Coherence in Thought and Action

Coherence in Thought and Action

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  • Author: Paul Thagard
  • Publisher: MIT Press
  • ISBN: 9780262700924
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 332

This book is an essay on how people make sense of each other and the world they live in. Making sense is the activity of fitting something puzzling into a coherent pattern of mental representations that include concepts, beliefs, goals, and actions. Paul Thagard proposes a general theory of coherence as the satisfaction of multiple interacting constraints, and discusses the theory's numerous psychological and philosophical applications. Much of human cognition can be understood in terms of coherence as constraint satisfaction, and many of the central problems of philosophy can be given coherence-based solutions. Thagard shows how coherence can help to unify psychology and philosophy, particularly when addressing questions of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. He also shows how coherence can integrate cognition and emotion.


Mind in Motion

Mind in Motion

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  • Author: Barbara Tversky
  • Publisher: Basic Books
  • ISBN: 0465093078
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 389

An eminent psychologist offers a major new theory of human cognition: movement, not language, is the foundation of thought When we try to think about how we think, we can't help but think of words. Indeed, some have called language the stuff of thought. But pictures are remembered far better than words, and describing faces, scenes, and events defies words. Anytime you take a shortcut or play chess or basketball or rearrange your furniture in your mind, you've done something remarkable: abstract thinking without words. In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky shows that spatial cognition isn't just a peripheral aspect of thought, but its very foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world. Our actions in real space get turned into mental actions on thought, often spouting spontaneously from our bodies as gestures. Spatial thinking underlies creating and using maps, assembling furniture, devising football strategies, designing airports, understanding the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas. Spatial thinking even underlies the structure and meaning of language: why we say we push ideas forward or tear them apart, why we're feeling up or have grown far apart. Like Thinking, Fast and Slow before it, Mind in Motion gives us a new way to think about how--and where--thinking takes place.


Conceptual Revolutions

Conceptual Revolutions

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  • Author: Paul Thagard
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • ISBN: 0691186677
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 302

In this path-breaking work, Paul Thagard draws on the history and philosophy of science, cognitive psychology, and the field of artificial intelligence to develop a theory of conceptual change capable of accounting for all major scientific revolutions. The history of science contains dramatic episodes of revolutionary change in which whole systems of concepts have been replaced by new systems. Thagard provides a new and comprehensive perspective on the transformation of scientific conceptual systems. Thagard examines the Copernican and the Darwinian revolutions and the emergence of Newton's mechanics, Lavoisier's oxygen theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum theory, and the geological theory of plate tectonics. He discusses the psychological mechanisms by which new concepts and links between them are formed, and advances a computational theory of explanatory coherence to show how new theories can be judged to be superior to previous ones.


Coherence

Coherence

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  • Author: Michael Fullan
  • Publisher: Corwin Press
  • ISBN: 150630172X
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 114

Complex times call for clear solutions—If initiative overload and fragmentation are keeping your best plans from becoming reality, it’s time to start leading differently. The key to bringing about the kind of successful and sustainable change you need is the Coherence Framework, a dynamic, customizable road map made up of four essential components: Focused direction to build collective purpose Cultivating collaborative cultures while clarifying individual and team roles Deepening learning to accelerate improvement and foster innovation Securing accountability from the inside out Coherence provides the insights and tools to drive effective leadership. Now you can gain a deeper understanding of Coherence with The Taking Action Guide to Building Coherence in Schools, Districts, and Systems. Coherence is a book that demands action – it moves from the narrative of fixing one teacher at a time, to asking about the coherence of the system (be it school, national, or world issues). Fullan and Quinn create an important narrative about direction, working together, deepening learning, and securing accountability. The book sparkles with examples of coherence in action, it makes no excuses for employing the wrong levers of change. This is the blueprint for a new vocabulary of education action; it shows where we need to go next, and is another example of Fullan at the top of his game. John Hattie Director, Melbourne Education Research Institute and Author of Visible Learning "School systems that struggle are riddled with incoherence—mismatched strategies, competing cultures, and illogical initiatives. Fullan and Quinn explain clearly how coherence can solve the problem. Based on solid research and lessons drawn from effective practice, Coherence provides a comprehensive model to guide educators as they learn and lead their way to better schools." Susan Moore Johnson Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor Harvard Graduate School of Education


Coherence

Coherence

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  • Author: Richard H. Bailey
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9780982694909
  • Category : Branding (Marketing)
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 144

Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World) offers higher ed professionals both a broad framework and specific strategies for successfully engaging constituents. Arguing that branding is no longer sufficient to meet the changed needs and expectations of today's audiences, Coherence suggests a new approach for consumer relationship-building.


Computational Philosophy of Science

Computational Philosophy of Science

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  • Author: Paul Thagard
  • Publisher: MIT Press
  • ISBN: 9780262700481
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 260

By applying research in artificial intelligence to problems in the philosophy of science, Paul Thagard develops an exciting new approach to the study of scientific reasoning. This approach uses computational ideas to shed light on how scientific theories are discovered, evaluated, and used in explanations. Thagard describes a detailed computational model of problem solving and discovery that provides a conceptually rich yet rigorous alternative to accounts of scientific knowledge based on formal logic, and he uses it to illuminate such topics as the nature of concepts, hypothesis formation, analogy, and theory justification.


