John Cleary, Pádraig Hogan; The Reciprocal Character of Self-Education: Introductory Comments on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Address ‘Education is Self-Education’, Jou.

A Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education in November 2012 explored key aspects of the relationship between philosophy of education and educational policy in the UK. The contributions were generally critical of policy developments in recent decades, highlighting important shortcomings and arguing for more philosophically coherent approaches to educational policy-making. This article begins by focusing on what the contributions to the Special Issue—particularly two of them—have to say about the relationship between philosophy of education and educational policymaking. (...) It then goes on to argue that this relationship can best be understood through an exploration of education as a practice in its own right. Such an exploration seeks to shed light on the proper métier of philosophy of education. In the course of the exploration the kind of thinking predominant in recent international patterns in educational policy is contrasted with a different kind of thinking which has yielded rich gains in Finland. Important distinctions are drawn between the inherent and extrinsic benefits of educational practice and between the internal and external politics of practice. These contribute to the articulation of philosophy of education as a distinctive discipline of thought and action which is necessary to the work of practitioners and policymakers alike. (shrink)

John Cleary, Pádraig Hogan; The Reciprocal Character of Self-Education: Introductory Comments on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Address ‘Education is Self-Education’, Jou.

Pádraig Hogan; What Makes Practice Educational?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 15–26, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

John Cleary, Pádraig Hogan; The Reciprocal Character of Self-Education: Introductory Comments on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Address ‘Education is Self-Education’, Jou.

John Cleary, Pádraig Hogan; The Reciprocal Character of Self-Education: Introductory Comments on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Address ‘Education is Self-Education’, Jou.

Throughout most of the history of Western civilization, Christianity and Classical ideals played a dominant part in education. In most western countries, however, this is no longer the case. In modern pluralist Democracies, church influence struggles with pervasive influences from elsewhere for the hearts and minds of the public. Educational policy remains, however, an instrument to be used by major power groups, and in many countries has become, to a greater or lesser extent, an active or unwitting accomplice in furthering (...) acquisitiveness and the accumulation of material advantage. (shrink)

The notion of competencies has been a familiar feature of educational reform policies for decades. In this essay, Pádraig Hogan begins by highlighting the contrasting notion of capabilities, pioneered by the research of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. An educational variant of the notion of capabilities then becomes the basis for exploring venturesome environments of learning: environments that are hospitable to the cultivation of such capabilities among students and their teachers. In this exploration Hogan emphasizes disclosing the (...) kinds of relations that constitute such environments. In particular, he identifies four kinds of relations and investigates the interplay among them. In the second part of the essay, Hogan reviews an ongoing research project in Ireland that has been promoting such environments in postprimary education: Teaching and Learning for the 21st Century. Although the project avoids proffering universal claims about “what works,” its rationale and conduct nevertheless call policymakers' attention to what has worked and to the reasons why. (shrink)

Over the past quarter of a century the work of few philosophers has exerted such powerful influence, or been the centre of such vigorous debate, as that of Alasdair MacIntyre. And although MacIntyre has not often formally addressed educational issues, the thrust of his writing has seemed to bear more clearly on education than that of most philosophers. His assault on central tenets of the Enlightenment in After Virtue already contained an implicit critique of public education in the modern era. (...) That critique was extended and made more explicit in later writings such as his Richard Peters Lecture ‘The Idea of an Educated Public’ (1987), the concluding chapters of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988), the final chapter of Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990), and the essay ‘Aquinas’s Critique of Education: Against his Age, Against Ours’ (1998). With less polemical intensity he furnished some further arguments on education and upbringing in his book Dependent Rational Animals (1999a). And his most recent comments on the subject are presented in the dialogue published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education (MacIntyre and Dunne, 2002). Moreover, even in his most critical writing MacIntyre has also developed an affirmative vision that has seemed to offer resources for a fruitful reconceptualisation of education: his steady concern with human flourishing, strongly linked to his own distinctive conceptions of virtue and of practice, as well as to his ideas of the biographical unity of a life and the encompassing power of traditions, flows easily into discourse about the aims of education and the kind of undertaking engaged in by teachers. (shrink)

