Oxford School Research Articles

From the Ordinary to the Everyday

Abstract This is a new English translation of “De l’ordinaire au quotidien,” originally published in French in 2023. In paragraph 116 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein seems to outline the fundamental goal of his philosophy: “What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.” The everyday use to which Wittgenstein constantly refers is far from self-evident: it is just as elusive and indeterminate as our forms of life. The project of Philosophical Investigations is not to replace disqualified logic with the study of use, finding therein a new foundation or new convictions, even purely practical ones. The study of everyday language use presents new problems, arduous in a different way from those of logical analysis, as J. L. Austin and the Oxford School later showed—the same school that, in coining the term Ordinary language philosophy, formalized the Ordinary rather than the Everyday as a central concept. The present article considers several reasons for returning to the concept of the Everyday, Wittgenstein’s point of departure, in the philosophy of language.

Pluralism and corporate governance reform

PurposeThe article considers the utility of a pluralist perspective in the context of current debates around UK corporate governance reform. Oxford School pluralism advanced both a description of how industrial relations (IR) operated in practice plus a prescription for how it should operate. Whilst economic conditions are different today, a pluralist framing provides not only a useful way of understanding interests in firm governance (description) but also a solid grounding for a pragmatic reform agenda (prescription).Design/methodology/approachDrawing from key texts in the field, the article considers core concepts within pluralist discourse and discusses their relevance to contemporary policy debates.FindingsThe article provides a short outline of recent economic and political developments and considers how a pluralist framing helps explain firm-level interests, challenging the dominant narrative of shareholder primacy. It then asks what policy interventions might flow from this analysis of capital and labour investments, and how feasible they are in the current UK context. This allows a discussion of levels of analysis (evident in materialist theories such as “radical pluralism” and the “disconnected capitalism thesis”). Finally, it reflects briefly on the links between corporate governance and wider patterns of inequality, suggesting the pluralist position is consistent with a Durkheimian sociology focusing on the potential in state-led regulatory interventions to tackle anomie and strengthen social solidarity.Originality/valueThe article brings together literature from what are often treated as relatively discrete areas of enquiry (employment relations and corporate governance) and also considers the public policy implications of these connections.

The "Logic" of the natural language functioning in the Oxford School philosophy

This article focuses on the linguistic philosophy, specifically on John Austin's theory of speech acts. This theory examines the speech acts in the situation of direct communication. The theory author divides the speech acts into three action types, and introduces terms for their designation: locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary acts. Austin tried to identify and classify illocutionary verbs, but he did not give a precise definition or criteria for classification; he proposed dividing all the verbs into 'classes of use', upon that, the same verb could belong to different classes. The article author analyzes the speech act theory development lines, particularly, the research of John Rogers Searle, who was a follower of J. Austin. He introduced such terms as illocutionary point, conditions of satisfaction, direction of fit. These three terms allow him to identify five varieties of speech acts: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, declaratives. It is Searle's philosophy of language that remains popular among linguists who try to find the structural rules that create the phenomenon. The article discusses other development variants of John Austin's ideas, related to the speech communication modelling and discourse theory. The author concludes by pointing out the weaknesses of the everyday language theory.

Values-Based Practice: A Theory-Practice Dynamic for Navigating Values and Difference in Health Care

AbstractThis chapter introduces values-based practice as a resource for working with individually diverse values in health and social care, and describes its origins in an on-going development through the resources of philosophy. The chapter is in two main sections. Section I, Values-Based Practice, builds on two brief interactive exercises to introduce and explain the key features of values-based practice. As a relatively recent addition to the range of resources for working with values in health and social care, values-based practice is distinctive in focussing on the diversity of values comprising individual lived experience. Like evidence-based practice, values-based practice is a process-driven rather than an outcome-driven methodology. That is to say, rather than offering prescribed answers, both approaches offer processes that support decision-makers in coming to answers for themselves based on the particular circumstances presented by the situation in question. Although entirely complementary, the processes involved are of course different. Where evidence-based practice relies on meta-analyses of the results of high-quality clinical trials to inform a consensual model of decision-making, values-based practice builds on learnable clinical skills and other process elements to inform a dissensual model of decision-making rather than seeking to overcome value-conflicts in reaching consensus. Working within a premise of mutual respect for differences of values, and guided by three key principles linking values and evidence, values-based practice, as described in the chapter, supports dissensual decision-making, balanced according to the circumstances presented by the decision in question, within frameworks of locally-set frameworks of shared values. Section II, The Theory-Practice Dynamic, then outlines the theory-practice dynamic on which values-based practice is based. The origins of values-based practice in mid-twentieth century ordinary language philosophy of the Oxford School are outlined. As the chapter illustrates, although a limited area of analytic philosophy, many aspects of values-based practice are informed by ordinary language philosophy, ranging from its premise, through the training exercises and other process elements described in Section I, to its role in hybrid empirical studies supporting its model of service delivery. The development of values-based practice, furthermore, as section II goes on to describe, is ongoing, with key initiatives drawing not only on both analytic and Continental traditions of European philosophy, but also on non-European philosophies such as those of Africa and the Caribbean.

