Examining how and why to Engage Practitioners from across the Learning Landscape in the Research Enterprise: Proposal for <Emphasis Type="Italic">Phronêtic</Emphasis> Research on Education

Educational practitioners are often reluctant, if not actively resistant, to their participation in production and consumption of educational research. Based on my research experience with educational practitioners, I try to deconstruct this phenomenon using dialogic Bakhtinian and Aristotelian sociocultural frameworks. I consider two major related breakdowns in the educational practice: 1) a lack of self-correcting process in the educational practice, while reliance on accountability policy to achieve the practice quality, and 2) a breakdown between educational research and educational practice. I argue that the first breakdown is caused by viewing teaching as poiesis, aiming at preset curricular endpoints, and not as praxis, critically defining its own values, goals, and virtues. As to the second breakdown, I argue that current mainstream and even innovative research is defined through the technê and epistêmê ways of knowing, which correspond to a poiesic vision of educational practice. I suggest that educational practice primarily involves the phronêtic and sophic ways of knowing, which correspond to a praxis vision of educational practice. I describe phronêtic research of teaching through a case of my students, preservice teachers, working on revisions of their lessons that they conducted at an urban afterschool program. Finally, I consider recommendations for institutional support for phronêtic research on teaching.     

The metaphysics of goodness in the ethics of Aristotle

Kraut (Against absolute goodness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011) and other neo-Aristotelians have argued that there is no such thing as absolute goodness. They admit only good in a kind, e.g. a good sculptor, and good for something, e.g. good for fish. What is the view of Aristotle? Mostly limiting myself to the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), I argue that Aristotle is committed to things being absolutely good and also to a metaphysics of absolute goodness where there is a maximally best good that is the cause of the goodness of all other things in virtue of being their end. I begin (in Sect. 2) by suggesting that the notion of good as an end, which is present in the first lines of the NE, is not obviously accounted for by good in a kind or good for something. I then give evidence that good in a kind (in Sect. 3) and good for something (in Sect. 4) can explain neither certain distinctions drawn between virtues nor the determinacy ascribed to what is good “in itself.” I argue (in Sect. 5) contra Gotthelf (2012) that because several important arguments in the Nicomachean Ethics rely on comparative judgments of absolute value—e.g. “Man is the best of all animals”—Aristotle is committed to the existence of both absolute goodness and an absolutely best being. I focus (in Sect. 6) on one passage, Aristotle’s division of goods in NE I 12, which presupposes this metaphysical picture.     

Reasoning defeasibly about probabilities

In concrete applications of probability, statistical investigation gives us knowledge of some probabilities, but we generally want to know many others that are not directly revealed by our data. For instance, we may know prob(P/Q) (the probability of P given Q) and prob(P/R), but what we really want is prob(P/Q&;R), and we may not have the data required to assess that directly. The probability calculus is of no help here. Given prob(P/Q) and prob(P/R), it is consistent with the probability calculus for prob(P/Q&;R) to have any value between 0 and 1. Is there any way to make a reasonable estimate of the value of prob(P/Q&;R)? A related problem occurs when probability practitioners adopt undefended assumptions of statistical independence simply on the basis of not seeing any connection between two propositions. This is common practice, but its justification has eluded probability theorists, and researchers are typically apologetic about making such assumptions. Is there any way to defend the practice? This paper shows that on a certain conception of probability—nomic probability—there are principles of “probable probabilities” that license inferences of the above sort. These are principles telling us that although certain inferences from probabilities to probabilities are not deductively valid, nevertheless the second-order probability of their yielding correct results is 1. This makes it defeasibly reasonable to make the inferences. Thus I argue that it is defeasibly reasonable to assume statistical independence when we have no information to the contrary. And I show that there is a function Y(r, s, a) such that if prob(P/Q) = r, prob(P/R) = s, and prob(P/U) = a (where U is our background knowledge) then it is defeasibly reasonable to expect that prob(P/Q&;R) = Y(r, s, a). Numerous other defeasible inferences are licensed by similar principles of probable probabilities. This has the potential to greatly enhance the usefulness of probabilities in practical application.     

