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somewhat like Henkin's nonstandard interpretation of higher-order logics, while the right semantics [or logical modalities is an analogue to the standard of type theory in Henkin's sense. interpretation Another possibility would be to follow W.V. Quine's advice to give up logi- cal modalities as being beyond repair. Or we could also try to develop a logic of conceptual possibility, restricting the range of our "possible worlds" to those compatible with the transcendental presuppositions of our own conceptual sys- tem. This looks in fact like one of the most interesting possible theories I have dreamt of developing but undoubtedly never will. Its kinship with Kant's way of thinking should be obvious. Besides putting the entire enterprise of possible-worlds semantics into a perspective, we can also see that the actual history of possible-worlds seman- tics is more complicated than it might first appear to be. For the standard in- terpretation of modal logics has reared its beautiful head repeatedly in the writings of Stig Kanger, Richard Montague the pre-Montague-semantics theorist, and Nino Cocchiarella.
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somewhat like Henkin's nonstandard interpretation of higher-order logics, while the right semantics [or logical modalities is an analogue to the standard of type theory in Henkin's sense. interpretation Another possibility would be to follow W.V. Quine's advice to give up logi- cal modalities as being beyond repair. Or we could also try to develop a logic of conceptual possibility, restricting the range of our "possible worlds" to those compatible with the transcendental presuppositions of our own conceptual sys- tem. This looks in fact like one of the most interesting possible theories I have dreamt of developing but undoubtedly never will. Its kinship with Kant's way of thinking should be obvious. Besides putting the entire enterprise of possible-worlds semantics into a perspective, we can also see that the actual history of possible-worlds seman- tics is more complicated than it might first appear to be. For the standard in- terpretation of modal logics has reared its beautiful head repeatedly in the writings of Stig Kanger, Richard Montague the pre-Montague-semantics theorist, and Nino Cocchiarella.
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"Intuition" has perhaps been the least understood and the most abused term in philosophy. It is often the term used when one has no plausible explanation for the source of a given belief or opinion. According to some sceptics, it is understood only in terms of what it is not, and it is not any of the better understood means for acquiring knowledge. In mathematics the term has also unfortunately been used in this way. Thus, intuition is sometimes portrayed as if it were the Third Eye, something only mathematical "mystics", like Ramanujan, possess. In mathematics the notion has also been used in a host of other senses: by "intuitive" one might mean informal, or non-rigourous, or visual, or holistic, or incomplete, or perhaps even convincing in spite of lack of proof. My aim in this book is to sweep all of this aside, to argue that there is a perfectly coherent, philosophically respectable notion of mathematical intuition according to which intuition is a condition necessary for mathemati cal knowledge. I shall argue that mathematical intuition is not any special or mysterious kind of faculty, and that it is possible to make progress in the philosophical analysis of this notion. This kind of undertaking has a precedent in the philosophy of Kant. While I shall be mostly developing ideas about intuition due to Edmund Husser! there will be a kind of Kantian argument underlying the entire book.
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Del 158 - Synthese Library
E. T. Jaynes: Papers on Probability, Statistics and Statistical Physics
Häftad, Engelska, 1989
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The first six chapters of this volume present the author's 'predictive' or information theoretic' approach to statistical mechanics, in which the basic probability distributions over microstates are obtained as distributions of maximum entropy (Le. , as distributions that are most non-committal with regard to missing information among all those satisfying the macroscopically given constraints). There is then no need to make additional assumptions of ergodicity or metric transitivity; the theory proceeds entirely by inference from macroscopic measurements and the underlying dynamical assumptions. Moreover, the method of maximizing the entropy is completely general and applies, in particular, to irreversible processes as well as to reversible ones. The next three chapters provide a broader framework - at once Bayesian and objective - for maximum entropy inference. The basic principles of inference, including the usual axioms of probability, are seen to rest on nothing more than requirements of consistency, above all, the requirement that in two problems where we have the same information we must assign the same probabilities. Thus, statistical mechanics is viewed as a branch of a general theory of inference, and the latter as an extension of the ordinary logic of consistency. Those who are familiar with the literature of statistics and statistical mechanics will recognize in both of these steps a genuine 'scientific revolution' - a complete reversal of earlier conceptions - and one of no small significance.
