青少年聋生的分类学联系

了考察青少年聋生分类学联系的特点,使用不同类别的基本水平概念,完成了语义归类和错误再认２个实验,并同健听生的结果进行比较。结果表明：⑴聋生和健听生有类似的类别意识,但聋生的类别意识较健听生为弱。⑵与健听生比,呈现方式对聋生的反应影响较小。聋生的分类学概念有较强的形象化倾向。青少年聋生分类学联系的特点与他们语言能力发展迟缓、使用自然手语有关。因此,应加强聋生的规范手语教学,重视培养聋生的抽象思维能力     

概念和类别研究中基于解释的观点

该文介绍了概念和类别研究中基于解释的观点。和原型观、样例观不同,基于解释的观点强调了三个方面的影响因素,一是知识背景的影响;二是不同的学习任务的影响;三是类别知识的运用的再影响。该文从时问的先后描述了解释观的主要观点及其典型的实验研究。     

儿童早期分类与基于类别的归纳的一致性

传统的观点认为,儿童早期的分类是基于类别的归纳的基础。根据这种观点,儿童早期的分类与基于类别的归纳是一致的。该研究在不同材料条件下测试了4岁儿童面临知觉相似和概念冲突时的自由分类与归纳推理的一致性。研究结果显示,在照片条件下,4岁儿童的自由分类和基于类别的归纳是不一致的,儿童的分类主要是基于知觉相似的,而基于类别的归纳主要是基于概念的;在线条画条件下,儿童的分类与基于类别的归纳是一致的,都主要是基于知觉相似的。这些结果显示,儿童早期的分类和基于类别的关系是复杂的。     

制表要合逻辑

这份简迪的统计表,包含着两种逻辑划分。一是“项目”栏按公益劳动内容的划分,一是“类别”栏对参加人员的划分。根据划分的规则,这份表格的两种划分都有错误。第一,这份表格“项目”栏了所列的四个子项的外延之和小于母项(公益劳动远不限于这些项目),犯了“划分不全”的错误;“打扫卫生”和“清除路面”(以及“清除垃圾”)这些概念相容,犯了“子项相容”的错误;“出动机动车辆”这个概念放在公益劳动项目栏下不明确,与上面几项不属于一个类。第二,在“类别”栏下,对     

阻碍效应范式中主题知识对类别学习的影响

三个实验采用阻碍效应研究范式探讨主题知识对类别学习的影响。实验1探讨定义特征维度为机械特征时,主题知识对类别学习的影响;实验2和实验3,通过考察定义特征维度为知识特征时,类别学习中阻碍效应的大小,继续探讨主题知识对类别学习的影响。实验结果发现：（1）当定义特征维度为机械特征时,主题知识的存在没有促进类别学习。这可能因为定义特征维度为机械特征,主题知识难以发现所致;（2）当定义特征维度为知识特征时,类别学习中的阻碍效应消失,证明主题知识的存在促进了类别学习。研究结果再次支持了类别学习不仅仅受到减少归类错误驱动的观点。     

错误信念任务中的知识偏差

有观点指出,年幼儿童在错误信念任务上的发展变化,不是发生了概念变化的质变,而是知识偏差的表现。知识偏差是指当我们尝试理解一个更不知情的观点时,不能忽略自己拥有的额外信息并受此影响而产生偏差的倾向。本文对知识偏差的含义及其在错误信念任务中可能产生的影响做了较为详细的综述和分析,并就在错误信念任务中消除知识偏差影响的可能性进行了探讨。     

识别电位认知功能探析

识别电位(Recognition Potential, RP)是被试看到可识别视觉刺激时, 在200~250ms内达到峰值的脑电反应。识别电位的研究正处于理论探讨阶段, 有两种主要观点用于解释RP。一种观点强调RP反映了视知觉分析成分; 另一种观点强调RP反映了语义或概念加工成分。两种观点至今未达成一致。最近, 针对两种观点质疑, 研究者们提出了类别特征加工的观点, 这一新观点在理论上符合大脑经济性的原则, 具有一定的优越性, 但尚需要更多的实证研究的支持。未来的RP研究应从实验材料的多样化、多研究方法结合、类别特征加工能力的习得机制等方面展开。     

