At IAPS Ljubljana conference (September 2007) Dag Vidar Hanstad and Sigmund Loland presented a paper on elite-level athletes' duty to provide information on their whereabouts, to decide between two opposing positions: is this WADA demand justifiable anti-doping work or an indefensible surveillance regime? They concluded that on moral grounds this regime is conditionally acceptable, the condition being the acceptability of a general framework and objectives embodied in anti-doping global legislative foundations (the World Anti-Doping Code). But, as they said, principled objections (...) against the system have more universal relevance, which has to be taken seriously . To take this ambiguous and intriguing conclusion a step further, I propose a legal rather than ethical approach, from the aspect of constitutional and international human rights law, and the possible clash of two legally acknowledged values - the concept of elite sport without doping, and the concept of individual human rights. This conflict between ideological or moral values and the legality of individual rights is not a novelty. This paper presents three instances of this conflict: Bernard de Mandeville's differentiation between public and private values; Eug ne Sue's parallel legal and civil morals; and the contemporary moralisation of law which conflates legality into morality. The subordination of legality to morality has potentially dangerous consequences: here, Agamben's 'state of exception' comes to mind, with his analysis of potestas and auctoritas. However, in the case of sport and the war against doping, the origin of power is not in the nation state; it originates in civil society's non-governmental national and international bodies recognised as autonomous sources of legal order. (shrink)
Martin Strel, a Slovenian hero, swam all 3004 km of Danube in 200, and Mississippi in 2002, to become one of nominees for the sportsperson of the year award. Surprisingly, an orchestrated attack on his status as a sportsperson and on status of his achievements as sport records followed successfully. Martin did not get the award. He continued with his activities, swimming Parana, Jang Tse, and Amazonas lately, but was never mentioned in sport context again. This case is examined to (...) show how definition struggles serve to strengthen the border control between sport as such, and its internationally institutionalised realm. To make a comparison, the case of art and its definition is mentioned. Martin Strel did not endanger sport, being a false pretender on sport-status, but he endangered sport management and sport business. He was thrown out of the ?sport city?, to swim ?extra portes? and to inhabit a place where sport as ?esportes? originally belonges. (shrink)
Traditionally, biomedical research has been devoted to improvement in the understanding and treatment or prevention of disease. Building on the knowledge generated by the long history of disease-oriented research, the next few decades will witness an explosion of biomedical enhancements to make people faster, stronger, smarter, less forgetful, happier, prettier, and live longer (Turner et al. 2003; Vastag 2004; Rose 2002). As with other biomedical interventions, research to assess the safety and efficacy of these enhancements in humans should be conducted (...) before their introduction into clinical practice.1 However, various concerns regarding the ethics of enhancement research could be raised. Those who .. (shrink)
Participants were required to switch among randomly ordered tasks, and instructional cues were used to indicate which task to execute. In Experiments 1 and 2, the participants indicated their readiness for the task switch before they received the target stimulus; thus, each trial was associated with two primary dependent measures: (1) readiness time and (2) target reaction time. Slow readiness responses and instructions emphasizing high readiness were paradoxically accompanied by slow target reaction time. Moreover, the effect of task switching on (...) readiness time was an order of magnitude smaller then the (objectively estimated) duration required for task preparation (Experiment 3). The results strongly suggest that participants have little conscious awareness of their preparedness and challenge commonly accepted assumptions concerning the role of consciousness in cognitive control. (shrink)
Prominent thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Michael Sandel are warning that biomedical enhancements will undermine fundamental political values. Yet whether biomedical enhancements will undermine such values depends on how biomedical enhancements will function, how they will be administered and to whom. Since only few enhancements are obtainable, it is difficult to tell whether these predictions are sound. Nevertheless, such warnings are extremely valuable. As a society we must, at the very least, be aware of developments that could have harmful (...) consequences. Indeed, if important values were to be jeopardized, we should take appropriate measures to protect them. This paper focuses on four central values: solidarity, personal responsibility, equality and autonomy. It delineates the conditions under which biomedical enhancements would undermine these values. It also details the circumstances under which these values would be unaffected by enhancements as well as those under which they would be promoted. Specifying these conditions is valuable; it would enable society to prepare appropriate ethical guidelines and policy responses in advance. (shrink)
