In the recent literature, there is some debate over Reid’s theory of perception. Commentators are divided on whether or not Reid’s theory is consistent with an acquaintance model of perception. I will show that Reid’s views are not consistent with an acquaintance model, but that he nevertheless had good reasons to subscribe to this model. There is, therefore, an interesting tension in Reid’s theory of perception. I then develop a modified Reidian acquaintance model of perception as a way of resolving these tensions in light of an argument contained in Reid’s Philosophical Orations, and defuse recent objections to the acquaintance interpretation in the process. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this dissertation I examine an ongoing debate in the contemporary literature on Thomas Reid over the nature of his account of perception. I argue that one interpretation of Reid’s theory of perception that has been entertained fails, and that this does not, for various reasons, bode well for the viability of his account. I argue that Reid had available a straightforward way to revise his theory in order to avoid this difficulty, and I explicate this simple revision.

In 1780, during the final leg of the American Revolutionary War, Esther Reed penned the broadside “Sentiments of an American Woman.” It circulated in Philadelphia, persuading citizens to turn over their last dollars to the cause. Reed’s broadside called to action the women of Philadelphia; they knocked on doors, campaigned with words, and stepped firmly into the “man’s world” of politics and revolution. Reed’s words were so effective that women in cities across the colonies took to raising money as well. Using New Historicist and feminist reading strategies, this study compares and contrasts Reed’s rhetoric to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, another revolutionary propaganda piece of the era. I argue that the two pieces differ in key aspects due to Paine’s existence in the public sphere and Reed’s in the private. From her position in the private sphere, Reed was able to produce a provocative piece of rhetoric that stands out against other female literature at the time.

<p>Since Ontario Works (OW) was implemented in 1998, the policy has been tinkered with including making changes in benefits and relaxing of some of the more punitive practices such as a life time ban for recipients convicted of fraud. However in OW, one ofOntario's social assistance programs, the requirement to participate in work or work preparation activities, remains relatively unchanged. Intended to end the supposed free riding of recipients, work for welfare continues to be an unwavering policy instrument despite findings that the policy is at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive in helping OW clients find and keep work (Lightman et al 2005, Little 2005, Peck 2001, Quaid 2002).</p> <p>Some scholars argue that administrative practices are maintained by the normative assumptions on which a policy stands (Fraser 1989, George and Wilding 2003, Plant et al. 1989). In order to investigate the normative underpinnings behind OW work, this study explored the literature on welfare state approaches. This review focused on the normative assumptions surrounding work that are engaged to diffuse and inculcate neoliberal imperatives and class and gender related codes of conduct connected to OW work. By conducting interviews with OW clients and staff, this study also examined the ways in which norms facilitate the administration of OW especially how internalized taken-for-granted ideas about work are leveraged by the policy. Gramsci’s notions of hegemony and common sense (Gramsci 2010) and Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, field and capital (Bourdieu 1989) were engaged as theoretical tools that might explain how taken-for-granted assumptions facilitate the administration of OW and the enforcement of workfare policies.</p> <p>The project found that the 'works' part of OW is comprised of 3 types of work: becoming eligible, employable and employed. A major contradiction that emerged during the investigation is that OW is focused on ensuring ongoing eligibility - not on employment. The administration of OW work engages with normative expectations surrounding work, welfare and gender that are connected to the contradictions in OW work. It is common sense ideas surrounding these normative expectations (such as the moral benefits of work) that maintain practices and reconcile contradictions. As well, a specific habitus (coach/gatekeeper) operates in OW which engages certain types of common sense ideas that align with normative expectations.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Learning and reasoning with common sense is a challenging problem in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Humans have the remarkable ability to interpret images and text from different perspectives in multiple modalities, and to use large amounts of commonsense knowledge while performing visual or textual tasks. Inspired by that ability, we approach commonsense learning as leveraging perspectives from multiple modalities for images and text in the context of vision and language tasks. Given a target task (e.g., textual reasoning, matching images with captions), our system first represents input images and text in multiple modalities (e.g., vision, text, abstract scenes and facts). Those modalities provide different perspectives to interpret the input images and text. And then based on those perspectives, the system performs reasoning to make a joint prediction for the target task. Surprisingly, we show that interpreting textual assertions and scene descriptions in the modality of abstract scenes improves performance on various textual reasoning tasks, and interpreting images in the modality of Visual Question Answering improves performance on caption retrieval, which is a visual reasoning task. With grounding, imagination and question-answering approaches to interpret images and text in different modalities, we show that learning commonsense knowledge from multiple modalities effectively improves the performance of downstream vision and language tasks, improves interpretability of the model and is able to make more efficient use of training data. Complementary to the model aspect, we also study the data aspect of commonsense learning in vision and language. We study active learning for Visual Question Answering (VQA) where a model iteratively grows its knowledge through querying informative questions about images for answers. Drawing analogies from human learning, we explore cramming (entropy), curiosity-driven (expected model change), and goal-driven (expected error reduction) active learning approaches, and propose a new goal-driven scoring function for deep VQA models under the Bayesian Neural Network framework. Once trained with a large initial training set, a deep VQA model is able to efficiently query informative question-image pairs for answers to improve itself through active learning, saving human effort on commonsense annotations. / Ph. D. / Designing systems that learn and reason with common sense is a challenging problem in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Humans have the remarkable ability to interpret images and text from different perspectives in multiple modalities, and to use large amounts of commonsense knowledge while performing visual or textual tasks. Inspired by that ability, we approach commonsense learning as leveraging perspectives from multiple modalities for images and text in the context of vision and language tasks. Given a target task, our system first represents the input information (e.g., images and text) in multiple modalities (e.g., vision, text, abstract scenes and facts). Those modalities provide different perspectives to interpret the input information. Based on those perspectives, the system performs reasoning to make a joint prediction to solve the target task. Perhaps surprisingly, we show that imagining (generating) abstract scenes behind input textual scene descriptions improves performance on various textual reasoning tasks such as answering fill-in-the-blank and paraphrasing questions, and answering questions about images improves performance on retrieving image captions. Through the use of perspectives from multiple modalities, our system also makes use of training data more efficiently and has a reasoning process that is easy to understand. Complementary to the system design aspect, we also study the data aspect of commonsense learning in vision and language. We study active learning for Visual Question Answering (VQA). VQA is the task of answering open-ended natural language questions about images. In active learning for VQA, a model iteratively grows its knowledge through querying informative questions about images for answers. Inspired by human learning, we explore cramming (entropy), curiosity-driven (expected model change), and goal-driven (expected error reduction) active learning approaches, and propose a new goal-driven query selection function. We show that once initialized with a large training set, a VQA model is able to efficiently query informative question-image pairs for answers to improve itself through active learning, saving human effort on commonsense annotations.

