Donald Davidson argues in "Thought and Talk" that all speakers must be interpreters of other speakers: linguistic competence requires the possession of intentional concepts and the ability to attribute intentional states to other people. Kristin Andrews (in Philosophical Psychology, 15) has argued that empirical evidence about autism undermines this theoretical claim, for some individuals with autism lack the requisite "theory of mind" skills to be able to interpret, yet are competent speakers. In this paper, Davidson is defended on the grounds (...) that the high-functioning autistic individuals in question have a more robust theory of mind than has been acknowledged, and that this is sufficient for them to be interpreters of other speakers. It is argued, further, that Davidson's theory would remain intact even if one or more autistic speakers lacking a theory of mind were to exist, as he makes conceptual claims about thought and language that are not vulnerable to empirical counterexamples. (shrink)

Over the past decades, science funding shows a shift from recurrent block funding towards project funding mechanisms. However, our knowledge of how project funding arrangements influence the organizational and epistemic properties of research is limited. To study this relation, a bridge between science policy studies and science studies is necessary. Recent studies have analyzed the relation between the affordances and constraints of project grants and the epistemic properties of research. However, the potentially very different affordances and constraints of funding arrangements (...) such as awards, prizes and fellowships, have not yet been taken into account. Drawing on eight case studies of funding arrangements in high performing Dutch research groups, this study compares the institutional affordances and constraints of prizes with those of project grants and their effects on organizational and epistemic properties of research. We argue that the prize case studies diverge from project-funded research in three ways: 1) a more flexible use, and adaptation of use, of funds during the research process compared to project grants; 2) investments in the larger organization which have effects beyond the research project itself; and 3), closely related, greater deviation from epistemic and organizational standards. The increasing dominance of project funding arrangements in Western science systems is therefore argued to be problematic in light of epistemic and organizational innovation. Funding arrangements that offer funding without scholars having to submit a project-proposal remain crucial to support researchers and research groups to deviate from epistemic and organizational standards. (shrink)

Dutch allows for variation as to whether the first position in the sentence is occupied by the subject or by some other constituent, such as the direct object. In particular situations, however, this commonly observed variation in word order is ‘frozen’ and only the subject appears in first position. We hypothesize that this partial freezing of word order in Dutch can be explained from the dependence of the speaker’s choice of word order on the hearer’s interpretation of this word order. (...) A formal model of this interaction between the speaker’s perspective and the hearer’s perspective is presented in terms of bidirectional Optimality Theory. Empirical predictions of this model regarding the interaction between word order and definiteness are confirmed by a quantitative corpus study. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide further support for my earlier claim that the existence of high-functioning autistic speakers does not undermine Davidson's theory of radical interpretation. Andrews and Radenovic, in criticizing my arguments for this position, have presented fresh evidence from the clinical literature on autism for the existence of an individual who speaks but does not interpret, and maintain that the existence of such an individual seriously challenges Davidson's theory. I counter this claim by showing that the evidence they (...) point to in fact better supports the conclusion that this autistic speaker, and others like him, are Davidsonian interpreters. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to determine men’s perceptions about family planning and how they participate or wish to participate in family planning activities in Mpigi District, central Uganda. Four focus group discussions were conducted with married men and with family planning providers from both the government and private sector. In addition, seven key informants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The results indicate that men have limited knowledge about family planning, that family planning services do not adequately (...) meet the needs of men, and that spousal communication about family planning issues is generally poor. However, almost all men approved of modern family planning and expressed great interest in participating. The positive change of the beliefs and attitudes of men towards family planning in the past years has not been recognized by family planning programme managers, since available services are not in line with current public attitudes. A more couple-oriented approach to family planning is needed. Measures could include, for example, recruiting males as family planning providers, offering more family planning counselling for couples, and promoting female-oriented methods with men and vice versa. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore disciplinary variation in valuation practices by comparing the way research groups accumulate credibility across four epistemic cultures. Our analysis is based on case studies of four high-performing research groups representing very different epistemic cultures in humanities, social sciences, geosciences and mathematics. In each case we interviewed about ten researchers, analyzed relevant documents and observed a couple of meetings. In all four cases we found a cyclical process of accumulating credibility. At the same time, we found (...) significant differences in the manifestation of the six main resources that are part of the cycle, the mechanisms of conversion between these resources, the overall structure and the average speed of the credibility cycle. The different ways in which the groups use data and produce arguments affect the whole cycle of accumulating credibility. In some cultures, journal publications are the main source of recognition, but in others one can earn significant amounts of recognition for conference contributions or service to the academic community. Moreover, the collaboration practices in the respective fields strongly influence the connection between arguments and publications. In cultures where teams of researchers collaboratively produce arguments, it is more strongly embedded in the process of writing publications. We conclude that the credibility cycle can only be used as an analytical tool to explain the behavior of researchers or research groups when taking differences across epistemic cultures into account. (shrink)

