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Constructing Correct Software
by D. John CookeLinks constructive software development to traditional problem-solving methods Not dependent on any particular specification language, but is based instead on their common core
Constructing Correct Software (Formal Approaches to Computing and Information Technology (FACIT))
by John CookeConstructing Correct Software - The Basics illustrates and explains the constructive approach to software development. This approach involves calculating an answer from the initial statement of requirements or specification, rather than "guessing" an answer and then testing whether it actually works. It uses the same basic theory as traditional techniques, but is much quicker and easier as no "wrong answers" are obtained, and therefore no incorrect work needs to be discarded. John Cooke has based this book on material which has been used to teach the topic extensively at Loughborough University. It has been carefully written to be accessible to anyone with an appropriate basic background knowledge of formal methods. It is intended for 3rd/4th year undergraduate and postgraduate students on formal methods and software engineering courses, and software developers in industry who need a more pragmatic, yet fully formal, approach to software development.
Constructing Foucault's ethics: A poststructuralist moral theory for the twenty-first century
by Mark OlssenIn popularizing the term ‘speaking truth to power’, now widely used throughout the world, Michel Foucault established the basis upon which a new ethics can be constructed. This is the thesis that Mark Olssen advances in Constructing Foucault’s ethics. Olssen not only ‘speaks truth’ to existing moral and ethical theories that have dominated western philosophy since Plato, but also shows how, by using Foucault’s insights, an alternative ethical and moral theory can be established that both avoids the pitfalls of postmodern relativism and simultaneously grounds ethical, moral, and political discourse for the present age. Taking the late ‘ethical turn’ in the philosopher’s thought as its starting point, this ambitious study seeks to construct an ethics beyond anything Foucault ever attempted while remaining consistent with his core postulates. In doing so it advances the concept of ‘life continuance’, which expresses a normative orientation to the future in terms of the quest for survival and well-being, giving rise to irreducible normative values as part of the discursive order of events. This approach is explored in contrast with a range of other, established systems, from the Kantian to the Marxist to contract ethics and utilitarianism.
Constructing Foucault's ethics: A poststructuralist moral theory for the twenty-first century
by Mark OlssenIn popularizing the term ‘speaking truth to power’, now widely used throughout the world, Michel Foucault established the basis upon which a new ethics can be constructed. This is the thesis that Mark Olssen advances in Constructing Foucault’s ethics. Olssen not only ‘speaks truth’ to existing moral and ethical theories that have dominated western philosophy since Plato, but also shows how, by using Foucault’s insights, an alternative ethical and moral theory can be established that both avoids the pitfalls of postmodern relativism and simultaneously grounds ethical, moral, and political discourse for the present age. Taking the late ‘ethical turn’ in the philosopher’s thought as its starting point, this ambitious study seeks to construct an ethics beyond anything Foucault ever attempted while remaining consistent with his core postulates. In doing so it advances the concept of ‘life continuance’, which expresses a normative orientation to the future in terms of the quest for survival and well-being, giving rise to irreducible normative values as part of the discursive order of events. This approach is explored in contrast with a range of other, established systems, from the Kantian to the Marxist to contract ethics and utilitarianism.
Constructing Global Civil Society: Morality and Power in International Relations
by D. ChandlerGlobal Civil Society is a crucial concept in International Relations today, used as both a description of new mechanisms of non-state actor and NGO engagement in international policy-making and as a normative political project of international change. David Chandler critically investigates the claims made by the advocates of global civil society, analyzing the limits of the concept as a way of describing actual policy processes and the political dynamics behind the search for an international source of collective ethical values and social change.
Constructing Irish National Identity: Discourse and Ritual during the Land War, 1879–1882 (Cultural Sociology)
by A. KaneAuthor Anne Kane analyzes the intertwined cultural, political and social transformations that occur during historical events by focusing specifically on the case of the Irish Land War, a pivotal event in the formation of the modern Irish nation.
