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Topics related to "a priori validity"

fallacy
fallacy in logic, a term used to characterize an invalid argument. Strictly speaking, it refers only to the transition from a set of premises to a conclusion, and is distinguished from falsity, a value attributed to a single statement. The laws of syllogisms were systematically elaborated by Aristo... Read more
anomie
anomie a social condition characterized by instability, the breakdown of social norms, institutional disorganization, and a divorce between socially valid goals and available means for achieving them. Introduced into sociology by Emile Durkheim in his study Suicide (1897), anomie also refers to... Read more
superstition
superstition an irrational belief or practice resulting from ignorance or fear of the unknown. The validity of superstitions is based on belief in the power of magic and witchcraft and in such invisible forces as spirits and demons. A common superstition in the Middle Ages was that the devil could ... Read more
logic
logic the systematic study of valid inference. A distinction is drawn between logical validity and truth. Validity merely refers to formal properties of the process of inference. Thus, a conclusion whose value is true may be drawn from an invalid argument, and one whose value is false, from a valid... Read more
hadith
hadith , a tradition or the collection of the traditions of Muhammad , the Prophet of Islam, including his sayings and deeds, and his tacit approval of what was said or done in his presence. The term, which literally refers to an individual tradition, is also used as a synonym of sunna, the norma... Read more
probate
probate , in law, the certification by a court that a will is valid. Probate, which is governed by various statutes in the several states of the United States, is required before the will can take effect. The procedure requires that notification of a hearing be given to all persons who may possibl... Read more
Albion Woodbury Small
Albion Woodbury Small 1854-1926, American sociologist, b. Buckfield, Maine, grad. Colby College, 1876, and further educated in Germany. He was made president of Colby in 1889, but left it in 1892 to found at the Univ. of Chicago the first department of sociology in an American university. Small als... Read more
epistemology
epistemology [Gr.,=knowledge or science], the branch of philosophy that is directed toward theories of the sources, nature, and limits of knowledge. Since the 17th cent. epistemology has been one of the fundamental themes of philosophers, who were necessarily obliged to coordinate the theory of kno... Read more
pragmatism
pragmatism , method of philosophy in which the truth of a proposition is measured by its correspondence with experimental results and by its practical outcome. Thought is considered as simply an instrument for supporting the life aims of the human organism and has no real metaphysical significance. ... Read more
divorce
divorce partial or total dissolution of a marriage by the judgment of a court. Partial dissolution is a divorce "from bed and board," a decree of judicial separation , leaving the parties officially married while forbidding cohabitation. Total dissolution of the bonds of a valid marriage is ... Read more

Encyclopedia entries related to "a priori validity"

Joseph Butler
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography ...on human nature and a natural theology that emphasized the validity of Christian beliefs. Joseph Butler was born on May 18, 1692...two flaws in the reasoning of Clarke's recently published a priori demonstrations concerning the proof of the divine omnipresence... Read more
pragmatism
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ...that truth can be reached through deductive reasoning from a priori grounds and insists on the need for inductive investigation...investigation of empirical reality. W. V. O. Quine has upheld the validity of some a priori knowledge, pointing out that mathematics greatly facilitates... Read more
Evolutionary Epistemology
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of Science and Religion ...to critique the Kantian concept of a priori : If cognition is a capacity acquired...given individual, ontogenetically a priori. However, the origins of human cognitive...Furthermore, human knowledge, including its a priori component, is provisional: It is neither...difference between the discernment of ... Read more

Dictionary entries related to "a priori validity"

measurement by fiat
Book article from: A Dictionary of Sociology ...but rather assign numbers on the basis of arbitrary units, face validity, or intuition. This often happens when sociologists refer to a concept which seems on commonsense or a priori grounds to be important, but which they do not know how to measure... Read more

Related newspaper, magazine, and trade journal articles from HighBeam Research

Medical outcomes study short form 36: testing and cross-validating a second-order factorial structure for health system employees.
Magazine article from: Health Services Research; 12/1/1998; ; 700+ words ; ...has been limited to scale reliability, precision, and validity, and the use of exploratory factor analysis or principal...been done to evaluate the factorial reliability and validity of the SF-36. The purpose of this article, therefore...report the results of a second-order CFA of the factor validity of ... Read more
Gel vehicles are not inherently more irritating than creams.
Magazine article from: Journal of Drugs in Dermatology; 3/1/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...irritancies of topical products are potentially quite variable, and a priori assumptions about relative irritancy of gels versus creams...determining the irritation potential of a topical preparation. The validity of this method to detect differences in weak irritants has... Read more
The factor structure of the paranormal belief scale: more evidence in support of the oblique five.
Magazine article from: The Journal of Parapsychology; 9/1/1997; ; 700+ words ; ...potentially serious problems with the PBS (in terms of psychometric validity, factor structure, and scale construction), it was not until...reported a confirmatory factor analysis of the PBS that the a priori problems associated with the PBS were shown to have real empirical... Read more
Prediction of distributed air leakage in raised-floor data centers.
Magazine article from: ASHRAE Transactions; 1/1/2007; ; 700+ words ; ...estimating air leakage and assess its validity. INTRODUCTION In raised-floor data centers...manner: it is either ignored, specified a priori, or estimated a posteriori using guidelines...2005), air leakage has been specified a priori and distributed uniformly throughout the... Read more
Fetal Growth and Length of Gestation in Relation to Prenatal Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke Assessed by Hair Nicotine Concentration.
Magazine article from: Environmental Health Perspectives; 6/1/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...the third trimester). The exposure categories were defined a priori as high (nicotine concentration [is greater than or equal to...and control of confounding are the most critical issues of validity in studies of the effects of ETS on pregnancy outcomes (32... Read more
WMAP: a radiological analysis.(SPECIAL REPORT)(Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe )
Magazine article from: Progress in Physics; 1/1/2007; ; 700+ words ; ...the ability to affect the signal at the source and without a priori knowledge. Resulting WMAP images have an exceedingly low signal...and point sources. Concerns are also raised relative to the validity of assigning brightness temperatures in this setting. 1 Introduction... Read more
(book reviews)
Magazine article from: The Christian Century; 12/8/1993; ; 700+ words ; ...subset of religious thinking. Can theologians not be religious thinkers? Fuller claims that theology assumes the a priori validity of a particular religious tradition, while religious thinking is potentially limitless in form or substance. (Later... Read more
An Index of Abundance for Coastal Species of Juvenile Sharks from the Northeast Gulf of Mexico.(Statistical Data Included)
Magazine article from: Marine Fisheries Review; 6/22/1999; ; 700+ words ; ...generally lacked a standardized statistical sampling design. The validity of an abundance estimator (i.e. indices of abundance) depends...The criteria for establishing these areas were based on a priori shark abundance survey information (Trent et al.(10)) and depth... Read more
Karl Popper, critical rationalist.(modern philosopher)
Magazine article from: National Review; 12/25/1995; ; 700+ words ; ...of Euclidean geometry. But there is no way to determine a priori whether the implications of any set of definitions and premises...universal laws embedded in observable reality, but create them a priori and then impose them, as it were, on reality. But the Kantian...theory of relativity and disproved Newton's ... Read more
Identifying the generating distribution of business and economics data: an empirical method.
Magazine article from: Journal of Academy of Business and Economics; 3/1/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...identification is circumvented by imposing an explicit a' priori functional form for the generating family, e.g., X is distributed...family, the estimation of [mu] and [sigma]. Imposing a' priori distribution can be costly in terms of the congruity of...begs the question however, of the empirical or conceptual ... Read more