How should state schools respond to the plurality of values in a multicultural society? The liberal response has been that it is unacceptable to promote only the traditional, mainstream values of dominant groups and impose them on others. During the 1980s this response gradually evolved into an ideology of extreme subjectivism, commonly referred to as cultural relativism. This ideology is rejected and it is argued that the school must make crucial judgements about which values should be promoted, tolerated or condemned.

Modality and Anti-Metaphysics critically examines the most prominent approaches to modality among analytic philosophers in the twentieth century, including essentialism. Defending both the project of metaphysics and the essentialist position that metaphysical modality is conceptually and ontologically primitive, Stephen McLeod argues that the logical positivists did not succeed in banishing metaphysical modality from their own theoretical apparatus and he offers an original defence of metaphysics against their advocacy of its elimination. -/- Seeking to assuage the sceptical worries which underlie modal (...) anti-realism, McLeod provides an original contribution to essentialist epistemology, engaging with current debates about modality and suggesting that standard essentialist approaches to some issues in the philosophies of logic and language require revision. -/- This book offers valuable insights to professional philosophers, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in metaphysics, philosophy of logic or the history of twentieth-century analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Donald Mackinnon; Is Equality Necessarily Incompatible with Quality?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 267–270, https.

The republication of David Bloor's Knowledge and Social Imagery is evidence of the continuing interest and importance of the work but also provides the clearest evidence of the shortcomings of the enterprise. The new Afterword of Bloor's second edition addresses criticisms of the Strong Programme, but the theses which Bloor now defends are substantially weaker claims than the iconoclastic tenets of the original manifesto. Moreover, in a related strategy, Bloor asserts that criticisms made since 1975 have given him no reason (...) to modify the original text, but there are judicious alterations which are revealing. These unacknowledged alterations are documented here. Bloor's Strong Programme was founded on the diametrical opposition between his causal sociological approach and the allegedly a?causal rationalist, psychologist or ?teleological? approach. However, once it was shown that the teleological position is not the straw?man he represented it to be, Bloor's diametrical opposition left him no retreat. Just as Bloor weakens the original claims of the Strong Programme to make them appear compatible with cognitive science, so he eradicates the suggestion that the opposing teleological position was ever as absurd as he had portrayed it. The common rationale of these independent tactics leaves little question about their purpose ? and their futility. (shrink)

Donald Mackinnon; Is Equality Necessarily Incompatible with Quality?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 267–270, https.