Newly edited by Konrad Koerner (University of Ottawa), with an introduction by Clemens Knobloch (Universitat Siegen)The importance of Wegener's Untersuchungen uber die Grundfragen des Sprachlebens can only be compared to that of Karl Buhler's Sprachtheorie. Even now, however, Wegener's work remains virtually unknown to the English speaking world. Wegener's main work was published in 1885. It has its origin in two lectures given in 1883 and 1884 at school teacher meetings held in the Magdeburg area and it still recalls those (...) original occasions and maintains much of the oral style. Part of the volume treats the subject in a systematic and theoretical manner; other sections contain vivid examples and are characterized by a considerable didactic effort. The book is held together by leitmotif-questions, such as 'How do we understand language?' and 'How does language function as a means of everyday communication?'. We witness the experiences of the talented school teacher and the observations of the innovative dialect researcher combined, condensed, and conceptually ordered.In spite of the relatively unsystematic form of presentation, the book remains thoroughly consistent in thought and argument. In the Untersuchungen we have before us the outline of a communicative and functional view of language structure, of the analysis of speech, and of semantics. (shrink)

Context: Epistemologically, constructivism has reached its goals, particularly by emphasizing the idea of participatory observation, circularity, and the fact that construction is based on experience. However, rather than research, the main occupation of constructivists and second-order cyberneticians seems to lie in making the case for their epistemological idea, which has been exhausted in many aspects. Purpose: To counteract this exhaustion and an increasingly apparent lack of energy, it is argued that constructivism requires a dedicated field of research, a field where (...) it would be possible to test constructivist concepts empirically and thus go beyond mere theoretical discourse. Method: Based on a review of basic constructivist premises and a critical examination of the field of empirical phenomenological research, the article connects their respective findings. Results: The article proposes that empirical research on lived experience requires a constructivist epistemological foundation and might therefore be a logical continuation of constructivist endeavours. In such a way, both fields might benefit considerably. Not only would constructivism acquire an empirical tool for testing its ideas, such a partnership might also provide empirical phenomenology with a more suitable epistemological platform than the realism-based research framework of cognitive science (of which it has become an integral part. The possibilities and problems of introducing empirical research into constructivism are also discussed. Implications: The article presents an opportunity to re-think the role and future of constructivism. It suggests educating a new generation of constructivist researchers whose principal goal would be the attempt to study lived human experience. That could also open a path to the experimental grounding of many constructivist insights. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Religion: A Radical-Constructivist Perspective” by Andreas Quale. Upshot: Quale argues that radical constructivism and religion are incompatible: a believer must necessarily be a realist, while radical constructivism, with its fundamental relativistic epistemology, can neither confirm nor deny religious beliefs. In the commentary, I first question Quale’s distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive knowledge, especially from the point of view of the discussion of religious beliefs. Later on, I follow his argumentation of the epistemic position associated (...) with religious belief and point out that Quale’s conclusions could be extrapolated, presenting a basis for an interesting and relevant discussion about the split between the everyday and the constructivist epistemic positions. (shrink)

The knowledge of an object under observation will have no concrete meaning unless we can work out a logical model the similarities of which are known in relation to the analysed structures. The logical model, when dealing with complex structures, is drawn out by similarity starting from an analogical model worked out in relating local dimensions in the object to physical dimensions of a different nature which restrict the number of variables and can be arranged and modified as required.Any operating (...) similarity and behaviour comparisons come actually down to an apparent functional analogy. The difference between the thin structure of the natural and artificial systems makes it illusive to hope that a strict isomorphism between these two fields may thus be sorted out. However, the fact of achieving analogical models widens our knowledge and shows new possibilities to the human creative mind. (shrink)

Эта книга является в России фундаментальным исследованием, посвященным влиянию на современников и последующие поколения социологов ученого с мировым именем - Питирима Сорокина.

1. Haeje, Ch'ongmok, T'ongnye 1, Ch'ongsaegin -- 2. T'ongnye 2, Kwallye, Hollye -- 3. Sangnye 1-3 -- 4. Sangnye 4-6 -- 5. Sangnye 7-8 -- 6. Cherye 1-2, Pyŏllye mongnok.

According to interpretivism, all there is to having an intentional property is being best interpreted as having it. I present a regress-or-circularity argument against this. In §1, I elucidate interpretivism, and in §2, I present the argument against it.

Starting in 2005, general logical metatheorems have been developed that guarantee the extractability of uniform effective bounds from large classes of proofs of theorems that involve abstract metric structures X. In this paper we adapt this to the class of CAT\)-spaces X for \ and establish a new metatheorem that explains specific bound extractions that recently have been achieved in this context as instances of a general logical phenomenon.