In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation by Cynthia Moe-LobedaKiara A. JorgensonReview of Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation CYNTHIA MOE-LOBEDA Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. 309 pp. $22.00The factors that have contributed to today’s perilous global economy and ecology originate in structures that predate recent implosions of international banks or measurements of rising climates. These structures—systemic and social while also personal—are the focus of Moe-Lobeda’s work, Resisting (...) Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation. Convinced that sin and violence is “uncreating” the beauty of God’s interdependent community and can only be countered and alleviated by a moral vision structured around “justice-seeking love,” Moe-Lobeda provides a compelling theological critique and reconstruction of the Christian concept of love by way of a fresh retrieval of the classical Christian doctrine of vocation.The book’s argument consists of a tapestry of sobering statistics, theological analysis, and narrative prose. Early on Moe-Lobeda takes great care to explain how the moral crises of today relate to the embedded social structures of yesterday. Here her attention to the globalization of economies and subsequent ecological injustice is particularly helpful since few contemporary texts make explicit this critical connection. In a chapter titled “Countering Moral Oblivion” she also devotes attention to why seemingly good people, particularly good Christians, passively and ignorantly participate in systems of oppressive power. This portion of her book, coupled with her discussion of how Christian theology can be a resource of hope, is empowering and particularly attentive to the role of biblical theology in the ecological conversation. Unlike many other theoretical books on the topic, Moe-Lobeda’s book can be appropriated as a tool for lifestyle appraisal useful to the academician, pastor, and lay reader alike. Indeed, Moe-Lobeda can evoke discomfort with her compelling vision and challenging call for a change in our current practices.Pivoting her argument on the promise of hope, the second half of Resisting Structural Evil discusses what can and must be realized. And it is here that Moe-Lobeda’s voice makes a contribution not only to Christian ecological ethics but also to Christian social ethics at large. Vocation, she argues, encompasses more than what traditional renderings of vocare have sought to connote. The human call to life is a call to love in compassion and justice both the neighbor [End Page 208] and the self, and must be made manifest in the public sphere. What is more, one must fulfill one’s vocation not only for the sake of the human other but also for the benefit of the oikos (household) present within all economic and ecological communities. To this end, Moe-Lobeda’s attention to love as vocation uniquely characterizes her approach to ecological ethics, thereby transcending traditional deontolological or teleological classifications. Unique within Protestant work on ecological ethics, Resisting Structural Evil provides a fresh depiction of character ethics wherein the pursuit of moral aptitude is fundamentally rooted in biotic community.This very strength may also foster some critique since Moe-Lobeda’s schema is so thoroughly corporate in scope that it affords little time and attention to what some virtue and character ethicists would call the inward journey. Yet Moe-Lobeda, aligned with the liberal and feminist traditions from which she hails, views love and power as inseparable. “What is needed,” she argues, “is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic” (169). Hence, on a very fundamental level Resisting Structural Evil is a book arguing for a radically new paradigm, one where the enormity of today’s crises is met with an equally comprehensive dose of transformative loving power.Kiara A. JorgensonLuther SeminaryCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Quand les diverses saveurs, cessant de s'opposer les unes aux autres, restent contenues dans la plénitude : le mérite de la fadeur est de nous faire accéder à ce fond indifférencié des choses ; sa neutralité exprime la capacité inhérente au centre. A ce stade, le réel n'est plus " bloqué " dans des manifestations partiales et trop voyantes ; le concret devient discret, il s'ouvre à la transformation. La fadeur des choses appelle au détachement intérieur. Mais elle est aussi (...) une vertu, notamment dans notre rapport à autrui, parce qu'elle est gage d'authenticité ; elle doit être aussi à la base de notre personnalité puisque, seule, elle permet de posséder également toutes les aptitudes et de faire preuve, en chaque occasion, de la faculté requise. Sur ce lieu commun de la fadeur se rencontrent et s'entendent tous les courants de la pensée chinoise : confucianisme, taoïsme, bouddhisme. Ces courants ne l'envisagent donc ni sur un mode abstrait, à finalité théorique, ni, à l'autre bord, comme un ineffable, à vocation mystique. Mais c'est lui que révèlent, par leur dépouillement et leur richesse allusive, les arts de la Chine peinture, musique ou poésie. En nous conduisant à la limite du sensible, là où celui-ci s'efface et se résorbe, la fadeur nous fait éprouver un " au-delà ". Mais ce dépassement ne débouche pas sur un autre monde, à statut métaphysique, coupé de la sensation. Il déploie seulement celui-ci - mais décanté de son opacité, redevenu virtuel, rendu disponible - sans fin - à la jouissance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Deification through the Cross:Reflections from an Implied Ideal WorshiperAndrew J. SummersonKhaled Anatolios's most recent book, Deification through the Cross,1 develops a definition of salvation out of his experience of the Byzantine liturgy. This experience of worship offers an immersion in what he calls "doxological contrition." By this, Anatolios means that Christ saves us by offering us the ability to participate in the mutual glorification of the persons of the (...) Holy Trinity by vicariously repenting for our sins. For Anatolios, this objective content is subjectively appropriated in Byzantine Christian worship. To explore this theme, Anatolios develops a working account of "doxological contrition" through a synthetic discussion of the Lenten Triodion and Pentecostarion, books of liturgical hymnography that govern the Byzantine worship from Lent to Pentecost. Anatolios derives his approach from the adaption of reader response theory, which aims to expose the effect a text should have on the "implied ideal reader." As such, his account speaks from the perspective of the "implied ideal worshiper"—presumably a theologically educated congregant who can seize these themes that evaporate into the ether as quickly as incense swung throughout the church during the services.Let me say from the outset, I heartily recommend Anatolios's book. It is both an ambitious work and a rewarding read. Ambitious because Anatolios's approach makes otherwise fragmented theological disciplines—liturgical [End Page 1089] studies, Scripture, historical theology, and systematics—fruitful dialogue partners in his exposition of a working account of the Christian experience of salvation. Rewarding because the reader can explore in depth the touchstones of the Christian tradition through Anatolios's deep retrieval of a more coherent soteriology. Deification of the Cross demonstrates the perennial value of historical theology to correctly account for the "half-forgotten, half misunderstood" details of the Christian tradition in the face of caricatures that at best misrepresent and at worst present an idolatrous, counterfeit Christianity.Eastern Christian Liturgy and RevelationPerhaps I am not Anatolios's ideal audience; I may be too close to the source material and lack objectivity. That aside, the bulk of my reflections on this book comes from the perspective of an "implied ideal worshiper." I do share some of Anatolios starting points. Like Anatolios, I am a convert, scholar, and Eastern Catholic priest. Furthermore, I also share the discontent with which Anatolios begins his book, though perhaps for different reasons. He bemoans a loss of the experience of salvation. My own vocation as priest and scholar comes out of a frustrated wonder. As a college student, I set out to learn about this Church and its Tradition. I learned about the Sunday experience I was supposed be having. It was in university when I read for the first time John Paul II's 1995 apostolic letter Orientale Lumen, written to acquaint the wider Catholic Church with the riches of the Christian East. John Paul II dedicated much reflection to the "genius of Eastern liturgy," emphasizing its power to envelop all our human senses into the fullness of the mystery of God. It is worth quoting in full:Within this framework, liturgical prayer in the East shows a great aptitude for involving the human person in his or her totality: the mystery is sung in the loftiness of its content, but also in the warmth of the sentiments it awakens in the heart of redeemed humanity. In the sacred act, even bodiliness is summoned to praise, and beauty, which in the East is one of the best loved names expressing the divine harmony and the model of humanity transfigured, appears everywhere: in the shape of the church, in the sounds, in the colors, in the lights, in the scents. The lengthy duration of the celebrations, the repeated invocations, everything expresses gradual identification with the mystery celebrated with one's whole person. Thus the prayer of the Church already becomes participation in the heavenly liturgy, an anticipation of the final beatitude.(§11) [End Page 1090]The experience of this liturgy has been quite potent throughout history. It led to the baptism of the entire kingdom of Rus' in 988 AD. As the story goes, its ruler, Vladimir the Great, sent emissaries to find a... (shrink)

