Towards Dialogic Metaphors of Learning – from Socialization to Authoring

The background of the article is an interest in theories of learning and the metaphors of learning they build on and propagate. The basic argument is that the discursive construction of learning plays a central role in theoretical perspectives in research but also in discussions of societal issues in a wider sense. An initial observation is that current metaphors of learning oscillate between emphasizing socializing/reproductive dimensions and perspectives which foreground new-thinking transformations of existing collective knowledge; the culturally given. Hence, our aim is to explore conceptions of learning underpinning dominant theoretical perspectives as behaviorism, cognitivism, pragmatism, and various sociocultural traditions, in the light of this theoretical tension. Our conclusion is that the views of communication and learning inherent to the radical dialogic perspective on communication that stresses the unfinalizable nature of knowing, offered by Bakhtin, add to our understanding of how learning may be conceptualized in contemporary society. Such a dialogic perspective, emphasizing open-ended agency, plurality of voices, and performative potentials of creatively expressing opinions when learning from each other, offers a perspective on learning worth considering in times of diversity, unpredictable risks, and the need for critical self-reflexivity.

Conclusions

Reviews the basic argument of the book that there existed in ancient Greece a number of short genres of hexametrical poetry, most of them performed in ritual contexts, for example, hymn, oracle, incantation and lament, whose history can be traced to a large degree in how they are embedded in Homeric and (to a lesser degree) Hesiodic poetry, how they are imitated by Hellenistic poets and how they are reflected in other ways in the parodies of comedy and in the survivals of other kinds of texts on papyrus, metal and stone.

Widening Sphere of Modern Art and Literature in Nepal: A study of the interface between them

I see modernism in painting in this region as an evolutionary process that should trigger discussions about its constituent features. This argument harps on the two questions. Is modernism only an emulation of the Western style and methods in paintings and literature, or is it also the evolution of native cultural consciousness that is reflected in the experiments made by painters in art and by writers in creative literary works? To answer these questions, this article includes discussions about evolutions of modernism in paintings and culture in meta-artistic and literary discourses. Examples are drawn from very selective discussions about literature and works of art for reason of space. The basic argument of this article is that modernism in Nepali paintings should be seen in its evolutionary process. Modernism in art is not a condition that we see in palpable form today. It has grown over a long period of creative engagements and efforts both by painters and literary writers. Nepali art students' exposure to art education in Kolkata and literary writers' engagements with print-capitalism in Banaras over a century ago have played significant roles in introducing modernism in both paintings and literature. But I have said clearly that the use of the Western techniques and education has played great role in this process. We can see that in the interface between art and literature, which should be seen in the widening sphere of such sharing in terms of both techniques, and native orientations.

Intersectional Ecologies: Reimagining Anthropology and Environment

Drawing on the work of Black feminist scholars, this review suggests “intersectional ecologies” as a method for critically engaging anthropology's relationship with the environment across subfields, intellectual traditions, and authorial politics. Intersectional ecologies helps us trace how a broad coalition of scholars represents and accounts for the environment within shifting planetary arrangements of bodies, sites, practices, and technologies. Our basic argument in this article is that because the environment is a malleable and contingent social fact, it matters who is analyzing its formation and how they are analyzing it. To this end, the scholarship we review comes from a diverse array of authors. The three themes we have identified—materiality, knowledge, and subjectivity—are central to bringing this diverse scholarship into dialogue while putting into focus anthropology's uneven commitments to the environment as a concept. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 50 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

At the bar of conscience: A Kantian argument for slavery reparations

Arguments for slavery reparations have fallen out of favour even as reparations for other forms of racial injustice are taken more seriously. This retreat is unsurprising, as arguments for slavery reparations often rely on two normatively irregular claims: that reparations are owed to the dead (as opposed to, say, their living heirs) and that the present generation inherits an as yet unrequited guilt from past generations. Outside of some strands of Black thought and activism on slavery reparations, these claims are widely rejected. I develop an argument for slavery reparations around those foundational claims by adopting the normative framework of Immanuel Kant. On what I call the Basic Argument for slavery reparations, the application of Kant’s retributivist theory of punishment to slavery justifies reparations as a kind of proportional punishment for slavery. I also show that Kant’s philosophy offers reparations theorists resources to overcome several contemporary objections to slavery reparations.

LOST LEGACY OF “SOLIDARITY ”

The text is about “Solidarność” legacy and includes two types of liberty: negative and positive. Basic argument says, that “Solidarność” achieved historic success in a sphere of negative liberty, but they didn’t make it in positive sense, which was quickly forgotten after 1989. Positive liberty oblivion accompanied fears of former “Solidarność” leaders, who had taken the lead of system’s reformation, worried that NSZZ “Solidarność” upholding of workers interests will destroy done system’s changes too.

Value and the Expressive Conditions of the Subjective Will

This chapter analyzes the pivotal “Morality” section that makes subjective rights and universal welfare essential to the overall conception of justice. It is shown that Hegel’s analysis of the “deed” motivates the move to intentional action in which subjective value and the right to satisfaction come to the fore. The tension between objective and subjective value in the intention leads to the decisive conflict of abstract right and morality in the “right of necessity.” With the Basic Argument template it is shown why the right of necessity leads to an all-encompassing conception of value, the Good, that Hegel calls “the final purpose of the world.” The treatment of formal and true conscience is read in dialogue with the theory of justification that John Rawls calls reflective equilibrium. The chapter argues that conscience is the individual justification akin to reflective equilibrium, and that the transition out of “Morality” highlights the deficiencies of the individual (as opposed to institutional) reflective equilibrium model.

The Inferences of Right

This chapter provides the basic conceptual framework that guides Hegel’s account in his Philosophy of Right. It begins with an account of the final moves in “Subjective Spirit” through which Hegel deduces his conception of the free will. His key move is the unification of the rationality of inference (theoretical) with the purposiveness of the will (practical) to arrive at a conception of the practical inferences of the free will. It is shown how this conception is the basis of the account of the free will in the Philosophy of Right Introduction. The chapter argues for a conception of expressive validity to capture the normative character of the practical inferences of right. This account makes sense of Hegel’s conception of the immanent dialectical development of right. The template of the Basic Argument is refined to show how it guides the incorporation of particularity and contingency into the universality of right.

Introduction

The Introduction situates Hegel’s theory of justice in relation to the political moralism of ideal theory and the critical realism of those who hold that theories of morality and politics should be sharply separated. The Introduction argues that the unification of morality and right in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right depends on an overlooked theory of value. The various forms of value in Hegel are listed and it is shown that they can be conceived as unified through his conception of purposiveness. Spelling out the rationality in the account as a version of inferentialism, the Introduction distinguishes Hegel’s teleological inferentialism from pragmatist inferentialism. It is shown how inferential rationality in the practical domain can underwrite a theory of justice through Hegel’s conception of the rationality of life. Finally, a Basic Argument is given as the template for the development of the content of right.