This essay seeks to show that teaching and learning are to be properly understood, not as an undertaking carried out on the will of a higher power or party, but as a way of life with an integrity of its own, arising from its own integral purposes. The essay thus seeks to provide an understanding of educational practice and of educational thought that contrasts in key respects with Alasdair MacIntyre's understanding, though also with a some notable parallels. A largely forgotten (...) ‘Socrates of Athens’ is identified as furnishing the original inspiration for the understanding of education explored in the essay. Some influential modern (and postmodern) negations of this understanding are then reviewed. Arising from its investigation of teaching and learning as a singular kind of relationship, the essay concludes with a brief sketch of some virtues that might constitute the way of life in question, in its more active and its more reflective moments. (shrink)

This volume explores the distinctiveness of teaching and learning as a human undertaking and the nature and scope of the philosophy of education. An investigation of the distinctiveness of teaching and learning as a human undertaking. Provides fresh thinking on the nature and scope of the philosophy of education. Draws on the original insights of an international group of experts in philosophy and education. Includes an interview on education with Alasdair MacIntyre, together with searching investigations of his views by other (...) contributors. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Circumscribing the Claims of Theory Plato's Reversal of the Precedence of Practice A Lesson about Learning Philosophy as a Way of Life and as the Pursuit of a Specialism From Epistemology Back to Practice Questions of Interpretation Reinterpreting Theory The Uses of Practical Philosophy.

Education as a practice in its own right (or sui generis practice) invokes quite a different set of ethical considerations than does education understood as a subordinate activity ? i.e. prescribed and controlled in its essentials by the current powers-that-be in a society. But the idea of education as a vehicle for the ?values? of a particular group or party is so commonplace, from history's legacy as well as from ongoing waves of educational reforms, as to appear a quite natural (...) one. So much is this case that the idea of education as a sui generis practice may seem a bit eccentric at first sight. Some preliminary work is called for then to render intelligible the claim that education is indeed a practice in its own right, and to illustrate the original starting point this gives for an exploration of educational ethics. In undertaking this preliminary work, central themes from two major sources are explored and reviewed: Richard Peters? well-known study Ethics and education and MacIntyre's After virtue. The suggestive merits of both works for advancing a sui generis understanding of education and its conduct are identified. But crucial occlusions are also highlighted in the arguments of both authors, the recognition of which might have enabled their thinking on educational matters to venture onto a different plane. The kind of thinking that emerges from these investigations as most promising for educational ethics is seen to differ in its key features from what the various branches of academic philosophy have to offer by way of ethical theory. (shrink)

This article is the second of a two-part investigation, the first part of which was published in Ethics and Education, vol. 5, issue 2, 2010, under the title ?Preface to an ethics of education as a practice in its own right?. Although it builds on the arguments of that ?preface?, this second part of the investigation can be read as a stand-alone essay. It begins with a brief review of a new subordination of educational practice achieved by a neo-liberal tenor (...) in international educational reforms in recent decades in Western societies. The practical context for the essay however is that failure of many of these reforms, like the failure of neo-liberal dominance in socio-economic policy, has given rise to emergent opportunities where inspirations for educational debate and policy-making are concerned. Arguing for the uptake of such opportunity, the ethical tenor of education as a practice in its own right is explored under four headings: (1) review and clarification of the inherent purposes of education as a practice; (2) investigation of educationally productive pathways that are characteristic of education as a practice in its own right; (3) elucidation of a recognisable family of virtues that arise from that practice itself; (4) exploration of the kinds of relationships through which these virtues, and their educational fruits, are nourished. (shrink)

The critical resources furnished bydeconstruction have more than occasionally beenturned with negative effect on traditional andmore recent conceptions of liberal learning,including the reaffirmation of the humanitiesassociated with philosophical hermeneutics. Thefirst two sections of the paper review thecontrasting and mutually opposed stancestowards learning represented by earlyformulations of deconstruction and ofhermeneutics. An exploration is thenundertaken in the later sections ofdevelopments that have taken place in bothdeconstruction and hermeneutics since theDerrida-Gadamer encounter in Paris in 1981.While not in any sense assimilatinghermeneutics to deconstruction or (...) vice versa,this exploration identifies significant shiftsin later formulations of both which provide amore inclusive context for understandinglearning as a human undertaking, including theidentification of tensions that are morepromising than negative. (shrink)

