From Francis Hutcheson to James McCosh: Irish Presbyterians and Defining the Scottish Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

This article examines the disputes amongst Irish Presbyterians about the teaching of moral philosophy by Professor John Ferrie in the college department of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution in the early nineteenth century and the substantive philosophical and theological issues that were raised. These issues have largely been ignored by Irish historians, but a discussion of them is of general relevance to historians of ideas as they illuminate a series of broader questions about the definition and development of Scottish philosophy. These are represented in the move from two philosophers who had strong connections with Irish Presbyterianism—Francis Hutcheson, the early eighteenth-century moral sense philosopher and theological moderate from County Down, and James McCosh, nineteenth-century exponent of modified Common Sense philosophy at Queen's College Belfast and a committed evangelical. In particular, this article addresses three important themes—the definition and character of ‘the Scottish philosophy’, the relationship between evangelicalism and Common Sense philosophy, and the process of development and adaptation that occurred in eighteenth-century Scottish thought during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Walter Benjamin and the Inhumanities: Towards a Pedagogical Anti-Nietzscheanism

The following discussion is intended as a critical intervention into recent debates about the “crisis of the humanities,” reading the symptomaticity of crisis in the medical sense of a turning point. It does so from the perspective of the work of Walter Benjamin, whose own transdisciplinary practice of thought has been characterized as a “philosophy directed against philosophy” and a “philosophizing beyond philosophy,” and stands as a model for the kind of intellectual and para-academic activity evoked here. Historically re-situating Benjamin’s famous allegory of the Angel of History from the twentieth-century context of the “crisis of culture” to the contemporary “crisis of education,” it attempts to reconstruct a dialectical understanding of pedagogization within Benjamin’s work, which is used to sketch out the contours of a critically reimagined pedagogy of the Inhumanities.

Understanding the Intersection of Reformed Faith and Dutch Immigrant Culture in Ontario Independent Christian Schools: Principals’ Experiences and Perspectives

In the aftermath of World War II, a wave of Dutch Reformed immigrants arrived in Ontario, many of whom joined the Christian Reformed Church. Following familiar cultural patterns, history, and their Reformed Christian faith, these immigrants settled in Ontario with remarkable institutional completeness (Breton, 1964). They quickly established independent, parent-operated Christian schools across Ontario. The primary purpose of the schools was to educate children through a comprehensive biblically based school program, yet this religious purpose often intersected with a Dutch immigrant ethnic culture. Van Dijk (2001) states that “the schools were the most important organization in maintaining the religious and ethnic identity of Calvinists” (p. 66). In this qualitative study I explore the intersection of Reformed faith and Dutch Canadian immigrant ethnic culture in Christian schools through the experiential and professional lens of eight retired principals. Employing a theoretical framework informed by Berger’s (1967) Sacred Canopy, I suggest that the intersection of faith and culture was experienced in the schools and was embodied by the schools themselves. Findings point to this intersection being located in the participants’ experience of (a) Dutchness, (b) the struggle for Christian education, (c) the ties that bound the school community together, and (d) the cloud of witnesses that founded and continues to support and encourage the Christian school community. The study offers insight into a Dutch Reformed immigrant group’s experience carving out a niche for themselves on the educational landscape in Ontario. This study also offers suggestions on how Christian schools can broaden their canopy and become more ethnically and denominationally diverse in the future.

Je qui devient Nous et Nous qui devient Je : sens unitaire de la culture chez Hegel

Le thème de la culture (Bildung) se caractérise d’abord, dans l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Hegel, par sa diversité contextuelle. Bien que la culture y soit définie spécifiquement comme un mode de développement propre à l’humain, à la différence de l’usage usuel du terme en allemand, cette diversité fait en sorte qu’on la retrouve aussi bien dans les remarques anthropologiques les plus anodines que dans les passages s’intéressant à l’histoire de l’esprit du monde ou encore les textes de nature politique. Il s’agit donc, dans le présent travail, d’étudier pour eux-mêmes les différents contextes généraux dans lesquels la notion apparaît (Phénoménologie de l’esprit, philosophie politique et philosophie de l’histoire) pour en arriver à retracer le fil conducteur donnant à la culture hégélienne son unité de sens. Loin d’être un concept indéterminé, la culture désigne, à tous les niveaux où il se manifeste, le dynamisme propre à l’esprit.

Linguistic experiments and ordinary language philosophy

J.L. Austin is regarded as having an especially acute ear for fine distinctions of meaning overlooked by other philosophers. Austin employs an informal experimental approach to gathering evidence in support of these fine distinctions in meaning, an approach that has become a standard technique for investigating meaning in both philosophy and linguistics. In this paper, we subject Austin's methods to formal experimental investigation. His methods produce mixed results: We find support for his most famous distinction, drawn on the basis of his `donkey stories', that `mistake' and `accident' apply to different cases, but not for some of his other attempts to distinguish the meaning of philosophically significant terms (such as `intentionally' and `deliberately'). We critically examine the methodology of informal experiments employed in ordinary language philosophy and much of contemporary philosophy of language and linguistics, and discuss the role that experimenter bias can play in influencing judgments about informal and formal linguistic experiments.

'In Charge of the Truffula Seeds' : On Children's Literature, Rationality and Children's Voices in Philosophy

In this paper I investigate how philosophy can speak for children and how children can have a voice in philosophy and speak for philosophy. I argue that we should understand children as responsible rational individuals who are involved in their own philosophical inquiries and who can be involved in our own philosophical investigations-not because of their rational abilities, but because we acknowledge them as conversational partners, acknowledge their reasons as reasons, and speak for them as well as let them speak for us and our rational community. In order to argue this I turn, first, to Gareth Matthews' philosophy of childhood and suggest a reconstruction of some of his concepts in line with the philosophy of Stanley Cavell. Second, in order to examine more closely our conceptions of rationality and our pictures of children, I consider the children's books, The Lorax and Where is My Sister? and Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck.

