In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Is Expertise-by-Experience Impossible?The author reports no conflict of interests.In his article, "Experience and expertise: Can personal experience of mental illness make someone an expert?" Abdi Sanati uses Wittgenstein's arguments on private language and Ryle's philosophy of knowledge to critique the concept of Expertise-by-Experience. The principal argument is that introspection on personal experiences cannot constitute the basis for knowledge underpinning expertise. From the start, and in various sections of the (...) article, Sanati highlights the importance of patient involvement in the delivery of mental healthcare. He clarifies the contributions made by the community of patients in the design and delivery of mental health services are not only valuable but also necessary and long overdue. He argues patients must be involved in their care independently of how knowledgeable they are and, in a way, considers the attribution of a status of expertise as potentially counterproductive, since it may restrict the involvement of those who do not possess this status. I will explore initially the core premise made by Sanati that is then subjected to a thorough philosophical scrutiny. This is important because, as we shall see, there can be a different reading of the core premise that throws a slightly different lens into the Inquiry made. We'll end by discussing the future of expertise in the unfamiliar landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as large language models and multimodal AI.Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Expertise-by-ExperienceIn his initial section titled "Philosophical views on Expert-by-Experience," Sanati examines the literature on Expertise-by-Experience and the recognition it gradually gained as a form of knowledge stemming from the privileged position of subjective experience. Thomasina Borkman (1976), within the context of her research with self-help groups such as Alcoholic Anonymous developed the concept of experiential knowledge. By studying these groups, she saw how some individuals developed valuable skills to help others recover. Borkman (1976), Noorani (2013) and Mazanderani et al. (2020) stress the importance of more than just experience for acquiring expert knowledge. For someone within a community, to emerge as an expert, they must be able to effectively articulate and share the content of their experience, for it to stand a kind of reality testing on its usefulness in guiding and helping other members of it.Ultimately, it appears for the authors cited, Expertise-by-Experience is not conceived on essentialist, a priori theoretical grounds, but on pragmatic outcomes achieved via a constructivist approach. Expertise by experience can't be articulated in context independent propositions. Sanati, in the summary provided at the end of [End Page 109] this section, does not appear to highlight as much this latter formative pragmatic element as a necessary condition for gaining a status of expert-by-experience. He articulates his critique portraying a linear progression from "personal experience" to "unique expertise". In my view, and at least on paper, the claim made for a status of Expertise-by-Experience is a modest one. While it is true, personal experience is acknowledged as a source of a unique type of knowledge, for it to amount to expertise it needs to fulfill the pragmatic test where, by being articulated, shared, tested, and refined accordingly, leads to a know-how relevant to non-experts of the same community. Personal experience as a source of expertise is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.Knowledge and Expertise: A Philosophical ViewIn the following sections of the article, Sanati provides an in-depth exploration of the concept of expertise and the philosophical reasoning underpinning his core argument. If we assume Sanati has made a correct interpretation of the cited literature, then a lot of the philosophical analysis provided subsequently assists him convincingly in the task. Collins' (2008) emphasis on the central role of language and discourse in acquiring expertise within a community, and how this leads to a form of life (p. 12), that is also characterized by the possession of a substantial body of true beliefs compared to most people, appears to exclude any possibility for a personal experience on its own to become a source... (shrink)

Pendant un demi-siècle, la méthode appropriée en philosophie des sciences dans la tradition continentale était l'étude historique ; dans la tradition anglosaxonne, l'analyse logique. Ce clivage au sein du discours philosophique s'est grandement estompé de nos jours. D'une part, Kuhn a défendu la pertinence philosophique de l'histoire des sciences. D'autre part, Vuillemin et Gilles-Gaston Granger ont promu l'étude de la philosophie analytique et l'emploi de ses techniques logiques. Le rapprochement des deux traditions a pris encore une nouvelle tournure dans les (...) derniers textes de Feyerabend et dans les travaux de Ian Hacking. Celui-ci associe délibérément les instruments historiques de l'école française avec les procédés logiques de l'école nordaméricaine. Quelle est la signification de ce rapprochement ? Quels problèmes fait-il surgir ? Quelles directions de recherche ouvre-t-il ? Telles sont les questions que nous aborderons par le biais d'une étude comparée de certains développements récents de la philosophie des sciences en France et en Amérique du Nord. For over half a century the continental tradition favored a historical method in philosophy of science, while the Anglo-American tradition promoted a logical method. In recent years this contrast has tended to lessen. On the one hand, there has been a growing interest since the 1970s in France for the analytic tradition, due to the pioneering studies of Vuillemin and Gilles-Gaston Granger. On the other hand, Kuhn has brought out the philosophical relevance of history of science. This tendency takes a new turn in Feyerabend's final texts as well as in the works of Ian Hacking. The latter deliberately combines the historical instruments of the French school with the logical techniques of the North-American school. How to understand this evolution ? What directions of research does it open up ? I address these questions by way of a comparative study of some recent developments in philosophy of science both in France and North America. (shrink)

