Varsity medical ethics debate 2018: constant health monitoring - the advance of technology into healthcare.ChrisGilmartin,Edward H. Arbe-Barnes,Michael Diamond,Sasha Fretwell,Euan McGivern,Myrto Vlazaki &Limeng Zhu -2018 -Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 13 (1):12.detailsThe 2018 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes that the constant monitoring of our health does more harm than good”. This annual debate between students from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge is now in its tenth year. This year’s debate was hosted at the Oxford Union on 8th of February 2018, with Oxford winning for the Opposition, and was the catalyst for the collation and expansion of ideas in this paper.New technological devices have the (...) potential to enhance patient autonomy, improve patient safety, simplify the management of chronic diseases, increase connectivity between patients and healthcare professionals and assist individuals to make lifestyle changes to improve their health. However, these are pitted against an encroachment of technology medicalising the individual and home, an exacerbation of health inequalities, a risk to the security of patient data, an alteration of the doctor-patient relationship dynamic and an infringement on individual self-identity. This paper will draw upon and develop these concepts, while contending arguments for and against constant health monitoring. This is not a review of medical devices and health monitoring, but a reflective development and more detailed elaboration of the main points highlighted in the 2018 Varsity Medical Ethics debate. (shrink)
Seemings and Justification: New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism.Chris Tucker (ed.) -2013 - New York: Oxford University Press USA.detailsThe primary aim of this book is to understand how seemings relate to justification and whether some version of dogmatism or phenomenal conservatism can be sustained. It also addresses a number of other issues, including the nature of seemings, cognitive penetration, Bayesianism, and the epistemology of morality and disagreement.
Futures Tended: Care and Future-Oriented Responsibility.Chris Groves &Barbara Adam -2011 -Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 31 (1):17-27.detailsThe phenomenon of technological hazards, whose existence is only revealed many years after they were initially produced, shows that the question of our responsibilities toward future generations is of urgent importance. However, the nature of technological societies means that they are caught in a condition of structural irresponsibility: the tools they use to know the future cannot encompass the temporal reach of their actions. This article explores how dominant legal and moral concepts are equally deficient for helping us understand what (...) future-oriented responsibility requires. An alternative understanding of responsibility is needed, one which can be developed from phenomenological and feminist concepts of care. Care, by opening up for us an understanding of the diversity of values that are constitutive of a worthwhile life, also connects us to the future as the future of care. As such, it provides us with ethical resources that can guide us in the face of uncertainty. (shrink)
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Using practical wisdom to facilitate ethical decision-making: a major empirical study of phronesis in the decision narratives of doctors.Chris Turner,Alan Brockie,Catherine Weir,Catherine Hale,Aisha Y. Malik &Mervyn Conroy -2021 -BMC Medical Ethics 22 (1):1-13.detailsBackgroundMedical ethics has recently seen a drive away from multiple prescriptive approaches, where physicians are inundated with guidelines and principles, towards alternative, less deontological perspectives. This represents a clear call for theory building that does not produce more guidelines. Phronesis (practical wisdom) offers an alternative approach for ethical decision-making based on an application of accumulated wisdom gained through previous practice dilemmas and decisions experienced by practitioners. Phronesis, as an ‘executive virtue’, offers a way to navigate the practice virtues for any (...) given case to reach a final decision on the way forward. However, very limited empirical data exist to support the theory of phronesis-based medical decision-making, and what does exist tends to focus on individual practitioners rather than practice-based communities of physicians.MethodsThe primary research question was: What does it mean to medical practitioners to make ethically wise decisions for patients and their communities? A three-year ethnographic study explored the practical wisdom of doctors (n = 131) and used their narratives to develop theoretical understanding of the concepts of ethical decision-making. Data collection included narrative interviews and observations with hospital doctors and General Practitioners at all stages in career progression. The analysis draws on neo-Aristotelian, MacIntyrean concepts of practice- based virtue ethics and was supported by an arts-based film production process.ResultsWe found that individually doctors conveyed many different practice virtues and those were consolidated into fifteen virtue continua that convey the participants’ ‘collective practical wisdom’, including the phronesis virtue. This study advances the existing theory and practice on phronesis as a decision-making approach due to the availability of these continua.ConclusionGiven the arguments that doctors feel professionally and personally vulnerable in the context of ethical decision-making, the continua in the form of a video series and app based moral debating resource can support before, during and after decision-making reflection. The potential implications are that these theoretical findings can be used by educators and practitioners as a non-prescriptive alternative to improve ethical decision-making, thereby addressing the call in the literature, and benefit patients and their communities, as well. (shrink)
