D. M. Armstrong is an eminent Australian philosopher whose work over many years has dealt with such subjects as: the nature of possibility, concepts of the particular and the general, causes and laws of nature, and the nature of human consciousness. This collection of essays explores the many facets of Armstrong's work, concentrating on his more recent interests. There are four sections to the book: possibility and identity, universals, laws and causality, and philosophy of mind. The contributors comprise an international (...) group of philosophers from the United States, England and Australia. An interesting feature of the volume is that Armstrong himself has written responses to each of the essays. There is also a complete bibliography of Armstrong's writings. (shrink)

Definite descriptions, I shall argue, have two possible functions. 1] They are used to refer to what a speaker wishes to talk about, but they are also used quite differently. Moreover, a definite description occurring in one and the same sentence may, on different occasions of its use, function in either way. The failure to deal with this duality of function obscures the genuine referring use of definite descriptions. The best known theories of definite descriptions, those of Russell and Strawson, (...) I shall suggest, are both guilty of this. Before discussing this distinction in use, I will mention some features of these theories to which it is especially relevant. (shrink)

Previous research on associative learning has uncovered detailed aspects of the process, including what types of things are learned, how they are learned, and where in the brain such learning occurs. However, perceptual processes, such as stimulus recognition and identification, take time to unfold. Previous studies of learning have not addressed when, during the course of these dynamic recognition processes, learned representations are formed and updated. If learned representations are formed and updated while recognition is ongoing, the result of learning (...) may incorporate spurious, partial information. For example, during word recognition, words take time to be identified, and competing words are often active in parallel. If learning proceeds before this competition resolves, representations may be influenced by the preliminary activations present at the time of learning. In three experiments using word learning as a model domain, we provide evidence that learning reflects the ongoing dynamics of auditory and visual processing during a learning event. These results show that learning can occur before stimulus recognition processes are complete; learning does not wait for ongoing perceptual processing to complete. (shrink)

At 14 months, children appear to struggle to apply their fairly well-developed speech perception abilities to learning similar sounding words (e.g., bih/dih; Stager & Werker, 1997). However, variability in nonphonetic aspects of the training stimuli seems to aid word learning at this age. Extant theories of early word learning cannot account for this benefit of variability. We offer a simple explanation for this range of effects based on associative learning. Simulations suggest that if infants encode both noncontrastive information (e.g., cues (...) to speaker voice) and meaningful linguistic cues (e.g., place of articulation or voicing), then associative learning mechanisms predict these variability effects in early word learning. Crucially, this means that despite the importance of task variables in predicting performance, this body of work shows that phonological categories are still developing at this age, and that the structure of noninformative cues has critical influences on word learning abilities. (shrink)

Research into learners' ideas aboutscience suggests that school and collegestudents often hold alternative conceptionsabout `the atom'. This paper discusses whylearners acquire ideas about atoms which areincompatible with the modern scientificunderstanding. It is suggested that learners'alternative ideas derive – at least in part –from the way ideas about atoms are presented inthe school and college curriculum. Inparticular, it is argued that the atomicconcept met in science education is anincoherent hybrid of historical models, andthat this explains why learners commonlyattribute to atoms properties (...) (such as beingthe constituent particles of all substances, orof being indivisible and conserved inreactions) that more correctly belong to otherentities (such as molecules or sub-atomicparticles). Bachelard suggested that archaicscientific ideas act as `epistemologicalobstacles', and here it is argued thatanachronistic notions of the atom survive inthe chemistry curriculum. These conceptualfossils encourage learners to develop an`atomic ontology' (granting atoms `ontologicalpriority' in the molecular model of matter); tomake the `assumption of initial atomicity' whenconsidering chemical reactions; and to developan explanatory framework to rationalisechemical reactions which is based on thedesirability of full electron shells. Theseideas then act as impediments to thedevelopment of a modern chemical perspective onthe structure of matter, and an appreciation ofthe nature of chemical changes at the molecularlevel. (shrink)

This paper describes how the physics department of the University of Bristol grew from relative provincial obscurity to international stature. Emphasis is placed on the role of Arthur Tyndall, who as head of the department played a crucial role by attracting external funding to provide for and maintain modern laboratory facilities, through his skill in recruiting staff and his general management of resources. Such essentially entrepreneurial qualities, it is argued, were fundamental to the rapid expansion of Bristol physics and for (...) its emergence as a new centre of excellence. (shrink)

