Perfect adaptation in a dynamical system is the phenomenon that one or more variables have an initial transient response to a persistent change in an external stimulus but revert to their original value as the system converges to equilibrium. With the help of the causal ordering algorithm, one can construct graphical representations of dynamical systems that represent the causal relations between the variables and the conditional independences in the equilibrium distribution. We apply these tools to formulate sufficient graphical conditions for (...) identifying perfect adaptation from a set of first-order differential equations. Furthermore, we give sufficient conditions to test for the presence of perfect adaptation in experimental equilibrium data. We apply this method to a simple model for a protein signalling pathway and test its predictions in both simulations and using real-world protein expression data. We demonstrate that perfect adaptation can lead to misleading orientation of edges in the output of causal discovery algorithms. (shrink)

Collecting a wide range of contemporary and classical theological essays dealing with medical ethics, this volume is the finest resource available for engaging ...

In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, the integration of product-evaluating certificates and reports into advertisements triggered repeated condemnations of “advertisement- Gutachten”, and scientists and science administrators introduced various restrictions to prevent the appearance of such documents. At the same time, the provision of Gutachten to private individuals and firms seemed crucial to the success of many private and public laboratories. Some chemical and other professionals, moreover, argued that the authoring and use of Reklamegutachten could represent a “scientific” and, therefore, (...) ethical practice. By examining the contested history of the advertisement- Gutachten, this article reveals how a previously tolerated knowledge service lost its legitimacy in a particular place and period of time, and highlights the challenges of eliminating this practice or restoring its legitimacy afterward. The article also explores how professional scientists’ approaches to maintaining a reputation for integrity in the face of commercial and competitive pressures related to the better-known efforts of professionals in other fields, particularly the medical. I emphasize that, in determining whether a Gutachten qualified as scientific, the nature and transparency of the underlying research process was only one of the criteria that were considered, and often not the most significant yardstick. At the same time, however, ideas about the personal and professional/institutional integrity of providers of Gutachten were inextricably connected with assessments of the honesty and objectivity of their research. (shrink)

This book charts Carl Gustav Jung’s 32-year correspondence with James Kirsch, a German-Jewish psychiatrist who founded Jungian communities in Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, and Los Angeles, and adds depth and complexity to the previously published record of the early Jungian movement. Their letters tell of heroic survival, brilliant creativity, and the building of generative institutions; but these themes are also darkened by personal and collective shadows. The Nazi era looms over the first half of the book and shapes the story (...) in ways that are fateful not only for Kirsch and his career but also for Jung and his. In 1934, fearing that the undertow of anti-Semitism had taken hold of his beloved teacher, Kirsch challenged Jung to explain some of his publications for the German-dominated International Society for Psychotherapy. Jung’s answer convinced Kirsch of his sincerity, and from then on Kirsch defended him fiercely against any allegation of anti-Semitism. The letters are translated here for the first time and the illuminating editorial commentary provides unique and incisive insights into the writers’ world. Supported by appendices, including a series of revealing letters between Hilde Kirsch and Jung, _The Jung-Kirsch Letters_ is an invaluable resource for those in the fields of analytical psychology and Jungian studies, as well as all those with an interest in learning more about the historical and cultural origins of the Jungian movement. (shrink)

This book charts Carl Gustav Jung’s 33-year correspondence with James Kirsch, adding depth and complexity to the previously published record of the early Jungian movement. Kirsch was a German-Jewish psychiatrist, a first-generation follower of Jung, who founded Jungian communities in Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, and Los Angeles. Their letters tell of heroic survival, brilliant creativity, and the building of generative institutions, but these themes are darkened by personal and collective shadows. The Nazi era looms over the first half of the (...) book, shaping the story in ways that were fateful not only for Kirsch and his career but also for Jung and his. Kirsch trained with Jung and acted as a tutor in Jewish psychology and culture to him. In 1934, fearing that anti-Semitism had seized his teacher, Kirsch challenged Jung to explain some of his publications for the Nazi-dominated Medical Society for Psychotherapy. Jung’s answer convinced Kirsch of his sincerity, and from then on Kirsch defended him fiercely against any allegation of anti-Semitism. We also witness Kirsch’s lifelong struggle with states of archetypal possession: his identification with the interior God-image on the one hand, and with unconscious feminine aspects of his psyche on the other. These complexes were expressed, for Kirsch, in physical symptoms and emotional dilemmas, and they led him into clinical boundary violations which were costly to his analysands, his family and himself. The text of these historical documents is translated with great attention to style and accuracy, and generous editorial scaffolding gives glimpses into the writers’ world. Four appendices are included: two essays by Kirsch, a series of letters between Hilde Kirsch and Jung, and a brief, incisive essay on the Medical Society for Psychotherapy. This revised edition includes primary material that was unavailable when the book was first published, as well as updated footnotes and minor corrections to the translated letters. (shrink)

