Findings follow framings: navigating the empirical turn

In this paper, I outline several methodological questions that we need to confront. The chief question is how can we identify the nature of technological change and its varied cultural consequences—including social, political, institutional, and economic dimensions—when our different research methods, using distinct ‘levels’ or ‘scales’ of analysis, yield contradictory results. What can we say, in other words, when our findings about technology follow from the framings of our inquiries? In slightly different terms, can we combine insights from the fine-grained “social shaping of technology” as well as from complementary approaches accenting the “technological shaping of society?” As a way forward, I will suggest conducting multi-scale inquiries into the processes of technological and cultural change. This will involve recognizing and conceptualizing the analytical scales or levels on which we conduct inquiry (very roughly, micro, meso, macro) as well as outlining strategies for moving within and between these scales or levels. Of course we want and need diverse methodologies for analyzing technology and culture. I find myself in sympathy with geographer Brenner (New state spaces: urban governance and the rescaling of statehood, 2004, p. 7), who aspires to a “theoretically precise yet also historically specific conceptualization of [technological change] as a key dimension of social, political and economic life.”     

On the regress argument for infinitism

This paper critically evaluates the regress argument for infinitism. The dialectic is essentially this. Peter Klein argues that only an infinitist can, without being dogmatic, enhance the credibility of a questioned non-evident proposition. In response, I demonstrate that a foundationalist can do this equally well. Furthermore, I explain how foundationalism can provide for infinite chains of justification. I conclude that the regress argument for infinitism should not convince us.     

情景判断测验的性质、功能与开发编制

给出了情景判断测验的定义,对其性质、功能作了探讨,提出了开发编制的两种基本模式。特别是,分析了行为情景所蕴涵的问题常系结构不良,而对行为反应选项所作判断却属定向比较选择,指出了二者间的不同;同时,主张引进表征水平理论等来指导试题编写。     

图式化程度对解决代数文字题的影响

本研究探讨了图式化程度即例子的概括化程度对解决代数文字题的影响。结果表明 :(1 )例子的表层类似性与目标问题具有一种格式塔的同型效应 ,容易解决“属性”一一对应的问题。 (2 )由例子表层类似性构成的图式化程度低 ,迁移的范围比较窄 ;由例子结构类似性构成的图式化程度高 ,适用的范围比较宽。 (3 )尽管增加了例子与目标问题的难度 ,由结构类似性形成的代数图式仍然可以比较容易地解决目标问题     

工作记忆对小学三年级学生解决比较问题的影响

研究工作记忆与小学生解决比较问题成绩之间的关系。实验1运用双任务作业研究一致问题和不一致问题的工作记忆负荷是否有显著差别,被试为34名小学三年级学生。实验2运用工作记忆测验研究成功解题者与不成功解题者的工作记忆容量是否有显著差别,被试为37名小学三年级学生。结果表明;(1)小学生解决比较问题的成绩受问题类型的影响,他们在一致问题上的成绩显著优于不一致问题。(2)一致问题和不一致问题的工作记忆负荷水平不同,不一致问题的工作记忆负荷大于一致问题。(3)成功解题者的工作记忆容量大于不成功解题者的工作记忆容量。本研究结果说明工作记忆对小学生解决比较问题有重要影响。     

Wittgenstein’s reconsideration of the transcendental problem

The transcendental problem that obsessed the great Western philosophers such as Kant and Husserl should be, according to Wittgenstein, conceived as a matter of understanding a process of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from stated rules. Once these rules, regarded as a priori categories by Kant and as eidos and eidetic relations by Husserl, are demonstrated to be no more than the language usages or rules of language-games related to our forms of life, Kant’s transcendental idealism and Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology no longer have a leg to stand on. Translated by Chen Xin and Zhang Qingxiong from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Research), 2006, (10): 68–76     

中学生物理力学问题的分类及表征研究

采用自由分类和标签分类法,以16道中学物理力学应用题为实验材料,探讨不同学业水平中学生对物理问题的分类及表征差异,以及题目陈述方式(有无示意图)对分类的影响.结果发现: (1)自由分类实验中,学优生侧重于按问题的深层特征(物理原理表征)进行分类,学困生侧重于问题的表面特征(文字表征);题目陈述方式对优困生的分类时间和分类表征也有影响. (2)标签分类实验中,学优生的正确分类题目数量显著高于学困生,有示意图下学优生的正确分类题目数量显著高于无示意图下.     

Systematicity: The Nature of Science

This paper addresses the question of what the nature of science is. I will first make a few preliminary historical and systematic remarks. Next, I shall give an answer to the question that has to be qualified, clarified and justified. Finally, I will compare my answer with alternative answers and draw consequences for the demarcation problem.     

Persons,animals, and identity

The paper is concerned with how neo-Lockean accounts of personal identity should respond to the challenge of animalist accounts. Neo-Lockean accounts that hold that persons can change bodies via brain transplants or cerebrum transplants are committed to the prima facie counterintuitive denial that a person is an (biologically individuated) animal. This counterintuitiveness can be defused by holding that a person is biological animal (on neo-Lockean views) if the “is” is the “is” of constitution rather than the “is” of identity, and that a person is identical with an animal in a sense of “animal” different from that which requires the persistence conditions of animals to be biological. Another challenge is the “too many minds problem”: if persons and their coincident biological animals share the same physical properties, and mental properties supervene on physical properties, the biological animal will share the mental properties of the person, and so should itself be a person. The response to this invokes a distinction between “thin” properties, which are shared by coincident entities, and “thick” properties which are not so shared. Mental properties, and their physical realizers, are thick, not thin, so are not properties persons share with their bodies or biological animals. The paper rebuts the objection that neo-Lockean accounts cannot explain how persons can have physical properties. To meet a further problem it is argued that the biological properties of persons and those of biological animals are different because of differences in their causal profiles.