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This book studies the problem of acquaintance against the background of a more general theory of intentionality. Much of the relevant background is laid out in the book I wrote with Ronald McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality (1982). However, since this book is not focussed on HusserI, I shall not assume the reader's familiarity with the prior book or with HusserI's philosophy. (I have sometimes referred to this book-in- progress as Acquaintance; I've rounded out the title a bit. ) of The initial inspiration for this work, in the 1970's, was a confluence ideas from the logic of perception and the logic of demonstratives, ideas in which I found phenomenological inspiration. These included Jaakko Hintikka's notion of perceptual individuation, Romane Clark's account of a demonstrative element in perception, David Kaplan's analysis of the meaning (character and content) of demonstratives, and Hector-Neri Castaneda's notion of quasi-indicators. I would later add to the list John Perry's appraisal of belief reports involving indexicals (extending Castaneda's ideas) and Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought-experiments (complementing Clark's and Kaplan's ideas of the same vintage).I want to thank Chuck Dement and Ronald McIntyre for their responses to the first draft. For many discussions of issues addressed in the book I thank David Blinder, Hubert Dreyfus, Dagfinn F~llesdal, Jaakko Hintikka, David Kaplan, Ronald McIntyre, Izchak Miller, Esa Saarinen, John Searle, and Peter Woodruff. I have benefited also from colleagues and students too numerous to name but deserving my thanks nonetheless. Philosophy is a surprisingly communal affair.
Del 207 - Synthese Library
Language as Calculus vs. Language as Universal Medium
A Study in Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer
Inbunden, Engelska, 1989
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I first became interested in Husserl and Heidegger as long ago as 1980, when as an undergraduate at the Freie Universitat Berlin I studied the books by Professor Ernst Tugendhat. Tugendhat's at tempt to bring together analytical and continental philosophy has never ceased to fascinate me, and even though in more recent years other influences have perhaps been stronger, I should like to look upon the present study as still being indebted to Tugendhat's initial incentive. It was my good fortune that for personal reasons I had to con tinue my academic training from 1981 onwards in Finland. Even though Finland is a stronghold of analytical philosophy, it also has a tradition of combining continental and Anglosaxon philosophical thought. Since I had already admired this line of work in Tugendhat, it is hardly surprising that once in Finland I soon became impressed by Professor Jaakko Hintikka's studies on Husserl and intentionality, and by Professor Georg Henrik von Wright's analytical hermeneu tics. While the latter influence has-at least in part-led to a book on the history of hermeneutics, the former influence has led to the present work. My indebtedness to Professor Hintikka is enormous. Not only is the research reported here based on his suggestions, but Hintikka has also commented extensively on different versions of the manuscript, helped me to make important contacts, found a publisher for me, and-last but not least-was a never failing source of encouragement.
Historical Roots of Cognitive Science
The Rise of a Cognitive Theory of Perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
Inbunden, Engelska, 1989
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Cognitive science, in Howard Gardner's words, has a relatively short history but a very long past. While its short history has been the subject of quite a few studies published in recent years, the current book focuses instead on its very long past. It explores the emergence of the conceptual framework that was necessary to make the rise of modem cognitive science possible in the first place. Over the long course of the history of the theory of perception and of cognition, various conceptual breakthroughs can be discerned that have contributed significantly to the conception of the mind as a physical symbol system with intricate representational capacities and unimaginably rich computational resources. In historical retrospect such conceptual transitions-seemingly sudden and unannounced-are typically foreshadowed in the course of enduring research programs that serve as slowly developing theoretical con straint structures gradually narrowing down the apparent solution space for the scientific problems at hand. Ultimately the fundamental problem is either resolved to the satisfaction of the majority of researchers in the area of investigation, or else-and much more commonly-one or more of the major theoretical constraints is abandoned or radically modified, giving way to entirely new theoretical vistas. In the history of the theory of perception this process can be witnessed at vari ous important junctures.
