In this essay, Rosa Bruno-Jofré and George Hills examine two major Ontario policy documents: 1968's Living and Learning and 1994's For the Love of Learning. The purpose is, first, to gain insight into the uses of the term “excellence” in the context of discourse about educational aims and evaluation, and, second, to explore how these uses may have changed over time. Bruno-Jofré and Hills employ the conceptual framework developed by Madhu Prakash and Leonard Waks to elucidate the varied notions (...) of excellence contained in the two reports. Bruno-Jofré and Hills argue that Living and Learning is an eclectic report that creates continuity by aligning itself with the pedagogically progressive tradition in Ontario; that propounds a holistic conception of excellence centered on the all-around development of the self; and that seeks simultaneously to secure a sense of being Canadian while dealing with rapidly emerging social fragmentation. For the Love of Learning, in contrast, attempts to combine a technical view of excellence in education (stressing various literacies and skills as measurable indicators) with the principles of caring and the goals of social responsibility. Each report can be seen as an attempt to respond to the expectations of a population that had become increasingly diverse in the interval between the two reports. What is cause for concern in terms of policymaking, Bruno-Jofré and Hills conclude, is the turn away from broader, more comprehensive and coherent views of excellence in education toward narrower and more fragmented accounts that are preoccupied with various types of literacy or loosely related vocational and other skills. The effect of this shift is to leave educational policy and practice in the schools essentially rudderless. (shrink)

Cracks in the one‐gene, one‐band paradigm for polytene chromosome organization are widening. At the same time evidence is accumulating suggesting that decondensed regions of the chromosomes (puffs, diffuse bands, interbands and possibly vacuoles within some bands) are generally associated with gene transcription. A model, now on the ascendancy, is based on the proposal that the band‐interband pattern is primarily a reflection of local transcriptional state, rather than the distribution of genic and non‐genic material.

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G. G. Stokes and Lord Kelvin helped bring about conceptual and institutional changes that transformed the science of physics. Indeed, they and their Victorian colleagues constituted one of the most significant groups of scientists in the whole history of science. This collection of letters was first published in 1990, and provides, therefore, invaluable insight and information for a period of major historical importance. Stokes and Kelvin corresponded for over fifty years as professors in Cambridge and Glasgow, respectively, thus amassing what (...) is easily the largest extant correspondence between two Victorian physicists. The letters range widely over the people, ideas, and institutions of the age. They illuminate the histories of Cambridge and Glasgow Universities and the Royal Society of London, for example, as well as developments in electromagnetism, hydrodynamics, elasticity, optics, and X-rays. The editor's introduction describes the context of the pair's careers, while guiding the reader into their correspondence. (shrink)

It is argued that George Berkeley’s term ‘common sense’ does not indicate shared conviction, but the shared capacity of reasonable judgement, and is therefore to be classed as a mental ability, not a belief-system. Common sense is to be distinguished from theoretical understanding which, in Berkeley’s view, is frequently corrupted either by learned prejudice, or by language that lacks meaning or camouflages contradiction. It is also to be distinguished from the deliverances of divine revelation, which—however enlightening Berkeley supposed them (...) to be—are not necessarily available to all people. This interpretation of common sense is supported both by attention to Berkeley’s own texts, including his sermons, letters and philosophical writings, and by attention to the views of John Locke and René Descartes, who also understand ‘common sense’ as susceptibility to the ‘natural light’. In addition, this interpretation renders Berkeley’s appeal to common sense in support of his immaterialism a straightforward appeal to the reader’s native reason. No longer, then, are we forced to see Berkeley as improbably maintaining that the denial of matter is really the view of ‘the common people’, but rather that those who have least attachment to theory and doctrine will be best able to grasp the case for immaterialism. (shrink)

One of the most famous critiques of the Leibnitian calculus is contained in the essay “The Analyst” written by George Berkeley in 1734. His key argument is those on compensating errors. In this article, we reconstruct Berkeley's argument from a systematical point of view showing that the argument is neither circular nor trivial, as some modern historians think. In spite of this well-founded argument, the critique of Berkeley is with respect to the calculus not a fundamental one. Nevertheless, it (...) highlights central aspects of the calculus that are characteristic of modern scientific theories. (shrink)

