Spatial integration in Glass patterns

The extraction of a global orientation structure presumably has a different neural mechanism from that of the analysis of its local features. We investigated spatial integration within these two mechanisms using stimulus patterns composed of dot pairs (dipoles). The stimuli targeted local feature detection, contained no global configuration, but rather contained randomly oriented dipoles of a fixed length (the distance between the dots in a pair). For the detection of a global orientation structure, local dipole orientations were arranged in a concentric Glass pattern. Thresholds as a function of a stimulus area were determined by measuring the minimum proportion of dipoles among random-dot noise (signal-to-noise ratio) required for the detection of dipoles (features), as well as for the detection of an orientation structure. Thresholds for feature detection were significantly higher than those for the detection of the global structure--regardless of the stimulus size. Spatial integration, however, did not differ between the two tasks: the exponents of the power functions fitted to data for six observers were -0.48 +/- 0.07 for random dipole orientations and -0.62 +/- 0.1 for Glass patterns.     

Information-seeking dialogues: Some of their logical properties

The dialogical games introduced in Jaakko Hintikka, Information-Seeking Dialogues: A Model, (Erkenntnis, vol. 14, 1979) are studied here to answer the question as to what the natural logic or the logic of natural language is. In a natural language certain epistemic elements are not explicitly indicated, but they determine which inference rules are valid. By means of dialogical games, the question is answered: all classical first-order rules have to be modified in the same way in which some of them are modified in the transition to intuitionistic logic. (Furthermore, in some cases quantificational rules have to be modified further.) The rules that are left unmodified by intuitionists are applicable only to the output of certain game rules, but not to others. In. this sense, neither classical nor yet intuitionistic logic is the logic of natural language. We need a new type of nonclassical logic, justified by our information-seeking dialogues.     

Introduction: The Future of Luther Studies

Abstract : This article is an introduction to the theme articles published in this issue of Dialog. The articles derive from a workshop held in Helsinki in September 2007. They aim at identifying topics of current research that will continue to be relevant to Luther studies in the future.     

How Not to Criticise Scientism

This paper argues that the main global critiques of scientism lose their punch because they rely on an uncharitable definition of their target. It focuses on epistemological scientism and divides it into four categories in terms of how strong (science is the only source of knowledge) or weak (science is the best source of knowledge) and how narrow (only natural sciences) or broad (all sciences or at least not only the natural sciences) they are. Two central arguments against scientism, the (false) dilemma and self-referential incoherence, are analysed. Of the four types of epistemological scientism, three can deal with these counterarguments by utilizing two methodological principles: epistemic evaluability of reliability and epistemic opportunism. One hopes that these considerations will steer the discussion on scientism to more fruitful pastures in the future. For example, there are interesting methodological considerations concerning what evaluability or reliability and epistemic opportunism entail.