Equipped with the ultimate query answering system, computers would finally be in a position to address all our information needs in a natural way. In this paper, we describe how Language and Computing nv (L&C), a developer of ontology-based natural language understanding systems for the healthcare domain, is working towards the ultimate Question Answering (QA) System for healthcare workers. L&C’s company strategy in this area is to design in a step-by-step fashion the essential components of such a system, each component (...) being designed to solve some one part of the total problem and at the same time reflect well-defined needs on the prat of our customers. We compare our strategy with the research roadmap proposed by the Question Answering Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), paying special attention to the role of ontology. (shrink)

A complete reconstruction of Lehmer’s ENIAC set-up for computing the exponents of p modulo two is given. This program served as an early test program for the ENIAC (1946). The reconstruction illustrates the difficulties of early programmers to find a way between a man operated and a machine operated computation. These difficulties concern both the content level (the algorithm) and the formal level (the logic of sequencing operations).

Bundel filosofische voordrachten over de object-kenmerken van voorwerpen van esthetisch welgevallen.

This book explores the various views on language and its relation to philosophy in the Platonic tradition by examening the reception of Plato’s Cratylus in antiquity in general, and the commentary of the Neoplatonist Proclus in particular.

This book puts the hymns by the Neoplatonist Proclus in the context of his philosophy and offers a detailed commentary together with a new translation of them.

A vast stream of empirical work has revealed that coach and athlete leadership are important determinants of sport teams’ functioning and performance. Although coaches have a direct impact on individual and team outcomes, they should also strive to stimulate athletes to take up leadership roles in a qualitative manner. Yet, the relation between coach leadership behavior and the extent of high-quality athlete leadership within teams remains underexposed. Based on organizational justice theory and the social identity approach, the present research tested (...) whether perceived justice of the coach positively predicts the quality of athlete leadership. Furthermore, we examined the role of group dynamic processes within this relation. Belgian volleyball and basketball players were asked to rate the justice of their coach, their team identification, the task cohesion, and the athlete leadership quality in the team. Structural equation modeling indicated that coaches’ perceived justice positively predicted the quality of athletes’ leadership, and that this relation was established through three intermediate steps. These results suggest that fair coach behavior does not only bridge the gap between leadership and followership, it also has the potential to improve the quality of athletes’ leadership within sport teams. More specifically, findings suggest that coaches’ perceived justice cultivates a shared social identity characterized by high levels of players’ identification with their team, which in turn increased their perceptions of the team’s task cohesion. Finally, this increased task cohesion encouraged the athlete leaders to demonstrate high-quality leadership. (shrink)

A complete reconstruction of Lehmer’s ENIAC set-up for computing the exponents of p modulo two is given. This program served as an early test program for the ENIAC (1946). The reconstruction illustrates the difficulties of early programmers to find a way between a man operated and a machine operated computation. These difficulties concern both the content level (the algorithm) and the formal level (the logic of sequencing operations).

Periods of relatively stable, rule‐like behavior alternated with short transition periods characterize cognitive development on reasoning tasks like the balance scale task. Each transition gives rise to an improvement in behavior, until a phase is reached in which performance is flawless or improvement is not worthwhile given the necessary extra effort. Several computational models have been developed to capture the developmental phenomena associated with the balance scale task. These models, which originate from different computational traditions, explain the main phenomena of (...) development. Recently, empirical phenomena have been reported that these models cannot easily accommodate. We propose a computational model that is implemented in ACT‐R and that is based on the evaluation of success of applied knowledge, combined with a mechanism to construct newknowledge by searching for differences between the left‐ and right‐hand sides of presented balance scale problems. This model accounts for the main empirical phenomena as well as for the recently reported empirical phenomena such as learning without feedback. (shrink)

A history of writing the history of computing is presented in its relationship to the history of mathematics. As with many historiographies, the initial history of computing was very much an internalistic history. In the late 1970s, the field became more serious and started looking at the histories of mathematics and technology for (methodological) inspiration. Whereas the history of mathematics was initially quite influential, it is the history of technology (in its U.S. form) that has become the dominant framework for (...) doing history of computing since the 1990s. (shrink)

Stimulating responsible conduct of research is considered important within universities and research organizations. In this contribution, we investigated if there are gender differences regarding three aspects: students’ attitudes towards integrity related issues, self-reported misconduct, and suspicions of misconduct and willingness to report fellow students. A questionnaire was sent to 1266 first year starting master students in the life sciences. Male students were significantly more likely to report not doing their fair share in group work and putting their name on work (...) without checking it. No significant differences were found regarding attitude and suspecting and reporting other students. (shrink)

