Classroom on the Coast

Learning about Oregon’s rich ecological diversity

Naturalizing Logic: a case study of the ad hominem and implicit bias

The fallacies, as traditionally conceived, are wrong ways of reasoning that nevertheless appear attractive to us. Recently, however, Woods (2013) has argued that they don’t merit such a title, and that what we take to be fallacies are instead largely virtuous forms of reasoning. This reformation of the fallacies forms part of Woods’ larger project to naturalize logic. In this paper I will look to his analysis of the argumentum ad hominem as a case study for the prospects of this project. I will argue that the empirical literature on implicit bias presents a difficulty for the reformation of the ad hominem as cognitively virtuous. Cases where implicit bias influences our assessment of the truth or claim or argument are instances of ad hominem reasoning, and these qualify as fallacious on Woods’ own definition

Comprehending the Modern Psychological Novel ‘the Sound and the Fury \u27 by William Faulkner

Novel sebagai salah satu jenis karya sastra sekaligus juga sebagai saksi dari Perubahan di dalam masyarakat juga dapat berfungsi sebagai metode untuk memahami modernitas. Dalam hal ini, muncul novel modern psikologis yang mewakili kategori fungsi novel tersebut. Dalam penelitian ini ditelaah salah satu novel yang sering dikategorikan sebagai novel modern psikologis, yaitu “The Sound and the Fury” karya William Faulkner. Metode yang dipakai dalam penelitian ini adalah studi kepustakaan yang mana fokusnya adalah menelaah karya memanfaat literatur-literatur yang relevan. Konsep-konsep tentang modernitas, psikologi, dan teknik arus kesadaran (stream of consciousness) dimanfaatkan untuk dapat menelaah secara mendalam novel ini. Khusus untuk teknik arus kesadaran, teknik ini terbukti cukup dominan di dalam jenis novel ini

“Sexual Indiscretions, Artistic reflections: Beyond Binaries (Wooster Group’s Vieux Carré).”

International audienceThe contemporary American performance group, the Wooster Group, seems to have staged Tennessee Williams’s Vieux Carré in keeping with the playwright’s idea that “All good art is an indiscretion.” The tension between “art” and “indiscretion” suggests a struggle between order and chaos based on a binary regime of representation resulting in the victory of truth. Sexual indiscretions appear to be a key element as on stage screens display gay pornographic images while sounds register the rhythm of desire by mixing the script, based in the 1930s, and theatrical signs from the 1970s and 2000s. Yet, Williams’s play and LeCompte’s staging offer a reassessment of such binary logic of representation. They create the possibility of productive postmodern indiscretions yielding the subversion of theatrical codes. An opaque indiscretion explores the complex articulations of performance operating on multiple levels and capturing the evanescence of art.La mise en scène de Vieux Carré de Tennessee Williams par le Wooster Group, une troupe américaine contemporaine, semble avoir suivi à la lettre l’idée du dramaturge pour qui : “Une œuvre d’art réussie est une œuvre d’art indiscrète.” La tension entre “art” et “indiscrétion” évoque l’opposition entre l’ordre et le chaos qui fonde le régime binaire de la représentation scellée par le triomphe du régime de vérité. Les indiscrétions sexuelles semblent être un élément clef illustré sur scène par des écrans qui montrent des images pornographiques gay tandis que l’univers sonore capte le rythme du désir en tissant le script de la pièce, qui se déroule dans les années 1930, avec des signes théâtraux inspirés par les années 1970 et 2000. Toutefois, la pièce de Williams et la mise en scène de LeCompte remettent en question cette logique binaire de la représentation. Ils mettent en place les moyens de créer les conditions de possibilité pour que les indiscrétions postmodernes soient fertiles et puissent subvertir les codes de la scène. Une indiscrétion opaque permet alors d’explorer les articulations complexes opérant à de multiples niveaux afin de saisir l’évanescence de l’art

Tom Brown’s schooldays: ‘sportsex’ in Victorian Britain

Thomas Hughes’ idealised vision of life at Rugby public school is one of the best-known novels in the English language. It was regarded from the outset as a founding text of ‘muscular Christianity’. Contrary to the intentions of its author, it helped to inaugurate the cult of ‘manly’ athleticism that swept through the English public schools in the second half of the nineteenth-century. I argue that the novel reveals tensions around gender and sexuality that were in play among public schoolboys during the second half of the nineteenth-century. These tensions exploded into full public view in the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895 and were instrumental in helping to establish a structure of homophobia within homosocial settings that has lasted through to the present day

Bicycles, ‘informality’ and the alternative learning space as a site for re-engagement: a risky (pedagogical) proposition?

The great possibility of alternative education programs rests in the affront to established conventions that these present for what counts as learning, engagement and the experience of schooling. This paper takes as its point of focus one specific, in-school alternative learning program, and considers the possibilities for student re-engagement that emerged via the repair and restoration of old bicycles. The discussion focusses particularly on the 'informality' that presented within the day-to-day dynamics of the program and how the space provided in the program’s workshop sessions offered the opportunity for students to re-configure their relationships with each other, their teachers and the larger practice of schooling. A discussion of both the potential and risk of a 'pedagogy of informality' is posited in light of current discussions in the literature of alternative education in Australia

Competing models of socially constructed economic man : differentiating Defoe's Crusoe from the Robinson of neoclassical economics

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe has seldom been read as an explicitly political text. When it has, it appears that the central character was designed to warn the early eighteenth-century reader against political challenges to the existing economic order. Insofar as Defoe’s Crusoe stands for "economic man", he is a reflection of historically-produced assumptions about the need for social conformity, not the embodiment of any genuinely essential economic characteristics. This insight is used to compare Defoe’s conception of economic man with that of the neoclassical Robinson Crusoe economy. On the most important of the ostensibly generic principles espoused by neoclassical theorists, their "Robinson" has no parallels with Defoe’s Crusoe. Despite the shared name, two quite distinct social constructions serve two equally distinct pedagogical purposes. Defoe’s Crusoe extols the virtues of passive middle-class sobriety for effective social organisation; the neoclassical Robinson champions the establishment of markets for the sake of productive efficiency