This chapter characterizes History as an interpretive discipline, one in which conclusions are drawn by applying critical thinking to the available evidence, rather than one that aims to achieve actionable results from experimental or observational results. It points out that History aims not at reproducible and definitive outcomes but at broadening and deepening inquiry. It seeks to define what kinds of questions historians most value, questions that contribute to and enable such deepening and widening inquiry. Finally, this chapter discusses in greater depth the methodological and epistemological division introduced in the Introduction, between those more attracted to the historicist tradition examined in Chapter 1 and those more attracted to the methods, aims, and epistemological assumptions of social-science theory and of critical social theory. The chapter discusses both the strengths and weaknesses of these competing traditions and the pedagogical benefit of introducing students to both – the unique intellectual flexibility that the study of the discipline of History can cultivate.

This chapter argues for an approach to teaching History rooted in the ethical position foundational to the discipline. That approach is based on respect for our students and for the discipline; in it instructors encounter and learn from their students in the same way that they encounter and learn from historical subjects, and instruction in History, just like research in History, focuses not on controlling outcomes but on engaging in an ethically authentic process. It offers six approaches to instruction that can help build this kind of relationship between instructors and students, and between students and the discipline. These include consulting our students regarding their interests and aims; building instruction around the process of inquiry; making pedagogical use both of the breadth of the discipline and of its complexity, diversity, and epistemological and methodological divisions; focusing on teaching analysis, critical thinking, and interpretation; and bringing students to see their engagement with History not only as a process by which they master specific bodies of knowledge and methods of thinking but also as an open-ended intellectual adventure.

At the court of the Phaeacians, Demodocus sings of the quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles and delights his listeners, all except the still unrevealed Odysseus who covers his head and weeps. During the feast that follows, Odysseus, despite his grief, sends the singer a rich portion of meat and salutes him, praising how well he sang ’all that the Achaeans did and suffered and toiled, as if you were present yourself, or heard it from one who was’. In this simile, Odysseus anticipates the twin methods of validation for contemporary historians: eyewitness (autopsy) and inquiry of the participants in events. In ancient historiography, professions of autopsy and inquiry are found from Herodotus to Ammianus, and they serve as one of the most prominent means of claiming the authority to narrate contemporary and non-contemporary history. In this chapter, we shall survey some of the issues revolving around inquiry for ancient historians, treating the theoretical observations of the historians on the difficulties and problems raised by inquiry, as well as the explicit claims made by historians in the course of their narratives.

This chapter will examine how a transdisciplinary approach to curriculum design provides a context for the development of intercultural awareness, fosters conceptual understanding and places the learner at the heart of the educational experience. A theoretical basis for transdisciplinary learning will first be presented. This will be followed by an analysis of the nature of the individual in the learning process and how this relates to the development of a global mindset. The chapter will conclude by offering practical considerations for the planning, teaching and assessing of learning through a transdisciplinary approach.

The role of the coroner is to investigate violent, unnatural or unexplained deaths, as set out in the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009. The coroner is a creature of statute; the oldest judicial office confirmed in 1194, but in existence before that time, to assist the Crown with the valuable and inevitable business of death. This chapter outlines the duties and responsibilities of a coroner.

This chapter focuses on the transition process, called the Expert Transition Cycle, which an individual goes through each time they make a transition. It reviews the more traditional models including vocational models, career anchors, psychometric models, work adjustment theories, and psychologically based models as well as ecologically and socially embedded models. It then reviews more contemporary transition process models, focusing on two models, working identity and identity status, which inform the study of identities in transition in the research. Finally, it presents the Expert Transition Cycle, which is the basis for determining how identity changes during a transition. This model includes five stages: Intention, Inquiry, Exploration, Commitment, and Integration.