In 1929 Moritz Schlick and those scholars he had brought together came to realize that they had given rise to something entirely new, so the text of the Vienna Circle Manifesto has it. What was novel was the conception of the world, henceforth scientific. Or as we may put it otherwise: a discipline had been established, the philosophy of science, that is a reflection on science no longer subordinate to traditional theory of knowledge and metaphysics. The text goes on to (...) explain why such a conception arose geographically where it did: “That Vienna was specially suitable ground for [the development of the spirit of a scientific conception of the world] is historically understandable” 1. The Vienna Circle Manifesto proceeds to enumerate the multifarious intellectual movements that were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century in the city of Vienna. Is it irrelevant or untimely to emphasize this cosmopolitan spirit? I believe, on the contrary, that cosmopolitanism provides both a lesson about philosophical creativity and a key for understanding the vitality of Viennese philosophy: the achievements of the Vienna Circle were the result of an exceptional open-mindedness on the part of its members. (shrink)

Duhem first expounds the holistic thesis, according to which an experimental test always involves several hypotheses, in articles dating from the 1890s. Poincaré's analysis of a recent experiment in optics provides the incentive, but Duhem generalizes this analysis and develops a highly original methodological position. He is led to reject inductivism. I will endeavor to show the crucial role history of science comes to play in the development of Duhem's holism.

Human-Computer Interaction and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games. When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements (...) in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to study scientific observation from a broad perspective, taking into account history, practice and philosophical reflexivity. I shall draw on a series of new approaches variously termed: historical epistemology, history of philosophy of science, science studies, etc. Such approaches were undoubtedly sparked by the difficulties that philosophy of science encountered: if the idea of a neutral language of observation has been abandoned, debate remains as to the character and degree of the theory-ladenness of facts. (...) Two case studies will be considered: observation in the birth of modern science and observation in the life sciences. These will enable us to follow the evolution of the related concepts of accuracy, exactness and precision, as features that render an observation scientific. On closer inspection it appears that these concepts are not given spontaneously; they had to be constructed, and this process was intimately bound up with the development of knowledge. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine the reception of French philosophy of scienceFrench philosophy of science on the world stage, taking up what was a constant concern of Jean Gayon. Three major features distinguish this tradition. First, the use of the term epistemologyEpistemology to designate philosophy of science, thereby allowing for discontinuities between common knowledge and scientific knowledge. Secondly, the conviction that philosophy of science should be grounded on history of scienceHistory of science. Finally, what has come to (...) be called the regional turn: philosophical reflection should be carried out with respect to a specific body of knowledge. These directions of research, which have been cultivated for over a century by French thinkers, emerged belatedly within the Anglo-American tradition. Gayon devoted particular attention to the case of philosophy of biology. I complement his endeavor by an examination of philosophy of chemistry. Such divergences raise the question of the relations between the two traditions. It is only recently, with the advent of a newHistorical epistemologyhistorical epistemologyGayon, JeanOn historical epistemology, that a true dialogue has been established. However, the many misunderstandings that have arisen between French and Anglo-American philosophy of sciencePhilosophy of science (Anglo-American), show how fragile such a dialogue is. (shrink)

The Gelasian letter, Famuli uestrae pietatis, addressed to Emperor Anastasius I (491-518), is famous for the so-called theory of two powers that has enjoyedconsiderable fortune and has received continual attention in the history and thought of the Latin West in view of its arguments about the relationshipbetween the Church and secular power. Scholars have been primarily interested in the Wirkungsgeschichte of the letter. Less frequently studied is the letter's specific religious context, characterized by the Acacian schism (484- 519), the dispute (...) between the episcopal sees of Rome and Constantinople. This article seeks to situate this document from the late fifth-century Roman pontifical chancery in its specific historical and ecclesial context, and to provide a commentary on the entire letter. A brief, final chapter offers a synthetic excursus on the immediate reception of the text in the Early Middle Ages before the Gregorian Reform. (shrink)

