Quine on Quantification and Existence

Quine's justly famous paper "On What There Is" introduced a criterion of ontological commitment which has been almost universally accepted by analytic philosophers ever since.In this paper I try to unpack some of the substantive and controversial philosophical commitments that are presupposed by this criterion.The aim is not to show that the criterion is incorrect,but merely that it is not as obvious as it is taken to be by many,and that we might have reasons to explore alternative ways of thinking about ontological commitments.     

小学一年级数感不良儿童的筛查与动态干预

首先编制测查小学一年级儿童数感发展水平的测验, 以筛查出数感发展不良儿童并进行数量转换和数量估计的动态干预。将数感不良儿童分为干预组(29人)和控制组(27人), 并以数感正常儿童作为对照组(40人), 以比较干预训练对儿童数感水平和与之密切相关的计算流畅性的促进作用。同时进一步考查数感和计算流畅性的作用方向。结果发现：(1)所编制的儿童数感发展测验信效度良好, 能有效评估一年级儿童的数感水平; (2)数感不良儿童经干预后, 其数感水平较控制组有了明显改善, 计算流畅性水平也显著提高, 甚至达到正常组儿童的水平; (3)数感对计算流畅性有明显的预测作用, 是计算流畅性的基础。     

The ontology of musical works: A philosophical pseudo-problem

A bewildering array of accounts of the ontology of musical works is available. Philosophers have held that works of music are sets of performances, abstract, eternal sound-event types, initiated types, compositional action types, compositional action tokens, ideas in a composer’s mind and continuants that perdure. This paper maintains that questions in the ontology of music are, in Rudolf Carnap’s sense of the term, pseudo-problems. That is, there is no alethic basis for choosing between rival musical ontologies. While we have no alethic basis for choosing any ontology of music, pragmatic reasons can be given for favoring certain ontologies of musical works over others.     

Agency, properties and causation

The paper argues against the very commonly held view that whenever a substance may be said to be the cause of something, a fuller and metaphysically more accurate understanding of the situation can always be obtained by looking to the properties in virtue of which that substance was able to bring about the effect in question. Paul Humphreys’ argument that when a substance is said to have produced an effect, it always turns out to be an aspect or property of that substance which brought about the effect in question is examined and criticized; it is argued that it is based on an illegitimate application of Mill’s Methods of Difference and Agreement to the case. Mill’s methods, it is suggested, are methods of empirical, not of ontological enquiry. The paper then turns to examine an argument by Mele which appears to depend on a structurally rather similar assumption that if there is nothing about a subject which could explain why she does one thing rather than another, it cannot really be up to that subject which thing occurs. It is suggested that, too, the inference is faulty, and that once it is rejected, one common objection to libertarianism—the argument from luck—might be more readily met.     

双语双文教学促进小学生数学能力发展的研究

采用测量法,考察了我国西南部缺乏汉语环境的少数民族地区,双语双文教学方式对小学生数学能力发展的影响。结果表明,双语双文教学在一定程度上促进了小学生数学能力的发展,这种促进作用主要表现在学生对数学概念的掌握和运用上。小学四年级和五年级阶段这种促进作用明显,但到六年级促进作用减弱。     

数学学习不良儿童视觉-空间表征与数学问题解决

采用临床访谈的方法,考察了30名数学学习不良(MD)儿童和31名一般儿童的数学问题解决、视觉-空间表征策略和空间视觉化能力。结果发现：图式表征能促进数学问题的解决,图像表征则起妨碍作用;空间视觉化能力与解题正确率及图式表征策略有显著正相关,与图像表征策略有显著负相关。MD儿童的解题正确率以及使用图式表征策略的程度显著低于一般儿童,使用图像表征策略的程度则显著高于一般儿童。在解题正确率和图式表征策略这两个变量上,MD儿童和一般儿童的年级发展趋势相同,都随年级的升高而提高。但在图像表征策略的使用上,一般儿童有随年级的升高而下降的趋势,MD儿童却没有下降的趋势。两类儿童的空间视觉化能力都随年级的升高而提高。     

团体认知影响数学概念结构表征的实验研究

概念结构表征一直是认知心理学研究的重要内容。本研究以团体及表征理论为基础,通过设计不同的团体认知条什来研究认知交互作用对概念结构表征的影响。实验结果表明不同的团体认知表现出了不同的认知交互,对概念结构表征也产生了不同的影响。     

Mind and Miracles

Miracles are real or imagined events that contradict our intuitive expectations of how entities normally behave. Miracles in the weak sense are unexplained counterintuitive events. Miracles in the strong sense are counterintuitive events we explain by referring to the counterintuitive agents and forces of various religious traditions. Such explanations result from the fact that our minds treat half–understood information by carrying out searches in the memory, trying to connect new information with something already known. This is cognitively the most economical way of dealing with new information: we obtain the maximum of relevance at minimal processing cost.     

LEARNING TO TIME: A PERSPECTIVE

In the last decades, researchers have proposed a large number of theoretical models of timing. These models make different assumptions concerning how animals learn to time events and how such learning is represented in memory. However, few studies have examined these different assumptions either empirically or conceptually. For knowledge to accumulate, variation in theoretical models must be accompanied by selection of models and model ideas. To that end, we review two timing models, Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET), the dominant model in the field, and the Learning‐to‐Time (LeT) model, one of the few models dealing explicitly with learning. In the first part of this article, we describe how each model works in prototypical concurrent and retrospective timing tasks, identify their structural similarities, and classify their differences concerning temporal learning and memory. In the second part, we review a series of studies that examined these differences and conclude that both the memory structure postulated by SET and the state dynamics postulated by LeT are probably incorrect. In the third part, we propose a hybrid model that may improve on its parents. The hybrid model accounts for the typical findings in fixed‐interval schedules, the peak procedure, mixed fixed interval schedules, simple and double temporal bisection, and temporal generalization tasks. In the fourth and last part, we identify seven challenges that any timing model must meet.     

The Logic of the Ontological Square

The Ontological Square is a categorial scheme that combines two metaphysical distinctions: that between types (or universals) and tokens (or particulars) on the one hand, and that between characters (or features) and their substrates (or bearers) on the other hand. The resulting four-fold classification of things comprises particular substrates, called substances, universal substrates, called kinds, particular characters, called modes or moments, and universal characters, called attributes. Things are joined together in facts by primitive ontological ties or nexus. This article describes a logic that is meant to capture the basic intuitions behind the Ontological Square. Given a minimal correspondence between atomic logical form and ontological structure, the commitment to nexus as a distinct ontological category entails a rehabilitation of copulae as ties of predication. Thus, the Logic of the Ontological Square is a copula calculus rather than a predicate calculus; its soundness and completeness can be established with respect to a model akin to a so-called first-order semantics for standard second-order logic. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb