What can reason do for us and what can't it do? This is the question examined by Herbert A. Simon, who received the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences "for his pioneering work on decision-making processes in economic organizations." The ability to apply reason to the choice of actions is supposed to be one of the defining characteristics of our species. In the first two chapters, the author explores the nature and limits of human reason, comparing and evaluating the (...) major theoretical frameworks that have been erected to explain reasoning processes. He also discusses the interaction of thinking and emotion in the choice of our actions. In the third and final chapter, the author applies the theory of bounded rationality to social institutions and human behavior, and points out the problems created by limited attention span human inability to deal with more than one difficult problem at a time. He concludes that we must recognize the limitations on our capabilities for rational choice and pursue goals that, in their tentativeness and flexibility, are compatible with those limits. (shrink)

It is often claimed that there can be no such thing as a logic of scientific discovery, but only a logic of verification. By 'logic of discovery' is usually meant a normative theory of discovery processes. The claim that such a normative theory is impossible is shown to be incorrect; and two examples are provided of domains where formal processes of varying efficacy for discovering lawfulness can be constructed and compared. The analysis shows how one can treat operationally and formally (...) phenomena that have usually been dismissed with fuzzy labels like 'intuition' and 'creativity'. (shrink)

Less discussed than Hume’s skepticism about what grounds there could be for projecting empirical hypotheses is his concern with a skeptical regress that he thought threatened to extinguish any belief when we reflect that our reasoning is not perfect. The root of the problem is the fact that a reflection about our reasoning is itself a piece of reasoning. If each reflection is negative and undermining, does that not give us a diminution of our original belief to nothing? It requires (...) much attention to detail, we argue, to determine whether or not there is a skeptical problem in this neighborhood. Consider that if we subsequently doubt a doubt we had about our reasoning, that would suggest a restoration of some of the force of our original belief. We would then have instead of runaway skepticism an alternating sequence of pieces of skeptical reasoning that cancel each others’ effects on our justification in the original proposition, at least to some degree. We will argue that the outcome of the sequence of reflections Hume is imagining depends on information about a given case that is not known a priori. We conclude this from the fact that under three precise, explanatory, and viable contemporary reconstructions of what this kind of reasoning about reasoning could be like and how it has the potential to affect our original beliefs, a belief-extinguishing regress is not automatic or necessary. (shrink)

Cognitive science is, of course, not really a new discipline, but a recognition of a fundamental set of common concerns shared by the disciplines of psychology, computer science, linguistics, economics, epistemology, and the social sciences generally. All of these disciplines are concerned with information processing systems, and all of them are concerned with systems that are adaptive—that are what they are from being ground between the nether millstone of their physiology or hardware, as the case may be, and the upper (...) millstone of a complex environment in which they exist. Systems that are adaptive may equally well be described as “artificial,” for as environments change, they can be expected to change too, as though they were deliberately designed to fit those environments (as indeed they sometimes are).The task of empirical science is to discover and verify invariants in the phenomena under study. The artificiality of information processing systems creates a subtle problem in defining empirical invariants in such systems. For observed regularities are very likely invariant only within a limited range of variation in their environments, and any accurate statement of the laws of such systems must contain reference to their relativity to environmental features. It is a common experience in experimental psychology, for example, to discover that we are studying sociology—the effects of the past histories of our subjects—when we think we are studying physiology—the effects of properties of the human nervous system. Similarly, business cycle economists are only now becoming aware of the extent to which the parameters of the system they are studying are dependent on the experiences of a population with economic events over the previous generation.In artificial sciences, the descriptive and the normative are never far apart. Thus, in economics, the “principle of rationality” is sometimes asserted as a descriptive invariant, sometimes as advice to decision makers. Similarly, in psychology, the processes of adaptation (learning) have always been a central topic, at one time a topic that dominated the whole field of research. Linguistics, too, has suffered its confusions between descriptive and normative attitudes towards its subject. But we must avoid the error, in studying information processing systems, of thinking that the adaptive processes themselves must be invariant; and we must be prepared to face the complexities of regression in the possibility that they themselves may be subject to improvement and adaptation.It might have been necessary a decade ago to argue for the commonality of the information processes that are employed by such disparate systems as computers and human nervous systems. The evidence for that commonality is now overwhelming, and the remaining questions about the boundaries of cognitive science have more to do with whether there also exist nontrivial commonalities with information processing in genetic systems than with whether men and machines both think. (shrink)

In this collection of fourteen essays, first published in 1943, Herbert Read extends and amplifies the points of view expressed in his successful pamphlet _To Hell with Culture_, which has been reprinted here. The ‘politics of the unpolitical’ are the politics of those who strive for human values and not for national or sectional interests. Herbert Read defines these values and demands their recognition as a solvent of social and cultural crises’, and looks forward to the future with (...) constructive vision. This book will be of interest to students of politics, history, and philosophy. (shrink)

The influence of degree of organization on the ability of Ss to recall lists of syllables immediately after learning was used as a measure in applying the concept of information to the problem of learning. More syllables were correctly recalled from a passage with a lower average rate of information than from a passage with a higher average information rate. The amount of information learned by the Ss was constant when the degree of organization was between 2 and 1.5 bits (...) per syllable. (shrink)

L’exposé que je souhaite présenter repose sur les présupposés suivants, que je ne peux qu’indiquer. J’admets à titre provisoire l’hypothèse des sciences physiques selon laquelle les objets physiques et l’univers physique peuvent être analysés en un complexe de corpuscules physiques. Je suppose que les objets de l’expérience immédiate [158] existent en relation avec les individus biologiques et sociaux...

