Education,Despair and Morality: A Reply to Roberts

In a recent thought‐provoking piece, Peter Roberts argues against the central role of happiness as a guiding concept in education, and argues for more attention to be paid to despair. This does not mean cultivating despair in young people, but allowing them to make sense of their own natural occasional despair, as well as the despair of others. I agree with Roberts about happiness, and about the need for more attention to despair, but I argue that focusing too much on despair is dangerous without paying simultaneous attention to goodness. Roberts argues that students must be helped to face the despair born of the realisation that (i) we can never be sure of the moral grounds on which our actions are based, (ii) we can never fully know ourselves, and that (iii) education should make us more appreciative of what we don't know. I argue against all three claims: (i) there are some moral truths that we can know; (ii) we can know enough of ourselves in certain contexts; (iii) education should not only teach intellectual humility, it should also give us confidence in appreciating the sources of meaning that are ordinarily available, e.g. personal relationships. The paper concludes with a response to the objection (perhaps by Roberts, as well as by liberals) that my position is little more than old‐fashioned moralism and conservatism.     

Professions, Competence and Informal Learning

Books reviewed:
Graham Cheetham and Geoff Chivers (2005) Professions, Competence and Informal Learning . Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. 337 pp. ISBN 1-84376-408-3; £69.95. Reviewed by Jackie Haigh, Division of Midwifery and Women's Health, Unity Building, 25 Trinity Road, Bradford, BD5 0BB, UK     

民间金融与中小企业融资——一个交易成本视角

阐述了民间金融在我国广泛存在的现状,并在现代制度经济学关于交易成本理论的分析框架内,就民间金融与正规金融的交易成本进行了具体比较,结果表明,由于中小企业自身的特点使得其在通过正规金融渠道融资时,交易双方都要为此承担高昂的交易成本,相比而言,民间金融在降低金融交易成本方面具有明显的优势,这种低成本交易的优势正是民间金融广泛存在的根本原因。     

非形式逻辑之理论创新研究

非形式逻辑作为新的逻辑分支,是应对形式演绎逻辑在分析和评价自然语言论证的局限性、要求逻辑更加关注论证的语用维度的产物,又是与要求逻辑更加关注生活世界有关。非形式逻辑提出了论证分析和论证评价的新理论,推动了逻辑学的进一步发展。     

Roberts,Peter. 2000. Education,Literacy, and Humanization. Exploring in the Work of Paulo Freire. Westport,Connecticut/London: Bergin & Garvey.

International Review of Education -     

Formal and Informal Styles

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