Traditionally,‘education’ in Western civilisation has involved those controlling the enterprise securing a privileged status for certain beliefs and outlooks. This proprietorial assumption of rights over the sensibilities of pupils, as it is described here, has, it is argued, survived the Enlightenment spirit of critique of power and enjoyed a renaissance in the recent ‘practical’ educational reforms in some Western countries. A case is made for saying that understanding educational practice must attend not to disembedded ‘concepts’ but to what actually befalls (...) our human experience when teaching and learning take place. This experience, it is argued, is inescapably a courtship, but courtships can be honourable or dubious, imprisoning or emancipating. Taking its cue from the historical Socrates, the paper suggests that the articulation and defence of emancipatory cultural courtships are among the most overlooked, promising and practical of tasks for the philosophy of education. (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

If Rome was for centuries the centre of power and influence for Christendom and the European world of learning associated with it, Brussels can claim to be such a twofold centre in the late twentieth century. The radical pluralism and postmodernist orientations which are now part of the Enlightenment legacy becloud the point that a new uniformity of belief and outlook—mercenary rather than spiritual—furnishes the context for most educational policy-making in European countries. Far from calling for a return to a (...) patriarchal past, the paper attempts to sketch an understanding of education as a universally defensible practice, while addressing the challenges of both postmodernism and the new uniformity. (shrink)

The incessancy of the educational reforms of recent decades in Western countries, and their prominent association with conceptions of quality drawn from industry and commerce, tend to becloud the lack of educational substance at the heart of many of the more influential of the reform patterns. This lack betokens something of a sophisticated renaissance of the late nineteenth-century mentality of payment-by-results. Exploration of the reforms also reveals a preoccupation with performance which bypasses the central concerns of education itself. Quality, in (...) short, becomes redefined by a privative rationality, which then furnishes the conceptual arena and the predominant language for decision-making in matters educational. Writings of two influential contemporary thinkers -- MacIntyre and Lyotard -- are reviewed to illustrate the nature and significance of what the reforms have neglected. These thinkers' contrasting analyses reveal how intricate the contexts of educational policy and practice have become in the pluralist circumstances of late modernity. Where MacIntyre adopts a largely traditionalist stance and Lyotard a largely dismissive one in the face of the competing inheritances which battle for the minds and hearts of learners, this paper suggests not a middle way, but a different way. This pursues a kind of thinking which is itself educational more than political, self-critical more than adversarial. Declining the path of self-assured advocacy it concentrates instead on opening up an educational issue which is more often overlooked, or busily bypassed, than understood: What actually befalls the experience of teachers and learners in the practical conduct of education? How can that experience benefit best as teaching and learning are defensibly practised? A range of communicative rather than combative virtues is identified in this connection and their promising import is briefly explored. (shrink)

Abstract The first section of the paper reviews the kind of action which unfolds in Plato's Republic, and argues that, from Book II onwards, its character shifts from a genuine dialogue (communicative action) to a more manipulative kind of intercourse (strategic action). While the former kind of action was characteristic of the educational activities of the historical Socrates, the case is made that this kind of action became largely eclipsed in Western education and superseded by the strategic concerns to which (...) Platonist conceptions of learning gave prominence. The Platonist legacy, it is pointed out, had a decisive impact on Western conceptions of learning, even beyond the Enlightenment. These conceptions were largely custodial rather than emancipatory in character. An argument is presented in thirteen steps in the second section of the paper, to establish the case that the kind of action which properly describes the experience of teaching and learning is that of a cultural courtship. A distinction is drawn between honourable and dishonourable forms of courtship, the honourable being a candidate for defence in universalist terms. The practical import of the distinction is considered. Under the title ?The Dialogue that we Aren't?, the third section reviews postmodern objections ? particularly those of Lyotard ? to the kind of argument made in the thirteen steps, and the concluding section considers Habermas? later theories in relation to my own ?universalist? argument. (shrink)

The eight short explorations in the first part of this paper attempt to identify some crucial developments in the history of Western learning which eclipsed pluralist educational practices in their (Socratic) infancy and thereafter, and which contributed to the widespread employment of education as a force for cultural uniformity, or assumed superiority. Drawing together the lessons of the first part with contemporary insights from hermeneutic philosophy, the second part sets forth briefly the promising educational possibilities for human self-understanding and co-existence (...) which are furnished by a newly-inspired reclamation of the long-eclipsed heritage. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger is, perhaps, the most controversial philosopher of the twentieth-century. Little has been written on him or about his work and its significance for educational thought. This unique collection by a group of international scholars reexamines Heidegger's work and its legacy for educational thought.

