- Table View
- List View
Reflections on Programming Systems: Historical And Philosophical Aspects (Philosophical Studies Series #133)
by Giuseppe Primiero Liesbeth De MolThis book presents a historical and philosophical analysis of programming systems, intended as large computational systems like, for instance, operating systems, programmed to control processes. The introduction to the volume emphasizes the contemporary need of providing a foundational analysis of such systems, rooted in a broader historical and philosophical discussion. <P><P> The different chapters are grouped around three major themes. The first concerns the early history of large systems developed against the background of issues related to the growing semantic gap between hardware and code. The second revisits the fundamental issue of complexity of large systems, dealt with by the use of formal methods and the development of `grand designs’ like Unix. Finally, a third part considers several issues related to programming systems in the real world, including chapters on aesthetical, ethical and political issues. <P><P> This book will interest researchers from a diversity of backgrounds. It will appeal to historians, philosophers, as well as logicians and computer scientists who want to engage with topics relevant to the history and philosophy of programming and more specifically the role of programming systems in the foundations of computing.
Reflections on Qualitative Research in Language and Literacy Education
by Seyyed-Abdolhamid MirhosseiniThis book discusses aspects of the theory and practice of qualitative research in the specific context of language and literacy education. It addresses epistemological perspectives, methodological problems, and practical considerations related to research involvements in areas of language education and literacy studies rather than generic issues of other fields of social sciences. The volume starts with Theoretical Considerations in the first part and raises some epistemological and theoretical concerns that are rarely debated in the specific context of research on language and literacy teaching. The second part, Methodological Approaches explores issues of the design and implementation of language and literacy education research within the framework of some of the major established qualitative research traditions. Finally, the part on Research in Action discusses practical aspects of a few actual instances of qualitative research on language and literacy education in different contexts.
Reflections on Rawls: An Assessment of his Legacy
by Shaun P. YoungThe late John Rawls was one of the most inspiring, provocative and influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. In this collection a panel of distinguished political philosophers critically explore the intellectual legacy of Rawls. The essays herein engage Rawls's political theorizing from his earliest published writings in the 1950s to his final publication in 2001, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement and explore a diversity of issues related to his arguments, such as the attractiveness of his methodology/methodologies, and the normative coherence and empirical validity of his claims. In turn, the effectiveness both of his arguments and those of various supporters and critics are evaluated from the perspective of a variety of analytical approaches, including cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, perfectionism, liberalism, and legal theory. This book is an edifying and engaging dialogue with ideas and arguments that have provided the theoretical framework for much of contemporary political philosophy, and a thoughtful assessment of their continuing significance and place within the pantheon of political philosophy.
Reflections on Reason, Religion, and Tolerance: Engaging with Fethullah Gulen's Ideas
by Klass GrinellThis is an attempt to reflect on Islam as it appears in the context of Fethullah Gulen's teachings, an influential Turkish-Muslim scholar who inspired a movement of education and interfaith dialogue. Grinell's extensive study of Islam and of Gulen allows him to pinpoint a unique expression of values and beliefs that could alter the typical understanding of Islam and Muslims in the West. He draws upon his previous studies of the Gulen Movement and comparatively places Gulen in a wider context of faith and society. What is the concept of knowledge in Islam as understood by Gulen? How is faith and service to people connected? Is Gulen after building a sultanate? Does the Gulen movement have a (hidden) political agenda? How traditional or modern is Gulen? These are some of the questions Grinell attempts to answer from his perspective. As a humanistic researcher on Islam, Grinell believes we definitely have something to learn from Islam.
Reflections on Roadkill between Mobility Studies and Animal Studies: Altermobilities
by Matthew CalarcoRoadkill is a recurrent but often unthought feature of modern life. Yet, consideration of the broader significance of the myriad social, ethical, and political issues related to roadkill has largely gone missing from mainstream scholarship and activism. This neglect persists even in fields such as mobility studies and animal studies that would otherwise seem to have a vested interest in the topic. This book aims to bring roadkill to the foreground of current discussions among scholars and activists in these fields in order to demonstrate that roadkill is a uniquely important site from which to understand and contest the machinations of the dominant social order. It argues that a careful examination of roadkill can help both to uncover the hidden violence of contemporary human-centered systems of mobility and to develop alternative modes of mobility for a renewed social life in common with our more-than-human kin.
