Robert Bates Graber
Biographic Data
| ID | 80369 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Bates Graber |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert Bates |
| FAMILY NAME | Graber |
| SIGNATURE | GRABER R B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Missouri State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 11 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Two analyses of Richard Currier's Unbound: How Eight Technologies Made Us Human and Brought Our World to the Brink
Following are two reviews of this book, the first by Montserrat Perez-Castro, and the second by Robert Bates Graber.Unbound could be defined as not being tied to something, or as not being held in
Is Political Evolution Over? An Anthropological Analysis of the Twentieth Century
Why did human societies grow from small bands and villages into highly populous nations and empires? This process, termed political evolution, is explained by one major strand of anthropological theorizing as having resulted from population pressure, warfare, and conquest. War is seen as having been essential because polities do not willingly surrender autonomy. The 20th century apparently brought both an increase in population pressure (the rati…
Liberal education in crisis? Functions, forms, and foils: Editor s introduction
How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded in the physical universe? An outline of a problem-based liberal-studies course
Purpose – In this paper the author aims to sketch a liberal-studies course designed to explore our fundamental problem of thought and life: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? The fundamental character of this problem provides one with the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. Design/methodology/approach – The paper addresses the following questions: what does physics tell us about …
Liberal education in crisis? Comment by Graber
Liberal education in crisis? Rejoinder by Graber
Liberal arts in a new era
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness and outcomes of liberal arts in preparing people for adult roles. Design/methodology/approach – Review of research and opinions about the liberal arts. Findings – Liberal-arts outcomes results have fallen short of expectations though this may be a short coming of higher education generally. A new era of the knowledge society will shrink liberal-arts departments in humanities, lit…
Men grow old
Purpose – This sermon argues that artistry and understanding are the offspring of whole people: thoughtful, resolute, and passionate. It then considers some illiberal fashions in higher education that stifle passion. Design/methodology/approach – This is an opinion piece. Findings – Current threats to liberal education include metaphors demeaning to professors, incomprehensible or inconsequential learning objectives, and schemes that increase “in…
Contemporary liberal education: Slowing down to discern
Purpose – This essay seeks to argue that contemporary liberal arts education can be viewed from the perspective of contemporary psychological understandings of human cognition combined with the classical pedagogy developed in the foundational concepts of Jesuit education. Through a description of the human cognitive system as discussed in the writing of Daniel Kahneman and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, the concepts of “slow thinking…
Liberal education may be dead but the magic will not die
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to challenge the assumption that liberal education as we understand it today, is alive and well in our institutions of higher education. Design/methodology/approach – This article is a reflective essay Findings – The spirit of liberal education is alive and well but has largely fled the university and taken up residence in less formal, more flexible educational contexts. Originality/value – This article play…
The reaction against conventional knowledge in higher education
Purpose – Liberal education should consist of a healthy dynamic of mastering and transcending received traditions. This paper aims to discuss this point. Design/methodology/approach – This article discusses the inherent tension between the concepts of “liberal” and “education,” where “education” involves imparting conventional knowledge and “liberal” involves freeing the mind from it. Findings – With the rise of the social sciences and the matura…
The reflective practitioner: The role of a public liberal-arts university in saving liberal education
Purpose – This paper seeks to discuss the role of a public liberal-arts university in education. Design/methodology/approach – The author first defines the principles and definitions of liberal education, then analyses these ideas in relation to public liberal-arts universities. Findings – Liberal education holds enduring value in a world where state support for higher education is steadily decreasing and the author concludes that society needs p…
Why is liberal education so incoherent? An anthropological perspective
Purpose – This paper's purpose is to account for liberal education's characteristic incoherence. Design/methodology/approach – Its approach is to sketch a dilemma created by cultures being inherently conservative, while nations, in order to be internationally competitive, need to be innovative. The definitional and systemic bases of culture's conservatism offer no point of attack; but a third base is enculturation, which does. Findings – Shortly …
Is there a case for a “liberal education”
Purpose – Since the creation of the trivium and quadrivium as the core for a post- secondary education, education itself has undergone substantive change, particularly since the end of the eighteenth century. Unspoken is the change in the population seeking such advanced knowledge, as well as the idea that the original elements might be recast as liberal studies and STEM (science/technology/engineering/mathematics); unspoken, too, are the ramific…
