Developmental dyslexia is considered to be most effectively addressed with preventive phonics-based interventions, including grapheme-phoneme coupling and blending exercises. These intervention types require intact speech perception abilities, given their large focus on exercises with auditorily presented phonemes. Yet some children with dyslexia experience problems in this domain due to a poorer sensitivity to rise times, i.e., rhythmic acoustic cues present in the speech envelope. As a result, the often subtle speech perception problems could potentially constrain an optimal response to phonics-based (...) interventions in at-risk children. The current study therefore aimed to extend existing research by examining the presence of potential speech perception deficits in pre-readers at cognitive risk for dyslexia when compared to typically developing peers and to explore the added value of a preventive auditory intervention for at-risk pre-readers, targeting rise time sensitivity, on speech perception and other reading-related skills. To obtain the first research objective, we longitudinally compared speech-in-noise perception between 28 5-year-old pre-readers with and 30 peers without a cognitive risk for dyslexia during the second half of the third year of kindergarten. The second research objective was addressed by exploring growth in speech perception and other reading-related skills in an independent sample of 62 at-risk 5-year-old pre-readers who all combined a 12-week preventive phonics-based intervention with an auditory story listening intervention. In half of the sample, story recordings contained artificially enhanced rise times, while in the other half, stories remained unprocessed. Results revealed a slower speech-in-noise perception growth in the at-risk compared to the non-at-risk group, due to an emerged deficit at the end of kindergarten. Concerning the auditory intervention effects, both intervention groups showed equal growth in speech-in-noise perception and other reading-related skills, suggesting no boost of envelope-enhanced story listening on top of the effect of combining GraphoGame-Flemish with listening to unprocessed stories. These findings thus provide evidence for a link between speech perception problems and dyslexia, yet do not support the potential of the auditory intervention in its current form. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer an additional perspective to the understanding of educational change processes by clarifying the significance of identity learning. Today’s innovations require changes in teachers’ professional identity. Identity learning involves a relation between social‐cognitive construction of new meanings and individual, emotional sense‐making of new experiences. This relationship between cognition and emotion asks for a strong learning environment: the question is whether schools provide these strong learning environments. To answer this question, the paper provides an (...) overview of the existing knowledge about schools as contexts for teacher learning and change. It will become clear that the emotional side of the change process has been overlooked. A model for identity learning is presented, involving both meaning‐giving and sense‐making. Building on this model, it is discussed how school leaders can build strategies for the identity learning of teachers. (shrink)

In psychotherapy research, treatment efficacy is commonly studied by means of self-report questionnaires to gain quantitative data on symptom development. The data serve as input for statistical analyses up to the level of evidence-based treatment. We analyzed how a patient in a psychotherapy study experienced the translation of her story into quantitative data by combining a phenomenological qualitative analysis of her therapeutic narrative and a visual analysis of her extensively annotated paper-andpencil questionnaires. Our findings provide a practical empirical illustration of (...) the nature and impact of known validity issues. Beyond, we found the act of questionnaire administration affected the primary complaint such that it became performative toward the symptoms under study. We discuss the epistemic consequences for the validity of data, and we argue that valid data collection requires qualitative scrutiny of meaning within data and a concept of validity that allows for consideration of performativity of data collection. (shrink)

Psychotherapy research is known for its pursuit of evidence-based treatment. Psychotherapeutic efficacy is assessed by calculation of aggregated differences between pre treatment- and post treatment symptom levels. As this ‘gold standard methodology’ is regarded as ‘procedurally objective’, the efficacy number that results from the procedure is taken as a valid indicator of treatment efficacy. However, I argue that the assumption of procedural objectivity is not justified, as the methodology is build upon a problematic numerical basis. I use an empirical case (...) study to show how measurement problems practically occur in the first step of data collection, i.e. in individual symptom measurement. These problems have been discussed and acknowledged for decades, but still measurement is regarded as the best epistemic means to gain evidence on psychotherapeutic efficacy. Therefore, I show how initial measurement problems are overlooked in the remainder of the methodological procedure, which harms the ‘evidence-base’ of psychotherapeutic EBT. Via this applied analysis, I exhibit concerns that are increasingly raised in the literature in an empirical way, to emphasize the need for a non-idealized consideration of the ‘gold standard methodology’ as a means towards its clinical end. (shrink)