Le Service de la recherche, partie intégrante mais autonome de l'ORTF, a connu quinze ans d'existence entre le Club d'essai auquel il succède et l'Institut national de l'audiovisuel, dont il prépare lointainement la fondation. Il faut noter qu'en 1960, les modestes studios du 37 rue de l'Université ne s'occupent plus de recherche radiophonique, mais sont voués depuis une dizaine d'années à la musique concrète et expérimentale. La pression de la télévision s'accentuant et devenant le souci majeur de la RTF, il (...) est donc dans la logique institutionnelle de voir mobilisés à d'autres fins des moyens de recherche jusque-là consacrés à la musique. Pierre Schaeffer se lance dans une recherche expérimentale intégrée au dispositif que représente la radiotélévision, nouvelle aventure qui va jouer un rôle essentiel dans les domaines de l'information et de la communication avant même qu'il ne formalise sa théorie.The Research Service, part of the autonomous but ORTF had fifteen years of existence between the Club test to which it succeeds and the National Institute of Audiovisual, which prepares the foundation distantly. It should be noted that in 1960, the modest studios 37 rue de l'Université not occupy more research radio, but are destined for a decade with musique concrète and experimental. The pressure is increasing and television became the major concern of the RTF, it is the institutional logic of seeing mobilized for other purposes means research hitherto devoted to music. Pierre Schaeffer embarked on an experimental device that is integrated broadcasting, new adventure that will play a key role in the fields of information and communication before he formalized his theory. (shrink)

Cette tentative de rapprochement entre l'auteur de la célèbre formule "Dieu est mort" et le soufisme, la gnose et l'hermétisme, trois courants mineurs issus des grandes religions monothéistes, préoccupés par la notion de connaissance, ...

