This thesis identifies the convergence between John Dewey's ideas regarding the public and the evolution of law enforcement practices. There are four areas covered, those being responses to major shifts in cultural activities and assumptions, learning as continuous, Dewey's ethics and the role of discretion in law enforcement, and community as participatory and inclusive. Dewey's ideas in these four areas are explained and examples are provided that demonstrate the convergence. Particular attention is given to the changes brought about by the migration from the professional model to the community policing model. The thesis also claims that both models are necessary for law enforcement to have a sufficient repertoire to provide their services and that deciding which model to use should be based on what the task is. It also states that law enforcement should be open to future developments that can improve how law enforcement services are provided.

This thesis identifies the convergence between John Dewey's ideas regarding the public and the evolution of law enforcement practices. There are four areas covered, those being responses to major shifts in cultural activities and assumptions, learning as continuous, Dewey's ethics and the role of discretion in law enforcement, and community as participatory and inclusive. Dewey's ideas in these four areas are explained and examples are provided that demonstrate the convergence. Particular attention is given to the changes brought about by the migration from the professional model to the community policing model. The thesis also claims that both models are necessary for law enforcement to have a sufficient repertoire to provide their services and that deciding which model to use should be based on what the task is. It also states that law enforcement should be open to future developments that can improve how law enforcement services are provided.

This dissertation is a presentation and defense of the idea that public philosophy is a valuable activity, and that public philosophy should be generally supported because it provides benefits to the people who engage in it, and it raises esteem for philosophy generally. Historically philosophy was, in some measure, geared more toward the general public than it is today. Examining the history of philosophy in the most general terms reveals a trend for philosophy, over time, to become less accessible to the public and more of a specialized and professional practice. Philosophy is an activity that can and should provide benefits to people other than professional academic philosophers. In particular, applied philosophy is useful to other disciplines and professions. Applied philosophy is more well-known than public philosophy. Public philosophy may take two forms. There is public philosophy created for the public by public intellectuals. There is also a less well-known variant, philosophy by the public, which allows non-philosophers to participate in philosophical reflection and discussion in public philosophy programs. Public philosophy programs are an innovative way to revive the practice of philosophy as a way for ordinary people to improve their everyday lives. Public philosophy programs benefit individuals as well as their communities. / acase@tulane.edu

Four years ago, on May 15th 2011, we witnessed in the Spanish State ‘something’ that was quickly and popularly referred to as 15M or the Indignados. Since that day, 15M has had a tremendous impact on the way a large part of the Spanish population understands itself and its response-abilities and rights. In addition, 15M has affected the way in which a large part of the Spanish population understands its environment and those living-beings with whom said environment is co-created and co-inhabited. In this essay I immerse myself in an on-going non-disciplinary, multi-traditional multilogue with individuals being 15M. What I witness, feels and looks like a complex; mutating and dialogic; collective and cooperative; agonistic and transformative 'climate' that many refer to as el clima 15M (15m climate). Allowing different 15M wisdoms to frame the research, I envision this essay as an attempt at gaining a dialogical understanding of what it is that we might be speaking of when referring to 15M. Through this exploration, I seek to place my work within the sketched parameters of what James Tully refers to as public philosophy. The essay engages with individuals being 15M and with the vast literature in Spain around 15M and party-movement Podemos by academics and participants, and the European literature around populism, horizontality and Podemos grounded in Antonio Gramsci. It also draws on reciprocal elucidation literature in theory and in participatory, community-based social science. Moreover, the essay enters into dialogue with a whole body of literature on instrumental versus constitutive means-ends views of political change going back to Mahatma Gandhi and forward to Aldous Huxley, Richard Gregg, Hannah Arendt, Robert Young, Gene Sharp and Cesar Chavez. By giving ‘perspicuous representation’ or thick description of 15M by means of reciprocal elucidation, I am able to make a unique contribution to the theoretical literature on reciprocal elucidation and public philosophy. I am also able to disclose the field of 15M (the phenomenon) in a way that shows it to be different from the way 15M appears in other theoretical frames. Finally, the use of this method of reciprocal elucidation makes a unique contribution to community-based and engaged forms of social scientific research. / Graduate / 0422 / 0615 / 0344 / pouziel@uvic.ca