Toen de jonge Duitse natuurkundige Werner Heisenberg in 1925 ontdekte dat het gedrag van deeltjes op atomair niveau onbepaalbaar is, ontketende hij een wetenschappelijke revolutie die het moderne wereldbeeld op zijn kop zette. Tot het moment van Heisenbergs ontdekking dachten wetenschappers dat alles meetbaar was en leek het een kwestie van tijd voordat de mens de natuur geheel en al zou hebben doorgrond. Met de quantumfysica, waarvoor Heisenberg de grondslag legde, kwam aan dit optimisme een abrupt einde. Er bleek een (...) kloof te gapen tussen onze waarneming en de dynamiek waar alles uit voortkomt.00In?Quantum, de oerknal en God? onderneemt Maarten van Buuren een filosofische verkenning van de consequenties van Werner Heisenbergs ontdekking. Dat brengt Van Buuren tot een nieuw inzicht over de oorsprong van de dingen.?God is Natuur? stelde Baruch Spinoza in de 17e eeuw, maar met de opkomst van de moderne natuurkunde in de 18e en 19e eeuw raakte de natuur haar goddelijke status kwijt. Volgens Van Buuren keert God dankzij de quantumfysica terug als alomvattende kiemkracht in de Natuur. Het idee dat alle natuurprocessen gehoorzamen aan de wet van afkoeling en verval moet volgens hem worden herzien. Aan afkoeling en verval gaat een dynamische impuls vooraf waaruit alle dingen ontstaan en die de energie levert voor alles wat groeit en bloeit.?Vormkracht? is de motor van het universum.0. (shrink)

Central to many discussions of motivated reasoning is the idea that it runs afoul of epistemic normativity. Reasoning differently about information supporting our prior beliefs versus information contradicting those beliefs, is frequently equated with motivated irrationality. By analyzing the normative status of belief polarization, selective scrutiny, biased assimilation and the myside bias, I show this inference is often not adequately supported. Contrary to what’s often assumed, these phenomena need not indicate motivated irrationality, even though they are instances of belief-consistent information (...) processing. Second, I engage with arguments purporting to show that belief-consistent information processing does not indicate motivated irrationality because of its mere differential treatment of confirming and non-confirming evidence, but rather because it reveals the undermining presence of an irrelevant influence, such as a desire or partisan identity-driven cognition. While linking belief-consistent reasoning to a deeper source of directional motivation to make good on the claim that it indicates motivated irrationality is indeed what’s needed, two prominent such arguments fail. The non-normativity of many reasoning processes often taken to indicate motivated irrationality is not in fact well established. (shrink)

In dit artikel wordt de dominante metafysische oriëntatie in de hedendaagse meta-ethiek kritisch onder de loep genomen. Het hedendaagse debat, dat zich voornamelijk richt op de vraag hoe moraliteit metafysisch gezien 'in de werkelijkheid past', wordt gekenmerkt door een reeks complexe en soms esoterische discussies die, zo wordt betoogd, weinig bijdragen aan ons filosofische begrip van ethiek. Deze focus op metafysische grondslagen heeft geleid tot een tunnelvisie, waarin het debat gevangen zit tussen steeds ingewikkeldere vormen van non-cognitivisme, herconceptualisaties van 'objectiviteit' (...) en metafysische acrobatiek. Als alternatief wordt voorgesteld de aandacht in de meta-ethiek te verleggen naar het domein van praktisch redeneren. Door ons te concentreren op de patronen van geldige praktische argumentatie en het soort overwegingen dat mensen daadwerkelijk overtuigt, kunnen we wellicht een beter inzicht krijgen in de aard van ethische normativiteit en de rol ervan in ons leven. Het artikel pleit voor een meer pragmatische en minder metafysisch beladen benadering van de meta-ethiek, die zich richt op de daadwerkelijke praktijken van moreel redeneren en argumenteren. (shrink)

Van Vugt, van der Velde, and collaborators show how cognitive architectures can implement verbal theories of psychiatric problems. They show how one theory of depressive rumination can be implemented in the ACT‐R cognitive architecture by changing the contents of its simulated memory. These manipulations of memory habits lead the model to show impairments in a sustained attention task‐‐a plausible impairment given that people who suffer from depression have concentration complaints.

Essays over filosofen die als vertegenwoordigers van de deugdenethiek kunnen gelden.

It is argued that, contrary to prevailing opinion, Bas van Fraassen nowhere uses the argument from underdetermination in his argument for constructive empiricism. It is explained that van Fraassen’s use of the notion of empirical equivalence in The Scientific Image has been widely misunderstood. A reconstruction of the main arguments for constructive empiricism is offered, showing how the passages that have been taken to be part of an appeal to the argument from underdetermination should actually be interpreted.

