مطالب

One of the most important needs in learning a second or foreign language is vocabulary acquisition. Certainly, failure to keep vocabulary in mind is a problem for both typically-developing learners as well as those with a learning disability (LD). This language demand requires teachers to use techniques in order to reinforce vocabulary recall. The current study is an attempt to investigate the effect of two post-teaching vocabulary learning techniques of diglot-weave and cooperative learning on vocabulary knowledge of LD students and to compare them with the common instruction of picture-word definition. To this end, 90 Iranian female LD students from 10 intact classes in two Junior Exceptional Schools in Shiraz were randomly assigned to one of the three groups. After the intensive teaching sessions, the test was administered to examine their vocabulary recall performance in each group and after a two-week interval, the same test was used to examine their vocabulary retention. The results by conducting the one-way ANOVA indicated that both experimental groups of diglot-weave and cooperative learning techniques outperformed the control group of picture-definition in the vocabulary recall and retention tests. However, there was no significant difference between the performance of diglot-weave and cooperative learning groups. Therefore, the findings of the present study could provide useful implications for foreign language teaching programs particularly in Special Education and students with LD.

Throughout the history of philosophy and theology, diverse versions of the problem of evil have raised different solutions in the form of different theodicies. In this paper, I first offer an exposition of one of these solutions developed by Shiite theologians. Since the core notion of this solution is “God’s compensation for the sufferings” I call it the “compensation theodicy.” Based on some theological principles such as rational goodness and badness and the principle of lutf (God’s grace), and some preliminary remarks about pain and its classifications, the compensation theodicy shows that since God is totally wise and just, He compensates for all undeserved (both human’s and animal’s) sufferings He is responsible for. Thus, the presence of undeserved suffering is not at odds with Divine justice. After explaining the relevant issue of God’s litigation (intisaf) and discussing some main aspects of compensation, I then make a brief comparison between the compensation theodicy and the so-called afterlife theodicy. I finally argue that the compensation theodicy is cable of providing good response to the challenge of the lack of moral justification.

The main argument of the book Warranted Christian Belief by Plantinga is a distinction between de facto and de jure objections to Christian belief. De facto objections, according to him, are those about the truth of Christian belief, where the claim is relatively straightforward that rge belief is false. However, Plantinga is primarily concerned with de jure objections, which are arguments or claims that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or irrational, or without sufficient evidence, or in some way not intellectually respectable. While the conclusion of such objections is that there is something wrong with Christian belief, Plantinga contends that the question is never explicitly formulated of what exactly is wrong; however, he finally locates a promising candidate for the de jure question in the complaints against theistic belief by Freud and Marx. Critics, according to Plantinga, cannot simply object to the rationality or justifiability of theistic belief without presupposing that theistic belief is false. However, I will, in this paper, argue that the epistemic objection to the rationality of theism need not presuppose the falsity of theism or Christian belief, and I will show that the most important charge against Plantinga’s defense – if theism is true, it is warranted – is that it proves too much.

The rule of contraposition was used by Aristotle and later popularized during the medieval period in both Arabic and Latin logics. In this paper, we investigate the role of Aristotle and ancient commentators on developing the subject. We show that although Aristotle had used contraposition (on conditionals and indefinite affirmative categorical propositions), Proclus was the first to apply it to universal affirmatives and Philoponus was the first to name the rule. The latter used the rule on possible propositions too, which yielded to Simplicius’ thorough objections. We have found no ancient logician who could apply the rule to quantified categorical propositions except universal affirmatives, nor have we encountered any ancient logician who thoroughly investigated the rule with regard to all kinds of modal propositions. It seems that these developments occurred in later stages of the history of logic.