КОГНИТИВНЫЕ МОДЕЛИ ЭПИСТЕМИЧЕСКИХ МЕНТАЛЬНЫХ СОСТОЯНИЙ

Научная статья
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18454/RULB.9.18
Выпуск: № 1 (9), 2017
PDF

Аннотация

Эпистемические состояния, с которыми связана познавательная деятельность человека, направлены не только на осмысление фрагментов действительности, но и на собственное познание. Важным шагом на этом пути является моделирование ментальных процессов в их связи с семантикой стоящих за этим языковых знаков, независимо от того, на каком языке это познание осуществляется. В статье показано, каким образом формально-логическое и лингвистическое моделирование ментальных состояний указывает на взаимосвязь и амбивалентность мыслительных процессов, связанных с познанием. Раскрывается сущность эпистемических устремлений человека в познании окружающего мира.

Studying the world around and comprehending about himself as an investigator, the scientist goes up onto the meta-level of philosophical reflection, which makes it possible to go into the problem of cognition on a higher level. One of the most important steps on this way is an attempt to model the process of thinking in terms of cognitive linguistics in its connection with the corresponding semantic units. Epistemic mental states make one of the most complex and fruitful objects of investigations in the sphere of cognitive linguistics.

Our aim is to apply the methodology of cognitive modeling offered by prof. V. Savitsky to give the formal description of the semantic contents of target notions without direct reference to any particular language. [5] This method proves effective when applied to modeling perceptive, intentional, emotive and epistemic states of mind, to which we refer Knowledge, Supposition, Belief, Trust, Doubt, Prevision, Recollection, etc. Exploring their meaning, correlation, difference, identity and interdependence we get an idea of the structure of the whole conceptual field of these notions.

Theoretical Background of Study

The theoretical background of the present study is based on the conception of logical modeling of semantic units, offered by prof. Savitsky.[5]. The basic categories applied here are the so-called “state of things” – P and the “cognitive position”. The former term is taken from formal logical modeling and is introduced by O.N. Seliverstova, who means by this term anything that can take place in any reality, be it mental or material world. [6]. The latter is our own term to denote the degree of cognition, that is to say how far this or that phenomenon is investigated and apprehended.

According to R. Acoff and F. Emery epistemic state of mind is a kind of epistemic event, and as such it is unlikely to refer to some kind of mental activity (mental operations), as far as they are not the act of information processing, but the result of this processing. [1, P.114]. Say, summing figures up is a mental process, but knowing its result is a mental state. On the way to achieving definite knowledge one can experience such epistemic mental states as Conviction, Belief, Supposition, Presumption, Expectation, Recollection, Doubt and some others. Taken together they constitute the cognitive field of Epistemic Mental States. Defining the cognitive position of this or that element of this field means attributing some kind of modality to it – axiological, ontological, deontic or epistemic. When we expose the target field to formal logical modeling, we define the degree of its apprehension with the help of logical operators – “true”, “false”, “possible”, “probable”, “credible”, “unlikely” etc. The choice of the modal operator depends on the degree of reliability of the source of information and also on the personal psychological and cultural background. It is also worth mentioning that epistemic mental states are normally experienced together with some emotions. They are evident in such phraseological units as and many others. Let’s consider some of the units of this conceptual field.

The basic notional unit of this field – Knowledge - is defined in Big Oxford dictionary as knowing, familiarity gained by experience; person’s range of infor-mation; theoretical or practical understanding; the sum of what is known; certain understanding(unlike opinion). Collins English Dictionary defines Knowledge as direct perception; apprehension; understanding; acquaintance; information; erudition. It is worth mentioning that other dictionaries – both English and Russian – concentrate on Knowledge as having information, being aware of the fact, certainty about something,- but never dwell upon the degree of its trustworthiness, reliability and believability of the source of information, which makes Knowledge very close to the notions of Belief and Conviction. These two notions lie mostly on the sphere of everyday communication, but for the scientific mind a more definite cognitive position is important. So Knowledge may be associated with a vacillating cognitive position: positive in scientific discourse and neutral in everyday communication. Thus Knowledge cannot be formally expressed by the Logical expression (x SUPPOSE P) and (P), because Supposition does not imply a hundred per cent obvious truth, and Knowledge does.

Supposition and Belief are very close notions, both connected with neutral cognitive position, which means they are based on probable, but still indirect indications on the reliability of the source of information. Positive cognitive position (knowing something for sure from logical deduction) is possible, but not obligatory here. In this respect Supposition and Belief are very close to Trust, which is based not on truth, but on a high degree of moral reputation of the source of information and little rate of importance of logical deduction. Religious, political, ideological or other type of Trust has great axiological but small ontological value for a person, as far as logical argumentation doesn’t mean much for those who trust. Trust is irrational, but it isn’t inevitably false. Unlike Supposition and Belief, Trust has a low cognitive value, consequently, a negative cognitive position. Supposition is nothing else but attributing P the modality of possibility, wherein the probability of P is just a little over zero, a little more than just plain impossible.

