BulTreeBank

HPSG-based annotation including: constituent structure, dependency relations, named entities (classified as person, organisation, location or other names), coreferential relations. Annotation in XM

MIT-Related - Course notes: 24.810 "Topics in Philosophy of Science," [ 2 folders] Spring, 1987

For more information about this item, visit https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/19066

Intuitions and Experimental Philosophy

This thesis aims to defend the use of intuitions and intuition-based philosophy in light of the recent negative conclusions from the field of experimental philosophy. First, an account of intuitions and intuition-based philosophy will be given that is continuous with four questions from past conceptions of intuitions regarding their features and uses. The four questions are drawn from analyses of intuitions in Kant and in Aristotle (Chapter 2). The questions are concerned with whether intuition is best understood as (1) a special faculty, or a product of some faculty or capacity; (2) an immediate and noncognitive episode, or a more mediate and reflected-upon episode of understanding and competence; (3) a particular judgment only, or a generalizable judgment; (4) only correct in light of an appropriate level of expertise, or with a minimal level of competence. Following this, analogies will be made to the sciences and scientific method (Chapter 3), and to linguistic intuitions (Chapter 4), which will bring the four previous questions into contemporary understanding of intuitions and intuition use in standard philosophical methodology. Chapter 3 will focus more on the third and fourth points, while Chapter 4 will focus more on the first and second points. The science analogy will benefit from a more recent account of philosophical intuitions provided by George Bealer (1998), as well as from considerations of reflective equilibrium’s role in the third point, and a discussion on moral and more general expertise in light of the fourth point. Chapter 4 will then focus on a contemporary account of philosophical intuitions by Jaakko Hintikka (1999), drawing on the analogy with linguistics and providing a negative foil from which to argue against. Chapter 4 will also benefit from discussion on experimental psychology’s insights and confusions in their subject of 'intuitional thinking', which will be contrasted with a more philosophical account of intuitions and reflective thinking drawing from Robert Audi (1996). Both chapters 3 and 4 will end with a recapitulation of the two-part features of each of the four questions from Chapter 2 in light of the contemporary discussions and respective analogies. Chapter 5 will introduce thought experiments as one of the best tools of intuition-based philosophy that makes use of a four-model taxonomy from Roy Sorensen (1992). The tripartite movement of experimental philosophy will be then be introduced, with a review of one of the first papers of the movement: Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich’s (2001) 'Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions.' Criticisms and response will follow, based on the preliminary conclusions drawn by the divergences in intuitions across cultural and socio-economic divisions, as well as a criticism of the survey methodology employed by most experimental philosophers. Finally, the expertise defense from the armchairists will be made, in light of question 4 from Chapter 2, that also faces criticisms from the Experimental Restrictivists who attack intuition-based philosophy. With a broadened understanding of the prevalence of intuition in contemporary philosophy as provided in chapters 3 and 4, the attack will be seen as either premature, or as still allowing for progressive philosophical inquiry in the other camps of Experimental Descriptivism and Analysis

Classification-based phrase structure grammar: an extended revised version of HPSG

This thesis is concerned with a presentation of Classification -based Phrase Structure Grammar (or cPSG), a grammatical theory that has grown out of extensive revisions of, and extensions to, HPSG. The fundamental difference between this theory and HPSG concerns the central role that classification plays in the grammar: the grammar classifies strings, according to their feature structure descriptions, as being of various types. Apart from the role of classification, the theory bears a close resemblance to HPSG, though it is by no means a direct translation, including numerous revisions and extensions. A central goal in the development of the theory has been its computational implementation, which is included in the thesis.The presentation may be divided into four parts. In the first, chapters 1 and 2, we present the grammatical formalism within which the theory is stated. This consists of a development of the notion of a classificatory system (chapter 1), and the incorporation of hierarchality into that notion (chapter 2).The second part concerns syntactic issues. Chapter 3 revises the HPSG treatment of specifiers, complements and adjuncts, incorporating ideas that specifiers and complements should be distinguished and presenting a treatment of adjuncts whereby the head is selected for by the adjunct. Chapter 4 presents several options for an account of unbounded dependencies. The accounts are based loosely on that of GPSG, and a reconstruction of GPSG's Foot Feature Principle is presented which does not involve a notion of default. Chapter 5 discusses coordination, employing an extension of Rounds- Kasper logic to allow a treatment of cross -categorial coordination.In the third part, chapters 6, 7 and 8, we turn to semantic issues. We begin (Chapter 6) with a discussion of Situation Theory, the background semantic theory, attempting to establish a precise and coherent version of the theory within which to work. Chapter 7 presents the bulk of the treatment of semantics, and can be seen as an extensive revision of the HPSG treatment of semantics. The aim is to provide a semantic treatment which is faithful to the version of Situation Theory presented in Chapter 6. Chapter 8 deals with quantification, discussing the nature of quantification in Situation Theory before presenting a treatment of quantification in CPSG. Some residual questions about the semantics of coordinated noun phrases are also addressed in this chapter.The final part, Chapter 9, concerns the actual computational implementation of the theory. A parsing algorithm based on hierarchical classification is presented, along with four strategies that might be adopted given that algorithm. Also discussed are some implementation details. A concluding chapter summarises the arguments of the thesis and outlines some avenues for future research

‘The Power of Naming’ : Co-option in Fine Art practice

At every possible level, from undergraduate study to postgraduate research and teaching, art school practitioners working in the field of fine art have to negotiate the relationship between theory and practice. This practice-led research project involves an investigatory journey in which I explore the terrains of 'interest' that have opened up, stimulated, and then informed, my studio and exhibition practices since I was an undergraduate art student. It is a journey that plots a shift from illustrative to poetic forms of creative practice. My central concern has been to understand how these theoretical terrains of interest interact with the practical production of artworks whilst remaining separate, self-sufficient entities. As a result, my aim has been to produce a doctoral submission in which the exhibition of artworks has an equivalent role to the thesis. In practice-led research neither should be subservient to the other. My thesis proposes that the most persuasive way to respond to my topic is through an exploration of the indexical sign (as defined by C. S. Peirce) and the power of naming (as described in Michel Foucault‘s critique of the scientific systems of classification, resemblance, signs and signatures). My chapters explore, firstly, my interests in natural history classification and the political interpretations that critique the history of these systems and ideas; secondly, my interests in the forensic theories that notice the physical signs at a crime scene and then interpret them as indicators of criminal intentions; and lastly, my interest in the productive conflict created through the juxtaposition of poetic artworks and forensic titles, a combination that either ignores or celebrates the indexical nature of my studio techniques. A period of living and working in Japan, where I studied the martial art of Kendo, was responsible for transforming my fascination with lists and glossaries into an interest in the creative tension between waza and keiko, ii between rigorous technique and intuitive freedom. The conclusion of my research journey applies a range of ideas about, and methodological engagements with, the power of naming to the realm of practice-led research which is, for this researcher, situated on the shadowy side of the poetics of exhibition reception