A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems
A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems

Author: Dov M. Gabbay

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2005-05-02

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 0080460925

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The present work is a continuation of the authors' acclaimed multi-volume APractical Logic of Cognitive Systems. After having investigated the notion ofrelevance in their previous volume, Gabbay and Woods now turn to abduction. Inthis highly original approach, abduction is construed as ignorance-preservinginference, in which conjecture plays a pivotal role. Abduction is a response to acognitive target that cannot be hit on the basis of what the agent currently knows.The abducer selects a hypothesis which were it true would enable the reasoner to attain his target. He concludes from this fact that the hypothesis may be conjectured. In allowing conjecture to stand in for the knowledge he fails to have, the abducer reveals himself to be a satisficer, since an abductive solution is not a solution from knowledge. Key to the authors' analysis is the requirement that a conjectured proposition is not just what a reasoner might allow himself to assume, but a proposition he must defeasibly release as a premiss for further inferences in the domain of enquiry in which the original abduction problem has arisen.The coverage of the book is extensive, from the philosophy of science tocomputer science and AI, from diagnostics to the law, from historical explanation to linguistic interpretation. One of the volume's strongest contributions is its exploration of the abductive character of criminal trials, with special attention given to the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.Underlying their analysis of abductive reasoning is the authors' conception ofpractical agency. In this approach, practical agency is dominantly a matter of thecomparative modesty of an agent's cognitive agendas, together with comparatively scant resources available for their advancement. Seen in these ways, abduction has a significantly practical character, precisely because it is a form of inference that satisfices rather than maximizes its response to the agent's cognitive target.The Reach of Abduction will be necessary reading for researchers, graduatestudents and senior undergraduates in logic, computer science, AI, belief dynamics, argumentation theory, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, linguistics, forensic science, legal reasoning and related areas.Key features:- Reach of Abduction is fully integrated with a background logic of cognitive systems.- The most extensive coverage compared to competitive works.- Demonstrates not only that abduction is a form of ignorance preservinginference but that it is a mode of inference that is wholly rational.- Demonstrates the satisficing rather than maximizing character ofabduction.- The development of formal models of abduction is considerably more extensive than one finds in existing literature. It is an especially impressive amalgam of sophisticatedconceptual analysis and extensive logical modelling.· Reach of Abduction is fully integrated with a background logic of cognitive systems.· The most extensive coverage compared to competitive works· Demonstrates not only that abduction is a form of ignorance preservinginference but that it is a mode of inference that is wholly rational.· Demonstrates the satisficing rather than maximizing character ofabduction.· The development of formal models of abduction is considerably more extensive than one finds in existing literature. It is an especially impressive amalgam of sophisticatedconceptual analysis and extensive logical modelling.

A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems
A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems

Author: Dov M. Gabbay

Publisher: Elsevier Science

Published: 2005-07-04

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 9780444517913

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The present work is a continuation of the authors' acclaimed multi-volume A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems. After having investigated the notion of relevance in their previous volume, Gabbay and Woods now turn to abduction. In this highly original approach, abduction is construed as ignorance-preserving inference, in which conjecture plays a pivotal role. Abduction is a response to a cognitive target that cannot be hit on the basis of what the agent currently knows. The abducer selects a hypothesis which were it true would enable the reasoner to attain his target. He concludes from this fact that the hypothesis may be conjectured. In allowing conjecture to stand in for the knowledge he fails to have, the abducer reveals himself to be a satisficer, since an abductive solution is not a solution from knowledge. Key to the authors' analysis is the requirement that a conjectured proposition is not just what a reasoner might allow himself to assume, but a proposition he must defeasibly release as a premiss for further inferences in the domain of enquiry in which the original abduction problem has arisen. The coverage of the book is extensive, from the philosophy of science to computer science and AI, from diagnostics to the law, from historical explanation to linguistic interpretation. One of the volume's strongest contributions is its exploration of the abductive character of criminal trials, with special attention given to the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Underlying their analysis of abductive reasoning is the authors' conception of practical agency. In this approach, practical agency is dominantly a matter of the comparative modesty of an agent's cognitive agendas, together with comparatively scant resources available for their advancement. Seen in these ways, abduction has a significantly practical character, precisely because it is a form of inference that satisfices rather than maximizes its response to the agent's cognitive target. The Reach of Abduction will be necessary reading for researchers, graduate students and senior undergraduates in logic, computer science, AI, belief dynamics, argumentation theory, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, linguistics, forensic science, legal reasoning and related areas. Key features: - Reach of Abduction is fully integrated with a background logic of cognitive systems. - The most extensive coverage compared to competitive works. - Demonstrates not only that abduction is a form of ignorance preserving inference but that it is a mode of inference that is wholly rational. - Demonstrates the satisficing rather than maximizing character of abduction. - The development of formal models of abduction is considerably more extensive than one finds in existing literature. It is an especially impressive amalgam of sophisticated conceptual analysis and extensive logical modelling. · Reach of Abduction is fully integrated with a background logic of cognitive systems. · The most extensive coverage compared to competitive works · Demonstrates not only that abduction is a form of ignorance preserving inference but that it is a mode of inference that is wholly rational. · Demonstrates the satisficing rather than maximizing character of abduction. · The development of formal models of abduction is considerably more extensive than one finds in existing literature. It is an especially impressive amalgam of sophisticated conceptual analysis and extensive logical modelling.

Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics
Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics

Author:

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2003-05-29

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 008052687X

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Agenda Relevance is the first volume in the authors' omnibus investigation ofthe logic of practical reasoning, under the collective title, A Practical Logicof Cognitive Systems. In this highly original approach, practical reasoning isidentified as reasoning performed with comparatively few cognitive assets,including resources such as information, time and computational capacity. Unlikewhat is proposed in optimization models of human cognition, a practical reasonerlacks perfect information, boundless time and unconstrained access tocomputational complexity. The practical reasoner is therefore obliged to be acognitive economizer and to achieve his cognitive ends with considerableefficiency. Accordingly, the practical reasoner avails himself of variousscarce-resource compensation strategies. He also possesses neurocognitivetraits that abet him in his reasoning tasks. Prominent among these is thepractical agent's striking (though not perfect) adeptness at evading irrelevantinformation and staying on task. On the approach taken here, irrelevancies areimpediments to the attainment of cognitive ends. Thus, in its most basic sense,relevant information is cognitively helpful information. Information can then besaid to be relevant for a practical reasoner to the extent that it advances orcloses some cognitive agenda of his. The book explores this idea with aconceptual detail and nuance not seen the standard semantic, probabilistic andpragmatic approaches to relevance; but wherever possible, the authors seek tointegrate alternative conceptions rather than reject them outright. A furtherattraction of the agenda-relevance approach is the extent to which its principalconceptual findings lend themselves to technically sophisticated re-expressionin formal models that marshal the resources of time and action logics andlabel led deductive systems. Agenda Relevance is necessary reading for researchers in logic, beliefdynamics, computer science, AI, psychology and neuroscience, linguistics,argumentation theory, and legal reasoning and forensic science, and will repaystudy by graduate students and senior undergraduates in these same fields.Key features:• relevance • action and agendas • practical reasoning • belief dynamics • non-classical logics • labelled deductive systems

Truth in Fiction
Truth in Fiction

Author: John Woods

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-02-23

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 3319726587

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This monograph examines truth in fiction by applying the techniques of a naturalized logic of human cognitive practices. The author structures his project around two focal questions. What would it take to write a book about truth in literary discourse with reasonable promise of getting it right? What would it take to write a book about truth in fiction as true to the facts of lived literary experience as objectivity allows? It is argued that the most semantically distinctive feature of the sentences of fiction is that they areunambiguously true and false together. It is true that Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street and also concurrently false that he did. A second distinctive feature of fiction is that the reader at large knows of this inconsistency and isn’t in the least cognitively molested by it. Why, it is asked, would this be so? What would explain it? Two answers are developed. According to the no-contradiction thesis, the semantically tangled sentences of fiction are indeed logically inconsistent but not logically contradictory. According to the no-bother thesis, if the inconsistencies of fiction were contradictory, a properly contrived logic for the rational management of inconsistency would explain why readers at large are not thrown off cognitive stride by their embrace of those contradictions. As developed here, the account of fiction suggests the presence of an underlying three - or four-valued dialethic logic. The author shows this to be a mistaken impression. There are only two truth-values in his logic of fiction. The naturalized logic of Truth in Fiction jettisons some of the standard assumptions and analytical tools of contemporary philosophy, chiefly because the neurotypical linguistic and cognitive behaviour of humanity at large is at variance with them. Using the resources of a causal response epistemology in tandem with the naturalized logic, the theory produced here is data-driven, empirically sensitive, and open to a circumspect collaboration with the empirical sciences of language and cognition.

