Causal Status as a Determinant of Feature Centrality

2000 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Woo-kyoung Ahn ◽  
Nancy S. Kim ◽  
Mary E. Lassaline ◽  
Martin J. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Causal Status ◽  
Feature Centrality

The Non-Causal Character of Renormalization Group Explanations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Renormalization Group ◽  
Dynamical Systems ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Mathematical Explanation ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Structural Aspects

After reviewing some of the recent literature on non-causal and mathematical explanation, this chapter develops an argument as to why renormalization group (RG) methods should be seen as providing non-causal, yet physical, information about certain kinds of systems/phenomena. The argument centres on the structural character of RG explanations and the relationship between RG and probability theory. These features are crucial for the claim that the non-causal status of RG explanations involves something different from simply ignoring or “averaging over” microphysical details—the kind of explanations common to statistical mechanics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of RG in treating dynamical systems and how that role exemplifies the structural aspects of RG explanations which in turn exemplifies the non-causal features.

Second-Order Backward Blocking and Unovershadowing in Human Causal Learning

2002 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan De Houwer ◽  
Tom Beckers
Keyword(s):  
Higher Order ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
First Order ◽  
Human Causal Learning ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Causal Status

Abstract. De Houwer and Beckers (in press , Experiment 1) recently demonstrated that ratings about the relation between a target cue T2 and an outcome are higher when training involves CT1+ and T1T2+ followed by C+ trials than when training involves CT1+ and T1T2+ followed by C- trials. We replicated this study but now explicitly asked participants to rate the causal status of the cues both before and after the C+ or C- trials. Results showed that causal ratings for T2 were significantly higher after C+ trials than before C+ trials and that T2 received significantly lower ratings after C- trials than before C- trials. The results thus provide the first evidence for higher-order unovershadowing and higher-order backward blocking. In addition, the ratings for T1 revealed that first-order backward blocking (i.e., decrease in ratings for T1 as the result of C+ trials) was stronger than first-order unovershadowing (i.e., increase in ratings for T1 as the result of C- trials).

The causal status of emotions in consciousness

2000 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-216
Author(s):  
Jason T. Ramsay ◽  
Marc D. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Appraisal ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Cognition And Emotion ◽  
Causal Status

Rolls demonstrates how reward/punishment systems are key mediators of cognitive appraisal, and this suggests a fundamental, causal role for emotion in thought and behaviour. However, this causal role for emotion seems to drop out of Rolls's model of consciousness, to be replaced by the old idea that emotion is essentially epiphenomenal. We suggest a modification to Rolls's model in which cognition and emotion activate each other reciprocally, both in appraisal and consciousness, thus allowing emotion to maintain its causal status where it matters most.

On relativity of time and the causal status of consciousness

1993 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-405
Author(s):  
Ali Habibi ◽  
Michael S. Bendele
Keyword(s):  
Causal Status

The Anthropology of Misfortune and Cognitive Science. Examples from the Ivory Coast Senufo

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Alice Sindzingre
Keyword(s):  
Ivory Coast ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Adequate Description ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Traditional Societies

The ArgumentThis paper applies the approach developed by the congnitive sciences to a classical field of social anthropology—i.e., the analysis of represetations and behaviors relative to misfortune in “traditional” societies.The initial argument is that the conceptual division and the modes of description and explanation of anthropology suffer from serious weaknesses: these concepts cannot serve to understand empirical phenomena (utterances and/or behavior); they rely on a confused and erroneous conception of the different domains involved and the causalities between them; and they use simplistic hypotheses about the existence and causal status of the entities that usually form the ultima ratio of anthropological reasoning (e.g., lineage organization, ancestors, witchcraft, etc.). These entities would directly “cause” other individual representations or behaviors. This simplification also affects the analysis of states of belief in these entities, to which individuals would supposedly “adhere”.I argue here that the cognitivist approach, within a “methodological individualism” framework, provides a more adequate description of phenomena observed in the field. This enables the various levels and domains to be more finely defined. The analysis of “typical” utterances and inferences in a “tranditional” society, the Senufo of the Ivory Coast, is here used to clarify these anthropological problems. Two levels can be distinguished: (1) a priori representations, which are underdetermined, enabling them to occur within valid inferences; (2) perception and/or action, which obeys different cognitive constraints. The existential status of unobservable entities appearing in causal inferences is not equivalent (“symmetrical”) depending on whether they are determined as antecedent or consequent.This paper suggests a theory of interpretive processes and beliefs having flexible references, because they are incomplete and domain-specific. It allows a comparison with facts observed in Western societies. It is also in contrast to the ordinary conception of religious states of belief — i.e., these states would be purely psychological, states of “adherence,” collective, autonomous, obligatory, part of a systemized set of knowledge; collective notions (of God, church, etc.) would here logically precede individual representations.

scholarly journals Inferential Internalism and the Causal Status Effect

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-445
Author(s):  
Nicholas Danne ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Inductive Inference ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
External World ◽  
Logical Probability ◽  
Status Effect ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Complex Features ◽  
Inferential Internalism ◽  
Richard Fumerton

To justify inductive inference and vanquish classical skepticisms about human memory, external world realism, etc., Richard Fumerton proposes his “inferential internalism,” an epistemology whereby humans ‘see’ by Russellian acquaintance Keynesian probable relations (PRs) between propositions. PRs are a priori necessary relations of logical probability, akin to but not reducible to logical entailments, such that perceiving a PR between one’s evidence E and proposition P of unknown truth value justifies rational belief in P to an objective degree. A recent critic of inferential internalism is Alan Rhoda, who questions its psychological plausibility. Rhoda argues that in order to see necessary relations between propositions E and P, one would need acquaintance with too many propositions at once, since our evidence E is often complex. In this paper, I criticize Rhoda’s implausibility objection as too quick. Referencing the causal status effect (CSE) from psychology, I argue that some of the complex features of evidence E contribute to our type-categorizing it as E-type, and thus we do not need to ‘see’ all of the complex features when we see the PR between E and P. My argument leaves unchanged Fumerton’s justificatory role for the PR, but enhances its psychological plausibility.

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