Partindo das reflexões de Habermas e sua concepção de modernidade, compreendida como um projeto inacabado, Giddens salienta que, em todas as sociedades, a manutenção da identidade pessoal e sua conexão com identidades sociais mais amplas é um requisito primordial para a segurança ontológica. Para alcançar a segurança ontológica, a modernidade teve que (re)inventar tradições e se afastar de "tradições genuínas", isto é, aqueles valores radicalmente vinculados ao passado pré moderno. Este é um caráter de descontinuidade da modernidade - a separação (...) entre o que se apresenta como o novo e o que persiste como herança do velho. É sobre a relação entre tradição e modernidade e sobre um diálogo entre Giddens e Habermas que trata este texto. O objetivo é identificar os pontos de contato e as diferenças das teses defendidas por ambos, a fim de avaliar as contribuições de cada um para se pensar a racionalização das sociedades contemporâneas. A modernidade tardia ou reflexiva é um processo de mudanças ininterruptas que afetam as bases da sociedade ocidental. Frente a uma realidade em constante alteração, faz-se necessário escolher entre uma certeza do passado e uma nova realidade, em contínua mutação. Nesse sentido, e segundo a perspectiva habermasiana, o caráter reflexivo da modernidade está nesse processo de escolha entre as certezas herdadas do passado e as novas formas sociais que conduz à reflexão ou, até mesmo, à reformulação das práticas sociais, provocando a racionalização e a (re)invenção de diversos aspectos da vida em sociedade. (shrink)

Partindo das reflexões de Habermas e sua concepção de modernidade, compreendida como um projeto inacabado, Giddens salienta que, em todas as sociedades, a manutenção da identidade pessoal e sua conexão com identidades sociais mais amplas é um requisito primordial para a segurança ontológica. Para alcançar a segurança ontológica, a modernidade teve que (re)inventar tradições e se afastar de "tradições genuínas", isto é, aqueles valores radicalmente vinculados ao passado pré-moderno. Este é um caráter de descontinuidade da modernidade - a separação entre (...) o que se apresenta como o novo e o que persiste como herança do velho. É sobre a relação entre tradição e modernidade e sobre um diálogo entre Giddens e Habermas que trata este texto. O objetivo é identificar os pontos de contato e as diferenças das teses defendidas por ambos, a fim de avaliar as contribuições de cada um para se pensar a racionalização das sociedades contemporâneas. A modernidade tardia ou reflexiva é um processo de mudanças ininterruptas que afetam as bases da sociedade ocidental. Frente a uma realidade em constante alteração, faz-se necessário escolher entre uma certeza do passado e uma nova realidade, em contínua mutação. Nesse sentido, e segundo a perspectiva habermasiana, o caráter reflexivo da modernidade está nesse processo de escolha entre as certezas herdadas do passado e as novas formas sociais que conduz à reflexão ou, até mesmo, à reformulação das práticas sociais, provocando a racionalização e a (re)invenção de diversos aspectos da vida em sociedade. Based on the reflections of Habermas and his conception of modernity, understood as an unfinished project, Giddens stresses that in all societies the maintenance of personal identity and its connection to broader social identities is a primordial requirement for ontological security. To achieve ontological security, modernity had to (re) invent traditions and get away from "genuine traditions", that is, those values ​​radically linked to the pre-modern past. This is a character of the discontinuity of modernity, the separation between what is presented as the new and that which persists as the legacy of the old. This article discusses the relationship between tradition and modernity and the dialogue between Giddens and Habermas. The goal is to identify the points of contact and the differences in the theses defended by both authors, in order to assess their contributions to discussions of the rationalization of contemporary societies. Late or reflexive modernity is an uninterrupted process of changes that affect the foundations of Western society. Faced with a reality of constant change, it is necessary to choose between the certainty of the past and a new reality of continuous change. In this sense, and according to the Habermasian perspective, the reflexive character of modernity is found in this process of choosing between the certainties inherited from the past and new social forms, a process that that leads to the reflection on - or even the recasting of - social practices, causing the rationalization and (re) invention of various aspects of life in society. (shrink)

Engineers encounter difficult ethical problems in their practice and in research. In many ways, these problems are like design problems: they are complex, often ill-defined; resolving them involves an iterative process of analysis and synthesis; and there can be more than one acceptable solution. This book offers a real-world, problem-centered approach to engineering ethics, using a rich collection of open-ended scenarios and case studies to develop skill in recognizing and addressing ethical issues.

