A classic problem in cognitive science concerns how listeners perceive and understand speech as comprised of discrete words. We propose a Syllable Inference account of spoken word recognition and segmentation, under which alternative hierarchical models of syllables, words, and phonemes are dynamically posited from cues that include current and past speech rate, with a goal of maximal prediction of sensory input. Three experiments using the Visual World eye‐tracking paradigm provide evidence supporting our proposal.

The Fast Casual Inference (FCI) algorithm searches for features common to observationally equivalent sets of causal directed acyclic graphs. It is correct in the large sample limit with probability one even if there is a possibility of hidden variables and selection bias. In the worst case, the number of conditional independence tests performed by the algorithm grows exponentially with the number of variables in the data set. This affects both the speed of the algorithm and the accuracy of (...) the algorithm on small samples, because tests of independence conditional on large numbers of variables have very low power. In this paper, I prove that the FCI algorithm can be interrupted at any stage and asked for output. The output from the interrupted algorithm is still correct with probability one in the large sample limit, although possibly less informative (in the sense that it answers “Can’t tell” for a larger number of questions) than if the FCI algorithm had been allowed to continue uninterrupted. (shrink)

F.H. Bradley has been characterized by many commentators as something of a sceptic. And the reason why Bradley is often cast in this light is, I believe, largely a result of his theory of relations. As even the casual student is aware, the relational nature of all judgment leads, on Bradley’s analysis, to an infinite and, many have claimed, “vicious” regress. And when we add to this Bradley’s claim that all assertion is, at some level, “contradictory”, there seems to (...) be good reason for the sceptical moniker. What I would like to suggest in this paper, though, is that Bradley’s “scepticism” is not what it seems. Hence in what follows I shall argue that Bradley’s views on contradiction and contrariety are actually important aspects of his larger theory of knowledge; and, as such, they should be understood — not as doctrines whose intent is the condemnation of our ordinary inferences — but, rather, as a crucial component in the defense of such practices. What I hope to show, then, is that, far from being an endorsement of radical scepticism, Bradley’s theory of contradiction and contrariety is an effort to preserve the continuity between one judgment and another — a continuity that he sees as necessary to any coherent account of inference. But first some preliminaries. (shrink)

This paper deals with the problem of reconstruction of the intergenic interaction graph from the raw data of genetic co-expression coming with new technologies of bio-arrays (DMA-arrays, protein-arrays, etc.). These new imaging devices in general only give information about the asymptotical part (fixed configurations of co-expression or limit cycles of such configurations) of the dynamical evolution of the regulatory networks (genetic and/or proteic) underlying the functioning of living systems. Extracting the casual structure and interaction coefficients of a gene interaction (...) network from the observed configurations is a complex problem. But if all the fixed configurations are supposedly observed and if they are factorizable into two or more subsets of values, then the interaction graph possesses as many connected components as the number of factors and the solution is obtained in polynomial time. This new result allows us for example to partly solve the topology of the genetic regulatory network ruling the flowering in Arabidopsis thaliana. (shrink)

In psychology, causal inference – both the transport from lab estimates to the real world and estimation on the basis of observational data – is often pursued in a casual manner. Underlying assumptions remain unarticulated; potential pitfalls are compiled in post-hoc lists of flaws. The field should move on to coherent frameworks of causal inference and generalizability that have been developed elsewhere.

Can the output of human cognition be predicted from the assumption that it is an optimal response to the information-processing demands of the environment? A methodology called rational analysis is described for deriving predictions about cognitive phenomena using optimization assumptions. The predictions flow from the statistical structure of the environment and not the assumed structure of the mind. Bayesian inference is used, assuming that people start with a weak prior model of the world which they integrate with experience to (...) develop stronger models of specific aspects of the world. Cognitive performance maximizes the difference between the expected gain and cost of mental effort. Memory performance can be predicted on the assumption that retrieval seeks a maximal trade-off between the probability of finding the relevant memories and the effort required to do so; in categorization performance there is a similar trade-off between accuracy in predicting object features and the cost of hypothesis formation; in casual inference the trade-off is between accuracy in predicting future events and the cost of hypothesis formation; and in problem solving it is between the probability of achieving goals and the cost of both external and mental problem-solving search. The implemention of these rational prescriptions in neurally plausible architecture is also discussed. (shrink)