从本体-历史的观点看

一、科学哲学的岔路半个多世纪前问世的奎因的那本《从逻辑的观点看》(1953),至今还影响着我们:从整体主义的观点出发启迪了诸多后实证主义的灵感。与奎因的本体-逻辑的与认识-逻辑的观点不同,本文想要阐述的是一种本体-历史的观点。这是两类不同性质的理论。我认为,本体-历史的观点同样也适     

“错误的可能性”、实践规范性与康德主义构成论证

大多数理论家都承认,实践规范性具有一个"可违反性"或者说"错误的可能性"的特征。不过,一些理论家认为,这个特征只是规范性概念的一个表面逻辑特征。这种观点是有失偏颇的,因为"错误的可能性"特征实际上揭示了规范性概念所具有的规范律令性特征。进一步地,正是通过理解"错误的可能性"论证所蕴含的这个实质涵义,我们或许才有机会去进一步发现,康德主义构成论是存在内部一致性方面的问题的。     

牟宗三何以认定康德的物自身不是一个事实的概念?

认定康德的物自身不是一个事实的概念而是一个价值意味的概念,这是牟宗三在研究康德哲学过程中提出的一个有代表性的观点,在其整个思想中占据枢纽位置。此前我曾撰文指出,牟宗三作出如此判断,是对康德物自身思想特别是物自身与本体关系的一种误解,犯了以偏概全的错误。(杨泽波)但受篇幅所限,那篇文章未能探讨个中的原因。本文继续对这个问题进行讨论,以作为此前文章的续篇。一在牟宗三看来,康德思想虽然非常重要,但也有众多混乱不清之处,其中最为重要的是,人们很难了解物自身的确切含义。“究竟什么叫‘物自身’,这是很难确定的。若不予以充…     

How Could There Be True Causal Claims Without There Being Special Causal Facts in the World?

Some philosophers of physics recently expressed their skepticism about causation (Norton 2003b, 2007). However, this is not new. The view that causation does not refer to any ontological category perhaps can be attributed to Hume, Kant and Russell. On the other hand, some philosophers (Wesley Salmon and Phil Dowe) view causation as a physical process and some others (Cartwright) view causation as making claims about capacities possessed by objects. The issue about the ontological status of causal claims involves issues concerning the ontological status of capacity, modality and dispositional claims. In this paper, my goal is to show that without engaging metaphysical debates about the ontological status of causal claims, it can be shown that we can objectively assign truth values to these statements. I argue that for causal claims to be objective we don't need to postulate the existence of special facts (specific to causal claims) in addition to ordinary physical facts described by physical theories. This, I think, is enough to justify the usefulness of this concept in certain branches (may be all) of science. Once this is achieved, there is no need to engage in unnecessary metaphysical debates. So, even if advanced physical theories don't mention this notion, causal reasoning can still be important in understanding the world not in the sense that science discovers special ontological category called causation but in the sense that we come to know certain facts about the world.     

Vitalism,purpose and superstition

Developmental studies have shown that children assign purpose to objects more liberally than adults, and that they explain biological processes in terms of vitalistic causality. This study tested the hypothesis that similar misconceptions can be found among superstitious adults. The results from 116 superstitious and 123 sceptical individuals showed that more than sceptics, superstitious individuals attributed purpose to objects, and explained biological processes in terms of organ intentionality and energy transmission. In addition, they thought of energy as a vital force, attributing life and mental properties to it. These conceptual confusions were positively associated to all types of superstitions as well as belief in alternative medicine. The results support the argument that category mistakes and ontological confusions underlie superstitious and vitalistic thinking.     

Eine Welt ohne Individuelle EntitÄten?

A world without individual entities? An advice to not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. Should we assume a world without individual entities? I pledge not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. My intention is to focus on the complexity of ontological concepts commonly associated with quantum theory. Using as an example the compatibility of EPR correlations with the existence of individual entities, it is shown that an absolute rejection of an ontological category, based on some aspects of the formalism of quantum theory, does not seem reasonable. A consequence of this argument is that the common sense view – the world is composed of individual entities – can be maintained, despite of the particularities of quantum mechanics.     