Substance concepts and personal identity

According to one argument for Animalism about personal identity, animal, but not person, is a Wigginsian substance concept—a concept that tells us what we are essentially. Person supposedly fails to be a substance concept because it is a functional concept that answers the question “what do we do?” without telling us what we are. Since person is not a substance concept, it cannot provide the criteria for our coming into or going out of existence; animal, on the other hand, can provide such criteria. This argument has been defended by Eric Olson, among others. I argue that this line of reasoning fails to show Animalism to be superior to the Psychological Approach, for the following two reasons: (1) human animal, animal, and organism are all functional concepts, and (2) the distinction between what something is and what it does is illegitimate on the reading that the argument needs.     

Separate- versus <Emphasis Type="Italic">common</Emphasis>-common-cause-type derivations of the Bell inequalities

Standard derivations of the Bell inequalities assume a common-common-cause-system that is a common screener-off for all correlations and some additional assumptions concerning locality and no-conspiracy. In a recent paper (Graßhoff et al., The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56, 663–680 (2005)) Bell inequalities have been derived via separate common causes assuming perfect correlations between the events. In the paper it will be shown that the assumptions of this separate-common-cause-type derivation of the Bell inequalities in the case of perfect correlations can be reduced to the assumptions of a common-common-cause-system-type derivation. However, in the case of non-perfect correlations a non-reducible separate-common-cause-type derivation of some Bell-like inequalities can be given. The violation of these Bell-like inequalities proves Szabó’s (International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 39, 911 (2004)) conjecture concerning the non-existence of a local, non-conspiratorial, separate-common-cause-model for a δ-neighborhood of perfect EPR correlations.     

Moral phenomenology: Foundational issues

In this paper, I address the what, the how, and the why of moral phenomenology. I consider first the question What is moral phenomenology?, secondly the question How to pursue moral phenomenology?, and thirdly the question Why pursue moral phenomenology? My treatment of these questions is preliminary and tentative, and is meant not so much to settle them as to point in their answers’ direction.     

Modeling Unicorns and Dead Cats: Applying Bressan’s ML<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">ν</Emphasis></Superscript> to the Necessary Properties of Non-existent Objects

Should objects count as necessarily having certain properties, despite their not having those properties when they do not exist? For example, should a cat that passes out of existence, and so no longer is a cat, nonetheless count as necessarily being a cat? In this essay I examine different ways of adapting Aldo Bressan’s ML ^ν so that it can accommodate an affirmative answer to these questions. Anil Gupta, in The Logic of Common Nouns, creates a number of languages that have a kinship with Bressan’s ML ^ν , three of which are also tailored to affirmatively answering these questions. After comparing their languages, I argue that metaphysicians and philosophers of language should prefer ML ^ν to Gupta’s languages in most applications because it can accommodate essential properties, like being a cat, while being more uniform and less cumbersome.     

Expansion of Parents’ Undetermined Experience in Socioeducational Programs: Extending the Dialogical Self Theory

The Dialogic Self Theory (DST—Hermans et al. Integrative Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 51(4), 1-31, 2017) is extended here in its dynamic aspects through focusing on the notions of indeterminacy, emptiness and movement. Linking with Husserl, I propose moving the dialogical self (DS) from a clear position in the “repertory of the Self” to an undetermined horizon. This makes it possible to introduce “holes” (emptiness) into the schematic representation of the “repertory of the Self”. Yet Husserl’s concept of horizon seems to focus too much on making the indeterminable determinate. To overcome this limit, I incorporate Bergson’s concept of empty form into the DST. This enables conceptualising the extension and emergence of horizon. Extending Bergson’s concept of organisation, it is possible to see how the expansion of the horizon in a movement of globalisation does not necessarily entail the disorganisation of the DS but rather to its further organisation. Extending the system of DS by Hermans et al. Integrative Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 51(4), 1-31, (2017), I open by suggesting that movements are both horizontal (between people) and vertical (between the person, the institutions and the norms) connectors. My conceptual propositions are illustrated by parents’ and educators’ discourses in two Canadian socio-educational programs.     

