FREGE'S CONCEPT PARADOX AND THE MIRRORING PRINCIPLE

Frege held that singular terms can refer only to objects, not to concepts. I argue that the counter-intuitive consequences of this claim ('the concept paradox') arise from Frege's mirroring principle that an incomplete expression can only express an incomplete sense and stand for an incomplete reference. This is not, as is sometimes thought, merely because predicates and singular terms cannot be intersubstituted salva veritate ( congruitate ). The concept paradox, properly understood, poses therefore a different, harder, challenge. An investigation of the foundations of the mirroring principle also sheds light on the role which language plays in Frege's epistemology of logic.     

THE NEW EVANGELIZATION IN AN ECCLESIOLOGICAL CONTEXT

This paper will seek to explore some of the implications of the new evangelization from an ecclesiological perspective. A key question is, what is an appropriate ecclesiological context for the new evangelization? Any conclusions or recommendations about how to respond and contextualize the new evangelization need to be grounded in an appropriate ecclesiology; one that sits well with contemporary Catholic scholarship, especially in light of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. Following Dulles, no single approach to ecclesiology can fully explain the complex nature of the Church. Taking the ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium as a departure point a number of perspectives will be addressed, but an argument will be made for understanding the new evangelization within an ecclesiology of communion and of discipleship.     

MICROCOMPUTER USAGE AS AN OPPORTUNITY: THE INFLUENCE OF CONTEXT IN EMPLOYEE TRAINING

This study presents a test of the influence of social context on training outcomes. Specifically, the effects of labeling microcomputer usage as an opportunity were examined on computer anxiety, computer efficacy beliefs, and learning. Nonacademic university employees enrolled in an introductory microcomputer training class were assigned to a session in which microcomputer usage was randomly established as an opportunity or neutral. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 ( N = 84) identified the issue characteristics of opportunities and threats as a basis to establish context. Study 2 (N = 79) reported the results of the training. Results indicated that, after controlling for pretraining expectations about microcomputer usage, trainees in the opportunity condition exhibited higher computer efficacy and learning, as well as lower computer anxiety, than trainees in the neutral condition. These findings suggest that labeling the context can be a relatively powerful training intervention. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

THE SKILL OF PICTORIAL PERCEPTION: AN INTERPRETATION OF CROSS-CULTURAL EVIDENCE*

A theoretical framework is proposed for understanding perceptual skills in their functional context. Pictorial perception is construed as a functionally specialised skill whose pervasive importance in modern education derives from the proliferation of pictorial materials in Western culture. Drawing on cross-cultural research, the major components of the skill are identified as (1) detection of appropriate contexts for its application, (2) selection of a limiting frame of reference, (3) use of conventional criteria of fidelity to recognise depicted items, (4) sensitivity to impoverished depth cues, (5) an expectation of finding in the picture most of the information necessary for its disambiguation, and (6) various assumptions about the range of cognitive inferences that may legitimately be made ‘beyond the information given’. Training studies are interpreted as suggesting that the skill can be enhanced through guided experience.     

DIMENSIONAL INTERPRETATION AND CONFIGURATION INVARIANCE IN MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

This paper is concerned with: a ) the invariance of nonmetric multi- dimensional scaling soludions over changes in stimulus domain; and b) pro- cedures for assisting the researcher in interpreting the axes of multidimen- sional scaling configurations. The stimuli consisted of the names of 17 popular brands of automobiles. Similarities and preference judgments were obtained from 37 subjects, divided into two groups of approximately equal size. Each group received 11 of the 17 stimuli. A core set of 6 stimuli was common over both groups. Each group also rated the 11 car models on 20 semantic differential scales. Results of the study suggested that the interpoint distances of bhe core set of 5 stimuli remained stable over subject groups and differences in stimulus set composition. Semantic differential ratings were used to find directions in the configurational space (obtained from overall similarity judg- ments) whose projections were maximally correlated with the outside (property) vectors. Stimulus configurations developed from the semantic differential space were highly congruent with those found by the analysis of direct similarity judgments. However, attempts to develop stimulus configurations by the "unfolding" of preference data alone did not lead to configurations which closely matched those found by the analysis of direct similarities data.     

OUT OF THE CLOSET—FREGE'S BOOTS

It is not obvious how one might reconcile Frege's claim that different numbers may not 'belong to the same thing' with his apparent identification of one pair with two boots, even if one grants his view of 'statements of number'. I suggest a way. It requires some revision of the semantic theory that is generally attributed to Frege.