Pragmatic epistemology: ways of knowing as ways of being

A personal epistemology is more than a framework for knowing and understanding reality; epistemic assumptions cultivate corresponding behaviours and actions. In other words, an individual's way of knowing predisposes a way of being. This inquiry explores the lifeworld of epistemology experienced by 14 women in Malaysia. Based on constant comparative analysis of in-depth interviews with Malaysian women from various ethnic backgrounds, the paper proposes a personal model of self-in-practice that enacts an individual's pragmatic epistemology—the experience of epistemology in everyday life. Previous research identified ways of knowing as personal models of self; this study explores how these ways of knowing are demonstrated in the everyday lifeworld, or pragmatic epistemology. For the women in this study, pragmatic epistemology manifests itself two ways: everyday decision-making and emotional disposition. Thus, the personal model of self reflects both culture and cognition, resulting in behaviours and actions framed by personal epistemology.     

Changing personal epistemologies in early childhood pre-service teachers using an integrated teaching program

This study investigated changes in pre-service teachers' personal epistemologies as they engaged in an integrated teaching program. Personal epistemology refers to individual beliefs about the nature of knowing and knowledge and has been shown to influence teaching practice. An integrated approach to teaching, based on both an implicit and explicit focus on personal epistemology, was developed by an academic team within a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood). The teaching program integrated content across four units of study, modelling personal epistemologies implicitly through collaborative reflexive practice. The students were also required to engage in explicit reflections on their personal epistemologies. Quantitative measures of personal epistemology were collected at the beginning and end of the semester using the Epistemological Beliefs Survey (EBS) to assess changes across the teaching period. Results indicated that pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs about the integration of knowledge became more sophisticated over the course of the teaching period. Qualitative data included pre-service teachers' responses to open ended questions and field experience journal reflections about their perceptions of the teaching program and were collected at the end of the semester. These data showed that pre-service teachers held different conceptions about learning as integration, which provided a more nuanced understanding of the EBS data. Understanding pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs provides promising directions for teacher preparation and professional enrichment.     

Personal Epistemology Research: Implications for Learning and Teaching

The ideas that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing have been the target of research programs with disparate names, such as epistemological beliefs, reflective judgment, ways of knowing, and epistemological reflection, all of which appear to be a part of a larger body of work on “personal epistemology.” Epistemological perspectives are salient in numerous academic experiences, have been shown to be related to learning in various ways, influence reasoning and judgment throughout our lives, and have implications for teaching. Yet this work has remained outside the mainstream of educational psychology and cognitive development. This paper addresses three main questions: (1) What is personal epistemology research and how is it conceptualized? (2) How are individuals' conceptions of epistemology related to learning and instruction? (3) Given what we know about personal epistemology, what might educators do? Suggestions are also provided for future research and theoretical development.     

Preservice Teachers’ Reconciliation of an Epistemological Issue in an Integrated Mathematics/Science Methods Course

Preservice teachers in six sections (n = 87) of a sequenced, methodological and process-integrated elementary mathematics/science methods course were able to reconcile an issue centered on a similar area of epistemology. Preservice teachers participated in a science inquiry lesson on biological classification and a mathematics problem-solving lesson on polyhedra. Preservice teachers were asked why it was possible to derive a mathematical formula for polyhedra and not organisms and what this implies about the similarities and differences between the epistemologies of mathematics and science. An area of epistemology known as simplicity was triangulated as “simple versus complex” emerged from the constant comparative method (28 %) and “justification and simplicity” (96 %) was coded with a content analysis. Implications include how methods course instructors can create other appropriate activities which incorporate and reconcile other areas of epistemology.     

“他者”视角的英美文学中国形象

英美文学因从"自我"的视野审视"他者"的中国,对中国形象描述在不同时期呈现不同特点,由此就造成了文学中"自我"与"他者"理念下的冲突。正视"自我"与"他者"的差异,明确"自我"与"他者"的置换与统一,是消除文学敌视,促进文学繁荣与和谐社会发展的前提和条件。     

Ethnography in charting paths toward personal and social liberation: using my Latina cultural intuition

Drawing on a Chicana feminist epistemology, the author, a Latina immigrant, presents how she used her cultural intuition to engage in a two-year ethnography with Latino immigrant families. She argues that for her engaging in ethnography with her “own community” is an endeavor that calls to the fore her homegrown epistemologies and her positioning as a Latina immigrant. The themes of doing ethnography en familia, using collective remembering and sense-making, and developing a libratory pedagogy point to an ethnography that strays from traditional, presumed “objective” data sources. Further, she argues that in these contexts of ethnography she was able to reclaim and integrate her various knowledges and identities toward a potential process of liberation.     

