Another central concept or entity which Leroi-Gourhan drew from Bergson was Homo faber. In a brief but influential passage of Creative Evolution, Bergson posited that fabrication, making with materials, was a defining human trait. Intelligence was not for contemplation but rather for action, for producing artificial objects and tools. This Homo faber and its creative intelligence received mixed reactions. While the emphasis on techniques and their role in human history was welcomed by historian Henri Berr and by Marcel Mauss, the latter also stressed their fundamentally collective and rational dimensions, rather than individual or organic ones. At the same time, many prehistorians and philosophers of the time readily assumed an evolutionary sequence from primitive Homo faber to developed Homo sapiens. Until the 1950s, Leroi-Gourhan too held such views, considering the most ancient remains of technical activities (stone tool manufacture and use) too crude to be of much informative value.

This response describes the development of a comprehensive approach to sustainability education that is embedded in the curriculum and school culture and involves all actors in a school working together. The authors use their school in Mexico City, a city that is directly impacted by the climate and environmental crises, as an example. The school’s efforts include arts projects on topics such as ‘La Tierra Es Mi Amiga’ (The Earth Is My Friend), themed days and weeks focused on sustainability, curriculum design that incorporates direct engagement with the natural world and outreach to experts. They also utilise philosophy for children and debating to encourage critical thinking and empathy and support student-led social enterprise projects focused on sustainability.

This response provides a practical guide to incorporating philosophical discourse in classrooms to help children grapple with life’s big questions. It outlines three approaches to integrating philosophy into curricula: firstly, launching units of learning on any subject with philosophical discussions based on overarching themes such as power, freedom or eternity; secondly, designating a half term as a period for focusing on philosophy and ethics, using an overarching question to guide exploration; and thirdly, a project whereby each week a member of the school community poses a big question for discussion. Implementation of these approaches can improve students’ oracy skills, self-esteem and overall well-being.

This manifesto argues that by combining student voice, agency and practical wisdom, or phronēsis, a more equitable and just educational system can be created that supports students’ empowerment as leaders of transformative change who can make well-informed, values-based judgements. Practical wisdom is the ability to make well-informed decisions based on knowledge, experience and ethical values. The manifesto recommends specific actions in support of this, such as reevaluating curriculum goals; availing students of different types of knowledge, capacities and reasoning; and establishing environments that promote collaboration and reflection. It aims to inspire educators to nurture children to be better decision makers and collaborative problem solvers. It concludes that despite the challenges facing the world today, the voices of children and young people offer hope, and that we must listen to them.

Describes undergraduate education and student activities.

Chapter 1 examines how philosophical arguments and legal frameworks offered important means by which eighteenth-century Britons could understand ownership and possession. It begins by exploring the work of John Locke and the central role it played in shaping conceptions of property in the eighteenth century. The chapter then moves on to explore the changing legal frameworks which sought to define how people (including enslaved people, wives, servants and apprentices), dogs, watches and financial instruments might be understood as possessions and property in this period. It finds that through the course of these changes the law often remained ambiguous as to the nature of property and the protections the legal system might offer. Such ambiguity was significant in opening other spaces which shaped how property and possession were understood.

This chapter argues that Darwin’s philosophical theory of emotion has been forgotten due to paradigm shifts in biology, psychology, and philosophy. These shifts have caused researchers to neglect associationist theories of emotions, including Darwin’s contributions to this school of thought. Having explained why Darwin’s philosophy was forgotten, I conclude by explaining why it should be remembered, given its relevance for contemporary emotions research.

That the Declaration of Independence could be considered from the perspective of rhetoric might seem rather obvious, if not downright self-evident. Even so, appreciating how Jefferson thought about language not as an abstract concept but as a lived and material practice can help us appreciate the text of the Declaration from different perspectives. The text is shot through with the histories of race, nation, empire, and belonging that characterized the ideology of American revolutionary republicanism, and with Jefferson’s thinking about these forces and his own anxious place in them. In fact, despite and perhaps even in part because of his own difficulties with public speaking, Jefferson thought about the ability to access and marshal rhetorical exemplars and put them to use in legal and political argument as an elemental part of what it meant to be an effective citizen. His thinking about material rhetoric, about the absorption of what one read through notes, commentary, and commonplace books, turns out to be a critical component of how he thought about the legitimacy of the American project and of how he framed that project in successive drafts of the Declaration itself.

This chapter presents a portrait of study and teaching at the Faculty of Arts in Paris during the first half-century of the university's existence: from enrolment under a master to obtaining a licence, entering the corporation of the Magistri Artium and, eventually, enrolment in one of the higher faculties (theology, canon law or medicine).

The Mendelssohns were active at a time of contestation and change within music aesthetics and broader aesthetic theory. As well as outlining how they positioned themselves in relation to some of the key issues and debates of their time, the chapter examines their continuing investment in Enlightenment and classical aesthetic ideals and how this interacted with their engagement with Romanticism. It also explores the extent to which moral and aesthetic criteria are entwined in their judgements of contemporary music, fuelling their hostility towards French grand opera, the programmatic orchestral works of Berlioz, and French virtuoso pianism. Their own compositions frequently function as music-aesthetic interventions, aiming to counterbalance trends in musical life that they viewed negatively. Crucial is a discussion of the conceptions of truth and emotion at the heart of Felix’s aesthetics, explored through a comparison of his views with those of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher.

It is well known that Ennius stands out among the early Roman writers by being active in a variety of literary (mainly poetic) genres. It is also obvious that there are clear distinctions in form and themes between the different types of works in line with their generic identity; at the same time, some stylistic features, motifs, and concepts may be observed in works assigned to different literary genres. This chapter explores such items in Ennius’ corpus and discusses the respective role of generic distinctions. Such a study contributes to identifying typical aspects of Ennius’ output as a whole as well as to describing specific generic manifestations.

As advocates for play, teachers need to have a clear definition of play, a model of play used to guide their practice and a theory of play that underpins their philosophy of teaching and learning. This chapter brings together insights gained about play from all the chapters in this book and invites you to take a position on your own philosophy of play. We then ask you to become an advocate for children’s play.

The first chapter provides a short survey of the language of joy as it is found in philosophical, theological and mystical works that have a strong bearing upon European medieval literature as a whole. It shows how some influential theoretical and mystical works shape a cognitive and conceptual language of joy as exterior to the self, a place of alterity that the human mind cannot contain within itself but must enter through love and self-forgetfulness. Through an exploration of some of the writings of St Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux, I argue that this language is constructed in opposition to that of philosophical happiness which consists in self-sufficiency and intellectual contemplation. The chapter ends with a study of the mystic Marguerite Porete’s language of divine union as an entering of the sea of joy, which blends the monastic and courtly discourses of love.