Lost in Translation: Religion in The Public Sphere

This paper proposes a Wittgenstein-inspired critique of the prism of translation that frames the recent literature about the debate between Rawls and Habermas on the role of religious reasons in the public sphere (Habermas 2008; Weithman 2006; Wolterstorff 1997). This debate originates with the introduction of Rawls’s proviso in his conception of the public use of reason (Rawls The University of Chicago Law Review, 64(3), 765-807, 1997), which consists in the “translation” of religious reasons into secular ones, which he thinks is necessary in order for religious reasons to be legitimate in the public sphere (Courtois Dialogue, 49, 91-112, 2010; Loobuyck and Rummens Ars disputandi: The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 5, 237–249, 2011; Sikka The Review of Politics, 78, 91-116, 2016). Even though Wittgenstein is not himself concerned with religious pluralism as a political issue, there are numerous scholars who have discussed the political implications of his remarks (Gunnell Contemporary Political Theory, 12 80-101, 2013; Livingston Philosophy and Social Criticism, 33(6), 691–715, 2007; Moore Philosophy and Social Criticism, 36(9), 1113-1136 2010; Pohlhaus and Wright Political Theory, 30(6), 800–27, 2002). The thesis of this paper is that the interpretation proposed by Cora Diamond (2000) in regards to ethical and religious questions turns out to be a suitable way out of the “translation requirement”. According to this solution, if there is to be an understanding between secular and religious citizens on the basis of religious reasons, it should not rely on a “translation” but rather on mutual self-representation.     

On (the) nothing: Heidegger and Nishida

Two major twentieth century philosophers, of East and West, for whom the nothing is a significant concept are Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger. Nishida’s basic concept is the absolute nothing (zettai mu) upon which the being of all is predicated. Heidegger, on the other hand, thematizes the nothing (Nichts) as the ulterior aspect of being. Both are responding to Western metaphysics that tends to substantialize being and dichotomize the real. Ironically, however, while Nishida regarded Heidegger as still trapped within the confines of Western metaphysics with its tendency to objectify, Heidegger’s impression of Nishida was that he is too Western, that is, metaphysical. Yet neither was too familiar with the other’s philosophical work as a whole. I thus compare and assess Nishida’s and Heidegger’s discussions of the nothing in their attempts to undermine traditional metaphysics while examining lingering assumptions about the Nishida–Heidegger relationship. Neither Nishida nor Heidegger means by “nothing” a literal nothing, but rather that which permits beings in their relative determinacy to be what they are and wherein or whereby we find ourselves always already in our comportment to beings. Nishida characterizes this as a place (basho) that negates itself to give rise to, or make room for, beings. For Heidegger, being as an event (Ereignis) that clears room for beings, releasing each into its own, is not a being, hence nothing. We may also contrast them on the basis of the language they employ in discussing the nothing. Yet each seemed to have had an intuitive grasp of an un/ground, foundational to experience and being. And in fact their paths cross in their respective critiques of Western substantialism, where they offer as an alterantive to that substantialist ontology, in different ways, what I call anontology.     

Descartes’ debt to Teresa of Ávila,or why we should work on women in the history of philosophy

Despite what you have heard over the years, the famous evil deceiver argument in Meditation One is not original to Descartes (1596–1650). Early modern meditators often struggle with deceptive demons. The author of the Meditations (1641) is merely giving a new spin to a common rhetorical device. Equally surprising is the fact that Descartes’ epistemological rendering of the demon trope is probably inspired by a Spanish nun, Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), whose works have been ignored by historians of philosophy, although they were a global phenomenon during Descartes’ formative years. In this paper, I first answer the obvious question as to why previous early modernists have missed something so important as the fact that Descartes’ most famous publication relies on a well-established genre and that his deceiver argument bears a striking similarity to ideas in Teresa’s final work, El Castillo Interior (Interior Castle, 1588)? I discuss the meditative tradition at the end of which Descartes’ Meditations stands, present evidence to support the claim that Descartes was familiar with Teresa’s proposals, contrast their meditative goals, and make a point-by-point comparison between the meditative steps in Teresa’s Interior Castle and those in Descartes’ Meditations which constitute (what I call) their common deceiver strategy. My conclusion makes a case for a broader and more inclusive history of philosophy.     