By starting from a reflection on the article by Anastasios Brenner which precedes mine in this edited book, I discuss the 'difficult' relation of history and philosophy, and draw examples from the tradition of historical epistemology. On this basis, I evaluate the current status of history of philosophy of science, and I conclude with the defence of a truly historical approach to philosophy of science and of the philosopher's reflexivity.

Robert Deltete and Anastasios Brenner have provided a thorough examination of my translation of Duhem’s Le mixte et la combinaison chimique (1902) and associated essays. I am very grateful for their efforts and gratified that such competent reviewers should be generally positive. They provide an overview of relevant aspects of Duhem’s life and work, which may serve to introduce him to readers of this journal and promote interest in Duhem studies. They also raise and answer some questions about the (...) interpretation and evaluation of Duhem’s work, make some points of criticism of my choice of material and question certain points of translation. The editor has suggested that I make a response, and I shall take up some issues in these three areas. Since Duhem’s views play a central role in the development of the concept of chemical substance which I have worked on in recent years, I will make several references to my own publications. (shrink)

Dieses Arbeitsinstrument bietet eine Aktualisierung des erstmals 1987 publizierten kritischen Überblicks über die Quellen zu dem im Titel genannten Streit. Es geht dem Verf. vor allem darum, den seit 1987 nicht unerheblichen Fortschritt in Editionen und Forschung zu dokumentieren. Die Regesten der Quellen (S. 45–184) werden zum einen durch einen knappen Bericht zur Forschungslage (S. 2–8), zum Wert der Quellen (S. 9–13), zum reichskirchlichen Ursprung des Streits im sog. Neuchalkedonismus (S. 13–21), zu seinen politischen Hintergründen (S. 21–33) und zu seinem (...) Verlauf (S. 34–44) eingeleitet und zum anderen durch prosopographische Hinweise zu den Regesten (S. 189–279) erschlossen, die, wie der Verf. S. VII feststellt, „durch die Vorarbeiten“ in der PmbZ (Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit) „wesentlich erleichtert“ wurden. Als Anhang bietet dieses Instrument eine Zeittafel, ein Glossar zu den wichtigsten Termini und ein Stellen- und Sachregister (S. 281–307). Eingearbeitet hat der Verf. vor allem die Edition der ACO II,2 von R. Riedinger (1992) und der Scripta saeculi VII vitam Maximi Confessoris illustrantia, die P. Allen und B. Neil im Band 39 des CCSG vorgelegt haben (1999). Auf Grund der bisher schwer zugänglichen Ausgabe von S.L. Epifanovic (Kiew 1917) und ihrer Wiedergabe in der CPG sind zumindest zwei Dubletten in die Regesten aufgenommen worden. Denn die Texte (1) Nr. 67, 67a (CPG 7697, 26); Nr. 90 (CPG 7707, 24) und (2) Nr. 89 (CPG 7697, 27); Nr. 91 (CPG 7707, 25) sind jeweils nur verschiedene Rezensionen. – Die Regesten zur Vorgeschichte des Streits im 6. Jahrhundert (Nr. 1–7), die als „Spitze eines Eisberges“ eingeführt werden (S. 9f.), sind nicht vollständig; insbes. fehlen hier die Zeugnisse aus Kaiser Justinians Schriften (vom Rez., Kaiser Justinian als Kirchenpolitiker und Theologe, Augustinianum 39, 1999, 5–83). Zurecht betont der Verf., dass der Streit schon im Konzil von Chalkedon (451) angelegt ist, sofern durch dessen „Verdammungen … der Grat für die weitere christologische Arbeit … sehr schmal geworden“ war (S. 15f.). Dass hier die historische Forschung ansetzen und ihre Begriffe schärfen muss, hat der Rez. in Studia Patristica 