This article presents counter evidence against Smolensky's theory that human intuitive/nonconscious congnitive processes can only be accurately explained in terms of subsymbolic computations carried out in artificial neural networks. We presentsymboliclearning models of two well‐studied, complicated cognitive tasks involving nonconscious acquisition of information: learning production rules and artificial finite state grammars. Our results demonstrate that intuitive learning does not imply subsymbolic computation, and that the already well‐established, perceived correlation between “conscious” and “symbolic” on the one hand, and between “nonconscious” and (...) “subsymbolic” on the other, does not exist. (shrink)

Abstract The notion of necessary new terms (predicates) is proposed. It is shown that necessary new predicates in first?order logic must be directly, recursively defined. I present a first?order inductive learning algorithm that introduces new necessary predicates to model scientific revolution in which a new language is adopted. I demonstrate that my learning system can learn a genetic theory with theoretical terms which, after being induced by my system, can be interpreted as either types of genetic properties (dominant or recessive) (...) or genes, depending on the representation of the hypotheses of the same theoretical terms. (shrink)

Supporters of eliminative connectionism have argued for a pattern association-based explanation of language learning and language processing. They deny that explicit rules and symbolic representations play any role in language processing and cognition in general. Their argument is based to a large extent on two artificial neural network (ANN) models that are claimed to be able to learn the past tenses of English verbs (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986, Parallel distributed processing, Vol. 2, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; MacWhinney & Leinbach, 1991, (...) Cognition, 40, 121-157). In this article we critically review Rumelhart and McClelland's as well as MacWhinney and Leinbach's ANN models and conclude that they do not succeed in the assigned task of learning the past tenses of English verbs. In order to answer their challenge to the symbolic processing approach, we present our symbolic pattern associator (SPA)-a general-purpose pattern associator that can learn to associate arbitrary discrete patterns. We carried out several experiments with the SPA using the same set of verbs that was used in MacWhinney and Leinbach's simulation with more realistic training and testing procedures. The SPA outperformed the connectionist models by a wide margin in the accuracy of learning, and successful inductive generalizations to unseen verbs. Our SPA has very natural and psychologically realistic explanations to many psychological effects such as U-shaped learning curve, and is much closer to human subjects in predicting past tense of the pseudo-verbs. In contrast to ANNs, whose internal representations are entirely opaque, the SPA can represent the acquired knowledge in the form of production rules that allow for further higher-level processing and integration, resulting in linguistically realistic associative templates for irregular verbs and production rules for regular verbs. In the light of these findings, we conclude that eliminative connectionists' vision of cognition as simple pattern association and pattern recognition without symbolic representation is inadequate. Pattern association as such does not imply rule-less or cue-based models of language acquisition or of human learning in general. (shrink)

We describe and examine a view of knowledge application in schooling developed from aspects of contemporary learning theory. To situate our perspective in contemporary practice, we establish the significance of the issue of knowledge application as an educational challenge. We then review some enduring theoretical conceptions of the problem and their educational ramifications following which we introduce some developments in educational learning theory and consider their implications for teaching knowledge application.

Bistable figures provide a fascinating window through which to explore human visual awareness. Here we demonstrate for the first time that the semantic context provided by a background auditory soundtrack can modulate an observer’s predominant percept while watching the bistable “my wife or my mother-in-law” figure . The possibility of a response-bias account—that participants simply reported the percept that happened to be congruent with the soundtrack that they were listening to—was excluded in Experiment 2. We further demonstrate that this crossmodal (...) semantic effect was additive with the manipulation of participants’ visual fixation , while it interacted with participants’ voluntary attention . These results indicate that audiovisual semantic congruency constrains the visual processing that gives rise to the conscious perception of bistable visual figures. Crossmodal semantic context therefore provides an important mechanism contributing to the emergence of visual awareness. (shrink)

