This paper presents a learning theory pertinent to dynamic decision making (DDM) called instancebased learning theory (IBLT). IBLT proposes five learning mechanisms in the context of a decision‐making process: instance‐based knowledge, recognition‐based retrieval, adaptive strategies, necessity‐based choice, and feedback updates. IBLT suggests in DDM people learn with the accumulation and refinement of instances, containing the decision‐making situation, action, and utility of decisions. As decision makers interact with a dynamic task, they recognize a situation according to its similarity to past (...) instances, adapt their judgment strategies from heuristic‐based to instance‐based, and refine the accumulated knowledge according to feedback on the result of their actions. The IBLT's learning mechanisms have been implemented in an ACT‐R cognitive model. Through a series of experiments, this paper shows how the IBLT's learning mechanisms closely approximate the relative trend magnitude and performance of human data. Although the cognitive model is bounded within the context of a dynamic task, the IBLT is a general theory of decision making applicable to other dynamic environments. (shrink)

I present an argument for the view that laws ground their instances. I then outline two important consequences that follow if we accept the conclusion of this argument. First, the claim that laws ground their instances threatens to undermine a prominent recent attempt to make sense of the explanatory power of Humean laws by distinguishing between metaphysical and scientific explanation. And second, the claim that laws ground their instances gives rise to a novel argument against the view that grounding relations (...) are metaphysically necessary. (shrink)

Francis Bacon’s method of induction is often understood as a form of eliminative induction. The idea, on this interpretation, is to list the possible formal causes of a phenomenon and, by reference to a copious and reliable natural history, to falsify all of them but one. Whatever remains must be the formal cause. Bacon’s crucial instances are often seen as the crowning example of this method. In this article, I argue that this interpretation of crucial instances is mistaken, and it (...) has caused us to lose sight of why Bacon assigns crucial instances a special role in his quest for epistemic certainty about formal causes. If crucial instances are interpreted eliminatively, then they are subject to the two problems related to underdetermination raised by Duhem: (1) that it is impossible to be certain one has specified all of the possible alternatives and (2) that an experiment falsifies a whole theory, not just a single hypothesis in isolation. I show that Bacon anticipates and aims to dodge both of these problems by conceiving of crucial instances as working, in the ideal case, through direct affirmations that are supported by links to more foundational knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a puzzle that emerges from what J. P. Moreland has called the traditional realist view of quality instances. Briefly put, the puzzle is to figure out how quality instances fit into the overall structure of a concrete particular, given that the traditional realist view of quality instances prima facie seems incompatible with what might be called the traditional realist view of concrete particulars. After having discussed the traditional realist views involved and the puzzle that emerges (...) from their juxtaposition, I propose an alternative realist view of quality instances which resolves the puzzle. In short, the puzzle is solved by treating the distinction between a concrete particular and its quality instances as a distinction of reason, and by adopting the view that the individuating element of a concrete particular must also serve as its unifying element – a view which Moreland, one of traditional realism’s most stalwart contemporary defenders, rejects. (shrink)

According to the aspect theory of instantiation, a particular A instantiates a universal B if and only if an aspect of A is cross-count identical with an aspect of B. This involves the assumption that both particulars and universals have aspects, and that aspects can mediate between different ways of counting things. I will ask what is new about this account of instantiation and, more importantly, whether it is an improvement on its older relatives. It will turn out that the (...) part of it that is new is the notion of cross-count identity among aspects. As I will show, this notion is both dubious and unnecessary. I will end by presenting a simplified aspect theory of instantiation that does not involve cross-count identity. (shrink)