Pádraig Hogan has argued for a powerful conception of education as epiphany that is illuminated by the work of Heidegger and Joyce. But what are we to make of Stephen Dedalus’ intention (pretension?) to ‘Remember your epiphanies’? Developing the phenomenological Erinnerungsversuch or ‘essay in memory’ of David Farrell Krell, I will examine three ‘epiphanic fragments’ from the literature of education. The problem of the temporality of the educational epiphany will be identified and a resolution will be attempted. I (...) hope thus to extend an ontological account of memory into the educational experience, and also to develop the educational significance of the remembered or recollected epiphany. The article concludes with some emerging thoughts on the relation of education, literature and vocation. (shrink)

This is an edited version of an address by Hans-Georg Gadamer, presented at the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Gymnasium, Eppelheim, on 19 May 1999. The text has been edited and translated by John Cleary and Pádraig Hogan.

This is an edited version of an address by Hans-Georg Gadamer, presented at the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Gymnasium, Eppelheim, on 19 May 1999. The text has been edited and translated by John Cleary and Pádraig Hogan.

Hugh Connelly, An authentic Celtic voice : the Irish penitential and contemporary discourse on reconciliation -- Padraig Corkery, Bio-ethics and contemporary Irish moral discourse -- Amelia Fleming, The silent voice of creation and moral discourse. -- Raphael Gallagher, CSsR., A church silence in sexual moral discourse? -- Donal Harrington, Moral discourse and journalism. -- Linda Hogan, Contemporary humanitarianism: neutral or impartial? -- Vincent MacNamara, On having a religious morality. -- Enda McDonagh, A discourse on the centrality of justice in (...) moral theology. -- Suzanne Mulligan, Moral discourse in a time of AIDS. (shrink)

The current study examined the effects of cardiorespiratory fitness, identified with a continuous graded cycle ergometry, and aerobic exercise on cognitive functioning and entropy of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in 30 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 14 years. Higher and lower fit participants performed an executive function task after a bout of acute exercise and after rest while watching a film. EEG entropy, using the sample entropy measure, was repeatedly measured during the 1500ms post-stimulus interval to evaluate changes in (...) entropy over time. Analysis of the behavioural data for lower and higher fit groups revealed an interaction between fitness levels and acute physical exercise. Notably, lower fit, but not higher fit, participants had higher error rates for NoGo relative to Go trials in the rest condition, whereas in the acute exercise condition there were no differences in error rates between groups; higher fit participants also had significantly faster reaction times in the exercise condition in comparison with the rest condition. Analysis of EEG data revealed that higher fit participants demonstrated lower entropy post-stimulus than lower fit participants in the left frontal hemisphere, possibly indicating increased efficiency of early stage stimulus processing and more efficient allocation of cognitive resources to the task demands. The results suggest that EEG entropy is sensitive to stimulus processing demands and varies as a function of physical fitness levels, but not acute exercise. Physical fitness, in turn, may enhance cognition in adolescence by facilitating higher functionality of the attentional system in the context of lower levels of frontal EEG entropy. (shrink)

Literature provides us with otherwise unavailable insights into the ways emotions are produced, experienced and enacted in human social life. It is particularly valuable because it deepens our comprehension of the mutual relations between emotional response and ethical judgment. These are the central claims of Hogan's study, which carefully examines a range of highly esteemed literary works in the context of current neurobiological, psychological, sociological and other empirical research. In this work, he explains the value of literary study for (...) a cognitive science of emotion and outlines the emotional organization of the human mind. He explores the emotions of romantic love, grief, mirth, guilt, shame, jealousy, attachment, compassion and pity - in each case drawing on one work by Shakespeare and one or more works by writers from different historical periods or different cultural backgrounds, such as the eleventh-century Chinese poet Li Ch'ing-Chao and the contemporary Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka. (shrink)

Margaret Monahan Hogan; Catholic Health Care Institutions: Dinosaurs Awaiting Extinction or Safe Refuge in a Culture of Death, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenic.