© 2015 Wong,Tassone,Rivera and Simon.Carriers of the fragile X premutation allele have an expanded CGG trinucleotide repeat size within the FMR1 gene and are at increased risk of developing fragile x-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome. Previous research has shown that male fXPCs with FXTAS exhibit cognitive decline, predominantly in executive functions such as inhibitory control and working memory. Recent evidence suggests fXPCs may also exhibit impairments in processing temporal information. The attentional blink task is often used to examine the dynamics of attentional (...) selection, but disagreements exist as to whether the AB is due to excessive or insufficient attentional control. In this study, we used a variant of the AB task and neuropsychological testing to explore the dynamics of attentional selection, relate AB performance to attentional control, and determine whether fXPCs exhibited temporal and/or attentional control impairments. Participants were adult male fXPCs, aged 18–48 years and asymptomatic for FXTAS and age-matched male controls. We found that fXPCs did not differ from controls in the AB task, indicating that the temporal dynamics of attentional selection were intact. However, they were impaired in the letter-number sequencing task, a test of executive working memory. In the combined fXPC and control group, letter-number sequencing performance correlated positively with AB magnitude. This finding supports models that posit the AB is due to excess attentional control. In our two-pronged analysis approach, in control participants we replicated a previously observed effect and demonstrated that it persists under more stringent theoretical constraints, and we enhance our understanding of fXPCs by demonstrating that at least some aspects of temporal processing may be spared. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading and Writing PlatoCharles L. GriswoldThe Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues, by Ruby Blondell; 452 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, $55.00Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in theSymposium, by Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan; 266 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, $25.00Questioning Platonism: Continental Interpretations of Plato, by Drew Hyland; ix & 202 pp. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004, $44.00The (...) People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics, by Debra Nails; 414 pp. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002, $75.00.Why did Plato write dialogues? How should his dialogues be read (does the literary form matter, for example, to our getting at the heart of what Plato is saying)? These questions are now familiar in contemporary Plato scholarship, and their answers—which undoubtedly are interconnected—are the subject of lively and fascinating exploration. Any doubt that Platonic studies flourishes would quickly be put to rest by the four books under review here.It was once thought that attention to the "dramatic dimension" of Plato's literary-philosophical productions was the province of two much despised schools of thought: "the Straussians," and "the Continentals." The first of these was viewed as advocating a dangerous combination of esotericism (the idea that somehow Plato's meaning is not on the surface of the dialogues, but concealed in them, as though they were a cryptogram), elitism (the idea that the true Plato is only available to [End Page 205] "the few"—such as the Straussians, according to themselves anyhow), and unphilosophical and dilettantish meanderings about this or that literarily cast "teaching." Straussian hermeneutics was thought to open the way to unprincipled appeals to irony whenever it suited the interpreter, so that any text could end up saying pretty much whatever the interpreter wished for it to say, including the opposite of what the surface of the dialogue appeared to say. And further, it was thought (perhaps in a manner at odds with the "unprincipled interpretation" charge) that the Straussians' mode of "taking into account" the dramatic context—and in particular their contextualization of claims made in the dialogues such that this or that claim gets "explained" as a rhetorical gesture addressed by character X to character Y in context Z, a gesture whose content and validity, so to speak, are limited to that exchange—robs the dialogue of its philosophical content. Hence the worry that Straussian hermeneutics leads to skepticism about the possibility of philosophy itself—philosophy understood precisely in the way that it is regularly spoken of in the Platonic dialogues, namely as the effort to transcend perspective and partiality and to grasp through argument the essence of the matter as such. To cap it off, there is the background suspicion that Straussians are politically conservative, in a way that is somehow connected with their interpretation of Plato.There is more than a kernel of truth in the view that Straussians have insisted on the hermeneutic importance of the dialogue form, taking their cue from Strauss's own remarks in such texts as The City and Man. He did argue that Plato's meaning is not on the surface (and thus in some sense is esoteric), that it was intended by Plato to be available to "the few" while not debunking the beliefs of "the many," and that Plato is an ironist. There is also warrant for the worries about unprincipled interpretation, as well as about the reduction of philosophy to a sort of literary sensibility substituting for genuine philosophical argument (where, after all, are Strauss's arguments for any philosophical position, whether or not about a Platonic "teaching"?). And it is by and large true, so far as I can tell, that his self-identified followers are politically conservative (in the contemporary American sense), and in a way somehow tied to their interpretation of Plato.I myself find Strauss's interpretation of Plato to be deeply problematic both in its substance and its method (I put aside the issue of the political conservatism of Strauss's followers, a "teaching" I also find objectionable). And while I join the authors of the four... (shrink)

