Variously a teacher, clergyman and town mayor, William Fordyce Mavor wrote prolifically on a range of literary, historical and educational topics. This work, first published in 1801 and reissued here in a corrected and improved edition of 1843, is Mavor's most famous. Intended to 'sow the seeds of useful learning', it is both a reading primer and a compendium of general knowledge. Beginning with the alphabet, with each letter illustrated by the delightful wood engravings of Thomas Bewick, the book presents (...) vocabulary of increasing complexity together with simple and amusing stories for reading practice, as well as guidance on spelling and grammar. General knowledge is addressed through sections on such topics as weights and measures, geography, key dates in history, and the solar system. So successful was the work that it ran to 500 editions, had sold more than 2 million copies by 1823, and was translated into Hindi and French. (shrink)

Rylands English MS 60, compiled for the Spencer family in the eighteenth century, contains 130 printed portraits of early modern artists gathered from diverse sources and mounted in two albums: 76 portraits in the first volume, which is devoted to northern European artists, and 54 in the second volume, containing Italian and French painters. Both albums of this ‘Collection of Engravings of Portraits of Painters’ were initially planned to include a written biography of each artist copied from the few (...) sources available in English at the time, but that part of the project was abandoned. This article relates English MS 60 to shifting practices of picturing art history. It examines the rise of printed artists’ portraits, tracing the divergent histories of the genre south and north of the Alps, and explores how biographical approaches to the history of art were being replaced, in the eighteenth century, by the development of illustrated texts about art. (shrink)

The doctor-patient relationship -- Consent, choice, and refusal : adults with capacity -- Treating adults who lack capacity -- Children and young people -- Confidentiality -- Health records -- Contraception, abortion, and birth -- Assisted reproduction -- Genetics -- Caring for patients at the end of life -- Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide -- Responsibilities after a patient's death -- Prescribing and administering medication -- Research and innovative treatment -- Emergency situations -- Doctors with dual obligations -- Providing treatment and (...) care in detention settings -- Education and training -- Teamwork, referral, delegation, and shared care -- Public health dimensions of medical practice -- Reducing risk, clinical error, and poor performance. (shrink)

Of all humanities disciplines, none is more resistant to the program of positive psychology or more hostile to the prevailing discourse of human flourishing than literary studies. The approach taken in this volume of essays is neither to gloss over that antagonism nor to launch a series of blasts against positive psychology and the happiness industry. Rather, the essays are attempts to reflect on how the kinds of literary research the contributors themselves are doing, the kinds of work to which (...) they are personally committed, might become part of an interdisciplinary conversation about human flourishing. The authors' specific fields of work are wide ranging, covering literary aesthetics, book history, digital humanities, and reader reception, as well as the important "inter-disciplines" of gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, and black studies-fields in which issues of stigma and exclusion are paramount, and which have critiqued the discourse of human flourishing for its failure to grapple with structural inequality and human difference. Taken together, the essays contribute more points of ambiguity and hesitation to the study of human flourishing than decisive advancements. Literary scholars are drawn more readily to the problematic than to the decidable. But by dwelling on the trouble spots in a field of inquiry still largely confined to the sciences, this volume provides the groundwork for new and more productive forms of interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Transformation and the Negativity and Discontinuity in Learning Recognising the other as learner: On Peters' Concept of the Teacher as Educator World as Other: Transformative Encounters with the World as a Challenge to Teacher and Learner Implications for Teaching On the Indispensability of Philosophy of Education for Teacher Education Conclusions Notes References.