Hintergrund Subjektive Krankheitsannahmen beinhalten Annahmen über Symptome, emotionale Reaktionen, Verlauf, Konsequenzen und Kontrollierbarkeit einer Erkrankung. Aktuelle Studien zeigen, dass subjektive Krankheitsannahmen mit der Krankheitsverarbeitung und dem psychischen Wohlbefinden assoziiert sind. Bisher gibt es kein Erhebungsinstrument zur Befragung von Kindern, sodass hier oftmals nur der Bericht der Eltern verfügbar ist. Ziel der Arbeit Das Ziel ist die Entwicklung und psychometrische Überprüfung eines Puppeninterviews zur altersgerechten Erfassung subjektiver Krankheitsannahmen für Kinder ab 4 Jahren. Beschreibung von Durchführungsempfehlungen mit Indikation und Kontraindikation. Methode Das Puppeninterview zur Erfassung subjektiver Krankheitsannahmen wurde auf Grundlage des „Illness Perception Questionnaire“ (IPQ-R) und des „Berkeley Puppet Interviews“ entwickelt und an zwei Stichproben (n = 11 und n = 64) überprüft. Ergebnisse Die Anwendbarkeit, Verständlichkeit und Nützlichkeit des Puppeninterviews wurde für die Akut- und Nachsorgephase gezeigt, wobei sich die Krankheitsannahmen je nach Krankheitsphase unterscheiden können. Es zeigten sich erwartungskonforme Interskalenkorrelationen im Puppeninterview (z. B. Chronizität – Konsequenzen für die Lebensführung: r = 0,690, p ≤ 0,05), hypothesenkonforme Ergebnisse zur Konstruktvalidität (z. B. Chronizität – internale Kontrolle r = −0,711, p ≤ 0,05) und zufriedenstellende interne Konsistenzen. Mitunter besprachen die Kinder mit den Puppen mögliche Bewältigungsstrategien, was zu einer Entlastung beitrug. Schlussfolgerung Die Einschätzungen der Eltern können zukünftig durch eine zuverlässige Erhebung von subjektiven Krankheitsannahmen bei Kindern ab 4 Jahren ergänzt werden, um medikamentöse und psychosoziale Interventionen gezielt anzupassen. / Background Illness perceptions comprise assumptions about symptoms, timeline, consequences, controllability, and emotional responses of an illness. Recent evidence shows that illness perceptions are associated with coping and well-being. Until now, assessment is based on parental report only, since no instrument for the direct assessment of children is available. Objectives Development of a puppet interview for the age-appropriate assessment of illness perceptions in children up to the age of 4 years. Recommendations for the application (including indications and contraindications) and assessment of psychometric properties. Materials and methods The puppet interview was developed based on the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) and the Berkeley Puppet Interview and examined in two samples of patient–parent dyads (n = 11 und n = 64). Results The puppet interview is applicable (comprehensible, useful) in acute treatment and follow-up care. Illness perceptions may vary in different treatment phases. We saw confirming intercorrelation of scales (chronicity – consequences: r = 0.690, p ≤ 0.05) and adequate psychometric properties (construct validity: chronicity – internal control: r = −0.711, p ≤ 0.05, internal consistency). Some children even discussed potential coping strategies with the puppets. Conclusion Parental report can be complemented by a self-report measure of illness perceptions in affected children aged 4 years and older. This will allow for the further adaptation of medical and psychosocial treatment.

