Rhetorical theorists since Socrates have advocated a rhetoric that reveals truth and avoids concealment. This tradition rests, however on the questionable epistemological assumptions that data exist prior to the linguistic formualtion of them and that such data can be articulated in objectively verifiable discourse. In opposition to this point of…

In order to investigate the relationship between the development of justice (moral) conceptions and the development of mathematical and physical (logical) conceptions, 50 children(ages 4-8) were administered a "positive justice" interview and five of Piaget's concrete-operational mathematical and physical tasks. (Author/CS)

This study investigated the development of the concept of a critical search area by means of an action sequence in which a cartoon character loses his toy while walking through his house. The results showed that it is not until ages 7 or 8 that children readily make the inference that the critical area is the only plausible place to search for the…

This study investigated the use of covariation as a principle of causal analysis in children 3-4, 6-7, and 9-11 years of age. The results indicated that children as young as 3 years were capable of using covariation information in their attributions of simple physical effects. (Author/CS)

Nine tasks were designed to test the developmental sequence of three types of "because" (affective, physical, concrete logical) in 100 children aged 3 to 7 years. The tasks tested whether comprehension of "because" preceded its usage and at what point children understood that sentences with reversed clauses were incorrect.…

In four experiments concerning the use of statements to deduce information about markings on cards, the researcher found persistent use of deformations of the propositional calculus. (SD)

This paper argues that if conclusions about children's grasp of logical concepts are to be reached and acceptable lines of research followed, then more precise definitions of the concept "logical necessity" must be formulated. The paper defines logical necessity as "the unconditional guarantee of truth that accompanies valid…

One way to improve composition skills and to raise the level of interest in composition is by incorporating language philosophy into the composition process. That is, a teacher might use language games as a way of teaching writing. Such games include giving orders, describing an object, reporting an event, telling a joke, asking, thanking,…

This essay identifies and reviews the major and easily recognizable characteristics of a library discourse and proposes models describing the actual, possible, and necessary modes of library communication. The transmittal of orderly thoughts or information in a library situation differs from a conventional communication pattern. Three unique…

The relationship of performance in mathematics to syntactical language factors obtained from speech samples was investigated with 95 senior high school geometry students. Statistical procedures included correlation analysis and stepwise regression. The findings indicated that certain syntactical measures indicating logical thought processes…

The ordering of difficulty of logic principles and the age of acquisition for each were examined with 160 gifted children (20 each from ages 4 to 11). Five principles of class logic were explored: three orders of enthymemes, i.e., missing conclusion, missing minor premise, and missing major premise; and two additional third order enthymemes, i.e.,…

EARLY FORMS OF NUMERICAL REASONING WERE INVESTIGATED BY EXAMINING THE ROLE OF A SET OF VARIABLES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSERVATION OF NUMBER. CONSERVATION OF NUMBER WAS DEFINED AS THE RECOGNITION THAT THE NUMBER OF OBJECTS CONSTITUTES AN AGGREGATE WHICH IS NOT CHANGED MERELY BY REARRANGING THEM. EXPERIMENT ONE WAS CONDUCTED WITH CHILDREN FROM…

This paper is a theoretical discussion of several functions of knowledge systems based on the idea of partial matching, that is, comparison of two or more descriptions by identification of their similarities. Several knowledge system functions are described in terms of partial or best matchings including analogical reasoning, inductive inference,…