Health behaviors such as tobacco use contribute significantly to poor health. It is widely recognized that efforts to prevent poor health outcomes should begin in early childhood. Biomedical enhancements, such as a nicotine vaccine, are now emerging and have potential to be used for primary prevention of common diseases. In anticipation of such enhancements, it is important that we begin to consider the ethical and policy appropriateness of their use with children. The main ethical concerns raised by enhancing children relate (...) to their impact on children’s well-being and autonomy. These concerns are significant, however they do not appear to apply in the case of the nicotine vaccine; indeed the vaccine could even further these goals for children. Nevertheless, concerns about broadly applying this enhancement may be more challenging. The vaccine may be less cost-effective than alternative public efforts to prevent tobacco use, utilizing it could distract from addressing the foundational causes of smoking and it might not be publically acceptable. Empirical research about these concerns is needed to ascertain their likelihood and impact as well as how they could be minimized. This research could help determine whether behavior-related enhancements hold promise for improving children’s health. (shrink)
The importance of an author can be evaluated by the extent to which his theoretical contribution transforms a certain area of knowledge: major researchers create new vistas. This certainly applies to Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), one of the most brilliant authors of contemporary psychology. His work, owing to its originality, is of epistemological interest to several areas of knowledge. In fact, Vygotsky was at the center of a historical time of change in twentieth-century Russia, in which Mikhail Bakhtin, Roman Jakobson, Serguei (...) Eisenstein, Alexander Luria, and Yuri Lotman took part. Their theoretical proposals had repercussions in several areas of knowledge: in literature, semiotics, film, and .. (shrink)
The Russian-Jewish religious thinker Lev Shestov (1866–1938) has returned from obscurity in the post-Soviet revival of religious and philosophical thought in Russia. Despite his reputation as an anti-modern irrationalist, his heritage is of key relevance to contemporary currents in Russia and the wider world; we here explore the implications of his contribution in religious, social, philosophical and literary-cultural contexts. In particular, we trace Shestov's relation to post-modernism in various settings. We explore the connection between his thought and the conflict between (...) moral principles and scientific advance, and argue that his existential perspective is a precursor to anti-globalism. We expose a link between the apophatic theology that underlies modern Russian religiosity and the Hassidic tradition which, arguably, influenced Shestov's thought, and show the relevance of his premonitions to contemporary religious developments in Russia. (shrink)
Plotinus represent a constant reference in all of Šestov's philosophy. For the Russian philosopher Plotinus is, on the one hand, the one who thought up thesynthesis of Greek philosophy, on the other, the one who first broke with that same tradition precisely when it was at its peak. However, Šestov does lift from the Enneadi certain passages which he marries - as if in a sort of contrapuntal rewriting exercise - to others in which Plotinus seems to contradict himself. What (...) interests Šestov are precisely those discontinuities in the thought of the last great philosopher of old in an anti-Greek function. That of Šestov is once again a marked criticism of Rationalism as creator of an autonomous set of ethics that he judges according to an intellect which everything is subject to. Autonomousethics, affirms Šestov, is a fruit of Greek schools of thought to the extent that it shows distrust for what is mutable, unforeseen and arbitrary, of everything which, in short, is irrational, as it is not inserted in the One/All necessitating, justifying, regulating. In the alternative between Athens and Jerusalem, between the Rationalism and the Bible, Šestov opts to assume a stance, in no uncertain terms, on the side Jerusalem, taking with him the Plotinus of the awakening andheading towards a greater reality capable of overturning the throne occupied for too long by reason. That Plotinus who at a certain point was obliged to say thatin this other dimension "the intellect before God represents a reckless, ungodly apostate" (VI.9.5). That Plotinus, who ultimately, in one of those most particularmoments, realized that he was predestined for something loftier with respect to the world of evil and death. (shrink)