Constructing Legal Systems: "European Union" in Legal Theory
by Neil MacCormickLegal theory has been much occupied with understanding legal systems and analysing the concept of legal system. This has usually been done on the tacit or explicit assumption that legal systems and states are co-terminous. But since the Rome Treaty there has grown up in Europe a `new legal order', neither national law nor international law, and under its sway older conceptions of state sovereignty have been rendered obsolete. At the same time, it has been doubted whether the `European Union' that has grown out of the original `European Communities' has a satisfactory constitution or any constitution at all. What kind of legal and political entity is this `Union' and how does it relate juridically and politically to its member states? Further, the activity of construing or constructing `legal system' and legal knowledge becomes visibly problematic in this context. These essays wrestle with the above problems.
Constructing Leisure: Historical and Philosophical Debates
by K. SpracklenThis book looks back at the meaning and purpose of leisure in the past. But this is not a simple social history of leisure. It is not enough to write a history of leisure on its own in fact, it is impossible without engaging in the debate about what counts as leisure (in the present and in the past). Writing a history of leisure, then, entails writing a philosophy of leisure: and any history needs to be a philosophical history as well. That is the purpose of this book. It provides an account of leisure through historical time, how leisure was constructed and understood by historical actors, how communicative reason and free will interacted with instrumentality at different times, how historians have reconstructed past leisure through historiography, and finally, how writers have perceived the meaning and purpose of leisure in alternative histories. Providing a sweeping overview of the field, Karl Spracklen charts how the concept of leisure was understood in Ancient history, through to modern times, and looks at leisure in different societies and cultures including Byzantium and Asian civilizations, as well as looking at leisure and Islam. Spracklen concludes with a chapter on future histories of leisure.
Constructing Methodology for Qualitative Research: Researching Education and Social Practices (Palgrave Studies in Education Research Methods)
by Celeste Lawson Bruce Allen Knight Bobby Harreveld Mike Danaher Gillian BuschThis book explores the webs of vulnerability in methodological decision-making that illustrate the deceptive strength of qualitative research. Each chapter will resonate with readers differently as they read themselves into the tensions and tangles of qualitative research when confronted with the challenges of establishing methodological frameworks for educational and social enquiry. The authors are postgraduate, early career researchers and supervisors who analyse their methodological encounters with the nimble, fluid, messy and iterative processes of qualitative research. The book flows structurally from positioning the researcher within these processes to the manoeuvring of self across necessarily selective social science disciplines in education, arts and humanities. It rejuvenates the pioneering spirit, the sense of mission and innovativeness of qualitative research.
Constructing Moral Concepts of God in a Global Age
by Myriam RenaudConstructing Moral Concepts of God in a Global Age focuses on what people say and think about God, rather than on arguments about God's existence. It advances a theological method, or step-by-step approach to explore and reframe personal convictions about God and the worldviews shaped by those convictions. Since a moral God is more likely to foster a moral life, this method integrates an ethical check to ensure that understandings of God and their associated worldviews are validly moral. The proposed method builds on the work of twentieth-century theologian Gordon Kaufman during the Kantian phase of his work. It anticipates a person-like God who hears prayers, loves without end, and comforts in times of hardship. To accommodate today’s pluralistic and globalized world, the ethical check integrated in the method is a widely collaborative and vetted global ethic, the Parliament of the World’s Religions "Declaration Towards a Global Ethic." This volume of constructive philosophical theology is written for seminary students, educators, clergy, study groups, and anyone interested in delving more deeply and systematically into understandings of God, whether their own or those of others.
Constructing Moral Concepts of God in a Global Age
by Myriam RenaudConstructing Moral Concepts of God in a Global Age focuses on what people say and think about God, rather than on arguments about God's existence. It advances a theological method, or step-by-step approach to explore and reframe personal convictions about God and the worldviews shaped by those convictions. Since a moral God is more likely to foster a moral life, this method integrates an ethical check to ensure that understandings of God and their associated worldviews are validly moral. The proposed method builds on the work of twentieth-century theologian Gordon Kaufman during the Kantian phase of his work. It anticipates a person-like God who hears prayers, loves without end, and comforts in times of hardship. To accommodate today’s pluralistic and globalized world, the ethical check integrated in the method is a widely collaborative and vetted global ethic, the Parliament of the World’s Religions "Declaration Towards a Global Ethic." This volume of constructive philosophical theology is written for seminary students, educators, clergy, study groups, and anyone interested in delving more deeply and systematically into understandings of God, whether their own or those of others.
