Formalizing common sense: an operator-based approach to the Tibbles–Tib problem

The paper argues, that a direct formalization of the way common sense thinks about the numerical identity of enduring entities, requires that traditional predicate logic is developed. If everyday language mirrors the world, then persons, organisms, organs, cells, and ordinary material things can lose some parts but nonetheless remain numerically exactly the same entity. In order to formalize this view, two new logical operators are introduced; and they bring with them some non-standard syntax. One of the operators is called ‘the instantiation operator’; it is needed because the existential quantifier and its traditional relatives cannot do the job required. The other operator is called ‘the form-on-matter operator’, and it allows an individual (an instance of a form) to stay the same even though some of its parts (its constituting matter) is taken away from it. Also, a certain kind of predicates, called ‘nature terms’, is needed in order to represent what gives a particular its kind of identity. Both the operators and the nature terms introduced can be used in constructions of formal languages and formal systems, but no such constructions are made in the paper. The paper is structured as a comment on the philosophical problem called ‘the problem of the cats Tibbles and Tib’.     

Implicit ontological commitment

Quine’s general approach is to treat ontology as a matter of what a theory says there is. This turns ontology into a question of which existential statements are consequences of that theory. This approach is contrasted favourably with the view that takes ontological commitment as a relation to things. However within the broadly Quinean approach we can distinguish different accounts, differing as to the nature of the consequence relation best suited for determining those consequences. It is suggested that Quine’s own narrowly formal account fails. Then a consideration of the necessitation approach championed by Jackson and Lewis shows that it does not do justice to the role of acknowledging consequences in determining rationality. I suggest that an approach which puts a priori consequence as the key relation does a better job. The task of spelling out the nature of a priori consequence is sketched, along with reasons to doubt the adequacy of the double indexing approach to analysing the a priori. The sorts of relations we can stand in to theories which allow us to inherit ontological commitments are touched on with a number of important philosophical strategies for introducing belief-like attitudes which nevertheless avoid ontological commitment.

基于语境的预期推理构建的实验研究

两个实验用移动视窗技术,用目标句阅读时间和命名探测词两种指标来考察当文本中有两个情境模型时,读者是否会即时进行预期推理。结果表明,如果在支持性语境与引发推理的信息之间插入一个与支持性语境所描述的情境模型不同的,且与主人公目标有关的因果链上的情境模型的信息,则不管这个插入的情境模型在文本中的位置如何,也不管干扰信息的干扰水平高低,都会降低因果性预期推理在阅读中产生的可能性。     

心体的重建与理学的终结--兼论蕺山学逻辑向度与历史向度的离异

蕺山学术之最得力处,是在心体中充分凸现“性体”的本质意义。此种性格与阳明学相比有两点不同：一是更用力于德性本体之实证,在心性关系中关注的重心在性体的客观超越义和道德意志的定向性;二是更加强调实修实证的功夫论,向意根极微处用力。生当晚明,蕺山对自由表达的权力毫不理解,相反,积极倡导“证人”之学,将已狂驰于现实世界的人心重新收束于理性圣殿中,这不能不说是一种历史隔膜和理性的误导。阳明“良知”教经蕺山的批判修正虽由显归密,而心学自裁自决的自由精神却在其慎独之学中丧失锋芒。这同样表明蕺山思想于时代精神的滞后。     

逻辑图表的发展

长期以来,逻辑图表被逻辑学家们仅仅视为教学辅助工具;但逻辑图表从Euler图到Venn图再到存在图表和概念图表的发展表明,它已经超越出教学工具这一狭隘界限,从而获得了更为深刻,广泛的意义,实际上逻辑图表是与我们标准数理逻辑记法相区别的另一种有效的逻辑记法,而且有着更强的直观性和可应用性。     

Plural signification and the Liar paradox

In recent years, speech-act theory has mooted the possibility that one utterance can signify a number of different things. This pluralist conception of signification lies at the heart of Thomas Bradwardine’s solution to the insolubles, logical puzzles such as the semantic paradoxes, presented in Oxford in the early 1320s. His leading assumption was that signification is closed under consequence, that is, that a proposition signifies everything which follows from what it signifies. Then any proposition signifying its own falsity, he showed, also signifies its own truth and so, since it signifies things which cannot both obtain, it is simply false. Bradwardine himself, and his contemporaries, did not elaborate this pluralist theory, or say much in its defence. It can be shown to accord closely, however, with the prevailing conception of logical consequence in England in the fourteenth century. Recent pluralist theories of signification, such as Grice’s, also endorse Bradwardine’s closure postulate as a plausible constraint on signification, and so his analysis of the semantic paradoxes is seen to be both well-grounded and plausible.

Discussions Quinton’s Neglected Argument for Scientific Realism

Summary  This paper discusses an argument for scientific realism put forward by Anthony Quinton in The Nature of Things. The argument – here called the controlled continuity argument – seems to have received no attention in the literature, apparently because it may easily be mistaken for a better-known argument, Grover Maxwell’s “argument from the continuum”. It is argued here that, in point of fact, the two are quite distinct and that Quinton’s argument has several advantages over Maxwell’s. The controlled continuity argument is also compared to Ian Hacking’s “argument from coincidence”. It is pointed out that both arguments are to a large extent independent from considerations about high-level scientific theories, and that both are abductive arguments at the core. But these similarities do not dilute an important difference related to the fact that Quinton’s argument cleverly seeks to anchor belief in unobservable entities in realism about ordinary objects, which is a position shared by most contemporary scientific anti-realists.     

儿童逻辑关系认知发展的实验研究

通过追踪研究和横断研究相结合的方法研究７岁、９岁和１２岁儿童的逻辑关系认知能力的发展。结果表明：儿童的认知成绩随着年龄的增长而提高,不同项目间差异很大,而且不同实验项目有不同的发展速度。儿童间的个别差异也很大,这主要与儿童的家庭教育程度以及城市与郊区不同学校教育条件等因素有关,并且儿童的逻辑关系认知能力与儿童的学习能力,学习成绩以及儿童的智力水平有很高的相关。另外儿童的物理逻辑认知并非都按固定不变的顺序发展。     

Medical diagnostic reasoning: Epistemological modeling as a strategy for design of computer-based consultation programs

The complexity of cognitive emulation of human diagnostic reasoning is the major challenge in the implementation of computer-based programs for diagnostic advice in medicine. We here present an epistemological model of diagnosis with the ultimate goal of defining a high-level language for cognitive and computational primitives. The diagnostic task proceeds through three different phases: hypotheses generation, hypotheses testing and hypotheses closure. Hypotheses generation has the inferential form of abduction (from findings to hypotheses) constrained under the criterion of plausibility. Hypotheses testing is achieved by a deductive inference (from generated hypotheses to expected findings), followed by an eliminative induction, constrained under the criterion of covering, which matches expected findings against patient's findings to select the best explanation. Hypotheses closure is a deductive-inductive type of inference very similar to the inferences operating in hypotheses testing. In this case induction matches the consequences of the generated hypotheses against the patient's characteristics or preferences under the criterion of utility. By using the language exploited in this epistemological model, it is possible to describe the cognitive tasks underlying the most influential knowledge-based diagnostic systems.