Everyday philosophy

My thesis is a work of creative non-fiction, in the form of an introductory, philosophy workbook. The workbook, tentatively named Everyday Philosophy, is intended to appeal to upper secondary students aged sixteen to seventeen, and contains a broad cross-section of information about the philosophy tradition. The workbook is loosely constructed around the new Western Australian Certificate of Education \u27Philosophy and Ethics\u27 curriculum, due to be launched in 2008. The aim of my thesis is to provide an introduction to Philosophy and Ethics that is thought-provoking yet easy to understand, employing examples, analogies and illustrations that are relevant and current to the intended readership. In order to achieve this I have employed a mixture of non-fiction and fictional scenarios to illustrate philosophical themes. The scenarios range from the commonplace to the ridiculous, in order to effectively promote the curiosity and enthusiasm of a sixteen or seventeen year-old high school student. The language and tone are friendly, grounded, conversational and, at times, amusing. I believe this strategy to be a necessary antidote to the perception that the study of philosophy is academic, lofty and inaccessible to mere mortals. The workbook contains: • topical, essay-style discussions of the main themes of philosophy. • historical information regarding key philosophers and their contributions. • creative and anecdotal scenarios to illustrate fundamental tenets. • in-chapter, journal exercises. • recommendations for supplementary reading and viewing material. • interesting quotes by philosophers. • profiles of famous philosophy students, and their impact on the world today. The rationale behind Everyday Philosophy is to create an innovative and interactive introduction to the sometimes daunting discipline of philosophy, in a style that specifically addresses the needs and interests of upper secondary students

Philosophy for teenagers: Finding new relevence in old concepts

In 2008, the Curriculum Council of Western Australia launched a formal curriculum of philosophy and ethics education for upper secondary students. This thesis is a writing project that provides a new teaching text in support of this course. The thesis is composed of two components, a creative project and an essay. The creative project is a work of non-fiction entitled, Philosophy for Teenagers: Finding New Relevance in Old Concepts, and has been researched and designed employing the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) Philosophy and Ethics course model. Philosophy for Teenagers aims to provide an innovative introduction to concepts such as the philosophical community of inquiry, formal reasoning and critical thinking, epistemology, free-will and determinism, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, society and culture, and conceptions of death. The introductory concepts addressed in the textbook are explored in philosophy classrooms within Australia and abroad, making it suitable for any high school student of philosophy, regardless of their geography. The essay provides some historical background on secondary philosophy education in Western Australia and presents the insights and ideas of five philosophy educators who were involved in the conception, development and launch of the WACE Philosophy and Ethics course. The experiences, opinions and ideals of these people have, in turn, informed the development of the textbook, and their contributions have helped to shape the text. The essay also provides the rationale and research methodology upon which the textbook has been constructed. It includes a discussion of current and classic adolescent literature, the role of science fiction, primary and contemporary philosophy texts, humanities textbooks, and educational resources recommended for the WACE Philosophy and Ethics course. The essay also includes a report on the results of two focus group studies held with Year Eleven students. This action research was implemented for the purpose of collecting direct feedback from Philosophy and Ethics classes

Book review: In the Interest of National Security: Civilian Internment in Australian during World War II by Klaus Neumann

Book Review: In the Interest of National Security: Civilian Internment in Australian during World War II by Klaus Neumann Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2006, 124pp

Oreste Biringucci and Amor Feretrio: A Mantuan barriera for Carnival 1585

Članek obravnava opis turnirja, ki je potekal na dvoru v Mantovi med karnevalom leta 1585. Naročil ga je dedni princ Vincenzo Gonzaga pri dvornem arhitektu Oresteju Biringucciju. Biringuccijevo poročilo, naslovljeno Apparato e barriera del tempio di Amor Feretrio, opisuje gledališko sceno, sodelujoče plemstvo, predstavljene like (večinoma iz klasične mitologije in junaških del avtorjev, kot so Ludovico Ariosto, Bernardo Tasso in Curzio Gonzaga), pa tudi – zelo nenavadno za tisti čas – dvorne pesnike in glasbenike, ki so sodelovali pri dogodku. Glasba ima v opisu vidno vlogo, saj prihod vsakega bojevnika s solističnim spevom (v dveh primerih je bil to madrigal) naznani kateri izmed mitoloških likov. Eden od madrigalov je bil prepoznan kot antifonalna kompozicija dvornega skladatelja Benedetta Pallavicina. Razprava vključuje angleški prevod omenjenega opisa, povzema življenje in delo Oresteja Biringuccija ter razpravlja o vseh drugih zbranih virih o turnirju, ki se nahajajo v arhivu Gonzaga v Mantovi.The article examines a barriera held at Mantua for carnival 1585, commissioned by the hereditary prince Vincenzo Gonzaga from the court architect Oreste Biringucci. Biringucci’s account of the Apparato e barriera del tempio di Amor Feretrio describes the theatrical setting, the nobility who participated, the characters represented (drawn from classical mythology and chivalric romances by Ludovico Ariosto, Bernardo Tasso and Curzio Gonzaga) and also – most unusually for its time – the court poets and musicians who contributed to this event. Music plays a prominent role, since mythological figures introduce each combatant with solo song – or, in two cases, with madrigals. An antiphonal madrigal by the court composer Benedetto Pallavicino has been identified as a component of the music performed on this occasion. The article offers an English translation of the Apparato, and a short study of the life and works of Oreste Biringucci, together with a corpus of documents relating to the barriera found in the Archivio Gonzaga, Mantua

