The Philosophical Influences of Mao Zedong: Notations, Reflections and Insights by Robert Elliott Allinson

Philosophy and philosophy of education cannot be separated; both have a very close relationship. Moreover, the philosophy of Islamic education undeniably has a connection with Western educational philosophy as an initial inspirator of the philosophical movement in Islam. This research is a qualitative study with a literature review. The data is taken from various related literatures. The focus is on (1) the relationship between Philosophy and Philosophy of Education, (2) the historical development of Western philosophy of education, (3) the historical development of Islamic philosophy of education, and (4) the comparison of Western and Islamic philosophy of education. The results are: (1) philosophy of education is defined as a normative science in the domain of education, (2) philosophy of education focuses on two normative scientific functions: formulating the foundation, goals, and understanding of the nature of humans, as well as the essence of the realm of education, (3) Western philosophy of education tends to emphasize education oriented towards progress and prioritizes logic, (4) Islamic philosophy of education emerged due to the advancement of Islam during the Abbasid golden age, (5) the similarities between Western and Islamic philosophy of education lie in nativistic, empiricist, and convergence theories, while the differences are that Western philosophy is anthropocentric and Islamic philosophy is theocentric, Western philosophy is based on human thought, Islamic philosophy is based on revelation dialogued with reason, Western philosophy focuses on knowledge, Islamic philosophy bases itself as a religion, Western philosophy considers evaluation to be done by oneself and others, while Islamic philosophy it to be done by oneself, others, and God.

Knowledge and its various perceptions from the ancient times to the Islamic and the modern era constitute essentials bedrock of Islamic and Western system of education. Knowledge in the Islamic world finds its basis in the Qur'ān as well as the in the Muslim philosophies of education, while the Western education is based on the Western philosophies besides the physiological educational concepts which developed in the 20 th century. Both philosophies, Islamic and Western, have led to the development of two distinct systems of education currently prevalent in the Muslim world, particularly in Pakistan. The inadequacy of the Islamic system of education to meet the challenges of today has been long felt. This paper attempts to investigate into this broad field of inquiry in the hope that its serves to understand the educational superstructures raised on two philosophies of education. Further, it highlights how the Islamic systems initiated the spread of education initially and yet with time it lost its appeal. It has been shown how the later philosophies of education in the West have dominated the world and today's educational scenario with the lesson that the Muslim world should heed to the demands of the modern times and improve their systems of education. Keywords - Knowledge and its perceptions, the Islamic philosophy of education, the Western philosophy of education, Educational concepts of knowledge, the Islamic vis-a-vis western system of education.

While there is scholarly consensus that African philosophy of education is primarily orientated towards reclamation, restoration and re-legitimisation of African epistemology, worldview, identity and values, the person of an African philosopher of education is a debate that has received scanty scholarly focus. What makes someone an African philosopher of education? Is it a matter of race, indigeneity or academic qualification? These seemingly rhetorical questions are important in the era of popularised academic discourses such as Africanisation, internationalisation, continentalisation and decolonisation of African higher education. Additionally, this chapter is also concerned with African philosophy of (higher) education often being designed in juxtaposition to the Western or Eurocentric version. For instance, Waghid argues that communitarianism, in which human interdependency is critical, is a distinctive feature of African philosophy of education. Such an assertion suggests that Western-orientated philosophy(ies) of education is conceptually devoid of communitarian aspects. Perhaps the conceptual juxtaposition of African to Western philosophy of education and the resurgence of African philosophy of education should be understood within the scope of postcolonial Africa as one of the endeavours to countervail Western-centric epistemic hegemony in African higher education.

In South Africa, indigenous (African) knowledge is at the heart of a single detailed national Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (2012). Against this background, the study on which this article is based, examined two long-standing genres of philosophy: Western philosophy, as a critical academic discipline and African philosophy, as a collective worldview. The article shows that universal philosophy and, by implication, a universal knowledge system transcends these seemingly particular, opposite and irreconcilable Euro- centred and Afro-centred schools of thought. In doing so, the article proposes that universal philosophy as an inclusive, rational and reflective practice makes it possible to merge Western and African philosophies to form a single knowledge system. Unfortunately, the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement emphasises indigenous African knowledge systems – thus, regresses to narrow African provincialism. In the end, the author (re)establishes a universal knowledge system as a sound African philosophy of education in post-apartheid South African schools.

