Philosophical Conversation Research Articles

К вопросу о критериях философской конверсии (на примере анализа различия между математически и динамически возвышенным у И. Канта)

К вопросу о критериях философской конверсии (на примере анализа различия между математически и динамически возвышенным у И. Канта)

Poe and the Idea of Music: Failure, Transcendence, and Dark Romanticism

Poe and the Idea of Music: Failure, Transcendence, and Dark Romanticism

Book Review: Teaching Information Literacy through Short Stories

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, adopted in 2016, “encourages information literacy librarians to be imaginative and innovative in implementing the Framework in their institutions” (ACRL Framework, appendix 1). In this spirit, authors Brier and Lebbin have collected eighteen very short stories—typically one to three pages in length—whose themes raise questions concerning the nature of authority, the process of searching, and the creation and value of information. Following each story, the authors add discussion questions designed to initiate philosophical conversations among librarians, instructors, and students about significant topics in information literacy.

Why African Philosophers should build systems: An exercise in conversational thinking

At the height of the Great Debate about the existence or otherwise of African philosophy, Kwasi Wiredu bemoaned the dearth of originality in the practice of African philosophy. For him, African philosophers should now go beyond talking about African philosophy and get down to actually doing it. But what does it mean to do African philosophy? And what is the importance of actually doing African philosophy? In this paper, I will argue that doing African philosophy should involve, among other things, system-building. I will argue that the growth of the discipline and the advancement of Africa’s intellectual history constitute strong reasons for African philosophers to aim at building systems in this era. I will highlight existing attempts at system-building in African philosophy and show their weaknesses in order to project conversational thinking as a better framework. I will conclude by arguing that systembuilding is part of the overall goal of conversational philosophy, which has been demonstrated in some quarters as the future direction ofAfrican philosophy.Keywords: African philosophy, system-building, conversational thinking, conversational philosophy

Convergencias y divergencias dialécticas en la Antigüedad griega: Platón y Aristóteles frente a los estoicos

For Plato, philosophy is essentially dialectical, that is, for the philosopher of Athens, philosophy and dialectic are interchangeable terms. Likewise, the dialectical activity implies in Plato a specific way of carrying on dialogue as a philosophical conversation which requires a method in order to be developed properly that is, scientifically. The Socratic-Platonic originality resides in the fact that with this idea of dialectic is made explicit the essence of the act of philosophizing as a dialogic act par excellence, that is, as a loving and unselfish search for truth which is made jointly and in a transpersonal way.Aristotle shows us a radically different idea of dialectic in relation to his master, because hereduces its importance and we can even say that he demotes it. For the Stagirite, dialectic will be, at the very best, a non-scientific procedure for searching the truth, with no demonstrativecharacter and it will have the purpose of providing general principles to sciences, but it will not be a synonymous with philosophy and therefore of the highest science anymore. Equally, dialogic interchanges based on questions and answers will not be essential at all, neither for particular sciences nor for philosophy itself.The Stoics have a Socratic-Platonic and Aristotelian influence in relation to their idea ofdialectic, but they have their own coinage and they will develop, on this matter, a properproject. For the Stoics, dialectic will be a virtue itself and one cannot become a wise manif one is not a dialectician. Even more: dialectic will play a pivotal and agglutinative rolein the Stoic system as a whole. Thus the central purpose of this article will be to show thesimilarities and differences that the Stoics have in relation to their Socratic-Platonic andAristotelian antecedents regarding the dialectical topic and where do their originality andproper deploys reside.

Deliberative epistemology: Towards an ubuntu-based epistemology that accounts for a priori knowledge and objective truth

The field of epistemology is concerned with the nature, generation and justification of knowledge as well as the rationality of belief; addressing what makes beliefs justified, what it means to say that one knows something and how one knows it. It has been characterised by many debates such as those between rationalism and empiricism or those between absolute truth and relativism. In light of the often bipolar framing of such epistemic debates, the scholarship on ubuntu contains insights that help advance the idea of a “deliberative” epistemology, which is well positioned to resolve many such tensions. With this idea, which speaks to like-minded approaches that are couched within frameworks such as conversational philosophy and complementary reflection, I add the dimension of discourse (i.e. how we think, speak and therefore do) and show that by applying an alternative discursive lens, an ubuntu-inspired epistemology need not only account for experience and subjectivity, as typically presumed, but can also embrace a priori knowledge and objective truth.

