Recent discussions in critical social epistemology have raised the idea that the concept 'knower' is not only an epistemological concept, but an ethical concept as well. Though this idea plays a central role in these discussions, the theoretical underpinnings of the claim have not received extended scrutiny. This paper explores the idea that 'knower' is an irreducibly ethical concept in an effort to defend its use as a critical concept. In Section 1, I begin with the claim that 'knower' is (...) an irreducibly normative and social concept, drawing from some ideas in Wilfrid Sellars. In Section 2, I argue that one's being a knower involves demands for various sorts of ethically-laden recognition. I develop this thought by arguing that Axel Honneth's threefold typology of recognition—love, respect, and esteem—finds clear expression within the context of socio-epistemic practice. I conclude in Section 3 by arguing that Miranda Fricker's proposed " analogy " between epistemic and moral perception should be modified to indicate a closer relationship than mere analogy. (shrink)

The nature of critical thinking remains controversial. Some recent accounts have lost sight of its roots in the history of philosophy. This article discusses critical thinking in its historical and social contexts, and in particular, for its educational and political significance. The writings of Plato and Aristotle are still vital in considering what makes certain kinds of thinking and certain kinds of knowledge distinctive. But neither Plato nor Aristotle theorised critical thinking in its specificity, that is, by differentiating it from (...) other kinds of thinking and by outlining its features. It was only with German Idealism, as part of the European Enlightenment, that philosophy achieved a level of self-reflection and engagement that broadened, deepened and made radical the logos of Socrates and Plato. In the encounter between Modern German and Ancient Greek philosophy we can see that there are different kinds of reason, the most politically and existentially significant of which runs through critical thinking, which we can only ever experience as critical dialogue. The logos of dialectical reason is uncompromising in its pursuit of truth and ‘the good life’, and as such, demands courage from those who pursue it. (shrink)

This paper argues for the inclusion of a fourth order of recognition, pertaining to self-recognition, in Axel Honneth's critical theory of social recognition. I argue for the significance of this on the basis of examining the critical potential of the social psychology he has developed across his career as it pertains to autonomy, authenticity and agency. However, incorporating a fourth order of recognition into Honneth's internally differentiated account of recognition will not be easy given the architecture of his theory. To (...) remain consistent with Honneth's delineation between love, rights and solidarity, a fourth order of recognition would need to be capable of generating a practical relation to self and a normative attitude; it would require an institutional locale in which it could be articulated through social practices that admit conflict and thereby the possibility for further extension and/or reconstitution. Self-recognition fulfils three of these four criteria: it may lack for a specific institu.. (shrink)

There are two principal philosophical conceptions of socialism, corresponding to two interpretations of the notion of a rational society. The first conception corresponds to an instrumental view of social rationality. Captured by the image of socialism as “one big workshop,” the instrumental view holds that social ownership of the means of production is rational because it promotes the optimal development of the productive forces. Social ownership is optimal because it eliminates the costs of coordination imposed by the conduct of economic (...) activities in formally independent enterprises, and, more generally, overcomes fetters on development that result from the control of resources by individuals whose particular interests imperfectly correspond to a general interest in productive advance. (shrink)

Nursing and nursing practice both construct and are in turn constructed by the context in which they operate. Texts play a central part in that construction. As such, nursing and nursing practice can be considered to represent a reality that is textually mediated. This paper explores the notion of nursing as a textually mediated reality and offers the reader the possibility of engaging in reflection on what implications this has for nursing and their own nursing practice. The analyses provided draw (...) on aspects of die work of both Foucault and Derrida. Foucault's notion of discourse provides a vehicle for die exploration of nursing as textually mediated, as does Derrida's concept of binary oppositions. The paper thus illustrates some of die possibilities afforded nursing by poststructural analyses. In particular it does this by exploring one of the central textual constructions, impacting on die way that nursing and nursing practice are conceptualized, the mind/body binary opposition. (shrink)

Wilfred Carr; Theories of Theory and Practice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 177–186, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

Wilfred Carr; The Idea of an Educational Science, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 29–37, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14.

Wilfred Carr; Critical Theory and Educational Studies, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 287–295, https://doi.org/10.11.

