Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents:IntroductionAntónio ZILHÃO: Folk-Psychology, Rationality and Human ActionJoão BRANQUINHO: The Problem of Cognitive DynamicsJ.P. MONTEIRO: Hume, Induction and Single ExperimentsMarco RUFFINO: The Primacy of Concepts and the Priority of Judgments in Frege's LogicJoão Vergílio Gallerani CUTER: Die unanwendbare Arithmetik des TractatusSílvio PINTO: Wittgenstein's Anti-PlatonismFernando FERREIRA: A Substitutional Framework for Arithmetical ValidityJ.R. CROCA & R.N. MOREIRA: Indeterminism Versus CausalismLuíz MONIZ PEREIRA: The Logical Impingement of Artifical Intelligence.

INCONTINENCE, HONOURING SUNK COSTS AND RATIONALITY According to a basic principle of rationality, the decision to engage in a course of action should be determined solely by the analysis of its consequences. Thus, considerations associated with previous use of resources should have no bearing on an agent’s decision-making process. Frequently, however, agents persist carrying on an activity they themselves judge to be nonoptimal under the circumstances because they have already allocated resources to that activity. When this is the case, agents (...) are said to be honouring sunk costs. Honouring sunk costs is thus typically viewed as irrational economic behaviour. Two striking findings of the psychological literature on the sunk cost effect are that it is, in general, not lessened by having taken previously courses in economics, and that agents who did take such courses and that do honour sunk costs seem to be frequently aware of a cognitive dissonance in their behaviour. Davidson’s account of the possibility conditions of incontinent action renders continent action materially unfeasible. The very idea of incontinent action becomes thus a hollow one. I’ll present an alternative description of these possibility conditions that renders continent action materially feasible, and both, continent and incontinent action, cognitively plausible. In a nutshell, my proposal rests upon the drawing of an essential cognitive contrast between explicit processes of deliberative reasoning and lower level heuristic procedures. I conclude the paper arguing that my redescription of incontinent action accounts for the above mentioned cognitive dissonance effect better than the alternatives and that viewing at least an important subset of behaviours of honouring sunk costs as incontinent actions will enable us to consider them as peculiar manifestations of a more general and meaningful pattern in human behaviour. (shrink)

We consider R-torsionfree modules over group rings RG, where R is a Dedekind domain and G is a finite group. In the first part of the paper [4] we compared the theory T of all R-torsionfree RG-modules and the theory T0 of RG-lattices , and we realized that they are almost always different. Now we compare their behaviour with respect to decidability, when RG-lattices are of finite, or wild representation type.

The study of pairs of modules (over a Dedekind domain) arises from two different perspectives, as a starting step in the analysis of tuples of submodules of a given module, or also as a particular case in the analysis of Abelian structures made by two modules and a morphism between them. We discuss how these two perspectives converge to pairs of modules, and we follow the latter one to obtain an alternative approach to the classification of pairs of torsionfree objects. (...) Then we restrict our attention to pairs of free modules. Our main results are that the theory of pairs of free Abelian groups is co-recursively enumerable, and that a few remarkable extensions of this theory are decidable. (shrink)

Caro leitor! Em busca de sempre mais apresentar reflexões consistentes e relevantes para o pensar teológico, em conexão com o mundo e às urgências da Igreja, a presente edição trás importantes temas que ajudam refletir a realidade humana à luz do mistério de Deus. Por isso, os artigos oferecidos nas mais variadas áreas, a saber: bíblico-teológica, dogmática, moral, pastoral, antropologia teológica, filosofia e eclesiologia, dão suporte científico e metodológico para a reflexão teológica. Antes de conferir as novidades desta edição, gostaria (...) de comunicar que esta Revista Eletrônica conquistou um espaço ainda maior de publicação, ao tornar-se indexada na base de dados do Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). (shrink)

PART I THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM IN THE NEW THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE SECTION I THE BEGINNING OF THE REACTION FROM INTELLECTUALISM B ...

Wilfred Sieg and Saverio Cittadini. Normal Natural Deduction Proof (In Non-Classical Logics.

This article aims to propose some connections between the conceptions of poetry of the Mexican poet Octavio Paz and the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Both see in poetry the element of recognition of the original condition of the human being, not as an interpretation, but as a perception and affectation of the existential reality of human beings. So that the event of the "poetic saying" is configured as a call to the possibility of glimpsing the being of each entity, inhabiting (...) oneself and, thus, learning to be with others, establishing the poetic field as the clearing of perception and of existential affectation. Poetic speech goes beyond the limits of language, creating and establishing meanings and representations to the affectations that poetry provides. Thus, through poetry man recognizes himself in his worldliness, in search of his own being and in his relationship with other beings. (shrink)

We consider the problem of finding, in the ambit of modal logic, a minimal characterization for finite Kripke frames, i.e., a formula which, given a frame, axiomatizes its theory employing the lowest possible number of variables and implies the other axiomatizations. We show that every finite transitive frame admits a minimal characterization over K4, and that this result can not be extended to K.

