Causal reasoning can be understood qualitatively in terms of explanatory coherence or quantitatively in terms of probability theory. Comparison of these approaches can be done by looking at computational models, using my explanatory coherence networks and Pearl’s probabilistic ones. The explanatory coherence program ECHO can be given a probabilistic interpretation, but there are many conceptual and computational problems that make it difficult to replace coherence networks by probabilistic ones. On the other hand, ECHO provides a psychologically plausible and computationally efficient model of some kinds of probabilistic causal reasoning. Hence coherence theory need not give way to probability theory as the basis for epistemology and decision making.

ABSTRACT. Recent findings in neuroscience strongly suggest that an object’s features (e.g., its color, texture, shape, etc.) are represented in separate areas of the visual cortex. Although represented in separate neuronal areas, somehow the feature representations are brought together as a single, unified object of visual consciousness. This raises a question of binding: how do neural activities in separate areas of the visual cortex function to produce a feature-unified object of visual consciousness? Several prominent neuroscientists have adopted neural synchrony and attention-based approaches to explain object feature binding. I argue that although neural synchrony and/or attentional mechanisms might function to disambiguate an object’s features, it is difficult to see how either of these mechanisms could fully explain the unity of an object’s features at the level of visual consciousness. After presenting a detailed critique of neural synchrony and attention-based approaches to object feature binding, I propose interactive hierarchical structuralism (IHS). This view suggests that a unified percept (i.e., a feature-unified object

DRAFT June 2009. The paper is for a Festschrift and this draft has removed a number of personal references. 1 The questions... Wikipedia [38] defines: traditional logic is ‘a loose name for the way of doing logic that began with Aristotle, and that was dominant until the advent of modern predicate logic in the late nineteenth century’. It is of great interest to place the transitions between traditional and modern logic. In this paper I will say where I think the main differences lie. In my last section I will comment on... the relationship between some traditional argument forms and natural language argument. The strength of traditional logic is sometimes measured in terms of the valid inference patterns that it recognises. Among other patterns: (1) “Some P R all Q ” implies “All Q are R-ed by some P ”. and the pattern behind some inferences that De Morgan studied: (2) “All horses are animals. So, all horse tails are animal tails.”. This is not a new measure; it was widely used in the mid 20th century

A quantitative theory of abstraction is presented. The central feature of this is a growth formula defining the number of abstractions which may be formed by an individual agent in a given context. Implications of the theory for artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology are explored. Its possible applications to the issue of implicit v. explicit learning are also discussed.

This paper explores semiosis as a process that transforms inaccessible energy into accessible energy. On this view, semiosis is a process enabling energy to stabilize itself in an 'informed ' state by means of increasingly complex codification processes. Accessible energy is thus understood as 'information ' and/or 'knowledge'. Codification constitutes a dynamic evolution of networks of relations by which information develops within a maturing interpretive architecture. This architectural network is examined within three categories of relations, Peircean Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. This leads us, first, into an examination of different modes of the evolution of knowledge. The second part of the paper examines the semiosic action in more detail as a process establishing relationships within five nodal sites, moving energy from the sensate to the interpreted, from the uninformed and unformed to the informed and formed.

©This paper is not for reproduction without permission of the author. The attempt to 'analyze ' causation seems to have reached an impasse; the proposals on hand seem so widely divergent that one wonders whether they are all analyses of one and the same concept. (Kim 1995: 112). The objective of this article is twofold: (1) to point out that the current theories of causation are radically inadequate, (2) to show the historical roots of this inadequacy. The structure of this article is as follows: first, I will give a general sketch of the most important contemporary approaches to causation. Next, in the second part, I will briefly discuss the historical development of the concept of cause; I will show that the history of the concept of cause reveals a complex evolution marked by two decisive milestones: (I) the Aristotelian (-scholastic) Conception, and (II) the Scientific Conception, which are two mutually incompatible conceptions. In the third part, I will discuss some fundamental presuppositions of the received view regarding causation. I will show that this view is inadequate in several respects, and that this inadequacy is (partly) due to the failure to recognize the historical roots of concepts related to causation. More particularly, it will be shown that the received view is based upon two incompatible categoreal frameworks, which have their origin in,

In this article I first argue that Immanuel Kant’s conception of the categorical imperative is important to his philosophy. I systematically, though indirectly, interconnect the cognitive and moral aspects of his thinking. Second, I present an interpretation of the Kantian ethics, taking as my point of departure, the concept of the categorical imperative. Finally, I show how the categorical imperative is given a dialogical interpretation by Jürgen Habermas in his approach, usually referred to as discourse ethics. I argue that the dialogical approach taken by discourse ethics is more justifiable and therefore more useful

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