This article focuses on the dialectic of metapsychology and hermeneutics in psychoanalysis. By combining the causal language of the former with the intentional terminology of the latter, Freud's discourse continuously transgresses narrowly conceived boundaries of scientific disciplines and places its stakes both in the humanities and the natural sciences. The argument is made that attempts to reduce psychoanalytic theory to either causal explanation or interpretation of meaning, turn it into a closed thought-system and rob it of its vitality. Moreover, it (...) is argued that although Freud understood himself to be a scientist, by eschewing the dichotomous reductionism characteristic for both his orthodox followers and critics who try to turn psychoanalysis into either a natural-science-like discipline or a hermeneutics, Freud demonstrated that his self-understanding was far more sophisticated than either of these two groups admit to. This argument is supported by a detailed discussion of Freud's epistemological premises, his conception of science and reality, and, especially, the place which Freud allocated to metapsychology in his interdisciplinary science. It is claimed that metapsychology served Freud as a double-edged sword, both enabling creative and metaphorical thought about the mind's hidden reality, and revealing the necessary incompleteness of hermeneutics. The article concludes with the claim that psychoanalysis needs metapsychology in order to pursue this dual task. (shrink)

Using a critical postmodern framework, this article analyzes the relationship of the decision-making processes of anarchism and neoliberalism to that of deep democracy. Anarchist processes are found to share common core principals with deep democracy; but neoliberal processes are found to be antithetical to deep democracy. To increase the joy in learning and teaching, based upon this analysis, practical anarchist guidelines for school decision-making are suggested.

In his essayOn the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, of 1834, Heinrich Heine suggested to his French audience that the German propensity for ‘metaphysical abstractions’ had led many people to condemn philosophy for its failure to have a practical effect, Germany having only had its revolution in thought, while France had its in reality. Heine, albeit somewhat ironically, refuses to join those who condemn philosophy: ‘German philosophy is an important matter, which concerns the whole of humanity, and only (...) the last grandchildren will be able to judge whether we should be blamed or praised for working out our philosophy before our revolution.’ He then makes the following prognosis:the German revolution will not be more mild and more gentle because it was preceded by Kantian critique, Fichtean transcendental idealism and even philosophy of nature. Revolutionary forces have developed via these doctrines which are just waiting for the day when they can break out and fill the world with horror and admiration. … Don't smile at my advice, the advice of a dreamer who warns you about Kantians, Fichteans and philosophers of nature. Don't smile at the fantast who expects the same revolution in the realm of appearance as took place in the realm of spirit. … A play will be performed in Germany in comparison with which the French Revolution could appear just as a harmless idyll (ibid., pp. 616–17). (shrink)

This article is a response to the challenge with which Zachary Schrag concluded his article, ‘The case against ethics review in social sciences’ − that ‘the burden of proof for its continuation rests on its defenders’ (Schrag, 2011). This article acknowledges that there is substance in the charges he lays against some reviews of social sciences and that these are of sufficient quantity and seriousness to justify his challenge. Instead of favouring abandonment of ethical review of social sciences, the author (...) of this article draws upon his experience as Research Ethics Officer for Social Sciences and Law in a research intensive UK university to identify the sources of some of the problems and suggest potential remedies. These start with reviewing the warrant for ethical review as the basis for understanding reviewer’s role concerning the core ethical issues of rigour, respect and responsibility in the proposed research. This response concludes by considering the implications of a warrant for enhancing trust between scientists and the public as the context in which ethical review is only one component in a number of ethical strategies designed to promote ethical mindfulness as integral to social science research. (shrink)

In his long attempt to solve the vexing and diverse problems of formulating a critical social science of modern societies, Habermas has along the way borrowed from many and quite diverse theoretical and philosophical resources, including Anglo-American analytic philosophy of language, ethics and political philosophy. Initially, Habermas borrowed extensively from American Pragmatism, first Peirce’s philosophy of inquiry and then later from George Herbert Mead, whose thought his own enterprise most closely resembled. With his increasing concern with the rationality of communication (...) and action, Habermas turned to analytic theories of meaning, or more specifically, to speech act theory and its account of illocutionary force. As one part of a large research program in which various empirical disciplines could be appropriated for normative philosophical purposes, speech act theory and theories of meaning became crucial to reconstructing the competence and rationality that knowledgeable social agents manifest in their everyday activities and interactions. Taken together, these theories provided him with the means to formulate the master distinction on which his account of rationality and the theoretical edifice built upon it stands or falls: the deeply substantive and thus not merely analytic distinction between instrumental and communicative action on which a novel and distinctive theory of rationality could be based. (shrink)