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The concept of observability of entities in physical science is typically analyzed in terms of the nature and significance of a dichotomy between observables and unobservables. In this book, however, this categorization is resisted and observability is analyzed in a descriptive way in terms of the information which one can receive through interaction with objects in the world. The account of interaction and the transfer of information is done using applicable scientific theories. In this way the question of observability of scientific entities is put to science itself. Several examples are presented which show how this interaction-information account of observability is done. It is demonstrated that observability has many dimensions which are in general orthogonal. The epistemic significance of these dimensions is explained. This study is intended primarily as a method for understanding problems of observability rather than as a solution to those problems. The important issue of scientific realism and its relation to observability, however, demands attention. Hence, the implication of the interaction-information account for realism is drawn in terms of the epistemic significance of the dimensions of observability. This amounts to specifying what it is about good observations that make them objective evidence for scientific theories.
Del 211 - Synthese Library
Acting and Reflecting
The Interdisciplinary Turn in Philosophy
Inbunden, Engelska, 1989
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In the fall of 1985 Carnegie Mellon University established a Department of Philosophy. The focus of the department is logic broadly conceived, philos- ophy of science, in particular of the social sciences, and linguistics. To mark the inauguration of the department, a daylong celebration was held on April 5, 1986. This celebration consisted of two keynote addresses by Patrick Sup- pes and Thomas Schwartz, seminars directed by members of the department, and a panel discussion on the computational model of mind moderated by Dana S. Scott. The various contributions, in modified and expanded form, are the core of this collection of essays, and they are, I believe, of more than parochial interest: they turn attention to substantive and reflective interdis- ciplinary work. The collection is divided into three parts. The first part gives perspec- tives (i) on general features of the interdisciplinary enterprise in philosophy (by Patrick Suppes, Thomas Schwartz, Herbert A.Simon, and Clark Gly- mour) , and (ii) on a particular topic that invites such interaction, namely computational models of the mind (with contributions by Gilbert Harman, John Haugeland, Jay McClelland, and Allen Newell). The second part con- tains (mostly informal) reports on concrete research done within that enter- prise; the research topics range from decision theory and the philosophy of economics through foundational problems in mathematics to issues in aes- thetics and computational linguistics. The third part is a postscriptum by Isaac Levi, analyzing directions of (computational) work from his perspective.
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The present volume owes its existence to a proposal of Dr Esa Saarinen. Our aim was to celebrate the work of a living philosopher by presenting it both from his own point of view, through the medium of a philosophical autobiography, and from that of his closest philo sophical colleagues and adversaries. We felt that a philosophical career lived through vigorous controversy was best reflected not by adulation but in the spirit of that career - by open debate. Contributors were not constrained in their choice of topic, but their contributions fell naturally into groups linked with some of Peter Geach's principal areas of interest, and we have so grouped them in the book. There is an interweaving of biographical and philosophical themes, not only in Peter Geach's philosophical autobiography, but also in the introductions he has contributed to each section. Professor W. V. O. Quine's contribution, which consists of extracts from his correspondence with Peter Geach, has been set apart as it forms a natural bridge between Peter Geach's autobiography and the contri butions that follow. Their correspondence reproduced here throws new light on many familiar themes from the writings of both philosophers: among them, the objects of belief and other attitudes, issues in set theory, the nature of causality, and evolution in epistemology.
