Character-Principlism and the Particularity Objection

This paper is a response to particularist critics of the normative force of moral principles. The particularist critique, as I understand it, is a rejection not only of principle-based accounts of moral deliberation and justification, but also of accounts of character in which principles play a central role. I focus on the latter challenge and counter it with a view I call character-principlism .
I begin by discussing in a general way what motivates the particularity objection to principles and then contrast two views – both of which insist on the importance of attentiveness to particularity – about the relative normative status of principles and particular cases. I present some reasons for believing that we need a more normatively robust conception of the role of moral principles than the particularists provide. In the main portion of the paper, I discuss how character-principlism sees principles functioning in our lives and the lives we lead with others. I contrast this with some other accounts of desirable character that particularists can embrace, and argue that these are seriously flawed because, unlike character-principlism, they cannot satisfactorily explain how a person could possess the constancy of character that moral integrity requires.     

动词语义和句子语法对代词加工的影响

考察了动词语义和句子语法对代词加工的影响．结果表明,动词语义是影响代词理解的一个因素;相同语法功能假设尚需进一步验证,研究者还提出代词理解受社会文化因素影响的假设。     

Children's strategy preferences for resolving contradictory story information under two social conditions

This paper attempted to examine how children, when confronted with a literary implicature, resolve this implicature under two types of social conditions. More specifically, this paper identified five types of strategies which people employ to resolve text anomalies arising when old information in a story setting is incompatible with new information in a story ending. Two experiments demonstrated that third graders (8.4 and 8.6 years) and sixth graders (12.5 and 12.8 years) consistently selected certain strategies for resolving old and new, empirical and value, contradictory information. Although third and sixth graders demonstrated a similar strategy preference for resolving contradictory old and new information in formal conditions, the principal difference was that third graders modified old information to fit new information while sixth graders modified new information to fit old information. In contrasting the formal and informal conditions, third graders shifted their strategy preferences so as to minimize the amount of text restructuring in the formal condition; sixth graders, on the other hand, shifted their strategy preferences so as to maximize the amount of text restructuring in informal conditions. These findings suggest that story schema structures are more interpretive than story grammar psychologists presently assume.     

学生提问与语文阅读理解能力的关系研究

随机选取北京市某中学初一-高二学生169名,以问卷法研究了他们对文章的提问能力与其阅读理解能力的关系,结果发现:(1)学生提问频次变化范围较广,不同水平提问数量存在显著的差异;(2)从分水平的角度来看,被试个体提问最高频次和总频次,由多到少都呈现出第二、第三、第一水平的顺序;(3)学生第三水平提问总数对第二水平阅读理解能力有显著预测作用;(4)学生第三水平提问总数对第三水平阅读理解能力有一定的显著预测作用。     

Is there a natural order for expressing semantic relations?

All languages rely to some extent on word order to signal relational information. Why? We address this question by exploring communicative and cognitive factors that could lead to a reliance on word order. In Study 1, adults were asked to describe scenes to another using their hands and not their mouths. The question was whether this home-made "language" would contain gesture sentences with consistent order. In addition, we asked whether reliance on order would be influenced by three communicative factors (whether the communication partner is permitted to give feedback; whether the information to be communicated is present in the context that recipient and gesturer share; whether the gesturer assumes the role of gesture receiver as well as gesture producer). We found that, not only was consistent ordering of semantic elements robust across the range of communication situations, but the same non-English order appeared in all contexts. Study 2 explored whether this non-English order is found only when a person attempts to share information with another. Adults were asked to reconstruct scenes in a non-communicative context using pictures drawn on transparencies. The adults picked up the pictures for their reconstructions in a consistent order, and that order was the same non-English order found in Study 1. Finding consistent ordering patterns in a non-communicative context suggests that word order is not driven solely by the demands of communicating information to another, but may reflect a more general property of human thought.     

Second-Order Positive Comprehension and Frege’s Basic Law V

Richard Heck and John Burgess have shown that Frege’s Basic Law V is consistent with predicative comprehension and that the resulting theory interprets Robinson Arithmetic. There are also many other ways to keep Frege from being contradictory. This paper shows that Basic Law V is also consistent with positive comprehension and that the resulting theory also interprets Robinson Arithmetic. In addition, the theory of positive Frege provides a new understanding of Dummett’s “indefinitely extensible concepts.”     

速度、步幅与窗口对引导式中文文本阅读工效的影响

引导式显示是在视觉显示终端(VDT)上呈现动态文本的主要方式之一.本研究考察了显示窗口大小、跳动步幅、显示速度等因素对引导式中文文本的阅读工效的影响.实验中采用了3(跳动步幅,被试内变量)×3(显示速度,被试内变量)×2(显示窗口大小,被试间变量)的混合设计,共有18个被试参加了实验.结果发现(1)跳动步幅、显示速度和窗口大小均影响中文文本的阅读工效;(2)达到最佳阅读工效的实验条件在速度和步幅上分别集中于200～400字/分和1～3字/步.最后本文结合中文阅读的相关眼动研究,对这些结果的成因进行了简要的探讨.     

篇章阅读中先行信息通达的若干影响因素

采用实时窗口阅读技术,探讨在篇章阅读理解中,当读者在建构先行信息已能考虑其合适与不合适这一条件下,先行信息与当前信息的关系及距离如何影响对先行信息的通达。实验一采用以句子为单位的自控阅读,通过再认探测技术,结果发现,被试在加工含回指词的目标句时,回指词的不合适先行词也会得以通达。实验二以词汇为单位呈现阅读材料,通过命名探测技术,结果发现,与当前回指词关系合适的先行词会得到更快的通达,而先行词与当前回指词距离的远近不会影响先行词的激活水平。     

句子阅读理解过程中句意的建构时间

一般语言学理论认为, 在句子阅读理解过程中, 句子意义建构是基于词汇语义整合的, 其反映在N400之上, 开始于词语呈现后约250 ms。然而, 近年关于语义P600效应的研究却提示句意建构可能存在多通道或方式, 读者甚至可能在N400反映的加工出现之前就已建立了初步句意。为探明在句子阅读理解过程中是否存在比N400反映的加工更早的句意建构, 以及如果存在这样的句意建构, 其是从何时开始的, 本研究开展了四个实验。实验1发现被试在句末双字词呈现200 ms后已将其联系到上文语义表征而建立了句意, 提示句意建构开始于N400反映的加工出现之前。实验2与3进一步发现, 读者开始建立句意的时间约在句末词呈现了150 ms之时。实验4排除了实验1~3效应的其他一些可能解释, 提升了实验1~3结果的可靠性。总体上, 本研究提示：在句子阅读理解过程中, 读者在句末双字词呈现了约150 ms之时就已建立了句意; 可能存在比N400反映的加工更早的句意建构。