Recent debates over the nature of causation, casual inference, and the uses of causal models in counterfactual analysis, involving inter alia Nancy Cartwright (Hunting Causes and Using Them), James Woodward (Making Things Happen), and Judea Pearl (Causation), hinge on how causality is represented in models. Economists’ indigenous approach to causal representation goes back to the work of Herbert Simon with the Cowles Commission in the early 1950s. The paper explicates a scheme for the representation of causal structure, inspired (...) by Simon, and shows how this representation sheds light on some important debates in the philosophy of causation. This structural account is compared to Woodward’s manipulability account. It is used to evaluate the recent debates – particularly, with respect to the nature of causal structure, the identity of causes, causal independence, and modularity. Special attention is given to modeling issues that arise in empirical economics. (shrink)

Reasoning by jurors concerning whether an accused person should be convicted of committing a crime is a kind of casual inference. Jurors need to decide whether the evidence in the case was caused by the accused’s criminal action or by some other cause. This paper compares two computational models of casual inference: explanatory coherence and Bayesian networks. Both models can be applied to legal episodes such as the von Bu¨low trials. There are psychological and computational reasons (...) for preferring the explanatory coherence account of legal inference. (shrink)

Measures of algorithmic bias can be roughly classified into four categories, distinguished by the conditional probabilistic dependencies to which they are sensitive. First, measures of "procedural bias" diagnose bias when the score returned by an algorithm is probabilistically dependent on a sensitive class variable (e.g. race or sex). Second, measures of "outcome bias" capture probabilistic dependence between class variables and the outcome for each subject (e.g. parole granted or loan denied). Third, measures of "behavior-relative error bias" capture probabilistic dependence between (...) class variables and the algorithmic score, conditional on target behaviors (e.g. recidivism or loan default). Fourth, measures of "score-relative error bias" capture probabilistic dependence between class variables and behavior, conditional on score. Several recent discussions have demonstrated a tradeoff between these different measures of algorithmic bias, and at least one recent paper has suggested conditions under which tradeoffs may be minimized. -/- In this paper we use the machinery of causal graphical models to show that, under standard assumptions, the underlying causal relations among variables forces some tradeoffs. We delineate a number of normative considerations that are encoded in different measures of bias, with reference to the philosophical literature on the wrongfulness of disparate treatment and disparate impact. While both kinds of error bias are nominally motivated by concern to avoid disparate impact, we argue that consideration of causal structures shows that these measures are better understood as complicated and unreliable measures of procedural biases (i.e. disparate treatment). Moreover, while procedural bias is indicative of disparate treatment, we show that the measure of procedural bias one ought to adopt is dependent on the account of the wrongfulness of disparate treatment one endorses. Finally, given that neither score-relative nor behavior-relative measures of error bias capture the relevant normative considerations, we suggest that error bias proper is best measured by score-based measures of accuracy, such as the Brier score. (shrink)

Nancy Cartwright relies upon an inference pattern known as inference to the best causal explanation (IBCE) to support a limited form of entity realism, according to which we are warranted in believing in entities that purportively cause observable effects. IBCE, as usually understood, is valid, even though all other forms of inference to the best explanation (IBE) are usually understood to be invalid. We argue that IBCE and IBE are in the same boat with respect to their (...) ability to support realist conclusions. Either rule can be interpreted as valid, this is a matter of semantic convention. However, doing so deprives the rule of the empirical content the realist needs, requiring the realist to find independent warrant for a strong (theoretical or causal) premise. We then examine the proposed means of obtaining this warrant, and find them as inadequate in the case of IBCE as they are in the case of IBE. (shrink)

Verbs in the passive voice have been described as linguistic features which can exert ideological effects because they typically omit the agent, or ‘doer’ of an action. These missing agents are said to be potentially ‘mystified’ to readers. But to what extent are these agents actually mystified to readers, and can we predict when mystification is likely to occur? A text-based analytical framework for inference prediction focusing on agency mystification was applied to two corpora of US newspaper editorials. Eighty-four (...) percent of passive verbs were predicted not to mystify agency for casual readers. To test this method of inference prediction, a reader response study was carried out in which readers were asked to identify agents that had been deleted from texts via the addition of agentless passives. By a standard of 50% accuracy, 74% of passives were found to be non-mystifying. These results suggest that agents missing from texts are likely to be inferred correctly by readers in a majority of cases and that mystification may be predictable from text analysis. (shrink)

