Authenticité et bien-être au travail : une invitation à mieux comprendre les rapports entre le soi et son environnement de travail

The present literature review on authenticity and well-being at work sought to define the concept of authenticity and discuss the influence of authenticity on workers’ well-being. First, two views on authenticity are emerging from the literature review: interpersonal authenticity and intrapersonal authenticity. Second, well-being at work is defined, followed by a definition of well-being according to two philosophical views: hedonism and eudemonia. Goldman and Kernis’ model (2002), comprised of cognitive and behavioural dimensions, is presented. Some results supporting the relationship between authenticity and well-being are described. Limits and practical implications are discussed.     

"The Plague Of Blood": HIV/AIDS and Ethics of the Global Health–Care Challenge

In this essay I explore the heuristic value of the concept of ethics of complexity, chaos, and contingency by applying its framework to the analysis of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Everyday human moral choices are outcomes of a moral impulse, and such an impulse is grounded in moral competence shaped by moral literacy. This literacy is constructed on the basis of a body of knowledge of culture, social context, environment, and the universe. It also includes the knowledge of religions and religious and secular ethical codes. I also distinguish between the social and cultural aspects of ethical systems. Both societies and cultures provide resources and constraints for the development of literacy and competence. An intentionally developed multifaith and multidisciplinary coalition may help us move away from various forms of social speciation and toward sociological mindfulness. This could help us remake the world into one that has more courage to care.     

Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science

Several recently developed philosophical approaches to the self promise to enhance the exchange of ideas between the philosophy of the mind and the other cognitive sciences. This review examines two important concepts of self: the 'minimal self', a self devoid of temporal extension, and the 'narrative self', which involves personal identity and continuity across time. The notion of a minimal self is first clarified by drawing a distinction between the sense of self-agency and the sense of self-ownership for actions. This distinction is then explored within the neurological domain with specific reference to schizophrenia, in which the sense of self-agency may be disrupted. The convergence between the philosophical debate and empirical study is extended in a discussion of more primitive aspects of self and how these relate to neonatal experience and robotics. The second concept of self, the narrative self, is discussed in the light of Gazzaniga's left-hemisphere 'interpreter' and episodic memory. Extensions of the idea of a narrative self that are consistent with neurological models are then considered. The review illustrates how the philosophical approach can inform cognitive science and suggests that a two-way collaboration may lead to a more fully developed account of the self.     

Reinventing the University: From Institutions to Communities of Higher Education

This article responds to three questions: What if the primary mission of the university is to (i) nourish the intellect, (ii) commit to the sacredness of all life, and (iii) foster spirituality? Responses examine multiple forms of literacy, instruction that is ecologically valid and thus oriented toward the unity of knowledge, and teaching as a moral activity. The suggestion here is that meaningful reform will emphasize education of the whole person in relation to the physical, symbolic, and social environments. Curricula focused on forms of representation, modes of treatment, and syntactic structure, adaptive understandings, constructed meanings, critical thinking, real problems, connected knowing, creativity, inspiration, service learning, and the development of declarative procedural and poetic knowledge are discussed.     

Enhancing Family Therapy with Analytical Psychology

In a postmodern era of changing values and competing world views this article suggests that analytical psychology can enter the epistemological debate and speak to contemporary family therapy. Key concepts and contributions are examined and highlighted with an emphasis on their relevance for enhancing the field of family therapy. Individuation is discussed in light of Jung's analytical treatment stages, which include confession, explanation, education, and transformation. The relevance for family therapy is illustrated throughout the article as each treatment stage is explicated. Jung's emphasis on the spiritual is also discussed with implications for the importance of recognizing and attending to issues of spirituality in family therapy.     

Reconsidering Advertising Literacy as a Defense Against Advertising Effects

It is widely assumed that advertising literacy makes children less susceptible to advertising effects. However, empirical research does not provide convincing evidence for this view. In this article, we explain why advertising literacy as it is currently defined (i.e., conceptual knowledge of advertising) is not effective in reducing children's advertising susceptibility. Specifically, based on recent insights on children's advertising processing, we argue that due to the affect-based nature of contemporary advertising, children primarily process advertising under conditions of low elaboration and, consequently, are unlikely to use their advertising knowledge as a critical defense. Moreover, literature on cognitive development suggests that children's ability to use advertising knowledge as a defense will be further limited by their immature executive functioning and emotion regulation abilities. Therefore, we argue that the current conceptualization of advertising literacy needs to be extended with two dimensions: advertising literacy performance, which takes into account the actual use of conceptual advertising knowledge, and attitudinal advertising literacy, which includes low-effort, attitudinal mechanisms that can function as a defense under conditions of low elaboration. We conclude our article with specific directions for future research and implications for the ongoing societal and political debate about children and advertising.     