Columbia University Press's multivolume _Prison Notebooks_ is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. Based on the authoritative Italian edition of Gramsci's work, _Quaderni del Carcere_, this comprehensive translation presents the intellectual as he ought to be read and understood, with critical notes that clarify Gramsci's history, culture, and sources; an index of names; and a contextualization of the thinker's ideas against his earlier writings and letters. This set includes notebooks 1 through 8 with (...) all attendant notes and materials and is an indispensible resource for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

We define the concepts of minimal p-morphic image and basic p-morphism for transitive Kripke frames. These concepts are used to determine effectively the least number of variables necessary to axiomatize a tabular extension of K4, and to describe the covers and co-covers of such a logic in the lattice of the extensions of K4.

The semantics of e-models for tense logics with binary operators for `until' and `since' (US-logics) was introduced by Bellissima and Bucalo in 1995. In this paper we show the adequacy of these semantics by proving a general Henkin-style completeness theorem. Moreover, we show that for these semantics there holds a Stone-like duality theorem with the algebraic structures that naturally arise from US-logics.

In this paper we show the adequacy of tense logic with unary operators for dealing with finite trees. We prove that models on finite trees can be characterized by tense formulas, and describe an effective method to find an axiomatization of the theory of a given finite tree in tense logic. The strength of the characterization is shown by proving that adding the binary operators "Until" and "Since" to the language does not result in a better description than that given (...) by unary tense logic; although the greater expressive power of "Until" and "Since" can be exploited by using the semantics of e-frames instead of traditional Kripke semantics. (shrink)

Book Description (Blurb): Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds explains the crucial role that human cognition research plays in the design and realization of artificial intelligence systems, illustrating the steps necessary for the design of artificial models of cognition. It bridges the gap between the theoretical, experimental and technological issues addressed in the context of AI of cognitive inspiration and computational cognitive science. -/- Beginning with an overview of the historical, methodological and technical issues in the field of Cognitively-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, (...) Lieto illustrates how the cognitive design approach has an important role to play in the development of intelligent AI technologies and plausible computational models of cognition. Introducing a unique perspective that draws upon Cybernetics and early AI principles, Lieto emphasizes the need for an equivalence between cognitive processes and implemented AI procedures, in order to realise biologically and cognitively inspired artificial minds. He also introduces the Minimal Cognitive Grid, a pragmatic method to rank the different degrees of biologically and cognitive accuracy of artificial systems in order project and predict their explanatory power with respect to the natural systems taken as source of inspiration. -/- Providing a comprehensive overview of cognitive design principles in constructing artificial minds, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. (shrink)

In this paper we identify and characterize an analysis of two problematic aspects affecting the representational level of cognitive architectures (CAs), namely: the limited size and the homogeneous typology of the encoded and processed knowledge. We argue that such aspects may constitute not only a technological problem that, in our opinion, should be addressed in order to build arti cial agents able to exhibit intelligent behaviours in general scenarios, but also an epistemological one, since they limit the plausibility of the (...) comparison of the CAs' knowledge representation and processing mechanisms with those executed by humans in their everyday activities. In the fi nal part of the paper further directions of research will be explored, trying to address current limitations and future challenges. (shrink)

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in life insurance (...) during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

We defend, from a contractarian perspective, that the fair price of an insurance policy is the amount that the contracting parties agree when they are both equally uncertain about the insured event. Drawing on the approach developed by R. Sugden in _The Community of Advantage_, we answer two standard objections raised against contractarianism in the actuarial sciences: (1) people are not wise enough to assess their actuarial risks; (2) they are not rational enough to decide which insurance policy suits them (...) better. We show under which circumstances people can make fair actuarial agreements, without presupposing any objective risk or rationality benchmarks. (shrink)

We consider R-torsionfree modules over group rings RG, where R is a Dedekind domain and G is a finite group. In the first part of the paper [4] we compared the theory T of all R-torsionfree RG-modules and the theory T0 of RG-lattices , and we realized that they are almost always different. Now we compare their behaviour with respect to decidability, when RG-lattices are of finite, or wild representation type.

