Doing philosophy for/with children and exposing students to multiple perspectives, exemplified within the Austrian Centre of Philosophy with Children’s implementation project of the Philosophical Enquiry Advancing Cosmopolitan Engagement (PEACE) curriculum in schooling, may offer a valuable written, taught, and tested curriculum for democratic citizenry. This paper provides an analysis that seeks to present, describe, critique, and make recommendations on the PEACE curriculum. The paper asks the question: In what ways does the Philosophical Enquiry Advancing Cosmopolitan Engagement as a 21st century (...) curriculum address education for democratic citizenry? In this evaluation the ways in which issues of culture and identity, human rights and democracy are perceived and addressed, along with issues of critical thinking and reasoning in verbal and nonverbal language are attended. Concepts of collaboration, cooperation, teacher support and development are also critiqued. This critique is based on a ten-day Austrian Center of Philosophy with Children conference and training course on the PEACE curriculum, and consists of open-ended interviews, personal observations, and published reports on pre- and post-test results of the PEACE curriculum. Exploring the integration of the Austrian Center of Philosophy with Children PEACE curriculum and the Philosophy for/with Children methodology, this paper utilizes Hansen’s (1995) five principles for guiding curriculum development practice as a framework for analysis. It is hoped that findings and recommendations from this study may stir further exploration and contribute to the work of Philosophy for/with Children in democratic education for 21st century citizenry worldwide. Keywords: Democratic education, Philosophy for/with Children, Philosophical Enquiry Advancing Cosmopolitan Engagement (P.E.A.C.E.) Curriculum, Curriculum development, 21st Century citizenry, critical thinkin. (shrink)

Johnston contributes to the existing body of Dewey scholarship in at least two important respects.

Endorsing Bill Readings’ argument that there is an intimate relationship between the dissolution of the nation-State, the undermining of the Humboldtian ideal of the university and economic globalization, this paper defends both the nation-State and the Humboldtian university as core institutions of democracy. However, such an argument only has force, it is suggested, if we can revive an appreciation of the real meaning of democracy. Endorsing Cornelius Castoriadis’ argument that democracy has been betrayed in the modern world (...) but disagreeing with his analysis of modernity, it is argued that the tradition of modern democratic thought can only be properly comprehended in relation to the ‘radical enlightenment’ originating in the Renaissance, efforts to subvert this by the ‘moderate enlightenment’, and the revival and reformulation of the radical enlightenment in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. It is shown that subsequent political thought only becomes fully intelligible in relation to the on-going struggle between the radical and the moderate enlightenments, and that it is necessary to appreciate that the moderate enlightenment, manifesting itself in neo-liberal thought, is profoundly anti-democratic. While the radical enlightenment was developed in the nineteenth century by philosophical idealists, it is suggested that the achievements of the idealists can be successfully defended now only on naturalistic foundations through process metaphysics. Process metaphysics, it is shown, provides the basis for reviving the Humboldtian model of the university, the democratic nation-State, and a vision of the future as ‘communities of communities’ to counter the dissolution of all communities into the global market promoted by neo-liberals. (shrink)

This paper outlines a theory of radical democratic education by addressing a key concept in Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: articulation. Through their concept of articulation, Laclau and Mouffe attempt to liberate Gramsci’s theory of hegemony from Marxist economism, and adapt it to a political sphere inhabited by a plurality of struggles and agents none of which is predominant. However, while for Gramsci the political process of hegemony formation has an explicit educational dimension, Laclau and Mouffe ignore (...) this dimension altogether. My discussion starts with elaborating the concept of articulation and analysing it in terms of three dimensions: performance, connection and transformation. I then address the role of education in Gramsci’s politics, in which the figure of the intellectual is central, and argue that radical democratic education requires renouncing that figure. In the final section, I offer a theory of such education, in which both teacher and students articulate their political differences and identities. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present the main contributions to peace, democracy, and the philosophy of education in Colombia, made by philosopher Guillermo Hoyos-Vásquez (Medellín, 1935 – Bogotá, 2013). The work of this Colombian philosopher stands out for its important contributions to political philosophy as the vital, supportive, and responsible exercise of thought concerning the public interest. Using Kant’s concept of practical reason, Husserl’s lifeworld [Lebenswelt], and Habermas’s communicative action as starting points, Hoyos-Vásquez succeeded in going (...) beyond these political philosophers by trying to apply their ideas in the midst of the difficult context of corruption, drug trafficking and armed conflict in Colombia over the past five decades. At the same time, Hoyos-Vásquez developed throughout his life a varied public activity as a thinker and educator, belying the myth of the theoretical distance between the philosopher and his/her political present or historical reality. The thought of Guillermo Hoyos-Vásquez, and his public action as an educator, represent a substantial contribution to contemporary political and educational philosophy, maintaining a close connection between theory and practice. (shrink)

Media fact-checkers promptly corrected Marco Rubio when he called for more vocational education during the November 2015 GOP presidential debate: “Welders make more money than philosophers,” he said. “We need more welders than philosophers.” It was widely pointed out in response to Senator Rubio’s remark that, on average, those who major in philosophy at a college or university tend to have higher salaries than professional welders. But this point, despite its utility for promoting philosophy as an academic major, is (...) a distraction from the insistent social question: what, if any, is the chief mission of education?In Woman and the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller admonished the practice of educating girls... (shrink)

Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citi- zenship and policymaking in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In school deliberation, as in other settings, a key and sometimes neglected element of high-quality deliberation is facilitation. Facilitation can help to establish and maintain deliberative norms, assist participants to deliberate productively, (...) and enable collective goals. By participating in facilitated deliberation, students can develop awareness, skills, and voice that empower them to engage with democracy, in school and beyond. This article draws on our experience as scholar/practitioners running a Deliberation in Schools program in Australia to explore challenges and strategies for deliberative facilitation. The challenges we discuss are power, inequality, diversity of expression and knowledge, and disagreement and these are discussed in the general context of inclusiveness. We highlight two facets of deliberative facilitation—technique and design—that are important for dealing with these challenges and increasing inclusion in school delib- eration and in democratic deliberation more generally. (shrink)