In Chinese philosophy, modern processes of searching for the fundamental values of the renewed strategies of education are based upon traditional Confucian approaches as well as upon recent borrowings from Western philosophy. The concept of philosophical dialogue is one example of these borrowings, adopted and radically changed following traditional Chinese logic. Such transformation means adapting the theoretical model of Socrates’ dialogue into Confucian dialogue, the term coined by Chinese authors. This paper considers Chinese developments in the philosophy of culture and aims to specify the ways of such adaptation as applicable to the philosophy of education. The goals of the study are 1) to identify and describe relevant Chinese literature on the subject; 2) to compare its interpretations by Chinese and Russian philosophers; 3) to specify key differences in interpretations of dialogue as educational method. Investigating the issue through philosophical and cultural lens, incorporating the standpoint of modern comparative studies, as well as the critical analysis of the logic of those theories in their historical and cultural context by means of the hermeneutic approach makes it possible for Chinese authors to focus on the cultural peculiarities of the Chinese way of thinking and to identify the correlation between the Western concept way of thinking and the concept of Chinese logic. This study analyzes the works of modern Chinese philosophers specializing in the specific cultural character of China through the prism of the philosophy of education. The paper concludes that in Chinese logic technical (in the Western understanding regarded as cognitive and formal logical) methods are inferior to ethical and social value orientations. Another finding is that Chinese authors tend to consider Confucian logic as part of dialogue, and dialogue is viewed as a means of moral education. Methodologically this finding leads the author to suggest that the Chinese-specific way of thinking, its philosophical culture, cannot be fully perceived by utilizing comparison with analogous concepts of Western philosophical thought. It would be equally beneficial to compare the conceptual framework of the Chinese philosophy of education with the concepts borrowed from Western philosophy.

Joel J. Kupperman, 1936–2020 Diana Tietjens Meyers (bio) It is with deep sadness that I report the death of Joel Kupperman, University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He died in Brooklyn, New York on April 8, 2020. Joel received both his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and his PhD from Cambridge University. He joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Connecticut in 1960. Except for visiting Trinity College, Oxford as a lecturer in 1970, two years supported by NEH fellowships, and fellowships at Clare Hall, Cambridge and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he remained at UConn until his retirement from teaching in 2013. In addition to these major national and international awards, Joel received the Faculty Excellence in Research award from the UConn Foundation in 2004. A widely recognized and influential scholar, Joel specialized in ethics, aesthetics, and Asian philosophy. He published numerous journal articles and chapters in all three fields. Two early books resist subjectivism in ethics: Ethical Knowledge (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970; reprint Routledge, 2002) and The Foundations of Morality (London and Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983; reissue from Routledge, forthcoming in 2022). In his monographs, Joel’s long-standing interest in Chinese philosophy first became prominent in Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) and Value . . . And What Follows (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Joel’s scholarship in Asian philosophy long predated the recent professional awakening to non-Western philosophical traditions. Initially, he studied Chinese philosophy with H. G. Creel at the University of Chicago, and in 1967 he traveled to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan to continue his studies. In the 1980s he created Asian philosophy courses at all levels of the UConn undergraduate and graduate curriculum. His scholarship and pedagogical initiatives were visionary. Regarded as a classic by many in the field, his Learning from Asian Philosophy nimbly integrates insights from classical Chinese and Indian philosophy as well as Western philosophy into nuanced accounts of the self, choice, moral psychology, moral requirements, and interpersonal communication (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Chinese translation, Beijing: Renmin Press, 2009). That Joel delivered the keynote lecture at the [End Page 1] conference honoring the ninetieth anniversary of the Peking University Philosophy Department as well as the keynote lecture at the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy’s 2011 meeting in Hawai‘i are two measures of the importance of this book. Click for larger view View full resolution Joel Kupperman (1936–2020) during his keynote speech at the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy 43rd annual conference, May 25–28, 2011 in Honolulu. In addition, Joel published books that would be valuable to professional philosophers and that would also reach college students and the larger educated public. Notable among these are Theories of Human Nature (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2010), Ethics and Qualities of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), Six Myths about the Good Life: Thinking about What Has Value (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006), and Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; second edition, 2006). When it became possible for Chinese students to come to the United States to study, Joel attracted some of them to the UConn philosophy department. Like all the graduate students, they studied Western philosophy. But thanks to Joel, they were able to study Chinese philosophy as well. Joel received the Faculty Excellence in Teaching award from the UConn Foundation in 1973. Upon his retirement, two of his Ph.D. students, Chenyang Li and Peimin Ni, celebrated his career by publishing a festschrift containing chapters by leading scholars: Moral Cultivation and Confucian [End Page 2] Character: Engaging Joel J. Kupperman (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014). Joel is survived by his wife, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, his two children, Michael Kupperman and Charlie Kupperman, and a grandchild, Ulysses Kupperman Dougherty. His colleagues and many students join me in sympathy over their loss. His singular voice and distinctive presence are irreplaceable. In honor of Joel and his philosophical legacy, the department and Joel’s family have set up a graduate fellowship fund in his name to provide some financial support for Ph.D. students in the UConn Philosophy...