The concept of 'social brain‘ is a hybrid, located somewhere in between politically motivated philosophical speculation about the mind and its place in the social world, and recently emerged inquiries into cognition, selfhood, development, etc., returning to some of the founding insights of social psychology but embedding them in a neuroscientific framework. In this paper I try to reconstruct a philosophical tradition for the social brain, a ‗Spinozist‘ tradition which locates the brain within the broader network of relations, including social (...) relations. This tradition runs from Spinoza to Lev Vygotsky in the early 20th century, and on to Gilles Deleuze, Toni Negri and Paolo Virno in recent European philosophy, as a new perspective on the brain. The concept of social brain that is articulated in this reconstruction – some early-20th century Soviet neuropsychologists spoke of socialism and the cortex as being ―on the same path‖ – overcomes distinctions between Continental thought and the philosophy of mind, and possibly gives a new metaphysical framework for social cognition. (shrink)
Learning is a changing phenomenon, depending on the advances in theory and research. This book presents a relatively new approach to learning, based on meaningful human activities in cultural practices and in collaboration with others. It draws extensively from the ideas of Lev Vygotsky and his recent followers. The book presents ideas that elaborate this learning theory and also gives recent developments and applications of this approach in a variety of educational situations in and outside of school. A core issue (...) in the research presented in this book consists of the way people learn to make sense of and give meaning to cultural instruments and practices in collaboration with others. (shrink)
The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is an approach to quantum mechanics according to which, in addition to the world we are aware of directly, there are many other similar worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics.
This is a philosophical paper in favor of the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum theory. The necessity of introducing many worlds is explained by analyzing a neutron interference experiment. The concept of the “measure of existence of a world” is introduced and some difficulties with the issue of probability in the framework of the MWI are resolved.
This volume offers a critical appreciation of the work of 16 leading curriculum theorists through critical expositions of their writings. Written by a leading name in Curriculum Studies, the book includes a balance of established curriculum thinkers and contemporary curriculum analysts from education as well as philosophy, sociology and psychology. With theorists from the UK, the US and Europe, there is also a spread of political perspectives from radical conservatism through liberalism to socialism and libertarianism. Theorists included are: John Dewey, (...) Lev Vygotsky, Ralph Tyler, Joseph Schwab, Jerome Bruner, Maxine Greene, Basil Bernstein, Micheal Foucault, Paul Hirst, Donald Schon, Lawrence Stenhouse, Elliott Eisner, John White, Michael Apple, Henry Giroux and Robin Usher. This book is ideal for students looking for an introduction to some of the key educational thinkers of our time. It can also be used as a companion volume to the Routledge four-volume set on Curriculum Theory , 2003, which is also edited by David Scott. (shrink)
We consider several ways in which a good understanding of modern techniques and principles in physics can elucidate ecology. We focus on analogical reasoning between these two branches of science. This style of reasoning requires an understanding of both sciences and an appreciation of the similarities and points of contact between the two. In the current ecological literature on the relationship between ecology and physics, there has been some misunderstanding about the nature of modern physics and its methods. Physics is (...) seen as being much cleaner and tidier than ecology. When ecology is compared to this idealised, fictional version of physics, ecology looks very different, and the prospect of ecology and physics learning from one another is questionable. We argue that physics, once properly appreciated, is more like ecology than ecologists have thus far appreciated. Physicists and ecologists can and do learn from each other, and in this paper we outline how analogical reasoning can facilitate such exchanges. (shrink)
The purpose of this paper is to examine the dialogical and creative character of pedagogic work by analyzing the affinities between Martin Buber's I-Thou relation and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. Backed up by empirical studies on the teacher-student relation, we understand that education can only result in students' development if meaningful processes are undertaken. The paper asserts that education shall primarily aim at promoting relational possibilities.