The Linguistic Turn, Social Construction and the Impartial Spectator: why Do these Ideas Matter to Managerial Thinking?

One’s philosophical points of view, which form the bases for assumptions that we bring to management theory and practice matter, and matter deeply, to management thinking and corporate behavior. In this paper I outline three related threads of philosophical conversations and explain how they are important in management theory and practice: the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, deriving from the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a social constructionist perspective: a set of theories at least implicitly derived from the linguistic turn in philosophy, and the notion of the impartial spectator. I then use these three theories to analyze the idea of the corporation, corporate cultures and corporate mission statements, stakeholder theories and their differences, and the limitations of the popular notion of “corporate social responsibility.” I conclude that how one frames these management ideas makes a difference, a difference in theory and in practice.

What Is Conversational Philosophy? A Prescription of a New Theory and Method of Philosophising, in and Beyond African Philosophy

In this paper I discuss the meaning of the theory of conversational philosophy. I show that its background inspiration is derived from an under-explored African notion of relationship or communion or interdependence. I argue that conversational philosophy forms a theoretic framework on which most ethical, metaphysical and epistemological discourses in African philosophy—and by African philosophers—could be grounded. I call this framework the method of conversationalism. I unveil some of its basic principles and show its significance in and beyond African philosophy.

Race, pre-college philosophy, and the pursuit of a critical race pedagogy for higher education

This article seeks to explore ways in which pre-college pedagogical resources – particularly Critical Race Pedagogy (CPR) developed for high school students, as well as Philosophy for Children (P4C) – can be helpfully employed by college level instructors who wish to dialogue with students about the nature of race and racial oppression. More specifically, we wish to explore (a) how P4C can both learn from, and be put to the service of, CRP, and (b) how this provides a useful framework for philosophical conversations about race at the college and pre-college levels. Our arguments are interwoven with narratives of our personal experiences utilising these pre-college pedagogical resources in conversations about race, so as to illustrate and provide context for our claims. We ultimately contend that these resources can help pedagogues in both higher and lower education work toward unmuting the voices of undervalued and underserved students in the United States.

The Resistant Interlocutor

Dialogue, as a philosophical form, enables the exploration of the conditions, limits, and consequences of understanding arguments. Two philosophers who undertook to write dialogues—Plato and Heidegger—feature moments in philosophical conversation in which understanding, on its own, fails to convince an interlocutor of an argument. In this article, I examine the philosophical stakes of the collisions which unfold in Plato’s Gorgias, between Socrates and Callicles, and in Heidegger’s “Triadic Conversation,” between the Guide and the Scientist. Plato’s Socrates is ostensibly unsuccessful in persuading Callicles to adopt his position while Heidegger’s Guide is able to support the Scientist in learning a new way of thinking. I argue that it is Heidegger’s attention to feeling as a philosophically significant phenomenon which can overcome trans-rational resistance which may persist even after truth has been determined.

