Can associative learning take place without awareness? We explore this issue in a sequence learning paradigm with amnesic and control participants, who were simply asked to react to one of four possible stimuli on each trial. Unknown to them, successive stimuli occurred in a sequence. We manipulated the extent to which stimuli followed the sequence in a deterministic manner (noiseless condition) or only probabilistically so (noisy condition). Through this paradigm, we aimed at addressing two central issues: first, we asked whether (...) sequence learning takes place in either condition with amnesic patients. Second, we asked whether this learning takes place without awareness. To answer this second question, participants were asked to perform a subsequent sequence generation task under inclusion and exclusion conditions, as well as a recognition task. Reaction times results show that amnesic patients learned the sequence only in the deterministic condition. However, they failed to be able to reproduce the sequence in the generation task. In contrast, we found learning for both sequence structures in control participants, but only control participants exposed to a deterministic sequence were successful in performing the generation task, thus suggesting that the acquired knowledge can be used consciously in this condition. Neither amnesic nor control participants showed correct old/new judgments in the recognition task. The results strengthen the claim that implicit learning is at least partly spared in amnesia, and the role of contextual information available for learning is discussed. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The portentous terms and phrases associated with the first decades of the Frankfurt School--exile, the dominance of capitalism, fascism - seem as salient today as they were in early 20th-century. The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School addresses the many early concerns of critical theory and brings those concerns into direct engagement with our shared world today. In this volume, a distinguished group of international scholars from a variety of disciplines revisit the philosophical and political contributions of Theodor W. Adorno, (...) Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and others. Throughout, the Companion's focus is on the major ideas that have made the Frankfurt School such a consequential and enduring movement. It offers a crucial resource for those who are trying to make sense of the global and cultural crisis that has now seized our contemporary world. (shrink)

Dienes & Perner's target article is not a satisfactory theory of implicit knowledge because in endorsing the representational theory of knowledge, the authors also inadvertently accept that only explicit knowledge can be causally efficacious, and hence that implicit knowledge is an inert category. This conflation between causal efficacy, knowledge, and explicitness is made clear through the authors' strategy, which consists of attributing any observable effect to the existence of representations that are as minimally explicit as needed to account for behavior. (...) In contrast, we believe that causally efficacious and fully implicit knowledge exists, and is best embodied in frameworks that depart radically from classical assumptions. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking study, Axel Honneth argues that "the struggle for recognition" is, and should be, at the center of social conflicts.

What do people learn when they do not know that they are learning? Until recently, all of the work in the area of implicit learning focused on empirical questions and methods. In this book, Axel Cleeremans explores unintentional learning from an information-processing perspective. He introduces a theoretical framework that unifies existing data and models on implicit learning, along with a detailed computational model of human performance in sequence-learning situations.

In this pathbreaking study, Axel Honneth argues that "the struggle for recognition" is, and should be, at the center of social conflicts. Moving smoothly between moral philosophy and social theory, Honneth offers insights into such issues as the social forms of recognition and nonrecognition, the moral basis of interaction in human conflicts, the relation between the recognition model and conceptions of modernity, the normative basis of social theory, and the possibility of mediating between Hegel and Kant.

We explore a network architecture introduced by Elman (1988) for predicting successive elements of a sequence. The network uses the pattern of activation over a set of hidden units from time-step 25-1, together with element t, to predict element t + 1. When the network is trained with strings from a particular finite-state grammar, it can learn to be a perfect finite-state recognizer for the grammar. When the network has a minimal number of hidden units, patterns on the hidden units (...) come to correspond to the nodes of the grammar, although this correspondence is not necessary for the network to act as a perfect finite-state recognizer. We explore the conditions under which the network can carry information about distant sequential contingencies across intervening elements. Such information is maintained with relative ease if it is.. (shrink)

Questo volume raccoglie alcuni dei più importanti scritti pubblicati da Axel Honneth nel periodo precedente a "Lotta per il riconoscimento". Essi documentano i passaggi fondamentali dell'itinerario filosofico attraverso il quale Honneth è giunto ad elaborare la sua teoria del riconoscimento: le riflessioni sul lavoro sociale e sul conflitto di classe svolte in un orizzonte di pensiero ancora marxista, l'interlocuzione con la teoria di Habermas, l'indagine sulle forme della moralità quotidiana, il progressivo emergere della "logica morale del riconoscimento". Tutti questi (...) elementi, le cui tracce sono ancora chiaramente ravvisabili negli scritti honnethiani della maturità, compongono un panorama teorico ricco e interessante, che i testi qui raccolti (per la prima volta resi disponibili in traduzione italiana) consentono di conoscere nella sua evoluzione. (shrink)