论教师“真我”与“潜藏整体”——帕克·帕尔默教师哲学思想研究

帕克·帕尔默教师哲学的核心概念是作为教师自我个性核心(core of selfhood)的教师"真我"(true self)。"真我"即内在真理,若与外部表现相统一则构成"潜藏整体"(a hiddenworld)。"真我"丧失造成"潜藏整体"破损,分离生活开始,是教师孤独痛苦的根源。只有以悖论式整体思考方式认识教师职业,构建以主体为中心的集认识、教学、学习于一身的真理共同体,才能发现教师"真我",回归"潜藏整体"。     

An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilot asked Jesus of Nazareth. For many educators today this question seems quaintly passé. Rejection of “truth” goes hand-in-hand with the rejection of epistemological realism. Educational thought over the last decade has instead been dominated by empiricist, anti-realist, instrumentalist epistemologies of two types: first by psychological constructivism and later by social constructivism. Social constructivism subsequently has been pressed to its logical conclusion in the form of relativistic multiculturalism. Proponents of both psychological constructivism and social constructivism value knowledge for its utility and eschew as irrelevant speculation any notion that knowledge is actually about reality. The arguments are largely grounded in the discourse of science and science education where science is “western” science; neither universal nor about what is really real. The authors defended the notion of science as universal in a previous article. The present purpose is to offer a commonsense argument in defense of critical realism as an epistemology and the epistemically distinguished position of science (rather than privileged) within a framework of epistemological pluralism. The paper begins with a brief cultural survey of events during the thirty-year period from 1960–1990 that brought many educators to break with epistemological realism and concludes with comments on the pedagogical importance of realism. Understanding the cultural milieu of the past forty years is critical to understanding why traditional philosophical attacks on social constructivist ideas have proved impotent defenders of scientific realism.     

DEVELOPING CREATIVE PRODUCTIVITY IN THE “STREETWISE” DISADVANTAGED GIFTED CHILD: THE THIRD WORLD CHALLENGE

This paper presents an insight into the productive abilities of the disadvantaged gifted child that forms the foundation for a transition curriculum. A model for maximizing the inner and outer world of the child is presented, integrated into this transition from “streetwise” abilities which are contextually relevant. Despite political turmoil, the Third World challenge is to provide a curriculum to develop both a positive self and a constructive view of the future. Programmes in action for disadvantaged children in South Africa are reviewed.     

试论斯莱特的“稳定性质簇说”

回应哈金的“消去主义”,是当代自然种类理论研究的一个难题。克里普克通过哲学的语义分析导出一种“类本质主义”,引领出一个集中于解释分类自然性的自然种类理论研究趋势。由“类本质主义”到“稳定性质簇说”,相关探讨接受语言哲学“遵从世界”的思维,并随之接受一个“人-自然”式的二元世界结构预设。“稳定性质簇说”基于“集团稳定性”解释自然种类,该解释具有一定的优势,但是它主要从认识论的角度综合“自我平衡性质簇说”和“非规则的稳定性”,没有质疑已有研究的本体论基础,因此在本体论取向方面犹豫不决。“稳定性质簇说”重视本体论实践,但是需要一种本体论观念的修正。综合关于自然种类的哲学语义学、认识论和形而上学研究,有可能给出对于哈金“消去主义”的进一步回应。     

EDUCATION AND “THICK” EPISTEMOLOGY

In this essay Ben Kotzee addresses the implications of Bernard Williams's distinction between “thick” and “thin” concepts in ethics for epistemology and for education. Kotzee holds that, as in the case of ethics, one may distinguish between “thick” and “thin” concepts of epistemology and, further, that this distinction points to the importance of the study of the intellectual virtues in epistemology. Following Harvey Siegel, Kotzee contends that “educated” is a thick epistemic concept, and he explores the consequences of this for the subjects of epistemology and philosophy of education. Ultimately, Kotzee argues that its nature as a “thick” concept makes education suited to play an important role in explaining how the intellectual virtues can be acquired.     

共建和谐的世界——从生态女性主义角度解读艾丽斯·沃克的妇女主义思想

美国黑人女作家艾丽斯·沃克以她独创的"妇女主义"思想而享誉全球。这在她所有的作品中都有所体现。此外,沃克还逐渐显示出生态女性主义意识。她在其后期的作品中融入了自然的元素,以此说明人类与自然共存共荣的关系。基于此,以沃克的三部小说为例,从生态女性主义的角度解读她的妇女主义思想,并指出她对男性、女性、自然三者平等共生的渴望和对男女共建和谐世界的期盼。     

Other ways of being: challenging dominant financial literacy discourses in Aboriginal Context

Financial literacy education (FLE) continues to gain momentum on a global scale. FLE is often described as essential learning for all citizens, despite the bulk of initiatives outside the compulsory school classrooms focussed on educating economically disadvantaged individuals. Informed by Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing a critical discourse analysis of FLE facilitators resources used in train-the-trainer workshops in/for a Canadian Aboriginal community was conducted to identify dominant discourses. An uncomfortable space was uncovered as the ubiquitous focus on individual wealth accumulation contradicted Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, underscoring the challenges of embedding Indigenous epistemologies in highly institutionalised charitable organisations’ attempts to help Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) peoples in poverty. Although this research is based on a Canadian program, the explosion of FLE as a “solution” to collective problems such as poverty lends itself to other—including Australian—contexts.     