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Is There Room at the Bottom for CSR? Corporate Social Responsibility and Nanotechnology in the UK.Chris Groves,Lori Frater,Robert Lee &Elen Stokes -2011 -Journal of Business Ethics 101 (4):525-552.detailsNanotechnologies are enabling technologies which rely on the manipulation of matter on the scale of billionths of a metre. It has been argued that scientific uncertainties surrounding nanotechnologies and the inability of regulatory agencies to keep up with industry developments mean that voluntary regulation will play a part in the development of nanotechnologies. The development of technological applications based on nanoscale science is now increasingly seen as a potential test case for new models of regulation based on future-oriented responsibility, lifecycle (...) risk management, and upstream public engagement. This article outlines findings from a project undertaken in 2008–2009 for the UK Government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) by BRASS at Cardiff University, involving an in-depth survey both of current corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the UK nanotechnologies industry, and of attitudes to particular stakeholder issues within the industry. The article analyses the results to give an account of the nature of corporate social performance (CSP) within the industry, together with the particular model of CSR operating therein (‘do no harm’ versus ‘positive social force’). It is argued that the nature of emerging technologies requires businesses to adopt particular visions of CSR in order to address stakeholder issues, and that the nanotechnologies industry presents specific obstacles and opportunities in this regard. (shrink)
Apophatic Bodies: Negative Theology, Incarnation, and Relationality.Chris Boesel (ed.) -2022 - Fordham University Press.detailsThe ancient doctrine of negative theology or apophasis--the attempt to describe God by speaking only of what cannot be said about the divine perfection and goodness--has taken on new life in the concern with language and its limits that preoccupies much postmodern philosophy, theology, and related disciplines. How does this mystical tradition intersect with the concern with material bodies that is simultaneously a focus in these areas? This volume pursues the unlikely conjunction of apophasis and the body, not for the (...) cachet of the "cutting edge" but rather out of an ethical passion for the integrity of all creaturely bodies as they are caught up in various ideological mechanisms--religious, theological, political, economic--that threaten their dignity and material well-being. The contributors, a diverse collection of scholars in theology, philosophy, history, and biblical studies, rethink the relationship between the concrete tradition of negative theology and apophatic discourses widely construed. They further endeavor to link these to the theological theme of incarnation and more general issues of embodiment, sexuality, and cosmology. Along the way, they engage and deploy the resources of contextual and liberation theology, post-structuralism, postcolonialism, process thought, and feminism. The result not only recasts the nature and possibilities of theological discourse but explores the possibilities of academic discussion across and beyond disciplines in concrete engagement with the well-being of bodies, both organic and inorganic. The volume interrogates the complex capacities of religious discourse both to threaten and positively to draw upon the material well-being of creation. (shrink)
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Oxford Ib Diploma Programme: Philosophy Being Human Print and Online Pack.Nancy Le Nezet,Chris White,Daniel Lee &Guy Williams -2015 - Oxford University Press.detailsThe most comprehensive coverage of the core content Being Human, this course book will help learners grasp complex philosophical ideas and develop the crucial thinking skills. Developed directly with the IB, dedicated assessment support straight from the IB builds confidence.
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Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment.Elizabeth Robinson &Chris W. Surprenant (eds.) -2017 - New York: Routledge.detailsMost academic philosophers and intellectual historians are familiar with the major historical figures and intellectual movements coming out of Scotland in the 18 th Century. These scholars are also familiar with the works of Immanuel Kant and his influence on Western thought. But with the exception of discussion examining David Hume’s influence on Kant’s epistemology, metaphysics, and moral theory, little attention has been paid to the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s philosophy. _Kant and The Scottish Enlightenment_ aims (...) to fill this perceived gap in the literature and provides a starting point for future discussions looking at the influence of Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Francis Hutcheson, and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s philosophy. The chapters are laid out according to a natural progression of ideas beginning with the influence of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s moral thought, including the role of feelings, reason, and religion. From there, the discussion moves to an examination of the relationship between truth, freedom, and responsibility in the texts coming out of the Scottish Enlightenment and its connection to Kant’s metaphysics and aesthetics. The volume concludes with a discussion of the influence of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s anthropology. This book will be of interest to Kant scholars as well as philosophers and intellectual historians working in the history of eighteenth-century philosophy. (shrink)
The Moral Philosophy of Bernard Williams.Alexandra Perry &Chris Herrera (eds.) -2013 - Cambridge Scholars Press.detailsA wide-ranging, collection focusing on the practical philosophy of Williams, with many chapters on politically relevant themes and many trying to assess the importance and influence of Williams. With contributions by Roman Altshuler, Mathieu Beirlaen, Thom Brooks, Jonathan Dancy, Jennifer Flynn, Lorenzo Greco,Chris D. Herrera, James Kellenberger, Colin Koopman, Stephen Leach, Esther Abin, Nancy Matchett, Jeff McMahan, Sarah Pawlett, Jonathan Sands-Wise, Robert Talisse, and Owen Ware.
