A Presuppositional Critique of Constructivism

Educational theories have roots. They have roots in broader philosophies, conceptions of the nature of reality, and the theories utilized in classrooms to teach have implications for broader society. The author takes a presuppostitional view and shows that all systems have most basic beliefs that are un-provable. So at the heart of any form of interpretive schema or paradigm is faith in that schema. The author discusses the role of theories of truth, how fact-constructivism embraces a relativist position that is self-refuting, and ultimately is untenable absent a suspension of laws of logic. The author argues in favor of revelation from God as axiomatic and demonstrates how logic can exist on that basis, whereas on a secular basis, philosophy cannot generate any True facts whatsoever. The author then looks at the educational theory of constructivism and examines the theory and practices it endorses it in light of the presuppositional critique and concludes that the relativistic nature of constructivism precludes it from being a philosophically acceptable approach for the Christian

A Phenomenological Critique of Mindfulness

How do such normative affectivities as 'unconditionally intrinsic goodness', 'spontaneous compassion', 'luminosity', 'blissfulness', ' a calm and peaceful life guided by the fundamental value of nonviolence' emerge as ultimate outcomes of a philosophy of groundlessness? Aren't they motivated by a sort of 'will to goodness', a preferencing of one affective dimension over others? It would seem that groundlessness for Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson doesn't apply to the thinking of affect and desire. Despite their claim that nihilism cannot be overcome by assimilating groundlessness to a notion of the will, they appear not to recognize that the positive affectivities they associate with meditative practice are, as dispositions of feeling opposed to other dispositions, themselves forms of willing. In The Embodied Mind, Varela and Thompson assert that Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger’s phenomenologies produce ‘after the fact’ theoretical reflections that miss the richness of immediate concrete pre-reflective experience as present in the here-and-now. But Varela and Thompson’s separating of being and becoming in their empirical approach leads them to misread these phenomenologists, and as a result to mistakenly give preference to mindfulness approaches which fall short of the radicality of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Varela and Thompson follow Husserl’s method of reduction up to a point, stripping away acquired concepts associated with a naive belief in the independence of subject and object. They don’t complete the reduction though, allowing subject and object to occupy separate moments. Varela and Thompson succeed in reducing materialist physicalism to fundamental co-dependency, but still find it necessary to ground intentional processes in a foundation of temporary self-inhering objectivities (the “arising and subsiding, emergence and decay” of transitional forms which inhere in themselves for a moment before relating to an outside). Varela and Thompson found the affectively, valuatively felt contingency of particular acts of other-relatedness in what they presume to be a primordial neutral point of pre-reflective conscious auto-affective awareness. But the phenomenologists show that attention, as a species of intention, is sense-making, which means it is sense-changing. Attention is affectively, valuatively and meaningfully implicated in what it attends to as co-participant in the synthesis, creation, constitution of objects of regard. As auto-affection turns reflexively back toward itself, what it finds is not the normative sameness and constancy of a neutral positivity( blissful, self-less compassion and benevolence toward all phenomena) but a newly sensing being. Mindful self-reflexivity, expecting to find only what it put there, instead is confronted with the self-displacement of its being exposed to and affected by an other. The basis of our awareness of a world isn’t simply compassionate, empathic relational co-determinacy, but the motivated experience of disturbing CHANGE in relational co-determinacy

Metaphor, religious language and religious experience

Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature of religious language, it considers the claim that huge areas of our language and, consequently, of our experience are shaped by metaphors. Finally, it considers some of the more significant implications of this claim for our understanding of both religious language and religious experience

Проблема міської ідентичності у філософській антропології (THE PROBLEM OF URBAN IDENTITY IN PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY)

Розглянуто низку перспектив, завдяки яким чи можемо описати і дослідити міську ідентичність як філософсько-антропологічну проблему. Фокусується увага на тактики і стратегії людського тіла у повсякденному просторі, активну діяльність і досвід суб’єкта, текст і традицію міста. (This paper considers to extent in which aspects we can describe and explore the urban identity as a philosophical and anthropological problem. It is focused on the human body tactics and strategies in the everyday space, active practice and experience of the subject, text and tradition of the city.

Hume's Legacy: A Cognitive Science Perspective

Hume is an experimental philosopher who attempts to understand why we think, feel, and act as we do. But how should we evaluate the adequacy of his proposals? This chapter examines Hume’s account from the perspective of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science

Student as Value Based Product: Reconceptualizing the Subjective Nature of Education

In this paper we consider how students are positioned in school classrooms and the effect positioning has on their ontological and social development. The creation of a powersanctioned objective reality, we argue, pervades student learning in contemporary U.S. classrooms, reducing knowledge students might otherwise acquire to socially acceptable conditions they assume in adulthood. Consequently, this creates a society in which antiintellectualism is normalized as learned codes of behavior are lived. Homogenization then isolates and alienates students as they are produced to fill the ranks of a skills-based workforce. Several factors work in tandem to ingrain students with a perceived objective consciousness, they include: top down educational policy, commodification of difference, distraction and normalization of the above mentioned codes of conduct, a sense of morality tied to citizenship, and civilized absurdity: students become mere abstractions of living experience as they accept life as citizen worker.Educatio

The imperfect observer: Mind, machines, and materialism in the 21st century

The dualist / materialist debates about the nature of consciousness are based on the assumption that an entirely physical universe must ultimately be observable by humans (with infinitely advanced tools). Thus the dualists claim that anything unobservable must be non-physical, while the materialists argue that in theory nothing is unobservable. However, there may be fundamental limitations in the power of human observation, no matter how well aided, that greatly curtail our ability to know and observe even a fully physical universe. This paper presents arguments to support the model of an inherently limited observer and explores the consequences of this view