Empirical Intuition Research Articles

Automating physical intuition in nonlinear fiber optics with unsupervised dominant balance search.

Identifying the underlying processes that locally dominate physical interactions is the key to understanding nonlinear dynamics. Machine-learning techniques have recently been shown to be highly promising in automating the search for dominant physics, adding important insights that complement analytical methods and empirical intuition. Here we apply a fully unsupervised approach to the search for dominant balance during nonlinear and dispersive propagation in an optical fiber and show that we can algorithmically identify dominant interactions in cases of optical wavebreaking, soliton fission, dispersive wave generation, and Raman soliton emergence. We discuss how dominant balance manifests both in the temporal and spectral domains.

Свобода воли в ранней рецепции кантовской философии

Kant’s solution for the problem of freedom of the will rests on his transcendental idealism and its differentiation of appearances and things in themselves. Human beings, with their bodies and observable inner and outer activities, are objects of perception (empirical intuition) and therefore appearances. These are only the appearances of their noumenal selves. Human beings are determined by laws of nature in all their perceivable alterations which include all their actions, but their noumenal selves, not being in time, are not determined by the necessity of causal laws of nature, but can be determined by the moral law of their pure practical reason which they give to themselves. The actions of the will, observable volitions and external actions, can therefore, at the same time, be under the necessitating law of nature, i.e. be unfree, and, as appearances of the self-determination of their noumenal will (by fulfilling the demands of the moral law), be free. Two professors of Jena University, Ulrich and Schmid, accept part of Kant’s transcendental idealism but contend that the many transgressions of the moral law in human acting must have their noumenal reason in the agent’s intelligible character or in the intelligible substrate of nature. This theory is called “intelligible fatalism”.

Towards deep understanding of graph convolutional networks for relation extraction

Relation extraction aims at identifying semantic relations between pairs of named entities from unstructured texts and is considered an essential prerequisite for many downstream tasks in natural language processing (NLP). Owing to the ability in expressing complex relationships and interdependency, graph neural networks (GNNs) have been gradually used to solve the relation extraction problem and have achieved state-of-the-art results. However, the designs of GNN-based relation extraction methods are mostly based on empirical intuition, heuristic, and experimental trial-and-error. A clear understanding of why and how GNNs perform well in relation extraction tasks is lacking. In this study, we investigate three well-known GNN-based relation extraction models, CGCN, AGGCN, and SGCN, and aim to understand the underlying mechanisms of the extractions. In particular, we provide a visual analytic to reveal the dynamics of the models and provide insight into the function of intermediate convolutional layers. We determine that entities, particularly subjects and objects in them, are more important features than other words for relation extraction tasks. With various masking strategies, the significance of entity type to relation extraction is recognized. Then, from the perspective of the model architecture, we find that graph structure modeling and aggregation mechanisms in GCN do not significantly affect the performance improvement of GCN-based relation extraction models. The above findings are of great significance in promoting the development of GNNs. Based on these findings, an engineering oriented MLP-based GNN relation extraction model is proposed to achieve a comparable performance and greater efficiency.

Discovery of Graphene Growth Alloy Catalysts Using High-Throughput Machine Learning.

Despite today's commercial-scale graphene production using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the growth of high-quality single-layer graphene with controlled morphology and crystallinity remains challenging. Considerable effort is still spent on designing improved CVD catalysts for producing high-quality graphene. Conventionally, however, catalyst design has been pursued using empirical intuition or trial-and-error approaches. Here, we combine high-throughput density functional theory and machine learning to identify new prospective transition metal alloy catalysts that exhibit performance comparable to that of established graphene catalysts, such as Ni(111) and Cu(111). The alloys identified through this process generally consist of combinations of early- and late-transition metals, and a majority are alloys of Ni or Cu. Nevertheless, in many cases, these conventional catalyst metals are combined with unconventional partners, such as Zr, Hf, and Nb. The approach presented here therefore highlights an important new approach for identifying novel catalyst materials for the CVD growth of low-dimensional nanomaterials.

