D.Phil thesis by Philip Tonner
This interdisciplinary thesis is about dwelling, both as a method in archaeology and as a mode of... more This interdisciplinary thesis is about dwelling, both as a method in archaeology and as a mode of existence. My thesis has two principal aims. Firstly, to explore the 'dwelling perspective' as this has been outlined in recent archaeological theory.
PhD thesis by Philip Tonner
Summary: my thesis engaged Aristotle, Duns Scotus and Heidegger in a debate over the concept of b... more Summary: my thesis engaged Aristotle, Duns Scotus and Heidegger in a debate over the concept of being and critically engaged with Heidegger’s philosophy of art in relation to history. I engaged Husserl and Heidegger in a debate over the nature of phenomenology and examined Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion in relation to historical manifestations of religious practice. I argued that Heidegger’s temporal configuration of being as meaningful presence amounts to a univocal conception of being in terms of time. I then related this interpretation to Heidegger’s later philosophy.
Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, 2006.
Books by Philip Tonner
Scottish Universities Press, 2024
This book offers a comprehensive and accessible account of
the work of Tim Ingold, one of the lea... more This book offers a comprehensive and accessible account of
the work of Tim Ingold, one of the leading anthropologists
of our time. Presented as a series of interviews conducted
by three anthropologists from the University of Glasgow
over a period of two years, the book explores Ingold’s key
contributions to anthropology and other disciplines. In his
responses, Ingold describes the significant influences shaping
his life and career, and addresses some of the criticisms that
have been made of his ideas.
Over the past five decades, Tim Ingold has advanced thinking
and research within the discipline of anthropology, and also
made significant contributions to a wide range of debates
in both the arts and humanities and the natural sciences.
This book covers the entirety of Ingold’s career, including his
observations of human-animal relations in the circumpolar
regions, his perspectives on the perception of the environment,
and his meditations on lived experience in the material world.
In tracing his career, this volume also gauges the evolving state
of the field of social anthropology during this period, which has
grappled with its complicated historical involvement in projects
of colonialism as well as environmental and social activism.
Phenomenology between Aesthetics and Idealism is a short introductory volume on phenomenology and... more Phenomenology between Aesthetics and Idealism is a short introductory volume on phenomenology and aesthetics that highlights the phenomenological traditions connections to transcendental philosophy and the tradition of philosophical idealism. The book places aesthetics at the centre of the discussion and provides an overview of ‘transcendental philosophy’ since Kant, situating the phenomenological movement in relation to that tradition. Figures discussed include: Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Dufrenne, Benjamin, Bergson, Deleuze and Derrida.
New Studies in Idealism Series, Editor, Paolo Diego Bubbio, The Davies Group.
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Book chapters by Philip Tonner
Philosophy and Museums: Ethics, Aesthetics and Ontology, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, ed. A. Bergqvist, V.S. Harrison and G. Kemp, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2015.
This paper argues that any museum's collecting policy must face up to the problem of vulnerabilit... more This paper argues that any museum's collecting policy must face up to the problem of vulnerability. Taking as a starting point an item in the collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I argue that the basic responsibility of museums to collect 'things', and to communicate information about them in a truthful way brings their collecting practice into the epistemological domain of testimony and into the normative domain of ethics. Museums are public spaces of memory, testimony, representation and interpretation that at once enable humanity to hold to account those who transgress while at the same time holding to account those who witness these transgressions. By virtue of this, museums can be considered spaces of ethics wherein testimonial and hermeneutic injustice can be confronted and challenged.
Papers by Philip Tonner
Journal of Archaeology and Education 8, Iss 2. , 2024
Archaeology provides ‘material expression’ to the narratives and discourses which construct and b... more Archaeology provides ‘material expression’ to the narratives and discourses which construct and bind historical identity. When brought into the classroom it can provide a powerful tool to help school pupils untangle complex structures and meanings, and to begin to develop their own interpretive and evaluative skills. This article explores the use of archaeology in implementing aspects of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. We focus on one subject in particular, Religious and Moral Education (RME), and we analyze one unit of study designed and taught to Secondary 1 and 2 pupils, with ages ranging from 11- 13. We draw upon a recent major excavation in Perth and Kinross in Scotland so as to interrogate the role of symbols in rites of passage surrounding death as these are evidenced in the material record of the human past. We argue that archaeology provided a rich and robust structure, not available via other means, that assisted the development of pupils’ higher order thinking skills. We argue that deploying archaeology in RME, and by extension, in other subjects and in different educational contexts, will encourage pupils to explore materiality and will enhance their learning in new and inspiring ways.
