Der Beitrag diskutiert die unterschiedlichen Kritiken, die an meiner in „Kontroverse Themen im Unterricht. Konstruktiv streiten lernen“ vorgelegten Position vorgebracht wurden. Im Durchgang durch diese Kritiken werde ich jeweils meine eigene Position klären und aufzeigen, wo Konkretisierungs- und Revisionsbedarf besteht und wo nicht. Ich schließe mit drei Forschungsdesideraten, die Möglichkeiten der konstruktiven Fortführung und Weiterentwicklung der philosophischen und wissenschaftlichen Debatte über kontroverse Themen im Unterricht skizzieren.

What kind of education is needed for democracy? How can education respond to the challenges that current democracies face? This unprecedented Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the most important ideas, issues, and thinkers within democratic education. Its thirty chapters are written by leading experts in the field in an accessible format. Its breadth of purpose and depth of analysis will appeal to both researchers and practitioners in education and politics. The Handbook addresses not only the historical roots and philosophical (...) foundations of democratic education, but also engages with contemporary political issues and key challenges to the project of democratic education. (shrink)

Critical Rationalists have developed some concepts to clarify what it means to take a “critical rationalist” standpoint towards political matters. The “critical attitude as a way of life”, the application of realizability tests, the “law of unintended consequences” and the conception of “piecemeal technology” are introduced for this purpose. Our analysis tries to show that such doctrines do not provide a basis for a viable “critical rationalist” political theory. They at best offer a repertory of arbitrary arguments for the symbolic (...) use of politics. (shrink)

Vertreter non-egalitaristischer Konzeptionen der Bildungsgerechtigkeit ersetzen das klassische egalitaristische Votum für Gleichheit als intrinsischen Wert durch die Begründung von Schwellenkonzeptionen, die über Adäquatheits- und Suffizienzbedingungen angeben sollen, was als Kriterium für die Identifikation illegitimer Bildungsungleichheiten zu gelten hat und was nicht. Alle Ungleichheiten oberhalb einer fixierten Schwelle sind aus non-egalitaristischer Sicht normativ nicht von Belang. Dieser Fokus auf Mindestbedingungen, die gegeben sein müssen, damit Akteure in liberal-demokratischen Gesellschaften politisch partizipieren und ein gedeihliches Leben führen können, steht nicht nur in einem (...) gewissen Passungsverhältnis zu aktuellen bildungspolitischen Entwicklungen, sondern scheint auch einige der Probleme angemessener lösen zu können, mit denen egalitaristische Konzeptionen der Bildungsgerechtigkeit üblicherweise konfrontiert werden. Die gerechtigkeitstheoretische Begründung von Schwellenkonzeptionen wird häufig durch demokratietheoretische Argumentationen flankiert, die davon ausgehen, dass die propagierten Mindeststandards zugleich die intergenerationale Tradierung der normativen Grundlagen liberaler Demokratien sicherstellen und die Voraussetzungen demokratischer Legitimität konstituieren, indem sie allgemeine Fähigkeiten und Tugenden fördern, auf die eine Zustimmung zu konsensfähigen Prinzipien der Gerechtigkeit und der fairen Kooperation angewiesen ist. In dem Beitrag werden zunächst die wichtigsten non-egalitaristischen Kritiken an egalitaristischen Konzeptionen der Bildungsgerechtigkeit vorgestellt. Daran anschließend werden einige der Schwachstellen und Fallstricke diskutiert, die mit suffizienzorientierten Verständnissen der Bildungsgerechtigkeit und ihren demokratietheoretischen Begründungen verbunden sind. Ziel des Beitrags ist es nicht eine ausformulierte egalitaristische Alternative zu non-egalitaristischen Konzeptionen der Bildungsgerechtigkeit vorzustellen, sondern nachzuweisen, dass Doktrinen der Suffizienz noch keine ausreichenden Kriterien liefern, um mit verbleibenden Bildungsungleichheiten angemessen umzugehen. (shrink)

It has often been noted that liberal democracies are facing a serious political crisis. A common reaction to this situation is to call for more comprehensive or more effective liberal democratic education. This volume discusses some of the most important challenges to and critiques of the paradigm of liberal democratic education. In doing so, it offers novel insights into how liberal democratic education can be amended, extended or qualified to address the special challenges of the current political moment.

