Epistemic Domain Research Articles

Nature of Engineering

Abstract Engineering education has slowly been making its way into schools with the aim of promoting engineering literacy, which is central to learning and working in a technology-oriented society. Educators and policy makers advocate the need for developing students’ understanding of the nature of engineering (NOE); yet, there is an ongoing debate on the heuristics that should be applied. In this article, we review and discuss current studies on engineering education in schools and the integration of engineering into the science curriculum. We describe four aspects of engineering fields: Structures, Machines, Materials, and Data, each uniquely characterized by the technology used and the artefact produced. We discuss the application of the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to the characterization of NOE, focusing on the cognitive and epistemic domain. Accordingly, we describe NOE through four categories: Aims & Values, Engineering Practices, Methods & Methodological Rules, and Engineering Knowledge, which can guide teaching and learning about NOE. Building on the FRA, this paper provides a framework for a continuous discussion on NOE and the theoretical and practical relationships between science and engineering.

Research strategies in click chemistry: Measuring its cognitive contents and knowledge flow

The issue about how outstanding scientists obtained innovative findings has drawn the interest of researchers in science, policy and scientometrics. Here, we attempt to address this question by using computational methods to measure the cognitive content and concepts of K. Barry Sharpless’ research and estimate the knowledge flow of his click chemistry to other fields. First, we traced Sharpless' conceptual journey over time through topic modeling approach, mapping and clustering of the epistemic network from distant reading his publications. We find that connectivity and functions, the core features of click chemistry, are embodied in his constant search for simplicity. What makes simplicity possible is his continuous work with collaborators on reactivity and reaction mechanisms. Moreover, citation and link analysis show that click chemistry had a much richer impact on other research fields than what is generally acknowledged, and drew solutions to significant and practical questions back to chemistry from biology. Together with these findings, we propose that the click chemistry philosophy follows the way that values nature's principle. Chemistry has a clear-cut epistemic domain in modeling Nature. Thus, click chemistry as a concept on doing science beyond a connective technology goes across the boundaries between disciplines and impacts many other fields.

Synecdoche of the body and epistemic domains in the writing of Mongo Beti

This article aims to examine the synecdoche of the body and epistemic domains in Mongo Beti, that is, it aims to show the functioning and to give a polysemy, a multifunctionality of the synecdoche in the Betian novels through the forest, social and political universe. To materialize this work, we rely on two methodological approaches: one, semiotic and the other, pragmatic. The first will help us to grasp the synecdoche of the body as a sign endowed with signifiance (Eco, 1988, p.28); the second will allow us to see it as a major theme tainted by implicit, implied (Maingeneau, 2001, p.132) and unspoken meanings. The examination of the problematic allowed us to arrive at these results: the forest is a space of hospitality and revenge; the relationship between synecdoche and the body in the traditional and urban universes; the relationship between Essola and the prison of Mundongo. Keywords: Synecdoche; Body; Forest; Social; Political

How professionals deal with clients’ explicit objections to their advice

Previous literature on advice-resistance in medicine and welfare has tended to focus on patients’ or callers’ inexplicit resistance (minimal responses, silence and so on). But clients also raise explicit objections, which put up a firmer barrier against the advisor’s efforts. In a novel look at resistance, we show that one important distinction among objections is their epistemic domain: whether the client’s objection is in their own world (e.g. experiencing pain), or in the world of the practitioner (e.g. difficulties in making appointments). We show that the practitioner may try to manoeuvre the objection onto grounds where their own expertise will win the day, in five ways: conceding the objection’s validity as a preface to moving on; proposing a ‘work-around’ that effectively repeats the original advice; selecting an aspect of it that could be remediated; correcting the client’s understanding of the challenges of the advice; and stressing the urgency of the original course of action. We discuss the distinction between objections to solicited and unsolicited advice, and the role of objections in revealing, and affirming, a service-user’s personal life-world contingencies.

Children's attributions of moral and epistemic virtue: Effects on learning and memory.

One developmental task faced by children is to identify, remember, and learn from epistemic and moral agents around them who are known to be good or virtuous. Here, in 2 studies, we examined U.S children's (N = 138; 55% female, 45% male; predominantly White, middle-class) memory processes for agents varying in moral and epistemic virtue. In Study 1, when presented with 16 faces of individuals who were said to vary in moral or epistemic virtue, children demonstrated enhanced trait memory for the characteristics of agents lacking in virtue relative to their more moral and competent counterparts. In Study 2, when presented with pairs of faces in the moral and epistemic domains, children showed enhanced content memory for information communicated by an epistemically competent individual with age. Together, these findings provide evidence that when categorizing single agents among many, children show better memory for their negative characteristics; and in a learning context, children show better retention of information communicated by more competent agents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

"Spatiotemporal Correlates of Mind Map in the Translation of Arabic Lexical Units into English"

