The purpose with this study is to examine the aspects regarding how laboratory education can affect student’s ability to reason and their motivation for the subject.  To perform this study from a qualitative perspective we have used the method participatory observations. This studies empirical data is based on material from one pre-diagnose, six-lectures and question that mimic interview questions. The concerned subject is mathematics in elementary school grades two and five. This study is based on two theory’s, Self-determination theory that shows prerequisites for internal motivation and Mueller, Yankelwitz and Mahers framework that shows how cooperation affects students ability to develop mathematics argument.  The result shows that students ability to reason primarily are used by an investigating work method in the interaction where students get to discuss to come to a foundational idea and then uses reasoning to solve the assignment. Further the result show that students need of autonomy, competence and inherency needs to be satisfied if the students shall see the mathematic subject as interesting and pleasurable. The conclusions from the study show that if students gets their needs in autonomy, belonging and competence satisfied the knowledge requirements can be easier to reach. This study also shows that the designed working method can stimulate practice of the reasoning ability and strengthen students’ knowledge acquisition.

In this dissertation we propose to study the identification of the productive imagination with reason within Schelling's aesthetic idealism, an identification which leads us to propose, in what follows, an "inverted" philosophical reading of the power of aesthetic judgement of the Critique of the power of judgement (1790) of Kant, based on the monist- immanent metaphysics of Schelling's System of Identity (1801-1804). This approach to Kant's third Critique also demonstrates the originality of this dissertation, since the traditional reading of the Critique of the power of judgement with German idealism has underlined, from Hegel to Lukacs or Hartmann, the centrality of the teleological part of the work of 1790. The authors of German idealism and romanticism mainly saw teleological judgment as a factor of unity between the theoretical and practical domains. This point of the Kantian argument can be seen as a link between Spinoza and Hegel regarding the concepts of organism, totality and reciprocal action, which Hegel mainly brings into play in his conception of a system. In this dissertation, we will travel a more winding and heterodox path, less explored, which focuses on the objective potential of the aesthetic phenomenon, as well as on its scope and limits, in the reverse transition that we...

This dissertation critically reconsiders the dichotomy drawn in modern philosophy between faith and reason, especially as formalized by the German Idealists. The latter, I suggest, continue to influence how the philosophy of religion is conceived and what it is considered to be capable of accomplishing. Though originally used to reconcile religious faith with the philosophical reason that had animated forceful skepticism, this dichotomy also underscores a tension between the conceptualization of a rational public good and private religious values within pluralistic societies. I focus on the efforts of Kant, Hegel, and F.W.J. Schelling to develop a philosophy of religion that distinguished philosophical reason and religious faith as distinct sources of theory while nevertheless establishing meaningful dialogue between each. The first chapter surveys Kant's and Hegel's philosophy of religion and argues that they struggled to maintain the otherness of religious faith relative to philosophical interpretation. The subsequent chapters each focus on a period of Schelling's intellectual development — his early criticisms of Kant, his mature rejection of German Idealism's subjective metaphysics, and his late philosophy of religion — as he developed an alternative philosophical approach to religion. This provides a means of exploring the challenges that a philosophy of religion must navigate to move beyond the problematic opposition of faith and reason. I conclude by considering the university as a promising context for reformulating this problematic dichotomy central to the philosophy of religion. The professional division of faculties embodies the abstract delineation of faith and reason and indicates the social and political dimension of such academic efforts. I argue that Schelling's contributions to the philosophy of religion point to the idea of the university as a vital framework for both reconsidering the opposition of faith and reason and moving beyond this schema in order to conceptualize effectively the contemporary conflicts between rational and religious authority within pluralistic societies.

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In the university, the influence of Jacques Derrida's thought is immeasurable. Yet, his thoughts and 'Writings on the university remain somewhat unacknowledged. Derrida has 'Written and spoken extensively on the subject of the university with the hope of initiating a discussion that will, by questioning all aspects of the "university," create an opening toward its future. This thesis explores Derridean discourse on the university and suggests it as a useful and provocative means of(re)thinking the university. Chapter One ofthis thesis consists of a close reading of Derrida's essay "The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils." By following Derrida's historical, philosophical and political allusions, this chapter functions, in a certain sense, as a concordance to Derrida's essay. After exploring Derrida's discussion of how not to speak of the university, Chapter Two attempts to use Derridean discourse to understand the university as a "body." If the university were a body, what would it look like? In this chapter, I propose the existence of two quite different university bodies: the metaphysical university and the university incarnate. The metaphysical university body is infused with spirit and in fact rejects the body. By repressing its "body" (its historical, political and social determinants) the metaphysical university hallucinates its body as a unified, indestructible, inconsumable and uncontaminated whole. To preserve the university, the metaphysical university body suggests a return to "spirit." The university in-camate on the other hand, understands its body as wounded, parasitized, consumable, displaced and gaping. I suggest that this university body represents Derridean discourse on the university in its desire to think its body--its own constitution / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Why and, if so, how should educators cultivate hope in hopeless times? I defend a novel interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s theory of moral education - specifically, what I call his “pedagogy of hope,” a pedagogical method Kant prescribes to moral educators in the ‘Doctrine of Method’ of the Critique of Practical Reason for the purpose of cultivating virtuous character. According to Kant, moral educators should cultivate students’ hope for moral progress in order to sustain their moral motivation in the face of uncertainty, failures, and suffering. Kant’s two-step pedagogical method amounts to an aesthetic education, in the sense that it mirrors his account of the relationship between feeling and judgment in experiences of the beautiful and the sublime. Drawing on that account, I describe how, for Kant, moral educators can cultivate hope by developing students’ judgment through deliberation of examples of moral conduct and of moral exemplars.

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The aim of this dissertation is to examine and helpfully elucidate Kant’s proleptic philosophy of history by pursuing lines of thought across both his critical and historical body of work. A key motivation for this goal stems from noticing certain repetitive explications of Kant’s philosophy across, among other subjects, history, biology, religion, teleology, culture, and education, which, as precise and careful in their detail, all seem to converge on key Kantian ideas of teleology and morality. Rather than concentrating on any one aspect of Kant’s proleptic philosophy, I set out to (i) investigate seemingly untenable problems with his characterization of reason in history, (ii) to counter what I take as a misreading, if not misattributions, of Kant’s proleptic, and not prophetic, thoughts on historical progress, (iii) to offer an original reflection on Kant’s use of a famous stoic phrase in two of his political essays, and (iv) to an attempt a close exegesis toward tying notions of teleology and hope with that of need. The approach that I take in these chapters is both problem centered and exegetical, and while I attempt to answer concerns in the secondary literature pertaining to Kant’s proleptic philosophy of history, I also stay close to the primary texts by providing references and citations to key claims and passages which reinforce Kant’s forceful portrait of the poietic power of human reason to create a world hospitable to its rational ends. / Philosophy