Research on ethical leadership in organizations has been largely based on Western philosophical traditions and has tended to focus on Western corporate experiences. Insights gained from such studies may however not be universally applicable in other cultural contexts. This paper examines the normative grounds for an alternative Confucian virtue-based ethics of leadership in China. As with Western corporations, organizational practices in China are profoundly shaped by their own cultural history and philosophical outlook. The ethical norms guiding both the practice and (...) theory of leadership in China are underpinned by indigenous Chinese wisdoms imbued in their own traditions and China’s collective psyche. Focusing on three fundamental aspects of Confucian virtue ethics: _ren_ (仁 benevolence), _yi_ (义 righteousness) and _li_(礼 ritual propriety), this paper proposes that an ideal Confucian leader regards self-cultivation as a first priority; status and material gain, whilst important, are not the foremost concern. S/he exemplifies the virtuous role model, exudes moral charisma and influences others by shaping an organization’s ethical culture through the process of ritualization. The paper concludes by claiming that amplifying the explicit discourse around Confucian virtue ethics will help contribute to the development of better ethical leadership in China. (shrink)

Children as learners need adults who love them, even when the children are unable to give anything in return. Furthermore, adults should be able to make wise judgements concerning what is good for the children. The clarification of these principles and of their educational import has to start within our own cultural tradition. Agape (unconditional love, neighbour-love or charity) is a basic concept in the Christian tradition. Phronesis (moral wisdom, practical judgement or prudence) has a key position in the Aristotelian (...) tradition. In his Summa TheologiaeThomas Aquinas has combined these traditions and ethical concepts, with agape (in Latin caritas) as the commanding concept. The article will explore some key challenges and productive resources revealed by this combination for today's education and upbringing. (shrink)

Children as learners need adults who love them, even when the children are unable to give anything in return. Furthermore, adults should be able to make wise judgements concerning what is good for the children. The clarification of these principles and of their educational import has to start within our own cultural tradition. Agape (unconditional love, neighbour-love or charity) is a basic concept in the Christian tradition. Phronesis (moral wisdom, practical judgement or prudence) has a key position in the Aristotelian (...) tradition. In his Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas has combined these traditions and ethical concepts, with agape (in Latin caritas) as the commanding concept. The article will explore some key challenges and productive resources revealed by this combination for today’s education and upbringing. (shrink)

The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Philosophy of Education brings together a number of book chapters and articles in the philosophy of education. These cover a wide range of issues that engage and, in many cases, trouble contemporary philosophers of education, beginning with the perennial and fundamental one of the relationship between philosophy and education. The other sections, which include a rich selection of readings, concern the nature of education and its politics, policy‐making and the moral dimensions of teaching. The whole is (...) preceded by a provocative introductory essay written by Wilfred Carr, the book's editor. In it he suggests a different Aristotelian perspective on these issues, a different narrative from the usual contemporary post‐analytic one we are used to and a means of responding to them, inspired mainly by the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. This essay both takes up Carr's provocations in this Introduction and comprehensively reviews the book and the chapters in it. (shrink)

The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Philosophy of Education brings together a number of book chapters and articles in the philosophy of education. These cover a wide range of issues that engage and, in many cases, trouble contemporary philosophers of education, beginning with the perennial and fundamental one of the relationship between philosophy and education. The other sections, which include a rich selection of readings, concern the nature of education and its politics, policy-making and the moral dimensions of teaching. The whole is (...) preceded by a provocative introductory essay written by Wilfred Carr, the book’s editor. In it he suggests a different Aristotelian perspective on these issues, a different narrative from the usual contemporary post-analytic one we are used to and a means of responding to them, inspired mainly by the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. This essay both takes up Carr’s provocations in this Introduction and comprehensively reviews the book and the chapters in it. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Aristotelian phronesis and aims at highlighting its nature as an eye on particulars with general ends in sight. More specifically, it challenges the particularistic interpretation of phronesis and Aristotelian ethics in order to argue for a “qualified generalism.” After sketching a radical Particularistic Reading (PR), the paper defends an interpretation it calls the Priority of Particulars Reading (PPR). First, it shows how PPR effectively accounts for the Aristotelian priority assigned to practical perception while at the same (...) time counterbalancing that priority by means of two interpretive strategies. Then it offers further support to PPR by appealing to its own reading of Aristotle's phronesis. It aims to show that it is possible to defend a legitimate form of PPR without ending in holding PR, and that Aristotle's own theory and work ground the moderate reading. Finally, it draws some implications by analyzing educational practice. (shrink)