34, 2001, 572–604, gezeigt. Ausführlich belegen die Regesten zum einen die Aussagen von Maximos dem Bekenner, sieht man von seinen „vielen beiläufigen Bemerkungen“ ab (S. 45), und zum anderen den Streit der römischen Kirche seit „der Kampfansage“ unter Papst Johannes IV. (S. 32; Nr. 67b: Januar 641). Dabei wird der Verf. der historischen Kritik an Maximos gerecht, die 1967 mit W. Lackner's Beurteilung der griechischen Vita des Maximos (Nr. 171) begann, 1973 durch die Publikation der syrischen Vita (Nr. 172) einen neuen Anstoß erhielt, 1985 mit R. Riedinger's Nachweis, dass die Akten der Lateransynode von 649 (Nr. 110) „ein Werk der Byzantiner um Maximos“ sind, der diese Synode als 6. Ökumenisches Konzil bezeichnet hat (Nr. 113), und seit 1999 auf Grund der kritischen Ausgabe jener Dokumentation, die Maximos' Anhänger nach 655 publizierten (CCSG 39) zum Urteil geführt hat: „Maximos und seine Schüler“ sind „zu sehr einseitiger Darstellung und zu bewussten Irreführungen fähig gewesen“ (S. 13). Dies gilt auch dann, wenn man in der Beurteilung der theologischen Intentionen des Maximos nicht dem Verf. (S. 20f.), sondern W. Elert (1957), dessen Verdienste der Verf. zurecht würdigt, und anderen Autoren folgt und vor allem eine Entwicklung in Maximos' Christologie aufweist. Eine solche zeigt sich z.B. in Maximos' Interpretation des Geschehens von Gethsemani (Matth. 26,39) und der Oratio 30,12 des Gregor von Nazianz. Hier wäre auch Maximos' Korrektur an der neuchalkedonischen Basis (Nr. 102; CPG 7697, 9) zu nennen, die eine Entwicklung von 633 (Nr. 42; CPG 7699, 19) über den Höhepunkt der Krise um 640 (Nr. 60; CPG 7697, 20) voraussetzt. Wenn es zur zuletzt genannten Quelle heißt, Anastasios I. von Antiochien werde hier „als völlig orthodox beurteilt“, dann sollte man hinzufügen, dass Maximos der Nachweis nur über eine höchst subtile Interpretation gelingt, die auf die durch Anastasios' Text gestellte Frage nach dem einen Subjekt des Wirkens nicht eingeht. Es sei hier die Bemerkung erlaubt, dass es der Maximos–Forschung gut täte, wieder nach Entwicklungen im Denken dieses bedeutenden Theologen zu fragen. – Im Vergleich zum vorgenannten Dossier ist jenes des Anastasios Sinaites (Nr. 173; 175) nicht vollständig erfasst. Dies ist bedauerlich, weil dieser Autor kein Neuchalkedoniker ist und darum die Christologie Kyrills von Alexandrien und somit Chalkedon im Ausgang von der Unterscheidung von drei Klassen christologischer Aussagen der Bibel beurteilt, auf der die Union von 433 gründet, in der sich Kyrill mit den Orientalen verständigt hatte und auf die das Konzil von Chalkedon in der Einleitung zu seiner definitio fidei hinweist. Die dritte Klasse, jene der theandrischen Aussagen, erlaubte es Anastasios gegen seine reichskirchlichen Gegner in Ägypten und Syrien, von ihm Harmasiten genannt, den Tomus Leonis und so die antiochenische Christologie einzubringen und das Zeitalter Justinians und dessen Folgen einfach nicht zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, auch wenn er um das 5. Ökumenische Konzil von Konstantinopel wusste, dessen Sprache jene des sog. Neuchalkedonismus gewesen ist. Abschließend sei betont, dass dieses Arbeitsinstrument höchst sorgfältig zusammengestellt und eingeleitet ist. Dem Rez. ist nur eine Inkonsistenz aufgefallen. Der Verf. vertritt auf S. 23 als historisch gesichert, dass Kaiser Herakleios „später die Verantwortung für die Ekthesis von sich gewiesen hat“, und verweist dazu auf das in CPG 7736 wiedergegebene Zitat der Keleusis (Nr. 68; CPG 9382), dessen Authentizität er jedoch auf S. 97 zurecht bezweifelt. (shrink)

