Higher education as preparation for the handling of controversial issues

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Abstract
The western world faces many intractable economic and political issues. In the handling of these, controversy arises when the thinking of the participants is influenced by subjective factors: subjective perceptions of the issue and subjective value-assumptions. Two examples of such influences are given in some detail. Higher education focuses very largely on the acquisition of knowledge and the development of the skills of rigorous argument; it rarely gives specific attention to the nature of the above subjective factors either in the parties to a controversy or in the students themselves. It is argued that certain conditions are necessary if students are to learn how to identify these factors and various approaches in different areas of the curriculum are outlined.

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