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Discusses communicative acts involving at least two persons, whereby a relationship is established between them, based on the use of language in a given context. The purpose of this study is to clarify the notions that such a relationship is often considered to require or contain some measure of understanding between the persons engaged in it. (19 references) (JL)

Geoffrey Lloyd, in his book Cognitive Variations (2007), addresses the puzzle of cognitive diversity vs. cognitive unity of our mental life by analyzing a number of debates related to it. Accounting for the fact that human mental life across cultures both shares many of its fundamental features and differs in many others, no less fundamental ones, apparently cannot but engender a dilemma, as long as only reductionist solutions are considered, for neither radical diversity is reducible to unity nor vice versa. The situation is further complicated by the fact that ‘division of labor’ solutions involving a sort of schizophrenic fragmentation of the mind, are also unlikely, since even the most diverse mental tasks complement each other in what appears to be a seamless unity. In this review article, I undertake to highlight what I take to be the cornerstone of Lloyd’s account, namely an approach that rejects the dichotomy ‘diversity vs. unity’ and thus creates an alternative, ‘pragmatic’ path for their essential cooperation-through- opposition. This proposal is supported by an analysis of Lloyd’s treatment of several of the debates discussed in the book’s chapters, as well as by references to my own work in pragmatics and controversies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a perspective on the practical and philosophical challenges of the digital era. According to the author, digital and technological innovation will infringe increasingly on personal and professional lives. Digitized data are already transforming international communication and the way people live their everyday lives. Sharper conceptual instruments are needed to deal with the changes.

The article discusses the impact of cognitive technologies on society. Technology has deeply ecnroached into the everyday activities of man. It has improve the quality life by making it more comfortable and easier. However, instead of it becoming our tool, it appears that we have become slaves to technology. Contrary to popular opinion, technology has not reduced the amount fo work people do. What it has done is to change the quality and the kind of work people do. In the area of cognitive technologies, it has allowed the am to undertand more about human cognition and, in a way, it has paved the wat for the development of e-learning.

Introduces a series of articles on dialogue, argument and controversy.

In spite of the widespread belief that there is (or at least there was) a clearcut and deep opposition between two forms of philosophizing vaguely characterized as 'continental' and 'analytic', it is not easy to find actual examples of debates between philosophers that clearly belong to the opposed camps. Perhaps the reason is that, on the assumption that the alleged 'divide' is so deep, each side feels that there is no point in arguing against the other, for argumentation would quickly be replaced by invective. In this paper I analyse one of the few recent examples of an across-divide debate - the Searle-Derrida polemic. Using a threefold typology of debates, I try to show that, in spite of the violent and sarcastic tone employed by both contenders, there is enough common ground, questioning of not-argued-for assumptions, and serious argumentation (on both sides) to consider this debate more than just an irrational dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the economic methodologies employed by economists Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo and explores the controversy between them. According to the author, Malthus' and Ricardo's "laws of economic science" are partly overlapping. In practice, while exceptions are admitted by Malthus for almost all economic laws, for Ricardo even contingent predictions allow no exceptions, apart from temporary variations that, being distributed randomly through different historical phases, are best dealt with by leaving them in the limbo of the unscientific. There was a sustained conflict between two economists both professing adherence to the same Newtonian paradigm. One of the reasons behind this might be varieties of eighteenth-century Newtonianism. Moreover, Ricardo avowed his exclusive interest in "permanent states," as opposed to Malthus who concentrated on what happens in the "intervals." The shared concept of proportions receives different overtones resulting from the divergent choices which means that for Ricardo, economics is a science of proportions, dealing with laws that regulate shares of the national product allotted to the three main classes and the optimal proportion is the object of the science.

The article responds to Wolfgang Sander's article "Bildung und Perspektivität" earlier in this issue. The author applauds Sander's emphasis on bringing controversiality and multiple perspectives into the political learning process but cautions that practical aspects of such a presumed constructivist curriculum's implementation should not be ignored.

A critical reply to the article "Formen wissenschaftlicher Auseinandersetzung," by Heiner Rindermann is presented. The author discusses Rindermann's examination on the role of controversies in the history of ideas. The author examines the opposing forces of the "normative" and the "descriptive," that Rindermann describes in his article.

This section calls for papers dealing with new technologies and the pragmatics of cognition and distributed cognition.