Bridges to Autonomy
Bridges to Autonomy

Author: Matthew R. Silliman

Publisher: Piraeus Books LLC

Published: 2011-08

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 9780983185383

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Teaching is a paradoxical activity, beset by ironies and apparent contradictions: Educated people are autonomous and self-directed, but schooling generally involves expert direction of compliant and dependent students. Empathy, imagination, and creativity characterize fully actualized people, but these qualities seem at odds with mastering received bodies of material. Societies value testable facts and abilities, but these are of little use, and can even be dangerous, without maturity of character. Educators rightly value teaching for maturity, but risk in the process indoctrination or natural resistance. Modeling forthrightness would seem indispensable to character development, but some of the most effective teachers induce learning by good-natured trickery. These are genuine paradoxes, in that even when we work out credible resolutions for them they tend not stay solved. Their tensions continue to bedevil us in each new class, with each new student, and at each phase of learning. The insights and conclusions of this conversation are neither inflexible doctrines nor a compendium of abstract disputes unrelated to actual teaching practices. Rather, the reader at once witnesses and participates in the philosophy of education as a vital process, experiencing the kind of passionate and imaginative conversations that good teachers often have, and from which they learn to understand and engage the elusive art of teaching.

Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context
Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context

Author: Valery I. Chirkov

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-12-02

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 9048196671

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This volume presents the reader with a stimulating tapestry of essays exploring the nature of personal autonomy, self-determination, and agency, and their role in human optimal functioning at multiple levels of analysis from personal to societal and cross-cultural. The starting point for these explorations is self-determination theory, an integrated theory of human motivation and healthy development which has been under development for more than three decades (Deci & Ryan, 2000). As the contributions will make clear, psychological autonomy is a concept that forms the bridge between the dependence of human behavior on biological and socio-cultural determinants on the one side, and people’s ability to be free, reflective, and transforming agents who can challenge these dependencies, on the other. The authors within this volume share a vision that human autonomy is a fundamental pre-condition for both individuals and groups to thrive, and that without understanding the nature and mechanisms of autonomous agency vital social and human problems cannot be satisfactory addressed. This multidisciplinary team of researchers will collectively explore the nature of personal autonomy, considering its developmental origins, its expression within relationships, its importance within groups and organizational functioning, and its role in promoting to the democratic and economic development of societies. The book is aimed toward developmental, social, personality, and cross-cultural psychologists, towards researchers and practitioners’ in the areas of education, health and medicine, social work and, economics, and also towards all interested in creating a more sustainable and just world society through promoting individual freedom and agency. This volume will provide a theoretical and conceptual account of the nature and psychological mechanisms of personal motivational autonomy and human agency; rich multidisciplinary empirical evidence supporting the claims and propositions about the nature of human autonomy and capacities for self-regulation; explanations of how and why different psychological and socio-cultural conditions may play a role in promoting or undermining people’s autonomous motivation and well-being, discussions of how the promotion of human autonomy can positively influence environmental protection, democracy promotion and economic prosperity.

Ethical Autonomy
Ethical Autonomy

Author: Lucas Swaine

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-02-03

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0190087668

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Autonomy is one of the most foundational conditions of liberalism, a political philosophy that prizes individual freedom. Today, we still grapple with autonomy's value and its implications. How important is autonomy for a good life? Should people try to achieve autonomy for themselves? And does autonomy support healthy citizenship in free societies? In Ethical Autonomy, Lucas Swaine offers new and compelling answers to these key philosophical and political questions. Swaine charts the evolution of autonomy from ancient Greece to modern democratic life. Illuminating the history of the concept and its development within political theory, he focuses on autonomy at its most basic level: personal autonomy. Swaine methodically exposes the dark side of personal autonomy, pinpointing its deficiencies at both theoretical and practical levels. In so doing, he provides a powerful critique of the very idea of personal autonomy, arguing that it is so underspecified and indeterminate that it falls apart. Moreover, Swaine suggests, personally autonomous individuals devolve and degrade their moral agency, often at others' expense, and in many cases with shocking real-world consequences. Swaine's solution to problems of personal autonomy is to develop a new model of individual-level autonomy, which he calls "ethical autonomy." A form of self-rule integrating moral character and grounded in principles of liberty of conscience, ethical autonomy incorporates restraints on an autonomous individual's imagination, deliberation, and will. It supports the central commitments of liberalism and enhances active and astute forms of democratic citizenship. This novel understanding of autonomy stresses the values of freedom, toleration, respect, individual rights, limited government, and the rightful rule of law.