The meaning of liberal education
Purpose – The purpose of this essay is to comment on the philosophy of liberal education and its structure; the goal of general education and how it fulfills the goals of liberal education; and the four key elements of liberal education, including the “liberating” aspects of general education, the need for an emphasis on questions more than on answers, the meaning of a global perspective, and the connections of each of the above to extracurricula…
Integration and the liberal arts: A historical overview
Purpose – The traditional liberal-arts curriculum of the word-based Trivium (grammar, dialectic/logic, rhetoric) and the number-based Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) has an intrinsic unity. Used in an integrated way, it provides a tool for self-development, self-realisation and self-integration. The purpose of this paper is to outline the core nature of the integrative quality of the liberal-arts curriculum, trace the gradual …
A Guttman-Based Approach to Identifying Cumulativeness Applied to Chimpanzee Culture
Human culture appears to build on itself—that is, to be to some extent cumulative. Whether this property is shared by culture in the common chimpanzee is controversial. The question previously has been approached, qualitatively (and inconclusively), by debating whether any chimpanzee culture traits have resulted from individuals building on one another’s work (“ratcheting”). The fact that the chimpanzees at different sites have distinctive repert…
Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution - Peter J. Richerson & Robert Boyd
Authors’ Responses
Is a World State Just a Matter of Time? a Population-Pressure Alternative
Previous efforts to forecast political evolution have been atheoretical extrapolations, with time itself the only independent variable. A mathematical population-pressure theory of political evolution is summarized and applied to two new time series for 20th-century polities—one for the number of states as traditionally identified and a second for the number of “states” when the League of Nations and the United Nations (but not their members) are…
Ritual, Consciousness, Belief: A Speculation on the Origin of Religion
Population Pressure, Agricultural Origins, and Global Theory: Comment on McGorriston and Hole
Population Pressure, Agricultural Origins, and Cultural Evolution: Constrained Mobility or Inhibited Expansion
Areal Decrease, Density Increase, and Circumscription: A Mathematical Note
Population density increases whenever a population grows more rapidly, or shrinks more slowly, than the area it inhabits; areal contraction therefore accelerates density increase. This consideration not only reinforces Dickson's (1987) suggestion that circumscription by anthropogenic environmental destruction contributed to the rise of some early states; it also implies that rate of density increase should be distinguished, as a motor of sociocul…
Victor Barnouw (1915-1989)
Is a World State Just a Matter of Time? a Population-Pressure Alternative
Previous efforts to forecast political evolution have been atheoretical extrapolations, with time itself the only independent variable. A mathematical population-pressure theory of political evolution is summarized and applied to two new time series for 20th-century polities—one for the number of states as traditionally identified and a second for the number of “states” when the League of Nations and the United Nations (but not their members) are…
Population Pressure, Agricultural Origins, and Cultural Evolution: Constrained Mobility or Inhibited Expansion
Can Aversion Explain the Incest Taboo? Comment on McCabe
Integration and the liberal arts: A historical overview
Purpose – The traditional liberal-arts curriculum of the word-based Trivium (grammar, dialectic/logic, rhetoric) and the number-based Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) has an intrinsic unity. Used in an integrated way, it provides a tool for self-development, self-realisation and self-integration. The purpose of this paper is to outline the core nature of the integrative quality of the liberal-arts curriculum, trace the gradual …
Areal Decrease, Density Increase, and Circumscription: A Mathematical Note
Population density increases whenever a population grows more rapidly, or shrinks more slowly, than the area it inhabits; areal contraction therefore accelerates density increase. This consideration not only reinforces Dickson's (1987) suggestion that circumscription by anthropogenic environmental destruction contributed to the rise of some early states; it also implies that rate of density increase should be distinguished, as a motor of sociocul…
Liberal education may be dead but the magic will not die
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to challenge the assumption that liberal education as we understand it today, is alive and well in our institutions of higher education. Design/methodology/approach – This article is a reflective essay Findings – The spirit of liberal education is alive and well but has largely fled the university and taken up residence in less formal, more flexible educational contexts. Originality/value – This article play…
The meaning of liberal education
Purpose – The purpose of this essay is to comment on the philosophy of liberal education and its structure; the goal of general education and how it fulfills the goals of liberal education; and the four key elements of liberal education, including the “liberating” aspects of general education, the need for an emphasis on questions more than on answers, the meaning of a global perspective, and the connections of each of the above to extracurricula…
Population Pressure, Agricultural Origins, and Global Theory: Comment on McGorriston and Hole
Victor Barnouw (1915-1989)
A Population-Pressure Alternative to a Sociobiological Theory of the Rise of Escalatory Intergroup Competition