Reflections on Theoretical Issues in Argumentation Theory
by Frans H. van Eemeren Bart GarssenThis volume presents a selection of papers reflecting key theoretical issues in argumentation theory. Its six sections are devoted to specific themes, including the analysis and evaluation of argumentation, argument schemes and the contextual embedding of argumentation. The section on general perspectives on argumentation discusses the trends of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization, offers descriptions of the analytical and evaluative tools of informal logic, and highlights selected principles that argumentation theorists do and do not agree upon. In turn, the section on linguistic approaches to argumentation focuses on the problem of distinguishing between explanation and argument, while also elaborating on the role of verbal indicators of argument schemes. All essays included in this volume point out notable recent developments in the study of argumentation.
Reflections on the Foundations of Mathematics: Univalent Foundations, Set Theory and General Thoughts (Synthese Library #407)
by Stefania Centrone Deborah Kant Deniz SarikayaThis edited work presents contemporary mathematical practice in the foundational mathematical theories, in particular set theory and the univalent foundations. It shares the work of significant scholars across the disciplines of mathematics, philosophy and computer science. Readers will discover systematic thought on criteria for a suitable foundation in mathematics and philosophical reflections around the mathematical perspectives.The volume is divided into three sections, the first two of which focus on the two most prominent candidate theories for a foundation of mathematics. Readers may trace current research in set theory, which has widely been assumed to serve as a framework for foundational issues, as well as new material elaborating on the univalent foundations, considering an approach based on homotopy type theory (HoTT). The third section then builds on this and is centred on philosophical questions connected to the foundations of mathematics. Here, the authors contribute to discussions on foundational criteria with more general thoughts on the foundations of mathematics which are not connected to particular theories.This book shares the work of some of the most important scholars in the fields of set theory (S. Friedman), non-classical logic (G. Priest) and the philosophy of mathematics (P. Maddy). The reader will become aware of the advantages of each theory and objections to it as a foundation, following the latest and best work across the disciplines and it is therefore a valuable read for anyone working on the foundations of mathematics or in the philosophy of mathematics.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
by Edmund BurkeThis famous treatise began as a letter to a young French friend who asked Edmund Burke's opinion on whether France's new ruling class would succeed in creating a better order. Doubtless the friend expected a favorable reply, but Burke was suspicious of certain tendencies of the Revolution from the start and perceived that the revolutionaries were actually subverting the true "social order". As a Christian - he was not a man of the Enlightenment - Burke knew religion to be man's greatest good and established order to be a fundamental pillar of civilization.<P><P> Blending history with principle and graceful imagery with profound practical maxims, this book is one of the most influential political treatises in the history of the world. Said Russell Kirk, "The Reflections must be read by anyone who wishes to understand the great controversies of modern politics."<P> Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) became a member of Parliament in 1765. He championed the unpopular cause of Catholic emancipation and a great part of his career became dedicated to the problem of India. The French Revolution prompted one of his best-known works, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
by Edmund Burke J. G. A. PocockJohn Pocock's edition of Burke's Reflections is two classics in one: Burke's Reflections and Pocock's reflections on Burke and the eighteenth century.<P><P> The book, however, is far more than a supremely eloquent piece of occasional writing. For Burke is without a doubt the foremost conservative British political thinker: in his support for piecemeal reform rather than revolutionary change, in his skeptical belief in expediency and practical wisdom rather than abstract theorizing, in his defense of property, religion and traditional institutions. On all these topics Burke gave a definitive expression to a set of attitudes still at the heart of today's controversies. And yet Burke was no mere unthinking reactionary, a useful ally in Cold War propaganda; rather, as Conor Cruise O'Brien shows in his brilliant introduction, he was an Irishman with a good deal of sympathy for the ' revolutionary ' Catholic cause - a latent sympathy which, paradoxically, may explain some of the unparalleled power of his great work.
Reflections on the Role of Ethics in Agriculture
by Robert ZimdahlThis volume is an update to Weed Science- A Plea for Thought-Revisited published by Springer in 2012. More than a decade after the first edition, ethical discussion on the use of pesticides for weed management is largely absent. Startingly, weed science and agriculture have continued on the same path and are still dominated by capital chemical and energy intensive practices, including the paralysis of pesticides. This second edition expands upon the first, using recent data to confirm the dominance of herbicides. The revision includes chapters which emphasize the role of ethics in agriculture and the reasons it should, but has not yet become part of agricultural education. This includes suggestions on how education in agricultural ethics should be shifting and whose responsibility it is. The revised version also includes a discussion on the role of genetically modified crops and the consequences of using these crops-both positive and negative. Scientists have developed a wealth of knowledge they bring to the surface of their disciplinary silos. Yet there needs to be greater discussion on the necessity and risks of agricultural science and technology. This revised version provides a rigorous examination of weed science’s goals and ethics and challenges the way we manage weeds and agriculture.