Rorty and Dewey Revisited: Toward a Fruitful Conversation.Chris Voparil -2014 -Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 50 (3):373.detailsThe existing body of scholarship on Rorty’s relation to Dewey devotes relatively little attention to the shared commitments that animate their respective projects and what they hold in common philosophically. This article aims to shift the discourse from assaying Rorty’s faithfulness to Dewey to clarifying and critically examining the differences that make a difference between their respective projects of philosophical reconstruction and democratic meliorism, in the hope of learning from mutually corrective insights and moving pragmatism beyond stale impasses. Highlighting the (...) continuity between Rorty’s early work and later Philosophy as Cultural Politics in a commitment to a Deweyan notion of philosophy as an instrument of social change, I argue that their differences are most fruitfully understood against the backdrop of their shared attentiveness to cultural context, the sociopolitical character of philosophical inquiry, pressing issues of the day, and the need for philosophers to transcend professionalized debates. (shrink)
Genetic Testing Is Messier in Practice than in Theory: Lessons from Neonatology.Chris Feudtner &Katharine Press Callahan -2022 -American Journal of Bioethics 22 (2):37-39.detailsWhat is the future of genetic testing during pregnancy likely to look like? Given that the patterns of use of genetic testing in neonatology tend to precede, and thus predict, patterns of prenatal...
Impact on the legal system of the generalizability crisis in psychology.Chris R. Brewin -2022 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45.detailsOvergeneralizations by psychologists of the research evidence on memory and eyewitness testimony, such as “memory decays with time” or “memories are fluid and malleable,” are beginning to appear in legal judgements and guidance documents, accompanied by unwarranted disparagement of lay beliefs about memory. These overgeneralizations could have significant adverse consequences for the conduct of civil and criminal law.
David Bohm: Causality and Chance, Letters to Three Women.Chris Talbot -2017 - Cham: Imprint: Springer.detailsThe letters transcribed in this book were written by physicist David Bohm to three close female acquaintances in the period 1950 to 1956. They provide a background to his causal interpretation of quantum mechanics and the Marxist philosophy that inspired his scientific work in quantum theory, probability and statistical mechanics. In his letters, Bohm reveals the ideas that led to his ground breaking book Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. The political arguments as well as the acute personal problems contained (...) in these letters help to give a rounded, human picture of this leading scientist and twentieth century thinker. (shrink)
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Beastly Contractarianism?Chris Tucker &Chris MacDonald -2004 -Essays in Philosophy 5 (2):474-486.detailsSocial Contract theorists and animal advocates seem to have agreed to go their separate ways. Contractarians have avoided attempting to address an issue that seems destined to prove embarrassing for the theory given the current political climate. It is largely thought that contractarianism affirms the meager moral standing commonly attributed to most animals. In the face of this consensus, animal advocates who feel the need to philosophically ground the moral status of animals have turned to other potential sources. This is (...) not a hard choice for animal advocates to make: utilitarianism is a respectable moral theory that affords animals moral consideration with relative ease. Nevertheless, we argue that this separation is a mistake. Contractarians can offer an account of the moral status of animals that is at least as compelling as that offered by utilitarianism. Grounding the moral worth of animals in contract theory also produces an importantly different account, one that can ground animal rights, as opposed to mere considerability, which some animal advocates will find more appealing than the utilitarian alternative. (shrink)
Ib Philosophy Being Human Print and Online Pack: Oxford Ib Diploma Programme.Nancy Le Nezet,Chris White,Daniel Lee &Guy Williams -2015 - Oxford University Press.detailsThe most comprehensive coverage of the core content Being Human, this course book will help learners grasp complex philosophical ideas and develop the crucial thinking skills. Developed directly with the IB, dedicated assessment support straight from the IB builds confidence.