This is a constructive critique of Habermas’s account of rationality, which is central to his political theory and has sparked theoretical and empirical research across academia. Habermas and many critical theorists caricature means-ends rationality, e.g. by wrongly depicting it as egocentric. This weakens Habermas’s attempt to distinguish means-ends rationality from his hugely important and influential idea of communicative rationality. I suggest that sincerity and autonomy, rather than non-egocentrism, are the key distinguishing features of communicative rationality. This shows that communicative rationality (...) actually overlaps with means-ends rationality. Indeed, means-ends rationality is needed by critical theorists, as I exemplify by showing its use in deliberative democracy. Moreover, means-ends rationality will be present in discourse ethics, as I show with the example of moral discourse about gay marriage. My article thus challenges decades of what Habermas and critical theorists have written on means-ends and communicative rationality, but I stay broadly true to – and hopefully improve – Habermas’s account of rationality. (shrink)

Technology has expanded genomic research and the complexity of extracted gene-related information. Health-related genomic incidental findings pose new dilemmas for nurse researchers regarding the ethical application of disclosure to participants. Consequently, informed consent specific to incidental findings is recommended. Critical Social Theory is used as a guide in recognition of the changing meaning of informed consent and to serve as a framework to inform nursing of the ethical application of disclosure consent in genomic nursing research practices.

ABSTRACT Academic administration is not to be construed simply as a technical practice, the development of efficient management systems, nor as reactive, as response to the collective views of the academic community, nor in terms of academic leadership, the establishment and implementation of institutional aims. A full account of academic administration will provide a sense of the integral relationship between the academic administrator and the academic community. For that, a prior notion of the academic community is required. Such a notion, (...) giving a central place to structured discourse, can be derived from the German idea of the university and particularly from the writings of von Humboldt, Karl Jaspers and Jurgen Habermas. (shrink)

Almost 40 years ago, a book appeared by J.S. Brubacher entitled On the Philosophy of Higher Education. Today, we have neither its successor nor a sense as to what such a book might contain. The argument here is that we currently lack a recognised subfield of study that might be termed ‘the philosophy of higher education’. The paper attempts to begin to remedy this situation by assembling the main planks of such a field, and identifying broadly the kinds of resources (...) that might be brought together. A particular approach is argued for that builds from a recognition of the university both as institution and as idea. This approach would understand both that the university possesses a social ontology and that the university is accompanied by a widening conceptual hinterland. An undue pessimism is noted, such that the contemporary university is sometimes seen as being subject to overwhelming global forces, which underplays the university’s potential as an agent. It is suggested that an adequate philosophy of higher education would seek to widen the conceptual landscape by identifying universal and imaginative concepts that can assist not merely in understanding the university or in defending the university but in changing it. (shrink)

Sartre presented ‘Existentialism and Humanism’ to a popular audience in Paris late in 1945. As he implies in the discussion which is appended to the text of the lecture (pp. 57–58), he was here simplifying his views so as to make them intelligible to a wide audience. In this he succeeded only too well; the lecture has become exceedingly well known and has been regarded as a definitive presentation not only of Sartre's philosophy at the time, but also of ‘existentialism’. (...) One thing I hope to show in this essay is that this is not a sensible view to take; Sartre's text requires a good deal of interpretation and qualification in the light of his other writings of the period, and what emerges is a position which is uniquely his own. One way in which this can be seen is by considering Heidegger's ‘Letter on Humanism’ of 1947 which is a response to Sartre's lecture and is, indeed, Heidegger's only direct response to Sartre's work. In the lecture Sartre had associated Heidegger with himself as an ‘existential atheist’ (p. 26), but in his letter Heidegger emphatically dissociates himself both from atheism and from existentialism as characterized by Sartre, and goes on to criticize the position advanced by Sartre in the lecture. Yet despite the popular exaggeration of the significance of Sartre's lecture, it is certainly worth studying; for not only is it short and accessible, though in some respects misleading, it is also one of Sartre's few indications of the positive ethical theory which so many of his writings require but do not supply. (shrink)

This article examines the financial technology of derivatives. Derivatives are financial products whose values are based on possible fluctuations in the values of underlying assets. Hence derivatives markets are markets that trade in the risks of other markets. In order for derivatives markets to function, forms of prognostication that can assess the possible future fluctuations of the underlying markets are necessary. What such prognostications do, the article argues, is to create information out of future possibilities. Building upon a notion of (...) virtuality derived from Gilles Deleuze, Ulrich Beck and Niklas Luhmann, the article shows how market risks and uncertainties, by means of prognostications, cease to be mere possibilities and instead come to have virtual existence. Through the technology of derivatives, uncertainty and risk can be rendered virtual and be traded. The article suggests that this technology is an example of a new way in which capitalism is now expanding self-referentially as it creates markets out of markets; and of how it is colonizing the future by developing new technologies for ‘hyper-speculation’, that is, speculation not in the possible developments of a given asset but simply in the risk of such speculation. (shrink)