Partisan epistemology – individuals granting greater credibility to co-partisan sources in evaluating information – is often taken to be evidence of directionally motivated reasoning in which concerns about group membership override concerns about accuracy. Against this dominant view, I outline a novel accuracy-based account of this mode of reasoning. According to this account, partisan epistemology stems from the inference that co-partisans are more likely to be right as they have superior epistemic access to the relevant facts and seek to realize (...) the correct values. I argue that this theory fits better with relevant findings than motivated-reasoning theories of partisan epistemology. Finally, I suggest it has adequate explanatory power vis-à-vis patterns of misinformation belief. (shrink)

The debate on whether and why misinformation is bad primarily focuses on the spread of false beliefs as its main harm. From the assumption that misinformation primarily causes harm through the spread of false beliefs as a starting point, it has been contended that the problem of misinformation has been exaggerated. Its tendency to generate false beliefs appears to be limited. However, the near-exclusive focus on whether or not misinformation dupes people with false beliefs neglects other epistemic harms associated with (...) it. Specifically, I show that misinformation also causes trouble for the epistemic goods of truth attainment, intellectual autonomy and debate pluriformity. Moreover, for each of these goods, I argue that emphasizing error-avoidance exacerbates, rather than mitigates, the harms caused by misinformation. These oversights and dilemmas show that prioritizing error-avoidance in the fight against misinformation is not a neutral default policy or necessarily a net positive. A shift in focus away from the spread of false beliefs as the main harm of misinformation is needed to better understand and counter its negative effects. (shrink)

In vice epistemology, bad epistemic outcomes, such as maintaining false beliefs, are interpreted as indicators of blameworthy irrationality. Conversely, a growing trend in philosophical psychology advocates for environmentalist explanations, suggesting these outcomes emerge because rational cognitive processes of faultless individuals falter due to polluted environmental inputs. Building on concrete examples, I first offer a systematic analysis of the relative explanatory merits of that environmentalist project. I then use this analysis to advance the rationality debate, which has recently been identified as (...) stagnating due to an observational equivalence between environmentalist and vice accounts. Although the conceptual imprecision of vice epistemology has frequently been critiqued, the framework developed here reveals that environmentalism is (also) unable to meet various theoretical desiderata. I show why this is so and argue that, to make progress, environmentalism needs a more substantive conception of epistemic rationality. To this end, I propose that a closer engagement with questions of cognitive agency – how rational creatures can “make up” their minds about what to believe – could enable the necessary progress. (shrink)

We study several modal languages in which some (sets of) generalized quantifiers can be represented; the main language we consider is suitable for defining any first order definable quantifier, but we also consider a sublanguage thereof, as well as a language for dealing with the modal counterparts of some higher order quantifiers. These languages are studied both from a modal logic perspective and from a quantifier perspective. Thus the issues addressed include normal forms, expressive power, completeness both of modal systems (...) and of systems in the quantifier tradition, complexity as well as syntactic characterizations of special semantic constraints. Throughout the paper several techniques current in the theory of generalized quantifiers are used to obtain results in modal logic, and conversely. (shrink)

There are indications that the interpersonal affective factor and the social deviation factor, both of which are underlying dimensions of psychopathy, have a positive and a negative relationship, respectively, with executive functioning. However, this is seldom taken into consideration in the research on the relationship between executive functioning and psychopathy, which may be an explanation for the many inconsistent results in this area as reported in the literature (e.g., Rogers, 2006). In the present study, executive functioning was studied using the (...) Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in 53 inpatients of a Dutch forensic psychiatric clinic who were classified by means of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Special attention was given to the relationship between the two separate factors and executive functioning. Age, educational level, and substance abuse were controlled for in the analysis. No difference was found between psychopathic (N = 17) and nonpsychopathic (N = 36) patients in the WCST scoring categories, nor was there a significant difference in the four diagnostic subgroups defined by the two factors. However, the trends observed do justify further study in this direction. (shrink)

Genomineerd voor de Socratesbeker 2024. De mens is irrationeel. Verliefd op zijn eigen gelijk. Doof voor feiten argumenten. Verblind door honderden denkfouten. Een makkelijke prooi voor nepnieuws. Gevangen in filterbubbels. Zo is het heersende idee. Maar klopt het wel? In dit boek verweeft filosoof Maarten van Doorn de jongste inzichten uit de psychologie, communicatiewetenschappen, filosofie en politicologie. Hij neemt ons mee op een reis langs verrassende onderzoeksresultaten en scherpzinnige filosofen en geeft nieuwe antwoorden op dringende vragen: Waarom geloven we (...) wat we geloven? Hoe veranderen mensen van mening? Zijn we echt in een post-truth tijdperk aanbeland? Hoe gevaarlijk is misinformatie? Zijn onze emoties of onze ratio de baas in ons hoofd en in onze maatschappij? Waarom we beter denken dan we denken biedt een hoopvol geluid in een gepolariseerde wereld. (shrink)

