The Duisburg Nachlaß

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-78
Author(s):  
Alison Laywine
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Object A ◽  
Classical Geometry ◽  
Central Claim

This chapter explores the so-called ‘Duisburg Nachlaß’, a set of sketches in Kant’s hand from the mid-1770s that may be understood as the ancestor of the Transcendental Deduction in the Critique. The chapter has two parts. The first explores a central claim in the Duisburg Nachlaß that we know an object a priori only according to its relations by means of an ‘exposition of appearances’. The question is what does this mean? The strategy is to confront the claim with some of Kant’s metaphysical commitments from the 1750s about relations and his engagement with the regimentation of proofs in classical geometry (with a special focus on the ‘ekthesis’). The second part of the chapter uses what is learned from the first part to argue that the exposition of appearances in the Duisburg Nachlaß is meant to yield a cosmology of experience. The author uses the findings of this chapter later in the book to illuminate peculiarities and insights of the Transcendental Deduction.

Kant’s ‘Transcendental Deduction’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stroud
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Structural Description ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
The World ◽  
Empirical Realism

This chapter presents a straightforward structural description of Immanuel Kant’s conception of what the transcendental deduction is supposed to do, and how it is supposed to do it. The ‘deduction’ Kant thinks is needed for understanding the human mind would establish and explain our ‘right’ or ‘entitlement’ to something we seem to possess and employ in ‘the highly complicated web of human knowledge’. This is: experience, concepts, and principles. The chapter explains the point and strategy of the ‘deduction’ as Kant understands it, as well as the demanding conditions of its success, without entering into complexities of interpretation or critical assessment of the degree of success actually achieved. It also analyses Kant’s arguments regarding a priori concepts as well as a posteriori knowledge of the world around us, along with his claim that our position in the world must be understood as ‘empirical realism’.

scholarly journals A Priori Assessment of Subgrid-Scale Models and Numerical Error in Forced Convective Flow at High Prandtl Numbers

2020 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-392
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Sufrà ◽  
Helfried Steiner
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Mixing Layer ◽  
Turbulent Pipe Flow ◽  
Numerical Error ◽  
Statistical Dependence ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Subgrid Scale ◽  
Flux Divergence ◽  
Prandtl Numbers ◽  
The Individual

AbstractAn extensive a priori analysis has been carried out on data from Direct numerical simulation of fully developed heated turbulent pipe flow at high molecular Prandtl numbers $$Pr=10$$ P r = 10 /20, testing three popular modelling candidates for subgrid-scale closure in Large-Eddy simulation (LES). Aside from assessing the models’ capabilities to describe quantitatively the unresolved turbulent fluxes, a special focus is also put on the role of the numerical error, which arises from the discretization of the filtered advective fluxes on a coarse LES grid. The present analysis extends here previous studies on subgrid-scale momentum transport in a isothermal mixing layer and channel flow carried out by Brandt (J Numer Methods Fluids 51: 635–657, 2006) and Vreman et al. (J Eng Math 29: 299–327, 1995), respectively, to the subgrid-scale transport of heat at high Prandtl numbers. The statistical dependence between the individual contributions (resolved, subgrid-scale, numerical discretization error) constituting the filtered advective flux divergence in the LES formulation is investigated as well, in terms of corresponding cross-correlations. The sensitivity of the tested sgs-models to a grid refinement is further examined performing also a posteriori LES, where the basically more sophisticated candidates turn out to be more demanding in terms of required grid resolution.

scholarly journals Kritische Metaphysik oder Analytische Hermeneutik?

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-131
Author(s):  
Anton Friedrich Koch
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
General Logic ◽  
Time And Being ◽  
Hermeneutic Science ◽  
Invasive Intervention

Abstract Kant in his critical metaphysics, as one might call his transcendental philosophy, proceeds from the syncategorematic, subject-sided forms of thinking, which are revealed by general logic qua doctrine of the inferences of reason (i. e. syllogistics), and assigns to them one-to-one categorematic, object-sided forms of thinking: the categories qua pure, non-empirical predicates of things. Kant then shows in his transcendental deduction that the categories are objectively, – i. e. without our invasive intervention – valid of all things in space-time. In the present essay, philosophy is understood not so much as critical metaphysics in a narrow sense of “metaphysics”, but rather as the a priori hermeneutic science; and the transcendental deduction of the categories is replaced by arguments for (1) a readability thesis and (2) a theory of the a priori presuppositions of referencing things in space and time. The readability thesis states that things can be read (1) as world-sided primal tokens (ur-tokens) of proper names of themselves and also (2) as world-sided primal tokens (ur-tokens) of elementary propositions about them. The theory of the a priori presuppositions clarifies the conditions of the possibility of subjects orienting themselves in space and time and being able to refer, first, to themselves qua embodied thinkers and then as well to arbitrary individual items.