Reflections: Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims
by François Duc De La RochefoucauldWe all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others. This famed work by a noted French author of the Renaissance era, seventeenth-century nobleman François de La Rochefoucauld, offers hundreds of brief, brutally honest observations of humankind and its self-serving nature. The perfect read for any realist—or anyone with the desire to evaluate their moral standing—this edition includes three supplements with additional maxims and essays. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity
by Alessandro FerraraReflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity is a challenging consideration of what remains of ambitious Enlightenment ideas such as democracy, freedom and universality in the wake of relativist, postmodern thought. Do clashes over gender, race and culture mean that universal notions such as justice or rights no longer apply outside our own communities? Do our actions lose their authenticity if we act on principles that transcend the confines of our particular communities ? Alessandro Ferrara proposes a path out of this impasse via the notion of reflective authenticity. Drawing on Aristotle, Kants concept of reflective judgement and Heideggers theory of reflexive self-grounding, Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity takes a fresh look at the state of Critical Theory today and the sustainability of postmodern politics.
Reflective Equilibrium and the Principles of Logical Analysis: Understanding the Laws of Logic (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)
by Jaroslav Peregrin Vladimír SvobodaThis book offers a comprehensive account of logic that addresses fundamental issues concerning the nature and foundations of the discipline. The authors claim that these foundations can not only be established without the need for strong metaphysical assumptions, but also without hypostasizing logical forms as specific entities. They present a systematic argument that the primary subject matter of logic is our linguistic interaction rather than our private reasoning and it is thus misleading to see logic as revealing "the laws of thought". In this sense, fundamental logical laws are implicit to our "language games" and are thus more similar to social norms than to the laws of nature. Peregrin and Svoboda also show that logical theories, despite the fact that they rely on rules implicit to our actual linguistic practice, firm up these rules and make them explicit. By carefully scrutinizing the project of logical analysis, the authors demonstrate that logical rules can be best seen as products of the so called reflective equilibrium. They suggest that we can profit from viewing languages as "inferential landscapes" and logicians as "geographers" who map them and try to pave safe routes through them. This book is an essential resource for scholars and researchers engaged with the foundations of logical theories and the philosophy of language.
Reflective Practice in Social Work (Transforming Social Work Practice Series)
by Terry Scragg Christine KnottReflective practice is at the heart of becoming a competent and confident social worker. It s both a key element of learning and development on social work courses and an important aspect of social work practice. This accessible and introductory text explores a range of approaches to reflective practice that aims to help students become more confident in answering key questions, including 'what is reflective practice?', how do I develop as a reflective practitioner?, how do I maintain reflective practice in key contexts? . There are sections on writing reflective journals, communicating well with service users and carers and reflective practice while on placements. "
Reflective Practice in Teaching: Pre-service Teachers and the Lens of Life Experience (Reflective Teaching Ser.)
by Gretchen Geng Pamela Smith Paul Black Yoshi Budd Leigh DisneyThis book investigates the ways in which pre-service teachers develop and articulate their professional knowledge by presenting their reflections on contemporary issues and topics they have explored during their own teaching practicums. It uses reflective practice to connect pre-service teachers’ personal backgrounds with their placement experience concerning a self-selected topic, including teacher educators’ reflections on the pre-service teachers’ reports on these placement topics. By illustrating the broad range of issues encountered by pre-service teachers, sharing multiple perspectives on the complexity of classroom practice, and demonstrating the importance of reflective practice, it also provides a valuable mentoring framework. Moreover, the book studies how examining pre-service teachers’ life experience can facilitate in-depth understanding, specifically in the context of pre-service teachers’ reflections on their own practices in different educational settings. In short, the book helps current and prospective pre-service teachers and teacher educators get to know their students and themselves better using reflective practice.