With its focus on evidence, psychology has grown into a mature, professional, and scientifically supported practice over the last decades. In general, psychotherapy and psychological counselling have shown to be more efficacious than waiting it out and a staggering 350 specific treatments have been scientifically supported as effective. Although, evidencebased treatments seem to work equally well, not all people benefit from evidence-based treatments, and it often remains unclear why. This raised the field-wide concern of what works for whom and sparked (...) a wealth of research on specific ingredients, common factors, process factors, and intra- and... (shrink)

This dissertation is focused on the validity of “the data” that are collected in psychotherapy research for the purpose of evidencing treatment efficacy. In the ‘Evidence Based Treatment’ paradigm, researchers rely on the so-called ‘gold standard methodology’ to gather sound and trustworthy evidence, which increasingly influences the organization of mental health care worldwide. In the gold standard, data are collected by quantified self-report measures, to assess the presence and severity of symptoms before and after treatment. When the pre-post difference is (...) larger for a group of people that received the treatment of interest and a group of people who received no or an alternative treatment, the treatment of interest is called effective. In this methodological procedure, researchers tend to assume that when this gold standard methodology is conducted properly, “the data” will speak for themselves. However, when evidence is based on data, that evidence is principally limited by that data. In other words: output depends on input. That implies that when input is flawed, output will be flawed, even when the very best methods of analysis would be used. So what if “the data” yield validity issues despite being collected by validated measures? When “the data” do not straightforwardly evidence treatment effects, will the subsequent steps in the analysis of these data be enough to secure that the evidence in the end does evidence treatment efficacy? In this dissertation, the focus is turned to validity of “the data” that are concretely provided by patient-participants by scoring their own experienced symptoms in self-report questionnaires, in function of evidencing treatment efficacy. A series of empirical case studies were conducted to scrutinize how patient-participants in a randomized controlled psychotherapy study experienced the process of data collection, and how these experiences affected the data that they provided. Each of the studied patient-participants experienced a substantial effect of the questionnaire administration on their complaints. This impacted the level of complaints, but also changed the way in which the complaints were understood at all, and how patient-participants perceived themselves. Thus, rather than neutrally measuring symptoms, questionnaire administration changed the experienced complaints ‘performatively’, which turned measurement into a clinical intervention of its own. Consequently, what is measured cannot straightforwardly be called ‘treatment efficacy’, as it may be entangled with, enabled by or even obstructed by effects of measurement and research. Therefore, the act of measurement itself can pose a vital threat to the validity of “the data”. This way, the empirical case studies exhibited that data can yield validity problems despite the use of validated measures. Consequently, the validity of a measure as such is no guarantee for the validity of data. Nonetheless, in gold standard research, the data are straightforwardly taken as input for analyses of general treatment efficacy. The question is what happens with those validity issues on the level of individual data, when they pursue their journey towards becoming evidence. In this dissertation, it was argued that the validity issues are not sufficiently solved in the methodological steps after data collection, so when data are invalid in the beginning, these validity issues will simply become part of the data set that forms the input for analysis of the final evidence. This urges that validity issues should be solved on the level of individually provided data, as the validity issues will otherwise become inherent to “the data”. Put formally: valid data is a precondition for evidence in EBT. In conclusion, it is crucial for a sound evidence-base to scrutinize the validity of data in function of the overall goal and utility of the research. For this, it is important not to take “the data” as speaking for themselves, but to regard them as clinical narratives, which are framed in a specific format to be communicated between researcher and respondent in a research context. This emphasizes that the choice for a certain format determines what can be evidenced, so it is vital that these choices indeed allow for obtaining evidence that is useful and valid to serve the clinical goal of EBT. (shrink)