This article seeks to examine central aspects of the relationship between ethics and education in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Since both ethics and education are practical disciplines that are bound to deal with and are challenged by human predicaments, cultural ills and social evils, it seems that in examining the relations between the two, one is required to go beyond analytic elucidation into a more normative, prescriptive and political discourse. It is in light of this understanding and in (...) light of the catastrophes and social ills that humanity has brought upon itself in the last century that I will argue that the time is ripe for educators around the world to substitute their loyalty to the national, religious and ideological establishments, in their own communities, for a commitment to a universal professional ethics-one that is founded on the tenets of humanism and critical pedagogy. (shrink)

This paper re-examines the relationship between power, reason and history in Horkheimer and Adorno’s "Dialectic of Enlightenment." Contesting Habermas’ highly influential reading of the text, I argue that "Dialectic of Enlightenment," far from being a dead-end for critical theory, opens up important lines of thought in the philosophy of history that contemporary critical theorists would do well to recover. My focus is on the relationship that Horkheimer and Adorno trace between enlightenment rationality and the domination of inner and outer nature.

Information and Communication Technologies, ICTs, has now for decades being increasingly taken into use for higher education, enabling distance learning, e-learning and online learning, mainly in parallel to mainstream educational practise. The concept Blended learning (BL) aims at the integration of ICTs with these existing educational practices. The term is frequently used, but there is no agreed-upon definition. The general aim of this dissertation is to identify new possible perspectives on ICTs and access to higher education, for negotiating the dichotomy (...) between campus-based and ICT-enabled education. The access options of BL are in focus for this dissertation, although BL is generally seen as a campus phenomenon, and shares a place perspective. The main research questions in the dissertation are 1) how BL can be understood in the context of increased access to education, moreover, (2) how time can be work as a more constructive perspective for designing ICTs in education, compared to place. The dissertation comprises five articles. The first is conceptual and concentrates on place and time in blended learning, and forms a time-based model and perspective, drawing on the tension between synchronous and asynchronous modalities instead of a place-based center-periphery model. The following article examines the differences between North American and European use of the term BL, in education and research, and finds that BL is not much used by European researchers, although the term is frequently used in educational environments. Two design and intervention studies, articles 3 and 4, make experiments using the BL time-based model. In article 3, a group of untraditional learners at a learning centre in Arvidsjaur attends a synchronous co-located study circle group and participates in an asynchronous and global Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). In article 4, nine students in a preparatory year for entering engineering studies volunteer and participate in a pilot distance course experiment, where prevention of procrastination is a high priority. For this, agile framework theory, constructivist learning theory and the time-based model are used in design and analysis. The last article (5) reconnects learning to place by discussing and adapting Triple- and Quadruple Helix theory for regional development in the knowledge society to four regional European cases. At the end of the synthesis, an outline of the access affordances with the time-based model is given, drawing on Adam’s timescape theory. The discussion of ICT integration into education is made drawing on Floridi’s Philosophy of Information, which provides many tools to view discourses of ICTs in education critically, and also envisions the concept of e-ducation in the infosphere, where other blend issues appear connected to weak artificial intelligence and the pervasive power of ICTs. (shrink)

World Crisis and Underdevelopment examines the impact of poverty and other global crises in generating forms of structural coercion that cause agential and societal underdevelopment. It draws from discourse ethics and recognition theory in criticizing injustices and pathologies associated with underdevelopment. Its scope is comprehensive, encompassing discussions about development science, philosophical anthropology, global migration, global capitalism and economic markets, human rights, international legal institutions, democratic politics and legitimation, world religions and secularization, and moral philosophy in its many varieties.

