In his short article “On Bullshit” (1986, republished as a book in 2005), Harry Frankfurt diagnos... more In his short article “On Bullshit” (1986, republished as a book in 2005), Harry Frankfurt diagnoses a distinctive problem of contemporary culture: that so much of it is bullshit. Today, bullshit abounds in advertising, politics, the media, and the academy; for this, Frankfurt blames the mass media, advertising, the party political system, and some currents in academic thought (notably postmodernism). More than diagnose a widespread problem, however, in “On Bullshit” Frankfurt develops a theoretical account of the nature of bullshit. In his account, Frankfurt holds that bullshit is, like lying, a dishonest assertion; however, he makes clear how bullshitting is different from lying and holds (startlingly) that bullshit is more dishonest than lying. In this chapter I consider bullshit as a distinct perversion of assertion next to lying. I hold that understanding bullshit and lying as perversions of assertion sheds light on assertion and how it functions.
While the teaching of intellectual virtue is receiving growing attention, little research exists ... more While the teaching of intellectual virtue is receiving growing attention, little research exists on how to assess the development of intellectual virtue in students. This is not without reason. Some may think that the development of intellectual virtue should not (or perhaps cannot) be assessed. Furthermore, standard forms of assessment – especially as we encounter them in the high stakes graded exams common in schools and universities – seem to encourage an instrumental rather than a virtuous orientation towards the value of knowledge. In this paper, I review the challenges that exist for teachers in assessing intellectual virtue. I review attempts that have been made to assess something like intellectual virtue in (1) research on moral development, (2) research on ‘personal epistemology’ and (3) research into critical thinking. I conclude that while it is possible to assess the development of intellectual virtue with enough precision to demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching for intellectual character, this does not imply that virtue must be graded.
In this paper, I investigate two clashing perspectives regarding the good of the university: a so... more In this paper, I investigate two clashing perspectives regarding the good of the university: a socio-economic and an epistemic perspective. I position current writing on the university in the philosophy of education as being largely socio-economic and contrast this view to an earlier tradition of writing about the university that I position as mostly epistemic. Following on from this discussion, I review the university’s role in the distribution of social and epistemic goods. I hold that the university directly controls only the latter, not the former and hold that whatever socio-economic roles the university plays in society, it must do so through the distribution of knowledge in society. Next, I explore what this means for the university’s socio-economic functioning: I hold that seeing the good that the university distributes as knowledge places limits on its socio-economic functioning. Lastly, I ask what the university can do to promote epistemic justice in how it conducts teachi...
If digital technology today makes children able to rely on external aids (pocket calculators, Goo... more If digital technology today makes children able to rely on external aids (pocket calculators, Google, etc.) in their learning, is it still necessary to teach traditional school knowledge (such as mental arithmetic, recall of facts)? In this chapter, the debate about extended cognition is approached from the perspective of education. It is asked whether a human–machine interaction constitutes good learning in an effort to distinguish between when a person truly comes to know something aided by technology and when they merely parrot or copy something from technology. The standard answer to this question is that the difference is made by how well the technology in question is integrated in one’s cognitive character. Instead, it is argued that the difference lies in one’s acquired facility with the technology in question—credit for what one comes to know using technology when one has learned to use that technology well enough.
Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 2019
Practical wisdom is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics, and it has played a significant ... more Practical wisdom is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics, and it has played a significant role in the thinking of those who make use of virtue when theorising medical practice and ethics. In this article, we examine how storytelling and practical wisdom play integral roles in the medical ethics education of junior doctors. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted 46 interviews with a cohort of junior doctors to explore the role doctors feel phronesis has in their medical ethics practice and how they acquire practical wisdom through storytelling as an essential part of their medical ethics education. Through thematic analysis of the interviews, we discuss the key role storytelling about moral exemplars and role models plays in developing medical ethics education, and how telling stories about role models is considered to be one of the most useful ways to learn medical ethics. We finish by developing an argument for why practical wisdom should be an important part of medical ...
In his short article “On Bullshit” (1986, republished as a book in 2005), Harry Frankfurt diagnos... more In his short article “On Bullshit” (1986, republished as a book in 2005), Harry Frankfurt diagnoses a distinctive problem of contemporary culture: that so much of it is bullshit. Today, bullshit abounds in advertising, politics, the media, and the academy; for this, Frankfurt blames the mass media, advertising, the party political system, and some currents in academic thought (notably postmodernism). More than diagnose a widespread problem, however, in “On Bullshit” Frankfurt develops a theoretical account of the nature of bullshit. In his account, Frankfurt holds that bullshit is, like lying, a dishonest assertion; however, he makes clear how bullshitting is different from lying and holds (startlingly) that bullshit is more dishonest than lying. In this chapter I consider bullshit as a distinct perversion of assertion next to lying. I hold that understanding bullshit and lying as perversions of assertion sheds light on assertion and how it functions.