Comparing the relative sensitivity of direct and indirect measures of learning is proposed as the best way to provide evidence for unconscious learning when both conceptual and operative definitions of awareness are lacking. This approach was first proposed by Reingold & Merikle (1988) in the context of subliminal perception. In this paper, we apply it to a choice reaction time task in which the material is generated based on a probabilistic finite-state grammar (Cleeremans, 1993). We show (1) that participants progressively (...) learn about the statistical structure of the stimulus material over training with the choice reaction time task, and (2) that they can use some of this knowledge to predict the location of the next stimulus in a subsequent “generation” task. However, detailed partial correlational analyses of the correspondence between performance during the reaction time task and the statistical structure of the training material showed that large effects remained even when controlling for explicit knowledge as assessed by the generation task. Hence we conclude (1) that at least some of the knowledge expressed through reaction time performance can not be characterized as conscious, and (2) that even when associations are found at a global level of analysis, dissociations can still be obtained when more detailed analyses are conducted. Finally, we also show that participants are limited in the depth of the contingencies they can learn about, and that these limitations are shared by the Simple Recurrent Network model of Cleeremans & McClelland (1991). (shrink)

Est-il moralement acceptable de transmettre aux générations futures des déchets nucléaires ou une biodiversité réduite à une peau de chagrin ? Les personnes futures sauraient-elles être titulaires de droits alors qu'elles n'existent pas ? Est-il juste de revoir à la baisse le montant des retraites pour lesquelles des pensionnés ont cotisé toute leur vie ou de transférer aux générations à venir une dette publique considérable ? Chacune de ces questions a trait à différents domaines de notre existence. Pourtant, un fil (...) rouge les relie : celui de la justice entre les générations. Brûlantes d'actualité, ces interrogations se voient bien souvent offrir pour seule réponse le dénuement relatif de nos théories. Ainsi, des concepts comme ceux de " droit acquis " en matière de pensions ou de " développement durable " ne sauraient faire office d'arguments s'ils ne s'appuient pas sur un solide arrière-fond théorique issu de la philosophie morale et politique. Car l'économie publique ou la biologie des populations ne peuvent suffire à aiguiller les citoyens et leurs représentants sur les choix qui leur incombent en matière intergénérationnelle. La philosophie a aussi son rôle à jouer, à la condition qu'elle ait la modestie d'être à l'écoute d'autres disciplines, l'exigence d'articuler clairement ses présupposés, et le courage de se frotter à la pratique [4ème de couverture ]. (shrink)

When it comes to behavioral change, economic design and behavioral science are complements, not substitutes. Chater & Loewenstein give examples from policy design. In this commentary, I use examples, often from my own research, to show how behavioral insights inform the design of the rules that govern market transactions.

Over the last decade, Axel Honneth has established himself as one of the leading social and political philosophers in the world today. Rooted in the tradition of critical theory, his writings have been central to the revitalization of critical theory and have become increasingly influential. His theory of recognition has gained worldwide attention and is seen by some as the principal counterpart to Habermass theory of discourse ethics. In this important new volume, Honneth pursues his path-breaking work on recognition (...) by exploring the moral experiences of disrespect that underpin the conduct of social and political critique. What we might conceive of as a striving for social recognition initially appears in a negative form as the experience of humiliation or disrespect. Honneth argues that disrespect constitutes the systematic key to a comprehensive theory of recognition that seeks to clarify the sense in which institutionalized patterns of social recognition generate justified demands on the way subjects treat each other. This new book by one of the leading social and political philosophers of our time will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social and political theory and philosophy. (shrink)

Complete URL to this document: http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/93-Principles.html.

Resumen La metáfora de la "descomposición" domina aún nuestra manera usual de pensar el análisis conceptual. Se trata de una herramienta muy útil para pensar este proceso tan abstracto, pero tiene limitaciones importantes. Por ejemplo, nos hace pensar que los componentes de un concepto deben estar en algún sentido contenidos en él o que la única manera en que dos conceptos pueden estar relacionados es que uno contenga al otro. Estas limitaciones no nos permiten dar cuenta de conceptos complejos cuya (...) estructura no es tan simple, como los de color o de medida. Por ello es tiempo de superar esta metáfora y pensar al análisis conceptual no sólo como descomposición, sino también como la asignación de diferentes funciones a los componentes de un concepto.Our customary way of thinking about conceptual analysis remains dominated by the metaphor of 'containment', which has certainly been very useful, but which also has important limitations. For example, it makes us think that the components of a concept must be, in some sense, contained in it or that the only way that two concepts can be related is if one contains the other. These limitations have not allowed us to account for concepts whose structure is not so simple, such as the concepts of color or measurement, among others. It is time, therefore, to overcome this metaphor and think of conceptual analysis not only as decomposition but also as the assignment of different functions to the components of a concept. (shrink)

