Michael Peters

This book investigates how philosophical texts display a variety of literary forms and explores philosophical writing and the relation of philosophy to literature and reading. Discusses the many different philosophical genres that have developed, among them letters, the treatise, the confession, the meditation, the allegory, the essay, the soliloquy, the symposium, the consolation, the commentary, the disputation, and the dialogue Shows how these forms of philosophy have conditioned and become the basis of academic writing within both the university and higher education more generally Explores questions of philosophical writing and the relation of philosophy to literature and reading

Jacques Derrida is perhaps the foremost philosopher of the humanities and of its place in the university. Over the long period of his career he has been concerned with the fate, status, place and contribution of the humanities. Through his deconstructive readings and writings he has done much not only to reinvent the western tradition by attending closely to those texts which constitute it but also he has redefined its procedures and protocols. This paper first introduces the notion of postmodern nursing, its relation to the culture wars and some of the main characteristics of so‐called poststructuralism, considered as a response to the scientific pretensions of structuralism. Secondly, it provides some background to Derrida, who Althusser believed to be the most important French philosopher of the 20th century. Thirdly, it explores a recent essay where Derrida outlines seven programmatic theses or what he calls ‘seven professions of faith’ for the new humanities. Finally, and very tentatively, it suggests what such a view might contribute to the nursing humanities.

This paper argues the Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition is to be interpreted as a response to nihilism, especially in relation to the question of the legitimation of knowledge and the so-called crisis of narratives, and that, therefore, it provides an appropriate response to the question of nihilism in educational philosophy. The paper begins with a discussion of Nietzsche's and Heidegger's views of nihilism as a prolegomenon to Lyotard's views concerning European nihilism and the end of grand narratives. These are important sources for a philosophical reception of the problem and the context in which Lyotard formulates his response and the immediate sources against that conditions Lyotard's response. The problem of nihilism raises its head in education in a double way: in relation to both the foundation of knowledge and the problem of its legitimation and the problem of values.

We describe an evaluation undertaken on contract for the New Zealand State Services Commission of a major project (the Administrative Decision-Making Skills Project) designed to produce a model of administrative decision making and an associated teaching/learning packagefor use by government officers. It describes the evaluation of a philosophical model of decision making and the associated teaching/learning package in the setting of the New Zealand Public Service, where a deliberate attempt has been initiated to improve the quality of decision making, especially in relation to moral factors.

This paper outlines and reviews three forms and associated discourses of the 'knowledge economy': the 'learning economy', based on the work of Bengt-Åke Lundvall; the 'creative economy' based on the work of Charles Landry, John Howkins and Richard Florida; and the 'open knowledge economy' based on the work of Yochai Benkler and others. Arguably, these three forms and discourses represent three recent related but different conceptions of the knowledge economy, each with clear significance and implications for education and education policy. The last provides a model of radically non-propertarian form that incorporates both 'open education' and 'open science' economies