According to H. H. Price in "Our Evidence for the Existence of Other Minds", the belief in the existence of other minds is not one that can be strictly proven. The most that can be obtained in support of the belief is good reasons for holding it. Price suggests that the best evidence derives from one's understanding of language. An exposition of, and a commentary on, Price's paper are given. Price argues that if I can verify a sentence which I hear and which I did not utter but which states something I was not in a position to know, or did not at the moment of hearing believe—then the utterance stands as good evidence for the existence of an other mind. From analogy he argues that since he uses symbols to refer to objects in the world, the foreign use of the same symbols must have occurred as a result of perceiving and thinking on the part of the other user. If the foreign utterance gave old information or was a platitude I already believed, then it is not impossible that the hearer was unconsciously the cause of the symbolic noises coming from the other body. There are, according to Price, factual examples of intrusions of words and sentences from one's own 'unconscious'. In the commentary, criticism is directed at Price's belief that he learns that symbols mean by introspecting how he uses them. Also, the need, for the purposes of his argument, to verify alleged foreign utterances is challenged. This raises a discussion of Price's use of a theory of 'unconscious believings'. It is concluded that Price was barking up the wrong tree in replacing solipsism by the possibility of one's unconscious animation of other bodies. The suggestion is put forward that reference to the understanding of language as a means of settling the other minds problem is inadequate if it does not take into account the scheme of personal pronouns, particularly the pronoun 'I', since the rules governing their use are like rules for the separating of things, similar to the distinguishing of things in the world in order to make up a game. As an attempt to make up for the inadequacy mentioned, a study of aspects of the concept of speech is made in part III. It emerges that the existence of a plurality of speakers is a presupposition of saying that someone says something, or even that propositions say something. Reference is made to the common grammar of 'I'. Relevant passages regarding 'I' in Wittgenstein's The Blue and Brown Books and Ryle1s The Concept of Mind are examined. It is concluded that the primary sense of 'I* refers to, or, indicates the speaker, and that philosophically important senses of ‘I’ derive from that original sense. The speaker is claimed to be outside the mind-body problem as well as the other minds problem. Consequently, though it is possible for a speaker to refer to himself in the solipsis-tic manner, or to entertain doubts about the reality of other people's feelings, it makes no sense for him to imagine that his role as a speaker in a community of speakers thereby vanishes. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

From surveys of achievement in reading, it is evident that many people in our society do not learn to read adequately. It is also evident that the majority of the children who have difficulty in learning to read are boys who have emotional problems related to their reading behaviour. Through a review of the literature on identification, sex-role learning and the differential treatment of boys and girls in schools it was suggested that the numerical predominance of male over female retarded readers is related to the difference in connotative meanings that boys and girls attach to significant figures in their home and school environments. It was hypothesized that the connotative meanings that certain concepts have for boys would be significantly related to their reading ability. It was further hypothesized that no such relationship would exist for girls. To test the hypothesis measures were made of reading ability and connotative meanings certain concepts have for boys and girls in the second grade. Meaning was measured by means of the semantic differential. To assess the relative importance of the meanings of - the concepts measured as predictor variables of reading achievement, assessments of intelligence and socio-economic status were also made. Contrary to the hypothesis the findings indicated that for children in general the concepts measured seem to be more highly related to the reading achievement of girls than of boys. The one concept that appears to be significantly related to the reading achievement of both boys and girls is the female child, Janet, a literary figure in the basal reading series used in the school district selected for the study. Analysis of the data from individual classrooms suggests factors affecting reading achievement may be peculiar to a particular classroom. Future research may attempt to analyse the complex interaction of teacher, students, and reading material and then try to isolate the factors most relevant to reading achievement. Multiple regression analysis indicated that some of the concepts measured accounted for significantly more variance in reading ability than other factors such as intelligence sub-test scores and socio-economic status which are widely assumed to be related to reading ability. It was suggested that the failure to find any significant association between connotative meaning and reading achievement for boys may have been due to the level of reading ability measured by standardized reading tests. It was suggested that future research might look at the association between connotative meaning and independent and instructional levels of reading ability. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Subjects viewed luminous targets in a dark room. Target size and composition were varied to determine their effect on subjects' reports of complete figure disappearances. The number of complete target disappearances decreased as the size of the retinal image increased. Fragmentations related to meaning and shape were also greatest under viewing conditions involving small retinal images. Subjects showed no preference when they were given the opportunity to respond to either shape of conceptual similarities in the target. Prior perceptual learning experiences were also varied. Evidence for perceptual learning on a specific target (PPL) was not found with subjects who reported that they had astigmatism. Perceptual learning was demonstrated using either a within-S or between-S design, and was found to decay rapidly over time. More meaningful training stimuli produced a greater degree of learning. Evidence for stimulus generalization was also found using a perceptual learning exercise. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts (Counseling Psychology) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2011. / The major objective of the study was to document the experiences and meaning attributed to the divorce of one’s parents. The results emerged from this study undoubtedly pointed out that the majority of the experiences of children of divorce are negative experiences and had negative impacts to their well being (personally, psychologically, economically and even socially). The meaning attributed to these experiences, is mostly negative attributions and there were few positive. Some of the participants have benefited from their negative and painful experiences. That was by changed their thought orientation to be more focused and being responsible individuals, whereas, it has changed other’s personality and self perception for the bad. Based on the findings of this study and evidence from consulted literature on the experiences and meaning attributed to the divorce of one’s parents entails pain, abuse, development, loss, despair, responsibility, deprivation and lot more. Most of the literature reviewed concurred with findings of this study.

Throughout most of human history, justice has been perceived as an extremely important virtue. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the meaning of justice with a focus on a particular subject—pricing, specifically as it pertains to healthcare. In addition to the primary goal, there are also some secondary objectives: uncovering the procedure of healthcare pricing, revealing the role of government in achieving justice of healthcare pricing, and identifying the influential factors that affect the formation of people’s understanding of justice regarding healthcare pricing. The findings indicate that the equity perspective and the perspective of the need principle have substantial influence on the formation of people’s understanding of justice with regard to healthcare pricing. From the equity perspective, people believe that a just healthcare pricing should be reasonably based on cost. From the need principle perspective, people believe that just healthcare pricing should guarantee the affordability of healthcare, especially basic care. In regard to the role of government, a majority of participants believe that the government-market mixed mechanism is the most just pricing mechanism and government should play the role of a regulator. Government interventions should strive toward assisting the spontaneous forces of the market competition. Finally, findings in this study state that the participants’ general belief of distributive justice exerts a significant effect upon their understanding of justice regarding healthcare pricing. However, there is no one-to-one correspondence between these two. These findings prove that people have the tendency to treat healthcare as a special good and view justice of healthcare pricing as a particular subject to which the general belief of distributive justice may not be applicable. By focusing on justice of healthcare pricing, this study bridges the research gap and contributes to the literature on ethical study of pricing. The identifications of the popularly shared understanding of justice regarding healthcare pricing and the proper role of government provide important reference information to governments and policy makers, enlightening people with new solutions to some pressing healthcare issues.

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