The essays which Bentham collected together for publication in 1830 under the title of Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized, written at various times between 1810 and 1830, deal with the means of achieving efficient and economical government. In considering a wide range of themes in the fields of constitutional law, public finance, and legal reform, Bentham places the problem of official corruption at the centre of his analysis. He contrasts his own recommendations for good administration, which he had fully (...) developed in his magisterial Constitutional Code, with the severe deficiencies he saw in English practice. The core of the volume consists of four major essays directed against the principles and policies of four leading statesmen: Edmund Burke, George Rose, Robert Peel, and Lord Chancellor Eldon. Of particular concern to Bentham were the abuses sanctioned by the judges and their officials in the Westminster Hall courts, which, he argues, resulted in the denial of justice to the majority of the population. In this volume, Bentham not only displays the precise logical reasoning for which he is well known, but also his considerable skills as a rhetorician of reform. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore the prospects for a virtue ethic approach to business. First, I delineate two fundamental criteria that I believe must be met for any such approach to be viable: viz., the virtues must be exercised for the sake of the good of one’s life as a unitary whole (contra role-morality approaches) and for the common good of the communities of which one is a part as well as the individual good of their members (contra egoist approaches). (...) Second, I argue that these two criteria can be met only if we are able to reconceive and transform the nature of work within contemporary business organizations. In particular, what is needed, I argue, is a retrieval of something like the older ideal of work as a “vocation”, or “calling”, whereby work can be viewed as a specific aspect of a more general calling to pursue, through the practice of the virtues, “the good life” both for ourselves and for others. Lastly, I consider some important challenges to this “vocational virtue ethic” approach to work within contemporary business organizations and offer a few suggestions for how they might be met. (shrink)