This volume brings together, for the first time, experts on Greek, Syriac, and Arabic traditions of doxography, in order to investigate and present shared contexts and questions, and to initiate future collaboration among the fields of classics, Arabic studies, and the history of philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 313-333 [Access article in PDF] Vestige of the Third Force: Willem Bilderdijk, Poet, Anti-Skeptic, Millenarian Joris van Eijnatten One of the unfortunate consequences of Babel is that only the Dutch read Dutch poetry. 1 Although English-speaking historians may have heard of the seventeenth-century poet Joost van den Vondel, who generally qualifies as the greatest literary artist of the Netherlands, virtually (...) no one outside Holland knows Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), poet, jurist, and man of learning. Robert Southey, having met the poet at his home in Leiden in 1825, lamented several years later the fact that Bilderdijk's fame had not traversed national boundaries: "And who is Bilderdyk?" methinks thou sayest: A ready question; yet which, trust me, Allan, Would not be asked, had not the curse that came From Babel, clipt the wings of Poetry. 2When Southey sojourned in the Netherlands, Bilderdijk had already established his reputation as one of the few unconventional figures in Dutch history, comparable, in this sense, to Coornhert and Spinoza. The most outstanding poet of his age, he dominated nineteenth-century Dutch literature through his versatility, rhetorical prowess and sheer output. He is reputed to have written 300,000 lines of verse, not counting his unpublished poems. He practiced virtually all literary genres, from Pindaric odes and erotic rhyme to didactic poetry. Versed in the classics, he wrote numerous translations of, among many others, Homer, Sophocles, Anacreon, Callimachus, Horace, and Ovid. Bilderdijk was a prolific [End Page 313] writer of essays on subjects ranging from moral philosophy, epistemology, and natural law to aesthetics, architecture, and botany. He translated theological and devotional works, including Thomas Chalmers's Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, Chrysostome's sermons, and books on freemasonry and pneumatology. Besides contributing to perspective drawing, he wrote the first geological study in Dutch. His History of the Fatherland appeared posthumously in thirteen volumes. He himself regarded his linguistic studies and literary essays as his main achievement. Bilderdijk filled thousands of pages with his idiosyncratic views on the gender of nouns, the alphabet, grammar, spelling, medieval manuscripts, tragedy, and drama in general.Not surprisingly, Bilderdijk's varied interests and comprehensive mind have led to different interpretations of his thought. Most are one of two kinds. Writers subscribing to the first interpretation regard him as a somewhat strange but devout apologist for Calvinist orthodoxy. They stress the fact that Bilderdijk was the only intellectual who, in the midst of the soul-destroying rationalism propounded by a complacent liberal establishment, dared to cry out against Revolution and Enlightenment, thus revivifying the religious heart of the nation. 3 Those who follow the second interpretation emphasize the Romantic nature of his thought. This group tends to look upon Bilderdijk as the only true Dutch Romantic, a Wordsworth and Coleridge combined, a metaphysical if rather erratic genius who outgrew the intellectual marshlands of his native country. Writers in this tradition stress his definition of poetry as a spontaneous overflow of feeling, his linguistic achievements, his preoccupation with geology, and his visionary view of Dutch history. 4 One major interpreter, commenting on Bilderdijk's "real position as a philosopher," has stated that "to me there can be no doubt that Bilderdijk should be placed among the post-Kantian idealists like Fichte and Schelling (cf., again, Coleridge!)." 5Such statements are largely products of wishful thinking. Bilderdijk was not a devout Calvinist. He hardly ever went to church, his theology exhibits suspiciously heterodox leanings, and his professed adherence to the doctrine of predestination had less to do with a profound knowledge of the articles of Dort than mystical resignation. Similarly, the depiction of Bilderdijk as a post-Kantian idealist is sympathetic but lacks any evidence. Some literary historians have [End Page 314] tried to salvage the "Romantic" nature of his poetry, but the result is not particularly convincing. 6"And who is Bilderdijk," to echo Southey, if he was neither a Calvinist nor a Romantic? How should one interpret his thought? What should one do... (shrink)

This paper presents Hegel’s criticism of two central ideas of Pyrrhonism: the importance of stating only how things appear and Pyrrhonism as a way of life. After providing a sketch of the main features of Pyrrhonism, the paper lays out and critically evaluates Hegel’s largely unexamined argument against Pyrrhonism in his early 1802 essay on skepticism. Hegel claims that the Pyrrhonist’s appeal to appearance renders Pyrrhonism philosophically vacuous: insofar as Pyrrhonism merely describes the subjective contents of the Pyrrhonist’s mind, it (...) has no philosophical import. Sextus would not accept Hegel’s criticism because the appeal to appearance could express the provisional rather than purely subjective character of Pyrrhonism. The paper proceeds by examining Hegel’s argument in the Phenomenology that skepticism is contradictory on account of conjoining suspension of judgment with acquiescing in appearances as the guide to life. Sextus would reject Hegel’s criticism by insisting on the distinction between judgment and appearance. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence (AI) deployment is growing exponentially, questions have been raised whether the developed AI ethics discourse is apt to address the currently pressing questions in the field. Building on critical theory, this article aims to expand the scope of AI ethics by arguing that in addition to ethical principles and design, the organizational dimension (i.e. the background assumptions and values influencing design processes) plays a pivotal role in the operationalization of ethics in AI development and deployment contexts. Through (...) the prism of critical theory, and the notions of underdetermination and technical code as developed by Feenberg in particular, the organizational dimension is related to two general challenges in operationalizing ethical principles in AI: (a) the challenge of ethical principles placing conflicting demands on an AI design that cannot be satisfied simultaneously, for which the term ‘inter-principle tension’ is coined, and (b) the challenge of translating an ethical principle to a technological form, constraint or demand, for which the term ‘intra-principle tension’ is coined. Rather than discussing principles, methods or metrics, the notion of technical code precipitates a discussion on the subsequent questions of value decisions, governance and procedural checks and balances. It is held that including and interrogating the organizational context in AI ethics approaches allows for a more in depth understanding of the current challenges concerning the formalization and implementation of ethical principles as well as of the ways in which these challenges could be met. (shrink)

