Lectures on Inductive Logic

Lectures on Inductive Logic
Author: Jon Williamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2017
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0199666474

Inductive logic is a theory of how one should reason in the face of uncertainty. It has applications to decision making and artificial intelligence, as well as to scientific problems.

Argument and Inference

Argument and Inference
Author: Gregory Johnson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2017-01-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262337770

A thorough and practical introduction to inductive logic with a focus on arguments and the rules used for making inductive inferences. This textbook offers a thorough and practical introduction to inductive logic. The book covers a range of different types of inferences with an emphasis throughout on representing them as arguments. This allows the reader to see that, although the rules and guidelines for making each type of inference differ, the purpose is always to generate a probable conclusion. After explaining the basic features of an argument and the different standards for evaluating arguments, the book covers inferences that do not require precise probabilities or the probability calculus: the induction by confirmation, inference to the best explanation, and Mill's methods. The second half of the book presents arguments that do require the probability calculus, first explaining the rules of probability, and then the proportional syllogism, inductive generalization, and Bayes' rule. Each chapter ends with practice problems and their solutions. Appendixes offer additional material on deductive logic, odds, expected value, and (very briefly) the foundations of probability. Argument and Inference can be used in critical thinking courses. It provides these courses with a coherent theme while covering the type of reasoning that is most often used in day-to-day life and in the natural, social, and medical sciences. Argument and Inference is also suitable for inductive logic and informal logic courses, as well as philosophy of sciences courses that need an introductory text on scientific and inductive methods.

Reliable Reasoning

Reliable Reasoning
Author: Gilbert Harman
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2012-01-13
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262263157

The implications for philosophy and cognitive science of developments in statistical learning theory. In Reliable Reasoning, Gilbert Harman and Sanjeev Kulkarni—a philosopher and an engineer—argue that philosophy and cognitive science can benefit from statistical learning theory (SLT), the theory that lies behind recent advances in machine learning. The philosophical problem of induction, for example, is in part about the reliability of inductive reasoning, where the reliability of a method is measured by its statistically expected percentage of errors—a central topic in SLT. After discussing philosophical attempts to evade the problem of induction, Harman and Kulkarni provide an admirably clear account of the basic framework of SLT and its implications for inductive reasoning. They explain the Vapnik-Chervonenkis (VC) dimension of a set of hypotheses and distinguish two kinds of inductive reasoning. The authors discuss various topics in machine learning, including nearest-neighbor methods, neural networks, and support vector machines. Finally, they describe transductive reasoning and suggest possible new models of human reasoning suggested by developments in SLT.

Critical Reasoning

Critical Reasoning
Author: Marianne Talbot
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2015-05-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781512066029

This book will help you to reason critically; to recognise, analyse and evaluate arguments and to classify them as inductive or deductive. It will introduce you to fallacies (bad arguments that look like good arguments) and, in two optional chapters, to the rudiments of formalisation. Linked to Marianne Talbot's hugely successful Critical Reasoning podcasts (downloaded 4 million times from iTunesU!), and full of interactive exercises and quizzes, the book was written to satisfy demand from fans of the podcasts. Marianne is the Director of Studies in Philosophy at Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education.

Markov Logic

Markov Logic
Author: Pedro Dechter
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3031015495

Most subfields of computer science have an interface layer via which applications communicate with the infrastructure, and this is key to their success (e.g., the Internet in networking, the relational model in databases, etc.). So far this interface layer has been missing in AI. First-order logic and probabilistic graphical models each have some of the necessary features, but a viable interface layer requires combining both. Markov logic is a powerful new language that accomplishes this by attaching weights to first-order formulas and treating them as templates for features of Markov random fields. Most statistical models in wide use are special cases of Markov logic, and first-order logic is its infinite-weight limit. Inference algorithms for Markov logic combine ideas from satisfiability, Markov chain Monte Carlo, belief propagation, and resolution. Learning algorithms make use of conditional likelihood, convex optimization, and inductive logic programming. Markov logic has been successfully applied to problems in information extraction and integration, natural language processing, robot mapping, social networks, computational biology, and others, and is the basis of the open-source Alchemy system. Table of Contents: Introduction / Markov Logic / Inference / Learning / Extensions / Applications / Conclusion

Philosophical Lectures on Probability

Philosophical Lectures on Probability
Author: Bruno de Finetti
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2008-05-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1402082010

Bruno de Finetti (1906–1985) is the founder of the subjective interpretation of probability, together with the British philosopher Frank Plumpton Ramsey. His related notion of “exchangeability” revolutionized the statistical methodology. This book (based on a course held in 1979) explains in a language accessible also to non-mathematicians the fundamental tenets and implications of subjectivism, according to which the probability of any well specified fact F refers to the degree of belief actually held by someone, on the ground of her whole knowledge, on the truth of the assertion that F obtains.

The Material Theory of Induction

The Material Theory of Induction
Author: John D. Norton
Publisher: Bsps Open
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781773852539

"The inaugural title in the new, Open Access series BSPS Open, The Material Theory of Induction will initiate a new tradition in the analysis of inductive inference. The fundamental burden of a theory of inductive inference is to determine which are the good inductive inferences or relations of inductive support and why it is that they are so. The traditional approach is modeled on that taken in accounts of deductive inference. It seeks universally applicable schemas or rules or a single formal device, such as the probability calculus. After millennia of halting efforts, none of these approaches has been unequivocally successful and debates between approaches persist. The Material Theory of Induction identifies the source of these enduring problems in the assumption taken at the outset: that inductive inference can be accommodated by a single formal account with universal applicability. Instead, it argues that that there is no single, universally applicable formal account. Rather, each domain has an inductive logic native to it. Which that is, and its extent, is determined by the facts prevailing in that domain. Paying close attention to how inductive inference is conducted in science and copiously illustrated with real-world examples, The Material Theory of Induction will initiate a new tradition in the analysis of inductive inference."--

Foundations of Inductive Logic Programming

Foundations of Inductive Logic Programming
Author: Shan-Hwei Nienhuys-Cheng
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 440
Release: 1997-04-18
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9783540629276

The state of the art of the bioengineering aspects of the morphology of microorganisms and their relationship to process performance are described in this volume. Materials and methods of the digital image analysis and mathematical modeling of hyphal elongation, branching and pellet formation as well as their application to various fungi and actinomycetes during the production of antibiotics and enzymes are presented.