Where concepts come from: a theory of concept acquisition

How do people acquire new concepts? Most theorists (including Quine, Chomsky, Fodor, and many others) assume that childhood learning is a kind of theory-building. This picture implies that children acquire new concepts by deploying concepts they already possess, and that in turn implies what I call the Conceptual Mediation Thesis (CMT): that, in order to acquire any new concepts, a cognizer must first already have some concepts. I argue that CMT is false. While CMT implies that at least some concepts are innate, it is widely accepted because it is thought to provide the only way to explain how concepts are acquired. However, I argue that the apparent explanatory virtues of CMT are in fact illusory. I then show how we can satisfy the explanatory goals that CMT was supposed to satisfy without postulating any innate concepts – indeed without any innate mental representations at all. I distinguish between indicating states and representing states of cognizers. Indicating states differ from representing states in being stimulus-bound: only those tokens directly caused by what they indicate count as correct. I argue that perception produces states that indicate features of the environment. These indicating states serve as input to mechanisms that record these states. These recording devices, in turn, respond to the input of systematically similar indicating states by creating states that represent what those indicating states merely indicate. I describe some processes whereby these recording devices can create representational states without any representational input. I argue that this explanation requires no appeal to mental representations that the agent already possessed. Finally, I show that this approach to concept acquisition has the resources to explain a variety of psychological phenomena that traditional views struggle to accomodate

Landscape architecture between politics and science : an integrative perspective on landscape planning and design in the network society

This thesis examines the typical nature of design thinking, which is compared and contrasted with scientific and political thinking. A theretical framework is formulated and applied to landscape planning and design. During the 20th century the established operational orientation in landscape architecture was accompanied by an emerging strategic design approach, referred to as 'research by design'. Two cases of large scale landscape planning and design in the netherlands are given in this publication: the restructuring of sandy soil areas programme and the Stork Plan for Rhine-Meuse floodplain in the central belt of the Netherland

Concept Development In Relation To The Biology Of Reproduction In Secondary Science : A Vygotskyan Perspective

The study of concept development in biology comes from a professional concern that arose in my classroom teaching - an inability, after many years practice of the techniques of ‘discovery science’, to accept the theoretical base of the individual secondary school pupil constructing science concepts mainly through experiment. From this concern arose my research question - the extent to which a developmental space could be defined in which the development of science concepts could take place. The instance for examining such a space would be science concepts of reproduction. To develop a model for such a space I looked at the work of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and a number of other theorists concerned with the issue of innate learning mechanisms and of constructivism and social constructivism. I adopted Vygotsky’s dialectical materialist approach in assessing the concepts involved. To test the emerging model I decided on a case study approach, defined in terms of both the case as instance and the case as issue - instance in that the focus would be a year 8 (Britain year 7) science class, with interviews across the year group The study would involve the case as issue in that I intended to walk through the process of concept formation in plant and human reproduction with the pupils. I applied a mixture of semi-structured interview and classroom observation, linked through the development of ‘structured situations’ in which models and materials were made available in specific social settings in the expectation that the pupils would construct meaning. The outcome of the investigation did not support the initial model, but it did suggest in outline a new model of a developmental space. This suggested that the different goals of teacher and pupils expressed themselves as implicit and explicit elements of the situation, often resolved by the pupils completing tasks without thought. This indicated that a common outcome of schooling was ‘encapsulation’, formal mental constructs lacking meaning. Elements of a new model would be the role of emotion and of the goal of activity