Ignorant Cognition
Ignorant Cognition

Author: Selene Arfini

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 3030143627

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This book offers a comprehensive philosophical investigation of ignorance. Using a set of cognitive tools and models, it discusses features that can describe a state of ignorance if linked to a particular type of cognition affecting the agent’s social behavior, belief system, and inferential capacity. The author defines ignorance as a cognitive condition that can be either passively (and unconsciously) borne by an agent or actively nurtured by him or her, and a condition that entails epistemic limitations (which can be any lack of knowledge, belief, information or data) that affect the agent’s behavior, belief system, and inferential capacity. The author subsequently describes the ephemeral nature of ignorance, its tenacity in the development of human inferential and cognitive performance, and the possibility of sharing ignorance among human agents within the social dimension. By combining previous frameworks such as the naturalization of logic, the eco-cognitive perspective in philosophy and concepts from Peircean epistemology, and adding original ideas derived from the author’s own research and reflections, the book develops a new cognitive framework to help understand the nature of ignorance and its influence on the human condition.

Handbook of Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures
Handbook of Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures

Author: Kurt Engesser

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2009-06-16

Total Pages: 727

ISBN-13: 0080931669

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Quantum mechanics is said to be the most successful physical theory ever. It is, in fact, unique in its success when applied to concrete physical problems. On the other hand, however, it raises profound conceptual problems that are equally unprecedented. Quantum logic, the topic of this volume, can be described as an attempt to cast light on the puzzle of quantum mechanics from the point of view of logic. Since its inception in the famous 1936 paper by Birkhoff and von Neumann entitled, "The logic of quantum mechanics, quantum logic has undergone an enormous development. Various schools of thought and approaches have emerged, and there are a variety of technical results. The chapters of this volume constitute a comprehensive presentation of the main schools, approaches and results in the field of quantum logic. - Authored by eminent scholars in the field - Material presented is of recent origin representing the frontier of the subject - Provides the most comprehensive and varied discussion of Quantum Mechanics available

Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics
Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics

Author:

Publisher: North Holland

Published: 2003-06-12

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9780444513854

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Agenda Relevance is the first volume in the authors' omnibus investigation of the logic of practical reasoning, under the collective title, A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems. In this highly original approach, practical reasoning is identified as reasoning performed with comparatively few cognitive assets, including resources such as information, time and computational capacity. Unlike what is proposed in optimization models of human cognition, a practical reasoner lacks perfect information, boundless time and unconstrained access to computational complexity. The practical reasoner is therefore obliged to be a cognitive economizer and to achieve his cognitive ends with considerable efficiency. Accordingly, the practical reasoner avails himself of various scarce-resource compensation strategies. He also possesses neurocognitive traits that abet him in his reasoning tasks. Prominent among these is the practical agent's striking (though not perfect) adeptness at evading irrelevant information and staying on task. On the approach taken here, irrelevancies are impediments to the attainment of cognitive ends. Thus, in its most basic sense, relevant information is cognitively helpful information. Information can then be said to be relevant for a practical reasoner to the extent that it advances or closes some cognitive agenda of his. The book explores this idea with a conceptual detail and nuance not seen the standard semantic, probabilistic and pragmatic approaches to relevance; but wherever possible, the authors seek to integrate alternative conceptions rather than reject them outright. A further attraction of the agenda-relevance approach is the extent to which its principal conceptual findings lend themselves to technically sophisticated re-expression in formal models that marshal the resources of time and action logics and label led deductive systems. Agenda Relevance is necessary reading for researchers in logic, belief dynamics, computer science, AI, psychology and neuroscience, linguistics, argumentation theory, and legal reasoning and forensic science, and will repay study by graduate students and senior undergraduates in these same fields. Key features: . relevance . action and agendas . practical reasoning . belief dynamics . non-classical logics . labelled deductive systems