The distinction between singular and multiple artworks is usually drawn modally in terms of the notion of an ‘instance’ of a work. Singular works, it is claimed, can only have a single instance, whereas multiple works allow of more than one instance. But this is enlightening only if we have a clear idea of what is meant by an ‘instance’. I argue that there are two different notions of a work's ‘instances’ in play in the literature (...) – what I term its ‘provenential instances’ (‘P-instances’) and its ‘purely epistemic instances’ (E-instances). I further argue that these notions are conflated in the literature critical of Gregory Currie's ‘instance multiplicity hypothesis’ (IMH) – the claim that all artworks are multiple in nature. I defend a modified version of the IMH as a claim about a work's E-instances against a range of criticisms. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the advantages of simple metacognitive capabilities in a repeated social dilemma. Two types of metacognitive agent were developed and compared with a non-metacognitive agent and two fixed-strategy agents. The first type of metacognitive agent takes the perspective of the opponent to anticipate the opponent's future actions and respond accordingly. The other metacognitive agent predicts the opponent's next move based on the previous moves of the agent and the opponent. The modeler agent achieves better individual outcomes (...) than a non-metacognitive agent and is more successful at encouraging cooperation. The opponent-perspective agent, by contrast, fails to achieve these outcomes because it lacks important information about the opponent. These simple agents provide insights regarding modeling of metacognition in more complex tasks. (shrink)

The consensus is that novels can be fully appreciated only through an experiential engagement with their well-formed instances. But what are the entities that serve as such instances? According to the orthodox view, these entities are primarily inscriptions—concrete texts written or printed on something or displayed on the screen of some electronic device. In this paper, I argue that this view is misguided, since well-formed instances of a novel must manifest certain sonic properties, but such properties cannot be manifested by (...) inscriptions. As an alternative, I put forward the view that the entities that serve as well-formed instances of novels are readings and sums of readings and graphic elements. (shrink)

Decision trees learning is one of the most practical classification methods in machine learning, which is used for approximating discrete-valued target functions. However, they may overfit the training data, which limits their ability to generalize to unseen instances. In this study, we investigated the use of instance reduction techniques to smooth the decision boundaries before training the decision trees. Noise filters such as ENN, RENN, and ALLKNN remove noisy instances while DROP3 and DROP5 may remove genuine instances. Extensive empirical (...) experiments were conducted on 13 benchmark datasets from UCI machine learning repository with and without intentionally introduced noise. Empirical results show that eliminating border instances improves the classification accuracy of decision trees and reduces the tree size, which reduces the training and classification times. In datasets without intentionally added noise, applying noise filters without the use of the built-in Reduced Error Pruning gave the best classification accuracy. ENN, RENN, and ALLKNN outperformed decision trees learning without pruning in 9, 9, and 8 out of 13 datasets, respectively. The datasets reduced using ENN and RENN without built-in pruning were more effective when noise was intentionally introduced in different ratios. (shrink)

This article argues how one problem of computing lies in realizing a significant instance given a class or type. Analysis of a case study on digital narrative suggests two general processes for instantiating significant instances: interaction and optimization. The article then explains how the problem of universals needs to be deconstructed when trying to understand what type of entities significant instances are and what the process for obtaining them is.

We present an improved method for clustering in the presence of very limited supervisory information, given as pairwise instance constraints. By allowing instance-level constraints to have spacelevel inductive implications, we are able to successfully incorporate constraints for a wide range of data set types. Our method greatly improves on the previously studied constrained -means algorithm, generally requiring less than half as many constraints to achieve a given accuracy on a range of real-world data, while also being more robust (...) when over-constrained. We additionally discuss an active learning algorithm which increases the value of constraints even further. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The article analyzes the relationship between the dominant Churches from Hungary, Poland and Romania and the opposition to Communist regimes. The Churches – seen as institutional actors of civil society – are analyzed in terms of their material and symbolic resources which may act as prerequisites for the (...) initiation or support of oppositional activities. The relation of accommodation between the Church and the Communist regimes installed in the three countries are also analysed comparatively. The analysis follows the politically significant behaviour of the three Churches and the corresponding attitudes and measures developed by the Communist authorities. The article discusses Poland as the only case where the Church has been actively involved, on multiple levels, in oppositional activities. The distinctive feature in the Polish case is given by the complex ties developed by the Church with the remaining actors of the anti-Communist opposition, as well as by the enduring presence of religious imagery within the Polish society. Hungary and Romania displayed only a modest activity in the direction of religion-based opposition, being marked by isolated acts of defiance from individual members of the clergy in the context of an overall passivity of the Churches. (shrink)