The role of the minister in marriage counseling

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityThe minister puts the blessing and approval of the church upon each couple whom he marries. Authorized by state governments to perform marriages, the minister has the right to inquire concerning the couple's attitudes toward marriage. There are those who feel the minister should merely perform the wedding service, without conferring with the couple at any length; others expect him to prepare couples for marriage, through counseling and giving them the necessary education to make a successful marital adjustment. The minister is constantly faced with young people asking him questions concerning various phases of marriage preparation; at the same time he encounters innumerable marital situations which are in need of counseling, and many couples ask the minister to assist them with marital adjustments and difficulties. To be an effective counselor the minister should know the community resources. He should know to whom he can refer counselees when marital problems indicate the need of a specialist, such as a doctor, psychiatrist, lawyer, psychologist, or social worker. The minister needs to realize the distinctive services which the other professions can contribute to marital counseling, as these professions should be acquainted with the role of the minister. There is need for the various professional groups to come to an understanding of the overlapping of their services in marital counseling as well as the distinctive features which each has to offer. The need of cooperation and sharing of resources among these professions is essential to a well rounded marital counseling service. An inquiry was used to learn what ministers of the United Lutheran Church are doing in the field of marriage counseling. Five hundred questionnaires were sent, of which 276 were returned and 260 were usable for statistical evaluation. The survey indicated that 46.2% of the ministers always hold pre-marital conferences with couples, while 36.2% occasionally do. In these conferences the chief considerations are: church membership, 92.7 %; family altar, 63.5%; expectations from marriage, 63.5%; common interests, 61.2%; differences of opinion, 57.3%; and role of forgiveness, 50.4%. Less than 50% counsel with couples concerning any phase of sex. There is a wide range of books and pamphlets used in marriage counseling. In the educational program, 43.1% of the ministers have discussions in family living for the high school age group and 22.7% for the college age group. Little or nothing is being done for married couples through the educational program of the church. The marital problems which the minister feels the most prevalent are religious differences, alcoholism, infidelity, and emotional irmnaturity. The counseling procedures used vary from giving authoritarian advice to listening quietly to help the counselee come to some solution of his problem. Seventy-eight percent of the ministers feel they are just average in their counseling success and many feel the desirability of having more training and experience in this field. The minister should have a comprehension of the emotional and psychological problems of marital life. These factors include the psychological effect of environment, interpersonal relations in the marital unit, interpersonal relations with others, attitudes of the marital unit, financial matters, and spiritual considerations. The minister needs to appreciate the dynamics of psychological factors of marital adjustment, so he can challenge couples in their preparation for marriage and more adequately deal with problems that arise in marriage. Beceuse marriage is an interpersonal relationship, the counseling approach of two pioneering interpersonal psychologists is considered. These men are Sullivan, who gives an analytical approach and Moreno, whose tachnique is psychodrama. These techniques can be incorporated in the therapy of the minister in marriage counseling. The minister can use Sullivan's technique by interpreting to the counselee how his interpersonal relationships have developed from the time of birth so as to cause present marital difficulties. He can use the psychodrama of Moreno to help the counselee act out on a stage his problems and their possible solutions. Rogers' technique of nondirective counseling is also useful. The minister who uses this technique assists the counselee to obtain release of pent up tensions, to see the problem in a larger perspective, and to make and carry out his owm decisions. Tests may provide another dimension in marital counseling. Personality tests such as the Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach, and Bernreuter tests may diagnose emotional tendencies significant in marriage. Burgess' and Cottrell's marriage prediction test as well as marital adjustment tests by Adams and Popenoe may be used as guides in self-analysis. These tests should be used only by the minister who has the experience or personnel available to interpret them properly. The main value of tests is to stimulate the discussion of the factors which are apparently revealed in them. The minister can prepare himself for marriage counseling as he realizes the vital role which he can fill in assisting with personality adjustments leading to marital happiness. He can study the best scientific techniques and seek to adapt them to the treatment of problems he faces in counseling. Several conclusions are drawn from this study of the role of the minister in marriage counseling. 1. The minister is in a unique position to do marriage counseling. Couples come to him to perform their marriage service which gives him the opportunity to counsel with them. The minister's position is unique for he represents one profession that can go into homes without being called. During his pastoral visiting he will come across many marital tensions which he can help to alleviate. The married minister with a family is in a position to encourage through example. In developing a happy and well adjusted home and family life of his own, he can have a psychological effect upon those of his parish. 2 . The minister is in a strategic position to be a therapeutic agent. He has a weekly audience to whom he speaks and to whom he can expound the Christian conceptions and attitudes which are needed in pre-marital and marital relationships. The minister has several organizations in the church which offer continuous educational services. He can encourage them to conduct a series of meetings on the problems of family living which are of interest to each age group. He can suggest programs, literature, and speakers for the various meetings. This educational aspect of his work gives the minister an opportunity to develop a program of help prevent marital discord and maladjustment. 3. The minister needs training to recognize maladjusted individuals who need counseling in family adjustment. He needs to have an understanding of the emotional problems which are involved in courtship and marriage, and of the dynamics of the adjustments which take place in marriage. He needs training in techniques of counseling so he will be able to offer a counseling approach from the basic concepts which will be effective in a variety of problems. 4. The minister may serve as a referral agent and lead in the orchestration of community resources for better family living. By recognizing his inability to cope with the unconscious dynamics of the more involved marital situations, the minister is not building up false hope or claims that he will be able to prescribe a workable solution for every problem. When the problem is beyond his ability to help, he will have suggestions as to where the counselee can secure possible assistance. 5. There is a need for adequate literature which the minister can use in marriage counseling to enlighten couples of their marital responsibilities and opportunities for domestic happiness. Likewise, the minister needs to be acquainted with the best which is being written. He will want to build a library of these books for his own instruction and use with those who come to seek his help. 6. Theological seminaries and graduate schools should offer facilities to prepare ministers to be more adequate in marital counseling. It is the responsibility of church bodies to see that the minister is professionally competent in this urgent field of pastoral counseling. The minister is often placed in the role of a marriage counselor. He who is equipped with skillful counseling techniques and a knowledge of the emotional factors involved in marital problems can make a distinct contribution toward stability and harmony in the home

