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The paper discusses the current situation in university education in the United States of America. It begins with presenting the idea and the main mechanism of academic capitalism. The neoliberal model of governing tertiary institutions is taken under scrutiny. The analysis includes the condition of academic staff as well as circumstances that students face when being at university. It concludes with a reflection on the reasons and consequences of reforms in higher education institutions.
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The contemporary university – as any other educational, social, business, or government institution – functions in condition of what David Harvey has called time-space compression: everything is happening here without distances, differences or frontiers; and everything is happening now without past or future. The very structure of the knowledge has changed: it has become complex, interdisciplinary, rather problem-based than discipline-based. Purely intellectual knowledge is no longer relevant; its true value is determined by its potential for commercial application. Besides, with constant advent of new technologies, both knowledge and skills turn obsolete in no time. Thus, the university must equip learners with tools, strategies and resources which would allow them to independently upgrade their knowledge and skills whenever demanded throughout their after-university professional or academic careers. In the present article, I outline new literacies essential for a learner to study in a technology-enhanced global classroom, and review the potential of the new technology for education. I then consider constructing Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) as a means to individualize and support learning in different contexts. Having gained attention of educators since 2004, PLE represents an evolving trend in sustainable education due to its potential to let learners create their own educational spaces in order to direct their own learning, to pursue individual educational goals, and to expand learning far beyond the classroom.
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The massification of higher education has changed the role and value of study and led to dissemination of doctoral studies. This article starts with an overview of the law-based and historical changes of the idea of third cycle studies, reflected in their organisation in Poland. We will indicate incoherence noticeable between curriculum and expected skills and knowledge. The perspective will let us outline some problems related to importance and significance of PhD studies in graduates careers – academic, as well as professional in general. In this context, we can also perceive current consequences in terms of identity of doctoral students and their place at the university.
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Knowledge commercialisation and the focus on economic and parametric evaluation of universities have been evoking heated debates in academic circles. However, the transition of the tertiary education system from the Humboldtian model to an entrepreneurial one that would incorporate both the financial aspect and the widely understood social dimension might become a catalyst for promoting sustainable development of the country and society. In this context, the social responsibility of the university is worth deeper reconsideration. It is the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) along with the local community that shoulder the responsibility for creating a unique response to the present challenges in order to suit best the needs of all the stakeholders.
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Health sciences is a fairly young discipline which deals with the multi–layered analysis of such elements as health care, health system, health education. Health sciences undertake also a detailed analysis of the process of minimising the consequences of an illness while taking into account the technical and service–related background. A distinctive feature of health sciences is the fact that they integrate several disciplines from various fields of sciences such as medicine, biology, humanities, social sciences, economics, law and technical sciences etc. Health sciences have an open and dynamic network of scientific links and associations. This feature allows one to undertake interdisciplinary research within the field of social sciences. Creating health science departments at the public medical universities in Poland has resulted in heightening and diversifying their research and educational potential. By opening health sciences’ departments most of the medical schools managed to obtain an official status of a university. However in the field of health sciences the idea of universitas is transformed into the idea of diversitas – that is – an epistemic and methodological diversification. The idea of diversitas that characterises health sciences means a certain deconstruction of the monolith stability of the medical and pharmaceutical sciences. In this context it is interesting to define the university status of health sciences and their place in the structures of medical universities.
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Philosophical thinking has no fixed location. It is constructed of tensions between differentareas of culture: science, art, religion, politics, education. Therefore, in this article the philosophicalpedagogy has been presented as a point of view, not a discipline with clear boundaries.The source of this perspective is the Socratic tradition, especially two of its motifs: thinkingwithout limits and the search of the real problems. Philosophical thinking protects a backgroundof education from becoming an ideology. It is also an effort devoted to broadeningthe expressivity of the sphere of education. So, we can say that philosophical pedagogy isa dynamite that disrupts some educational dreams (illusions) and simultaneously sets in motionother dreams (symbols, values).
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The article analyses chosen extracts from the debate about philosophical qualities of pedagogicalthinking. It presents the possibility of ethical reflection inspired by contemporary hermeneuticalphilosophy. This hermeneutical perspective comprehends understanding not only asone of the kinds of cognitive behaviour, but also as a way of being of a subject. The dilemma,dramatic quality and openness of pedagogical activity are underlined, as well as the impossibilityof boiling down the justifications of that activity to the sphere of applications of theories.It indicates that hermeneutics opened (pedagogical) thinking towards such perspective onthe relationship between the external order and duty and action, which frees from both: thedichotomy of romantic release versus passive subjection, as well as from the dilemma ofthe rational emancipation versus conditioned consent to surrender. It does not, however, give anexternal solution and does not diminish the importance of choice. It emphasises the individualcharacter of moral choice and the importance of freedom and at the same time does not leavethe man on his or her own. Ricoeur’s wounded cogito (cogito blessé) – as it is highlighted – is notan abandoned, lonely subject.
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The aim of this article is to determine the status of philosophy of education among the otherphilosophical disciplines and to consider its place within the framework of pedagogical sciences.The relationship between pedagogy and philosophy has been analysed with emphasis on theconditions to be met by philosophy that it could be useful as an instrument helping in reflectionon education. The article also discusses the way in which could be useful. Successively, thequestion in posed on how data obtained during the pedagogical reflection can influencephilosophy itself. In conclusion, referring to the achievements of Alasdair MacIntyre, an attemptto draw philosophical procedures allowing to assess given pedagogical concepts is presented.
