Rationality Redeemed?


Book Description

In Educating Reason, Harvey Siegel presented the case regarding rationality and critical thinking as fundamental education ideals. In Rationality Redeemed?, a collection of essays written since that time, he develops this view, responds to major criticisms raised against it, and engages those critics in dialogue. In developing his ideas and responding to critics, Siegel addresses main currents in contemporary thought, including feminism, postmodernism and multiculturalism.




Money, Time and Rationality in Max Weber


Book Description

This unique study into the roots of Max Weber's Political Economy, is an intriguing read and a valuable contribution to the Weberian literature. Parsons argues that Weber's analysis is highly influenced by the Austrian School of Economics and the relationship between his critique of centrally planned economies and that of Mises.




Wittgenstein, Education and the Problem of Rationality


Book Description

This book develops an argument for a historicist and non-foundationalist notion of rationality based on an interpretation of Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty. The book examines two notions of rationality—a universal versus a constitutive conception – and their significance for educational theory. The former advanced by analytic philosophy of education as a form of conceptual analysis is based on a mistaken reading of Wittgenstein. Analytic philosophy of education used a reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language to set up and justify an absolute, universal and ahistorical notion of rationality. By contrast, the book examines the underlying influence of the later Wittgenstein on the historicist turn in philosophy of science as a basis for a non-foundationalist and constitutive notion of rationality which is both historical and cultural, and remains consistent with wider developments in philosophy, hermeneutics and social theory. This book aims to understand the philosophical motivation behind this view, to examine its intellectual underpinnings and to substitute this universal conception of rationality by reference to a Hegelian interpretation of the later Wittgenstein that emphasizes his status as an anti-foundational thinker.




Christian Theology and the Secular University


Book Description

If the secular university by definition is non-sectarian or non-denominational, then how can it accommodate a discipline like Christian theology? Doesn’t the traditional goal of theological study, which is to attain knowledge of the divine, fundamentally conflict with the main goal of secular academic study, which is to attain knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we live? So why should theology be admitted, or even care about being admitted, into secular academic life? And even if theology were admitted, what contribution to secular academic life could it make? Working from a Christian philosophical and theological perspective but also engaging a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and religious studies scholars, Christian Theology and the Secular University takes on these questions, arguing that Christian theology does belong in the secular university because it provides distinct resources that the secular university needs if it is going to fulfill what should be its main epistemic and educative ends. This book offers a fresh and unique perspective to scholars working in the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and religious studies, and to those in other academic disciplines who are interested in thinking critically and creatively about the place and nature of theological study within the secular university.




Social Virtue Epistemology


Book Description

This collection of 19 chapters, all appearing in print here for the first time and written by an international team of established and emerging scholars, explores the place of intellectual virtues and vices in a social world. Relevant virtues include open-mindedness, curiosity, intellectual courage, diligence in inquiry, and the like. Relevant vices include dogmatism, need for immediate certainty, and gullibility and the like. The chapters are divided into four key sections: Foundational Issues; Individual Virtues; Collective Virtues; and Methods and Measurements. And the chapters explore the most salient questions in this areas of research, including: How are individual intellectual virtues and vices affected by their social contexts? Does being in touch with other open-minded people make us more open-minded? Conversely, does connection to other dogmatic people make us more dogmatic? Can groups possess virtues and vices distinct from those of their members? For instance, could a group of dogmatic individuals operate in an open-minded way despite the vices of its members? Each chapter receives commentary from two other authors in the volume, and each original author then replies to these commentaries. Together, the authors form part of a collective conversation about how we can know about what we know. In so doing, they not only theorize but enact social virtue epistemology.




Education, Knowledge and Truth


Book Description

In the 1960s educational philosophers showed enormous interest in the nature of knowledge and the curriculum. This work responds to the need to reinstate conceptual problems of truth, knowledge and the curriculum on the agenda for debate.




