International journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 2006
Commitment or Public Relations? A Review of Empowering Children: Children's Rights Education ... more Commitment or Public Relations? A Review of Empowering Children: Children's Rights Education as a Pathway to Citizenship, R. Brian Howe and Katherine Covell, University of Toronto Press (0802038573, $45.00, £28.00), 28 May 2005. Here we have an issue in development, potentially one of the most far-reaching that can be seriously considered, and one that will require extensive and unavoidable educational action. For readers of this journal, the book does not, however, invoke ICT - apart from a couple of remarks to the effect that a government's putting some material on a web-page is hardly an adequate fulfilment of its responsibilities in this area. But ICT-enhanced educational activity can certainly form a significant part of any adequate response, so perhaps we should look more closely. For one outside the children's rights arena, perhaps the most striking fact Howe and Covell report is the near-universal ratification by members of the United Nations of the 1989 Conventi...
For readers of this journal, this book is more attuned to those with a general concern for social... more For readers of this journal, this book is more attuned to those with a general concern for social development than a specific interest in the role of ICT. Rosberg’s thesis is that much too much of the work of development agencies presupposes that their intended beneficiaries inhabit the same capitalistic social ethos as those agencies themselves. Once we recognise that many of the world’s poor are enmeshed in networks of patronage or clientelism then we can adopt more realistic and sustainable aims for interventions.
The growing phenomenon of cross-border higher education (CBHE) will not help developing countries... more The growing phenomenon of cross-border higher education (CBHE) will not help developing countries unless it is accessible, available, affordable, relevant and of acceptable quality. Foreign Providers in the Caribbean: Pillagers or Preceptors? focuses on the trends of CBHE in the ...
International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 2008
This is a curious but valuable volume, combining a comprehensive review of the problems and oppor... more This is a curious but valuable volume, combining a comprehensive review of the problems and opportunities facing school systems in the poorest developing countries with the findings of cognitive neuroscience. Its author works with the World Bank and frequently refers to its often pessimistic evaluations of various educational projects in the Third World. For readers of this journal, its value lies more in clearly setting out basic strategies for Education for All; it hardly considers to what extent ICT could be used to implement its recommendations.
Michael Williams has frequently considered and rejected approaches to “our knowledge of the exter... more Michael Williams has frequently considered and rejected approaches to “our knowledge of the external world” that see it as the best explanation for certain features of experience. This paper examines the salience of his position to approaches such as Mackie’s that do not deny the presentational directness of ordinary experience but do permit a gap between how things appear and how they are that allows for sceptical doubts. Williams’ main argument is that, to do justice to its place in a foundationalist strategy, the external world as hypothesis must offer an explicandum that does not invoke concepts of objects but is rather purely experiential. He next claims that no coherent regularities are available at such a level so there is nothing to be explained. Coherence only comes with objects, not as something objects could explain. Confronting this with Mackie’s Lockean theory of perception, we find that Mackie decisively rejects the first claim about the nature of the explicandum, since he sees ordinary perception as involving intentional objects which are distinct from the persisting objects they present. He is also committed to rejecting Williams’ line on purely experiential regularities, though this plays a subordinate role in his general position. The crucial issue then becomes the tenability of Mackie’s intentional object analysis and the extent to which it might yet tilt the argument in favour of realism against a global sceptic. In formulating his own epistemological strategies Williams might appear to countenance a version of Mackie’s view divorced from foundationalism. But while Williams’ contextualism in its minimal version might do so, in practice it retains the lessons derived from his skirmishes with scepticism and thus disallows certain types of enquiry. I conclude by contrasting Mackie’s response to scepticism with that of Williams in his diagnostic vein.
International journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 2006
Commitment or Public Relations? A Review of Empowering Children: Children's Rights Education ... more Commitment or Public Relations? A Review of Empowering Children: Children's Rights Education as a Pathway to Citizenship, R. Brian Howe and Katherine Covell, University of Toronto Press (0802038573, $45.00, £28.00), 28 May 2005. Here we have an issue in development, potentially one of the most far-reaching that can be seriously considered, and one that will require extensive and unavoidable educational action. For readers of this journal, the book does not, however, invoke ICT - apart from a couple of remarks to the effect that a government's putting some material on a web-page is hardly an adequate fulfilment of its responsibilities in this area. But ICT-enhanced educational activity can certainly form a significant part of any adequate response, so perhaps we should look more closely. For one outside the children's rights arena, perhaps the most striking fact Howe and Covell report is the near-universal ratification by members of the United Nations of the 1989 Conventi...
For readers of this journal, this book is more attuned to those with a general concern for social... more For readers of this journal, this book is more attuned to those with a general concern for social development than a specific interest in the role of ICT. Rosberg’s thesis is that much too much of the work of development agencies presupposes that their intended beneficiaries inhabit the same capitalistic social ethos as those agencies themselves. Once we recognise that many of the world’s poor are enmeshed in networks of patronage or clientelism then we can adopt more realistic and sustainable aims for interventions.