The purposes of this study were to adapt Employee Aptitude Survey (EAS) test into Indonesian version and establish its psychometric properties especially for career counseling. Senior High School students in Yogyakarta (N=471) were test with EAS Indonesian version in three stages study design. Psychometric analysis supported item characteristics and reliability. Mean of item difficulty index for each subtest range from 0,467 to 0,622. The item selection based on item discrimination index ≥ 0,300. Reliability coefficients range from 0,533 to 0,973 (...) for each subtes. (shrink)

In his first two Critiques, Kant makes a distinction between the empirical and the intelligible character. Yet, in his Pragmatic anthropology Kant adds the human beings’ “natural aptitude” to the customary dichotomy of “way of sensing” and “way of thinking”. In this paper, I investigate Kant’s concept of natural aptitude in his Pragmatic anthropology and in his Lectures on anthropology. Most probably, Kant’s sources lie in the Scholastic doctrine of the “character of scholars”. The “good mind” that Kant (...) associates with the human beings’ natural aptitude – in sharp contrast with the autonomy implied by moral character – nevertheless reveals its significance in compensating for the human species’ “pragmatic predisposition”. To some extent, then, natural aptitude contributes to the pursuit of nature’s providential goals. (shrink)

La personne comme question est un sujet qui n'a cessé d'alimenter la réflexion de l'auteur, ceci en s'appuyant sur Husserl. De la préhistoire du concept de personne à son épanouissement médiéval puis jusqu'à sa réactivation phénoménologique, la personne est un combat pour le soi. La perspective généalogique adoptée dans ce livre vise à montrer que c'est la genèse du concept biblique de personne qui montre le véritable sens d'être de la personne, alors que le concept juridique en est dérivé. Citant (...) les auteurs clé de ce concept de personne, ce livre en retrace l'histoire. (shrink)