‘Introduction: China's unfinished revolution’ provides a general overview of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese revolutions had favoured modernism over Confucianism since the formation of the People's Republic in 1911 and the rise of the May 4th movement. The May 4th movement emphasised that culture was intended to serve politics, which influenced the Communist Party and Mao Zedong. Revolutionary China was initially successful despite criticism, but the Great Leap Forward caused a disastrous famine. Mao sought to overcome this catastrophe by rekindling the class struggle, mobilizing the masses into politics. The Cultural Revolution started with revolution, but descended into paranoia and repression. After Mao's death, the Cultural Revolution was disavowed.

Reviewed by: The Korean War in World History Lester H. Brune (bio) The Korean War in World History. Edited by William Stueck. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2004. 216 pages. $35.00 cloth. In this book's introduction, William Stueck reviews each author's topic as first presented during a symposium on the Korean War at Texas A & M University. The introduction should make it clear the book is meant for scholars, not for those unfamiliar with the Korean War. My brief review of each essay begins with Allan R. Millett's essay on the [End Page 172] "Korean People: Missing in Action in the Misunderstood War." Millett starts with an explanation of the Russo-Japanese War, which began in 1904 and concluded after U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Peace Treaty between the two warring parties. Millett gives details about various Korean resistance movements against Japan after the 1904 war that were too weak to succeed until World War II ended. Late in 1945, the Koreans began what Millett calls the "People's War" with U.S. army forces backing Syngman Rhee's nationalist militants while Moscow and Beijing helped Kim Il Sung's communist forces advance south to the 38th parallel. Finally, in June 1950, North Korean forces aided by the Soviet Union's aircraft attacked South Korea. Immediately, President Harry Truman obtained United Nations support before ordering U.S.-led United Nations forces to help South Koreans defend their homes. The conflict was further internationalized when Chinese "volunteers" entered the war on October 24, 1950. Following China's intervention, the war became a strategic stalemate that led to a cease-fire and demilitarized zone in July 1953. Kathryn Weathersby's essay describes the "Soviet Role in the Korean War." She uses data from Soviet archives that became available after the Cold War ended in December 1991. The new material from Russian archives and the works of other scholars gave Weathersby essential information for scholars to analyze relations between Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang. She explains many important Soviet matters such as Stalin's "requesting Chinese intervention" (p. 74) soon after U.S. Marines landed at Inchon to recapture Seoul. Weathersby also found Russian documents to confirm that Stalin's death in March 1953 was a major reason for the Communists to accept an armistice. Chen Jian's essay on "China's Road to the Korean War Revisited" demonstrates that China had three major reasons for intervening in the Korean War. First was the Chinese Communist Party's belief in revolutionary nationalism. Second was China's sense of responsibility for Asia-wide or world-wide revolution that included Indochina (Vietnam) as well as Korea. Third was Mao Zedong's desire "to maintain the inner dynamics of the Chinese revolution after its nationwide victory" (p. 94) in 1949. Chen uses Chinese and Russian sources to verify that Mao and Stalin formed their Sino-Soviet alliance of friendship and security during Mao's visit to Moscow from December 1949 to February 1950. Previously, Mao had made an agreement to help North Korean troops because Kim II Sung helped Mao win the civil war against Chiang Kai-Shek in early 1948. When the Korean war ended in 1953, Chen finds that all organized Chinese resistance to Mao ended, the landlord class was destroyed, Communists controlled the nationalist middle class, and Chinese intellectuals had experienced their first round of reeducation. This enabled China to emerge "as a revolutionary country in East Asia and the world" (p. 115). Lloyd Gardner's article on "Korean Borderlands: Imaginary Frontiers of [End Page 173] the Cold War" deals with borders that U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and President Harry Truman hoped to secure for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (Formosa). Gardner refers to the Truman administration's problems with Mc-Carthyism at home, with the Soviet Union in Berlin and Austria, and the Soviets' making an atomic bomb in 1949. Referring to Acheson's January 1950 National Press Club speech, Gardner believes that, unlike critics who saw the speech as bypassing the security of South Korea, Acheson "spoke directly to American concerns about preserving American influence there and elsewhere" (p. 134). In...

