IV.—THE HUMANIST THEORY OF VALUE: A CRITICISM

The Value of Written Peer Criticism

When I talk to graduate students and colleagues about their use of collaborative learning, I often hear stories about when it doesn't work. No one's version of collaborative pedagogy is universally rewarding, of course, but I have found some approaches consistently more successful than others. Often, peer criticism consists of oral or hastily written comments by students in a classroom group; s...

Intrinsic Value: Towards A Pragmatic Theory

Intrinsic value is a concept central to the environmentalist movement. Whether one believes that natural objects have intrinsic value is supposed to determine whether one takes a ecocentric or homocentric approach to environmentalism, whether we practice deep or (merely) shallow ecology.  Yet this concept is also a center of controversy and confusion.  Just what does it mean for something to ha...

Teaching with a Humanist

Wittgenstein's criticism of Russell's theory of judgment

THE PUBLICATION FOR the first time in its entirety of what was writ­ ten of Russell's 1913 book, Theory of Knowledge,I throws a flood of light on . m��Y aspe�ts of Ru�sell's philosophy between the completion of Pnnczpw _ a�d his co�verswn to neutral monism, and perhaps even more o . n the ongms of Wmgenstein's logical atomism. The book was to con­ Sist of two large parts (Russell at one time th...

Reader-Response Theory and Criticism | The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism

Reader-response criticism maintains that the interpretive activities of readers, rather than the author’s intention or the text’s structure, explain a text’s significance and aesthetic value. Biographical accounts of how a writer responds to his or her critics initiated this kind of criticism. That is, since a writer may respond to commentary provided by friends, reviewers, or critics, biograph...