The history of the Euclidean Steiner tree problem, which is the problem of constructing a shortest possible network interconnecting a set of given points in the Euclidean plane, goes back to Gergonne in the early nineteenth century. We present a detailed account of the mathematical contributions of some of the earliest papers on the Euclidean Steiner tree problem. Furthermore, we link these initial contributions with results from the recent literature on the problem.

A principle that many have found attractive is one that goes by the name “'Ought' Implies 'Can'.” According to this principle, one morally ought to do something only if one can do it. This essay has two goals: to show that the principle is false and to undermine the motivations that have been offered for it. Toward the end, a proposal about moral obligation according to which something like a restricted version of 'Ought' Implies 'Can' is true is floated. Though (...) no full-fledged argument for this proposal is offered, that it fits with a rather natural and intuitive picture of the structure of morality and seems to explain certain salient features of the debate over whether the principle is true, goes some way toward recommending it. (shrink)

As Holderlin was to Martin Heidegger and Mallarme to Jacques Derrida, so is H.P. Lovecraft to the Speculative Realist philosophers. Lovecraft was one of the brightest stars of the horror and science fiction magazines, but died in poverty and relative obscurity in the 1930s. In 2005 he was finally elevated from pulp status to the classical literary canon with the release of a Library of America volume dedicated to his work. The impact of Lovecraft on philosophy has been building for (...) more than a decade. Initially championed by shadowy guru Nick Land at Warwick during the 1990s, he was later discovered to be an object of private fascination for all four original members of the twenty-first century Speculative Realist movement. In this book, Graham Harman extracts the basic philosophical concepts underlying the work of Lovecraft, yielding a weird realism capable of freeing continental philosophy from its current soul-crushing impasse. Abandoning pious references by Heidegger to Holderlin and the Greeks, Harman develops a new philosophical mythology centered in such Lovecraftian figures as Cthulhu, Wilbur Whately, and the rat-like monstrosity Brown Jenkin. The Miskatonic River replaces the Rhine and the Ister, while Holderlin's Caucasus gives way to Lovecraft's Antarctic mountains of madness. (shrink)

This book offers a critical and thought-provoking analysis of some of the fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of education. It includes ideas such as the demands of pluralism and the liberal fear of indoctrination.

Martin Heidegger is famous for his early analysis of tools, and equally famous for his later reflections on technology. This might suggest an easy literal reading of these themes in his work along the following lines: ‘Heidegger began his career fascinated by low-tech hardware such as hammers and drills, but later took an interest in advanced devices such as hydroelectric dams’. But such a literal interpretation would miss the point, since neither Heidegger's tool analysis nor his views on technology are (...) limited to a narrow range of specific kinds of entities. When he speaks of ‘tools’, his analysis holds for trees and monkeys no less than for hammers; when he speaks of ‘technology’, he has little to tell... (shrink)

This article explores the importance of French thinker, Bruno Latour, for academic philosophy and addresses the question of why, when he has an enthusiastic following in a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology and the fine arts, he has been largely overlooked by academic philosophers.

The issue of human sexuality has many negative implications in African society. These arose in a number of contexts – legal, religious, cultural and societal – and were significantly divisive. This article examines these responses in terms of critical solidarity, critical engagement and critical distance, and attempts to find a way of considering them in the perspective of achieving justice and solidarity. The focus is on one mainline denomination, the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA). Contribution: This article has (...) implications that link subjects within the theological encyclopaedia of History of Christianity, Church Polity, Systematic Theology and Practical Theology, and other disciplines including Social Sciences such as Political Science. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Central Issues in the Historical Dispute Resolving Issues over Kant's Position Kant's Arguments for his Claims.

Relationships of physical resemblance to personality similarity and social affiliation have generated considerable discussion among behavioral science researchers. A “twin-like” experimental design explores associations among resemblance in appearance, the Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, and social attraction within an evolutionary framework. The Personality for Professionals Inventory, NEO/NEO-FFI-3, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and a Social Relationship Survey were variously completed by 45 U-LA pairs, identified from the “I’m Not a Look-Alike” project, Mentorn Media, and personal referrals. The mean U-LA intraclass correlations were (...) negligible for all Big Five personality traits on the PfPI and NEO/NEO-FFI-3. In contrast, mean ri values of.53 and.15 for monozygotic and dizygotic reared-apart twins, respectively, have been reported for these personality measures. The U-LA self-esteem correlation was also below the correlations reported for MZ and DZ reared-together twins. Finally, far fewer U-LAs expressed close social relationships than MZA and DZA twins. The present study extends earlier findings indicating that appearance is not meaningfully related to personality similarity and social relatedness. The criticism that MZ twins are alike in personality because their matched looks invite similar treatment by others is refuted. A more judicious interpretation is reactive genotype-environment correlation, namely that MZ twins’ similar personalities evoke similar reactions from others. MZ twins’ close social relations most likely derive from their perceptions of genetically based within-pair similarities that are lacking in U-LAs. (shrink)

If there is to be a convergence in public understanding on a minimal conception of morality, morality(n), there has to be a way of talking about the content of that morality which can be both readily understood and widely adopted.

