Les Lumières Écossaises et le roman philosophique de Descartes

The paper reconstructs the reception of Descartes's work by the Scottish Enlighteners, from Colin MacLaurin to Dugald Stewart. The Scots' image of Descartes was a byproduct of a scientific controversy; philosophical arguments were brought into the picture more as asides than as a primary focus of interest. As soon as the Cartesian physics withered away as a real alternative to Newtonian physics, only the philosophical arguments were left, with no memory of the context out of which they originated, and the focus of the discussion shifts from physics to the philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge

What makes Hume an External World Skeptic?

What would it take for Hume to be an external world skeptic? Is Hume\u27s position on knowledge sufficient to force him to deny that we can acquire knowledge of (non-logical) propositions about the external world? After all, Hume is extremely restrictive about what can be known because he requires knowledge to be immune to error. In this paper, I will argue that if Hume were a skeptic, then he must also deny a particular kind of view about what is immediately present to the mind. I will argue that direct realisms—views that maintain that mind-independent (i.e. ontologically distinct) things are immediately present to the mind—combine with Hume\u27s position on knowledge to entail the negation of skepticism. So, despite his position on knowledge, Hume could still consistently reject skepticism, if he were to endorse direct realism

Critical Foundations of the Contextual Theory of Mind

The contextual mind is found attested in various usages of the term complement, in the background of Kant. The difficulties of Kant's intuitionism are taken up through Quine, but referential opacity is resolved as semantic presence in lived context. A further critique of rationalist linguistics is developed from Jakobson, showing generic functions in thought supporting abstraction, binding and thereby semantic categories. Thus Bolzano's influential philosophy of mathematics and science gives way to a critical view of the ancient heritage acknowledged by Plato.\ud \u

Inquiry into the Utilitarian Tendencies in the Ethics of Miskawath

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On the possibility of Kant's answer to Hume : subjective necessity and objective validity

This thesis argues that Kant is able to maintain the distinctiveness of his position in opposition to Hume's naturalism (contrary to the arguments of R. A. Mall and L. W. Beck) without invoking premises which are question begging with regard to Hume's scepticism. The argument of Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, as presented in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, is considered in relation to the two sets of criticism that have been levelled at it from its publication up to the present day, both of which aim to demonstrate that synthetic a priori judgements are subjectively necessary but without objective validity. The first set of criticisms involves problems raised with regard to the status of transcendental arguments. The difficulties identified here (by B. Stroud, M. S. Gram, and others) are that the Deduction can either, at best, show that it is necessary for experience to be regarded in a certain way without demonstrating anything as to the nature of experience as such, or the argument is circular in that it begins by making assumptions regarding the nature of our experience. Alternatively, if the Deduction is taken to establish the objective nature of concepts via an analysis of the conditions under which it is possible for us to have some knowledge of ourselves, then incoherence is said to arise because this requires either an implausible reflective theory of consciousness (according to D. Henrich) or that we have knowledge of the subject-in-itself (as held by J. G. Fichte and other contemporaries of Kant). Through a consideration of both the historical and contemporary manifestations of these criticisms, the thesis advances an interpretation of the Deduction, with special attention paid to the role and nature of the subject, which does not fall prey to the alleged incoherence. As such, the thesis defends both the distinctiveness and legitimacy of transcendental philosophy

Image Segmentation methods for fine-grained OCR Document Layout Analysis

Digitization has changed history research. The materials are available, and online archives make it easier to find the correct information and speed up the search for information. The remaining challenge is how to use modern digital methods to analyze the text of historical documents in more detail. This is an active research topic in digital humanities and computer science areas. Document layout analysis is where computer vision object detection methods can be applied to historical documents to identify the document pages’ present objects (i.e., page elements). The recent development in deep learning based computer vision provides excellent tools for this purpose. However, most reviewed systems focus on coarse-grained methods, where only the high-level page elements are detected (e.g., text, figures, tables). Fine-grained detection methods are required to be able to analyze texts on a more detailed level; for example, footnotes and marginalia are distinguished from the body text to enable proper analysis. The thesis studies how image segmentation techniques can be used for fine-grained OCR document layout analysis. How to implement fine-grained page segmentation and region classification systems in practice, and what are the accuracy and the main challenges of such a system? The thesis includes implementing a layout analysis model that uses the instance segmentation method (Mask R-CNN). This implementation is compared against another existing layout analysis using the semantic segmentation method (U-net based P2PaLA implementation)

Hume's Incredible Demonstrations

Commentators have rightly focused on the reasons why Hume maintains that the conclusions of skeptical arguments cannot be believed, as well as on the role these arguments play in Hume’s justification of his account of the mind. Nevertheless, Hume’s interpreters should take more seriously the question of whether Hume holds that these arguments are demonstrations. Only if the arguments are demonstrations do they have the requisite status to prove Hume’s point—and justify his confidence—about the nature of the mind’s belief-generating faculties. In this paper, I treat Hume’s argument against the primary/secondary quality distinction as my case study, and I argue that it is intended by Hume to be a demonstration of a special variety

Applied Epistemology and Understanding in Information Studies

Introduction. Applied epistemology allows information studies to benefit from developments in philosophy. In information studies, epistemic concepts are rarely considered in detail. This paper offers a review of several epistemic concepts, focusing on understanding, as a call for further work in applied epistemology in information studies. Method. A hermeneutic literature review was conducted on epistemic concepts in information studies and philosophy. Relevant research was retrieved and reviewed iteratively as the research area was refined. Analysis. A conceptual analysis was conducted to determine the nature and relationships of the concepts surveyed, with an eye toward synthesizing conceptualizations of understanding and opening future research directions. Results. The epistemic aim of understanding is emerging as a key research frontier for information studies. Two modes of understanding (hermeneutic and epistemological) were brought into a common framework. Conclusions. Research on understanding in information studies will further naturalistic information research and provide coherence to several strands of philosophic thought