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Reference is the relation held to obtain between an expression and what a speaker or thinker intends the expression to represent. Reference is a component of interpretation, the process of giving terms, sentences, and thoughts semantic content. An example of reference in a formal context involves the natural numbers, where each one can be taken to have a corresponding set-theoretic counterpart as its referent. In an informal context reference is exemplified by the relation between a name and the specific name-bearer when a speaker or thinker utters or has the name in mind. Recent debates over reference have concerned the mechanism of reference: How is it that we can refer? In informal contexts, externalists see the reference relation as explicable in terms of the salient causal relations involved in the naming of a thing, or a class of things, and the ensuing causal chains leading to a term’s use. Opponents of this view—internalists—see the reference relation as being conceptually direct, and they take the external approach to rely on untenable metaphysical assumptions about the world’s structure. Moreover, some internalists take the permutability—i.e. the consistent reinterpretation—of certain referential schemes to confound the externalist picture of reference. In this thesis I focus on the reference of theoretical terms in science, and I argue for an externalist treatment of natural kinds and other theoretical elements. Along the way I offer a defense of the externalist’s pre-theoretic metaphysical assumptions and emphasize their central role in the interpretation of scientific languages. The externalist approach acknowledges the necessary constraints on reference-fixing that account for the schemes we employ, and this, I argue, confounds the permutation strategy.

In this paper I give a thorough account of the history of the open question argument. I have provide Moore’s original impetus for it and its traditional formulation. I then examine the Cornell Realists’ objection to that original formulation and showed that their objection does indeed show the open question argument to be incorrect in its conclusions. Having presented the history of the open question argument and having assessed the most challenging objections to it, I turn to Andrew Altman’s powerful reconstruction of the open question argument in order to see how well, if at all, it sidesteps the objections leveled against the classical formulation. I then argue that while Altman does present the most coherent defense of the open question argument available, I conclude that insofar as he has rested upon a commitment to Carnap's philosophy of language over a Fregean semantic and an untenable rendering of post-Kripkean philosophy of language as it concerns rigid designation, we must reject his reformulation. Given that rigid designation itself undermines Altman’s position, I conclude that the open question is still in need of a defense before it can regain its position as a major player in the discipline of ethics.

Lawrence Bonjour supported coherentism in the early period, but turns to foundationalism in the later period. In this paper I shall focus on two sides in relation to his epistemology. To understand his early and later positions, first, I shall explain his coherentism and foundationalism. Second, I shall consider what objections have been raised to each position. Thus we can evaluate why Bonjour abandoned his coherentism and why his foundationalism succeeds as a plausible theory for empirical justification.

Reference is the relation held to obtain between an expression and what a speaker or thinker intends the expression to represent. Reference is a component of interpretation, the process of giving terms, sentences, and thoughts semantic content. An example of reference in a formal context involves the natural numbers, where each one can be taken to have a corresponding set-theoretic counterpart as its referent. In an informal context reference is exemplified by the relation between a name and the specific name-bearer when a speaker or thinker utters or has the name in mind. Recent debates over reference have concerned the mechanism of reference: How is it that we can refer? In informal contexts, externalists see the reference relation as explicable in terms of the salient causal relations involved in the naming of a thing, or a class of things, and the ensuing causal chains leading to a term’s use. Opponents of this view—internalists—see the reference relation as being conceptually direct, and they take the external approach to rely on untenable metaphysical assumptions about the world’s structure. Moreover, some internalists take the permutability—i.e. the consistent reinterpretation—of certain referential schemes to confound the externalist picture of reference. In this thesis I focus on the reference of theoretical terms in science, and I argue for an externalist treatment of natural kinds and other theoretical elements. Along the way I offer a defense of the externalist’s pre-theoretic metaphysical assumptions and emphasize their central role in the interpretation of scientific languages. The externalist approach acknowledges the necessary constraints on reference-fixing that account for the schemes we employ, and this, I argue, confounds the permutation strategy.