Matthew Lipman claims that the community of inquiry is an exemplar of democracy in action. To many proponents the community of inquiry is considered invaluable for achieving desirable social and political ends through education for democracy. But what sort of democracy should we be educating for? In this paper I outline three models of democracy: the liberal model, which emphasises rights and duties, and draws upon pre-political assumptions about freedom; communitarianism, which focuses on identity and (...) participation in the creation of political ends; and deliberative self-governance, whereby citizens deliberatively shape their collective lives in public forums—at various levels of government and in different political and social arenas. I argue that some kind of deliberative democracy is defensible as a preliminary justification for how citizens might shape their lives, and therefore compatible with other forms of democracy, insofar as they can result from democratic deliberations. Acceptance of such a view raises further questions about the purpose or aims of education consistent with this conception of democracy. I contend that it requires an educational model that is committed to aligning curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and school governance to produce a transformational environment that will inform our structures—a commitment to democratic education and not merely education for democracy. Lipman goes part of the way to achieving these ends, but learning how to be proficient at democratic decision-making is like all tasks children and adolescents learn to perform. It involves action, understanding, and awareness of what counts as doing the task adequately. (shrink)

There is an unacknowledged disagreement on what kind of dialogue best supports democracy. Many view democracy as analogous to a law court and so view “democratic dialogue” as a contest between competing advocates who have acquired the kind of “steel trap” critical thinking skills that are ideal for winning in the external marketplace of ideas. Others assume that the propensity to seriously reflect on opposing viewpoints within the minds of individuals is ideal for democratic maintenance. It will be (...) argued here that our love affair with “critical thinking” that tends to support an external battle of ideas harms democracy. It will be argued that the complexity of our common humanity, the complexity of our form of governance, the complexity of the approaches needed to face wicked problems, and the complexity of the internal engine of personal development requires that we learn to readily engage in open truth-seeking dialogue with those who hold opposing viewpoints and in so doing, enhance the dimensionality through which we view the world. With regard to the educational implications, this suggests that, since engaging in dialogue across difference is the essence of the pedagogical framework that anchors Philosophy for Children, Philosophy for Children ought to be embraced as an essential component of any educational enterprise that views cultivating democratic citizenship as part of its mandate. (shrink)

The studies by Trickey and Topping, which provide empirical support that philosophy produces cognitive gains and social benefits, have been used to advocate the view that philosophy deserves a place in the curriculum. Arguably, the existing curriculum, built around well-established core subjects, already provides what philosophy is said to do, and, therefore, there is no case to be made for expanding it to include philosophy. However, if we take citizenship education seriously, then the development of active and informed citizens (...) requires an emphasis on citizen preparation, but significantly more than the existing curriculum can provide, namely, the acquisition of knowledge and skills to improve students’ social and intellectual capacities and dispositions as future citizens. To this end, I argue for a model of democratic education that emphasises philosophy functioning educationally, whereby students have an integral role to play in shaping democracy through engaging in philosophy as collaborative inquiry that integrates pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. I contend that only philosophy can promote democracy, insofar as philosophical inquiry is an exemplar of the kind of deliberative inquiry required for informed and active democratic citizenship. In this way, philosophy can make a fundamental and much needed contribution to education. (shrink)

Democracy is an interesting topic that many scholars pay attention to, since it is the foundation of a civil society. There are many factors that contribute to the country’s democracy. Two of many important factors that have a great impact on democracy are the people’s income and education. This study would investigate the relationship among income, level of education and democracy. The study focuses on the eastern cultured country, which is Vietnam after more than (...) a decade of economic transformation in this case. The data is obtained from World Value Survey (wave 5, 2006). The author found out that there is a positive significant relationship between income and democracy, not level of education and democracy by using the correlation statistical method. The author acknowledges some limitation and suggests recommendations for future search. (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will (...) be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. -/- Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises – voter independence – is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem's misleading conclusion that ‘large crowds are infallible’. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ‘large crowds are fallible but better than small groups’. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of (...) deliberation and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework. Our theorem is related to Ladha's (1993) seminal jury theorem for interchangeable (‘indistinguishable’) voters based on de Finetti's Theorem. We also prove a more general and simpler such jury theorem. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION. Today's fervent scientific and technological development needs to be governed by human values. Pedagogical and transhumanist discourses respond jointly to this purpose, in the face of a society that is in danger of both the abuse of progress and the renunciation of it. However, among the challenges of transhumanism are the possibilities of changing the most genuine condition of humanity. The deepest longings and the most important achievements require a controversial act of discernment present in every corner of current (...) education. METHOD. A hermeneutic-reflexive methodology has been used to carry out an exploratory analysis of the main implications of transhumanism, as an intellectual and cultural movement, in 21st century education. RESULTS. In the light of what has been studied, three axes can be distinguished: time, capacity and freedom. We live under parameters of instantaneity, fluidity and accelerated performance, but we advocate slowness for human flourishing; we long for the consecration of intelligence, but we fear losing what makes us unique; we foresee the end of our limits, but we risk chaining our freedom. DISCUSSION. The resulting discussion revolves around the crisis of postmodernity and the deep scepticism that emerges about one of the ends of education: our own reason; the soul of democracy.___________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________INTRODUCCIÓN. El ferviente desarrollo científico y tecnológico actual necesita ser gobernado por los valores humanos. Los discursos pedagógicos y transhumanistas responden conjuntamente a este propósito, ante una sociedad que peligra tanto del abuso del progreso como de la renuncia al mismo. Sin embargo, entre los desafíos del transhumanismo se encuentran las posibilidades de modificar la condición más genuina de la humanidad. Los anhelos más profundos y los logros más importantes requieren de un controvertido acto de discernimiento presente en cada esquina de la actualidad educativa. MÉTODO. Se ha utilizado una metodología hermenéutica-reflexiva para llevar a cabo un análisis exploratorio de las principales implicaciones del transhumanismo, como movimiento intelectual y cultural, en la educación del siglo XXI. RESULTADOS. A la luz de lo estudiado se distinguen tres ejes: tiempo, capacidad y libertad. Vivimos bajo parámetros de instantaneidad, fluidez y rendimiento acelerado, pero abogamos por la lentitud para el florecimiento humano; anhelamos la consagración de la inteligencia, pero tememos perder lo que nos hace singulares; auguramos el fin de nuestros límites, pero nos arriesgamos a encadenar nuestra libertad. DISCUSIÓN. La discusión resultante gira en torno a la crisis de la postmodernidad y al profundo escepticismo que emerge sobre uno de los fines de la educación: nuestra propia razón de ser; el alma de la democracia._________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________HOW TO CITE / CÓMO CITAR: Castillo, P. (2023). Desafíos del transhumanismo en la educación del siglo XXI: el alma de la democracia contra las cuerdas. Revista Complutense de Educación, 34(2), 347-356. (shrink)