Identifying the First Person

Wide agreement exists that self-ascriptions that one would express with the first-person pronoun differ in kind from those one would express with other self-designating expressions such as proper names and definite descriptions. At least some first-person self-ascriptions, many argue, are nonaccidental—that is, they involve no self-identification, and hence in making them one cannot accidentally misidentify the subject of the ascription. I examine the support for this claim throughout the literature, paying particular attention to Sydney Shoemaker\u27s proposal that self-ascriptions are nonaccidental in virtue of being immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun. According to Shoemaker, such immunity results from the special way in which one is introspectively aware of the psychological property or state ascribed, a way that leaves no room for questions to arise as to whether oneself is its bearer. I contend that though it may seem from the point of view of consciousness that we are directly and immediately aware of the states of our bodies and minds as our own, both theoretical and empirical considerations strongly suggests that we have no such direct awareness. Proprioception and introspection prove in the end to be better described as types of informed, conscious self-interpretation. Taking inspiration from Dennett, Rosenthal, and Nozick, I offer the naive proposal as an alternative that explains all self-ascriptions in terms of one\u27s relying upon a battery of commonsense self-specifying beliefs to interpret both which state or property one has and who has it. As a result, first-person self-ascriptions differ from others only in degree and not in kind, and self-misidentification always remains a possibility—even when self-ascribing properties with the first-person pronoun

Contributing to integrated sustainable development through a transnational law approach. Exploiting the linkages between economic, environmental and human rights legal regimes as applied to hydropower projects on the Mekong River

Unsustainability is often linked with to extreme trade-offs and imbalances between the different interests of a plurality of actors, scales and regimes. The objective of integration tackles the need to address this growing diversification and multiplication within decision-making/governance. The transboundary nature of these elements of governance often complicates and heightens the challenge of integration. The aim of this thesis is therefore to study the way international law can contribute to this objective. Its participation to implementing integrated sustainable development depends (itself) on its suitability and capacity to address legal pluralism. However, such integrated approach is not effectively provided by traditional international law. Its limited and strict legal classifications and scope related to the State create a key challenge to embracing legal pluralism and integration. This thesis suggests a new approach and insights to this inquiry through the concept of transnational law (TNL). Its unique pluralist, holistic and interconnected approach is explored and developed to measure up to the objective of integration. The design of an analytical framework built on the conceptual underpinnings of TNL helps developing this reflection and to go beyond its theoretical understanding. In addition, a case study of hydropower in the Lower Mekong River Basin and transboundary water management offers interesting conditions to apply and test TNL. TNL allows to envision a different/broader approach to legal pluralism and to the growing transboundary issues within sustainable development. The concept also suggests a way international law can make a stronger and more relevant contribution to the objective of integration

The co-constitution of technobodies' sex-gendered materiality: multiple trans* becomings.

440 p.La presente Tesis Doctoral analiza la co-constitución orgánico-tecnológico-discursivo-material del sexogénero de los tecnocuerpos animales no humanos y sobre todo humanos. Somos tecnocuerpos en tanto que nuestros y más que nuestros sexo-géneros están hormonal y xenoestrogénicamente co-constituidos.Las hormonas y los xenoestrógenos, desde su mutua implicación y sobrepasamiento, son uno de los elementos tecnológicos principales, que no únicos, que co-constituyen dicha materialidad sexogenerizada,en el Capitaloceno neoliberal. Debido a la importancia que las hormonas han adquirido en losdiscursos que conceptualizan el sexo-género, en su definición misma y dentro del paradigma sexogenérico, afirmamos el paso de la Edad de las Gónadas a la Edad de las Hormonas. Pero el carácter sexogenéricode las hormonas puede y debe disputarse. Desde la excesiva relevancia otorgada a las mismaspor diversos discursos científicos y neurocientíficos, que postulan un relato determinista biológico de lasidentidades sexo-generizadas, basado en el dimorfismo sexual cerebral programado y fijado en útero, y conceptualizan la transexualidad como trastorno, problema y anomalía, basado en la inversión dedeterminadas zonas cerebrales, su número de neuronas y/o la incoherencia entre el sexo cerebral y genital, todas ellas hormonalmente prefijadas en estadios pre y neonatales, ofrecemos un relato de lasidentidades trans* y de las identidades sexo-generizadas más ampliamente, desde la idea de norma dereacción, y desde el entrelazamiento de la performatividad del género y la teoría de los sistemas deldesarrollo, en la que estas son conceptualizadas como múltiples, contextuales, relacionales y en devenir