Steven French and Decio Krause examine the metaphysical foundations of quantum physics. They draw together historical, logical, and philosophical perspectives on the fundamental nature of quantum particles and offer new insights on a range of important issues. Focusing on the concepts of identity and individuality, the authors explore two alternative metaphysical views; according to one, quantum particles are no different from books, tables, and people in this respect; according to the other, they most certainly are. Each view comes with certain (...) costs attached and after describing their origins in the history of quantum theory, the authors carefully consider whether these costs are worth bearing. Recent contributions to these discussions are analyzed in detail and the authors present their own original perspective on the issues. The final chapter suggests how this perspective can be taken forward in the context of quantum field theory. (shrink)

Le livre de Caroline Petit, Galien de Pergame ou la rhétorique de la Providence, constitue la première étude d’ensemble du rôle de la rhétorique dans l’œuvre de Galien, aux sources du discours médical et scientifique, et de l’autobiographie intellectuelle. Caroline Petit’s Galien de Pergame ou la rhétorique de la Providence is the first comprehensive study of the role of rhetoric in Galen’s oeuvre, a cornerstone of medical and scientific discourse and of intellectual autobiography in the West.

Retraçant sont itinéraire philosophique dans Beau Voyage, quelques mois avant sa mort, Maurice Pradines (1874-1958) résume sa philosophie de la sensation par cet adage: "Nihil est in sensu quod non prius fuerit in intellectu". Pour l'auteur de la Philosophie de la sensation, la sensation est, en effet, originairement intelligente: elle n'a de légitimité biologique qu'en tant qu'elle donne quelque chose à comprendre. Renvoyant dos-à-dos le sensualisme (qui construit l'intelligence sur une sensation denué d'esprit) et le rationalisme (qui prétend trouver l'esprit (...) dans une raison transcendante), Pradines inscrit l'intentionalité au cœur de la physiologie de la sensation. Percevoir, pour un vivant, c'est d'abord percevoir quelque chose qui intéresse la vie, à savoir un danger à écarter ou un objet à conquérir. Aussi n'est-il guère surprenant que le sens ultime de la sensation soit l'espace: elle est le signe d'une distance à déployer ou, au contraire, à réduire. Les phénomènes psychiques ne peuvent être des données immédiates puisqu'ils font sens dans la stricte mesure où l'espace les élabore en même temps qu'il se construit. Les fondements d'une psychologie conséquente peuvent, dès lors, être posés. Elle consistera à saisir la genèse de l'esprit à partir du sens biologique de la sensation, c'est-à-dire d'une spatialité pensée elle-même comme "genèse première". (shrink)

Inspired by Voltaire's advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century authors, from the most famous philosophers of the age to those whose brilliant writings are less well-known. These passages are immensely diverse in style and topic, but all have in common a passionate commitment to equality, freedom, and tolerance. Each text resonates powerfully with the issues our world faces today. Tolerance was first published by the Société française (...) d'étude du dix-huitième siècle (the French Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in January 2015 as an act of solidarity and as a response to the surge of interest in Enlightenment values. With the support of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, it has now been translated by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

The Metaphysics of Experience styles itself as "a Sherpa guide to Process and Reality, whose function is to assist the serious reader in grasping the meaning of the text and to prevent falls into misinterpretation." Although originally published in 1925, Process and Reality has perhaps even more relevance to the contemporary scene in physics, biology, psychology, and the social sciences than it had in the mid-twenties. Hence its internal difficulty, its quasi-inaccessibility, is all the more tragic, since, unlike most metaphysical (...) endeavors, it is capable of interpretating and unifying theories in the above sciences in terms of an organic world view, instead of selecting one theory as the paradigm and reducing all others to it. Because Alfred North Whitehead is so crucial to modern philosophy, The Metaphysics of Experience plays an important role in making Process and Reality accessible to a wider readership. (shrink)

Le « Bulletin bibliographique de philosophie politique et sociale » est réalisé pour la revue Philosophique par une équipe de rédactrices et de rédacteurs. Il est coordonné par Caroline Guibet Lafaye (CNRS) et Fabien Ferri (université de Franche-Comté) au sein du Centre de Documentation et de Bibliographie Philosophiques de l’université de Franche-Comté (UR 2274 CDBP – Logiques de l’agir), et propose de brèves recensions d’ouvrages récemment parus, réparties dans diverses rubriques thématique...

