Online research in philosophy

This paper aims at revealing the various meanings of schools as more than built physical environments from a geographical-phenomenological (or ‘geo-phenomenological’) perspective. This paper consists of five sections: the first explicates the meaning of ‘geo-phenomenology’; the second reveals the meaning of ‘environment’ and a dialectics of strangeness and intimacy through geo-phenomenological analysis; the third examines the meanings of environment as ‘space’ and ‘place’ and the act of naming as the process of constructing meaning between humans and environment; the fourth section (...) attempts to explore the meaning of conceiving school as a particular environment; and the final is the conclusion. (shrink)

The paper considers T.S. Eliot's 'dissociation of sensibility' thesis, considering its philosophical value and attempting to defend it against published objections. While accepting some of the criticisms, it is argued that Eliot's argument is sound to a significant extent. Eliot's account retains explanatory power with regard to an enduring arts-science divide in schooling and, more broadly, in environmental ethics. In both these areas, educators can, and should, find greater synergies between arts and science, and theoria and praxis , despite continuing (...) pressures on the school curriculum to move in the opposite direction. It is suggested that an acknowledgement of living as semiosis can be helpful in this respect. (shrink)

A natural resource is not given, but depends on human knowledge for its exploitation. Thus a ‘unit of resource’ is, to a significant degree, a ‘unit of meaning’, and education is potentially important not only for the use of resources but also for their creation. The paper draws on poststructuralism to confirm the intuition that it would be misleading to conceive of ‘units’ of meaning. However, it is commonly acceptable to conceive of ‘units’ of resource, as in much discussion around (...) sustainability; but, if the latter concept is suspect, then so is the former. The error seems to arise from the assumption of identifiable points in space-time, already problematised by quantum mechanics and poststructuralism. Conceiving of ‘now’ as a moving in and with time, rather than as a point in time, human survival is construed as an ongoing process of meaning-making constrained though not determined by the carrying capacity of the planet. The Second Nature conception of John McDowell is critiqued with respect to this. (shrink)

In The Song of the Earth, Jonathan Bate promotes ‘ecopoesis’, contrasting it with ‘ecopolitical’ poetry (and by implication, other forms of writing and expression). Like others recently, including Simon James and Michael Bonnett, he appropriates the notion of ‘dwelling’ from Heidegger to add force to this distinction. Bate's argument is effectively that we have more chance of protecting the environment if we engage in ecopoetic activity, involving a sense of immediate response to nature, than if we do not. This has (...) obvious educational implications. If Bate, James and Bonnett are correct, then the educational pursuit of (eco)poetic sensibility will, of itself, contribute to education for a sustainable future by grounding human experience in nature; if their assertions are insupportable, and (eco)poetic sensibility does not afford privileged access to a state of nature, then the assumption cannot be made that the development of such sensibility will contribute to education for sustainability. I shall critique Bate's argument from a pragmatic perspective. (shrink)

Much of the world will be living in broadly "liberal" societies for the foreseeable future. Sustainability and security, however defined, must therefore be considered in the context of such societies, yet there is very little significant literature that does so. Indeed, much ecologically-oriented literature is overtly anti-liberal, as have been some recent responses to security concerns. This book explores the implications for sustainability and security of a range of intellectual perspectives on liberalism, such as those offered by John Rawls, Robert (...) Nozick, Frederick Hayek, Ronald Dworkin, Michael Oakeshott, Amartya Sen and Jrgen Habermas. (shrink)

This, the book shows, has radical implications, particularly for the question of how we seek to educate children. One Aristotelian legacy is the unquestioned belief that societies must educate the young irrespective of the latter's wishes.

The argument moves through three stages. In the first, the case is made for accepting ‘living is semiotic engagement’ as ‘a foundational statement for a postfoundational age’. This requires a thoroughgoing rejection of mind-body substance dualism, and a problematisation of humanism. In the second, the hazardous endeavour of applying the above perspective to social policy begins with a consideration of the sine qua non(s) underpinning such an application. These are posited as unpredictability of outcomes and blurring of the human/non-human boundary. (...) In the third stage, the case is developed for a policy orientation that is both liberal-pragmatic (with some caveats relating to ‘liberal’) and post-humanist, and the paper concludes with some speculation concerning the precise policy outcomes of such an orientation. (shrink)

Multicultural education can be seen as generally premised on two assumptions. The first is often made explicit: that children should learn not to discriminate unfairly on grounds of ethnicity or culture. To this degree, multiculturalism is clearly morally educative, encouraging children to see others in terms of their common humanity rather than their cultural differences. The second is more implicit and diffuse: that sensitivity to cultural and ethnic difference ipso facto promotes social justice and/or harmony between people(s) and thus is (...) morally educative. Further implicit in this is that persons with different cultural practices are ipso facto ?more different? than those in similar relationships (such as neighbour, friend, customer, employee or whatever) but belonging to the same cultural groups, in terms of their lived experience. The concept ?more different? implies that ?difference? can be measured, and as a basis for policy, it further implies that such measurement can be objective. This article challenges this latter set of assumptions, drawing on ideas from nihilism, existentialism, poststructuralism and discursive psychology. If degrees of difference in lived experience cannot be objectively (or even intersubjectively) measured, then assumptions about how culture ?fixes? life experience may have undesirable, rather than desirable effects, and may counter, rather than reinforce, the explicit aim of multicultural education to reduce ethnic and cultural discrimination. Individual positioning may be as important as cultural heritage in determining differences in life experience, and thus possibilities for moral action, yet learners may not be able to respond to persons as individuals on the basis of an understanding of collective cultural differences. (shrink)