On Understanding Worship in School. Part One: on schooling and education

As worship in school is currently a topic of public debate, it may be useful to re‐examine one of the influential books on the subject,School Worship, an Obituary, by Professor J.M. Hull, published in 1975. I shall argue that it was mistaken in important respects. His case for the abolition of worship in schools was made on essentially philosophical grounds. He sought not just to make the weak point that it is increasingly difficult to overcome many of the practical obstacles, but to make the stronger claim that the practice is conceptually incoherent. This is what makes his position a philosophical one and, as such, subject to philosophical scrutiny. One of the factors that appears to influence Hull's position is his conception of philosophy. Despite his careful analysis of the concepts of education and worship, at a critical point his account seems to rely on a form of philosophical evidential‐ism. In opposition to Hull, I take the view that this is a mistake. A more consistent, philosophical approach of conceptual clarification would have shown that there are various forms of education and that, in at least one case, it not only makes sense to worship as a part of the educational process, but that worship is of its essence as its motivation, substance and goal. The implication of this conclusion is that politicians are not intellectually confused in insisting on a form of education in which worship has an integral role. Whether it is practicable, socially desirable and politically reasonable in an increasingly secular and religiously plural society is quite another matter. Given the current state of society, one might conclude that the government should take a more pluralistic approach through its legislation. The government is there to serve a variety of communities and interests. One might reasonably argue that if the state‐school system is genuinely to serve this plural society there should be more scope for incorporating into the education system a diversity of practice. There might then be different schools with distinctive concepts of education, consistent with the needs and aspirations of the diverse communities and interests. In this part of the article I shall look particularly at the way in which schooling might accommodate a variety of activities and raise the question as to why worship might not be one of them. Hull's answer seems to hinge on the definition of worship and on the definition of education. The former I shall examine in Part Two, but here I shall seek to identify and examine that feature of education that Hull claims would exclude worship in school.     

Interview

Much of the opposition to faith sector education revolves around a number of accusations (as set out in Roger Marples' article in Part A). To confront these accusations openly, this interview is presented as an unmediated voice of a young person who is a former pupil of a faith school. He discusses selection, his reasons for going to a faith school and the religious exposure that he experienced there. He goes to talk about his unhampered role as a devil's advocate in a faith school, whether or not he felt he was being indoctrinated, the issue of fundamentalism and his own questioning stance.     

Rationalizing Socrates’ daimonion

That Socrates took himself to possess a divine sign is well attested by ancient sources. Both Plato and Xenophon mention Socrates’ daimonion on numerous occasions. What is problematic for contemporary scholars is that Socrates unfailingly obeys the warnings of his sign. Scholars have worried that Socrates seems to ascribe greater epistemic authority to his sign than his own critical reasoning. Moreover, he never so much as questions the authority of his sign to guide his actions, much less its divine nature. Socrates’ unquestioning obedience to his sign thus appears to be in conflict with another of Socrates’ defining characteristics: namely, his relentless rationality. However, Socrates does not seem to recognize such inconsistency. The problem of the daimonion, then, is this: is Socrates’ professed commitment to rationality consistent with his unquestioning deference to his daimonion’s warnings? And if so, how? In this paper, I first discuss several solutions to the problem of the daimonion. I aim to show that none of the accounts of Socrates’ sign that have appeared in the scholarly literature are adequate. I then propose a new account of the daimonion, which, I argue, secures the rationality of Socrates’ obedience to his divine sign.     

Socratic Persuasion in the Crito

Socrates does not use the Laws' Speech in the Crito principally to persuade Crito to accept his coming execution. It is used instead to persuade Crito to examine and work on his inadequate view of justice. Crito's view of justice fails to coordinate one's duties to friends and those to the law. The Laws' Speech accomplishes this persuasive goal by accompanying Crito’s earlier speech. Both start from the same view of justice, one that Crito accepts, but reach opposing conclusions. Crito cannot judge between the two appealing speeches. His understanding of justice is too confused for him to decide well how to help Socrates. His need to explain what happened the morning he visited Socrates will prompt him and others to examine this indeterminate view of justice. Socrates foregoes direct refutation because Crito will not abide that usual way of interrogation. Engaging in short question-and-answer conversation is not the only way to bring a person to aporia and the intention to examine oneself. Socrates does not here undermine his assertions in the Apology about his ignorance, lack of interest in teaching, constant philosophizing, and his belief that what he does is question, examine, and test those he talks to.     

