Fabrizio Trifiro

The article attempts to clarify the main issues underlying the debate between Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, with a view to showing how it is possible to see emerging from it a viable anti-foundationalist conception of normativity capable to eschew the corrosive pitfalls of radical scepticism and relativism. It is argued that this conception is centred on three key distinctions: between a physical and grammatical sense of the impossibility of foundationalism; between a view of the universalistic aspirations of normativity as grounds for our normative judgments as opposed to their scope; and between a view of the transcendent aspirations of normativity as self-transcendence as opposed to self-reflexivity.

In this paper I shall argue that an approach to liberalism that combines and anti-foundationalist epistemology and a deliberative democratic stance enables us to alleviate the tensions between the universalistic claims of Human Rights and the particularistic claims to autonomy coming from different cultural, ethnic, religious or linguistic groups, which are exacerbating as a consequence of the processes of global integration and fragmentation. It thus enables us to trace a multicultural path to cosmopolitan democracy. Before being able to appreciate the desirability of anti-foundationalist deliberative liberal democracy I need, however, to illustrate both the viability of an anti-foundationalist conception of knowledge that rejects the possibility to give absolute foundations to our norms and practices and the normative framework of the liberal democratic outlook that is here put forward. The paper will deal first with the viability issue by giving a sketch of what I consider to be ...

This chapter looks at the Quality Assurance Agency’s (QAA) approach to transnational education (TNE), focusing specifically on its strategies to strengthen cooperation with host countries’ quality assurance agencies (QAAs) to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of its oversight of UK TNE. A number of recent international initiatives aimed at strengthening cross-border cooperation in the quality assurance of TNE are looked at in some details, including the Quality Assurance of Cross-Border Higher Education (QACHE) project led by European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). The chapter emphasises the importance for QAAs to engage with governments, cross-border providers, and TNE students to develop international approaches that are capable of fully harnessing the benefits of TNE for societies while avoiding regulatory gaps and overlaps.

From its inception at the origins of American philosophy up until contemporary reappraisals of traditional pragmatist themes and approaches, the pragmatist tradition has defied every attempt at defining its specific identity. The diversity and richness of pragmatism as a philosophical tradition can be appreciated by looking at the great variety of conflicting positions and perspectives on central issues of democratic theory and practice which have been argued to fall within its scope. It is possible to find pragmatist views scattered along the spectrum of debates such as those between the epistemic or ethical nature of democratic decision-making, ‘thin’-procedural vs. ‘thick’substantial views of the normative scope of democracy, and liberal vs. communitarian conceptions of democratic life and society. Moreover, while some pragmatists have primarily engaged in the theoretical and foundational project of defining and justifying democratic principles and institutions, others see pragma...

This paper argues through a close reading of Alasdair Macintyre’s works on justice and rationality that his reflections on the matter, despite their initial anti-liberal and foundationalist intent, have led him to endorse something close to an anti-foundationalist liberal position like that emerging from the works of neo-pragmatists philosophers such Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam and John Rawls. This is a position that regards rationality as internal to traditions, without taking this as a reason for thinking that we are irrationally trapped within the boundaries traced by the norms and standards of our own traditions. Instead, it regards us as able to transcend those boundaries through a conversational and fallibilistic use of reason, which makes us ready to revise our conceptual and evaluative horizons through open confrontation with other traditions. In order to illustrate this contention, the paper will have to disentangle the irresolvable and overlapping tensions between foundat...

This paper discusses the UK approach to the internationalization of the teaching and learning experience. It will first introduce the new QAA’s Guide Supporting and Enhancing the Experience of International Students Studying in the UK, and the broader quality assurance framework within which the QAA operates to safeguard and enhance the international student experience. It will then focus on good practices related to teaching to international students and creating an inclusive learning environment in an internationalised higher education context, as these have been highlighted by the advisory group which helped developing the QAA’s Guide and by the HEA’s Teaching International Students Project. Particular attention will be given to practical suggestions for enhancing the different dimensions of teaching and learning in an internationalised context, focusing on lecturing, assessment, independent learning and developing student’s intercultural competencies.

The article attempts to clarify the main issues underlying the debate between Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, with a view to showing how it is possible to see emerging from it a viable anti-foundationalist conception of normativity capable to eschew the corrosive pitfalls of radical scepticism and relativism. It is argued that this conception is centred on three key distinctions: between a physical and grammatical sense of the impossibility of foundationalism; between a view of the universalistic aspirations of normativity as grounds for our normative judgments as opposed to their scope; and between a view of the transcendent aspirations of normativity as self-transcendence as opposed to self-reflexivity.

The paper illustrates the desirability of an anti-foundationalist approach to normativity for the fullest realization of the liberal democratic project. The first section defends the viability, epistemic and normative, of an anti-foundationalism inspired to the antimetaphysical and anti-sceptical legacy of the founders of American pragmatism. The second section, drawing on the deliberative turn in democratic theory and the capability approach to autonomy, introduces what I regard to be the normative core of liberal democracy. The third section fleshes out the desirability argument by looking at how a pragmatist approach to normativity allows liberal democracies to address in a fully deliberative spirit the challenges posed by the growing cultural diversity of contemporary societies associated with contemporary processes of globalization. 1. An epistemic and politically viable anti-foundationalism It is possible to see a viable pragmatist approach to normative validity emerging from ...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on the importance of cross-border cooperation in the quality assurance of transnational education (TNE) by offering a comparative overview of how TNE is quality assured by both sending and receiving countries. Through this comparative analysis, it will be possible to appreciate the diversity of approaches to TNE. The paper also shows that for the foreseeable future, progress towards effective and effiicient quality assurance of TNE cannot rest on the hope of developing an internationally agreed framework, but it must rest on strengthening cooperation between quality assurance agencies operating within different national frameworks. Design/methodology/approach This paper looks at four key sending countries of TNE, the UK, Australia, the USA and Germany, considering the main drivers for out-going TNE, its main features and how it is quality assured. It then considers the same aspects from the perspective of receiving countries o...

Etica & Politica/Ethics & Politics, XII, 2010, 1, pp. 7-11 Guests Editors' Preface Pragmatist and Democracy: an overview Roberto Frega roberto. frega@ unibo. it Università di Bologna Dipartimento di Filosofia Fabrizio Trifirò ftrifiro@ hotmail. com From its inception at the origins of ...

Drawing on the work of Rorty and Putnam, I will present an argument for the desirability of an anti-foundationalist approach to cultural difference and intercultural dialogue that gives priority to the ethical and the political over the ontological and the epistemological. It will be formulated in terms of the normative requirements for the fullest realization of the liberal democratic project at all levels of social organisation, from the local to the global. Drawing from both the deliberative turn in democratic theory and the capability approach to human development, I will argue that the normative core of liberal democracy should be identified in the commitment to self-reflexive, open-ended, un-distorted and all-inclusive practice of collective deliberation and decision-making.