Prominent thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Michael Sandel are warning that biomedical enhancements will undermine fundamental political values. Yet whether biomedical enhancements will undermine such values depends on how biomedical enhancements will function, how they will be administered and to whom. Since only few enhancements are obtainable, it is difficult to tell whether these predictions are sound. Nevertheless, such warnings are extremely valuable. As a society we must, at the very least, be aware of developments that could have harmful (...) consequences. Indeed, if important values were to be jeopardized, we should take appropriate measures to protect them. This paper focuses on four central values: solidarity, personal responsibility, equality and autonomy. It delineates the conditions under which biomedical enhancements would undermine these values. It also details the circumstances under which these values would be unaffected by enhancements as well as those under which they would be promoted. Specifying these conditions is valuable; it would enable society to prepare appropriate ethical guidelines and policy responses in advance. (shrink)
In 1937, Emmanuel Levinas published a review of Lev Shestov’s Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle in the journal Revue des Études Juives. This essay includes a translation of his review as well as an introductory essay that contextualizes it. In her Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics (1972), Edith Wyschogrod contended that Levinas’ short review contains what “might well be taken as the program of his own future work.” Both seek a way out of ontology, but Shestov seeks his (...) escape through a violent wrenching out of the tradition of Western ontology. Levinas would later dub this attempt “the wound that bleeds throughout Shestov’s work.” Unlike Shestov, Levinas does not seek a lost primordial freedom that existed before being and has been lost ever since. Because Levinas’ ethics takes its rise in the relation to the other person, he does not suffer from Shestov’s continual wound that cannot be escaped. (shrink)
The standard mathematical models in population ecology assume that a population's growth rate is a function of its environment. In this paper we investigate an alternative proposal according to which the rate of change of the growth rate is a function of the environment and of environmental change. We focus on the philosophical issues involved in such a fundamental shift in theoretical assumptions, as well as on the explanations the two theories offer for some of (...) the key data such as cyclic populations. We also discuss the relationship between this move in population ecology and a similar move from first-order to second-order differential equations championed by Galileo and Newton in celestial mechanics. (shrink)
It is argued that Lewis's approach to Elga's Sleeping Beaty problem is untenable and, therefore, the universality of the betting approach to probability has not been breached.
Subjects communicated prior to playing trust games; the richness of the communication media and the topics of conversation were manipulated. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments. However, the topics of conversation made a significant difference: the amounts sent were considerably higher in the unrestricted communication conditions than in the restricted communication and no-communication conditions. Most importantly, we find that first-movers’ expectations of second-movers’ reciprocation are influenced by communication and strongly predict their levels of investment.
The article deals with the history of Russian Spinozism in the20th century, focusing attention on three interpretations of Spinoza's philosophy – by Varvara Polovtsova, Lev Vygotsky,and Evald Ilyenkov. Polovtsova profoundly explored Spinoza'slogical method and contributed an excellent translation of histreatise De intellectus emendatione. Later Vygotsky andIlyenkov applied Spinoza's method to create activity theory,an explanation of the laws and genesis of the human mind.
In this paper, I develop the notion of the experiential workspace, or the phenomenal setting generated by the coupling between the enactive body and its affordance-laden environment, in order to carry out a fine-grained analysis of enactive experiential phenomena, in particular those of ordinary lived experience. My purpose is to shed light on some of the ways that empirical methodologies are intrinsically limited in their ability to capture the native phenomena of enactive, embodied experience. (...) class='Hi'> Drawing on the work of Merleau-Ponty, I argue that the experiential workspace is characterized by dynamic mutability, emergent norms, and epistemic openness - characteristics that are transphenomenal in nature and thus resistant to empirical measurement. Using concepts from the work of developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) and feminist philosopher Iris Marion Young (1998), I will show how our embeddedness in an intersubjective world makes the experiential workspace a mercurial, labile phenomenon, characterized by inherently transphenomenal features that are resistant to naturalistic analysis or modelling. (shrink)