The Hidden Set-Theoretical Paradox of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tractatus</Emphasis>

We are familiar with various set-theoretical paradoxes such as Cantor's paradox, Burali-Forti's paradox, Russell's paradox, Russell-Myhill paradox and Kaplan's paradox. In fact, there is another new possible set-theoretical paradox hiding itself in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1989). From the Tractatus’s Picture theory of language (hereafter LP) we can strictly infer the two contradictory propositions simultaneously: (a) the world and the language are equinumerous; (b) the world and the language are not equinumerous. I call this antinomy the world-language paradox. Based on a rigorous analysis of the Tractatus, with the help of the technical resources of Cantor’s naive set theory (Cantor in Mathematische Annalen, 46, 481–512, 1895, Mathematische Annalen, 49, 207–246, 1897) and Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (hereafter ZFC) (Jech 2006: 3–15; Kunen 1992: xv–xvi; Bagaria 2008: 619–622), I outline the world-language paradox and assess the unique possible solution plan, i.e., the mathematical plan utilizing ‘infinity’. I conclude that Wittgenstein cannot solve the hidden set-theoretical paradox of the Tractatus successfully unless he gives up his finitism.     

Recognition during recall failure: Semantic feature matching as a mechanism for recognition of semantic cues when recall fails

Research suggests that a feature-matching process underlies cue familiarity-detection when cued recall with graphemic cues fails. When a test cue (e.g., potchbork) overlaps in graphemic features with multiple unrecalled studied items (e.g., patchwork, pitchfork, pocketbook, pullcork), higher cue familiarity ratings are given during recall failure of all of the targets than when the cue overlaps in graphemic features with only one studied target and that target fails to be recalled (e.g., patchwork). The present study used semantic feature production norms (McRae et al., Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 37, 547–559, 2005) to examine whether the same holds true when the cues are semantic in nature (e.g., jaguar is used to cue cheetah). Indeed, test cues (e.g., cedar) that overlapped in semantic features (e.g., a_tree, has_bark, etc.) with four unretrieved studied items (e.g., birch, oak, pine, willow) received higher cue familiarity ratings during recall failure than test cues that overlapped in semantic features with only two (also unretrieved) studied items (e.g., birch, oak), which in turn received higher familiarity ratings during recall failure than cues that did not overlap in semantic features with any studied items. These findings suggest that the feature-matching theory of recognition during recall failure can accommodate recognition of semantic cues during recall failure, providing a potential mechanism for conceptually-based forms of cue recognition during target retrieval failure. They also provide converging evidence for the existence of the semantic features envisaged in feature-based models of semantic knowledge representation and for those more concretely specified by the production norms of McRae et al. (Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 37, 547–559, 2005).     

Normativity all the way down: from normative realism to pannormism

In this paper, I will give an argument for what I call pannormism, the view according to which if x instantiates a metaphysically basic normative property F, then whatever grounds the being of x also instantiates F. In slogan form: if there is normativity, there is normativity all the way down. Such pannormism is in many ways analogous to panpsychism, and my discussion also contains an important lesson for panpsychism, a way to avoid its so-called combination problem. In Sect. 1, I present the argument; in Sect. 2, I discuss its conclusion.     

Statistical properties of four effect-size measures for mediation models

This project examined the performance of classical and Bayesian estimators of four effect size measures for the indirect effect in a single-mediator model and a two-mediator model. Compared to the proportion and ratio mediation effect sizes, standardized mediation effect-size measures were relatively unbiased and efficient in the single-mediator model and the two-mediator model. Percentile and bias-corrected bootstrap interval estimates of ab/s _Y , and ab(s _X )/s _Y in the single-mediator model outperformed interval estimates of the proportion and ratio effect sizes in terms of power, Type I error rate, coverage, imbalance, and interval width. For the two-mediator model, standardized effect-size measures were superior to the proportion and ratio effect-size measures. Furthermore, it was found that Bayesian point and interval summaries of posterior distributions of standardized effect-size measures reduced excessive relative bias for certain parameter combinations. The standardized effect-size measures are the best effect-size measures for quantifying mediated effects.     