André Bazin's Film Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Dalle Vacche
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Awareness ◽  
Classical Geometry ◽  
Static Object ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference

The best way to understand Bazin’s film theory is to pay attention to art, science, and religion, since spectatorship depends on perception, cognition, and hallucination. By arguing that this dissident Catholic’s worldview is anti-anthropocentric, Angela Dalle Vacche concludes that cinema recapitulates the history of evolution and technology inside our consciousness, so that we may better understand how we overlap with, but also differ from, animals, plants, objects, and machines. Whereas in “Art,” the author explains the difference between painting as a static object and the moving image as an event unfolding in time, in “Science,” she discusses Bazin’s dislike of classical geometry and Platonic algebra, his fascination with biology and modern calculus to underline his holistic Darwinism, and his anti-Euclidean mathematics of motion and contingency. Comparable to a religious practice, Bazin’s cinema is the only collective ritual of the twentieth century capable of fostering an emotional community by calling on critical self-interrogation and ethical awareness. Especially keen on Italian neorealism, Bazin argues that this sensibility thrives on beings and things displacing themselves in such a way as to turn the Other into a Neighbor. Bazin’s film theory acknowledges the equalizing impact of the camera lens, which is analogous to, but also different from, the human eye. In the cinema, two different kinds of eyes coexist: one is mechanical and objective, the other is human and subjective. By refusing to reshape the world according to an a priori thesis, Bazin’s idea of an anti-anthropocentric cinema seeks surprise, dialogue, risk, and experiment.

scholarly journals Darwinism as the Missing Link in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-80
Author(s):  
Igor K. Kalinin
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
Logical Functions

I proceed from the hypothesis that the difficulties in Kant’s presentation of his plan and, accordingly, the implicit reason for the critical attitude to this plan on the part of many contemporary philosophers stem from the fact that he had no theoretical link at his disposal which would offer a more solid scientific grounding for his entire system. I believe that Darwinism is such a link which bolsters the central but ungrounded thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason on the existence of a priori synthetic judgments. The synthesis of Darwinism and critical philosophy dictates, however, a substantial restructuring of the latter since some of its key elements prove to be weak in the light of modern studies and need to be revised or even reversed. The first reversal explored in this article determines the origin of the categories which are now revealed not “from the top down” where Kant sought them, i. e. not in logical functions in accordance with metaphysical deduction and not in self-consciousness as transcendental deduction claims, but “from the bottom up” if one considers things in the evolutionary dimension, i. e. in the instincts. The second reversal shifts the freedom of will which Kant placed in the same ontological basket with things in themselves at “the top,” to another level of the pyramid of ontologies, by changing dualism to pluralism because dualism is too narrow to accommodate all the autonomous components of critical philosophy. Thus spirit and freedom find a new place separate from the sphere of physical nature; the category of adaptation explains how different ontologies can coexist; while the problem of two interpretations of transcendental idealism (two-world vs. two-aspect interpretation) finds a solution through their reconciliation.

scholarly journals Signaling Systems and the Transcendental Deduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Signaling System ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Unity Of Consciousness ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Signaling Systems ◽  
Precise Sense ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
General Truth

The central claim of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction is that unity of consciousness entails objectivity of experience. This chapter defends an interpretation of that claim that has nothing especially to do with imagination, thought, language, or ‘categories.’ It is a general truth about signaling systems. More specifically, there is a precise sense in which (i) a signaling system may detect properties of objects as opposed to merely reflecting how it is being affected by external reality taken as a lump. And there is a precise sense in which (ii) a signaling system may exhibit a unity as opposed to being equivalent to a mere bundle of more specialized signaling systems. The chapter argues that (i) is a consequence of (ii): any signaling system that exhibits unity in this sense has experience of objects in that one. That truth, and the argument for it, cast light on (a) Kant and (b) idealism.

scholarly journals Temporal rainfall disaggregation using a micro-canonical cascade model: Possibilities to improve the autocorrelation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Müller-Thomy
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Extreme Event ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Cascade Model ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Rainfall Time Series ◽  
Lower Saxony ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Daily Data

Abstract. In urban hydrology rainfall time series of high resolution in time are crucial. Such time series with sufficient length can be generated through the disaggregation of daily data with a micro-canonical cascade model. A well-known problem of time series generated so is the underestimation of the autocorrelation. In this paper two cascade model modifications are analysed regarding their ability to improve the autocorrelation. Both modifications are based on a state-of-the-art reference cascade model. In the first modification, a position-dependency is introduced in the first disaggregation step. In the second modification the position of a wet time step is redefined in addition. Both modifications led to an improvement of the autocorrelation, especially the position redefinition. Simultaneously, two approaches are investigated to avoid the generation of time steps with too small rainfall intensities, the conservation of a minimum rainfall amount during the disaggregation process itself and the mimicry of a measurement device after the disaggregation process. The mimicry approach shows slight better results for the autocorrelation and hence was kept for a subsequent resampling investigation using Simulated Annealing. For the resampling, a special focus was given to the conservation of the extreme rainfall values. Therefore, a universal extreme event definition was introduced to define extreme events a priori without knowing their occurrence in time or magnitude. The resampling algorithm is capable of improving the autocorrelation, independent of the previously applied cascade model variant. Also, the improvement of the autocorrelation by the resampling was higher than by the choice of the cascade model modification. The best overall representation of the autocorrelation was achieved by method C in combination with the resampling algorithm. The study was carried out for 24 rain gauges in Lower Saxony, Germany.

