Tradition as a Communication System. A Pragmatic Approach

A context of my paper is the debate on reason, tradition and traditional communities, in which this moral and epistemological issues were discussed as a part of general socio-philosophical theory of modernity. In particular I intend to locate my considerations in the context of formal-pragmatic theory of modern communicative rationality developed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Brandom. I will provide a competitive model of the rationality of tradition by applying a conceptual toolkit of pragmatically oriented analysis to explain practices connected with vocabulary of tradition. I argue that tradition as a communication system has a fully rational structure. My main claim is that communicative structure of tradition has a rational structure of language game. This structure includes defined principles of communication for members of closed tradition-grounded community and rule of inclusion for potential new members. Firstly I consider closely internal principles of communication within the framework of tradition contrasting them shortly with normative-deontic rules of the postenlightenment idea of pragmatic communication discussed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Brandom. After that I examine the rule of inclusion — the rule, which mediates between closed system of tradition-based community and his environment.Numer został przygotowany przy wsparciu Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego

Mechanisms for Automated Negotiation in State Oriented Domains

This paper lays part of the groundwork for a domain theory of negotiation, that is, a way of classifying interactions so that it is clear, given a domain, which negotiation mechanisms and strategies are appropriate. We define State Oriented Domains, a general category of interaction. Necessary and sufficient conditions for cooperation are outlined. We use the notion of worth in an altered definition of utility, thus enabling agreements in a wider class of joint-goal reachable situations. An approach is offered for conflict resolution, and it is shown that even in a conflict situation, partial cooperative steps can be taken by interacting agents (that is, agents in fundamental conflict might still agree to cooperate up to a certain point). A Unified Negotiation Protocol (UNP) is developed that can be used in all types of encounters. It is shown that in certain borderline cooperative situations, a partial cooperative agreement (i.e., one that does not achieve all agents' goals) might be preferred by all agents, even though there exists a rational agreement that would achieve all their goals. Finally, we analyze cases where agents have incomplete information on the goals and worth of other agents. First we consider the case where agents' goals are private information, and we analyze what goal declaration strategies the agents might adopt to increase their utility. Then, we consider the situation where the agents' goals (and therefore stand-alone costs) are common knowledge, but the worth they attach to their goals is private information. We introduce two mechanisms, one 'strict', the other 'tolerant', and analyze their affects on the stability and efficiency of negotiation outcomes.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file

Introduction: The Third International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics

This paper summarizes the paper and poster contributions to the Third International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics. The focus of this workshop is on the cross-disciplinary interaction of developmental psychology and robotics. Namely, the general goal in this area is to create robotic models of the psychological development of various behaviors. The term "epigenetic" is used in much the same sense as the term "developmental" and while we could call our topic "developmental robotics", developmental robotics can be seen as having a broader interdisciplinary emphasis. Our focus in this workshop is on the interaction of developmental psychology and robotics and we use the phrase "epigenetic robotics" to capture this focus

Mentoring and social work : Mentoring handbook

The project Support to Social Work Addressing Children and Families in the Republic of Karelia (2007-2009

Migrating agile methods to standardized development practice

Situated process and quality frame-works offer a way to resolve the tensions that arise when introducing agile methods into standardized software development engineering. For these to be successful, however, organizations must grasp the opportunity to reintegrate software development management, theory, and practice

Using protocol analysis to explore the creative requirements engineering process

Protocol analysis is an empirical method applied by researchers in cognitive psychology and behavioural analysis. Protocol analysis can be used to collect, document and analyse thought processes by an individual problem solver. In general, research subjects are asked to think aloud when performing a given task. Their verbal reports are transcribed and represent a sequence of their thoughts and cognitive activities. These verbal reports are analysed to identify relevant segments of cognitive behaviours by the research subjects. The analysis results may be cross-examined (or validated through retrospective interviews with the research subjects). This paper offers a critical analysis of this research method, its approaches to data collection and analysis, strengths and limitations, and discusses its use in information systems research. The aim is to explore the use of protocol analysis in studying the creative requirements engineering process.<br /