From Technicians to Teachers provides theoretical and practical reasons for suggesting that widespread, international curriculum reform of the post-1990 period need not deprofessionalise teaching. The widely held deprofessionalisation thesis is both compelling and fatalistic, leading to a despairing sense that teachers are either no more than technicians, or that they can be reprofessionalised through definitions of 'effective teachers' promoted by the reforms. However, there are many teachers who do not see their work in either of these ways. The book is (...) structured around an in-depth case study detailing the implementation of The New Zealand Curriculum in that nation - one of the best international examples of neoliberal reform. Benade argues that curriculum policy can and should be analysed critically, while pointing out the dangers for ethical teachers that can exist in national or state curricula. Energising and inspiring, this book reminds teachers and teacher educators that although they work in a globalised context, their own role is fundamental and has a profoundly ethical basis, despite the negative impacts of three decades of education reform. (shrink)

Trust, as a philosophical concept in education, seems largely taken for granted, either because it is embedded in other discourses, or is self-evidently assumed to be one on which there is general agreement and understanding. Its associated notions, such as confidence and belief, have counters in such concepts as disappointment and betrayal. These various notions come to the fore in interpersonal relations that require openness and self-critique. Critically reflective practice in professional teaching contexts is one such example, where openness means (...) that people involved may experience vulnerability. I will argue that the development of critically reflective practice is impossible in the absence of trust, and will take the position that trust requires the trustor to be vulnerable to betrayal. I draw on some findings of an ongoing research study in a selection of New Zealand schools, during which I have found that many participants attempt to connect reflective practice to appraisal, a move which, in light of what I present in relation to trust, I argue should be resisted. (shrink)

The discourse of twenty-first century learning argues that education should prepare students for successful living in the twenty-first century workplace and society. It challenges all educators with the idea that contemporary education is unable to do so, as it is designed to replicate an industrial age model, essentially rear-focused, rather than future-focused. Future-focused preparation takes account of the startling effect on economy and society caused by rapid technological change, to the extent that the future cannot be accurately predicted. It is (...) a discourse that effectively renders knowledge obsolete, and which relies increasingly on communication technologies and online pedagogies. This is however an education which in some respects deepens the loss of identity characteristic of contemporary times. Thus, it has negative implications for face-to-face interactions in community which underpins the development of democratic practices. This article challenges these futuristic discourses by appealing to two philosophers of the twentieth century, namely Emmanuel Levinas and Paulo Freire. It considers the Levinasian concepts of the Other and the face, and the Freirean concepts of humanisation and critical education to argue that they offer a discourse of possibility and hope. These thinkers enable the argument that, despite rapid change, there are certain attributes and dispositions that transcend time and place, which schools have not only a right, but an obligation to develop. (shrink)

Shame, shame management and reintegrative shaming feature in some restorative justice literature, and may have implications for schools. Restorative justice in schools is effective when perpetrators of wrong-doing can accept and take ownership of their wrongful acts, are appropriately remorseful, and seek to make amends. Shame may be understood as an ethical matter if it is regarded to arise because of the contradiction between the wrongful act and the individual’s sense of self and self-worth. Shame management (that is, seeking reintegrative (...) over stigmatising shaming) can be regarded to reflect a form of social responsibility as it contributes to community restoration by repairing ruptured social relationships. The notion of shaming and acknowledgement of harm thus assumes norms of acceptable community behaviour, attitudes and relationships, and is therefore also an ethical matter. Successful restorative practices in schools depend on the school-wide existence and practice of such norms, and mesh with virtues education, stimulated by the contemporary demand of many national curricula to promote so-called key competencies. Although the concepts of restorative justice and reintegrative shaming serve as a context for this article, its chief impetus was provided by an evaluative study of a group of New Zealand schools, in the course of which notions such as shame, reintegration and exclusion became evident. The chief purpose of this article is to consider and problematise shame from the perspective of the philosophy of education, and ask whether the concept of shame has a place in schools, whose important aims ought to include the development of democratic citizenship. (shrink)

The prominence given in national or state-wide curriculum policy to thinking, the development of democratic dispositions and preparation for the ‘good life’, usually articulated in terms of lifelong learning and fulfilment of personal life goals, gives rise to the current spate of interest in the role that could be played by philosophy in schools. Theorists and practitioners working in the area of philosophy for schools advocate the inclusion of philosophy in school curricula to meet these policy objectives. This article tests (...) claims that philosophy can aid in the acquisition of democratic dispositions and develop critical thinking and considers to the extent to which these aims are compatible with each other. These considerations are located in the context of certain policy statements relating to the curricula of Western Australia and New Zealand. (shrink)