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Effects of experimentally induced dissociation on attention and memory.Chris R. Brewin,Belinda Yt Ma &Jessica Colson -2013 -Consciousness and Cognition 22 (1):315-323.detailsDissociation is an important aspect of responses to traumatic events. According to a number of influential theories, it negatively impacts cognitive performance including encoding of the trauma memories, leading to an increased risk of later conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder . We tested this hypothesis experimentally in two studies by inducing dissociation in the laboratory and investigating the effects on several aspects of cognition, including time estimation, digit and spatial span, and story recall. Dissociation was related to decrements in (...) time estimation, digit span, and story retention, but did not affect perceptual attention, spatial span, or immediate story recall. The results are discussed in the context of theoretical models of PTSD and their implications for official questioning of traumatized individuals such as sexual assault survivors. (shrink)
Extensional Superposition and Its Relation to Compositionality in Language and Thought.Chris Thornton -2021 -Cognitive Science 45 (5):e12929.detailsSemantic composition in language must be closely related to semantic composition in thought. But the way the two processes are explained differs considerably. Focusing primarily on propositional content, language theorists generally take semantic composition to be a truth‐conditional process. Focusing more on extensional content, cognitive theorists take it to be a form of concept combination. But though deep, this disconnect is not irreconcilable. Both areas of theory assume that extensional (i.e., denotational) meanings must play a role. As this article demonstrates, (...) they also have the potential to fulfill a mediative function. What is shown is that extensional meanings are themselves inherently compositional. On this basis, it becomes possible to model semantic composition without assuming the existence of any specifically linguistic/conceptual apparatus. Examples are presented to demonstrate this direct style of modeling. Abstract connections between composition in thought and language can then be made, raising the prospect of a more unified, theoretical account of semantic composition. (shrink)
Bioethics and multiculturalism: nuancing the discussion.Chris Durante -2018 -Journal of Medical Ethics 44 (2):77-83.detailsIn his recent analysis of multiculturalism, Tom Beauchamp has argued that those who implement multicultural reasoning in their arguments against common morality theories, such as his own, have failed to understand that multiculturalism is neither a form of moral pluralism nor ethical relativism but is rather a universalistic moral theory in its own right. Beauchamp’s position is indeed on the right track in that multiculturalists do not consider themselves ethical relativists. Yet, Beauchamp tends to miss the mark when he argues (...) that multiculturalism is in effect a school of thought that endorses a form of moral universalism that is akin to his own vision of a common morality. As a supporter of multiculturalism, I would like to discuss some aspects of Beauchamp’s comments on multiculturalism and clarify what a multicultural account of public bioethics might look like. Ultimately, multiculturalism is purported as a means of managing diversity in the public arena and should not be thought of as endorsing either a version of moral relativism or a universal morality. By simultaneously refraining from the promotion of a comprehensive common moral system while it attempts to avoid a collapse into relativism, multiculturalism can serve as the ethico-political framework in which diverse moralities can be managed and in which opportunities for ethical dialogue, debate and deliberation on the prospects of common bioethical norms are made possible. (shrink)
A Reply to Critics of In Defense of Kant’s Religion.Chris L. Firestone -2012 -Faith and Philosophy 29 (2):210-228.detailsIn this essay, I reply to the above four critics of In Defense of Kant’s Religion (IDKR). In reply to George di Giovanni, I highlight the interpretive differencesthat divide the authors of IDKR and di Giovanni, and argue that di Giovanni’s atheist reading of Kant does not follow, even granting his premises. In reply to Pamela Sue Anderson, I show that if her reading of Kant is accurate, Kant’s own talk of God becomes empty and contemptible by his own lights, (...) and I then show how her empirical bias prompts a significant misreading of IDKR. In reply to Stephen Palmquist, I expose four fallacious maneuvers in his paper, which comprise the bulk of his essay. And in reply to Michalson, I address a series of minor concerns raised in his essay, and then set the record straight on the motives behind IDKR in general and my own take on Kant’s compatibility (or lack thereof) with Christianity in specific. (shrink)
(1 other version)German political philosophy: the metaphysics of law.Chris Thornhill -2007 - New York, NY: Routledge.detailsFrom the Reformation to the present, German political philosophy has done much to shape the contours of theoretical debate on politics, law, and the conditions of political legitimacy; many of the most decisive and influential theoretical impulses in European political history have originated in Germany. Until now, there has been no thorough history of German political philosophy available in English. This book offers a synoptic account of the main debates in its evolution. Commencing with the formal reception of Roman law (...) and the constitutional reforms in the Holy Roman Empire in the late fifteenth century, German Political Philosophy includes chapters on: · the political ideas of Luther, Zwingli and Melanchthon in the Reformation; · the natural-law theories of the early German Enlightenment; · Kant, Hegel and the age of German idealism; · romanticism and historicism; the Young Hegelians and Karl Marx; · legal positivism and organic theory; · Nietzsche, Weber and early sociology; · neo-Kantianism in the late nineteenth century; · constitutional theory in the Weimar Republic; · the critical theories of the Frankfurt School; · post-1945 sociological functionalism; · Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. At the heart of this book is the claim that, despite - or perhaps because of - the great upheavals and ruptures in the history of state-formation in Germany, there are certain recurrent themes and concerns which persist through these discontinuities to give a distinctive character to German political reflection. This valuable book will be of great interest to political philosophers, intellectual historians, lawyers, and historical sociologists.'. (shrink)
In search of ultimate reality: inside the cosmologist's abyss.H.Chris Ransford -2019 - Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag.detailsUsing contemporary physics, narrated at a popular science level, Ransford shows why full nothingness--a nothingness within which even the disembodied laws of mathematics would not exist--cannot possibly exist, and what most likely underpins and enables reality.s reality.