Climate change and decarbonization raise complex justice questions that researchers and policymakers must address. The distributions of greenhouse gas emissions rights and mitigation efforts have dominated justice discourses within scenario research, an integrative element of the IPCC. However, the space of justice considerations is much larger. At present, there is no consistent approach to comprehensively incorporate and examine justice considerations. Here we propose a conceptual framework grounded in philosophical theory for this purpose. We apply this framework to climate mitigation scenarios (...) literature as proof of concept, enabling a more holistic and multidimensional investigation of justice. We identify areas of future research, including new metrics of service provisioning essential for human well-being. [Can be freely read by clicking the ReadCube link below.]. (shrink)

Up Against Foucault offers both a feminist critique of Foucauldian theories as well as an attempt to reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. Feminists are often "up against Foucault" because he questions key conclusions in feminism regarding the nature of gender relations, and men's possession of power. This book, however, fills the gap in literature about Foucault by showing how his theories of sexuality and power relations are often applicable to the everyday realities of women's lives. Drawing upon their diverse backgrounds (...) in social theory and philosophy, the contributors discuss the ways in which Foucault provokes feminists into questioning their grasp of power relations, and examines the implications of his decision to overlook categories of gender in his discussion of sexuality and power relations. They also show that in spite of his lack of interest in gender, Foucault's ways of understanding the control of women and female sexuality ultimately have much to offer feminism. (shrink)

If, as many suppose, pornography changes people, a question arises as to how.1 One answer to this question offers a grand and noble vision. Inspired by the idea that pornography is speech, and inspired by a certain liberal ideal about the point of speech in political life, some theorists say that pornography contributes to that liberal ideal: pornography, even at its most violent and misogynistic, and even at its most harmful, is political speech that aims to express certain views about (...) the good life, 2aims to persuade its consumers of a certain political point of view—and to some extent succeeds in persuading them. Ronald Dworkin suggests that the pornographer contributes to the ‘moral environment, by expressing his political or social convictions or tastes or prejudices informally’, that pornography ‘seeks to deliver’ a ‘message’ , that it reflects the ‘opinion’ that ‘women are submissive, or enjoy being dominated, or should be treated as if they did’, that it is comparable to speech ‘advocating that women occupy inferior roles’.3 Pornography on this view is political speech that aims to persuade its listeners of the truth of certain ideas about women, and of course ‘the government must leave to the people the evaluation of ideas’.4 Another answer offers a vision that is not grand and noble, but thoroughly reductive. Pornography is not politically persuasive speech, but speech that works by a process of psychological conditioning. This view seems common enough in the social science literature. Consider, for example, this description of an early experiment, from a time that pre-dates contemporary political debate. (shrink)

Le « Bulletin bibliographique de philosophie politique et sociale » est réalisé pour la revue Philosophique par une équipe de rédactrices et de rédacteurs. Il est coordonné par Caroline Guibet Lafaye (CNRS) et Fabien Ferri (Université de Franche-Comté) au sein de Centre de Documentation et de Bibliographie Philosophiques de l’Université de Franche-Comté (UR 2274 CDBP–Logiques de l’Agir), et propose de brèves recensions d’ouvrages récemment parus, réparties dans diverses rubriques thématiques....