The ninth and tenth chapters of the Origin mark a profound, if perhaps difficult to detect, shift in the book’s argumentative structure. In the previous few chapters and in the ninth, Darwin has been exploring a variety of objections to natural selection, some more obvious (where are all the fossils of transitional forms?) and some showing careful attention to challenging consequences of evolution (could selection really produce instincts?). Starting in the tenth, however, Darwin turns to showing us what kinds of (...) new and unexpected results evolutionary theory might be able to offer us, again in domains both predictable (extinction) and unexpected (biogeography, embryology). It is notable that it is the fossil record that serves as this pivot point, being both a source of potentially powerful objections to evolutionary theory and home to some of its most compelling new explanations. In this chapter, I present both sets of arguments and consider what role Darwin gave to fossil evidence, in the process attempting to discover why it might have played this unique role in two different parts of Darwin’s “long argument” for evolution by natural selection. Geology’s special place, I argue, derives at least in part from its particular importance in Darwin’s social and intellectual context. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the (...) full story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

Charles Parsons; X*—Mathematical Intuition, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 80, Issue 1, 1 June 1980, Pages 145–168, https://doi.org/10.1093/ari.

Charles Taylor; X*—The Validity of Transcendental Arguments, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 151–166, https://do.

Im 12. Jahrhundert ging in Byzanz eine bemerkenswerte Blute des Aristotelismus von einem philosophischen Zirkel aus, den die vom politischen Leben ausgeschlossene Kaisertochter Anna Komnene unterhielt. Eustratios von Nikaia und Michael von Ephesos arbeiteten zusammen an einem Kommentar zur Nikomachischen Ethik im Auftrage Annas. Eustratios kommentierte die Bucher I und VI, Michael von Ephesos die Bucher V, IX und X. Ausserdem liegen von Michael mehrere Kommentare zur Naturphilosophie des Aristoteles vor, wahrend wir von Eustratios den hier wiedergegebenen Kommentar zu Buch (...) II der Analytica posteriora besitzen. Die lateinische Ubersetzung des Posteriora-Kommentars (zusammen mit einer kurzen anonymen Erklarung des Werkes) durch den Mediziner Andrea Grazioli leitete eine neue Epoche in der Deutung der aristotelischen Wissenschaftstheorie ein. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists have been accused of a great many sins, but are the conspiracy theories conspiracy theorists believe epistemically problematic? Well, according to some recent work, yes, they are. Yet a number of other philosophers like Brian L. Keeley, Charles Pigden, Kurtis Hagen, Lee Basham, and the like have argued ‘No!’ I will argue that there are features of certain conspiracy theories which license suspicion of such theories. I will also argue that these features only license (...) a limited suspicion of these conspiracy theories, and thus we need to be careful about generalising from such suspicions to a view of the warrant of conspiracy theories more generally. To understand why, we need to get to the bottom of what exactly makes us suspicious of certain conspiracy theories, and how being suspicious of a conspiracy theory does not always tell us anything about how likely the theory in question is to be false. (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available (...) for humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

Charles Taylor; X*—The Validity of Transcendental Arguments, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 151–166, https://do.

Shortly after X-ray technology was discovered, it was utilized in war medicine. In this paper, the authors consider how the challenging context of war created fertile conditions for learning, as early radiologists were forced to find solutions to the unique problems posed during wartime. The “battlefield” became the “classroom” where radiologists constructed knowledge in X-ray instrumentation, methods, and education, as well as in medicine generally. Through an examination of two broad historical wartime examples, the authors illustrate how X-rays were used (...) as part of war medicine and offer a detailed sketch of instances of knowledge construction in war radiology. With a sociology of knowledge perspective, they conclude that the knowledge generated in war belongs also to civilian medicine. An understanding of war radiology’s role as a “springboard” for knowledge construction is thus crucial for a complete understanding of the history of radiology. (shrink)