In this article we present an advanced version of Dual-PECCS, a cognitively-inspired knowledge representation and reasoning system aimed at extending the capabilities of artificial systems in conceptual categorization tasks. It combines different sorts of common-sense categorization (prototypical and exemplars-based categorization) with standard monotonic categorization procedures. These different types of inferential procedures are reconciled according to the tenets coming from the dual process theory of reasoning. On the other hand, from a representational perspective, the system relies on the hypothesis of conceptual (...) structures represented as heterogeneous proxytypes. Dual-PECCS has been experimentally assessed in a task of conceptual categorization where a target concept illustrated by a simple common-sense linguistic description had to be identified by resorting to a mix of categorization strategies, and its output has been compared to human responses. The obtained results suggest that our approach can be beneficial to improve the representational and reasoning conceptual capabilities of standard cognitive artificial systems, and –in addition– that it may be plausibly applied to different general computational models of cognition. The current version of the system, in fact, extends our previous work, in that Dual-PECCS is now integrated and tested into two cognitive architectures, ACT-R and CLARION, implementing different assumptions on the underlying invariant structures governing human cognition. Such integration allowed us to extend our previous evaluation. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of the combination of prototypical concepts. The proposed logic relies on the logic of typicality ALC + TR, whose semantics is based on the notion of rational closure, as well as on the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics, and is equipped with a cognitive heuristic used by humans for concept composition. We first extend the logic of typicality ALC + TR by typicality inclusions of the (...) form p :: T(C) v D, whose intuitive meaning is that “we believe with degree p about the fact that typical Cs are Ds”. As in the distributed semantics, we define different scenarios containing only some typicality inclusions, each one having a suitable probability. We then exploit such scenarios in order to ascribe typical properties to a concept C obtained as the combination of two prototypical concepts. We also show that reasoning in the proposed Description Logic is EXPTIME-complete as for the underlying standard Description Logic ALC. (shrink)

El artículo pone en escena la propuesta del Derecho Comunitario en el ámbito de los países de América Latina. Para el autor, el proceso de integración entre las naciones latinoamericanas plantea el reto de su estructuración y viabilidad, por lo que resulta imperioso encontrar fórmulas de conciliación entre un Derecho de integración y un cierto tipo de nacionalismo económico no ortodoxo, así como la redefinición del concepto clásico de soberanía absoluta en el sentido de su operacionalidad flexible y plural dentro (...) de una soberanía compartida. No obstante las dificultades, los esfuerzos en defensa del comunitarismo latinoamericano, pasan también por la democratización radical de las instituciones estatales nacionales y por la consolidación de un nuevo concepto de ciudadanía (ciudadanía comunitaria). (shrink)

This paper aims to introduce, in the context of Latin America, the theoretical epistemic discussion regarding the theme of the ‘common’ as a political principle which substantiates instituting and autonomous processes of government, control and community regulation. The work seeks to relate a democratic scenario of the ‘common’ with the discourses of pluralist and decolonial normativity, in a way that would guarantee not only horizontal communal self-management, but also a legitimate ordering of forms of life, founded on common interest, social (...) relations and interconnected structures. For this purpose the instrument of critical-socio-legal analysis is applied at the intersections with the ‘participative-communitary’ type of legal pluralism. Our proposal is to combine the contemporary meaning of the ‘common’, its relation to the Latin American principles of ‘buen vivir’ (living well) and ‘interculturalidade’ (interculturality), as well as the instituting practice of the ‘common’, that engenders a normativity built ‘from below’, which is in opposition to the traditional positivist and state legal system imposed through colonization in Latin America. Such achievements that, although formalized, are not being successful against institutional ruptures, have ‘cloistered’ the practices of the ‘common’ and made the existence of legal pluralism invisible. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a computational framework aimed at extending the problem solving capabilities of cognitive artificial agents through the introduction of a novel, goal-directed, dynamic knowledge generation mechanism obtained via a non monotonic reasoning procedure. In particular, the proposed framework relies on the assumption that certain classes of problems cannot be solved by simply learning or injecting new external knowledge in the declarative memory of a cognitive artificial agent but, on the other hand, require a mechanism for the (...) automatic and creative re-framing, or re-formulation, of the available knowledge. We show how such mechanism can be obtained trough a framework of dynamic knowledge generation that is able to tackle the problem of commonsense concept combination. In addition, we show how such a framework can be employed in the field of cognitive architectures in order to overcome situations like the impasse in SOAR by extending the possible options of its subgoaling procedures. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of combining prototypical concepts, an open problem in the fields of AI and cognitive modelling. Our logic extends the logic of typicality ALC + TR, based on the notion of rational closure, by inclusions p :: T(C) v D (“we have probability p that typical Cs are Ds”), coming from the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics. Additionally, it embeds a set of cognitive heuristics for concept (...) combination. We show that the complexity of reasoning in our logic is EXPTIME-complete as in ALC. (shrink)