Smaller steps into longer journeys : experiencing African music and expressing culture

This paper outlines an exploratory research project that draws on survey data from both primary and secondary school music teachers in Victoria. The research stems from a study that I undertook in 2002-2003 with final year Deakin University undergraduate students. That project investigated the potential of African music to enhance the generic musical experiences, learning, motivation, interest, confidence and competence of non-specialist primary teacher education students. The research project being reported in this paper is an extension of the previous study to focus on practising music teachers at both primary and secondary school levels. The research addresses the significance and contribution of African music and culture as a cross-cultural experience for music teachers, their students and the wider community. It further considers my role as an African music practitioner in terms of transformation and acculturation. This paper outlines the progress of, and provides preliminary data about, the emergence of an innovative area of teaching and learning based on African music in Victorian schools. It also explores the notion of why cross-cultural and multi-cultural engagement matters in the contemporary context of educational change.

Emptiness and becoming : integrating Madhyamika Buddhism and process philosophy

Beginning with a comparison of process philosophy and Madhyamika Buddhism -focussing in particular on Charles Hartshorne and Nagarjuna - which seeks to find points of similarity and difference, this thesis goes on to ask whether the differences are disagreements or complementary insights that may be integrated by means of a hermeneutical framework which can facilitate the enrichment of both systems. It is argued that process philosophy's method of creative synthesis and Madhyamika's method of negative dialectics are complementary rather than rival methods, because: (1) the Madhyamika bi-negation of symmetrical internal and external relations is complemented by process philosophy's argument that asymmetrical relations have primacy, which can be integrated into a theory of 'asymmetrical interdependence'; (2) the Madhyamika bi-negation of being and non-being is complemented by process philosophy's argument that becoming has primacy; (3) Madhyamika's emptiness (or openness) and process philosophy's creativity are complementary ideas that can be integrated into a ‘creative emptiness’; (4) Madhyamika's deconstruction of theism and acceptance of a conventional (and thus empty) ‘Cosmic Buddha-Bodhisattva’ and process philosophy's panentheism are complementary and can be integrated in the idea of an ‘empty God’; (5) The creative emptiness and the empty God are two different but complementary ultimates - the ultimate activity and the ultimate actuality; (6) Madhyamika’s two truths -conventional (empty world) and ultimate (emptiness) - can be enriched by expanding the conventional to include ultimate actuality (empty God), and not subordinating the conventional to the ultimate; (7) process philosophy can be similarly enriched by meditating on creative emptiness, which reveals the empty God-world, which is not dominant vis-a-vis creative emptiness. An attempt is made to develop a hermeneutical framework for the comparison and integration of Madhyamika and process thought, which can also be used to construct a general theory of worldviews and a theory of interreligious dialogue. Finally, the practical applications of the integration of process thought and Madhyamika Buddhism are explored, focussing on ethical and socio-political issues and how the integration of the two systems can be used to advantage in these contexts.

Recognition and respect : globalization culture and Malaysian education

Globalization and language reform is often presented as a set of practices and relationships to which educators must adapt in order to 'compete‘ or maintain 'relevance‘ in contemporary society. Presented in such a way neo-liberal versions of globalization and educational reform situate localized culture often as a kind of impediment, something we must overcome or ameliorate in order for progress to be sustained and maintained. In Malaysia, these kinds of discourses inform public policy debates. From debates over university competitiveness through to arguments over language and literacy in a global world, the pressures on Malaysian educators to change their practices and reform are often presented with an implicit assumption that local culture is somehow in deficit.

The argument of this paper challenges this framing and representation of globalization. I present an alternative theoretical framework through which educators can judge their practices within the discourse of globalization. I will demonstrate how respecting difference and culture is framing globalization as mutual respect and recognition rather than imposed change is critical to addressing the language and culture of globalization and education. In this sense, debates about language (understood here in the broadest sense as how we communicate and in what power discourse we communicate within) and culture are ultimately arguments about recognition and respect. Neo liberal politics as an expression of an increasingly authoritarian discourse of globalization needs to be challenged by a politics and practice of cultural recognition and respect.

Reproduction, resistance and transformation at Marantha High School

The focus of this thesis is the attempt by the Seventh-day Adventist Church to reproduce SDA culture in students attending one of its schools, Maranatha High School. As a 'critical ethnography', it adopts a theoretical perspective from critical social theory to examine problems associated with this attempt. These problems are reflected in data gathered by a range of ethnographic techniques. The study first portrays the socio-political dynamics underlying the historical creation of Adventist culture generally, its embodiment in institutional forms, and the development of a substantial educational structure intended to transmit that culture to succeeding generations.

The study then focuses on current SDA educational philosophy, and the assumptions underlying the principles of selection, organisation, transmission and evaluation of knowledge considered to be valid. It then examines how Maranatha High School itself seeks to implement those principles. In this context, the study also reflects on the political implications of the modes of management and institutional control adopted at various levels of the organisation and in the school.

As a dialectical study, the thesis views the school as a social setting in which knowledgeable humans engage in communicative interaction. Rather than promoting smooth reproduction, the school is portrayed as a site of struggle, negotiation and potential transformation as participants resist forces that they perceive to be constraining and oppressing them. Consequently the thesis examines the perceptions of the various groups of participants, and the nature and impact of their interaction. In as much as teachers are official 'managers' of SDA culture and knowledge, this examination focuses especially on their personal definitions of the situation, the dilemmas that confront them from internal and external sources, the development of their own cultural forms in response, and the implications this action has for cultural reproduction and continuity.