One of the major effects of prohibiting or inhibiting explicit evaluation is to forestall the exhibition and obviate the possible acknowledgment of divergent systems of value and thus to ratify, by default, established evaluative authority. It is worth noting that in none of the debates of the forties and fifties was the traditional academic canon itself questioned, and that where evaluative authority was not ringingly affirmed, asserted, or self-justified, it was simply assumed. Thus Frye himself could speak almost in one (...) breath of the need to “get rid of…all casual, sentimental, and prejudiced value-judgments” as “the first step in developing a genuine poetics” and of “the masterpieces of literature” which are “the materials of literary criticism” . The identity of those masterpieces, it seemed, could be taken for granted or followed more or less automatically from the “direct value-judgment of informed good taste” or “certain literary values…fully established by critical experience” .In a passage of particular interest, Frye wrote:Comparative estimates of value are really inferences, most valid when silent ones, from critical practice…The critic will find soon, and constantly, that Milton is a more rewarding and suggestive poet than Blackmore. But the more obvious this becomes, the less time he will want to waste belaboring the point. [AC, p. 25]In addition to the noteworthy correlation of validity with silence , two other aspects of Frye’s remarks here repay some attention. First, in claiming that it is altogether obvious that Milton, rather than Blackmore, is “a more rewarding and suggestive poet [for the critic] to work with,” Frye begged the question of what kind of work the critic would be doing. For surely if one were concerned with a question such as the relation of canonical and noncanonical texts in the system of literary value in eighteenth-century England, one would find Blackmore just as rewarding and suggestive to work with as Milton. Both here and in his repeated insistence that the “material” of criticism must be “the masterpieces of literature” , Frye exhibits a severely limited conception of the potential domain of literary study and of the sort of problems and phenomena with which it could or should deal. In this conceptual and methodological confinement, however , he has been joined by just about every other member of the Anglo-American literary academy during the past fifty years. Barbara Herrnstein Smith is University Professor of English and communications and director of the Center for the Study of Art and Symbolic Behavior at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of, among other works, Poetic Closure and On the Margins of Discourse. Her previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, “Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories,” appeared in the Autumn 1980 issue. The present essay is part of a full-length study of literary and aesthetic value and evaluation. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch an account of Kant’s signature metaphysical doctrine (transcendental idealism) that (a) has no supporters – as far as I am aware – in the contemporary literature, and (b) draws its primary motivation (as interpretation) from considerations regarding our practical situation and needs as agents. -/- The consideration I focus on here is that people not only have mental and moral features, but they also appear to us – in our daily experience – (...) to have such features: “[w]e can perceive virtue in our experience (Wir können in der Erfahrung wohl Tugend wahrnehmen)” (24: 906). The same presumably goes for vice: When I see you casually torturing a cat, you appear to me to be brown-haired, wearing jeans, moving your arms, laughing, and so on, but you also appear to me to be vicious and cruel. Your character shines through in your actions. I can then make a defeasible inference from those appearances to the moral reality. -/- Such appearances and inferences play a central role in our practices of praise, blame, forgiveness, and punishment. An interpretation of transcendental idealism that gives primacy to the practical will thus seek to analyze the concepts of experience, acquaintance, and appearance/phenomenon in a capacious-enough way that they can apply to mental and moral features too. If successful, such an interpretation would have a clear practical advantage over those that leave us merely conjecturing from experiences of bodies, gestures, and secondary qualities to moral features that do not appear, or even to the non-appearing features of a distinct set of things. (shrink)

