The current research investigates a combination of two instructional approaches, tutored problem solving and worked examples. Tutored problem solving with automated tutors has proven to be an effective instructional method. Worked‐out examples have been shown to be an effective complement to untutored problem solving, but it is largely unknown whether they are an effective complement to tutored problem solving. Further, while computer‐based learning environments offer the possibility of adaptively transitioning from examples to problems while tailoring to an individual learner, the (...) effectiveness of such machine‐adapted example fading is largely unstudied. To address these research questions, one lab and one classroom experiment were conducted. Both studies compared a standard Cognitive Tutor with two example‐enhanced Cognitive Tutors, in which the fading of worked‐out examples occurred either in a fixed way or adaptively. Results indicate that the adaptive fading of worked‐out examples leads to higher transfer performance on delayed posttests than the other two methods. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during problem‐solving (...) practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use. (shrink)

Previous research on the use of diagrams for argumentation instruction has highlighted, but not conclusively demonstrated, their potential benefits. We examine the relative benefits of using diagrams and diagramming tools to teach causal reasoning about public policy. Sixty-three Carnegie Mellon University students were asked to analyze short policy texts using either: 1) text only, 2) text and a pre-made, correct diagram representing the causal claims in the text, or 3) text and a diagramming tool with which to construct their own (...) causal diagram. After a pretest and training, we tested student performance on a new policy text and found that students given a correct diagram significantly outperformed the other groups. Finally, we compared learning by testing students on a third policy problem in which we removed all diagram or tool aids and found that students who constructed their own diagrams learned the most. We describe these results and interpret them in a way that foreshadows work we now plan for a cognitive-tutor on causal diagram construction. (shrink)

Conceptual understanding of representations and fluency in using representations are important aspects of expertise. However, little is known about how these competencies interact: does representational understanding facilitate learning of fluency, or does fluency enhance learning of representational understanding? We analyze log data obtained from an experiment that investigates the effects of intelligent tutoring systems support for understanding and fluency in connection-making between fractions representations. The experiment shows that instructional support for both representational understanding and fluency are needed for students to (...) benefit from the ITS. In analyzing the ITS log data, we contrast the understanding-first hypothesis and the fluency-first hypothesis, testing whether errors made during the learning phase mediate the effect of experimental condition. Finding that a simple statistical model does not the fit data, we searched over all plausible causal path analysis models. Our results support the understanding-first hypothesis but not the fluency-first hypothesis. (shrink)

Investigating Girard's new propositionnal calculus which aims at a large scale study of computation, we stumble quickly on that question: What is a multiplicative connective? We give here a detailed answer together with our motivations and expectations.

Treating subjects as diverse as Roman carnivals and Balinese cockfights, circumcision, dreaming, and spirit possession in Morocco, transference in ...

At first glance twentieth-century philosophy of science seems virtually to ignore chemistry. However this paper argues that a focus on chemistry helped shape the French philosophical reflections about the aims and foundations of scientific methods. Despite patent philosophical disagreements between Duhem, Meyerson, Metzger and Bachelard it is possible to identify the continuity of a tradition that is rooted in their common interest for chemistry. Two distinctive features of the French tradition originated in the attention to what was going on in (...) chemistry.French philosophers of science, in stark contrast with analytic philosophers, considered history of science as the necessary basis for understanding how the human intellect or the scientific spirit tries to grasp the world. This constant reference to historical data was prompted by a fierce controversy about the chemical revolution, which brought the issue of the nature of scientific changes centre stage.A second striking—albeit largely unnoticed—feature of the French tradition is that matter theories are a favourite subject with which to characterize the ways of science. Duhem, Meyerson, Metzger and Bachelard developed most of their views about the methods and aims of science through a discussion of matter theories. Just as the concern with history was prompted by a controversy between chemists, the focus on matter was triggered by a scientific controversy about atomism in the late nineteenth-century.Keywords: France; Epistemology; Chemistry; Revolution; Atomism; Realism. (shrink)

