomovement theory.

Following up on a 1989 paper on the subject, this essay revisits the question of ethical expertise in the court room. Informed by recent developments in the use of ethics experts, the authors argue 1) that the adversarial nature of court proceedings challenges the integrity of the ethicist's pedagogical role; 2) that the use of ethics experts as normative authorities remains dubious; 3) that clarification of the State's interest in “protecting the ethical integrity of the medical profession” is urgently required; (...) and 4) that the expertise of the ethicist may be more appropriately used in advising the legislature than in influencing the court. (shrink)

What follows is a work of critical reconstruction of Camus' thought. It aims to answer to the wish Camus expressed in his later notebooks, that he at least be read closely. Specifically, I hope to do three things. In Part I, we will show how Camus' famous philosophy of the absurd represents a systematic scepticism whose closest philosophical predecessor is Descartes' method of doubt, and whose consequence, as in Descartes, is the discovery of a single, orienting certainty, on the basis (...) of which Camus would proceed to pass beyond the 'nihilism' that conservative critics continued to level against him (MS 34). Part II will unfold the central tenets of Camus' mature thought of rebellion, and show how Camus' central political claims follow from his para-Cartesian claim to have found an irreducible or 'invincible' basis for a post-metaphysical ethics, consistent with the most thoroughgoing epistemic scepticism. Part III then undertakes to show that the neoclassical rhetoric and positioning Camus claimed for his postwar thought—as a thought of moderation or mesure, and a renewed Greek or Mediterranean naturalism—is more than a stylistic pretension. It represents, so I argue, a singular amalgam of modern and philosophical classical motifs which makes Camus' voice nearly unique in twentieth century ideas, and all the more worth reconsidering today. So let us proceed. (shrink)

This collection of new essays addresses emotion in relation to the arts. The essays consider such topics as the paradox of fiction, emotion in the pure and abstract arts, and the rationality and ethics of emotional responses to art.

This book examines the effects of the market mechanism on economies and societies. It argues that perfect competition has a tendency to promote adulteration of products and a general deterioration in quality. It also contends that it is very difficult for competitive firms to behave in socially desirable ways - being kind to the environment, contributing to worthy social programmes, handling redundancy humanely. The book goes on to propose ways in which these flaws might be remedied without subverting the market (...) mechanism. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the complex ethical dynamics of violence and nonviolence in Mahāyāna Buddhism by considering some of the historical precedents and scriptural prescriptions that inform modern and contemporary Buddhist acts of self-immolation. Through considering these scripturally sanctioned Mahāyāna ‘case studies,’ the paper traces the tension that exists in Buddhist thought between violence and nonviolence, outlines the interplay of key Mahāyāna ideas of transcendence and altruism, and comments on the mimetic status and influence of spiritually charged texts. It (...) is the contention of this paper that violent scriptural metaphors can create paradigms of enactment that are paradoxically illustrative of the core ‘non-violent’ Mahāyāna virtues of compassion, giving, patience, and vigor. The discussion will show that these virtues are underpinned by the Mahāyāna philosophical mainstays of non-duality, bodhisattvic transcendent altruism, skillful means, and dependent co-origination. (shrink)

Research suggests that Canadian police officers are exposed to trauma at a greater frequency than the general population. This, combined with other operational stressors, such as risk of physical injury, high consequence of error, and strained resources, can leave officers less resilient to organizational stressors. In my experience, a significant and impactful organizational stressor is ineffective leadership, which include leaders who are non-supportive, inconsistent, egocentric, and morally ambiguous. Ineffective leadership in the context of paramilitary police culture has been recognized as (...) psychologically distressing. Further, moral injury may result when leadership fails to meet officers’ needs, expectations, and values. Ineffective leadership and resulting moral injuries are an understudied area in the literature. This review will help provide a comprehensive context of policing and the impact of ineffective leadership on police mental health. (shrink)