Farewell to Objectivity: A Critique of Brandom

I argue that Brandom's account of inconsistency in terms of the pragmatic notion of incompatibility, as originally set out in his Making It Explicit (1994) and defended in Articulating Reasons (2000), has the absurd consequence that all true claims are warranted. This is in obvious conflict with our ordinary conception of truth as objective, which is what Brandom intends to capture. My proof proceeds from two principles, extracted from Making It Explicit , that govern the notions of commitment and entitlement in terms of which the notion of incompatibility is being defined. If either of these principles is rejected, it will no longer be clear what the content of Brandom's thesis is.     

Socratic Ironies: Reading Hadot,Reading Kierkegaard

This paper examines the seemingly unlikely rapport between the ‘Christian existentialist’, radically Protestant thinker, Søren Kierkegaard and French classicist and historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot, famous for advocating a return to the ancient pagan sense of philosophy as a way of life. Despite decisive differences we stress in our concluding remarks, we argue that the conception of philosophy in Hadot as a way of life shares decisive features with Kierkegaard’s understanding of the true ‘religious’ life: as something demanding existential engagement from its proponent, as well as the learning or recitation of accepted doctrines. The mediating figure between the two authors, the paper agrees with Irina (2012), is Socrates and his famous irony. In order to appreciate Kierkegaard’s rapport with Hadot, then (and in contrast to Gregor, who has also treated the two figures) we first of all consider Hadot’s treatment of the enigmatic ‘old wise man’ who remains central to Kierkegaard’s entire authorship. (Part 1) However, to highlight Hadot’s Socratic proximity to Kierkegaard (in contrast to Irina), we set up Hadot’s Socrates against the contrasting portrait readers can find in John M. Cooper’s recent work on Socrates and philosophy as a way of life. Part II of the essay turns back from Hadot’s and Kierkegaard’s Socrates towards Hadot’s own work, and argues—again moving beyond both Gregor and Irina’s works on Hadot and Kierkegaard—that the shape of Hadot’s ‘authorship’, including his remarkably classical style, can be understood by way of Kierkegaard’s notion of indirect communication. In our concluding remarks, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, we pinpoint the fundamental difference between the two thinkers, arguing that for Hadot in contrast to Kierkegaard, a stress on existential commitment in no way speaks against the philosophical defence of a form of rational universalism. Reading Hadot via Kierkegaard allows us to appreciate Hadot’s novelty as attempting to ‘squaring the circle’ between an emphasis on subjectivity and, as it were, the subjective dimensions of philosophers’ pursuit of rational universality.     

Plato and Socrates: From an Educator of Childhood to a Childlike Educator?

This paper deals with two forms of education—Platonic and Socratic. The former educates childhood to transform it into what it ought to be. The latter does not form childhood, but makes education childlike. To unfold the philosophical and pedagogical dimensions of this opposition, the first part of the paper highlights the way in which philosophy is presented indirectly in some of Plato’s dialogues, beginning with a characterisation that Socrates makes of himself in the dialogue Phaedrus. The second part details Plato’s condemnation of writing in the Phaedrus, and draws on the critique by Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze to establish what is at stake in this condemnation. In the third part, the pedagogical and political implications of this condemnation are reviewed, and Plato is placed in a surprising position in relation to his own teacher, Socrates. Finally, through a comparison between childhood and philosophy, the educational value of putting childhood and philosophy together is questioned. Through a number of questions, the paper ends problematising the pedagogical, political and philosophical value of placing the practice of philosophy in the realm of childhood citizenship education. It also recovers the value of philosophy—as a form of questioning and unlearning what we know and affirming the value of not knowing—in a childlike education.     

The Meno's Metaphilosophical Examples

I propose that an ill‐appreciated contrast between the examples Socrates gives Meno, to show him how he ought to philosophize, is the key to understanding the Meno. I contend that Socrates prefers his definitions of shape to his account of color because the former are concerned with what shape is, while the latter is concerned with how color comes to be. This contrast suggests that Plato intends an analogous contrast between the (properly philosophical) way of inquiry that leads to Socrates' definition of knowledge as “true belief tied down with an account” and the (not properly philosophical) way of inquiry that leads to Socrates' account of how knowledge comes to be, that is, the “theory of recollection.”     

