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’.

Using Timed Automata for a Priori Warnings and Planning for Timed Declarative Process Models

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (01) ◽  
pp. 1440003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Maria Maggi ◽  
Michael Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Timed Automata ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Resource Planning ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Modeling Languages ◽  
Temporal Constraints ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Extended Version ◽  
Cpn Tools

Many processes are characterized by high variability, making traditional process modeling languages cumbersome or even impossible to be used for their description. This is especially true in cooperative environments relying heavily on human knowledge. Declarative languages, like Declare, alleviate this issue by not describing what to do step-by-step but by defining a set of constraints between actions that must not be violated during the process execution. Furthermore, in modern cooperative business, time is of utmost importance. Therefore, declarative process models should be able to take this dimension into consideration. Timed Declare has already previously been introduced to monitor temporal constraints at runtime, but it has until now only been possible to provide an alert when a constraint has already been violated without the possibility of foreseeing and avoiding such violations. In this paper, we introduce an extended version of Timed Declare with a formal timed semantics for the entire language. The semantics degenerates to the untimed semantics in the expected way. We also introduce a translation to timed automata, which allows us to detect inconsistencies in models prior to execution and to early detect that a certain task is time sensitive. This means that either the task cannot be executed after a deadline (or before a latency), or that constraints are violated unless it is executed before (or after) a certain time. This makes it possible to use declarative process models to provide a priori guidance instead of just a posteriori detecting that an execution is invalid. We also outline how a Declare model with time can be used in resource planning and how Declare has been integrated into CPN Tools.

scholarly journals Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind and the Understanding of Human Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Magdalena Wasik
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Gregory Bateson ◽  
Ecology Of Mind ◽  
The World ◽  
Living Species ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

<p>Departing from the biological notion of ecology that pertains to mutual relationships between organisms and their environments, this paper discusses theoretical foundations of research on the nature of human mind in relation to knowledge, cognition and communication conducted in a broader context of social sciences. It exposes the view, explicitly formulated by Gregory Bateson, that the mind is the way in which ideas are created, or just the systemic device for transmitting information in the world of all living species. In consequence, some crucial points of Bateson’s reasoning are accentuated, such as the recognition of the biological unity of organism and environment, the conviction of the necessity to study the ecology in terms of the economics of energy and material and/or the economy of information, the belief that consciousness distorts information coming to the organism from the inside and outside, which is the cause of its functional disadaptation, and the like. The conception of the ecology of an overall mind, as the sets of ideas, notions or thoughts in the whole world, is presented against the background of theoretical and empirical achievements of botany and zoology, anthropology, ethology and psychiatry, sociology and communication studies in connection with the development of cybernetics, systems theory and information theory.</p>

Hegels Philosophie des Geistes

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-86
Author(s):  
Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Philosophie Des Geistes ◽  
Object Level ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

In order to understand Hegel’s form of philosophical reflection in general, we must read his ‘speculative’ sentences about spirit and nature, rationality and reason, the mind and its embodiment as general remarks about conceptual topics in topographical overviews about our ways of talking about ourselves in the world. The resulting attitude to traditional metaphysics gets ambivalent in view of the insight that Aristotle’s prima philosophia is knowledge of human knowledge, developed in meta-scientific reflections on notions like ‘nature’ and ‘essence’, ‘reality’ (or ‘being’) and ‘truth’, about ‘powers’ and ‘faculties’ – and does not lead by itself to an object-level theory about spiritual things like the soul. We therefore cannot just replace critical metaphysics of the human mind by empirical investigation of human behaviour as empiricist approaches to human cognition in naturalized epistemologies do and neuro-physiological explanations propose. Making transcendental forms and material presuppositions of conceptually informed perception and experience explicit needs some understanding of figurative forms of speech in our logical reflections and leads to other forms of knowledge than empirical observation and theory formation.