Individual differences have been neglected in decision-making research on heuristics and cognitive biases. Addressing that issue requires having reliable measures. The author first reviewed the research on the measurement of individual differences in cognitive biases. While reliable measures of a dozen biases are currently available, our review revealed that some measures require improvement and measures of other key biases are still lacking (e.g., confirmation bias). We then conducted empirical work showing that adjustments produced a significant improvement of some measures and (...) that confirmation bias can be reliably measured. Overall, our review and findings highlight that the measurement of individual differences in cognitive biases is still in its infancy. In particular, we suggest that contextualized (in addition to generic) measures need to be improved or developed. (shrink)

Although many active scientists deplore the publicity about Drexler's futuristic scenario, I will argue that the controversies it has generated are very useful, at least in one respect. They help clarify the metaphysical assumptions underlying nanotechnologies, which may prove very helpful for understanding their public and cultural impact. Both Drexler and his opponents take inspiration from living systems, which they both describe as machines. However there is a striking contrast in their respective views of molecular machineries. This paper based on (...) semipopular publications is an attempt to characterize the rival models of nanomachines and to disentangle the worldviews underpinning the uses of biological reference on both sides. Finally, in an effort to point out the historical roots of the contrast in the concepts of nanomachines, I raise the question of a divide between two cultures of nanotechnology. (shrink)

A controversy over the pudgala or “person” raged among Indian Buddhists for more than a millennium. Their polemics were at least as much a matter of canonical exegesis as of reasoning and argument, for the “mainstream” Buddhist doctors had to account for—and explain away—the numerous places in scripture where the Buddha speaks of the “person.” The Bhārahārasūtra or “sūtra on the bearer of the burden” was one of the scriptures most frequently quoted and discussed in this connection. The present paper (...) is aimed at presenting a reconstructed Sanskrit version of this sūtra and providing an overview of the doctrinal and argumentative uses that were made of it in the context of the debates about the status of the “person.”. (shrink)

The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitutes a hybrid world, we ask (...) for a limit to hybridisation. After rejecting the concept of metabolism as such a limit, we explore the concept of the responsive conativity of material entities. The principle of conativity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on metabolism, which enables us to conceive material entities as self-assertive material entities that are differentiated from the environment. The principle of responsivity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on the post-human world in which material entities are responsive to each other and form alliances and networks. We propose to differentiate between the conativity and responsivity of material entities and propose the conativity of matter as a limit to hybridisation in the post-human world. (shrink)

Scientists and engineers who extensively use the term “nanomachine” are not always aware of the philosophical implications of this term. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of nanomachine through a distinction between three major paradigms of machine. After a brief presentation of two well-known paradigms - Cartesian mechanistic machines and Von Neumann's complex and uncontrolled machines – we will argue that Drexler's model was mainly Cartesian. But what about the model of his critics? We propose a (...) third model - Gilbert Simondon's notion of concrete machines – which seems more appropriate to understand nanomachines than the notion of “soft machines”. Finally we review a few strategies currently used to design nanomachines, in an effort to determine which paradigm they belong to. (shrink)

A-theorists and B-theorists debate whether the "Now" is metaphysically distinguished from other time slices. Analogously, one may ask whether the "I" is metaphysically distinguished from other perspectives. Few philosophers would answer the second question in the affirmative. An exception is Caspar Hare, who has devoted two papers and a book to arguing for such a positive answer. In this paper, I argue that those who answer the first question in the affirmative---A-theorists---should also answer the second question in the affirmative. This (...) is because key arguments in favor of the A-theory are more effective asarguments in favor of the resulting combined position, and key arguments against the A-theory are ineffective against the combined position. (shrink)

Scientific textbooks are often said to deliver a stereotyped kind of knowledge, which conceals rather than reveals the real making of science. They may, however, alternatively be regarded as of peculiar interest for historians of science. An over-mechanical application of the Kuhnian concepts of ‘scientific revolution’ and ‘normal science’ can lead to the neglect of the internal dynamics of ‘normal science’. Scientific textbooks may provide a better understanding of the process of normalization in science.