A recent article on education in China succeeded in giving a fresh tweak to the arguments concerning whether aptitude or achievement testing is more likely to promote equality of educational opportunity. In 'The Diploma Disease' Ronald Dore expounded the view that aptitude testing is to be preferred for selection purposes on the grounds that it gives more weight to 'innate potential' (his term) than does achievement testing which produces results more affected by quality of schooling, an influence which (...) is all too variable, especially in emerging countries. Although shot through with considerable ambivalence, Dore's view could still be instrumental in persuading educational and political authorities in those countries that aptitude testing will do what he says it will do - 'make for greater equality of educational opportunity and be more effective in mobilizing all available talent'. And even if these authorities have never set eyes on Dore's book, there is sufficient evidence that some of them are acting as if they had taken Dore's view on board for it to be worth re-opening the question. It is argued here that Dore's position cannot be supported. (shrink)

A recent article on education in China succeeded in giving a fresh tweak to the arguments concerning whether aptitude or achievement testing is more likely to promote equality of educational opportunity. In ‘The Diploma Disease’ Ronald Dore expounded the view that aptitude testing is to be preferred for selection purposes on the grounds that it gives more weight to ‘innate potential’ (his term) than does achievement testing which produces results more affected by quality of schooling, an influence which (...) is all too variable, especially in emerging countries. Although shot through with considerable ambivalence, Dore's view could still be instrumental in persuading educational and political authorities in those countries that aptitude testing will do what he says it will do ‐ ‘make for greater equality of educational opportunity and be more effective in mobilizing all available talent’. And even if these authorities have never set eyes on Dore's book, there is sufficient evidence that some of them are acting as if they had taken Dore's view on board for it to be worth re‐opening the question. It is argued here that Dore's position cannot be supported. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Minimalist Account of Truth Correspondence Theories of Truth Deflated Is Minimalism Adequate? Conclusion: Moral Semantics as a Moral Matter.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Vocational‐Academic Distinctions Criticisms of the Vocational Education/General Education Dichotomy The Front‐end Model and its Increasing Problems Vocational Education and Training: Developments and Strategies Conclusion: Enhancing Vocational Studies.

The Aptitude Myth addresses the decline in American children’s mastery of critical school subjects. It contends that a contributing cause for this decline derives from many Americans’ ways of thinking about children’s learning: They believe that school performance is determined very largely by innate aptitude.

Is there a way in which we can have obligations that do not follow from general ethical principles in conjunction with non-normative facts about our situation in the world? I argue for an affirmative answer to this question, based on a divine command theory of vocation. I explore the structure of such a theory, deriving from Kierkegaard the idea that a vocation will normally be closely connected with one’s selfhood, and that it may override other prima facie obligations. Epistemological issues (...) about vocation are also discussed. (shrink)

Edmond Hiriartborde & Paul Fraisse, « Les Aptitudes rythmiques », Monographie française de psychologie, n° 14, 1968. - Psychologie.

