Dennis Earl

Ungrading is one scheme for judging student learning, along with traditional points- or letter-based grading and specifications or pass-fail grading. Ungrading eliminates or minimizes grading altogether, substituting other feedback for assessment instead. This paper considers the joys (or strengths) and perils of (or possible objections to) ungrading. Joys include better and more authentic motivation, better learning, and better student-teacher relationships. Perils include worries about the “work” students will do and how they’ll judge their own learning. Other perils include the workload of providing assessment and guidance without the ease of grades, and also that without grades as extrinsic motivators, students may need help cultivating intrinsically motivated learning. I argue that these and other perils can be met, and that on balance we should favor ungrading over other assessment schemes.

Ungrading is one scheme for judging student learning, along with traditional points- or letter-based grading and specifications or pass-fail grading. Ungrading eliminates or minimizes grading altogether, substituting other feedback for assessment instead. This paper considers the joys (or strengths) and perils of (or possible objections to) ungrading. Joys include better and more authentic motivation, better learning, and better student-teacher relationships. Perils include worries about the “work” students will do and how they’ll judge their own learning. Other perils include the workload of providing assessment and guidance without the ease of grades, and also that without grades as extrinsic motivators, students may need help cultivating intrinsically motivated learning. I argue that these and other perils can be met, and that on balance we should favor ungrading over other assessment schemes.

Issues involving concepts find their way into nearly all areas of philosophy, yet those issues are studied most directly by those working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Many of the relevant investigations involving concepts carry over into psychology as well, in the form of investigations into language learning, categorization, and mental representation. But what are concepts? First, concepts are what get expressed by lexical terms of language: For instance, in the sentence "Asparagus is green," the predicate 'is green' expresses the concept of being green. Concepts are thus meanings , in virtue of which whole propositions can be analyzed. Second, concepts are ontological categories. They are universals typically having multiple things in their possible-worlds extensions: For instance, the concept of being green is multiply instantiated by all of the actual or possible green things. ;The traditional view of concepts takes a concept to have an analysis in the classical sense, where such an analysis is a specification of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for its application. Furthermore, traditionally such an analysis is in principle discoverable a priori through the method of testing a candidate analysis by means of rational intuition. These are the basic theses of the classical view of concepts. ;The primary thesis in this dissertation is that the classical view is correct. In defending this view, the general argument proceeds as follows. First, an account of the metaphysics of concepts is defended: Concepts are abstract ante rem universals. Next, the classical view itself is explicated in terms of a set of what I take to be the correct conditions on classical analysis. The best objections to the classical view are then considered and rejected. Neither empirical evidence from acts of categorization, the presence of vagueness in language, Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction, scientific essentialism, nor the problem of epistemic access to concepts provides good reason to think that the classical view is false. Moreover, the competing views of concepts, namely prototype theories, atomistic theories, theory-theories, and neoclassical theories are all inadequate as overall theories of concepts. Hence the classical view is correct.

Points-based grading, though now traditional, faces powerful critiques: Such grading creates a low road to passing, it undermines motivation, it wastes time, and it causes stress. It creates an illusion of mathematical precision. It is unfriendly to necessary conditions for satisfactory performance. This paper defends the alternative of specifications grading. Specifications grading grades only on whether work meets a set of expectations for satisfactory performance, with the expectations set at a high but reachable level. With a high bar also comes opportunities to revise unsatisfactory work. I summarize arguments from the literature in support of the system, but I also give account of my two-year experiment in philosophy courses with specifications grading. Compared with points-based grading, specifications grading appears to motivate students better and helps them learn more. I consider objections from both traditionalists and so-called ‘ungraders.’ The former hope to secure the benefits of specifications grading while still keeping points. The latter favor eliminating grading altogether.

Abstract:In this paper, I analyze the wilderness kind in terms of both natural and social elements. As a natural kind, wilderness has a historical essentialist analysis in terms of a lineage defined by historical, relational properties. The wilderness kind also has a social component, for only those spaces humans can access and develop can count as wilderness. Advantages to the view include a good fit with intuitive cases, as well as satisfying a plausible set of general conditions on social kinds. I also consider and reply to objections concerning lineages and kind membership, vagueness, developability as accidental to wilderness, anthropocentrism, and the distinction between kinds and concepts.

One argument raised against the classical view of concepts is the argument from categorization, which infers from empirical evidence concerning acts of categorization that the best explanation for that evidence is inconsistent with the classical view. Building on an argument and basic distinction drawn by Georges Rey, the present paper gives an improved response to the argument from categorization by drawing further distinctions among various epistemic and satisfaction conditions for concepts. The paper shows that given such further distinctions, one sort of objection to Rey's account can be avoided, and it is seen with further force that the classical view escapes refutation at the hands of the argument from categorization

The problem of horrendous evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of horrendous evils with the existence of a God that is nevertheless good to individuals. A solution to the problem along the lines of that proposed by Morilyn McCord Adams resolves the problem by appeal to various sorts of intimacy with God on the part of the participants in horrendous evils. One half of the problem concerns the victims of horrendous evils. A second half of the problem of horrendous evil is the same problem for those perpetrators of horrendous evils who also potentially have their lives defeated. The present paper argues not only that the intimacy such an overall strategy appeals to fails to solve the first half of the problem, but also that it makes no progress at all on the second half

The paradox of analysis has been a problem for analytic philosophers at least since Moore’s time, and it is especially significant for those who seek an account of analysis along classical lines. The present paper offers a new solution to the paradox, where a theory of analysis is given where (1) analysandum and analysans are distinct concepts, due to their failing to share the same conceptual form, yet (2) they are related in virtue of satisfying various semantic constraints on the analysis relation. Rather than distinguish between analysandum and analysans by appeal to epistemic considerations, the paper appeals to semantic considerations in giving a candidate account of the identity conditions for concepts. The distinctness of analysandum and analysans then serves to block the paradox in a straightforward way.

They say that argumentative writing skills are best learned through writing argumentative essays. I say that while this is excellent practice for argumentative writing, an important exercise to practice structuring such essays and build critical thinking skills simultaneously is what I call the four-sentence paper. The exercise has the template They say..., I say..., one might object..., I reply... One might object that the assignment oversimplifies argumentative writing, stifles creativity, promotes an adversarial attitude, or that students can’t consider objections well anyway. I reply that a simplified form of argumentative writing is fine for beginners, especially since the template is ubiquitous in philosophy; that any assignment template has room for creativity; that considering objections is consistent with good manners; and that despite some pitfalls of trying to defend a thesis and consider objections, students are capable of considering objections well with proper instruction and practice.

Quine famously argued that analyticity is indefinable, since there is no good account of analyticity in terms of synonymy, and intensions are of no help since there are no intensions. Yet if there are intensions, the question still remains as to the right account of analyticity in terms of them. On the assumption that intensions must be admitted, the present paper considers two such accounts. The first analyzes analyticity in terms of concept identity, and the second analyzes analyticity in terms of the analysis relation. The first fails in light of possible counterexamples. The second is defended, both by considering test cases of intuitively clear analyticities, and by developing the account in light of possible counterexamples

It might be thought that vagueness precludes the possibility of classical conceptual analysis and, thus, that the classical or definitional view of the nature of complex concepts is incorrect. The present paper argues that classical analysis can be had for concepts expressed by vague language since (1) all of the general theories of vagueness are compatible with the thesis that all complex concepts have classical analyses and also that (2) the meaning of vague expressions can be analyzed by having the degree of vagueness of a given analysandum be mapped onto the vagueness of an analysans.