La chimie est délaissée des philosophes et historiens des sciences. Cette discipline ne serait-elle pas bonne à penser? Qu’est-ce que ce silence, ce mépris ou cette méconnaissance nous enseignent sur le régime du savoir en chimie? Inversement, la chimie méprisée, méconnue ou simplement ignorée ne signalerait-elle pas les travers des philosophes et les limites de leur pouvoir de conceptualiser et de penser? Cet ouvrage donne un aperçu de la complexité de ces questions en adoptant un point de vue symétrique où (...) se croisent les regards des chimistes et des philosophes. En abordant les problématiques posées par les théories de la matière et en étudiant la question du corps du chimiste et de son statut social, ce volume s’interroge aussi sur l’image de la chimie et sur le rejet du « chimique » au profit du « naturel » très en vogue aujourd’hui. (shrink)

The nuclear pore complex (NPC) is emerging as a center for recruitment of a class of “difficult to repair” lesions such as double‐strand breaks without a repair template and eroded telomeres in telomerase‐deficient cells. In addition to such pathological situations, a recent study by Su and colleagues shows that also physiological threats to genome integrity such as DNA secondary structure‐forming triplet repeat sequences relocalize to the NPC during DNA replication. Mutants that fail to reposition the triplet repeat locus to the (...) NPC cause repeat instability. Here, we review the types of DNA lesions that relocalize to the NPC, the putative mechanisms of relocalization, and the types of recombinational repair that are stimulated by the NPC, and present a model for NPC‐facilitated repair. (shrink)

This paper is a critical assessment of the epistemological impact of the systematic quantification of nature with the accumulation of big datasets on the practice and orientation of ecological science. We examine the contents of big databases and argue that it is not just accumulated information; records are translated into digital data in a process that changes their meanings. In order to better understand what is at stake in the ‘datafication’ process, we explore the context for the emergence and quantification (...) of biodiversity in the 1980s, along with the concept of the global environment. In tracing the origin and development of the global biodiversity information facility we describe big data biodiversity projects as a techno-political construction dedicated to monitoring a new object: the global diversity. We argue that, biodiversity big data became a powerful driver behind the invention of the concept of the global environment, and a way to embed ecological science in the political agenda. (shrink)

Engineering science is a scientific discipline that from the point of view of epistemology and the philosophy of science has been somewhat neglected. When engineering science was under philosophical scrutiny it often just involved the question of whether engineering is a spin-off of pure and applied science and their methods. We, however, hold that engineering is a science governed by its own epistemology, methodology and ontology. This point is systematically argued by comparing the different sciences with respect to a particular (...) set of characterization criteria. (shrink)

Chemistry deserves more philosophical attention not so much to do justice to a long-neglected science or to enhance its cultural prestige, but to undermine a number of taken-for-granted assumptions about scientific rationality and more importantly to diversify our metaphysical views of nature and reality. In brief, this paper does not make the case for a philosophy of chemistry. It rather urges philosophers of science to listen to chemists and discuss what they learn from them. Because over the course of many (...) centuries chemists have developed a special access to nature and a special way of investigating and dealing with material substances, they have confronted a number of epistemological and ontological issues that are worth discussing. Following critical remarks about the disciplinary partition of philosophy, a historical section presents the contributions to philosophy of a few French twentieth-century chemists-turned philosophers to emphasize how they have challenged the dominant philosophical categories. The final section develops one of the lessons that philosophers can learn from chemists: to pay attention to things, to their materiality and activity in order to develop new ontological perspectives. (shrink)

The so-called daxue zhi dao 大學之道, though a Confucian way of self-cultivation, can inspire contemporary universities through a process of creative interpretation. Having examined the ethos of modern university in its four historical stages, I come up with its last stage of reaching out in the era of globalization and dialogue among civilizations, in which we have to rethink the idea of university from the fuller development of human reason. This can be achieved only through increasingly reaching out toward many (...) others by means of mutual waitui 外推 and self-reflection, which presuppose and announce an ethics of generosity in priority over and implementable by reciprocity. Universities today should learn from classical Confucianism, and we should keep in mind their initial generous spirit as exemplified by Confucius himself. Strangification and self-reflection, being moved by original generosity and implemented by reciprocity, will eventually bring us the hope of reason. (shrink)

En plus d'un excellent ouvrage analytique sur Proust, cette thèse dépasse son objet en distinguant bien la pensée du romancier de celle du théoricien. Ainsi la notion de philosophie du roman est profondément explorée et la proposition d'une réforme de la théorie du récit (narratologie) est esquissée. Suppose lecture de la ##Recherche##.

