Authenticity and Constructivism in Education

This paper examines the concept of authenticity and its relevance in education, from a philosophical perspective. Under the heading of educational authenticity (EA), I critique Fred Newmann’s views on authentic pedagogy and intellectual work. I argue against the notion that authentic engagement is usefully analyzed in terms of a relationship between school work and: “real” work. I also seek to clarify the increasingly problematic concept of constructivism, arguing that there are two distinct constructivist theses, only one of which deserves serious attention. I explain that the correspondence view of authenticity pays insufficient attention to the reality that the presence of “real world” connections does not guarantee that teaching and learning will be truly authentic. As a bridge to a philosophically acceptable understanding of authenticity, I reflect on John Dewey, who famously strove to base his views on education on the experience of the child, while rejecting that such experience requires validation from the “real” world. And Jean Jacques Rousseau offers several clues as to how the search for an authentic self might proceed beyond the Romanticist vision of an inner essence. These include the idea of the self as constructed inter-subjectively, which I capture by the term “one among others” and which, in turn, reveals persons as dialogically engaged in working out who they are and what they stand for (an idea found in the work of Charles Taylor). There is a clear affinity here with the imperative proposed by Newmann. I embrace the idea that the cultivation of dialogue should be a key priority in classrooms, because dialogue drives each individual to seek meaning in the context of seeing her/himself as one among others. I highlight the role of the classroom community of inquiry as an environment which has the dual function of cultivating disciplined inquiry and facilitating the kind of personal development that can, most properly, be termed “authentic”.

African Philosophy of Education: The Price of Unchallengeability

In South Africa, the notion of an African Philosophy of Education emerged with the advent of post-apartheid education and the call for an educational philosophy that would reflect this renewal, a focus on Africa and its cultures, identities and values, and the new imperatives for education in a postcolonial and post-apartheid era. The idea of an African Philosophy of Education has been much debated in South Africa. Not only its content and purpose but also its very possibility have been, and continue to be, the subject of understandably passionate exchanges. In this paper, after discussing some of the constitutive features of African Philosophy of Education, we indicate aspects with which we are sympathetic. Our central question is whether African Philosophy of Education is the revisioned, ‘typically African’ philosophy of education that it is claimed to be. We argue that it has revealed certain tendencies that are remarkably similar to characteristics of Fundamental Pedagogics, the repressive doctrine complicit in apartheid education that it claims to replace. More substantially still (and this is a feature that has wider ramifications for philosophy of education internationally), African Philosophy of Education, by labeling itself uniquely and distinctly ‘African’, runs the risk of insulating itself not only from interaction with the wider (i.e. non-African) world but also from any critical interrogation.

Metadialogues for Resolving Burden of Proof Disputes

In this paper, a solution to the problem of analyzing burden of proof in argumentation is developed by building on the pioneering work of Erik C. W. Krabbe on metadialogues. Three classic cases of burden of proof disputes are analyzed, showing how metadialogue theory can solve the problems they pose. The solution is based on five dialectical requirements: (1) global burden of proof needs to be set at the confrontation stage of a dialogue, (2) there need to be special mechanisms for resolving disputes about burden of proof at all four stages of the dialogue, (3) they are especially significant during the argumentation stage, where burden of proof often shifts back and forth at each move, (4) such local shifts need to be partly regulated by the global burden of proof already set, and (5) the connection between burden of proof and the speech act of making a presumption in a dialogue needs to be clarified.     

多决策方法多交流方式的群体决策比较

采用人员选拔的实验室模拟实验,以160名被试组成40个4人群体,对4种决策方法和2类交流方式的群体决策进行了比较。结果发现（1）决策方法和交流方式对于讨论过程的信息交流具有显著影响;（2）以计算机为中介进行决策的被试知觉到的任务难度要高于面对面决策条件;决策方法对于群体成员有关实验任务难度知觉具有主效应;交流方式和决策方法对于群体决策过程满意感和结果满意感没有显著影响;（3）在以投票轮次来表明群体达成一致意见所需时间上,决策方法对于投票轮次具有显著影响。恶魔式辩护、辨证式查询两种方法下所需的投票轮次多于专家意见法和自由讨论法的投票轮次。     

The Non-Conceptual Dimension of Social Mediation: Toward a Materialist Aufhebung of Hegel

ABSTRACT

Sellars’s relationship with Hegel is complex and itself ‘dialectical‘ in interesting ways. Sellars follows Hegel in recognizing that the normativity essential to intentionality and conceptuality is a social phenomenon. But Sellars criticizes Hegel for his inability to independently explain the emergence and function of this essential group phenomenon. I shall argue that Sellars’s critique of Hegel on this count is part of a larger, metaphysically ambitious and rigorously realistic position, which, though turning Hegel’s ontology on its head, shares with Hegel the methodological ambition of arriving at a position which is globally explanatorily closed. Further, it will be suggested that although Sellars would surely have been critical of the ontological reification of Hegel’s dialectical method, he nonetheless reserves an important role for conceptual dialectical development right at the heart of his system, namely in his understanding of the conceptual evolution that leads from the manifest to the scientific image. Finally, I shall argue that Sellars thereby aspires to provide nothing less than a materialist aufhebung of idealist Hegelian dialectics.     

中西医结合临床思路浅谈——论辨证与辨病的关系

辨证与辨病是两种不同的思维方式,西医辨病又辨证,中医辨证又辨病,辨病与辨证是中医与西医都遵循的诊治过程,在临床中辩证运用中医与西医有利于中西医结合临床思路的建立     

Knowledge to Wisdom: We Need a Revolution

Introduction The following document is a very brief summary of a thesis and argument that I have devoted the last 30 years of my life to trying to get across to my fellow human beings. It was first spelled out in What’s Wrong With Science? (Bran’s Head Books, 1976) and subsequently in From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984), Is Science Neurotic? (Imperial College Press, 2004) and numerous articles, references to which can be found on . Three years ago an international group was formed, called Friends of Wisdom, which seeks to get across to academics and the public the compelling arguments and urgent need to transform academic inquiry so that its basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom. The document below is taken from the website of Friends of Wisdom, the URL of which is . It is the mission statement of Friends of Wisdom. You are invited to join.     

从医师的视角浅析医疗差错的辩证观

医疗差错是影响医疗安全的最重要因素。有效预防和正确处理医疗差错,需要以科学辩证的认识为前提。当前,我国医院管理实践在一定程度上缺乏对医疗差错的辩证认识,导致在处理上存在些许不足。本文从医师的视角,对如何辩证地认识医疗差错进行浅述。指出,医疗差错在相当程度上源于人的出错之天性和医学的复杂性,广泛存在于医疗实践中,发生具有必然性;虽然从表象上看,医疗差错的原因是局部的,但其本质的原因是系统性的;医疗差错是医疗安全系统运行状况的"指示灯",有助于及时地了解安全系统的薄弱环节,为完善和提升系统安全、提高医疗服务水平提供契机。     

口腔种植诊疗实践中的思考

口腔种植现已经出现在人们的视线里,它具有一定的特殊性和优越性,能够解决常规修复手段不能解决的问题,然而在临床应用中,需要考虑和处理的问题往往很复杂。因此有必要在临床实践中运用辩证思维及循证医学的思想,在诊断中全面考虑、周密计划;在治疗中处理问题、解决难点;在随访中发现问题,促进发展。