Repair theory: A generative theory of bugs in procedural skills

This paper describes a generative theory of bugs. It claims that all bugs of a procedural skill can be derived by a highly constrained form of problem solving acting on incomplete procedures. These procedures are characterized by formal deletion operations that model incomplete learning and forgetting. The problem solver and the deletion operator have been constrained to make it impossible to derive “star-bugs”—algorithms that are so absurd that expert diagnosticians agree that the alogorithm will never be observed as a bug. Hence, the theory not only generates the observed bugs, it fails to generate star-bugs. The theory has been tested on an extensive data base of bugs for multidigit subtraction that was collected with the aid of the diagnostic systems buggy and debuggy. In addition to predicting bug occurrence, by adoption of additional hypotheses, the theory also makes predictions about the frequency and stability of bugs, as well as the occurrence of certain latencies in processing time during testing. Arguments are given that the theory can be applied to domains other than subtraction and that it can be extended to provide a theory of procedural learning that accounts for bug acquisition. Lastly, particular care has been taken to make the theory principled so that it can not be tailored to fit any possible data.     

Figur und Fläche im Wettstreit

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Der Richtungsbegriff in der Psychologie

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Über die dynamischen Eigenschaften der Realitäts- und Irrealitätsschichten

Ohne Zusammenfassung Mit 7 Textabbildungen.     

Zur Pfychologie des produktiven Denkens

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Rethinking Same-Sex Sex in Natural Law Theory

Many prominent proponents of Old and New Natural Law morally condemn sexual acts between people of the same sex because those acts are incapable of reproduction; they each offer a distinct set of supporting reasons. While some New Natural Law philosophers have begun to distance themselves from this moral condemnation, there are not many similarly ameliorative efforts within Old Natural Law. I argue for the bold conclusion that Old Natural Law philosophers can accept the basic premises of Old Natural Law without also being committed to morally condemning sexual activity between people of the same sex. I develop an argument from analogy that shows how we can draw metaphysically distinct sub-categories based on someone's capacity to experience the unitive goods of sex. This unitive capacity constitutes the sub-category and provides a distinct principle for evaluating how members of that sub-category (X) act as members of that sub-category, rather than as acting as defective members of another category (Y). Even though my argument is ‘internal’ to Old Natural Law, I conclude by showing how these conclusions can also address some of the objections to same-sex sex in New Natural Law.