The growing phenomenon of cross-border higher education (CBHE) will not help developing countries... more The growing phenomenon of cross-border higher education (CBHE) will not help developing countries unless it is accessible, available, affordable, relevant and of acceptable quality. Foreign Providers in the Caribbean: Pillagers or Preceptors? focuses on the trends of CBHE in the ...
International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 2008
This is a curious but valuable volume, combining a comprehensive review of the problems and oppor... more This is a curious but valuable volume, combining a comprehensive review of the problems and opportunities facing school systems in the poorest developing countries with the findings of cognitive neuroscience. Its author works with the World Bank and frequently refers to its often pessimistic evaluations of various educational projects in the Third World. For readers of this journal, its value lies more in clearly setting out basic strategies for Education for All; it hardly considers to what extent ICT could be used to implement its recommendations.
Michael Williams has frequently considered and rejected approaches to “our knowledge of the exter... more Michael Williams has frequently considered and rejected approaches to “our knowledge of the external world” that see it as the best explanation for certain features of experience. This paper examines the salience of his position to approaches such as Mackie’s that do not deny the presentational directness of ordinary experience but do permit a gap between how things appear and how they are that allows for sceptical doubts. Williams’ main argument is that, to do justice to its place in a foundationalist strategy, the external world as hypothesis must offer an explicandum that does not invoke concepts of objects but is rather purely experiential. He next claims that no coherent regularities are available at such a level so there is nothing to be explained. Coherence only comes with objects, not as something objects could explain. Confronting this with Mackie’s Lockean theory of perception, we find that Mackie decisively rejects the first claim about the nature of the explicandum, since he sees ordinary perception as involving intentional objects which are distinct from the persisting objects they present. He is also committed to rejecting Williams’ line on purely experiential regularities, though this plays a subordinate role in his general position. The crucial issue then becomes the tenability of Mackie’s intentional object analysis and the extent to which it might yet tilt the argument in favour of realism against a global sceptic. In formulating his own epistemological strategies Williams might appear to countenance a version of Mackie’s view divorced from foundationalism. But while Williams’ contextualism in its minimal version might do so, in practice it retains the lessons derived from his skirmishes with scepticism and thus disallows certain types of enquiry. I conclude by contrasting Mackie’s response to scepticism with that of Williams in his diagnostic vein.
A brief examination of what Keith Graham reckons a fatal flaw in Marx's prediction of the superse... more A brief examination of what Keith Graham reckons a fatal flaw in Marx's prediction of the supersession of capitalism. Previous large-scale changes depended upon failure to use resources; the end of capitalism is said to depend upon recognition of misuse of resources. While these are different, it may be that at a different level of generalization they can be subsumed under one head.
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Papers by Edwin Brandon
This paper examines the salience of his position to approaches such as Mackie’s that do not deny the presentational directness of ordinary experience but do permit a gap between how things appear and how they are that allows for sceptical doubts.
Williams’ main argument is that, to do justice to its place in a foundationalist strategy, the external world as hypothesis must offer an explicandum that does not invoke concepts of objects but is rather purely experiential. He next claims that no coherent regularities are available at such a level so there is nothing to be explained. Coherence only comes with objects, not as something objects could explain.
Confronting this with Mackie’s Lockean theory of perception, we find that Mackie decisively rejects the first claim about the nature of the explicandum, since he sees ordinary perception as involving intentional objects which are distinct from the persisting objects they present. He is also committed to rejecting Williams’ line on purely experiential regularities, though this plays a subordinate role in his general position.
The crucial issue then becomes the tenability of Mackie’s intentional object analysis and the extent to which it might yet tilt the argument in favour of realism against a global sceptic.
In formulating his own epistemological strategies Williams might appear to countenance a version of Mackie’s view divorced from foundationalism. But while Williams’ contextualism in its minimal version might do so, in practice it retains the lessons derived from his skirmishes with scepticism and thus disallows certain types of enquiry.
I conclude by contrasting Mackie’s response to scepticism with that of Williams in his diagnostic vein.
This paper examines the salience of his position to approaches such as Mackie’s that do not deny the presentational directness of ordinary experience but do permit a gap between how things appear and how they are that allows for sceptical doubts.
Williams’ main argument is that, to do justice to its place in a foundationalist strategy, the external world as hypothesis must offer an explicandum that does not invoke concepts of objects but is rather purely experiential. He next claims that no coherent regularities are available at such a level so there is nothing to be explained. Coherence only comes with objects, not as something objects could explain.
Confronting this with Mackie’s Lockean theory of perception, we find that Mackie decisively rejects the first claim about the nature of the explicandum, since he sees ordinary perception as involving intentional objects which are distinct from the persisting objects they present. He is also committed to rejecting Williams’ line on purely experiential regularities, though this plays a subordinate role in his general position.
The crucial issue then becomes the tenability of Mackie’s intentional object analysis and the extent to which it might yet tilt the argument in favour of realism against a global sceptic.
In formulating his own epistemological strategies Williams might appear to countenance a version of Mackie’s view divorced from foundationalism. But while Williams’ contextualism in its minimal version might do so, in practice it retains the lessons derived from his skirmishes with scepticism and thus disallows certain types of enquiry.
I conclude by contrasting Mackie’s response to scepticism with that of Williams in his diagnostic vein.