Editorial

Editorial Estelle R. Jorgensen [Errata] Among the central problems in music education in our time are those arising out of the othering of difference in music education. Northern philosophical perspectives on music education in West and East have too often othered, marginalized, and excluded those from countries in the Southern Hemisphere due to such problems as distance, language, and the continuing legacy of European and American colonization in music education around the world. These realities may have much to do with the history of a music education profession that spread internationally from Europe and North America through their former colonies and territories and political and social influence and by the continuing linguistic hegemony of English about which Alexandra Kertz-Welzel writes in her recent book, Globalizing Music Education. This othering of difference plays out not only theoretically but practically. Theoretically, it presents in a tendency for those who hold specific perspectives and ideological positions to congregate together and mutually reinforce their views. When this occurs, criticisms of these ideas can be effectively othered and those who forward them may be marginalized or excluded from the groups, associations, networks, and societies in which music education is institutionally organized. In the absence of hospitality to critique, philosophical propositions may become matters of uncritical belief and without critical examination, philosophy may become ideology. Practically, differences may also be othered, for example, when conferences are conducted in a language such as English and those who do not speak it fluently are excluded from the conversation or must do the best they can with the facility they have. This othering of a linguistic minority could be ameliorated by the use of simultaneous translation technologies that would allow scholars with limited facility to participate in the language in which the conference is conducted. If the music education profession desires to be [End Page 115] internationally and culturally inclusive, simultaneous translation needs to be a requisite for conferences that draw participants from differing linguistic groups. While a lingua franca can facilitate international dialogue in music education, it is also important to consider those whose linguistic skills in English are limited or whose ideas are framed in concepts that are native to other cultural contexts and who may make an important contribution to the field. In opening a philosophical conversation about the other and otherness in this issue of the Philosophy of Music Education Review, a quartet of writers tackle significant philosophical and practical issues surrounding these problems for music education. Not only do they write about the other and otherness but they might be regarded as the other if viewed from a limited North American perspective. Antia Gonzalez-Ben comes from Spain as she also writes about Spanish music education. Leonard Tan from Singapore with his student Mengchen Lu from China write about what can be learned from performing the Chinese guqin. Nasim Niknafs reflects on the music and music education of his native city Tehran, Iran. Graham McPhail writes from the Antipodes, specifically New Zealand. Their collective reflections illustrate the growing internationalism of philosophy of music education and the sense that, as Iris Yob claims in the forthcoming book, Humane Music Education for the Common Good, “there is no other.” All these writers and their various perspectives are welcomed into conversation about what music education should mean and be around the world. Leading off this quartet, in her article, “Here is the Other Coming (Come) In,” Gonzalez-Ben interrogates the philosophical discourse surrounding the including of musics other than the Western classical tradition in Spanish music education curricula. Despite what she sees as “progressive sounding rhetoric,” she argues that Spanish curricula still draw on colonial discourses that pit “Self and Other against each other.” She advocates a more inclusive approach that resists othering these musics and those who practice, teach, and learn them. Tan and Lu reflect on the limits of words as a means of articulating the “ineffable” in their article, “‘I Wish to be Wordless’: Philosophizing through the Chinese Guqin.” Drawing on ancient Chinese philosophy and the performance of the guqin, they argue that musical performance brings its own “truth,” “harmony,” “ethical awakening,” and “sagehood” without requiring explanatory words. As they reflect philosophically on...

(Dis)Engaging with Race Theory

Rebecca Tuvel’s controversial “In Defense of Transracialism” has been criticized for a lack of engagement with critical race theory. Disengagement with salient material on race is a consistent feature of the philosophical conversation out of which it arises. In this article, I trace the origins of feminist philosophy’s disengaged and distorted view of “transracialism” and racial passing through the work of Janice Raymond, Christine Overall, and Cressida Heyes, and consider some of the relevant work on passing that is omitted in the philosophy of “transracialism.” Finally, I offer methodological suggestions to avoid such distortions and omissions in feminist philosophy.

Creatures of Possibility: The Theological Basis of Human Freedom by Ingolf U. Dalferth