scholarly journals Hand–object configuration estimation using particle filters for dexterous in-hand manipulation

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (14) ◽  
pp. 1760-1774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiyu Hang ◽  
Walter G. Bircher ◽  
Andrew S. Morgan ◽  
Aaron M. Dollar
Keyword(s):  
Particle Filter ◽  
Control Algorithm ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Dexterous Manipulation ◽  
Object A ◽  
Planning And Control ◽  
Generic Framework ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Object Parameters ◽  
And Control

We consider the problem of in-hand dexterous manipulation with a focus on unknown or uncertain hand–object parameters, such as hand configuration, object pose within hand, and contact positions. In particular, in this work we formulate a generic framework for hand–object configuration estimation using underactuated hands as an example. Owing to the passive reconfigurability and the lack of encoders in the hand’s joints, it is challenging to estimate, plan, and actively control underactuated manipulation. By modeling the grasp constraints, we present a particle filter-based framework to estimate the hand configuration. Specifically, given an arbitrary grasp, we start by sampling a set of hand configuration hypotheses and then randomly manipulate the object within the hand. While observing the object’s movements as evidence using an external camera, which is not necessarily calibrated with the hand frame, our estimator calculates the likelihood of each hypothesis to iteratively estimate the hand configuration. Once converged, the estimator is used to track the hand configuration in real time for future manipulations. Thereafter, we develop an algorithm to precisely plan and control the underactuated manipulation to move the grasped object to desired poses. In contrast to most other dexterous manipulation approaches, our framework does not require any tactile sensing or joint encoders, and can directly operate on any novel objects, without requiring a model of the object a priori. We implemented our framework on both the Yale Model O hand and the Yale T42 hand. The results show that the estimation is accurate for different objects, and that the framework can be easily adapted across different underactuated hand models. In the end, we evaluated our planning and control algorithm with handwriting tasks, and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

scholarly journals Switching from autopilot to the driver: A transient performance analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 234 (5) ◽  
pp. 1346-1360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seshan Ramanathan Venkita ◽  
Dehlia Willemsen ◽  
Mohsen Alirezaei ◽  
Henk Nijmeijer
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous System ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Autonomous Driving ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Modal Control ◽  
Driving System ◽  
Lateral Dynamics ◽  
Human Driver ◽  
Autonomous Driving System

One of the main safety concerns associated with semi-autonomous vehicles is the sharing of control between a human driver and an autonomous driving system. Even with an attentive driver, such switches in control may pose a threat to the safety of the driver and the surrounding vehicles. The aim of this study is to develop an indicator that can measure the level of safety during a driver take-over, using knowledge about the system known a priori. A model-based approach is used to analyse the system with special focus on the lateral dynamics of the vehicle. The driver and the vehicle are modelled as linear systems, and a path tracking controller is used to serve as an autonomous system. With this structure, shared control is studied as a switched system, in which the vehicle’s lateral control switches between the autonomous system and the driver. A bound on the transient dynamics that arise due to a switch is derived, using the induced [Formula: see text] norm. This bound is then used to formulate an indicator that checks if the states/outputs of interest are within acceptable limits. A comparison with simulation results has shown that the indicator successfully captures the effect of different system parameters on take-over safety, although in a slightly conservative manner. This indicator can be further developed as a tool to be used in the design and evaluation of shared-/multi-modal control systems in future vehicles.

scholarly journals Kant’s Original Space and Time as Mere Grounds for Possibilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Thomas Raysmith
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Original Space ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Representations Of Space ◽  
Temporal Representations

Abstract In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant appears to make incompatible claims regarding the unitary natures of what he takes to be our a priori representations of space and time. I argue that these representations are unitary independently of all synthesis and explain how this avoids problems encountered by other positions regarding the Transcendental Deduction and its relation to the Transcendental Aesthetic in that work. Central is the claim that these representations (1) contain, when characterized as intuitions and considered as prior to any affections of sensibility, only an infinitude of merely possible finite spatial and temporal representations, and (2) are representations that are merely transcendental grounds for the possibilities for receiving or generating finite representations in sensibility that are determined (immediately, in the case of reception) by means of syntheses that accord with the categories.

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