I just received this message from Thomas Harris, a former student of my Philosophy class.
“Can you stick a recommendation of the book ‘Doubt, A History’ by Jennifer Hecht. it’s a book essentially with a brief introduction to the evolving socio-philosophical ideas (ie. that many people in society share) through history. Because religion is so strongly based on belief, this book, as the contrary history, is too, also pointing out how the great religious leaders (not an oxymoron) were great doubters of the status quo. You might be able to find a review on the internet, and if you are interested yourself brent, i can organize to send you a copy. Cool website!”
I’ve had a look around, and here is the link to the site about the book Thomas suggested:
http://www.jennifermichaelhecht.com/_wsn/page3.html
It does look interesting.
Richard Tweedie (teacher of Philosophy at Hagley Community College) has been invited to present on the status of Secondary School Philosophy teaching at the UNESCO conference in Manila. During his presentation, Richard will describe the history of Philosophy teaching in New Zealand schools and discuss our current position. He will also provide an overview of our future goals in getting Philosophy as a recognized part of the New Zealand curriculum and the development of Achievement Standard assessments in Philosophy.
This is Daniel Shaw’s “Rejoinder to Noel Carroll’s The Philosophy of Motion Pictures“. In this critical review, Shaw refutes Carroll’s account of emotional affect in film along with his views on film evaluation. Note: It is our understanding that this article was published under Open Access (see: www.openhumanitiespress.org/open-access.html). Please contact us if this is not correct.
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Is there a difference between physical phenomena and mental phenomena? This paper compares two approaches to answering this question: 1 Brentano’s theory of Intentionality, which suggests that there is a true distinction between physical objects and the objects of thought; and 2 Daniel Dennett’s Intentional Systems Theory, which reduces mental events to physical systems. Note: This paper was published in LINGUISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS Vol. 7, Mar 2008.
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Are we living inside a simulated universe? Nick Bostrom has argued that it is likely that we exist in a simulation. This response to Bostrom’s argument suggests that he over-estimates the probability that intelligent creatures will create simulated universes, and a more rational position is to accept that we inhabit the one real universe. This article was published in Philosophy Now, issue 75 (2009)
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Today in Christchurch a group of teachers met to discuss the new New Zealand Curriculum and how it relates to the way Philosophy is taught in Secondary Schools. It was an interesting meeting and it was pleasing to have 7 teachers attending–some who teach Philosophy as a subject, and some who are currently weaving Philosophical processes through their subject areas. This is the first time that we have been given the license to run a Philosophy session on the Curriculum Support Day, which is a nation-wide day for teacher professional development, so we take this as a positive sign that Philosophy is beginning to be recognized by the Ministry of Education.
Article in response to the broadcast of an interview with Lloyd Pye, a supported that the so-called “Starchild Skull” is of extraterrestrial origin. This short article demonstrates with straight forward reasoning that we should not accept the outrageous claim that the skull is alien.
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