ISHF Resources

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/11244/22704

Browse

Browsing ISHF Resources by Subject "Philosophy."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Open-mindedness in Three Dimensions
    (2009) Higgins, Chris
    In this programmatic essay, I approach the question "What is open-mindedness?" through three more specific questions, each designed to foreground a distinct dimension along which the analysis of open-mindedness might proceed: When is open-mindedness? What is not open-mindedness? and, Where is open-mindedness? The first question refers to the temporal dimension of open-mindedness, which I analyze in terms of Dewey’s distinction between recognition and perception and the psychoanalytic concept of disavowal. The second question refers to the dialectical dimension of open-mindedness, to what the many aspects of closed-mindedness reveal about open-mindedness. Here I recall Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. The third question refers to the dimension of scale, asking what open- and closed-mindedness look like on the interpersonal and social levels. To bring out this third dimension, I draw on Jonathan Lear's reading of the Republic and psychoanalytic group dynamics theory. Through these three related inquiries I show the range of this central intellectual virtue and bring out its connections to two central, related features of the moral life: the need for integration and the need for openness to newness and complexity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Ten Myths About Character, Virtue and Virtue Education - Plus Three Well-Founded Misgivings
    (2013-04-30) Kristjánsson, Kristján
    Initiatives to cultivate character and virtue in moral education at school continue to provoke sceptical responses. Most of those echo familiar misgivings about the notions of character, virtue and education in virtue – as unclear, redundant, old-fashioned, religious, paternalistic, anti-democratic, conservative, individualistic, relative and situation dependent. I expose those misgivings as ‘myths’, while at the same time acknowledging three better–founded historical, methodological and practical concerns about the notions in question.