People narrating the experience of dysregulated anger after a brain injury call upon metaphor in patterned ways to help them make sense of their situation. Here, I analyze the use of the metaphor of the doubled self in a personal narrative of brain injury, and I situate this metaphor in its cultural history by analyzing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Incredible Hulk as landmark moments in its development. A pattern of thought reflecting Seneca’s philosophy on the incompatibility of (...) anger with rational selfhood emerges. I discuss implications for the way we care for people struggling with post-brain-injury anger. (shrink)

In this review of empirical studies we aimed to assess the influence of religion and world view on nurses' attitudes towards euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. We searched PubMed for articles published before August 2008 using combinations of search terms. Most identified studies showed a clear relationship between religion or world view and nurses' attitudes towards euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. Differences in attitude were found to be influenced by religious or ideological affiliation, observance of religious practices, religious doctrines, and (...) personal importance attributed to religion or world view. Nevertheless, a coherent comparative interpretation of the results of the identified studies was difficult. We concluded that no study has so far exhaustively investigated the relationship between religion or world view and nurses' attitudes towards euthanasia or physician assisted suicide and that further research is required. (shrink)

Machine ethics is the field that strives to develop ‘artificial moral agents’ (AMAs), artificial systems that can autonomously make moral decisions. Some authors have questioned the feasibility of machine ethics, by questioning whether artificial systems can possess moral competence, or the capacity to reach morally right decisions in various situations. This paper explores this question by drawing on the work of several moral philosophers (McDowell, Wiggins, Hampshire, and Nussbaum) who have characterised moral competence in a manner inspired by Aristotle. Although (...) disparate in many ways, these philosophers all emphasise what may be called ‘moral sensitivity’ as a precondition for moral competence. Moral sensitivity is the uncodified, practical skill to recognise, in a range of situations, which features of the situations are morally relevant, and how they are relevant. This paper argues that the main types of AMAs currently proposed are incapable of full moral sensitivity. First, top-down AMAs that proceed from fixed rule-sets are too rigid to respond appropriately to the wide range of qualitatively unique factors that moral sensitivity gives access to. Second, bottom-up AMAs that learn moral behaviour from examples are at risk of generalising from these examples in undesirable ways, as they lack embedding in what Wittgenstein calls a ‘form of life’, which allows humans to appropriately learn from moral examples. The paper concludes that AMAs are unlikely to possess full moral competence, but closes by suggesting that they may still be feasible in restricted domains of public morality, where moral sensitivity plays a smaller role. (shrink)

This article is the continuation of a reflection on the role wonder plays in the elaboration of experience in a work related situation. As a classic notion in philosophy, wonder reveals itself as an operating tool to analyze adult›s learning situations. The study of a case coming from our research on occupational doctors› diagnosis activities during the medical visits of a company›s employees, will show that ‹›repeating wonder›› represents a contribution to the understanding of continuous reconstruction of health professionals› experience (...) in a work situation. This contribution is in a wider sense the opportunity to better define the relations between wonder and learning with and by activity. (shrink)