Shortly after X-ray technology was discovered, it was utilized in war medicine. In this paper, the authors consider how the challenging context of war created fertile conditions for learning, as early radiologists were forced to find solutions to the unique problems posed during wartime. The “battlefield” became the “classroom” where radiologists constructed knowledge in X-ray instrumentation, methods, and education, as well as in medicine generally. Through an examination of two broad historical wartime examples, the authors illustrate how X-rays were used (...) as part of war medicine and offer a detailed sketch of instances of knowledge construction in war radiology. With a sociology of knowledge perspective, they conclude that the knowledge generated in war belongs also to civilian medicine. An understanding of war radiology’s role as a “springboard” for knowledge construction is thus crucial for a complete understanding of the history of radiology. (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available (...) for humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

I give an account of Nietzsche's conception of valuing that builds on Paul Katsafanas's account. Katsafanas argues that an agent values x iff the agent (1) has a drive-induced positive affective orientation toward x, and (2) does not disapprove of this affective orientation. I object to condition (2), showing that Nietzsche thinks we can disapprove of our values and still count as holding them. On my view, an agent values the aim of one of their drives when the drive is (...) strong enough to generate an abiding positive affective orientation toward its aim. I argue that my view can address the four objections Katsafanas levels against Richardson's, Poellner's, and Clark and Dudrick's accounts, without neglecting the Nietzschean thought that we can feel intensely conflicted and uneasy about our values. (shrink)

C. J. F, Williams proposed ‘for some p ___ states that p & p’ as a satisfactory analysis of ‘___ is true’. This paper takes issue with this claim.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Cet article traite des notions de reconnaissance, de justice, et de vie bonne, d'abord, séparément, et ensuite comme un réseau où elles se renforcent et s’impliquent. Je commence en abordant les significations de “la reconnaissance,” et en prenant comme texte de référence Parcours de la reconnaissance de Paul Ricoeur. On peut distinguer la reconnaissance au sens épistémologique, la reconnaissance de soi, la reconnaissance d’autrui sur le plan social et politique. Dans un second (...) temps, je concentre mon attention sur le sens de la justice, dans le sens de la justice judiciaire, c’est-à-dire toute la structure des cours et le système pénal et policier. Enfin, je décris les exigences sociales, légales et politiques pour accéder à "la vie bonne" dans un pays moderne. Des systèmes de transport, d'éducation, marchand, bancaire, etc. sont aussi requis pour atteindre "la vie bonne". L'importance de ces éléments est particulièrement saillante lorsque nous observons ce qui arrive dans des pays en pleine guerre civile comme la Syrie, ou des pays détruits par des forces naturelles, comme le tremblement de terre en Haiti. Ma conclusion est que la "vie bonne" exige la reconnaissance de l’un et de l’autre et d’un gouvernement légitime ainsi que des systèmes de justice. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean EthicsCharles M. YoungGabriel Richardson Lear. Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 238. Cloth, $35.00.Suppose that you and I are friends. I need a ride to the airport; you offer to take me. You might do this for any of a number of reasons: (...) because you want to place me in your debt, because you want to impress bystanders, etc. But you might also do it for none of these reasons. You might do it, instead, because, understanding what resources are and what resources are for, you see taking me to the airport as an appropriate use of your resources (your time and your car), given our relationship and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.That's the Readers' Digest version of one story one might tell, on Aristotle's behalf, by way of connecting up friendship, virtuous action, practical and theoretical wisdom, action for its own sake, and action for the sake of the fine in the Nicomachean Ethics. I myself think it is a good story. It is also a story, I think, that Gabriel Richardson Lear tells, at least some of the time, in Happy Lives and the Highest Good, though she tells it with respect to courage, temperance, and magnanimity, not liberality and friendship.Most of the time, however, Lear tells another story. According to it, your taking me to the airport makes clear your commitment to make use of your resources to promote my good. Since we are friends, however, my good is bound up with yours, so in promoting my good you also promote your own good. But according to Aristotle the good for each of us is a life in which rationality is realized in thought and action. Hence your taking me to the airport counts as fine because it shows your commitment to that sort of life. But, again according to Aristotle, the centerpiece, and source of value, of that sort of life is contemplative activity, so you act for the sake of contemplation, whether you know this or not. And, in view of its expression of practical reason and truthfulness, your liberal activity is structurally similar to and so approximates to contemplative activity, and this allows us to say that you did what you did for the sake of contemplation.This is, so far as I know, an entirely new approach to the problems raised by Aristotle's identification of happiness with contemplation in NE X. Lear's story, and the arguments in its support, deserve and will repay serious attention. I limit myself here to four concerns about some of the details.First, our first story locates what is fine about virtuous action in the fit exhibited among the agent, her action, and her situation. Lear's story locates what is fine about virtuous action in its promotion of a certain kind of life. The first story thus sees what is fine about [End Page 118] virtuous action as something intrinsic to it, while Lear's story sees it as something external to it that it promotes. The first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Second, the first story has it that virtuous activity is an expression of understanding, Lear's story that it is an expression of a commitment to understanding. Again, the first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Third, Lear thinks that the liberal person can be said to act for the sake of contemplation when contemplation is the source of value for what she does, even when it is not the conscious aspiration of her action. That may be true, but I do not see that it is enough. What needs explanation is rather that she can be said to choose liberal activity for the sake of contemplation, and it is unclear how this could be unconscious.Finally, Lear's appeal to approximation may prove too much. The crafts, according to Aristotle, involve practical reason and truthfulness. But Aristotle doesn't believe that craft... (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging is a noninvasive imaging tool that utilizes a strong magnetic field and radio frequency waves to visualize in great detail organs, soft tissue, and bone. Unlike conventional x-rays, there is no exposure to ionizing radiation and at most field strengths the procedure is considered safe for nearly every age group. Because it is non-invasive and possesses excellent spatial resolution, the use of MRI as a research tool has increased exponentially over the past decade. Uses have ranged from (...) add-ons to a clinical study to studies of brain development in typically developing children. In addition, a major effort has been made in recent years to use MRI to study brain function. Because the clinical utility of fMRI has not yet been realized, fMRI is still considered highly exploratory, and we cannot yet identify incidental findings of a functional nature. (shrink)