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Wittgenstein's aphoristic style holds great charm, but also a great danger: the reader is apt to glean too much from a single fragment and too little from the fragments as a whole. In my first confron tations with the Philosophical Investigations I was such a reader, and so, it turned out, were most of the writers on Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Wittgenstein's remarkable ability to bring together many facets of his thought in one fragment is fully exploited in the critical literature; but hardly any attention is paid to the connection with other fragments, let alone to the many hitherto unpublished manuscripts of which the Philosophical Investigations is the final product. The result of this fragmentary and ahistorical approach to Wittgenstein's later work is a host of contradictory interpretations. What Wittgenstein really wanted to say remains insufficiently clear. Opinions are also strongly divided about the value of his work. Some authors have been encouraged by his aphorisms and rhetorical questions to dismiss the whole Cartesian tradition or to halt new movements in linguistics or psychology; others, exasperated, reject his philo sophy as anti-scientific conceptual conservatism. After consulting unpublished notebooks and manuscripts which Wittgenstein wrote between 1929 and 1951, I became a very different reader. Wittgenstein turned out to be a kind of Leonardo da Vinci, who pursued a form from which every sign of chisel ling, every attempt at improvement, had been effaced.
Nominalism and Contemporary Nominalism
Ontological and Epistemological Implications of the work of W.V.O. Quine and of N. Goodman
Inbunden, Engelska, 1990
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Though the subject of this work, "nominalism and contemporary nom inalism", is philosophical, it cannot be fully treated without relating it to data gathered from a great variety of domains, such as biology and more especially ethology, psychology, linguistics and neurobiology. The source of inspiration has been an academic work I wrote in order to obtain a postdoctoral degree, which is called in Belgium an "Aggregaat voor het Hoger Onderwijs" comparable to a "Habilitation" in Germany. I want to thank the National Fund of Scientific Research, which accorded me several grants and thereby enabled me to write the academic work in the first place and thereafter this book. I also want to thank Prof. SJ. Doorman (Technical University of Delft) and Prof. G. Nuchelmans (University of Leiden), who were members of the jury of the "Aggre gaatsthesis", presented to the Free University of Brussels in 1981 and who by their criticisms and suggestions encouraged me to write the present book, the core of which is constituted by the general ideas then formulated. I am further obliged to Mr. X, the referee who was asked by Jaakko Hintikka to read my work and who made a series of constructive remarks and recom mendations. My colleague Marc De Mey (University of Ghent) helped me greatly with the more formal aspects of my work and spent too much of his valuable time and energy to enable me to deliver a presentable copy. All remaining shortcomings are entirely my responsibility. I asked Prof.
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Del 156 - Synthese Library
Logic of Time
A Model-Theoretic Investigation into the Varieties of Temporal Ontology and Temporal Discourse
Inbunden, Engelska, 1991
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The subject of Time has a wide intellectual appeal across different dis ciplines. This has shown in the variety of reactions received from readers of the first edition of the present Book. Many have reacted to issues raised in its philosophical discussions, while some have even solved a number of the open technical questions raised in the logical elaboration of the latter. These results will be recorded below, at a more convenient place. In the seven years after the first publication, there have been some noticeable newer developments in the logical study of Time and temporal expressions. As far as Temporal Logic proper is concerned, it seems fair to say that these amount to an increase in coverage and sophistication, rather than further break-through innovation. In fact, perhaps the most significant sources of new activity have been the applied areas of Linguistics and Computer Science (including Artificial Intelligence), where many intriguing new ideas have appeared presenting further challenges to temporal logic. Now, since this Book has a rather tight composition, it would have been difficult to interpolate this new material without endangering intelligibility.
Foucault’s Strata and Fields
An Investigation into Archaeological and Genealogical Science Studies
Inbunden, Engelska, 1991
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In recent years, a large number of books and articles on Foucault has been published. Almost all of the book-size studies are expository and introductory. Indeed, there seems to be no other modern philosopher with reference to whom a comparable numberofintroductionshavebeen produced in such a short period. Most ofthe articles too provide over- views, rather than critical assessments or rational reconstructions, even though there existsby now a small numberoffine papers also inthe two latter genres. Moreover, more often than not, writers on Foucault approach his work as part and parcel of so-called "postmodern" philo- sophy. They concentrate on topics like the "death of the subject", the relation ofFoucault's work to.Derrida or Habermas, or its significance for postmodern art and culture. Without wanting to deny the merits, either of introductory exposi- tions, or ofstudies that read Foucault as a postmodern thinker, it seems to me that these received perspectives have tended to leave central areas and aspects ofFoucault's work somewhat underexposed.As I see it, the most important of these areas are such as would suggest reading Fou- cault from the vantage point of recent developments in the philosophy, sociology and history of science.