Space and Time as a Priori Forms of Human Intuition in Kant’s Epistemology

This work offers a concise exposition and critical appraisal of Kant's notion of space and time as a priori forms of human sensibility or intuition. He dwells on these issues in his Critique of Pure Reason, under the Transcendental Aesthetics section. Owing to the fact that Kant published two editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, both editions are being referenced. Letters A and B are used to denote the first and second edition respectively. Kant identifies the a priori forms of sensibility: space and time, which the mind contributes, to make experience possible. The reason is that an event cannot be experienced at all, unless it is recognized as being in ‘space’ and occurring in ‘time.’ Thus, the possibility of human experience is anchored on the spatiotemporal framework of empirical reality, which embraces both the experiences and their objects. Kant's most original contribution to philosophy is his "Copernican Revolution," in which he argues that it is the ‘representation’ that makes the object possible, and not the ‘object’ that makes the representation possible. With this he presents the human mind as an active originator of experience rather than just a passive recipient of perception. His opinion was that the rational structure of the mind reflected the rational structure of the world, even of ‘things-in-themselves.’ In other words, the operating system of the processor, by modern analogy, matched the operating system of reality. It follows from the way in which appearances are given to us that those things given in space and time must be unified in accordance with the categories, and since the ‘objects of experience’ are given to us in space and time, it follows that they must be unified in accordance with the categories. All representations are subject to the transcendental unity of apperception. Space and time, as forms of human sensible intuition, structure the manifold of appearance, since such a manifold can only occur in accordance with this form. But, space and time are represented by us not only as forms of sensible intuition, but also as intuitions themselves, and therefore as possessing a unity of the manifold of empirical intuition within them. This unity precedes all concepts, and it presupposes a synthesis which does not belong to the senses but through which all concepts of space and time first become possible. So the unity of space and time is explained in terms of the synthetic activity of the understanding. Space and time stand under the synthetic unity of apperception, and in so far as they are represented as unities they are themselves the product of the effect the understanding has upon sensibility, and are thus subject to the categories of human understanding.

A Unified Taylor Framework for Revisiting Attribution Methods

Attribution methods have been developed to understand the decision making process of machine learning models, especially deep neural networks, by assigning importance scores to individual features. Existing attribution methods often built upon empirical intuitions and heuristics. There still lacks a general and theoretical framework that not only can unify these attribution methods, but also theoretically reveal their rationales, fidelity, and limitations. To bridge the gap, in this paper, we propose a Taylor attribution framework and reformulate seven mainstream attribution methods into the framework. Based on reformulations, we analyze the attribution methods in terms of rationale, fidelity, and limitation. Moreover, We establish three principles for a good attribution in the Taylor attribution framework, i.e., low approximation error, correct contribution assignment, and unbiased baseline selection. Finally, we empirically validate the Taylor reformulations, and reveal a positive correlation between the attribution performance and the number of principles followed by the attribution method via benchmarking on real-world datasets.

Conocimiento puro y cálculo infinitesimal en el neokantismo de Hermann Cohen

En este trabajo nos proponemos analizar uno de los aspectos centrales de la filosofía de Hermann Cohen: la relación que su Lógica del conocimiento puro establece entre el pensar puro y el cálculo infinitesimal. Mostraremos que la interpretación coheniana del cálculo se orienta a fundamentar en el pensar puro todos los elementos que Kant distingue en la intuición empírica: tanto su materia (la sensación), como su forma (el tiempo y el espacio). De tal modo, mediante el cálculo infinitesimal, Cohen buscará dar cuenta del conocimiento sin recurrir a ninguna receptividad.

