Introduction Kasimpur Going to School The End of Childhood The Teacher and the Taught Teaching and Learning On Memorization and Learning Children's Epistemology 1: Children as Knowers Childres's Epistemology 2: School and Everyday Knowledge Conclusion Appendices Bibliography Index

The concept of knowledge

Constructing school knowledge: an ethnography of learning in an Indian village

Theorists advance differing perspectives on the role played by rhetoric in the acquisition of knowledge: some argue that reality is created by discourse; others contend that reality is distinct from and prior to discourse. This essay investigates the implications to rhetoric of these two alternatives. Underscoring the relativistic dangers of viewing “consensus” as an epistemic criterion, the authors take issue with the thesis that Truth is the product of consensus. It is concluded that rhetoric, if viewed as the process of striving for adherence, can be a tool of critical inquiry moving its practitioners towards the “apprehension” rather than the “creation” of reality.

Beyond rhetorical relativism

Current philosophy of perception has its roots in the assumption of what is sometimes called “the Cartesian epistemological tradition”. These assumptions are: (1) That to understand what knowledge is one must understand what justified belief is; (2) That the justification of a person S’s belief in a contingent proposition is always at least partly constituted by S’s perceptual judgments (“I see that this is red”, “I hear that a dog is barking”, “I smell (that)the house (is) burning”, etc.); (3) That whenever S judges perceptually S has a sensory experience; (4) That S’s perceptual judgment derives its warrant at least partly from propositions about the accompanying sensory experience; (5) That these sensory propositions are self-warranted - They do not derive all of their warrant from other propositions. (This interpretation is defended in Firth [1] and critiqued in Pastin [2].) Current philosophy of perception has its roots in these assumptions in that it has developed from a series of attempts to defend, elaborate, or criticize some of these assumptions, particularly, assumptions (3) to (5).

Philosophy of perception

Taxonomic definitions of politics are chronically unable to extend class properties to the heterogeneous scope of political events, leading to the view that “politics” may be a standard cluster concept. Clusters of properties, however, may be arranged around core terms strongly retentive in ordinary uses of a concept. Some terms are even rigid designators, necessary and sufficient conditions for reference in all possible worlds. The concept of “politics” provides two core terms, “directiveness” and “aggregation,” though not rigid designators. Such a core structure concentrates the standard cluster-analysis of “politics” on extension, not carrying over to all aspects of sense, thus permitting a weak and revised case for taxonomy on nonidentifying core terms. The implications of core terms in the concept of “politics” include the restriction of research-utility as an adequacy criterion and the acceptance of conventional status for distinctions between political and nonpolitical events.

The Structure of “Politics”

(2003). The Redefinition of Memes: Ascribing Meaning to an Empty Cliche. Emergence: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 48-65.

The concept of knowledge

Citations

Constructing school knowledge: an ethnography of learning in an Indian village

Beyond rhetorical relativism

Philosophy of perception

The Structure of “Politics”

The Redefinition of Memes: Ascribing Meaning to an Empty Cliché

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