For some time now we have noticed an increasing scepticism regarding the effectiveness of democracy, and its ability to represent citizens through elections. Elections are the central mechanism of political decision taking. However, there is a clear tendency to exploit electo­ rial processes by populist politicians. The ancient ideal of paideia was to educate citizens by following a civic program. Its aim was to enable the citizen to exercise the civil rights and duties. Since the 1970s, however, we had (...) observed two contrasting tendencies: a growth of individualization, and a ecrease of the level of civic education. In the 1990s populist politi­ cal parties entered the political scene of European democracies, some of which have man­ aged to establish a mob rule or ochlocracy (ὀχλοκρατία). Since then, ochlocratic parties have systematically intended to win the votes of politically less educated citizens by offering them a simplified political discourse. In fact, these parties have managed to neutralize the two­party system in many European countries. Thus they managed to block majority­based governments, forcing parties to form coalitions with ideologically opposing smaller parties. This has created a situation in which the “punishment vote” becomes the mean to gain the votes of undecided people who may be characterized as rebels without political culture. (shrink)

The transformation of universities from public institutions to transnational business enterprises has met with less resistance in Australia than elsewhere. Yet this transformation undermines the founding principles of Australian democracy. This democracy emerged in opposition to the classical form of free market liberalism that the neo-liberals have revived. The logical unfolding of social liberalism in Australia underpinned the development of both the system of wage fixing and the idea of public education as conditions for democracy. The (...) lack of resistance to the destruction of democracy, as it was originally understood in Australia, by successive neoliberal governments has been due largely to the decadent state of Australian universities. These had come to be dominated by a crude form of empiricist utilitarianism, making Australia peculiarly vulnerable to the ideologues of global free markets and the power of transnational corporations who have sought to transform language to equate the dominance of all facets of life by markets as a defence of democracy. Only through a recovery of the philosophical tradition upon which Australia was founded and the development of this tradition through process metaphysics, it is argued, can genuine democracy and Australia’s public institutions, be defended. (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will (...) be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. -/- My writings are available as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C -/- . (shrink)

According to Val Plumwood (1995), liberal-democracy is an authoritarian political system that protects privilege but fails to protect nature. A major obstacle, she says, is radical inequality, which has become increasingly far-reaching under liberal-democracy; an indicator of ‘the capacity of its privileged groups to distribute social goods upwards and to create rigidities which hinder the democratic correctiveness of social institutions’ (p. 134). This cautionary tale has repercussions for education, especially civics and citizenship education. To address this, (...) we explore the potential of what Gerard Delanty calls ‘cultural citizenship’ as an alternative to the disciplinary citizenship that permeates Western liberal discourse. Cultural citizenship emphasises citizenship as communication and continual learning processes, rejecting the idea of citizenship as a fixed set of cultural ideals, norms or values defined and enforced by liberal society’s legal, political and cultural institutions, including education and ‘citizenship training’. However, we contend that a critical first step, essential to democratic correctiveness, is to clear away obstacles created by the privileging of a dominant epistemic position. We conclude that Plumwood’s philosophy alongside John Dewey’s work on democracy and education provide a theoretical framework for effective democratic inquiry aimed towards interconnective, deliberative practice and corrective methodology for epistemic accountability. (shrink)

In the study of education, as in many more travelled regions of Classical scholarship, democratic Athens is something of a special case. The cautions formulation is appropriate: in the case of education, surprisingly few studies have sought to establish quite how special Athens was, and those which have, have often raised more questions than they answered. The subject itself is partly to blame. The history of education invites comparison with the present day, while those planning the future (...) of education rarely fail to invoke the past. The place of Classical Athens in European culture has ensured a place for Athenian education in almost every debate from the relation between education and democracy to the value of educationversustraining, and as the original champion of causes as varied as mass education, co-education, and the national curriculum. Desirable as it is to be in demand, such treatment is not calculated to produce the most circumspect account of the subject. The study of education is further hampered by the fact that our knowledge of Athenian culture is so vibrant and diverse in some ways and so partial in others. Plato and Aristophanes present a vivid fictional picture of education in the late fifth century. If we add a few passages from Xenophon and Aristotle, a large number of vases depicting men, women, and children reading, playing the lyre, and doing athletics, and one or two archaeological finds of an educational appearance, it is tempting to take the result as a clear portrait of a society at school. (shrink)

Place-based education is founded on the idea that the student’s local community is one of their primary learning resources. Place-based education’s underlying educational principle is that students need to first have an experiential understanding of the history, culture, and ecology of the environment in which they are situated before tackling broader national and global issues. Such attempts are a step in the right direction in dealing with controversial issues in a democracy by providing resources for synthesising curriculum (...) though theory (curriculum content, including traditional subjects) and practice (practical learning as experiential education). Nevertheless, many place-based accounts discount Indigenous conceptions of place, which are integral to Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, especially in relation to the ontological relationship to Land and Country. Indigenous philosophy has the potential to inform what place-based education means by students developing a ‘sense of place’ when engaging with local communities as their ‘own’ place. In this article we re-imagine the community of inquiry as a place-responsive pedagogy by learning from Indigenous philosophy, and recentring Indigenous notions of place in experiential learning. In addition to exploring the pedagogical potential of a place-responsive account of the community of inquiry, we look to the implications for teacher preparation. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between experts and laypeople is crucial for understanding today’s world of post-truth and the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. The emergence of post-truth has been linked to various phenomena such as a flawed social and mass media ecosystem, poor citizen education, and the manipulation tactics of powerful interest groups. The paper argues that the problem is, however, more profound. The underlying issue is laypeople’s inevitable epistemic dependence on experts. The latter is part and parcel of (...) the “risk society” in which people question the scientific consensus and thus are able to manipulate the facts. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of illiberal democrats, though liberal democrats can make no use of it. The latter downplay the problem of citizens’ epistemic deficits and of the epistemic asymmetries between them. The third and fourth generations of deliberative democrats are a perfect example. The paper argues that the concepts of interactional expertise and epistemic dependence explain why understanding between experts and laypeople is impossible. The said phenomena undermine liberalism’s unrealistic assumptions concerning citizens’ decision-making competence. (shrink)