Cohen’sLogik der reinen Erkenntnisand Cassirer’sSubstanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff

AbstractThis paper compares Cohen’sLogic of Pure Knowledgeand Cassirer’sSubstance and Functionin order to evaluate how in these works Cohen and Cassirer go beyond the limits established by Kantian philosophy. In hisLogic, Cohen seeks to ground in pure thought all the elements which Kant distinguishes in empirical intuition: its matter (sensation) as well as its form (time and space). In this way, Cohen tries to provide an account of knowledge without appealing to any receptivity. In accordance with Cohen’s project of reformulating the Kantian theory of sensibility, Cassirer undertakes inSubstance and Functionthe task of developing an alternative doctrine of pure and empirical manifolds. But whereas Cohen analyzes the laws of pure thought, Cassirer aims to highlight the functional character of concepts in the development of modern mathematics and physics. I will discuss these two different approaches to the problems raised by Kantian philosophy and I will argue that Cassirer went further than Cohen in the project of critical idealism.

Rethinking Sellars’ Myth of the Given: From the Epistemological to the Modal Relevance of Givenness in Kant and Hegel

ABSTRACTHere, I pursue consequences, for the interpretation of Sellars’ critique of the ‘Myth of the Given’, of separating the modal significance that Kant attributed to empirical intuition from the epistemological role it also played for him. It is argued that Kant’s approach to modality in the Critique of Pure Reason can best be understood as a transcendental variation on Leibniz’s earlier ‘possibilist’ approach that treated the actual world as just one of a variety of possible alternative worlds. In this context, empirical intuitions seem to work like the mythical Givens subject to Sellars’ critique. This Kantian possibilism is then contrasted with an ‘actualist’ alternative approach to modality found in the contemporary work of Robert Stalnaker, but also recognizable in Hegel. In particular, the role of immediate perceptual judgments in Hegel is likened to that played by ‘witness statements’ in Robert Stalnaker’s attempt to distinguish the logic of judgments about the actual world from those about its alternate possibilities.

A representationalist reading of Kantian intuitions

There are passages in Kant’s writings according to which empirical intuitions have to be (a) singular, (b) object-dependent, and (c) immediate. It has also been argued that empirical intuitions (d) are not truth-apt, and (e) need to provide the subject with a proof of the possibility of the cognized object. Having relied on one or another of the a-e constraints, the naive realist readers of Kant have argued that it is not possible for empirical intuitions to be representations. Instead they have argued for a relationalist reading of empirical intuitions in terms of an acquaintance relation between the subject and the intuited object. For the sake of argument, I will grant the naive realist reader of Kant that empirical intuitions should satisfy all the (a)–(e) constraints. Nevertheless, by incorporating these constraints, one by one, into a representationalist theory of empirical intuitions, I will show that not only doesn’t a naive realist reading of empirical intuitions follow, but also that the naive realist has hastily overlooked a range of perfectly representationalist readings of intuitions available to Kant and his representationalist allies. On the positive side, I will argue that there is an extra constraint on intuitions—i.e., that givenness does not require presence to consciousness—that directly goes against any naive realist account of intuitions.

Social Process and Cohabitation: A Trend of the New Generations

Cohabitation is a phenomenon which has taken place relatively recently in Thailand and is likely to spread and increase gradually in the future. Currently there are very few systematic studies on cohabitation among adolescents in Thailand and information has been obtained mostly from public media such as; newspapers, television programs and the internet. This qualitative and quantitative research aims to study the social process and cohabitating among Thai Adolescents. One thousand three hundred and twenty-eight respondents, who were in years one to four of their studies, were selected to participate, using a stratified random sampling technique. The survey was designed to use questionnaires to gather information from the respondents. In addition, semi-structured interviews were carried out with students, to provide a more in-depth understanding of the issues under study. The conceptual framework for this study was derived from empirical observation and intuition; imitation, social contact and social control. The results of the study revealed that there is a prevalence of cohabitation among Thai Adolescents. The significant factors that influenced the students’ cohabitation are foreign cultures, including American, Japanese and Korean culture (45.12%). Their peers' cohabitation did not play a key role in the respondents wanting to experience cohabitation. The belief that traditional Thai women should reserve themselves for marriage was accepted among respondents (44.75%). Many of the respondents indicated that their families opposed cohabitation. Additionally, sexual behavior of Thai women is limited in the traditional norm. Cohabitation is considered as untraditional and teenagers are dating each other secretly (42.13 %). The information available and institutional education on the prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections and Unwanted Pregnancies, allow adolescents to better understand the consequences of pre-marital sexual relationships (45.92%).