We show how the non-monotonic nature of common-sense reasoning can be formalised by circumscription. Various forms of circumscription are discussed. A new form of circumscription, namely naive circumscription, is introduced in order to facilitate the comparison of the various forms. Finally, some issues connected with the automation of circumscriptive reasoning are examined. / Computing / M. Sc. (Computer Science)

Cette thèse présente le rôle de la communication dans l'organisation humaine du Système d'Information d'une Université. Par organisation humaine, nous entendons l'ensemble des différents groupes sociotechniques constituant les services fonctionnels et techniques d'un Etablissement. L'approche communicationnelle est, ici, le fil conducteur pour comprendre les interactions individuelles et collectives des acteurs au sein des services. Notre statut de Directeur de la DSI de l'Université Paul Cézanne nous a permis de conduire une recherche compréhensive de terrain. Celle-ci a particulièrement mis en évidence les logiques relationnelles qui donnent une plus grande efficacité au système d'information. La question de départ est donc de savoir comment optimiser le SI d'une Université. Pour répondre à cette question, nous sommes allé chercher dans les Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication, les fondements théoriques de la mise en relation. Les travaux de l'Ecole de Palo Alto et particulièrement sa mise en application dans le modèle orchestral nous ont donné des outils conceptuels pour construire une meilleure compréhension de la dynamique des relations. La Communication devenait ainsi la clé des pratiques et des usages communs qui construisent un SI. Elle devient un catalyseur de la compréhension entre les métiers et même, sous certains aspects, le lien entre les facteurs techniques et humains. Grâce à notre démarche, à la fois conceptuelle (celle du doctorant) et pratique (celle du professionnel), nous avons identifié les différentes visions du SI perçues par les acteurs et nous avons mis en avant leurs ambivalences et leurs complémentarités. / This thesis presents the role of communication in human organization of the University's Information System. By human organization, we mean all the different socio-technical groups constituting the technical servicing of an establishment. The approach is communicative, here the link to understand the interactions of individual and collective actors within departments. Our status as DSI Director of the University Paul Cézanne has allowed us to conduct a comprehensive research field. This was particularly highlighted the relational logics that give greater efficiency to the information system. The initial question is how to optimize the IF of a University. To answer this question, we looked for in Information Science and Communication, the theoretical foundations linking. The work of the School of Palo Alto and especially its implementation in the orchestral model gave us the conceptual tools to build a better understanding of the dynamics of relationships. Communication thus became the key practices and common usage that build an IS. It becomes a catalyst for understanding between business and even, in some respects, the link between the technical and human factors. With our approach, both conceptual (the PhD's) and practice (the profesionnal's), we identified the different visions of SI perceived by the actors and we have put forward their ambivalence and their complementarities. Therefore, the computational aspects are generally put forward a simple vision repositioned as special issue of one of the groups, the engineers' one.