During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [35]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA[ 48]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g. CLARION [59]) adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR) trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating diagrammatical representations and reasoning are (...) also available [34]. In this paper we propose a reflection on the role that Conceptual Spaces, a framework developed by Peter G¨ardenfors [24] more than fifteen years ago, can play in the current development of the Knowledge Level in Cognitive Systems and Architectures. In particular, we claim that Conceptual Spaces offer a lingua franca that allows to unify and generalize many aspects of the symbolic, sub-symbolic and diagrammatic approaches (by overcoming some of their typical problems) and to integrate them on a common ground. In doing so we extend and detail some of the arguments explored by G¨ardenfors [23] for defending the need of a conceptual, intermediate, representation level between the symbolic and the sub-symbolic one. In particular we focus on the advantages offered by Conceptual Spaces (w.r.t. symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches) in dealing with the problem of compositionality of representations based on typicality traits. Additionally, we argue that Conceptual Spaces could offer a unifying framework for interpreting many kinds of diagrammatic and analogical representations. As a consequence, their adoption could also favor the integration of diagrammatical representation and reasoning in CAs. (shrink)

Revonsuo proposed an intriguing and detailed evolutionary theory of dreams which stipulates that the biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events and to rehearse threat avoidance behaviors. The goal of the present study was to test this theory using a sample of 212 recurrent dreams that was scored using a slightly expanded version of the DreamThreat rating scale. Six of the eight hypotheses tested were supported. Among the positive findings, 66% of the recurrent dream reports contained one or (...) more threats, the threats tended to be dangerous and aimed at the dreamer, and when facing a threat, the dreamer tended to take defensive or evasive actions that were possible and reasonable. However, less than 15% of the recurrent dreams depicted realistic and probable situations critical for one’s physical survival or reproductive success and the dreamer rarely succeeded in fleeing the threat despite important and appropriate efforts. The findings thus provide mixed support for the threat simulation theory. (shrink)

Señoras y señores, amigas y amigos:Para mí constituye una ocasión de gran alegría y honda satisfacción realizar, a nombre de la Universidad Bolivariana, esta presentación de homenaje a nuestro amigo y maestro Franz Josef Hinkelammert. Querría presentar sucintamente una semblanza de su personalidad intelectual y de su vasta obra investigativa. Nació en Alemania en 1931. Doctor en Economía por la Universidad Libre de Berlín, realizó su formación de postgrado en el Instituto de Europa Oriental..

In this paper a possible general framework for the representation of concepts in cognitive artificial systems and cognitive architectures is proposed. The framework is inspired by the so called proxytype theory of concepts and combines it with the heterogeneity approach to concept representations, according to which concepts do not constitute a unitary phenomenon. The contribution of the paper is twofold: on one hand, it aims at providing a novel theoretical hypothesis for the debate about concepts in cognitive sciences by providing (...) unexplored connections between different theories; on the other hand it is aimed at sketching a computational characterization of the problem of concept representation in cognitively inspired artificial systems and in cognitive architectures. (shrink)

According to the Green Paper presented by the European Commission in July 2001, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis (Commission of the European Communities, 2001b, p. 6). On this basis, in 2002, the Italian Government, and especially the Italian Ministry of Welfare, launched an initiative called CSR-SC (social commitment) in order to foster the proactive social role of (...) Italian enterprises, with great attention on SME involvement. The technical partner of the Italian Ministry of Welfare for this initiative is Bocconi University. The goal of this contribution is to present the main results of CSR–SC research project developed by Bocconi University. The paper provides a detailed picture of the general scheme designed to carry out the research project and a review of the different methodologies used to support the solutions proposed. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to identify the inner human activity Peirce calls musement with the mental processes that arise through the workings of the brain’s default mode network. This network is a specific, recently anatomically defined brain system, which is most active when individuals are not focused on the external environment. In doing so, musement, which was defined by Peirce over a hundred years ago, will finally be situated within what today we understand as its neurobiological origin.

Significant individual differences exist in dream recall frequency but some variance is likely attributable to instrument choice in measuring DRF. Three hundred and fifty eight participants estimated their weekly DRF and recorded their dreams in either a narrative log or checklist log for 2–5 weeks. There was an early peak in DRF within the first week of both types of prospective logs after which DRF remained relatively stable. Although the two groups did not differ in their estimated DRF, significantly fewer (...) dreams were reported per week on the narrative logs and only checklist logs yielded significantly higher DRF than participants’ questionnaire estimates. The interactions between DRF measures did not vary across groups with low, medium or high baseline levels of DRF. Keeping a dream log does not necessarily increase DRF and narrative logs’ time consuming nature can impact subjects’ motivation to report all of their dreams over time. (shrink)