Chinese Rationality in the Modern World

The article focuses on the key issues of contemporary Chinese academic publications on the specifcs of Chinese rationality. Among its most common characteristics, there are focus on practice, attention to everyday life of society and individuals, pursuit of centrality and harmony in the moral sphere. Cross-cultural comparisons serve to justify the role of traditional rationality as a balancer keeping Chinese thought away from subjectivism, irrationalism, abstract reasoning and formalism. The researchers seek to identify the impacts of “applied rationality” upon the formation of positive features of Chinese national character. The widespread interpretation of Chinese practical rationality underlines the priority of practice of political governance over the theoretical reasoning about politics; in the moral sphere it leads to rejection of extremes in human behavior and sets the normative status of the middle path and harmony. The inclination of humans to keep their emotions under control and to take a proactive approach to the world was accompanied by recognition of the higher value of empirical experience and intuition compared to formal and abstract ideas. The focus on the secular life of people deprived the Chinese rationality of the “otherworldly” religious dimension. The participants of the discussion note that the Chinese culture has gained stability and “elasticity,” but it lacks Western formal rationality, which is a prerequisite for scientifc knowledge. Chinese researchers pay much attention to the impact of traditional rationality on the formation of Chinese philosophy in the 20th century and to the choice of socio-political path of national development. The emphasis on the differences between the cultures ofChinaand the West is combined with searches for similarities between Chinese rationality and Marxism. That steers the discussion beyond the sphere of comparative studies and makes its content relevant to the understanding of broader set of contemporary problems.

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, Non-Conceptualism, and the Fitness-for-Purpose Objection

AbstractThe subject of this article is a powerful objection to the non-conceptualist interpretation of Kant’s transcendental deduction of the categories. Part of the purpose of the deduction is to refute the sort of scepticism according to which there are no objects of empirical intuition that instantiate the categories. But if the non-conceptualist interpretation is correct, it does not follow from what Kant is arguing in the transcendental deduction that this sort of scepticism is false. This article explains and assesses a number of possible responses to this objection.

Metaheuristics Computation-Assisted Multi-Element Doping Design in Electrode Materials for Rechargeable Batteries

Low-level doping of electrode materials is known to be a common and simple method that can be used to improve electrode performance. However, multi-element doping compositions have generally been confined to the empirical intuition of researchers via trial-and-error. Here we propose a more systematic approach to designing multi-element doping compositions for electrode materials via a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II)-based computation. LiMnPO4 was selected to demonstrate our strategy not only because of its promising features such as a high operating voltage, comparable capacity, and structural stability, but also because it is known for insufficient electrochemical performance with poor reversibility and rate capability. In this study, a NSGA-II was employed to determine the optimum multi-element doping composition at the Mn site of olivine-structured LiMnPO4 through six consecutive generations, each of which contained 25 dopant sets that finally led to the pinpointing of two potential candidates for a multi-element doped LiMnPO4. Both the doped LiMnPO4/C with selective compositions delivered a reversible capacity of about 150 mA h g˗1, and also exhibited a high rate capability at the 2C rate and a decent cyclability with 91% capacity retention during 30 cycles. This approach can be widely applied to explore local optimization of multi-element substitutions for high performance electrode materials, and further it would provide a broader view for investigating other functional materials with multiple compositions that could be locally optimized.