Karl Jaspers: Politics and Metaphysics.DrChris Thornhill -2002 - New York: Routledge.detailsThis book sets out a new reading of the much-neglected philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By questioning the common perception of Jaspers either as a proponent of irrationalist cultural philosophy or as an early, peripheral disciple of Martin Heidegger, it re-establishes him as a central figure in modern European philosophy. Giving particular consideration to his position in epistemological, metaphysical and political debate, the author argues that Jaspers's work deserves renewed consideration in a number of important discussions, particularly in hermeneutics, anthropological reflections (...) on religion, the critique of idealism, and debates on the end of metaphysics. (shrink)
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21.Rob Truswell,Chris Cummins,Caroline Heycock,Brian Rabern &Hannah Rohde (eds.) -2018 - Semantics Archives.detailsThe present volume contains a collection of papers presented at the 21st annual meeting “Sinn und Bedeutung” of the Gesellschaft fur Semantik, which was held at the University of Edinburgh on September 4th–6th, 2016. The Sinn und Bedeutung conferences are one of the leading international venues for research in formal semantics.
Which Groups Have Scientific Knowledge? Wray Vs. Rolin.Chris Dragos -2016 -Social Epistemology 30 (5-6):611-623.detailsKristina Rolin and Brad Wray agree with an increasing number of epistemologists that knowledge can sometimes be attributed to a group and to none of its individual members. That is, collective knowledge sometimes obtains. However, Rolin charges Wray with being too restrictive about the kinds of groups to which he attributes collective knowledge. She rejects Wray’s claim that only scientific research teams can know while the general scientific community cannot. Rolin forwards a ‘default and challenge’ account of epistemic justification toward (...) her argument that even the general scientific community can know because it’s sometimes the general scientific community, and none of its individual members, that attains epistemic justification. I argue that Rolin faces a dilemma: either she must herself be more restrictive about the kinds of groups to which she attributes collective knowledge or she must concede the general claim that collective knowledge obtains at all. (shrink)
A Paradigm for Program Semantics: Power Structures and Duality.Chris Brink &Ingrid M. Rewitzky -2001 - Center for the Study of Language and Inf.detailsThis book provides a synthesis of four versions of program semantic—srelational semantics, predicate transformer semantics, information systems, and domain theory—showing, through an exhaustive case study analysis, that it is possible to do back-and-forth translation from any of these versions of program semantics into any of the others, and demonstrating that while there are many variations of each, in principle they may be thought of as intertranslatable.
Almost-Poetics: Prose Rhythm in George Berkeley’s Siris.Chris Townsend -2019 -Philosophy and Literature 43 (2):336-349.detailsDid George Berkeley think about the sounds of words? In his extraordinary 1912 work A History of English Prose Rhythm, the literary critic and prosodist George Saintsbury implies that such was indeed the case.1 Berkeley, more familiar to us as an idealist philosopher and as Bishop of Cloyne from 1734 to 1753, was also the author of a number of strange and often surprising texts. Saintsbury quotes, and metrically scans, one such work in his History.Saintsbury’s approach here, as elsewhere in (...) the book, is to impose on the fluidities of prose the kind of structured scansion usually reserved for poetry—by arranging sentences into “feet” and marking whether a syllable carries a stress or goes unstressed. As... (shrink)
(1 other version)Consistent Quantum Mechanics Admits No Mereotopology.Chris Fields -2012 -Axiomathes (1):1-10.detailsIt is standardly assumed in discussions of quantum theory that physical systems can be regarded as having well-defined Hilbert spaces. It is shown here that a Hilbert space can be consistently partitioned only if its components are assumed not to interact. The assumption that physical systems have well-defined Hilbert spaces is, therefore, physically unwarranted.