Title in English: (Analytic philosophy as a tributary of deliberative tributaries)

Ideas and knowledge are not born out of nothing but are a series of extensions and this is made clear by knowing the reference roots of pragmatics as it is a product of a number of cognitive materials such as philosophy, semiotics, etc. psychological and social research. Linguistic expressions are fraught with confusion, ambiguity, confusion, or falsity, and there are several schools, including the Cambridge School, represented by Wittgenstein, which subjects philosophical texts to linguistic analysis, and the Oxford School, called Ordinary Language Philosophy, represented by Austin and tries to analyze and clarify logical expressions until they become simple. Hence, analytic philosophy is the source from which the theory of speech acts, as the first deliberative school, drew its philosophical epistemological origins.

EFFECT OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Language learning cannot be separated from philosophy because philosophy is the mother of science. In its development, language learning was influenced by the philosophy that developed at its time, including analytic philosophy. The influence of Analytic Philosophy is felt in language teaching, especially in semantic and pragmatic research. And Russell's theory of Logical Atomism opens new horizons for scientific research, including linguistics. On the other hand, semantics is an image which is then continued by the theory of meaning used by Wittgenstein as an early study of semantics and pragmatics. Furthermore, the analytical philosophy developed by The Oxford School develops a theory of speech acts that naturally influence language learning, learning is a speech act of language learning. Keywords: Philosophy, analytic, English, pragmatics

LABOUR REGULATION AND PRODUCTIVITY IN THE UK SINCE 1945: DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT ‘DISEASE’, ‘MIRACLES’ AND ‘PUZZLES’

Over 50 years ago, New Society first identified a new ‘Oxford School’ considered central to British post-war reconstruction. Based around Nuffield College, it contained five key figures: Hugh Clegg, Allan Flanders, Alan Fox, Bill McCarthy and Arthur Marsh. Other identified contributors were Ben Roberts, John Hughes and legal theorist Otto Kahn-Freund. A second generation included the likes of George Bain, Willy Brown, Richard Hyman, Rod Martin and Roger Undy. Intriguingly, as early as the late 1940s its key theorist Flanders described their social democratic approach to build industrial pluralism as the ‘third way’—obviously a phrase given greater prominence in the 1990s by Tony Blair and Tony Giddens.

Analytical Anthropology of Peter Hacker

Purpose. The article is an explication of the features of the anthropological teaching of Peter Hacker in the context of analytical philosophy with consideration to the context of European philosophy within the framework of the Oxford School of ordinary language philosophy. The theoretical basis of the research is determined by the latest research in the English-language analytical philosophical tradition, rethinking the place of anthropological problems in the system of philosophical knowledge. Originality. Referring to primary sources, we reconstructed the philosophical and anthropological teaching of Peter Hacker in the unity of its basic principles and theoretical and practical results. We determined philosophical origins of the key ideas of his philosophical anthropology and substantiated their originality, systematicity and logical argumentation. His philosophical position is defined as anthropological holism, synthesizing the reinterpreted ideas of Aristotle and Wittgenstein. Conclusions. Peter Hacker is the creator of the original version of Analytic Philosophical Anthropology. His anthropology is based on criticism of Cartesian dualism and physicalism, which underlie modern neurosciences and which he tries to overcome on the basis of Wittgenstein’s philosophical "logotherapy". The conceptual framework of his holistic anthropology is a rethought conceptual scheme of the Ordinary language philosophy. Hacker considers consciousness not as a separate mental reality, but one of the powers of human nature – an intellectual ability, which, along with emotional (passionate) and moral, belongs to a person as an integral socio-biological being. Asserting the free will of man, the Oxford thinker criticizes various forms of determinism, especially its most common form in modern science – neurobiological determinism, which is built on false philosophical foundations. This criticism allows the modern British philosopher to build an original, systematic and logically consistent anthropological concept that asserts the immutability of the highest human values – goodness, love and happiness.