ENSAIO SOBRE A UNIDADE SINTÉTICA MERAMENTE SENSÍVEL

I present the essay of my critique to the interpretation that the synthetic unity of intuition in Kant can only result from the effective participation of intellectual faculties. For this, I maintain that the objects of intuition are constructed not only by means of the understanding (lato sensu), but also by the simple imagination, by means of a synthetic unit of the multiple of the intuition given to the sense, without it being necessary the direction or conduction of discursive units, but respecting only autochthonous rules. Thus these objects of intuition contain a unity originated only from the sensibility (merely sensible synthetic unit), for they are produced only by the imagination, under the only condition of obtaining the disconnected manifold of sensible representations from the collaboration of the senses. The faculty of imagination is apt to produce these conceptually indeterminate objects of the empirical intuition called “appearances” [Erscheinungen], because it is a spontaneous sensible capacity with duplicity of character, impulses and aptitudes (Calabria: 2012, 115-167, 2015 and 2016). In addition to showing that appearances, while blind intuitions containing a subjective unity, nevertheless provide an objective reference to empirical intuitions (as mind modifications), I explain in what sense Kant considers appearances to be transformed into objects of experience called «phenomena» [Phaenomena], when they receive the intellectual unit from the application of conceptual representations.

O problema da afecção no pós-kantismo e a concepção de intuição empírica em Schopenhauer

Este artigo começa apresentando de modo sintético elementos da polêmica em torno do chamado problema da afecção, ocorrida nos anos seguintes a publicação da Crítica da razão pura. Com esse fim, são reconstituídos brevemente alguns argumentos de Jacobi, Reinhold, Schulze e Fichte. Essa reconstituição serve de base a apresentação, em seguida, de como Schopenhauer interpreta historicamente o problema da afecção e, a seu modo, absorve suas exigências em componentes importantes de sua filosofia, procurando resolvê-lo por meio de sua concepção de intuição empírica. Como pano de fundo, a exposiça o desse movimento permite problematizar a autoproclamada rejeiça o total de Schopenhauer a filosofia pós-kantiana e, em contrapartida, evidenciar um elemento central da fidelidade schopenhaueriana ao projeto original da filosofia crítica.

Numbers, Geometry, and Mathematical Axioms: The Problem of Metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason

So far, we have clarified that 1) » the representation I think « – the transcendental unity of self-consciousness – is homogeneous with pure apperception which signifies the thoroughgoing identity of oneself in all possible representations, grounding empirical consciousness a priori: 2) » the representation I think « which can accompany all others, is to cognize through categories whatever objects may come before our senses. Thus we comprehend that a human, as » the representation I think « senses, intuits and cognizes all appearances themselves in virtue of filled space-elapsing time or nullity in space-time through empirical intuition and synthesis. Our transcendental analytic indicates that a being of all beings signifies space-time itself, i.e., quantum. Kant’s metaphysics, which states that the members of the division exclude each other and yet are connected in one sphere, so in the latter case the parts are represented as ones to which existence (as substances) pertains to each exclusively of the others, and which are yet connected in one whole, led us to think that » the members of the division « signifies categories, through which it would become possible for us to cognize any object as far as laws of their combination are concerned. The discourse would potentially lead us to an alternative view on the universe and causality. We feel that our transcendental analytic might give us an inkling for the solution of conundrums in mathematics and physics.

Nonconceptualism, Hume’s Problem, and the Deduction

Lucy Allais seeks to provide a reading of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories which is compatible with a nonconceptualist account of Kant’s theory of intuition. According to her interpretation, the aim of the Deduction is to show that a priori concept application is required for empirical concept application. I argue that once we distinguish the application of the categories from the instantiation of the categories, we see that Allais’s reconstruction of the Deduction cannot provide an answer to Hume’s problem about our entitlement to use a priori concepts when thinking about the objects of empirical intuition. If the Deduction is to provide a response to Hume, Allais’s interpretation must be rejected.

