Comic Impossibilities

Argues for the controversial and initially counterintuitive thesis that theatrical magic (that is, the performance of conjuring tricks) is a form of standup comedy

Sonic Pictures

Winning essay of the American Society for Aesthetics' inaugural Peter Kivy Prize. Extends Kivy's notion of sonic picturing through engagement with recent work in philosophy of perception. Argues that sonic pictures are more widespread and more aesthetically and artistically important than even Kivy envisioned. Topics discussed include: the nature of sonic pictures; the nature of sounds; what we can (and more importantly, cannot) conclude from musical listening; sonic pictures in film; beatboxing as an art of sonic picturing; and cover songs as sonic pictures. To be published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Resilient Understanding: The Value of Seeing for Oneself

The primary aim of this paper is to argue that the value of understanding derives in part from a kind of subjective stability of belief that we call epistemic resilience. We think that this feature of understanding has been overlooked by recent work, and we think it’s especially important to the value of understanding for social cognitive agents such as us. We approach the concept of epistemic resilience via the idea of the experience of epistemic ownership and argue that the former concept has Platonic pedigree. Contrary to longstanding exegetical tradition, we think that Plato solves the “Meno problem” with an appeal to the epistemic resilience characteristic of understanding, not the well-groundedness characteristic of canonical cases of propositional knowledge. Finally, we apply our discussion to the case of science outreach and the challenge of global warming skepticism and conclude with directions for future research

Presentation of MSc in Higher Education Dissertation School Meeting : What are the key dimensions of the personal tutor role for nurse education today?,

Presentation of MSc in Higher Education Dissertation School Meeting : What are the key dimensions of the personal tutor role for nurse education today?, A literature review, Missenden Abbey, June 2009, presentatio

What are the key dimensions of the personal tutor role for nurse education today? A literature review.

Background. The accepted position of the personal tutor role from the background literature includes both pastoral care and academic support. Recent government led initiatives of widening access to higher education, the Dearing report (NCIHE, 1997) and the National Student Survey (HEFCE, 2006) have changed higher education and affected the personal tutor role. The implication of these initiatives for nurse education is unclear. Aim. The aim of this literature review is to explore the dimensions of the personal tutor role in higher education and how the expanding role of the personal tutor will impact on nurse education

Student perceptions and experiences of problem-based learning in first year undergraduate sports therapy

Problem-based learning (PBL) has long been used as a means to foster critical thinking and student autonomy. However, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of PBL in Sports Therapy. The aim of this study was to examine first year Sports Therapy students' perceptions of PBL. Results revealed that students perceived PBL as vocationally relevant, by enabling them to work in and across groups, whilst also engaging with a wider range and depth of information compared to more traditional methods of curriculum delivery. External observations of the lecturers input sessions were made by an impartial re- searcher. The implications of the study are that PBL appears to be a professionally suitable and appropriate learning modality for Sports Therapy students

Explanation and Quasi-Miracles in Narrative Understanding: The Case of Poetic Justice

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Craig Bourne, and Emily Caddick Bourne, ‘Explanation and Quasi‐miracles in Narrative Understanding: The Case of Poetic Justice’, Dialectica, Vol. 71 (4): 563-579, January 2018, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-8361.12201. Under embargo until 29 January 2020. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.David Lewis introduced the idea of a quasi-miracle to overcome a problem in his initial account of counterfactuals. Here we put the notion of a quasi-miracle to a different and new use, showing that it offers a novel account of the phenomenon of poetic justice, where characters in a narrative get their due by happy accident (for example, when the murderer of King Mitys happens to be crushed by a falling statue of Mitys). The key to understanding poetic justice is to see what makes poetically just events remarkable coincidences. We argue that remarkable coincidence is to be understood in terms of a distinctive type of experience quasi-miracles offer. Cases of poetic justice offer a dual awareness of the accidental nature of the events and of a non-accidental process, involving intention, which it appears would explain them. We also extend this account to incorporate how we might experience magic tricks. An account of poetic justice as quasi-miraculous allows us to account for the experience of encounters with poetic justice, as involving the incongruity of seeing design in accident.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio