In general, we know that gesture accompanying spoken instruction can help children learn. The present study was conducted to better understand how gesture can support children’s comprehension of spoken instruction and whether the benefit of teaching though speech and gesture over spoken instruction alone depends on differences in cognitive profile – prior knowledge children have that is related to a to-be-learned concept. To answer this question, we explored the impact of gesture instruction on children’s analogical reasoning ability. Children between the (...) ages of 4 and 11 years solved scene analogy problems before or after speech alone or speech and gesture instruction while their visual attention was monitored. Our behavioral results suggest a marginal benefit of gesture instruction over speech alone, but only 5-year-old children showed a distinct advantage from speech+gesture instruction when solving the post-instruction trial, suggesting that at this age, children have the cognitive profile in place to utilize the added support of gesture. Furthermore, while speech+gesture instruction facilitated effective visual attention during instruction, directing attention away from featural matches, and towards relational information, was pivotal for younger children’s success post instruction. We consider how these results contribute to the gesture-for-learning literature and consider how the nuanced impact of gesture is informative for educators teaching tasks of analogy in the classroom. (shrink)

One challenge in providing an adequate definition of physical disability is unifying the heterogeneous bodily conditions that count as disabilities. We examine recent proposals by Elizabeth Barnes (2016), and Dana Howard and Sean Aas (2018), and show how this debate has reached an impasse. Barnes’ account struggles to deliver principled unification of the category of disability, whilst Howard and Aas’ account risks inappropriately sidelining the body. We argue that this impasse can be broken using a novel concept: marginalised functioning. (...) Marginalised functioning concerns the relationship between a person’s bodily capacities and their social world: specifically, their ability to function in line with the default norms about how people can typically physically function that influence the structuring of social space. We argue that attending to marginalised functioning allows us to develop, not one, but three different models of disability, all of which—whilst having different strengths and weaknesses—unify the category of disability without sidelining the body. (shrink)

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer, or as another gender. Our gender is the property we have of being a woman, being a man, being non-binary, or being another gender. What is the relationship between our gender identity and our gender? Recently, much work has been done on ameliorative accounts of the gender concepts that we should accept and on the metaphysics of gender properties. From this work 4 views of the (...) relationship between having gender identity G (e.g. having a female gender identity) and being a gender G (e.g. being a woman) have emerged. A first, the no connection view, says that gender identity and gender are entirely distinct; Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative account of gender, as well as Theodore Bach’s account of gender properties, are instances of this view. A second, the gender-identity-first view, says that all there is to our gender is our gender identity; this view is at least similar to views that Talia Bettcher and R.A. Briggs and B.R. George have argued for. A third, contextualist view, says that in some contexts and relative to certain standards, our gender identity determines our gender, and that in others it does not; Ásta and Robin Dembroff have proposed and defended views along these lines. A fourth view, the two gender properties view, says that there are two properties that can make it the case that one is gender G (in any context), one’s having gender identity G and one’s being socially classed as a G; Katharine Jenkins and Elizabeth Barnes have proposed views along these lines. This article explains these 4 different views and spells out their prospects, and the problems they face, as both ameliorative and as metaphysical views. (shrink)

In Born Free and Equal: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature of Discrimination, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen defends the harm-based account of the wrongness of discrimination, which explains the wrongness of discrimination with reference to the harmfulness of discriminatory acts. Against this view, we offer two objections. The conditions objection states that the harm-based account implausibly fails to recognize that harmless discrimination can be wrong. The explanation objection states that the harm-based account fails adequately to identify all of the wrong-making properties of (...) discriminatory acts. We argue that the structure of a satisfactory view cannot be outcome-focused. A more promising family of views focuses on the deliberation of the discriminator and in particular on the reasons that motivate or fail to motivate her action. (shrink)

This essay employs strategies drawn from the emergent field of everyday aesthetics to explore the pleasures of reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Samuel Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison. As a fictional paradigm, Crusoe has been a paradoxical inspiration, inviting critique as a seductive representative of colonial power, on the one hand, and eliciting admiration for his ability to provoke meaningful artistic and intellectual engagement from a diverse group of writers and thinkers, on the other hand. To many ordinary readers, he (...) has proved company worth keeping as a source of inspiration and personal pleasure primarily through his aesthetic approach to the structuring of everyday life. The fiction of Samuel Richardson continues the focus on the everyday, placing even greater emphasis on the relationship between the ethical and the aesthetic. In his final novel, Sir Charles Grandison, pleasure can scarce be felt without some commentary outlining the contours of moral significance, and the very act of moral reasoning is demonstrably affective for characters and readers alike. The essay ends with consideration of the power of literature, especially the realistic novel, to shape the ordinary lives of everyday readers. (shrink)

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer, or as another gender. Our gender is the property we have of being a woman, being a man, being non-binary, or being another gender. What is the relationship between our gender identity and our gender? Recently, much work has been done on ameliorative accounts of the gender concepts that we should accept and on the metaphysics of gender properties. From this work 4 views of the (...) relationship between having gender identity G (e.g. having a female gender identity) and being a gender G (e.g. being a woman) have emerged. A first, the no connection view, says that gender identity and gender are entirely distinct; Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative account of gender, as well as Theodore Bach’s account of gender properties, are instances of this view. A second, the gender-identity-first view, says that all there is to our gender is our gender identity; this view is at least similar to views that Talia Bettcher and R.A. Briggs and B.R. George have argued for. A third, contextualist view, says that in some contexts and relative to certain standards, our gender identity determines our gender, and that in others it does not; Ásta and Robin Dembroff have proposed and defended views along these lines. A fourth view, the two gender properties view, says that there are two properties that can make it the case that one is gender G (in any context), one’s having gender identity G and one’s being socially classed as a G; Katharine Jenkins and Elizabeth Barnes have proposed views along these lines. This article explains these 4 different views and spells out their prospects, and the problems they face, as both ameliorative and as metaphysical views. (shrink)

Thirty-six 1-year-old middle-class children with fathers who spent differential time with them at home were observed in two experimental contexts separated by 2 weeks. In the first, each infant was shown six to eight repetitions of three different nonsocial events followed by a change in..

The scope of the lectionaries currently in use require the preacher to master a vast range of biblical material. A wide variety of resources are available to help them in this work.

What happens when adjudication signals its own artifice? Or when jurisprudence is animated by what Maksymilian Del Mar calls ‘legal artifacts’ that invite us to suspend certain of our prevailing no...

This article provides an analysis of theories of metaphor, tracing how far those which have dominated Western thought until the past few decades are reflective of the definitions within which writers from Classical Greece were working. It is shown how, during the Middle Ages and beyond, in particular since the seventeenth century, definitions of metaphor which emphasised ‘literal’ and ‘figurative’ levels of meaning have led to serious misconceptions concerning its nature and function in the attempts of human beings to conceptualise (...) and make sense of their experiences. A discussion of these misconceptions is provided in some detail and traditional definitions are shown to have distorted the deeper insights held by classical writers, such as Aristotle, Demetrius and Longinus. The article continues with descriptive analyses of the mistaken nature of definitions of metaphor which confine it to creative, poetic forms of discussion. It is shown that conventional speech utterances comprise simple metaphors to a large extent and how these provide an immensely important base from which education could help pupils extend and enrich both their thought and language. This could be done by teaching them ways of interpreting the novel, poetic metaphors of others and how to create their own. (shrink)

The current investigation examines children’s learning about a novel machine in a local history museum. Parent–child dyads were audio-recorded as they navigated an exhibit that contained a novel artifact: a coffee grinder from the turn of the 20th century. Prior to entering the exhibit, children were randomly assigned to receive an experimental “component” prompt that focused their attention on the machine’s internal mechanisms or a control “history” prompt. First, we audio-recorded children and their caregivers while they freely explored the exhibit, (...) and then, we measured children’s learning by asking them two questions in a test phase. Children of all ages, regardless of the prompt given, discussed most aspects of the machine, including the whole machine, its parts, and, to a lesser extent, its mechanisms. In the test phase, older children recalled more information than younger children about all aspects of the machine and appeared more knowledgeable to adult coders. Overall, this suggests that children of all ages were motivated to discuss all aspects of a machine, but some scaffolding may be necessary to help the youngest children take full advantage of these learning opportunities. While the prompts did not significantly influence the number of children who discussed the machine’s mechanisms, children who received the component prompt were rated as more knowledgeable about the machine in the test phase, suggesting that this prompt influenced what they learned. Implications for visitor experience and exhibit design are discussed. (shrink)