While the teaching of intellectual virtue is receiving growing attention, little research exists ... more While the teaching of intellectual virtue is receiving growing attention, little research exists on how to assess the development of intellectual virtue in students. This is not without reason. Some may think that the development of intellectual virtue should not (or perhaps cannot) be assessed. Furthermore, standard forms of assessment – especially as we encounter them in the high stakes graded exams common in schools and universities – seem to encourage an instrumental rather than a virtuous orientation towards the value of knowledge. In this paper, I review the challenges that exist for teachers in assessing intellectual virtue. I review attempts that have been made to assess something like intellectual virtue in (1) research on moral development, (2) research on ‘personal epistemology’ and (3) research into critical thinking. I conclude that while it is possible to assess the development of intellectual virtue with enough precision to demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching for intellectual character, this does not imply that virtue must be graded.
In this paper, I investigate two clashing perspectives regarding the good of the university: a so... more In this paper, I investigate two clashing perspectives regarding the good of the university: a socio-economic and an epistemic perspective. I position current writing on the university in the philosophy of education as being largely socio-economic and contrast this view to an earlier tradition of writing about the university that I position as mostly epistemic. Following on from this discussion, I review the university’s role in the distribution of social and epistemic goods. I hold that the university directly controls only the latter, not the former and hold that whatever socio-economic roles the university plays in society, it must do so through the distribution of knowledge in society. Next, I explore what this means for the university’s socio-economic functioning: I hold that seeing the good that the university distributes as knowledge places limits on its socio-economic functioning. Lastly, I ask what the university can do to promote epistemic justice in how it conducts teachi...
If digital technology today makes children able to rely on external aids (pocket calculators, Goo... more If digital technology today makes children able to rely on external aids (pocket calculators, Google, etc.) in their learning, is it still necessary to teach traditional school knowledge (such as mental arithmetic, recall of facts)? In this chapter, the debate about extended cognition is approached from the perspective of education. It is asked whether a human–machine interaction constitutes good learning in an effort to distinguish between when a person truly comes to know something aided by technology and when they merely parrot or copy something from technology. The standard answer to this question is that the difference is made by how well the technology in question is integrated in one’s cognitive character. Instead, it is argued that the difference lies in one’s acquired facility with the technology in question—credit for what one comes to know using technology when one has learned to use that technology well enough.
Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 2019
Practical wisdom is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics, and it has played a significant ... more Practical wisdom is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics, and it has played a significant role in the thinking of those who make use of virtue when theorising medical practice and ethics. In this article, we examine how storytelling and practical wisdom play integral roles in the medical ethics education of junior doctors. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted 46 interviews with a cohort of junior doctors to explore the role doctors feel phronesis has in their medical ethics practice and how they acquire practical wisdom through storytelling as an essential part of their medical ethics education. Through thematic analysis of the interviews, we discuss the key role storytelling about moral exemplars and role models plays in developing medical ethics education, and how telling stories about role models is considered to be one of the most useful ways to learn medical ethics. We finish by developing an argument for why practical wisdom should be an important part of medical ...
Baehr, J. (ed.) 2016. Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays In Applied Virtue Epistemology, 2016
While the teaching of intellectual virtue is receiving growing attention, little research exists ... more While the teaching of intellectual virtue is receiving growing attention, little research exists on how to assess the development of intellectual virtue in students. This is not without reason. Some may think that the development of intellectual virtue should not (or perhaps cannot) be assessed. Furthermore, standard forms of assessment – especially as we encounter them in the high stakes graded exams common in schools and universities – seem to encourage an instrumental rather than a virtuous orientation towards the value of knowledge. In this paper, I review the challenges that exist for teachers in assessing intellectual virtue. I review attempts that have been made to assess something like intellectual virtue in (1) research on moral development, (2) research on ‘personal epistemology’ and (3) research into critical thinking. I conclude that while it is possible to assess the development of intellectual virtue with enough precision to demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching for intellectual character, this does not imply that virtue must be graded.
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Papers by Ben Kotzee