I denna undersökning granskas 31 texter skrivna av elever i årskurs 7 höstterminen 2011. Samtliga texter är skrivna efter samma på förhand fastställda uppgift. Metodmässigt har texterna granskats genom en närläsning strukturerad av ett analysschema.  Undersökningen syftar till att besvara följande frågeställningar: - Vilka är de texttypsmässiga styrkorna och svagheterna i elevtexterna? - Hur ser samspelet ut mellan berättandet och argumenterandet i elevtexterna? - Vilka typer av kunskaper i argumentation visar sig i elevtexterna? Sammanfattningsvis visar studien att eleverna kan föra fram en tes och argument som stödjer tesen. Dock finns det utrymme för förbättring vad det gäller skapandet av disposition. Undersökningen visar också att en mindre del av eleverna valde att skriva en diskuterande text istället för en renodlad argumentation. Eleverna har i de flesta fall en god känsla för blandningen av den argumenterande och berättande texttypen. I diskussionen redogörs för hur texterna skulle kunna användas i ett formativt arbetssätt för att diskutera kunskaps-kvalitéer. / In this thesis 31 student texts are examined by close reading. The texts were written in seventh grade on the fall semester of 2011. The study of close reading were structured by an analytic scheme and aimed to answer the following questions: - Which are the strengths and weaknesses in the student’s text in relation to text type? -  How is the relationship between narrative and argumentative text types represented? -  Which signs of knowledge about written argument appear in the student’s texts?  The study shows that most students can formulate a thesis and argument to support it.   There is however room for improvement when it comes to the disposition of the text. The study also shows that some of the students wrote a text as a discussion rather than an argument. In most cases the students are successful in combining narrative and argumentative text types. The thesis is concluded by a discussion about how these results could be helpful in the frame of formative assessment and guide students to develop their argumentative skill.

Since its commencement, the radio industry has been facing challenges from new media such as TV and later, the Internet. Nowadays, radio is widely regarded as a traditional medium that is fading away. However, the audio-oriented media feature of radio endows itself with a unique niche that could not be replaced by other video media. That is why radio advertisements are especially favored by advertisers. This research applies the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to radio advertising research, aiming to deliberate the persuasion effect of radio advertisements, which would be one of the few advertising-related studies in our country recently. This research utilizes the experimental method, a 2 (strong or weak argument quality) by 2 (reliable or attractive communicator quality) between-subject factorial design. 160 participants were randomly assigned to 4 experimental conditions, each with different stimulus of experimental ads. In addition, this study considers the degree of involvement with the advertised product as the mediating variable. In this research, the results shows that high-involvement subjects are mainly influenced by the argument quality in the radio ads. When high-involvement subjects are exposed to ads with strong argument quality, better evaluations on the ads , brands, credibility and cognition are generated. In addition, in the research both high-involvement or low-involvement subjects are not obviously influenced by communicator quality factors. However, if the advertisement takes an approach combining strong argument quality with a reliable communicator, high-involvement subjects would generate better attitudinal evaluations on the ads and brands. It is interesting that the advertisement shows an attractive female, the males would generate higher evaluation on brands attitude, credibility, behavior intention about this advertisement.

This thesis is a descriptive study of four contrastive discourse connectives in Turkish. The main aim of this study is to analyze the connectives with respect to their meaning and predicate-argument structure and lay out the similarities and differences among contrastive discourse connectives with the help of quantitative analysis. Although the study is limited with contrastive connectives, it will have implications on how to resolve discourse structure in general and illustrate how lexico-syntactic elements contribute to discourse semantics.

This dissertation addresses the new models in mathematical neuroscience: artificial neural networks, which have many similarities with the structure of human brain and the functions of cells by electronic circuits. The networks have been investigated due to their extensive applications in classification of patterns, associative memories, image processing, artificial intelligence, signal processing and optimization problems. These applications depend crucially on the dynamical behaviors of the networks. In this thesis the dynamics are presented by differential equations with discontinuities: differential equations with piecewise constant argument of generalized type, and both impulses at fixed moments and piecewise constant argument. A discussion of the models, which are appropriate for the proposed applications, are also provided. Qualitative analysis of existence and uniqueness of solutions, global asymptotic stability, uniform asymptotic stability and global exponential stability of equilibria, existence of periodic solutions and their global asymptotic stability for these networks are obtained. Examples with numerical simulations are given to validate the theoretical results. All the properties are rigorously approved by using methods for differential equations with discontinuities: existence and uniqueness theorems / stability analysis through the Second Lyapunov method and linearization. It is the first time that the problem of stability with the method of Lyapunov functions for differential equations with piecewise constant argument of generalized type is investigated. Despite the fact that these equations are with deviating argument, stability criteria are merely found in terms of Lyapunov functions.