This book is a synthesis of more than three decades of research into the concept of time and its semiotic nature. If traditional philosophy – and philosophy of time should be no exception – in the shadow of advancing biology can be said to have reached an impasse, one important reason for this, in harmony with Wittgenstein’s vision, appears to have been its lack of appropriate tools for explicating language. The present theory of time proceeds, accordingly, from the exploration of (...) temporal expressions in language as an evolutionary fact. It derives in a hypothetical, coherent feedback process of hierarchically ordered distinctions the semantics of time from its biologically dictated perceptual and cognitive-pragmatic origins. The corresponding abductive-regulative model is anchored in the assumption of biological rhythmization as the very foundation of perception and mental/physical action. Understood to originate in space and spatial perspective, time reveals itself as an instrument for temporal perspective on motion (events and situations) in a process of analysis, i.e., discontinuation of chaos made divisible and continuous by the rhythmical screen. Whereas traditional philosophy of time paid attention almost exclusively to the temporal category of tense, the biopragmatic model sees strong evidence in the perspectival nature of time for ascribing the decisive, and probably universal, role in temporal analysis to the linguistic category of aspect. Aspect may, according to the present findings, be assumed to partake already of change-of-state and cause-effect analysis without which man’s adaptation to new situations – and precondition for survival – would be inconceivable. The proposed model of space/time cognition, inspired by Hegelian dialectics, Heidegger-Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle and Peircean logic, makes Kantian a priori superfluous and liberates time from its enigmatic appearance. For the first time in temporal studies it thus appears possible to derive hypothetically linguistic expressions of time all the way from pretemporal, homogeneous continuity effected by biological rhythmization, via pretemporal metonymic (Gestalt), chunk-wise partitioning – as a general precondition for the perception and, based on primary metaphorization, the cognition of things, space and motion – to temporal analysis/discontinuation proper, primarily by aspectual perspective, and the subsequent synthesized, heterogeneous continuity of temporally ordered events. The conception of time, so disastrous for modern temporal logic, i.e., as moving object assigned extension, divisible continuity (‛linearity’) and direction, can be shown to have emerged as a result of secondary metaphorization. (shrink)

Persons are not just mechanical systems of instinctual animalistic proclivities, but also language-producing, existentially aware creatures, whose experiences and actions are drenched in subjective meaning. To understand a human being as a person is to understand him or her as a rational system that wants, fears, hopes, believes, and in other ways imbues the world with meaning, rather than just a mechanical system that is subject to the same chains of cause and effect as other animals. But contemporary personality psychology (...) has, to a great extent, focused on the behavioral side of personality, while neglecting its meaning side, failing to realize that subjective meanings are part of the very constitution rather than just causes of personality. My overarching purpose with this dissertation is, consequently, to contribute to the establishment of a genuinely non-reductive science of personality that systematically studies the systems of meaning that comprise a person’s worldview in their own right, as sources of meaning in personality. I both establish conceptual and theoretical foundations for the psychology of worldviews and present empirical research on worldviews. The conceptual and theoretical issues are addressed in the introductory chapters and the first paper. I begin by explicating a non-reductive realist philosophy of personality that steers between reductionism and social constructionism, and by suggesting that we need a more coherent understanding of personality and a richer study of it, rather than a radically new methodology. I continue by discussing the limitations of, and conceptual issues with, previous approaches to personality, and by outlining the conceptual foundations for a psychology of worldviews to remediate their weaknesses, demarcating worldview constructs as referring to presuppositions, concepts, and narrative scripts that, by working as the substrata, or background, for intentional thought, feeling, and action, form the most central sources of meaning. I continue by discussing the structure and dynamics of worldviews in terms of the relationship between innate meaning-making mechanisms and the universal features of the existential condition that they address. I conclude the introductory chapters by describing the background of the empirical research and by discussing limitations with the present thesis and directions for future theory and research. I continue, in the first paper, to argue that the study of traits and the study of worldviews form mutually irreducible parts of personality psychology and that worldviews are not inherently less universal in terms of structure, or in other ways less basic, than traits. I conclude this paper by emphasizing the need to address coherence not just in behavior, but also within worldviews and between traits and worldviews, and to complement traditional individual differences research with personalistic methodology. The empirical research is presented in the second and third papers included in this thesis. This research addresses Humanism and Normativism, which are arguably the two broadest and potentially most important worldview constructs in the research literature today, representing whether human beings are thought of as intrinsically valuable and ontologically important or as acquiring value and reality only through the attainment of external norms and ideals . Although originally thought to be opposites, previous research has suggested that they are uncorrelated. In the first empirical paper, I introduce a hierarchical model of their structure, develop scales to measure their facets, and demonstrate through confirmatory factor analysis that they are, contrary to previous wisdom, negatively related in terms of view of human nature, attitude to affect, and interpersonal attitude, but unrelated in terms of epistemology and political values. I present evidence also of discriminant and predictive validity in relation to other worldview variables, life goals, educational field, political and religious orientation, and the Big Five aspects. In the second empirical paper, I use humanism and normativism to explain the broad systems of meaning that potentially underlie, and intersect with, variables from the most important models of the underpinnings of political ideology today, through path modeling. The results suggest that humanism is related to political ideology through preference for equality, as mediated by moral concern with fairness and the avoidance of harm, emotionality, and honesty-humility, and that normativism is related to political ideology through conservative attitudes in general, as mediated by system justification, moral concern with authority, loyalty, and purity, and low openness. Both of the empirical articles provide ample evidence of broad systems of meaning cutting across different aspects of the worldview and of their explanatory power with regards to other psychological phenomena. These studies thereby help to substantiate the viability of the psychology of worldviews. (shrink)