The spiritual geography of Russian cosmism. General characteristics ; Recent definitions of cosmism -- Forerunners of Russian cosmism. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842) ; Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802) ; Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, (1711-1765) and Gavriila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) ; Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) ; Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) -- The Russian philosophical context. Philosophy as a passion ; The destiny of Russia ; Thought as a call for action ; The totalitarian cast of mind -- The religious and spiritual (...) context. The kingdom of god on earth ; Hesychasm: two great Russian saints ; The Third Rome ; Pre-Christian antecedents -- The Russian esoteric context. Early searches for "deep wisdom" ; Popular magic ; Higher magic in the time of Peter the Great ; Esotericism after Peter the Great ; Theosophy and anthroposophy -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the philosopher of the common task ; The one idea ; The unacknowledged prince ; The village teacher ; First disciple: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy ; The Moscow librarian ; Last years: Askhabad: the only portrait -- The "common task" ; Esoteric dimensions of the "common task" ; Fedorov's legacy: projectivism, delo, regulation -- The religious cosmists. Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) ; Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) ; Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) ; Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) -- The scientific cosmists. Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) ; Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) ; Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) ; Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) -- Promethean theurgy. Life-creation ; Cultural immortalism ; God-building ; Re-aiming the arrows of Eros ; Technological utopianism ; Occultism -- Fedorov's twentieth century followers. Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) ; Svyatogor and the biocosmists ; New wine and the universal task ; Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) ; Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932) ; Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-1922) -- Cosmism and its offshoots today. The N.F. Fedorov museum-library ; The Tsiolkovsky museum and Chizhevsky center ; ISRICA - Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology ; Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) and neo-eurasianism ; The hyperboreans ; Scientific immortalism: Igor Vishev, Danila Medvedev ; Conclusions about the Russian cosmists. (shrink)
University of Pennsylvania, USA, el322{at}nyu.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> One of the most consistent findings in experimental studies of social dilemmas is the positive influence of face-to-face communication on cooperation. The face-to-face `communication effect' has been recently explained in terms of a `focus theory of norms': successful communication focuses agents on pro-social norms, and induces preferences and expectations conducive to cooperation. 1 Many of the studies that point to a communication effect, however, do not (...) further explore whether and to what extent the communication medium affects cooperative behavior. In this article, we ask if pro-social behavior can emerge and survive in computer-mediated environments. We show that, like face-to-face communication, computer-mediated communication also positively affects cooperation in social dilemmas, but cooperation is more difficult to establish and maintain. We argue that the discrepancy between the computer-mediated and the face-to-face communication effects is a consequence of the distinct capabilities of different media to focus agents on pro-social norms and to allow them to develop mutual expectations about future behavior. Key Words: social dilemmas • laboratory experiments • communication • social norms • cooperation • computer-mediated communication. (shrink)
The main focus of the book is the presentation of the 'inertial' view of population growth. This view provides a rather simple model for complex population dynamics, and is achieved at the level of the single species without invoking species interactions. An important part of this account is the maternal effect. Investment of mothers in the quality of their daughters makes the rate of reproduction of the current generation depend not only on the current environment, but also on the environment (...) experienced by the previous generation. (shrink)
Among the latest trends in moral educational theory, several authors have suggested that a sociocultural approach to moral education is an improvement over the dominant cognitive-developmental and character educational paradigms. This approach draws its inspiration from the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the 1920s, Vygotsky attempted to reconstruct psychology to overcome the false dichotomy psychologists had posited between the individual and the environment. This genre of sociocultural theory has come to be known as activity theory. Despite its (...) aims, however, activity theory never overcame the dualism of individual and environment. My contention is that Dewey's moral psychology is more adequate to that task, and thus is a more appropriate foundation for developing moral educational policy and practice. (shrink)
The problem of neural memory storage is discussed, based on the results of studies of memory impairment after hippocampal lesions, motor learning, and electrophysiological research on “spinal memory.” I support Shors & Matzel's major statements. The absence of reliable evidence on the LTP memory storage function and other data cast doubt on the synaptic theory of memory.
(2) Vol., Classification of Propositional Provability Logics LD Beklemishev Introduction Overview. The idea of an axiomatic approach to the study of ...
