What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

This book features writing by 17 authors from Germany and from African and Latin American countries on highly diverse aesthetic phenomena as seen from their own different points of view. The texts in this volume all deal with the imperative of ‘decolonization’: they try to highlight aesthetic strategies for the (re)discovery of unthematized, misappropriated, transcultural and even transcontinental histories and memories and aesthetic practices that are absent from or too little perceived within national consciousnesses. Novels, poems and musical performances from (...) the East African region are analysed as intertwined histories of the Indian Ocean and its different languages. Artworks of the Black Atlantic and perceptions of Africa are discussed from, for example, Brazilian perspectives. Within the German context, decolonisation strategies in exhibition practices in ethnological or art museums developed by Nigerian artists are evaluated; new terms such as ‘dividuation’ are proposed to describe these contemporary composite-cultural entanglements, and so on. A stimulating, wide-ranging and heterogeneous portrait of contemporary interwoven world cultures! (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)

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)

We are living in an age of pluralization in which religiosity and secularity are not mutually exclusive. With subversive intent, Peter L. Berger relativizes with this thesis his criticism of secularization theory. In the light of the persistence and widespread nature of religion and religiosity, Berger still considers secularization theory’s assumption that modernization and secularization go hand in hand to be empirically untenable. At the same time, however, he acknowledges that a “secular discourse” has asserted itself globally and has achieved (...) a dominant position in society. This secular discourse also spreads throughout the mind of each individual, without driving out religiosity. The present article traces the lines of argumentation in Peter L. Berger’s works that lead to the thesis of two pluralisms: the coexistence of different religions and the coexistence of religious and secular discourse. Moreover, it establishes a connection between the question of the simultaneity of religiosity and secularity and the debate on hybridity that is currently being conducted within German-speaking sociology. The author postulates that this focus on “in-between” spaces—that is, on plurality and hybridity—rather than on dichotomies has the potential to trigger a new paradigm for religion in the modern age. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore Thomas Hobbes’ renunciation of a prominent concept of the social contract that distinguishes between two different contracts, namely, “pactum associationis” and “pactum subiectionis”.

Even his peers called Locke's political philosophy “The ABC of Politics“: not only does he clarify why one should exit the state of nature (government guarantees protection of life, freedom, and wealth) but also what a good government has to provide. A government should protect individuals from assaults of fellow citizens, other countries, and itself. Locke also shows how to put limits to the power of political institutions: by division of powers, by law, by neutral judges, and by making people (...) trust their government -- and having the right to revolt when their trust is betrayed. This book provides a cooperative commentary to all important topics of Locke's "Two Treatises". With entries by Wolfgang von Leyden, Bernd Ludwig, Peter Niesen, Francis Oakley, Birger P. Priddat, Michaela Rehm, Michael Schefczyk, Ludwig Siep, A. John Simmons, und Simone Zurbuchen. (shrink)

It is argued that causal understanding originates in experiences of acting on objects. Such experiences have consistent features that can be used as clues to causal identification and judgment. These are singular clues, meaning that they can be detected in single instances. A catalog of 14 singular clues is proposed. The clues function as heuristics for generating causal judgments under uncertainty and are a pervasive source of bias in causal judgment. More sophisticated clues such as mechanism clues and repeated interventions (...) are derived from the 14. Research on the use of empirical information and conditional probabilities to identify causes has used scenarios in which several of the clues are present, and the use of empirical association information for causal judgment depends on the presence of singular clues. It is the singular clues and their origin that are basic to causal understanding, not multiple instance clues such as empirical association, contingency, and conditional probabilities. (shrink)

