Epistemic Basis Research Articles

Valuing What You Risk and Risking What You Value: Advancing a research agenda for risk studies

Risk studies have rapidly expanded in the last few decades. Yet this growth is characterized by fragmentation in the literature despite it being a central concept for a vast array of organizations, where their success or failure to manage risk is considered central to thriving, surviving or collapsing. We take this opportunity provided by the Perspectives format to engage with a selection of six diverse papers published in Organization Studies over four decades. Drawing from these papers, we trace the evolution of risk research in relation to its epistemic bases in either metrics or values and the strategic focus on risk as either harm or opportunity. Inspired by the tensions between each of these bases, our review of the selected articles illustrates the dynamic entanglement of these ostensibly distinct and polarized strategic and epistemic bases of risk studies. We then develop a conceptual framework to map the field of risk research and propose avenues for future research. Our framework enables us to propose a stronger focus on risk taking for opportunity, warn against becoming overly focused on the metrics for controlling harm especially in the face of enticing visualizations of harmful risk, and strongly assert values as an important epistemic basis for risk studies. As these values may be hidden or visible, we emphasize the importance of understanding whose values are foregrounded in proposing a research agenda for reclaiming societal benefit. This latter focus is a neglected area of risk studies yet is vitally important in addressing the big societal issues of our time.

OPEN SOURCE TEXTBOOK AS A RESOURCE FOR THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS OF ALGEBRA IN INITIAL TRAINING OF MATHEMATICS TEACHERS

Objective: To determine the implications of the use of open source text in the teaching-learning process of algebraic structures in the initial teacher training of the mathematics specialty in a state university in Peru. Theoretical Framework: The conceptual and epistemic bases of open learning are systematically addressed through interactive texts, as well as the aspects related to the teaching-learning process in university higher education. Method: The study has a mixed approach, pre-experimental design and correlational level, the target population was mathematics education students and a sample of 46 randomly chosen students, data collection is carried out through a diagnostic questionnaire, another multiple alternative and an interview, in the study sample classes are held through the open source book; then the learning achieved at the conceptual level is evaluated. procedural of algebraic structures. Results and Discussion: In this research it is evident that students did not know the open source online text for the study of mathematics, but they have skills in the use of digital technology; but with the use of the digital book they assimilate the concepts, perform demonstrations and solve problems efficiently, raising their level of motivation towards learning. Thus, the relevant use of open source books significantly improves learning and the development of mathematical competence in students. Research Implications: Strengthening of interactive and personalized activities for a comprehensive training of mathematics content mediated by digital technology, reinforcing in a sustained way the culture and mathematical competence of teachers in initial training. Originality/Value: Implementation of an innovative approach in pedagogical practice, through the use of open resources for the assimilation of mathematical concepts and procedures in a dynamic, efficient and effective way. The value of research is evidenced in the praxis of didactic strategies in the context of the digital age, oriented to the knowledge of algebraic structures by mathematics teachers.

The Spirit of the Pluriverse: Africana Spirit-Based Epistemologies and Interepistemic Thinking

Abstract In this article, I argue that interepistemic thinking is characteristic of Africana spirit-based epistemologies and that such thinking is essential to the construction of the pluriverse. I demonstrate that the spiritual basis of many Africana epistemologies facilitates interepistemic thinking and the making of a more equitable, functional, and healthy “modernity.” This is despite narratives of modernity, such as that of Max Weber, that are embedded in a secular-rationalist ideology, which tend to mark spirituality as an invalid means of accessing, representing, or (re)producing truth, marking it as “primitive,” destined to disappear, and as incompatible with the so-called modern world. For this reason, decoloniality as it applies to an analysis of Africana spirit-based epistemologies must demonstrate the limited, Eurocentric nature of the secular-rationalist paradigm. I support these arguments through an analysis of the role of interepistemic thinking in the spirit-based epistemologies apparent in what are commonly referred to as African diasporic religions. In doing so, I will also offer a critical perspective on the application of religion as a conceptual category to the realities of the peoples of the African diaspora, following important recent scholarship in the study of religion. I will begin with a review of the nature of the pluriverse and a brief description of Nelson Maldonado-Torres’s (2008) critique of secularism, followed by an analysis of interepistemic thinking as it can be observed within Africana spirit-based epistemologies, and conclude with an explanation of how this may inform a critical reconsideration of the epistemic bases that undergird the modern/colonial world system.