There is a current fashion among some prominent Japanologists to brand Kyoto School philosophers as mere fascist or imperialist ideologues. This essay examines these charges, and criticizes the critics, endeavoring thereby to encourage a more responsible evaluation of the relationship between philosophical and political discourse.

‘This book is a response to renewed and widespread public interest in moral education.’.

This chapter follows the fortunes of one specific object that is both widely prized and universally known: gold. It examines the long history of gold from cosmic eons predating humans and considers various structural features of gold that arise from its chemical properties without being reducible to them. After considering examples of the effect of gold on humans, who are dazzled by its splendor, corrupted by its value, and made cruel through their ravenous hunt for the metal, the chapter observes (...) gold in its interactions with bacteria, governments, collapsing stars, geothermal currents, and mountain streams. Since the great value of gold entails that it is rarely discarded, the total human storehouse of gold continues to expand while losing very little, making gold the great unifier of all the generations in human history. But while gold represents a vast sum of “congealed human labor,” it also has countless properties that humans had no role in producing, but which force human labor into definite channels. For this reason, today’s Hegelian Marxists miss the point whenever they claim that object-oriented philosophy is a form of “commodity fetishism.”. (shrink)

Whatever may be the case for philosophy in general, philosophy of education has had rather little to say about violence. The Journal of Philosophy of Education, for instance, from its conception in the 1960s under the title of Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, has contained very little discussion of violence. There have been occasional papers in which violence is referred to, from discussions of the justification of punishment in schools, which include corporal punishment within their (...) remit, to discussions of peace education. But the idea of violence itself has hardly been a focus at all. (shrink)

I have sketched an understanding of morality(n) as having a provisional authority in being subject both to consensus and to criticism and change in a broadly democratic way. But I have also admitted that we lack the formal processes of criticism and change which exist for the law. The reader could reasonably demand that I say at least something more than I have said so far about ways in which the processes of consensus, criticism and change I have in mind (...) could be given some sort of institutional basis. Without that, the kind of understanding of morality that I have been speaking of is likely to remain no more than an understanding which some members of society — perhaps some of those who are both somewhat reflective and somewhat pragmatic — are likely to have. And then it will not be a shared public understanding at all. (shrink)

I have suggested that popular demands for moral education, and beliefs that it can be effective, for instance in reducing violence, presuppose some appropriate and shared conception of morality and moral education. But the existence, and even the possibility, of such a shared conception is often now called into question. The focus is very often on diversity within a plural society. And I have myself argued before that not only do we have differences of opinion over whether certain sorts of (...) conduct are morally right or wrong, we also have different conceptions of what it means to call something morally right or wrong, and even disagreement over whether such terminology has any useful role at all. (cf. Haydon, 1995; 1999c; 1997 Chapter 6; White, 1990, Chapter 3; Williams, 1985, Chapter 10.). (shrink)

This introductory article first gives a brief overview of the articles in the remainder of this special issue. It then considers what we can learn about the comprehensive ideal, and what questions still remain about it, from the treatment it receives in these articles. After an initial discussion of the nature of the common school, two dimensions are identified in which interpretations of the comprehensive ideal often differ: how fully the content of such schooling is filled in, and what its (...) scope is considered to be. Six categories of values are identified to which arguments both for and against the comprehensive ideal may appeal: educational values; values of community; justice and equality; respect; freedom; and non-discrimination. It is suggested that in a context of value-pluralism there can be no canonical interpretation of the comprehensive ideal. (shrink)

I have given some reasons for doubting whether a language of virtues can do the job which a publicly shared understanding of morality, in modern conditions, requires. It might be, however, that there is a particular role for the language of virtues where violence is the focus; in this chapter I shall consider that possibility. In the philosophical literature on moral education there seems to be little to draw on in this respect. That may be because writers using a language (...) of virtues are interested in some thicker notion of flourishing rather than in establishing preconditions for a minimally good life; but the same point also illustrates the way in which some of the philosophical literature about moral education has become rather detached from certain public concerns. (shrink)

Whatever may be the case for philosophy in general, philosophy of education has had rather little to say about violence. The Journal of Philosophy of Education, for instance, from its conception in the 1960s under the title of Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, has contained very little discussion of violence. There have been occasional papers in which violence is referred to, from discussions of the justification of punishment in schools, which include corporal punishment within their (...) remit, to discussions of peace education. But the idea of violence itself has hardly been a focus at all. (shrink)

Whatever may be the case for philosophy in general, philosophy of education has had rather little to say about violence. The Journal of Philosophy of Education, for instance, from its conception in the 1960s under the title of Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, has contained very little discussion of violence. There have been occasional papers in which violence is referred to, from discussions of the justification of punishment in schools, which include corporal punishment within their (...) remit, to discussions of peace education. But the idea of violence itself has hardly been a focus at all. (shrink)

Whatever may be the case for philosophy in general, philosophy of education has had rather little to say about violence. The Journal of Philosophy of Education, for instance, from its conception in the 1960s under the title of Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, has contained very little discussion of violence. There have been occasional papers in which violence is referred to, from discussions of the justification of punishment in schools, which include corporal punishment within their (...) remit, to discussions of peace education. But the idea of violence itself has hardly been a focus at all. (shrink)

