Nieuwentijt und der teleologische Gottesbeweis

Ohne ZusammenfassungVortrag bei der Gedächtnisfeier am 31. Aug. 1954 in Purmerend     

Large numbers,Knuth's arrow notation,and Ramsey theory

Synthese - In the children's book ``The Phantom Tollbooth'' by Norton Juster one can find the following passage: ``Yes, please,'' said Milo. ``Can you show me the biggest number...     

The Role of Consumption Emotions in the Satisfaction Response

We report 2 studies that served to clarify the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response. In the 1st study, we examined the role of consumption emotions within the expectancy‐disconfirmation model of consumer satisfaction and investigated whether consumption emotions are a result of product performance or disconfirmation. The findings show that both positive and negative emotions are primarily a function of product performance and influence satisfaction even when the effects of expectations, performance, and disconfirmation are controlled. In the 2nd study, we proposed and tested an alternative framework for understanding the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response for situations in which consumers use more of an experiential perspective to anticipate and experience consumption. According to this model, consumers form affective expectations about how consumption of the product will make them feel, experience positive or negative emotions as a result of these expectations and product consumption, and evaluate the discrepancy between experienced and anticipated emotions. All 3 variables, then, impact satisfaction. The results empirically support many of the relations in the new model of the experiential satisfaction response but also raise several interesting avenues for future research.     

Optimism and pessimism as predictors of change in health after death or onset of severe illness in family.

The authors prospectively examined changes in health after a major life event (death or onset of severe illness in family) among 5,007 employees (mean age=44.8 years) whose optimism and pessimism levels were assessed in 1997 and major life events in 2000. Health was indicated by sickness absence days during a period covering 36 months prior to the event and 18 months after the event. Increase in sick days after the event was smaller and returned to the prevent level more quickly among highly optimistic individuals than among their counterparts with low optimism. Parallel changes were not observed in relation to pessimism. These findings suggest that optimism may reduce the risk of health problems and may be related to a faster recovery after a major life event.     

Development and empirical validation of symmetric component measures of multidimensional constructs: customer and competitor orientation

Atheoretical measure purification may lead to construct deficient measures. The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically driven procedure for the development and empirical validation of symmetric component measures of multidimensional constructs. Particular emphasis is placed on establishing a formalized three-step procedure for achieving a posteriori content validity. Then the procedure is applied to development and empirical validation of two symmetrical component measures of market orientation, customer orientation and competitor orientation. Analysis suggests that average variance extracted is particularly critical to reliability in the respecification of multi-indicator measures. In relation to this, the results also identify possible deficiencies in using Cronbach alpha for establishing reliable and valid measures.     

WHY QUALIA ARE NOT EPIPHENOMENAL

In this article, I give an original objection to Frank Jackson's argument for the conclusion that the subjective, felt properties of experience are causally inert. I show that the very act of asserting the existence of these properties undermines the claim that they are epiphenomenal. If this objection goes through, it is fatal to the argument in question. 1     

Neural correlates of Dutch Verb Second in speech production

Dutch speakers with agrammatic Broca's aphasia are known to have problems with the production of finite verbs in main clauses. This performance pattern has been accounted for in terms of the specific syntactic complexity of the Dutch main clause structure, which requires an extra syntactic operation (Verb Second), relative to the basic Subject-Object-Verb order surfacing in Dutch subordinate clauses. We report an fMRI study into the question whether this syntactic complexity is reflected in increased brain activation correlated with the production of Dutch main clause word order, in speakers without language impairment. Nineteen healthy subjects performed a covert sentence completion task, during which main and subordinate clauses were alternately elicited in a block design. Results show a left middle to superior frontal cluster of activation correlated to production of Verb-Second over Verb-Final clauses, with no activation in the opposite contrast. This activation pattern is counter to what might be expected from the frequency distribution of main and subordinate clauses. We conclude that the Verb-Second deviation from the basic Dutch SOV word order costs extra neural resources and that this also underlies the agrammatic problems with the production of finite verbs in Dutch main clauses.     

Necessity and Language: In Defence of Conventionalism

Kalhat has forcefully criticised Wittgenstein's linguistic or conventionalist account of logical necessity, drawing partly on Waismann and Quine. I defend conventionalism against the charge that it cannot do justice to the truth of necessary propositions, renders them unacceptably arbitrary or reduces them to metalingustic statements. At the same time, I try to reconcile Wittgenstein's claim that necessary propositions are constitutive of meaning with the logical positivists’ claim that they are true by virtue of meaning. Explaining necessary propositions by reference to linguistic conventions does not reduce modal to non‐modal notions, but it avoids metaphysical accounts, which are incapable of explaining how we can have a priori knowledge of necessity.     

Identification of everyday objects on the basis of silhouette and outline versions

Line drawings of everyday objects were modified into silhouettes by filling-in the complete area enclosed by boundary contours, and outline versions were created by extracting the contours from the silhouettes. A large number of participants was asked to try to identify these silhouette and outline versions in experiment 1. Identifiability ranged from 0% to 100% correct responses with a large range in-between. Several kinds of errors and several reasons for difficulties with identification emerged in our data set. In experiment 2, we compared the original identification rates to those of inverted silhouettes (white figures on a black background), and in experiment 3 we compared the original identification rates of objects with filled-in holes or background parts to those of versions without filling-in. These stimuli and identification norms are useful for additional research on priming and context effects of object identification, neuropsychological deficits of object identification, and all kinds of studies with silhouettes where the role of top down knowledge could be of interest.