How Best to ‘Go On’? Prospects for a ‘Modern Synthesis’ in the Sciences of Mind
How Best to ‘Go On’? Prospects for a ‘Modern Synthesis’ in the Sciences of Mind

Author: Kevin Moore

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2016-08-08

Total Pages: 93

ISBN-13: 2889199061

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Psychology straddles areas from the biological to the social and cultural. Within that vast range, there have been recent explosions of interest in neuropsychology, genetics and epigenetics, and the evolutionary bases of mindedness. Correspondingly, there have been conceptual innovations and new empirical evidence in relation to the embodied, social and discursive processes supporting mind and personhood. Simultaneously, awareness of developmental processes and their dynamic interweaving of genetic, physiological, neurological, social and cultural elements has also increased. Might such developments help ‘connect the dots’ between diverse aspects of mindedness and the contexts within which it arises? Whilst it seems clear that mind is co-constituted of both biological and socio-cultural processes, how might we bring these disparate realms of knowledge together? In a number of these areas, suggestive integrative possibilities have been explored (e.g., predictive processing, embodied and situated cognition, dynamic developmental systems theory) and insights such as a focus on action, ‘knowledge as skills’, embeddedness and connectivity have been pursued across a range of disciplines. This edited collection of articles bring together such possibilities – and others - in the same forum in order to provide an opportunity to re-visit a recurring discussion within theoretical psychology: The claimed lack of - and potential for - theoretical synthesis and unity. While the chapters range over a number of areas of research, this collection is focused on current prospects for conceptual synthesis within - or convergence of research between - aspects of mind and mindedness. As is clear from the contributions, it highlights integrative conceptual proposals that emphasize action-orientation, process, embeddedness and connectivity – especially between explanatory ‘levels’. Beyond specific proposals for integration, several of the contributions explicitly or implicitly expose broader questions about the purpose of psychological research, the epistemological and ontological commitments required, and the relevant social, political and economic contexts within which such research is performed. This is perhaps inevitable since any aim for synthesis of various understandings of mind will - or should - lead to consideration of the general implications, beyond the ‘science’, that follow from an integrated account of mind and mindedness. Whether or not the contributions in this volume provide insights into profitable paths towards greater theoretical synthesis in the sciences of mind or, alternatively, provide grist for the mill of renewed skepticism over the potential or even desirability of such synthesis is unpredictable. Whichever the outcome, we feel sure that they will help provoke future productive research in, and thinking about, the sciences of mind. Kevin Moore and John Cromby Associate Guest Editors

Bas van Fraassen’s Approach to Representation and Models in Science
Bas van Fraassen’s Approach to Representation and Models in Science

Author: Wenceslao J. Gonzalez

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-02-19

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 9400778384

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This book analyzes Bas van Fraassen’s characterization of representation and models in science. In this regard, it presents the philosophical coordinates of his approach and pays attention to his structural empiricism as a framework for his views on scientific representations and models. These are developed here through two new contributions made by van Fraassen. In addition, there are analyses of the relation between models and reality in his approach, where the complexity of this conception is considered in detail. Furthermore, there is an examination of scientific explanation and epistemic values judgments. This volume includes a wealth of bibliographical information on his philosophy and relevant philosophical issues. Bas van Fraassen is a key figure in contemporary philosophy of science, as the prestigious Hempel Award shows. His views on scientific representation offer new ideas on how it should be characterized, and his conception of models shows a novelty that goes beyond other empiricists’ approaches of recent times. Both aspects — the characterization of scientific representation and the conception of models in science — are part of a deliberate attempt to forge a “structural empiricism,” an alternative to structural realism based on an elaborated version of empiricism.