Background:At a time when British nursing has been under scrutiny for an apparent lack of compassion in education and practice, this paper based offers a perspective on the notions of vocation and altruism in nursing.Objectives:To understand the vocational and altruistic motivations of nurses through the application of Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of ‘symbolic capital’, ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ through a long interview with nurse respondents.Research design:A reflexive qualitative study was undertaken using the long interview. A thematic analysis of the data, using (...) a qualitative data software package for analysis, was undertaken. The ideas of Pierre Bourdieu (Habitus, Capital and Field) were used to analyse and explain the content of community nurses' ‘talk’.Participants:Twelve Community Nurses working in a variety of local primary care settings volunteered to participate in the study. It was a self-selecting convenience sample of nurses responding to an invitation to be interviewed.Research context:A study in support of a doctoral thesis conducted within NHS primary care settings with registered nurses.Ethical considerations:The key considerations for this study were to be mindful of the possibility of emotional harm or distress being caused to the respondents during the retelling of their experiences. It was also essential to ensure that the locations or names of patients or staff (if discussed) were anonymised. Ethical approval was sought and granted by both the Local NHS Primary Care and the University Ethics committees before the study commenced.Findings:The nurse respondents had highly individual and at times contradictory views on their motivations to nurse including their views on vocation and altruism in nursing careers.Discussion:Bourdieu's ideas apply well to the nursing context and provided a useful theoretical framework to explore the social and cultural influences on nursing careers. Gender is important consideration in all aspects of nursing but class and educational experience is an important dimension in the stories nurses tell.Conclusion:The culturally determined experiences of these nurses in practice offer an authentic and realistic insight into the complex motives and predispositions of community nurses. This paper argues that nurse motivations whether vocational or altruistic, are better understood as culturally, rather than spiritually, driven. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas’ account of religious vocation has been interpreted as involving a qualified duty, where ordinary people fall short of living up to the moral ideal of becoming a monk or nun. Such an account of religious vocation makes a hash of Aquinas’ thought and misses important aspects of his ethics. Aquinas holds that religious life is praiseworthy, but not morally required, because there are multiple sources of normativity. I conclude by proposing that, while elements of Aquinas’ notion of supererogation (...) might be shared with other traditions in virtue ethics, his theological commitments are central to his notion of supererogation. (shrink)

Although the language of vocation was born in a religious context, the contributors in this volume demonstrate that it has now taken root within the broad framework of higher education and has become intertwined with a wide range of concerns. This volume makes a compelling case for vocational reflection and discernment in undergraduate education today, arguing that it will encourage faculty and students alike to venture out of their narrow disciplinary specializations and to reflect on larger questions of meaning (...) and purpose. In conversation with a growing range of scholarly resources, these essays advance the cause of vocational reflection and discernment well beyond its occasional mention in general education courses and career placement offices. The book's thirteen contributors all work in higher education, but they do so as biologists and musicians, sociologists and engineers, doctors and lawyers, college presidents and deans, and scholars of history, literature, and business administration. Together, they demonstrate that vocation has an important role to play across the entire range of traditional academic disciplines and applied fields. Regardless of major, all undergraduates need to consider their current and future responsibilities, determine the stories they will live by, and discover resources for addressing the tensions that will inevitably arise among their multiple callings. Vocation across the Academy will help to reframe current debates about the purpose of higher education. It underscores the important role that colleges and universities can play in encouraging students to reflect more deeply on life's most persistent questions and to consider how they might best contribute to the common good. (shrink)

Sign language interpreting is a cognitively challenging task performed mostly by second language learners. SLI students must first gain language fluency in a new visuospatial modality and then move between spoken and signed modalities as they interpret. As a result, many students plateau before reaching working fluency, and SLI training program drop-out rates are high. However, we know little about the requisite skills to become a successful interpreter: the few existing studies investigating SLI aptitude in terms of linguistic and (...) cognitive skills lack baseline measures. Here we report a 3-year exploratory longitudinal skills assessments study with British Sign Language -English SLI students at two universities. Our aims were two-fold: first, to better understand the prerequisite skills that lead to successful SLI outcomes; second, to better understand how signing and interpreting skills impact other aspects of cognition. A battery of tasks was completed at four time points to assess skills, including but not limited to: multimodal and unimodal working memory, 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional mental rotation, and English comprehension. Dependent measures were BSL and SLI course grades, BSL reproduction tests, and consecutive SLI tasks. Results reveal that initial BSL proficiency and 2D-MR were associated with selection for the degree program, while visuospatial working memory was linked to continuing with the program. 3D-MR improved throughout the degree, alongside some limited gains in auditory, visuospatial, and multimodal working memory tasks. Visuospatial working memory and MR were the skills closest associated with BSL and SLI outcomes, particularly those tasks involving sign language production, thus, highlighting the importance of cognition related to the visuospatial modality. These preliminary data will inform SLI training programs, from applicant selection to curriculum design. (shrink)

