6,265 research outputs found
Are we at the dawn of quantum-gravity phenomenology?
A handful of recent papers has been devoted to proposals of experiments
capable of testing some candidate quantum-gravity phenomena. These lecture
notes emphasize those aspects that are most relevant to the questions that come
to mind when one is exposed for the first time to these research developments:
How come theory and experiments are finally meeting in spite of all the gloomy
forecasts that pervade traditional reviews? Is this a case of theorists having
put forward more and more speculative ideas until a point was reached at which
conventional experiments could rule out the proposed phenomena? Or has there
been such a remarkable improvement in experimental techniques and ideas that we
are now capable of testing plausible candidate quantum-gravity phenomena? These
questions are analysed rather carefully for the recent proposals of
interferometry-based tests and tests using observations of gamma rays of
astrophysical origin. I also briefly discuss other proposed experiments
(including tests of quantum-gravity-induced decoherence using the neutral-kaon
system and accelerator tests of models with large extra dimensions). The
emerging picture suggests that we are finally starting the exploration of a
large class of plausible quantum-gravity effects. However, our chances to
obtain positive (discovery) experimental results depend crucially on the
magnitude of these effects. In most cases the level of sensitivity that the
relevant experiments should achieve within a few years corresponds to effects
suppressed only linearly by the Planck length.Comment: 47 pages, Latex. Based on lectures given at the XXXV Karpacz Winter
School of Theoretical Physics "From Cosmology to Quantum Gravity", Polanica,
Poland, 2-12 February, 1999. To appear in the proceeding
Understanding Teacher Reflection as a Significant Tool for Bringing Reform-Based Teaching to College Mathematics
This paper describes a senior mathematics professor’s effort to change his teaching practice in a mathematical analysis course for secondary pre-service teachers in alignment with the current reform movement. Data include semester-long observations and interviews with the professor and his students. The data were analyzed by the use of reflection as the most significant tool for examining his experience of bringing about change. The reflection was used as a bridge from theory to practice by serving as a significant point for the professor to experience the process of professional development in a real sense. Discussions include the role of teacher reflection, teacher beliefs about good teaching and their manifestation in practice, the role of students in a reform-based classroom and the professor\u27s effort for changing pedagogy of the mathematics course and his search for continuing the effort. The researcher includes her own reflection of the processes of understanding the change process. Her views on inconsistency between the professors beliefs and his practice, the role of reflection as a hallmark of professionalism, and the importance of environment and support for the change to be sustainable are addressed
The New Fuzziness: Richard Rorty on Education
The New Fuzziness: Richard Rorty and Education is an examination of the works of Richard Rorty, focusing on his impact on education. Richard Rorty is one of the most provocative and influential of contemporary thinkers writing in English. This unpublished manuscript is written by Dr. Philip E. Devine, Professor of Philosophy at Providence College
Does informal logic have anything to learn from fuzzy logic?
Probability theory is the arithmetic of the real line constrained by special aleatory axioms. Fuzzy logic is also a kind of probability theory, but of considerably more mathematical and axiomatic complexity than the standard account. Fuzzy logic purp orts to model the human capacity for reasoning with inexact concepts. It does this by exploring the assumption that when we argue in inexact terms and draw inferences in imprecise vocabularies, we actually make computations about the embedded imprecision s. I argue that this is in fact the last thing that we do, and indeed that we do the opposite
A critical analytic literature review of virtue ethics for social work: beyond codified conduct towards virtuous social work
This submission is based on a critical analytical literature review of the moral paradigm
of virtue ethics and a specific application of this to social work value discourse in search
of lost identity. It echoes the philosophical academy's paradigmatic wars between 'act'
and 'agent' appraisals in moral theory. Act appraisal theories focus on a person's act as
the primary source of moral value whereas agent appraisal theories - whether 'agentprior'
or stricter 'agent-based’ versions - focus on a person’s disposition to act morally.
This generates a philosophical debate about which type of appraisal should take
precedence in making an overall evaluation of a person's moral performance. My
starting point is that at core social work is an altruistic activity entailing a deep
commitment, a 'moral impulse', towards the distressed 'other'. This should privilege
dispositional models of value that stress character and good motivation correctly applied
- in effect making for an ethical career built upon the requisite moral virtues. However,
the neo-liberal and neo-conservative state hegemony has all but vanquished the moral
impulse and its correct application. In virtue ethical language, we live in 'vicious' times.