These comments consist of reflections on the papers Anastasios Brenner and R. N. D. Martin presented at the Conference on Pierre Duhem: Historian and Philosopher of Science. I argue they present nicely complementary accounts of Duhem's turn to history of science: Brenner emphasizes reasons internal to Duhem's philosophical concern with scientific methodology while Martin highlights reasons derived from the broader context of Duhem's engagement with religious controversies of his culture. I go on to suggest that seeing Duhem in this (...) broader perspective can help us cope with the conflicts between science and religion in our own culture. (shrink)

UMI Number: 3319553 This study is a historical ethnography of religious diversity in post-revolutionary Nicaragua from the vantage point of Catholics who live in the city of Masaya located on the Pacific side of Nicaragua at the end of the twentieth century. My overarching research question is: How may ethnographically observed patterns in Catholic religious practices in contemporary Nicaragua be understood in historical context? Utilizing anthropological theory and method grounded in Weberian historical theory, I explore Catholic ritual as contested politico-religious (...) cultural terrain. The patron saint celebration of Masaya becomes a contested symbol in 1999 as those who carry Saint Jerome in street procession refuse to honor a sitting president, challenging his right to rule. The deep Marian devotion of the Nicaraguan people is reflected in the household and neighborhood celebrations of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, while nation-building elites have a long history of claiming the Virgin as patron saint of the nation. While these traditional Catholic saint celebrations figure in imagining a nation, three "new" Catholic movements also compete for attention, while the polity is increasingly exposed to Protestant and Pentecostal groups. When Anastasio Somoza Debayle was overthrown in 1979, ending the 40-year family dictatorship, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ruled for a decade with the attention of the world placed on its religion of revolution, the Christian base community and liberation theology. At the same time, however, two other movements began growing quietly. They, like liberation theology, draw their justification from the second Vatican Council. In Masaya, Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Neocatechumenal Way are "exemplary" prophetic movements gaining ground within the Catholic Church in competition with the "ethical" prophets of the Christian base community. Selectively adopting "protestant-like" forms of worship through these modern movements, the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Church reacts to the challenge to its cultural hegemony coming from evangelical competitors. New history is continuously being made as people in this part of Nicaragua struggle over the direction of their country within a complex terrain of religious competition. (shrink)

The title of this volume A Man of Many Interests: Plutarch on Religion, Myth, and Magic. Essays in honour of Aurelio Pérez Jiménez is first and foremost a coalescing homage to Plutarch and to Aurelio, and to the way they have been inspiring (as master and indirect disciple) a multitude of readers in their path to knowledge, here metonymically represented by the scholars who offer their tribute to them. The analysis developed throughout the several contributions favors a philological approach of (...) wide spectrum, i.e., stemming from literary and linguistic aspects, it projects them into their cultural, religious, philosophical, and historical framework. The works were organized into two broad sections, respectively devoted to the Lives and to the Moralia. Contributors are: Frances Titchener, Carlos Alcalde Martín, José Luis Calvo, Delfim Leão, Judith Mossman, Anastasios G. Nikolaidis, Christopher Pelling, Philip Stadter, Paola Volpe, Francesco Becchi, Israel Muñoz Gallarte, Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Geert Roskam, Vicente M. Ramón Palerm, Frederick Brenk, John Dillon, Franco Ferrari, Aristoula Georgiadou, Luc van der Stockt, Luisa Lesage Gárriga. (shrink)

Modern philosophy; philosophical terms; scienctific terms; Turkish language; Turkey; history.

The globalization in business and tourism becomes crucial more and more for the economical sustainability of local communities. In the presence of an epidemic outbreak, there must be such a decision on the policy by the host community as whether to accept visitors or not, the number of acceptable visitors, or the condition for acceptable visitors. Making use of an SIRI type of mathematical model, we consider the influence of visitors on the spread of a reinfectious disease in a community, (...) especially assuming that a certain proportion of accepted visitors are immune. The reinfectivity of disease here means that the immunity gained by either vaccination or recovery is imperfect. With the mathematical results obtained by our analysis on the model for such an epidemic dynamics of resident and visitor populations, we find that the acceptance of visitors could have a significant influence on the disease’s endemicity in the community, either suppressive or supportive. (shrink)

New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9467-3 Authors Anastasios Brenner, Department of Philosophy, Paul Valéry University-Montpellier III, Route De Mende, 34199 Montpellier cedex 5, France Paul Needham, Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden David J. Stump, Department of Philosophy, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA Robert Deltete, Department of Philosophy, Seattle University, 901 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122-1090, USA Journal (...) Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796 Journal Volume Volume 20 Journal Issue Volume 20, Number 1. (shrink)

Formal logic may be an inappropriate framework for understanding perception. The responses of neurons at various levels of the sensory hierarchy may be better described in terms of probability than logic. Analysis and modeling of the multisensory responses of neurons in the midbrain provide a case study.

