A Comment on Argumentation

We use the theory of defaults and their meaning of [GS16] to develop (the outline of a) new theory of argumentation

Conditionals and modularity in general logics

In this work in progress, we discuss independence and interpolation and related topics for classical, modal, and non-monotonic logics

The Economic Ethics of World Religions and their Laws

Based on analyses of the essays written by Max Weber on China, India, ancient Judaism and also on the dispersed material about Islam, Eastern Christianity and Occidental Christianity, this book examines the economic ethics of Asian and Christian traditions and their corresponding legal systems. Drawing also on Weber's methodology (particularly the concept of adequate causation), the author reveals that the nature of Asian religions as well as the nature of customary and other not formally rational laws in Asian cultures could not lead to modern capitalism out of their own sources, although capitalism could be adopted from the outside. The culture of the Occident, upon which capitalism is based, is revealed to consist of a double rationalisation: the formal rationality of the exterior circumstances of life (administrative and legal) and the innerworldly practical rationality of the inner motivations of the Protestants, supported by a goal-oriented rational technology

The Economic Ethics of World Religions and their Laws

Based on analyses of the essays written by Max Weber on China, India, ancient Judaism and also on the dispersed material about Islam, Eastern Christianity and Occidental Christianity, this book examines the economic ethics of Asian and Christian traditions and their corresponding legal systems. Drawing also on Weber's methodology (particularly the concept of adequate causation), the author reveals that the nature of Asian religions as well as the nature of customary and other not formally rational laws in Asian cultures could not lead to modern capitalism out of their own sources, although capitalism could be adopted from the outside. The culture of the Occident, upon which capitalism is based, is revealed to consist of a double rationalisation: the formal rationality of the exterior circumstances of life (administrative and legal) and the innerworldly practical rationality of the inner motivations of the Protestants, supported by a goal-oriented rational technology

Maintaining Intact Our Homogeneousness: Race, Citizenship, & Reconstructing Cherokee

The history of the Cherokee Nation from 1866 to 1907 provides a new framework for the story of Reconstruction that expands the periodization and geographical scope of the effects of the postwar period on both mainstream America and those regulated to its margins. Although the historical narrative marks the end of Reconstruction with the political compromise of 1877, the process continued in the Cherokee Nation until Oklahoma statehood was achieved in 1907. The Cherokee Nation serves as a window of analysis that demonstrates how the process of Reconstruction was a national phenomenon. The experience of the Cherokee people and their leaders during Reconstruction bridges the gap between the historiography of the postwar period and the postwar conquest of the west, and also contributes to recent works detailing the centrality of race and slavery to the lives of nineteenth-century southeastern Indians. This dissertation project strives to contribute to the story of the struggle of the Cherokee to negotiate their place within the postwar United States through an examination of the problems of freedom unleashed in the Cherokee Nation with emancipation. Investigations of the relevant secondary literature combined with an analysis of personal correspondence, governmental reports and letters from the holdings of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Cherokee laws, Cherokee leaders\u27 correspondence, and Cherokee Nation protests and memorials against federal government intervention in their affairs discussed in this project reveals that the Cherokee adapted the prevailing racial classifications of nineteenth-century America in an effort to use these categories of difference to assert their uniqueness and independence as a sovereign and legitimate nation. Chapter one examines the Treaty of 1866 with an analysis of the document and its many stipulations. The second chapter looks at the struggle of Cherokee leaders to defeat numerous bills introduced in Congress to extend federal control over Indian Territory. Chapter three explores the important and contentious issue of Cherokee citizenship and its connection to native sovereignty. The final chapter reveals that federal protection of Cherokee freedmen continued beyond the official end of Reconstruction

'Out in the Dark': An Exploration of and Creative Response to the Process of Poetic Composition with Reference to Edward Thomas and a Self-reflexive Study