This profound resource extends the concept of education as a human right to propose lasting solutions to educational disparities worldwide. Its multiperspective analysis probes the roots of educational inequities in recent and longstanding economic divisions, cultural domination, and political injustice, framing equal access to meaningful learning as a core aspect of a humane society. Characteristics of Educational Leaders without Borders (ELWB) are defined, and the challenges of their mission are examined in global context, from education of girls in the Middle (...) East to internet access in Haiti to the complex situation of U.S. minority students. In addition, an overview of historical precedents for ELWB in the work of Dewey and others helps to illuminate pressing issues that must be addressed by current and future humanistic leaders to improve educational access for the world's children. Among the topics covered: Education without nationalism: locating leadership when borders no longer hold. Toward a metanoia of global educational leadership. Teaching, technology, and transformation. The unique challenges of education in emerging West African countries. The economics of globalization in higher education. The transnational context of schooling. Educators, education researchers, and policymakers in education will welcome the clear-minded realism and ethically robust agenda found in Educational Leaders without Borders. (shrink)

The main purpose of this book is to introduce a broader audience to emergence by illustrating how discoveries in the physical sciences have informed the ways we think about it. In a nutshell, emergence asserts that non-reductive behavior arises at higher levels of organization and complexity. As physicist Philip Anderson put it, "more is different." Along the text's conversational tour through the terrain of quantum physics, phase transitions, nonlinear and statistical physics, networks and complexity, the author highlights the various philosophical (...) nuances that arise in encounters with emergence. The final part of the book zooms out to reflect on some larger lessons that emergence affords us. One of those larger lessons is the realization that the great diversity of theories and models, and the great variety of independent explanatory frameworks, will always be with us in the sciences and beyond. There is no "Theory of Everything" just around the corner waiting to be discovered. One of the main benefits of this book is that it will make a number of exciting scientific concepts that are not normally covered at this level accessible to a broader audience. The overall presentation, including the use of examples, analogies, metaphors, and biographical interludes, is geared for the educated non-specialist. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking book, Andrea R. English challenges common assumptions by arguing that discontinuous experiences, such as uncertainty and struggle, are essential to the learning process. To make this argument, Dr. English draws from the works of two seminal thinkers in philosophy of education - nineteenth-century German philosopher J. F. Herbart and American Pragmatist John Dewey. English's analysis considers Herbart's influence on Dewey, inverting the accepted interpretation of Dewey's thought as a dramatic break from modern European understandings (...) of education. (shrink)

The abortion debate rages on. Yet the two most popular positions seem to be clearly mistaken. Conservatives maintain that a human life begins at conception and that therefore abortion must be wrong because it is murder. But not all killings of humans are murders. Most notably, self defense may justify even the killing of an innocent person.Liberals, on the other hand, are just as mistaken in their argument that since a fetus does not become a person until birth, a woman (...) may do whatever she pleases in and to her own body. First, you cannot do as you please with your own body if it affects other people adversely. Second, if a fetus is not a person, that does not imply that you can do to it anything you wish. Animals, for example, are not persons, yet to kill or torture them for no reason at all is wrong. (shrink)

In the wake of scandals about the unauthorised retention of organs following postmortem examination, the issue of valid consent has returned to the forefront. Emphasis is put on obtaining explicit authorisation from the patient or family prior to any medical intervention, including those involving the dead. Although the controversies in the UK arose from the retention of human material for education or research rather than therapy, concern has been expressed that public mistrust could also adversely affect organ donation for transplantation. (...) At the same time, however, the British Medical Association continues to call for a shift to a system of presumed consent for organ transplantation. This apparent inconsistency can be justified because valid distinctions exist between the reasons requiring explicit consent for retention and the acceptability of presumed consent for transplantation. This paper argues for introducing a system of presumed consent for organ donation, given the overwhelming expressions of public support for transplantation. Ongoing legislative review in the UK provides an ideal chance to alter the default position to one where potential donors can simply acquiesce or opt out of donation. Combined with consultation with their relatives, this could be a much better method of realising individuals’ wishes. It would also achieve a better balance between the duties owed to the deceased and those owed to people awaiting a transplant. (shrink)