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research and (future) applications raise important ethical issues that need to be addressed to promote societal acceptance and adequate policies. Here we report on a survey we conducted among 145 BCI researchers at the 4th International BCI conference, which took place in May–June 2010 in Asilomar, California. We assessed respondents’ opinions about a number of topics. First, we investigated preferences for terminology and definitions relating to BCIs. Second, we assessed respondents’ expectations on the marketability of different BCI (...) applications (BCIs for healthy people, BCIs for assistive technology, BCIs-controlled neuroprostheses and BCIs as therapy tools). Third, we investigated opinions about ethical issues related to BCI research for the development of assistive technology: informed consent process with locked-in patients, risk-benefit analyses, team responsibility, consequences of BCI on patients’ and families’ lives, liability and personal identity and interaction with the media. Finally, we asked respondents which issues are urgent in BCI research. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Procreation with donor gametes is widespread and commonly accepted, but it involves ethical questions about the child's best interest. Understanding the historical structures of the moral discussion of gamete donation may contribute to reflecting on the child's best interest. This is why I have analysed the debate on gamete donation in the Netherlands, and this analysis has uncovered some striking discontinuities. Notions of the child's best interest have undergone a radical swing. In the past, it was considered acceptable to conceal (...) the truth about the child's biological origin, but in the past two decades the general opinion has changed to the common belief that this information should be shared with the child. This changed notion of the child's best interest will be analysed using a framework encompassing three views of the child, which derive from the debate on children's rights. These three views each provide a different interpretation of the child's moral and political status. I conclude that the changed notion of the child's best interest results from a view of the child that focuses on autonomy and citizenship, and which frames the child's interests according to its legal status. I comment on this view and I champion an alternative one, namely ‘the embedded child’. This is a relational view based on care ethics that goes beyond what can be articulated in law, and that will help to establish a more balanced interpretation of the child's best interest at the practice and policy levels of gamete donation. (shrink)

Studies concerning the relationship between religion and mental health have provided substantial evidence for the existence of a positive relationship. Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear which aspects of both religion and mental health take part in this relationship. The present study uses multiple measures of religion and of mental health to obtain a more refined view of this relationship. The results show the importance of distinguishing between if a person believes and how a person believes. Religious persons who have a (...) symbolic attitude towards religion scored higher on positive aspects of mental health. No significant results were found for negative mental health. (shrink)

As the West loses its political credibility, the search has opened for alternatives to neo-liberal parliamentary democracies, failing on their own scale of good governance. Several contemporary critical thinkers, such as Alain Badiou, turn towards a communist horizon. In this paper, we want to explore the idea of commons in contemporary Internet-based groups, as a quest for contemporary appearances of communism in the Badiouian sense. From wiki formats to the hacktivism of Anonymous, there are various Internet-based initiatives that are built (...) on a philosophy of open access to all, regardless of their identity, and a horizontal, rhizomatic organisation. We think that the organisational features of these initiatives make them suitable to carry out a struggle for new, more democratic political alternatives. (shrink)

Active ending of the life of a newborn baby is a crime. Yet its clandestine practise is a reality in several European countries. In this paper, we defend the necessity to institute a proper legal frame for what we define as active neonatal euthanasia. The only legal attempt so far, the Dutch Groningen protocol, is not satisfactory. We critically analyse this protocol, as well as several other clinical practises and philosophical stances. Furthermore, we have tried to integrate our opinions as (...) clinicians into a law project, with the purpose of pinpointing several issues, specific of perinatality that should be addressed by such a law. In conclusion, we argue that the legalisation of neonatal euthanasia under exceptional circumstances is the only way to avoid all the “well-intentioned” malpractices associated with ending life at the very dawn of it. (shrink)