I'm pleased to have been offered the chance of replying to Joseph Frank's criticisms . He is a courteous opponent, though capable of a certain asperity. . . . Frank complains that his critics appear incapable of attending to what he really said in his original essay. It is the blight critics are born for; and it is undoubtedly sometimes caused by the venal haste of reviewers, and sometimes by native dullness, and sometimes by malice. But there are other reasons (...) why an author may sometimes feel himself to be misrepresented. One is that a genuinely patient and intelligent reader may be more interested in what the piece under consideration does not quite say than in what is expressly stated. Another is the consequence of fame. Frank's original article is over thirty years old; it crystallised what had been for the most part vague notions, ideas that were in the air, and gave them a memorable name. "Spatial form" entered the jargon of the graduate school and began an almost independent existence. The term might well be used by people who had never read the essay at all; or they might casually attribute to him loose inferences made by others from the general proposition—inferences he had already disallowed and now once more contests. It must be difficult, particularly for an exasperated author, to distinguish between these causes of apparent misrepresentation. But sometimes it can be done; and then it will appear that the effect of the first is far more interesting than that of the second cause. For the suggestion then must be that the author has repressed a desire to take a position which, in his manifest argument, he differentiates from his own. This, as it happens, is what he advances as an explanation of certain ambiguities in my Sense of an Ending; the least one can say is that it is perfectly possible. Frank Kermode is the author of The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Continuities, and Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne: Renaissance Essays; his works also include The Classic and The Genesis of Secrecy. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "Novels: Recognition and Deception" , "A Reply to Denis Donoghue" , and "Secrets and Narrative Sequence". (shrink)

In human-chatbot interaction, users casually and regularly offend and abuse the chatbot they are interacting with. The current paper explores the relationship between chatbot humanlikeness on the one hand and sexual advances and verbal aggression by the user on the other hand. 283 conversations between the Cleverbot chatbot and its users were harvested and analysed. Our results showed higher counts of user verbal aggression and sexual comments towards Cleverbot when Cleverbot appeared more humanlike in its behaviour. Caution is warranted with (...) the interpretation of the results however as no experimental manipulation was conducted and causality can thus not be inferred. Nonetheless, the findings are relevant for both the research on the abuse of conversational agents, and the development of efficient approaches to discourage or prevent verbal aggression by chatbot users. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the positive psychological effects of culinary experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown days. Qualitative research methods adopted to provide a deeper understanding. Data was collected through a structured online survey from 30 participants in Turkey. This occurred between April 10th and June 3rd, 2020 when the strict confinement measures were applied. Content analysis was deductively applied according to the Stebbins’s Theory of Casual vs. Serious Leisure which classifies the well-being according to characteristics of leisure experiences. (...) The results revealed that at the first stage people went into the kitchen with the motivation of pure happiness and relaxation indicating hedonic well-being. However, people who intended to spend time with culinary activities with the expectations of pure happiness left the kitchen with eudaimonic outcomes by gaining special skills and knowledge, self-actualization and self-enrichment. When these outcomes are evaluated based on the Stebbins’s theoretical framework, culinary activities have both casual and serious leisure experience characteristics in terms of psychological well-being. It is understood that culinary activities have versatile leisure characteristics. Thanks to the culinary activities, people do not only obtain pure happiness and relaxation but can draw wider inferences about their life by realizing their own potential during the psychologically challenging COVID-19 lockdown days. (shrink)

Consider the following three claims. (i) There are no truths of the form ‘p and ~p’. (ii) No one holds a belief of the form ‘p and ~p’. (iii) No one holds any pairs of beliefs of the form {p, ~p}. Irad Kimhi has recently argued, in effect, that each of these claims holds and holds with metaphysical necessity. Furthermore, he maintains that they are ultimately not distinct claims at all, but the same claim formulated in different ways. I find (...) his argument suggestive, if not entirely transparent. I do think there is at least an important kernel of truth even in (iii), and that (i) ultimately explains what’s right about the other two. Consciousness of an impossibility makes belief in the obtaining of the corresponding state of affairs an impossibility. Interestingly, an appreciation of this fact brings into view a novel conception of inference, according to which it consists in the consciousness of necessity. This essay outlines and defends this position. A central element of the defense is that it reveals how reasoners satisfy what Paul Boghossian calls the Taking Condition and do so without engendering regress. (shrink)

This book investigates the role of inference in argumentation, considering how arguments support standpoints on the basis of different loci. The authors propose and illustrate a model for the analysis of the standpoint-argument connection, called Argumentum Model of Topics. A prominent feature of the AMT is that it distinguishes, within each and every single argumentation, between an inferential-procedural component, on which the reasoning process is based; and a material-contextual component, which anchors the argument in the interlocutors’ cultural and factual (...) common ground. The AMT explains how these components differ and how they are intertwined within each single argument. This model is introduced in Part II of the book, following a careful reconstruction of the enormously rich tradition of studies on inference in argumentation, from the antiquity to contemporary authors, without neglecting medieval and post-medieval contributions. The AMT is a contemporary model grounded in a dialogue with such tradition, whose crucial aspects are illuminated in this book. (shrink)

Does the formation of delusions involve abnormal reasoning? According to the prominent ‘two-factor’ theory of delusions (e.g. Coltheart, 2007), the answer is yes. The second factor in this theory is supposed to affect a deluded individual's ability to evaluate candidates for belief. However, most published accounts of the two-factor theory have not said much about the nature of this second factor. In an effort to remedy this shortcoming, Coltheart, Menzies and Sutton (2010) recently put forward a Bayesian account of (...) class='Hi'>inference in delusions. I outline some criticisms of this important account, and sketch an alternative account of delusional inference that, I argue, avoids these criticisms. Specifically, I argue that the second factor in delusion formation involves a systematic deviation from Bayesian updating, a deviation that may be characterized as a bias towards ‘explanatory adequacy’. I present a numerical model of this idea and show that my alternative account is broadly consistent with prominent prediction error models of delusion formation (e.g. Corlett, Murray et al., 2007). (shrink)

Written by pioneers in the field, this practical book presents an authoritative yet accessible overview of the methods and applications of causal inference. The text provides a thorough introduction to the basics of the theory for non-time-varying treatments and the generalization to complex longitudinal data.

Inference has long been a concern in epistemology, as an essential means by which we extend our knowledge and test our beliefs. Inference is also a key notion in influential psychological or philosophical accounts of mental capacities, from perception via utterance comprehension to problem-solving. Consciousness, on the other hand, has arguably been the defining interest of philosophy of mind over recent decades. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the significance of consciousness for the proper understanding of (...) the nature and role of inference. It is commonly suggested that inference may be either conscious or unconscious. Yet how unified are these various supposed instances of inference? Does either enjoy explanatory priority in relation to the other? In what ways or senses, can an inference be conscious, or fail to be conscious, and how does this matter? This book brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging theorists that illustrate how several current debates in epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of mind can benefit from reflections on these and related questions about the significance of consciousness for inference. Contributors include: Kirk Ludwig and Wade Munroe; Michael Rescorla; Federico Bongiorno and Lisa Bortolotti; Berit Brogaard; Nicholas Allott; Jake Quilty-Dunn and Eric Mandelbaum; Corine Besson; Anders Nes; David Henderson, Terry Horgan, and Matjaž Potrč; Elijah Chudnoff; and Ram Neta. (shrink)

What is involved in making an inference? This chapter argues against what Paul Boghossian calls the Taking Condition: "Inferring necessarily involves the thinker taking his premises to support his conclusion and drawing his conclusion because of that fact" (2014: 5). I won’t argue that the Taking Condition is incoherent: that nothing can coherently play the role that takings are supposed to play in inference. Instead, I’ll argue that it cannot plausibly explain all the inferential knowledge that we ordinarily (...) take ourselves to have. Moreover, I’ll argue that we don’t need it to understand the nature of inference. (shrink)

This essay starts by discussing the definitions, and their attendant difficulties, of "casual sex," "promiscuity," and "objectification" (including whether objectification is only about treatment or can be about mere regard), and then continues to discuss the morality of casual sex and promiscuity, especially as to whether they are objectifying. Assuming a pessimist view of sexual desire and activity, the paper argues that it is nearly impossible to defend these sexual practices against the accusation of objectification, because even though (...) casual sex and promiscuity do not necessarily objectify, they likely almost always do. The essay concludes by arguing that the wrongness of objectification in these two kinds of sexual practices might not be serious, so they might be overall morally permissible. (This is a revised version from that in the 7th edition of The Philosophy of Sex.). (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Some Context The Traditional Interpretation Disarming the Evidence for the Traditional Interpretation Evidence that Hume Considers Inductive Inference Justified The Traditional Interpretation Revisited Hume's Epistemic Options Applications to Extended Objects and Belief in God Limitations on Enumerative Induction Acknowledgments References.