Was macht ein Kind zu einem Kind? Sind Kinder ihren Eltern zur Dankbarkeit verpflichtet? Ist die Schulpflicht eine legitime staatliche Vorgabe? Gibt es ein Recht darauf, Kinder zu haben? -/- Das Handbuch liefert einen systematischen Überblick über die zentralen Konzepte und Theorien sowie die wichtigsten Diskussionsfelder der Philosophie der Kindheit. Zur Debatte stehen neben dem moralischen, rechtlichen und politischen Status von Kindern auch Fragen nach dem instrumentellen oder intrinsischen Wert der Kindheit sowie nach historischen Veränderungen im gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Kindern.

This brief introduction frames a guest-edited collection of eleven contributed articles in the Journal of Global Ethics focused on global justice and childhood. On a general level, there is widespread consensus that there is a strong need for improvement in the lives of children around the globe. What global justice demands in this regard, however, has never been fleshed out in detail and there is only a little philosophical literature on this topic. Against this background, five aspects of the question (...) of global justice for children need to be addressed. First, one has to take into account the debate between cosmopolitanism and particularism, as well as the debate as to whether and to what extent individual, collective or institutional actors should be prioritized. Secondly, a theory of global justice for children must explain how the content of global justice for children is founded and justified, and what it comprises. Third, different principles can be used to assess global justice for children. Only two prominent alternatives are mentioned here: egalitarianism and sufficiency. Fourthly, the temporal dimension of global justice is of particular importance for children. Fifthly, an approach focusing on the examination of injustices is equally necessary. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the practical importance of different forms of paternalism for educational theory and practice. Contrary to the traditional treatment of paternalism as a sometimes necessary and rather messy aspect of educational practices, I demonstrate that paternalism is to be regarded as an “indigenous concept” of educational theory and as the ‘indigenous model of justification’ that underlies the structure of educational practices. Based on an analysis of the intricate nexus between autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism and educational forms (...) of autonomy-based perfectionism I furthermore argue that a perfectionistically structured conception of autonomy provides a more adequate evaluative framework for justifying autonomy as an educational aim than alternative educational regimes of autonomy can deliver. Finally, I discuss some major theoretical problems of bridging the gap between general ethical principles and their application in practical fields. (shrink)

This volume contributes to the ongoing interdisciplinary controversies about the moral, legal and political status of children and childhood. It comprises essays by scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds on diverse theoretical problems and public policy controversies that bear upon different facets of the life of children in contemporary liberal democracies. The book is divided into three major parts that are each organized around a common general theme. The first part (“Children and Childhood: Autonomy, Well-Being and Paternalism”) focusses on key concepts (...) of an ethics of childhood. Part two (“Justice for Children”) contains chapters that are concerned with the topics of justice for children and justice during childhood. The third part (“The Politics of Childhood”) deals with issues that concern the importance of `childhood´ as a historically contingent political category and its relevance for the justification and practical design of political processes and institutions that affect children and families. (shrink)

Philosophie der Kindheit beschäftigt sich mit philosophischen Fragen und Problemen, die die Themenfelder Kinder und Kindheit betreffen. Hierzu zählen z. B. Fragen nach dem moralischen, politischen und rechtlichen Status von Kindern und dem instrumentellen oder intrinsischen Wert der Kindheit, nach Unterschieden zwischen Kindern und Erwachsenen und dem Konstruktionscharakter von Kindheit.