On the strength of a clarification of the nature of philosophy of education, a critical overview is offered of Wittgenstein's impact on the field. The focus then narrows to give attention to Wittgenstein's claim that “Nothing is hidden”, pitched here in a questionable relation to contemporary concerns with transparency. Familiar readings of this passage are challenged in connection with Wittgenstein's late writings on psychology, especially with regard to imagination and pretence. These are argued to be essential to the development of (...) mind and world, from the child's first entry into language, and hence crucial to education. (shrink)

Teaching, like other professions, involves the performance of contingent functions. This suggests three basic questions: What do teachers do? What affects what they do? How do they do it? Together, these questions provide a three-dimensional framework which can be used to plan, analyse and evaluate teaching. Such a framework falls short of a prescriptive theory but can inform the judgements that teachers and students make. It also offers one way of conceptualising teaching as a unitary discipline.

Much current educational research shows the influence of two powerful but potentially pernicious lines of thought. The first, which can be traced at least as far back as Francis Bacon, is the ambition to formulate precise techniques of research, or ‘research methods’, which can be applied reliably irrespective of the talent of the researcher. The second is the recognition that in the social sciences we—humankind—are ourselves the objects of our study. The first line of thought threatens to cut educational research (...) free of the wider range of ideas and theories that should govern or at least inform it. The second tends to turn it into an absorption with self, particularly when allied to what its practitioners like to think of as the postmodern turn. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Aspects of phronetic social science and phronetic organization research have been much debated over the recent years. So far, the visual aspects of communicating phronesis have gained little attention. Still organizations try to convey a desirable image of respectability and success, both internally and externally to the public. A channel for such information is corporate reporting, and particularly CSR reporting embrace values like fairness, goodness, and sustainability. This study explores how visual portrayals of supposedly wise and discerning values (phronesis) are (...) used to reinforce the verbal features of CSR reporting. The two propositions underlying this study is (1) that visual images form some of the major parts of the structures of contemporary corporate reporting (particularly CSR reporting) and (2) that phronetic action in organizations is subjected not only to textual documentation, but also to visual expressions. This study also discusses how the Aristotelian concept of phronesis can be linked to contemporary concerns about responsibility, and how this is visually represented in CSR reporting. Finally, this study addresses the symbolic and contextual signification of images in corporate accounts of wisdom and responsibility. (shrink)

The ‘music appreciation as contemplation’ paradigm of traditional aesthetics and music education assumes that music exists to be contemplated for itself. The resulting distantiation of music and music education from life creates a legitimation crisis for music education. Failing to make a noteworthy musical difference for society, a politics of advocacy attempts to justify music education. Praxial theories of music, instead, see music as pragmatically social in origin, meaning, and value. A praxial approach to music education stresses that appreciation is (...) seen in use; thus, it seeks to ‘make a difference’ that students and society find musically noteworthy. (shrink)

The ‘music appreciation as contemplation’ paradigm of traditional aesthetics and music education assumes that music exists to be contemplated for itself. The resulting distantiation of music and music education from life creates a legitimation crisis for music education. Failing to make a noteworthy musical difference for society, a politics of advocacy attempts to justify music education. Praxial theories of music, instead, see music as pragmatically social in origin, meaning, and value. A praxial approach to music education stresses that appreciation is (...) seen in use; thus, it seeks to ‘make a difference’ that students and society find musically noteworthy. (shrink)

In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas makes the claim that the unprecedented public use of critical reason was an essential constituent of the early modern European (bourgeois) public sphere (1991, 27-28, 105-6, and more generally 1-117). Narrating the history of the particular concept of critical reason that animated the public sphere, Habermas locates its origin in the practical reason (phronesis) of Aristotle but argues that Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas More had drastically transformed the concept when they substituted (...) for phronesis a practical reason based instead on techne (1973, 42, 50-51). Machiavelli's role was central in this transformation, for he "reduces the practical .. (shrink)

This article examines the underlying problems of one particular perspective in educational theory that has recently gained momentum: the Wilfred Carr approach, which puts forward the premise that there is no theory in educational research and, consequently, it is a form of practice. The article highlights the scientific, epistemological and methodological assumptions inherent in such a view. The argument is developed as follows: first, it expounds what Carr understands by the methodology of action research and educational theory, setting out his (...) distinctive view. Secondly, it explains that both Carr's underlying methodology, as well as his theoretical alternative, are based on a particular perspective on Social Science. Thirdly, it reveals Carr's epistemological assumptions and the resultant educational consequences. (shrink)