Reviewed by: Creatures of Possibility: The Theological Basis of Human Freedom by Ingolf U. Dalferth Adam Morton Creatures of Possibility: The Theological Basis of Human Freedom. By Ingolf U. Dalferth. Translated by Jo Bennett. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016. 216 pp. Despite the subtitle, this slim book is not a direct treatment of the theme of human freedom. It is instead a series of studies developing what Dalferth takes to be the surprising basis of such freedom: humanity's fundamental passivity coram Deo. Far from conceiving this passivity negatively, as if it were simply identifiable with deficiency, it stands as "the center of creativity from which all humans live" (6). Humans are thus conceived as beings of possibility, becoming passively what is strictly impossible under their own power. Proceeding from this thematic center, Dalferth engages a series of philosophical and theological positions. Chapter one gives a very brief philosophical introduction to the topic. This discussion is deepened in chapter two as Kant and Luther, especially the latter's 1536 Disputatio de homine, are employed to distinguish between philosophical and theological accounts. Here Luther's definition of the human as justified by faith is given central place in Dalferth's project: humans "become what they are through what happens to them. And they understand what happens to them as what God does to them and for them" (42). Subsequent chapters can be read as stand-alone essays, though they have significant thematic links. Chapter three engages further with Luther, ranging over many of his works to examine the theme of passivity in relation to the concept of gift, and touching on the difference between the old and new creatures, the nature of the will, and ontology. While distinguishing carefully between creation, justification, and sanctification, Dalferth sets them in a common [End Page 244] creation-theological framework: "Being and being Christian are thus understood … as divine acts of creation ex nihilo" (53–54). The fourth chapter takes up the concept of gift again, this time beginning with the phenomenological analyses of Derrida, that nothing is gift, and Marion, that all is gift. Against these, Dalferth shifts from a phenomenological to a hermeneutical analysis, focusing on the necessity of the gift as "for me," and so on the gift as passively determining its recipient. This allows him to take up the character of Christian faith as the interruption of the unknown and unlooked-for gift that, echoing thesis 28 of the Heidelberg Disputation, "creates its own mode of reception" (114) in excess of any humanly perceived need. Chapters five through seven follow a similar structure, each setting out from a philosophical problem toward a theological discussion. Thus, in chapter five, Derrida on sacrifice is a springboard toward provocative analyses of Abraham and Isaac, and of the crucifixion of Jesus, as divine love. Chapter six engages Hans Blumenberg on the question of the incarnation, from there returning to the relation between philosophy and theology. Chapter seven takes up a variety of voices, principally Nietzsche, to discuss human creativity and finally the image of God. The book has some limitations. A reader unfamiliar with the framing philosophical conversations may struggle to make use of certain chapters, and the author's style often requires inferring connections well beyond his explicit citations. Furthermore, there remains risk that theology is determined negatively by that philosophical framing, as when the crucifixion is described in terms calibrated to evade Derrida's critique of sacrifice. Moreover, the author tends to articulate the passivity of faith in abstract terms, neglecting to draw a more concrete connection to those divine words by which faith is bestowed, and so which constitute that passivity. Even so, this volume offers creative and insightful reformulations of Lutheran theology in close relation to its central theme. Scholars interested in theological anthropology or in the relation between philosophy and theology have much to gain from this book. [End Page 245] Adam Morton Holy Trinity Lutheran Church Lancaster, Pennsylvania Copyright © 2018 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

Character and Person. John Frow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xvi+331.

<i>Character and Person</i>. John Frow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xvi+331.

The many faces of evil: philosophical and theological conversations on the experience of evil

ABSTRACTIn this article, a way of analysing the pluriformity and mutability of the experience of evil is developed. Against the background of a relational account of the possibility and the actuality of evil, it is argued that evil cannot be accounted for in a decontextualized manner, but can only be interpreted in the context of a particular (religious) understanding of reality. In the context of Christian faith and practice, a suggestion for understanding evil as contradiction against God’s creative agency, as rejection of God’s transforming agency in Christ and resistance to God’s perfecting agency in the Holy Spirit is put forward. The thesis that evil in its many forms can only be understood from the perspective of its overcoming is developed with reference to Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will.

Inclusion as Ethics, Equity and/or Human Rights? Spotlighting School Mathematics Practices in Scotland and Globally