Constructing Practical Reasons
by Andreas MüllerSome things are reasons for us to perform certain actions. That it will spare you great pain in the future, for example, is a reason for you to go to the dentist now, and that you are already late for work is a reason for you not to read the next article in the morning paper. Why are such considerations reasons for or against certain actions? Constructivism offers an intriguing answer to this question. Its basic idea is often encapsulated in the slogan that reasons are not discovered but made by us. Andreas Müller elaborates this idea into a fully-fledged account of practical reasons, makes its theoretical commitments explicit, and defends it against some well-known objections. Constructing Practical Reasons begins with an examination of the distinctive role that reason judgements play in the process of practical reasoning. This provides the resources for an anti-representationalist conception of the nature of those judgements, according to which they are true, if they are true, not because they accurately represent certain normative facts, but because of their role in sound reasoning. On the resulting view, a consideration owes its status as a reason to the truth of the corresponding reason judgement and thus, ultimately, to the soundness of a certain episode of reasoning. Consequently, our practical reasons exhibit a kind of mind-dependence, but this does not force us to deny their objectivity.
Constructing Practical Reasons
by Andreas MüllerSome things are reasons for us to perform certain actions. That it will spare you great pain in the future, for example, is a reason for you to go to the dentist now, and that you are already late for work is a reason for you not to read the next article in the morning paper. Why are such considerations reasons for or against certain actions? Constructivism offers an intriguing answer to this question. Its basic idea is often encapsulated in the slogan that reasons are not discovered but made by us. Andreas Müller elaborates this idea into a fully-fledged account of practical reasons, makes its theoretical commitments explicit, and defends it against some well-known objections. Constructing Practical Reasons begins with an examination of the distinctive role that reason judgements play in the process of practical reasoning. This provides the resources for an anti-representationalist conception of the nature of those judgements, according to which they are true, if they are true, not because they accurately represent certain normative facts, but because of their role in sound reasoning. On the resulting view, a consideration owes its status as a reason to the truth of the corresponding reason judgement and thus, ultimately, to the soundness of a certain episode of reasoning. Consequently, our practical reasons exhibit a kind of mind-dependence, but this does not force us to deny their objectivity.
Constructing Reality: The "Operationalization" of Bateson’s Conjecture on Cognition (SpringerBriefs in Psychology)
by Piero MellaThis brief presents an overview of Gregory Bateson’s Constructivist method of Cognition. Bateson proposes a theory of cognition that is based on the abstract notion of difference that the mind distinguishes and perceives and represents information that constitutes and separates how different states are ordered, grouped, and classified. Bateson, however, does not clearly indicate how a cognitive system can develop a knowledge of reality from the perception of these differences. This book seeks to offer a scientific approach to Constructivism. Using Bateson’s hypothesis, chapters discuss how our mind distinguishes and elaborates differences, allowing us to form perceptions of objects, and how these objects can be described and compared. Chapters also discuss how from differences, it is possible to construct concepts or ideas of how these can be defined and how to derive from these differences the meanings of the signs used for the structuring of languages. The brief offers a coherent structure of propositions that form an interpretative theory of the modus operandi of the human mind, which will be useful not only in shedding light on our cognitive processes, but also in laying the formal groundwork for artificial intelligence. Constructing Reality is a must-have resource for researchers and students of the cognitive sciences, as well as education sciences, and researchers and scholars of artificial intelligence, learning theory, and intelligent automata programming.