Documenting Three Gorges Migrants: Gendered Voices of (Dis)placement and Citizenship in Rediscovering the Yangtze River and Bingai Daisy Yan Du (bio) What is displaced—dispersed, deferred, repressed, pushed aside—is, significantly, still there: Displaced but not replaced, it remains a source of trouble, the shifting ground of signification that makes meanings tremble. —Angelika Bammer, introduction to Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question First envisioned by Sun Zhongshan in 1919 and later supported by Jiang Jieshi and Mao Zedong, the Three Gorges Dam—dubbed “the Great Wall across the Yangtze River”—has always been a controversial project among Chinese citizens. After the 1989 Tiananmen demonstration, Li Peng, the hardliner who quelled that movement, also stifled the dam’s opponents and finally managed to get the project approved by the National People’s Congress in 1992. The construction of the dam began in 1994 and was fully completed by 2009. It is the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, serving the functions of electricity generation, flood control, and navigation control. As a megadam, it has provoked criticism worldwide. Besides its environmental costs, the dam’s most controversial consequence is the resettlement of more than two million citizens displaced from their hometowns along the six-hundred-kilometer reservoir area in Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality (formerly in Sichuan Province). There are essentially three ways these citizens can be relocated: through vertical migration up the mountain slope above the submersion line, through migration to nearby villages, or through distant migration to other counties or provinces along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. While Hubei Province has adopted a policy of intraprovincial resettlement, Chongqing has opted [End Page 27] for interprovincial resettlement, because of its already large population (Padovani 2006, 101–2). Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. The Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam site. Courtesy of Alex Jianzhong Chen. Numerous studies have charted the Three Gorges Dam resettlement, but most of them were conducted from a social science perspective, which centered primarily on macrosocioeconomic factors. In contrast, in this essay I pay particular attention to aesthetic representations of the dam and resettlement, focusing on two documentary accounts of the dam’s impact on rural migrant citizens. Rediscovering the Yangtze River (CCTV 2006) is a state-sponsored documentary produced by China Central Television (CCTV), and Bingai (Yan Feng 2007) is an “underground/independent” documentary film (Pickowicz 2006).1 Because the documentary is a unique artistic form that oscillates “between the recognition of historical reality and the recognition of a representation about it” (Nichols 2001, 39), I firmly locate my analysis of these representations in their larger sociohistorical context, which includes the dam’s distinct repercussions for female citizens and the very concept of citizenship in China. Citizenship, which is [End Page 28] materialized in identity cards and passports, is usually understood in legal, political, and social terms according to the politics of inclusion and exclusion. In contrast to this traditional understanding of citizenship as a fixed identity status in relation to the state, my study approaches citizenship as a fluid identification. A citizen may or may not fully identify with the state and feel like a citizen despite his or her legal citizenship. Thus I emphasize the cultural, symbolic, emotional, and psychological dimension of citizenship, based on the politics of recognition and belonging. The issue of citizenship becomes especially contested when it intersects with migration, because “migration and especially forced migration, is a conceptual disruption of citizenship in the historical nation-state system” (Dobrowolsky and Tastsoglou 2006, 23). Forced migration not only affects the legal citizenship of migrants, but also has a tremendous impact on the cultural and psychological dimension of citizenship as a result of migrants’ experience of dislocation. My discussion of the disruption of citizenship caused by the Three Gorges Dam resettlement revolves around the key word “(dis)placement,” which refers not only to physical deterritorialization, but also to migrants’ sense of placement or displacement in relation to the state. Because gender plays a significant role in how one experiences (dis) placement, in this essay I seek to unravel the intertwined relationship between gender, the cultural and psychological dimension of citizenship, and resettlement as represented in the two...