The epistemic role of vividness

Abstract The vividness of mental imagery is epistemically relevant. Intuitively, vivid and intense memories are epistemically better than weak and hazy memories, and using a clear and precise mental image in the service of spatial reasoning is epistemically better than using a blurry and imprecise mental image. But how is vividness epistemically relevant? I argue that vividness is higher-order evidence about one’s epistemic state, rather than first-order evidence about the world. More specifically, the vividness of a mental image is higher-order evidence about the amount of first-order information one has about its subject matter. When vividness is sufficiently low, it can give one reason to doubt the epistemic basis of the mental image and thereby act as a defeater. This account has important implications for theorizing about the epistemic roles of memory, imagination, mental imagery and phenomenal consciousness.

Fourth Person

In the context of polycrisis and systemic collapse, the primary challenge we face is a widely shared sense of collective depression—a lack of agency in regard to the bigger picture. What does it take to serve evolutionary transformation in the face of systemic collapse? In our view, it takes a form of knowing which extends beyond the current constructs of first-, second- and third-person knowing around which much of our current learning, knowledge, and leadership systems are organized. In this paper, we suggest fourth-person knowing as a distinct epistemology at the intersection of the other three, and we draw on our action research to illuminate five phenomena that point to and distinguish fourth-person knowing: (1) knowing that comes through me but is not of me; (2) knowing that shows up in my individual experience as a decentering of perception; (3) a heightened sense of potential, of possibilities that previously were experienced as unattainable now appear to be in reach; (4) sensing your own agency in helping the ‘universe’ (the larger field) to evolve; and (5) significant long term impact in terms of practical results. It is our hope that by articulating fourth person knowing we can provide an epistemic basis upon which research and inquiry methodologies can be built, complementing first-, second- and third-person forms of inquiry, methodologies based on deep sensing and presencing that support individuals and collectives to recognize, connect with and manifest what is theirs to do in the wider context of this moment and the incipient patterns of emergence and movement making.

Epistemic Blind Spots, Misconceptions and Stereotypes: The Home Birth Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract This article offers a critical feminist reading of the home birth jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The aim is to shed light on the gender sensitivity of the Court in its legal reasoning and knowledge production. Since its first decision on the permissibility of a blanket de facto home birth ban in the case of Ternovszky v. Hungary in 2010, the Court has given five judgments on the matter, including a Grand Chamber decision in the case of Dubska and Krejzova v. Czech Republic. The author finds that the Court applies an overtly restrictive obstetric narrative of childbirth without situating its controversial epistemic basis. In doing so, the Court reinforces a rationale that is linked to loss of agency and disempowerment of persons in childbirth and reproduces harmful stereotypes. The article highlights bias in knowledge formation and (re)production at the Court in addressing cases of home birth. The findings in this article add to feminist inquiries of international human rights adjudication, specifically in regard to knowledge formation, knowledge production and stereotyping as well as to literature on the Court’s gender sensitivity.

Caring for Epistemic Bases in the 21st Century: Paradigms of Scientific Research

The general objective of this systematic review article was to describe the care of epistemic bases in the twenty-first century: paradigms of scientific research. Method: The study used an in-depth literature review of the latest research related to the thematic axis of care-care-research in nursing, which included 23 publications in various databases, which went through a process of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: The act of caring has evolved considerably, transforming into a multidimensional practice that goes beyond simple physical attention and is immersed in a deep understanding of the emotional and social needs of individuals. In this context, the epistemic bases that support care in the 21st century find their foundation in the paradigms of scientific research in nursing. Conclusion: In the 21st century, nursing care is nourished by an epistemic foundation that recognizes the complexity and individuality of the health experience. Scientific research paradigms in nursing provide the conceptual framework to address care holistically, considering not only the physical, but also the emotional, social, and cultural aspects that influence people's health and well-being. This approach reflects the evolution of nursing towards a more inclusive and human-centred discipline.

Práticas integrativas e complementares em saúde entre estudantes universitários: motivos de uso e de não uso

Abstract The objective of this study is to understand the reasons for use or non-use of the integrative and complementary practices among university health students. It is a quantitative and qualitative research, with data collected with questionnaires (667) and interviews (34), and investigated by content analysis. Therapeutic effects, family influence, and offer of alternatives to biomedicine were the main reasons for use of integrative and complementary practices, while the absence of demand, disinterest, and lack of opportunity were the most frequent barriers for use. Therefore, the motivations for use emphasize advantages obtained with these practices and some contexts that determine their adoption. Regarding the barriers for use, a scenario of low availability and dominance of biomedicine in contemporary western culture stands out. Therefore, these results corroborate the demand to confront the monoculture of biomedicine, as well as the inclusion of integrative practices in higher health education. Thus, university can be built on dialogues between different cultures in health, facilitating the use of non-hegemonic practices and expanding the epistemic bases of care in the formation and the life of the academic community.

