Social sciences research is entrenched with particular values, beliefs, norms, and practices that students, faculty, and researchers reproduce over time. In this article, the author argues for extending what counts as research within the social sciences to be more inclusive of differing methodologies and writing genres. Using personal narrative, diaries, and poetry, the author demonstrates unconventional ways of thinking about, doing, and writing research. He situates his personal experiences as a Ghanaian/American student within relevant literature to illuminate the merging of (...) his home cultural values with those of the academic community and the contradictions and struggles associated with this process. Ultimately, the story portrays the journey of a graduate student as he challenges traditional research norms to open up spaces for underrepresented students to feel more at home within academe. (shrink)

This volume explores the construction of an ethics for news media that is global in reach and impact.

Karl Barth and the displacement of natural law in contemporary Protestant theology -- Development of the natural-law tradition through the high Middle Ages -- John Calvin and the natural knowledge of God the Creator -- Peter Martyr Vermigli and the natural knowledge of God the Creator -- Natural law in the thought of Johannes Althusius -- Francis Turretin and the natural knowledge of God the Creator.

Modern Hume scholarship is still divided into two major camps when it comes to the issue of causation. There are those scholars who interpret Hume as a causal anti-realist, and there are those who interpret him as a causal realist. In my paper, I argue that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence – especially textual evidence – that should lead us to read Hume as being a causal anti-realist. That is to say, one who believes that cause and effect (...) relations are felt and known in the mind of the perceiver alone; not in objects themselves. I then attempt to settle, at least partially, the ‘two definitions of cause dispute’ that was brought about by Hume’s giving us not one, but two non-equivalent and non-substitutable definitions of the cause and effect relation. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I will examine the problem of theological fatalism in St. Augustine and, specifically, whether or not Augustine was philosophically justified in his belief that his views on divine grace and human freedom could be harmonized. As is well-known, beginning with his second response To Simplician (ca. 396) and continuing through his works against the semi-Pelagians (ca. 426-429), Augustine espoused the Pauline doctrine of all-inclusive grace: that the fallen will’s ability to accomplish the good is totally a function (...) of God’s elective grace. What, then, does the fallen will do to work out its own salvation? There is the further issue of how to reconcile Augustine’s rather extreme emphasis on grace in his later works with the more balanced picture we receive in his sermones ad populum, written throughout his forty-year preaching career. In many of these sermons, even those written during the Pelagian controversy, Augustine is careful to leave space for both divine and human initiative in the process of our justification within the totus Christus, or ‘whole Christ.’ How we can understand Augustine in his role as doctor gratiae and as preacher of human freedom will be a major inquiry of this dissertation.The most serious obstacle to moving forward on these problems has been and remains the essentialist interpretation of Augustine’s Trinitarian theology by most commentators. On their interpretation, Augustine thought that there were no real distinctions within the Trinity, with each of the three divine persons and their actions sharing in the absolute unity of the divine essence. Holding this interpretation not only does away with the distinctness of each of the persons, but also requires all of God’s different powers and attributes, including willing and foreknowing, to be coalesced into one another without distinction in the divine essence. God’s foreknowledge is thereby identified with God’s will, which necessarily leads to theological fatalism: God would have to will everything that He foreknows, and God would have to foreknow everything that He wills. Since God is omniscient, He wills everything that will happen, including the future willings of the fallen human will.It cannot be denied that there are texts in the Augustinian corpus that seem to point to a reading of the Trinity as absolutely simple. But this study will endeavor to show that there are also other largely overlooked texts in On the Trinity, the Confessions, and his Commentaries on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis (among others) that argue for various distinctions within the Trinity to make sense of the relation between Creator and creature, and the differences between the divine processions of generation/spiration, and the act of creation. These texts will be shown to parallel very closely the position of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, which consistently uses the real distinction between God’s essential being and energetic activities (also known as the essence-energy distinction) to avoid the problem of theological fatalism. This rich theological and philosophical tradition, from the time of the fourth-century Greek Fathers to the Byzantine tradition that followed, differs less with Augustine concerning the essentials of Trinitarian theology and its practical implications for solving the problem of making human freedom and divine grace compatible than has been hitherto thought. (shrink)

Like Kravchenko, we build on Maturana’s bio-logic and the view that language is the “outcome of the evolution of observers.” Yet, Kravchenko offers a narrow “linguistic” reading of Maturana. On our wider view, Kravchenko’s work is criticized for limiting use of “languaging” to aspects of observing that leave out how sensibility and activity inform human practices. Stephen Cowley & Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen.

