Several authors have hailed intuition as one of the defining features of expertise. In particular, while disagreeing on almost anything that touches on human cognition and artificial intelligence, Hubert Dreyfus and Herbert Simon agreed on this point. However, the highly influential theories of intuition they proposed differed in major ways, especially with respect to the role given to search and as to whether intuition is holistic or analytic. Both theories suffer from empirical weaknesses. In this paper, we show how, with (...) some additions, a recent theory of expert memory (the template theory) offers a coherent and wide-ranging explanation of intuition in expert behaviour. It is shown that the theory accounts for the key features of intuition: it explains the rapid onset of intuition and its perceptual nature, provides mechanisms for learning, incorporates processes showing how perception is linked to action and emotion, and how experts capture the entirety of a situation. In doing so, the new theory addresses the issues problematic for Dreyfus’s and Simon’s theories. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)
The uses of analogy are ancient. It can even be argued that analogical thinking is the most basic cognitive tool humans have to move from the unknown to the known (Gentner et al. 2001). As Olson succinctly puts it, “analogies are useful when it is desired to compare an unfamiliar system with one that is better known” (Olson 1943, p. i). Analogical thinking is thus ubiquitous and found in many texts at least since Homer in Antiquity (Lloyd 1966). For example, (...) it is well known that to explain the properties of atoms, Aristotle compared them to the letters of alphabets, something much better known to his readers than invisible atoms (Hallyn 2000).Many studies have looked at particular uses of analogies among the .. (shrink)
In a famous study of expert problem solving, de Groot (1946/1978) examined how chess players found the best move. He reported that there was little difference in the way that the best players (Grand Masters) and very good players (Candidate Masters) searched the board. Although this result has been regularly cited in studies of expertise, it is frequently misquoted. It is often claimed that de Groot found no difference in the way that experts and novices investigate a problem. Comparison of (...) expert and novice chess players on de Groot's problem shows that there are clear differences in their search patterns. We discuss the troublesome theoretical and practical consequences of incorrectly reporting de Groot's findings. (shrink)
Understanding how look-ahead search and pattern recognition interact is one of the important research questions in the study of expert problem solving. This paper examines the implications of the template theory Gobet & Simon, 1996a , a recent theory of expert memory, on the theory of problem solving in chess. Templates are chunks Chase & Simon, 1973 that have evolved into more complex data structures and that possess slots allowing values to be encoded rapidly. Templates may facilitate search in three (...) ways: a by allowing information to be stored into LTM rapidly; b by allowing a search in the template space in addition to a search in the move space; and c by compensating loss in the minds eye due to interference and decay. A computer model implementing the main ideas of the theory is presented, and simulations of its search behaviour are discussed. The template theory accounts for the slight skill difference in average depth of search found in chess players, as well as for other empirical data. (shrink)
Cognitive neuroscience is the branch of neuroscience that studies the neural mechanisms underpinning cognition and develops theories explaining them. Within cognitive neuroscience, computational neuroscience focuses on modeling behavior, using theories expressed as computer programs. Up to now, computational theories have been formulated by neuroscientists. In this paper, we present a new approach to theory development in neuroscience: the automatic generation and testing of cognitive theories using genetic programming (GP). Our approach evolves from experimental data cognitive theories that explain “the mental (...) program” that subjects use to solve a specific task. As an example, we have focused on a typical neuroscience experiment, the delayed-match-to-sample (DMTS) task. The main goal of our approach is to develop a tool that neuroscientists can use to develop better cognitive theories. (shrink)
In several papers, Hubert Dreyfus has used chess as a paradigmatic example of how experts act intuitively, rarely using deliberation when selecting actions, while individuals that are only competent rely on analytic and deliberative thought. By contrast, Montero and Evans (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10:175–194, 2011 ) argue that intuitive aspects of chess are actually rational, in the sense that actions can be justified. In this paper, I show that both Dreyfus’s and Montero and Evans’s views are too extreme, (...) and that expertise in chess, and presumably in other domains, depends on a combination of intuitive thinking and deliberative search, both mediated by perceptual processes. There is more to expertise than just rational thought. I further contend that both sides ignore emotions, which are important in acquiring and maintaining expertise. Finally, I argue that experimental data and first-person data, which are sometimes presented as irreconcilable in the phenomenology literature, actually lead to similar conclusions. (shrink)
Professor Jack Goody builds on his own previous work to extend further his highly influential critique of what he sees as the pervasive eurocentric or occidentalist biases of so much western historical writing. Goody also examines the consequent 'theft' by the West of the achievements of other cultures in the invention of (notably) democracy, capitalism, individualism, and love. The Theft of History discusses a number of theorists in detail, including Marx, Weber and Norbert Elias, and engages with critical admiration western (...) historians like Fernand Braudel, Moses Finlay and Perry Anderson. Major questions of method are raised, and Goody proposes a new comparative methodology for cross-cultural analysis, one that gives a much more sophisticated basis for assessing divergent historical outcomes, and replaces outmoded simple differences between East and West. The Theft of History will be read by an unusually wide audience of historians, anthropologists and social theorists. (shrink)
Despite his seminal role in the history of philosophy, the thirteenth century thinker Albert the Great remains little known. Prior to World War II, his massive literary output was not fully analyzed by historians largely because, as Etienne Gilson put it, of the amazing "amount of philosophical and scientific information heaped up in his writings." After the war, Albert's work began to receive more attention. By 1955, the Louvain medievalist Fernand Van Steenberghen could confidently declare that Albert was the (...) first thinker to establish "the rightful place of learning in Christianity." A decade later, James A. Weisheipl uncovered evidence of Albert's distinctively naturalistic interpretation of Aristotle in .. (shrink)
We discuss the relation of the Theory of Event Coding (TEC) to a computational model of expert perception, CHREST, based on the chunking theory. TEC's status as a verbal theory leaves several questions unanswerable, such as the precise nature of internal representations used, or the degree of learning required to obtain a particular level of competence: CHREST may help answer such questions.