Green, Thomas Hill (1836–82)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
The World ◽  
Positive Liberty ◽  
The Individual

Green was a prominent Oxford idealist philosopher, who criticized both the epistemological and ethical implications of the dominant empiricist and utilitarian theories of the time. He contended that experience could not be explained merely as the product of sensations acting on the human mind. Like Kant, Green argued that knowledge presupposes certain a priori categories, such as substance, causation, space and time, which enable us to structure our understanding of empirical reality. Physical objects and even the most simple feelings are only intelligible as relations of ideas constituted by human consciousness. However, unlike Kant, he did not draw the conclusion that things in themselves are consequently unknowable. Rather, he argued that reality itself is ultimately spiritual, the product of an eternal consciousness operating within both the world and human reason. Green adopted a similarly anti-naturalist and holistic position in ethics, in which desires are seen as orientated towards the realization of the good – both within the individual and in society at large. In politics, this led him to criticize the laissez-faire individualist liberalism of Herbert Spencer and, to a lesser extent, of J.S. Mill, and to advocate a more collectivist liberalism in which the state seeks to promote the positive liberty of its members.

Bonaventure (c.1217–74)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Kent
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Higher Purpose

Bonaventure (John of Fidanza) developed a synthesis of philosophy and theology in which Neoplatonic doctrines are transformed by a Christian framework. Though often remembered for his denunciations of Aristotle, Bonaventure’s thought includes some Aristotelian elements. His criticisms of Aristotle were motivated chiefly by his concern that various colleagues, more impressed by Aristotle’s work than they had reason to be, were philosophizing with the blindness of pagans instead of the wisdom of Christians. To Bonaventure, the ultimate goal of human life is happiness, and happiness comes from union with God in the afterlife. If one forgets this goal when philosophizing, the higher purpose of the discipline is frustrated. Philosophical studies can indeed help in attaining happiness, but only if pursued with humility and as part of a morally upright life. In the grander scheme of things, the ascent of the heart is more important than the ascent of the mind. Bonaventure’s later works consistently emphasize that all creation emanates from, reflects and returns to its source. Because the meaning of human life can be understood only from this wider perspective, the general aim is to show an integrated whole hierarchically ordered to God. The structure and symbolism favoured by Bonaventure reflect mystical elements as well. The world, no less than a book, reveals its creator: all visible things represent a higher reality. The theologian must use symbols to reveal this deeper meaning. He must teach especially of Christ, through whom God creates everything that exists and who is the sole medium by which we can return to our creator. Bonaventure’s theory of illumination aims to account for the certitude of human knowledge. He argues that there can be no certain knowledge unless the knower is infallible and what is known cannot change. Because the human mind cannot be entirely infallible through its own power, it needs the cooperation of God, even as it needs God as the source of immutable truths. Sense experience does not suffice, for it cannot reveal that what is true could not possibly be otherwise; so, in Bonaventure’s view, the human mind attains certainty about the world only when it understands it in light of the ‘eternal reasons’ or divine ideas. This illumination from God, while necessary for certainty, ordinarily proceeds without a person’s being conscious of it.

scholarly journals The place of metaphysics in the science-religion debate

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniël P. Veldsman
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Conversation Partner

Metaphysics has no place in the science-religion discourses (or dialogues) if understood as an a priori universal content of the nature and causes of all things. From an overview of the positive and negative dimensions and challenges of the contemporary science-religion discourses within each conversation partner itself and between the two, it is argued that metaphysical reflection represents a contextual-linguistic event that ‘takes place’ only after the contextual giveness is taken up within a very concrete historical-linguistic frame of reference for sense making. In a metaphoric sense, it is conclusively compared with the movements of atoms of which we can only state afterwards where the atoms have been. In this sense, McGrath’s remark that ‘(m)etaphysics is not the precondition of any engagement with the world, but its inferred consequence’ is supported. The ‘was’ of metaphysical thinking represents the emergent product of the concrete and specific lifeworlds in which they have ‘taken place’, that is, ‘eventuated’. The ‘was’ of metaphysical reflection is the most powerful (a posteriori) event of credofication (i.e. understanding life in terms of convictions of faith) for human beings in living, making sense of and participating empathically in the question ‘why there is something rather than nothing?’.

Berkeley on God

2021 ◽  
pp. 219-236
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Daniel
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
The World ◽  
Finite Minds

Berkeley’s use of a posteriori arguments supports a view of God that is accessible and persuasive for finite minds. However, those arguments ultimately support belief only in a God who is finite. This chapter shows how, by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. This does not undermine other arguments, for it does not aim to challenge how those arguments support belief in a God who accounts for all we experience. It only indicates that another kind of argument is needed to show how our knowledge of the existence of an infinite God does not depend a posteriori on our experience of things in the world.