Character education in schools has been high on the UK political agenda for the last few years. The government has invested millions in grants to support character education projects and declared its intention to make Britain a global leader in teaching character and resilience. But the policy has many critics: some question whether schools should be involved in the formation of character at all; others worry that the traits schools are being asked to cultivate are excessively competitive or (...) military. In this pamphlet Randall Curren sets out a robust defence of character education. He welcomes the political support it presently enjoys, but contends that greater clarity about the nature, benefits and acquisition of good character is essential. In particular, he argues that too narrow a focus on traits like perseverance and resilience is a serious mistake: these traits are only virtues when they are part of a wider set of moral and intellectual qualities, and when their exercise is guided by good judgment. Curren offers us a compelling and coherent account of what good character is and how it might be cultivated in schools. He explains why schools must be needs-supporting environments that provide students with opportunities to engage in rewarding activity, and why cultivating good character implies promoting the ‘fundamental British values’ of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. His groundbreaking pamphlet promises to expand the scope and strengthen the foundations of character education in British schools, and should go a long way towards allaying the fears of its detractors. (shrink)

The ideas contained in this paper were first formulated as part of a chapter in my doctoral dissertation, which was completed in 1997. Some years later I added to my initial thoughts, scribbled some notes, and presented them at the 12th Annual Philosophy in Schools Conference, held in Brisbane in 2002. This presentation surfaced as a paper in Critical & Creative Thinking: The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Schools (Burgh 2003a). Soon thereafter I revised the paper (Burgh 2003b) and it (...) appeared in abridged form in the Asia-Pacific Philosophy Education Network for Democracy (APPEND) Philosophy Series, Volume 4: Philosophy, Democracy and Education, edited by Philip Cam. It was once again revised, but also expanded, and appeared in Chapter 5 of Ethics and the community of inquiry: Education for deliberative democracy, a collaborative authorship with Terri Field and Mark Freakley (2006). Some sections have been further revised and appear in other publications (Burgh 2009, 2010; Burgh & Yorshansky 2011). These revisions would suggest that my thoughts on these matters are constantly changing. To some degree this is true, but each time the changes have built on previous ideas rather than new ideas replacing old ones. I welcomed the invitation to revise the original paper, which includes sections not included in later versions. However, with almost 11 years passing since the original publication, I found myself deleting sections and replacing others. Subsequently, this paper is a culmination of all the revisions and incorporates ideas from each. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to suggest a theoretical approach to modern democracy and its implicit contradiction between the idea of public sovereignty and the model of political representation. The apparent practical problem arising from this contradiction is the lack of legitimacy in democratically elected officials and parliament in general. The article argues that the issue with democratic representation cannot be explained sociologically, but must include a theoretical analysis of the normative contradiction between the egalitarian principle of sovereignty (...) of the people and the hierarchical model of political representation. -/- The article develops its argument from the conceptual framework laid down in the political theory of Montesquieu. Montesquieu’s thoughts on political regimes offer important insights about modern representative democracy, highlighting the structural relationship between what he called the “nature of democracy” (the rule of the people) and the “generating principle of democracy” (love for equality). Three contemporary interpretations of Montesquieu’s theory (by Fred Dallmayr, Michael Mosher and Sharon Krause) are introduced and critically evaluated. -/- The article concludes that: -/- Representative democracy suffers from a structural tension between the democratic idea of the rule of the people and its practical implementation through the model of representation, which was inherited from predemocratic monarchic regimes. The problem is not sociological but structural. -/- Montesquieu’s theory offers a conceptual framework for analyzing the inner tension of representative democracy between the ideas of egalitarianism and political hierarchy. Contemporary authors suggest different interpretations of Montesquieu’s thought and offer several strategies for the possible improvement of democratic rule, such as (1) redrawing the notion of representation, (2) creating a more empowered civic society and (3) introducing a meritocratic educational system for individuals. Yet, they all miss the original idea posed by the Enlightenment philosopher regarding the balance between the democratic principle (passion for equality) and its natural claim to represent the people with “intermediary institutions” that mitigate the adverse tendencies of the democratic form of government. -/- Philosophical discussions about democratic legitimacy should consider one Montesquieu’s statement that is rarely theoretically acknowledged: that democratic political representation needs non-egalitarian social ideas. This means that democracy must tolerate certain non-democratic social ideas (such as honor) for its own benefit, because they provide the necessary balancing institutions. Such an idea would benefit the ongoing debates about democracy by providing a more structural outlook on the fundamental source of the problem (which is a structural collision of contradictory ideas: “equality” vs. “hierarchy”) than those offered by the sociological strategies of democratization or civic empowerment. (shrink)

The study aims to clarify some actual contents that we think should be noted in the study of Dewey‟s educational philosophy. The study begins with Dewey‟s criticism of traditional education, which served as the basis for his progressive educational views. The article then analyzes the learnercentric educational process and teacher‟s qualities from a progressive viewpoint. Progressive education‟s ultimate aim is to achieve democracy in education. That, in our opinion, is the prominent reason that the influence of (...) Dewey‟s educational philosophy continues to have a bearing on the education systems of the United States, many European countries, and Asia. The article concludes with John Dewey‟s contributions to educational development to demonstrate that his progressive educational views still have directional value and provide meaningful guidance for educational innovation in many countries. (shrink)

Education as identity formation in Western-style liberal-democracies relies, in part, on neutrality as a justification for the reproduction of collective individual identity, including societal, cultural, institutional and political identities, many aspects of which are problematic in terms of the reproduction of environmentally harmful attitudes, beliefs and actions. Taking a position on an issue necessitates letting go of certain forms of neutrality, as does effectively teaching environmental education. We contend that to claim a stance of neutrality is to claim (...) a position beyond criticism. In the classroom this can also be an epistemically damaging position to hold. To further explore the problem of neutrality in the classroom, and to offer a potential solution, we will look to the philosophical community of inquiry pedagogy, and advocate for the addition of place-based education; a form of experiential education that promotes learning in local communities in which the school is situated, each with its own history, culture, economy and environment. However, how we understand ‘place’ is fundamental to understanding the potential of place-based education in giving students a ‘sense of place’—how they perceive a place, which includes place attachment and place meaning. To this end, we look to Indigenous understandings of Place and social reconstruction learning to inform place-based pedagogies. Doing so, we hold, opens a pathway to ethical education. (shrink)

