Mechanistic reasoning, or reasoning systematically through underlying factors and relationships that give rise to phenomena, is a powerful thinking strategy that allows one to explain and make predictions about phenomena. This article synthesizes and builds on existing frameworks to identify essential characteristics of students' mechanistic…

This theoretical paper discusses some conceptual and methodological obstacles that one encounters when analyzing the contextual determination of thinking in psychology. First, we comment upon the various representations of the "cognitive" individual that have been formed over the years--from the epistemic subject to the psychological subject, and…

This paper describes NEOMYCIN, a computer program that models one physician's diagnostic reasoning within a limited area of medicine. NEOMYCIN's knowledge base and reasoning procedure constitute a model of how human knowledge is organized and how it is used in diagnosis. The hypothesis is tested that such a procedure can be used to simulate both…

Critically analyzes an article by Jan Klabbers, focusing on methodological, epistemological, and ontological viewpoints. Examines the reasoning process whereby the actor approach model of learning environments is derived from the machine approach model; looks at claims of differentiation between rationalism and historicism, and the distinction…