Reviewed by: A Passage to China: Literature, Loyalism, and Colonial Taiwan by Chien-hsin Tsai Emma J. Teng A Passage to China: Literature, Loyalism, and Colonial Taiwan by Chien-hsin Tsai. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017. Pp. xiv + 342. $49.95 cloth. Chien-hsin Tsai's A Passage to China: Literature, Loyalism, and Colonial Taiwan plays on the dual meanings of "passage" to offer a highly original examination of the theme of loyalism and the figure of the loyalist in colonial Taiwan's literature. Focusing on authors who traveled to China, sometimes via Japan, Tsai demonstrates how they creatively deployed and adapted loyalist ideals and tropes from the Chinese literary tradition in order to work through Taiwan's abandonment by the Qing (1636–1912), the vicissitudes of Japanese colonialism, and the search for a Taiwanese identity in the modern world. Tsai argues that the tradition of loyalism cannot be interpreted as an unquestioned and [End Page 400] unchanging essential tie between Taiwan and China, but rather reveals the complications and contradictions of this historical link. Like other works in Taiwan studies, the book makes a case for "why Taiwan matters."1 It also contributes more broadly to the field of sinophone literary studies as well as to the theoretical discussion of postloyal criticism in comparative terms. The texts examined by Tsai showcase the linguistic diversity of literary production in colonial Taiwan, including works written in classical Chinese, vernacular Mandarin, Japanese, and experimental attempts to transcribe the Taiwanese (Southern Min 閩) regional speech using Chinese scripts. They furthermore span the genres of poetry, travelogue, short story, novella, novel, essay, drama, and more. The introductory chapter lays out the trajectory of the author's critical concerns "from loyalism to postloyalism" (p. 1) and establishes the importance of the figure of the loyalist (yimin 遺民) in the Chinese literary and cultural tradition. First demonstrating how the tradition of loyalism "went through another existential and cultural reconfiguration after the end of the Qing [dynasty]" (p. 34), Tsai further makes his case for why Taiwan matters, arguing that Taiwanese writers' creative reinventions of loyalist culture and identity in colonial Taiwan provide fresh insights into questions of loyalism and postloyalism. He shows how the history of Taiwan's conquest and settlement by Han Chinese, dating back to the 1661 occupation of the island by Ming (1368–1644) loyalist Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功; 1624–1662), produced a particular entanglement between yimin as loyalist and the homophonous term yimin 移民, meaning "immigrant settler." The notion of loyalism in colonial Taiwan was complicated by the legacy of Ming loyalism, as the island's Han Chinese settlers faced first the demise of Koxinga and the Qing conquest of the Chinese empire, then the Japanese colonization of Taiwan, and finally the 1911 Revolution in China, celebrated by some Taiwanese as a belated victory of the old Ming loyalists over the Manchu Qing. Linking literary history to contemporary issues, Tsai further considers the legacy of loyalism for post-1949 Taiwan, which became a bastion of anti-Communist Republican loyalism under Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 (1887–1975). [End Page 401] Chapter 1, "Qiu Fengjia and Lyric Poetry after Trauma," examines the Chinese classical-style poetry-history (shishi 詩史) of Qiu Fengjia 丘逢甲 (1864–1912), the most outstanding Taiwanese poet of his era. Qiu's life spanned the cession of Taiwan to Japan in 1895, the brief establishment of the independent Republic of Formosa (1895–1896), and the Republican Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Qing. A descendent of Hakka 客家 immigrants from Guangdong, Qiu received a classical Chinese education in Taiwan. In 1889, he traveled to Beijing, where he sat for and passed the highest level of the civil examination. After a brief spell as an official in Beijing, Qiu became disillusioned with bureaucratic life and returned home to Taiwan. His quiet life as a teacher and poet was soon disrupted, however, by Taiwan's cession to Japan, a traumatic event captured in this brilliantly sketched scene of collective crying that opens Tsai's chapter: It was the mad year of 1895. The whole island of Taiwan, all of a sudden, displayed a key symptom of hysteria—collective crying. People burst into tears when the news report reached their ears...

Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II

A Study on Mao Zedong's Educational Philosophy in Contemporary China

The purpose of the present study is to provide educators with a simple, brief, and easy-to-read text on western philosophy while specifically raising awareness about philosophies of education. Basic terminology such as ontology, epistemology, and paradigm are defined, and their relationships with educational philosophy as well as the role of the teachers and students are explained. Following an explanation and discussion of the major existing philosophies that have affected education throughout history, the present article provides modified definitions of learning and education and suggests a new way of thinking that is closely related to postmodernism, namely posthumanistic philosophy. These new definitions are presumed to guide and influence not only the theoretical works in education but also the practical applications.