John Lander Harper. 27 May 1925—22 March 2009

Born into a farming family, John Harper identified a number of influential figures in his formal education, including his inspirational school master Wilfred Kings, and the plant ecologists Roy Clapham (FRS 1959) and Jack Harley (FRS 1964) and animal ecologists Charles Elton (FRS 1953) and George Varley during his university education at Magdalen College, Oxford. His first academic appointments were in the University of Oxford School of Rural Economy and the Department of Agriculture, where he carried out pioneering research on seed and seedling mortality and the ecology and control of weeds. In 1960 John was appointed to head the Department of Agricultural Botany at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. The departments of Botany and Agricultural Botany merged in 1967 with John as head of the new School of Plant Biology. From this base, he established a research centre that attracted students and visitors from around the world. As one of the most influential of thinkers, John Harper generated a new discipline: plant population biology. In addition, by integrating advances in animal population biology and evolution into his own work, John helped to create a complete master discipline of ecology, as reflected in a textbookEcology: individuals, populations and communities(Oxford, UK: Blackwell) for which he received (with co-authors Mike Begon and Colin Townsend) an exceptional lifetime achievement award from the British Ecological Society.

Resilience in the face of emergency remote teaching: EAL pupils’ experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Resilience in the face of emergency remote teaching: EAL pupils’ experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Transcendant Temporality

This paper looks at several key motivations behind the prisoner of time objection and a view against which it is leveled, the Oxford School of divine temporality, with respect to the Christian God. Shared between these opposing views are concerns for divine freedom and sovereignty. While the objection, coming from divine atemporalists, has in its background a concern for the creator–creature distinction, the Oxford School prizes the authenticity of temporal God–talk in the Scriptures and the coherency of human God–talk more generally. By following these motivations closely in conversation with M–theory discussions about the nature of time as a dimension of spacetime, I propose a new model of God’s relation to time called transcendent temporality. In it, God is transcendently present in our temporal dimension, so that he is temporal but experiences our time differently than we do. Moreover, God has his own time which is distinct from but correlated to our time. God, on this view, is temporal, but in a way that he can experience succession in different ways than our one–directional and linear experience of succession. I conclude by unpacking some implications of this model and addressing possible objections.

Arts of Dying: Literature and Finitude in Medieval England. D. Vance Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. x+299.

<i>Arts of Dying: Literature and Finitude in Medieval England</i>. D. Vance Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. x+299.

Jeffrey D.SachsThe Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and InstitutionsColumbia University Press, 2020. 280 p. $24.95