The way we access dance is changing as the form is now widely viewed via digital transmission and documentation. This paper considers the ontological impact of this cultural shift. It sets out to challenge the view that dance works are accessible only through live performance. Adopting a non-realist ontological perspective,, I suggest that the way we relate to screenings and recordings of dance works impacts on the ontological status of the form, thus problematising existing schemata and calling for further philosophical (...) consideration. (shrink)

The Relevance Criterion of confirmation gained prominence as the underlying principle of the class-size approach (CSA) to Hempel's paradoxes of confirmation. The CSA, however, yields counter-intuitive results for (c) instances, and this failing cast serious doubt on the acceptability of the Relevance Criterion. In this paper an attempt is made to rescue the Relevance Criterion from this embarrassment. This is done by incorporating that criterion into a new resolution of the paradoxes, a resolution based on a theory of selective confirmation (...) and a distinction between mere confirmation in principle and evaluative confirmation (E-confirmation). (shrink)

This thesis explores the prospects of a distinction between subjective and objective properties in terms of how they are instantiated. While there are many ways in which the subjective can be separated from the objective, the one that interests me here is the difference between properties instantiated subjectively and properties instantiated objectively. The idea is that in some cases what makes it so that object o has the property p is what a thinking subject thinks of it or how she (...) reacts to it, while in other cases what makes it so that o has p has nothing to do with what the subject thinks or does. In the first kind of case, the instantiation of the property is mind-dependent, or subjective, and in the second kind of case the instantiation is mind-independent, or objective. I examine ways to draw a distinction between subjective and objective properties in this sense and defend the possibility of such a distinction against conceivable threats. I then go on to arguing that instead of sorting properties into two groups, subjective and objective, it is more fruitful to think of them as on a continuum ranging from entirely subjective to entirely objective. While there may be cases of properties that are entirely objective, i.e. instantiated only objectively, finding entirely subjective properties if more difficult. Candidates for subjective properties do not seem to be exclusively subjective; i.e. they are instantiated objectively to some extent. I use color as a paradigm case to argue for my account of properties whose instantiation is partly objective and partly subjective. I then go on to arguing that all sensory properties should be treated as color in this respect. (shrink)

Whitehead’s cosmology centers on the self-creation of actual occasions that perish as they come to be, but somehow do combine to constitute societies that are persistent agents and/or patients. “Instance Ontology” developed by D.W. Mertz concerns unification of relata into facts of relatedness by specific intensions. These two conceptual systems are similar in that they both avoid the substance-property distinction: they differ in their understanding of how basic units combine to constitute complex unities. “Process Structural Realism” (PSR) draws from (...) both of these approaches in developing an account of how combinations of processes may produce ontologically significant coherences. When a group of processes achieves such closure that a set of states recurs continually, the effects of that coherence differ from what would occur in the absence of that closure. Such altered effectiveness is an attribute of the system as a whole, and would have consequences. This indicates that the network of processes, as a unit, has ontological significance. The closed network of processes, together with the conditions that prevail, constitute the form of definiteness of the coherence. That form continues to obtain as long as the coherence persists. Constituents contribute to, rather than share, that characteristic. Aspects of some recent research in systems biology, microeconomics, and social psychology illustrate the application of PSR. (shrink)