Cultural expertise in Sami land rights litigation: Epistemic strategies in the Girjas and Fosen cases

How do parties mobilise cultural expertise in Indigenous rights litigation in Scandinavia? Recently, Sami groups have litigated to claim Indigenous rights to land and natural resources, winning some remarkable victories in the Supreme Courts of Norway and Sweden. In this paper, we draw on socio-legal mobilisation theory to analyse the epistemic strategies of Sami litigants and their adversaries in two recent landmark Supreme Court cases on Indigenous rights to usage of land: the 2020 Girjas case in Sweden and the 2021 Fosen case in Norway. Conceptualising cultural expertise as a strategic framing contest, we analyse how the parties struggled over the epistemic basis of the respective case by legitimating their claims to cultural knowledge, drawing on academic research, and discrediting their opponents’ epistemic claims. Our findings suggest that in both cases, Sami claimants successfully established an epistemic basis where their traditional, experiential knowledge combined with independent academic expertise effectively challenged the knowledge claims of their adversaries. Yet, both cases also demonstrate how the linkage between Sami Indigeneity and reindeer husbandry in the national law of both countries excludes non-reindeer herding Sami persons from the Indigenous rights affirmed by the courts.

Transcending the nature-society dichotomy: A dialogue between the Sumak Kawsay and the epistemology of complexity

This transdisciplinary research aims to propose one path, among multiple paths, to transcend the nature/society dichotomy in ecological economics, through an ecology of knowledge between Sumak Kawsay—an Andean indigenous cosmovision—and the epistemology of complexity. A qualitative methodology has been used, which includes a critical revision of scholarship on Sumak Kawsay, the definition of nature, complexity, complex systems, and the epistemology of complexity. This effort points to a critique of the conception of nature held by ‘traditional science’; one that has also resulted in the nature/society dichotomy as an epistemic basis within ecological economics. Thus, an epistemic convergence between Sumak Kawsay and the epistemology of complexity is advocated not only to disregard the nature/society dichotomy in ecological economics but also to include ancestral indigenous principles and values in knowledge production. In conclusion, such a dialogue between Sumak Kawsay and the epistemology of complexity could transcend the nature/society dichotomy within ecological economics by including notions like Pacha Mama and socio-ecological systems. It also has the potential to influence science production by considering principles from ancestral knowledge that points towards community, inclusion, horizontality, complexity, interculturality, and trans-disciplinarity.

Decolonising access for Performing Arts Training at Makerere University: The Legacy of Rose Mbowa

ABSTRACT Access and relevance have been central in the pursuit of a university education responsive to the development agenda of post-colonial Uganda. In Makerere University, the drive involved critical engagement with hegemonic constraints predicated by an interplay of historical drivers, many of them rooted in colonialism. This paper explores initiatives in Uganda and Africa towards the decolonisation of universities in Africa to centre the African/indigenous context and epistemic bases, enable access to education, provide curriculum responsiveness and ensure pedagogical relevance as imperatives in decolonisation and national (re)construction. Performing arts education was faced with limitations specific to its context of limited academic value owing to a hegemonic hierarchization that devalued scholarship and practice informed by indigenous epistemic bases and cultural practice. This article uses reports, interviews and archival materials to explore the role of Rose Mbowa, a drama teacher and practitioner at Makerere University, in decolonising the matriculation window to increase access for Performing Arts training and enabling university-community collaborative pedagogical contexts to empower learners and the community.

إسهام منهج الرازي التشكيكية في قوة التراث ووجوب اعتبار هذا المنهج في آرائه المتعارضة

İslam düşünce geleneğinin en etkili isimlerinden biri Fahreddin er-Râzî’dir (ö. 606/1210). O, tahkik yöntemiyle birçok meseleyi aklî bir çözüme kavuşturduğu gibi teşkîk yöntemiyle de birçok konuyu farklı açılardan problematize etmiştir. Bu nedenle kendisine İmâmü’l-muhakkikîn ve İmâmü’l-müşekkikîn denilmiştir. Bu konuların başında ise onun bilgi ve yöntemle ilgili ortaya attığı soru(n)lar gelmektedir. Onlardan biri de Menon paradoksu ve onunla ilgili çözüm önerileridir. Bu paradoks özünde var olan bilgilerin tekrar elde edilmesinin gereksizliğine, olmayan bilgilerin ise talep edilmesinin imkânsızlığına dayalıdır. Râzî, bu konuda farklı ifadeler kullanmaktadır. Ondan sonra gelen düşünürleri en fazla düşünmeye sevk eden Râzî’nin bu farklı ifadeleri gelmektedir. Başta bu konu olmak üzere Râzî’nin teşkîk yöntemini bir eksiklik olarak görenlerin aksine bu yöntem geleneğe çok ciddi katkılar yapmıştır. Aynı zamanda Menon paradoksu ile ilgili ifadeleri onun hem muhakkik hem de müşekkik kimlikleri ile irtibatlıdır.