Criteria for the evaluation of most scholars’ work have recently received wider attention due to high-profile cases of scientific misconduct which are perceived to be linked to these criteria. However, in the competition for career advancement and funding opportunities almost all scholars are subjected to the same criteria. Therefore these evaluation criteria act as ‘switchmen’, determining the tracks along which scholarly work is pushed by the dynamic interplay of interests of both scholars and their institutions. Currently one of the most (...) important criteria is the impact of publications. In this research, the extent to which publish or perish, a long standing evaluation criterion, led to scientific misconduct is examined briefly. After this the strive for high impact publications will be examined, firstly by identifying the period in which this became an important evaluation criterion, secondly by looking at variables contributing to the impact of scholarly papers by means of a non-structured literature study, and lastly by combining these data into a quantitative analysis. (shrink)

Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people’s morality in terms of general moral values –such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. (...) Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people’s concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality’s influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision. (shrink)

Recent years saw the rise of an interest in the roles and significance of thought experiments in different areas of human thinking. Heisenberg's gamma ray microscope is no doubt one of the most famous examples of a thought experiment in physics. Nevertheless, this particular thought experiment has not received much detailed attention in the philosophical literature on thought experiments up to date, maybe because of its often claimed inadequacies. In this paper, I try to do two things: to provide an (...) interesting interpretation of the roles played by Heisenberg's gamma ray microscope in interpreting quantum mechanics – partly based on Thomas Kuhn’s views on the function of thought experiments – and to contribute to the ongoing discussions on the roles and significance of thought experiments in physics. (shrink)

How Galileo Galilei discovered the law of fall, and the difference that this makes Galileo’s law of fall is one of the crucial building blocks of classical mechanics. The question how this law was discovered has often been a topic of debate. This article offers a reconstruction of the developments within Galileo’s research that led to the discovery of the law. This reconstruction is offered to make a philosophical point regarding the epistemic status of experimental results: Galileo’s experiments can offer (...) sufficient justification for the acceptance of the law of fall only because of their place in a broad research programme. (shrink)

Despite technological innovations, clinical expertise remains the cornerstone of psychiatry. A clinical expert does not only have general textbook knowledge, but is sensitive to what is demanded for the individual patient in a particular situation. A method that can do justice to the subjective and situation-specific nature of clinical expertise is ethnography. Effective deep brain stimulation (DBS) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves an interpretive, evaluative process of optimizing stimulation parameters, which makes it an interesting case to study clinical expertise. The (...) aim of this study is to explore the role of clinical expertise through an ethnography of the particular case of DBS optimization in OCD. In line with the topic of the special issue this article is a part of, we will also use our findings to reflect on ethnography as a method to study complex phenomena like clinical expertise. This ethnography of DBS optimization is based on 18 months of participant observation and nine in-depth interviews with a team of expert clinicians who have been treating over 80 OCD patients since 2005. By repeatedly observing particular situations for an extended period of time, we found that there are recurrent patterns in the ways clinicians interact with patients. These patterns of clinical practice shape the possibilities clinicians have for making sense of DBS-induced changes in patients’ lived experience and behavior. Collective established patterns of clinical practice are dynamic and change under the influence of individual learning experiences in particular situations, opening up new possibilities and challenges. We conclude that patterns of clinical practice and particular situations are mutually constitutive. Ethnography is ideally suited to bring this relation into view thanks to its broad temporal scope and focus on the life-world. Based on our findings, we argue that clinical expertise not only implies skillful engagement with a concrete situation but also with the patterns of clinical practice that shape what is possible in this specific situation. Given this constraining and enabling role of practices, it is important to investigate them in order to find ways to improve diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities. (shrink)

Galileo proposed what has been called a proto-inertial principle, according to which a body un horizontal motion will conserve its motion. This statement is only true in counterfactual circumstances where no impediments are present. This paper analyzes how Galileo could have been justified in ascribing definite properties to this idealized motion. This analysis is then used to better understand the relation of Galileo’s proto-inertial principle to the classical inertial principle.