Few have entertained the idea that Georg Cantor, the creator of set theory, might have influenced Edmund Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological movement. Yet an exchange of ideas took place between them when Cantor was at the height of his creative powers and Husserl in the throes of an intellectual struggle during which his ideas were particularly malleable and changed considerably and definitively. Here their writings are examined to show how Husserl's and Cantor's ideas overlapped and crisscrossed in the (...) areas of philosophy and mathematics, arithmetization, abstraction, consciousness and pure logic, psychologism, metaphysical idealism, new numbers, and sets and manifolds. (shrink)

Even in a secular age, mountains continue to be sites of religious and spiritual significance, whether on account of their sublime grandeur or with regard to the sense of a different time-order, eternal or sempiternal, that they inspire. This chapter examines two modern thinkers in whom the spiritual significance of mountains is expressed in especially striking terms: John Ruskin and Martin Heidegger. Although these may seem to be thinkers of a very different stamp, they can both be seen as arguing (...) for the importance of art in the human response to modernity and industrialization and, through their privileged artists, giving a special place to representations of mountains that are attentive to their potential spiritual significance. (shrink)

Introduction -- On the genius and discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton -- On the character and origin of the ancient mythologies -- On the question : are the planets inhabited? -- A plea for freedom -- The right use of leisure -- On education -- The claims of science -- The social aspect of intellectual culture.

R. Kevin Hill argues that while Walsh is correct in urging caution regarding Rand's polemical characterizations of Kant, interpreting her charitably reveals surprising insights into the underlying structure of Kant's thought. Rand's objections to Kant's epistemology, psychology and metaphysics are truer to Kant's intentions than revisionist attempts to save him from himself. Her objections to Kantian ethics contain promising critiques of both Kant's rational reconstructive-methodology and his misuse of the concept of agent-neutral reasons. Lastly, though she paints too broadly (...) in her account of Kant's influence, two questionable tendencies in contemporary thought are traceable to him. (shrink)

Little is known of Edmund Husserl's direct encounter with Georg Cantor's ideas on Platonic idealism and the abstraction of number concepts during the late 19th century, when Husserl's philosophical orientation changed considerably and definitely. Closely analyzing and comparing the two men's writings during that important time in their intellectual careers, I describe the crucial shift in Husserl's views on psychologism and metaphysical idealism as it relates to Cantor's philosophy of arithmetic. I thus establish connections between their ideas which have been (...) until now been virtually unsuspected and contribute to a better understanding of the development of Husserl's thought and of the philosophical and metaphysical ideas within which Cantor chose to frame his theories. (shrink)

Blanchot provides a compelling insight into one of the key figures in the development of postmodern thought. Although Blanchot's work is characterised by a fragmentary and complex style, Leslie Hill introduces clearly and accessibly the key themes in his work. He shows how Blanchot questions the very existence of philosophy and literature and how we may distinguish between them, stresses the importance of his political writings and the relationship between writing and history that characterised Blanchot's later work; and considers (...) the relationship between Blanchot and key figures such as Emmanuel Levinas and Georges Bataille and how this impacted on his work. Placing Blanchot at the centre stage of writing in the twentieth century, Blanchot also sheds new light on Blanchot's political activities before and after the Second World War. This accessible introduction to Blanchot's thought also includes one of the most comprehensive bibliographies of his writings of the last twenty years. (shrink)

Prometheus, having lamented the burden of his brother Atlas, speaks of earthborn Typhos and his punishment by Zeus. The text and apparatus of lines 351 to 357 are given in Sir Denys Page's edition thus.

Many members of the public think of the General Medical Council (GMC) as the body which tries doctors: the doctors' law courts, as it were. And, except in the more sober of newspapers and news reports, the 'offences ' which receive the most publicity are those concerning alleged improper relations between doctors and patients. Professor Sir Denis Hill, in the following paper, which he read in the spring of this year to the annual conference of the London Medical Group (...) devoted to a discussion of human sexuality, chose to examine the whole function of the General Medical Council as a frame of moral reference for doctors. Judging allegations of professional misconduct by doctors is the function of the Council's Disciplinary Committee. Judging sexual misconduct forms only a small part of their work. The GMC's responsibility covers the whole notion of morals and morality as it concerns doctors in their professional work. Sir Denis Hill stresses the modern thinking that morality must be learned and that attitudes are always shifting as society alters its norms of what is moral conduct. That is not to say that all that was previously considered not to be moral has now become acceptable but rather that other concepts have entered the field of moral debate. Therefore the GMC must constantly review the frame of reference it offers to doctors and the public may be surprised to learn that that process is never static. Sir Denis Hill in this paper is speaking personally and not as a member of the General Medical Council or of any of that body's special committees. (shrink)