Prevision, Expectation and Recollection have a temporal character. They represent a mental model of the future and the past state of things on the basis of the current state of things. They only make up a temporal extrapolation of tendencies. No matter how high the degree of probability is here, it is always less than 100%, as far as it is impossible to consider all the factors relevant for modeling the future state of things and correlate the un-changeable past state of things with flexible current state. The logical formula looks like “x PREDICT P= (x SUPPOSE (Єt2)) Є t1”. Expectation is a combination of prevision and some kind of emotional reaction, such as hope, or fear, or misgiving, depending on the degree of importance of the expected event for the person. Say, if the Moon is about to come out, the traveler expects it, because it will light his way, but the one who stays at home is indif-ferent to it. He just knows the fact. So this mental state can be described by the formula “x EXPECT P = (EAGER/INDIFFERENT P) and (x PREDICT P)”.

Any human being living in this probable world feels intuitively the degree of reliability of his previsions, both positive and negative. Therefore anticipation often goes hand in hand with misgiving, and despondency – with hope. In this way emotions get involved with cognitive processes.

Recollection is activation in one’s mind of a definite block of information, kept in the memory. It may rely on the personal experience with possibly some axiological elements involved, or it may go without it, but logically it always denotes an epistemic state containing some objective information. If we introduce the logical operator PERCEIVE (=activate in mind), formally it can be described as “x RECOLLECT P =(x PERCEIVE (x INFORMATION (PЄ t1))) Є” t2. Unlike the formula of Prevision, the succession of time indexes here goes in reverse order because Prevision is a rational model of the future while Recollection is a mnemonic model of the past.

Cognition is an intricate process with so many connotations and factors involved, that it never goes smoothly and evenly without pains of hesitation, dubiety, uncertainty. This mental stumbling can otherwise be called Doubt. Prof. Apresyan defines Doubt as cognitive position regarding the state of things P, which claims that “POSSIBLY not P”. [2, P.37]. This approach does not contrapose Doubt and Supposition – “POSSIBLY P”, because in case of Doubt the veracity of doubtful information is less than 50%, but Supposition implies a higher degree (more than 50%) of veracity. Prof. Savitsky offered a more extended logical formula of Doubt: “(x DOUBT P = x SUPPOSE (POSSIBLY (NOT P))” [5,P.34]. It looks more comprehensive, as far as it in-volves elements which would distinguish Doubt from other epistemic states.

Supposition, Conviction, Trust and Doubt complement each other to make a cognitive unit of epistemic states. They may intersect, but never contradict, because each of them occupies the expedient place on the scale of probability - from 0% – improbable, to a 100% true. Doubt occupies that part of the scale, which is free from Conviction and Trust, but may come together with Supposition without claiming to be in its focus. Doubt also implies Supposition in its turn, but also without laying any emphasis on it. It is worth mentioning that Supposition, Prevision, Trust and Belief take positive cognitive position, while Doubt and negative Supposition (POSSIBLY not P) occupy negative cognitive position.
So this is where the difference between the above mentioned epistemic states lies. Prevailing (POSSIBLY P) or (POSSIBLY not P) doesn’t make the bias of epistemic states, but it does constitute their logical and factual motivation, though much is also defined by psychological, cultural and emotional motivation. Thus, a person who uncritically believes in P, can intuitively feel, that it isn’t so, that (POSSIBLY not P), still he would disregard yielding to ingrained doubt, because his TRUST is irrational.

To sum it up, all epistemic mental states are defined by positive or negative cognitive position; they appear interconnected and ambivalent. Their ontological status depends mostly on the choice of plus or minus, P or not P, and it is only after that, that the degree of possibility of P is considered. The above mentioned notions cannot be rigidly defined, as far as their contents and denotation are quite vague. Besides not all of them are hierarchically equal and can lie on different levels of this cognitive sphere. For that matter they can partly cross, partly overflow into each other, and sometimes they go together. This fluidity of notions of the target cognitive field doesn’t encourage their strict classification. Hegel G.W.F mentioned it in his time.

We all live in the world of uncertainty. The firm postulates of deductive logics and rigid laws of mathematics are all artificial. When applied to real world they often breed inaccuracy and produce lots of discrepancies. It confirms the philosophical idea of the stochastic nature of the world around us, including basic scientific laws. A human being intuitively apprehends it, therefore even his most trusted beliefs and even universal truths are sometimes exposed to doubt, prompting their further development and progress.

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