Governing Laws and the Inference Problem

2021 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-411
Author(s):  
Stavros Ioannidis ◽  
Vassilis Livanios ◽  
Stathis Psillos
Keyword(s):  
Central Problem ◽  
Inference Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Axiomatic Solution

Abstract How do non-Humean laws govern regularities in nature? According to the Inference Problem, non-Humean accounts of governing face a central problem: it is not clear how such laws do perform their governing function. Recently, Jonathan Schaffer has argued that the introduction of a law-to-regularity axiom is sufficient to solve the Inference Problem. The authors argue that Schaffer’s solution faces a devastating dilemma: either the required axiom cannot, on its own, differentiate the non-Humean account from a Humean account of laws or, if more content is added to the primitive governing posit, it should be shown how and why the ‘outfitted’ posit obtains in the world. Furthermore, the authors show that those cases that Schaffer presents to motivate his approach are not analogous to the case of lawhood and so they cannot provide justification for his axiomatic solution.

scholarly journals Causal inference accounts for heading perception in the presence of object motion

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (18) ◽  
pp. 9060-9065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalpana Dokka ◽  
Hyeshin Park ◽  
Michael Jansen ◽  
Gregory C. DeAngelis ◽  
Dora E. Angelaki
Keyword(s):  
Causal Inference ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Moving Objects ◽  
Object Motion ◽  
Image Motion ◽  
Inference Problem ◽  
Accuracy And Precision ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Motion ◽  
The Brain

The brain infers our spatial orientation and properties of the world from ambiguous and noisy sensory cues. Judging self-motion (heading) in the presence of independently moving objects poses a challenging inference problem because the image motion of an object could be attributed to movement of the object, self-motion, or some combination of the two. We test whether perception of heading and object motion follows predictions of a normative causal inference framework. In a dual-report task, subjects indicated whether an object appeared stationary or moving in the virtual world, while simultaneously judging their heading. Consistent with causal inference predictions, the proportion of object stationarity reports, as well as the accuracy and precision of heading judgments, depended on the speed of object motion. Critically, biases in perceived heading declined when the object was perceived to be moving in the world. Our findings suggest that the brain interprets object motion and self-motion using a causal inference framework.

Visual Shape and Object Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anitha Pasupathy ◽  
Yasmine El-Shamayleh ◽  
Dina V. Popovkina
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Physical Factors ◽  
Inference Problem ◽  
High Resolution Image ◽  
Primate Brain ◽  
The World ◽  
Perceptual Invariance ◽  
Visual Shape

Humans and other primates rely on vision. Our visual system endows us with the ability to perceive, recognize, and manipulate objects, to avoid obstacles and dangers, to choose foods appropriate for consumption, to read text, and to interpret facial expressions in social interactions. To support these visual functions, the primate brain captures a high-resolution image of the world in the retina and, through a series of intricate operations in the cerebral cortex, transforms this representation into a percept that reflects the physical characteristics of objects and surfaces in the environment. To construct a reliable and informative percept, the visual system discounts the influence of extraneous factors such as illumination, occlusions, and viewing conditions. This perceptual “invariance” can be thought of as the brain’s solution to an inverse inference problem in which the physical factors that gave rise to the retinal image are estimated. While the processes of perception and recognition seem fast and effortless, it is a challenging computational problem that involves a substantial proportion of the primate brain.

The Epistemological Promise of Externalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stroud
Keyword(s):  
Central Problem ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Epistemological Problem ◽  
Perceptual Illusions ◽  
The World

This chapter discusses the promise of an ‘externalist’ or ‘anti-individualist’ account of the contents of the thoughts and beliefs that one must have even to be faced with the challenging problem associated with ‘externalist’ definitions of the concept of knowledge. It first considers the central problem for philosophy since the time of Socrates: to understand the role of sense-experience in human knowledge, and to see whether or how we can know what we do about the world on the basis of what we perceive to be so. It suggests that threatening reflections about sense perception start from the undeniable fact of perceptual illusions or mistakes. It also examines efforts that have been made to define the concept of knowledge and concludes by explaining how externalism can be helpful in the diagnosis and dissolution of the traditional epistemological problem.