This collection, first published in 2000, brings together essays by some of the most prominent scholars currently writing in commercial law theory. The essays address the foundations of efficiency analysis as the dominant theoretical paradigm in contemporary corporate and commercial law scholarship. Some of the questions addressed in the volume are: What are the historical roots of efficiency analysis in contract, sales, and corporate law? Is moral theory irrelevant to efficiency analysis in these areas; if relevant, are morality and efficiency (...) compatible? Even if efficiency is otherwise reasonable as a normative goal in corporate and commercial law, does the complexity of efficiency make it practical to administer in adjudication? What is the best way of pursuing efficiency in corporate and commercial law? The volume reflects the most exciting work being done in contemporary legal theory. It will be of interest to professionals and students in law and philosophy of law. (shrink)

This article aims to serve as an introductory discussion of the European Continental tradition of pedagogics, specifically from a North American perspective. It begins with an overview of the Continental tradition and its main figures. Here, we find a philosophical and, thus, language-sensitive attitude toward the human, the child; and a specific pedagogical terminology, i.e., descriptions and interpretations about the reality of education, such as educational practices, goals, norms, and organizational forms of educational institutions. John Dewey's educational theories exemplify the (...) North American perspective on Continental pedagogics and its study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. Dewey's writings diverge notably from this tradition, as he integrated into his work American pragmatism and an interest in the scientific method, an interest that plays a role in today's policy trends in the United States and elsewhere. Then again, Dewey took a critical stand toward instrumentalizing pedagogics for political aims. On this point, the German-born political philosopher Hannah Arendt agreed with him. As Arendt can be seen as an example of a Continental perspective on philosophy that includes a strong warning to separate politics and education, she relates to Dewey's argument against instrumentalization. Thus, this article also features some of her work. The overall intention is to contribute to a renewal of a language for pedagogics by delineating a historical-philosophical perspective on this specific field of professional practice. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as (...) longstanding debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as (...) longstanding debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the notion of what I term ‘uncanny water’ as a conceptual tool for reading contemporary oceanic fictions. The uncanny’s affective capacity to destabilise epistemological and ontological certainties makes it a particularly potent literary tool for challenging the nature/culture binary. I argue that fictions which actively defamiliarise the ocean can be used to redress the anthropocentric privilege found in hitherto narratives of the oceanic that were predicated upon mastery and control, and that uncanny moments of (...) displacement and uncertainty can illuminate human/oceanic interconnections and foster a sense of responsibility and compassion towards the oceans. I identify resonances between the uncanny’s continuing referentiality and the notion that feminist transcorporeality interrelates the subject into networks of materiality which extend across time and space in unknowable ways. Both transcorporeality and the uncanny work against the conceit of the individual through the dissolution of boundaries, and, crucially, both require a suspension of assumptions of the self as whole, discrete and impermeable. To demonstrate this, I read the uncanny waters of contemporary fictions from the Northern Atlantic Littoral (Atlantic Canada and the westernmost parts of the UK). The littoral position of these spaces makes them ideally placed to negotiate the borders between habitable and unhabitable spaces, and the limitations of knowledge that run alongside this. I assert that iterations of uncanny water offer a transoceanic dialogue which shifts constructions of subjectivity away from national and terrestrial boundaries to one more akin to the fluid and relational dialectics of transcorporeality. (shrink)

A cause is proportional to its effect when, roughly speaking, it is at the right level of detail. There is a lively debate about whether proportionality is a necessary condition for causation. One of the main arguments against a proportionality constraint on causation is that many ordinary and seemingly perfectly acceptable causal claims cite causes that are not proportional to their effects. In this paper, I suggest that proponents of a proportionality constraint can respond to this objection by developing an (...) idea that is present in Yablo’s early work on proportionality, but which has strangely been ignored by both Yablo and others in the subsequent debate. My suggestion is that proportionality—and, indeed, causation itself—is relative to a domain of events. At the metaphysical level, this means that the causal relation has an extra relatum—namely, a domain of events. At the level of language, it introduces a new way in which causal claims are context-sensitive: what is expressed by a causal claim depends on the contextually relevant domain of events. As I argue, this suggestion allows us to accommodate the truth of ordinary causal claims while extending the explanatory benefits of a proportionality constraint. (shrink)

In Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation, Iris Marion Young describes the lived bodily experience of women who have “chosen” their pregnancies. In this essay, Lundquist underscores the need for a more inclusive phenomenology of pregnancy. Drawing on sources in literature, psychology, and phenomenology, she offers descriptions of the cryptic phenomena of rejected and denied pregnancy, indicating the vast range of pregnancy experience and illustrating substantial phenomenological differences between “chosen” and unwanted pregnancies.