Rethinking and Decolonizing Theories, Policies, and Practice of Health from the Global South.

This article states the need to decolonize the theories, policies, and practices that dominate health, and reflects on the necessity for a new epistemology built from the Global South. This allows rethinking health with a new categorical framework, which incorporates socially determined health and life, with the optic of reaching the highest conceivable degree of living well/well-living. We put forth that the epistemic bases of epidemiology and the implementation of health systems tend to reproduce a coloniality of power and of established health knowledge. Health systems are viewed as an accumulation of reforms based on theories and policies of the Global North imposed on Latin America and the Caribbean. These systems have been built as bureaucratic, biomedicalized, treatment-oriented, and commercialized health systems that are perceived as external to societies and that reproduce mistreatment, violence, and racism. We make the argument to rethink, remake, and decolonize the theories and practices that govern both epidemiology and health systems, and, from the South, develop strategic processes for building health sovereignty as the vision for the reconstruction of hope and social justice.

Depersonalizing troubles in institutional interaction

This article advances our understanding of institutional interaction by showing when and how it can be advantageous for professionals to treat addressed recipients as non-unique. Examining how teachers talk about children-as-students during parent–teacher conferences, this investigation illuminates several specific interactional methods that teachers use to depersonalize the focal student’s trouble, delineating as among these the novel practice of ‘routinizing’ – citing first-hand experience with other similar cases. Analysis demonstrates how teachers use routinizing to enact their expertise, both responsively as a vehicle for attenuating and credentialing their advice-giving to parents/caregivers, and proactively to pre-empt parent/caregiver resistance to their student assessments/evaluations. This research thus reveals how routinizing licenses teachers’ authority vis-à-vis the focal student’s trouble by making salient the epistemic basis for their claims.

Stated preference methods and STI policy studies: a foreground approach

Abstract This discussion article explores the ontological and epistemic basis for analysing social preferences in the broader interdisciplinary field of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) policy studies and its evaluation using stated preference (SP) methods. STI policy studies base their approximations of policy problems on a revealed preference (RP) approach, which analyses economic agents' actual market behaviours based on standardized data sources. SP methods arose as an alternative to address the analysis of public goods for which the market fails to assign prices efficiently and can only be evaluated in hypothetical or contingent situations. In an analytical context of complexity defined by grand societal challenges related to the provision of public goods to be addressed by STI transformative policies, analysing social preferences by SP methods could support a more robust and holistic approach to STI policy analysis and its evaluation, improving the policy-making process and promoting more informed policy mixes and evaluation policy mixes. A kind of Kantian categorical imperative favouring SP methods is discussed based on the new STI policy research agenda on transformative change and supported by axiology around social choice, welfare, and a more participative STI policy governance.

Aisthetics of Religion and embodied spiritual perception: hermeneutic approaches in Hesychasm, Christian Platonism, and Aesthetics of Idealism, to ‘divine light’ and ‘mystical flight’

In this essay I show developments in Aisthetics of Religion, a new discipline of Science of Religion, towards the inclusion of the body, and the senses, departing from an approach of naturalistic reductionism towards the integration of the category or dimension of the transcendent”. Here, recourse is taken to the philosophical aesthetics of German Idealism, that integrates ‘body’ and ‘soul, by its concept of the faculty of ‘imagination’ as instrument of aisthesis and divination. Hesychasm is presented as sharing the same principles of spiritual aesthetics of the phenomenology of the divine, including supernatural paradigmatic iconic event, as of Jesus’ Transfiguration and St. Paul’s mystical flight. The epistemic basis regarding the role of body, soul, and mind, with their specific aisthesis, and their formation towards it, recognised. Affinity between these Aisthetics of Religion, and Hesychastic epistemics are recognised as inspiration for theology and hermeneutics beyond the limits of ‘logo-centrism’. The Hesychastic approach towards sensoriform perception of paradigmatic ‘iconic’ manifestations of the divine, in embodied perception, and preparation to such aisthesis is recognised as inspiration and theological challenge in response to Aisthetics of Religion.