Constructing Regional Smart Education Ecosystems in China (Lecture Notes in Educational Technology)
by Haijun Zeng Zhisheng Li Jiong Guo Zhuo ZhangThis book enriches the understanding of regional smart education in China and promotes sharing of smart education case studies in China and abroad. It presents 46 case studies selected from a total of 644 case studies collected nationwide in China. These selected case studies focus on regional construction, research findings, and solutions. The case studies on regional construction mainly focus on the sustainable development mechanism of regional smart education. The research findings case studies showcase research results produced by research teams and individuals, which involve theories, models, technologies, practical investigations, or international comparisons related to smart education. Lastly, the solution case studies are technical solutions provided by enterprises for the development of smart education, which include application scenarios, methods, and effects in regions or schools around smart educational equipment, platforms, networks, tools, resources, or integrated solutions.
Constructing Solidarity for a Liberative Ethic: Anti-Racism, Action, and Justice (Content and Context in Theological Ethics)
by T. DayConstructing Solidarity offers a critical path toward the transformation of white worldviews, theologies, ethics, and praxis for scholars, activists, religious leaders, and those seeking guidance.
Constructing the New Consumer Society
by John Holmwood Hilary Radner Gerhard Schulze Pekka SulkunenThis book argues that the coming of the 'a new consumerism' in the affluent societies marks a distinct phase of modernity. Limits of production no longer confine consumption to what is necessary or instrumental. Demands for increasing production no longer shape ideology and culture as they did previously. Important contemporary themes of morality, the body, citizenship and inequality are here placed in a new theoretical light. The book provides examples of new codes of happiness in consuming products, culture and entertainment. Issues of nutrition, consumer policy, environmental risk and health are discussed in the light of these new codes.
Constructing the Political Spectacle
by Murray EdelmanThanks to the ready availability of political news today, informed citizens can protect and promote their own interests and the public interest more effectively. Or can they? Murray Edelman argues against this conventional interpretation of politics, one that takes for granted that we live in a world of facts and that people react rationally to the facts they know. In doing so, he explores in detail the ways in which the conspicuous aspects of the political scene are interpretations that systematically buttress established inequalities and interpretations already dominant political ideologies.
Constructing Transgressive Sexuality in Screenwriting: The Feiticeiro/a as Character
by Lj TheoThis book approaches the construction of complex and transgressive ‘pervert’ characters in mainstream (not ‘art’), adult-oriented (not pornographic) cinema. It deconstructs an episteme on which to base the construction of characters in screenplays, in a way that acknowledges how semiotic elements of characterisation intersect. In addition, it provides an extended re-phrasing of the notion of ‘the pervert’ as Feiticiero/a: a newly-coined construct that might serve as an underpinning for complex, sexual filmic characters that are both entertaining and challenging to audiences. This re-phrasing speaks to both an existential/phenomenological conception of personhood and to the scholarly tradition of the ‘linguistic turn’ of continental philosophers such as Foucault and Lacan, who represent language not primarily as describing the world but as constructing it. The result is an original and interdisciplinary volume that is brought to coherence through a queer, post-humanist lens.
Constructing Transgressive Sexuality in Screenwriting: The Feiticeiro/a as Character
by Lj TheoThis book approaches the construction of complex and transgressive ‘pervert’ characters in mainstream (not ‘art’), adult-oriented (not pornographic) cinema. It deconstructs an episteme on which to base the construction of characters in screenplays, in a way that acknowledges how semiotic elements of characterisation intersect. In addition, it provides an extended re-phrasing of the notion of ‘the pervert’ as Feiticiero/a: a newly-coined construct that might serve as an underpinning for complex, sexual filmic characters that are both entertaining and challenging to audiences. This re-phrasing speaks to both an existential/phenomenological conception of personhood and to the scholarly tradition of the ‘linguistic turn’ of continental philosophers such as Foucault and Lacan, who represent language not primarily as describing the world but as constructing it. The result is an original and interdisciplinary volume that is brought to coherence through a queer, post-humanist lens.
