O trabalho propõe uma análise de relações possíveis entre videogames e construção de sentidos, buscando discutir diferentes abordagens e perspectivas teóricas que possam contribuir no entendimento do videogame enquanto objeto de estudo acadêmico. Indo além de uma perspectiva que possa restringi-lo a um exemplar contemporâneo de uma noção mais abstrata de jogo, abordo-o enquanto um objeto epistêmico (KNORR CETINA 2001) participante de constelações de saberes (SANTOS ET AL 2005) que podem entrar em conflito entre si. Isso, em uma sociedade em que a primazia do prestígio de práticas e conhecimentos científicos é marcante. Para tanto, busco enfatizar mais especificamente ao menos duas outras dimensões do videogame: sua materialidade enquanto mídia contemporânea e sua potencialidade, enquanto artefato cultural, em gerar efeitos sociais e discursivos específicos. Dentro disso, pontuo elementos que ajudam a problematizar como a especificidade técnica, cultural e de linguagem presente no que se entende atualmente como videogame pode dar formas a saberes e sentidos construídos na contingência do uso de tal artefato por seus jogadores. Essa questão mais ampla se efetivou em estudos exploratórios por meio de duas formas de análise: a observação de registros escritos em um fórum de fãs de futebol a respeito, basicamente, de um simulador do esporte (o Football Manager); entrevistas com quatro participantes desse fórum que tinham ou tiveram no uso do videogame em questão uma prática corrente. Isso, tendo como norte, principalmente, os seguintes pontos: i) de que modo a experiência situada e específica com o videogame pode se tornar pública ou manifesta em outros contextos; ii) que relações o jogador pode perceber, defender ou estabelecer contrapondo saberes e sentidos surgidos de uma interação com o videogame com saberes mais canônicos e esperados em contextos públicos e comunitários do qual participa iii) qual a função ou efeito essas experiências com videogames quando compartilhadas em situações concretas, socialmente inseridas, mas que não a de sua prática podem vir a exercer em comunidades mais amplas (ou seja, que envolvam sujeitos que não são jogadores de videogame). Tais estudos indicam que o videogame é percebido e utilizado por seus jogadores como um espaço diferenciado do futebol profissional, que seu uso enquanto fonte de saber na comunidade analisada é concreto embora não seja consensualmente validado e que essa falta de consenso não o impede de ser uma forma de conhecimento defendida e utilizada por diversos membros do grupo, influenciando as opiniões e perspectivas em debate no espaço em questão. Assim, deve-se considerar que videogames podem ter papel na construção das realidades que envolvem o sujeito, o que não resulta em confusão entre a prática de interagir com videogames e a prática social em outros contextos / The aim of this research is to analyze potential connections between videogames and meaningmaking through the discussion of different approaches and theoretical perspectives that might contribute to the understanding of the videogame as an object of academic study. Rather than considering a perspective that restricts the videogame as a contemporary sample of a more abstract notion of a game, I approach it as an epistemic object (KNORR CETINA 2001) participant of constellations of knowledge (SANTOS ET AL 2005) that may conflict with each other; especially in a society where the primacy of scientific practices and knowledge is remarkable. Therefore, I emphasize two dimensions of the videogame: its materiality as contemporary media and its potentiality as a cultural artifact that generates specific social and discursive effects. Within this framework, I point out elements that help to problematize how the specificity of technical, cultural, and linguistic issues regarding the current understanding of videogames can frame knowledges and meanings constructed in the contingency of interaction among players. Exploratory studies were carried out on two forms of analysis: the observation of written records in a forum of football fans mainly regarding a simulator called Football Manager; and interviews with four participants of this forum who used the simulator in a common practice. This research focused mainly on the following points: i) how the situated and specific experience with the videogame can be transformed and presented as a public or manifest knowledge in other contexts; ii) what kind of links a player may recognize, stand up for, or establish among knowledges and meanings when interacting with the videogame, and on the other hand, with those knowledges understood as canonical or expected in this second context; iii) what role (or effect) these experiences play when they are shared in socially embedded concrete situations by people who are not videogame players. The research results showed that: although players and non-players participants of this community share a common sense of separation between experiences from the professional football world and the interaction with Football Manager, and also the practice with the simulator is not consensual, regarding it as a valid source of knowledge, it does not exclude this experience as a form of knowledge held and used by different group members, which influenced opinions and perspectives under discussion in the forum. As a result, it must be considered that videogames play a significant role in the construction of realities that surround players. However, this construction does not represent confusion to the players\' perception between the practice of interacting with videogames and the different social practices in other contexts

