Online research in philosophy

This study presents the results of a survey of student satisfaction with electronic discussion boards in a course on the responsible conduct of research (RCR). On a 1–5 scale, the respondents stated that the use of the electronic discussion board was an effective teaching tool (4.71), that it enabled them to get feedback from their peers (4.43), that it helped promote discussion and debate (4.36), that it helped them learn how to analyze ethical dilemmas in research (4.36), and that they would consider using an electronic discussion board, if they ever taught a course themselves (4.76). In their written comments, the respondents indicated that electronic discussion boards are a convenient way of promoting debate and in-depth discussion. These results suggest, but do not prove, that discussion boards can promote debate and discussion in courses on research ethics. Instructors who teach RCR should consider using electronic discussion boards in regular or online courses, and they should consider studying the effectiveness of electronic discussion boards in research ethics education. Although electronic discussion boards cannot replace the face-to-face interaction that occurs in a classroom setting, they may provide a useful medium for the exchange of ideas and opinions online.

This is a draft of the written version of comments on a paper by David Cole, presented orally at the American Philosophical Association Central Division meeting in New Orleans, 27 April 1990. Following the written comments are 2 appendices: One contains a letter to Cole updating these comments. The other is the handout from the oral presentation.

The first part of my presentation is a short outline of how a feminist, process-oriented, i.e. in a Whiteheadian tradition, business ethics may look like. In the second part, I want to apply this approach in the field of American foreign trade policy concerning the extension of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) to a free trade zone of the Western Hemisphere. I want to focus on ethical problems for the business of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. By taking my business ethics approach into consideration, I want to open up perspectives for a Whiteheadian view of the problem of the Free Trade Area.

Although he devotes little explicit analysis to ethics, Whitehead’s understanding of the human moral life immerses both human moral agency and environmental ethics in the natural world, judging good actions in the context of complex and interdependent histories of value present in societies of what he calls actual occasions. In this sense, Whiteheadian environmental ethics draws on the most interesting features of Michel Foucault’s genealogies of values that suffuse institutions. Nevertheless, a Whiteheadian notion of environmental ethics exceeds Foucault’s work in that Whitehead acknowledges the possibility of responsible human values and actions with regard to the environment.

This Whiteheadian Dialogue explores a fresh and important cross-elucidatory path: What have we, and what can be learned from a dialogue with Eastern worldviews?

Whitehead does not provide us with a systematic account of the various types of experience to which the word “memory” is applied. Nevertheless, he does provide us with a way of understanding the world, and living creatures who inhabit it, that places the discussion in a different context from the usual one: the diverse features of human experience that we call memory are developed forms of basic patterns of relationship that characterize all actual entities. I will first review the relevant features of Whitehead's conceptuality, then contrast the resulting view with its usual formulation, and then speculate about some forms of memory in Whiteheadian categories.

Whitehead does not provide us with a systematic account of the various types of experience to which the word “memory” is applied. Nevertheless, he does provide us with a way of understanding the world, and living creatures who inhabit it, that places the discussion in a different context from the usual one: the diverse features of human experience that we call memory are developed forms of basic patterns of relationship that characterize all actual entities. I will first review the relevant features of Whitehead's conceptuality, then contrast the resulting view with its usual formulation, and then speculate about some forms of memory in Whiteheadian categories.