Introduction: Decisions to withdraw or withhold curative or life-sustaining treatment can have a huge impact on the symptoms which the palliative-care team has to control. Palliative-care patients and their relatives may also turn to palliative-care physicians and nurses for advice regarding these treatments. We wanted to assess Indian palliative-care nurses and physicians’ attitudes towards withholding and withdrawal of curative or life-sustaining treatment. Method: From May to September 2008, we interviewed 14 physicians and 13 nurses working in different palliative-care programmes in (...) New Delhi, using a semi-structured questionnaire. For the interviews and analysis of the data we followed Grounded-Theory methodology. Results: Withholding a curative or life-sustaining treatment which may prolong a terminal cancer patient’s life with a few weeks but also has severe side-effects was generally considered acceptable by the interviewees. The majority of the interviewees agreed that life-sustaining treatments can be withdrawn in a patient who is in an irreversible coma. The palliative-care physicians and nurses were of the opinion that a patient has the right to refuse life-saving curative treatment. While reflecting upon the ethical acceptability of withholding or withdrawal of curative or life-sustaining treatment, the physicians and nurses were concerned about the whole patient and other people who may be affected by the decision. They were convinced they can play an important advisory role in the decision-making process. Conclusion: While deciding about the ethical issues, the physicians and nurses do not restrict their considerations to the physical aspects of the disease, but also reflect upon the complex wider consequences of the treatment decisions. (shrink)

Connectedness is a significant element of sociality that occurs not only ideally and ‘leiblich’, but also consists of a material dimension. This is established through the materiality of the human body and points beyond it at the same time. The material aspect of connectedness is not simply social but has a social meaning nonetheless: Materiality has an impact on society and on the quality of human coexistence with the environment. To be able to describe this aspect, we use approaches of (...) feminist (neo-)materialisms. First, a neo-materialist perspective on subjectivity is developed, which, in addition to the immaterial aspects of the social, is also able to grasp the dependence of the development of human bodies on their environment. Connectedness as a material-discursive phenomenon adds a neo-materialist dimension to the established ‘phenomenological’ interpretation of the resonance concept that integrates interactions of repulsion or alienation by understanding feelings of alienation, rejection, or the silencing of the world-relationship as well as a resonant world-relationship always also as agentic cuts of the LeibKörper. (shrink)

This volume explores the relevance of decline within the republican tradition. The essays in this volume focus on the Dutch Republic during the revolutionary era, as well as early modern Spain and Venice, the German Enlightenment, and the Weimar Republic.

On the basis of a close reading of three authors , I try to elucidate what the growing presence of digital technologies in our lives implies for the sphere of schooling and education. Developing a technocentric perspective, I discuss whether what is happening today concerns just the newest form of humankind's fundamental dependency on a technological milieu or that it concerns a fundamental shift. From Flusser, I take the idea that the practice of writing shapes human subjectivity, as well as (...) our very sense of history and progress, and that with the advent of digital technologies the possibility of a posthistorical era is granted. I confront this idea with Stiegler's analysis of technological tools and practices as strongly materialized memories, which amounts to a plea for securing the link with the particular history behind the technologies we use. Here, education should play a conservative role and take responsibility for using technologies in a correct way. I argue that Stiegler is not wholly consistent on this point and, moreover, that his view precludes the possibility to rethink the very meaning of education under present conditions. This possibility is opened if we turn to a philosopher which is ruthlessly criticized by Stiegler for being a technophobe: Agamben. I argue, however, that a more detailed reading of Agamben—n combination with Flusser—might show a completely different and far more positive appreciation for digital technology and that this view offers an opening for rethinking what education is all about. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

To many in India and elsewhere, the life and thoughts of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi are a source of inspiration. The idea of non-violence was pivotal in his thinking. In this context, Gandhi reflected upon the possibility of what is now called ‘euthanasia’ and ‘assisted suicide’. So far, his views on these practices have not been properly studied. In his reflections on euthanasia and assisted suicide, Gandhi shows himself to be a contextually flexible thinker. In spite of being a staunch defender (...) of non-violence, Gandhi was aware that violence may sometimes be unavoidable. Under certain conditions, killing a living being could even be an expression of non-violence. He argued that in a few rare cases it may be better to kill people who are suffering unbearably at the end of life. In this way, he seems to support euthanasia and assisted suicide. Yet, Gandhi also thought that as long as care can be extended to a dying patient, his or her suffering could be relieved. Since in most cases relief was thus possible, euthanasia and assisted suicide were in fact redundant. By stressing the importance of care and nursing as an alternative to euthanasia and assisted suicide, Gandhi unconsciously made himself an early advocate of palliative care in India. This observation could be used to strengthen and promote the further development of palliative care in India. (shrink)

