Testimony and A Priori Knowledge

Episteme ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Casullo

ABSTRACTTyler Burge offers a theory of testimony that allows for the possibility of both testimonial a priori warrant and testimonial a priori knowledge. I uncover a tension in his account of the relationship between the two, and locate its source in the analogy that Burge draws between testimonial warrant and preservative memory. I contend that this analogy should be rejected, and offer a revision of Burge's theory that eliminates the tension. I conclude by assessing the impact of the revised theory on the scope of a priori knowledge.

Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Jianzhong Li ◽  
Xiaobo Gu ◽  
Ruidian Zhan ◽  
Xiaoming Xiong ◽  
Yuan Liu

In this paper, a direction of arrival (DOA) estimator is proposed to improve the cyber-physical interactions, which is based on the second-order statistics without a priori knowledge of the source number. The impact of noise will firstly be eliminated. Then the relationship between the processed covariance matrix and the steering matrix is studied. By applying the elementary column transformation, an oblique projector will be designed without the source number. At last, a rooting method will be adopted to estimate the DOAs with the constructed projector. Simulation results show that the proposed method performs as well as other methods, which requires that the source number must be known.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1052
Author(s):  
Jian Xu ◽  
Lanlan Rao ◽  
Franz Schreier ◽  
Dmitry S. Efremenko ◽  
Adrian Doicu ◽  
...  

In atmospheric science we are confronted with inverse problems arising in applications associated with retrievals of geophysical parameters. A nonlinear mapping from geophysical quantities (e.g., atmospheric properties) to spectral measurements can be represented by a forward model. An inversion often suffers from the lack of stability and its stabilization introduced by proper approaches, however, can be treated with sufficient generality. In principle, regularization can enforce uniqueness of the solution when additional information is incorporated into the inversion process. In this paper, we analyze different forms of the regularization matrix L in the framework of Tikhonov regularization: the identity matrix L0, discrete approximations of the first and second order derivative operators L1 and L2, respectively, and the Cholesky factor of the a priori profile covariance matrix LC. Each form of L has its intrinsic pro/cons and thus may lead to different performance of inverse algorithms. An extensive comparison of different matrices is conducted with two applications using synthetic data from airborne and satellite sensors: retrieving atmospheric temperature profiles from microwave spectral measurements, and deriving aerosol properties from near infrared spectral measurements. The regularized solution obtained with L0 possesses a reasonable magnitude, but its smoothness is not always assured. The retrieval using L1 and L2 produces a solution in favor of the smoothness, and the impact of the a priori knowledge is less critical on the retrieval using L1. The retrieval performance of LC is affected by the accuracy of the a priori knowledge.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 225-234
Author(s):  
April J. Chambers ◽  
Sarah Margerum ◽  
Mark S. Redfern ◽  
Rakié Cham

Slip and fall accidents are often listed among the leading generators of injuries. The goals of this study were to (1) describe the foot kinematics during unexpected slips, and (2) to compare the foot kinematics during gait in unexpected slippery environment and when warnings of slippery environments are provided. Five participants walked on dry and glycerol-contaminated floors, while varying the participant's a-priori knowledge of the floor's contaminant condition. Foot kinematics were recorded at 500 Hz from 5 Optotrak LEDs placed on the slipping foot. In unexpected slips, all participants slipped and fell, whereas under the warning conditions, all participants slipped and recovered. Foot kinematics were affected by the warning conditions. More specifically, the heel's vertical velocity just prior to impact and foot-floor angle at heel contact decreased in alert/known slippery environments compared to unexpected slips. Slip distances and velocities were greater in unexpected slips. Finally, the impact of recovery attempts on the heel's kinematics were evident earlier in stance when participants knew or suspected the floor was slippery. Thus, the a-priori perception of slippery surfaces affects the foot kinematics and outcome of slipping.


