Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

The goal of the present Research Topic is to provide a forum where research groups, investigating teaching and teachers from multiple perspectives involving multidisciplinary (i.e., different disciplines working on different aspects of a problem independently within their disciplinary boundaries), interdisciplinary (i.e., restructuring and integrating existing disciplinary approaches to address problems relevant for all participating disciplines) and ideally transdisciplinary (i.e., seeking to integrate different lines of work from contributing disciplines to create new approaches or even new scientific disciplines) approaches (Hall, 2018; (...) Klein, 2017), can present and discuss the opportunities and challenges of such endeavors. The articles published in the research topic can be broadly classified into three categories: Conceptual reviews of transdisciplinary research on teaching and teachers, the results of transdisciplinary research projects, and methodological challenges and innovations related to transdisciplinary cooperation. Conceptual reviews of transdisciplinary researchThe Research Topic is initiated by Pea and Linn, who provide their personal perspectives on the emergence of the learning sciences as a transdisciplinary research community from the early 1970s to today. In line with the Research Topic’s aim, the paper illustrates how the specific approach of the learning sciences integrated approaches from disciplines as diverse as science education, psychology, an... (shrink)

This review article provides a new perspective on the ethics of green nudging. We advance a new model for assessing the ethical permissibility of green nudges (GNs). On this model, which provides normative guidance for policymakers, a GN is ethically permissible when the intervention is (1) efficacious, (2) cost-effective, and (3) the advantages of the GN (i.e. reducing the environmental harm) are not outweighed by countervailing costs/harms (i.e. for nudgees). While traditional ethical objections to nudges (paternalism, etc.) remain potential normative (...) costs associated with GNs, any such costs must be weighed against the injunction to reduce environmental harm to third parties. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

The historical crisis, by J. T. Marcus.--History and the search for identity, by P. Smith.--The role of history, by J. H. Plumb.--History as progress, by E. H. Carr.--On optimism, by P. Gay.--The purpose of history, by G. R. Elton.--The uses of history, by D. H. Fischer.--The dangers of history, by H. Butterfield.--Unity of history, by P. Smith.--History as private enterprise, by H. Zinn.--The historian and his day, by J. H. Hexter.--Present interest, by S. Kracauer.--On becoming an historian, by M. (...) Duberman.--Vietnam analogy: Greece, not Munich, by A. J. Mayer.--Analogies, by D. H. Fischer.--The tragic element in modern international conflict, by H. Butterfield. (shrink)

Arthur E. Lean’s irreverent and con­troversial essays represent the distillation of many ideas about education—ideas developed during most of a lifetime spent in and about schools. In the second edition of this popular work, to which he has added eight new essays, he presents his latest observations on current ele­ments and programs in education—such as the grading system, academic rank, the teaching process, assessment of edu­cational progress—concluding that many of them are not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the (...) very process which they are supposed to serve. Covering a broad spectrum of current issues in its criticism of American edu­cation at all levels, _And Merely Teach _is a book to be read by veteran educator, beginning teacher, and lay citizen alike. Though critical of the teaching profes­sion, Arthur Lean also offers constructive suggestions in the form of practical solu­tions that are urgently needed to save our ailing educational system. (shrink)

The structure of the Lorentz transformation depends intimately on the conventional operations for measurement of lengths (L) and time intervals (T). The prescription for length measurement leads to justifiable utilization of Euclidean geometry over finite values of the coordinates. Then T-values can be regarded as ratios of length measurements within a suitably defined clock. In certain cases the synchronization process should be supplemented by measurements providing position certification. The Lorentz transformation emerges from three specific symmetry statements, assured by the nature (...) of the L and T operations: (1) one-one correspondence of finite values of the coordinates of two inertial frames, (2) frame reciprocity, and (3) spatial isotropy. (Light signaling is not needed in this derivation. Afterward, it is assumed that light is indeed an agent moving with the common speed revealed by the transformation.) When rest masses have been determined in the conventional fashion, the conservation of momentum and of energy follow from the kinematics—a result due to Einstein. (shrink)

Le positivisme, de Comte à Carnap, a marqué une étape dans le développement d’une science spéciale en dehors des sujets traités jusque là par la philosophie. Cette communication montre que la « syntaxe logique » de Carnap comme la « synthèse subjective » de Comte est un hybride, — une tranche de la philosophie en train de devenir science, et essayant, à l’étape intermédiaire de son processus, d’être à la fois science et philosophie.

In this paper, we use the risk apportionment technique of Eeckhoudt, Rey and Schlesinger (2007) to study higher order risk preferences for others’ health as well as ex-ante and ex-post inequality preferences for social risky distributions, and their interaction. In an experiment on a sample of university students acting as impartial spectators, we observe risk aversion towards social health losses and a dislike of ex-ante inequality. In addition, evidence for ex-post inequality seeking is much weaker than evidence for ex-ante inequality (...) aversion. Because ex-ante inequality aversion is unrelated to risk aversion, we conclude that simple forms of utilitarianism are not relevant for individual judgment of social risk over health. Last, our investigation of precautionary distribution, which would occur when one particular group in the society suffers from background health risk, shows substantial polarization of preferences. (shrink)

BackgroundThe outbreak of COVID-19 has been a major interrupting event, challenging how societies and individuals deal with risk. An essential determinant of the virus’ spread is a series of individual decisions, such as wearing face masks in public space. Those decisions depend on trade-offs between costs and risks, and beliefs are key to explain these.MethodsWe elicit beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown in France by means of surveys asking French citizens about their belief of the infection fatality ratio for (...) COVID-19, own risk to catch the disease, risk as perceived by others, and expected prevalence rate. Those self-assessments were measured twice during lockdown: about 2 weeks after lockdown started and about 2 weeks before lockdown ended. We also measured the quality of these beliefs with respect to available evidence at the time of the surveys, allowing us to assess the calibration of beliefs based on risk-related socio-demographics. Finally, comparing own risk to expected prevalence rates in the two successive surveys provides a dynamic view of comparative optimism with respect to the disease.ResultsThe risk perceptions are rather high in absolute terms and they increased between the two surveys. We found no evidence for an impact of personal experience with COVID-19 on beliefs and lower risk perceptions of the IFR when someone in the respondent’s family has been diagnosed with a disease. Answers to survey 1 confirmed this pattern with a clear indication that respondents were optimistic about their chances to catch COVID-19. However, in survey 2, respondents revealed comparative pessimism.ConclusionThe results show that respondents overestimated the probabilities to catch or die from COVID-19, which is not unusual and does not necessarily reflect a strong deviation from rational behavior. While a rational model explains why the own risk to catch COVID-19 rose between the two surveys, it does not explain why the subjective assessment of the IFR remained stable. The comparative pessimism in survey 2 was likely due to a concomitant increase in the respondents’ perceived chances to catch the disease and a decreased expected prevalence rate. (shrink)

This essay develops a theory of natural signs in order to show how evolutionary theory breathes new life into teleology. An argument to the contrary presented by Richard Taylor is refuted. The essay defends the view that the concept of negative feedback explicates purposiveness and that symbiotic evolution explains the occurrence of naturally adapted feedback systems. But evolution itself is not a teleological process, nor is it a negative feedback system. There is an exploration of the nature of the dissatisfaction (...) we feel with an evolutionary account of purposiveness from which the fortuitous cannot be eliminated. (shrink)