Space, Geometry and Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories by Thomas C. Vinci (review)

Reviewed by: Space, Geometry and Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories by Thomas C. Vinci Mary Domski Thomas C. Vinci. Space, Geometry and Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xii + 251. Cloth, $74.00. Those familiar with the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) will not at all be surprised that Thomas C. Vinci has found it fitting to dedicate an entire book to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories (TD), a chapter of the CPR that is as important to Kant’s argument for Transcendental Idealism as it is difficult to decipher. The purpose of that section is to establish the objective validity of the categories—to show, that is, that the pure concepts of the understanding apply to all objects of human experience. While the general goal of the TD may be easy enough to state, the argument strategy that Kant uses to establish the objective validity of the categories is hardly easy to understand. Vinci focuses on the argument strategy of the second (1787) edition TD, standardly referred to as the B-Deduction. This portion of the text replaced key sections of the first (1781) edition TD, and quite famously, Kant offers in the B-Deduction a two-part argument for the objective validity of the categories, the first of which concludes in section 20, and the second of which concludes in section 26. Based on Kant’s explicit remarks in sections 21 and 26, it has become standard practice to read the first part of the argument as establishing that the categories are objectively valid for all intuitions in general, and the second part as establishing that they are objectively valid for all empirical intuitions in [End Page 174] particular. Here, Vinci sees a problem. If Kant has already shown in sections 15–20 that the categories apply to all intuitions in general, then showing in sections 22–26 that they also apply to empirical intuitions is trivial: it merely establishes what immediately follows from the first part (196–200). Vinci offers a reading of the two-part argument that is intended to circumvent this so-called Triviality Problem, and it is a reading that rests on a novel distinction between the “sensible intuitions” mentioned in the first part of Kant’s B-Deduction argument and the “empirical intuitions” referred to in the second part. According to Vinci, “sensible intuitions” refer to all human sensible intuitions in general, that is, to all intuitions that are presented in the pure forms of human intuition: space and time. “Empirical intuitions,” in contrast, refer to all spatio-temporally ordered intuitions that result from sensation. On this reading, the empirical intuitions of the second part of the argument are not a subset of the intuitions treated in the first part. Rather, they are sensible intuitions in a more narrow sense: they are the spatio-temporal intuitions peculiar to human sensory experience (200–202). Therefore, in going from the first part to the second part of his argument in the TD, Kant proceeds from a general notion of sensible intuitions to a more specific one, not from the genus “intuition” to a particular species. Vinci thereby gives us a way of seeing how the two parts of the B-Deduction argument are related, and a way of understanding why both parts are necessary for Kant to establish that the categories are objectively valid for all human experience. Like any good provocative interpretation, Vinci’s is sure to raise questions, especially from scholars familiar with the B-Deduction. Such questions will likely come as no surprise to Vinci, who admits that his reading of the two-part argument rests on taking some creative license with the text and, specifically, on reading the notion of “sensible intuitions” in a way that runs “contrary to some of Kant’s official pronouncements” (202). This sort of creative license is not unique to the arguments of chapter 7. Earlier in the book, Vinci deploys distinctions—such as between pure and applied geometry, and logical and aesthetic unity—that are not explicitly made by Kant; and Vinci does so to make sense of some of the more puzzling claims that...

Which Kantian Conceptualism (or Nonconceptualism)?

AbstractA recent debate in Kant scholarship concerns the role of concepts in Kant's theory of perception. Roughly, proponents of a conceptualist interpretation argue that for Kant, the possession of concepts is a prior condition for perception, while nonconceptualist interpreters deny this. The debate has two parts. One part concerns whether possessing empirical concepts is a prior condition for having empirical intuitions. A second part concerns whether Kant allows empirical intuitions without a priori concepts. Outside of Kant interpretation, the contemporary debate about conceptualism concerns whether perception requires empirical concepts. But, as I argue, the debate about whether Kant allows intuitions without empirical concepts does not show whether Kant is a conceptualist. Even if Kant allows intuitions without empirical concepts, it could still be that a priori concepts are required. While the debate could show that Kant is a conceptualist, I argue it does not. Finally, I sketch a novel way that the conceptualist interpreter might win the debate—roughly, by arguing that possessing a priori concepts is a prior condition for having appearances.