This book explores the relationship between different versions of liberalism and toleration by focusing on their shared theoretical and political challenges. Toleration is among the most pivotal and the most contested liberal values and virtues. Debates about the conceptual scope, justification, and political role of toleration are closely aligned with historical and contemporary philosophical controversies on the foundations of liberalism. The essays in this volume focus on the specific connection between toleration and liberalism. The essays in Part I reconstruct some (...) of the major historical controversies surrounding toleration and liberalism. Part II centers on general conceptual and justificatory questions concerning toleration as a central category for the definition of liberal political theory. Part III is devoted to the theoretical analysis of applied issues and cases of conflicts of toleration in liberal states and societies. Toleration and the Challenges to Liberalism will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in social and political philosophy, ethics, and political theory. (shrink)

This contribution develops a defence of a universalist conception of Global Citizenship Education against three prominent critiques, which are, among others, put forward by postcolonial scholars. The first critique argues that GCE is essentially a project of globally minded elites and therefore expressive both of global educational injustices and of the values and lifestyles of a particular class or milieu. The second critique assumes that GCE is based on genuinely ‘Western values’, which are neither universally accepted nor universally valid and (...) therefore unjustly forced on members of non-Western cultures and societies. GCE, according to this critique, is assumed to be another version of the educational justification of a hegemonic and unjust global Western regime. The third critique focuses on the epistemological preconditions of GCE. It assumes that GCE relies on a particular, culturally embedded ‘Western epistemology,’ which perpetuates historically grown global educational and epistemic injustices by dominating and subjugating alternative epistemological approaches. With respect to the first critique I argue that it is to a certain extent sociologically plausible, but wrong when it is applied to the educational and political legitimacy of GCE. The second critique overestimates the consensus within the ‘Western tradition’ and underestimates the transnational dissemination of universalist ideals and values as well as its own reliance on universalist validity claims. I argue that in order to provide a plausible criticism of historically grown global educational and political injustices, it is imperative for GCE to integrate central insights provided by the postcolonial critique, without giving up on universalist ideals and values. The third critique is, according to my argumentation, based on flawed epistemological assumptions, which do not withstand critical scrutiny. Instead of identifying epistemic and scientific claims as the expressions of a particular ‘culture’ or geographical location, I defend the position that philosophical and scientific research should ideally be conceived as a democratic and universalist project, whose emancipatory potential can only be realized on the basis of a universalist epistemology. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Indian Philosophy and Yoga in the Contemporary World, edited by Dedidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra, aims to apply central ideas of Aurobindo’s philosophy to problems of the contemporary world. Based on an interpretation of Aurobindo’s work as a practical spiritual philosophy, the contributions in this volume develop reconstructions of different aspects of his work in order to further our understanding of concrete political and societal problems.

This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will--a "two-way" power which ...

Durkheim écrit ce livre avec un but double : d'abord il voulait expliquer ce qui crée une société, ce qui la tient ensemble ; ensuite il voulait éclaircir l'influence qu'a la société sur la pensée logique. Pour Durkheim, la religion est la clé utilisée pour déverrouiller ces deux problématiques.Dans ce livre, Durkheim argumente que les représentations religieuses sont en fait des représentations collectives : l'essence du religieux ne peut être que le sacré. Il est une caractéristique qui se trouve universellement (...) dans toutes les religions. Le sacré, être collectif et impersonnel, représente ainsi la société elle-même. Ensuite il argumente que la société a un impact majeur dans la genèse de la pensée logique. C'est la société qui fournit à l'individu les catégories (le temps, l'espace, le nombre etc.) et les concepts nécessaires pour la pensée logique. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary theory defending the view that engagement with literature promotes readers’ empathy. Until the last century, few of the empirical claims adduced in that tradition were investigated experimentally. Recent work in psychology and neuropsychology has now shed new light on the interplay of empathy and literature. This article surveys the experimental findings, addressing three central questions: What is it to read empathically? Does reading make us more empathic? What characteristics of literature, if (...) any, affect readers’ empathy? While experimental studies have delivered no conclusive answers to these questions, it has exposed their psychological complexity and constructed a more nuanced picture of the diverse ways in which literature interacts with our empathic capacities. (shrink)