Quine's Naturalism and Behaviorisms

This paper investigates the complicated relations between various versions of naturalism, behaviorism, and mentalism within the framework of W. V. O. Quine's thinking. It begins with Roger Gibson's reconstruction of Quine's behaviorisms and argues that it lacks a crucial ontological element and misconstrues the relation between philosophy and science. After getting clear of Quine's naturalism, the paper distinguishes between evidential, methodological, and ontological behaviorisms. The evidential and methodological versions are often conflated, but they need to be clearly distinguished in order to see whether Quine's argument against mentalism is cogent. The paper argues that Quine's naturalism supports only the weakest version of behaviorism, that is, the evidential one, but this version is compatible with mentalistic semantics. Quine's opposition to mentalism is an overreaction against the behaviorist camp. By contrast, Jerry Fodor's objection to José Luis Bermúdez is an overreaction from the opposite direction.     

Word Detection in Sung and Spoken Sentences in Children With Typical Language Development or With Specific Language Impairment

Background: Previous studies have reported that children score better in language tasks using sung rather than spoken stimuli. We examined word detection ease in sung and spoken sentences that were equated for phoneme duration and pitch variations in children aged 7 to 12 years with typical language development (TLD) as well as in children with specific language impairment (SLI ), and hypothesized that the facilitation effect would vary with language abilities. Method: In Experiment 1, 69 children with TLD (7–10 years old) detected words in sentences that were spoken, sung on pitches extracted from speech, and sung on original scores. In Experiment 2, we added a natural speech rate condition and tested 68 children with TLD (7–12 years old). In Experiment 3, 16 children with SLI and 16 age-matched children with TLD were tested in all four conditions. Results: In both TLD groups, older children scored better than the younger ones. The matched TLD group scored higher than the SLI group who scored at the level of the younger children with TLD . None of the experiments showed a facilitation effect of sung over spoken stimuli. Conclusions: Word detection abilities improved with age in both TLD and SLI groups. Our findings are compatible with the hypothesis of delayed language abilities in children with SLI , and are discussed in light of the role of durational prosodic cues in words detection.     

BEFORE BABEL: REFLECTIONS ON READING AND TRANSLATING FREUD

The author offers some thoughts on reading and teaching Freud, on translating Freud, on translation in general, and on a possible kinship between translation and the psychoanalytic process. His reading of Freud's works, and the years he spent translating them into Hebrew and editing Hebrew editions of his writings, have made a deep and salient impression on his personal psychoanalytic palimpsest. The author began this labor prior to his psychoanalytic training and has no doubt that, to this day, the experience greatly shapes not only his attitude toward Freud himself, but also the nature of how he listens to patients and the way he thinks and writes about psychoanalysis.     

Ernest Gellner's Words and Things: A Case Study of Empirical Philosophy

This article considers how Ernest Gellner used sociology and anthropology to attack ordinary language philosophy in Words and Things. It argues that this attack can be seen as a part of the movement to make philosophy more empirical or “naturalized,” something that has not been generally noted. It also discusses what general lessons to draw from Words and Things regarding how empirical knowledge should be used in philosophy. Among other things, the article argues that one important lesson is that empirical philosophers should make more use of “soft” social sciences, such as sociology and anthropology, and not focus exclusively on “harder” disciplines, such as physics and experimental psychology. Another upshot of the discussion is that philosophers should draw on empirical knowledge not only when they solve problems but also when they formulate them.     

State‐Trace Analysis: Dissociable Processes in a Connectionist Network?

Some argue the common practice of inferring multiple processes or systems from a dissociation is flawed (Dunn, 2003). One proposed solution is state‐trace analysis (Bamber, 1979), which involves plotting, across two or more conditions of interest, performance measured by either two dependent variables, or two conditions of the same dependent measure. The resulting analysis is considered to provide evidence that either (a) a single process underlies performance (one function is produced) or (b) there is evidence for more than one process (more than one function is produced). This article reports simulations using the simple recurrent network (SRN; Elman, 1990) in which changes to the learning rate produced state‐trace plots with multiple functions. We also report simulations using a single‐layer error‐correcting network that generate plots with a single function. We argue that the presence of different functions on a state‐trace plot does not necessarily support a dual‐system account, at least as typically defined (e.g. two separate autonomous systems competing to control responding); it can also indicate variation in a single parameter within theories generally considered to be single‐system accounts.     

Well‐Hidden Regularities: Abstract Uses of in and on Retain an Aspect of Their Spatial Meaning

Prepositions name spatial relationships (e.g., book on a table). But they are also used to convey abstract, non‐spatial relationships (e.g., Adrian is on a roll)—raising the question of how the abstract uses relate to the concrete spatial uses. Despite considerable success in delineating these relationships, no general account exists for the two most frequently extended prepositions: in and on. We test the proposal that what is preserved in abstract uses of these prepositions is the relative degree of control between the located object (the figure) and the reference object (the ground). Across four experiments, we find a continuum of greater figure control for on (e.g., Jordan is on a roll) and greater ground control for in (e.g., Casey is in a depression). These findings bear on accounts of semantic structure and language change, as well as on second language instruction.     

Semiotic systems,culture and early mathematical knowledge / Sistemas semióticos,cultura y conocimiento matemático temprano

Abstract

In this introduction to the issue Semiotic tools in early mathematical knowledge, we offer a theoretical perspective that provides meaning to the different contributions. We begin by reviewing three perspectives bearing an important influence on the study of mathematical development in childhood (the Piagetian, the information processing and the neonativist perspectives). Next, we underscore the need for developmental studies in this domain to consider the semiotic component, and hence the socio-cultural component, in depth. The contributions that form this volume — a theoretical article, five papers and four short reports of empirical studies and a review of an instructional approach — illustrate different ways of including the semiotic component in the study of children’s mathematical knowledge.     

LANGUAGE AS A VALUES‐REALIZING ACTIVITY: CARING,ACTING, AND PERCEIVING

A problem for natural scientific accounts, psychology in particular, is the existence of value. An ecological account of values is reviewed and illustrated in three domains of research: carrying differing loads; negotiating social dilemmas involving agreement and disagreement; and timing the exposure of various visual presentations. Then it is applied in greater depth to the nature of language. As described and illustrated, values are ontological relationships that are neither subjective nor objective, but which constrain and obligate all significant animate activity physically, socially, and morally. As an embodied social activity, conversational dialogue is characterized in terms of values, pragmatics, and presence rather than in terms of syntactic and semantic rules. In particular the nature of dialogical arrays is explored, and the hypothesis that language is an action system, a perceptual system, and a caring system is explored. Language expands horizons and makes it possible for humans to realize their calling as culture makers and caretakers.     

Perspectives on Systems Change Among Local Change Agents: A Comparative Study

Community organizers and activists draw on multiple traditions of community building and collective action in attempts to galvanize change. The diversity of perspectives on social change processes indicates corresponding differences in perspectives on systems and what is required to change them. Twenty‐two in‐depth interviews with community organizers and activists in the Midwestern USA were conducted to identify differences in perspectives on systems change efforts. Four models used by organizers were identified: action/issue‐centric, identity‐centric, relationship‐centric, and organizing‐development. Strategies for recruitment, issue selection, leadership determination, and action were compared across models. Analyses revealed that some models might be better suited to action on certain issues (e.g. identity‐centric models when organizing around homelessness), whereas others may have advantages for use in certain settings (e.g. relationship‐centric models in congregations). These findings suggest that practitioners and scholars should pay close attention to contextual factors and focal issues when determining strategies for creating systems change. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.