This study aimed to capture how the coronavirus disease 2019 crisis disrupted and affected individuals’ goal pursuits and self-efficacy beliefs early during the lockdown phase of COVID-19. Participants impacted by lockdown regulations accessed an online questionnaire during a 10-day window from the end of March to early April 2020 and reported a significant personal goal toward which they had been working, and then completed quantitative and qualitative survey items tapping self-efficacy beliefs for goal achievement, subjective caring about the goal during (...) disrupted world events, and current pursuit or abandonment of the goal. The findings from both quantitative and qualitative measures demonstrated a significant drop in self-efficacy beliefs from before to during the pandemic with a large effect based on whether people thought they could still achieve their goal under current conditions. Over two-thirds of the sample was unsure or did not believe they could still carry out their goal, and over a quarter either abandoned or were uncertain they could pursue the goal. Despite this, people continued to care about their goals. Reasons for abandonment and strategies for coping with goals within the lockdown and beyond are discussed. (shrink)

This essay is a critique of Derrida's ethical works, using Camus's last novella The Fall as a critical sounding board. It argues that a danger pertains to any such highly self-reflexive position as Derrida's: a danger that Camus identified in The Fall, and staged in his character, Jean-Baptiste Clamence. Clamence is a successful Parisian lawyer, on top of his personal and professional life, whose equanimity is troubled after he is the unwitting passer-by as a young woman suicides one night on (...) the Seine. After this time, he comes to consider all his former virtues as concealed vices. He also becomes acutely aware of what he terms the 'duplicity' of human beings as such. In Part I, I consider how Clamence's fall from innocence can be read 'with' Derrida's deconstructive registration of a 'double bind' pertaining to our standing vis-á-vis what he terms 'logocentrism'. I argue that Derrida's is a post-lapsarian philosophy, which challenges all attempts to construct closed conceptual systems that would confer an epistemic and/or moral certitude upon their expositors. In Part II, I then enter into a more detailed exposition of Derrida's 'later' works broaching friendship, the invitation, the gift, and other 'matters moral'. I read these texts in the light of an examination of what is involved, for Camus, in being a 'judge-penitent' (what Clamence in The Fall calls his profession). I suggest that Derrida runs the risk of a certain 'puritanism of difference' in his moral reflections, which defend the aporetic formulation: 'tout autre est tout autre' [every other is every bit other] (The Gift of Death). The problem is that, while Derrida's position allows one (everywhere) to say what one is against, it problematizes any affirmative moral stance. Like Clamence, who assumes the right to judge everyone else because he has subjected himself to a severe penitence, I suggest that we have a right to wonder whether Derrida's deconstructive critique of metaphysics can validate only endless repetitions of itself. Key Words: Camus • Derrida • ethics • The Fall • innocence • 'puritanism of difference. (shrink)

This paper reassesses the Cooper-Hadot debate surrounding how students are converted to philosophy as a way of life (section 1) through engagement with philosophical protreptics. In section 2, the paper identifies the core “argument from finality” in philosophical protreptics seeking to convert non-philosophers to philosophy, starting from the universal human interest in securing eudaimonia. In line with Cooper, this argument seeks to persuade prospective students on rational grounds, so that their choice to philosophise would be rationally motivated. In section 3.1, (...) the paper illustrates how in Plato's Euthydemus (a) the choice to undertake philosophy is rationally justified by Socrates, using the eudaimonistic argument from finality. In section 3.2, by recourse to Aristotle's Protrepticus, the paper shows how the protreptic texts also compared philosophy to other intellectual pursuits, notably rhetoric, so as to recommend philosophy specifically for delivering a directive wisdom concerning how to live. (shrink)