Handbook of Epistemology


Book Description

Epistemology or theory of knowledge has always been one of the most important -if not the most important -field of philosophy. New arguments are constantly brought to bear on old views, new variants are marshalled to revive ancient stands, new concepts and distinctions increase the sophistication of epistemogical theories. There are a great many excellent textbooks, monographs as well as anthologies consisting of articles in epistemology. Similarly, there are useful philosophical dictionaries which contain a great number of relatively short entries, and general philosophical handbooks which also touch epistemological issues. This volume of 27 essays grew out from the interest to see a handbook which is devoted entirely to the historical roots and systematic development of theory of knowledge. It is not intended to compete but to supplement the already existing literature. It aims at giving both beginners and more advanced students as well as professionals in epistemology and other areas of philosophy an overview of the central problems and solutions of epistemology. The essays are self-contained and stil often rather extensive discussions of the chosen aspects of knowledge. The contributions presuppose very little familiarity with previous literature and only a few of them require the mastery of even elementary logical notation. This, we hope, makes the volume also accessible to the philosophically interested wider audience. The contributors were asked to provide substantial, up-to-date, self-contained and balanced surveys of the various subareas and more specific topics of epistemology, with reference to literature.




Sociological and Philosophical Perspectives on Education in the Asia-Pacific Region


Book Description

This book demonstrates the value of approaching education from a sociological and philosophical perspective. Specifically, it addresses current and long-standing educational issues in the Asia-Pacific region, integrating sociological and philosophical insights with practical applications in four key areas: educational aims, moral education, educational policy, and the East-West dichotomy. It discusses educational aims in terms of rationality, philosophical thinking, and sustainable development and presents the literary, religious, and analytical approaches to moral education. Four educational policies are then considered: Hong Kong’s language policy, Hong Kong’s policy on the internationalization of education, East Asia’s policies on English education, and Australia’s policy on teacher education. Different aspects of the East-West dichotomy are analysed: Confucian rationalism versus Western rationalism, Confucian learning culture versus Western learning culture, and Asian research methodology versus Western research methodology. Taken as a whole, the book shows that issues in education are rarely simple, and looking at them from multiple perspectives allows for rich and informed debates. It presents a rare philosophical and sociological analysis of the cultures and experiences of education in the Asia-Pacific region, and promotes research that leads to more culturally rooted educational policies and practice.




Making Sense of Education


Book Description

Making Sense of Education provides a contemporary introduction to the key issues in educational philosophy and theory. Exploring major past and present conceptions of education, teaching and learning, this book makes philosophy of education relevant to the professional practice of teachers and student teachers, as well of interest to those studying education as an academic subject. The book is divided into three parts: education, teaching and professional practice: issues concerning education, the role of the teacher, the relationship of educational theory to practice and the wider moral dimensions of pedagogy learning, knowledge and curriculum: issues concerning behaviourist and cognitive theories of learning, knowledge and meaning, curriculum aims and content and evaluation and assessment schooling, society and culture: issues of the wider social and political context of education concerning liberalism and communitarianism, justice and equality, differentiation, authority and discipline. This timely and up-to-date introduction assists all those studying and/or working in education to appreciate the main philosophical sources of and influences on present day thinking about education, teaching and learning




Education, Culture and Epistemological Diversity


Book Description

In the recent educational research literature, it has been asserted that ethnic or cultural groups have their own distinctive epistemologies, and that these have been given short shrift by the dominant social group. Educational research, then, is pursued within a framework that embodies assumptions about knowledge and knowledge production that reflect the interests and historical traditions of this dominant group. In such arguments, however, some relevant philosophical issues remain unresolved, such as what claims about culturally distinctive epistemologies mean, precisely, and how they relate to traditional epistemological distinctions between beliefs and knowledge. Furthermore, can these ways of establishing knowledge stand up to critical scrutiny? This volume marshals a variety of resources to pursue such open questions in a lively and accessible way: a critical literature review, analyses from philosophers of education who have different positions on the key issues, a roundtable discussion, and interactions between the two editors, who sometimes disagree. It also employs the work of prominent feminist epistemologists who have investigated parallel issues with sophistication. This volume does not settle the question of culturally distinctive epistemologies, but teases out the various philosophical, sociological and political aspects of the issue so that the debate can continue with greater clarity.