Reflective Teaching: An Introduction (Reflective Teaching and the Social Conditions of Schooling Series)
by Daniel P. Liston Kenneth M. ZeichnerThis popular text provides a clear, succinct explanation of how reflection is integral to teachers’ understandings of themselves, their practice, and their context, and elaborates how various conceptions of reflective teaching differ from one another. The emphasis on the importance of both self and context is embedded within distinct and varied educational traditions (conservative, progressive, radical, and spiritual). Throughout the text the reader is encouraged to examine his/her assumptions and understandings of teaching, learning, and schooling and to reflect on self and context. The major goal of this book is to help teachers explore and define their own positions with regard to key topics and issues related to the aims of education in a democratic society. Its core message is that such reflection is essential to becoming more skilled, more capable, and in general better teachers. New in the Second Edition: Underscores use of critical educational texts and film to encourage reflection; highlights emotional features of teaching and reflection; addresses spiritual/contemplative domains in educational traditions; Companion Website.
Reflex: Reflections, poems and other stories
by Aimar RollanReflex is a set of reflections, poems and stories of different topics. There is no order or concert, just flashes, reflections of ideas embodied in the paper. The word reflex shares roots with the word reflection, and for that reason I’ve chosen that title for this book, since every reflection is nothing but a highlight of universal mind in each mind. There’s no total truths when they’re expressed by a human being, just partial truths, just reflections of the great world of ideas. I hope and wish, that these reflections, that these highlights, serve to entertain readers and make them reflex on the plethora of topics discussed here.
Reflexiones a orillas del camino: Aforismos de un caminante
by Carlos Blanco FadolUn cromatismo sorprendente de las variopintas manifestaciones vivenciales del ser humano que inspiraron al autor a lo largo del peregrinaje de su vida por países de los cinco continentes. «El conjunto de aforismos que dan lugar a Reflexiones a orillas del camino forma un cromatismo sorprendente de las variopintas manifestaciones vivenciales del ser humano, traducido en pensamientos con dosis de surrealismo, poesía, desencanto, amor, desarraigo, humor... que inspiraron al autor a lo largo del peregrinaje de su vida por países de los cinco continentes. »Carlos Blanco Fadol, hispano uruguayo peregrino del viento, deja prevalecer en este libro el sentimiento de caminante con tanta intensidad que relega a un segundo plano su brillante trayectoria artística musical, colmada de premios y reconocimientos mundiales, donde incluye dos candidaturas a los Premios Príncipe de Asturias: a las Artes en 2006 y a la Concordia en 2009. »Sin duda, estamos ante una obra singular, donde el amplio abanico de situaciones humanas que tienen cabida en estos aforismos, muchos de ellos de marcado trasfondo poético, identifica profundamente al lector con sus circunstancias, como un faro dispuesto a iluminar las sombras de las realidades humanas». Carmen Posadas, escritora y consejera de la Universidad Europea y ganadora del Premio Planeta 1998
Reflexiones sobre la guillotina
by Albert CamusEl breve pero gran ensayo del Nobel de Literatura, Albert Camus, contra la pena de muerte en Francia: uno de los textos más poderosos y persuasivos jamás escrito contra este castigo. A lo largo de la historia, algunos libros han cambiado el mundo. Han transformado la manera en que nos vemos a nosotros mismos y a los demás. Han inspirado el debate, la discordia, la guerra y la revolución. Han iluminado, indignado, provocado y consolado. Han enriquecido vidas, y también las han destruido. Taurus publica las obras de los grandes pensadores, pioneros, radicales y visionarios cuyas ideas sacudieron la civilización y nos impulsaron a ser quienes somos. Este poderoso texto, uno de los más hermosos y persuasivos que escribió Albert Camus, sitúa el respeto a la vida humana por encima de la necesidad de cumplimiento de la ley. Sus argumentos contra la violencia de Estado y las penas ejemplares tienen plena vigencia hoy, y conforman una obra clave para entender el pensamiento ético del premio Nobel.
Reflexive Emotions: Shame, Humor, Humility (SpringerBriefs in Philosophy)
by Menachem FischThis book looks closely at three first-order reflexive emotions—shame, humor and humility—that are shown to be not only exclusively human, but definitive of major aspects of human selfhood, agency and normativity. A separate chapter that covers second-order emotions, shows that when negative, they display a crucial and equally exclusive aspect of human normative self-critique. In addition to jointly delineating agency, sapience, normativity, rationality, and the ability to critically self-reflect, this book further demonstrates the inevitable role of the we in the I (to paraphrase Axel Honneth), namely, how realizing one&’s full human potential necessarily requires engaging others. This book appeals to students as well as researchers and looks closely at how these three reflexive emotions bestow categorical value on otherness, rendering normative diversity not merely something to be tolerated or rationally overcome, but a rare and necessary blessing.