I begin with the assumption that a philosophically significant tension exists today in feminist philosophy of religion between those subjects who seek to become divine and those who seek their identity in mutual recognition. My critical engagement with the ambiguous assertions of Luce Irigaray seeks to demonstrate, one the one hand, that a woman needs to recognize her own identity but, on the other hand, that each subject whether male or female must struggle in relation to the other in order (...) to maintain realism about life and death. No one can avoid the recognition that we are each given life but each of us also dies. In addition, I raise a more general, philosophical problem for analytic philosophers who attempt to read Continental philosophy of religion: how should philosophers interpret deliberately ambiguous assertions? For example, what does Irigaray mean in asserting. 'Divinity is what we need to become free, autonomous, sovereign'? To find an answer, I turn to the distinctively French readings of the Hegelian struggle for recognition which have preoccupied Continental philosophers especially since the first half of the last century. I explore the struggle for mutual recognition between womrn and men who must face the reality of life and death in order to avoid the projection of their fear of mortality onto the other sex. This includes a critical look at Irigaray's account of subjectivity and divinity. I turn to the French philosopher Michèle Le Doeuff in order to shift the focus from divinity to intersubjectivity. I conclude that taking seriously the struggle for mutual recognition between subjects forces contemporary philosophers of religion to be realist in their living and dying. With this in mind, the lesson from the Continent for philosophy of religion is that we must not stop yearning for recognition. Indeed, we must event risk our autonomy/divinity in seeking to recognize intersubjectivity. (shrink)

Albert Camus can be meaningfully read as an agent-focussed virtue ethicist, as David Sherman has suggested. Yet moving far beyond Sherman’s version of this claim, we show here how Camus accepts what are four definitive parameters of the classical authors’ conception of the virtues—the last of which takes him beyond today’s recognised “virtue ethicists.” Firstly, he understands the virtues as lasting, beneficent dispositions to think, feel, and act in certain ways. Secondly, he conceives the virtues as mastering the untethered passions: (...) the sources of epistemic partiality and behavioural excess. Thirdly Camus conceives of the virtues as necessary accomplishments if people are to live fulfilled lives. Finally—and here bidding farewell to a solely theoretical approach—Camus appreciates that such self-mastery can only be achieved through education and habituation, and through the imitation of the kind of exemplars he holds up before us in his literary fiction. (shrink)

Bridging the traditionally separate domains of analytic and Continental philosophies, Pamela Sue Anderson presents for the first time, a feminist framework for studying the philosophy of religion.

We examine the phenomenon of emergence, referring particularly to Arthur Peacocke’s ideas on emergence, the self, and spirituality. He believes that the whole of an emergent structure influences the way its parts cohere and that emergent structures (including minds and persons) and their effects are very important. He thereby hopes to remove the reductionist challenge that seeks to understand a whole fully in terms of its parts. We argue that emergent phenomena are not influential in the above sense. The holistic (...) completeness of these structures at their own theoretical level does not substitute for the causal independence Peacocke suggests by the idea of influence. Some computer simulations that generate emergent complexity follow simple and self-contained sets of rules. Peacocke also adheres to a hierarchical account of reality as a series of levels into which matter is organized, running from atoms through molecules to cells and eventually to whole ecosystems. But influential behavior does not respect this ordering. Further, Peacocke’s opposition to reductionism is unnecessary; any “completeness‘ of lower-level models does not imply the redundancy of higher-level descriptions. Emergence transforms reductionism into a constructive and positive principle. (shrink)

This book takes a fascinating look at the linguistic, psychological, and anthropological implications of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work with Kanzi--a bonobo who has achieved stunning cognitive and linguistic skills.

“1750”, the French enlightenment, was a retrospective casualty of the catastrophes set in chain by 1914. German Kulturpessimismus, heightened by the war and enflamed by the abuse of liberal ideals at the Treaty table at Versailles, has since been disseminated through, amongst other things, the intellectual normalisation of Heidegger’s metapolitical, radically antimodern “history of Being”, and more recently Carl Schmitt’s work. The paper recalls that the French enlightenment, a divided period of intellectual ferment, was characterised as much by scepticism as (...) rationalism, Deism as atheism, anticolonialism as Eurocentrism, the recovery of Roman antiquity, and the philosophical use of literature to break with old modes of intellectual production, and create new public spheres. (shrink)

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic Orders? And even if one were to suddenly take me to its heart, I would vanish into its stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear, and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains to destroy us...."So what are you telling me, there's no God, but there's you?"Peter Weir's film Fearless appeared in 1993 to critical acclaim and middling (...) box office fortune. The film draws on all of Weir's considerable art, a stunning sound track, and powerful performances by Jeff Bridges, Rosie Perez, and Isabella Rossellini. Based on the... (shrink)