An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based (...) on substantive data: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity (...) will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. (shrink)

Introduction. The development of legal culture and a culture of human rights in the modern world through media technologies, is acquiring special significance in connection with the processes of globalization and the spread of media in recent decades. The purpose of the article is to study the prospects for the use of media education in the formation of the legal social culture and a culture of human rights. Materials and methods. Based on a study of domestic and foreign sources, (...) issues of media education, media literacy, spiritual and moral education, the legal culture of society, the phenomenon of post-truth and ways of forming critical, creative thinking are considered. The use of general scientific, philosophical, and socio-pedagogical methods has made it possible to study media education as a dialogue of learning, stimulating the development of rational, critical thinking, focused on the search for the value foundations of intellectual and social activity. Results. The development of the field of information and communication technologies determines the principles for the formation of the content and orientation of modern education. Media education is interlinked with the development of democracy and human rights. It influences the formation of a culture of citizen participation, their active social position, civic and political culture. Media education plays a significant role in shaping the legal culture of society since critical media research and information research focuses on the analysis of power structures and structures of dominance in the media. A study of the interpretations of the concepts of "media education" and "media literacy" made it possible to show that media education focuses a person on a critical approach to media content. One of the main issues of media education is teaching a person the skills to critically study media and media technologies, which involves addressing the technological, cultural and historical specifics of specific media used at a specific time and place. Information and communication technologies have changed the way of life, work, communication, and ways of selfpresentation, the formation of values, participation in socially significant events. Therefore, a critical approach to mass media should be based on knowledge of socio-philosophical theories, ethics and research in the field of mass media. Discussion. Mass media are constructing a history of human rights, which updates the topic of the media policy of human rights, combining socio-legal, cultural and media theories. Education in the field of acquiring information perception skills, the ability to correctly understand the importance of audiovisual images, to competently handle and navigate information flows are necessary for the life of a modern person in society. (shrink)

John Dewey proposed soon after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that citizens of techno-industrial nations suffer from "cultural lag" (LW 15:199-200; cf. LW 4:203-28). He had in mind a sort of moral jet lag, a condition in which most of the basic alternatives we have on hand to think and talk about moral and political life, from customary moralizing to sophisticated theorizing, were developed, canned, and pickled on a shelf so long ago that they now lag far behind (...) the multi-faceted problems that our values must speak to. The failure of many countries, most visibly the United States, to effectively navigate climate change and the Covid-19 global pandemic exemplifies our moral jet lag. Our collective responses to the new normal of global disruptions are, in William James’s words in Pragmatism, “out of plumb and out of key and out of ‘whack’” (1907, 37). The American philosophical tradition that includes James and Dewey has long sought to compensate for the excesses of America’s hyper-individualism and its anti-naturalistic distrust of experimental intelligence. In this brief analysis of our morally jet lagged response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we draw heavily on two highly articulated intellectual resources for America’s moral, political, and educational recovery: Jane Addams’s social ethics and Dewey’s deeply democratic theory of moral and political deliberation. (shrink)

In this article we aim to open a new line of debate about religion in public schools by focusing on religious ideals. We begin with an elucidation of the concept ‘religious ideals’ and an explanation of the notion of reasonable pluralism, in order to be able to explore the dangers and positive contributions of religious ideals and their pursuit on a liberal democratic society. We draw our examples of religious ideals from Christianity and Islam, because these religions have most adherents (...) in Western liberal democracies that are the focus of this article. The fifth and most important section ‘‘Reasonable pluralism and the inclusion of religious ideals in public secondary schools’’ provides three arguments for our claim that public schools should include religious ideals, namely that they are important to religious people, that they are conducive for the development of pupils into citizens of a liberal democracy, and that the flourishing of pupils as adults is advanced by encountering religious ideals. We also offer a more practical reason: religious ideals can more easily be included within public education than religious dogmas and rules. (shrink)

SUMMARY The research focuses on the three main political parties in Albania, namely Socialist Party, Democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration. Its objectives are to measure the Intra-Party Democracy(IPD) in the Albanian political parties and to explore the meaning that party members attach to it. The IPD is understood and broken down into categories and sub-categories so that parties in particular and all interested actors in the field of political parties and democracy could understand, which component of (...) IPD parties are performing better and where they are performing worse. IPD is measured against two dimensions: inclusiveness and decentralization. Inclusiveness denotes the extent to which party members have the right to express their opinions and participate in the decision-making process. With decentralization is understood the process which makes possible the decentralization of the decision-making process from the highest national party level to party sub-national levels and party members. In a decentralized party, subnational party units enjoy a certain level of autonomy from the party in the center. The analysis is based on both primary and secondary data. Content analysis of party statutes particularly focuses on measuring IPD, while focus groups with party members and interviews with high-ranking officials of the political parties are used to explore the meaning that party members have on IPD, as well as validate content analysis findings. The main findings are: -/- Content Analysis of Party Statutes: Parties do have rules that govern their internal life, however these rules need to be improved in order to strengthen IPD. Especially problematic were the provisions for the role of the executive committee and party president, which provide these two institutions, especially the leader of the party with powers that don’t hold him/her accountable to the party members and middle level organs. Furthermore, members were not sufficiently involved in the procedures of candidate nominations for MPs, in the election of the national Executive and Executive Committee and in the election of the Party President. The analysis also finds that voting procedures are not sufficiently at place to allow members express their will and participate in the decision-making process and that members are not or little consulted in terms of programmatic issues. The analysis of the relationship between the national and subnational levels of party organization revealed that the center of the party has accumulated power to the detriment of the subnational units which enjoy little autonomy in the decision-making process. -/- Focus Groups and Interviews: The study finds that party members linked system-level democracy with IPD and that they have a very clear understanding if IPD: what it is and how it could be achieved. They linked IPD with the structure and organization of the party, seeing it as an important instrument that allows for decentralization of power and integration of rank and file into the decision-making process. The party members considered the statute as an important educational political tool and invoked it whenever disputes rose or decisions had to be taken. They linked IPD with the electoral system and considered that closed list proportional was a system that strengthened the power in the hands of the few at the party top executive level and weakened IPD. (shrink)