Frege wanted to show that arithmetical truths are logical by proving them from purely logical basic laws. But how do we know that these basic laws are logical? Frege uses generality and undeniability to make a prima facie case for logicality—if a truth is general and undeniable, then it's likely logical. I argue that Frege could, did, and had to make a deeper case for why we're right in recognizing his basic laws as logical. Implicit in his work is a view of logical laws as epistemically analytic—his arguments for his basic laws serve to elicit a reflective awareness of the fact that understanding them is sufficient for recognizing them to be true. This view both fits with Frege's comments concerning the connection between logic, truth, and normativity, and serves to explain why and in what sense he took logic to be general and conceptually undeniable. In my view, semantics must play a distinctive role in any rational reconstruction of Frege's case for logicality—the aforementioned “reflective awareness” must be an explicit appreciation of how the truth of formulas expressing Frege's laws follows quickly from his stipulations governing terms which figure in those formulas. Opposing this view is the elucidatory interpretation of Thomas Ricketts, Warren Goldfarb, and Joan Weiner, which holds that Frege's arguments for his basic laws can't be taken at face value, and must serve the merely elucidatory purpose of easing us into the language. Another reading is the correctness interpretation of Richard Heck and Jason Stanley, which holds that Frege's primary purpose in his arguments is justifying the claim that Frege's axioms, qua formulas, are true. I argue against both of these interpretations, and in doing so clarify the role and limits of semantics in Frege's enterprise.

L’étude du système verbal du tibétain littéraire présente un intérêt typologique à plus d’un titre. D’une part, elle permet d’observer l’évolution du système verbal, notamment les constructions avec un auxiliaire et les connecteurs verbaux, sur une période de plus de mille ans. Cette langue classique a l’avantage d’avoir quasiment préservé la même orthographe au cours de cette très longue période. J’ai choisi de me concentrer sur la période du quinzième siècle en choisissant pour corpus principal une œuvre très célèbre : la biographie de Milarépa. J’ai ensuite comparé le système verbal de cette période avec le tibétain littéraire contemporain. La principale raison qui a motivé cette étude, est l’émergence en tibétain moyen d’un système d’auxiliaires indiquant l’évidentialité, c'est-à-dire la grammaticalisation de la source épistémologique et de l’accès à l’information. Le tibétain est la seule langue littéraire d’Asie ayant une grande ancienneté qui ait développé un système verbal évidentiel complexe. Outre l’étude de la sémantique grammaticale, la deuxième motivation à l’origine de cette étude est la syntaxe des constructions avec un auxiliaire et des connecteurs du tibétain moyen et leur évolution en tibétain littéraire contemporain. Les données du tibétain littéraire et les analyses synchronique et diachronique sont susceptibles d’apporter une contribution à la typologie aussi bien en ce qui concerne l’évidentialité et les modalités épistémiques qu’en ce qui concerne la syntaxe des auxiliaires et des connecteurs. / The analysis of the literary Tibetan verb system is an object of typological interest for several reasons. Firstly, it allows us to look at the evolution of the verb system notably auxiliary verb constructions and clause linking during a period of more than a thousand years. Classical Tibetan has the advantage of having preserved almost the same orthography during this very long period of time. I decided to focus on the fifteenth century by selecting a well-known book as a main corpus: the Life of Milarepa. I then compared the verb system of this period with contemporary literary Tibetan. The main reason for this study is to better understand the emergence of an auxiliary verb system in middle Tibetan which marks evidentiality, that is to say the grammaticalization of the epistemological source and the access to information. Literary Tibetan is the only language in Asia with an ancient history which has developed a complex evidential verb system. Apart from the analysis of grammatical semantics, the second reason for this study is my interest in the syntax of auxiliary verb constructions and of clause linking in middle Tibetan and their evolution in contemporary Tibe! tan. My data on literary Tibetan and my synchronic and diachronic analysis may make a significant contribution to the typological studies of evidentiality and epistemic modality as well as of the syntax of auxiliary verb constructions and clause linking.