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Kant's views about mathematics were controversial in his own time, and they have inspired or infuriated thinkers ever since. Though specific Kantian doctrines fell into disrepute earlier in this century, the past twenty-five years have seen a surge of interest in and respect for Kant's philosophy of mathematics among both Kant scholars and philosophers of mathematics. The present volume includes the classic papers from the 1960s and 1970s which spared this renaissance of interest, together with updated postscripts by their authors. It also includes the most important recent work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics. The essays bring to bear a wealth of detailed Kantian scholarship, together with powerful new interpretative tools drawn from modern mathematics, logic and philosophy. The cumulative effect of this collection upon the reader will be a deeper understanding of the centrality of mathematics in all aspects of Kant's thought and a renewed respect for the power of Kant's thinking about mathematics. The essays contained in this volume will set the agenda for further work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics for some time to come.
New Perspectives on Cybernetics
Self-Organization, Autonomy and Connectionism
Inbunden, Engelska, 1991
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Gertrudis Van de Vijver· Seminar of Logic and Epistemology University of Ghent Before being classified under the fashionable denominators of complexity and chaos, self-organization and autonomy were intensely inquired into in the cybernetic tradition. Despite all rejections that cybernetics has gone through in the second half of this century, today its importance is more and more recognized. Its decisive influence for connectionist theories, autopoietic and constructivist theories, for different forms of applied or experimental epistemology, is being more and more understood and generally accepted. It is mainly due to the success of connectionist models that we observe today a revival of interest for cybernetics. The 1943 article by McCulloch and Pitts is evidently a founding article. Cybernetics has however a much broader interest than the one linked to technical-mathematical details relevant to the construction of networks. For instance, the evolution from first to second order cybernetics, the ways of approaching biological and cognitive phenomena in the latter and the limits that were formulated there, are particularly meaningful to understand current developments and divergences in connectionism. A nuanced picture of cybernetic's history and its present state is therefore clearly epistemologically essential.
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A volume of essays on the themes of tradition and oral communication versus literal communication, Wittgenstein and computers. The later Wittgenstein is shown to be on the one hand a traditionalist and on the other hand, along with Heidegger, a philosopher of postmodern - secondary - orality, yearning for bygone, postmodern times - the times of primary orality, Under conditions of primary orality traditions fulfilled the specific cognitive role of conserving information - a role subsequently taken over by writing and today by electronic data processing. The message of this book is that the Western values of individuality and critical thinking are intimately bound up with the technology of writing. It offers arguments in favour of the standards and techniques of classical education even under conditions of, indeed as a foundation for, the emerging computer culture.
Kant’s Transcendental Deduction
An Analysis of Main Themes in His Critical Philosophy
Inbunden, Engelska, 1992
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This argument of the transcendental deduction of the categories in the "Critique of Pure Reason" is the deepest and most far-reaching in philosophy. In his new book, Robert Howell interprets main themes of the deduction using ideas from contemporary philosophy and intensional logic, thereby providing a keener grasp of Kant's many subtleties than has hitherto been available. New accounts of apperception, the concept of an object, the logical functions of thought, the role of the Metaphysical Deduction, and Kant's relations to his Aristotelian-Cartesian background are developed. Howell makes a contribution to the discussion of most of the disputed issues in the history of deduction interpretation. Controversial in its conclusions, this book should be of interest to those who take seriously the task of understanding Kant's work and evaluating it dispassionately.