One of the difficulties facing the philosopher of science today is the divide between historical epistemology and analytic philosophy of science. For over half a century these two traditions have followed independent and divergent paths. Historical epistemology, which originated in France in the early twentieth century, has recently been reformulated by a number of scholars such as Lorraine Daston, Ian Hacking, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Elaborating novel historical methods, they seek to provide answers to major questions in the field. In the (...) light of this situation, my article examines the cultural barrier that explains the uneasy relationship between the two traditions. This barrier hinges on a number of factors—institutional, political and social—that are bound up with the philosophical issues in question. By resorting both to historical study and logical analysis, the new historical epistemology incites us to move beyond a rather sterile antagonism. (shrink)

Through qualitative surveys, a team of law students, law professors, physicians, and residents explored the perceptions of neurology residents towards referral to appropriate legal resources in an academic training program. Respondents reported feeling uncomfortable screening their patients for health-harming legal needs, which many attributed to a lack of training in this area. These findings indicate that neurology residents would benefit from training on screening for social factors that may be impacting their patients’ health.

This article intends to bring the philosophies of the first and second Wittgenstein closer together, concentrating on the concept of “use”. If this concept is considered the centre of philosophy of second Wittgenstein, this article shows it as already implicit in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, as the last responsible element in the sense of the propositions. As a general conclusion to the article, we learn that the point of view or the method used by the second Wittgenstein does not represent a (...) great swerve from the Tractatus philosophy, for this change had already happened within it (without the positivist interpreters taking notice). (shrink)

The purpose of this research was to investigate, for the first time, tertiary education students’ ethical judgements in the Republic of Cyprus academic environment. The authors developed and administered a quantitative questionnaire to a sample of 1,000 individuals currently pursuing accredited degrees at two tertiary institutions. Statistical analysis revealed four factors, named violation of school regulations, selfishness, cheating, and computer ethics that describe students’ ethical judgements in the academic environment. The results indicate that students exhibit the lowest tolerance with ethical (...) issues relevant with selfishness and highest with issues relevant with computer ethics. In addition, a number of differences were revealed when the authors investigated the relationship between the four retained factors and variables such as gender, year of study, type of academic discipline, and religion. Finally, reflecting on the research findings, a number of practical recommendations are made mainly to educational institutions that wish to redefine their policies and procedures regarding ethics within their academic environment. (shrink)

Logic; Islamic philosophy; Islam--doctrines.

Despite its uniform appearance, the cerebellar cortex is highly heterogeneous in terms of structure, genetics and physiology. Purkinje cells (PCs), the principal and sole output neurons of the cerebellar cortex, can be categorized into multiple populations that differentially express molecular markers and display distinctive physiological features. Such features include action potential rate, but also their propensity for synaptic and intrinsic plasticity. However, the precise molecular and genetic factors that correlate with the differential physiological properties of PCs remain elusive. In this (...) article, we provide a detailed overview of the cellular mechanisms that regulate PC activity and plasticity. We further perform a pathway analysis to highlight how molecular characteristics of specific PC populations may influence their physiology and plasticity mechanisms. (shrink)

In response to the growing needs of proficient English speakers, the Taiwan Ministry of Education officially included English in standard elementary school curriculum since 2001. English courses at elementary level were extended from the fifth grade to the third grade since the fall of 2005. It is significant to examine whether the educational reform has positively affected students? learning attitudes. Through focus group interviews and questionnaire survey at six elementary schools, this study explores students? attitudes towards learning English and ways (...) of instruction. Results indicate that students generally have strong interests in English?speaking people and desire to spend time in English?speaking places. A majority of students enjoy learning English through games, and compliments from teachers or parents boost their learning motivation. The finding also reveals that English education in Taiwan seems to have directed students towards a narrow viewpoint of foreign cultures since many students associate foreigners with English?speaking people only. Finally, many students experience learning English at cram schools, which indicates the important role cram schools play in students? extracurricular learning. (shrink)