This paper demonstrates that the mind map is a uniquely well-suited correlation of lexical units. The various functions of lexical items are correlated by cognitive analogies between various domains of thoughts, namely: the spatial and temporal correlates of mental states during communicative interaction. The aim of this paper is to analyze the cognitive capabilities of translators to perceive the lexical correlations between lexical units in both English and Arabic. The first point of contact between lexical units and the mind is related to the domains in which correlations can be used by the translators. The main hypothesis put forward is that the use of lexical concatenation in the epistemic domain involves the lexical relationships between premises of concepts and mental capabilities. This comes from the specific meaning of some connectives that require the manipulation of conceptual structures. The paper concluded that translators may vary with respect to the degree of the mental capacity to create lexical correlations between units of both English and Arabic. This is due to the different cognitive capacities of translators to create correlations of using lexical items during the translation process

Pursuit and inquisitive reasons

Sometimes inquirers may rationally pursue a theory even when the available evidence does not favor that theory over others. Features of a theory that favor pursuing it are known as considerations of promise or pursuitworthiness. Examples of such reasons include that a theory is testable, that it has a useful associated analogy, and that it suggests new research and experiments. These reasons need not be evidence in favor of the theory. This raises the question: what kinds of reasons are provided by pursuitworthiness considerations? Are they epistemic reasons or practical reasons? I argue that pursuitworthiness considerations are a kind of non-evidential epistemic reason, which I call an inquisitive reason. In support of this, I first point out two important similarities between the traditional pursuitworthiness considerations discussed in philosophy of science, which I call promise reasons, and certain social epistemic reasons that I call social inquisitive reasons. Specifically, both kinds of reason (1) favor pursuing a theory in a non-evidential way, and (2) concern promoting successful inquiry. I then propose recognition of a new category of normative reason: inquisitive reasons. This category contains both promise and social inquisitive reasons. Finally, I argue that inquisitive reasons share three essential features with previously recognized epistemic reasons: a connection to epistemic aims, explanatory independence, and the presence of a specific right-kind/wrong-kind reasons distinction. Each of these features have been used to argue that evidence should be treated as part of a distinct, independent domain of epistemic normativity. Since inquisitive reasons share these features, they too should be considered part of this independent epistemic domain. Thus, inquisitive reasons, including pursuitworthiness considerations, are epistemic reasons.

The Epistemic Role of Children’s Questions and Teacher’s Responses in Preschool Classroom Discourse

This study investigates the structure of discourse children initiate by asking inquisitive questions. In total, 301 question sequences were analyzed, taking into account the discourse analysis procedure. Generally, the analysis concluded that although children were demonstrating their epistemic stance, they used different question structures than the adults. However, the teachers realized the pragmatic aspects of these questions and were able to support their epistemic domains. Finally, the study also identified how sequence closures differed from traditional classroom discourse.

Kotarbiński on Intellectual Values and Intellectual Ethics

Tadeusz Kotarbiński never formulates explicitly the project of an intellectual ethics, but we can reconstruct his answer from his Traktat o dobrej robocie (1955; Eng. transl.: Praxiology: An introduction to the Sciences of Efficient Action, 1965) and his ethical writings. Kotarbiński does not formulate an explicit meta-ethics of values, and seems to develop a purely functionalist conception according to which there is nothing more in intellectual ethics than a conception of efficient action. However, he has a theory of practical values and skills that can be applied to the aims and norms of the epistemic domain. But can he secure a genuine conception of intellectual values if these are merely immanent to “efficient work”?

Governing progress: From cybernetic homeostasis to Simondon’s politics of metastability

In this article we analyse the idea of progress and show that, since its early-modern inception, it has relied on a twofold commitment. On the one hand, it rests on a project of mathematical modelisation of natural and social reality, deterministically conceived. On the other hand, it requires the production of a stable social order capable of implementing that model. This stance, we argue, is still dominant and defines the ‘(hyper-)modern condition’. Following Gilbert Simondon, we take the cybernetic notion of dynamic stability (‘homeostasis’) as paradigmatic of the hyper-modern condition. As we explain, this core notion has covered multiple epistemic domains, including the social sciences, and contributed to reformulate the modern idea of progress within the terms dictated by neoliberal governmentality. The connection we establish between cybernetics and neoliberalism will eventually allow us to use Simondon’s theory against both. In our view, Simondon’s concept of ‘metastability’ supports an alternative understanding of progress based on the ideas of social change and the government of normative invention, which includes the opening of social systems to a future beyond their own preservation.

