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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
Tracing the deep connections between philosophy and education, Ryan
McInerney argues that we must use philosophy to reflect on the
significance of educational practice to all human endeavour. He
uses a broad approach which takes in the relationships governing
philosophy, education, and language, to reveal education's
fundamental achievements and metaphysical significance. The
realization of educational ideals and policies are read alongside
growing skepticism regarding the theoretical and practical
significance of philosophical thinking, and the emphasis on
resource efficiency and measurable outcomes which characterise
schooling today. It is from this context that McInerney defends the
value inherent to the philosophy of education. Drawing upon
contemporary continental and analytic thinkers including Nietzsche,
Gadamer, and Wittgenstein, McInerney charts the role of education
in shaping the child's metaphysical transformation through language
acquisition. Connecting early years and primary school education,
McInerney pinpoints rationality as the crucial factor which
produces critical, thinking beings. He presents the pursuit of
philosophically minded education as a rational pursuit which
enables us to philosophise and educate others in turn, dispensing
with the epistemological and conceptual foundationalisms of the
past.
A new wave of thinkers from across different disciplines within the
analytical tradition in philosophy has recently focused on
critical, societal challenges, such as the silencing and
questioning of the credibility of oppressed groups, the political
polarization that threatens the good functioning of democratic
societies across the globe, or the moral and political significance
of gender, race, or sexual orientation. Appealing to both
well-established and younger international scholars, this volume
delves into some of the most relevant problems and discussions
within the area, bringing together for the first time different
essays within what we deem to be a "political turn in analytic
philosophy." This political turn consists of putting different
conceptual and theoretical tools from epistemology, philosophy of
language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics at the service of
social and political change. The aim is to ensure a better
understanding of some of the key features of our social
environments in an attempt to achieve a more just and equal
society.
This book endeavors to fill the conceptual gap in theorizing about
embodied cognition. The theories of mind and cognition which one
could generally call "situated" or "embodied cognition" have gained
much attention in the recent decades. However, it has been mostly
phenomenology (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, etc.), which has served as
a philosophical background for their research program. The main
goal of this book is to bring the philosophy of classical American
pragmatism firmly into play. Although pragmatism has been arguably
the first intellectual current which systematically built its
theories of knowledge, mind and valuation upon the model of a
bodily interaction between an organism and its environment, as the
editors and authors argue, it has not been given sufficient
attention in the debate and, consequently, its conceptual resources
for enriching the embodied mind project are far from being
exhausted. In this book, the authors propose concrete subject-areas
in which the philosophy of pragmatism can be of help when dealing
with particular problems the philosophy of the embodied mind
nowadays faces - a prominent example being the inevitable tension
between bodily situatedness and the potential universality of
symbolic meaning.
Point of Departure offers a practical metacognitive and
transformational learning strategy for human surviving and
thriving. Using five foundational and interactive Indigenous
worldview beliefs that contrast sharply with our dominant worldview
ones, everyone can reclaim the original instructions for living on
Earth. Without the resulting change in consciousness that can
emerge from this learning approach, no modern technologies can save
us. The five foundational Indigenous precepts relate to a radically
different understanding about: (1) Trance?based learning (2)
Courage and Fearlessness (3) Community Oriented Self?Authorship (4)
Sacred Communications (5) Nature as Ultimate Teacher.
Toward the beginning of 2013, I received reports of passages in the
Black Notebooks that offered observations on Jewry, or as the case
may be, world Jewry. It immediately became clear to me that the
publication of the Black Notebooks would call forth a wide-spread
international debate. Already in the Spring of 2013, I had asked
Professor Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, last private assistant -
and in the words of my grandfather, the "chief co-worker of the
complete edition", - if he might review the Notebooks as a whole,
based on his profound insight into the thought of Martin Heidegger,
and in particular, review those Jewish-related passages that were
the focus of the public eye. Publications about the Black Notebooks
quickly came to propagate catchy expressions such as
"being-historical anti-Semitism" and "metaphysical anti-Semitism".
The first question that obviously arises is: Does the thought of
Martin Heidegger exhibit any kind of anti-Semitism at all? In this
book Professor von Herrmann now advances his hermeneutic
explication. With Professor Francesco Alfieri of the Pontificia
Universita Lateranense he has found a colleague who has drawn up a
comprehensive philological analysis of volumes GA 94 through GA 97
of the Complete Edition. The fact that Heidegger designated the
hitherto published "black notebooks" as Ponderings (UEberlegungen)
and as Observations (Anmerkungen) has been given little
consideration. He intentionally placed them at the conclusion of
the Complete Edition because without acquaintance with the
lectures, and above all, with the being-historical treatises that
would come to be published in the framework of the Complete
Edition, they would not be comprehensible. (Arnulf Heidegger)
Hollow and Home explores the ways the primary places in our lives
shape the individuals we become. It proposes that place is a
complex and dynamic phenomenon. Place refers to geographical and
constructed places- location, topography, landscape, and buildings.
It also refers to the psychological, social, and cultural
influences at work at a given location. These elements act in
concert to constitute a place. Carlisle incorporates perspectives
from writers like Edward S. Casey, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Yi-Fu
Tuan, and Witold Rybczynski, but he applies theory with a light
touch. Placing this literature in dialog with personal experience,
he concentrates on two places that profoundly influenced him and
enabled him to overcome a lifelong sense of always leaving his
pasts behind. The first is Clover Hollow in Appalachian Virginia,
where the author lived for ten years among fifth-, sixth-, and
seventh-generation residents. The people and places there enabled
him to value his own past and primary places in a new way. The
story then turns to Carlisle's life growing up in Delaware, Ohio.
He describes in rich detail the ways the town shaped him in both
enabling and disabling ways. In the end, after years of moving from
place to place, Carlisle's experience in Appalachia helped him
rediscover his hometown-both the Old Delaware, where he grew up,
and the New Delaware, a larger, thriving small city-as his true
home. The themes of the book transcend specific localities and
speak to the relationship of self and place everywhere.
Ontology and Metaontology: A Contemporary Guide is a clear and
accessible survey of ontology, focusing on the most recent trends
in the discipline. Divided into parts, the first half characterizes
metaontology: the discourse on the methodology of ontological
inquiry, covering the main concepts, tools, and methods of the
discipline, exploring the notions of being and existence,
ontological commitment, paraphrase strategies, fictionalist
strategies, and other metaontological questions. The second half
considers a series of case studies, introducing and familiarizing
the reader with concrete examples of the latest research in the
field. The basic sub-fields of ontology are covered here via an
accessible and captivating exposition: events, properties,
universals, abstract objects, possible worlds, material beings,
mereology, fictional objects. The guide's modular structure allows
for a flexible approach to the subject, making it suitable for both
undergraduates and postgraduates looking to better understand and
apply the exciting developments and debates taking place in
ontology today.
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