Reason-Giving Versus Truth-Seeking: Reconceptualizing Indoctrination in Education
INTRODUCTION In the literature on indoctrination in education, indoctrination is often defined as having occurred when someone holds certain beliefs either non-evidentially or non-rationally. The emphasis in attempts to avoid indoctrination, then, is to teach students to provide reasons for their beliefs, rather than basing their views simply on unquestioned assumptions, or emotional commitments to certain beliefs. I find this notion problematic. To avoid indoctrination, we must not develop reason-givers; rather, I argue that we must develop what I shall call “truth-seekers.”
Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism
Peirce delivered eight public lectures at Harvard between March 26 and May 14, 1903. In publicizing the series, William James conferred on these lectures the title "Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking." Turrisi has done a great service in providing a new edition of these lectures, which were previously published under Peirce's title "Lectures on Pragmatism" in the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce}vol. 5 (Harvard, 1934). This edition of the lectures should be considered a standard reference for Peirce studies until such time as they appear in the authoritative Peirce Edition. Its convenience and cost will make this volume a preferred classroom text for many years to come. Peirce composed his lectures in longhand while in Cambridge,
Nietzsche's Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil
When Nictzsche published Beyond Good and Evil in 1886, he told a friend that it was a book that would not be read properly until "around the year 2000". Now Laurence Lampert sets out to fulfill this prophecy by providing a section by section interpretation of this philosophical masterpiece that emphasises its unity and depth as a comprehensive new doctrine on nature and humanity. According to Lampert, Nietzsche begins with a critique of philosophy that is ultimately affirmative, because it shows how philosophy can arrive at a defensible ontological account of the way of all beings. Nietzsche next argues that a new post-Christian religion can arise out of the affirmation of the world disclosed to philosophy. Then, turning to the implications of the new ontology for morality and politics, Nietzsche argues that these can be reconstituted on the fundamental insights of the new philosophy. Nietzsche's comprehensive depiction of this anti-Platonic philosophy ends with a chapter on nobility, in which he contends that what can now be publicly celebrated as noble in our species are its highest achievements of mind and spirit.