Jim Mackenzie

Question-begging in non-cumulative systems

In their recent paper [A], J. Woods and D. Walton compare two approaches to the fallacy of begging the question (petitio pnizcipii). One is what they call the epistemicdoxastic approach: an argument is circular, and the person who uses it begs the question, if in order to know the truth of some premiss of the argument one must already know the truth of the conclusion, or some account of that general kind. The other approach is dialectical, that is, in terms of dialogue. This approach considers the fallacy as it arises in the context of contentious debate, when one participant asks the other to grant him a premiss which contains the substance of what is in dispute (see Hamblin [F] ,,p. 73). Woods and Walton claim that:

Four dialogue systems

The paper describes four dialogue systems, developed in the tradition of Charles Hamblin. The first system provides an answer for Achilles in Lewis Carrolls parable, the second an analysis of the fallacy of begging the question, the third a non-psychologistic account of conversational implicature, and the fourth an analysis of equivocation and of objections to it. Each avoids combinatorial explosions, and is intended for real-time operation.

Conceptual Learning in Higher Education: Some Philosophical Points.

This paper argues that recent work in philosophy complements the discourse of psychologists and educationists on such questions as the differences between behavioural and conceptual learning, the nature of the latter, the formation of general ideas, and the stability and transferability of knowledge. Conclusions about both teaching methods and assessment in higher education are drawn from this discussion.

David Carr on Religious Knowledge and Spiritual Education

This paper is a reply to David Carrs two recent articles on religious education in this Journal. It argues that the examples Carr cites as distinctively religious are not, and that the present emphasis in schools on education about (rather than in) religion is justified.

Stalky & Co.: the Adversarial Curriculum

A comparison between two teachers drawn from fiction leads to an exploration of the issues between those whose concept of education is focused on the curriculum, and those who understand that pupils are active agents in their education and that therefore some beneficial outcomes can result from pupil subversion of the school. This is developed as a concept of an adversarial curriculum, with particular reference to moral education.

Contexts of Begging the Question

In this paper a dialogical account of begging the question is applied to various contexts which are not obviously dialogues: - reading prose, working through a deductive system, presenting a legal case, and thinking to oneself. The account is then compared with that in chapter eight of D. WaltonsBegging the Question (New York; Greenwood, 1991).

How Biology Teachers Can Respond to Intelligent Design.

Teachers of biology and related subjects are increasingly meeting objections from students and their parents to the teaching of evolution and the exclusion of what is called the theory of Intelligent Design. This paper attempts to draw together arguments and evidence which may be used by such teachers. Four lessons are drawn from the 1982 judgement against Creation Science in Arkansas for those opposing attempts to introduce the theory of Intelligent Design into school science programs: that a wide definition of science is the most useful; that religion is not the enemy; that science teachers should trust their own expertise; and that alternative theories should not be excluded.

From Speech Acts to Semantics

Abstract Frege introduced the notion of pragmatic force as what distinguishes statements from questions. This distinction was elaborated by Wittgenstein in his later works, and systematised as an account of different kinds of speech acts in formal dialogue theory by Hamblin. It lies at the heart of the inferential semantics more recently developed by Brandom. The present paper attempts to sketch some of the relations between these developments.

Postmodernism and Science Education: An Appraisal

Over the past 50 years, postmodernism has been a progressively growing and influential intellectual movement inside and outside the academy. Postmodernism is characterised by rejection of parts or the whole of the Enlightenment project that had its roots in the birth and embrace of early modern science. While Enlightenment and ‘modernist’ ideas of universalism, of intellectual and cultural progress, of the possibility of finding truths about the natural and social world and of rejection of absolutism and authoritarianism in politics, philosophy and religion were first opposed at their birth in the eighteenth century, contemporary postmodernism sometimes appeals to (and sometimes disdains) philosophy of science in support of its rejection of modernism and the enlightenment programme.

Christopher Winch on the Representational Theory of Language and its Pedagogic Relevance

In his recent paper, Winch (1997) attacks a group of theories he calls cognitivism. These theories agree in holding that ‘the ability to think, both consciously and subconsciously, amounts to an ability to internally manipulate symbolic representations of that which we think about (p.67).The relevance of this attack to education is that ‘Cognitivism’ supplies plausible-looking reasons for thinking that learning can take place without instruction, practice, memorisation or training and its prestige as a theory of learning devalues those activities within education.Its rejection should therefore lead us to re-examine our need for explicit teacher-oriented pedagogies’ (p.78).Cognitivism has led to an emphasis on autonomous learning and a consequent devaluing of the role of overt teaching, ‘the active transmission of knowledge and technique by an authoritative figure’ (p.67).