Constructing Transnational Political Spaces: The Multifaceted Political Activism of Mexican Migrants
by Stephanie SchützeThis book analyzes Mexican migrant organizations in the US and their political influence in home communities in Mexico. By connecting multifaceted arenas of Mexican migrant’s activism, it traces the construction of transnational political spaces. The author's ethnographic work in the state of Michoacán and in Chicago shows how these transnational arenas overcome the limits of traditional political spaces - the nation state and the local community - and bring together intertwined facets of ‘the political'. The book examines how actors engage in politics within transnational spaces; it delineates the different trajectories and agendas of male and female, indigenous and non-indigenous migrant activists; it demonstrates how the local and actor-centered levels are linked to the regional or state levels as well as to the federal levels of politics; and finally, it shows how these multifaceted arenas constitute transnational spaces that have implications for politics and society in Mexico and the US alike.
Constructing Twenty-First Century Socialism in Latin America: The Role of Radical Education (Marxism and Education)
by M. Cole S. MottaIn Constructing Twenty-First Century Socialism: The Role of Radical Education, Motta and Cole explore the role of the politics of knowledge and pedagogy in the reinvention of socialism for the twenty-first century. Through a critical analysis of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela they deconstruct the mechanisms of neoliberal control as an epistemological project of monologue, closure, and violence against all 'others'. The authors develop an affirmative engagement with the traditions, practices, and politics which seek to challenge this closure through the policies of the counter-hegemonic government of Venezuela, the struggles of social movements in Brazil and Colombia, and the daily resistance of critical educators working in formal educational settings in all three countries. This mapping and analysis not only contribute to struggles for alternatives to capitalism in Latin America, but are translatable to other contexts. The book theorizes that with the exhaustion of neoliberalism, it is time to pedagogize the political and politicize the pedagogical in order to create worlds beyond capitalism.
A Construction Manual for Robots' Ethical Systems: Requirements, Methods, Implementations (Cognitive Technologies)
by Robert TrapplThis book will help researchers and engineers in the design of ethical systems for robots, addressing the philosophical questions that arise and exploring modern applications such as assistive robots and self-driving cars.The contributing authors are among the leading academic and industrial researchers on this topic and the book will be of value to researchers, graduate students and practitioners engaged with robot design, artificial intelligence and ethics.
The Construction of Belief: Reflections on the Thought of Mohammed Arkoun
by Mohammed ArkounMohammed Arkoun was one of the most prominent and influential Arab intellectuals of his day. During a career spanning more than thirty years, he was revered as an outstanding research scholar, a bold critic of the theoretical tensions embedded within Islamic Studies and an outspoken public figure, upholding political, social and cultural modernism. This Festschrift honours Arkoun's scholarship, bringing together the contributions of eleven distinguished scholars of history, religious studies and philosophy. It offers a comprehensive selection of critical engagements with Arkoun's work, reflecting on his considerable influence on contemporary thinking about Islam and its ideological, philosophical and theological dimensions. The authoritative reference study on the work of Mohammed Arkoun, The Construction of Belief is essential reading for students and scholars of Islam, Muslim societies and cultures, modernity, religious studies, philosophy and semanti.
The Construction of Cognitive Maps (GeoJournal Library #32)
by Juval Portugaliand processes which are exclusive to humans in their encoding, storing, decoding and retrieving spatial knowledge for various tasks. The authors present and discuss connectionist models of cognitive maps which are based on local representation, versus models which are based on distributed representation, as well as connectionist models concerning language and spatial relations. As is well known, Gibson's (1979) ecological approach suggests a view on cognition which is diametrically different from the classical main stream view: perception (and thus cognition) is direct, immediate and needs no internal information processing, and is thus essentially an external process of interaction between an organism and its external environment. The chapter by Harry Heft introduces J. J. Gibson's ecological approach and its implication to the construction of cognitive maps in general and to the issue of wayfinding in particular. According to Heft, main stream cognitive sciences are essentially Cartesian in nature and have not as yet internalized the implications of Darwin's theory of evolution. Gibson, in his ecological approach, has tried to do exactly this. The author introduces the basic terminology of the ecological approach and relates its various notions, in particular optic flow, nested hierarchy and affordances, to navigation and the way routes and places in the environment are learned.