Analysis of the Talmudic Argumentum A Fortiori Inference Rule (Kal Vachomer) using Matrix Abduction

We motivate and introduce a new method of abduction, Matrix Abduction, and apply it to modelling the use of non-deductive inferences in the Talmud such as Analogy and the rule of Argumentum A Fortiori. Given a matrix \({\mathbb {A}}\) with entries in {0, 1}, we allow for one or more blank squares in the matrix, say a _i,j =?. The method allows us to decide whether to declare a _i,j = 0 or a _i,j = 1 or a _i,j =? undecided. This algorithmic method is then applied to modelling several legal and practical reasoning situations including the Talmudic rule of Kal-Vachomer. We add an Appendix showing that this new rule of Matrix Abduction, arising from the Talmud, can also be applied to the analysis of paradoxes in voting and judgement aggregation. In fact we have here a general method for executing non-deductive inferences.     

Justification as faultlessness

According to deontological approaches to justification, we can analyze justification in deontic terms. In this paper, I try to advance the discussion of deontological approaches by applying recent insights in the semantics of deontic modals. Specifically, I use the distinction between weak necessity modals (should, ought to) and strong necessity modals (must, have to) to make progress on a question that has received surprisingly little discussion in the literature, namely: ‘What’s the best version of a deontological approach?’ The two most obvious hypotheses are the Permissive View, according to which justified expresses permission, and the Obligatory View, according to which justified expresses some species of obligation. I raise difficulties for both of these hypotheses. In light of these difficulties, I propose a new position, according to which justified expresses a property I call faultlessness, defined as the dual of weak necessity modals. According to this view, an agent is justified in \(\phi\)-ing iff it’s not the case that she should [/ought] not \(\phi\). I argue that this ‘Faultlessness View’ gives us precisely what’s needed to avoid the problems facing the Permissive and Obligatory Views.     

Who Does the Sounding? The Metaphysics of the First-Person Pronoun in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Zhuangzi</Emphasis>

In classical Chinese wu 吾 is commonly employed as the first-person pronoun, similar to wo 我 that retains its use in modern Chinese. Although these two words are usually understood as stylistic variants of “I,” “me,” and “myself,” Chinese scholars of the Zhuangzi 莊子 have long been aware of the possible differences in their semantics, especially in the philosophical context of discussing the relation between the self and the person, as evinced by their occurrences in the much-discussed line “Now I have lost myself” (jin zhe wu sang wo 今者吾喪我) in the chapter “Discussion on Making All Things Equal” (“Qiwulun 齊物論”). In this essay, I first provide an exegesis of the proffered explanations of the semantical differences between wu and wo as an introduction to two ways of understanding them in the Zhuangzi literature, viz. the single-reference view and the double-reference view. Then I shall argue against these two views in favor of the no-reference view, meaning that both pronouns in “Now I have lost myself” do not function referentially, given the peculiarity of the verb “lose.” I believe the no-reference view has not been explicitly articulated and defended in the literature, although some scholars who want to read the no-self view into the Zhuangzi might have implied it. My argument is supported by a close reading of the targeted passage in the Zhuangzi, premised on the assumption that the part on the “piping of Heaven” (tian lai 天籟) immediately following the discussion of losing oneself is an indirect explanation rather than a digression. My explanation is framed within a similar discussion of “I” by the British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This comparative interpretation, I believe, not only provides the grounds for understanding Zhuangzi’s ideal of attaining the state where “the ten thousand things are one with me,” but also demonstrates how metaphysics and the philosophy of language are two interwoven threads in Zhuangzi’s reasoning.