Most quantitative studies that survey nurses’ attitudes toward euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, also attempt to assess the influence of religion on these attitudes. We wanted to evaluate the operationalisation of religion and world view in these surveys. In the Pubmed database we searched for relevant articles published before August 2008 using combinations of search terms. Twenty-eight relevant articles were found. In five surveys nurses were directly asked whether religious beliefs, religious practices and/or ideological convictions influenced their attitudes, or the respondents (...) were requested to mention the decisional basis for their answers on questions concerning end-of-life issues. In other surveys the influence of religion and world view was assessed indirectly through a comparison of the attitudes of different types of believers and/or non-believers toward euthanasia or assisted suicide. In these surveys we find subjective religious or ideological questions (questions inquiring about the perceived importance of religion or world view in life, influence of religion or world view on life in general, or how religious the respondents consider themselves) and objective questions (questions inquiring about religious practice, acceptance of religious dogmas, and religious or ideological affiliation). Religious or ideological affiliation is the most frequently used operationalisation of religion and world view. In 16 surveys only one religious or ideological question was asked. In most articles the operationalisation of religion and world view is very limited and does not reflect the diversity and complexity of religion and world view in contemporary society. Future research should pay more attention to the different dimensions of religion and world view, the religious plurality of Western society and the particularities of religion in non-Western contexts. (shrink)

Most quantitative studies that survey nurses’ attitudes toward euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, also attempt to assess the influence of religion on these attitudes. We wanted to evaluate the operationalisation of religion and world view in these surveys. In the Pubmed database we searched for relevant articles published before August 2008 using combinations of search terms. Twenty-eight relevant articles were found. In five surveys nurses were directly asked whether religious beliefs, religious practices and/or ideological convictions influenced their attitudes, or the respondents (...) were requested to mention the decisional basis for their answers on questions concerning end-of-life issues. In other surveys the influence of religion and world view was assessed indirectly through a comparison of the attitudes of different types of believers and/or non-believers toward euthanasia or assisted suicide. In these surveys we find subjective religious or ideological questions (questions inquiring about the perceived importance of religion or world view in life, influence of religion or world view on life in general, or how religious the respondents consider themselves) and objective questions (questions inquiring about religious practice, acceptance of religious dogmas, and religious or ideological affiliation). Religious or ideological affiliation is the most frequently used operationalisation of religion and world view. In 16 surveys only one religious or ideological question was asked. In most articles the operationalisation of religion and world view is very limited and does not reflect the diversity and complexity of religion and world view in contemporary society. Future research should pay more attention to the different dimensions of religion and world view, the religious plurality of Western society and the particularities of religion in non-Western contexts. (shrink)

In recent decades, deliberation about public issues has become a central theme in citizenship education. In line with an increasing philosophical and political appreciation of the importance of deliberation within democracy, schools, as training grounds for democratic citizenship, should foster high-level deliberative skills. However, when this insight is translated into practical formats, these formats suffer from a number of shortcomings. Specifically, they can be criticised on philosophical grounds for advantaging select societal groups, and on empirical grounds for facilitating groupthink mechanisms. (...) This paper aims to address these shortcomings by suggesting a role for debating techniques within deliberative education. Because debating stimulates the contestation of diverse opinions, it may counteract the silencing of minority viewpoints and the proliferation of groupthink. At the same time, debating-based formats must be closely regulated in order to not imperil compromise formation. A concrete format is presented that balances these considerations and may therefore contribute to more effective deliberation in the classroom. (shrink)