Advertisements for high-technology products and services visualize processes and phenomena which are unvisualizable, such as globalization, networks, and information. We turn our attention specifically to the case of nanotechnology advertisements, using an approach that combines visual and sonic culture. Just as phenomena such as complexity and networks have become established in everyday discourse, nanotechnology seizes the social imaginary by establishing its own aesthetic conventions. Elaborating Raymond Williams’ concept of structures of feeling, we show that in visualizing nanotechnology, its stakeholders employ (...) spaces, verbs, and objects of feeling. These favorable nanotechnology structures of feeling are woven into the social imaginary, recursively producing the reality they describe. (shrink)

Hogan argues that the basis of interpretive method is ordinary inferential reasoning - that there is no general methodological difference between interpretation in the humanities and theory construction in the physical sciences. Further, the nature of interpretation does not entail cultural, historical, or other forms of relativism, as is commonly thought. However, this does not imply that there is only one way of approaching interpretation or that there is one true meaning of any particular work. Rather, there are many (...) kinds of interpretation and many kinds of meaning and the interpreter is free to stipulate one of these in the context of a particular enquiry. More exactly, discussing the constraints upon stipulation, Hogan says that, although there are a large number and variety of intents (those of authors and readers, conscious and unconscious), there are no nonintentional meanings - Platonic, social, essential, or otherwise. (shrink)

A central doctrine of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason holds that the content of human experience is rooted in an affection of sensibility by unknowable things in themselves. This famous and puzzling affection doctrine raises two seemingly intractable old problems, which can be termed the Indispensability and the Consistency Problems. By what right does Kant present affection by supersensible entities as an indispensable requirement of experience? And how could any argument for such indispensability avoid violating the Critique's doctrine of noumenal (...) ignorance? This essay develops a new solution to both problems, setting out from the continuity between Kant's early and mature views on sensibility and mind-world relations. Kant's early writings subscribe to an interactionist cosmology opposed to both Leibniz's preestablished harmony and Malebranche's occasionalism. The modern debate on mind-world relations shaping Kant's early cosmology points us to a widely recognized motivation for interactionism, turning on a constraint on agency within certain noninteractionist cosmologies. In particular, Kant's early conversion to a libertarian theory of freedom, together with his rejection of occasionalism, provides the basis for a compelling argument for the indispensability of world-mind affection relations. Extended to the transcendental idealist framework, the same argument reveals noumenal affection as an indispensable presupposition of some knowledge claims consistently upheld by Kant. This leads in turn to a satisfying solution to the Consistency Problem, showing that the doctrine of noumenal affection is not merely consistent with, but is partly motivated by, Kant's commitment to noumenal ignorance. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate the nature of the claim that agent-centered restrictions render deontology inconsistent and address three seemingly promising responses available to the deontologist. The first response is inspired by Kant’s essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns.” The latter two responses appeal to the importance of personal moral integrity and the moral worth of actions, respectively. I conclude that neither response will allow the deontologist to refute the charge of inconsistency.

This book explores how the creations of great authors result from the same operations as our everyday counterfactual and hypothetical imaginations, which cognitive scientists refer to as 'simulations'. Drawing on detailed literary analyses as well as recent research in neuroscience and related fields, Patrick Colm Hogan develops a rigorous theory of the principles governing simulation that goes beyond any existing framework. He examines the functions and mechanisms of narrative imagination, with particular attention to the role of theory of mind, (...) and relates this analysis to narrative universals. In the course of this theoretical discussion, Hogan explores works by Austen, Faulkner, Shakespeare, Racine, Brecht, Kafka and Calvino. He pays particular attention to the principles and parameters defining an author's narrative idiolect, examining the cognitive and emotional continuities that span an individual author's body of work. (shrink)