This book is a collection of essays, some previously published and some recent papers appearing in print for the first time, that have a number of things in common. First, they are nontechnical papers that I hope can be read by nonspecialists. Second, they all assume the correctness of my theoretical work in language acquisition, but make no attempt to defend it or even to review the many studies it is based on. This is done elsewhere. The essays in this volume explore some extensions and applications of the theory and illustrate how the theory helps provide insights and solve problems in several areas.
This book started with Lattice Theory, First Concepts, in 1971. Then came General Lattice Theory, First Edition, in 1978, and the Second Edition twenty years later. Since the publication of the first edition in 1978, General Lattice Theory has become the authoritative introduction to lattice theory for graduate students and the standard reference for researchers. The First Edition set out to introduce and survey lattice theory. Some 12,000 papers have been published in the field since then; so Lattice Theory: Foundation focuses on introducing the field, laying the foundation for special topics and applications.
Cultural theory has often been criticized for covert Eurocentric and universalist tendencies. Its concepts and ideas are implicitly applicable to everyone, ironing over any individuality or cultural difference. Postcolonial theory has challenged these limitations of cultural theory, and Postcolonial Theory and Autobiography addresses the central challenge posed by its autobiographical turn.
Despite the fact that autobiography is frequently dismissed for its Western, masculine bias, David Huddart argues for its continued relevance as a central explanatory category in understanding postcolonial theory and its relation to subjectivity.
Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological FormsThe principal findings of experimental economics are that impersonal exchange in markets converges in repeated interaction to the equilibrium states implied by economic theory, under information conditions far weaker than specified in the theory. In personal, social, and economic exchange, as studied in two-person games, cooperation exceeds the prediction of traditional game theory.
More Ways Than One: Fostering Creativity in the Classroom
Current conceptualizations of children's thinking tend to be unneccesarily narrow, and to focus on what might be called "convergent" thinking. As a result, invention and innovation are often underemphasized in schools. This text aims to encourage a broad understanding of intellect, and attempts to help teachers to recognize and foster more varied forms of intellectual activity in their students. It offers a review of recent theory on creativity, conceptualizing this as a matter of getting ideas, trying the new, branching out and the like, rather than of producing artistic or scientific products.