Mind, second edition

Mind, second edition

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  • Author: Paul Thagard
  • Publisher: MIT Press
  • ISBN: 9780262701099
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 284

Cognitive science approaches the study of mind and intelligence from an interdisciplinary perspective, working at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. With Mind, Paul Thagard offers an introduction to this interdisciplinary field for readers who come to the subject with very different backgrounds. It is suitable for classroom use by students with interests ranging from computer science and engineering to psychology and philosophy. Thagard's systematic descriptions and evaluations of the main theories of mental representation advanced by cognitive scientists allow students to see that there are many complementary approaches to the investigation of mind. The fundamental theoretical perspectives he describes include logic, rules, concepts, analogies, images, and connections (artificial neural networks). The discussion of these theories provides an integrated view of the different achievements of the various fields of cognitive science. This second edition includes substantial revision and new material. Part I, which presents the different theoretical approaches, has been updated in light of recent work the field. Part II, which treats extensions to cognitive science, has been thoroughly revised, with new chapters added on brains, emotions, and consciousness. Other additions include a list of relevant Web sites at the end of each chapter and a glossary at the end of the book. As in the first edition, each chapter concludes with a summary and suggestions for further reading.


Plato's Philosophers

Plato's Philosophers

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  • Author: Catherine H. Zuckert
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press
  • ISBN: 0226993388
  • Category : Political Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 898

Faced with the difficult task of discerning Plato’s true ideas from the contradictory voices he used to express them, scholars have never fully made sense of the many incompatibilities within and between the dialogues. In the magisterial Plato’s Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert explains for the first time how these prose dramas cohere to reveal a comprehensive Platonic understanding of philosophy. To expose this coherence, Zuckert examines the dialogues not in their supposed order of composition but according to the dramatic order in which Plato indicates they took place. This unconventional arrangement lays bare a narrative of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. In the drama’s earliest dialogues, for example, non-Socratic philosophers introduce the political and philosophical problems to which Socrates tries to respond. A second dramatic group shows how Socrates develops his distinctive philosophical style. And, finally, the later dialogues feature interlocutors who reveal his philosophy’s limitations. Despite these limitations, Zuckert concludes, Plato made Socrates the dialogues’ central figure because Socrates raises the fundamental human question: what is the best way to live? Plato’s dramatization of Socratic imperfections suggests, moreover, that he recognized the apparently unbridgeable gap between our understandings of human life and the nonhuman world. At a time when this gap continues to raise questions—about the division between sciences and the humanities and the potentially dehumanizing effects of scientific progress—Zuckert’s brilliant interpretation of the entire Platonic corpus offers genuinely new insights into worlds past and present.


Europe's Strategic Future

Europe's Strategic Future

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  • Author: Sarah Raine
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1000733505
  • Category : Political Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 284

Europe has suffered a decade of crises, with sovereign-debt troubles leading to austerity policies that exacerbated divisions inside member states and between them. Thereafter the Union was confronted with the challenges posed by a revanchist Russia in Ukraine and by a surge in migration from the Middle East and other conflict zones. The June 2016 UK vote to leave the Union threatened further damage to an institution that acknowledges it has failed to punch its weight in the spheres of foreign, defence and security policy. While that is a chronic shortcoming, its impact is becoming more acute as economic power moves East and Europe can no longer count on the steadfast support and leadership of the United States. The costs of Europe’s failure to achieve strategic coherence and effect are steadily rising. This Adelphi book addresses the consequences of Europe’s multiple crises for its standing as a strategic actor, acknowledging its unique character and capabilities. It argues that strategic thought and action is belatedly being informed by the deteriorating security environment, and that nascent initiatives have the potential to effect a step-change. There are grounds for cautious optimism, visible in the success of stabilisation and counter-piracy operations as well as coordinated diplomatic activity. Also, the continent’s leading powers are becoming more pragmatic about how cooperation is organised within and beyond the Union. These developments offer the possibility that Europe might meet its aspirations to be a strategic actor of consequence, despite a long-track record of disappointment and the still-considerable obstacles that lie in its path.


Knowledge and Action

Knowledge and Action

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  • Author: Peter Meusburger
  • Publisher: Springer
  • ISBN: 331944588X
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 299

This volume explores interdependencies between knowledge, action, and space from different interdisciplinary perspectives. Some of the contributors discuss knowledge as a social construct based on collective action, while others look at knowledge as an individual capacity for action. The chapters contain theoretical frameworks as well as experimental outcomes. Readers will gain insight into key questions such as: How does knowledge function as a prerequisite for action? Why are knowledge gaps growing and not diminishing in a knowledge society? How much knowledge is necessary for action? How do various types of knowledge influence the steps from cognition to action? How do different representations of knowledge shape action? What impact have spatial conditions for the formation of knowledge? What is the relationship between social and geographical space? The contributors consider rationality in social and economic theories as well as in everyday life. Attention is also given to action theoretic approaches and rationality from the viewpoints of psychology, post-structuralism, and human geography, making this an attractive book for students, researchers and academics of various backgrounds. This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.