International Journal of Music Education
This paper discusses an inquiry-based school-university partnership project conducted by history ... more This paper discusses an inquiry-based school-university partnership project conducted by history and music education specialists in Scotland. The project was music-led with history underpinning it, namely the musical migration of Scots and Irish to the Eastern United States. From the 18th century onwards thousands of Scots and Irish moved to Appalachia – ‘the wayfarers’ in our title. Their heritage now features in the Scottish school curriculum. However, the wayfarers encountered a range of challenging factors, including forced migration and segregation, which are not yet fully considered in schools. To address this need we co-developed resources with a specialist school to enhance secondary school practices surrounding music education and pupil engagement with challenging histories. This paper critically considers the project stages, supported by secondary and primary sources, including group interviews. In the conclusions we make suggestions for future policy, research and practic...
Journal of Scottish Thought, Volume 13, Kenneth White and Geopoetics, 2023
In his The Wanderer and his Charts (2004) Kenneth White offers two crucial texts that serve at on... more In his The Wanderer and his Charts (2004) Kenneth White offers two crucial texts that serve at once to 'educate and to initiate' (Bissell 2005: 37) his readers into a project a lifetime in the making: in one of these texts he introduces us to 'The Nomadic Intellect' while the in the other he provides 'An Outline of Geopoetics'. The term 'geopoetics'-which is not to be confused with 'geopolitics'-started to enter into White's 'texts and talks at the end of the 1970s', after a long period of what he describes as 'intellectual nomadism'. He adopted this term in order to articulate not only a fi eld that was opening up in his own intellectual trajectory but also to outline a 'potential general space' that would be 'concerned with the cultivation of a live and life-enhancing world by self-developing individuals' (White 2003: vii, 6). Nomadic; geopoetic: as an educator White has been a creator of groups which, while recognising that education has never been 'so ubiquitous', it is nevertheless somehow 'lacking' (Bartlett and Clemens 2017: 1), and have therefore attempted to create 'new organisations, with new thematics and new perspectives' (Bissell 2005: 37) outside the university, groups that are truly 'universal' in aspiration. The International Institute of Geopoetics, the most recent of these groups, was founded 19 years ago (1989), and has sites located as far apart as New Caledonia, Chile, Scotland and Sweden. 1 Opening its doors to established academics and artists and also to those with no formal qualifi cations or artistic status, but who nevertheless share in its concerns, the Institute of Geopoetics operates in terms that might be expressed well with reference to Jacques Rancière's exploration of the axiom of Joseph Jacotot in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, namely, that 'the same intelligence is at work in all the productions of the human mind' (Rancière 1991: 18; Deranty 2010: 7). The equality of intelligence that would ground White's 'active culture' is qualitative, not numerical, in Rancière's sense: it is an intelligence of the human mind capable of speaking with one another, that is
International Journal of Music Education , 2023
This paper discusses an inquiry-based school-university partnership project conducted by history ... more This paper discusses an inquiry-based school-university partnership project conducted by history and music education specialists in Scotland. The project was music-led with history underpinning it, namely the musical migration of Scots and Irish to the Eastern United States. From the 18th century onwards thousands of Scots and Irish moved to Appalachia-'the wayfarers' in our title. Their heritage now features in the Scottish school curriculum. However, the wayfarers encountered a range of challenging factors, including forced migration and segregation, which are not yet fully considered in schools. To address this need we co-developed resources with a specialist school to enhance secondary school practices surrounding music education and pupil engagement with challenging histories. This paper critically considers the project stages, supported by secondary and primary sources, including group interviews. In the conclusions we make suggestions for future policy, research and practice, such as to frame traditional songs in schools in their historical context.
