Global ETD Search

1	The uses of reason in critical judgement : commentaries on the Turner Prize Gillon, Leslie January 2016 (has links) Through an analysis of critical reviews and other commentaries on the annual Turner Prize shortlist exhibitions, I examine a philosophical problem which has put into question the rational basis for evaluation in art criticism: the lack of any agreed criteria for the evaluation of artworks. This problem has been most often addressed within philosophical aesthetics through two contrasting approaches: the attempt to formulate evaluative criteria, and the denial that such criteria are either possible or necessary. My response to this meta-critical issue is an interdisciplinary study, in the form of an analysis of published commentaries on the Turner Prize, that examines theories of critical evaluation against an empirical investigation of actual critical practice. The Turner Prize has a number of advantages as a case study. Extensive media coverage of the competition means that it is possible to study a wide range of sources intended for the art-going public, that contain a large body of examples of comparative critical evaluation, and as an annual event it offers the opportunity for both synchronic and diachronic analyses. Moreover, the regular presence of artists whose work has been characterised as ‘conceptual, ensures that many of the commentaries focus on an area of art that presents a particular challenge to aesthetic theory and critical practice. In order to develop a critique of criteria based approaches, the contrasting approaches to art criticism taken by Noel Carroll and Frank Sibley are explored within an analysis of the critical reasons given to justify evaluations of Turner Prize exhibits. Suggestions are offered for ways of developing alternative approaches, drawing upon theories of the aesthetic developed by Suzanne Langer and Kendall Walton. 709.04 Philosophy not elsewhere classified
2	Systemic reflexivity : building theory for organisational consultancy Oliver, Christine January 2012 (has links) This dissertation argues for the value of the concept of systemic reflexivity in sense making, orientation and action in systemic practice, and in organisational practice in particular. The concept emerges as a theme through the development of two specific strands of published work from 1992 to 2013, that of Coordinated Management of Meaning Theory (CMM) and Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Both lines of inquiry highlight the moral dimension of practitioners’ conceptualisation and practice. Systemic reflexivity alerts us to the opportunities and constraints system participants make for the system in focus, facilitating exploration of a system’s coherence, through a detailed framework for systemic thinking which links patterns of communication to their narratives of influence and narrative consequences. It provides the conditions for enabling individual and collective responsibility for the ways that communication shapes our social worlds. The concept is illustrated in practice through a range of case studies within the published works. 658.4
3	Superintendent Perceptions of Open Enrollment Transfer Policies In Indiana after Fourteen Years of Implementation Sean Raymond Galiher (14026572) 28 October 2022 (has links) <p>School choice has expanded during the modern school choice movement and students in Indiana can now choose from several school options including public schools, charter schools, virtual schools, or participate in the Indiana Choice Scholarships program and attend a parochial school. The potential for increased educational stratification across different demographic groups is a concern amongst policy makers and stakeholders committed to providing equitable access to educational opportunities for all. This phenomenological qualitative case study examined how seven superintendents perceive the impact of open enrollment policy in Indiana. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with each superintendent. Four emergent themes were identified: (1) student enrollment and financial instability, (2) marketing and program advancement, (3) meeting student needs, and (4) increased diversity. The results of this study provide a unique perspective of seven practicing superintendents and the effects of open enrollment policy.  </p> Education policy open enrollment school choice choice scholarship inter-district
4	The Metaphysics of Goodness Berman Chan (10711287) 06 May 2021 (has links) What is it for something to be good? Using the example of an Ebola-like microbe, I argue that a merely kind-based account of goodness is defective (Chapter 1). I offer instead an account that is both kind-based and platonic (Chapter 2). On such an account, goodness turns out to be non-natural (Chapter 3). However, non-naturalists can explain why the goodness of an individual supervenes on its natural properties, by appealing to the essence of the kind to which it belongs (Chapter 4). Philosophy Metaphysics Philosophy not elsewhere classified Aristotelian categoricals Aristotelian naturalism Philippa Foot excellence Robert Adams non-naturalism goodness supervenience Stephanie Leary platonic essence