Research in the U. S. on fair trade consumption is sparse. Therefore, little is known as to what motivates U. S. consumers to buy fair trade products. This study sought to determine which values are salient to American fair trade consumption. The data were gathered via a Web-based version of the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) and were gleaned from actual consumers who purchase fair trade products from a range of Internet-based fair trade retailers. This study established that indeed there are (...) significant interactions between personal values and fair trade consumption and that demographics proved to be useless in creating a profile of the American fair trade consumer. (shrink)

Viewing animals as a disposable resource is by no means novel, but does milking the cow for all its worth now represent a previously unimaginable level of exploitation? New technology has intensified milk production fourfold over the last 50 years, rendering the cow vulnerable to various and frequent clinical interventions deemed necessary to meet the demands for dairy products. A major question is whether or not the veterinary code of practice fits, or is in ethical tension, with the administration of (...) ‘efficient’ techniques, such as artificial insemination, to enhance reproduction levels among cattle? Vets perform these interventions and their ‘success’ is measured by the maximisation of milk production, requiring perpetually pregnant cows. Our empirical research on 33 farm vets explores how their professional ethical code promising to protect the welfare of the animal ‘above all else’, is increasingly in conflict with, and subordinate to, the financial demands of clients. Since vets cannot stand outside of the productive power–knowledge relations that have intensified the consumption of animal bodily parts and secretions, we argue that a process of adiaphorization’ occurs, whereby humans become morally indifferent to cruel practices deemed necessary to our consumerist ways of life. However, this indifference reflects and reinforces a taken-for-granted anthropocentrism among vets, animal owners and the population generally. We suggest that posthumanist ideas may offer new insights for the study of human–animal relations in organisations that transcend the coercive and negative impact of discourses that deny any alternative to prevailing farm/veterinary practices. Our study has major implications in relation to climate warming and zoonotic diseases, both partly derived from our unethical relationship to animals, that are increasingly threatening our, and their, lives. (shrink)

Plus qu'un ouvrage concernant les rapports ombrageux et controversés de l'art et de la pathologie, ce recueil est d'abord une rencontre, un creuset entre des champs, la clinique et la théorie qui, pour s'y confronter, excèdent les limites du " prêt-à-penser ". C'est pourquoi ici les divergences de méthodes et de perspectives entre des approches phénoménologique et psychanalytique ne dressent pas de strictes délimitations, mais font résonner des dissonances capables de laisser penser l'écart entre l'art et la pathologie comme établi (...) sur une entr'appartenance plus essentielle, ne livrant rien de son secret à celui qui s'en tient à des distinctions de principe. Encore faut-il entendre pathologie en son sens grec, au sens où la rencontre avec le monde ouvre, dans le réel, une brèche incolmatable dont seul l'art peut authentiquement rendre compte et dans laquelle la psychose s'engouffre si aucune mise en œuvre ne vient l'endiguer ou la ressourcer. " Aussi ne faut-il pas s'étonner que penser l'art et penser la folie puissent converger dans la mesure où ni l'un ni l'autre ne sont conceptualisables. Finalement, penser l'art ou penser la folie, c'est avoir ouverture à eux, à travers les œuvres, à travers les êtres malades et cela n'est possible précisément que dans une rencontre. Qu'est-ce qu'une rencontre? C'est cette situation qui n'a pas d'antécédent, qui n'a pas d'espace ni de temps qui puisse la précéder. L'épiphanie de quelqu'un dans le regard d'un autre implique nécessairement l'autophanie de celui-ci. L'échec de la rencontre, récusant tout passage lucide à l'ouvert, rejette le thérapeute sur sa facticité. C'est pour se dérober à l'épreuve sans partage de cette absence de soi, que la psychiatrie médicale, scientifico-médicale fait l'impasse sur la présence de l'autre, en objectivant tout ce qui touche à l'homme, en faisant de lui un cas particulier de cette objectivation universelle qui est la caractéristique de la culture de notre époque. ". (shrink)

