Ontological Relativity and Other Essays

Psychology as a Moral Science: Perspectives on Normativity

This article combines findings from cognitive psychology on the role of processing fluency in truth judgments with epistemological theory on justification of belief. We first review evidence that repeated exposure to a statement increases the subjective ease with which that statement is processed. This increased processing fluency, in turn, increases the probability that the statement is judged to be true. The basic question discussed here is whether the use of processing fluency as a cue to truth is epistemically justified. In the present analysis, based on Bayes’ Theorem, we adopt the reliable-process account of justification presented by Goldman (1986) and show that fluency is a reliable cue to truth, under the assumption that the majority of statements one has been exposed to are true. In the final section, we broaden the scope of this analysis and discuss how processing fluency as a potentially universal cue to judged truth may contribute to cultural differences in commonsense beliefs.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13164-010-0039-7.pdf

The Epistemic Status of Processing Fluency as Source for Judgments of Truth

The purpose of the present article is to strengthen the conceptualisation of the principle of selection in theories of economic evolution and to help clarify a number of unsettled issues regarding the meaning of variety and continuity. In order to achieve this, the emerging general mathematical selection theory is introduced to identify the requirements of a general principle of selection and the specification of variety and continuity that follows from it. It is indicated how general selection theory can help advance evolutionary theories of economic change by clarifying the meaning of selection, and the possible role of habits and routines in economic selection.

background

General selection theory and economic evolution: The Price equation and the replicator/interactor distinction

There has been a long-standing interest in the relationship between specific language impairment (SLI) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the last decade Tager-Flusberg and colleagues have proposed that this relationship consists of a partial overlap between the two. Therefore, among children with ASD there exists a subgroup who have SLI and ASD which has been called 'ALI'. Tager-Flusberg's laboratory has presented several papers showing similar language profiles and brain structure abnormalities in both SLI and ALI. Others (Bishop, Whitehouse, Botting, Williams) have been less convinced that these ALI children have both ASD and SLI. Although they generally agree that the two groups are grossly similar, careful inspection of the data shows that there are differences. I will argue that many of the problems in this debate stem from a view of SLI that represents a particular kind of language learner and therefore a particular and unique profile can be assumed. I argue for recognizing that SLI is not likely to be a unique kind of language learner. Many of the features reported to be characteristic of SLI are also found in other forms of neurodevelopmental disorders. Other features are the outgrowth of studying clinically identified children with SLI and thus the profile appears to reflect biases and practices in the clinical service system. As a result it may be more reasonable to conclude that there is a large group of children with ASD who have poor language skills. The question then remains why are there so many children with ASD who also have poor language? There are several factors that collectively are strong candidates for answers to this question.

Co-morbidity of autism and SLI: kinds, kin and complexity.

The philosophical discipline of Ontology is evolving towards an engineering discipline, and in this evolution the need for a principled methodology has clearly arisen. In this paper, we briefly discuss our recent work towards developing a methodology for ontology-based model engineering. This methodology builds on previous methodology efforts, and is founded on important analytic notions that have been drawn from Philosophy and adapted to Engineering: identity, unity, rigidity, and dependence. We demonstrate how these techniques can be used to analyze properties, which clarifies many misconceptions about taxonomies and helps bring substantial order to ontologies.

Ontological Relativity and Other Essays

Citations

Psychology as a Moral Science: Perspectives on Normativity

The Epistemic Status of Processing Fluency as Source for Judgments of Truth

General selection theory and economic evolution: The Price equation and the replicator/interactor distinction

Co-morbidity of autism and SLI: kinds, kin and complexity.

Towards a methodology for ontology based model engineering

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