SCEPTICAL DELIBERATIONS

Neuroeconomics: A sceptical view

Neuroeconomics has been hailed by its advocates as affording “ground-breaking” insights into human behaviour and significant theoretical advances through conceptual trading with neuroscience. The prospect of the discovery of the proximate causes of behaviour by measuring thoughts, feelings, and hence utility is, according to neuroeconomists, within reach. Thus, neuroeconomics will permit the co...

Digital Deliberations

Learning as Abductive Deliberations

This paper explains an architecture for a BDI agent that can learn based on its own experience. The learning is conducted through explicit procedural knowledge or plans in a goal-directed manner. The learning is described by encoding abductions within the deliberation processes. With this model, the agent is capable of modifying its own plans on the run. We demonstrate that by abducing some com...

Sceptical Reflections About Ontology

Ontologies (and Metaphysics) are floating around since Plato and Aristotle. Although these things have often been declared as non-existent, or as outright nonsense and frauds, nevertheless, rigorous, cold-blooded and definite proofs for these unfriendly judgements seem still to be lacking. The adjective sceptical in the title of the present paper is, of course, a polite euphemism. For we can sh...

Sceptical or clerical

There is considerable and growing interest among social scientists and funders in the potential of research that mixes the approaches usually termed ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’. One of the obstacles to further exploration of that potential is the frequently cited notion that these approaches represent more than methods – they are incommensurable ‘paradigms’. This paper discusses some of th...