Vasubandhu’s argument against atomism in the twenty verses

THIS PAPER WILL conduct a critical investigation of the famous argument against atomism first made by the 4th century CE Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu in his idealist treatise Vim. ´satik¯a Vij ˜naptim¯atrat ¯asiddhi (The Twenty Verses of Mind-Only). Although the present exposition will be more conceptual than historical in focus, it will first unfold the Abhidharmic Buddhist precursors of the Mind–Only epistemology. With the necessary background in place, I shall then attempt a rational reconstruction of the substance of Vasubandhu’s argument against atomism, rendering it intelligible to the modern reader by transposing it into contemporary philosophical idiom. Finally, I will employ the analysis of atomism and the external world in the Mind–Only school as a point of departure from which to further probe closely related concerns of Buddhist transcendental philosophy having to do with the nature of empirical knowledge, the power of skeptical argument, and the status of apperception. ...Die vorliegende Arbeit behandelt das Argument gegen den Atomismus aus den Vim´satik¯a Vij˜naptim¯atrat ¯asiddhi (Zwanzig Versen des Nur-Geistes), einer erkenntnistheoretischen Abhandlung des spätantiken indischen Philosophen Vasubandhu. Unter Atomismus wird hierbei durchgehend die Lehre vom Aufbau der Welt aus kleinsten, nicht weiter zerlegbaren Wirklichkeitsbestandteilen verstanden, wie sie im Altertum in verschiedentlicher Form von griechischen wie auch von indischen Weltanschauungslehren vertreten wurde. ..

Uncertainty Measures in Ordered Information System Based on Approximation Operators

This paper focuses on constructing uncertainty measures by the pure rough set approach in ordered information system. Four types of definitions of lower and upper approximations and corresponding uncertainty measurement concepts including accuracy, roughness, approximation quality, approximation accuracy, dependency degree, and importance degree are investigated. Theoretical analysis indicates that all the four types can be used to evaluate the uncertainty in ordered information system, especially that we find that the essence of the first type and the third type is the same. To interpret and help understand the approach, experiments about real-life data sets have been conducted to test the four types of uncertainty measures. From the results obtained, it can be shown that these uncertainty measures can surely measure the uncertainty in ordered information system

The Problem of Causal/Explanatory Exclusion

The problem of mental causation, at least in one of its most basic forms, is how to reconcile two plausible but potentially incompatible intuitions. The first intuition is that the mind makes a difference in the world. For example, I am writing this paragraph for certain reasons, and before long I will stop to eat something because of certain desires for food. Seemingly, these reasons and desires play a role in what happens. The second intuition is that the physical world is causally complete, so everything that happens is the result of the movement of physical particles. For example, the neural turbulence in my head seems to be the actual cause of my hands fluttering across the keyboard in certain ways, whilst certain muscle contractions in my arms cause the food to enter my mouth. What room is there for the mind to play a causal role when everything seems to happen because of the movement of physical particles? For some time reductive physicalism was the prevailing solution to the problem of mental causation (Place, 1956; Feigl, 1958; Smart, 1959). Reductive physicalism posits a reductive identity of the mental to the physical. In so doing, it endorses physical causal completeness, but achieves mental causation as well, since the mental is identical with the causally efficacious physical. In the nineteen seventies, nonreductive physicalism replaced reductive physicalism as the predominant solution to the problem of mental causation in the nineteen seventies. Nonreductive physicalism solves the problem of mental causation by agreeing that the physical is causally complete, but achieves mental causation as well by supposing that the mental supervenes upon the physical, and thus inherits the causal power of the physical. In recent years this nonreductive consensus has been threatened. This is partially due to an argument that has been distilled from Jaegwon Kim’s principle of causal/explanatory exclusion. One part of this compound principle is the principle of causal exclusion, which states that there can be no more than a single sufficient cause for any given event (Kim, 2005, p. 42). This principle of causal exclusion creates the following problem: the nonreductive physicalist endorses the causal completeness of the physical, and so she agrees that there is a sufficient physical cause for any given event. The nonreductive physicalist also avoids making a reductive identity between the mental and the physical, so she agrees that the mental is distinct from the physical. Therefore, if a given event has a complete physical cause, and the mental cause is distinct from this complete physical cause, then this supervening mental cause must be excluded. The physical cause does all of the work, so there is no work left over for the mental cause. In this dissertation I consider and respond to Jaegwon Kim’s principle of causal/explanatory exclusion. I conclude that the most promising response to the problem generated from causal exclusion is to endorse what I call structuralism. Structuralism construes mental states as mereological structures, or configurations, of parts. Macro structure plays a role in determining which micro properties its parts will and will not instantiate, so there is a genuine role for the mental to play. The micro properties that are instantiated, however, do all of the causal work, so causal completeness is secured as well. This is a nonreductive position, since the mereological structure of the parts is not identical with the parts themselves. This model avoids the causal exclusion problem by noting that mereological relations are non-causal determinative relations, so mental states can play an important determinative role without contributing any causal power beyond what the causally sufficient micro properties of the parts contribute. This solution to the problem of causal exclusion affords a solution to the parallel problem generated from the principle of explanatory exclusion as well. The principle of explanatory exclusion states that “there can be no more than a single complete and independent explanation for any one event” (Kim, 1988, p. 233). I resolve this difficulty by adopting a nuanced form of what is called the dual-explananda reply. Since the above reasoning suggests that mental states are distinct from physical events, we can conclude that mental explanations and physiological explanations do not refer to the same thing, so there is no exclusion pressure between the two explanations

Kant on Embodiment: Lessons from the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

My thesis offers an original reading of Kant’s theory of cognition and the body’s role in it. In the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant’s subject is shown to cognize, and be cognized, through embodied activity in the material world. I begin by demonstrating Kant’s rejection of all-mental accounts of cognition. Neglecting the body leads to the dissolution of subjects, objects, and any cognitive relation between them. I show that Kant provides an alternative account in terms of embodied activity, focusing on three cases. First, the unifying structures required for sense perception could not be applied without embodied activity. Second, empirical self-consciousness depends on embodied activity in relation to objects in space. Third, scientific knowledge is made possible only through bodily activity, which reveals the causal forces constituting matter. In all three cases, the body is shown to have an active role in determining experience. I then investigate the implications of my reading, providing a new interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism – the causally active body is a transcendental condition of experience. I show how this contrasts with not only traditional readings of Kantian cognition as conditioned entirely by the structures and activity of the mind, but also less traditional readings which ascribe a cognitive role to the body only by stripping away its material properties. Even many contemporary non-Kantian accounts distinguish between the mind which acts in cognition, and the body which only passively receives causal affects. Developed in tandem with a robust metaphysics of matter as endowed with causal activity, Kant’s account of the active body overcomes this mind-body distinction. Cognition is more thoroughly embodied than is commonly thought. I finish by sketching an approach to Kant’s account of life and freedom. I suggest that the transcendental status of the body in the theoretical realm paves the way towards a freely acting subject in the practical realm. Through casting the body as the actor in cognition, Kant provides the resources for a full characterization of the human subject.This thesis was supported by a scholarship from the Gates Cambridge Trust

Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described