This chapter argues that the only tenable unconscious inferences theories of cognitive achievement are ones that employ a theory internal technical notion of representation, but that once we give cash-value definitions of the relevant notions of representation and inference, there is little left of the ordinary notion of representation. We suggest that the real value of talk of unconscious inferences lies in (a) their heuristic utility in helping us to make fruitful predictions, such as about illusions, and (b) their (...) providing a high-level description of the functional organization of subpersonal faculties that makes clear how they equip an agent to navigate its environment and pursue its goals. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Cognitive penetrability refers to the possibility that perceptual experiences are influenced by our beliefs, expectations, emotions, or other personal-level mental states. In this paper, I focus on the epistemological implication of cognitive penetration, and examine how, exactly, aetiologies matter to the justificatory power of perceptual experiences. I examine a prominent theory, according to which some cognitively penetrated perceptual experiences are like conclusions of bad inferences. Whereas one version of this theory is psychologically implausible, the other version has sceptical consequences. (...) In the second half of the paper, I suggest an alternative theory, drawing on recent empirical research on imagining-perception interaction and the epistemology of imagining. (shrink)

How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? The model of " inference to the best explanation " -- that we infer the hypothesis that would, if correct, provide the best explanation of the available evidence--offers a compelling account of inferences both in science and in ordinary life. Widely cited by epistemologists and philosophers of science, IBE has nonetheless remained little more than a slogan. Now this influential work has been thoroughly revised and updated, and (...) features a new introduction and two new chapters. Inference to the Best Explanation is an unrivaled exposition of a theory of particular interest in the fields both of epistemology and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Inferentialism as a theory of meaning builds on the idea that what a linguistic expression means depends exclusively on the inferential rules that govern its use. Following different strategies and exploring various case studies, the authors of this collection of essays discuss under what circumstances and to what extent the central tenets of inferentialism are tenable. The essays in this volume present the results of a three-year research project "Representation and Inference" which was conducted from the beginning of 2008 (...) to the end 2010. The aim of the project was to assess the research program of inferentialism as it has been pursued recently by Robert Brandom, Mark Lance, and Jaroslav Peregrin. Earlier versions of these texts were presented at the conference "Inference, Consequence, and Meaning" held in Sofia on the 3rd and 4th of December, 2008. (shrink)

Enduring romantic love is highly significant for our wellbeing, and there is much scientific evidence for its value. There is also evidence that marital sex is important for the flourishing of wellbeing for both partners. Casual sexual relationships and experiences (CSREs) are often characterized in a non-normative way, as sexual behavior occurring outside a committed romantic relationship. However, the prevailing normative description is negative, perceived as superficial behavior that harms our wellbeing. Although sexual activities are linked to many psychological (...) and physical health benefits, these are rarely attributed to casual sex. Instead, scholars and laymen have warned against the negative consequences of non-committed sex, particularly for women. Yet, positive reactions to casual sex, such as satisfaction, confidence, self-knowledge and social engagement, are stronger and more common than negative reactions. Accordingly, the two major aims of this article are to understand the complexity of CSREs better, and to substantiate the claim that in various circumstances, CSREs contribute to our wellbeing. (shrink)

How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? According to the model of _Inference to the Best Explanation_, we work out what to infer from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In _Inference to the Best Explanation_, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it deserves. The (...) second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new chapter on the relationship between explanation and Bayesianism, and an extension and defence of the account of contrastive explanation. It also includes an expanded defence of the claims that our inferences really are guided by diverse explanatory considerations, and that this pattern of inference can take us towards the truth. This edition of _Inference to the Best Explanation_ has also been updated throughout and includes a new bibliography. (shrink)

An accessible and contemporary introduction to the methods for determining cause and effect in the social sciences Causal inference encompasses the tools that allow social scientists to determine what causes what. Economists--who generally can't run controlled experiments to test and validate their hypotheses--apply these tools to observational data to make connections. In a messy world, causal inference is what helps establish the causes and effects of the actions being studied, whether the impact (or lack thereof) of increases in (...) the minimum wage on employment, the effects of early childhood education on incarceration later in life, or the introduction of malaria nets in developing regions on economic growth. Scott Cunningham introduces students and practitioners to the methods necessary to arrive at meaningful answers to the questions of causation, using a range of modeling techniques and coding instructions for both the R and Stata programming languages. - -. (shrink)