The Dizzying Turn of Epistemic Contextualism

The debate concerning epistemic contextualism represents a kind of linguistic turn in epistemology, where the focus has shifted from theorising about knowledge to theorising about knowledge attributions. Such a shift may well prove valuable, but only if we are clear on what the relationship is between a semantic analysis of knowledge attributions and a philosophical analysis of knowledge. One plausible approach is to claim that the semantic analysis entails and is entailed by the philosophical analysis. Yet this view—referred to here as the default view—has been explicitly adopted by few in the contextualism debate. This paper considers a form of argument in favour of the default view, and then considers the challenges that arise from either accepting or rejecting the default view.     

What's the point of knowing how?

Why is it useful to talk and think about knowledge‐how? Using Edward Craig's discussion of the function of the concepts of knowledge as a jumping off point, this paper argues that considering this question can offer us new angles on the debate about knowledge‐how. We consider two candidate functions for the concept of knowledge‐how: pooling capacities and mutual reliance. Craig makes the case for pooling capacities, which connects knowledge‐how to our need to pool practical capacities. I argue that the evidence is much more equivocal and in fact supports both functions. I propose that the concept of knowledge‐how plays both functions, meaning that it is inconsistent and that the debate about knowledge‐how is at least partly a metalinguistic negotiation. In closing, I suggest a way to revise the philosophical concept of knowledge how.     

Primary school teacher outcomes from online professional development for physical literacy: A randomised controlled trial

IntroductionPrimary (or elementary) school teachers are often relied upon to provide children with opportunities for physical literacy development; however, many of these teachers feel they lack the skills to effectively promote or ‘teach’ physical literacy. We examined the effects of an online physical literacy professional development program—relative to receiving widely-available online resources or continuing with ‘normal’ practice—on primary school teachers’ physical literacy knowledge and application.MethodsA parallel three-arm randomised controlled trial in which 92 primary school teachers were assigned to (a) an online professional development program designed to support teachers’ physical literacy instructional skills (‘intervention’), (b) receive widely-available online physical literacy resources (‘comparison’), or (c) a typical practice ‘control’ condition. Data were collected at baseline and following the four-week intervention period. The primary outcome was teachers’ physical literacy knowledge and application; secondary outcomes included teachers’ self-reported perceptions of confidence, values, and barriers. Between-group differences were assessed using the intention-to-treat principle with analysis of covariance accounting for demographic factors and baseline differences in the focal outcome.ResultsTeachers in the intervention arm scored significantly higher on post-intervention physical literacy knowledge and application than their counterparts in both the control (d = .47, p = .044) and comparison (d = 0.87, p = .007) arms. This pattern of differences was also observed for teachers’ value of physical literacy, autonomy support, and perceived personal barriers.ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first adequately powered randomised controlled trial to demonstrate improvements in physical literacy instructional outcomes as a result of primary school teacher participation in targeted online professional development.     

The ethical implications of Sengzhao’s concept of the Sage

This paper is an exploration of the ethical significance of Sengzhao’s concept of the sage as exhibited through a Buddhist practitioner’s expanded understanding and cognition of reality. From a philosophical point of view, I aim to show that the ethical significance of his concept of the sage comprises a shift first from ontology to epistemology, and then from epistemology to ethics. I firstly define Sengzhao’s concept of the sage and present a preliminary account of this concept before elaborating on its philosophical aspects. Next, I attempt to illustrate how ethical implications can be derived from Sengzhao’s ethical shift, and lastly, I shed light on the value and significance of this philosophical standpoint within Buddhist philosophy.     

Eros as the Educational Principle of Democracy

This paper explores the value of the eros motif for critical pedagogy and citizenship education. The conceptual affinities between eros and democracy are identified and integrated into a theory of democratic political education. Long recognized as vital to the process of self knowledge, the ancient Greek concept of eros has nevertheless been largely erased from contemporary educational debate. By retrieving eros from the fringe of academic discourse and integrating it with critical pedagogy, the aims of radical democracy can be more fully achieved. The essay emphasizes the civil society or cultural dimensions of democracy as against its legal or procedural aspects. Renewed emphasis on the associational qualities of democracy underscore the importance of eros as an educational principle. The ancient pedagogical motif of educating the desires is posited as an alternative to the liberal/modernist paradigm of education which de-values affective domains of knowledge.     

A confusion of tongues between psychoanalysis and philosophy: Is the controversy over drive versus relational theory a philosophical one?

In recent years the controversy over Drive versus Relational models of the psyche has become entangled in a philosophical controversy over epistemology. Some have argued that the Drive model was a relic of an age of positivistic science, while Relational models are a product of a postmodern condition. This paper argues that the controversy need not be a philosophical one, and that Relational views are not, in fact, a product of postmodernism, nor are they necessarily dependent on a postmodern epistemology. Separating the epistemological from the psychological more carefully may help return the debate to its proper, psychoanalytic domain, and perhaps contribute to a more fruitful dialogue across what, at times, seems like an abyss between Relational views and Drive theory.     

Self-esteem in childhood and adolescence: Vaccine or epiphenomenon?

