In this paper we outline a theory of normative functionality aimed at understanding the nature of adaptive systems as globally structured, integrated systems. More specifically, the account is concerned with understanding the process relations constitutive of such systems. The explanatory agenda of this approach includes the following questions.

This paper outlines an original interactivist-constructivist approach to modelling intelligence and learning as a dynamical embodied form of adaptiveness and explores some applications of I-C to understanding the way cognitive learning is realized in the brain. Two key ideas for conceptualizing intelligence within this framework are developed. These are: intelligence is centrally concerned with the capacity for coherent, context-sensitive, self-directed management of interaction; and the primary model for cognitive learning is anticipative skill construction. Self-directedness is a capacity for integrative process (...) modulation which allows a system to "steer" itself through its world by anticipatively matching its own viability requirements to interaction with its environment. Because the adaptive interaction processes required of intelligent systems are too complex for effective action to be prespecified learning is an important component of intelligence. A model of self-directed anticipative learning is formulated based on interactive skill construction, and argued to constitute a central constructivist process involved in cognitive development. SDAL illuminates the capacity of intelligent learners to start with the vague, poorly defined problems typically posed in realistic learning situations and progressively refine them, transforming them into problems with sufficient structure to guide the construction of a solution. Finally, some of the implications of I-C for modelling of the neuronal basis of intelligence and learning are explored; in particular, Quartz and Sejnowski's recent neural constructivism paradigm, enriched by Montague and Sejnowski's dopaminergic model of anticipative-predictive neural learning, is assessed as a promising, but incomplete, contribution to this approach. The paper concludes with a fourfold reflection on the divergence in cognitive modelling philosophy between the I-C and the traditional computational information processing approaches. (shrink)

Tim van Gelder, following Brandom, Collins and others, uses the so‐called wide content of capacities which support social, norm governed activities, such as language, to argue for their anti‐natural, abstract, but socially instituted nature and thence for the failure of the entire traditional mind‐body discussion as ill‐posed. We argue that his former conclusion is wrong, that such properties are naturalisable, complicated organisational properties of the complexly organised, non‐linearly interactive systems that human beings are. This analysis also provides principled support, but (...) on other grounds, for van Gelder’s latter conclusion. We outline a new naturalist approach to the organisational capacities of such systems that is intended to ground their biological, cognitive and social characters. (shrink)

Also published in Representation in mind : new approaches to mental representation / Hugh Clapin, Phillil Staines, Peter Slezak (eds.) : ISBN 008044394X.

Donald Campbell has long advocated a naturalist epistemology based on a general selection theory, with the scope of knowledge restricted to vicarious adaptive processes. But being a vicariant is problematic because it involves an unexplained epistemic relation. We argue that this relation is to be explicated organizationally in terms of the regulation of behavior and internal state by the vicariant, but that Campbell's selectionist approach can give no satisfactory account of it because it is opaque to organization. We show how (...) organizational constraints and capacities are crucial to understanding both evolution and cognition and conclude with a proposal for an enriched, generalized model of evolutionary epistemology that places high-order regulatory organization at the center. (shrink)

The general structure of Steels & Belpaeme's (S&B's) central premise is appealing. Theoretical stances that focus on one type of mechanism miss the fact that multiple mechanisms acting in concert can provide convergent constraints for a more robust capacity than any individual mechanism might achieve acting in isolation. However, highlighting the significance of complex constraint interactions raises the possibility that some of the relevant constraints may have been left out of S&B's own models. Although abstract modeling can help clarify issues, (...) it also runs the risk of oversimplification and misframing. A more subtle implication of the significance of interacting constraints is that it calls for a close relationship between theoretical and empirical research. (shrink)

© 2006 Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research.

The Bohm-Bub hidden-variable theory is able to predict the results of measuring a quantum system only in the special case where the set of commuting observables being measured is complete. To handle the much more common case where the set is incomplete, Tutsch has proposed a generalization of the Bohm-Bub model. Unfortunately, as we show here, Tutsch's original method does not yield the correct quantum mechanical transition probabilities. On the other hand, Belinfante's modification of Tutsch's method does yield the correct (...) probabilities, and it gives a satisfactory hidden-variable theory of partial measurement for the case where one or more commuting variable(s) are measured at a single space-time point. In the case where the variables are measured at different space-time points, the theory is inadequate, due to the fact that it is not relativistically covariant, and does not take relaxation of the hidden variables into account. (shrink)

It is commonly acknowledged that, in order to test a theoretical hypothesis, one must, in Duhem' s phrase, rely on a "theoretical scaffolding" to connect the hypothesis with something measurable. Hypothesis-confirmation, on this view, becomes a three-place relation: evidence E will confirm hypothesis H only relative to some such scaffolding B. Thus the two leading logical approaches to qualitative confirmation--the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) account and Clark Glymour' s bootstrap account--analyze confirmation in relative terms. But this raises questions about the philosophical interpretation (...) of the technical conditions these accounts describe. What does it mean to say that E confirms H "relative to B"? How should we interpret the relation we are trying to analyze? (shrink)

Wayne D. Christensen and Cliff A. Hooker.