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The author presents the thesis according to which pedagogy, as a scientific discipline needsphilosophy to build contexts and to deepen its own research subject, whereas philosophy doesnot need pedagogy to build contexts and to deepen its own research subject,. For this reason,between the contemporary philosophy and pedagogy, treated as scientific disciplines, we havea constitutive asymmetry of mutual “exchange” and mutual influence. The search for mutualcomplementarity of philosophical and pedagogical thought must be done at a higher levelof integration in the horizon of thinking about the historical, social, cultural or civilizational.It is here, where it exposes the fact of nonreducible dimension of experience of mutualeasements and necessity of philosophy and pedagogy; the philosophical in the pedagogical,and the pedagogical in the philosophical. The old Greek idea of paideia invariably becomesa non-problematic meeting place and penetration of the philosophical and the pedagogical.
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The author of the paper tries to show that general pedagogy has its philosophical distinction,e.g., comparing to philosophy of education. Johann Friedrich Herbart’s essay On the Dark Sideof Pedagogy is an important point of reference in the analysis. Starting from the essay, theauthor justifies the necessity of an approach to general pedagogy with its most important goal,i.e., defining the basic pedagogical thought. The thought is “basic” as it combines theoreticaland practical knowledge on education and has to be defined over and over again, and notbecause without it education cannot be imagined. The history of philosophy is full of evidencethat education can be “deduced” even from the theories that have nothing in common witheducation.
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The aim of the article is to elucidate the reasons why the critical pedagogue Henry A. Giroux,in his recent works, was inspired by the thought (in many aspects completely different) ofHannah Arendt, particularly by her analyses concerning the role of public spaces and thepower of judgement in the modern world. The article develops three contact points in whichthe two distinct paradigms meet. They are: the metaphor of the “dark times”, adopted byGiroux, public spaces and the university.
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The aim of this paper is to compare two models of education. The first is the instrumentalmodel which perceives education as a process of preparing students for future professionallife. The second one perceives education as a way to build our individuality. The instrumentaland economical model became very popular in the second half of the 20th century and stillstrengthens its position. The second model sees itself as a continuation of long Europeanhistory of philosophy of education and serves as the counterbalance to the instrumental model.In the paper it will be argued that the second (classical) model of education is more useful forthe development of Western liberal democracies while the first one perceives an individual toa client and replases the development of a culture to an economic growth. It will be arguedthat the economic model omits the nature of our cultural identity and misinterprets integralgoals of the process of education.
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The article deals with the issue of systemic education. The author asks a classic question ofwhether traditional education systems should concentrate on students with average abilitiesor maybe they should foster the most talented ones. Considerations on this subject are conductedwith regard to the multi-layered thought of Nietzsche, whose position is so invaluablethat in a possible polemic it is situated as an exceptionally radical. Writing down the naturalhistory of mankind, Nietzsche formulates a thesis that the moment of the creation of the firsthuman communities, the moment of the socialisation of man, was extremely unfavourable asfar as man’s strength, ability and creativity are concerned. He presents socialisation, which is partof the education process, as beneficial for the community and detrimental to the individual.This situation in the course of history remains the same, which – after the adoption ofNietzschean assumptions – gives cause to adopt a radical position of those who deem theeducation system unfit to foster outstanding individuals. Nietzsche’s view, in comparison withother views, is so innovative that it considers the inability as genealogically founded. Althoughthe educational system from the point of view of the majority contributes to the emergence ofnew content, ideas or values, it remains inefficient for individuals of genius.
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Both nowadays and in the time of Plato the love and pursuit of wisdom is a means of achievingthorough well-being due to the practice of self-teaching, educating the mind and training thebody. The ultimate goal of philosophical education is to achieve divine status (homoiosis theo),which is the true sense of human life. Philosophy belongs to the social and intellectual elite.Only those who are sufficiently prepared may admire and experience the influence of Eros’teaching. The initiation into philosophy has the traits of emotional, erotic and religiousmysterium, and therefore lies within reach of few.
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The subject matter and purpose of the article is a depiction of the pedagogical concepts ofPosidonius of Apamea, an eminent stoic philosopher and scholar. As it is clear from the survivingtestimonials of Seneca and Galen, Posidonius dealt in his ethical writings to a large extentwith issues of moral education. In writing On virtues Posidonius undertook – in oppositionto Chrysippus – the question of the origin of ethical defects (moral evil), making insightfulremarks about the nature of children and animals based on empirical observations. Posidoniusbelieved that moral evil is innate to human nature. And in writing On emotions in referenceto Plato (Politeia, Timaeus and Nomoi dialogues), Posidonius described the typology of humannature, depending on the type of morphology of the body and the dominant mental elementas well as related types of effective educational methods.
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During the Renaissance an increased interest in the problem of the immortality of the soul wasobserved, and although this question became particularly important for the philosophers ofthe sixteenth century, it is worth noting that it was widely discussed already in the quattrocento.This article presents some results of the research on the revival of the analyses regardinghuman immortality; it discusses the impact of a humanists’ new vision of man and educationon the dispute on immortality. Studia humanitatis, as an expression of Renaissance anthropocentrism,had the effect in the form of treaties on human dignity and nobility. Adding to thisthe concept of individualism in the humanistic pedagogy and new translations and editionsof ancient works, including De Anima of Aristotle and the commentaries on this text, we havean explanation for the intensification of the discussions on the immortality of human soul.
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