Pluralism and the Universality of Rights

1998 ◽  
pp. 46-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Jörg Sandkühler
Keyword(s):  
Central Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Legal Grounds

The problem of the coexistence of cultures arises inside modern societies that have a constitutional set-up expressed by 'pluralism.' Their central problem lies in the relationship between individuality and sociality, freedom and order. The function of law is to transform absolute pluralism into a relative pluralism limited by fundamental common interests, thus overcoming the problems that arise from the variety of different views of the world and from different values. In the context of H. Kelsen's Reine Rechtlehre, we ask: 1. Do pre-positive legal grounds exist that can claim to have universal validity under the conditions of pluralism? 2. Can the demand for pre-positive principles of law be compatible with renouncing particular material assertions of values on which no agreement can be reached and replacing them with the universally valid formal principles demanded in pluralistic democracies?

scholarly journals Tong-il: some observations on a central problem in the psychology of religion

1975 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 175-188
Author(s):  
Hjalmar Sundén
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Psychology Of Religion ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Higher Dimension ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
The Way

Tong-il is the Korean title of a movement known in the West as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, or the Union Church. God has formed Tong-il as an instrument of purification and renewal, bringing a new truth telling all men about the purpose of life, the responsibility of man, the way to establish a world of brotherhood and love and make the world into one family. This truth will raise Christianity to a higher dimension and give it the power and zeal which it needs to achieve God's purpose at the time of the second Advent. Tong-il works to renew Christianity, but its ultimate goal is to unite all religions, with its founder as a centre.

scholarly journals C. Linnaeus' ideas concerning retribution and fate

1967 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 179-182
Author(s):  
K. Wikman
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Religious Attitude ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
The World ◽  
Divine Order

Linnæus' Nemesis divina has been interpreted in different ways. Crucial is its central problem: the ideas of fate and retribution, but these are, in turn, dependent on Linnæus' conception of God and nature and not least on his opinions concerning the unity and coherence of the natural and ethical order of the world. From whatever sources Linnæus may have derived his religious ideas and whatever changes they may have undergone, his religious attitude in face of the works of nature remained unshaken. But Linnæus' religion, as we find it fragmentarily in these literary sources, was entirely undogmatic, untheological and, from a Christian point of view, even heterodox. Partly, this was in accord with his belief in the necessary immanent coherence in the processes of nature and the concomitant idea of the righteous divine order of the world.

Content: wide and narrow

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kent Bach
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Mental States ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Turn On ◽  
External Relations ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrow Content

A central problem in philosophy is to explain, in a way consistent with their causal efficacy, how mental states can represent states of affairs in the world. Consider, for example, that wanting water and thinking there is some in the tap can lead one to turn on the tap. The contents of these mental states pertain to things in the world (water and the tap), and yet it would seem that their causal efficacy should depend solely on their internal characteristics, not on their external relations. That is, a person could be in just those states and those states could play just the same psychological roles, even if there were no water or tap for them to refer to. However, certain arguments, based on some imaginative thought experiments, have persuaded many philosophers that thought contents do depend on external factors, both physical and social. A tempting solution to this dilemma has been to suppose that there are two kinds of content, wide and narrow. Wide content comprises the referential relations that mental states bear to things and their properties. Narrow content comprises the determinants of psychological role. Philosophers have debated whether both notions of content are viable and, if so, how they are connected.

Historiography, Sources and Epistemology

2018 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Finn Fuglestad
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
African History ◽  
World Outlook ◽  
The World

Apart from a discussion of the voluminous historiography (due in part to the fascination with the reputedly despotic and tyrannical Dahomey), this chapter addresses the central problem of the abundant but biased – because mainly European – sources. The second problem the chapter addresses is how to write African history with an inadequate Eurocentric conceptual framework, but the only one available so far. Finally, it looks at how the focus on Dahomey has resulted in a somewhat imbalanced historiography. A problem apart is constituted by the oral traditions; in many cases they serve as propaganda, but they provide valuable information about the world outlook, beliefs and fabric of the relevant societies.

Necessity and Unfittingness in Anselm's Cur Deus Homo

1987 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Root
Keyword(s):  
Central Problem ◽  
Anselm Of Canterbury ◽  
The World ◽  
Cur Deus Homo

In his Cur Deus Homo Anselm of Canterbury immediately tells the reader the question he is seeking to answer. The first chapter of the first book is entitled: ‘The central problem governing the entire work’ [Questio de qua totum opuspendet 47.4 (49)]. In the first speech of this chapter, the problem is succinctly stated:I mean the following problem: For what reason and on the basis of what necessity [qua scilicet ratione vel necessitate] did God become a man and by His death restore life to the world (as we believe and confess), seeing that He could have accomplished this restoration either by means of some other persons (whether angelic or human) or else by merely willing it? [48.2–5 (49)].

scholarly journals The world is complex, not just noisy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romain Brette
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Model ◽  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Inference Problem ◽  
The Real ◽  
The World

To deny that human perception is optimal is not to claim that it is suboptimal. Rahnev & Denison point out that optimality is often ill-defined. The fundamental issue is framing perception as a statistical inference problem. Outside the lab, the real perceptual challenge is to determine the lawful structure of the world, not variables of a predetermined statistical model.

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