The central preoccupation of Peirce and Polanyi was to undertake (in the words of the former) an inquiry into inquiry, one in which the defining features of our heuristic practices stood out in bold relief. But both thinkers were also concerned to bring into sharp focus the deep affinities between our theoretical pursuits and other shared practices. They were in effect sketching a portrait of the responsible inquirer and, by implication, that of the responsible agent more generally. This essay is, (...) in structure, a series of études for how we might reconstruct that portrait, since there is no extended treatment in the writings of either author of these central figures (the agent and, in particular, the responsible inquirer). It is accordingly a preliminary study, though in some particulars a detailed one. Its ultimate aim is to join—and thereby to invite others to join—Peirce and Polanyi as inquirers into the very nature of inquiry itself. (shrink)

Emerging technologies are increasingly used in an attempt to “enhance the human body and/or mind” beyond the contemporary standards that characterize human beings. Yet, such standards are deeply controversial and it is not an easy task to determine whether the application of a given technology to an individual and its outcome can be defined as a human enhancement or not. Despite much debate on its potential or actual ethical and social impacts, human enhancement is not subject to any consensual definition. (...) This paper proposes a timely and much needed examination of the various definitions found in the literature. We classify these definitions into four main categories: the implicit approach, the therapy-enhancement distinction, the improvement of general human capacities and the increase of well-being. After commenting on these different approaches and their limitations, we propose a definition of human enhancement that focuses on individual perceptions. While acknowledging that a definition that mainly depends on personal and subjective individual perceptions raises many challenges, we suggest that a comprehensive approach to define human enhancement could constitute a useful premise to appropriately address the complexity of the ethical and social issues it generates. (shrink)

Enseigner la philosophie, n’est peut-être pas autre chose que la tentative de ménager l’ouverture, dans une autre conscience, du plus radical des questionnements. Est-il en effet une autre discipline qui puisse prétendre à questionner aussi infatigablement? Apprendre à questionner n’est-il pas alors l’unique vocation de l’enseignement philosophique? Nous essaierons de faire un pas en direction de ces interrogations, en lisant quelques passages du cours prononcé par Martin Heidegger au semestre d’été 1935 et publié sous le titre : Introduction à la (...) métaphysique. (shrink)

Si L’Étoile de la rédemption de Franz Rosenzweig se veut encore un « système de philosophie », c’est dans la pleine conscience de ce que la forme du système a trouvé, dans l’œuvre de Hegel, un accomplissement en lequel toute l’histoire de la philosophie se rassemble et s’achève. Une « pensée nouvelle » est‑elle dès lors possible, qui surmonte réellement la tradition qui la précède, sans qu’un tel dépassement la conduise hors de la philosophie? Cet article se penche sur la (...) manière dont Rosenzweig a conçu l’histoire de la philosophie et déterminé, depuis la Révélation, la position d’extériorité qui devait être la sienne. La voie rosenzweigienne est mise en regard de celle de Heidegger, l’un et l’autre penseur n’ayant pas seulement discerné dans leur temps l’achèvement des systèmes, mais conçu le renouveau de la philosophie comme un mouvement de traduction vers l’origine, grecque ou biblique, de la pensée. (shrink)

Ferdinand Gonseth n'a cessé d'approfondir sa conception de la fonction épistémologique dévolue à l'analogie dans le cadre de sa doctrine de l'"idonéisme". Cette recherche passa toujours par une appropriation critique de la phénoménologie. L'auteur examine ici comment s'établit, dès 1936, un principe d'analogicité entre des plans d'abstraction et d'approfondissement phénoménotechnique qui s'éloignent de plus en plus de l'expérience perceptive ordinaire. La concordance est alors assurée par la notion de "schéma", qu'il reprend au "phénoménologiste" Kaufmann, mais à laquelle il confère d'autres (...) propriétés (notamment une structure de groupe). Gonseth introduit, par la suite, les notions d'"horizon de subjectivité" et d'"horizon d'objectivité", ce qui, tout en se démarquant des analyses d'Edmund Husserl, prolonge l'appropriation du vocabulaire phénoménologique. Dans un dernier temps, il adopta la notion de "référentiel", élaborée en rupture avec la philosophie du sujet, mais qui demeure encore attachée à des structures phénoménologiques. Son projet épistémologique encourage ainsi la pratique d'une "phénoménologie ouverte". (shrink)