Richard Tweedie (Hagley Community College), Michael Couch (University of Canterbury), and Brent Silby (Unlimited) join colleagues David Legg (St Peters College), Libby Giles (Auckland Girls Grammar), and Jonathan Mckeown-Green (University of Auckland) in Wellington City for a two day writing session. During the two days the team will work on the composition of Teaching and Learning Guidelines for Philosophy in Secondary Schools. This is another crucial step in the journey towards getting Philosophy recognized in the New Zealand Curriculum.
The writing group meets in Wellington on 22nd and 23rd June 2009.
As the smacking debate continues to fire up people from all walks of life, it is timely to examine the issue rationally. This article looks at the reasons people have for smacking children, then examines alternatives to smacking. The article suggests that smacking is only permissible if there are no other options, and since there are other options, the conclusion is that smacking should not be used as a behavior correction tool.
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Fascinating article outlines the language use of the Piraha people, who do not use descriptive words or subordinate clauses. The people of this tribe have no way to represent the past or future, and therefore represent their world as an eternal present. This article is freely available at: www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,414291,00.html.
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On June 12th, 58 secondary school students met at the Department of Philosophy, University of Canterbury for a day of student driven Philosophical discussion. The day included a wonderful presentation from year 12 student Josh Grainger on Libertarianism, which served as a good discussion starter for the afternoon session.
Students discussed a range of fascinating Philosophical questions in a “free-flowing” forum setting. Some of the questions were: Does the world need God? Do animals have rights? Will computers ever be conscious? Is science the best way to find out about the world?
This day was the start of a new series of “Cafe Philosophy” sessions that will be held in Christchurch at a variety of locations. Check the Events page here for details for details on upcoming events, or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Many thanks to the Department of Philosophy, University of Canterbury for hosting our day.
Brent Silby 2009
Here are some pictures from the day:
Scientists claim to be able to demonstrate consciousness in patients stuck in a vegetative state. This article examines the debate surrounding consciousness in Vegetative State patients and draws parallels to debates in Artificial Intelligence as to whether machines can think.
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In this paper, Levine analyzes Kripke’s Cartesian argument against materialism. Levine transform’s Kripke’s argument from a metaphysical one into an epistemological one. This paper does not conclude that materialism is false, but it does point to problems with materialism about the mind.
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