This book is an edited collection grouped into three key thematic areas. Its authors are researchers and theoretical scholars in the fields of education curriculum, education technology, education philosophy, and design for education. They present primary research and theoretical considerations, descriptive accounts and philosophical reflections to provide readers with a broad sweep of the 'state of play' in thinking about the place and space of learning. Transforming Education distils, from a panoply of critical arenas, an understanding of the forces currently (...) at play in redefining curriculum agendas for education - from primary to post-secondary. It analyses the major ways in which the built environment of education is transforming, in response to various globalised policy drivers and new education delivery technologies. Its authors critique the ways education performs a governance function over the users and occupants of space, be it physical or virtual. F or readers who may be seriously engaging with the concept of spatiality in relation to education for the first time, this book provides the opportunity to develop a clear understanding of a wide scope of theory, practice and critique in relation to learning environments. (shrink)

This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant changes to academic publishing, and specifically the global journal knowledge system wrought by a range of new digital technologies that herald the third age of the journal as an electronic, interactive and mixed-media form of scientific communication. The paper emerges from an Editors' Collective, a small New Zealand-based organisation comprised of editors and reviewers of academic journals mostly in the fields of education and philosophy. The paper (...) is the result of a collective writing process. (shrink)

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

The so-called “disquotational theory of truth” has not previously been developed much beyond the thesis that saying, for example, that ‘Snow is white’ is true amounts only to saying that snow is white. Marian David has set out to see what further sense can be made of the disquotational theory, and to compare its merits with those of correspondence theories of truth. His prognosis is that an intelligible disquotational theory of truth can be developed but will suffer from drastic shortcomings (...) that make it all but unusable. (shrink)

This book presents a study of the nature and conditions of historical knowledge, conducted through a study of the relevant theories of Hume, Hegel and Vico. It is usually thought that in order to establish historical facts, we have to have a theory of human nature to support our arguments. Hume, Hegel and Vico all subscribed to this view, and are therefore discussed in detail. Professor Pompa goes on to argue that there is in fact no way of discovering anything (...) about human nature except through historical investigation. It is necessary therefore to find a different way of thinking about how we discover historical facts. This is done in the last chapter where, in opposition to almost all present views, it is argued that we must have a framework of inherited knowledge before we can believe in anything which results from historical enquiry. (shrink)

We propose that observables in quantum theory are properly understood as representatives of symmetry-invariant quantities relating one system to another, the latter to be called a reference system. We provide a rigorous mathematical language to introduce and study quantum reference systems, showing that the orthodox “absolute” quantities are good representatives of observable relative quantities if the reference state is suitably localised. We use this relational formalism to critique the literature on the relationship between reference frames and superselection rules, settling a (...) long-standing debate on the subject. (shrink)

Professor Pompa's study of Vico has done a great deal to stimulate and inform the growing interest in the English-speaking world in this remarkable figure. It remains the only work devoted almost exclusively to an interpretation of the New Science and offers a comprehensive guide to the main theoretical problems to which the text gives rise. For this second edition Professor Pompa has responded to the reactions of reviewers and critics and added a new chapter which analyses Vico's conception of (...) the principles which govern the development of law. (shrink)

The last decade has seen a rise in big data approaches, including in the humanities, whereby large quantities of data are collected and analysed. In this paper, we discuss long-form audio recordings that result from individuals wearing a recording device for many hours. Linguists, psychologists and anthropologists can use them, for example, to study infants’ or adults’ linguistic behaviour. In the past, recorded individuals and communities have resided in high-income countries (HICs) almost exclusively. Recognising the need for better representation of (...) all cultures and linguistic experiences, researchers have more recently started to collect long-form audio recordings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We aim to help researchers to collect, analyse and use these recordings ethically. To do so, we identify four main ethical challenges linked to research that relies on long-form recordings in LMICs. We provide recommendations to overcome these challenges. These considerations should be useful to researchers employing other big data techniques collected via wearables. (shrink)

"We believe the government’s conduct in forfeiture cases leaves much to be desired. We are certainly not the first to be ‘enormously troubled by the government’s increasing and virtually unchecked use of the civil forfeiture statutes and the disregard for due process that is buried in those statutes’" (Quoting Judge George Pratt in US v. All Assets of Statewide Auto Parts, Inc., 971 F.2d 896, 905 (2d Cir. 1992)). US v. $506,231 in U.S. Currency, 125 F.3d 442 (7th Cir. 1997).

