Mediality and Rationality in Aristotle's Account of Excellence of Character

I offer a reading of Aristotle’s “doctrine of the mean” that avoids two pitfalls: taking it as truistic, and taking it as involving the bizarre thesis that whenever one acts as reason directs, one’s action is mid-way between some extremes. The crucial point is that while Aristotle denies the existence of useful general ethical truths, he himself offers truths about the *likelihoods* with which rationality will require actions of certain types; and it is with such truths that the statistical idea of the mean gets a foothold in his theory of the virtues

Scare-quoting and incorporation

I explain a mechanism I call “incorporation,” that I think is at work in a wide range of cases often put under the heading of “scare-quoting.” Incorporation is flagging some words in one’s own utterance to indicate that they are to be interpreted as if uttered by some other speaker in some other context, while supplying evidence to one’s interpreter enabling them to identify that other speaker and context. This mechanism gives us a way to use others’ vocabularies and contexts, thereby extending our expressive capacities on the fly. Explaining incorporation involves explaining intra-sentential shifts in lexicon and in context. Shifts of the former sort are familiar to linguists under the heading of “code-switching.” Shifts of the latter sort have been less explored; accordingly I explain how to modify Kaplan’s logic of demonstratives to allow for such shifts. I compare the incorporation account of scare-quoting with accounts offered by Brandom, Recanati, Geurts and Maier, Benbaji, Predelli, and Shan. Finally I note a possible implication concerning the speech act of assertion: that you can properly assert a content you do not believe, let alone know, because part of it is expressed with words you do not understand

Wittgenstein on rules and practices

Some readers of Wittgenstein---I discuss Robert Brandom---think that his writings contain a regress argument showing that the notion of participating in a practice is more basic than the notion of following a rule, in explanations of linguistic correctness. But the regress argument bears equally on both these notions: if there is an explanatory regress of rules, then there is an explanatory regress of practices as well. Why then does Wittgenstein invoke the notion of a practice, apparently by way of diagnosing the error on which the regress argument rests? I suggest that he invokes that notion to emphasize certain aspects of rule-following which we are apt to neglect, when we forget that rule-following is---not, rests upon---participating in a practice. When we appreciate those aspects of rule/practice-following we see the flaw in both regress arguments

Data sensitivity: proposals for resolving the conundrum

The EU Directive 95/46/EC specifically demarcates categories of sensitive data meriting special protection. It is important to review the continuing relevance of existing categories of sensitive data in the light of changes in societal structures and advances in technology. This paper draws on interviews with privacy and data protection experts from a range of countries and disciplines and findings from the Information Commissioner’s annual telephone survey of the British public in order to explore satisfaction with the current categories of sensitive data. It will be shown that the current classification of sensitive data appears somewhat outdated and thus ineffective for determining the conditions of data processing. Finally, possible reform proposals will be reviewed, including a purpose-based approach and context-based approach

E-democracy: potential for political revolution?

This article focuses on the traditional notions of democracy and governance in the context of the recent shock first-round election results in France. The results prima facie suggest voter apathy and disengagement from the democratic process. However, the spontaneous street protests confirm that voters are not apathetic about democracy, rather they are dissatisfied with the current model of government and the unresponsive nature of government. It will be argued that the interactive nature of Internet technology has the potential to reinvigorate the democratic process and re-engage citizens positively in political life

Developing communities of practice and research through research informed teaching and learning in cross-cultural groups.

This conceptual research aims to answer three questions: • What is the process for learning where teachers and learners research together? • How can this process be enriched and enhanced, specifically working within an international and cross-cultural student population? • How can a co-existence of a pedagogic research informed learning and teaching environment be embedded with staff and students? This research looks into the way staff research informs pedagogic practice, and how staff work as ’joint partners’ with students to deliver more ’iterative’ education learning models. The research is aimed at the development of inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities of practice (see Brew, 2006). The research highlights how staff work with students in an iterative communal process through project-based research activity and collaborative teamwork within cross-cultural groups. It also describes the processes of working with students and how it has helped to directly reinforce the curricula and informed the author’s own learning and teaching strategies. Significantly, this type of open engagement with cultural groups has alerted the author to howtraditional linear ’Western’ forms of academic research within art and design can be influenced by Eastern models of research enquiry. The research describes a coexistence of practice where research and enquiry can be fluidly exchanged between teacher and student. Changes were made to curricula to develop a more social constructivist form of working (Gredler, 1997) where both the context in which learning occurs and the social contexts that learners bring to their learning environment were put centre stage. A short film entitled Event digestion, a pedagogic filmic picnic, where students came together to form a community event, highlighted this process. This process was also one of cross-disciplinary staff team-working within art and design where research work is enhanced through creating a more open social experiential learning environment. The research methodology is a predominantly qualitative one through problem solving and action research. It is also situated within a pedagogic research-informed teaching approach where teaching draws upon enquiry into the teaching and learning process itself (Jenkins & Healey, 2005). Methods incorporated have been cross-cultural international focus groups attended by students, ’unstructured’ interviews, student case studies and, importantly, practice-based work. The paper highlights how an active educational model can be developed through learning by doing (Gibbs, 1998) and thinking (Ramsden, 2003), however, coming from a perspective which addresses creativity across cultures (Lubart), is cross-disciplinary, and, importantly, by a practicebase collaborative international team project approach. The practical pedagogic findings will be of use to anyone working in design education wishing to develop cross-cultural curricula through practice-based learning and research