The notion of a community of inquiry has been treated by many of its proponents as being an exemplar of democracy in action. We argue that the assumptions underlying this view present some practical and theoretical difficulties, particularly in relation to distribution of power among the members of a community of inquiry. We identify two presuppositions in relation to distribution of power that require attention in developing an educational model that is committed to deliberative democracy: (1) openness to inquiry and (...) readiness to reason, and (2) mutual respect of students and teachers towards one another. Our contention is that these presuppositions, presented as preconditions necessary to the creation of a community of inquiry, are not without ideological commitments and dependent upon the ability of participants to share power. Using group dynamic theories and the ideas of Hannah Arendt, we argue that behaviours commonly interpreted as obstacles to dialogue or reflective inquiry could provide opportunities for growth. (shrink)
According to the principle Grice calls 'Modified Occam's Razor' (MOR), 'Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity'. More carefully, MOR says that if there are distinct ways in which an expression is regularly used, then, all other things being equal, we should favour the view that the expression is unambiguous and that certain uses of it can be explained in pragmatic terms. In this paper I argue that MOR cannot have the central role that is typically assigned to it (...) by those who deploy it. More specifically, I argue that potential justifications of the epistemic import of parsimony in semantic theorizing are problematic, and that even if MOR could be justified, it has a redundant role to play in adjudicating the debate between the ambiguity-theorist and the proponent of the pragmatic approach. (shrink)
Pa ul Boghos s i a n’ s ‘ Me mor y Ar gume nt ’ a l l ege dl y s hows , us i ng t he f ami l i a r s l ow-switching scenario, that externalism and authoritative self-knowledge are incompatible. The aim of this paper is to undermine the argument by examining..
Holding to the truth of death—death is al - ways most/just [one’s] own—shows an - other kind of cer tainty, more pri mor dial than any cer tainty re gard ing be ings en - coun tered within the world or for mal ob - jects;foritisthecertaintyof be ing-in-the-world.2 Mar tin Heidegger, Be ing and Time..
This study examined the relative effect of diversity climate dimensions captured by two measures: Mor Barak et al.’s (Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 34:82–104, 1998 ) diversity climate scale and Chrobot-Mason’s (Journal of Managerial Psychology 18:22–45, 2003 ) diversity promise fulfillment scale on professional employee of color outcomes: organizational commitment (OC) and turnover intentions. We hypothesized that the two scales would measure different aspects of diversity climate. We further hypothesized that the different climate dimensions would interactively affect the employee of (...) color outcomes. Third, we predicted that diversity climate would mediate between diversity promise fulfillment and employee of color outcomes. Finally, we hypothesized that organizational commitment would mediate the interactive effect of diversity climate dimensions on turnover intentions. Results indicated that the diversity scales each predicted unique variance in employee outcomes and that the climate dimensions interactively influenced professional of color organizational commitment and turnover intentions. We also found that the diversity climate dimension, as measured by the Mor Barak scale, mediated between diversity promise fulfillment and the outcomes. Finally, we found complete mediated moderation between the interaction of the two climate measures and turnover intentions by organizational commitment. Implications are discussed. (shrink)
The concept of προπάθειαι or "pre-emotions" is known not only to the Roman Stoics and Christian exegetes but also to Philo of Alexandria. Philo also supplies the term προπάθεια at "QGen" 1.79. As Philo cannot have derived what he knows from Seneca (despite his visit to Rome in 39), nor from Cicero, who also mentions the point, he must have found it in older Stoic writings. The προπάθεια concept, rich in implications for the voluntariness and phenomenology of the passions proper, (...) is thus confirmed for the Hellenistic period. It is not to be expected that Philo's handling of this or any concept will necessarily conform to the usage of his Stoic sources. His evidence is nonetheless of great value where it coincides with that of other witnesses. In "QGen" 4.73 the emphasis falls upon involuntariness and the mechanisms of impression and assent as in Epictetus fr. 9. The προπάθεια saves the virtuous person's insusceptibility to emotion exactly as it does for the Stoic spokesman in Gellius NA 19.1; this point is of some interest in view of the Christological use of this concept in Origen and Didymus. "QGen" 1.55 and 3.56 indicate that the occurrence of the προπάθειαι is dependent upon uncertainty, and further, that for Philo, as for Seneca in "Ira" 2.3.4, a thought not acted upon can count as a προπάθεια. In "QGen" 4.15-17 and 1.79, Philo indicates that hope and perhaps laughter may be related to joy as προπάθεια to πάθος; these assertions are not paralleled in extant Stoic texts. Further, in "QGen" 2.57, he names "biting and contraction" as the εὐπάθεια corresponding to grief, supplying a helpful parallel for "Cic. Tusc." 3.83 and Plut. "Virt. Mor." 449a. The topic may well have been discussed by Posidonius, as suggested by Cooper and others, but Posidonius' attested innovations are rather different in character from the points which have caught the attention of Philo. Taking together the indirect evidence of Philo, Seneca, and Cicero, we may reasonably infer that the προπάθεια concept belonged already to an earlier period of Stoicism. (shrink)
El presente trabajo se hace cargo de uno de los problemas cläsicos de la democracia: el sentido, limites y paradojas de la exigencia igualitaria, exigencia que pone a la sociedad democratica en una paradoja: promover diferencias por mor de una presunta igualdad.
We consider a family U of finite universes. The second order existential quantifier QR. means for each U ϵ U quantifying over a set of n(R)-place relations isomorphic to a given relation. We define a natural partial order on such quantifiers called interpretability. We show that for every QR. either QR is interpretable by quantifying over subsets of U and one to one functions on U both of bounded order, or the logic L(QR) (first order logic plus the quantifier QR) (...) is undecidable. (shrink)
Engineering makes profound contributions to our health. Many of these contributions benefit whole populations, such as clean water and sewage treatment, buildings, dependable sources of energy, efficient harvesting and storage of food, and pharmaceutical manufacture. Thus, ethical assessment of these and other engineering activities has often emphasized benefits to communities. This is in contrast to medical ethics, which has tended to emphasize the individual patient affected by a doctor’s actions. However, technological innovation is leading to an entanglement of the activities, (...) and hence ethical responsibilities, of healthcare professionals and engineering professionals. The article outlines three categories of innovation: assistive technologies, telehealthcare and quasi-autonomous systems. Approaches to engineering ethics are described and applied to these innovations. Such innovations raise a number of ethical opportunities and challenges, especially as the complexity of the technology increases. In particular, the design and operation of the technologies require engineers to seek closer involvement with the persons benefiting from their work. Future innovation will require engineers to have a good knowledge of human biology and psychology. More particularly, healthcare engineers will need to prioritize each person’s wellbeing, agency, human relationships and ecological self rather than technology, in the same way that doctors prioritize the treatment of persons rather than their diseases . Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 204-221 DOI 10.1558/hrge.v17i2.204 Authors W. Richard Bowen, i-NewtonWales, 54 Llwyn y mor, Caswell, Swansea, SA3 4RD, UK Journal Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics Online ISSN 2043-0469 Print ISSN 1028-7825 Journal Volume Volume 17 Journal Issue Volume 17, Number 2 / 2011. (shrink)
In his discussions of dreaming in the Parva Naturalia, Aristotle neither claims nor denies that dreams serve a natural purpose. Modern scholarship generally interprets dreaming as useless and teleologically irrelevant for him. I argue that Aristotle's teleology permits certain types of dream to have a natural role in end-directed processes. Dreams are left-overs from waking experience, but they may, like certain bodily residues, be used by nature, which does ‘nothing in vain’ and makes use of available resources, for the benefit (...) of the beings in which they occur. Contrary to prevalent opinions, Aristotle does not assimilate dreams to sensory illusions and does not hold that they have no interaction with our reasoning capacity. Dreams constitute a special class of the products of phantasia, but this does not prevent them from functioning like other (waking) phantasmata. In Aristotle's view, dreams regularly generate 'natural signs' of diseases and cause waking actions. I show that this preparatory power of dreams, often dismissed or attributed to divine intervention in antiquity, is captured within Aristotle’s natural philosophy, and provides evidence that (some) dreams are (or should be) regarded by him as having a teleological significance. (shrink)
