aj Two years ago there was a need to re-define the position of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the system of international relations and to identify it`s main threats and their perception. The strategic concept from the 1999 has become obsolete document which couldn't adequately react to new threats. In the 2009 the process of creation new strategy started. There was assembled a group of experts under lead of Madeleine Albright to stimulate a discussion across member states about the nature and task of NATO and the current perception of security through a number of seminars and conferences. Subsequent analysis of the current security discourse served to NATO Secretary General as a form of recommendations for the preparation of the new strategy. The process of creation was as important as its outcome document, because it included the general professional public in addition to national governments. In my diploma thesis, besides the main themes of the new strategy, I will focus mainly on reflection of Czech debate on the new strategy. I introduce the concept of epistemic communities by Peter Haas, through which I define epistemic Czech group that dealt with the creation of a new NATO strategy.

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This doctoral dissertation examines the interrelation between three aspects of Heraclitus’ thought: (1) his interest in perspectival or context-dependent conceptions of the opposites; (2) his views on the obstacles to and limitations of human (as contrasted with divine) knowledge; and (3) his conception of reality as a unity, along with the divergent kinds of unity that he associates with the divine and the human perspective. This dissertation argues that Heraclitus conceives of reality as an undifferentiated unity that can only be understood from a “perspectiveless” state. In other words, reality is such that it can only be grasped from a state unconditioned by the perceptual and cognitive features arising from one’s idiosyncratic “creaturely” constitution – especially one’s needs and values. This perspectiveless state also corresponds to the divine “perspective.” Heraclitus’ logos, this thesis argues, is a method for recognizing the underlying structure of human thought and discourse, and the view of reality that this structure yields. However, this method, when used consistently and globally, serves to undermine both the logos itself and the human perspective that it reflects. Through an analysis of Heraclitus’ perspective juxtapositions, this thesis shows that a full engagement with the logos’ method of evoking the unity of opposites allows the audience to achieve a (temporary) collapse of perspective and apprehension of reality as a unity free of oppositions and differentiations. By viewing Heraclitus’ statements concerning human knowledge in this light, we can resolve certain puzzles in Heraclitus’ conception of unity, his preoccupation with the perspectival (despite his rejection of the idiosyncratic) and his attitudes towards human knowledge. The unity of opposites, while not part of the nature of reality, plays an essential part in the common structure of human thought. By cleaving to this common structure, and by engaging fully with the conflicting perspectives which it brings together, and which are equally idiosyncratic with respect to the true nature of reality, the audience overcomes the limitations of the human perspective, and achieves a temporary apprehension of a reality which cannot be grasped from within its constraints.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to further explore pedagogical balance using multidimensional scaling and epistemic network analysis. Teacher shortages and attrition remain a critical issue for the future, and simulated classroom environments like simSchool can provide teachers additional training to help improve teaching confidence and teaching experience. Two different data sets were analyzed at various time before and after simSchool use to see how pre-service teachers rate themselves in 8 areas of teaching as defined by the Survey of Teaching Skills. Multidimensional scaling was utilized to see how teaching confidence and teaching experience align with no simSchool use, 90 minutes of use, and 8 hours of use. Epistemic network analysis was utilized to look at the cognitive structures of different groups to determine any differences. The findings are discussed with future research directions provided.

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京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第23687号 / 理博第4777号 / 新制||理||1684(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)教授 長谷川 真人, 教授 牧野 和久, 准教授 照井 一成 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

<p>The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that epistemic contextualism, which proposes that the word ‘know’ is a context-sensitive term, is seriously deficient and therefore indefensible. Since epistemic contextualists claim that their semantic theory of ‘know’ contributes not only to a linguistic model of knowledge ascription but also to a unified solution to some important puzzles in epistemology, I divide my thesis into two basic parts. In the first part (i.e., Chapters 2 and 3), I argue that the proponents of both binary and ternary accounts of the supposed context-sensitivity of ‘know’ fail to provide a reasonable linguistic model of knowledge ascription. My argument in Chapter 1 indicates that ‘know’ cannot be treated as a binary context-sensitive term that is similar to paradigmatic indexical terms or gradable adjectives. Chapter 2 takes contrastivism as a representation of the ternary account of the supposed context-sensitivity of ‘know’ and argues that this theory is in an even worse position because it even fails to capture the supposed phenomena of the context-sensitivity of knowledge ascription. The second part (i.e., Chapters 4, 5, and 6) argues that epistemic contextualism does not provide us with a really satisfactory solution to the puzzles of skepticism, the epistemic closure principle and fallibilism. On the contrary, its rival, invariantism, with some support from pragmatics, psychology of belief and experimental philosophy, is able to solve the above puzzles in a quite nice way. At the end of my thesis (i.e., Chapter 7), I systematize the observations, the evaluations and the critiques of epistemic contextualism from the previous chapters and indicate that epistemic contextualists even fail to establish their supposed phenomena of the context-sensitivity of ‘know.’</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation investigated the relation between epistemic cognition-epistemic aims and source beliefs-and learning outcome in an Internet-based research context. Based on a framework of epistemic cognition (Chinn, Buckland, & Samarapungavan, 2011), a context-specific epistemic aims and source beliefs questionnaire (CEASBQ) was developed and administered to 354 students from college-level introductory chemistry courses. A series of multitrait-multimethod model comparisons provided evidence for construct convergent and discriminant validity for three epistemic aims-true beliefs, justified beliefs, explanatory connection, which were all distinguished from, yet correlated with, mastery goals. Students' epistemic aims were specific to the chemistry topics in research. Multidimensional scaling results indicated that students' source evaluation was based on two dimensions-professional expertise and first-hand knowledge, suggesting a multidimensional structure of source beliefs. Most importantly, online learning outcome was found to be significantly associated with two epistemic aims-justified beliefs and explanatory connection: The more students sought justifications in the online research, the lower they tended to score on the learning outcome measure, whereas the more students sought explanatory connections between information, the higher they scored on the outcome measure. There was a significant but small positive association between source beliefs and learning outcome. The influences of epistemic aims and source beliefs on learning outcome were found to be above and beyond the effects of a number of covariates, including prior knowledge and perceived ability with online sources. / Educational Psychology