This article attempts to understand and develop the morality of everyday activities in organizations. Aristotle’s concept of phronesis, practical wisdom, is utilized to describe the morality of the everyday work activities at two call centres of an Australian insurance company. The ethnographic data suggests that ethical judgements at the lower level of the organization are practical rather than theoretical; emergent rather than static; ambiguous rather than clear-cut; and particular rather than universal. Ethical codes are of limited value here and it (...) is argued that by developing phronesis members of the organization can improve their capacity to deal with this ethical complexity. (shrink)

The Dreyfus account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way Dreyfus encourages a more reflexive approach. The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The paper considers (...) whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)

The ) account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus (1980s) account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way ) encourages a more reflexive approach.The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The paper considers (...) whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)

Ethical decision making in medicine has recently seen calls to move towards less prescriptive- based approaches that consider the particularities of each case. The main alternative call from the literature is for better understanding of phronesis concepts applied to decision making. A well-cited phronesis-based approach is Kaldjian’s five-stage theoretical framework: goals, concrete circumstances, virtues, deliberation and motivation to act. We build on Kaldjian’s theory after using his framework to analyse data collected from a three-year empirical study of phronesis and the (...) medical community. The data are a set of narratives collected in response to asking a medical community what making ethically wise decisions means to them. We found that Kaldjian’s five concepts are present in the accounts to some extent but that one of the elements, motivation, is constructed as playing a different, though still crucial role. Rather than being an end-stage of the process as Kaldjian’s framework suggests, motivation was constructed as initiating the process and maintaining the momentum of taking a phronesis-based approach. The implications for medical ethics decision-making education are significant as motivation itself is a highly complex concept. We therefore theorise that motivation is required for leading in, continuing and completing the actions of the ethical decision taken. Appreciating the central importance of motivation through the whole of Kaldjian’s framework has implications for cultivating the virtues of phronesis and courage to take the right course of action. (shrink)

When Paul Hirst and Wilfred Carr squared up to each other a few years ago on the issue of the role of philosophical theory in educational practice, it became clear that theory itself had become a troubled term. The very fact that Wilfred Carr could argue for the end of educational theory recalls Paul Feyerabend's fiery argument for the end of theory in natural science and simply deepened the attack that had already appeared in Carr and Kemmis's book, Becoming Critical (...) (1986). In response, Hirst insisted that theory, and particularly the philosophical theory of education, should be defined as a discrete area of study in itself, governed and structured by the axioms of logic. In this way, he argued, the philosophy of education would be no different from philosophy in general (at least in its analytic formulation). Carr, on the other hand, preferred to consider educational theory as a flexible event that took its shape from the landscape explored, and hence precisely not the kind of study that Hirst supported, but one based in action research and reflective practitioner experience. This debate is as yet unresolved. In this piece I begin by making several remarks about the current context for raising the question Hirst and Carr address, and I go on to consider other possible understandings of theoria in a Greek sense before developing this idea through a reading of Aristotle. I eventually conclude that each of the protagonists in the debate has taken a step too far. (shrink)

When Paul Hirst and Wilfred Carr squared up to each other a few years ago on the issue of the role of philosophical theory in educational practice, it became clear that theory itself had become a troubled term. The very fact that Wilfred Carr could argue for the end of educational theory recalls Paul Feyerabend’s fiery argument for the end of theory in natural science and simply deepened the attack that had already appeared in Carr and Kemmis’s book, Becoming Critical (...) (1986). In response, Hirst insisted that theory, and particularly the philosophical theory of education, should be defined as a discrete area of study in itself, governed and structured by the axioms of logic. In this way, he argued, the philosophy of education would be no different from philosophy in general (at least in its analytic formulation). Carr, on the other hand, preferred to consider educational theory as a flexible event that took its shape from the landscape explored, and hence precisely not the kind of study that Hirst supported, but one based in action research and reflective practitioner experience. This debate is as yet unresolved. In this piece I begin by making several remarks about the current context for raising the question Hirst and Carr address, and I go on to consider other possible understandings of theoria in a Greek sense before developing this idea through a reading of Aristotle. I eventually conclude that each of the protagonists in the debate has taken a step too far. (shrink)