Discursive liberal democracy might not be the best of all possible forms of government, yet in Europe it is largely accepted as such. The attractors of liberal democracy (majority rule, political equality, reasonable self-determination and an ideological framework built in a tentative manner) as well as an adequate dose of secularization (according to the doctrine of religious restraint) provide both secularist and educated religious people with the most convenient ideological framework. Unfortunately, many promoters of ideological secularization take too (...) strong a stance against the manifestation of religiosity in the public sphere. They claim that people may discuss, debate or adopt (coercive) laws and regularities only by means of secular public reasons and secular motivation. We argue that these secular restraints on the ideological framework are unfairly biased against religion, counterproductive and unreasonable. The exaggerated secular restrictions create a strict secular public sphere that appears to be a Pickwickian world suitable just for inoffensive, dull and lethargic people. Deliberately separated from the idea of truth, secular public reasons cannot sustain a complex adaptive system like discursive liberal democracy. Liberal democracy needs citizens with a strong sense of truth and with a sufficient will-power to follow both a personal ideal and a collective ideal. Religious beliefs provide people with just such a sense of truth and with the desire to have a certain kind of character. In the secularized public sphere of liberal democracy, people can manifest just educated religious beliefs that correspond to the real world and respect the principle of peaceable conduct. In the final part of the article we support the assertion that believers could and should educate their religious belief before expressing them in the public sphere. Educated religious beliefs have a wide enough propositional content, obey the moral imperative of William Clifford, are purged from all propositional components against which there is strong evidence and are consciously cultivated by the mechanism of suggestion. (shrink)

Must privacy and freedom of expression conflict? To witness recent debates in Britain, you might think so. Anything other than self-regulation by the press is met by howls of anguish from journalists across the political spectrum, to the effect that efforts to protect people’s privacy will threaten press freedom, promote self-censorship and prevent the press from fulfilling its vital function of informing the public and keeping a watchful eye on the activities and antics of the powerful.[Brown, 2009, 13 January]1 Effective (...) protections for privacy, from such a perspective, inevitably pose a threat to democratic government via the constraints that they place on the press. Such concerns with privacy must be taken seriously by anyone who cares about democratic government, and the freedom, equality and wellbeing of individuals. But if it is one thing to say that privacy and freedom of expression cannot always be fully protected, it is another to suppose that protections for the one must always come at the expense of the other. After all, the economics of contemporary politics and journalism would seem to be partly responsible for our difficulties in protecting personal privacy while sustaining robust and informative forms of public discourse. [Moore, 2010, 10 -141]2 Most newspapers are loss-making businesses and the need to reduce those losses and, if possible, to turn a profit, make investigative journalism an increasingly expensive proposition as compared to both “comment” and more or less elevated forms of gossip. At the same time, politics has increasingly become the prerogative of a narrow group of people with access to the large sums of money necessary successfully to compete for high office. In those circumstances, the need for critical scrutiny is as important as it is difficult. Revising our ideas about privacy and its protection cannot alone reduce the tensions between freedom of expression and personal privacy typical of our societies, necessary though such revision may be. Moreover, this paper can only touch on some aspects of the ways in which we need to rethink our interests in privacy, in order adequately to reflect people’s diverse interests in freedom of expression, and the important role of a free press to democratic government. Nonetheless, I hope to suggest ways of thinking about people’s claims to privacy which can be generalised fairly readily, and can help us to think constructively about the nature, causes and solutions to some important social and political problems, even if, in its nature, philosophical analysis rarely tells us what to do. More specifically, this paper argues that people are entitled to keep some true facts about themselves to themselves, should they so wish, as a sign of respect for their moral and political status, and in order to protect themselves from being used as a public example in order to educate or to entertain other people. The “outing” - or non-consensual public disclosure - of people’s health records or status, or their sexual behaviour or orientation is usually unjustified, even when its consequences seem to be beneficial. Indeed, the paper claims, the reasons to reject outing, as inconsistent with democratic commitments to freedom and equality, are reasons to insist on the importance of privacy to freedom of expression. While a free press is of the utmost importance to democratic government, it is not identical with the free expression of individuals and, on occasion, the former may have to be constrained in order to protect the latter. [Barendt, 2007, 231]. Hence, the paper concludes, we should distinguish the claims of individuals to publish reports about their lives – even if this necessarily involves revealing the private lives of others – from journalistic claims to publish information about the sex lives of consenting adults. I will start by briefly situating my argument within a democratic approach to privacy, before using the “outing” of Oliver Sipple to examine people’s claims to privacy and their implications for freedom of expression and of the press. I will be assuming that some forms of privacy are legitimate, in order to focus more closely on the question of what information, if any, people may keep to themselves. (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity (...) will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy promoted by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. (shrink)

The notion of a community of inquiry has been treated by many of its proponents as being an exemplar of democracy in action. We argue that the assumptions underlying this view present some practical and theoretical difficulties, particularly in relation to distribution of power among the members of a community of inquiry. We identify two presuppositions in relation to distribution of power that require attention in developing an educational model that is committed to deliberative democracy: (1) openness to (...) inquiry and readiness to reason, and (2) mutual respect of students and teachers towards one another. Our contention is that these presuppositions, presented as preconditions necessary to the creation of a community of inquiry, are not without ideological commitments and dependent upon the ability of participants to share power. Using group dynamic theories and the ideas of Hannah Arendt, we argue that behaviours commonly interpreted as obstacles to dialogue or reflective inquiry could provide opportunities for growth. (shrink)

The educational philosophies of John Dewey, Paulo Freire and Tsunesaburo Makiguchi were born at different times and in different cultures but the themes they propound resonate with the ordinary people. Although there are ideas that are unique to each philosophy, this paper tries to uncover the themes that are similar in them. The purpose to uncovering these themes is to try in some way to form a unifying force that opens a path to making the ideas rather than the person (...) resonate among people. The three philosophers were not interested in recognition but rather sought the welfare of their fellow human beings as their purpose. As such, their hope was that their ideas would be turned to action by people rather than adoration of their philosophies. Increasingly, educators are seeking ways to harmonize their ideas and ideals with other educators in order to build a strong counterbalance to the historically prevalent divisive and prejudicial societal structures that inhibit human development. Paolo Freire points out that such a counterbalance would ultimately benefit the oppressed and the oppressor. In order to accomplish this, educators will need to put aside small philosophical differences and focus on the more meaningful themes that unite them. The interconnectedness of humanity and nature is becoming increasingly apparent in all realms of human activity. Future research and educational work must begin to turn away from its divisive nature and look for themes of harmony within and between disciplines. Instead of looking for ways to reject each other we need to research ways of uniting each other, not only for our own sake but for the sake are future generations. (shrink)