In the current climate of high-stakes testing and performance-based accountability measures, there is a pressing need to reconsider the nature of teaching and what capacities one must develop to be a good teacher. Educational policy experts around the world have pointed out that policies focused disproportionately on student test outcomes can promote teaching practices that are reified and mechanical, and which lead to students developing mere memorisation skills, rather than critical thinking and conceptual understanding. Philosophers of dialogue and dialogic teaching (...) offer a different view of teaching, one that counters mechanical, transmissive or ‘monologic’ teaching. In this paper, I seek to extend the notion of dialogic teaching as a method of supporting social and moral learning processes. Specifically, my focus is on answering the question: What capacities must a teacher have to engage students dialogically? Drawing on Paulo Freire and other contemporary philosophers, I examine dialogic interaction as involving a way of ‘being with learners’ and put forth three teacher capacities necessary for dialogic teaching: self-critique, narrativity and building community. I then examine further what is concretely entailed in the practice of dialogic teaching using research in educational psychology. I aim to highlight how dialogic teaching, unlike monologic teaching, involves the teacher's active ability to support learners’ identification and exploration of their own blind spots—that is, the limits of knowledge and ability—and those of others. Following this, I consider implications of my discussion for international policy on teacher assessment. I close the paper with considerations for future research on teacher capacity and teacher evaluation. This paper contributes to our understanding of teacher capacity and the nature and aims of good teaching. (shrink)

Hegemonic masculinity, a framework where stereotypically masculine traits are over-emphasized, plays a central role in sport, partly due to an excessive focus on winning. This type of masculinity marginalizes those that do not possess specific traits, including many women and men. I argue sport reform focused on mitigating hypercompetitive attitudes can reduce this harmful and marginalizing hegemonic masculinity in sport. I make this argument first by challenging the dichotomous nature of sport, especially in recognizing that all outcomes are a blend (...) of winning and losing, that ties are relevant and informative outcomes to contests, and that winning and losing do not always tell accurate stories of the outcome. Secondly, I contend that expanding the potential outcomes in sport can help broaden the emphasis of competitive sport to take into account playing well and improving, in terms of both the test and the contest. I conclude that these reforms decrease hegemonic masculinity, making sport better for all. (shrink)

Maurice Blondel, best known for his 1893 work on Action, offers a window on the world of philosophers who negotiated the scientific disciplines at the turn of the twentieth century. During this amazing era of discoveries, Blondel encouraged the bold, encyclopedic spirit of science as well as the new standards coming into use for accumulating and judging observational evidence. However, he warned of reductionism, determinism, and phenomenism, trends which could be avoided or corrected if the nature and scope of science (...) were broadened. Such a broadening would introduce a more integrated and holistic understanding of the scientific quest. (shrink)

My argument in this paper is that humility is implied in the concept of teaching, if teaching is construed in a strong sense. Teaching in a strong sense is a view of teaching as linked to students’ embodied experiences (including cognitive and moral-social dimensions), in particular students’ experiences of limitation, whereas a weak sense of teaching refers to teaching as narrowly focused on student cognitive development. In addition to detailing the relation between humility and strong sense teaching, I will also (...) argue that humility is acquired through the practice of teaching. My discussion connects to the growing interest, especially in virtue epistemology discourse, in the idea that teachers should educate for virtues. Drawing upon John Dewey and contemporary virtue epistemology discourse, I discuss humility, paying particular attention to an overlooked aspect of humility that I refer to as the educative dimension of humility. I then connect this concept of humility to the notion of teaching in a strong sense. In the final section, I discuss how humility in teaching is learned in the practice of teaching by listening to students in particular ways. In addition, I make connections between my concept of teaching and the practice of cultivating students’ virtues. I conclude with a critique of common practices of evaluating good teaching, which I situate within the context of international educational policy on teacher evaluation. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s ‘ethnological approach’ to the philosophy of mathematics, in particular his discussion of calculation as an experiment and the limits of empiricism in mathematics, is presented against three interrelated backdrops: (1) James’ critique of Spencer’s evolutionary empiricism, specifically regarding necessary truths; (2) the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, led by Haddon and Rivers, whose Reports implicitly confuted Spencer; and (3) the subsequent work of Malinowski, especially his supplement to Ogden and Richards’ The Meaning of Meaning, a book sent to (...) Wittgenstein upon its publication in 1923. String figures as mathematics is a main illustrative example. (shrink)

In Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Stefan Collini deploys a fiercely skeptical wit against what he calls the "absence thesis": the cliché view of England as a land peculiarly lacking in intellectuals. The brio and aggression with which he demolishes this longstanding myth serve a paradoxical double function, marking his own claim to a place in the specifically English and male tradition of writing that he so effectively deconstructs.

On several occasions in his work, R. S. Peters identifies a difficulty inherent in teaching that underscores the complexity of this relationship: the teacher has the task of passing on knowledge while at the same time allowing knowledge that is passed on to be criticised and revised by the learner. This inquiry asks: first, how does Peters envisage these two tasks coming together in teaching, and, second, does he go far enough in developing what it means for the teacher to (...) recognise the difference and otherness of the learner? At the heart of the matter in answering these questions is how to conceive of the connection between learning and the transformation of the individual. Before turning to Peters, this inquiry begins by discussing connections between transformation and learning in classical and contemporary philosophical discourse. In this context, notions of discontinuity and interruption are shown to be central to understanding transformational learning processes. Peters' thought is then located within this discourse and taken up in three central ways: (1) by analysing his notion of teaching (2) by examining the ideas of learning and transformation embedded in his concept of teaching, and (3) by inquiring into how these issues relate to his idea of philosophy of education as a central part of teacher education. (shrink)

After a unilateral focus on medical professional obligations to patients in most of the 20th century, there is a growing, if modest, interest in patient responsibility. This article critiques some public assertions, explores the ethics literature, and attempts to find some consensus and moral grounds for positions taken on the question, "Does a patient have moral obligations in the process of interactions with medical and other professional caregivers?" There is widespread agreement on a few responsibilities, such as "truth telling" and (...) "avoiding harm to others," but no apparent consensus either on the list of duties or on the appropriate justification for such duties. The context and clinical realities of patient interactions are noted to suggest that feasibility is important in making judgments of patient obligations. (shrink)

In his central educational work, The Science of Education (1806), J.F. Herbart did not explicitly develop a theory of listening, yet his concept of the teacher as a guide in the moral development of the learner gives valuable insight into the moral dimension of listening within teacher-student interaction. Herbart's theory radically calls into question the assumed linearity between listening and obedience to external authority, not only illuminating important distinctions between socialization and education, but also underscoring consequences for our understanding of (...) the role of listening in educational relations. In this inquiry, Andrea English argues that critical listening in teaching contributes to the moral education and development of the learner. To do this, she examines Herbart's view of the teacher's task as a moral guide in the realm of moral education. English contends that reexamining Herbart's theory of education (a theory that is, for the most part, no longer discussed in Anglo-American educational philosophy) can productively inform our understanding of moral education in democratic and pluralist societies. (shrink)

Presents the latest research on how reasoning with analogies, metaphors, metonymies, and images can facilitate mathematical understanding. For math education, educational psychology, and cognitive science scholars.

A number of sport philosophers have noted the potential of sport as meaningful narrative and storytelling. While these arguments are convincing, they fail to acknowledge that not all athletes exper...

An emerging view of science rejects an infallible observational given and takes consensus as the starting point for confirmation. Theory and Observation are seen as mutually correcting. I argue that the same is true of ethics, such as Rawls' "reflective equilibrium." Though epistemologically similar, their truth conditions may differ. Ethics may be reducible to physics; but even if it is not, that does not imply that it has no truth conditions. The options for truth in ethics are the same as (...) those of other abstract fields such as mathematics. (shrink)