The author discusses why the philosophy of the subject has been important\nto postmodernists. The author commences with a discussion on the\nintellectual background of postmodernism and its relations with other\nkinds of philosophy and with history. This paper concludes with a\ndiscussion about Michel Foucault's views on education and training\nand what impact this had on development of policy in New Zealand.

A philosophical genealogy of the development of liberal 'arts of government' through the work of John Locke and Michel Foucault.

Dance is addressed as making significance for what Elias terms the civilizing process of early modernity through its contribution to the ennoblement of warriors and the pacification of merchants. The grounds for this are drawn from McNeill's contention that expenditure of muscular energy rhythmically in dance, as in military drill, but with different sociocultural consequences, is a fundamental human device for consolidating community feeling by facilitating cooperation by arousing a warm sense of togetherness. The significance of dance as a sociocultural (...) practice in early modernity is discussed critically through contemporary writings from the 16th and 17th centuries, with particular consideration given to the description of dance as an allegory for moral order in Elyot's manual on the education of the ruler. (shrink)

The essay examines both the dances and the dance notation of renowned nineteenth century choreographer Carlo Blasis. It looks in detail at Blasis major treatise The Code of Terpsichore in an effort to evaluate how Blasis linked a science of movement to a conception of the body oriented around the prevailing aesthetics informing all of the fine arts. Identifying Blasis as both a philosopher and a mechanist, this essay analyzes his approach to teaching basic ballet vocabulary, and in particular the (...) arabesque. Whereas Kleist, with his Marionettentheater, proposes the puppet as a figure of grace, located somewhere between animal and doll, Blasis brings together the movement science of mechanics and the descriptive theory of grace in a poetics of the arabesque, a synthesis of elevation and evanescence, which we see when we conjure up pictures of nineteenth century Romantic ballet. (shrink)

The relationship between adults and children in liberal democracies is based on two flawed assumptions that are widespread: first, that childhood is an impediment, a passing phase of impaired maturity; and second, that children benefit from the proliferation of rights ascribed to them. Social institutions, and particularly the education system, are correspondingly misconstrued. This article focuses on the combined effect of vulnerability and autonomy as they construct contemporary childhood. I conclude that adults' obligations rather than children's rights are the appropriate (...) social, political and educational basis for adult society's relations with children. (shrink)

The relationship between adults and children in liberal democracies is based on two flawed assumptions that are widespread: first, that childhood is an impediment, a passing phase of impaired maturity; and second, that children benefit from the proliferation of rights ascribed to them. Social institutions, and particularly the education system, are correspondingly misconstrued. This article focuses on the combined effect of vulnerability and autonomy as they construct contemporary childhood. I conclude that adults’ obligations rather than children’s rights are the appropriate (...) social, political and educational basis for adult society’s relations with children. (shrink)

The aim of this article is twofold. Against the traditional interpretation of ‘the conscience of Huckleberry Finn’ (for which Jonathan Bennett's article with this title is the locus classicus) as a conflict between conscience and sympathy, I propose a new interpretation of Huck's inner conflict, in terms of Huck's mastery of (the) moral language and its integration with his moral feelings. The second aim is to show how this interpretation can provide insight into a particular aspect of moral education: learning (...) a moral language. A moral education that has a proper regard for the flexibility of moral language and the importance of the integration of moral language and (pre-)moral feelings should prevent such conflicts as Huck experienced from arising. (shrink)

We argue that Rousseau 's defense of the sex-roled family is not based on biological determinism or simple misogyny. Rather, his advocacy of sexual differentiation is based on his understanding of its ability to bring individuals outside of themselves into interdependent communities, and thus to counter natural independence, self-absorption and asociality, as well as social competitiveness and egoism. This political defense of the sex-roled family needs more critique by feminists.

The relationship between John Locke and Isaac Newton, his co-founder of, in the apt phrase of one recent writer, ‘the Moderate Enlightenment’ of the eighteenth century, has many dimensions. There is their friendship, which began only after each had written his major work, and which had its stormy interlude. There is the difficult question of their mutual impact. In what ways did each draw intellectually on the other? That there was some debt of each to the other is almost certain, (...) but its exact extent is problematic. Questions may be asked over a whole range of intellectual issues, but not always answered. Thus their theology, which was in many respects close, and which forms the bulk of their surviving correspondence, may yet reveal mutual influence. There is the question of their political views, where both were firmly Whig. But it is upon their philosophy, and certain aspects of their philosophy in particular, that this paper will concentrate. My main theme is the nature of their empiricism, and my main contention is that between them they produced a powerful and comprehensive philosophy. (shrink)

The relationship between John Locke and Isaac Newton, his co-founder of, in the apt phrase of one recent writer, ‘the Moderate Enlightenment’ of the eighteenth century, has many dimensions. There is their friendship, which began only after each had written his major work, and which had its stormy interlude. There is the difficult question of their mutual impact. In what ways did each draw intellectually on the other? That there was some debt of each to the other is almost certain, (...) but its exact extent is problematic. Questions may be asked over a whole range of intellectual issues, but not always answered. Thus their theology, which was in many respects close, and which forms the bulk of their surviving correspondence, may yet reveal mutual influence. There is the question of their political views, where both were firmly Whig. But it is upon their philosophy, and certain aspects of their philosophy in particular, that this paper will concentrate. My main theme is the nature of their empiricism, and my main contention is that between them they produced a powerful and comprehensive philosophy. (shrink)

John Locke's educational program has long been considered to have two primary aims: to habituate children to reason and to raise children capable of meeting the demands of citizenship that he details in his Two Treatises of Government. Yet Locke's educational prescriptions undermine citizens’ capacity for honesty, a critical political virtue for Locke. To explain how Locke's educational prescriptions are self-undermining, we turn to Rousseau's extended critique of Locke's Some Thoughts on Education in his Émile. We argue that Rousseau explains (...) why such an education allows a natural desire to dominate to flourish, rendering children who receive it dishonest and incapable of self-government. Rousseau's critique exposes how a liberal education focused solely on autonomy cannot produce the kinds of citizens a Lockean politics requires. (shrink)