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

I argue for an account of grasping, or understanding that, on which we grasp via a higher-order mental act of Husserlian fulfillment. Fulfillment is the act of matching up the objects of our phenomenally presentational experiences with those of our phenomenally representational thought. Grasping-by-fulfilling is importantly different from standard epistemic aims, in part because it is phenomenal rather than inferential. (I endorse Bourget’s 2017 arguments to that effect.) I show that grasping-by-fulfilling cannot be a species of propositional knowledge or belief, (...) and that it is not essentially connected to justification. I motivate a revisionary epistemology on which achieving propositional knowledge and coming to grasp are dual epistemic aims. My account makes sense of a common occurrence—that we are often unmoved to act on our beliefs until we come to phenomenally experience them in some way. It also explains puzzling features of human inquiry. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to advance research on CSR beyond the stalemate of economic versus ethical models by providing an alternative perspective integrating existing views and allowing for more shared dialog and research in the field. It is suggested that we move beyond making a normative case for ethical models and practices of CSR by moving beyond the question of how to manage organizational self-interest toward the question of how accurate current conceptions of the organizational self seem to (...) be. Specifically, it is proposed that CSR is not a question of how self-interested the corporation should be, but how this self is defined. Economic and ethical models of CSR are not models of opposition but exist on a continuum between egoic and post-egoic, illusory and authentic conceptions of the organizational self. This means that moving from one to the other is not a question of adopting different paradigms but rather of moving from illusion and dysfunction to authenticity and functionality, from pathology to health. (shrink)

I explore the view that metaphysics is essentially imaginative. I argue that the central goal of metaphysics on this view is understanding, not truth. Metaphysics-as-essentially-imaginative provides novel answers to challenges to both the value and epistemic status of metaphysics.

In this important new book in the IPPP series, a group of leading thinkers in psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy offer alternative perspectives that address both the scientific and clinical aspects of psychiatric validation, emphasizing throughout their philosophical and historical considerations.

Using an ethnographic case study based in a UK state school for 11- to 18-year-olds, this paper explores the tensions that arose when the senior leadership team (SLT) introduced a justice-based ethic-of-care that prioritized good grades and equal treatment for all pupils over a feminist ethic-of-care (preferred by most teachers in non-leadership roles) that accentuated individual pupil need and placed greater emphasis on a broader social education. Through highlighting the tensions between a feminist ethic-of-care and a more ‘masculine’ style, justice-based (...) approach to care-ethics, the paper extends the organisational care-ethics literature. We emphasise that such tensions occurred whether the different ethics were enacted by men, women, or non-binary individuals. In order to better understand the tensions between these two ethical approaches, we draw upon the theoretical work of Donald Winnicott, which highlights the importance both of maternal and paternal roles during infancy. We update Winnicott’s ideas, noting how maternal and paternal caring roles can be undertaken by people of varied gender identities. Building on Winnicott’s theory, we propose a new ‘Parentalist’ ethic-of-care, which has the potential to balance and hold together ideas of both a feminist ethic-of-care, and a justice-based ethic. A Parentalist ethic-of-care could support teachers yet recognize the context of the contemporary neo-liberal environment, where most children need to attain formal qualifications in a marketized world, and where such measures of success are highly valued. (shrink)

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, (...) because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

Logical realism is the view that there is logical structure in the world. I argue that, if logical realism is true, then we are deeply ignorant of that logical structure: either we can’t know which of our logical concepts accurately capture it, or none of our logical concepts accurately capture it at all. I don’t suggest abandoning logical realism, but instead discuss how realists should adjust their methodology in the face of this ignorance.

Many philosophers take purportedly logical cases of ground ) to be obvious cases, and indeed such cases have been used to motivate the existence of and importance of ground. I argue against this. I do so by motivating two kinds of semantic determination relations. Intuitions of logical ground track these semantic relations. Moreover, our knowledge of semantics for first order logic can explain why we have such intuitions. And, I argue, neither semantic relation can be a species of ground even (...) on a quite broad conception of what ground is. Hence, without a positive argument for taking so-called ‘logical ground’ to be something distinct from a semantic determination relation, we should cease treating logical cases as cases of ground. (shrink)

Abstract‘Logical Realism’ is taken to mean many different things. I argue that if reality has a privileged structure, then a view I call metaphysical logical realism is true. The view says that, first, there is ‘One True Logic’; second, that the One True Logic is made true by the mind‐and‐language‐independent world; and third, that the mind‐and‐language‐independent world makes it the case that the One True Logic is better than any other logic at capturing the structure of reality. Along the way, (...) I discuss a few alternatives, and clarify two distinct kinds of metaphysical logical realism. (shrink)