While the study of implicit learning is nothing new, the field as a whole has come to embody — over the last decade or so — ongoing questioning about three of the most fundamental debates in the cognitive sciences: The nature of consciousness, the nature of mental representation (in particular the difficult issue of abstraction), and the role of experience in shaping the cognitive system. Our main goal in this chapter is to offer a framework that attempts to integrate current (...) thinking about these three issues in a way that specifically links consciousness with adaptation and learning. Our assumptions about this relationship are rooted in further assumptions about the nature of processing and of representation in cognitive systems. When considered together, we believe that these assumptions offer a new perspective on the relationships between conscious and unconscious processing and on the function of consciousness in cognitive systems. (shrink)

The book offers a new treatment of the capacity to perceive, act on, and know about the world together with others. I argue that creatures capable of joint attention stand in a unique perceptual and epistemic relation to their surroundings: they operate in an environment that they, through their communication with their fellow perceivers, help constitute. I show that this relation can be marshaled to address a range of questions about the social aspect of the mind and its perceptual and (...) cognitive capacities. I begin with a conceptual question about a complex kind of sociocognitive phenomenon—perceptual common knowledge—and develop an empirically informed account of the spatial structure of the environment in and about which such knowledge is possible. In the course of his argument, I address such topics as demonstrative reference in communication, common knowledge about jointly perceived objects, and spatial awareness in joint perception and action. (shrink)

In what follows, I attempt to reconstruct Fichte’s and Hegel’s reasons for developing at almost the same time two very different conceptions of a rational economic order. Whereas Hegel, on the basis of his objective notion of reason, would recommend that a rational state, founded on the notion of right, should include a strictly confined, socially embedded market economy, Fichte, on the basis of his subjective notion of reason, thought instead that the very same state must adopt an economic order (...) that might well be described as a ‘planned economy’. Throughout the article I discuss whether it is the stark differences in their methodological premisses or their very different ideas about the individual freedom to be institutionalized in the economic sphere that helps us understand their respective notions of a rational economy. (shrink)

Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as (...) a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. (shrink)

Dem Kantischen Projekt der Vernunftkritik liegt eine »ursprüngliche Einsicht« zugrunde, die schrittweise zu einer begrifflichen Klärung gelangt. Von dieser These ausgehend entwickelt Axel Hutter ein neues Verständnis des systematischen Gesamtzusammenhangs der transzendentalphilosophischen Hauptwerke. Er nimmt dabei Kants bislang auch wenig beachteten Begriff eines Interesses der Vernunft zum Leitfaden. Denn der Sinn einer wahrhaft autonomen Vernunft ist für Kant durchaus nicht der, von jedem Interesse frei zu sein, sondern der, dem eigenen Interesse folgen zu können, und zwar ungehindert durch vernunftfremde (...) Motive, die überhaupt nur deshalb mit Grund »fremd« genannt werden können, weil die Vernunft ein eigenes Interesse kennt. Kants ursprüngliche Einsicht besteht für Hutter darin, dass allein der Mensch (das »Zwischenwesen« par excellence) ein Inter-Esse zu entwickeln vermag: Ein reines Naturwesen kennt nur sinnliche Bedürfnisse, ein reines Vernunftwesen hingegen weder Bedürfnis noch Interesse. Von hier aus ergibt sich der für die Transzendentalphilosophie grundlegende Begriff eines spezifisch menschlichen Vernunftinteresses und einer in sich differenzierten Vernunfteinheit. Über diesen in sich differenzierten Vernunftbegriff verfügt Kant allerdings noch nicht in der »Kritik der reinen Vernunft«. Der philosophischen Revolution, die zur ersten Kritik führt, muss daher eine mindestens ebenso radikale Revolution zur Seite gestellt werden, die über die »Kritik der reinen Vernunft« hinaus zur »Kritik der praktischen Vernunft« und zur »Kritik der Urteilskraft« führt. Kants ursprüngliche Einsicht entfaltet sich dergestalt schrittweise in der Reihe seiner transzendentalphilosophischen Hauptwerke - eine Gedankenentwicklung, die Hutter detailliert nachvollzieht. (shrink)

Despite being a new term, ‘fake news’ has evolved rapidly. This paper argues that it should be reserved for cases of deliberate presentation of false or misleading claims as news, where these are misleading by design. The phrase ‘by design’ here refers to systemic features of the design of the sources and channels by which fake news propagates and, thereby, manipulates the audience’s cognitive processes. This prospective definition is then tested: first, by contrasting fake news with other forms of public (...) disinformation; second, by considering whether it helps pinpoint conditions for the proliferation of fake news. (shrink)