This article seeks to elaborate the step of epistemological affirmation that exists within every movement of learning. My epistemological method is rooted in philosophical hermeneutics in contrast to empirical or rationalist traditions. I argue that any movement of learning is based upon an entry into a hermeneutical circle: one is thrown into, or leaps into, an interpretation which in some sense has to be temporarily affirmed or adopted in order to be either absorbed and integrated, or overcome and rejected. I (...) illustrate this process through a retrieval of the concept of submission in pedagogy, particularly with reference to submission in Eastern traditions, as well as pre-modern Christian thought. These other traditions are introduced to contrast with the modern liberal Western perspective in which the role of submission has been almost entirely lost. (shrink)

The current emphasis that organisations are placing upon knowledge and the corresponding attention that workplace epistemological values are receiving within the educational community has resulted in an interesting convergence of discourses—school-based and work-based. Even as workplaces are tending toward abstraction over practice—based knowing, schools are being nudged into doing the reverse. The result of this ferment is that traditional barriers between these kinds of knowledge are being removed. As can be seen from workplace examples, it is possible for liberal learning (...) to be in the service of instrumental ends. So too schools may come to see more clearly the value of situatedness and team-work in the transaction of liberal learning. More generally, we see also new possibilities for retreat from received views about the worth of practical knowledge. (shrink)

The current emphasis that organisations are placing upon knowledge and the corresponding attention that workplace epistemological values are receiving within the educational community has resulted in an interesting convergence of discourses—school-based and work-based. Even as workplaces are tending toward abstraction over practice—based knowing, schools are being nudged into doing the reverse. The result of this ferment is that traditional barriers between these kinds of knowledge are being removed. As can be seen from workplace examples, it is possible for liberal learning (...) to be in the service of instrumental ends. So too schools may come to see more clearly the value of situatedness and team-work in the transaction of liberal learning. More generally, we see also new possibilities for retreat from received views about the worth of practical knowledge. (shrink)

A kind of ‘neo‐Aristotelianism’ that connects educational reasoning and reflection to phronesis, and education itself to praxis, has gained considerable following in recent educational discourse. The author identifies four cardinal claims of this phronesis‐praxis perspective: that a) Aristotle's epistemology and methodology imply a stance that is essentially, with regard to practical philosophy, anti‐method and anti‐theory; b) ‘producing’, under the rubric of techné, as opposed to ‘acting’ under the rubric of phronesis, is an unproblematically codifiable process; c) phronesis must be given (...) a particularist interpretation; and d) teaching is best understood as praxis in the Aristotelian sense, guided by phronesis. The author argues that these claims have insufficient grounding in Aristotle's own writings, and that none of them stands up to scrutiny. (shrink)

Phronesis has become a buzzword in contemporary medical ethics. Yet, the use of this single term conceals a number of significant conceptual controversies based on divergent philosophical assumptions. This paper explores three of them: on phronesis as universalist or relativist, generalist or particularist, and natural/painless or painful/ambivalent. It also reveals tensions between Alasdair MacIntyre’s take on phronesis, typically drawn upon in professional ethics discourses, and Aristotle’s original concept. The paper offers these four binaries as a possible analytical framework for classifying (...) and evaluating accounts of phronesis in the medical ethics literature. It argues that to make sense of phronesis as a putative ideal in professional medical ethics—for example, with the further aim of crafting interventions to cultivate phronesis in medical ethics education—the preliminary question of which conception of phronesis is most serviceable for the aim in question needs to be answered. The paper identifies considerable lack of clarity in the current discursive field on phronesis and suggests how that shortcoming can be ameliorated. (shrink)

An adequate moral theory must – or so many philosophers have argued – be compatible with the attitudes and practical requirements of deep friendship. Bernard Williams suggested that the decision procedure required by both deontology and consequentialism inserts a fetishising filter between the natural moral motivation of any normal person to prioritise friends and the decision to act on it. But this injects ‘one thought too many’ into the moral reaction mechanism. It is standardly assumed that virtue ethics is somehow (...) immune to this objection. The present article explores this assumption and finds it wanting in various respects. Virtue ethics filters friendship throughphronesisand thus inserts an extra thought into the mechanism in question. To escape Williams's curse, the only way is to argue that the extra thought required by virtue ethics is not ‘one thought too many’. The article closes with an attempt to show that, contra deontology, the friendship motivation in virtue ethics is derived from the moral virtue, not the intellectual filter, and, contra consequentialism,phronesisdoes not require the maximisation of value. The presumed advantage of virtue ethics must lie in the content of its filter rather than the filter's non-existence. (shrink)