Empirical studies among small-scale societies show that participation in national development programs impact traditional norms of community cooperation. We explore the extent to which varying levels of village and individual involvement in development policies relate to voluntary cooperation within community settings. We used a field experiment conducted in seven villages from an indigenous society in Indonesia known for their strong traditional cooperative norms, the Punan Tubu. We framed the experiment in terms of an ongoing government house-building program. The results indicate (...) that there were synergistic and antagonistic interactions between existing cooperative norms and government development policies. Participants’ cooperation in the experimental setting was low, probably because the Punan Tubu are used to cooperating and sharing both under demand and in a context in which uncooperative behavior is largely unpunished. Variation in experimental behavior was related to both village- and individual-level variables, with participants living in resettlement villages and participants living in a house constructed under the government program displaying more cooperative behavior. The cooperation evident in resettled villages may indicate that people in these villages are more comfortable interacting in anonymous settings and less committed to the demand-sharing norms still prevalent in the upstream villages. The more cooperative behavior among villagers who have previously received a house might indicate that they recognize that they are now better off than others and feel more obliged to cooperate. Policies aiming to capitalize on existing cooperative behavior to stimulate community collective action should consider the specific conditions under which cooperation occurs in real settings since traditional norms that regulate cooperative behavior might not translate well to cooperation in government-led programs. (shrink)

Resumo: Palavras-chave Keywords : Children’s literature. Storytelling. Reading. : Literatura infantil. Contação de histórias. Leitura..: Storytelling is considered nowadays a proper strategy to encourage children to develop literary taste and reading and it is therefore being broadly practiced within educational spaces. Within this framework the present article deals with 140 reports on storytelling observation in schools for children’s education and first classes. These reports were carried out in different places in Porto Alegre and its surroundings. It was possible to observe (...) that despite the joyful characteristic of the storytelling moment – that involves costumes, scenarios, puppets – the way this activity has been conducted turned out to be very pedagogical in three dimensions. In the first place, the choice of many narratives and books reveals an explicit tendency to "civilize" the child or to form a certain kind of subject. In the second place, this pedagogical tendency becomes evident in the conversations carried out between storytellers and children after the storytelling. In this context certain "messages" of the narrative are frequently stressed. At last, in the interviews many storytellers explained their criteria to choose books and stories according to "the project that is being presently developed in the school" or according to "problems that are taking place in the classroom" and so on. In spite of this tendency, however, some reports allow to infer that many teachers are escaping the deliberate pedagogization the stories and are therefore siding with a (new) discourse wherein pedagogical aspects are minimized. A contação de histórias é considerada, atualmente, uma estratégia adequada para iniciar as crianças no gosto pela leitura, sendo uma atividade generalizada nos espaços educativos. Dentro desse quadro, o artigo discute 140 relatos de observação de contação de histórias na Educação Infantil e anos iniciais, realizadas em espaços da região metropolitana de Porto Alegre (RS). Assim, observou-se que, malgrado o caráter lúdico das horas do conto – com fantasias, cenários, fantoches –, há nelas uma evidente pedagogização, através de três dimensões: a primeira é a escolha de algumas histórias e/ ou livros que pretendem abertamente civilizar ou formar um determinado tipo de sujeito. Em segundo lugar, a pedagogização fica evidente nas conversas que a contadora de histórias realiza com crianças após a contação, uma vez que, frequentemente, se enfatizam as mensagens da história. Por fim, nas entrevistas realizadas com as contadoras, ao falarem dos critérios de escolha dos livros e das histórias, várias sinalizaram uma escolha de acordo com o "projeto que está sendo desenvolvido", com "problemas que estão ocorrendo na sala de aula", etc. Mesmo assim, algumas práticas observadas fugiram à pedagogização deliberada, mostrando que muitas professoras estão inseridas em outro (e novo) discurso, em que a pedagogização é minimizada. (shrink)

