Philosophy Commons^™

An Evolutionary Approach To Crowdsourcing Mathematics Education, Spencer Ward

Honors College

By combining ideas from evolutionary biology, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, this thesis attempts to derive a new kind of crowdsourcing that could better leverage people’s collective creativity. Following a theory of knowledge presented by David Deutsch, it is argued that knowledge develops through evolutionary competition that organically emerges from a creative dialogue of trial and error. It is also argued that this model of knowledge satisfies the properties of Douglas Hofstadter’s strange loops, implying that self-reflection is a core feature of knowledge evolution. This mix of theories then is used to analyze several existing strategies of crowdsourcing and knowledge …

Virtue (Charles F. Sawhill) Papers, 1917-1975, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Finding Aids

Charles F. Sawhill Virtue joined the University of Maine in 1946 as an associate professor of philosophy. In 1963, Virtue was appointed head of the Department of Philosophy. Virtue retired in 1968 and later that year was awarded emeritus status. Virtue wrote widely on the subject of philosophy including the textbook Perspectives in Culture. The record series Subject Records contains clippings and correspondence on a range of subjects, including on the work of specific philosophers.

Liminal Surfaces, Georgina E. Grenier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The poet Ben Okri wrote: “Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.” (Stibbe)

In the early 21st Century we are facing numerous environmental problems that are being caused by human activity. This era is termed the Anthropocene , a time when accumulated pollutants are causing detrimental ecological change. Ocean creatures are threatened by increasing seawater temperature, acidifying pH levels and melting ice. On land we are experiencing droughts, alteration of biomes, extinctions and an atmosphere that contains less oxygen per breath than …

Philosophy Across The Ages, Kirsten Jacobson

Maine Policy Review

This article describes an outreach program called Philosophy Across the Ages (PAA). PAA connects a University of Maine philosophy professor and her undergraduate students with Orono High School students through exciting biweekly seminar-style discussions of philosophical texts from ancient to contemporary times.