On Manuscript Styles A. G. Rud What manuscript style to use in a journal is a seemingly small detail. I imagine that some editors or editorial boards give little thought to this item. Manuscript style can seem to some like a cosmetic bit of trivia, much like what colors are used on a cover. They may assert that style is of no great importance to the content of the journal. Others may be so used to using a particular style that they do so with little thought, or even resist using a different style altogether. Education is an interdisciplinary field where contributions may come from the social sciences or the humanities, as well as the natural sciences. I mostly deal with contributions from scholars in humanities and social sciences, and the journal styles reflect that. The publication style of the American Psychological Association (APA) certainly rules in my college and is accepted here. Very few of my colleagues question whether an article or vita should use anything else. I have learned to use APA style over the years, and now even default to it, so well-trained have I become. I do find that some of its infelicities, such as the author/date in-text citation system, can make a paper difficult to read. I was trained in Chicago style, common to humanists. Though in-text citations are permitted, most scholars who use Chicago style opt for foot- or end-notes. Rounding out my experience with different styles, I have used MLA on one occasion, finding it pleasing and elegant. For one article I coauthored in a scientific journal, I used a style called Harvard, which I have yet to see again. I would like to think that by signaling that several styles are acceptable for the journal, we are not confused, but open to scholars from multiple traditions. At least that is the intent of allowing more than one house style. It certainly helps to have such a superb editor as Margaret Hunt when navigating such work, as she has an eagle eye for errors or omissions. Incidentally, it was Dr. Hunt who encouraged more than one style when I had my doubts, for much the same reasons as I have stated here. Many authors who contribute to this journal use the shorthand citation of Dewey's complete published works in the Southern Illinois University Press edition. I doubt we will make that a requirement; again, we want to be open to scholars who may not have ever seen EW, MW, or LW. But if we do go the route of this shorthand, I am prepared, as I now have the complete works on CD-ROM at my disposal, courtesy of the Center for Dewey Studies and its director, Larry Hickman. We begin this issue with a paper from a German Dewey scholar, Kersten Reich. He looks at the context of the German school and university system to argue for the value of "interactive constructivism," connecting it to Deweyan pragmatism. [End Page 5] Leonard Waks, in his article "Re-reading Democracy and Education Today: John Dewey on Globalization and Democratic Education," asserts that Dewey's text can give us "immediate practical guidance" for understanding globalization and multiculturalism. Fred Harris looks too at how Dewey can help us understand our world today by arguing that "Dewey's metaphysics of stability and precariousness is implicit in his philosophy of education and provides a unifying aspect to his philosophy of education that is relevant to the modern world." Michele Moses and Michael Nanna turn a critical eye on today's high stakes assessment systems, a topic of a number of submissions to this journal. They hark back to Dewey to argue that "high stakes testing reforms, driven as they are by political and cultural ideology and concerns for efficiency and economic productivity, serve to impede the development of real equality of educational opportunity, particularly for the least advantaged students. As John Dewey wrote some 70 years ago: '[w]hat avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul' (1938, p. 49...

INTRODUCTION In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty argues that Western philosophy as a discipline attempts to be the ground of all claims to knowledge made by science, morality, art or religion. As such, philosophy perceives itself as having a special understanding of the nature of knowledge and mind, making it an epistemologically centered philosophy. In which case, explains Rorty, “its central concern is to be a general theory of representation, a theory which will divide culture up into the areas which represent reality well, those which represent it less well, and those which do not represent it at all.” Philosophy of education also embraces this overemphasis on epistemology, and as such is preoccupied with education as a problem of knowing, which is less of a core concern for Africana thought. This is illustrated by Africana thought’s focus not simply on racist epistemologies or beliefs but on their ontological content. It is with this in mind that Africana people, says Lewis Gordon, are a “black people” and hence are significantly impacted by race and racism. Frantz Fanon, too, implies this focus of Africana thought in his comment: “I came into the world imbued with the will to find meanings in things. My spirit filled with the desire to attain to the source of the world, and then found that I was an object in the midst of other objects.”