Vocational ethics and vocational moral socialization are important for the business ethical climate in a given country and in a given industry, but have not received attention in the literature. Our article suggests vocational ethics as a legitimate sub-specialty for business ethics research and development. The article addresses the exposure of vocational students to a combination of vocational school-based and workplace-based socialization, and outlines an agenda for teaching-oriented research and research-based teaching. More specifically, we first (...) draft a conceptual frame of reference and then report results and experiences from a scenario-based pilot study at one of the biggest vocational schools in the country. As a third step such a preliminary situation analysis inspires a number of suggestions for how one could start with developing this field, practically, empirically and theoretically. (shrink)

In a market economy, members of professions—or at least those for whom their profession is a vocation—are vulnerable to a distinctive kind of objectionable exploitation, namely the exploitation of their vocational commitment. That they are vulnerable in this way arises out of central features both of professions and of a market economy. And, for certain professions—the care professions—this exploitation is particularly objectionable, since, for these professions, the exploitation at issue is not only exploitation of the professional’s vocational commitment (...) but also of her even more basic commitment to morality. (shrink)

Monograph describing the theoretical basis and curriculum development of the hibernia experimental school, combining vocational education with general education and located in the ruhr region of Germany, Federal Republic - in light of rudolf steiner's integrated approach to education, traces its evolution from factory training unit to an integrated comprehensive school, reviews the structure of practical education, and applies pedagogics of steiner's "study of man" to the process of learning. Bibliography pp. 191 to 196 and diagrams.

Loin de nier l’élection des Hébreux, Spinoza la naturalise et l’universalise, au moins à titre de virtualité, la vocation n’en étant qu’une spécification. Son analyse permet surtout de rendre compte, d’un point de vue mnémo-affectif, symbolique et stratégique, de la nature du pouvoir qu’un chef exerce sur son peuple, et de l’articulation de leurs ingenia respectifs. Enfin, elle éclaire le caractère exceptionnel de la destinée singulière de Moïse comme figure symbolique du bon politique, tout en permettant à Spinoza de penser, (...) à travers l’exemple hébreu, ce qu’est une destinée collective. (shrink)

This paper offers a new philosophical account of vocations as deeply personal but at the same time also communal and generational forms of multimodal intending. It provides a reconstruction and a systematic development of Edmund Husserl’s scattered discussions on vocations. On these grounds, the paper argues that vocational life is a general human possibility and not determined by any set of material values, religious, epistemic or moral. Rather, vocations are distinguished from other complexes of intentional acts and attitudes by (...) certain structural features of their core valuations and volitions. (shrink)

_Contents:_ Translator's Introduction_ Selected Bibliography Note on the Text _ The Vocation of Man__ Preface Book One: Doubt Book Two: Knowledge Book Three: Faith.

Weber's 'science as a vocation' has often been viewed as a therapeutic concept with no functional significance in the fully bureaucratized and professionalized modern science. However, development in the philosophy of science in the last century, especially the Kuhn thesis of the discontinuity of scientific progress and the Duhem-Quine thesis of underdetermination, shows that Weber's distinction between science as a vocation and science as a profession (career) can potentially answer one of the oldest questions in science studies: What makes scientific (...) breakthroughs possible? (shrink)

