Showing papers on "Agency (philosophy) published in 1974"

Inequality, Sociology, and Moral Philosophy

Abstract: The theoretical enterprise of moral philosophy has deep roots in both Continental and British philosophy. In Germany Hegel and Kant; in France Rousseau and Les Philosophes; in Scotland the moral philosophers, Frances Hutcheson, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smith; and in England Locke and Mill, aspired to express normative principles for the organization of society.1 Sociology began much later, with aspirations to be a positive science of society, and, befitting such goals, the discipline started as not only a theoretical enterprise but also an empirical one. Despite the differences in their aspirations and modus operandi, moral philosophy and sociology have shared a subject matter, the functioning of society, and the relation of the individual to society. Consequently, it is surprising that except for readings in moral philosophy assigned to students in courses on the historical background of social theory, and for casual reading of modern sociological theory by moral philosophers, sociology and moral philosophy have remained wholly apart, with no interchange of ideas. The same cannot be said of the relation between economics and moral philosophy, for the origins of economic theory may be found in one branch of moral philosophy: classical utilitarianism, as expressed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Along with its aspirations as a positive science economics as a discipline has maintained a parallel set of aspirations as a normative science, principally in the branch of economics known as welfare economics, which continues to hold, perhaps in a narrower context than does moral philosophy, the aim of expressing normative principles for the organization of society.2 In turn, moral philosophy as a theoretical

Robert Boyle and Subversive Religion in the Early Restoration

Abstract: Boyle's natural philosophy as it evolved in the 1660s was the product in part of some competing philosophies and theologies. Since he defined his own thought in terms of these others, one of the best ways of understanding it and its origins would seem to be to study it in relation to this context of competing ideas—especially as this has never before been done for Boyle. This was no mere battle over philosophical and religious ideas; beneath the surface lay extreme ideological differences; the nature of society and government was at stake just as it was in Boyle's dialogue with the sects in the late 1640s and the 1650s. Indeed some of his opponents in the 1660s still represent positions against which he argued before the Restoration, and these are the ones I wish to consider here.In 1665 or 1666 Boyle wrote A Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature. By “the vulgarly received notion of nature” he means the conception deriving from ancient Greek philosophy, both Platonic and Aristotelian, that there is a governing agency in nature apart from God which cannot be reduced to the mechanical principles of matter and motion. This agency is called variously plastic nature, the astral spirits or the soul of the world, and as Boyle says is conceived by “the schools” as “a being that…does always that which is best.” Boyle's intention is to show that his own idea of nature is preferable to this Peripatetic and Platonic one because his goes further than its rival towards a proper understanding of the relations between Creator and creation.

Age of Creative Insecurity: Student-Centered Learning.

Abstract: "Education, like fresh rolls, goes stale. And in today's Knowledge Society, the problem is not getting new in. formation: it is developing new ways to learn, and to apply new knowledge." 1"EDUCATION" is an integral part of the American social process and tends to reflect society's basic characteristics. The success ethic is one of the most important of these characteristics. Very early in a student's life, the teacher is established as an authority figure.2 The teacher's power to influence the direction and possible outcome of a student's future has an impact at once reassuring and forbidding. Constant reinforcement of the teacher's importance leads, more often than not, to an unquestioning attitude on the part of the student. Students quickly realize that by pleasing the teacher, i.e., by doing the assigned work, they will receive good grades-a token of the teacher's pleasure and a welcome relief to their parents. Predictability in academic performance is rewarded.What then do we have? A social institution which has substituted means for ends. Grades are paramount, and education is only secondary. In this climate success becomes equated with conformity. Creative energies are stifled and our educational system becomes an agency for social control. Success based on the banal practicalities of yesterday deadens the spirit. "To gain the independence, freedom and security required for creativity, the normal individual has to reject this concept of success." 3Our graduate students are caught in an out-of-synch phase. Bits and pieces of the old system of education have been replaced by innovative and often far-reaching programs, but the old philosophy remains. No new guiding spirit of sufficient strength to supplant the old ethic has yet been invoked. In 1967, Marshall McLuhan predicted that .. the very first casualty of the present-day school system may very well be the business of teacher-led instruction as we now know it. . . . Education will be more concerned with training the senses and perception than with stuffing brains." 4 Nevertheless, grades, the teacher as authority figure, and the success ethic remain as constant reminders of a system more concerned with the source of a statement than with its content.Doubts concerning the efficacy of traditional teaching methods have led to experimentation with other techniques. Frequently, emphasis is placed on student-centered teaching rather than instructor-centered methods. The assumption is that university learning based on the lecture method with questions and discussion is (1) "insufficiently experimental," (2) "too authoritarian," (3) "too passive in the role in which it places students," (4) "too detached from students' on-going lives, their hopes and involvements, the points where their psychic energy is most involved," and .( S) "too impersonal." II In "Participative Management in the College Classroom" R. H. Killmann cites several studies which support the hypothesis that student-centered teaching is more effective in stimulating critical thinking among students.8Student-centered teaching results when students are allowed (1) to set classroom objectives, (2) to establish means of arriving at .these objectives, and (3) to evaluate progress toward attainment of these objectives. Before students can assume this novel role it is usually necessary to unfreeze traditional forms of response. Reducing the formal classroom structure, or "unstructuring," is part of the change process. Methods to reduce the structure of the classroom environment have been developed in order to facilitate the generation of student involvement or participation in the education process. Within this pattern the instructor assists student activity but does not direct it. Participation will, in theory, increase student motivation and classroom performance will improve.This article is a study of participation in the classroom. It focuses on a course in library management and the effect the process of unstructuring has on efforts to encourage student-centered learning. …