Reflexive Governance for Global Public Goods
by Eric Brousseau Tom Dedeurwaerdere Bernd SiebenhünerGlobal public goods (GPGs)--the economic term for a broad range of goods and services that benefit everyone, including stable climate, public health, and economic security--pose notable governance challenges. At the national level, public goods are often provided by government, but at the global level there is no established state-like entity to take charge of their provision. The complex nature of many GPGs poses additional problems of coordination, knowledge generation and the formation of citizen preferences. This book considers traditional public economy theory of public goods provision as oversimplified, because it is state centered and fiscally focused. It develops a multidisciplinary look at the challenges of understanding and designing appropriate governance regimes for different types of goods in such areas as the environment, food security, and development assistance. The chapter authors, all leading scholars in the field, explore the misalignment between existing GPG policies and actors' incentives and understandings. They analyze the complex impact of incentives, the involvement of stakeholders in collective decision making, and the specific coordination needed for the generation of knowledge. The book shows that governance of GPGs must be democratic, reflexive--emphasizing collective learning processes--and knowledge based in order to be effective.
Reflexive Historical Sociology (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought #Vol. 22)
by Arpad SzakolczaiThis book reconstructs and brings together the work of a number of social and political theorists in order to gain new insight on the emergence and character of modern Western society. It examines the intersection point of social theory and historical sociology in a new theoretical approach called "reflexive historical sociology". There is analysis of the works of Max Weber, Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias, Eric Voegelin and a number of others. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 examines the works of Eric Voegelin, Norbert Elias, Lewis Mumford and Franz Borkenau. Part 2 is concerned with the major conceptual tools such as experience, liminality, process, symbolisation, figuration, order, dramatisation and reflexivity, and themes such as the history of forms of thought, subjectivity, knowledge and closed space and regulated time. Finally, the book examines the most important insights of the thinkers discussed, concerning the historical processes that led to modernity.
Reflexive Pronouns: A Theoretical and Experimental Synthesis (Language, Cognition, and Mind #8)
by Darcy SperlichThis book presents a comprehensive picture of reflexive pronouns from both a theoretical and experimental perspective, using the well-researched languages of English, German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. In order to understand the data from varying theoretical perspectives, the book considers selected syntactic and pragmatic analyses based on their current importance in the field. The volume consequently introduces the Emergentist Reflexivity Approach, which is a novel theoretical synthesis incorporating a sentence and pragmatic processor that accounts for reflexive pronoun behaviour in these six languages. Moreover, in support of this model a vast array of experimental literature is considered, including first and second language acquisition, bilingual, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic and clinical studies. It is through both the intuitive and experimental data linguistic theorizing relies upon that brings out the strengths of the modelling adopted here, paving new avenues for future research. In sum, this volume unites a diverse array of the literature that currently sits largely divorced between the theoretical and experimental realms, and when put together a better understanding of reflexive pronouns under the auspices of the Emergentist Reflexivity Approach is forged.
Refocusing the Self in Higher Education: A Phenomenological Perspective (Routledge Research in Higher Education)
by Glen ShermanIn higher education literature, theories of learning and development have largely been adapted from psychology to the exclusion of basic insights from philosophy. This volume addresses the gaps in higher education’s theoretical base created by this inattention to philosophy and reflects on the significance of the history of philosophy for the field of higher education. Key insights from phenomenological and then deconstructive philosophy are explained in an accessible and useful way and woven into a practical theory of the student-subject and its implications for learning and development. Finally, narrative theory is introduced in conjunction with these philosophical considerations as the author considers alternative ways of conceptualizing the student, the student’s experience, and the unification of the curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular aspects of higher education.
Reform Processes and Policy Change
by George Tsebelis Thomas König Marc DebusGeorge Tsebelis' veto players approach has become a prominent theory to analyze various research questions in political science. Studies that apply veto player theory deal with the impact of institutions and partisan preferences of legislative activity and policy outcomes. It is used to measure the degree of policy change and, thus, reform capacity in national and international political systems. This volume contains the analysis of leading scholars in the field on these topics and more recent developments regarding theoretical and empirical progress in the area of political reform-making. The contributions come from research areas of political science where veto player theory plays a significant role, including, positive political theory, legislative behavior and legislative decision-making in national and supra-national political systems, policy making and government formation. The contributors to this book add to the current scholarly and public debate on the role of veto players, making it of interest to scholars in political science and policy studies as well as policymakers worldwide.