I show why Michael Friedman’s idea that we should view new constitutive frameworks introduced in paradigm change as members of a convergent series introduces an uncomfortable tension in his views. It cannot be justified on realist grounds, as this would compromise his Kantian perspective, but his own appeal to a Kantian regulative ideal of reason cannot do the job either. I then explain a way to make better sense of the rationality of paradigm change on what I take to be (...) Friedman’s own terms. (shrink)

The parameters governing our behavior are in constant flux. Accurately capturing these dynamics in cognitive models poses a challenge to modelers. Here, we demonstrate a mapping of ACT-R's declarative memory onto the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA), a mathematical model describing a competition between evidence accumulation processes. We show that this mapping provides a method for inferring individual ACT-R parameters without requiring the modeler to build and fit an entire ACT-R model. Existing parameter estimation methods for the LBA can be used, (...) instead of the computationally expensive parameter sweeps that are traditionally done. We conduct a parameter recovery study to confirm that the LBA can recover ACT-R parameters from simulated data. Then, as a proof of concept, we use the LBA to estimate ACT-R parameters from an empirical dataset. The resulting parameter estimates provide a cognitively meaningful explanation for observed differences in behavior over time and between individuals. In addition, we find that the mapping between ACT-R and LBA lends a more concrete interpretation to ACT-R's latency factor parameter, namely as a measure of response caution. This work contributes to a growing movement towards integrating formal modeling approaches in cognitive science. (shrink)

Route memory is frequently assessed in virtual environments. These environments can be presented in a fully controlled manner and are easy to use. Yet they lack the physical involvement that participants have when navigating real environments. For some aspects of route memory this may result in reduced performance in virtual environments. We assessed route memory performance in four different environments: real, virtual, virtual with directional information (compass), and hybrid. In the hybrid environment, participants walked the route outside on an open (...) field, while all route information (i.e., path, landmarks) was shown simultaneously on a handheld tablet computer. Results indicate that performance in the real life environment was better than in the virtual conditions for tasks relying on survey knowledge, like pointing to start and end point, and map drawing. Performance in the hybrid condition however, hardly differed from real life performance. Performance in the virtual environment did not benefit from directional information. Given these findings, the hybrid condition may offer the best of both worlds: the performance level is comparable to that of real life for route memory, yet it offers full control of visual input during route learning. (shrink)

In dit artikel betwist ik het gangbare idee dat de rede ontoereikend is voor morele motivatie, met name in relatie tot universele ethische kwesties. Door een uitgebreide verkenning van de Dual-Process Theory (DPT) stel ik dat onze morele intuïties zowel trainbaar zijn als een inherente neiging hebben naar universalistische overwegingen. Ik betoog dat sociale rechtvaardiging en de drang naar rationele argumentatie een cruciale rol spelen in het vormen en veranderen van onze morele standpunten. Concluderend pleit ik voor een herwaardering van (...) klassiek moreel redeneren en stel ik dat een universele ethiek psychologisch realistischer is dan eerder werd aangenomen. (shrink)

The concept of impetus denoted the transmission of a power from the mover to the object moved. Many authors resorted to this concept to explain why a projectile keeps on moving when no longer in contact with its initial mover. But its application went further, as impetus was also appealed to in attempts to explain the acceleration of falling bodies or the motion of the heavens. It was widely applied in Renaissance natural philosophy, but it also raised a number of (...) ontological questions concerning its precise nature. (shrink)

We introduce the question whether there are specific kinds of writing modalities and practices that facilitated the development of modern science and mathematics. We point out the importance and uniqueness of symbolic writing, which allowed early modern thinkers to formulate a new kind of questions about mathematical structure, rather than to merely exploit this structure for solving particular problems. In a very similar vein, the novel focus on abstract structural relations allowed for creative conceptual extensions in natural philosophy during the (...) scientific revolution. These preliminary reflections are meant to set the stage for the following contributions in this volume. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge Paolo Palmieri’s reading of the Mach-Vailati debate on Archimedes’s proof of the law of the lever. I argue that the actual import of the debate concerns the possible epistemic (as opposed to merely pragmatic) role of mathematical arguments in empirical physics, and that construed in this light Vailati carries the upper hand. This claim is defended by showing that Archimedes’s proof of the law of the lever is not a way of appealing to a non-empirical (...) source of information, but a way of explicating the mathematical structure that can represent the empirical information at our disposal in the most general way. (shrink)

The introduction of laws of nature is often seen as one of the hallmarks of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. The new sciences are thought to have introduced the revolutionary idea that explanations of natural phenomena have to be grounded in exceptionless regularities of universal scope, i. e. laws of nature. The use of legal terminology to talk about natural regularities has a longer history, though. This article traces these earlier uses.