Digression on States, Dispositions, Causation, Processes

Abstract

In this chapter we will sketch how the theory of belief and inference developed in chapters 3 and 4 might be supplemented by stating formal definitions for the basic terms that have been left undefined, or that have been defined only on an informal level: among those are ‘(mental) states’, ‘occurrent states’ and ‘dispositional states’, ‘being disposed to change to’, ‘being disposed to remain in’, ‘belief states’, and finally ‘(mental) processes’. This chapter is thus a kind of ontological addendum. Before we can give the definitions, we have to reconsider some of our assumptions on the cognitive agent A, and we have to add some new ones.KeywordsCentral StateImplication SignPerceptual SystemState BeliefPerceptual StateThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.