The importance of memory as a metaphysical concept throughout the history of thought was first discovered by Plato and elaborated in his famous though controversial doctrine of recollection. Various myths and metaphors in the dialogues Phaedrusand Theaetetus refer to the divine origin of memory and the a priori nature of true ‘scientific’ knowledge, as different from the ‘second-hand’ knowledge acquired from external sources, as well as to the function of earthly beauty, which is to remind the soul of the eternal, (...) transcendent beauty of truth itself. The philosophical practice of recollection aims – as we read in the Phaedo– at turning away the mind from beguiling sensuous appeareances. It is an ascetic self-purification finally culminating in death, which is but the liberation of the soul from the bodily impediment, so that it can fly back to its homeland to be reunited with its divine origin, the transcendent Good. This is the true destiny of mankind. This divine origin is vaguely remembered and longed for, thanks to the divine gift of memory, the metaphysical place where heaven meets the earth and – as Saint Augustine put it – the seeker can find God. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to the exploration of the connection between freedom and creation in Schelling’s late philosophy. It contains contributions of internationally renowned and younger Schelling scholars from several countries. The scholarly interest in Schelling’s late philosophy has considerably increased during the last decades. Together with the rising number of available primary texts and translations, this has led, among other things, to a received scholarly view of Schelling’s Erlangen, Munich, and Berlin years that partly challenges and partly rejects many (...) claims of the older literature on Schelling. For example, his late philosophy is not conceived as a straightforward defence of orthodox theism anymore but seen within the context of his philosophical development, with a focus on the continuity between his early, middle, and late philosophy. The concepts of freedom and creation occupy a central position in these studies. The present volume examines the complex interrelations between these two concepts in detail, in a well-balanced combination of exegesis, systematic reconstruction and philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Most philosophers do not read Kant’s philosophy of religion as providing a foundation for Christianity, or even as in line with it. Recently, however, a number of so-called “affirmative Kantians” have argued that Kant’s philosophy of religion explicitly aims at recovering the spirit of Christianity. In this article I scrutinize this claim with regard to Kant’s conceptualization of “grace” as a supplement to his moral theory. Contrary to these “affirmative Kantians,” I argue that Kant’s account of grace stems from Kant’s (...) moral pessimism, not from any sense of the shortcomings of human beings in fulfilling their duties or the religious need for supernatural cooperation. Kant’s concept of grace tries to moderate this pessimism by providing what is needed for the possibility of moral progress. But simply by the way in which Kant regards grace as a rational concept needed for his moral theory, it seems to me that his philosophy of religion runs counter to certain central convictions of Christianity. (shrink)

Pour qui s’intéresse aux aspects socio-économiques de la construction ou aux activités comptables des sanctuaires du ive siècle, c’est peu dire que la deuxième livraison des Bauurkunden und Bauprogramm von Epidauros était attendue. Dans le premier volume, paru en 2014, Sebastian Prignitz (S.P.) s’était concentré sur la première moitié du ive siècle avec quatre inscriptions relatives à la construction du Temple d’Asklépios et de sa statue chryséléphantine, de la Thymélé (appelée Tholos par S.P...

This book connects Schopenhauer’s philosophy with transcendental idealism by exploring the distinctly Kantian roots of his pessimism. By clearly discerning four types of coming to knowledge, it demonstrates how Schopenhauer’s epistemology can enlighten this connection with other areas of his philosophy. The individual chapters in this book discuss how these knowledge types—immediate or mediate, representational or non-representational—relate to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, ethics and action, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and asceticism. In each of these areas, a specific sense of pessimism serves to (...) disarm a number of paradoxes and inconsistencies typically associated with Schopenhauer’s philosophy. _The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessismism _shows how Schopenhauer’s claim that he is a true successor to Kant can be justified. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 6, June - July 2020, Page 602-612.

The historical evolution of the homotopy concept for paths illustrates how the introduction of a concept (be it implicit or explicit) depends upon the interests of the mathematicians concerned and how it gradually acquires a more satisfactory definition. In our case the equivalence of paths first meant for certain mathematicians that they led to the same value of the integral of a given function or that they led to the same value of a multiple-valued function. (See for instance [Cau], [Pui], (...) [Rie].) Later this dependency upon given functions is dropped (by Jordan for surfaces, by Riemann and most explictly by Poincaré) and this leads to a concept which depends only upon the manifold. It thus becomes a concept which belongs to topology. As a consequence of this hesitant evolution, there was at first a confusion between concepts and hence no attention to relations between them. At a later stage these relations were investigated, as for instance the fact that homotopy equivalence implies homology equivalence: in1882, Klein gave an example of a closed curve on a surface which is the boundary of a part of the surface but could not be shrunk to a point. In 1904, Poincaré explicitly said that this curve is “homologue à zéro” (null homologous), but not “équivalent à zéro” (null homotopic). Poincaré obtains the homologies from the fundamental group by allowing changes in the order of the terms in the “équivalences”. This means also that the equivalences imply homologies but not vice versa. From a methodological standpoint, this situation of using properties without asking about relations between them or without even properly defining them is reminiscent of mathematics of a century earlier. An example is the way differentiability was used for the differentiation of functions without consciously questioning the properties of this concept until in the nineteenth century examples were given by Bolzano (1834), Weierstrass (1872), Riemann (1854) and others of functions which are continuous but nowhere differentiable [Kli]. Another example is the use eighteenth-century mathematicians made of series without inquiring about the validity of the operations they used on them. Another aspect which had its influence was the success of algebraic methods in topology which explains the preference for theories with “base point” and constrained deformation even though free deformation is a more natural concept. As we can see the evolution of the homotopy concept for paths did not progress without impediments. It also had an influence on the evolution of the abstract group concept and the basic principle of equivalence. These aspects make it a history which is not only intrinsically interesting (how did homotopic paths come to be?), but also because it illustrates relations between different branches of mathematics. (shrink)

