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The Creation of Reality
Constructivism has been traded as a new paradigm by its advocates, and criticised by its opponents as legitimating deceit and lies, as justifying a trendy post-modern "Anything goes". In this book, Bernhard Poerksen draws up a new rationale for constructivist thinking and charts out directions for the imaginative examination of personal certainties and the certainties of others, of ideologies great and small. The focus of the debate is on the author's thesis that our understanding of journalism and, in particular, the education and training of journalists, would profit substantially from constructivist insights. These insights instigate, the claim is, an original kind of scepticism; they provide the underpinnings of a modern type of didactics oriented by the autonomy of learners; and they supply the sustaining arguments for a radical ethic of responsibility in journalism.
Signs, Minds and Actions
This second of two volumes brings together invited papers of the 32nd International Wittgenstein Symposium (Kirchberg/W. (Austria), 2009). The collection not only contains articles related to some of Wittgenstein’s central arguments but also holds contributions that deal with the role and function of signs, as well as with the relations between language and action, consciousness and metaphysics. An interdisciplinary workshop was dedicated to “Wittgenstein and Literature”, an area of study which has been prominent in the philosophical discourse of the last decade. Contributors to this volume are Anat Biletzki, Michael Dummett, Laurence Goldstein, Peter Janich, Brian McGuinness, Marjorie Perloff, David Schalkwyk, Joachim Schulte, Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, David Stern, Eike von Savigny among others.
The Politics of Knowledge Work in the Post-Industrial Culture
the book conducts in-depth inquiries into the practices, nature and theory of postindustrial cultural work and the humanities – and arts – based civic dialogues which cultural work promotes. Given the broad neglect of utopian thinking in the mainstream of critical social science, and in an attempt to sketch out a vision of an alternative future, the aim of the book is to outline an epistemology for cultural work as well as to reflect upon the prospects for educational cultural work practices and their function as a catalyst for civic dialogue and cultural change. A major focus of the book is on the epistemological, ecological, ethical and political dimensions of cultural work. This includes the prospects for a new form of communal workspace for knowledge and cultural learning. Cultural work and knowledge are the central topics of this book and intersect with many of the concerns on how to involve the general public in scientific, technological and economic developments to address urgent changes often deemed to be of a highly scientific nature – including climate change, sustainability, environment and development.
Witcraft
'Astonishing ... enjoy its riches slowly, and savour every generous, erudite and undogmatic page' Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times 'We English men have wits,' wrote the clergyman Ralph Lever in 1573, and, 'we have also framed unto ourselves a language.' Witcraft is a fresh and brilliant history of how philosophy became established in English. It presents a new form of philosophical storytelling and challenges what Jonathan Rée calls the 'condescending smugness' of traditional histories of philosophy. Rée tells the story of philosophy as it was lived and practised, embedded in its time and place, by men and women from many walks of life, engaged with the debates and culture of their age. And, b...
The Certainty of Uncertainty
Nothing that can be said is independent of us. Whatever can be said is coloured by our dreams and aspirations, by the way our brain works, by human nature and human culture. Whoever claims to know or to observe is - according to the central constructivist assumption - inescapably biased. This book presents the views of the founders of constructivism and modern systems theory, who are still providing stimulating cues for international scientific debate. The conversations of Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela, Gerhard Roth, Siegfried J. Schmidt, Helm Stierlin, and Paul Watzlawick with Bernhard Poerksen, display a kind of thinking that steers cl...
Gaming is unlikely
A concept of game is justified and unfolded that revolves around the lure and threat of the unexpected. The author duo places their theory of ludic action in classical concepts of the game as well as in the current discourse of game studies. The phenomenal multiplicity of games is outlined in historical perspective and structured in a systematic manner. The authors explain the media-technical and communicative preconditions of the computer game boom and reflect on the discussion about escalations of ludic violence. The instrumentalization of games, which is becoming increasingly popular under the heading of gamification, is critically examined. The conspicuous inflation of the game metaphor ...
Refining Current Practices in Mobile and Blended Learning: New Applications
This volume draws together all the articles published by the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning in its second year of publication (2010). As the use of mobile technology for personal and business applications continues to grow, it naturally follows that educators and researchers will investigate the use of mobile devices for knowledge sharing and learning. Refining Current Practices in Mobile and Blended Learning: New Applications provides perspectives on new approaches to learning theory and practice in increasingly mobile, immersive environments. Situated at the intersection of theory and practice, this book provides foundational research on the development and implementation of mobile games, the delivery of mobile and blended learning, and philosophical underpinnings of this emerging discipline.
Histories and Discourses
Siegfried J. Schmidt is closely associated in Germany with the cross-disciplinary research programme of Radical Constructivism. In Histories & Discourses he carries out a change of perspective from media and communication studies to studies of culture and the philosophy of language. His 'rewriting' of constructivism shows that classical constructivism shares some fundamental assumptions with realism, and he creates a new vocabulary which allows us to understand how we construct truth, identity, ethics, etc., without using any point of reference which lies beyond our culture (our 'history and discourses').
Relativism
Relativism, an ancient philosophical doctrine, is once again a topic of heated debate. In this book, Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva present the recent arguments for and against various forms of relativism. The first two chapters introduce the conceptual and historical contours of relativism. These are followed by critical investigations of relativism about truth, conceptual relativism, epistemic relativism, and moral relativism. The concluding chapter asks whether it is possible to make sense of relativism as a philosophical thesis. The book introduces readers to the main types of relativism and the arguments in their favor. It also goes beyond the expository material to engage in more detailed critical responses to the key positions and authors under discussion. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary, Relativism is essential reading for students of philosophy as well as those in related disciplines where relativism is studied, such as anthropology, sociology, and politics.
From Being to Doing
At the beginning of the last century, physicists revolutionised the scientific view of the world. Today biologists are radically transforming our understanding of the processes of life and cognition. Probing the mysteries of the mind, they have been able to prove that, in the act of knowing, the observer and the observed, subject and object, are inextricably enmeshed. The world we live in is not independent from us; we literally bring it forth ourselves. One of the protagonists of this new kind of thinking is the internationally renowned neurobiologist and systems theorist Humberto R. Maturana who was interviewed for several weeks by Bernhard Poerksen, journalist, and communication scientist. In this book, they explore the limits of our cognitive powers, discuss the truth in perception, the biology of love, and give, all in all, an introduction to systemic thinking that is down to earth, imaginative, and rich in anecdote.