Educational environments are unable to meet the needs of each individual child. It is believed that individual characteristics of children both limit and promote their learning experiences. Those characteristics that promote learning are essential tools that aid parents and teachers in their efforts to educate children. These characteristics need to be identified and nurtured during the learning process. It has long been suggested that curiosity is one such variable. This study wishes to determine the association between curiosity and learning potential within the dynamic assessment paradigm. A small quasi-experiment was conducted on 39 seven and eight year old children with the use of two assessment measures. The Cognitive Modifiability Battery, built on dynamic assessment theory, measures learning potential. An adapted version of the Multidimensional Curiosity Inventory, still in development, measures various types of curiosity. It was hypothesized that children with high levels of curiosity would measure high in learning potential and those with low levels of curiosity would measure low in learning potential. However, after dividing participants into four groups according to level of curiosity, a quadratic relationship was found between curiosity and learning potential. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

Based on the theory of the emotions proposed by Martha Nussbaum, the present paper proposes a theory of rationality and judicial reasonability that includes emotions as a necessary element. With this, it is possible to pass from a purely deliberative-abstract model of judicial argument to a narratively open one, in which empathy and literary imagination play a fundamental role. I will argue that emotions have a concrete manifestation in at least three relevant circumstances: the value of testimony, that of empathy, and that of literary imagination. However, the place of emotions for the project of judicial rationality is subject to institutional restrictions such as rules of law, procedures and precedents. With this in mind, a sketch of theory on the narrative rationality in judicial contexts is presented in the last section of this paper. / A partir de la teoría de las emociones de Martha Nussbaum, el presente trabajo propone una teoría de la racionalidad y razonabilidad judicial que incluya a las emociones como un elemento necesario. Con ello se pasa de un modelo puramente deliberativo-abstracto de argumentación judicial a uno de tipo narrativamente abierto, en el cual la empatía y la imaginación literaria desempeñan un papel fundamental. Sostendré que las emociones tienen una manifestación concreta en al menos tres circunstancias relevantes: el valor del testimonio, el de la empatía y el de la imaginación literaria. Sin embargo, el lugar de las emociones para el proyecto de la racionalidad judicial está sometido a restricciones institucionales tales como reglas del derecho, procedimientos o precedentes. Con ello, un bosquejo de teoría sobre la racionalidad narrativa en sede judicial es presentado en la última sección.

The purpose of this study was to identify essential features of Epistemic Orientation toward Teaching Science (EOTS) and to explore the relationships between EOTS and instructional practices. This study proposes a new concept, EOTS: defined as a teacher's set of interrelated beliefs that are developed and used when teaching science, and are shaped by the Nature of Knowing in General, the Nature of Knowing in Science, the Nature of Learning, and the Nature of Teaching. The essential elements of EOTS were identified through a comprehensive literature review and refined through a multiple-case study. The participants of the study were three exemplary fifth grade teachers who had been implementing an Argument-based Inquiry (ABI) approach, called Science Writing Heuristic (SWH), for more than three years and were highly devoted to encouraging their students to engage in science practices addressed in Next Generation Science Standard. Data were collected from multiple sources including semi-structured interviews, Video-Stimulated Recall interviews, classroom observations, researchers' field notes, and classroom artifacts. Data was systematically coded, and each belief and practice analyzed in-depth. The results identified eleven interconnected beliefs held in common by all three teachers. Among the eleven elements, How to Learn was the core belief that was most connected to the others and also aligned well with the Source of Knowing, How to Learn, Evidence-based Argument, and How to Teach; this idea established a strong structural foundation for the EOTS. In addition, some elements were explicitly presented when the teachers made instructional decisions, while others were only presented implicitly. In addition, prominent patterns of instructional practice were evident across the three cases. The teachers did not plan how to teach in advance, rather they made instructional decisions based on their epistemic orientations. In particular, they emphasized a conceptual understanding of the big ideas in science by making connections between students' ideas and the big ideas in science. Constant negotiation (construction and critique) was another pattern observed throughout the lessons. In creating effective learning conditions for conceptual understanding and constant negotiation, teachers used language practices and social, group-work as epistemic tools to help students construct and critique knowledge. Moreover, physical resources, such as physical materials and time, were used in a way that encouraged students to engage in science practice. More importantly, the way in which classroom practices and dialogue were managed relied heavily on the essential elements of ETOS. Specifically, How to Learn and Control of Learning influenced the student-centeredness of their instructional practices. This study provides several implications for teacher education and research. Teacher-education programs should focus energy on shaping teacher ideas about learning, and address the epistemic foundations of science practices. Further investigation into the essential elements of EOTS, and the relationship between these elements and instructional practices must be pursued with diverse subjects, contexts, and methodologies, to develop a fuller understanding of how these elements work as a whole.

In this thesis I argue that epistemic trust in religious authorities is different from epistemic trust in other kinds of authorities because God disturbs the two-party relationship between trustee and truster. I reach this conclusion by first examining the nature of epistemic trust in authorities and how it is justifiable to practice this kind of trust. I then compare these findings to the nature of epistemic trust in religious authorities and see that the general justification for epistemic trust in authorities is not sufficient, instead, God’s relationship with the trusting party, the layperson, needs to be taken into consideration in order to justify epistemic trust in religious authorities.