In some previous work, I tried to give a concept-based account of the nature of our entitlement to certain very basic inferences (see the papers in Part III of Boghossian 2008b). In this previous work, I took it for granted, along with many other philosophers, that we understood well enough what it is for a person to infer. In this paper, I turn to thinking about the nature of inference itself. This topic is of great interest in its own (...) right and surprisingly understudied by philosophers. A correct understanding of inference promises to shed light on a number of important topics. In particular, it threatens to undermine the sort of concept-based story about entitlement to which I had previously been attracted. (shrink)

This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to an additional effect. I further (...) distinguish between direct and indirect forms of downwards and upwards inferences. I then show how we can subsume canonical forms of inductive inference mentioned in the literature, such as inference to the best explanation, enumerative induction, and analogical inference, under this typology. Along the way, I explore connections with probability and confirmation, epistemic defeat, the relation between abduction and enumerative induction, the compatibility of IBE and Bayesianism, and theories of epistemic justification. (shrink)

A disturbing question is whether NATO’s action implies that states endowed with the advanced military assets that were brought to bear against Serbia will adopt a casual policy on the conduct of limited war, a policy at odds with the lessons of the twentieth century.

Abstract In his Aquinas Lecture 1992 at Marquette University, Ernan McMullin discusses whether there is a pattern of inference that particularly characterizes the sciences of nature. He pursues this theme both on a historical and a systematic level. There is a continuity of concern across the ages that separate the Greek inquiry into nature from our own vastly more complex scientific enterprise. But there is also discontinuity, the abandonment of earlier ideals as unworkable. The natural sciences involve many types (...) of inference; three of these interlock in a special way to produce “retroductive inference,” the kind of complex inference that supports causal theory. (shrink)

"How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses and making inferences? According to the model of 'inference to the Best explanation', we work out what to inter from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it (...) deserves." "The second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new chapter on the relationship between explanation and Bayesianism, and an extension and defence of the account of contractive explanation. It also includes an expanded defence of the claims that our inferences really are guided by diverse explanatory considerations, and that this pattern of inference can take us towards the truth. This edition of Inference to the Best Explanation has also been updated throughout and incudes a new bibliography."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

“Hooking up,” a popular type of sexual behavior among college students, has become a pathway to dating relationships. Based on open-ended narratives written by 273 undergraduates, we analyze how students interpreted a vignette describing a heterosexual hookup followed by a sexless first date. In contrast to the sexual script which holds that women want relationships more than sex and men care about sex more than relationships, students generally accorded women sexual agency and desire in the hookup and validated men’s post-hookup (...) relationship interest. However, in explaining the sexless date, students typically reasoned the woman was being chaste and withholding sex to redeem her reputation whereas they often characterized the man’s abstinence in terms of a pity date. The findings underscore the tenacity of gendered sexual scripts around heterosexual dates and hookups but also reveal fissures and contradictions that suggest some changes to the sexual double standard. (shrink)

In informal terms, abductive reasoning involves inferring the best or most plausible explanation from a given set of facts or data. It is a common occurrence in everyday life and crops up in such diverse places as medical diagnosis, scientific theory formation, accident investigation, language understanding, and jury deliberation. In recent years, it has become a popular and fruitful topic in artificial intelligence research. This volume breaks new ground in the scientific, philosophical, and technological study of abduction. It presents new (...) ideas about inferential and information-processing foundations for knowledge and certainty. The authors argue that knowledge arises from experience by processes of abductive inference, in contrast to the view that it arises non-inferentially, or that deduction and inductive generalization are enough to account for knowledge. Much AI research is hypothetical, so the importance of this book is that it reports key discoveries about abduction that have been made as a result of designing, building, testing, and analyzing actual working knowledge-based systems for medical diagnosis and other abductive tasks. The book tells the story of six generations of increasingly sophisticated generic abduction machines, RED-1, RED-2, PEIRCE, MDX2, TIPS, QUAWDS, and the discovery of reasoning strategies that make it computationally feasible to form well-justified composite explanatory hypotheses, despite the threat of combinatorial explosion. The final chapter argues that perception is logically abductive and presents a layered-abduction computational model of perceptual information processing. This book will be of great interest to researchers in AI, cognitive science, and philosophy of science. (shrink)