5	Education for a just democracy: the role of ethical inquiry Collins, Carol January 2004 (has links) In this thesis it is argued that the fundamental goal of education is one of equipping students to think well, that is, to make decisions on the basis of arguments that are both logically cogent and ethically grounded. Moreover, the concern of the thesis is the role social and environmental education might play in fostering both the capability and the readiness to engage widely in such thinking. Drawing on relevant philosophical and psychological theory the study describes the development of an educational programme grounded in the procedures of ethical inquiry and taught via whole-class community of inquiry style discussions. The programme was trialled by way of a large scale, matched intervention study in South Australian upper primary classrooms. The findings from the research project indicate that participation in the programme produced significant gains in participants' logical and ethical reasoning and also that the programme fits within the constraints of prevailing educational structures. Philosophy not elsewhere classified Teacher Education: Primary Teacher Education: Higher Education History and Philosophy of Education Educational Psychology Philosophy for Children Ethical inquiry Community of Inquiry Social and Environmental Education
6	The gender of suicide Jaworski, Katrina January 2007 (has links) Suicide holds an ambivalent position in contemporary social and cultural contexts. It questions what it means to live and die, yet provides no clear-cut answers about death or dying, life or living. This thesis explores some of the ways suicide has been understood and represented, to demonstrate that knowing suicide is dependent not only on what suicide means, but also on how meanings of suicide become part of knowledge. Knowing suicide is not a matter of responding to it as self-evident, transparent, neutral and obvious, but rather is implicated in social processes and norms central to how knowledge gains intelligibility. Guided by poststructuralist, postmodernist, feminist and postfeminist philosophies, the thesis takes up gender and gendering as its central focus, to interrogate how knowledge about suicide becomes knowledge. Critically examining a wide variety of textual sources, it argues that suicide is principally rendered as a masculine, and even a masculinist, practice. Knowing suicide today is anchored in suicidology - the study of suicide - and maintained by institutional sites of practice including sociology, law, medicine, psy-knowledge and newsprint media, each of which is analysed here. Suicide as masculine and masculinist practice is invoked through multiple, often-contradictory and inextricably linked readings of gender, even while claiming homogeneity. Its gendered foundations can however be made to appear gender-neutral, even when actually gender-saturated. The twin gender movements of neutrality and repleteness are in fact crucial to the knowing of suicide. The thesis establishes that knowing suicide can never occur outside discourse. Even more importantly, how suicide enters discourse cannot be thought outside gender. The body matters to the production of deeply problematic understandings of agency, intent and violence, on which the production of suicide as masculine and masculinist depends. It becomes clear that such dependence rests not only on gender, but also on race and sexuality, as conditions of its knowing. The thesis suggests that further attention be given to the production and maintenance of highly reductive and limiting homogenous truth claims in suicide - truth claims that validate and privilege some interpretations of suicide, at the expense of rendering others less legitimate and serious. If the processes and practices of interpreting suicide become a site of permanent debate, they are more likely to challenge the ways in which masculinist ways of knowing render, and limit, the intelligibility of suicide. gendering suicidology knowledge Indigenous Health Social Theory History and Philosophy of Medicine Gender Specific Studies Aboriginal Studies Communication and Media Studies Culture, Gender, Sexuality Cultural Theory Epistemology Social Philosophy Philosophy not elsewhere classified Mental Health gender suicide
7	Education for a just democracy: the role of ethical inquiry Collins, Carol January 2004 (has links) In this thesis it is argued that the fundamental goal of education is one of equipping students to think well, that is, to make decisions on the basis of arguments that are both logically cogent and ethically grounded. Moreover, the concern of the thesis is the role social and environmental education might play in fostering both the capability and the readiness to engage widely in such thinking. Drawing on relevant philosophical and psychological theory the study describes the development of an educational programme grounded in the procedures of ethical inquiry and taught via whole-class community of inquiry style discussions. The programme was trialled by way of a large scale, matched intervention study in South Australian upper primary classrooms. The findings from the research project indicate that participation in the programme produced significant gains in participants' logical and ethical reasoning and also that the programme fits within the constraints of prevailing educational structures. Philosophy not elsewhere classified Teacher Education: Primary Teacher Education: Higher Education History and Philosophy of Education Educational Psychology Philosophy for Children Ethical inquiry Community of Inquiry Social and Environmental Education