Alice Gonzi’s Zarathustra a Parigi analyzes the complex reception of Nietzsche’s work in French culture between 1877 and 1930. In the first chapter, she shows how French academic philosophy, generally of neo-Kantian orientation, and the Wagnerian circles in Paris in this period did not consider Nietzsche a canonical philosopher, but rather stigmatized his thought and minimized its importance. As early as 1891, Téodor de Wyzewa, in his F. Nietzsche, le dernier metaphysician, praised Nietzsche as a writer while criticizing him as (...) a radical nihilist and pessimist. Although authors such as Daniel Halévy and Fernand Gregh treated Nietzsche as a philosopher of health and joy as well as a promoter of optimism and amor .. (shrink)
This paper examines the apparent contradictions between the use of the fragmented close-up in Fernand Léger's film Ballet mécanique (1924) and his depiction of the cohesive face in his painting in the early 1920s. I argue that this paradox stems from Léger's seeing, in certain pre-war movements whose aesthetics were premised on fragmentation, an endorsement of the supreme value of technology and modernity to the human subject, and of the suborning of that subject to industrial modernity, with all the (...) catastrophic human consequences that were then witnessed in the First World War. These ?aesthetics of fragmentation? are then compared and contrasted with Purism's post-war reconciliation of ?man? as a cohesive being, achieved through its conservative revision of modernist aesthetics. This critique is effected through the ?portmanteau? of Ballet mécanique, which is effectively an assemblage of different pre-war modernist aesthetics contrasted with Purist depictions of cohesive form. (shrink)
Computational models of learning provide an alternative technique for identifying the number and type of chunks used by a subject in a specific task. Results from applying CHREST to chess expertise support the theoretical framework of Cowan and a limit in visual short-term memory capacity of 3–4 looms. An application to learning from diagrams illustrates different identifiable forms of chunk.
L’année 2007 marquait le dixième anniversaire de la mort du grand sociologue québécois Fernand Dumont (1927-1997), qui était aussi, et par‐dessus tout, philosophe, mais également théologien et poète. Au cours de ces dix années, le prestige attaché à sa pensée et à son oeuvre n’a cessé de grandir, comme en témoigne la récente publication de ses oeuvres complètes en cinq volumes aux Presses de l’Université Laval (Québec). Dans cette communication, nous ferons ressortir l'universalité de la théorie dumontienne de la (...) culture et sa valeur heuristique eu égard aux problèmes de notre temps. Telle que nous la concevons – dans une perspective qui s’inspire largement de l’herméneutique contemporaine – l’universalité est toujours singulière en ce sens qu’elle ne peut être scindéed’une expérience de culture, en l’occurrence celle de l'« émigration » ou du déracinement, que Dumont a subie comme un véritable « traumatisme » mais à laquelle il a cherché en même temps à répondre, en édifiant une théorie universelle de « la culture comme distance et mémoire » dont il a exposé le cadre général dans son oeuvre maîtresse parue en 1968, Le Lieu de l’homme. (shrink)
Contacts between Polish historians, French historians and French centers of historiography - espcially with the prestigious milieu of Fernand Braudel's Annales - were unusual and extraordinary in comparison with other forms of scientific cooperation with foreign countries: both with the West and the “friendly countries.“ Because of the undeniable uniqueness of these relations many scholars from various countries claim that the annalistic methodology “influnced“ Polish historiography. What is characteristic, however, is that these statements are most often completely a priori. (...) This paper is a reflection on the nature of the methodological influence of one historical school on the other and discusses such a possibility, taking into consideration models of circulation of ideas proposed by Pierre Bourdieu and Jerzy Maternicki. It is also an attempt at answering whether historical sciences are able to freely interfere on a supra-national level or whether they are by nature characterized by provincialism, understood here as a limitation to national frameworks outside of which they cannot be understood. (shrink)
pt. 1. lecture 1. Issues and problems ; lecture 2. Mircea Eliade's Cosmos and history and cyclical time ; lecture 3. The early enlightenment and the search for the laws of history, Vico's New science of history ; lecture 4. The high enlightenment's cult of progress, Kant's idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view ; lecture 5. Hegel's philosophy of history ; lecture 6. Marx's historical materialism ; lecture 7. Nietzche's critique of historical consciousness, On the (...) advantages and disadvantages of history for life ; lecture 8. Weber's historical sociology -- pt. 2. lecture 9. Taking the long view, Arnold Toynbee and world historical speculation ; lecture 10. Twentieth-century neo-idealism, R.G. Collingwood's The idea of history ; lecture 11. The positivist conception of historical knowledge, Carl Hempel's The function of general laws in history ; lecture 12. Analytic musings, Arthur Danto's Narration and knowledge ; lecture 13. Social history, structuralism, and the long duree, Fernand Brandel's On history ; lecture 14. Post-structuralism and the linguistic turn, Hayden White's Introduction to metahistory ; lecture 15. Naturalism revisited, William McNeill's Plagues and peoples ; lecture 16. The heterogeneity of historical understanding. (shrink)