Recent accounts of the adaptive significance of self-esteem during childhood and adolescence have varied dramatically and fueled the emergence of a “self-esteem debate.” On one side of the debate, self-esteem is portrayed as a powerful positive influence on youth adjustment. By contrast, the other side has argued that hypothesized effects of self-esteem do not exist at all. A review of empirical findings suggests that both views are oversimplified and inaccurate. The adaptive implications of self-esteem during childhood and adolescence instead appear to be complex and differentiated, ranging from highly beneficial to possibly even negative. Recent results indicate the importance of considering (a) multiple, distinct facets of self-esteem; (b) the moderating influence of youth characteristics, environmental experiences, and processes in the formation and maintenance of self-esteem; and (c) bidirectional, recursive linkages between self-esteem and adaptive functioning throughout development. The adaptive implications of self-esteem for children and adolescents also appear to be most usefully investigated within the context of broader frameworks that allow for consideration of the role of self-esteem as an intervening or mediational process and its interdependent relationships with other aspects of the developing self-system. Implications for interventions designed to enhance youth self-esteem are discussed.     

Promoting the spiritual development of sick children

This paper considers whether there are aspects of spiritual pedagogy specific to the education of children who are sick and asks how these concerns are to be addressed. The context of the enquiry is England and Wales where the promotion of the spiritual development of children is a legislative requirement. The focus of the study is on sick children whose treatment requires extended stay in hospital. Such children have hardly been noticed in the continuing debate about spiritual education. Our enquiry has involved analysing literature published in English in the UK and North America. We have supplemented this analysis with primary data from semi-structured interviews with three hospital schoolteachers, two hospital chaplains and the founder of a hospice for children and a ‘respice’ for young people. We argue that what emerges as important in the spiritual education of the sick child has significant implications for the spiritual education of all children.     

Philosophical Method and Intuitions as Assumptions

Many philosophers claim to employ intuitions in their philosophical arguments. Others contest that no such intuitions are used frequently or at all in philosophy. This article suggests and defends a conception of intuitions as part of the philosophical method: intuitions are special types of philosophical assumptions to which we are invited to assent, often as premises in argument, that may serve an independent function in philosophical argument and that are not formed through a purely inferential process. A series of philosophical case studies shows that intuitions in these arguments contain the relevant features. The view has implications for philosophical method, offering a compromise between opponents on the divisive debate of the merits of experimental philosophy: experimental philosophy provides an especially useful role in philosophical assumption analysis.     

Spinoza and mental health

With the proviso that Spinoza's concerns were philosophical, not medical, we examine the Ethics with a view to bringing out those aspects of it which are of import for mental health. We find that the Ethics surrounds the idea that man can be egoless in the Buddhist sense of that term. This concept provides a criterion of mental health. Further, according to Spinoza's theory of the Affections, those which are passive include some which are based on pain. These he ‘enumerates among the diseases’. And for them he provides, in Part V, specific ‘remedies’. This in turn leads him to equate ‘Mental Freedom or beatitude’ with a ‘healthy Mind’. We thus have in Part V additional possible criteria of mental health. Finally, there is the suggestion that philosophy for Spinoza was a kind of therapy.’

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies. — The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. — A main cause of philosophical disease — a onesided diet . . .

Wittgenstein

This doctrine of knowledge first and action later is not a minor disease . . . My present advocacy of the unity of knowledge and action is precisely the medicine for that disease.

Wang Yang‐ming

When asked by two disciples which of the views of each was correct, Wang replied: both are. Which is used depends on the kind of person you are trying to help. Some persons need this one, others that.     

On the Logical Positivists' Theory of Truth: The Fundamental Problem and a New Perspective

The present article purports to show that the protocol sentence debate, pursued by some leading members of the Vienna Circle in the mid-1930s, was essentially a controversy over the explanation and the real significance of the concept of truth. It is further shown that the fundamental issue underlying the discussions about the concept of truth was the relationship between form and content, as well as between logic/language and the world. R. Carnap was the philosopher who most explicitly and systematically attempted to come to grips with this problem. It is shown that the form-content distinction pervades the three most important phases of Carnap's philosophical development: the structuralist (in Der logische Aufbau der Welt), the syntactical and the semantical. His final semantical stance is essentially determined by the concept of linguistic frameworks. The article purports to demonstrate that this concept cannot be dispensed with in philosophy, but that Carnap failed to work out its ontological implications. Finally, the concept of an internal ontology is briefly delineated. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Lyotard, nihilism and education

This paper argues the Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition is to be interpreted as a response to nihilism, especially in relation to the question of the legitimation of knowledge and the so-called crisis of narratives, and that, therefore, it provides an appropriate response to the question of nihilism in educational philosophy. The paper begins with a discussion of Nietzsche's and Heidegger's views of nihilism as a prolegomenon to Lyotard's views concerning European nihilism and the end of grand narratives. These are important sources for a philosophical reception of the problem and the context in which Lyotard formulates his response and the immediate sources against that conditions Lyotard's response. The problem of nihilism raises its head in education in a double way: in relation to both the foundation of knowledge and the problem of its legitimation (The Postmodern Condition) and the problem of values (The Differend).