The hierarchies of knowledge and the mathematics of discovery

Rather than attempting to characterize a relation of confirmation between evidence and theory, epistemology might better consider which methods of forming conjectures from evidence, or of altering beliefs in the light of evidence, are most reliable for getting to the truth. A logical framework for such a study was constructed in the early 1960s by E. Mark Gold and Hilary Putnam. This essay describes some of the results that have been obtained in that framework and their significance for philosophy of science, artificial intelligence, and for normative epistemology when truth is relative.I am indebted to Kevin Kelly for several years of happy conversation from which the perspective and views of this paper grew, for comments on a draft of the paper, and for constructing some of the illustrations. A fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation provided the liberty to write this paper. It was first presented in the Turing Colloquium, 1990.     

Type IV culture or,is it possible to define a framework for universal creativity?

ABSTRACT

The radical limit of post-anthropocentric creativity is a mode of completely nonhuman creative endeavour. Yet, the anthropocentrism prevails and conceptions of radically different civilisations and cultures are defined by current human thought that shapes and limits the understanding of what a genuinely alternative cultural production might entail. This article uses the Kardashev scale of civilisations, classified according to energy consumption at the planetary, stellar and galactic scales to consider culture beyond the current limits of an inherently anthropocentric perspective. In considering microdimensional, informational and universal extensions of Kardashev's scale, critical reflections on the anthropocentric limits of cultural epistemology create an opportunity to posit a universal framework of creativity.     

Tuning the Sonic Playing Field: Teaching Ways of Knowing Sound in First Year Writing

In recent years there has been a call within composition to include sound, among other modes, such as word and image in writing. Some of this call relies on a movement to multimodal composition in order to capture both the richness of rhetorical possibility and the reality of communities of practice, and some is in response to a perceived shift in writing due to digital media tools and environments. Regardless of the impetus for including the auditory realm in the composition classroom, it is important for the field of composition and rhetoric to develop further pedagogies of sound so that students are not simply offered the opportunity to produce diverse texts, but instead, are invited to enter “the playing field.” In order to do this I first explore an approach to teaching auditory rhetoric based on ways of knowing sound from an acoustics and musicology perspective, then I consider a phenomenological approach based on listening, and finally I construct a model of “tuning the sonic playing field” that draws on the literal, material practice of tuning as a metaphor for how sound may be taught in composition. The “tuning” approach to teaching sound draws on attention, embodiment, listening, and negotiation. Rather than simply offering students opportunities to use sound in rhetorically sensitive ways, this final approach asks instructors to become “attuned” to how different auditory epistemologies influence students’ ability to design and compose in sound.     

知识的性质和确定性的根源——对葛梯尔问题的另一种解答

当代西方知识论在知识的确定性问题上无法摆脱循环论证的根源,在于它们引入了“事实”这一概念。文章从探讨知识命题内涵的形式特征入手来寻找知识确定性的可能和依据,并得出结论:知识的确定性并不必须依赖一个本体论的承诺,知识是对在人的具体实践活动中的客观存在之间的某种必然联系的揭示。     

佛教的生命哲学——以《大乘百法明门论》为中心研究

佛教学说是一个博大精深、具有浓厚神秘主义色彩的理论体系,它所包涵的内容极为丰富复杂,但从它的基本出发点和精神实质来看,佛教的思想核心中最为根本的就是它的生命哲学:从生生灭灭、生生死死不稳定痛苦的觉受里头,教我们对这种生命的体验里头看清生命存在的实相,从而觉悟、断除烦恼,脱离出生死苦海。本文以《大乘百法明门论》为我们示现通达生命实相的具体实践修行法门贯穿着古典认识论来探讨佛教的生命哲学。     

Transformations in cognitive science: Implications and issues posed.

Cognitive science currently offers models of cognition that depart substantively from those of information processing models and classical artificial intelligence, while it embraces methods of inquiry that include case-based, ethnographic, and philosophical methods. To illustrate, five overlapping approaches that constitute departures from classical representational cognitive science are briefly discussed in this paper: dynamical cognition, situated cognition, embodied cognition, extended mind theory, and integrative cognition. Critical responses to these efforts from members of the self-proclaimed cognitive science orthodoxy are also summarized. The paper then discusses ethical and epistemological implications arising from the “new” cognitive science and from critical responses to it and considers the broader importance of this literature for theoretical and philosophical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

水电开发再认识的方法论——认识水电本质是实现水电开发的基础

我国经济体制发生了变化,对水电开发的指导思想,理论基础等也应重新审视,进一步深入研究;否则,将导致片面强调水电的发电量,忽视水电的特殊性－－“有水有电,没水没电”,使径流式水电站开发过多,电网运行困难,而不适当地强调水电的运行灵活,不考虑水电调峰的代价,将使水电运行环境恶化;如果没有适当的经济政策,水电运行灵活,启停迅速,无污染,可循环使用等优势不能使投资商获得财务收益,大力发展水电只能是一句口号。为此,我们应重新认识水电的本质。     

AI and the Conquest of Complexity in Law

The paper identifies some of the problems with legal systems and outlines the potential of AI technology for overcoming them. For expository purposes, this outline is based on a simplified epistemology of the primary functions of law. Social and philosophical impediments from the side of the legal community to taking advantage of the potential of this technology are discussed and strategic recommendations are given. What is possible is not independent of what we believe to be possible. The possibilities of such developments in the practical world depends upon their being grasped imaginatively by the people who make the practical world work. Neil MacCormick (1993, p.18)