In the 1960s and 70s, first Lacan and then Althusser invoked the category of instance, in a way which would mark what is today called the «structuralist moment» of French philosophy, profoundly influencing the discourse of those who were the disciples of both. The complex system of references to action, demand, insistence, effectivity, decision, hierarchy, which found themselves combined in the notion, proves difficult to translate into other languages, and in particular into English (which has today become the paramount (...) language of critical theory). In order to achieve a syncretism of three heritages (Marx, Freud, Saussure), the French theorists drew on the polysemic extension of the word «instance», which while it does exist in English, operates differently. Hence the interest in examining the divergent choices made by the English and American translators, reading them as symptoms of certain tensions and of a logical instability which affect, from within, the «structuralist» paradigm à la française. (shrink)

Page's definition of localism is inspired by the instance-based paradigm. However, the locality of representations is not necessary for a model to be instance-based and, on the other hand, explicit featural representations are generally considered local. The important distinction is between instance-based and noninstance-based paradigms and not between distributed and local representations as Page claims.

. Network data analysis helps in capturing node usage behavior. Existing algorithms use reduced feature set to manage high runtime complexity. Ignoring features may increase classification errors. This paper presents a model, allowing classification of network traffic, while considering all the relevant features. Learning phase partitions training sample on values of the respective features. This creates equivalence classes related to m features. During classification, each feature value of the test instance results in picking one set from equivalence class generated (...) during learning. Algorithm captures new behavior in semi-supervised incremental learning mode. For problems having m features and n training samples the model has incremental learning complexity of and average classification complexity is of the order. (shrink)

This article sketches a commonplace yet neglected epistemic puzzle raised by the diversity of our film-viewing practices. Because our appreciative practices allow for variability in the " instances " of cinematic works we engage, many of our experiential encounters with those works are flawed or impoverished in a number of ways. The article outlines a number of ways in which instances of cinema can vary – including, for example, in terms of color, score, and aspect ratio. This variability of instances (...) of cinema and, hence, the variability in our experiences of a cinematic work raise potential problems around normative questions of interpretation and evaluation. (shrink)

Attention has been drawn, particularly since Kant, to propositions which can not have negative instances. They used to be called a priori, axioms, first principles. Today, they are usually called postulates—C. I. Lewis uses both the old and new terminology—because there is a growing recognition of the fact that at least some of them are not “necessary” in the traditional sense. Kant placed a limitation on the apriorism of the continental rationalists. Current epistemologists and logicians have outstripped Kant in the (...) direction signalled by him. Both he and they, however, concur in the opinion that apriori propositions are subject to negation of a sort. The Kantian dinge-an-sich, though they can not contradict these propositions by being negative instances of them, do nevertheless stand to them in the relation of insubordination, thereby exerting on them a “negative action” of a sort. And, according to current views, there are instances which, though they fall outside the range of significance of a proposition or system and hence can not contradict it, do nevertheless tend to bring about a revision of it by a negative action of some sort. The purpose of this brief essay is to coin a convenient name for such instances and to describe certain properties of their peculiar negative action. (shrink)

An ontology's theory of ontic predication has implications for the concomitant predicate logic. Remarkable in its analytic power for both ontology and logic is the here developed Particularized Predicate Logic (PPL), the logic inherent in the realist version of the doctrine of unit or individuated predicates. PPL, as axiomatized and proven consistent below, is a three-sorted impredicative intensional logic with identity, having variables ranging over individuals x, intensions R, and instances of intensions $R_{i}$ . The power of PPL is illustrated (...) by its clarification of the self-referential nature of impredicative definitions and its distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate forms. With a wellmotivated refinement on the axiom of comprehension, PPL is, in effect, a higher-order logic without a forced stratification of predicates into types or the use of other ad hoc restrictions. The Russell-Priest characterization of the classic self-referential paradoxes is used to show how PPL diagnosis and solves these antimonies. A direct application of PPL is made to Grelling's Paradox. Also shown is how PPL can distinguish between identity and indiscernibility. (shrink)

Une tentative d'élaboration d'un statut du sujet qui fonde les sciences sociales, en y incluant la dimension religieuse.