«Qu’ai-je besoin de connaître minimalement d’une chose pour la connaître ?» Le fait que cette question aux allures de devinette s’avère cognitivement difficile à appréhender de par son degré de généralité explique sans peine la raison pour laquelle son élucidation demeura plusieurs millénaires durant l’apanage d’une discipline unique : la Philosophie. Dans ce contexte, énoncer des critères à même de distinguer les composants primitifs de la réalité – ou le "mobilier du monde" – ainsi que leurs relations revient à produire une Ontologie. Cet ouvrage s’attelle à la tâche d’élucider le tournant historique curieux, en apparence anodin, que constitue l’émergence de ce type de questionnement dans le champ de deux disciplines connexes que constituent l’Intelligence Artificielle et l’Ingénierie des Connaissances. Nous montrons plus particulièrement ici que leur import d’une forme de méthodologie ontologique appliquée à la cognition ou à la représentation des connaissances ne relève pas de la simple analogie mais soulève un ensemble de questions et d’enjeux pertinents tant sur un plan appliqué que spéculatif. Plus spécifiquement, nous montrons ici que certaines des solutions techniques au problème de la data-masse (Big Data) – i.e. la multiplication et la diversification des données en ligne – constitue un point d’entrée aussi nouveau qu’inattendu dans de nombreuses problématiques traditionnellement philosophiques relatives à la place du langage et des raisonnements de sens commun dans la pensée ou encore l’existence d’une structuration de la réalité indépendante de l’esprit humain. / «What do I need to know about something to know it ?». It is no wonder that such a general, hard to grasp and riddle-like question remained the exclusive domain of a single discipline for centuries : Philosophy. In this context, the distinction of the primitive components of reality – the so called "world’s furniture" – and their relations is called an Ontology. This book investigates the emergence of similar questions in two different though related fields, namely : Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering. We show here that the way these disciplines apply an ontological methodology to either cognition or knowledge representation is not a mere analogy but raises a bunch of relevant questions and challenges from both an applied and a speculative point of view. More specifically, we suggest that some of the technical answers to the issues addressed by Big Data invite us to revisit many traditional philosophical positions concerning the role of language or common sense reasoning in the thought or the existence of mind-independent structure in reality.

A presente pesquisa propõe um estudo de uma trajetória de Produção Partilhada do Conhecimento, com foco em relações comunidade-universidade, mais especificamente em duas comunidades indígenas brasileiras, onde foram desenvolvidos trabalhos de campo: Aldeia Sangradouro (Tsö\'rehipãri), da etnia xavante, Aldeia Fontoura (Btõiry), da etnia karajá, além da Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Durante a pesquisa nessas comunidades, foram realizados produtos e registros audiovisuais, com dois interlocutores locais, Divino Tserewahú, entre os xavantes, e Juanahu Iny, entre os karajás, assim como a participação dos mesmos em atividades no contexto acadêmico. Os diários de partilha trazem fotos dos diversos autores que participaram dos percursos e os relatos etnográficos das atividades com as distintas comunidades. Para a contextualização e problematização do processo de realização, partir-se-á dos conceitos de Produção Partilhada do Conhecimento, Cotidiano, Senso Comum e Hipermídia como aportes teóricos aptos à investigação de novas possibilidades de produção de conhecimento em Comunicação Digital. / This research proposes a study of one trajectory of Shared Production of Knowledge, focusing on community-university relations, specifically in two Brazilian indigenous communities, which were developed fieldwork: Sangradouro village (Tsö\'rehipãri), ethnicity Xavante, Fontoura village (Btõiry), ethnicity Karaja, and the School of Communication and Arts (ECA) at the University of São Paulo (USP). During the research in these communities were made products and audiovisual recordings, with two local interlocutors, Divino Tserewahú among the Xavante, and Juanahu Iny among Karajá, as well as their participation in activities in the academic context. The daily of sharing brings photos from the various authors who participated of the routes and the ethnographic narration of the activities with the different communities. For contextualize and problematize the process of realization, we bring the concepts of Production Sharing Knowledge, Quotidian, Common Sense and Hypermedia as a theoretical framework suitable for investigating new possibilities of knowledge production in Digital Communication.

Nosso objetivo é analisar as bases naturalísticas da teoria da investigação de John Dewey. Primeiramente apresentamos os fundamentos biológicos de sua teoria lógica da investigação. Com efeito, em sua Lógica Teoria da Investigação, uma de suas mais importantes obras, o naturalismo do filósofo defende a continuidade entre operações investigadoras e operações e funções biológicas, sendo que estas preparariam o caminho para aquelas. Em seguida, a exposição das bases culturais da teoria evidencia o importante papel da linguagem na investigação, mostrando que há uma transformação gradual da conduta puramente orgânica em conduta inteligente. Em nossa pesquisa, analisa-se ainda a relação de continuidade vista por Dewey entre senso comum e ciência, e também o padrão comum, por ele estabelecido, de toda investigação humana. / Our goal is to analyze the bases of naturalistic theory of inquiry of John Dewey. First we present the biological foundations of his logical theory of inquiry. Indeed, in his Logic - Theory of Inquiry, one of his most important works, the naturalism of the philosopher argues for continuity between operations researchers and operations and biological functions, and these prepare the way for them. Then, the exposure of the cultural foundations of the theory highlights the important role of language in research, showing that there is a gradual transformation of the conduct purely organic in conduct intelligent. In our research, we analyze further the relationship of continuity seen by Dewey between common sense and science, and also the common standard, established by it, to all human inquiry.