ON MARTIN EGER'S "A TALE OF TWO CONTROVERSIES"

Abstract. Criticisms are presented against Eger's challenge to the demarcation between the natural sciences and ethics. Arguments are given both against his endorsement of the "new" philosophy of science and against his rejection of the fact-value dichotomy. However, his educational recommendations are reinforced rather than weakened by these criticisms     

Explicit Instruction With or Without High-<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis> Sequences: Which is More Effective to Teach Multiplication Facts?

Basic fact acquisition is an important component for developing higher-order math skills. However, getting students with a history of academic noncompliance to engage in activities related to skills acquisition can be difficult. Prior research demonstrates that engagement increases when nonpreferred activities are preceded by a series of brief activities with a high probability of completion. This technique, called high-p task/request sequences, was not fully explored within the context of skill acquisition. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of adding high-p sequences to explicit instruction on the math fact acquisition of three elementary-age students in a learning support classroom. Results showed no differences in fact acquisition between explicit instruction and explicit instruction with an added high-p component. However, the high-p sessions took nearly twice as long to complete when compared to explicit instruction alone. Implications for instructional efficiency and limitations of the high-p procedures for acquisition tasks are discussed.     

Who's afraid of the Wolfe couple: the interlocking traumatic scene

Fulfilling intimate relationships require a constant emotional and psychological struggle to disentangle strangleholds created by the interpenetration of unresolved complexes stemming from previous disappointing relational experiences. These complexes may manifest as an encrypted pattern of engagement that each partner brings to the marriage, like a 'malignant dowry'. The dowry box, once opened, releases its nefarious contents to create an extremely complex and entangled drama I call the 'interlocking traumatic scene'. Partners unconsciously entrap each other to play a part in such a scene with double (sometimes multiple) roles for each antagonist. The imaginal space between the two characters can be seen as a projection screen, upon which are superimposed two separate shadow plays, one on each side of the screen. A third play, which is a co-created product of these two individual traumatic scenes, can also be observed. Three plays are performed simultaneously. The defensive systems that the two individuals bring to the equation dovetail together, but the actual interlocking mechanism itself deadlocks in such a way that it seems to have its own malignant presence, a 'malevolent third' (after Ogden 1994). I outline therapeutic interventions using the metaphor of the therapist as 'anti-director' and I introduce my concept of the conjoint selected fact (after Bion 1963 after Poincaré 1952).     

The cognitive profile of Chinese children with mathematics difficulties

This study examined how four domain-specific skills (arithmetic procedural skills, number fact retrieval, place value concept, and number sense) and two domain-general processing skills (working memory and processing speed) may account for Chinese children’s mathematics learning difficulties. Children with mathematics difficulties (MD) of two age groups (7-8 and 9-11 years) were compared with age-matched typically achieving children. For both age groups, children with MD performed significantly worse than their age-matched controls on all of the domain-specific and domain-general measures. Further analyses revealed that the MD children with literacy difficulties (MD/RD group) performed the worst on all of the measures, whereas the MD-only group was significantly outperformed by the controls on the four domain-specific measures and verbal working memory. Stepwise discriminant analyses showed that both number fact retrieval and place value concept were significant factors differentiating the MD and non-MD children. To conclude, deficits in domain-specific skills, especially those of number fact retrieval and place value understanding, characterize the profile of Chinese children with MD.     

Kant’s deductions of morality and freedom

It is commonly held that Kant ventured to derive morality from freedom in Groundwork III. It is also believed that he reversed this strategy in the second Critique, attempting to derive freedom from morality instead. In this paper, I set out to challenge these familiar assumptions: Kant’s argument in Groundwork III rests on a moral conception of the intelligible world, one that plays a similar role as the ‘fact of reason’ in the second Critique. Accordingly, I argue, there is no reversal in the proof-structure of Kant’s two works.     

康德实践理性的事实概念及其对自由的证明

康德实践理性的事实概念指的是道德律或道德律的意识,而道德律本身实际上是道德律的意识。道德律是某种自身肯定的东西,它作为事实肯定了纯粹实践理性的客观实在性,并通过理性的这一积极的概念,证明了它自身在实践上的客观实在性。正是通过道德律这一事实,在思辨哲学那里只具有消极性的自由的原因性的概念,在实践哲学中获得了积极的规定,也成为了一个“事实”。     

论"行为事实属性"是一个错误概念——兼论王海明的伦理规范推导公式的失误

“行为事实属性”是王海明的伦理规范推导公式的核心概念,是其整个伦理体系的基础。他创造此概念的目的是想表达这样一个重要思想：人们制定行为规范时必须以该行为的客观效果为基础,而不能仅从主观愿望出发。这一思想具有重要理论意义。但该概念不仅不能表达出这一思想,而且还犯了诸多构词法和逻辑学错误,引起严重的思想混乱。王海明创造这一错误概念的理论原因是他对伦理规范制定程序的理解过于简单且存在混乱,为此,本文提出一个替代公式。     

Caring for Nature: From Fact to Value, from Respect to Reverence

Abstract. Despite the classical prohibition of moving from fact to value, encounter with the biodiversity and plenitude of being in evolutionary natural history moves us to respect life, even to reverence it. Darwinian accounts are value‐laden and necessary for understanding life at the same time that Darwinian theory fails to provide sufficient cause for the historically developing diversity and increasing complexity on Earth. Earth is a providing ground; matter and energy on Earth support life, but distinctive to life is information coded in the genetic molecules that superintends this matter‐energy. Life is generated and regenerated in struggle, persists in its perishing. Such life is also a gift; nature is grace. Biologists and theologians join in celebrating and conserving the genesis on Earth, awed in their encounter with this creativity that characterizes our home planet.     

Use of derived fact strategies by children with mathematical difficulties

339 children aged 6 and 7 at Oxford primary schools took part in a study of arithmetic. 204 of the children had been selected by their teachers as having mathematical difficulties and the other 135 children were unselected. They were assigned to an Addition Performance Level on the basis of a calculation pretest, and then given Dowker's (1998) test of derived fact strategies in addition, involving strategies based on the Identity, Commutativity, Addend + 1, Addend − 1, and addition/subtraction Inverse principles. The exact arithmetic problems given varied according to the child's previously assessed calculation level and were selected to be just a little too difficult for the child to solve unaided. The technique was used of giving children the answer to a problem and then asking them to solve another problem that could be solved quickly by using this answer, together with the principle under consideration. The children were also given the WISC Arithmetic subtest and the British Abilities Scales Basic Number Skills Subtest. Performance on the standardized arithmetic tests was independently affected by both Addition Performance Level and group membership (unselected children versus those with mathematical difficulties). Derived fact strategy use was affected by Addition Performance Level, but there was no independent effect of group membership.