The moral basis of liberal education

The moral right to liberal education involves issues of distribution and of content. The former issue bears on the distribution of educational resources. The latter issue bears on the issue of multiculturalism. Both issues are discussed from the standpoint of equal rights.Presented as the first Distinguished Lecture to the Association for Philosophy of Education at its meeting in New York, 28 December 1991.     

The rationality of reasonableness

Rationality and reasonableness are often sharply distinguished from one another and are even held to be in conflict. On this construal, rationality consists in means-end calculation of the most efficient means to one's ends (which are usually taken to be self-interested), while reasonableness consists in equitableness whereby one respects the rights of other persons as well as oneself. To deal with this conflict, it is noted that both rationality and reasonableness are based on reason, which is analyzed as the power of attaining truth, and especially necessary truth. It is then shown that, by the rationality involved in reason, the moral principle of reasonableness, the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC), has a stringently rational justification in that to deny or violate it is to incur self-contradiction. Objections are considered bearing on relevance and motivation. It is concluded that, where reasonableness and egoistic rationality conflict, the former is rationally superior.     

Altered patterns of word associations in dementia and aphasia

The word associations of 38 demented, 17 aphasic, and 22 normal subjects were studied. Both normal and brain-injured subjects appear to make judgments about the grammatical class of the word stimulus. Certain stimulus words (especially nouns and adjectives) elicit paradigmatic responses whereas other words (especially verbs and adverbs) elicit syntagmatic responses. The mechanism producing syntagmatic responses seems relatively resistant to deterioration in dementia or aphasia. However, in dementia the mechanism that generates paradigmatic responses becomes progressively less efficient (possibly due to a loss of semantic markers) and consequently more random (idiosyncratic) responses emerge. Perseverative responses, inhibited in normal subjects, are more prevalent in dementia. Anomic aphasics show a pattern of word associations similar to that of subjects with mild dementia. Broca's aphasics, while making fewer paradigmatic associations than normals, retain enough self-monitoring mechanisms so that few idiosyncratic and perseverative responses are made while more null responses occur. Wernicke's aphasics show a marked shift away from a paradigmatic word association strategy, possibly due to an inability to access semantic markers or a true loss of these markers. Metalinguistic deficits (i.e., a failure to adopt an appropriate strategy) may also contribute to this shift away from paradigmatic associations. Furthermore, a disruption of self-monitoring mechanisms in Wernicke's aphasia leads to an increase in perseverative and idiosyncratic responses.