We argue that stereotypes associated with concepts like he-said–she-said, conspiracy theory, sexual harassment, and those expressed by paradigmatic slurs provide “normative inference tickets”: conceptual permissions to automatic, largely unreflective normative conclusions. These “mental shortcuts” are underwritten by associated stereotypes. Because stereotypes admit of exceptions, normative inference tickets are highly flexible and productive, but also liable to create serious epistemic and moral harms. Epistemically, many are unreliable, yielding false beliefs which resist counterexample; morally, many perpetuate bigotry and oppression. Still, (...) some normative inference tickets, like some activated by sexual harassment, constitute genuine moral and hermeneutical advances. For example, our framework helps explain Miranda Fricker’s notion of “hermeneutical lacunae”: what early victims of “sexual harassment” — as well as their harassers — lacked before the term was coined was a communal normative inference ticket — one that could take us, collectively, from “this is happening” to “this is wrong.”. (shrink)

Defenders of Inference to the Best Explanation claim that explanatory factors should play an important role in empirical inference. They disagree, however, about how exactly to formulate this role. In particular, they disagree about whether to formulate IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs or for degrees of belief, as well as how a rule for degrees of belief should relate to Bayesianism. In this essay I advance a new argument against non-Bayesian versions of IBE. My (...) argument focuses on cases in which we are concerned with multiple levels of explanation of some phenomenon. I show that in many such cases, following IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs leads to deductively inconsistent beliefs, and following IBE as a non-Bayesian updating rule for degrees of belief leads to probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. (shrink)

Original and penetrating, this book investigates of the notion of inference from signs, which played a central role in ancient philosophical and scientific method. It examines an important chapter in ancient epistemology: the debates about the nature of evidence and of the inferences based on it--or signs and sign-inferences as they were called in antiquity. As the first comprehensive treatment of this topic, it fills an important gap in the histories of science and philosophy.

Amanda works in a library, and a patron asks for her help in learning about duty-to- rescue laws in China. She throws herself into the task, spending hours on retrieving documents from governmental and non-governmental sources, getting electronic translations, looking for literature on Scandinavian duty-to-rescue laws that mention Chinese laws for comparison, and so on. Why? She likes to gain this sort of general knowledge of the world; perhaps the reason she works so hard is that she is learning fascinating (...) facts in doing so. She is also a proud librarian; perhaps the reason she works so hard is that a patron needs her assistance. She is a library employee; perhaps her reason for working so hard is that this sort of effort is noted by her employer and gives her career a boost, or perhaps it is just that doing this sort of work is the condition of her continued employment. Perhaps the reason is that the patron is charming. (shrink)

I argue that inference can tolerate forms of self-ignorance and that these cases of inference undermine canonical models of inference on which inferrers have to appreciate (or purport to appreciate) the support provided by the premises for the conclusion. I propose an alternative model of inference that belongs to a family of rational responses in which the subject cannot pinpoint exactly what she is responding to or why, where this kind of self-ignorance does nothing to undermine (...) the intelligence of the response. (shrink)

Causality is central to the understanding and use of data; without an understanding of cause and effect relationships, we cannot use data to answer important questions in medicine and many other fields.

The paper offers an account of inference. The account underwrites the idea that inference requires that the reasoner takes her premises to support her conclusion. I reject views according to which such ‘takings’ are intuitions or beliefs. I sketch an alternative view on which inferring consists in attaching what I call ‘inferential force’ to a structured collection of contents.

Inference versus consequence , an invited lecture at the LOGICA 1997 conference at Castle Liblice, was part of a series of articles for which I did research during a Stockholm sabbatical in the autumn of 1995. The article seems to have been fairly effective in getting its point across and addresses a topic highly germane to the Uppsala workshop. Owing to its appearance in the LOGICA Yearbook 1997 , Filosofia Publishers, Prague, 1998, it has been rather inaccessible. Accordingly it (...) is republished here with only bibliographical changes and an afterword. (shrink)