This essay will move toward a phenomenology of “more” in ten steps. 1st, situates the investigation within the tradition of Husserlian phenomenological practice, then 2nd draws upon Husserl’s own experience of doing phenomenology. 3rd considers some initial aspects of the structure of the lived experience of “more” and 4th is about the number series, while 5th addresses the primal experience of time, space, and movement. 6th focuses on the phenomenological notion of horizons, then 7th turns to the related question of (...) transcendence. 8th takes a critical look at a particular conceptual model sometime used in thinking about the experience of “more”; 9th briefly brings out one of the ethical implications of this critique; and finally, 10th highlights some of the ways in which the research documented here is itself still incomplete and demands “more”.Este ensayo se moverá hacia una fenomenología de "más" en diez pasos. El prime-ro, sitúa la investigación dentro de la tradición de la práctica fenomenológica husserliana; luego, el segundo se basa en la propia experiencia de Husserl de hacer fenomenología; el tercero considera algunos aspectos iniciales de la estructura de la experiencia vivida de "más" y el cuarto es sobre la serie numérica, mientras que el quinto aborda la experiencia primordial de tiempo, espacio y movimiento. El sexto se centra en la noción fenomenológica de horizontes; después el séptimo pasa a la cuestión relacionada con la trascendencia. El octavo echa una mirada crítica a un modelo conceptual particular usado en algún momento para pensar sobre la experiencia de "más"; el noveno destaca brevemente una de las implicaciones éticas de esta crítica;y, finalmente, el décimo resalta algunas de las formas en las que la investigación aquí documentada todavía está incompleta y exige "más". (shrink)

IN THIS ESSAY, I PROPOSE A DISTINCT APPROACH TO ETHICS—COMPARAtive rhetoric—that attempts to analyze moral discourse at the intratradition and intertradition levels. Drawing on Aristotle's classification of modes of rhetoric, I demonstrate how the epideictic mode helps conceptualize moral discourse as attempting to convince and motivate through persuasion, even as it assumes as audience of adherence. I then elaborate a method of technical rhetorical analysis, drawing on the work of Stephen Toulmin and Chiam Perelman. This method is applied to two (...) short rhetorical performances of John Paul II and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, focusing on motherhood. I conclude by briefly considering women's responses to clerical rhetoric. (shrink)

The Human Tissue Act 2004 has generated considerable confusion, and is perhaps not the easiest statute to read. This paper aims to give a short guided tour of its provisions, and to highlight some of the practical issues that have already arisen since it came into operation on 1 September 2006. It does so from the point of view of University researchers, and of University RECs which may have to advise on these issues.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Jahrgang: 2013 Heft: 197 Seiten: 267-281.

An agent is said to be morally weak if and only if and he fails to act, when it is in his power to do so, in conformity with an applicable moral principle he accepts. A full explication of the important concepts employed in this definition would be very lengthy indeed. I shall limit my account to those features of the concepts of 'accepting a moral principle' and 'acting voluntarily' which are relevant to understanding that there are many types of (...) moral weakness. The first two sections of this essay will be devoted to the relevant features of these concepts; the third to expounding eight types of moral weakness. (shrink)

My scholarly work on the problem of race relations began with a general inquiry into the theory of economic inequality. Specifically, my 1981 paper, "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings," which appeared in the journal Econometrica, introduced a model of economic achievement in which a person's earnings depended on a random endowment of innate ability and on skills acquired from formal training. The key feature of this theory was that individuals had to rely on their families to pay for (...) their training. In this way, a person's economic opportunities were influenced by his inherited social position. I showed how, under these circumstances, the distribution of income in each generation could be determined by an examination of what had been obtained by the previous generation. My objective with the model was to illustrate how, in the long run, when people depend on resources available within families to finance their acquisition of skills, economic inequality comes to reflect the inherited advantages of birth. A disparity among persons in economic attainment would bear no necessary connection to differences in their innate abilities. (shrink)