Die Theorie der Gerechtigkeit gehört zu den am intensivsten bestellten Feldern der zeitgenössischen Philosophie. Allerdings haben die meisten Gerechtigkeitstheorien ihr hohes Begründungsniveau nur um den Preis eines schweren Defizits erreicht, denn mit ihrer Fixierung auf rein normative, abstrakte Prinzipien geraten sie in beträchtliche Distanz zu jener Sphäre, die ihr”Anwendungsbereich“ist: der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit. Zur Begründung dieses weitreichenden Unterfangens weist Honneth zunächst nach, daß alle wesentlichen Handlungssphären westlicher Gesellschaften ein Merkmal teilen: Sie haben den Anspruch, einen jeweils besonderen Aspekt von individueller Freiheit (...) zu verwirklichen. Im Geiste von Hegels Rechtsphilosophie und unter anerkennungstheoretischen Vorzeichen zeigt das zentrale Kapitel, wie in konkreten gesellschaftlichen Bereichen - in persönlichen Beziehungen, im marktvermittelten Wirtschaftshandeln und in der politischen Öffentlichkeit - die Prinzipien individueller Freiheit generiert werden, die die Richtschnur für Gerechtigkeit bilden. Das Ziel des Buches ist ein höchst anspruchsvolles: die Gerechtigkeitstheorie als Gesellschaftsanalyse neu zu begründen. (shrink)

Over the past few years numerous proposals have appeared that attempt to characterize consciousness in terms of what could be called its computational correlates: Principles of information processing with which to characterize the differences between conscious and unconscious processing. Proposed computational correlates include architectural specialization (such as the involvement of specific regions of the brain in conscious processing), properties of representations (such as their stability in time or their strength), and properties of specific processes (such as resonance, synchrony, interactivity, or (...) information integration). In exactly the same way as one can engage in a search for the neural correlates of consciousness, one can thus search for the computational correlates of consciousness. The most direct way of doing is to contrast models of conscious versus unconscious information processing. In this paper, I review these developments and illustrate how computational modeling of specific cognitive processes can be useful in exploring and in formulating putative computational principles through which to capture the differences between conscious and unconscious cognition. What can be gained from such approaches to the problem of consciousness is an understanding of the function it plays in information processing and of the mechanisms that subtend it. Here, I suggest that the central function of consciousness is to make it possible for cognitive agents to exert ?exible, adaptive control over behavior. From this perspective, consciousness is best characterized as involving (1) a graded continuum de?ned over quality of representation, such that availability to consciousness and to cognitive control correlates with properties of representation, and (2) the implication of systems of meta-representations. (shrink)

According to one influential view, model-building in science is primarily a matter of simplifying theoretical descriptions of real-world target systems using abstraction and idealization. This view, however, does not adequately capture all types of models. Many contemporary models in the natural and social sciences – from physics to biology to economics – stand in a more tenuous relationship with real-world target systems and have a decidedly stipulative element, in that they create, by fiat, ‘model worlds’ that operate according to some (...) set of specified rules. While such models may be motivated by an interest in actual target phenomena, their validity is not – at least not primarily – to be judged by whether they constitute an empirically adequate representation of any particular empirical system. The present paper compares and contrasts three such types of models: minimal models, toy models, and exploratory models. All three share some characteristics and thus overlap in interesting ways, yet they also exhibit significant differences. It is argued that, in all three cases, modal considerations have an important role to play: by exploring the modal structure of theories and phenomena – that is, by probing possibilities in various ways – such models deepen our understanding and help us gain knowledge not only about what there is in the world, but also about what there could be. (shrink)

A significant part of everyday learning occurs incidentally — a process typically described as implicit learning. A central issue in this domain and others, such as language acquisition, is the extent to which performance depends on the acquisition and deployment of abstract rules. Shanks and colleagues [22], [11] have suggested (1) that discrimination between grammatical and ungrammatical instances of a biconditional grammar requires the acquisition and use of abstract rules, and (2) that training conditions — in particular whether instructions orient (...) participants to identify the relevant rules or not — strongly influence the extent to which such rules will be learned. In this paper, we show (1) that a Simple Recurrent Network can in fact, under some conditions, learn a biconditional grammar, (2) that training conditions indeed influence learning in simple auto-associators networks and (3) that such networks can likewise learn about biconditional grammars, albeit to a lesser extent than human participants. These findings suggest that mastering biconditional grammars does not require the acquisition of abstract rules to the extent implied by Shanks and colleagues, and that performance on such material may in fact be based, at least in part, on simple associative learning mechanisms. (shrink)