I have suggested that popular demands for moral education, and beliefs that it can be effective, for instance in reducing violence, presuppose some appropriate and shared conception of morality and moral education. But the existence, and even the possibility, of such a shared conception is often now called into question. The focus is very often on diversity within a plural society. And I have myself argued before that not only do we have differences of opinion over whether certain sorts of (...) conduct are morally right or wrong, we also have different conceptions of what it means to call something morally right or wrong, and even disagreement over whether such terminology has any useful role at all. (cf. Haydon, 1995; 1999c; 1997 Chapter 6; White, 1990, Chapter 3; Williams, 1985, Chapter 10.). (shrink)

If there is to be a convergence in public understanding on a minimal conception of morality, morality(n), there has to be a way of talking about the content of that morality which can be both readily understood and widely adopted.

As I stressed in Chapter 13, I have by no means addressed all aspects of moral education in this book, let alone all aspects of personal and social education or of a school's concern for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Even within the notion of `moral development' there is much about which I have said little. In Chapter 3 I sketched a rather crude notion of moral development by which it could be said that someone has developed morally to (...) the extent that he or she has come to share the values which are central to a given society. That way of conceiving of moral development leaves out a great deal: it says nothing about individual attitudes and feelings towards others or about the degree of responsibility the individual takes for his or her own behaviour. Nor does it tell us what balance is to be struck in the overall educational task between putting across received norms, trying to develop virtues, and encouraging the capacity for and disposition towards autonomous thought. I do not, therefore, put it forward as a conception of moral development tout court. Nevertheless, it does point to an aspect of moral development in which society has a legitimate interest, but which education has not in recent years done much systematically to address. It is my contention that this is an important aspect of moral development for education to take into account, not least because it can at the same time be seen as an aspect of education for citizenship. (shrink)

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it is to (...) be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

Next time some more-than-usually striking act of violence hits the headlines, consider the opinions expressed in the media. Will you find a reference to education? Quite possibly, if the violence has not involved schools or young people, you will not. But if children or young people who have only recently left school are involved as perpetrators, it will be surprising if you do not encounter the view that there must be something amiss in education; that if young people were getting (...) a proper moral education, events like these would never happen. This kind of view was expressed, for instance, after the murder of two-year old James Bulger by two ten-year old boys, after the murder of the headteacher Philip Lawrence, and after the shooting of children in a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas, by two classmates. (shrink)

I have given some reasons for doubting whether a language of virtues can do the job which a publicly shared understanding of morality, in modern conditions, requires. It might be, however, that there is a particular role for the language of virtues where violence is the focus; in this chapter I shall consider that possibility. In the philosophical literature on moral education there seems to be little to draw on in this respect. That may be because writers using a language (...) of virtues are interested in some thicker notion of flourishing rather than in establishing preconditions for a minimally good life; but the same point also illustrates the way in which some of the philosophical literature about moral education has become rather detached from certain public concerns. (shrink)

Whatever may be the case for philosophy in general, philosophy of education has had rather little to say about violence. The Journal of Philosophy of Education, for instance, from its conception in the 1960s under the title of Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, has contained very little discussion of violence. There have been occasional papers in which violence is referred to, from discussions of the justification of punishment in schools, which include corporal punishment within their (...) remit, to discussions of peace education. But the idea of violence itself has hardly been a focus at all. (shrink)

Given the problems in the business world, it might be time to rethink business from a perspective that is not (neo)Marxist or capitalist. This article does just that by rethinking the ideology of human freedom in business. This article argues that corporations are freer than humans under capitalism. Moreover, corporations, more so than humans, engage in free action, as Arendt defines action. To return to the place where human freedom is an actuality not ideology, we must understand the nature of (...) freedom and how the present situation arose. From that we can then develop solutions. One solution posited here is that managers must treat employees as worthy of empowerment. This solution gives organizational behavior theory the ethical status that it has not had earlier. Even if the solution set out in this review is not functional, the view of business developed in this article is new and merits further examination in order that business can functional more ethically, including the treatment of people. (shrink)

The thymus is a unique primary lymphoid organ that supports the production of self‐tolerant T‐cells essential for adaptive immunity. Intrathymic microenvironments are microanatomically compartmentalised, forming defined cortical, and medullary regions each differentially supporting critical aspects of thymus‐dependent T‐cell maturation. Importantly, the specific functional properties of thymic cortical and medullary compartments are defined by highly specialised thymic epithelial cells (TEC). For example, in the medulla heterogenous medullary TEC (mTEC) contribute to the enforcement of central tolerance by supporting deletion of autoreactive T‐cell (...) clones, thereby counterbalancing the potential for random T‐cell receptor generation to contribute to autoimmune disease. Recent advances have further shed light on the pathways and mechanisms that control heterogeneous mTEC development and how differential mTEC functionality contributes to control self‐tolerant T‐cell development. Here we discuss recent findings in relation to mTEC development and highlight examples of how mTEC diversity contribute to thymus medulla function. (shrink)