Mathematics education has been notoriously slow at interpreting inclusion in ways that are not divisive. Dominant views of educational inclusion in school mathematics classrooms have been shaped by social constructions of ability. These particularly indelible constructions derive from the perceived hierarchical nature of mathematics and the naturalised assumption that mathematisation is purely an intellectual exercise. Constructions of ability, therefore, emanate from the epistemic structures of mathematics education as predominantly practiced worldwide, and the prevalence of proceduralism and exclusion in those practices. Assumptions about ‘ability’ have become a truth to mathematical aptitude held by mathematics teachers in schools. This includes schools across Scotland. In Scotland, the government owes the ‘included pupil’ a legal obligation to provide additional support for learning under section 1(1) of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. However, classroom practices deployed around socially-constructed notions of ability have seen schools moving away from an emphasis on ‘additional’ to an expansive interpretation of ‘different from’ in the language of section 1(3)(a) of the Act 2004. This shift, therefore, reinstalls exclusionary effects to school mathematics practices by creating the conditions for some pupils, constructed in terms of disabilities or low ability, to be afforded a more inferior education than others. While philosophical conversations around whether these practices are ethical, egalitarian or democratic might ensue, there is also the human rights angle, which asks whether such practices are even lawful.

Socrates and Aristotle: The Role of Ancient Philosophers in the Self‐Understanding of Desisting Prisoners

AbstractThis article argues that providing a forum for philosophical conversation within prison education is relevant to the self‐understanding and desistance of prisoners. Semi‐structured interviews with 20 participants of an in‐prison philosophy class in Scotland investigated the personal relevance of engaging in philosophical dialogue. Findings demonstrated that philosophical dialogue develops participants' self‐understanding, providing vocabulary for alternative self‐definition. The philosophy class achieved this by encouraging self‐reflection, developing communication skills, and providing a forum for positive prosocial interaction with peers. These skills are essential in reframing self‐understanding which is, in turn, essential to desistance.

Philosophical sagacity as conversational philosophy and its significance for the question of method in African philosophy

In this study, I aimed to carry out a comparative analysis of the methods of conversational philosophy and sage philosophy as contributions towards overcoming the problem of methodology in African philosophy. The purpose was to show their points of convergence and probably, if possible, their point of divergence as well. I did not intend to show that the method of one is superior or inferior to the other. The objective was to provide an analysis to show that the two methods are essentially the same with little variations. Thereafter, I highlighted their significance as methods of doing African philosophy and discussed their problems as well. I used the methods of analysis and hermeneutics. From the study, I concluded that conversational philosophy is an extension or a modified form of sage philosophy. The implication of this conclusion is that sage philosophy and conversational philosophy should overlap each other in research and purposes.Keywords: Sage Philosophy, Conversational Philosophy, African Philosophy, Philosophical place, Philosophical space, Methodology

Batman in the Classroom: Academic Philosophy and “… and Philosophy”

Though the interaction of philosophy with pop culture has so far mostly taken the form of books for nonphilosophers that use various shows and movies as sources of examples to illustrate “traditional” philosophical issues, this article contends that serious engagement with the informal philosophical discussions expressed in popular entertainments constitutes a kind of “ethnophilosophy” and should be considered an important part of the discipline. Our disciplinary responsibility for maintaining and considering the history of philosophy ought to include even the philosophical conversations that occur outside the academy; however unlike “proper” philosophy this material may be, it nonetheless represents engagement—sometimes substantial engagement—with the same issues that concern those of us who are considered “professional” philosophers, and thus is legitimately of interest to us.

In the Image of Love: Key Voices for Theological Anthropology

ABSTRACTLove lies at the very heart of the Christian faith and its conception of both God and the human being. Nevertheless, the growing field of theological anthropology has yet to fully avail itself of philosophy’s and theology’s renewed attention to the theme of love. The Introduction to this special issue proposes the phrase ‘in the image of Love’ as an invitation to examine the relation between theological anthropology and love throughout the history of Christian thought. Guided by this motif, the issue’s contributors consider ten historical thinkers on love and the human in relation to their philosophical conversation partners at the time. The volume thus has a genealogical dimension, delving into often forgotten layers beneath our current, late modern view of the human/love. It thereby assists future theological anthropological discussions in the much-needed task of both integrating the crucial theme of love and formulating more historically grounded perspectives. This special issue also reveals the ways in which theologians have attempted to respond to the challenge posed by the modern subject while retaining the idea that the human creature is called by Love and called to Love, and provides an alternative to Nygren’s opposition of agape and eros.