Aristotle says that no human achievement has the stability of activities that express virtue. Ethical situationists consider this claim to be refutable by empirical evidence. If that is true, not only Aristotelianism, but folk psychology, contemporary virtue ethics and character education have all been seriously infirmed. The aim of this paper is threefold: (1) to offer a systematic classification of the existing objections against situationism under four main headings: ‘the methodological objection’, ‘the moral dilemma objection’, ‘the bullet-biting objection’ and ‘the (...) anti-behaviouristic objection’; (2) to resuscitate a more powerful Aristotelian version of the ‘anti-behaviouristic objection’ than advanced by previous critics; and (3) to explore some of the implications of such resuscitation for our understanding of the salience of character and for future studies of its nature. (shrink)

I argue for the claim that for Aristotle, the content of productive understanding primarily concerns the nature of the object a craftsperson aims to bring into existence as well as its material requirements, and only derivatively things she might do with a view to producing that object. I explain why technê is a form of understanding, by considering what it shares with and how it differs from its practical and theoretical cousins. I give four arguments for my claim. The analogy (...) of craft and nature suggests that a craftsperson understands the nature of their product and the material necessities required by the product’s existence. Further evidence comes from some of Aristotle’s remarks on the practical syllogism, from considerations concerning capacities for change in general, and from his views on why it is a two-way capacity. I end by mentioning several respects in which technê goes beyond productive understanding. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of methodology in action research. It begins by showing how action research is nothing other than a modern 20th century manifestation of the pre-modern tradition of practical philosophy. It then gives an explanation of Aristotelian Tradition and draws on Gadamer's powerful vindication in order to show how action research functions to sustain a distorted understanding of what practice is. The paper concludes by outlining a non-methodological view of action research whose (...) chief task is to promote the kind of historical self-consciousness that the development of practice presupposes and requires. (shrink)

The concept of phronesis is venerable and is experiencing a resurgence in contemporary discourses on professional life. Aristotle’s notion of phronesis involves reasoning and action based on ethical ideals oriented towards the human good. For Aristotle, humans possess the desire to do what is best for human flourishing, and to do so according to the application of virtues. Within health care, the pervasiveness of economic agendas, technological approaches and managerialism create conditions in which human relationships and moral reasoning are becoming (...) increasingly de‐valued. This creates a tension for nurses, and nursing leaders, as the desire to do what is morally right is often in conflict with contextual demands. In this paper, Aristotle’s writing on phronesis is examined with a focus on his classic conceptions of eudaimonia, the virtues, deliberation, judgement, and praxis. Building on Aristotle’s work, a number of contemporary views are explored with a focus on what various conceptualizations offer for the discipline of nursing. These expanded conceptions of phronesis include attention to: embodiment in practice; open‐mindedness including the capacity to stay curious and open to recognizing what we do not know; perceptiveness as a disposition towards insight and aesthetic understanding; and reflexivity as an ongoing process of interrogation and inquiry into ourselves and our actions. Drawing on these concepts, we discuss the affordances of phronesis as a morally informed guiding force to attend to modern‐day challenges in nursing practice and nursing leadership. (shrink)

. A space for ‘who’ – a culture of ‘two’: speculations related to an ‘in-between knowledge’. Ethics and Education: Vol. 7, Creating spaces, pp. 251-260. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2013.767084.

