Environmental Education and Metaethics

Contrā Dale Jamieson, the study of the metaethical foundations of environmental ethics may well lead students to a more environmentally responsible way of life. For although metaethics is rarely decisive in decision making and action, there are two kinds of circumstances in which it can play a crucial role in our practical decisions. First, decisions that have unusual features do not summon habitual ethical reactions, and hence invite the application of ethical precepts that the study of metaethics and ethical theory isolate and clarify. Second, there are times in which the good of others (including organisms and systems in the natural world) may well be given greater weight in one’s ethical deliberations if theory has made clear that the good to be promoted is ontologically independent of one’s own good

Software modelling languages: A wish list

© 2015 IEEE. Contemporary software engineering modelling tends to rely on general-purpose languages, such as the Unified Modeling Language. However, such languages are practice-based and seldom underpinned with a solid theory-be it mathematical, ontological or concomitant with language use. The future of software modelling deserves research to evaluate whether a language base that is compatible with these various elements as well as being philosophically coherent offers practical advantages to software developers

A world of their making: an evaluation of the constructivist critique in international relations

IR constructivism maintain that a proper understanding of the way subjects interact with the world and with each other alerts us to the fallacy of conventional IR theory. And yet, for a theory that is so obviously dependent upon a rigorous working of the relationship between social theory and its IR variant, it is curious that, with one or two exceptions, IR constructivists often advance incompatible theories. I argue that the confused manner by which, in particular, ‘soft’ constructivism relates to social theory is not accidental but a necessary component of a theory that asserts, but never proves, the primacy of norms and laws over material considerations, in domestic and international politics

Chapter 16: Paradigmatic Perspectives for Social Justice Research: Method, Paradigm, and Design for Dissertation Research

This chapter presents a conceptual analysis of the current trends for research paradigmatic perspectives used in doctoral social justice research approaches. The chapter offers a concise resource for doctoral scholars and their research supervisors to establish and illustrate a relevant paradigmatic perspective aligned with the research method and design choice to view the dissertation research problem in doctoral social justice research. Paradigmatic perspectives from feminist, critical theoretical perspectives, and grounded theory are also included as examples of specific approaches

A Decision Making Construct for Complex Situations

The uncertainty inherently associated with complexity challenges decision-making processes, indicating a need for a construct for decision making in complex situations. A review of the literature on systems, complexity, and paradigms indicates that such a construct must be internally consistent with well-defined philosophical foundations and further that systems and complexity (as used in complex situations) are not necessarily internally consistent with traditional philosophical foundations. Therefore, a decision making construct for complex situations requires research into different foundations. This research addresses these gaps, deriving axiological and methodological components based on a set of principles consistent with the ontology and epistemology of Sousa-Poza and Correa-Martinez (2005). The combination of these four philosophical components is asserted to establish a Complex Situations Paradigm providing a foundational perspective for complexity and systems. The characteristics of this research require particular attention to the appropriate research methodology. Canons for research are typically based on philosophical foundations of rationalism or empiricism; hence this research derives a set of generalized canons based on a specific definition of knowledge, which must be instantiated as specific research canons for a given philosophical foundation. The methodology for this research must be consistent with said canons and the associated definition of knowledge. The product of the research is an internally consistent philosophical foundation for complex situations based on a research methodology using instantiated generalized canons, and an application of the associated methodology to derive a decision making construct. The contributions to the literature are the maturation of underlying theory for complex situations and the generalized research canons. The contribution to theory is the internally consistent philosophical foundation for complex situations, the Complex Situations Paradigm, and the associated discussion of canons. Finally, the contribution to practice is the decision making construct itself, applying the elements of the paradigm to frame action at diverse levels in complex situations. Areas for further research include the derivation of methods based on the CSP methodology; applications of the underlying constructs to facilitate understanding of complexity through a method designated forensic complexity, and exploration of CSP principles to explore ramifications of cognitive aspects

The technological mediation of mathematics and its learning

This paper examines the extent to which mathematical knowledge, and its related pedagogy, is inextricably linked to the tools – physical, virtual, cultural – in which it is expressed. Our goal is to focus on a few exemplars of computational tools, and to describe with some illustrative examples, how mathematical meanings are shaped by their use. We begin with an appraisal of the role of digital technologies, and our rationale for focusing on them. We present four categories of digital tool-use that distinguish their differing potential to shape mathematical cognition. The four categories are: i. dynamic and graphical tools, ii. tools that outsource processing power, iii. new representational infrastructures, and iv. the implications of highbandwidth connectivity on the nature of mathematics activity. In conclusion, we draw out the implications of this analysis for mathematical epistemology and the mathematical meanings students develop. We also underline the central importance of design, both of the tools themselves and the activities in which they are embedded

Speech Acts: The Contemporary Theoretical Landscape

What makes it the case that an utterance constitutes an illocutionary act of a given kind? This is the central question of speech-act theory. Answers to it—i.e., theories of speech acts—have proliferated. Our main goal in this chapter is to clarify the logical space into which these different theories fit. We begin, in Section 1, by dividing theories of speech acts into five families, each distinguished from the others by its account of the key ingredients in illocutionary acts. Are speech acts fundamentally a matter of convention or intention? Or should we instead think of them in terms of the psychological states they express, in terms of the effects that it is their function to produce, or in terms of the norms that govern them? In Section 2, we take up the highly influential idea that speech acts can be understood in terms of their effects on a conversation’s context or “score”. Part of why this idea has been so useful is that it allows speech-act theorists from the five families to engage at a level of abstraction that elides their foundational disagreements. In Section 3, we investigate some of the motivations for the traditional distinction between propositional content and illocutionary force, and some of the ways in which this distinction has been undermined by recent work. In Section 4, we survey some of the ways in which speech-act theory has been applied to issues outside semantics and pragmatics, narrowly construed

Theory in public procurement research

This paper examines the role of theory in public procurement research. Theoretical rigour is integral to management science, yet little is known on the extent and form of theory in public procurement. With the field starting to mature, addressing this issue is timely. From conducting a systematic literature review we find that 29 percent of articles are theoretically grounded, with the incidence of theory having increased in recent years. Economic, sociological, psychological, and management theories are all in evidence, but micro-economic theories predominate. Our findings also show that survey reporting and case studies account for almost half of all studies; procurement research is focused on organizational-level aspects more than regulatory-policy issues or public buyers; and studies to date have largely emanated from the North American and European regions. The contribution of this paper lies in clarifying the theoretical underpinnings of public procurement. Out of this we highlight the need for greater theoretical rigour, point to the under-use and even absence of theories that could have high validity and utility, and suggest a narrowing of research foci