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Ethical constructivism holds that truths about the relation between rationality, morality, and agency are best understood as constructed by correct reasoning, rather than discovered or invented. Unlike other metaphors used in metaethics, construction brings to light the generative and dynamic dimension of practical reason. On the resultant picture, practical reasoning is not only productive but also self-transforming, and socially empowering. The main task of this volume is to illustrate how constructivism has substantially modified and expanded the agenda of metaethics by refocusing on rational agency and its constitutive principles. In particular, this volume identifies, compares and discusses the prospects and failures of the main strands of constructivism regarding the powers of reason in responding to the challenges of contingency. While Kantian, Humean, Aristotelian, and Hegelian theories sharply differ in their constructivist strategies, they provide compelling accounts of the rational articulation required for an inclusive and unified ethical community.

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Chapter 1: Contemporary Constructivism and Its Usefulness in a Confucian Context -- Early Childhood Education in China: A Reevaluation of Confucianism and Constructivism -- A Hermeneutic Approach to a Theoretical Framework of Teachers' Constructivist Cocreation -- Chapter 2: Constructivism in Confucian Culture -- Thinking in a Chinese Way -- Constructivism and Confucianism -- Dewey, Confucius, and Tao Xingzhi -- Similarities -- Differences -- Implications for Cross-Cultural Learning Today -- Contemporary Constructivist Theories and Implications -- Flexible Teachers -- Prepared Environments -- Respectful Sociomoral Atmosphere -- The Chinese Context, The Guide, and Its Implementation -- Chapter 3: Constructivist Teaching in China Today -- Chinese Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Utilization of Constructivism -- Teacher Preference for Direct Teaching -- Etic Perspectives on the Prevalence of Direct Teaching -- Teacher Utilization of Constructivism -- Research Paradigm Shift -- Proprieties and Benevolence -- The Coherence of Theories and Practices -- Constructivist Teacher Education Theories and Implications -- Act I, Scene I: Active Learning -- Act I, Scene II: Heuristic Teaching -- Act I, Scene III: The Relationship Between Play and Learning -- Act II: DAP Versus Standards - An Example of Teachers' Practical Strategies -- Chinese Teacher Education Policies -- Conceptual Framework -- Chapter 4: A Hermeneutic Analysis of Chinese Teachers -- A Holistic Research Design -- Do Re Mi Youeryuan -- The Chinese Teachers -- Interviews, Observations, and Documents -- Interviews -- Observations -- Documents -- A Hermeneutic Analysis -- Preliminary Analysis -- Constant Comparative Analysis -- Hermeneutics -- Chapter 5: Flexibility and Balancing: Against the "Apprenticeship of Observation".

Albert Weale's Democratic Justice and the Social Contract is an important book. It offers an innovative and original (proceduralist) account of justice. In so doing, it places what Brian Barry called 'the empirical method' at the centre of normative political philosophy's attempts to generate determinate answers to moral questions. This article-written from the perspective of someone sympathetic to both the commitment to mutual advantage and the empirical method – focuses on the kind of argument it is that Weale is offering and in particular on the nature of his constructivist project. It argues that Weale's commitment to equality lies outside the constructivist project and that this undermines his aspiration to genuine constructivism. The article goes on to consider, on the basis of arguments found in Democratic Justice and the Social Contract, various ways in which Weale might have grounded his egalitarian commitments from within the constructivist project.

Framed by a new and substantial introductory chapter, this book collects Stefano Guzzini's reference articles and some less well-known publications on power, realism and constructivism. By analysing theories and their assumptions, but also theorists following their intellectual paths, his analysis explores the diversity of different schools, and moves beyond simple definitions to explore their intrinsic tensions and fallacies. Guzzini's approach to the analysis of power - within and outside International Relations - provides the common theme of the book through which the theoretical.

Cognitive development theories differ on how young students can meaningfully process new information and retain that information for future knowledge-building through scaffolding within their zone of proximal development. More traditional theories like the cognitive load theory adhere to the rote memorization approach by categorizing students as passive learners and the teachers as initiators who provide information in a structured, often rigid format, to be stored and retrieved for future application using their working memory. In contrast, the more progressive theories, like constructivism, are premised on the belief that students should proactively initiate their own learning while teachers act more as facilitators. The current trend in government policy under ESSA is to embrace the latter approach in the classroom, which is also more inclusive of all types of students, especially neurodiverse students. Moreover, teachers can utilize the wider range of assistive technology tools to accommodate and support their students' unique learning styles.

"German Idealism as Constructivism is the culmination of many years of research by distinguished philosopher Tom Rockmore--it is his definitive statement on the debate about German idealism between proponents of representationalism and those of constructivism that still plagues our grasp of the history of German idealism and the whole epistemological project today. Rockmore argues that German idealism--which includes iconic thinkers such as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel--can best be understood as a constructivist project, one that asserts that we cannot know the mind-independent world as it is but only our own mental construction of it. Since ancient Greece philosophers have tried to know the world in itself, an effort that Kant believed had failed. His alternative strategy--which came to be known as the Copernican revolution--was that the world as we experience and know it depends on the mind. Rockmore shows that this project was central to Kant's critical philosophy and the later German idealists who would follow him. He traces the different ways philosophers like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel formulated their own versions of constructivism. Offering a sweeping but deeply attuned analysis of a crucial part of the legacy of German idealism, Rockmore reinvigorates this school of philosophy and opens up promising new avenues for its study."--Publisher's description

AbstractTaking the complexity and diversity of Islamic law (fiqh) as a point of departure, this article examines a series of positions advanced by Muslim jurists on the relationship between law and astronomy. Focusing primarily on the question of the appropriateness of relying on astronomical calculations to determine the months of the hijri calendar, it considers three epistemological stances modeled by these positions: correspondence, constructivism, and representation. Taken together, these interventions constitute a minoritarian strain within the fiqh literature that exploited the practices, structures, and methods of reasoning of the Hanafi and Shafi'i legal schools (madhhabs) to argue in favor of the employment of astronomical calculations for ritual purposes. Though these were anomalous positions at variance from the dominant evidentiary regime that privileged perception over calculation, the view from the margins they afford provide a helpful window onto the nature of legal reasoning in Sunni Islam, revealing the importance of not only proximate social triggers to change, but also the relevance of more enduring features of madhhab reasoning—the school's role as a historical repository of jurists' opinions, the propensity to recruit the authority and argumentation of preceding departures, and the expectation to proceed with the majority regime in mind.

This article connects J. S. Mill's democratic theory and practice with the contemporary debate surrounding representative constructivism and argues that Mill's advocacy of female suffrage affords an empirical example of the mobilization power of representative constructivism. Studying this concrete example of constructivism alongside Mill's theory of political representation clarifies that constructivism is democratic to the extent it seeks to make citizens themselves appropriate and contest the claims that their representatives construct on their behalf.