This paper presents an extended argument toward the conclusion that fairy tales embody a form of ... more This paper presents an extended argument toward the conclusion that fairy tales embody a form of 'anticipatory knowledge' that can be deployed in contemporary settings to aid the development of healthy human subjectivity. We draw on a view of the genesis of mind and experience that emphasises the integration of 'internal' and 'external' worlds, operating together in an embodied and situated present. We contextualise this discussion in terms of socio-historic and psychoanalytical interpretations of fairy tales, drawing on figures such as Bruner, Jung, Zipes, Warner, Tatar, Deleuze and Guattari. Fairy tales are encountered by subjects in a variety of settings, including pedagogic, group storytelling, in individual reading and in film. They present possibilities for existential creativity through processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, appropriation, and auto-retellings, by virtue of what we call 'anticipatory knowledge'. Taking into account these processes enables a holistic account of the pedagogical and psychological potential of fairy tales, presenting a new framework for their psychological promise.
To realise the entitlement to Learning for Sustainability (LfS), the authors advocate for a post-... more To realise the entitlement to Learning for Sustainability (LfS), the authors advocate for a post-critical orientation in university-based teacher education of the 'head, heart, and hands' model of transformative learning as an organising principle. Integration of intellect, emotion, and body as the activation triad can encourage students and teachers towards transformative engagement. Educational policies of the Scottish government, the influence on teaching practices, and benefits to student learning experiences are explored through the context of COP26 and teacher education in Scotland. Implications are proposed to inspire change in higher education for educating for a sustainable future.
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2022
This paper, while not presenting a general discussion of authority in education, attempts to unco... more This paper, while not presenting a general discussion of authority in education, attempts to uncover some of the anomalies,
paradoxes and tensions in the concept. It will argue for a
revaluation of authority as an educational virtue, as a form
of participatory guidance that is an aid to growth. The paper
intends to help provoke continued debate over our perceived
educational virtues and vices. I argue that virtuous authority is authority exercised from the point of view of a larger
experience and a wider horizon. If teachers’ ‘pedagogical imperative’ is to bridge the gap between forms of knowledge and
their pupils, then their practice will involve authority. I suggest
here that such authority should be repositioned as participatory, immanent and democratic. As Dewey says, ‘The need for
authority is. . .constant. . . [I]t is the need for principles that are
both stable enough and flexible enough to give direction to
the processes of living in its vicissitudes and uncertainties.’ In
answer to this, I suggest that teachers practice their authority in
order to create stable yet flexible, open and indeterminate, but
not chaotic situations that combine with pupils’ experiences in
such a way as to enable educational growth. Authority practised
as a form of participatory guidance, to pursue this Deweyan
line of argument, can be ‘an aid to freedom’ and not freedom’s enemy. This paper will argue that authority, so revalued,
ought to be cultivated in our educational thought and practice.
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2022
Education is astonishingly simple. We have all been through it, whether as children or later in l... more Education is astonishingly simple. We have all been through it, whether as children or later in life-indeed, many of us are still going through it in some form or other; we all know what works; and we are all committed to realising its individual and
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D.Phil thesis by Philip Tonner
PhD thesis by Philip Tonner
Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, 2006.
Books by Philip Tonner
the work of Tim Ingold, one of the leading anthropologists
of our time. Presented as a series of interviews conducted
by three anthropologists from the University of Glasgow
over a period of two years, the book explores Ingold’s key
contributions to anthropology and other disciplines. In his
responses, Ingold describes the significant influences shaping
his life and career, and addresses some of the criticisms that
have been made of his ideas.
Over the past five decades, Tim Ingold has advanced thinking
and research within the discipline of anthropology, and also
made significant contributions to a wide range of debates
in both the arts and humanities and the natural sciences.
This book covers the entirety of Ingold’s career, including his
observations of human-animal relations in the circumpolar
regions, his perspectives on the perception of the environment,
and his meditations on lived experience in the material world.
In tracing his career, this volume also gauges the evolving state
of the field of social anthropology during this period, which has
grappled with its complicated historical involvement in projects
of colonialism as well as environmental and social activism.
