Justifying Conceptual Development Claims: response to van Haaften

This paper is a response to van Haaften's attempt to build 'a natural bridge from "is" to "ought"' and in doing so to provide a general account of how, in developmental theory, a claim that 'a later stage in conceptual development is somehow better or more adequate than preceding ones' can itself be justified. The account by van Haaften violates the 'seems justified/is justified' distinction and embroils him in a problematic form of relativism. This paper offers an alternative account of such claims in terms of stage-independent criteria of adequacy.     

Apples and Oranges: A Rejoinder to Smith and Siegel

This article reiterates the view that belief and knowledge can be conflated based on having a common form. The pedagogical advantage is that teachers are less likely to close off student discussions needed to help students develop an understanding of the characteristics and limitations of scientific knowledge. It is also less likely that a teacher's non-scientific presuppositions will be masked as science. The Smith and Siegel stipulated criteria for a distinction between belief and knowledge are, therefore, irrelevant to my argument. It is not that one can't stipulate criteria for distinguishing belief and knowledge; it is that for sound pedagogical reasons one shouldn't.     

从“失败国家”到“脆弱国家”:概念发展与政策演变

过去二十年,国家功能的失效和衰退问题被视为安全和发展援助领域的重大挑战.20世纪60年代的民主化、现代化危机和80年代末大量的内战冲突使“失败国家”进入政策视野.“脆弱国家”概念则由发展援助机构提出和推广使用.20世纪90年代末对发展—安全联结的热烈讨论,使“脆弱国家”框架开始纳入安全维度.作为国家机制衰败的极端表现,“失败国家”也出现被并入内涵更大、更易被接受的“脆弱国家”概念的趋向,特别是在发展、人道主义援助与建设和平领域.不论“失败国家”还是“脆弱国家”,都加大了西方干预的可能性,存在很多问题和改进的空间,尤其要打破两个概念背后所蕴含的西方中心主义迷恋,真正地关注“当地”.     

伽达默尔与相对主义

伽达默尔哲学解释学努力构建一种不同于传统符合论、融贯论的真理观，所强调效果历史意识，视域融合，理解的多元性、差异性和未完成性，往往缺乏对“一致”、“共识”和“一元”的理论论证和重视，容易导向相对主义。但我们应该看到伽达默尔强调只有坚定地站在有限性的基础上，才能驱除相对主义的阴影。在伽达默尔学术晚期，强调相互理解与相互认同的“语言共同体”，转变了相对主义思想倾向。     

Summing Up Our Differences: A Reply to Siegel

This is a brief rejoinder to Harvey Siegel’s ‘Dangerous Dualisms or Murky Monism? A Reply to Jim Garrison’ (35·4), which was itself a critical response to my own recent paper in this journal (33·2). This is an attempt to sum up the key points of the Deweyan pragmatism that I argue for, and hence those that Siegel opposes. It is not an attempt to settle the debate, but rather to clarify our differences.     

Cross-Cultural Awareness Development: A Conceptual Model

Stages in the development of cross-cultural awareness are outlined, including similarities and differences in the experiences of majority and minority groups.     

Conceptual Development and Information-Processing: A Study of Teachers

Abstract

This study examined the effects of three self-instructional approaches of teaching diagnostic problem-solving (troubleshooting). Two of the approaches attempted to simulate student-equipment interaction via programmed and text instruction while a third approach utilized actual equipment. After forty-five community college students received an orientation to equipment operation, fifteen were randomly assigned to each of the three treatments. Criterion variables included troubleshooting knowledge, troubleshooting performance, and attitude toward instruction received. Results indicated that the equipment approach was superior to non-equipment simulation approaches in terms of troubleshooting performance outcomes. Correlational analyses of criterion variables provided some evidence that relationships between attitude and behavior were dependent upon the instructional approach used.     

The Application of Moral Judgments to Other Cultures: Relativism and Universality

This study examined how moral judgments are applied to events in other cultures. It was hypothesized that subjects make both universal and relativistic judgments, contingent on the types of beliefs held in the culture to which the moral judgments were applied. It was furthermore expected that subjects would be both relativists and universalists at all ages. 72 subjects (aged 11–9, 15–10, and 21–3 years) were asked to apply moral judgments which they had made about a familiar context to 2 types of cultures, 1 where different informational beliefs were held and 1 where different moral beliefs were held. The results confirmed the hypotheses. Most subjects, at all ages, contextualized their moral judgments when they applied them to cultures with different informational beliefs but made nonrelativistic judgments with respect to cultures with opposing moral beliefs. Furthermore, subjects justified their relativistic judgments on informational grounds and their nonrelativistic judgments on moral grounds. These findings demonstrated that nonrelativistic and relativistic thinking coexist throughout a wide age range and underscored the need to distinguish between moral and nonmoral relativism when studying developmental patterns in the moral domain.     

儿童概念的发展与教育

与皮亚杰认知发展阶段理论不同,现有大量研究表明儿童有着自己的朴素理论,能进行抽象概念的学习,并像成人一样,运用概念进行归纳推理,扩大认识范围.在具体教育实践中,教师应重视儿童概念的已有发展水平,积极促进儿童意义分类能力的发展,并善于利用变式帮助儿童纠正概念错误.