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Since the very beginnings of Western thought, anthropology and education have been linked. Even though the term ‘anthropology’ was only coined in the 16th century (Marquard 1971), and even though using it anachronistically, avant la lettre, is somewhat problematical, the resonance between education and anthropology is manifest in Plato’s Republic as well as in the writings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquinas. This resonance cannot be denied: neither in the 17th century in the works of Comenius, nor in the 18th century in the writings of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, nor yet in the 19th century in Kant’s, Herbart’s, Humboldt’s, and Schleiermacher’s oeuvre. In the course of the 20th century, anthropology and anthropological modes of observation grew steadily in infl uence in numerous academic disciplines, and particularly within philosophy. Max Scheler sees the starting point of this interest in anthropology in the following situation: “In about ten thousand years of history, our era is the fi rst in which man has become ‘problematical’ through and through, but also the fi rst in which he does not know what he actually is, and at the same time knows he doesn’t know.” That situation constitutes the starting point of educational anthropology, which has, since the second half of the 20th century, developed into an important fi eld of educational knowledge.
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Two distinct but related issues in the ethics of grading and testing will concern me in this paper. The fi rst of these is the charge, associated in the past two decades with libertarian educational theory, that the common practice of grading students' work is intrinsically coercive.1 The second is the larger national debate about ‘authentic’ assessment, educational standards, and standardised measures of educational outcomes. With respect to the latter issue, my particular concern is the moral grounds that can be adduced in support of new measures of educational achievement or progress. There are important connections between these issues, and one I shall pursue here is that in developing an account of the ethics of grading rich enough to generate a satisfactory response to the charge of coercion, one also uncovers moral grounds for preferring some of the newer forms of standardised measures over the kind of multiple-choice examinations that have prevailed in recent decades. In essence, I will argue that there are morally preferable forms of measures, adaptable to both classroom and standardised uses, which constitute an acceptable middle way between a condemnation of all grading and testing and an acceptance of the status quo that has prevailed.
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Nancy Fraser gave this interview for the forthcoming special issue of Critique and Humanism journal focused on gender studies developments and edited by Marina Liakova and Viara Angelova. The issue is presenting the debates on the social construction of gender currently ongoing in the fi elds of humanities. It is publishing special contributions by authors from Bulgaria, Germany, Norway, USA, etc. The papers deal with the inequality issues of the sexual minorities in differing social and historical contexts. The problems of scrutiny regard the political and economic inclusion of the sexually different, their marginalization at the labour market their juridical differentiation and so on. The issue is detecting the novel developments in the gender theories and remains open for contributions until October 30th, 2008.
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One of the greatest challenges that the fi rst democratically elected government in South Africa has been addressing since 1994 is the country’s transformation from apartheid education to democratic education. In order to democratise education and redress the inequalities of apartheid, a series of policy changes has taken place in line with the new South African Constitution of 1996. The fi ve main principles identifi ed by the African National Congress that feature prominently in the new education policy documents are non-racism, non-sexism, democracy, a unitary system, and redress (National Education Policy Investigation 1993). A true democracy is dependent on democratic education, and democratic education requires, among other things, democratic teaching and management, the development of critical thinking, and the development of participative, reciprocal, non-discriminatory relationships among members involved in an educational setting. Although the structures for development in South African schools are in place and current education policy documents are primarily directed towards the democratisation of education, it would be incorrect to conclude that educational life in South Africa is already following a democratic mode. Democratic societies need to be open in order to fl ourish, and in an open society, certain attitudes and perspectives must be cultivated: asking questions – even unwanted questions; engaging oneself in critical, yet respectful discourses; being prepared to learn from mistakes.
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three basic experiences in the history of education and by drawing some conclusions from them. I start, of course, from the premise that without freedom, no education is possib le. And let me defi ne ‘education,’ somewhat brutally, as the activity of sustaining, extending, and transmitting the culture of a civilisation. These three activities, of course, cannot be clearly distinguished: each involves the other. The fi rst moral and social philosopher was Socrates, who drew on a tradition that owed much to earlier thinkers, called, signifi cantly, ‘pre-Socratics.’ Socrates promoted a bracing scepticism about both gods and majorities, and the Athenian democracy put him to death for it in 399 BC. Those early dialogues in which Pla to represented Socrates are in themselves an excellent education in the logic of inquiry. In particular, Socrates insisted on demanding clarity about the object of discussion as the precondition for advancing understanding. In Socratic thought, philosophy consisted in a critical examination of the ideas we all use in making sense of the world we live in. It was a crucial element in this inquiry that we ought not to be impressed by the fact that everybody accepts the belief being examined. Truth was not a matter of counting votes. The enormous signifi cance of Socra tes is that his life and his teaching united to make him not only an exemplar but virtually a martyr in the cause of knowledge. His submission to the verdict of the Athenian people (rather than taking the opportunity to run away from Athens) was itself based on a point of logic – namely, that the very life one leads implies a principle of conduct. To belong entails submitting to the law.
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Within the context of the increasing interest in sensory perception during the period from 1450 to 1650, we fi nd an unexpected phenomenon: an astonishing tendency to render dependent on linguistic usage the common understanding of things, beings, and facts of nature or the environment.1 Evidence of this can be found in a wide variety of reference works relating either to dialectics or to the methodology of learning, the ratio studiorum,2 or again in conceptually structured encyclopaedias of universal knowledge.3 Through an analysis of Aristotelian texts used in schools, the present study provides evidence of the reciprocal relationship between the dynamic, highly individual process of ‘learning through experience’4 and the constraints of the existing terminology. By concentrating specifi cally on the learning process, it becomes possible to recognise the normative or quasi-normative principles on which teaching methods were based. The precise manner in which these affected perception comes to light, refl exively as it were, through an examination of the measures that were employed for training the senses. By this means, it will be possible to describe more clearly the contribution of the senses to the learning process that was formulated conceptually and employed in the teaching of philosophy in the 16th century universities and academies with the express goal of understanding the universe.
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Although the phenomenon of negativity is central to any understanding of human learning, the term ‘negativity’ brings about misunderstandings and a lack of clarity. As Burgos states, “the very issue of negativity tends to be viewed in a negative way because of its association with certain moral or epistemic values” (Burgos 2004: 430). Our contribution discusses the relation of learning and passion (Leidenschaft*) within the negativity of learning. Arguing the possibilities of classical Greek understanding of pathos as passion, we use the term ‘passion’ following the Greek understanding of pathos2 and the German understanding of Leidenschaft*. Contrary to modern thinking, passion in the Greek ‘tradition’ is not understood as a subjective feeling but – far from that – as an indomitable experience one cannot fl ee from. In this respect, Bernhard Waldenfels clarifi es that one does not have passion (pathos) as one ‘has’ a feeling.3 One is, however, committed to a passion that has happened to oneself. Being committed to passion, learning is set in motion. By focusing on the dimension of passion, we intend to explore the relevance of passion in the process of learning. The article will explore the question of how learning gathers momentum from negativity of experience. Therefore, the passionate aspects of learning will be reconsidered and refl ected upon as an investigation into historical and philosophical traces. We intend to present new perspectives on learning in educational theory stressing the constitutive aspects of passion (Leidenschaft*) in learning. Our analysis also aims at clarifying the process (Vollzug*) of learning in the discourse of educational sciences, precisely in the discourse of philosophy of education.
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