Excerpt from Studies in Philosophical Criticism and Construction In the following pages my aim is to illustrate the principles of philosophic method by endeavouring critically to establish certain fundamental principles or Grundbegriffe in the spheres of Psychology, Logic and Epistemology, Ethics and Metaphysics; in other words, to lay the foundation for a more complete structure in each of these three branches of Philosophy. This double aim, however much it complicates the inquiry, is inevitable. A general discussion of philosophical method in (...) abstracto, without concurrently developing a general philosophical position, would seem to me to be futile even if it were possible. This is true of all branches of knowledge - true of the physical sciences as much as of any others. Generalisations as to scientific method - that is, as to the intellectual processes by which actual scientific results ought to be obtained - must assuredly be of very little value unless drawn in close connexion with concrete scientific work. But nowhere is the connexion more close than in Philosophy. Here, we cannot formulate our problems unless we are prepared with at least partial solutions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Cognitive science is, of course, not really a new discipline, but a recognition of a fundamental set of common concerns shared by the disciplines of psychology, computer science, linguistics, economics, epistemology, and the social sciences generally. All of these disciplines are concerned with information processing systems, and all of them are concerned with systems that are adaptive—that are what they are from being ground between the nether millstone of their physiology or hardware, as the case may be, and the upper (...) millstone of a complex environment in which they exist. Systems that are adaptive may equally well be described as “artificial,” for as environments change, they can be expected to change too, as though they were deliberately designed to fit those environments (as indeed they sometimes are).The task of empirical science is to discover and verify invariants in the phenomena under study. The artificiality of information processing systems creates a subtle problem in defining empirical invariants in such systems. For observed regularities are very likely invariant only within a limited range of variation in their environments, and any accurate statement of the laws of such systems must contain reference to their relativity to environmental features. It is a common experience in experimental psychology, for example, to discover that we are studying sociology—the effects of the past histories of our subjects—when we think we are studying physiology—the effects of properties of the human nervous system. Similarly, business cycle economists are only now becoming aware of the extent to which the parameters of the system they are studying are dependent on the experiences of a population with economic events over the previous generation.In artificial sciences, the descriptive and the normative are never far apart. Thus, in economics, the “principle of rationality” is sometimes asserted as a descriptive invariant, sometimes as advice to decision makers. Similarly, in psychology, the processes of adaptation (learning) have always been a central topic, at one time a topic that dominated the whole field of research. Linguistics, too, has suffered its confusions between descriptive and normative attitudes towards its subject. But we must avoid the error, in studying information processing systems, of thinking that the adaptive processes themselves must be invariant; and we must be prepared to face the complexities of regression in the possibility that they themselves may be subject to improvement and adaptation.It might have been necessary a decade ago to argue for the commonality of the information processes that are employed by such disparate systems as computers and human nervous systems. The evidence for that commonality is now overwhelming, and the remaining questions about the boundaries of cognitive science have more to do with whether there also exist nontrivial commonalities with information processing in genetic systems than with whether men and machines both think. (shrink)

Moses Maimonides, scholar, physician, and philosopher, was the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages. In this magisterial new biography, the work of many years, Herbert Davidson provides an exhaustive guide to Maimonides' life and works. After considering Maimonides' upbringing and education, Davidson expounds all of his voluminous writings in exhaustive detail, with separate chapters on rabbinic, philosophical, and medical texts. This long-awaited volume is destined to become the standard work on this towering figure of Western intellectual history.

It is shown how a causal ordering can be defined in a complete structure, and how it is equivalent to identifying the mechanisms of a system. Several techniques are shown that may be useful in actually accomplishing such identification. Finally, it is shown how this explication of causal ordering can be used to analyse causal counterfactual conditionals. First the counterfactual proposition at issue is articulated through the device of a belief-contravening supposition. Then the causal ordering is used to provide modal (...) categories for the factual propositions, and the logical contradiction in the system is resolved by ordering the factual propositions according to these causal categories. (shrink)

This paper provides an explanation of why sightings of black ravens increase the degree of warranted belief in the proposition that all ravens are black, while observations of white shoes do not. The explanation, which allows a Bayesian interpretation, rests on an assumption of the redundancy (i.e., lawfulness) of nature.

The task of axiomatizing physical theories has attracted, in recent years, some interest among both empirical scientists and logicians. However, the axiomatizations produced by either one of these two groups seldom appear satisfactory to the members of the other. It is the purpose of this paper to develop an approach that will satisfy the criteria of both, hence permit us to construct axiomatizations that will meet simultaneously the standards and needs of logicians and of empirical scientists.

The purpose of this note is to examine a recent axiomatization of classical particle mechanics, and its relation to an alternative axiomatization I had earlier proposed. A comparison of the two proposals casts some interesting light on the problems of operationalism in classical celestial mechanics.1. Comparison of the Two Axiomatizations. The basic differences between the two proposals arise from the nature of the undefined terms. Both systems take the set of particles, time, and position as primitive notions. Both systems assume (...) that there exists a set of particles having continuous, twice-differentiable paths over some time interval. In addition, CPM takes mass and force as primitive notions, and assumes that with each particle there is associated a mass and a set of forces such that Newton's Second Law is satisfied. A system with these properties is called in CPM “a system of particle mechanics.” If, in addition, the set of forces in the system satisfies Newton's Third Law, the system is called in CPM “Newtonian.”. (shrink)