惠特曼与郭沫若诗歌公共性比较

惠特曼和郭沫若在对民族题材的运用和诗歌形式创新中完成诗歌“个体自我”向“民族自我”（“国家自我”）的转化,升华为一种“普遍自我”。惠特曼以美国作为投射对象,以第一人称“我”热情讴歌美国精神,在诗歌中完成自我身份构建。郭沫若诗歌应和“五四”的时代精神,高扬人的个体性,坚持对现实压迫的反抗,对祖国的热爱,把“五四”个性主义的时代精神在作品里成功地反映出来,由此给郭沫若的新诗带来了奔腾豪纵的情趣美。     

“全球史”与人文政治教育的危机

随着我国进入美国主导的“世界市场”,美国化的“全球史”学也适时进入我国走向开放的学术和教育空间。就史学视域而言,“全球史”与“世界史”并无不同,决定性的差异在于用怎样的政治观念看待整个人类的经历。“全球史”是18世纪启蒙运动时期“世界大同主义”的产物,其教育目的是培养“世界公民”意识。一旦“全球史”成为我国大学的世界史教学内容,我们的年轻人丧失“中国意识”就是迟早的事情。     

日本女性文学中的物哀审美观--以《青梅竹马》为例

“物哀”是日本审美文化中的一个重要概念。“物哀”代表的是对世间万物的抽象化情感,既包含了对自然物的喜爱、感动,也包含有对生命的无奈和赞赏。这种复杂的情感融汇在日本人的审美意识中,成为了日本文学中不可或缺的特殊的感情表达方式。从日本文学发展史来看,女性文学的发展和物哀审美的发展息息相关。在近代女性作家中,樋口一叶的作品也被认为是物哀审美的重要代表。其代表作《青梅竹马》中,通过对悲剧恋情的描写,运用借物抒情等方式生动体现了物哀审美观。     

《春觉斋论文》之“理”探微

晚清名家林纾的古文创作理论代表作?春觉斋论文?,在承续前人观念的基础上,融合自身的体会,提出了以“读书”“明理”“宗道”为核心概念的古文理论,而这三者皆由“理”字贯通。 “理”在文中的内涵既表现为圣贤经传,尤其是儒家经典著述中的修身、知世、明道之理,也表现为人生阅历背后的世事运行规律和价值取向。 另外,“理” 对古文创作既有指导作用,同时也作为文章艺术价值的衡量标准,更是写作主体自身修养的重要内涵。 因此,以原文为本对“理” 做探究、阐发,对理解林纾的古文创作思想极具意义。     

Knowledge and Kinesiology

Epistemology, or ways of knowing, can be used (a) to show that kinesiology employs different but complementary methods for gaining knowledge and that each method has a role to play in kinesiology, and (b) to show how epistemology can be used to organize an introductory kinesiology course or textbook. The epistemologies used to organize the subdisciplines are rationalism, empiricism, science, and subjectivism. An epistemic approach to a foundations course or textbook allows one to answer questions in the subdisciplines regarding how knowledge is evaluated, how knowledge develops, what method should be used to develop knowledge, and how knowledge can best be taught. The goal is to enable students to understand an increasingly diverse field by literally charting how methods of knowledge creation relate to the subdisciplines that compose kinesiology.     

Réflexions sur la construction d’un champ disciplinaire: les mathématiques dans l’institution jésuite à la Renaissance

The aim of the paper is to provide an analysis of the emergence of mathematics as a scholarly discipline, through the study of the most important agent of education, in the early modern Catholic world: the Society of Jesus. The study of the various sources offered by the institution produces a confrontation between the elaboration of a normative text and local practices, and brings to light the different components of such a construction: a social and political context, which allows the expression of local demands for mathematics; a precise intellectual context, within which a new epistemology of science is developing (the importance is noted of Clavius, the first teacher of mathematics at the Collegio Romano, who defended the new epistemology);and the constitution of a group of professors able to teach it. Through the remarkable documentation left by the Jesuit institution, the enquiry can be developed at different scales (from the local to the universal) and permitting consideration of the “scientific revolution” in terms of both a social and an intellectual process.