Chapter Of My Thesis Research Articles

The Final Chapter of my Thesis: How I Made the Most out of Finishing my PhD in Children’s Eating Behaviour During a Pandemic

In early 2020, national lockdowns in response to the Covid-19 pandemic meant that face-to-face research could no longer go ahead in the UK. This article describes my experiences as a final year PhD student who was in the middle of data collection for a feasibility trial of a children’s healthy eating intervention when the lockdown began. This reflective piece tracks my thought processes throughout the last year of my PhD, exploring the difficulties and decisions encountered along the way, as well as the serendipity of unexpected research opportunities.

Understanding with Models

Theoretical modelling raises many epistemological challenges. Models appear to explain economic phenomena, yet they also seem to lack crucial features theories of scientific explanation usually require, for instance faithfully representing causal factors of interest. My doctoral thesis aims at answering the following central and general question: what, if anything, can we learn from theoretical models? It does so by showing that models may provide epistemic benefits in the form of understanding even when they do not actually explain or when they do not provide causal knowledge. The second chapter of my thesis examines the inferentialist-behavioural account of understanding and argues that it does not allow to distinguish between the sense of understanding and genuine understanding. I submit that we can view it as offering an evaluative account of understanding instead than a substantive one. The third chapter analyses one purported solution to the problem of representation, namely the factive brand of inferentialism. I argue the account can’t distinguish merely phenomenological from explanatory representation and conclude by presenting a dilemma inferentialism faces. The fourth chapter characterizes what I call the narrow knowledge account of understanding and then shows that its two tenets, i.e., that one understands only if 1) one has knowledge of causes and 2) that knowledge is provided by an explanation, are untenable. The fifth chapter develops a novel account of how-possibly explanations which claims that what demarcates these explanations from how-actually explanations is that the former provide knowledge of possibility whereas the latter provide knowledge of actuality. The sixth and final chapter is a detailed case study of the general equilibrium case in economics. I argue that the model offers non-causal understanding via a how-possibly mathematical explanation.

Dimensões comunicacionais no conceito de Escultura Social na arte de Joseph Beuys

This article discusses the first chapter of my thesis, in which I present the possible epistemological origin of the concept of Social Sculpture, found in the work of the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), based on the following authors: Tisdall (1992, 2008), Bunge (1998), Borer (2001) and Durini (2001). I explore the characteristics of the communicational concept of Beuys’ Social Sculpture in relation to authors like Hardt and Negri (2005), Maturana and Varella (1995), Flusser (2008) and Gorz (2005), which perform a critic of the communication. With qualitative bibliographic imagery analysis, sound, videos and photos of Joseph Beuys’ artistic production, the paper proves that his work (posters, drawings, watercolors, actions, performances, windows, videos and sculptures) intend to express and awaken people to reflect on art, politics, education and other topics, from its communicative aspects. His art, like Social Sculpture, aims to promote thought, speech, and reasoning. It is thus, expanded art as critical to communication and culture.

Biome evolution and biogeographical change through time

Keystone plant groups can be used to infer the evolution of biomes and biogeographical change of communities and taxa. In this thesis I investigated whether lineages in Trachycarpeae palms could be used to track different forest types through time and whether change in biome or biogeographic region had an effect on species diversification. These questions were approached using genetic data integrated with fossil record, species distribution, and speciation models. Although the three chapters of my thesis had additional foci outside of the main goal of inferring biogeographic change and diversification through time, they come together to paint a clear picture of how fine-scale and interdisciplinary studies can lead to more robust hypothesis testing and conclusions. I found that outside of tracking tropical forests through time, palms are useful for understanding island biogeography and the formation of other types of biomes.

Biome evolution and biogeographical change through time

Keystone plant groups can be used to infer the evolution of biomes and biogeographical change of communities and taxa. In this thesis I investigated whether lineages in Trachycarpeae palms could be used to track different forest types through time and whether change in biome or biogeographic region had an effect on species diversification. These questions were approached using genetic data integrated with fossil record, species distribution, and speciation models. Although the three chapters of my thesis had additional foci outside of the main goal of inferring biogeographic change and diversification through time, they come together to paint a clear picture of how fine-scale and interdisciplinary studies can lead to more robust hypothesis testing and conclusions. I found that outside of tracking tropical forests through time, palms are useful for understanding island biogeography and the formation of other types of biomes.