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Mter the impressive collapseoftheSovietUnionand the Eastern European socialist countries, it is more pertinent than ever to recover the scientific legacy ofKarl Marx. This legacy is mainly (if not exclusively) constituted by his work in the field of eco- nomic theory. Marx's economic theory was intended by his au- thor as a scientific objective theory about the nature ofcapitalist economies, a theory that was going to serve as the foundation ofthe critique ofbourgeois political economy. His "laws" about the demise ofcapitalism, like the tendency ofthe profit rate to fall or the lawofthe cyclical crises, have been shown to hold un- der certain conditions but not in general. At any rate, it is likely that had not the industrialized countries changed the situation ofthe working class, and allowed some intervention ofthe State in the economy (especially after the Great Depression), capital- ism would have hardly survived, even though it is impossible to guess what kind of regime would have been instaurated in its place. The present book is concerned with the very foundations of Marx's economics, hence with the very foundations ofhis scien- tific legacy.I hope that after reading the book the reader will be convinced that Marx's scientific work was indeed serious and that this is the time to recover it as an important paradigm in INTRODUCTION 2 scientific research. I think that the reader will be convinced that Marx's economic theory is no less serious and mathematically tractable than, say, general equilibrium theory.
Statement and Referent
An Inquiry into the Foundations of Our Conceptual Order
Inbunden, Engelska, 1992
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This treatise, in its first part, moves from a consideration of behaviour and utterance through a definition of assertion as a kind of utterance to a consideration of statements, conceived of as products of assertion, to be represented by pairs of testing procedures of verification and falsification. The treatise, in its second part, identifies a small number of basic forms of testing procedures, affiliated to the "syncategoremata" of classical philosophy, and uses these to represent all distinguishable, humanly producible, forms of statement. This same apparatus is used, in the third part of the treatise, to explain our conception of an object of reference and of various constructions from such objects. Particular attention is given to bodies and to other things met with in space and time, where it is finally argued that bodies, as we have explained them, are our most fundamental objects of reference.
Problems of the Hegelian Dialectic
Dialectic Reconstructed as a Logic of Human Reality
Inbunden, Engelska, 1992
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This work, written from the standpoint of Hegel's Logic, examines the nature, conditions of possibility and scope of a valid dialectical logic. For this purpose it scrutinizes, criticizes and reconstructs it so that it may serve as a logic of Human reality. Refusing to be 'revisionist' as far as Natural Sciences are concerned, the proposed viewpoint asserts that in this domain Dialectic is incapable of great fruitfulness -- there is no 'Dialectic of Nature'. As for the domain of Human reality -- as historical, social and cultural reality -- the book suggests that such a reconstructed Dialectic, at last conscious of its own univocal limits, may help the Social Sciences and Human Studies to develop further. The book opens with an exposition, from an Hegelian point of view, of the basic categories of Identity. Difference and Contradiction. Then, in this Hegelian context, some basic issues are posed and discussed, such as the problems of the Beginning, the End, the Language, and the problem of Nature and Matter. To end with, Dialectic is proposed as a way of explanation, both progressive and regressive, elucidating Human experience while at once elucidating itself.
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The thirty-one papers collected in this volume represent most of the arti cles that I have published in the philosophy of science and related founda tional areas of science since 1970. The present volume is a natural succes sor to Studies in the Methodology and Foundations of Science, a collection of my articles published in 1969 by Reidel (now a part of Kluwer). The articles are arranged under five main headings. Part I contains six articles on general methodology. The topics range from formal methods to the plurality of science. Part II contains six articles on causality and explanation. The emphasis is almost entirely on probabilistic approaches. Part III contains six articles on probability and measurement. The impor tance of representation theorems for both probability and measurement is stressed. Part IV contains five articles on the foundations of physics. The first three articles are concerned with action at a distance and space and time, the last two with quantum mechanics. Part V contains eight articles on the foundations of psychology. This is the longest part and the articles reflect my continuing strong interest in the nature of learning and perception. Within each part the articles are arranged chronologically. I turn now to a more detailed overview of the content. The first article of Part I concerns the role of formal methods in the philosophy of science. Here I discuss what is the new role for formal methods now that the imperialism of logical positivism has disappeared.