This dissertation reassesses the complex philosophical relationship between Sartre and psychoanalysis. Most scholarship on this topic focuses on Sartre’s criticisms of the unconscious as anathema both to his conception of the human psyche as devoid of any hidden depths or mental compartments and, correlatively, his account of human freedom. Many philosophers conclude that there is little common ground between Sartrean existentialism and psychoanalytic theory. I argue, on the contrary, that by shifting the emphasis from concerns about the nature of the (...) unconscious to questions about the role of imagination in psychical life, we can see that Sartre and Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalytic theory develop strikingly similar accounts of human subjectivity. After establishing the historical background of Sartre’s career-long engagement with psychoanalysis, I demonstrate the proximity of Sartre and Lacan on the nature of unconscious thought. I proceed to develop the claim that there is a homology between the concept of unconscious fantasy in psychoanalysis and the concept of the imaginary in Sartre’s philosophical corpus. Despite the concept of fantasy being one of the more structuralist-inspired aspects of Lacan’s metapsychology, I show that Sartre’s concept of the imaginary is likewise a structural feature of the psyche, one which establishes the coordinates within which the subject engages with the world. For Sartre, Freud, and Lacan fantasies form the core of subjectivity, giving form to the basic patterns of one’s character. Taken together, these three thinkers furnish a nuanced view of fantasy/the imaginary. On the one hand it is determining insofar as it is responsible for many of the psychopathologies met with in psychoanalysis. On the other hand, it is liberating insofar as the agency of the subject is implicated in the formation of fantasy. I thereby show that Sartre does not fit the caricatured picture of a radical voluntarist that is often attributed to him and that psychoanalysis can accommodate a conception of human freedom. (shrink)

Therapists and related theorists and practitioners of mental health tend to hold one of two broad views about how to help patients. On the one hand, some maintain that, or at least act as though, the basic point of therapy is to help patients become clear about what they want deep down and to enable them to achieve it by overcoming mental blockages. On the other hand, there are those who contend that the aim of therapy should instead be to (...) psychologically enable patients to live objectively desirable lives, say, ones that involve developing their inherent talents or exhibiting an authentic/strong/integrated self. In this chapter, I argue that neither of these prominent approaches is complete. Contra the former, sometimes what patients want deep down is not something to promote, and, against the latter, it can sometimes be reasonable for patients to want to sacrifice their own objective interests and for therapists to assist them in this regard. I argue that the category of meaningfulness does well at accounting for these counterexamples to the two dominant approaches, while capturing the kernels of truth in them. The proper aim of therapy, I suggest, is to enable patients to live meaningfully. (shrink)

What should be the primary aims of education? How might these aims be realized? These are foundational questions which Plato raised long ago in his Republic. The first of these questions is a normative, and profoundly philosophical, one which provides guidance to the whole endeavor of education. The second of these questions is a pedagogical one which informs educators as to how their work can be best conducted. In this work I endeavor to answer these interlocking educational questions. I follow (...) most closely in the footsteps of John Dewey. I believe that Dewey had it right when, decades ago, he argued that education ought to be concerned with the cultivation of good judgment. But here a difficulty arises. For "good judgment" is a complex philosophical concept which spills over into considerations of thinking, knowing, deciding, and acting. Despite the efforts of philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, and Dewey, there is a lack of agreement about the precise meaning of good judgment. Before moving into matters of education, then, I first endeavor to vanquish this lack of conceptual clarity. What is good judgment? What are its elements? Can it, for that matter, even be cultivated? Having gotten clear on what good judgment is, I turn to matters of education. First, I argue that a vital task of education is the cultivation of good judgment. I then turn to the practical matter of how one might go about cultivating good judgment. The community of inquiry approach employed by The Philosophy for Children Program, I contend, is an effective pedagogical means through which to cultivate good judgment. (shrink)