The Bridges of Pittsburgh
The Bridges of Pittsburgh

Author: Bob Regan

Publisher:

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9780977042920

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Documents Pittsburgh's status as the "City of Bridges" (it has more bridges at 446 than any other city in the WORLD). Includes background on the history and types of bridges; profiles Pittsburgh's bridge pioneers (Roebling, Lindenthal, Ferris, Richardson); explores historical and contemporary bridges; looks at the variety of bridge types and styles; describes several unique Pittsburgh bridges; and includes 10 self-guided tours.

Bridges, Borders and Bodies
Bridges, Borders and Bodies

Author: Christine Vogt-William

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-10-02

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1443868434

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South Asian diasporas can be considered transcultural legacies of colonialism, while constituting transcultural forms of postcolonial reality in today’s globalised world. The main focus of investigation here is South Asian women’s fiction, where diverse forms of identity negotiation undertaken by the protagonists in a number of contemporary novels (from the 1990s to the early 2000s) are read as transgressions. The themes of early gendered experiences of South Asian indentured labour migration, female genealogies and transmissions of cultural heritages down female lines, as well as negotiations of patriarchal violence, are read using a framework culled from postcolonial and feminist criticism. The literary representations of South Asian diasporic female experience in these texts are forms of commentary and critique by contemporary South Asian diasporic women writers. Hence these novels can be viewed as feminist strategies of textual creativity with distinct political aims of presenting transformative narratives addressing the tensions of diaspora and patriarchy. This book is intended to contribute to the current spectrum of academic work being done in diaspora studies, in that it brings together the concepts of diaspora, transculturality, contemporary women’s writing and transnational feminist critical approaches to bear on South Asian women’s diasporic literature. Contrary to the celebratory notion of the concept in much theory, transculturality, as represented in these texts, is fraught with ambivalence.

Autonomous Systems: Developments and Trends
Autonomous Systems: Developments and Trends

Author: Herwig Unger

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2011-11-22

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 3642248063

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The Workshops on Autonomous Systems emanated from a gathering with the doctoral students of just three chairs at Fernuniversität in Hagen, which we organise twice per year for a number of years now. Their purpose is to discuss on-going research and to create a community spirit. Furthermore, they serve as a means of structuring the students' research processes. The workshop has grown and matured in several respects. The doctoral students presenting their work do not come from a single university anymore, but from three. Besides them and their supervisors, also other scientists became interested in the event and contribute to its programme. Following the model of Advanced Study Institutes, they are available on the premises for relaxed, informal discussions outside the formal sessions. Finally, with the co-sponsorship of Gesellschaft für Informatik, the German Computer Society, and this surprisingly comprehensive volume of contributions published by Springer-Verlag the workshop turned into a visible scientific event.

Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism
Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism

Author: John Christman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-02-07

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1139444204

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In recent years the concepts of individual autonomy and political liberalism have been the subjects of intense debate, but these discussions have occurred largely within separate academic disciplines. Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism contains essays devoted to foundational questions regarding both the notion of the autonomous self and the nature and justification of liberalism. Written by leading figures in moral, legal and political theory, the volume covers inter alia the following topics: the nature of the self and its relation to autonomy, the social dimensions of autonomy and the political dynamics of respect and recognition, and the concept of autonomy underlying the principles of liberalism.

Landmark Essays on Rhetorics of Difference
Landmark Essays on Rhetorics of Difference

Author: Damian Baca

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-01

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1040295460

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Landmark Essays on Rhetorics of Difference challenges the Eurocentric perspective from which the field of rhetoric is traditionally viewed. Taking a step beyond the creation of alternative rhetorics that maintain the centrality of the European and Greco-Roman tradition, this volume argues on behalf of pluriversal rhetorics that coexist as equally important on their own terms. A timely addition to the respected Landmark Essays series, it will be invaluable to students of history of rhetoric, literacy, composition, and writing studies.

Intelligent Autonomous Systems, IAS--3
Intelligent Autonomous Systems, IAS--3

Author: F. C. A. Groen

Publisher: IOS Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 764

ISBN-13: 9789051991222

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A collection of papers dealing with complete systems of intelligent robots, focusing on autonomy. The contributions cover intelligent perception, intelligent planning and control, and integrated systems.