As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, the author identifies three challenges facing an increasingly globalized humanity: a destabilizing increase in economic inequality; a devastating global environmental crisis; and the risk of global conflict that could annihilate the species. This book, an outgrowth of three lectures given at the Oxford School of Geography and the Environment in 2017, presents Sachs’ map of how we got here, and his blueprint for overcoming these challenges. His map (Chapters 2–8) traces seven distinct “ages of globalization”: the Paleolithic (70,000–10,000 BCE), the Neolithic (10,000–3,000 BCE), the Equestrian (3,000–1000 BCE), the Classical (1000 BCE–1500 CE), the Ocean (1500–1800), the Industrial (1800–2000), and the Digital (2000–). Each “age” entails a new global change that emerged from the interplay of physical geography, technology, and institutions. The Paleolithic Age entailed the dispersal out from Africa of small groups of subsistence foragers. The Neolithic Age began with plant cultivation that allowed for denser settlements and more complex governmental structures. The Equestrian Age surfaced when peoples in the steppes of Eurasia domesticated the horse and used rapid movement and cavalry attacks to conquer the densely settled agricultural societies in the continent's milder latitudes. The Classical Age entailed globalization by politics as imperial empires (Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, India, China, Ottoman, and Mongol) consciously sought to create global civilizations. Columbus connecting the Old World and the New began the Ocean Age when superior naval power allowed European empires to quickly form, spanning oceans and climate zones with new economies involving the exchange of flora, fauna, diseases, and peoples, including many chattel slaves. James Watt commercializing the steam engine in England, with its coal deposits and legal protections for invention, initiated the Industrial Age during which less productive “organic” economies based on muscle power were replaced with highly productive fossil fuel economies. We have recently entered into the Digital Age when the massive transmission of data in an environment of rapidly multiplying computational power and increasingly sophisticated information technologies is upending the global economic and political order. Sachs sees a storyline running through these seven ages (p. 12): “one of unfolding progress, albeit progress repeatedly marked by injustice, inequalities, and extraordinary violence.” Progress is measured in terms of people, production, and place of residence. World population progressed from 2 million in 10,000 BCE, to 45 million in 3,000 BCE, to 461 million in 1500, and to 6.1 billion in 2000. The proportion living in cities went from 1 percent in 1 CE, to 3.6 percent in 1500, to 16 percent in 1900 and to 55 percent in 2020. Global output per capita grew from US$ 400 (1990 dollars) in 1 CE, to US$ 500 in 1800, and to US$ 7,400 in 2010. “Super-exponential” growth of population, production, and urbanization in the very recent past is the context in which our new challenges are unfolding. Sachs, acknowledging ongoing fertility decline, is somewhat optimistic about bringing rapid population growth under control. The massive pollution, climate change, and loss of biodiversity caused by several centuries of fossil fuel production is a more difficult challenge. He calls for a transition to renewable energy and a universal commitment to sustainable development but is not sure that changes can be made quickly enough to avoid irreparable planetary harm. Moving from a global hegemonic power arrangement to a multipolar one without provoking military conflict is another challenge that will require a deft hand. And he recognizes that ending debilitating poverty, even in a world where plenty for all is possible, will only happen if a common social democratic ethos develops, an ethos that he finds at the core of major world religions. Many twenty-first century problems are transnational and global in nature: water sources, pollution, and disease all easily cross borders, and climate changing gases all rise into a shared atmosphere. Sachs calls on nations to accept transnational authorities and work to reform the United Nations. In the end, though, having just read a history of globalization that is full of conquest, greed, and chauvinism, readers are left to wonder if humans can possibly change enough to heed these calls to action.

Groundwork for a metaphysic of person-centred care: a contribution from Ordinary Language Philosophy

This article explores the meaning of person-centred care using an approach based on the ordinary language philosophy of J.L. Austin and others of the mid-twentieth Century ‘Oxford School’. Section I outlines the essential feature of ordinary language philosophy as a shift of attention from definition to use: ordinary language philosophy explores the meanings of terms (and their inherent conceptual challenges) not by the traditional philosophical approach of ever-more-careful definition but by exploring how the terms in question are actually used in everyday (i.e. unreflective) contexts. Section II explores the conceptual challenges presented by person-centred care by applying three particular components of ordinary language philosophy (philosophical field work, outputs as more complete views, and methodological teamwork) to two exemplar papers. Section III describes how the groundwork provided by ordinary language philosophy of the kind exemplified by Section II has been built on successfully in one particular form of person-centred care, namely the person- values -centred care of values-based practice. The chapter concludes with some of the limitations and challenges presented by an ordinary language philosophy of person-centred care. Of particular concern in the light of Isaiah Berlin’s work on the ‘challenge of pluralism’ is the inherent and irreducible pluralism of person-centred care.

Active Learning Augmented Reality for STEAM Education—A Case Study

Immersive technologies are rapidly transforming the field of education. Amongst them, Augmented Reality (AR) has shown promise as a resource, particularly for education in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM). There are, however, few teachers deploying this new medium in the classroom directly, and, consequently, only a few, elect students benefit from the AR-enriched offers. Curricula are already overloaded, and schools generally lack developmental resources, thus leaving no room for experimentation. This situation is further aggravated by the too few educational applications available with sufficient learning content. In this article, we investigate the method of Active Learning for the teaching of STEAM subjects, using a format where students are tasked with building an AR application as part of their learning. We evaluate the applicability of the Active Learning for STEAM subjects with a qualitative, case study approach, applying the workshop format as an extracurricular activity in our work with students from a range of secondary schools in Oxford. We discuss how the format works, so it can be embedded into regular curricula, not just as an extracurricular activity, also providing an overview on the involved teaching units and rationale. All teams in our preview audience of the case study succeeded in building working applications, several of impressive complexity. Students found that the lessons were enjoyable and AR technology can enhance their learning experience. The Active Learning method served as a catalyst for students’ skills development, with the case study providing evidence of learning to code, working with a physics simulation engine, ray-tracing, and geometry, learning how to manage teams and interact with other students/instructors, and engineering a working prototype of a game. We consequentially argue that combining the STEM subjects and the arts, using the proposed Active Learning format, is able to provide a more holistic and engaging education.

