Epistemic Level Research Articles

Graphology in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s

In this article I examine how psychologists, amateurs and actors in the police and in juridical fields positioned themselves in the 1920s and 1930s on the scientific nature of graphology. Graphology, the study of the character from handwriting, was linked with the hope of providing reliable methods for the investigation of psychological states and dispositions. The essay argues that on an epistemic level two different models have been represented to support the scientific nature of graphology: for one thing resorting to the special individual skill, the “genius” of a graphologist; or rather depersonalized techniques predominantly based on statistics. Amateur graphologists used both of these forms.On a methodological level, I argue that in order to historicize the human sciences in general, and psychology in particular, it is useful to examine the translation processes that turn everyday interpretative practices (of facial expressions, dreams, handwriting) into scientific legitimate investigative procedures. In order to investigate precisely this translation process, it is useful to look at what Thomas Gieryn calls “boundary work” at the border between scientific and non-scientific interpretation practices, for which graphology is used here as an example. It is particularly illuminating to examine how representatives of the official sciences distinguish themselves from presumed “charlatans”, which is why the article focuses on court cases and the demarcation strategies used by the police against fraudulent amateur graphologists.

Enriching the intersection of service and transformative learning with Freirean ideas: The case of a critical experiential learning programme in Brazil

In this article, we examine the value of combining transformative and service learning pedagogical practices in management education programmes to encourage management students to be more critical and reflexive regarding serious contemporary issues like social inequality and sustainability. We draw on a long-term management education experience conducted in the northeastern region of Brazil, where international students learn how to develop a real-time community-based project with local inhabitants. We argue that while service learning approaches promote pragmatic action-based principles, transformative learning acts at the epistemic level, contributing to change in values. In addition, Paulo Freire’s ideas are integrated to reinforce critical and reflexive dimensions of the learning experience. Our results offer a process-based model showing how a critical experiential learning pedagogy might lead to the development of community-based competences, which, in turn, might lead to changes in the deeply held values of the participants. Freire’s emancipatory ideas are applied not only regarding the relationship between teachers and students, but also to the distinction between Western and non-Western societies, going beyond questioning of the destructive consequences of financial capitalism to question the hegemony of one worldview over all other possible ones.

The Psilocybin-Telomere Hypothesis: An empirically falsifiable prediction concerning the beneficial neuropsychopharmacological effects of psilocybin on genetic aging

We introduce a novel hypothesis which states that the therapeutic utilisation of psilocybin has beneficial effects on genetic aging. Ex hypothesi, we predict a priori that controlled psilocybin interventions exert quantifiable positive impact on leucocyte telomere length (telomeres are a robust predictor of mortality and multifarious aging-related diseases). Our hypothesising follows the Popperian logic of scientific discovery, viz., bold (and refutable) conjectures form the very foundation of scientific progress. The ‘psilocybin-telomere hypothesis‘ is formalised as a logically valid deductive (syllogistic) argument and we provide substantial evidence to support the underlying premises. Impetus for our theorising derives from a plurality of converging empirical sources indicating that psilocybin has persistent beneficial effects on various aspects of mental health (e.g., in the context of depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, addiction, etc.). Additional support is based on a large corpus of studies that establish reliable correlations between mental health and telomere attrition (improved mental health is generally correlated with longer telomeres). Another pertinent component of our argument is based on recent studies which demonstrate that “meditative states of consciousness” provide beneficial effects on genetic aging. Similarly, psilocybin can induce states of consciousness that are neurophysiologically and phenomenologically significantly congruent with meditative states. Furthermore, prior research has demonstrated that a single dose of psilocybin can occasion life-changing transformative experiences (≈ 70% of healthy volunteers rate their experience with psilocybin amongst the five personally most meaningful lifetime events, viz., ranked next to giving birth to a child or losing a loved one). We postulate that these profound psychological events leave quantifiable marks at the molecular genetic/epigenetic level. Given the ubiquitous availability and cost effectiveness of telomere length assays, we suggest that quantitative telomere analysis should be regularly included in future psilocybin studies as an adjunctive biological marker (i.e., to facilitate scientific consilience via methodological triangulation). In order to substantiate the ‘psilocybin-telomere hypothesis’ potential neuropsychopharmacological, endocrinological, and genetic mechanisms of action are discussed (e.g., HPA-axis reactivity, hippocampal neurogenesis, neurotropic growth factors such as BDNF, 5-HT2A receptor agonism, neuroplasticity/synaptoplasticity, brain-wide alterations in neuronal functional connectivity density, involvement of the SLC6A4 serotonin transporter gene, inter alia). The proposed research agenda is thus intrinsically highly interdisciplinary, and it has deep ramifications from a philosophy of science perspective as it connects the epistemic level (qualitative experiential phenomenology) with the ontic level (quantitative molecular genetics) of analysis. In the long term, multidisciplinary and innovative investigations of the ‘psilocybin-telomere hypothesis‘ could contribute to the improvement of senotherapeutic psychological interventions and the identification of novel geroprotective and neuroprotective/restorative pharmaceutical targets to decelerate genetic aging and improve well-being and quality of life during the aging process.