Cleverness, contentiousness, creativity and curiosity. A meta-analytic investigation of predictors of academic performance

This item is only available electronically.Intelligence and conscientiousness have long been recognised as key predictors of academic performance, but only account for about half of the variance in academic performance (von Stumm et al., 2011). Another factor that has shown promise as a potential predictor of academic performance is intellectual curiosity: the desire to acquire new knowledge (Berlyne, 1954). However, this relationship has arguably not been well established. One measure of intellectual curiosity that remains relatively unexplored is Need for Cognition (NFC), which measures the desire to engage in effortful cognitive activity (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). NFC has been measured together with academic performance with varied findings. The present meta-analysis explores relationships between NFC, academic performance and other predictors of academic performance: namely, intelligence, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. A correlation matrix is derived from 63 studies measuring NFC and one or more of the relevant predictor variables. Structural equation modelling has explored the magnitude and significance of associations between the variables of interest. While moderately correlated with academic performance, NFC is not a significant predictor. This finding suggests that intellectual curiosity may not be such a significant predictor of academic performance as previous research has suggested.Thesis (B.PsychSc(Hons)) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 201

The information infrastructure of land registration in England: a sociology of real estate at the intersection of elites, markets and statistics

This Thesis presents a sociology of the development of land registration in England and examines its relationship to understandings of the housing market, statistics, and elites. Through approaching land registration as an information infrastructure, this research prioritizes the previously overlooked foundations of the housing market, that underpin how it operates and through which it becomes known. To do so, this Thesis combines historical methodologies with computational methods utilising contemporary big data. It seeks to track how land registration in England from its 19th century origins, solidified into an information infrastructure and by utilising this understanding to ask questions of the modern land registration, highlighting these ongoing legacies of elite power, through an analysis of its transactional data. This Thesis is split into three cases. Firstly, an examination of the early land registry, its legal and socio-material organization and standardization, addressing the context of elite aristocratic power in which the system arose. Secondly, an analysis of housing market statistics in the UK, addresses how their relationship to the information infrastructure of land registration has allowed for the exclusion of elite housing practices from official statistics. The third case study, through utilising computational methods, paints a different picture of the UK housing market by adding back in the ‘missing’ houses of contemporary elites, which are owned through offshore shell companies. This research therefore contributes to the study of inequality in the UK through revealing the extent of elite housing wealth held in offshore jurisdictions. Arguing that in order to better identify the relationship between the housing market and elite power the importance of understanding land registration as an information infrastructure underpinning it, cannot be understated

Machine learning classification of human joint tissue from diffuse reflectance spectroscopy data

Objective: To assess if incorporation of DRS sensing into real-time robotic surgery systems has merit. DRS as a technology is relatively simple, cost-effective and provides a non-contact approach to tissue differentiation. Methods: Supervised machine learning analysis of diffuse reflectance spectra was performed to classify human joint tissue that was collected from surgical procedures. Results: We have used supervised machine learning in the classification of a DRS human joint tissue data set and achieved classification accuracy in excess of 99%. Sensitivity for the various classes were; cartilage 99.7%, subchondral 99.2%, meniscus 100% and cancellous 100%. Full wavelength range is required for maximum classification accuracy. The wavelength resolution must be larger than 8nm. A SNR better than 10:1 was required to achieve a classification accuracy greater than 50%. The 800-900nm wavelength range gave the greatest accuracy amongst those investigated. Conclusion: DRS is a viable method for differentiating human joint tissue and has the potential to be incorporated into robotic orthopaedic surgery

Australians in Crete in World War II

© 2019 the author.This paper argues that the Australian involvement in wartime Crete took place in three main phases. In the first phase Australian forces participated in the defence of Crete against German invasion over twelve days in May/June 1941. The second phase began with the surrender of the Allied forces and the stranding on the island of perhaps a thousand Allied soldiers, including Australians. These men “on the run” were forced to rely on the assistance of Cretans for their very survival, and they found the local population remarkably receptive to their needs. The third and final phase grew out of the previous two phases and comprised Australian participation in resistance activities in collaboration with local resistance elements and British forces. The key figure in this regard was Tom Dunbabin, an Australian who became a senior officer with the British Special Operations Executive and who did much to shape the conduct of “irregular” warfare in Crete