Hermeneutics has been theorized and applied as a philosophical framework and interpretive research methodology which pays particular attention to linguistic, social, cultural, and historical contexts to understand the life world and human experiences. While adopted as a qualitative research approach in the fields of education, nursing, psychology, and legal studies, its use is emerging in other human service disciplines. The rich philosophical and theoretical legacy embedded in this research methodology often presents unique challenges and a steep learning curve for researchers, (...) particularly when the research is conducted in international settings. Drawing from insights gained from two hermeneutic studies conducted in Kenya and China, this paper presents considerations for designing a hermeneutic research inquiry. In addition to philosophical, practical, and ethical issues researchers need to consider when designing and implementing hermeneutic studies in international settings, we examine factors and strategies to facilitate successful data collection and interpretation. (shrink)

This thesis explores the relationship between occupations and the ontology of the social. I begin by drawing a distinction between the messianic and the modern as concentrated in the affective transformation of vocation into occupation. I then, in the Introduction, sketch an ontic-ontological contrast proper to the modern, between modernity, as the collective problematization of social diversity, and the contemporary, as the plural ground of need which provides a source for these problematizations. I argue that this distinction will enable me (...) to shed new light on the occupational as a distinctly modern event. In Part I, I begin by providing a reading of Durkheim in which I argue that the occupational is to be understood ontologically, but no longer by means of the theorization of society and social types. This kind of theorization, exemplified in Durkheim's concept of solidarity, contains a fundamental ambiguity between this concept's ontological senses of original diversity and of unity in diversity. Durkheim's thought is thus first intelligible in terms of an implicit evolutionary sense of coherence or `need of wholeness.' However, the explicit evolutionary framework and its central typological difference between the mechanical and organic is an attempt to resolve the ambiguity that must fail because it addresses primarily a distinction of obligation rather than a distinction of need. Obligation is shown to be a concept of facticity which overcodes and obscures the distinction of need. I then go on to argue that sociality can be better accounted for in terms of a continuity of social becoming which is revealed in a perspective of modernity purged of the modernist tendency to metaphorize this continuity in terms such as `solidity' (Durkheim) and `flow' (Tarde). This perspective is the irreducibly plural perspective of the contemporary, which, I conclude Part I by suggesting, lies in a sense of merging with a social outside. In Part II, I turn to investigate the outside by discussing the social thought of Bergson and Deleuze. Bergson's thought is presented as an alternative to the deductivesociologistic approaches of Durkheim and Tarde, because it attempts to critically affirm the smooth duration of social continuity. However, I argue that the notion of `open society' that Bergson presents is still too tied to a model of rare spirituality and hence to the messianic perspective. I then proceed to a social-theoretical analysis of Deleuze's oeuvre, in order to show how he uses elements of a thought of continuity from Tarde (microsociology) and from Bergson (multiplicity), but that he is able to transcend the family-model-centeredness of Tarde and the rare-spiritual-modelcenteredness of Bergson, by theorizing non-modelled figures of transformative affective multiplicity inscribed within the actual, ie. `full particularities'. In my concluding chapter, I show how the intellectual trajectory which takes us from Durkheim to Deleuze can be analysed as a movement from a doctrine or relatively passive notion of social externality towards a more active social image of the outside. In particular, I am concerned to show how this image of the outside can be recontextualized in terms of a movement of occupation that can be thought of as always combining a sense of the contemporary with a sense of modernity. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to illustrate the ethical foundations of psychoanalysis and to outline the ethical origins of Freudian theory. To this end, Jürgen Habermas' conception of knowledge-constitutive interests is discussed, which draws on psychoanalysis as an example of science justified in its form through an underlying emancipatory interest. The analysis of the position of the German philosopher is complemented by Charles Taylor's reflections on the sources of the contemporary conceptions of subjectivity and related ethical conceptions considered in (...) their relation to the history of the discourse on madness - including psychoanalysis. The research results in showing the continuing validity of the conception proposed by Freud in the context of the development of the philosophical theories of subjectivity, as well as more detailed, conceptual problems concerning mental disorders. (shrink)

Does a privileged frame of reference exist? Part of Einstein’s success consisted in eliminating Bergson’s objections to relativity theory, which were consonant with those of the most important scientists who had worked on the topic: Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz and Albert A. Michelson. In the early decades of the century, Bergson’s fame, prestige and influence surpassed that of the physicist. Once considered as one of the most renowned intellectuals of his era and an authority on the nature of time, The (...) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) does not even include him under the entry of “time.” How was it possible to write off from history a figure that was once so prominent? Through an analysis of behind-the-scenes of science correspondence, this article traces the ascendance of Einstein's views of time at the expense of Bergson’s. (shrink)