The limited access to public secondary education in rural regions of Haiti has impacted children who want to pursue their education beyond the primary level. This generic qualitative study aimed to explore the perceptions of informed Haitian educators and other educators who were knowledgeable about the lack of access to public secondary education in rural Haiti, specifically through the framework of polarities of democracy theory. Data were gathered by conducting semistructured interviews with 20 educators who were (...) situated in both Haiti and the United States. NVivo 14 was used to organize, code, and analyze the data. Thematic analysis revealed three themes: (a) the government prioritizes political and personal interests over rural residents’ education, (b) disparities need to be reduced between urban and rural areas, and (c) a revolution in education is needed to build more public secondary schools for rural residents. Public policy recommendations included investing in training rural individuals to create a database of academics who can meet local students’ educational demands. Positive social change can occur by enhancing governmental services, implementing strategies to revitalize the agricultural sector in rural regions, and promoting active participation of rural residents in shaping the design of public schools to ensure effective secondary education for their children. (shrink)

One central aspect of a healthy democracy is the practice of democratic dissent. For the first time in many years, dissent is being widely practiced in town hall meetings and on street corners across the United States. Despite this presence, dissent is often suppressed or omitted in the prescribed, tested, hidden, and external curriculum of US schools. This article calls for a realignment of these aspects of curriculum with both a guiding vision of ideal democracy and a realistic (...) interpretation of democracy as it is currently invoked in order to maximize this historic moment and work toward more robust democracy as a whole. This article will define dissent, show why it matters for healthy democracy, describe its role in the conscious social reproduction of citizens, reveal implications of the current more consensus-oriented forms of democracy portrayed in US schools, and call for new work on consensus and dissent in schools given changes in the present environment. (shrink)

Using Australia to illustrate the case, in this paper it is argued that the transformation of universities into businesses and the undermining of the liberal arts is motivated by either contempt for or outright hostility to democracy. This is associated with a global managerial revolution that is enslaving nations and people to the global market and the corporations that dominate it. The struggle within universities is the site of a struggle to reverse the gains of the Radical Enlightenment, the (...) tradition of Enlightenment that, committed to upholding and developing the civic humanism of the Renaissance, strove for liberty, understood as democratic self-governance. The central place the liberal arts had in upholding this liberty is shown. Inspired by the Ancient Greek notion of paideia, the liberal arts, which originated in republican Rome, was the form of education required designed for free people, in opposition to the specialist education appropriate for slaves, to inspire them to maintain their liberty and enable them to govern themselves. While not always upholding this ideal, it is argued in this paper that the liberal arts always kept alive this quest for liberty, bequeathing this quest to the Renaissance philosophers and to the proponents of the Radical Enlightenment. With managerialism and the undermining of democracy, such education and the questioning, creative people it produced, are now seen as a threat to the new global corporatocracy who, to achieve cultural hegemony, have coöpted university managers and academics to impose their agenda to cripple the liberal arts. Their goal, never fully articulated as such but successfully prosecuted, is a dumbed-down population. (shrink)

The philosophy of education, being an integrative and anthropologic knowledge, has to perform a prognostic and axiological function, forming a perspective of a world-view genesis of personality and provide theoretical and methodological background for the innovation processes in the education. The forming of harmonious, intellectually developed, creative, conscientious, responsible, purposeful and healthy human personality – these are all the main tasks of the educational system. There are many approaches in performing of such strategic task. One of them, starting (...) from the urgency of a problem of sexual indifference of a modern school education, is presented in a single-sex format of education and is based upon individual approach to the education and upbringing of each and every pupil, taking into account the gender peculiarities of development. In this article we analyze the influence of a single-sex format of education on the process of forming of pupils’ personality, taking into account the age periodization of individual ontogenesis. We developed cognitive, motivational and psychological peculiarities of boys and girls during the periods of childhood and youth. Theoretical comprehension of a need in taking into consideration of the gender characteristics of pupils within the educational process – has been proved on practices, implementing the gender-orientated separate education in schools that demonstrates very positive results. There was made a conclusion about the fact, that the system of gender-orientated separated education has a strong potential of enhancing quality of a pedagogical process and helps to form the personalities of those who study. This can be achieved by taking into account the psychological, physiological and pedagogical peculiarities of boys and girls, by following in the process of educational activities the principals of egalitarianism, nature conformity, self-actualization, creative initiative, democracy and humanism, by creating of an environment, that will be free from impact of gender stereotypes and prejudice. (shrink)

The history of philosophy is replete with attempts at invoking rationality as a means of directing and even subduing human desire and emotion. Understood as that which moves human beings to action, desire and emotion come to be associated with human freedom and rationality as a means of curbing that freedom. Plato, for instance, takes for granted a separation between thought and action that drives a wedge between our rational ability to exercise self-discipline and the free expression of desire and (...) emotion. Hobbes, on the other hand, replaces our internal ability for rational self-control with the external authority of the political State. So long as freedom and control are pitted against one another, human beings are incapable of attaining a symbiosis of these two elements of human action so essential to realizing true democracy. Unlike Plato, John Dewey sees in democracy the greatest potential for individual and social life. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the educational philosophy of Dewey, which culminates in an educational aesthetic, appeals to and makes the most of the symbiosis of freedom and self-control, emotion and reason. Dewey’s educational aesthetic not only offers an alternative to traditional methods of education, but also demonstrates how the goal of a democratic way of life is made feasible by means of intelligently guided self-discipline—a form of self-control guided by intelligence that is not a constraint upon freedom, but instead embodies greater opportunity for freedom. I trace the basis for this synthesis, in the social-political and pedagogical principles of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both Locke and Rousseau offer educational theories that begin turning our attention toward the essential partnership required of rationality and emotion. Dewey's educational aesthetic is then considered as a response to alienating forms of education that continue to pit control and freedom against one another, and which thwart the intellectual and emotional development necessary for autonomy and democratic forms of social organization. (shrink)