I claim that social work’s adherence to act appraisal Kantian and Utilitarian models is
implicated in this loss. Kantian 'deontic' theory stresses inviolable moral principle to be
obeyed irrespective of outcome: Utilitarian 'consequentualist' theory calculates the best
moral outcome measured against principle. The withering of social work as a morally
active profession has culminated in the state regulator's Code of Practice. This makes
for a conformity of behaviour which I call 'proto-ethical' to distinguish it from 'ethics
proper'. The Code demands that de-moralised practitioners dutifully follow policy, rules, procedures and targets - ersatz, piecemeal and simplistic forms of deontic and
consequentualist act appraisals. Numerous inquiries into social work failures indict
practitioners for such behaviour.
I draw upon mainstream virtue ethical theory and the emergent social work counter
discourse to get beyond both code and the simplified under-theoretisation of social work
value. I defend a thesis regarding an identity-defining cluster of social work specific
virtues. I propose two modules: 'righteous indignation’ to capture the heartfelt moral
impulse, and 'just generosity' to mindfully delineate the scope and legitimacy of the
former. Their operation generates an exchange relationship with the client whereby the
social worker builds 'surplus value' to give back more than must be taken in the
transaction. I construct a social work specific minimal-maximal 'stability standard' to
anchor the morally correct expression of these two modules and the estimation of
surplus value. In satisficing terms, the standard describes what is good enough but is
also potentially expansive.
A derivative social work practice of moral value is embedded in an historic 'care and
control' dialectic. The uncomfortable landscape is one of moral ambiguity and
paradoxicality, to be navigated well in virtue terms. I argue that it is incongruous to
speak of charactereological social worker virtues and vices and then not to employ the
same paradigm to the client’s moral world. This invites a functional analysis of virtue.
The telos of social work - our moral impulse at work - directs us to scrutiny of the
unsafe household. Our mandate is the well-being of the putative client within,
discoursed in terms of functional life-stage virtues and vicious circumstance.
I employ the allegorical device of a personal ethical journey from interested lay person
to committed social worker, tracking the character-building moral peregrinations. I
focus on two criticisms of virtue ethics - a philosophical fork. It is said that virtue
ethical theory cannot of itself generate any reliable, independently validated action
guidance. In so far as it does, the theory will endorse an as-given, even reactionary,
criterion of right action, making 'virtue and vice' talk the bastion of the establishment
power holders who control knowledge. I seek to repudiate these claims. Given that this
demands a new approach to moral pedagogy, the practical implications for the
suitability and training of social workers are discussed
Laying Claim to Authenticity: Five Anthropological Dilemmas
The introduction to this special collection examines five dilemmas about
the use of the concept of authenticity in anthropological analysis. These
relate to 1) the expectation of a singular authenticity “deep” in oneself or
beyond the surface of social reality, 2) the contradictions emerging from
the opposition of authenticity with inauthenticity, 3) the irony of the notion
of invention of tradition (which deconstructs, but also offends), 4) the criteria
involved in the authentication of the age of objects (with a consideration
of their materiality), and 5) authenticity’s simultaneity, its contemporaneous
multiple conceptualizations in context. I argue for a perspective on the
study of authenticity that acknowledges the simultaneous co-existence of
more than one parallel manifestation of authenticity in any given negotiation
of the authentic
‘Walking in a Foreign and Unknown Landscape’ : studying the history of mathematics in initial teacher education
This article develops the argument that students in initial teacher education benefit in terms of who they are becoming from developing awareness of and engagement in the history of mathematics. Initially, current school mathematics practices in the UK are considered and challenged. Then the role of teachers’ relationship to mathematical subject knowledge and of teachers’ engagement in critical thinking are considered. Connections are made between these concerns and studying the history of mathematics in initial teacher education classrooms. I then draw on the perspectives and practices of the mathematics teacher educators at one institution to understand these connections better and to exemplify them. Issues of equity are threaded throughout
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