The epistemics of social relations in Murrinhpatha, Garrwa and Jaru conversations

We present a comparison of practices of person reference in three different Australian Aboriginal language communities and discuss how the selection of referring expressions contributes to an ‘epistemics of social relations’. In all three communities, while names and nicknames are common ways of referring to non-present referents, kinterms serve to position referents within communal space, and thus within the epistemic domain of the participants. Conversely, we find that generic descriptors (e.g. whitefella, policeman) are commonly used for outsiders, even when their names are known. As highly specific relational descriptors, kinterms thereby accentuate participants' relative rights and responsibilities to know about the referents and their concerns. As non-relational terms generic descriptors do not place referents within the communal epistemic domain and they do not provide information about participants' rights and responsibilities with respect to those referents. We show here how the selection of kinterms and generics are locally managed in conversation to position referents with respect to a communal epistemic domain.

Epistemic Blame and the New Evil Demon Problem

The New Evil Demon Problem presents a serious challenge to externalist theories of epistemic justification. In recent years, externalists have developed a number of strategies for responding to the problem. A popular line of response involves distinguishing between a belief’s being epistemically justified and a subject’s being epistemically blameless for holding it. The apparently problematic intuitions the New Evil Demon Problem elicits, proponents of this response claim, track the fact that the deceived subject is epistemically blameless for believing as she does, not that she is justified for so believing. This general strategy—which I call the “unjustified-but-blameless maneuver”—is motivated, in part, by the assumption that the distinction between epistemic justification and blamelessness is merely an extension of the familiar distinction between moral justification and blamelessness. In this paper, I consider three ways of drawing the distinction between justification and blamelessness familiar from the moral domain: the first in terms of a connection with reactive attitudes, the second in terms of the distinction between wrongness and wronging, and the third in terms of reasons-responsiveness. All three ways of drawing the distinction, I argue, make it difficult to see how an analogous distinction in the epistemic domain could help externalists explain away the intuitions which underwrite the New Evil Demon Problem. Motivating the unjustified-but-blameless maneuver, I conclude, is a much less straightforward task than its proponents tend to assume.

Microskills of broaching and bridging in cross-cultural psychotherapy: Locating therapy skills in the epistemic domain toward fostering epistemic justice.

Psychotherapy research has shown evidence of positive impacts of broaching cultural differences on the therapy process and outcomes. This increasing body of research also highlights a need to clarify clinical skills of broaching and subsequent bridging to guide therapists in cross-cultural psychotherapy. In articulating microskills to promote broaching and bridging, we critically reflect on cautions against slipping into a technocratic approach that is a mechanical prescriptive skill-based guideline. Using critical theory on epistemic injustice, we examine how to integrate cultural aspects into therapy conversations that are aligned with epistemic and social justice. Drawing from sociolinguistic and critical scholars on language and power, we interrogate epistemic domains of knowledge and power during broaching and bridging in everyday clinical talks. We focus on theorizing and illustrating "how-to-do" broaching and bridging to guide therapists in everyday cross-cultural encounters with selected microskills such as a therapist's self-disclosure, cultural immediacy, and reflective listening. Using case illustrations with detailed transcripts for each skill, we interrogate how a client's epistemic status can be managed in the moment-to-moment conversation between a client and therapist in the continuum from dismissing to deepening the client's experience. A series of detailed case illustrations are intended to guide therapists' self-reflection and/or train therapists toward meaningful cross-cultural work. Lastly, we discuss the implications of broaching and bridging while situating this work as promoting epistemic justice in cross-cultural therapy encounters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Considering the hexad of learning domains in the laboratory to address the overlooked aspects of chemistry education and fragmentary approach to assessment of student learning

This article seeks to provide researchers and practitioners in laboratory education, particularly those involved in the curriculum design and implementation of teaching laboratories at university level, with a conceptual framework and a working model for an integrated assessment of learning domains, by attending to a more holistic approach to learning in the laboratory. Prevailing learning theories suggest that the triad of cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains should be addressed in order to warrant meaningful learning. In the research tradition of psychology and philosophy of mind, this triad also manifests as a concert of cognitive, conative, and affective domains. The paper argues that at least in the context of chemistry laboratory education, this is insufficient. The social and epistemic domains are often overlooked or dismissed altogether. Research in science studies may provide insight into the urgency and usefulness of integrating these domains into chemistry teaching and learning. Firstly, laboratory work is conceptualised here as an epistemic practice, in which students generate data, propose knowledge derived from the data, evaluate, and legitimise it. Secondly, the operationalisation of the hexad of learning domains is proposed, in terms of curriculum design, instruction, and assessment.

Standing to epistemically blame

A plausible condition on having the standing to blame someone is that the target of blame's wrongdoing must in some sense be your “business”—the wrong must in some sense harm or affect you, or others close to you. This is known as the business condition on standing to blame. Many cases of epistemic blame discussed in the literature do not obviously involve examples of someone harming or affecting another. As such, not enough has been said about how an individual's epistemic failing can really count as another person's business. In this paper, I deploy a relationship-based account of epistemic blame to clarify the conditions under which the business condition can be met in the epistemic domain. The basic idea is that one person's epistemic failing can be another's business in virtue of the way it impairs their epistemic relationship.

