In many countries publications in Web of Knowledge journals are dominant in the evaluation of educational research. For various purposes comparisons are made between the output of philosophers of education in these journals and the publications of their colleagues in educational research generally, sometimes also including psychologists and/or social scientists. Taking its starting-point from Hayden’s article in this journal , this paper discusses the situation of educational research in three countries: The Netherlands, South Africa and Norway. In this paper an (...) alternative for comparing research output is offered by invoking comparisons with colleagues at the international level from within the same sub-discipline. It is argued that if one would do so a different picture would emerge, even if one were to limit oneself to particular kinds of publications. The case is then made that if comparisons are regarded as a necessary part of the evaluation of an individual scholar , it would be more fair to use a proxy system which is sub-discipline specific, or minimally contains some kind of correction factor in relation to the over-all quality assessment device. Debates about the relevance or irrelevance of philosophy of education in the context of educational sciences are now obscured, even poisoned by focusing almost exclusively on a particular kind of publication output. As the ‘reward’ system that is developed accordingly is possibly the most important driver of educational research, it puts the sub-discipline unduly under pressure to the extent that it possibly cannot survive. (shrink)

The book will primarily be of interest to military officers and others directly involved in ethics education in the military, as well as to philosophers and ...

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between the formation of the self and the worldly horizon within which this self achieves its meaning. Our inquiry takes place from two perspectives: the first derived from the Nietzschean analysis of how one becomes what one is; the other from current developments in complexity theory. This two-angled approach opens up different, yet related dimensions of a non-essentialist understanding of the self that is none the less neither arbitrary nor deterministic. (...) Indeed, at the meeting point of these two perspectives on the self lies a conception of a dynamic, worldly self, whose identity is bound up with its appearance in a world shared with others. After examining this argument from the respective view points offered by Nietzsche and complexity theory, the article concludes with a consideration of some of the political and ethical implications of representing our situatedness within a shared human domain as a condition for self-formation. (shrink)

When we deal with complex things, like human subjects or organizations, we deal with identity – that which makes a person or an organization what it is and distinguishes him/her/it from other persons or organizations, a kind of “self”. Our identity determines how we think about and interact with others. It will be argued in this chapter that the self is constituted relationally. Moreover, when we are in the realm of the self, we are always already in the realm of (...) engaging with and mediating differences – the realm of ethics. The position which will be developed argues that approaching identity as a complex system allows us to resist thinking of identity as an easily identifiable and static entity. Identity is always being constituted within a complex and contingent world, where we have to make choices based on contingent values rather than on universal knowledge or the outcome of rational calculations. As a result, we have to keep in mind that our daily practices always already have an ethical component, and our decisions need to be continually evaluated and re-evaluated in the light of our (and others’) varying identities. (shrink)

The paper examines the logic and semantics of knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B”. We analyze these constructions in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and propose an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.

This paper proposes an experimental investigation of the use of vague predicates in dynamic sorites. We present the results of two studies in which subjects had to categorize colored squares at the borderline between two color categories (Green vs. Blue, Yellow vs. Orange). Our main aim was to probe for hysteresis in the ordered transitions between the respective colors, namely for the longer persistence of the initial category. Our main finding is a reverse phenomenon of enhanced contrast (i.e. negative hysteresis), (...) present in two different tasks, a comparative task involving two color names, and a yes/no task involving a single color name, but not found in a corresponding color matching task. We propose an optimality-theoretic explanation of this effect in terms of the strict-tolerant framework of Cobreros et al. (J Philos Log 1–39, 2012), in which borderline cases are characterized in a dual manner in terms of overlap between tolerant extensions, and underlap between strict extensions. (shrink)

Having positive moral traits is central to one’s sense of self, and people generally are motivated to maintain a positive view of the self in the present. But it remains unclear how people foster a positive, morally good view of the self in the present. We suggest that recollecting and reflecting on moral and immoral actions from the personal past jointly help to construct a morally good view of the current self in complementary ways. More specifically, across four studies we (...) investigated the extent to which people believe they have changed over time after recollecting their own moral or immoral behaviors from the personal past. Our results indicate that recollecting past immoral actions is associated with stronger impressions of dissimilarity and change in the sense of self over time than recollecting past moral actions. These effects held for diverse domains of morality (i.e., honesty/dishonesty, helping/harming, fairness/unfairness, and loyalty/disloyalty), and they remained even after accounting for objective, calendar time. Further supporting a motivational explanation, these effects held when people recollected their own past actions but not when they recollected the actions of other people. (shrink)

While tourism is often seen as a welcome source of economic development, conventional mass tourism is associated with numerous negative effects, such as the destruction of ecological systems and loss of cultural heritage. In response to these concerns, a term that has surfaced recently is, sustainable tourism. This article attempts to define sustainable tourism and asks the question of whether this new term is an acceptable criteria or is merely a marketing ploy to attract the morally conscious tourist.

It has been observed many times before that, as yet, there are no encompassing, integrated theories of mathematical practice available.To witness, as we currently do, a variety of schools in this field elaborating their philosophical frameworks, and trying to sort out their differences in the course of doing so, is also to be constantly reminded of the fact that a lot of epistemic aspects, extremely relevant to this task, remain dramatically underexamined. This volume wants to contribute to the stock of (...) studies filling this perceived lacuna. It contains papers by established, upcoming, as well as beginning scholars, covering general, metaphilosophical themes such as naturalism, semiotics, pragmaticism, or empiricism, next to more specific topics including the unity of mathematical theories, thruth-flow in mathematics, diagrammatic reasoning, erroneous argumentation, or numerical analysis. (shrink)

L'État pluriculturel est devenu un concept majeur du début du XXIe siècle, tant au Nord qu'au Sud de la planète. La plupart des États sont confrontés à l'éveil ou à l'affirmation des différentes cultures des différentes communautés en leur sein. Pour nos sociétés plurielles, voici venu le temps des droits aux différences. En réalité, devant ce phénomène universel, les positions de l'État varient : il aménage la coexistence des communautés culturelles ; ou il ne veut pas les connaître. Entre ces (...) deux pôles, bien des nuances existent, du refus des différences à leur tolérance, et enfin à leur reconnaissance. La France est un exemple typique de déchirement : elle est arc-boutée sur le principe fondateur de la République une et indivisible, mais elle prévoit à ce principe de telles exceptions qu'elle est en plein bouleversement. Comment l'État démocratique va-t-il régir sa pluriculturalité? Comment les différentes options praticables peuvent-elles, chacune, impliquer une part de cohésion et une part de fragmentation sociale? Comment concilier droits à la différence et droit à l'indifférence? De telles questions ne peuvent être traitées qu'en analysant les diverses expériences. C'est ce que fait le présent ouvrage, publiant les travaux d'un colloque tenu à Nouméa en juillet 2002, avec la participation de juristes et de politistes, d'anthropologues et de tous chercheurs en sciences sociales en général. Les États les plus divers, de tous les continents, sont analysés. Les expériences de contextes extrêmement contrastés sont évoquées : les différences ont un long chemin à faire, pour s'affirmer en droit. Le cas très particulier de la Nouvelle-Calédonie est approfondi : à la fois symbole de la France pluriculturelle et consécration d'institutions fortement dérogatoires. Cet ouvrage est une contribution au code universel du Vivre ensemble. (shrink)