Im Jahre 1800 veröffentlicht der noch junge Schelling (1175-1854) das System des transzendentalen Idealismus und mit ihm die Grundzüge seiner Ästhetik. Ob diese noch anschlussfähig an unser heutiges Kunstverständnis ist, wird in dem vorliegenden Buch diskutiert. Den Ansatzpunkt hierfür bildet die Malerei Piet Mondrians. 100 Jahre später steht Mondrian vor seiner Leinwand nämlich vor demselben Problem wie Schelling: Wie erfasse ich eine indifferente Einheit ohne sie zugleich wieder zu zerstören? Oder, wie kann ich einen Strich ziehen, ohne dadurch eine Unterscheidung (...) zu treffen? Um Mondrian mit Schelling lesen zu können, ist es jedoch ein weiter Weg. Ein Weg der unter anderem über die graphische Logik von Charles S. Peirce und die disegno-Theorie des florentiner Manierismus führt. Bleibt nur noch eine Frage: Was macht der nackte Dürer auf dem Cover? (shrink)

“Resolute” readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus maintain that the book is divided into two parts: an intelligible “frame” and an unintelligible “body.” This article questions the validity of the “frame/body distinction” and, by extension, the resolute reading itself. It first establishes the tenability of the resolute programme as entirely dependent upon such a frame/body distinction. It then explores three possible ways the claim that the Tractatus contains such a distinction might be grounded, arguing in each case why it cannot do (...) so. It therefore concludes that the frame/body distinction is unjustified, and the resolute reading untenable. (shrink)

I argue here that, due to the influence of Greek philosophical ideas (such as the depreciation of time and change, and the glorification of independence and unqualified omnipotence), Christianity and Islam developed in directions foreign to the religious vision of their founders, leading ultimately to the present antagonisms between them. A 'philosophy of organism' - which sees time as cumulative, relations rather than substance as basic - can, however, help to reinterpret the insights of Jesus and Mohammed, and show that (...) humanity's primary responsibility is to care for the creatures which the Eternal One has called into being. (shrink)

I argue here that, due to the influence of Greek philosophical ideas (such as the depreciation of time and change, and the glorification of independence and unqualified omnipotence), Christianity and Islam developed in directions foreign to the religious vision of their founders, leading ultimately to the present antagonisms between them. A 'philosophy of organism' - which sees time as cumulative, relations rather than substance as basic - can, however, help to reinterpret the insights of Jesus and Mohammed, and show that (...) humanity's primary responsibility is to care for the creatures which the Eternal One has called into being. (shrink)

This paper aims to settle the question of what Ludwig Wittgenstein meant by "what solipsism means": This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what solipsism means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language mean the limits of my world. 1 Throughout this paper, I will paraphrase "what solipsism means" simply as (...) 'solipsism.'2 The aim of the present paper can then be restated as an attempt to specify the conception of solipsism Wittgenstein was addressing in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. A secondary aim is to... (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Arzneimittelzulassung und der Aufnahmeprozess zur Kostenerstattung sollen die Entwicklung und Vermarktung von pharmazeutischen Innovationen mit Patientennutzen nicht behindern, zugleich aber die Wirtschaftlichkeit der Arzneimittelversorgung für die Kostenträger nicht gefährden. Eine Anpassung der Verfahren an die Merkmale personalisierter Arzneimittel erscheint notwendig. Dabei ist allerdings zu fragen, ob eine ungerechtfertigte Privilegierung erfolgt. In den USA und in der EU werden die jeweiligen Zulassungsverfahren für Arzneimittel und Tests schrittweise angepasst und integriert. Zulassung und Erstattungsentscheidungen sollen koordiniert werden. Eine Privilegierung, wie bei Arzneimitteln (...) für seltene Indikationen (Orphan Drugs), findet jedoch für personalisierte Medizin nicht statt. Es bestehen keine unzumutbaren Hürden für die Hersteller. Zurückhaltung bei der Entwicklung innovativer Produkte wäre deshalb nicht gerechtfertigt. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Arzneimittelzulassung und der Aufnahmeprozess zur Kostenerstattung sollen die Entwicklung und Vermarktung von pharmazeutischen Innovationen mit Patientennutzen nicht behindern, zugleich aber die Wirtschaftlichkeit der Arzneimittelversorgung für die Kostenträger nicht gefährden. Eine Anpassung der Verfahren an die Merkmale personalisierter Arzneimittel erscheint notwendig. Dabei ist allerdings zu fragen, ob eine ungerechtfertigte Privilegierung erfolgt. In den USA und in der EU werden die jeweiligen Zulassungsverfahren für Arzneimittel und Tests schrittweise angepasst und integriert. Zulassung und Erstattungsentscheidungen sollen koordiniert werden. Eine Privilegierung, wie bei Arzneimitteln (...) für seltene Indikationen, findet jedoch für personalisierte Medizin nicht statt. Es bestehen keine unzumutbaren Hürden für die Hersteller. Zurückhaltung bei der Entwicklung innovativer Produkte wäre deshalb nicht gerechtfertigt. (shrink)