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A Mathematical Interpretation of Circumscription Applied to the Westward Expansion
Can Aversion Explain the Incest Taboo? Comment on McCabe
A Foolproof Method for Disposing of Multiple Discoveries: Comment on Patinkin
Lenski No Stereotyper
The Capon Theory of the Cuckold's Horns: Confirmation or Conjecture
A Mathematical Interpretation of Circumscription Applied to the Westward Expansion
A Population-Pressure Alternative to a Sociobiological Theory of the Rise of Escalatory Intergroup Competition
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
In Defence of Darwin's Father
Areal Decrease, Density Increase, and Circumscription: A Mathematical Note
Population density increases whenever a population grows more rapidly, or shrinks more slowly, than the area it inhabits; areal contraction therefore accelerates density increase. This consideration not only reinforces Dickson's (1987) suggestion that circumscription by anthropogenic environmental destruction contributed to the rise of some early states; it also implies that rate of density increase should be distinguished, as a motor of sociocul…
Victor Barnouw (1915-1989)
Population Pressure, Agricultural Origins, and Cultural Evolution: Constrained Mobility or Inhibited Expansion
Population Pressure, Agricultural Origins, and Global Theory: Comment on McGorriston and Hole
Ritual, Consciousness, Belief: A Speculation on the Origin of Religion
Authors’ Responses
Is a World State Just a Matter of Time? a Population-Pressure Alternative
Previous efforts to forecast political evolution have been atheoretical extrapolations, with time itself the only independent variable. A mathematical population-pressure theory of political evolution is summarized and applied to two new time series for 20th-century polities—one for the number of states as traditionally identified and a second for the number of “states” when the League of Nations and the United Nations (but not their members) are…
Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution - Peter J. Richerson & Robert Boyd
A Guttman-Based Approach to Identifying Cumulativeness Applied to Chimpanzee Culture
Human culture appears to build on itself—that is, to be to some extent cumulative. Whether this property is shared by culture in the common chimpanzee is controversial. The question previously has been approached, qualitatively (and inconclusively), by debating whether any chimpanzee culture traits have resulted from individuals building on one another’s work (“ratcheting”). The fact that the chimpanzees at different sites have distinctive repert…
Liberal education in crisis? Functions, forms, and foils: Editor s introduction
How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded in the physical universe? An outline of a problem-based liberal-studies course
Purpose – In this paper the author aims to sketch a liberal-studies course designed to explore our fundamental problem of thought and life: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? The fundamental character of this problem provides one with the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. Design/methodology/approach – The paper addresses the following questions: what does physics tell us about …
Liberal education in crisis? Comment by Graber
Liberal education in crisis? Rejoinder by Graber
Liberal arts in a new era
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness and outcomes of liberal arts in preparing people for adult roles. Design/methodology/approach – Review of research and opinions about the liberal arts. Findings – Liberal-arts outcomes results have fallen short of expectations though this may be a short coming of higher education generally. A new era of the knowledge society will shrink liberal-arts departments in humanities, lit…
Men grow old
Purpose – This sermon argues that artistry and understanding are the offspring of whole people: thoughtful, resolute, and passionate. It then considers some illiberal fashions in higher education that stifle passion. Design/methodology/approach – This is an opinion piece. Findings – Current threats to liberal education include metaphors demeaning to professors, incomprehensible or inconsequential learning objectives, and schemes that increase “in…
Contemporary liberal education: Slowing down to discern
Purpose – This essay seeks to argue that contemporary liberal arts education can be viewed from the perspective of contemporary psychological understandings of human cognition combined with the classical pedagogy developed in the foundational concepts of Jesuit education. Through a description of the human cognitive system as discussed in the writing of Daniel Kahneman and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, the concepts of “slow thinking…
Liberal education may be dead but the magic will not die
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to challenge the assumption that liberal education as we understand it today, is alive and well in our institutions of higher education. Design/methodology/approach – This article is a reflective essay Findings – The spirit of liberal education is alive and well but has largely fled the university and taken up residence in less formal, more flexible educational contexts. Originality/value – This article play…
The reaction against conventional knowledge in higher education
Purpose – Liberal education should consist of a healthy dynamic of mastering and transcending received traditions. This paper aims to discuss this point. Design/methodology/approach – This article discusses the inherent tension between the concepts of “liberal” and “education,” where “education” involves imparting conventional knowledge and “liberal” involves freeing the mind from it. Findings – With the rise of the social sciences and the matura…
Sociology (23 works) · Political science (15 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Higher education (10 works) · History (10 works) · Liberal arts education (10 works)