Epistemic Coherence.Paul Thagard,Chris Eliasmith,Paul Rusnock &Cameron Shelley -2002 - In R. Elio,Common sense, reasoning, and rationality. Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science (Vol. 11). Oxford University Press. pp. 104-131.detailsMany contemporary philosophers favor coherence theories of knowledge (Bender 1989, BonJour 1985, Davidson 1986, Harman 1986, Lehrer 1990). But the nature of coherence is usually left vague, with no method provided for determining whether a belief should be accepted or rejected on the basis of its coherence or incoherence with other beliefs. Haack's (1993) explication of coherence relies largely on an analogy between epistemic justification and crossword puzzles. We show in this paper how epistemic coherence can be understood in terms (...) of maximization of constraint satisfaction, in keeping with computational models that have had a substantial impact in cognitive science. A coherence problem can be defined in terms of a set of elements and sets of positive and negative constraints between pairs of those elements. Algorithms are available for computing coherence by determining how to accept and reject elements in a way that satisfies the most constraints. Knowledge involves at least five different kinds of coherence - explanatory, analogical, deductive, perceptual, and conceptual - each requiring different sorts of elements and constraints. (shrink)
(1 other version)Francis of Marchia's Virtus Derelicta and the Context of Its Development.Chris Schabel -2006 -Vivarium 44 (1):41-80.detailsThis article offers the first critical edition of the most important version of Francis of Marchia's famous question 1 of his commentary on Book IV of the Sentences, in which the Franciscan theologian puts forth his virtus derelicta theory of projectile motion. The introduction attempts to place Marchia's theory in its proper context. The theory might seem to us an obvious improvement on Aristotle, but rather than an immediate and complete break with tradition that all scholastics quickly adopted, Marchia's virtus (...) derelicta was more a stage in a gradual process that had begun many decades before and did not find universal acceptance among his first successors. Moreover, Marchia himself did not take the theory to what might seem the obvious conclusion that Jean Buridan would draw, because Marchia employed the virtus derelicta to explain more phenomena than just projectile motion. (shrink)
Two conflicting visions of education and their consilience.Chris Duncan &Derek Sankey -2019 -Educational Philosophy and Theory 51 (14):1454-1464.detailsOver the past two decades, two heavily funded initiatives of the Federal government of Australia have been founded on two very different and seemingly conflicting (if not antithetical) visions of education. The first, the Australian Values Education Program (AVEP, 2003–2010) enshrines what may be called an ‘embedded values’ vision of education; the second, the National Assessments Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN, 2008-present) enshrines a ‘performative’ vision. The purpose of this article is to unpack these two seemingly conflicting visions and to argue (...) instead for their possible consilience, bringing together apparently incompatible phenomena to coalesce into a single, more expansive vision of schooling. Against the historical context that gave rise to AVEP and NAPLAN in Australia, the article argues that the visions of education rendered in these abrupt policy shifts are vestiges of a history of dichotomous and dualistic thinking in western educational philosophy. Underpinning this dualism is a fundamental schism between cognition and emotion and a Cartesian separation of mind from body that can no longer be sustained. Our increased understanding of the neural substrates of cognition, the ‘intertwined’ nature of cognition and emotion, combined with a philosophy of mind that does not dissociate propositional knowledge from the disposition of the learner, points to an alternative vision of education. A vision that is thoroughly values embedded, concerned with the educational wellbeing of each child, while also giving value to and prioritising educational performance and achievement, and the intellectual liberation these can offer each and every child. (shrink)
Systematic Atheology, by John Shook.Chris Tweedt -2018 -Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.detailsJohn Shook’s Systematic Atheology, “composed mainly for the edification of atheism’s defenders,” (p. 37) is an attempt to understand and defend atheism in an organized way. The book is divided into three sections. The first is the attempt to define ‘atheist’, ‘atheology’, and their relationship by tracking historical uses of the terms. The second is an extensive history of atheistic and atheological western philosophers, and the third, which occupies the last half of the book, is the attempt to systematically undermine (...) every kind of argument for the existence of a god. In this review, I state the strengths and weaknesses of the book, summarize its main points, and provide reasons to think that the atheological project in the last half of the book fails. (shrink)
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