This thesis deals with the anthropological thinking of Nicholas of Cusa. The first part presents the fundamental metaphysical motifs that are the basis for this anthropology - above all, it concerns the conception of human as a mind (intellect). This conception is linked with the thinking of the first Principle (God) as the unity that is identical with itself. This unity/oneness of the One descends into the world through number that is one and multiple at the same time (all higher numbers consist of ones). The emphasis on unity of the One and on number as a mean of the creation is the reason, why Cusa's main concern, regarding the understanding of the world, aren't individual substances, but the relations between these substances. And for this kind of metaphysical thinking it is really important to develop also a strong notion of human intellect (mind), but the first philosophical texts to some extent fail to do so. The second part of this thesis deals with the proper anthropology that is developed in the dialogues with the idiota. It is shown what is the role of human mind in the dynamics of descent and ascent of unity of the One - it is the human mind and its intellectual return to its Beginning through which is all creation being made one and being brought to its true nature that is the One. The last...

For a number of years the educational community has recognized the importance of teaching critical thinking skills to all students; however, a shift in educational pedagogy and philosophy has occurred. Through recent legislation the funding of educational institutions that demonstrate competencies and gains from standardized test scores has been mandated. Although performance measurement regarding the effectiveness of learning environments is useful, students must learn critical thinking skills to compete globally, problem solve effectively, self-actualize, preserve democracy, and promote human rights. The relationship between content and critical thinking presents a unique challenge in American education. This study examined the shift in focus from critical thinking to standards-based assessment in American education and focused on data garnered and analyzed from The California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST). The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in the 5 dimensions of critical thinking based on colleges and gender based upon 1,455 graduating seniors for the 2009-2010 academic year on the (CCTST). This study used descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze data. In this quantitative study, data from the (CCTST) were gathered and distributed to the researcher for compilation and statistical analysis. Findings from this study indicate that gender and major college of study significantly influence the means on the dimensions of the CCTST. This study provides information regarding critical thinking skills in a higher education setting and is useful for higher education practitioners in facilitating the development of critical thinking skills. The results of this study add to the body of knowledge regarding critical thinking.

This qualitative study featured two research endeavors. The first was a narrative inquiry of six teachers at Weedpatch Charter School as they understood curricular and pedagogical decisionmaking. These teachers, along with the Weedpatch Charter School founder, participated in this study soon after the curriculum and instruction decision-making had undergone a democratization effort whereby a top-down administrative approach was replaced by a teacher-led effort. Ironically, WCS school leadership welcomed the latter effort, despite the antiteacher legacy of the charter movement, which has long featured “at will” employment and no collective bargaining. The second component of this study was critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the curricular and pedagogical manuals used at WCS before and after the democratization effort. The findings in this study point to a dialectical set of developments at WCS that made it possible for teachers to move from a period of disillusionment into a period of active teacher agency. Similarly, the document analysis findings point to the need for more nuanced understandings of the ideological underpinnings of charter schools. Discourse analysis determined that WCS did not necessarily present a classic example of neoliberalism. Given the latter nuance, the manual that the teachers created was counterhegemonic, liberatory, and ultimately contextual and contingent upon that very unique WCS dynamic. As such, the conclusion of this study was that charter leaders could learn from teacher understandings not by being prescriptive but by abiding by what the author has coined contingent collectivism.

The present dissertation is a case study in applied phenomenology, specifically the postcolonial phenomenology of racism theorized by Lewis Gordon and applied to scholarly studies conducted on African American Jews and their kinfolk. My thesis is the following: Presumptively ontological human natures cannot function axiomatically for humanistic research on African American Jews. A humanistic science of Africana Jews must foreground the lived social worlds that permit such Jews to appear as ordinary expressions of humanity. The basic premise here is that subaltern (or denied) humanity exists in a neocolonial social world by virtue of an ordinariness that supervenes on humanity. For example, the more historians consider Africana Jews as ordinary, the more Africana Jews' humanity will appear. And the more human Africana Jews appear, the more inhuman their extraordinary appearance appears. This symbiosis constitutes a basic existential condition. When research on Africana Jews ignores this condition, it succumbs to ontological Jewishnness and other concepts rooted in what postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon calls the "colonial natural attitude. / Religion

Since the emergence of RastafarI communities within 1930's Jamaica following the coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Haile Selassie I, Negus (king) of Ethiopia, RastafarI continuously articulate his divinity within their discourse. While the specific nomenclature for and significance of Haile Selassie I may vary in accordance to time and affiliation, it is unquestionable that Selassie I remains central to the RastafarI way of life for more than 70 years. What scholars and thinkers on RastafarI question, and very fervently so during the past 10 years, is the authenticity of the divinity of Selassie I within RastafarI thought. The few scholars who attempt to solve what for them is the "problem of authenticity," claim, through christological and apologistic approaches, that RastafarI need to reconsider the possibility of his status, as it is conjecture and blasphemy. Adhering to African epistemological assumptions that everything in existence comprises the whole of existence, we rely on an African symbolic approach to examine RastafarI conceptualizations of Selassie I within pre-coronation, coronation and post-coronation RastafarI writings. Given that the material reality seemingly degenerates the collective body and consciousness in accordance with the cycles of time as expressed within the most ancient of Kemetic cosmologies, our aim is to suggest that Haile Selassie I emerges as a ba, the soul template, of Asar, a force manifesting as the human ability and potential to exist within the material realm in accordance with the unseen realm of existence. We conclude, unlike previous academic thinkers who examine RastafarI thought, that RastafarI thinking about Haile Selassie I is therefore an authentic perspective, one that undoubtedly occurs in accordance with the structure and origin of the universe and the cyclical journey of Africana reclamation of a primordial consciousness. / African American Studies

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