In philosophical circles, but not only there, Chomsky's views on natural language regularly fall a prey to misrepresentation. Very often the confusion involves the creative aspect of language use, an aspect of linguistic performance, which tends to be confounded with the notion recursivity, a property of the grammatical competence system. The present article clears away the most deep-seated confusions and proves that criticism of generative grammar based upon them cannot be upheld. In particular, it shows that the existence of metaphors, (...) and deviations from rules more generally, reinforces rather than refutes Chomsky's theory so long as the crucial distinction between knowledge of language (competence) and language use (performance) is taken heed of. It is argued that theories which deny this distinction and view human language as a set of dispositions or as an ability are misguided. The final section illustrates some properties of Universal Grammar (UG) by means of data from the domain of negative polarity and subject-object asymmetries. Though these phenomena are far from being fully understood, the present level of our insight warrants the conclusion that they lend considerable support to the Chomskyan conception of UG as a highly complex and richly articulated linguistic genotype. (shrink)

Most philosophers do not read Kant’s philosophy of religion as providing a foundation for Christianity, or even as in line with it. Recently, however, a number of so-called “affirmative Kantians” have argued that Kant’s philosophy of religion explicitly aims at recovering the spirit of Christianity. In this article I scrutinize this claim with regard to Kant’s conceptualization of “grace” as a supplement to his moral theory. Contrary to these “affirmative Kantians,” I argue that Kant’s account of grace stems from Kant’s (...) moral pessimism, not from any sense of the shortcomings of human beings in fulfilling their duties or the religious need for supernatural cooperation. Kant’s concept of grace tries to moderate this pessimism by providing what is needed for the possibility of moral progress. But simply by the way in which Kant regards grace as a rational concept needed for his moral theory, it seems to me that his philosophy of religion runs counter to certain central convictions of Christianity. (shrink)

This essay explores three questions: What are the salient features of Hobbes's concept of prudence? Prudence for Hobbes is a capacity to predict the future rooted in experience. Second, can 'Hobbesian individuals' have significantly different capacities for prudence? Challenging a common view, asserted even by Hobbes himself, I contend that Hobbes's own conception of prudence yields significant variation across individuals' capacities for prudence. Finally, what is the role of prudence in Hobbes's political thought? A consequence of the significant variation among (...) individuals is that prudence plays a much more consequential role in Hobbes's political philosophy than is often appreciated. (shrink)

The work of the later Schelling seems antithetical to that of Nietzsche: one a Romantic, idealist and Christian, the other Dionysian, anti-idealist and anti-Christian. Still, there is a very meaningful and educative dialogue to be found between Schelling and Nietzsche on the topics of reason, freedom and religion. Both of them start their philosophy with a similar critique of the Western tradition, which to them is overly dualist, rationalist and anti-organic. In response, they hope to inculcate a more lively view (...) of reality in which a new understanding of freedom takes center stage. This freedom can be revealed and strengthened through a proper approach to religion, one that neither disconnects from nor subordinates religion to reason. Religion is the dialogical other to reason, one that refreshes and animates our attempts to navigate the world autonomously. In doing so, Schelling and Nietzsche open up new avenues of thinking about freedom, reason and religion. (shrink)

Continuing on the value of givenness, Dennis Vanden Auweele argues that a modern project for absolutized autonomy cannot do but dread silence, which signals a hiccup or momentary lapse in the project of logos. And yet, Vanden Auweele shows that silence can be a convalescence that renders human beings receptive to something in excess of finite determination, which can in turn inspire self-determination to new heights.