Socrates’ claim that he is engaged in a cooperative inquiry (506e3-5) may surprise readers of the dialogue. In particular, some readers take Callicles to be a hostile interlocutor; his views about philosophy, ethics, and politics seem to be designed to give us a vivid picture of everything that Socrates rejects and of the whole outlook that vehemently rejects Socrates. Socrates, however, attributes the success of his argument to cooperation between himself and Callicles; he implies that Callicles fulfils the promise that Socrates saw in him when he described him as the ideal interlocutor. Evidence drawn from Thucydides shows that Callicles holds the views of an enlightened (in his view) Periclean supporter of democracy. Socrates exposes a conflict between the acceptance of hedonism and the recognition of non-instrumental goods that belong to this Periclean outlook. Hedonism is fairly attributed to Callicles, and Callicles acknowledges it. Since Callicles is willing to make the effort to ‘view himself correctly’, he recognizes the fairness of Socrates’ argument, and accepts its consequences. Despite appearances, he participates in the cooperative inquiry that leads to Socrates’ conclusion.

The chapter delves into the question of whether medicine is a science, examining arguments that suggest medicine is not a science due to differing aims, progress criteria, and moral commitments (as proposed by Munson 1981; Pellegrino 1998; Miller and Miller 2014). The chapter counters these arguments by challenging assumptions about science’s aims. Rather than simply increasing knowledge, the chapter defends the "Understanding Thesis" (informed by debates in epistemology and philosophy of science with reference to authors such as Kitcher 2001; 2008; 2011; Kvanvig 2003; Bird 2007; 2019a; 2019b; Douglas 2009; Pritchard 2010; Grimm 2014; Potochnik 2017), which holds that science’s aim is understanding, making the world more transparent. This aim is inherently practical, driven by our interest in manipulating the environment and bolstering our agency, thus making scientific inquiry responsive to promoting human agency and autonomy. As such, science, like medicine, is a moral enterprise, and there is no significant difference in terms of aims, progress criteria, or moral commitments that would disqualify medicine from being considered a science. It concludes by discussing the implications of this for scientists’ responsibilities.

In ‘The Place of Concepts in Socratic Inquiry’, Terence Irwin examines Socrates’ question ‘What is F?’, which is often taken to be a request for some sort of definition or account of what F is. When Socrates asks, ‘What is courage?’, ‘What is piety?’, ‘What is temperance?’, does his discovery that everyone, including himself, cannot answer such questions in a satisfactory manner imply that these answerers do not know what the words mean? If one cannot answer the ‘What is F?’ question, does it follow that one lacks the concept of F? Irwin argues that conceptual argument has an indispensable role in the arguments that lead to Socratic definitions, but it will not take us all the way to them. To understand Socratic definitions, Irwin compares them with Aristotelian real definitions, and with Epictetus’ views on the articulation of preconceptions.

In this chapter, I mount a sustained argument against Friedman’s claim that one is agnostic about whether P if and only if one is in an inquiring state of mind about whether P. I reject the claim that an inquiring state of mind entails agnosticism on the grounds that it fails to accommodate cases in which an agent inquires with the aim of ratcheting up an instance of (justified) believing to the status of knowledge or an instance of knowledge to the status of complete certainty. I reject the claim that agnosticism entails being in an inquiring state of mind on the grounds that it fails to accommodate cases in which a subject is agnostic towards P but are unmotivated to inquire about whether P because they believe or know that the question of whether P is unanswerable.

This chapter is organized according to two complementary sections. The first examines ethical practice as an extension of liberal humanism, a series of operating assumptions that present select claims of discrete subjects and individualized responsibility. Liberal humanism colludes with capitalistic claims of value and a foregrounding of articulated rights over and above any semblance of collective justice. From this frame extend a series of research practices that “make sense” in particular ways and according to procedurized claims of ethical practice. Part two engages with an alternative ethical practice that is termed “relational materialism.” Relational materialism refuses the governing processes endemic to liberal humanism in favor of an affirmative ethical practice animated by transformative potential – the resistive assumption that we might become otherwise through generating a future yet unknown. Rather than solely describing or reconstituting the normative status quo (as is seen in conventional research), relationally materialist inquiry begins with an ethic of refusal such that we might experiment with alternative ways of living that are not governed by the ubiquitous claims of liberal humanism.