Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) influence has long been felt not just in philosophy, but also in such fields as art, architecture, and literary studies. Yet his difficult terminology has often scared away interested readers lacking an academic background in philosophy. In this new entry in the Ideas Explained series, author Graham Harman shows that Heidegger is actually one of the simplest and clearest of thinkers. His writings and analyses boil down to a single powerful idea: being is not presence. In any (...) human relation with the world, our thinking and even our acting do not fully exhaust the world. Something more always withdraws from our grasp. As Harman shows, Heidegger understood that human beings are not lucid scientific observers staring at the world and describing it, but instead are thrown into a world where light is always mixed with shadow. The book concludes with a comprehensible discussion of the philosopher’s notoriously opaque concept of the fourfold. (shrink)

The current fashions in both analytic and continental philosophy are staunchly anti-metaphysical. There is supposedly no way to talk about the world itself — the philosopher is confined to antiseptic discussions of language, or of other modes of human access to the world. In this provocative work, Graham Harman expands the discussion from his previous book, Tool-Being, arguing for a theory of "the carpentry of things" — a more accessible way of viewing the world that incorporates ideas from Husserl, Levinas, (...) Lingis, and other philosophers. (shrink)

One of the few contexts in which high school students are introduced to argumentation is in philosophy courses. Do such teachers promote critical thinking and argumentation? We present the findings of a mixed-methods empirical study of Ontario high school philosophy teachers, providing insight into the degree to which teachers promote oppositional readings of texts in a manner consistent with critical thinking. We identify the factors that contribute to critical thinking, as well as the barriers, focusing textbooks use.

The undervaluing of the humanistic study of education, in liberal arts colleges and teacher-training institutions alike, is a symptom of the superstition described by Dewey that whatever is liberal must be useless, and whatever useful, illiberal. Educational studies is thought too utilitarian to constitute a true liberal art, and educational foundations are marginalized in schools of education as if their liberality were a sign of their uselessness. ;I propose understanding philosophy as a love of open questions, and education as an (...) ongoing conversation at the intersection of three interrelated, humanistic questions , I argue that educational philosophy constitutes a devotion to recovering these basic educational questions, which become foreclosed by historical horizons, institutional imperatives, and educational cant. Educational philosophers express this love in a pedagogy of liberal learning, inviting others to learn to love the educational questions themselves. ;Why extend this invitation to teachers? Against the objection that liberal learning is inherently impractical, and thereby antithetical to preparation for a practice, I argue that liberal teacher education proves useful precisely by refusing to let the voice of practicality dominate the educational conversation. To the charge that liberal self-cultivation is inimical to the spirit of a service profession, I respond that good teaching requires an evolving self and is sabotaged by the ascetic ideal. ;Furthermore, liberal teacher education promotes critical reflection. Educational philosophy--guiding educators through hermeneutic encounters with historically-recessed, humanistic texts that illuminate educational questions we have forgotten how to ask--goes beyond the "reflective practitioner" model to foster practical wisdom, which requires self-knowledge, ethical reflection, and untimeliness. In urging educators to transform themselves from appliers of an unexamined vision of human flourishing to engaged inquirers into the Good, educational philosophy cultivates not only criticality but natality, helping teachers reconceive of their practice as a personal quest. ;Contrary to "superstition," education, that most practical of arts, is central to liberal-humanistic inquiry, and by inviting teachers to join this ongoing conversation over the ends and means of human development, liberal teacher education testifies to the utility of culture. (shrink)