A priori and a posteriori geological mapping. The geological maps of the world by Ami Boué (1843) and Jules Marcou (1861)—the Australasian aspects

2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-258
Author(s):  
David Oldroyd
Keyword(s):  
Analogical Reasoning ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Geological Mapping ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Geological Maps ◽  
Field Investigations ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Mapping ◽  
Work Done

The paper describes and discusses the work done in producing the first geological maps of the world—by Ami Boué (1843) and Jules Marcou (1861)—and their later editions. Boué had a remarkably wide knowledge of geology through his own field investigations and his vast knowledge of the geological literature. The same may be said of Marcou. But their approaches to ‘global mapping’ were very different. Boué was greatly influenced by Élie de Beaumont and also the idea that geographical knowledge could in itself facilitate the formulation of geological hypotheses and make possible producing geological maps for areas that had not yet been examined by geologists. He did, however, also make use, where possible, of written reports of areas that he had not visited. He described his work as a priori mapping, with the use of analogical reasoning. Marcou's geological mapping likewise drew on his extremely extensive field experience and geological reading, but he did not colour in the parts of the globe for which he lacked any information. Coming eighteen years after Boué, there was inevitably more information available to Marcou. Their two efforts, procedures and results are examined for Australia and New Zealand, which neither of them ever visited. An attempt is made to identify the sources that each of them might have used. The paper provides reproductions of the maps that Boué and Marcou produced, and discusses the successes and failures of their enterprises.

scholarly journals Spiritual and moral values: an anthropological study of the duty and desire categories

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 ◽  
pp. 01008
Author(s):  
Elena A. Shtekhman ◽  
Yuliya A. Melnik ◽  
Alina V. Biyakaeva ◽  
Anna V. Baskakova ◽  
Olga V. Shkurko
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

The article is devoted to the study of phenomena, such as duty and desire. These phenomena are interpreted in different ways within the framework of various philosophical trends, starting from antiquity and ending with modernity. The authors emphasize the lack of consensus in the philosophical and scientific community in the interpretation of these categories. Thus, R. Descartes believed that the phenomenon of debt arose in the human mind under the influence of social conditions. On the contrary, I. Kant and C. Cordner argued that duty was a priori concept not associated with practice and life. In turn, L.Yu. Nikolaeva understood duty as the basis for forming the national-cultural ideal. Plato explained the phenomenon of desire by the imperfection of a human, whereas Aristotle understood desire as the product of a pleasant sensation. In turn, Spinoza argued that desire was an individual form of cognition of the world. Descartes and J. Locke believed that desire was a need for something that was not currently available. In general, the categories of duty and desire were clearly distinguished. Most philosophers consider duty as a characteristic of the social being of the individual, whereas desire is considered to be an empirical category, i.e., generated by the sensory experience of the individual. However, it is necessary not only to study these concepts more deeply but also to reveal their role in forming spiritual and moral values.

Chapter I: The Aim, and the Method of Treatment

1980 ◽  
Vol 25 (S1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
Richard Albert Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Adequate Treatment ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Philosophical Writings

But that same Where (Space), with its brother When (Time), are from the first the master-colours of our Dream-Grotto; the Canvas (the warp and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and Life-Visions are painted.—CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus, 1830.When Kant in his investigation of the nature and validity of human knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) undertook an examination of the nature of Space and Time as the starting point in the discussion, he struck the path which all fruitful philosophical investigation has followed since. Since Space and Time are the two ‘forms’ within which the whole system of life and nature unfolds itself to the human mind, and are at the same time the ‘warp and woof on which man elaborates his mental sense-picture of the world, an examination of these two sense-forms should be the self-evident starting point in any true cosmic philosophy. Yet it seems to have taken something more than a century for the full significance of Kant’s method to sink into the general philosophical consciousness, and it is only in our own time that its fruits have begun to mature. What strikes one in the philosophical writings of the present century, whether starting from mathematics, or science, or pure speculation, is the common assumption in all of them that some exposition of Space and Time must form the foundation of any adequate treatment of the nature of the world, the human mind, and the structure of human knowledge. The title of Professor Alexander’s book, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), is symbolic of the modern point of view.

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