Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Chapter 3 further investigates the role of intuition in the application of concepts to intuitions. Kant introduces schema as a medium between intuitions and concepts and focuses on the schemata of pure concepts, suggesting that the transcendental schema is a procedure by which pure concepts apply to intuitions. Kant has emphasized inner sense and I complement his seemingly internal account by stressing the role of homogeneous intuitions, in the guise of domesticated intuitions, in schematic procedures. The normativity of inference derives from normative indifference of steps, based on cognitive indifference that exploits homogeneous and domesticated intuitions. / Chapter 4 examines the concept of causality in relation to intuitions. Causality is a concept of relation; while cause is a power to produce its effect. I understand causality as a relation between two series of events or occurrences that are quantitatively synchronizable covariant, which can be tested and modified through empirical intuitions. / In Chapter 2, I examine how intuitions function in mathematical and scientific inferences as well as in cognition in general. Intuitions and concepts in mathematics are the paradigm of concepts and intuitions in other kinds of cognition. In natural sciences, intuitions are concentrated on a homogeneous quality that scientific concepts postulate. Scientific inferences having these intuitions as the base of computability can be uniformly performed by all cognizers. Ordinary concepts can be considered as exhibited in the intuitions that belong to diverse but respectively homogeneous qualities. All of us have an inferential ability to achieve universally valid judgments acknowledged and recognized by each other. I understand this ability of inferential universality as the essence of Kant's transcendental idealism about cognitive subject and I call it cognitive machinery. / The fifth and last chapter examines the concept of purposiveness in relation to mechanical causality. Unlike transcendental causality that is a constitutive principle of cognition, purposiveness is only a regulative principle for the power of judgment. Mechanical causality is a kind of causality through the mechanism of nature. It cannot adequately explain organized beings as we judge them. Then Kant envisages an intentional causality; with its constitutive character deprived, we have the concept of purposiveness. Intuition underlies such a conceptualization of purposiveness in contrast with mechanical causality. A mechanical cause can be given in intuition since we can locate it in a time-series powered by fundamental forces. But purposiveness cannot be given in intuition in Kant's times. Thus Kant asserts that organized beings as natural ends are inexplicable by mechanical causes alone and introduces the purposiveness into our account of organized beings. / The subject of this study is the role of intuition in Kant's conceptualization of causality and purposiveness. In Chapter 1, I interpret Kant's Copernican revolution as a strategy to reverse cognitive procedure, not from object to cognition, but from cognition to object. So Kant starts from the products of human reason, such as mathematics and sciences. Kant bases the foundation of knowledge on an inferential procedure open to all cognizers. Intuition plays a pivotal role in such a procedure. / Chen, Huping. / "March 2008." / Adviser: Tze-wan Kwan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: A, page: 0894. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-266). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

The purpose of this thesis was to observe people’s abilities to compute probability problems at a fundamental level. The problems in this study were presented in an abstract format to ensure non-ambiguity in its interpretation. The study was administered to university level students. The focus was to determine people’s ability to answer probability questions that combined the probabilities of two single events, using the most basic types of operations: AND and OR. The study found that while most people were able to compute AND type probability questions, most had trouble with OR operations. Of special interest was a switching strategy that was employed in computing OR operations as the probability of a single event varied. The study also revealed that statistically sophisticated people were able to adopt the mindset of people who were statistically naïve. Further research is required in order to develop a better framework in understanding people’s logical process of computing these basic probability questions as well as its application to our everyday lives.

The purpose of this thesis was to observe people’s abilities to compute probability problems at a fundamental level. The problems in this study were presented in an abstract format to ensure non-ambiguity in its interpretation. The study was administered to university level students. The focus was to determine people’s ability to answer probability questions that combined the probabilities of two single events, using the most basic types of operations: AND and OR. The study found that while most people were able to compute AND type probability questions, most had trouble with OR operations. Of special interest was a switching strategy that was employed in computing OR operations as the probability of a single event varied. The study also revealed that statistically sophisticated people were able to adopt the mindset of people who were statistically naïve. Further research is required in order to develop a better framework in understanding people’s logical process of computing these basic probability questions as well as its application to our everyday lives.

Writing in seventh century India, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti developed a system of epistemology in which he recognized yogic intuition as a valid source of knowledge crowning the practice of meditation and capable of causing the psychological transformation necessary for the achievement of nirvana. But his account of the epistemological character of yogic intuition was controversial. Indeed, while it consists in a full understanding of a conceptual object (i.e. the four noble truths), Dharmakirti insisted that, due to its clarity, the yogin's intuition be considered a category of sensation, which by definition is non-conceptual and pertains to particular objects. This thesis is an analysis of Dharmakirti's account of yogic intuition as a category of cognition allowing the non-conceptual knowledge of conceptual objects.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2007. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Zugl.: Potsdam, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

Zugl.: Hagen, Fernuniv., Diss., 2008

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 28, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.