What values, if any, is moral psychology based on with regard to what humans should be like? While the value-free ideal of science requires at least the bracketing of values in regards to the conducting of research and influence on its results, this investigation takes seriously the concerns of leading social psychologists that biases may influence the subdiscipline. Textual analyses of moral psychology's literature involving content analysis of codes and cultural discourse analysis of value themes illuminate values involving moral problems and moral goods that may inherently influence research at various levels. It is proposed that values are impossible to eliminate from moral psychological research and that a simple epistemic/nonepistemic value distinction is inadequate for deciding which values are appropriate. A norm of value disclosure to replace the norm of the value-free ideal is recommended.

Doctor Educationis / This dissertation is a study of a primary school teacher researching her classroom practice within the broader specific aim of the project was to investigate how a primary school teacher could go about her work in more for democratic ways. The research method used in the study was that of action research, and the empirical basis for argument in the dissertation lies in the use of data created during the process of researching that classroom practice. A fundamental assumption of the study is that teachers are the central driving force in any meaningful development of a critical pedagogy. Teachers, acting as trans formative . intellectuals, can work towards socialist transformation, because viewing teachers as intellectuals redefines their work and the political nature of schooling. The study, therefore, takes the problematic relationship between authority and emancipation as central to its concerns and tries to develop a rationale for making an emancipatory view of authority, and thus a rationale for a particular notion of professionalism, a central category in the development of a critical theory of schooling. In taking the position that teachers are central to learning in the classroom, and are the nexus of the authority/emancipation problematic, critical reflection on the classroom practices was approached both reflexively and dialectically so that uncertainties and contradictions could surface and be explored. The epistemological radicalism inherent in action research made this form of reflection possible. The study views primary school teachers as important mediators of change. This meant examining the process of instruction more carefully. The task was to understand how mediation generates higher mental functioning. To this end, Vygotsky's notion of a zone of proximal development, as the zone in which mediation can take place, is explored. The problem of how to investigate the substance of the zone of proximal development is met by the use of rationally reconstructed mediational operators. Drawing from the data in the study, three mediational operators are fashioned to study the one-to-many interaction in the process of instruction. These mediational operators serve as explanatory constructs to explicate the interrelation between the teacher's (and other significant others') instructional process and the learners' existing levels of development. • The preoccupations of this reflective dissertation writing take a multi-disciplinary approach, for to consider critical pedagogy means also to consider the psychological functioning of human beings within society - the mind-in society dialectic. The study reveals that 'democratic practice' is something to be negotiated and contested continually, for the authoritative position of teachers has to be questioned endlessly to locate the contradictions within that position. The experience of this study suggests that action research is a powerful means whereby teachers can reflect both reflexively and dialectically on their practice, that action research is intrinsically educational. A significant realization in the study, therefore, is the ways in which the educators themselves may become educated to take responsibility for their agency in transformation. • Bringing power relations into question is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence, thus a local specific inquiry such as this one can take on a general significance at the level of that regime of truth which is essential to the structure and functioning of our society. • Chapters One to Three provide the social and theoretical context for the study, dealing as they do with the crisis in schooling, the role of the teacher in change and the ways in which a teacher can research her practice for a transformed pedagogy. Chapters Four to Six consider the teacher-researcher at work in her classroom and indicate how she goes about trying to understand her role as mediator in the instruction process her process of reflection and action while she was teaching. • Chapters Seven to Nine represent the reflection which took place after the initial investigation of actual day-to-day practice. These chapters arise historically out of the research process and include argument for developing a more critical pedagogical discourse, a deeper understanding of the instruction process (the teaching/learning dynamic), and discussion of the validity of an action research paradigm for emancipatory pedagogical practices .

Children must learn not to trust everyone to avoid being taken advantage of. In the current study, 5- and 7-year-old children were paired with a partner whose incentives were either congruent (cooperative condition) or conflicting (competitive condition) with theirs. Children of both ages were more likely to mistrust information spontaneously provided by the competitive than the cooperative partner, showing a capacity for detecting contextual effects on incentives. However, a high proportion of children, even at age 7, initially trusted the competitive partner. After being misled once, almost all children mistrusted the partner on a second trial irrespective of the partner’s incentives. These results demonstrate that while even school age children are mostly trusting, they are only beginning to spontaneously consider other’s incentives when interpreting the truthfulness of their utterances. However, after receiving false information only once they immediately switch to an untrusting attitude.