Pourquoi faut-il que nous nous interrogions sans relâche? Qu'un seul veille et le monde est sans repos, libre à nouveau de toute réponse, comme si ni l'histoire ni la mémoire n'avaient tracé les signes, multiples et réitérés au long des siècles, de nos balbutiements devant l'énigme de l'être. D'aussi loin que les textes nous parviennent, la philosophie s'est érigée contre la superstition, la croyance vaine, l'opinion. Elle a fait œuvre de discernement en direction de la question de l'être, du monde, (...) du sujet. Pourquoi alors défendre l'idée d'une vocation prophétique de la philosophie? Parce qu'il y aurait à répondre de, avant même que la réflexion philosophique puisse, comme telle, être légitime. La vocation serait l'espace de toute réponse possible. Et la philosophie, dès lors, s'inscrirait à partir de ce lieu où la réponse est toujours différée, parce qu'elle est cette ouverture radicale sur l'absolument autre qui empêche le discours de se clore sur lui-même. Quels penseurs ont anticipé notre présente détresse? A moins que la détresse ne soit elle-même qu'un état transitoire dont il ne faudrait pas s'affliger puisque nos démocraties sont, à tout prendre, les moins barbares des sociétés de droit. Les penseurs prophétiques frayent un chemin de veille, non pour perpétuer une trace, un enseignement, mais pour risquer plus loin la question de l'humanité de l'homme. (shrink)

The work "Taboos on the teaching vocation" was read by the German social philosopher and representative of critical theory Theodor Adorno as a report on May 21, 1965 at the Berlin Institute for Educational Research. In this report, Adorno considered the socio-psychological and socio-cultural reasons that in the context of Western European culture have historically led to the social emergence of many psychological taboos on the pedagogical work of the school teacher. The philosopher theoretically deduced the dialectical connection between human (...) hostility and disgust for the work of the teacher from the cultural tradition of German society, which historically developed as late bourgeois. A characteristic feature of the attitude of the overly materialistic socio-cultural system was aversion to the work of the teacher as a "hungry job", that is, to a poorly paid profession. Another factor of public disgust for the work of teachers, the philosopher called the socio-cultural tradition of society, which as a closed society willingly practiced physical violence as a means of social coercion. According to this tradition, through the use of violence, the teacher must subordinate students to his authority, subordinate to social and school ideology. The historical result of such dialectics was the socio-cultural distortion of the image of the teacher, the castration of his image in social psychology, his self-alienation from the professional vocation and the ideological elimination of the power of his spirit. As an ideological alternative, Adorno suggested that society, if it consciously seeks democratic change, first of all take into account such young teachers who demonstrate the impulse of their individual spirit in the performance of their profession. According to the philosopher, only the spiritual freedom of such a young educator, a man who is capable of self-understanding, conscious of himself and his vocation, who reflects and is socially active, can democratize schools, devalue society and destroy dehumanized social traditions. First of all – in order to overcome the barbaric tradition of violence. (shrink)

This article considers 3 claims that cognitive sex differ- ences account for the differential representation of men and women in high-level careers in mathematics and sci- ence: (a) males are more focused on objects from the beginning of life and therefore are predisposed to better learning about mechanical systems; (b) males have a pro- file of spatial and numerical abilities producing greater aptitude for mathematics; and (c) males are more variable in their cognitive abilities and therefore predominate at the (...) upper reaches of mathematical talent. Research on cogni- tive development in human infants, preschool children, and students at all levels fails to support these claims. Instead, it provides evidence that mathematical and scientific rea- soning develop from a set of biologically based cognitive capacities that males and females share. These capacities lead men and women to develop equal talent for mathe- matics and science. (shrink)

One strand of the church's conversation about homosexuality compares present‐day acceptance of homosexuals to the church's acceptance of Gentiles in Acts 15. In a previous article, “Gentiles and Homosexuals,” I presented the history of that strand. In a reply to my article, Olson proposes to reimagine the analogy via the “radical new perspective on Paul” and argues that doing so exposes problems with my original analysis. I defend myself against these criticisms, while also entering into the spirit of Olson's reimagined (...) analogy. Expanding the scope beyond Acts to Paul opens up important facets that might otherwise be obscured. In particular, it includes voices that are sometimes silenced, and presses both sides for an account of sexuality grounded in vocation and God's purposes in creation. (shrink)