A Special Issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education in November 2012 explored key aspects of the relationship between philosophy of education and educational policy in the UK. The contributions were generally critical of policy developments in recent decades, highlighting important shortcomings and arguing for more philosophically coherent approaches to educational policy-making. This article begins by focusing on what the contributions to the Special Issue—particularly two of them—have to say about the relationship between philosophy of education and educational policymaking. (...) It then goes on to argue that this relationship can best be understood through an exploration of education as a practice in its own right. Such an exploration seeks to shed light on the proper métier of philosophy of education. In the course of the exploration the kind of thinking predominant in recent international patterns in educational policy is contrasted with a different kind of thinking which has yielded rich gains in Finland. Important distinctions are drawn between the inherent and extrinsic benefits of educational practice and between the internal and external politics of practice. These contribute to the articulation of philosophy of education as a distinctive discipline of thought and action which is necessary to the work of practitioners and policymakers alike. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between love, learning and knowledge as found in three dialogues of Plato, Symposium, Phaedrus and Republic. It argues that the account of the ascent from carnal desire to the love of beauty, as set out in the Symposium, is best seen in terms of a genealogy of love in which the object of love is transformed into an object of knowledge. The Phaedrus shows us how affection and love between two individuals can help motivate a (...) love of learning. The Republic demonstrates the value of knowledge through the distinction between knowledge and opinion. A love of learning is, therefore, driven by that which is genuinely valuable and worthy of love. Plato helps us today in two respects: first, he reminds us that learning can have an affective quality. Second, he reminds that the value of learning is related to the knowledge and insight it yields. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper critically examines some assumptions involved in determining the nature of the relationships and work that constitute a school as a community dedicated to learning and knowledge. Rather than arguing from first principles, the paper assumes that respect for other people as ends is preferable to seeing individuals in terms of their function or status; and it argues, in particular, for the reinstatement of a sense of agency for teachers that seems to have been lost in recent education initiatives (...) in the UK. Following Heidegger's notion of authenticity and Gadamer's emphasis on the process of interpretation to precipitate understanding, the paper argues that professional knowledge and understanding is best generated in relation to others, and thus the ethical basis for schools as communities should focus less on individuals and more on the value of persons in relationships of a distinctive kind. (shrink)

The issues that Paul Standish alerts us to are significant since they situate McDowell's argument in reference to works lying outside the mainstream tradition o.

This paper considers the accountability of professionals who are involved in situations of the failure of their organization to perform its expected role properly; the case of infant Caleb Ness, who died despite the surveillance of welfare agencies, is taken as an illustration. Following Bovens (?The Quest for Responsibility: Accountability and Citizenship in Complex Organisations?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998), it is accepted that there is an irreducible element of individual personal responsibility when preventable organizational failures occur through professional incompetence (...) or corruption. The type of guidance available from specialized professional knowledge and from ethical codes is appraised. This is contrasted with various theoretical approaches to practical reasoning, which are offered as a more relevant perspective on professional misconduct. Practical reason necessarily addresses itself to a reality much more uncertain, fluid and contingent than envisaged by the standard conceptions of professional knowledge and ethics. Rather then being derived strictly from impersonal abstract rules and formal knowledge, practical reason in large part reflects the character and personality of its owner. It is argued that, since professional responsibility is always partly personal, professional misconduct can be understood as a failure of practical reason. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of methodology in action research. It begins by showing how, as a form of inquiry concerned with the development of practice, action research is nothing other than a modern 20th century manifestation of the pre‐modern tradition of practical philosophy. It then draws in Gadamer's powerful vindication of the contemporary relevance of practical philosophy in order to show how, by embracing the idea of ‘methodology’, action research functions to sustain a distorted (...) understanding of what practice is. The paper concludes by outlining a non‐methodological view of action research whose chief task is to promote the kind of historical self‐consciousness that the development of practice presupposes and requires. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of methodology in action research. It begins by showing how, as a form of inquiry concerned with the development of practice, action research is nothing other than a modern 20th century manifestation of the pre-modern tradition of practical philosophy. It then draws in Gadamer’s powerful vindication of the contemporary relevance of practical philosophy in order to show how, by embracing the idea of ‘methodology’, action research functions to sustain a distorted (...) understanding of what practice is. The paper concludes by outlining a non-methodological view of action research whose chief task is to promote the kind of historical self-consciousness that the development of practice presupposes and requires. (shrink)

Inter-religious education has become a major concern as globalization proceeds. To develop a satisfactory model for it remains a challenge. This article proposes a paradigm based on the notion of self-transcendence as articulated by the philosopher-theologian, Bernard Lonergan. The approach provides a standpoint where the learner achieves a level of freedom by which he/she is enabled to decide responsibly what religious or non-religious viewpoint to adopt.

Qualities of personal character would appear to play a significant role in the professional conduct of teachers. It is often said that we remember teachers as much for the kinds of people they were than for anything they may have taught us, and some kinds of professional expertise may best be understood as qualities of character After (roughly) distinguishing qualities of character from those of personality, the present paper draws on the resources of virtue ethics to try to make sense (...) of the former. In the course of this, it is argued that while the key virtue ethical concept of phronesis orpractical wisdom has been widely deployed to account for aspects of professional teacher expertise, it has also been subject to rather un-Aristotelian interpretation as a kind of situation specific productive reasoning. The present paper seeks to show that it is better employed for understanding character in general and character in teaching in particular. The paper concludes with some observations about the professional education or cultivation of character. (shrink)