I first quickly outline what I think grasping is, and suggest that it is both among our basic aims of inquiry and not essentially tied to belief, justification, or knowledge. Then, I briefly look at some places in the metaphysics of science in which it looks like our aim of grasping and our aim in knowing—or perhaps more specifically in knowing the explanations for things—might seem to conflict. I will use this conflict to support a broader view: sometimes, we might (...) develop philosophical views or theories—and even endorse them—in order to better grasp them, regardless of whether we genuinely believe them, or are justified in so doing. At other times, we may be aiming at propositional knowledge. These aims can come apart, and perhaps even systematically come apart. A pluralism about the value of those aims doesn’t entail an “anything goes” attitude with respect to how we think about what philosophical views to put forward, defend, or endorse, however—far from it. Instead, it suggests that what counts as a virtue of a philosophical theory depends on our aims in espousing it. If philosophers have distinct aims at the meta-level, it will be hard for them to engage in joint theory evaluation at the first-order level. At least all three of theoretical virtues, evaluative judgments of philosophical views, and what attitudes we ought to have towards the views we ourselves espouse will vary according to our guiding metaphilosophical aims. (shrink)

In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the (...) learning experience. (shrink)

On the basis of contemporary Czech and Slovak texts and correspondence between Czechoslovak scientists and Polish praxeologists, the study shows how praxeology, a scientific discipline that deals with human action and is primarily associated with the Polish environment and the prominent philosopher Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981), was viewed in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s. The analysis also defines the factors that shaped the newly emerging “Czechoslovak” praxeology. One such factor was Polish–Czechoslovak (or rather Czech–Polish and Slovak–Polish) scientific relations, especially contacts (...) with the Institute of Praxeology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The article argues that a specific “national” form of Czechoslovak praxeology crystallised in Czechoslovakia around the turn of the 1970s. Although it was based on the Polish model, the habitus of certain Czechoslovak scholars to draw on works of Marxism–Leninism, the involvement of communist ideologues in the debate about the form and future of praxeology, and the historical context of the emerging normalisation after 1968 made Czechoslovak praxeology a peculiar mix of original Polish ideas and Czechoslovak scientific practice. (shrink)

In September 2008, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists successfully switched on the historic biggest physics device, the Large ...

In Koriat's paper ''The Feeling of Knowing: Some Metatheoretical Implications for Consciousness and Control,'' he asserts that the feeling of knowing straddles the implicit and explicit, and that these conscious feelings enter into a conscious control process that is necessary for controlled behavior. This assertion allows him to make many speculations on the nature of consciousness itself. We agree that feelings of knowing are produced through a monitoring of one's knowledge, and that this monitoring can affect the control of behavior (...) such as whether or not to search memory for an answer. Further, we believe that monitoring of performance with a strategy can also affect cognition control and strategy selection; however, we also believe that frequently this monitoring and control occurs without conscious awareness. Feeling of knowing has received an inordinate amount of attention because it lies behind the highly recognizable tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon that represents one of the rare cases of conscious monitoring. There are other feelings of knowing which are much more common and are not accompanied by conscious awareness. These are evident in the early selection of a strategy for answering a problem. In our view, the research on feeling of knowing will not resolve the question of whether consciousness is merely epiphenomenal. (shrink)

Recent advances in spatially resolved transcriptomics have greatly expanded the knowledge of complex multicellular biological systems. The field has quickly expanded in recent years, and several new technologies have been developed that all aim to combine gene expression data with spatial information. The vast array of methodologies displays fundamental differences in their approach to obtain this information, and thus, demonstrate method‐specific advantages and shortcomings. While the field is moving forward at a rapid pace, there are still multiple challenges presented to (...) be addressed, including sensitivity, labor extensiveness, tissue‐type dependence, and limited capacity to obtain detailed single‐cell information. No single method can currently address all these key parameters. In this review, available spatial transcriptomics methods are described and their applications as well as their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. Future developments are explored and where the field is heading to is deliberated upon. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical evaluation of the concept of handedness prevalent but largely unspoken in the scientific literature. This literature defines handedness as the preference or ability to use one hand rather than the other across a range of common activities. Using the philosophical discipline of phenomenology, I articulate and critique this conceptualization of handedness. Phenomenology shows defining a concept of handedness by focusing on hand use leads to a right hand biased concept. I argue further that a phenomenological (...) model based in spatial orientation rather than hand use provides a more inclusive concept of handedness. (shrink)