The political constitution of labour from Donovan to Blair

AbstractThis article looks at changing patterns of labour regulation over the last 50 years ago. We begin with the contribution of the ‘Oxford School’ within industrial relations analysis and its influence on the Donovan Royal Commission. We then discuss the architecture of the British corporate state and the approach of successive Conservative administrations between 1979 and 1997. Next, we consider labour market analysis and interventions under New Labour alongside emerging European influences and rights‐based models of justice. We conclude with some final comments regarding contemporary labour market thinking.

G.N. Clark and the Oxford School of Modern History, 1919–1922: Hidden Origins of 1066 And All That

Abstract W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman’s 1066 and All That is a satirical history of England, published in 1930. It has long been thought to be a parody of popular history textbooks, characteristic of a generation of post-war writers disillusioned with the tone of patriotic English exceptionalism of many books. This paper explores contemporary critiques of history textbooks in the first third of the twentieth century and finds, however, that 1066 And All That is unusual in its implied criticism. It suggests that the standpoint of its authors reflects more than simply the recoil of their generation of ex-servicemen. It proposes that the book reflects their own particular experience of reading history at Oxford in 1919–22, at a time when teaching in the Modern History School still included much that was literary and whiggish. G.N. Clark had been their tutor, a historian close to C.H. Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History, and sympathetic to Firth’s long and controversial campaign for reform. While Clark’s later reputation was as a cautious scholar, as a young man he was a witty iconoclast, active in left-wing politics. We trace his influence on Sellar and Yeatman through the lectures they attended, and discover that 1066 And All That bears clear references to Clark’s reformist views on history at Oxford.

Evaluation of a Comprehensive Farm-to-School Program: Parent and Teacher Perspectives

ABSTRACT Comprehensive multicomponent programs in schools include farm-to-school programs to address healthy eating. Little research has addressed parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on these programs as they are implemented. The implementation and evaluation of Good Food for Oxford Schools, a multicomponent farm-to-school program, included surveys of parent and teacher perspectives. Parents and teachers reported that the program increased students’ willingness to try new foods and increased students’ intake of fruits and vegetables. An unexpected outcome was noted, where parents reported that children discussed what they learned at home, and parents are increasing fruit and vegetable intake as a result.

PENGARUH FILSAFAT ANALITIK DALAM PENDIDIKAN BAHASA PRANCIS

(Title: Effects of Analytic Philosophy on French Language Education). Language learning cannot be separated from philosophy, because philosophy is the mother of science. In its development, language learning was influenced by the philosophy that developed in his day, including analytic philosophy. The influence of analytic philosophy is strongly felt in language education, especially in semantic and pragmatic studies. The theory of logical atomism put forward by Russell has opened new horizons in the study of science, including linguistics. Meanwhile, the theory of meaning is picture which is then continued with the theory of meaning is use by Wittgenstein is a forerunner to semantic and pragmatic studies. In addition, the analytic philosophy developed by the Oxford school has developed a theory of speech acts which naturally influences language learning, from language learning to language education as speech acts. Keywords: philosophy, analytic, french, pragmatics

Was ist eine psychische Störung?

AbstractThis article sets out key contributions to the long-running debate about mental disorder from the ordinary language philosophy of the ‘Oxford School’. The distinction between definition and use of concepts underpinning ordinary language philosophy reframes the debate as a debate not just about mental disorder but about disorder in general, bodily as well as mental. The field work of ordinary language philosophy (focusing on the use of concepts as a guide to their meanings) shows that, attempts at elimination notwithstanding, there is an essential evaluative element in the meaning of disorder, bodily as well as mental. The concept of disorder in the debate thus reframed presents a double challenge for analysis: to explain why disorder has evaluative connotations used of mental conditions but descriptive connotations used of bodily conditions. Philosophical value theory, derived by applying ordinary language philosophy to the language of values, provides a rich resource of ideas for meeting this double challenge. It meets the double challenge at the level of theory by allowing both aspects of the double challenge of disorder to be derived from a logical property that disorder shares with all other value terms. It meets the double challenge at the level of practice by supporting the development of a new approach to working with values alongside evidence in healthcare called values-based practice. Ordinary language philosophy, notwithstanding these several contributions, is no panacea. It helps us to make a start, no more and no less, in understanding mental disorder.