Computer vision is presented and discussed under two complementary views. The positivist view provides a formal background under which vision is approached as a problem-solving task. By contrast, the constructivist view considers vision as the opportunistic exploration of a realm of data. The former view is rather well supported by evidence in neurophysiology while the latter view rather relies...

This paper has two main objectives: (a) Discuss the formal analogy between some important symmetry–invariance arguments used in physics, probability and statistics. Specifically, we will focus on Noether theorems in physics, maximum entropy principle in probability theory, and de Finetti type theorems in Bayesian statistics. (b) Discuss the epistemological and ontological implications of these ...

Formal models have long been used to inform sociological thought. In the past many of these models have often used the language of mathematics. In essence, sets of variables are related to each other via a system of equations, the values of the variables are interpreted in terms of the intensity or amount of a social phenomenon. In sociology such equations have not been taken in a positivist se...

Action research is an established research method in use in the social and medical sciences since the mid-twentieth century, and has increased in importance for information systems toward the end of the 1990s. Its particular philosophic context is couched in strongly post-positivist assumptions such as idiographic and interpretive research ideals. Action research has developed a history within ...

Although the advantages of case study design are widely recognised, its original positivist underlying assumptions may mislead interpretive researchers aiming at theory building. The paper discusses the limitations of the case study design for theory building and explains how grounded theory systemic process adds to the case study design. The author reflects upon his experience in conducting re...

The discussion on the determinants is extremely prolific in the area of health. However, we still have to think about the way in which the determination is defined and understood as a category that allows to question reality, from an overall and complex view, and the extent that they can have their application in public health. This article discusses the concepts of causality, which is dominant...

For almost three decades, the primary fault line in information systems research has been between positivist and interpretivist research philosophies. The kernel of the debate between these two approaches rotates around the meaning of reality, two aspects of which are what constitutes a fact and what constitutes evidence. In this paper the nature of fact in interpretivist research is explored. ...

Traditional “hard” OR has been based on quantitative modelling and embodies, usually implicitly, a positivist or empiricist philosophy. “Soft OR”, for instance problem structuring methods such as SSM, developed as an antithesis and embodied an interpretivist or constructivist philosophy. This has generated somewhat of a schism between the two sides. Previous papers have advocated critical reali...

This paper presents the relationship between disjunctive logic programs and default theories. We rst show that Bidoit and Froidevaux's positivist default theory causes a problem in the presence of disjunctive information in a program. Then we present a correct transformation of disjunctive logic programs into default theories and show a one-to-one correspondence between the stable models of a p...

A negativist theory is a theory that asserts that an a0ect is absent. Negativist theories are common in statistics and require a test procedure to avoid biasing the conclusions in favor of accepting the theory. New critical value tables are provided and computational methods are introduced to ease practical di3culties with the resulting non-contiguous interval null. Simulations compare the powe...