I argue that, in order for us to be justified in believing that two theories are metaphysically equivalent, we must be able to conceive of them as unified into a single theory, which says nothing over and above either of them. I propose one natural way of precisifying this condition, and show that the quantifier variantist cannot meet it. I suggest that the quantifier variantist cannot meet the more general condition either, and argue that this gives the metaphysical realist a (...) way to rule out theses like quantifier variance without appealing to fundamentality, grounding, or "levels" of reality. (shrink)

As the crisis around Covid-19 evolves, it becomes clear that there are numerous negative side-effects of the lockdown strategies implemented by many countries. Currently, more evidence becomes available that the lockdowns may have more negative effects than positive effects. For instance, many measures taken in a lockdown aimed at protecting human life may compromise the immune system, and purpose in life, especially of vulnerable groups. This leads to the paradoxical situation of compromising the immune system and physical and mental health (...) of many people, including the ones we aim to protect. Also, it is expected that hundreds of millions of people will die from hunger and postponed medical treatments. Other side effects include financial insecurity of billions of people, physical and mental health problems, and increased inequalities. The economic and health repercussions of the crisis will be falling disproportionately on young workers, low-income families and women, and thus exacerbate existing inequalities. As the virus outbreak and media coverage spread fear and anxiety, superstition, cognitive dissonance reduction and conspiracy theories are ways to find meaning and reduce anxiety. These behavioral aspects may play a role in the continuance of lockdown decisions. Based on theories regarding agnotology (i.e. the ways ignorance or doubt about certain topics is created by means of withholding or presenting information in a certain way), social influence, superstition and stress and coping, I seek to explain the social and behavioral aspects of human behavior in times of crises. Both the Covid-19 crisis itself as well as the resulting economic and (mental) health crisis are global problems that may require global solutions. I present a model of drivers and outcomes of lockdown behaviors and offer suggestions and a tool to counteract the negative psychological effects by means of online life crafting therapeutic writing interventions. (shrink)

The present article deals with specific normative concepts of Spinoza’s ethical system and compares them to certain aspects of the theory of ethics of social consequences. At first, a way to approach the problem of normativity in Spinoza is presented, concentrating on the obligatory character of rational - or intellectual - motives. Then, theoretical evidence is presented which links Spinoza to normative-ethical consequentialism. The basis for a consequentialist model of Spinoza’s ethics is the concept of perfection, and on this basis (...) it seems possible to consider its compatibility with non-utilitarian forms of consequentialism, such as ethics of social consequences. Conclusively, the paper’s aim is to present the possibility of considering Spinozian consequentialism as a non-utilitarian consequentialism, while considering ethics of social consequences as a contemporary form of Spinozian consequentialism. (shrink)

For thirty years, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics has been the classic introduction to applied ethics. For this third edition, the author has revised and updated all the chapters and added a new chapter addressing climate change, one of the most important ethical challenges of our generation. Some of the questions discussed in this book concern our daily lives. Is it ethical to buy luxuries when others do not have enough to eat? Should we buy meat from intensively reared animals? Am (...) I doing something wrong if my carbon footprint is above the global average? Other questions confront us as concerned citizens: equality and discrimination on the grounds of race or sex; abortion, the use of embryos for research and euthanasia; political violence and terrorism; and the preservation of our planet's environment. This book's lucid style and provocative arguments make it an ideal text for university courses and for anyone willing to think about how she or he ought to live. (shrink)

Increasingly, data scientists are training machine-learning models for diagnosis, treatment selection, and resource allocation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given regulatory appro...

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)