Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Education
Mediation
Mediation occurs when two disagreeing parties cannot resolve an issue on their own and involve a third person, a mediator, to help them find a solution.
Mediator
A mediator, which can be a couple or a person of a higher hierarchical level, facilitates communication between the parties without making decisions or imposing their own judgments and opinions.
Benefits of Mediation
The benefits of using mediation are numerous:
- Faster resolution
- Lower cost
- Privacy and confidentiality
- Conducive environment
Truth and Knowledge in Philosophy
Truth and Knowledge
Truth of Empirical Propositions
Empirical propositions are those that depend on experience.
Theories of Truth
- Truth as Correspondence: A proposition is true if it corresponds to a fact.
- Truth as Coherence: A proposition is true if it does not conflict with other accepted propositions.
- Truth as Utility: A proposition is true if it is useful or leads to success. For example, Sigmund Freud’s assertion of the unconscious can be considered true because psychoanalysis has proven useful.
Truth
Read MoreSt. Thomas Aquinas’s Philosophy and the Existence of God
Demonstrating God’s Existence
St. Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy primarily aimed to demonstrate the existence of God. Rejecting a priori arguments like St. Anselm’s ontological argument, Aquinas believed knowledge originates in experience. He employed a posteriori arguments based on sensory experience and demonstration quia, which allows detecting something’s existence without prior knowledge of its nature. This led him to formulate the Five Ways:
- First Way (Cosmological Argument): Inspired by Aristotle,
Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: Exploring the Limits of Understanding
Synthetic Judgments a Priori
Summarizing the previous section, Kant’s primary question is: What can we truly know? His answer, broadly speaking, is that we can genuinely know anything that can be subjected to scientific inquiry.
This leads to the question: What types of judgments are considered scientific? Before addressing this, Kant classifies different types of judgments and identifies those that meet the necessary criteria for scientific knowledge.
Analytic and Synthetic Judgments
Kant distinguishes
Read MorePre-Socratic Philosophers and the Arche: A Quest for Understanding
Philosophy
Definition: The ongoing critical activity of developing theories to describe, explain, or account for certain aspects of human experience. It encompasses all fields of knowledge.
Defining Philosophy
By Subject
Philosophy differs from other fields by the sets of questions asked.
- Metaphysics (or, ontology): Nature, origin, and existence of cosmos, divinity, and mind.
- Epistemology: Theory of knowledge and truth.
- Logic: The science of rationality and inference.
- Ethics: Right and wrong, good and evil.
Aristotle’s Philosophy: A Contrast with Plato
Metaphysics
Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, diverged from his mentor’s philosophy in several key aspects. While Plato believed the soul was eternal, singular, and unchanging, Aristotle argued for its mortality. He proposed a tripartite soul: vegetative (shared by all life), sensitive (animals and humans), and intellective (unique to humans). Plato’s world was divided into the sensible and intelligible realms. Aristotle viewed the world as unified, rejecting Plato’s notion of separate, transcendent Ideas.
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