Constructivism has been a key referent for research into the learning of science for several decades. There is little doubt that the research into learners’ ideas in science stimulated by the constructivist movement has been voluminous, and a great deal is now known about the way various science topics may commonly be understood by learners of various ages. Despite this significant research effort, there have been serious criticisms of this area of work: in terms of its philosophical underpinning, the validity (...) of its most popular constructs, the limited scope of its focus, and its practical value to science teaching. This paper frames this area of work as a Lakatosian Research Programme (RP), and explores the major criticisms of constructivism from that perspective. It is argued that much of the criticism may be considered as part of the legitimate academic debate expected within any active RP, i.e. arguments about the auxiliary theory making up the ‘protective belt’ of the programme. It is suggested that a shifting focus from constructivism to ‘contingency in learning’ will allow the RP to draw upon a more diverse range of perspectives, each consistent with the existing hard core of the programme, which will provide potentially fruitful directions for future work and ensure the continuity of a progressive RP into learning science. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith restrict their definition of memory to “being about some past event,” which causes them to ignore the most common use of memory: everyday visual-motor tasks. New techniques make it possible to study memory in the context of these natural tasks with which memory is so tightly coupled. Memory can be more fully understood in the context of these actions.

This paper considers the nature of a curriculum as presented in formal curriculum documents, and the inherent difficulties of representing formal disciplinary knowledge in a prescription for teaching and learning. The general points are illustrated by examining aspects of a specific example, taken from the chemistry subject content included in the science programmes of study that are part of the National Curriculum in England. In particular, it is suggested that some statements in the official curriculum document are problematic if we (...) expect a curriculum to represent canonical disciplinary knowledge in an unambiguous and authentic manner. The paper examines the example of the requirement for English school children to be taught that chemical reactions take place in only three different ways and considers how this might be interpreted in terms of canonical chemistry and within the wider context of other curriculum statements, in order to make sense of neutralisation and precipitation reactions. It is argued that although target knowledge that is set out as the focus of teaching and learning cannot be identical to disciplinary knowledge, the English National Curriculum offers a representation of chemistry which distorts and confuses canonical ideas. It is suggested that the process of representing the disciplinary knowledge of chemistry as curriculum specifications is worthy of more scholarly attention. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. The first is to use contemporary discussions of naïve realist theories of perception to offer an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception. The second is to use consideration of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception to outline a distinctive version of a naïve realist theory of perception. In a Merleau-Pontian spirit, these two aims are inter-dependent.

Margaret Cavendish was a contemporary critic of the mechanistic theories of matter that came to dominate seventeenth-century thought and the proponent of a distinctive form of non-mechanistic materialism. Colour was a central issue both to the mechanistic theories of matter that Cavendish opposed and to the non-mechanistic alternative that she defended. This chapter considers the form of colour realism that Cavendish developed to complement her non-mechanistic materialism, and uses her criticisms of contemporary views of colour to try to better understand (...) the experimental approach to natural philosophy associated with writers like Hooke and Boyle. Allen argues that Cavendish’s discussion of colour in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy helps to show that there was a close connection between experimental philosophy and mechanistic theories of matter, and that, at least in the middle of the seventeenth century, experimental and speculative forms of mechanism were not mutually exclusive. (shrink)

Rumination is a key feature of depression and contributes to its onset, maintenance, and recurrence. Researchers have proposed that biases in the attentional processing of emotional information may underlie rumination, and particularly, the brooding component. This investigation evaluated associations between attentional biases for emotional images and rumination, including both brooding and reflection, in currently and never depressed participants. In two separate studies, participants viewed sets of four emotional images (happy, sad, threatening, and neutral) for 8 s in a free-viewing eye-tracking (...) paradigm. In both studies, currently depressed individuals attended to happy face images and happy naturalistic images significantly less than never depressed individuals. In Study 2, currently depressed individuals attended to sad naturalistic images significantly more than never depressed individuals. There were no statistically significant associations between attentional biases and any of the forms of rumination, independent of their shared relationship with depression symptoms. These findings call into question the robustness of the link between attentional biases and rumination. (shrink)