Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 19 Introductory scientific education necessarily relies on simplified examples. Such examples are indispensable for teaching fundamental concepts before introducing the complexity of real scientific phenomena. Yet prolonged reliance on pedagogical simplifications may have unintended epistemological consequences. Students may gradually come to regard the simplified model not merelyContinue reading “Excursus 077 – On the Epistemological Consequences of Pedagogical Simplification”
Tag Archives: pedagogy
Excursus 055 – On Mental Faculties and the Division of Academic Disciplines
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The traditional division of the human mind into faculties such as sensation, perception, memory, imagination, understanding, reason, judgment, emotion, and will should not be understood as a map of sharply separated regions within the brain. These faculties are better regarded as functional distinctions: analytical categories usedContinue reading “Excursus 055 – On Mental Faculties and the Division of Academic Disciplines”
Excursus 043 – From Pedagogical Models to Ontological Commitments
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Scientific education commonly proceeds by means of simplified models. Because complex systems are difficult to understand in their full generality, instruction often begins with deliberately unrealistic cases that isolate a single principle while suppressing complicating factors. Such models serve an indispensable pedagogical function: they provide theContinue reading “Excursus 043 – From Pedagogical Models to Ontological Commitments”
Excursus 034 – On the Use of Everyday Examples
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The recurrence of examples involving bread, wine, and beer in writers as different as Bacon and Adam Smith is not accidental. In early-modern Europe, these products represented the most basic and universally recognized outcomes of human skill: grain-processing (bread, beer) and fermentation (wine, beer). For Bacon,Continue reading “Excursus 034 – On the Use of Everyday Examples”
Hossein Jorjani 