This paper is a conceptual essay rooted in two basic observations. First, felt dignity—the subjective sense people have of their own autonomy and self-worth—ultimately emerges from, and is thus most evident in the connective space between people. Second, stories are everyday works of art that afford unique insight into the subtle complexities of the socio-emotional realities of work. Building on these observations, we describe how personal stories about episodes of interpersonal connections and disconnections at work—moments in which we feel mutual (...) appreciation and empowerment or a sense of separation and distancing from another—can help us better understand the felt experience of dignity at work. In attending to such personal stories as art, we become more attuned to their felt, aesthetic qualities, which then helps us develop a more holistic and visceral appreciation of how actors experience, make sense of, and claim felt dignity. In support of our ideas, we present a few illustrative story excerpts and briefly consider how a select few aesthetic qualities—the way the stories’ elements are configured, the stories’ acuity or sharpness, and their rawness—enhance the felt impact of the stories and help to remind us of their and the storytellers’ intrinsic value. (shrink)

The Free Discussion between Richard Price and Joseph Priestley (1778) originated as a correspondence between the two after the publication of Priestley's Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, his most important philosophical work (1777). At the time it was thought remarkable that a controversey such as this could be conducted so amicably, but then the two were close friends. Nevertheless their philosophical, as opposed to their oft mentioned political views, were at opposite ends of a spectrum.

This is a biography of the works of Richard Price, 1723-1791, one of the leading radical intellectuals of the late-18th century. By profession a dissenting minister, he was also a mathematician, a political pamphleteer, particularly on the American and French Revolutions, and a moral philosopher.

This is a comprehensive reference source on 18th-century authors writing in the English language about philosophical ideas and issues. It features authors taken from 1689 through to the mid-19th century, the period beginning with John Locke and ending with Dugald Stewart. The word philosophical is used in a wide, 18th-century sense. Therefore, the Dictionary includes epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, education, politics, rhetoric, science, medicine, biology, geology, chemistry and theology.

Phenomenology has been with us for many years, and yet grasping phenomenology remains a difficult task. Heidegger, too, experienced this difficulty and devoted much of his teaching to the challenge of working phenomenologically. This article draws on aspects of Heidegger’s commentary in progressing the teaching and learning of phenomenology, especially as this pertains to research in fields such as education. Central to this task is elucidation of what I believe to be the most important feature of phenomenology—what Heidegger referred to (...) as the ‘starting point’ of phenomenology. I have written this article in the manner of a phenomenological workshop with the intention of inviting the reader to engage experientially with this starting point. (shrink)

In outdoor education discourse the notion of relation is often employed to convey basic connections between humanity and nature as human–nature relationships, yet the sense of relation itself is rarely questioned. Drawing on the work of Peirce and Dewey, I explore the ramifications of a more nuanced understanding of relation, specifically how relation works with and within differing senses of unity. These ramifications have consequences for how we understand human–nature relationships, which I argue are better conveyed in terms of culture–place. (...) The various forms of unity described by Peirce inform more nuanced understandings of culture–place as cultureplace, with implications for the notion of transculturality. My specific concern with outdoor education then enables me to show how cultureplace and culture–place may be considered to have relevance pedagogically, especially in relation to dealing with cultural and environmental crises. (shrink)

Moral psychology investigates human functioning in moral contexts, and asks how these results may impact debate in ethical theory. This work is necessarily interdisciplinary, drawing on both the empirical resources of the human sciences and the conceptual resources of philosophical ethics. The present article discusses several topics that illustrate this type of inquiry: thought experiments, responsibility, character, egoism v . altruism, and moral disagreement.

Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis, a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal of addressing (...) these problems in a CBA frame. The second section argues that CBA fundamentally distorts the normative landscape in two ways: first, in principle, it allows very many morally trivial preferences—say, for a coffee—might outweigh morally weighty life-and-death concerns; second, it is insensitive to the core moral distinction between victims and vectors of disease. The third section sketches our non-consequentialist alternative, grounded in Thomas Scanlon’s contractualist moral theory. On this account, the ethics of self-defence implies a strong default presumption in favour of a highly restrictive, universal lockdown policy: we then ask whether there are alternatives to such a policy which are justifiable to all affected parties, paying particular attention to the complaints of those most burdened by policy. In the fourth section, we defend our contractualist approach against the charge that it is impractical or counterintuitive, noting that actual CBAs face similar, or worse, challenges. (shrink)

In this paper we take as our starting point Greta Thunberg’s message to an audience of adults at a recent climate change summit: ‘This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!’ We take Thunberg at her word and endeavour to investigate what is wrong and how it might be wrong. Through this investigation we (...) consider how education may be implicated in the problem to which Thunberg alludes: a problem about both climate change and intergenerational change. We draw upon Hannah Arendt’s seminal work, ‘A Crisis in Education’, to consider how an ecological crisis coincides with an educational crisis symptomatic of an inversion of the traditional adult and child relationship in which education serves to introduce the young to the world – a public world, which is distinct from the ecological world. Arendt’s position on education, we argue, reveals concerns that movements like School Strike for Climate expose young people prematurely to the risks of indoctrination that attend adult, public life, and hinders their renewal of the world. Science too may add to these risks. (shrink)

In recent years, the argument from inductive risk against value free science has enjoyed a revival. This paper investigates and clarifies this argument through means of a case-study: neonicitinoid research. Sect. 1 argues that the argument from inductive risk is best conceptualised as a claim about scientists’ communicative obligations. Sect. 2 then shows why this argument is inapplicable to “public communication”. Sect. 3 outlines non-epistemic reasons why non-epistemic values should not play a role in public communicative contexts. Sect. 4 analyses (...) the implications of these arguments both for the specific case of neonicitinoid research and for understanding the limits of the argument from inductive risk. Sect. 5 sketches the broader implications of my claims for understanding the “Value Free Ideal” for science. (shrink)

The issue of methodology is a fundamental concern for all who engage in educational research. Presenting a series of methodological dialogues between eminent education researchers including Michael Apple, Gert Biesta, Penny Enslin, John Hattie, Nel Noddings, Michael Peters, Richard Pring and Paul Smeyers, this book explores the ways in which they have chosen and developed research methods to style their investigations and frame their arguments. These dialogues address the specialized and technical aspects of conducting educational research, conceptualize the relationship (...) between methodology and theory, and provide in-depth discussion of concerns including falsifiability, openness, interpretation and researcher judgement. Foregrounding the researchers' first-hand experience and knowledge, this book will provide future and current researchers with a deeper comprehension of the place of theory in education research. An illuminating resource for undergraduate and postgraduate researchers alike, Theory and Philosophy in Education Researchconfronts the intricate complexities of conducting education research in a highly engaging and accessible way. (shrink)

Book review of Michael Ehrmantraut's (2010) Heidegger's Philosophic Pedagogy published by Continuum.