On Evading Responsibility

ABSTRACT The paper examines J. Glover's 1970 account of the evasion of responsibility. Attention is focused on the Eichmann case and Glover's contention that moral condemnation of Eichmann depends on the view that there is a duty to submit one's actions to moral criticism. Two uses of the word 'moral' are distinguished (one use for moral commitment, the other for logical diagnosis) and it is argued that Glover's thesis is accordingly ambiguous. It is contended that Glover must either abandon his stipulative account of the concept of morality or accept the objectivity of moral judgements or modify his unqualified thesis that everybody ought to submit his conduct to moral criticism. An account of problems of evading responsibility involves us, it is maintained, in an area of moral philosophy, the Dialectic of Morals, where knock-down arguments are sparse.     

Can parts cause their wholes?

Synthese - Part–whole causation (PWC) is the thesis that some causes are part of their effects. PWC has been objected to because of its incompatibility with the criterion that causes not be...     

Socratic Courage in Plato's Socratic Dialogues

This article considers Socrates's conception of courage in Plato's Socratic dialogues. Although the Laches, which is the only dialogue devoted in toto to a pursuit of the definition of courage, does not explicitly provide Socrates's definition of courage, I shall point out clues therein which contribute to an understanding of Socrates's conception of courage. The Protagoras is a peculiar dialogue in which Socrates himself offers a definition of courage. Attending to the dramatic structure and personalities of the dialogue, I will point out that Socrates does not commit to the definition and that the hedonism and the definition of courage are used to disclose Protagoras's confusion regarding virtue. Following one of the clues within the Laches I will turn to the Apology and indicate Socrates's conception of courage which is based on his awareness of lack of knowledge of death and his religious conviction that nothing will happen for the good in life or in death. Finally I will show that such conception of Socratic courage satisfies the criteria in the Laches.     

The Necessities of Perfect Freedom

This article is a reflection on Augustine's suggestion that Christians have significant theological reasons to accept that freedom need not be correlated with having choices. Following his lead, I explore questions about freedom and agency raised by the perfect freedom of the saints in heaven, Jesus' sinless earthly life and the freedom with which the triune God is eternally blessed. My thesis is that those who worship the triune God and praise the sinless perfection of Christ and the heavenly saints have reason to accept a ‘normative’ conception of freedom, according to which certain kinds of necessity are not merely compatible with perfect freedom but intrinsic to it.     

What to Do in an Unjust State?: On Confucius’s and Socrates’s Views on Political Duty

Confucius argued for the centrality of the superior man’s political duty to his fellow human beings and to the state, while Socrates suggested that the superior man (the philosopher) may have no such political duty. However, Confucius also suggested that one not enter or stay—let alone save—a troubled state, while Socrates stayed in an unjust state, apparently fulfilling his political duty to the state by accepting an unjust verdict. In this essay, I will try to show how Confucius could solve these apparent contradictions. I will then examine the reasons Socrates directly and indirectly offers to resolve his seemingly conflicting positions in light of the discussion of the Confucian case. This article is a first step toward a deeper understanding of both Confucius and Socrates (Plato) by way of comparative studies, and of the general issue of a superior man’s political duty to a bad state.     

Is Mere True Belief Knowledge?

Crispin Sartwell ingeniously defends the provocative thesis that mere true belief suffices for knowledge. In doing so, he challenges one of the most deeply entrenched epistemological tenets, namely that knowledge must be more than mere true belief. Particularly interesting is the way he defends his thesis by appealing to considerations adduced by such prominent epistemologists as William Alston, Laurence BonJour, Alvin Goldman and Paul Moser, each of whom denies that knowledge is merely true belief. In this paper, I argue that the case Sartwell presents for his thesis fails. However, by examining why it fails, we may derive at least four important epistemological lessons: (1) being justified does not entail being able to give a justification; (2) we should distinguish between epistemic justification conceived of as intrinsically conducive to truth and conceived of as extrinsically conducive to truth; (3) we should distinguish between epistemic justification conceived of as an essential criterion of knowledge and conceived of as an accidental criterion of knowledge; and (4) epistemologists need to specify how the telos of inquiry involves more than the acquisition of (merely) true beliefs.Socrates: Then tell me: what definition can we give with the least risk of contradicting ourselves?Theaetetus: The one we tried before, Socrates. I have nothing else to suggest.Socrates: What was that?Theaetetus: That true belief is knowledge. Surely there can at least be no mistake in believing what is true and the consequences are always satisfactory.Theaetetus 200d–e     

Hope as Grounds for Forgiveness

It is widely assumed that Christianity enjoins its followers to practice universal, unconditional forgiveness. But universal, unconditional forgiveness is regarded by many as morally problematic. Some Christian scholars have denied that Christianity in fact requires universal, unconditional forgiveness, but I believe they are mistaken. In this essay, I show two things: (1) that Christianity does enjoin universal, unconditional forgiveness of a certain sort, and (2) that Christians, and perhaps other theists, are always justified in exercising unconditional forgiveness. Though most philosophers treat forgiveness as grounded in our beliefs about the offender's current state, I argue that we might more fruitfully ground forgiveness in hope for the wrongdoer. Christianity's commitment to the existence of an omnipotent God who is concerned about the moral status of His creatures always justifies such hope and thus always justifies forgiveness.     