In many Western science systems, funding structures increasingly stimulate academic research to contribute to practical applications, but at the same time the rise of bibliometric performance assessments have strengthened the pressure on academics to conduct excellent basic research that can be published in scholarly literature. We analyze the interplay between these two developments in a set of three case studies of fields of chemistry in the Netherlands. First, we describe how the conditions under which academic chemists work have changed since (...) 1975. Second, we investigate whether practical applications have become a source of credibility for individual researchers. Indeed, this turns out to be the case in catalysis, where connecting with industrial applications helps in many steps of the credibility cycle. Practical applications yield much less credibility in environmental chemistry, where application-oriented research agendas help to acquire funding, but not to publish prestigious papers or to earn peer recognition. In biochemistry practical applications hardly help in gaining credibility, as this field is still strongly oriented at fundamental questions. The differences between the fields can be explained by the presence or absence of powerful upstream end-users, who can afford to invest in academic research with promising long term benefits. (shrink)

Many science systems are witnessing the rise of intermediary organizations with a coordinating mission, but to date a systematic understanding of their function and effects is lacking. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the coordinating efforts of intermediary organizations. Starting from the definition of coordination as the establishment or strengthening of a relationship among the activities in a system, with the aim to enhance their common effectiveness, I develop a heuristic framework that facilitates the (...) systematic analysis of coordination in science. I illustrate and substantiate my framework with the empirical case study of a Dutch coordination task force in the area of chemical technologies. Thanks to the framework I could disentangle a number of functions that this task force fulfils concerning research programming, funding allocation and supporting interactions and collaborations. This approach enabled me to systematically analyse a very heterogeneous set of processes that each deserve to be called coordination. The analysis yields a clear overview of eight coordination processes that are each described in terms of activities, intervention, relationships, mechanisms and performance. I conclude my paper with suggestions for further research on coordination in the science system. (shrink)

A contação de histórias é considerada, atualmente, uma estratégia adequada para iniciar as crianças no gosto pela leitura, sendo uma atividade generalizada nos espaços educativos. Dentro desse quadro, o artigo discute 140 relatos de observação de contação de histórias na Educação Infantil e anos iniciais, realizadas em espaços da região metropolitana de Porto Alegre (RS). Assim, observou-se que, malgrado o caráter lúdico das horas do conto � com fantasias, cenários, fantoches �, há nelas uma evidente pedagogização, através de três dimensões: (...) a primeira é a escolha de algumas histórias e/ ou livros que pretendem abertamente civilizar ou formar um determinado tipo de sujeito. Em segundo lugar, a pedagogização fica evidente nas conversas que a contadora de histórias realiza com crianças após a contação, uma vez que, frequentemente, se enfatizam as mensagens da história. Por fim, nas entrevistas realizadas com as contadoras, ao falarem dos critérios de escolha dos livros e das histórias, várias sinalizaram uma escolha de acordo com o �projeto que está sendo desenvolvido�, com �problemas que estão ocorrendo na sala de aula�, etc. Mesmo assim, algumas práticas observadas fugiram à pedagogização deliberada, mostrando que muitas professoras estão inseridas em outro (e novo) discurso, em que a pedagogização é minimizada. (shrink)