2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 441-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla. L. MacLean ◽  
C. A. Elizabeth Brimacombe ◽  
D. Stephen Lindsay

GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 85-98
Author(s):  
Idoko Peter

This research the impact of competitive quasi market on service delivery in Benue State University, Makurdi Nigeria. Both primary and secondary source of data and information were used for the study and questionnaire was used to extract information from the purposively selected respondents. The population for this study is one hundred and seventy three (173) administrative staff of Benue State University selected at random. The statistical tools employed was the classical ordinary least square (OLS) and the probability value of the estimates was used to tests hypotheses of the study. The result of the study indicates that a positive relationship exist between Competitive quasi marketing in Benue State University, Makurdi Nigeria (CQM) and Transparency in the service delivery (TRSP) and the relationship is statistically significant (p<0.05). Competitive quasi marketing (CQM) has a negative effect on Observe Competence in Benue State University, Makurdi Nigeria (OBCP) and the relationship is not statistically significant (p>0.05). Competitive quasi marketing (CQM) has a positive effect on Innovation in Benue State University, Makurdi Nigeria (INVO) and the relationship is statistically significant (p<0.05) and in line with a priori expectation. This means that a unit increases in Competitive quasi marketing (CQM) will result to a corresponding increase in innovation in Benue State University, Makurdi Nigeria (INVO) by a margin of 22.5%. It was concluded that government monopoly in the provision of certain types of services has greatly affected the quality of service experience in the institution. It was recommended among others that the stakeholders in the market has to be transparent so that the system will be productive to serve the society effectively


Author(s):  
Robert Audi

This book provides an overall theory of perception and an account of knowledge and justification concerning the physical, the abstract, and the normative. It has the rigor appropriate for professionals but explains its main points using concrete examples. It accounts for two important aspects of perception on which philosophers have said too little: its relevance to a priori knowledge—traditionally conceived as independent of perception—and its role in human action. Overall, the book provides a full-scale account of perception, presents a theory of the a priori, and explains how perception guides action. It also clarifies the relation between action and practical reasoning; the notion of rational action; and the relation between propositional and practical knowledge. Part One develops a theory of perception as experiential, representational, and causally connected with its objects: as a discriminative response to those objects, embodying phenomenally distinctive elements; and as yielding rich information that underlies human knowledge. Part Two presents a theory of self-evidence and the a priori. The theory is perceptualist in explicating the apprehension of a priori truths by articulating its parallels to perception. The theory unifies empirical and a priori knowledge by clarifying their reliable connections with their objects—connections many have thought impossible for a priori knowledge as about the abstract. Part Three explores how perception guides action; the relation between knowing how and knowing that; the nature of reasons for action; the role of inference in determining action; and the overall conditions for rational action.


Author(s):  
Donald C. Williams

This chapter begins with a systematic presentation of the doctrine of actualism. According to actualism, all that exists is actual, determinate, and of one way of being. There are no possible objects, nor is there any indeterminacy in the world. In addition, there are no ways of being. It is proposed that actual entities stand in three fundamental relations: mereological, spatiotemporal, and resemblance relations. These relations govern the fundamental entities. Each fundamental entity stands in parthood relations, spatiotemporal relations, and resemblance relations to other entities. The resulting picture is one that represents the world as a four-dimensional manifold of actual ‘qualitied contents’—upon which all else supervenes. It is then explained how actualism accounts for classes, quantity, number, causation, laws, a priori knowledge, necessity, and induction.


Author(s):  
Keith DeRose

In this chapter the contextualist Moorean account of how we know by ordinary standards that we are not brains in vats (BIVs) utilized in Chapter 1 is developed and defended, and the picture of knowledge and justification that emerges is explained. The account (a) is based on a double-safety picture of knowledge; (b) has it that our knowledge that we’re not BIVs is in an important way a priori; and (c) is knowledge that is easily obtained, without any need for fancy philosophical arguments to the effect that we’re not BIVs; and the account is one that (d) utilizes a conservative approach to epistemic justification. Special attention is devoted to defending the claim that we have a priori knowledge of the deeply contingent fact that we’re not BIVs, and to distinguishing this a prioritist account of this knowledge from the kind of “dogmatist” account prominently championed by James Pryor.


1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (22) ◽  
pp. 1930-1931 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Anguita ◽  
S. Rovetta ◽  
S. Ridella ◽  
R. Zunino

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