A Sociological View of the Counselor's Role: A Dilemma and a Solution

The school counselors struggle for role identity still continues. The counselor's commitment to counseling pupils is being questioned by those with a sociological view of the counselor's role. Several writers suggest that the counselor's role be changed so that the counselor will function as a “cultural architect” or “social engineer.” The main thesis of this article is that the facilitation of human potentiality calls for a complementary approach to the resolution of school and pupil problems and not the diminution and prostitution of one role for another. It is proposed that a new position be created in our schools—that of a school sociologist.     

Socrates and Superiority

I propose an alternative interpretation of the Crito. The arguments that are typically taken to be Socrates' primary arguments against escape are actually supplementary arguments that rely on what I call the Superiority Thesis, the thesis that the state and its citizens are members of a moral hierarchy where those below are tied by bonds of obligation to those above. I provide evidence that Socrates holds this thesis, demonstrate how it resolves a number of apparent difficulties, and show why my interpretation is preferable to competing interpretations.     

Can Transnational Feminist Solidarity Accommodate Nationalism? Reflections from the Case Study of Korean “Comfort Women”

This article aims to refute the “incompatibility thesis” that nationalism is incompatible with transnational feminist solidarity, as it fosters exclusionary practices, xenophobia, and racism among feminists with conflicting nationalist aspirations. I examine the plausibility of the incompatibility thesis by focusing on the controversy regarding just reparation for Second World War “comfort women,” which is still unresolved. The Korean Council at the center of this controversy, which advocates for the rights of Korean former comfort women, has been criticized for its strident nationalism and held responsible for the stalemate. Consequently, the case of comfort women has been thought to exemplify the incompatibility thesis. I argue against this common feminist perception in three ways: first, those who subscribe to the incompatibility thesis have misinterpreted facts surrounding the issue; second, the Korean Council's nationalism is a version of “polycentric nationalism,” which avoids the problems of essentialist nationalism at the center of feminist concerns; and, third, transnational feminist solidarity is predicated on the idea of oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege and enjoins that feminists respect oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege. To the extent that oppressed/marginalized women's voices are expressed in nationalist terms, I argue that feminists committed to transnational feminist solidarity must accommodate their nationalism.     

Feeling at home in language

What do we learn about language from reading Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations? This question gains urgency from Wittgenstein's alleged animus against philosophical theorizing and his indirectness. Section 1 argues that Wittgenstein's goal is to prevent philosophical questioning about the foundations of language from the beginning. This conception of his aim is not in tension with Wittgenstein's use of the notion of community; “community interpretations” of his views betray a misguided commitment to the coherence of the idea that language might need grounding. Wittgenstein's goal is not to enjoin us not to step “outside of language-games”, but to show that we have insufficiently clear grasp of the terms we try to use to express the limits of intelligibility. Section 2 suggests that appreciating Wittgenstein's moral concerning the relation between language and philosophizing about it involves allowing him to teach us how to read his book. What makes readingPhilosophical Investigations possible is openness to learning how not to forget our lives in language.     

Technology's Impact on the Creative Potential of Youth

The importance of educating students to think critically and creatively was recognized over 2,000 years ago by Socrates, reworked in the 1950s by Benjamin Bloom, and reinforced by many modern-day educators. With changes in lifestyle brought on by innovations in digital technology, teachers, administrators, and parents alike are questioning the effect that these habits could be having on a student's ability to focus. Teachers, especially, are faced with challenges and unknowns in working with students who have grown up in a digital environment that some researchers warn could be disabling important systems of brain development that relate to lack of exposure with traditional reading. Faced with balancing use of traditional texts and an increase in technological resources, teachers are questioning whether today's students have the innate capability of negotiating higher-order thinking and generating creative ideas, as the nature of study habits undergoes transformation. This article explores how ability to use creative and higher-order thinking processes relates to exposure to modern technology.