8	The Social Construction of Economic Man: The Genesis, Spread, Impact and Institutionalisation of Economic Ideas Mackinnon, Lauchlan A. K. Unknown Date (has links) The present thesis is concerned with the genesis, diffusion, impact and institutionalisation of economic ideas. Despite Keynes's oft-cited comments to the effect that 'the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood'(Keynes 1936: 383), and the highly visible impact of economic ideas (for example Keynesian economics, Monetarism, or economic ideas regarding deregulation and antitrust issues) on the economic system, economists have done little to systematically explore the spread and impact of economic ideas. In fact, with only a few notable exceptions, the majority of scholarly work concerning the spread and impact of economic ideas has been developed outside of the economics literature, for example in the political institutionalist literature in the social sciences. The present thesis addresses the current lack of attention to the spread and impact of economic ideas by economists by drawing on the political institutionalist, sociological, and psychology of creativity literatures to develop a framework in which the genesis, spread, impact and institutionalisation of economic ideas may be understood. To articulate the dissemination and impact of economic ideas within economics, I consider as a case study the evolution of economists' conception of the economic agent - "homo oeconomicus." I argue that the intellectual milieu or paradigm of economics is 'socially constructed' in a specific sense, namely: (i) economic ideas are created or modified by particular individuals; (ii) economic ideas are disseminated (iii) certain economic ideas are accepted by economists and (iv) economic ideas become institutionalised into the paradigm or milieu of economics. Economic ideas are, of course, disseminated not only within economics to fellow economists, but are also disseminated externally to economic policy makers and business leaders who can - and often do - take economic ideas into account when formulating policy and building economic institutions. Important economic institutions are thereby socially constructed, in the general sense proposed by Berger and Luckmann (1966). But how exactly do economic ideas enter into this process of social construction of economic institutions? Drawing from and building on structure/agency theory (e.g. Berger and Luckmann 1966; Bourdieu 1977; Bhaskar 1979/1998, 1989; Bourdieu 1990; Lawson 1997, 2003) in the wider social sciences, I provide a framework for understanding how economic ideas enter into the process of social construction of economic institutions. Finally, I take up a methodological question: if economic ideas are disseminated, and if economic ideas have a real and constitutive impact on the economic system being modelled, does 'economic science' then accurately and objectively model an independently existing economic reality, unchanged by economic theory, or does economic theory have an interdependent and 'reflexive' relationship with economic reality, as economic reality co-exists with, is shaped by, and also shapes economic theory? I argue the latter, and consider the implications for evaluating in what sense economic science is, in fact, a science in the classical sense. The thesis makes original contributions to understanding the genesis of economic ideas in the psychological creative work processes of economists; understanding the ontological location of economic ideas in the economic system; articulating the social construction of economic ideas; and highlighting the importance of the spread of economic ideas to economic practice and economic methodology. 410401 Design Theory 349901 Political Economy 370000 Studies in Human Society 340302 History of Economic Thought 349900 Other Economics 410402 Design Innovation 360201 Public Policy 360000 Policy and Political Science 380100 Psychology 360100 Political Science 360200 Policy and Administration 370101 Social Theory 370102 Social Policy and Planning 340100 Economic Theory genesis spread diffusion impact institutionalisation economic ideas idea ideation psychology of creativity Wallas Wertheimer stage model productive thinking creative creativity process economic economics sociology social methodology methodological self-altering self-fulfilling self-denying prophecy belief reflexive reflexivity institution institutionalise institutionalised social construction Berger Luckmann Bhaskar critical realism Lawson Bordieu habitus field spread impact ideation ideational structure social structure action creativity creative economists sociology philosophy of science homo economicus homo oeconomicus economic man economic agent rational economic man man lucas critique Goodhart's law Keynes Marx Mill Hayek Hicks Samuelson Walras Jevons Arrow Debreu Samuelson Merton sociology of economics sociology of scientific knowledge SSK Holton prediction control reflexive prediction reflexivity Whitley Mackie canonization Henshel Grunberg Modigliani Morgenstern Lucas Muth Simon Blyth Hall Sikkink Hira Hood institutionalize institutionalized socialise socialisation internalise internalisation internalization socialization behaviour behavior Thomas theorem expectations stage model productive thinking evolution

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