Museum education is a complex and specialized endeavour, even more so when involving partnerships with schools. In this paper, we engage with theories that support understanding of museum-educator pedagogies. Dewey's notion of occupations is explored as offering a better theorization of pedagogical possibilities than that available through ideas associated with identity. Museum-educator pedagogies shape occupations, as the coherence of interest-purpose-meaning. Such shaping is not a purely individual human action, as occupations are social and material, as being-in-the-world. Heidegger's phenomenological understanding of (...) the working of art, critiqued by Schapiro, enables further comprehension of this pedagogical working. Both theories together provide insights into museum-educator pedagogies as expressive of the always challenging art of education. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gregor Betz has defended the value-free ideal: “the justification of scientific findings should not be based on non-epistemic values”against the methodological critique, by reference to the work of the International Panel on Climate Change . This paper argues that Betz’s defence is unsuccessful. First, Betz’s argument is sketched, and it is shown that the IPCC does not avoid the need to “translate” claims. In Section 2, it is argued that Betz mischaracterises the force of the methodological (...) critique. Section 3 shows why the methodological critique still applies to the work of the IPCC even on a refined version of Betz’s argument. Section 4 then considers an alternative way of defending the work of the IPCC which is in-line with, but does not clearly vindicate, the value-free ideal. (shrink)

We present a simple distributed concept that appears to insinuate SWARM behavior in a collection of mobile platforms. The control is based on the inter-mobile platform communication links’ signal-to-noise ratio. This double use of communications is a natural linkage for SWARM behavior.

The most comprehensive collection of essays on Descartes' scientific writings ever published, this volume offers a detailed reassessment of Descartes' scientific work and its bearing on his philosophy. The 35 essays, written by some of the world's leading scholars, cover topics as diverse as optics, cosmology and medicine, and will be of vital interest to all historians of philosophy or science.

Book reviewed in this article: The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning. By Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin.

Objectivity is a key concept both in how we talk about science in everyday life and in the philosophy of science. This Element explores various ways in which recent philosophers of science have thought about the nature, value and achievability of objectivity. The first section explains the general trend in recent philosophy of science away from a notion of objectivity as a 'view from nowhere' to a focus on the relationship between objectivity and trust. Section 2 discusses the relationship between (...) objectivity and recent arguments attacking the viability or desirability of 'value free' science. Section 3 outlines Longino's influential 'social' account of objectivity, suggesting some worries about drawing too strong a link between epistemic and ethical virtues. Section 4 turns to the value of objectivity, exploring concerns that notions of objectivity are politically problematic, and cautiously advocating in response a view of objectivity in terms of invariance. (shrink)

Using the controversy over the MMR vaccine, I consider the reasons why non-experts should defer to experts, and I sketch a model for understanding cases where they fail to defer. I first suggest that an intuitively plausible model of the expert/non-expert relationship is complicated by shifting epistemic standards. One possible moderate response to this challenge, based on a more complex notion of non-experts' relationship with experts, seems unappealing as an account of the MMR controversy. A more radical suggestion is that (...) non-experts might have a political reason to defer to experts, when not doing so will involve ‘epistemological free-riding’. I investigate the implications. (shrink)

In many countries and regions across the world, the initial response to the massive health risks posed by COVID-19 has been the institution of lockdown measures. Although they vary from place to place, these measures all involve trade-offs between ethical goods and imperatives, imposing significant restrictions on central human capabilities—including citizens’ ability to work, socialize, exercise democratic rights, and access education—in the name of protecting population health. As such, it seems imperative for philosophers to ask whether lockdown measures are ethical.This (...) is a difficult question. We are deeply uncertain about the possible effects of COVID-19 and of lockdown policies, raising questions about... (shrink)

In the early decades of the seventeenth century, various attempts were made to develop a dynamical vocabulary on the basis of work in the practical mathematical disciplines, particularly statics and hydrostatics. The paper contrasts the Mechanica and Archimedean approaches, and within the latter compares conceptions of statics and hydrostatics and their possible extensions in the work of Stevin, Beeckman and Descartes. Descartes’ approach to hydrostatics, a discussion of which forms the core of the paper, is shown to be quite different (...) from that of his contemporaries, above all in its attempt to provide a natural-philosophical grounding for hydrostatics while at the same time using it to develop a range of concepts, approaches and ways of thinking through problems that would shape Descartes’ mature work in optics and cosmology.Author Keywords: Scientific revolution; René Descartes; Isaac Beeckman; Simon Stevin; History of mechanics; History of statics; History of optics. (shrink)