In Fortschritte und Rückschritte der Philosophie, Leonard Nelson sets forth an interpretation of the history of philosophy from the perspective of his own philosophy. From this perspective, the history of philosophy properly begins with the work of Kant and his own teacher, Fries. In order to explain how he arrives at this striking conclusion, it will be necessary to note certain features of Nelson's position.

Background: Giving money as a direct incentive for patients in exchange for depot medication has proved beneficial in some clinical cases in assertive outreach . However, ethical concerns around this practice have been raised, and will be analysed in more detail here.Method: Ethical concern voiced in a survey of all AO teams in England were analysed regarding their content. These were grouped into categories.Results: 53 of 70 team managers mentioned concerns, many of them serious and expressing a negative attitude towards (...) giving money for depot adherence. Four broad categories of ethical concern following Christensen’s concept were distinguished: valid consent and refusal , psychiatric paternalism , resource allocation , organisational relationships , with a residual category others and unspecified .Discussion: The main concerns identified are discussed on the background of existing ethical theories in healthcare and the specific problems of community mental health and AO. Points for practice are derived from this discussion. A way forward is outlined that includes informed consent and an operational policy in the use of incentives, further randomised controlled trials and qualitative studies, and continuing discussions with all stakeholders, especially service users. (shrink)

How should one react when one has a belief, but knows that other people—who have roughly the same evidence as one has, and seem roughly as likely to react to it correctly—disagree? This paper argues that the disagreement of other competent inquirers often requires one to be much less confident in one’s opinions than one would otherwise be.

This paper explores an initially attractive principle connecting beliefs in general with beliefs about what beliefs are rational. The principle turns out to be violated by intuitively rational beliefs in some situations. The paper lays out some options for reacting to this fact.

Formally inclined epistemologists often theorize about ideally rational agents—agents who exemplify rational ideals, such as probabilistic coherence, that human beings could never fully realize. This approach can be defended against the well-known worry that abstracting from human cognitive imperfections deprives the approach of interest. But a different worry arises when we ask what an ideal agent should believe about her own cognitive perfection (even an agent who is in fact cognitively perfect might, it would seem, be uncertain of this fact). (...) Consideration of this question reveals an interesting feature of the structure of our epistemic ideals: for agents with limited information, our epistemic ideals turn out to conflict with one another. This suggests that we must revise the way we see ideal agents in epistemic theorizing. (shrink)

Résumer pour des lecteurs de langue française le noble livre qu'ont publié l'an dernier John King-Farlow et William N. Christensen sur les rapports de la foi — entendez la foi Judéochrétienne — et la raison vivante — entendez la raison telle que la cultive de nos jours la philosophic analytique — n'est certes pas chose aisée, surtout quand le rédacteur de la chronique a été nourri et éduqué, comme c'est le cas, dans la tradition de la philosophic française! En (...) effet Faith and the Life of Reason procède d'une série d'articles qui ont paru successivement, au cours des quinze dernières années, dans d'importantes revues américaines, irlandaises ou anglaises et dont ce nouvel ouvrage constitue en quelque sorte la reprise, en même temps que la refonte, selon une perspective ordonnée. (shrink)

Præsentation af Johannes Hohlenberg -- Udvalgte artikler af Johannes Hohlenberg i J.A.I.-Bladet 1935-1936 -- Johannes Hohlenberg i perspektiv.

This inclusive cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering education and context. In so doing the book offers a reflection on contextual boundaries with an overall boundary crossing ambition and juxtaposes important cases of critical participation within engineering education with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents. Whether, and in what way engineering education is or ought to be contextualized or de-contextualized is an object of heated debate among engineering educators. The uniqueness of this study is that this debate (...) is given comprehensive coverage - presenting both instrumentally inclined as well as radical positions on transforming engineering education. In contextualizing engineering education, this book offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary, meta- and interdisciplinary perspectives on how cultural, professional, institutional, and educational systems contexts shape histories, structural dynamics, ideologies and challenges as well as new pathways in engineering education. Topics addressed include examining engineering education in countries ranging from India to America, to racial and gender equity in engineering education and incorporating social awareness into the area. Using context as "bridge" this book confronts engineering education head on. Contending engineering ideologies and corresponding views on context are juxtaposed with contending discourses of reform. The uniqueness of the book is that it brings together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences and engineering from Europe - both East and West - with the United States, China, Brazil, India and Australia. (shrink)