We are witnessing some incredibly baffling problems in the world today. It seems that as the countries of the world become more "civilized", more "democratic", societal problems and conflicts just get worse. The theme of this essay is that many of these problems are a result of an inherent and unavoidable paradox involving the conflict between the needs of the individual and the needs of the society that the individual is a member of. This class of problem, often called "Social (...) Dilemmas", while not unknown in the academic community has received little public attention. Yet these dilemmas may present insurmountable barriers to a peaceful world and harmonious societies. (shrink)

"All the limitative Theorems of metamathematics and the theory of computation suggest that once the ability to represent your own structure has reached a certain critical point, that is the kiss of death: it guarantees that you can never represent yourself totally. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, Church's Undecidability Theorem, Turing's Halting Problem, Turski's Truth Theorem -- all have the flavour of some ancient fairy tale which warns you that `To seek self-knowledge is to embark on a journey which...will always be incomplete, (...) cannot be charted on a map, will never halt, cannot be described. " - Douglas R. Hofstadter.. (shrink)

My Favorite Music I enjoy the original Country Music, BlueGrass, some Classical and Blues. But so what? Obviously, I would like to promote what I would like to hear (since I am a certified Selfish Person). It is quite annoying that I can find little good music on my radio.

"A class of men who are exceedingly tiresome are those who, having traveled, talk of nothing but their adventures, the countries which they have seen or traversed, the dangers, whether real or fictitious, which they have encountered, repeating the same things an hundred times over.

What I would like to say about politics does not fit the mold of common discourse and most political essays. Frankly, I have a rather negative and skeptical view of the concept that a group of people somehow has the knowledge to know what is best and the right to impose their will on the rest of the population. In fact, I think it is mankind's greatest folly to think that we can pick out a group of people from the (...) population at large -- known to be selfish, brutish and not necessarily very honest -- and to believe that these selected individuals will some how rise above the level from which they came, and to believe in these selected individuals so strongly that we will even give them guns and a monopoly over force! (shrink)

The hottest political news at the end of January, 2001, were the stories about President Bush establishing, by Executive Order, the "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives" , and his push for allowing religious groups to receive public funds for social service efforts. Bush and his new Attorney General, Ashcroft, have been strong proponents for federal funding of "faith-based" charity organizations (in fact, Ashcroft, when he was a senator, was the prime mover of the "Charitable Choice" initiative in the "Personal (...) Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996"). (shrink)

"To be governed is to be watched,inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general (...) interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed;then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. THAT is government;that is its justice;that is it's morality." P.J. Proudhon.. (shrink)

There is a very simple reason why people act the way they do and it is given by the following maxim: Maxim #1: Individuals tend to do the things they are rewarded for doing and tend to avoid the things they are punished for doing. Before you discard this simple maxim as being too simple to be of any use, let me explain just a bit. For a given situation, this maxim puts you one step closer and in the right (...) direction to understanding why people behave as they do. Let us try it on a simple example: Why do government employees waste money? If you want to know the answer to this then see if you can determine how government employees are rewarded and punished. You will then have the answer to your questions and you will find that government employees are just acting according to this maxim -- just as we would do if we were in their place. (shrink)

In my online essay on Social Behavior, I start with the following statement: Maxim #1: Individuals tend to do the things they are rewarded for doing and tend to avoid the things they are punished for doing. Further elaboration on that simple maxim is what this essay is about.

I have written a major essay on the problems that vagueness causes in governance and the way government and politicians take advantage of these problems. It is online at http://perspicuity.net/paradox/vaguegov.html.

Giambattista Vico is now acknowledged to be one of the most important figures in the history of European philosophy and social thought and increasingly attention is being focused on his writings. These, however have been difficult to obtain in English and many have never been translated. A real need therefore exists and to meet this Professor Pompa has here translated and introduced a selection of the central, representative texts, where the most important and seminal of Vico's ideas are developed. The (...) volume will make a major contribution towards the study of Vico's thought and this period in the history of philosophy. It will be invaluable to students of those subjects and of the social sciences generally. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the question: ‘Did Philo in Hume’s Dialogues succeed in undermining Cleanthes’ argument from design?’ Hume’s commentators have differed on their answers. Norman Kemp Smith speaks of Philo’s destructive criticism as “final and complete.” And Professor Bernard Williams, in a recent symposium devoted to Hume, says that “although the argument from Design lingered on through the nineteenth century, and even to the present time, Hume undermined it in a thoroughgoing and definitive manner.” Professor Alvin Plantinga, on (...) the other hand, while conceding that Hume had succeeded in pointing out differences between the universe and things we know to be designed, nevertheless concludes that “there seems to be no reason to think that these differences ruin the argument.”. (shrink)