If you're new to this site, we publish one post each day in September celebrating a particular theme. This year it's about people and ideas that have inspired us to think critically. In this post, CPN Exec member Gwyn Owen writes about the work of John Dewey. I first came across ‘How we think’ while reading John Cowan’s inspiring, critical and beautifully crafted accounts of reflective practice and professional development a few years ago. ‘How we think’ was written by John Dewey - an American philosopher, educator, social critic and political activist. The first edition was published in 1910 & was updated in 1933. In it, Dewey sets out to describe the process of developing ‘a … [Read more...] about Gwyn Owen – How we think – 30DoS #23
Gunn Engelsrud – Phenomenology of perception – 30DoS #22
In his Phenomenology of Perception (PP) (first published in 1945), the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty developed the concept of the body-subject as a primary way of being-in-the-world. In contrast to a Cartesian dualistic theory and the "dead" body, Merleau-Ponty body was a human perceiving, sensing and feeling body, intertwined, mutually present, and engaged with the world and others. The book was hugely influential for social scientist, humanistic and phenomenological philosophers and influenced a generation of thinkers and practitioners in areas as diverse as architecture, education, health care and movement culture and politics. I first came across PP when I worked with my … [Read more...] about Gunn Engelsrud – Phenomenology of perception – 30DoS #22
Adam Bjerre – Incomplete nature – 30DoS #21
Incomplete Nature (2012) is a bold attempt at a naturalistic account of sentience, emotion, pain, values and meaning - phenomena that are generally not easy to get a handle on in the natural sciences. Deacon is carefully and sensibly trying to build a bridge between physics, biology, the social sciences, and philosophy. The book has been generally greeted with acclaim by the philosophical community and marks a profound shift in thinking that in magnitude has been compared to the shift followed upon the works of Darwin and Einstein. I have for 10-15 years been interested in making sense of pain and suffering and my own role in navigating this muddy landscape together with my patients. Pain … [Read more...] about Adam Bjerre – Incomplete nature – 30DoS #21
