Cambridge Philosophy of Education Seminars 2020-21
Event Information
Event description
Regular seminars every Tuesday on a range of philosophical topics related to education. Open to all, registration essential.
About this Event
- Tuesday 26th Jan 5-6.30pm GMT. Islamic and British models of education: conflict or convergence? Tim Winter, University Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge. TALK DESCRIPTION: The young and rapidly growing Muslim demography of the UK has established over 150 full-time educational institutions in which the engagement of Muslim theology and ethics with ‘British values’ is variously performed. In this talk we consider the theories of some contemporary Muslim educationalists as they grapple with the paradoxes of maintaining a faithful Muslim episteme in the secularising regulatory and philosophical environment of modern Britain.
- Tuesday 23rd Feb 5-6.30pm GMT . The interconnection of things in an era of colonisation: Maori and education. Carl Mika, Associate Professor, University of Waikato, New Zealand. TALK DESCRIPTION: In much of the relevant literature and in general discussion, Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) place emphasis on the interconnection of things in the world. This is perhaps the most important founding principle of Maori thought – to such an extent that its implications for everyday systems and functions will continue to be fleshed out for some time. Not only is this principle of utmost importance for those wishing to preserve the integrity of Maori thought in its own right; it also has consequences in an era of colonisation, where Maori are at the blunt end of an assumption that the clarity of singular things in the world is the appropriate way of interacting with them. In universities, for instance, students are encouraged to write dissertations (as one example) with a type of certainty, arising from that clarity of a thing and of the self, that might be perplexing from the Maori standpoint of interconnection. Alongside addressing a Maori proposition of interconnection more broadly, this talk will consider how a Maori version of uncertainty – sustained through interconnection – might find its place in some facets of education.
- Tuesday 16th February 5-6.30pm GMT. Special Event - Round table on dignity and education. Klas Roth (Stockholm University), Lia Mollvik (Stockholm), Rama Alshoufani (Stockholm), Rebecca Adami (Stockholm), Katy Dineen (University College Cork), Fariba Majlesi (Stockholm). ROUNDTABLE: In this roundtable discussion, contributors discuss the importance of dignity to education. Klas Roth introduces the concept and argues that it is not uncommon that the value of human beings has to do with their price in, inter alia, their social, cultural, political and economic settings throughout the world. He argues that such a focus does not necessarily draw attention to the inner dignity of human beings, but that human beings ought to do so in education and society at large. Lia Mollvik discusses views of inner and outer dignity and argues that there needs to be a balance in between them, and that the balance ought to be acknowledged in education. Rama Alshoufani discusses the classification of human beings in terms of various diagnoses related to the asserted dysfunction of the brain, and she argues that such classification does paradoxically not necessarily respect people with such diagnoses as ends in themselves. On the contrary, she argues that their inner dignity is not respected, but that it should be. Other such failures are due to the lack of inner dignity when it comes to Children’s rights as discussed by Rebecca Adami, and to the lack of recognition of human beings’ vulnerability as discussed by Katy Dineen. Fariba Majlesi criticizes a too strong emphasis on substantive notions of humanist education, which seem to hinder new ways of thinking; she argues that it is necessary to acknowledge the latter in and through education in order to preserve the dignity of human beings.
- Tuesday 2nd March 5-6.30pm GMT. Al-Ghazali's multiplex epistemology and implications for contemporary education . Professor Recep Şentürk, President of Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul, Turkey . TALK DESCRIPTION: Ghazali’s human ontology and epistemology are multiplex. So is his pedagogy. More concretely, Ghazali accepts that human beings are constituted by three levels: body, mind and soul. In line with this, his epistemology is constituted by two levels: objective and subjective epistemology. Objective epistemology consists of reason, sense perception and divine revelation while subjective epistemology includes spiritually gained knowledge via heart, dreams, intuitions and inspirations. In practice, this approach requires combining rational education (ta’lim) with spiritual and moral education (tazkiya). The purpose of Islamic education is to elevate students from unawareness (taqlīd) to awareness (tahqīq) about their own reality along with the meaning and purpose of their existence. This is how they achieve the goal of becoming ideal human beings (al-insân al-kâmil). This view on human ontology, epistemology and pedagogy have the following implications on contemporary education: (1) Replacing the present concept of human in the text books with a multiplex one. (2) Replacing the positivist epistemology in the text books with a multiplex one. (3) Redefining the ultimate goal of education as raising ideal human beings prior to training employees for jobs. (4) Using academic education to teach how to use objective epistemology. (5) Using spiritual and moral education to develop competency to use subjective epistemology. The multiplex approached Ghazali—adopted in education is very much needed today to overcome the problems emanating from the materialist uniplex pedagogical approaches.
- Tuesday 9 March 5-6.30pm GMT. Constructing a Pedagogy of Privacy in the Digital Age . Dr. Shawn Bullock, Reader in the History of Science, Technology and Education, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge . TALK DESCRIPTION: The concept of privacy requires us to consider the benefits and problems of being known by the society in which one lives. Historian Sarah Igo argues, in part, that privacy is at once our most contested “right” and at the core of what it means to be a citizen. Social media and surveillance technologies have caused many of us to question the degree to which we want to, or ought to, be known and to whom. I will begin this talk by arguing that current digital technologies have augmented debates about privacy that began, in force, in the late-19th century with a view to demonstrating how we might use certain arguments to analyse our own claims about our personal privacy in 2021. I conclude by offering ways in which we might engage our students in thinking about privacy in digital age—and indeed the age of lockdown—by suggesting features of what I refer to as a “pedagogy of privacy.”