Communities, scientists, policy-makers and industries are requiring farmers to address environmental and wellbeing challenges in their on-farm management, transitioning away from a productivity dominated focus towards a multi-faceted system focus that includes environmental and social values. This paper analyses how Miraka Ltd., an Aotearoa-New Zealand indigenous owned and operated milk company, has taken on the role of institutional entrepreneur to enable and support change towards a multi-faceted system amongst its supply farmers. Observations and interviews were carried out to: (i) identify (...) farmers’ changes in practices, beliefs and values over the last ten years; and (ii) identify how Miraka functions as an indigenous entrepreneur in the agricultural sector. Findings show that interviewees were initially guided by business and family-oriented values, beliefs and practices, but in response to the institutional entrepreneurship by Miraka, approximately half of the interviewees changed these values, beliefs and practices, by internalising people and environmental values. The main strategies employed by Miraka were mobilisation of material resources such as incentives and awards, creation of a rationale addressing environmental and social concerns in the dairy sector, and proactive connection with new actors. The research shows an indigenous owned small-medium enterprise can make changes in values, beliefs and practices amongst its supply farmers, but requires a stronger shared base of values to contribute to a wider economic change. The discussion connects these findings to wider literature on diverse economies and indigenous entrepreneurship to identify to what extent an indigenous small-medium enterprise can contribute to a system change. (shrink)

This article deals with the educational challenge of responding to the pending ecological crisis (and many other future apocalyptic scenarios that haunt our imagination). It seems we are living in a time when we have given up on the idea that progress is possible or desirable, and this questions education at its roots. In order to find a proper educational response that befits our time, it is requested that we gain a new sense of orientation (which is no longer aimed (...) at progress). This is an idea I pick up from the recent work of Bruno Latour, which is the focus of the first part of the paper. In the second part, I start fleshing out what this new orientation could look like by turning to the work of Immanuel Kant (usually regarded as one of the most outspoken defenders of education geared to progress). Nonetheless, I try to read Kant against himself, so as to show how orientation can be understood in a non-modernist manner. I connect this in the third part to the radically immanent and empiricist work of William James, and draw out in the final section how a combined reading of Kant and James offers the orientation we need. (shrink)

This article explores the uses of Agamben’s philosophy for understanding the educational meaning of practices that typically take/took place at school, such as the collective rehearsal of the alphabet or the multiplication tables. More precisely, I propose that these forms of ‘practising’ show what schooling, as a particular and historically contingent institution, is all about. Instead of immediately assessing the ‘practice of practising’ in terms of learning outcomes, I turn to Bollnow’s attempt to analyze this phenomenon in a substantially educational (...) way, which for him essentially consists in opposing practising and learning. I show that his analysis is superficial and that we need Agamben’s notion of ‘potentiality’ in order to come to grips with the sense of this phenomenon. This will allow to see that practising concerns an uncommon way to relate to a subject matter that makes possible a transformation of individual and collective existence. The main objective of this investigation is not to hold a plea for reintroducing obsolete pedagogical methods, but to rethink the very meaning of education. (shrink)

In this paper we explore a new way to deal with social inequality and injustice in an educational way. We do so by offering a particular reading of a scene taken from Minnelli's film The Band Wagon which is often regarded as overly western-centred and racist. We argue, however, that the way in which words and movements in this scene function are expressive of an event that can be read as a new beginning and that it is for this reason (...) in and of itself educational. By drawing on Agamben's and Cavell's insights on childhood and what it means to acquire a language, we argue that in this scene a form of childhood is displayed which denotes a general condition for education to take place in children and grown-ups alike. Hence, education can be understood as a interruption of existing power structures and as a transformation of one's existence. (shrink)

In this article we focus on note taking as a practice that is fundamental to (higher) education. We argue that note-taking should not primarily be regarded as a method that supports effective learning, but as formative of the student herself (making her attentive and granting possibilities for self-transformation). Hence it is a practice that has educational meaning in and of itself. It is a pedagogical form in its own right. We go on arguing that the practice of lecturing can itself (...) be seen as a form of note taking and that both phenomena are not only closely related, but also that note making and lecturing consist of reciprocal operations. Studying on the basis of one’s notes comes down to the reverse operation the teacher had to perform when preparing her lessons. Moreover, thanks to making notes during a class students have a deeply embodied sense of what it means to generate and to construct new arguments and ideas. (shrink)