Research through practice into the actual process of composing, such as William James on automatic writing and thought processes, or Sigmund Freud on creative writing and the unconscious, is rare, and needs extension and updating. This study builds a new theoretical framework for critical and practical work on imaginative composition by investigation of Edward Thomas's composing processes and complementary analysis of the processes of writing my own poetry collection. Thomas's emphasis on fragmentation of thought, hesitancy and silence in the content and form of his poetry, positioning him on the borders of Modernism, reflects essential aspects of his composing processes, as documented in his notes, letters, prose and poetry. The creating and revisiting of my own works-in-progress and final collection, in the light of the study of Thomas and in dialogue with readers, reveals further insights into poetic composition. Chapter One examines the point at which poems emerge and the influence of external writing conditions. Chapters Two and Three look at absence in the composing process in ellipses, aporia, gaps and unfinishedness, and in the art of submission as it is used in composing. Chapter Four investigates distraction, non-logical connections and physical and temporal disturbances in composing. Chapter Five shows the importance when composing of sustaining a flexible and exact attention to immediate perceptions and thoughts. The thesis concludes with an original poetry collection resulting from the documentation of my composing processes during the research period. These poems reflect and refract many points made in previous chapters, offering practical evidence of them. The principles of poetic composition established in this thesis are also more generally applicable to the composing of poetry. Similarities observed in composition processes in other art forms and in the writing of this thesis indicate that these principles also apply to other creative and academic disciplines, providing areas for further research

In Search of a Grand Narrative: The Turbulent History of Teaching

For this review of research on the history of teaching, I use the instructional triangle as an organizing tool and frame of analysis to explore what we know about who taught, who was taught, and what was taught across space and time. In the first section of this chapter I review historical research on who taught in American classrooms. One overwhelming theme throughout this literature is that policy makers, school leaders, and the general public have historically cared a great deal about who a teacher was, often basing their preferences on the belief that a teacher’s social characteristics would shape his or, more often, her teaching practices. We have little evidence to support the notion that teachers’ use of particular pedagogical strategies has consistently varied according to their gender, race, ethnicity, or class origins, but the historical record does suggest that teachers’ social characteristics at times affected classroom teaching in other ways. Specifically, recent research on the history of teachers from oppressed or marginalized communities makes a fairly strong case that teachers’ personal commitment to and belief about the purposes for their teaching often shaped their relationships with students and the interactions that occurred in their classrooms. In the second section of the chapter I review research on the history of who was taught. We have a strong historical record on the ways in which students’ teaching experiences have varied according to their race, class, and ethnicity, as well as the time and place they attended school. Often these different teaching experiences can be explained by school structures such as segregation and tracking, which functioned to reify social and economic inequities. At the same time, however, recent scholarship reveals that students (and their families) have also played an active role in shaping their teaching experiences—from challenging structural barriers, to contesting curriculum, to influencing teachers’ perceptions of their students and their purposes in teaching them. In the third section of the chapter I review research on the history of what was taught—a somewhat smaller body of literature than the other two, perhaps because it is more directly related to classroom practice. We have a much better record of what education leaders and reformers believed should be taught in school than we have of what actually transpired in classrooms. Nonetheless, what evidence does exist makes clear that teaching students how to behave has historically been a central purpose of education, although the specific means and ends of this behavioral training have varied. Teaching has also involved academic content, and recent subject-specific histories of teaching suggest that teachers’ understanding of that academic content and their purpose in teaching it has often shaped classroom instruction as well

Advancing PSS with complex urban systems sciences and scalable spatio-temporal models

Planning Support System (PSS) with a core of dynamic spatio-temporal model has been developed as analytical and information tools to aid and inform urban planning processes. However, scholarly communities identify that PSS has yet been popularized in planning practices, and not fully capable of meeting the challenge of understanding complex urban environments. I am dedicated to investigate and break through the bottlenecks of PSS with my experiences with University of Illinois Landuse Evolution and Impact Assessment Model (LEAM) PSS, which exemplify a PSS that that aid the process of collaboratively building spatio-temporal scenario models and transferring the knowledge to planning practitioners. I explore the future applications of PSS including Smart Cities, sentience, resilience, and environmental planning processes and their role in improving PSS usefulness in the practice of planning. PSS improvements will be presented in terms of multi-directional spatio-temporal processes and scenario planning. Moreover, I will address the process of transferring knowledge to users on model validity and ‘goodness-of-fit’ in real world planning applications. Beyond the traditional theoretical framework of PSS, the emerging Complex Urban System Sciences (CUS) challenge the core assumptions of spatial models of PSS, and pose opportunities for updating current PSS approaches into scalable spatio-temporal model that adheres to CUS principles. I will analyze this potential infusion by examining next generation PSSs within a framework of current CUS theories and advancement in statistical and computational methods. Case studies involved in my dissertation include LEAM PSS’ applications in McHenry County (IL), Peoria (IL), Chicago (IL), and St. Louis (MO). The final part of this dissertation highlights my contributions to the existing CUS theories. I will demonstrates how evidence from empirical applications can contribute to CUS theory itself. I will show how CUS can challenge the core assumptions of “distance to CBD” models that economists use to characterize urban structure and land-use