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These new papers by distinguished Kant scholars are collected from a conference held in honour of one of the world's foremost authorities on Kant: William H. Werkmeister. The contributors present novel interpretations of the development of Kant's thought up to and beyond the three famous "Critiques". Frederick Van De Pitte raises important questions about Kant's theory of concept formation; Paul Guyer and R.M. Hare contribute provocative essays on Kant's ethics; Donald Crawford and Ted Cohen offer accounts of Kant's theory of aesthetic judgment; and two studies of the most interesting problems of the "Opus Postumum" are provided by Burkhard Tuschling and Professor Werkmeister himself. This book should be read by professional Kant scholars, historians of modern philosophy, and graduate and advanced undergraduate students in these fields.
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Poland has played an enormous role in the development of mathematical logic. Leading Polish logicians, like Lesniewski, Lukasiewicz and Tarski, produced several works related to philosophical logic, a field covering different topics relevant to philosophical foundations of logic itself, as well as various individual sciences. This collection presents contemporary Polish work in philosophical logic which in many respects continue the Polish way of doing philosophical logic. This book should be of interest to logicians, mathematicians, philosophers and linguists.
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The papers collected in this volume, most of them derived from presentations at the Amsterdam Seminar on Intensional Logic, report recent work in pure and applied intensional logic, and are written by researchers from philosophical and mathematical logic, artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Most of the contributions deal with modal or temporal logic, either as a topic or as a tool. Another major theme in the book may be described as "representing changing information". The papers address issues that have received a good deal of attention in recent years. The volume is aimed at researchers and students in logic, both pure and applied, and artificial intelligence. It also should be of interest to philosophers and computational linguists.
Knowing from Words
Western and Indian Philosophical Analysis of Understanding and Testimony
Inbunden, Engelska, 1993
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Contemporary epistemologists and philosophers of language have come together in this volume to address an important issue at the confluence of these two branches of philosophy, namely: Can we "know" facts from reliable reports? Besides Hume's subversive discussion of miracles and the literature thereon, testimony has been bypassed by most Western philosophers; whereas in classical Indian (Pramana) theories of evidence and knowledge, philosophical debates have raged for centuries about the status of word-generated knowledge. "Is the response 'I was told by an expert on the subject' as respectable as 'I saw' or 'I inferred' in answer to 'How do you know?'" is a question answered in diverse and subtle ways by Buddhists, Vaisesikas and Naiyayikas. This book makes available those debates, translating from Sanskrit some contemporary Indian Pandits' reactions to Western analytic accounts of meaning and knowledge.This book is intended for advanced undergraduates in philosophy, for researchers - in Australia, Asia, Europe or America - on epistemology, theory of meaning, Indian or comparative philosophy, as well as for specialists interested in this topic of knowledge transmission and epistemic dependence.
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Scientific research is viewed as a deliberate activity and the logic of discovery consists of strategies and arguments whereby the best objectives (questions) and optimal means for achieving these objectives (heuristics) are chosen. This book includes a discussion and some proposals regarding the way the logic of questions can be applied to understanding scientific research and draws upon work in artificial intelligence in a discussion of heuristics and methods for appraising heuristics (metaheuristics). It also includes a discussion of a third source for scientific objectives and heuristics; episodes and examplars from the history of science and the history of philosophy.This book is written to be accessible to advanced students in philosophy and to the scientific community. It is of interest to philosophers of science, philosophers of biology, historians of physics, and historians of biology.
Optimum Inductive Methods
A Study in Inductive Probability, Bayesian Statistics, and Verisimilitude
Inbunden, Engelska, 1993
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The problem of the choice of prior probabilities for Bayesian inferences is considered, with special reference to the theory of inductive probabilities and the analysis of the multinomial inferences provided by Bayesian statistics. Among other things, it is argued that the choice of prior probabilities in a given empirical inquiry should be suitably restricted by specific "contextual constraints" such as the available background knowledge and the cognitive goal of the inquiry, where this goal is assumed to be the achievement of a high degree of verisimilitude. One of the features of the book is it attempts a "coordinated development" of Bayesian statistics, the theory of inductive probabilities, and the verisimilitude theory. The book should be of interest to researchers and readers concerned with Bayesian inference and, more generally, to readers engaged in inductive logic, philosophy of science and statistics.