New Studies in Idealism Series, Editor, Paolo Diego Bubbio, The Davies Group.
http://www.amazon.com/Phenomenology-between-aesthetics-idealism-Idealism/dp/1934542539/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444935189&sr=1-1
Book chapters by Philip Tonner
Papers by Philip Tonner
paradoxes and tensions in the concept. It will argue for a
revaluation of authority as an educational virtue, as a form
of participatory guidance that is an aid to growth. The paper
intends to help provoke continued debate over our perceived
educational virtues and vices. I argue that virtuous authority is authority exercised from the point of view of a larger
experience and a wider horizon. If teachers’ ‘pedagogical imperative’ is to bridge the gap between forms of knowledge and
their pupils, then their practice will involve authority. I suggest
here that such authority should be repositioned as participatory, immanent and democratic. As Dewey says, ‘The need for
authority is. . .constant. . . [I]t is the need for principles that are
both stable enough and flexible enough to give direction to
the processes of living in its vicissitudes and uncertainties.’ In
answer to this, I suggest that teachers practice their authority in
order to create stable yet flexible, open and indeterminate, but
not chaotic situations that combine with pupils’ experiences in
such a way as to enable educational growth. Authority practised
as a form of participatory guidance, to pursue this Deweyan
line of argument, can be ‘an aid to freedom’ and not freedom’s enemy. This paper will argue that authority, so revalued,
ought to be cultivated in our educational thought and practice.
Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, 2006.
the work of Tim Ingold, one of the leading anthropologists
of our time. Presented as a series of interviews conducted
by three anthropologists from the University of Glasgow
over a period of two years, the book explores Ingold’s key
contributions to anthropology and other disciplines. In his
responses, Ingold describes the significant influences shaping
his life and career, and addresses some of the criticisms that
have been made of his ideas.
Over the past five decades, Tim Ingold has advanced thinking
and research within the discipline of anthropology, and also
made significant contributions to a wide range of debates
in both the arts and humanities and the natural sciences.
This book covers the entirety of Ingold’s career, including his
observations of human-animal relations in the circumpolar
regions, his perspectives on the perception of the environment,
and his meditations on lived experience in the material world.
In tracing his career, this volume also gauges the evolving state
of the field of social anthropology during this period, which has
grappled with its complicated historical involvement in projects
of colonialism as well as environmental and social activism.
New Studies in Idealism Series, Editor, Paolo Diego Bubbio, The Davies Group.
http://www.amazon.com/Phenomenology-between-aesthetics-idealism-Idealism/dp/1934542539/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444935189&sr=1-1
paradoxes and tensions in the concept. It will argue for a
revaluation of authority as an educational virtue, as a form
of participatory guidance that is an aid to growth. The paper
intends to help provoke continued debate over our perceived
educational virtues and vices. I argue that virtuous authority is authority exercised from the point of view of a larger
experience and a wider horizon. If teachers’ ‘pedagogical imperative’ is to bridge the gap between forms of knowledge and
their pupils, then their practice will involve authority. I suggest
here that such authority should be repositioned as participatory, immanent and democratic. As Dewey says, ‘The need for
authority is. . .constant. . . [I]t is the need for principles that are
both stable enough and flexible enough to give direction to
the processes of living in its vicissitudes and uncertainties.’ In
answer to this, I suggest that teachers practice their authority in
order to create stable yet flexible, open and indeterminate, but
not chaotic situations that combine with pupils’ experiences in
such a way as to enable educational growth. Authority practised
as a form of participatory guidance, to pursue this Deweyan
line of argument, can be ‘an aid to freedom’ and not freedom’s enemy. This paper will argue that authority, so revalued,
ought to be cultivated in our educational thought and practice.
Postgraduate research training event: material culture, museums, philosophy, theology and religious studies.
From the BBC website: Dramatized documentary in which Andrew Marr explains how Edinburgh changed from a squalid provincial city into a beacon of intellectual thought, led by the brilliance of the philosopher David Hume and the father of economics, Adam Smith.
Their enlightened ideas opened up the eyes of the people across the world, arguing for a progressive and tolerant society with freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of action. Their ideas are just as relevant today as they were over 250 years ago.
This paper offers a précis of the methodology and results of a research project on standing stones in western Scotland. The focus is a case-study of sites in Coll and Tiree. Significantly, phenomenology is used as the particular guiding principle for the methodological approach and interpretations for this area. These follow the empirical research used to establish some understanding of standing stones as a group phenomenon across the region. This project includes accurate reconstructions of the paths of astronomical phenomena as seen by the naked eye through the development and use of sophisticated GIS software developed to weave together both sky- and land-scapes in one viewing. In this way, the dominant visualscapes of various peoples pasts are revealed and so too something of their belief systems.