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of one or two billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration (...) and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Hence my essay “Suicide by Democracy”. It is also now clear that the seven sociopaths who rule China are winning world war 3, and so my concluding essay on them. The only greater threat is Artificial Intelligence which I comment on briefly. The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton, the Democratic Party and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell on Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides’ Standard Social Science Model. The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world— technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. Another section describes the religious delusion – that there is some super power that will save us. The next section describes the digital delusions, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System one, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers). Other digital delusions are that we will be saved from the pure evil (selfishness) of System 1 by computers/AI/robotics/nanotech/genetic engineering created by System 2. The No Free Lunch principal tells us there will be serious and possibly fatal consequences. The last section describes The One Big Happy Family Delusion, i.e., that we are selected for cooperation with everyone, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces these delusions. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the relation between political populism and mass media, and how this relation becomes problematic for democratic societies. It focuses on the fact that mass media, due to their purpose and infrastructure, can unintentionally reinforce populist messages. Research findings from communication science and political psychology are used to illustrate how, for example, a combination of mass media agenda setting and motivated reasoning can influence citizens’ political decisions and impair their political autonomy. This poses a particular (...) normative challenge for modern democracies: how to counter these populism-supporting effects within the constraints of democratic legitimacy? After showing how severely limited legal measures to curb populist media effects would be, the paper argues in favour of media competence education as a way of providing future citizens with an epistemic toolkit to navigate the media environment and strengthen their political autonomy. (shrink)

In the centennial year of John Dewey’s classic, Democracy and Education (1916), this paper revisits his thesis of the reciprocity of means and ends, arguing that it remains of central importance for debate over the aims of education. The paper provides a Dewey-inspired rebuttal of arguments for an ‘ultimate aim,’ but balances this with a development of the strong overlaps between proponents of pragmatism, intellectual virtues education (Jason Baehr) and critical thinking education (Harvey Siegel). Siegel’s (...) ‘Kantian’ justification of critical thinking as an ultimate aim is critiqued, and contrary to Siegel’s ‘generalist’ focus on logic, the paper concludes with specific suggestions for how the study of ecological rationality and dual-process theories (Gerd Gigerenzer; Keith Stanovich and others) should impact how we teach for critical thinking dispositions. -/- Presentation paper for ‘The Epistemic Aims of Education’ Workshop, Eidyn Research Center & University of Edinburgh, 2016. Special thanks to as IASH Center for sabbatical Fellowship support. (shrink)

Along with fresh interpretations of Plato, this book proposes a radically new approach to reading him, one that can teach us about protreptic, as it is called, by reimagining the ways in which Socrates engages in it. Protreptic, as it is conceived in the book, is an attempt to bring about a fundamental change of heart in people so that they want truth more than anything else. In taking the approach developed in this book, one doesn't try to get Plato (...) right but simply uses his dialogues as a theoretical tool for gaining insight into protreptic. The book argues that by analyzing Socrates' behavior in the right way, one can better understand how to foster thoughtfulness nowadays, and there is a need to foster it, in part since the health of democracy is at stake. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of education of the citizen derived from the texts of Rousseau, with particular attention to the role assigned to patriotism and civil religion. With respect to patriotic education, I critically question Rousseau's thesis about the incompatibility between love of one’s country and a sense of humanity, contrasting them with the idea of constitutional patriotism, founded on loyalty to universal values. I conclude with an examination of the idea that a civil religion constitutes an (...) essential contribution to the citizen’s education. I believe that the public ethics of political liberalism are better suited to the idea of civic education for democracy. (shrink)

When Dewey scholars and educational theorists appeal to the value of educative growth, what exactly do they mean? Is an individual's growth contingent on receiving a formal education? Is growth too abstract a goal for educators to pursue? Richard Rorty contended that the request for a “criterion of growth” is a mistake made by John Dewey's “conservative critics,” for it unnecessarily restricts the future “down to the size of the present.” Nonetheless, educational practitioners inspired by Dewey's educational writings may (...) ask Dewey scholars and educational theorists, “How do I facilitate growth in my classroom?” Here Shane Ralston asserts, in spite of Rorty's argument, that searching for a more concrete standard of Deweyan growth is perfectly legitimate. In this essay, Ralston reviews four recent books on Dewey's educational philosophy—Naoko Saito's The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson, Stephen Fishman and Lucille McCarthy's John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope, and James Scott Johnston's Inquiry and Education: John Dewey and the Quest for Democracy and Deweyan Inquiry: From Educational Theory to Practice—and through his analysis identifies some possible ways for Dewey-inspired educators to make growth a more practical pedagogical ideal. (shrink)

This paper addresses specific concerns that emerge as a consequence to the current educational reforms in the Philippines. These concerns are philosophical and pedagogical. The philosophical concern underscores the importance to situate philosophical thought within concrete historical conditions. In this way, philosophy does not only become a pure abstract enterprise, but an intellectual struggle at the service of historical novelties. I propose a philosophical paradigm that values collective practice at the service of truth. As new situations demand new interpretations and (...) contextualization, I shall also employ a philosophical discourse and practice not only contemporary to, but also one of the bests of our times: the philosophy of Alain Badiou. The pedagogical concern elucidates the political nature of education, which is what Critical Pedagogy argues essentially. This paradigm puts importance above all on the role critical knowledge and collective practice plays in the educational and socio-political arena. The critical pedagogy which I propose is not far from the emancipation politics also embedded in Badiouian Philosophy. Hence, there is a connection between the kind of philosophy I propose and the pedagogical paradigm I present as an alternative. From the philosophical and pedagogical arguments presented, I shall argue for the need to rescue education from the influence of neoliberalism. The resistance necessitates the movement of the collective through the agency of the teacher-militant. (shrink)

This paper questions the efficacy of social adverts in promoting Nigeria’s democracy and proposes creative planning as a key strategy for designing effective media messages for effective democratic principles. Social advertising pleads a course through advocacy, social mobilization or behavior change communication. The business of democracy is to get the people involved in the business of leadership. Many media messages created to inform and educate the citizenry under democratic set-ups in Nigeria have been ineffective with regards to changing (...) behavior of the citizens towards a particular course. The creative planning strategy under consideration in this paper involves the steps in the creation of media messages with focus on variables such as discourse, dramatic logic or arguments, signs and significations and the audience. Basic questions in this paper include: Why are social adverts used as tools in promoting democratic values? Are the social adverts used in Nigeria predicated on the creative planning strategy? To what extent have the social adverts contributed to the promotion of democratic principles in Nigeria? The paper examines some advertising theories as applied to message development and questions the basis for creating or designing most media messages in promoting democratic values in Nigeria. The methodology adopted in this paper is analysis and recommendations will be based on the findings. (shrink)