Actual Existence, Identity and Ontological Priority

The paper first distinguishes ontological priority from epistemological priority and unilateral ontic dependence. Then explications of ontological priority are offered in terms of the reducibility of the actual existence or identity of entities in one ontological category to the actual existence or identity of entities in another. These explications lead to incompatible orders of ontological priority for individuals, properties of individuals and states of affairs. Common to those orders is, however, that the primacy of the category of individuals is abandoned. This primacy is challenged in the paper also by epistemological arguments, and an onto-anthropological explanation is offered for the very common but false idea that individuals are ontological prior to all other kinds of entities. Finally ontological priority is discussed with respect to a fully specified system of ontological categories. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Conceptual change in physics: children’s naive representations of sound

The organization of physics knowledge (degree of coherence and nature of conceptual change) was studied in 89 6–10-year-old children using the concept of sound. We attempted to determine whether children apply properties of objects to sound or if they consider sounds as a vibratory process. Three properties of physical objects were studied: substantiality, weight, and permanence. The younger children considered sound more like an object than the older children did. Substantiality was attributed to sound more often than were weight and permanence. Based on the substantiality data, four mental models were identified (sound cannot pass through other objects unless there are holes, sound can pass through solids if it is harder than they are, sound is immaterial, sound is a vibratory process). We concluded that conceptual change in knowledge about sound does not happen through the sudden transfer of the concept from the ontological category of matter to the ontological category of processes, but rather through a slow and gradual process of belief revision, in the course of which the various properties of matter are abandoned in a hierarchical order.     

Theoretical Paradox and Practical Dilemma

Emmanuel Levinas sets up alterity as a fundamental ontological category, irreducible to being and nothingess. There are two difficulties in understanding this ontological alterity. On the one hand, Levinas formulates it with negative terms – infinition, abstraction, ab‐solutenes, trace of a past that has never been present. On the other hand, Levinas invokes the notions of the superlative, the Good, and God. These notions are very difficult to separate from the notion of a redoubling of the positivity by which the things of the world are posited in their own subsistent being. The quasi‐concepts with which Levinas has thematized the alterity of the others who face us in an ontological sphere of infinition, absoluteness, and abstractness have determined negatively what he envisions as beyond negativity and positivity. They reduce the determinateness of the wants and needs of another, and reduce the otherness of one other from other others. In addition, the positivism with which Levinas eliminates the imperatives with which the elements summon us and the material imperatives with which the things put demands on us effaces the phenomenality of the other whose want and needs are inscribed on the susceptibility and vulnerability of his surfaces of skin.     

A Defense of Emergence

I defend a physicalistic version of ontological emergence; qualia emerge from the brain, but are physical properties nevertheless. First, I address the following questions: what are the central tenets of physicalistic ontological emergentism; what are the relationships between these tenets; what is the relationship between physicalistic ontological emergentism and non-reductive physicalism; and can there even be a physicalistic version of ontological emergentism? This discussion is merely an attempt to clarify exactly what a physicalistic version of ontological emergentism must claim, and to show that the view is at least coherent. I then defend the view from objections, for example, Kim’s (Philos Stud 95:3–36, 1999) attempt to apply a version of his exclusion argument to ontological emergentism. I conclude by offering a positive argument for the view: given certain empirical evidence concerning the organization of the brain, physicalism might have to endorse ontological emergentism to avoid epiphenomenalism.     

Paranormal beliefs: their dimensionality and correlates

Lack of conceptual clarity and multivariate empirical studies has troubled research on superstitious, magical and paranormal beliefs. We defined paranormal beliefs as beliefs in physical, biological or psychological phenomena that feature core ontological properties of another ontological category. The aim was to bring together a range of beliefs and their potential correlates, to analyse whether the beliefs form independent subsets, and to test a structural model of the beliefs and their potential correlates. The results (N = 3261) showed that the beliefs could be best described by one higher‐order factor. There were also four lower‐order factors of paranormal beliefs but their explanatory power was low. Magico‐religious beliefs were best explained by high intuitive thinking, a humanistic world view and low analytical thinking. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The puzzle of hyper‐change

If there is a second dimension of time – a so‐called ‘hypertime’ – is it logically possible for the past to change? Some have said yes; others have said no. I say yes provided that one has the appropriate ontological view of hypertime. So far, the ontology of hypertime has seldom been discussed. As such, this paper not only defends the logical possibility of a changing past, but aims to start a discussion on what ontological commitments are required to make sense of a changing past.