At the beginning of the ’30s—the period of lively debates on the relation between language and society—one of the main issues in linguistics was language heterogeneity. On the example of the texts by Boris Larin, Georgij Danilov and Lev Jakubinskij we shall compare two attitudes about unity and division of a language. If the studies by Larin and Danilov in various ways establish divisions in society and language at the end of the ’20s, in (...) the ’30s there is a marked tendency to recognize language unity and the cohesiveness of the proletarian society, as seen in socio-linguistic analyses by Jakubinskij. The conclusion, suggested at the end of this exposition, claims that the idea of one national language grows in importance in the discourse of the Soviet linguistics at the beginning of 1930s. Disappearance of the contemporary language heterogeneity in the discourse of Soviet linguists of the period corroborates how linguistics adapts to the political conceptions of society. (shrink)
The idea examined here is that the development of moral ability shares important similarities with the development of conceptual thinking as outlined in the work of Lev Vygotsky. Most notably, the mature forms of both processes are ways of constructing meaning that are not governed by pre-established modes of behaviour. The principal suggestion here is that Vygotsky's theory of concept formation can be used as a generative model for understanding the development of moral ability in a way that challenges the (...) notion of morality as rule-following behaviour. Understanding moral ability as a present-centred aptitude for creating meaning carries a two-fold significance for educators: it is theoretically useful for understanding the learning process in the context of a fundamental or universal interdependency, and of practical value inasmuch as it focuses on the importance of learning to think and act in the here and now. (shrink)
This book offers an overview of theories of the Concept, drawing on the philosopher Hegel and the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Concepts are shown to be both units of the mind and units of a cultural formation.
To ascertain the context of Il’enkov’s philosophy, the author delves into the history of philosophy since the Sophists and Plato. For Il’enkov, philosophy is not an abstract science “about everything,” but a study of ideas – forms which are identical for thinking and being. These objective and universal forms of thought are explained as products and schemes of human activity creating the world of culture and reified in its “smart” (...) things. (shrink)
Abstract In this paper we examine the role of the Israeli kibbutz experience as an agent of informal education in cross?cultural settings, acting as a transformative agent of ethnic identity. The study presents, through comparative longitudinal analysis, the changes in Jewish identity and values of young North American Jews between their arrival in Israel and the conclusion of the kibbutz programme, as well as after they have returned to their home country. The analysis utilises data gathered from 238 Oren Kibbutz (...) Institute alumni who participated in the programme between 1990?94 in six kibbutzim. The transformative role of the Israeli kibbutz experience contributes independently and cumulatively to the formative role of home background, Jewish schooling and previous visits to Israel. (shrink)
Abstract This article attempts to present education for work in the kibbutz, with regard to the most up to date international literature in the field. The first part explains how the ideals of the Jewish tradition, of Socialist Zionism and progressive education made education for work so central in the kibbutz. In the second part, the unique philosophical and practical approach to self?realisation in society and in study in the kibbutz is described. In the final part, the success of the (...) kibbutz is evaluated on the basis of the attitudes of kibbutz parents, children and educators. (shrink)
We study the fragment of Peano arithmetic formalizing the induction principle for the class of decidable predicates, $I\Delta_1$ . We show that $I\Delta_1$ is independent from the set of all true arithmetical $\Pi_2-sentences$ . Moreover, we establish the connections between this theory and some classes of oracle computable functions with restrictions on the allowed number of queries. We also obtain some conservation and independence results for parameter free and inference rule forms of $\Delta_1-induction$ . An open problem formulated by J. (...) Paris is whether $I\Delta_1$ proves the corresponding least element principle for decidable predicates, $L\Delta_1$ (or, equivalently. the $\Sigma_1-collection$ principle $B\Sigma_1$ ). We reduce this question to a purely computation-theoretic one. (shrink)
Abstract In 1992, I conducted a study in two schools, the Scarsdale High Alternative School (SAS) in New York, a Kohlbergian Just Community Program for 16 years, headed by Tony Arenella; and Public School No. 825, a kindergarten to senior high school on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia, an experimental school in Developmental Education following the ideas of Lev Vygotsky, headed by Vladimir Karakovsky. This article presents a narrative comparison of the philosophies and practices of the secondary teachers in each (...) school. The teachers? philosophies seemed to be like Janus, facing in two directions??outward toward the school culture, reflecting each school's shared norms and values, and inward, expressing each person's own values and ways of thinking. It was the influence of each school's culture that created the most striking philosophical differences. Teachers from Russia and the US held only one value in common: community. Other particular norms and values differed almost completely and seem to reflect the larger cultures of the US and Russia: affection and harmony rooted in love of Motherland for the Russians, and for the Americans, a sense of self and responsibility expressing the value of individualism. The paper first focuses on how teachers in each school conceived of the morality of teaching and of the moral authority of teachers. The focus then moves to a discussion of both the common and unique norms and values the teachers desired to transmit to their students, the practices they use and the moral conflicts they face. The article concludes with remarks about what we can learn from these schools for moral education. (shrink)
Introduction, by J.M. Murry.-- Anton Tchekhov (Creation from the void)--The gift of prophecy. (Four the twenty-fifth anniversary of F.M. Dostoevsky's death)--Penultimate words.-- The theory of knowledge.