This study is an intervention in postcolonial theorising through a critique of technologies of representation. It examines the effects of technologically-mediated representation in a postcolonial condition that the Philippines has exemplified. New media technologies are mechanisms of representations that embody the logic of spectrality presented in Jacques Derrida’s later work. Spectrality, which brings doubts, ephemerality, and instability to dominant discourses and modes of representation, provides a chance for change.Spectres are effects of technologically-mediated representation that articulate the infinite demand for justice (...) under conditions of enduring inequality. As quasi-transcendental elements of deconstruction, spectres are not reducible to either human or technical intervention; they express the relation of humans to technologies, in which representation is central to the mediation of political authority. This technological representation is the condition of what Derrida calls “iteration,” or the transformation of hegemonic authority through the very repetition of its fundamental terms of identification. The examination of emancipatory new media technologies in a postcolonial condition is inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, in his deconstructive reading of Marx’s spectres. However, the writings of Habermas and Adorno have offered an implicit appraisal of the ontology of spectres. Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and Adorno’s negative dialectics are discourses that unwittingly solicit spectres. The account of the postcolonial condition in the Philippines works through the questions of universality, subalternity, and the right to theory that are raised by the project of Western critical theory. (shrink)

Michelle’s thesis explores the extent to which a researcher could contribute to change by engaging leaders in conversations that might intensify commitment to or the direction of their actions around socio-environmental decline in Bermuda as a country historically organised in the tradition of an entrepreneurial for-profit enterprise. The framing of a space to reflect on highlighted the significance of time that led to the bricolage design of a heuristic device called a moon gate. Time, the keystone of the moon gate, (...) created a prism lighting up the twists and turns of kaleidoscopic images of the chaos of the markets and the creative diversity of human and nonhuman participants. She undertook a philosophical approach with her study of the contested space of time around sensitivity to maintaining a fulcrum point based on the wellbeing of people and planet. (shrink)

Sustainability assessments bring together different perspectives that pertain to sustainability in order to produce overall assessments and a wealth of approaches and tools have been developed in the past decades. But two major problematics remain. The problem of integration concerns the surplus of possibilities for integration; different tools produce different assessments. The problem of implementation concerns the barrier between assessment and transformation; assessments do not lead to the expected changes in practice. This paper aims to analyze issues of complementarity in (...) sustainability assessment and transformation as a key to better handling the problems of integration and implementation. Based on a generalization of Niels Bohr’s complementarity from quantum mechanics, we have identified two forms of complementarity in sustainability assessment, observer stance complementarity and value complementarity. Unlike many other problems of sustainability assessment, complementarity is of a fundamental character connected to the very conditions for observation. Therefore complementarity cannot be overcome methodologically; only handled better or worse. Science is essential to the societal goal of sustainability, but these issues of complementarity impede the constructive role of science in the transition to more sustainable structures and practices in food systems. The agencies of sustainability assessment and transformation need to be acutely aware of the importance of different perspectives and values and the complementarities that may be connected to these differences. An improved understanding of complementarity can help to better recognize and handle issues of complementarity. These deliberations have relevance not only for sustainability assessment, but more generally for transdisciplinary research on wicked problems. (shrink)

The continued presence and importance of Christian moral values in our daily lives, coupled with the fact that faith in Christianity is in continual decline, raises the question as to why having lost faith in Christianity, we have also not lost faith in our Christian moral values. This question is also indicative of a more pressing phenomenon: not only have we maintained our faith in Christian values, we fail to see that the widespread collapse of Christianity should affect this faith. (...) To tackle this latter phenomenon, I claim, we have to pose the Nietzschean question of the value of our moral values, so as to see that this value can be a possible object of questioning. In chapter one, I consider different approaches found in the history of moral philosophy that look like potential candidates for this task. I argue that, ultimately, the task requires simultaneously taking our familiarity with Christian moral values as both sui generis and a questionable phenomenon. In chapter two, I articulate in detail the sui generis nature of this familiarity with moral values,in terms of the phenomena of habituation and sedimentation. In chapter three, I consider the possibility of estrangement that is built into our familiarity with moral values, by focusing on the role of cognition. I demonstrate how cognition, in the form of self-consciousness, can disrupt the sedimented, habituated nature of our moral values through a form of ironic disruption. In chapter four, I develop this account by considering the possibility of an appeal to an alternative moral outlook. To do so, I draw upon the structural isomorphism that is present between the process of estrangement and a rite of passage. (shrink)