Unravelling Vaccine Scepticism in South Tyrol, Italy: A Qualitative Analysis of Personal, Relational, and Structural Factors Influencing Vaccination Decisions.

Low vaccine uptake in South Tyrol, particularly for non-coronavirus and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, poses a significant public health challenge in the northernmost province of Italy. This qualitative study conducted in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of vaccine-sceptical parents to examine the factors that contribute to their vaccination decisions. The ten participants' children had varied vaccination statuses, ranging from unvaccinated to partially vaccinated or vaccinated as late as possible. Only one adult participant received the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Using Grounded Theory analysis, the emergent meta-category of 'self-relatedness' was identified, highlighting the importance of individual experiences and the social context. The study found that participants' social circles consisted of individuals with similar vaccination attitudes, often characterized by a shared affinity for nature. Although they accepted individuals with different views, they remained uninfluenced. Participants perceived healthcare professionals as one-sided and uncritical, expressing distrust toward state orders. They believed that parents should be responsible for their children's well-being rather than the state. Distrust in the state and healthcare system, exacerbated by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, was rooted in negative experiences. In contrast, the participants had positive experiences with natural healing, homeopathy, and trusting the natural course of events. They perceived themselves as tolerant, non-radical, curious, health-conscious, yet critical and questioning. Participants resisted coercion, fear-mongering, and state sanctions and sought alternatives to mandatory vaccination. To address the complex social and behavioural factors underlying vaccination refusal, this study suggests that vaccination advocates, policymakers, and information providers should engage in appreciative, personal, and well-founded information exchanges with vaccine-hesitant individuals. Broad and comprehensible information dissemination, flexibility, and freedom of decision are essential for increasing informed decision making. Further research is required to better understand the epistemic basis of vaccine hesitancy.

The Logic of Measurement: A Defense of Foundationalist Empiricism

Abstract Practitioners of science treat evidence as a separate and objective body of materials that is independent of, and possibly also prior to, all of theorizing. Philosophers of science, by contrast, are increasingly wary of the role of theory in testing and measurement contexts, and hence have problematized the notion of evidence as prior or independent, even in the context of measurement. This paper argues that there is an important sense in which empirical certification of a quantity, via measurement , is indeed prior to theorizing, albeit not necessarily in order of time. The case for this priority distinguishes between the certification of the measurability of a given quantity, as a quantity appropriately measured on a specified scale , and the epistemic warrant due to an assignment of a specific magnitude to that quantity on a given occasion. The result is an account of the certification of a measurable quantity, independent of any theory in which that quantity features. The effect is to render certification of quantities theory-neutral. The aim of the essay is thus to bolster and re-establish a more nuanced empiricist view, via building a case for quantity certification as the epistemic basis (i.e., foundation) of the scientific enterprise.

The concepts and origins of cell mortality

Organismal death is foundational to the evolution of life, and many biological concepts such as natural selection and life history strategy are so fashioned only because individuals are mortal. Organisms, irrespective of their organization, are composed of basic functional units—cells—and it is our understanding of cell death that lies at the heart of most general explanatory frameworks for organismal mortality. Cell death can be exogenous, arising from transmissible diseases, predation, or other misfortunes, but there are also endogenous forms of death that are sometimes the result of adaptive evolution. These endogenous forms of death—often labeled programmed cell death, PCD—originated in the earliest cells and are maintained across the tree of life. Here, we consider two problematic issues related to PCD (and cell mortality generally). First, we trace the original discoveries of cell death from the nineteenth century and place current conceptions of PCD in their historical context. Revisions of our understanding of PCD demand a reassessment of its origin. Our second aim is thus to structure the proposed origin explanations of PCD into coherent arguments. In our analysis we argue for the evolutionary concept of PCD and the viral defense-immunity hypothesis for the origin of PCD. We suggest that this framework offers a plausible account of PCD early in the history of life, and also provides an epistemic basis for the future development of a general evolutionary account of mortality.

Three ways to change your mind: an epistemic framework for cognitive interventions.

Belief change is an important element of much CBT, yet very little consideration has been given to the theories of knowledge, the epistemology, which underlie this process. This article argues that understanding the epistemic basis of the techniques therapists use can help guide their choice of interventions. The empirical evidence for cognitive restructuring is considered, the importance of distancing and decentring noted, and three epistemic styles are identified: the rational-empiricist, pragmatist and 'constructivist' approaches. Different schools of CBT emphasise one or more of these. The article describes how these epistemes can be used to make decisions about which cognitive interventions to use, particularly when clients may be sceptical about reality testing because of entrenched beliefs or real-life adversity.