Let CH be the class of compacta (i.e., compact Hausdorff spaces), with BS the subclass of Boolean spaces. For each ordinal α and pair $\langle K,L\rangle$ of subclasses of CH, we define Lev ≥α K,L), the class of maps of level at least α from spaces in K to spaces in L, in such a way that, for finite α, Lev ≥α (BS,BS) consists of the Stone duals of Boolean lattice embeddings that preserve all prenex first-order formulas of quantifier rank (...) α. Maps of level ≥ 0 are just the continuous surjections, and the maps of level ≥ 1 are the co-existential maps introduced in [8]. Co-elementary maps are of level ≥α for all ordinals α; of course in the Boolean context, the co-elementary maps coincide with the maps of level ≥ω. The results of this paper include: (i) every map of level ≥ω is co-elementary; (ii) the limit maps of an ω-indexed inverse system of maps of level ≥α are also of level ≥α; and (iii) if K is a co-elementary class, k ≥ k (K,K) = Lev ≥ k+1 (K,K), then Lev ≥ k (K,K) = Lev ≥ω (K,K). A space X ∈ K is co-existentially closed in K if Lev ≥ 0 (K, X) = Lev ≥ 1 (K, X). Adapting the technique of "adding roots," by which one builds algebraically closed extensions of fields (and, more generally, existentially closed extensions of models of universal-existential theories), we showed in [8] that every infinite member of a co-inductive co-elementary class (such as CH itself, BS, or the class CON of continua) is a continuous image of a space of the same weight that is co-existentially closed in that class. We show here that every compactum that is co-existentially closed in CON (a co-existentially closed continuum) is both indecomposable and of covering dimension one. (shrink)
We characterize the bimodal provability logics for certain natural (classes of) pairs of recursively enumerable theories, mostly related to fragments of arithmetic. For example, we shall give axiomatizations, decision procedures, and introduce natural Kripke semantics for the provability logics of (IΔ 0 + EXP, PRA); (PRA, IΣ 1 ); (IΣ m , IΣ n ) for $1 \leq m etc. For the case of finitely axiomatized extensions of theories these results are extended to modal logics with propositional constants.
In the present paper we shall see that the different ways of understanding mind between Confucianism and Enlightenment in the 18th century. In this study each of these two different traditions is regarded as the East Asian context of mind study or as the Western European context of mind study. This idea comes from a kind of constructivism and constructive realism. The former, which comes from ideas of Lev Vygotsky, stresses that human mind is constructed on its cultural context. The (...) latter insisted by Fridriech Wallner approves that every truth constructed on its cultural context can be an absolute truth depending on its cultural context. Due to these two viewpoints, we can see that the truth about human mind is not singular but plural and it should be an important theme of discussionhow to communicate between different understandings of mind and cultural context. Therefore three steps to approach the difference between Asian and European should be discussed in the following way: first, I will explain Confucian ways of understanding mind. It is Confucian cultural context as a social being that used to be the basis of cultural construction of East Asian’s mind. There were three types of Confucianism in 18th century Korea; second I will explain Western European way of understanding mind and the philosophy of Enlightenment as the basic context of cultural construction of mind; and third, I will conclude by comparing these two different ways of understanding mind and mind construction and by looking for a feasible way to communicate and understand each other. (shrink)