This paper builds on existing research investigating CSR and ethical consumption within luxury contexts, and makes several contributions to the literature. First, it addresses existing knowledge gaps by exploring the ways in which consumers perform ethical luxury purchases of fine jewellery through interpretive research. Second, the paper is the first to examine such issues of consumer ethics by extending the application of theories of practice to a luxury product context, and by building on Magaudda’s :15–36, 2011) circuit of practice framework. (...) This is significant in that, to date, consumer research using practice theories has focused mainly on routine and habitual practices. Our findings and discussion provide an analysis of intentional and less intentional ethical consumer performances within the interconnected nexus of activities of consumers’ fine jewellery consumption practice, where meanings, understandings and intelligibility of social phenomena are worked through the various activities that shape such a practice. Finally, the paper concludes with significant managerial and policy-related implications, as our extended circuit of practice analysis conveys that if ethics and sustainability dimensions are to be embedded in fine jewellery consumption practice, they must first be made an intrinsic part of the nexus of the social and material environment of trading and consumption places. (shrink)

Psychologists say a measure has construct validity when it, in fact, measures the construct it is intended to measure. Construct validity is both an important notion in psychological research methods and the source of much confusion and debate among psychologists. I argue that this confusion arises, in part, because of a failure to distinguish between construct validity, a feature of measures relative to a construct, and construct legitimacy, a feature of the construct itself. I propose a prescriptive account of construct (...) validity on the basis of this distinction, then provide evidence for my account through two examples from research psychology. (shrink)

It is widely held that our beliefs can be epistemically faultless despite being morally flawed. Theories of moral encroachment challenge this, holding that moral considerations bear on the epistemic status of our attitudes. According to attitude-based theories of moral encroachment, morality encroaches upon the epistemic standing of our attitudes on the grounds that we can morally injure others with our epistemic practices. In this paper, I aim to show that current attitude-based theories have asymmetric mechanisms: moral features only make it (...) harder for attitudes to secure epistemic merits. I argue that, if attitudes can incur moral injury, failure to form attitudes can too. To make sense of this, I contend, attitude-based accounts require symmetric mechanisms, allowing that moral considerations make it both harder and easier for attitudes to attain epistemic merits. I maintain that, once we recognize this, attitude-based encroachment views must soon concede that they sometimes demand we believe against the evidence. (shrink)

In Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation, Iris Marion Young describes the lived bodily experience of women who have “chosen” their pregnancies. In this essay, Lundquist underscores the need for a more inclusive phenomenology of pregnancy. Drawing on sources in literature, psychology, and phenomenology, she offers descriptions of the cryptic phenomena of rejected and denied pregnancy, indicating the vast range of pregnancy experience and illustrating substantial phenomenological differences between “chosen” and unwanted pregnancies.

The ability to explain the occurrence of errors in children's speech is an essential component of successful theories of language acquisition. The present study tested some generativist and constructivist predictions about error on the questions produced by ten English-learning children between 2 and 5 years of age. The analyses demonstrated that, as predicted by some generativist theories [e.g. Santelmann, L., Berk, S., Austin, J., Somashekar, S. & Lust. B. (2002). Continuity and development in the acquisition of inversion in yes/no questions: (...) dissociating movement and inflection, Journal of Child Language, 29, 813-842], questions with auxiliary DO attracted higher error rates than those with modal auxiliaries. However, in wh-questions, questions with modals and DO attracted equally high error rates, and these findings could not be explained in terms of problems forming questions with why or negated auxiliaries. It was concluded that the data might be better explained in terms of a constructivist account that suggests that entrenched item-based constructions may be protected from error in children's speech, and that errors occur when children resort to other operations to produce questions [e.g. Dabrowska, E. (2000). From formula to schema: the acquisition of English questions. Cognitive Liguistics, 11, 83-102; Rowland, C. F. & Pine, J. M. (2000). Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh-question acquisition: What children do know? Journal of Child Language, 27, 157-181; Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press]. However, further work on constructivist theory development is required to allow researchers to make predictions about the nature of these operations. (shrink)