The Emergent Metaphysics in Plato's Theory of Disorder presents for the first time Plato's theory of disorder as it pertains to his understanding of powerful causal forces at work within and outwith the cosmos and the soul of man. Divided into two Parts and presenting passages in both Greek and English, Plato's cosmology, the Timaeus, and his chief theological work, Laws X, are discussed in detail.

Studies in philosophy: I. Tufts, J.H. On moral evolution. II. Willcos, W.F. The expansion of Europe in its influence upon population. III. Woods, R.A. Democracy a new unfolding of human power. IV. Sharp, F.C. An analysis of the moral judgment. V. Woodbridge, F.J.E. The problem of consciousness. VI. Norton, E.L. The intellectual element in music. VII. Raub, W.L. Pragmatism and Kantianism. VIII. Lyman, E.W. The influence of pragmatism upon the status of theology.--Studies in psychology: IX. Delabarre, E.B. Influence of surrounding (...) objects on the apparent direction of a line. X. Swift, E.J. Beginning a language; a contribution to the psychology of learning. XI. Pierce, A.H. An appeal from the prevailing doctrine of a detached subconsciousness. XII. Woodworth, R.S. The cause of a voluntary movement. XIII. Burnett, C.T. An experimental test of the classical theory of volition. (shrink)

O-minimal structures have long been thought to occupy the base of a hierarchy of ordered structures, in analogy with the role that strongly minimal structures play with respect to stable theories. This is the first in an anticipated series of papers whose aim is the development of model theory for ordered structures of rank greater than one. A class of ordered structures to which a notion of finite rank can be assigned, the decomposable structures, is introduced here. These include all (...) ordered structures definable in o-minimal structures. The principal result in this paper, Theorem 5.1, asserts roughly that a decomposable structure [Formula: see text] can be partitioned into finitely many definable subsets such that on each set the restriction of < is a "twisted lexicographic" order. As a consequence, for all n and linear orders ≺ definable on a subset X ⊆ Mn in an o-minimal structure [Formula: see text], there is a definable partition of X such that the restriction of ≺ to each set in the partition is "lexicographic". (shrink)

A new reduction class is presented for the satisfiability problem for well-formed formulas of the first-order predicate calculus. The members of this class are closed prenex formulas of the form ∀ x∀ yC. The matrix C is in conjunctive normal form and has no disjuncts with more than three literals, in fact all but one conjunct is unary. Furthermore C contains but one predicate symbol, that being unary, and one function symbol which symbol is binary.