In _Philosophers as Educators_ Brian Patrick Hendley argues that philosophers of education should reject their preoccupation with defining terms and analyzing concepts and embrace the philosophical task of constructing general theories of education. Hendley discusses in detail the educational philosophies of John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead. He sees in these men excellent role models that contemporary philosophers might well follow. Hendley believes that, like these mentors, philosophers should take a more active, practical role in education. Dewey and (...) Russell ran their own schools, and Whitehead served as a university administrator and as a member of many committees created to study education. (shrink)
This present study began as the author's extension and application of ideas from Whitehead's work to the subject of education, using a chapter from Whitehead's book Science and the Modern World and a pamphlet, The Rhythm of Education as the starting point.
Hendley argues that philosophers of education should reject their preoccupation of the past 25_ _years with defining terms and analyzing concepts and once again embrace the philosophical task of constructing general theories of education. Exemplars of that tradition are John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead, who formulated theories of education that were tested. Dewey and Russell ran their own schools, and Whitehead served as a university administrator and as a member of many committees created to study education. After (...) providing a general introduction to the present state of educational philosophy, Hendley discusses in detail the educational philosophies of Dewey, Russell, and Whitehead. He sees in these men excellent role models that contemporary philosophers might well follow. Hendley believes that like these mentors, philosophers should take a more active, practical role in education. (shrink)
But this is only half of the picture. Plato makes sense to the modern American reader because that reader is influenced by a physics and cosmology radically Platonic in historic origin and in content; and because he is influenced by mathematics and formal logic which are producing challenging original speculation, and which are of a Platonic character both in genesis and nature.
The first one-volume introduction to Plato's biography with a complete account of his works since A.E. Taylor's. It includes a systematic explanation of Plato's theory of forms and concludes with an application of Plato's ideas to the world today.
The first one-volume introduction to Plato's biography with a complete account of his works since A.E. Taylor's. It includes a systematic explanation of Plato's theory of forms and concludes with an application of Plato's ideas to the world today.
This is the story of philosophy in ancient and classical Greece. Robert Brumbaugh brings out the intrinsic and current importance in the development of Western philosophy from Thales to Aristotle. He emphasizes the insights and ideas that have proven crucial to later Western thought and reveals the success of the classical thinkers in forming systematic philosophic syntheses. This book is a useful introduction to philosophy. The ancient Greek discoveries led to the major systems used by the West today.
This book recognizes and questions a key assumption about time which is shared by common sense and philosophy—the assumption that time, like a single substance or a homogeneous quality, is subject to the law of contradiction. This leads to the logical conclusion that among different and mutually exclusive accounts of time, whether in science, practical action, or fine art, only one can be the “right” one. Four such accounts are shown here to be internally consistent though mutually incompatible, suggesting that (...) the initial assumption is mistaken, and that in some way each alternative concept of time must be incomplete. Brumbaugh suggests that we must choose the one appropriate to a particular purpose: artistic creation, technological efficiency, discovery of mathematical laws of nature, or work with biological and social phenomena. The selection should allow coherence between that aspect of reality which the selected time concept emphasizes, and the aspect of reality most relevant to a successful execution of our purpose. (shrink)
The author explores the theory that cosmic evolution leads to successive new, stratified kinds of time. Each lower level sets limits to and provides conditions for levels that are higher, but there is no complete reducibility of causal explanation of higher levels to lower. This account of evolution argues that rest is later than, and is derived from, an original state of constant motion. The derivation ends with the advent of the permanent stability of abstract concepts recognized by mind.