Epistemic Consequentialism, Veritism, and Scoring Rules

We argue that there is a tension between two monistic claims that are the core of recent work in epistemic consequentialism. The first is a form of monism about epistemic value, commonly known as veritism: accuracy is the sole final objective to be promoted in the epistemic domain. The other is a form of monism about a class of epistemic scoring rules: that is, strictly proper scoring rules are the only legitimate measures of inaccuracy. These two monisms, we argue, are in tension with each other. If only accuracy has final epistemic value, then there are legitimate alternatives to strictly proper scoring rules. Our argument relies on the way scoring rules are used in contexts where accuracy is rewarded, such as education.

The significance of epistemic blame

One challenge in developing an account of the nature of epistemic blame is to explain what differentiates epistemic blame from mere negative epistemic evaluation. The challenge is to explain the difference, without invoking practices or behaviors that seem out of place in the epistemic domain. In this paper, I examine whether the most sophisticated recent account of the nature of epistemic blame—due to Jessica Brown—is up for the challenge. I argue that the account ultimately falls short, but does so in an instructive way. Drawing on the lessons learned, I put forward an alternative approach to the nature of epistemic blame. My account understands epistemic blame in terms of modifications to the intentions and expectations that comprise our “epistemic relationships” with one another. This approach has a number of attractions shared by Brown’s account, but it can also explain the significance of epistemic blame.

Couples living with dementia managing conflicting knowledge claims

This conversation analytic study investigates how couples manage conflicting knowledge claims when one of the persons has dementia (PWD). The data are video-recordings of 16 couples talking with a third party. The analysis focuses on the negotiation of epistemic rights, more precisely how partners initiate repair and correct claims made by the PWD on matters belonging to the latter’s epistemic domain. We identified three main practices for correcting the PWD: (1) correcting the statement, thereby claiming epistemic authority for oneself and denying it to the PWD, (2) inviting the PWD to self-correct, thereby attributing some epistemic authority to the PWD, and (3) disagreeing and providing reasons for one’s alternative claim, establishing a more symmetric epistemic gradient. The PWDs responses to the corrections displayed different degrees of acceptance, ranging from self-denigration to resistance and insistence.

Transumption and the Decentered Cosmology of Nicolaus Cusanus

In his work On Learned Ignorance, Cusanus defends the view that though the infinite must as such always elude human cognitive pursuits, proper reflection on the reasons behind that cognitive failure inaugurate another—different but not unrelated—domain of epistemic competence. Seeking to equip the intellect with a methodological access into this new epistemic domain, Cusanus transforms the classical notion of transumption from a merely rhetorical device into an epistemological speculative aid that transits between the different ontological levels that constitute reality. This article examines Cusanus’s use of one such transumptive aid—the rubric of the infamous sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere—in order to elucidate how it enacts the basic postulates of “learned ignorance.” Insofar as what necessitates the use of such transumptive images, and hence of the epistemic operations which they represent, is the very ontological structure ciphered by the particular way in which the universe stands in relationship to God, the author claims that these transumptive functions constitute a thorough interpenetration of epistemology and metaphysics in Cusanus’s thinking.

A Think-Aloud Study of Function-to-Form Mapping in Modal Use: Based on the Concept-Oriented Approach

Due to the complexity of Chinese modal system in terms of function-form relation, misuse of Chinese modal verbs is quite common among learners of Chinese from other countries. Based on the concept-oriented approach, this paper aims to investigate how learners of Chinese as a foreign language choose modal forms to express the concept of modality in terms of function-to-form mapping, so as to shed light on the teaching of modal use. Modal forms investigated in this study are five Chinese modal verbs whose functions are categorized into three conceptual domains: the Speech Act Domain, the Event Domain and the Epistemic Domain. Six learners of Chinese from Poland were recruited to participate in a modal test which comprised of 24 pairs of modal sentences in English and Chinese. They were asked to think aloud while they chose Chinese modal verbs to match the functions expressed by the English modal verbs. Based on the think-aloud data, it is found that in all the three conceptual domains participants have perceived ambiguities between modal verbs which express similar functions, especially in the Epistemic Domain. Competition between these modal verbs arose in their mind where ambiguity was perceived in the process of function-to-form mapping. Qualitative analyses of the think-aloud data revealed that Epistemic Domain is the most difficult domain for the participants in terms of function-to-form mapping, and “Hui/Neng” is the most confusing pair of Chinese modal verbs which may require more explicit instruction. Apart from studying the cognitive processing of modal forms and the cognitive ambiguity between them, this think-aloud case study also manifested the influence of social context on second language acquisition. It carries pedagogical implications for modal acquisition and indicates a socio-cognitive perspective for future studies on modality.