Historia divina i historia naturalis w myśli Judy Loewa

The article is devoted to the presentation of the position of Judah Loew (Maharal) on the relationship between the scientific and religious view of the world. In his opinion, scientific and theological explanations are disproportionate and are located at various epistemic levels. Consequently, there can be no conflict between them. Each of them refers to a different history of their course, describing them as historia divina and historia naturalis. Although Loew clearly did not reject the path of scientific cognition, he expressed doubts about the effectiveness of contemporary scientific research due to the variety of scientific views and the multiplicity of the proposed solutions. The knowledge of religious revelation, which is, in his opinion, always reliable and accurate, is completely different. The consequence of the described position is his recognition that scientific knowledge remains potentially available to all people equally, regardless of their religion. However, there is a fundamental difference between Jews and other nations in terms of their internal, spiritual “equipment,” resulting from the experience, status and religious tradition of the Jews. Maharal’s position on the relationship between the natural science and Jewish theology seems to be an expression of religious exclusivity on the one hand and thus becomes close to the contemporary trends of religious fundamentalism, and on the other, expresses a strict separation of scientific and religious explanation of reality.

Disaggregating the Creationist Challenge to Liberal Neutrality

In the US and elsewhere, creationist groups have challenged the mandatory science curriculum because it introduces the theory of evolution as the true story of biodiversity. This paper disaggregates this challenge in two distinctive levels. On the substantive level, creationists claim that Darwinian evolution is not value-neutral, as most scientists portray it, but it works as a philosophically-loaded theory that amounts to naturalism, which is a comprehensive doctrine that undermines traditional theism. Creationists then contend that its exclusive teaching violates the liberal promise of religious neutrality. To restore metaphysical fairness, they propose to include non-naturalistic theories into the official curriculum as a way of balance. On the epistemic level, creationists criticise liberal institutions—from courts of justice to educational boards and executive officials—that demarcate science in a way in which supernatural hypotheses can never compete for the best factual explanation. Under the guise of a purely methodological naturalism, they argue, liberals are opting for a cognitive filter that is biased against the belief that God intervenes in cosmic history. To restore epistemological fairness, they propose that theories that suggest supernatural agency should be rehabilitated and eventually included in the science curriculum. In these two distinct levels, the creationist claim is advanced as a logical implication of political liberalism's purported commitment to religious impartiality.

Psychoanalysis and evaluation: a stratified model focused on the uniqueness of the case

ABSTRACTObjectives: This article addresses the methodological controversies surrounding the issue of how to evaluate the psychotherapies. It proposes to identify the principles of an integrative and stratified model in order to report the results of analytical therapy (its efficacy) based on the very effectiveness of its processes. Thus, the uniqueness of the case is put at the center of the evaluation setting.Methods: Drawing on science studies, the authors engage in a reflexive exercise on the problem of psychoanalysis’ evaluation based on methodological questions raised in the field over time and current issues related to practice.Results: First, the regularly asserted opposition between the norms of analytical practice and those governing standard evaluation procedures is reinterpreted as the effect of a lack of intermediate epistemic patterns.Second, the fundamental principles of an integrative model are considered so as to translate and articulate a set of heterogeneous requirements into distinct strata.Discussion: Since psychoanalysis is fundamentally a case-by-case practice characterized by inequivalence and unexpectedness, its utmost aim is to use a type of effectiveness based on the singularity of the case. However, this does not prevent it from being evaluable provided that the epistemic levels of the evaluation are clearly differentiated.

Faculties, Knowledge, and Reasons for Doubt in the Cartesian Circle

AbstractThis paper argues for a novel solution to the Cartesian Circle by emphasising the important epistemic role of the Second Meditation and Descartes’ faculty epistemology. I argue that, for Descartes: doubt requires a ‘good reason’ to doubt (§2.1); whether a reason qualifies as a ‘good reason’ depends on which faculty produces that reason (§2.2); and for distinct metaphysical perceptions from the faculty of the intellect, no other faculty can provide ‘good reasons’ to doubt (§2.3). The upshot of §2 is that the doubts raised up to the Third Meditation do not apply to the distinct metaphysical perceptions of the intellect, and in particular do not apply to the premises of the proof of the existence of God. I present the role of God as primarily to secure clear and distinct perceptions beyond the intellect, and knowledge of conclusions when those conclusions are no longer being clearly and distinctly perceived (§3.1). Finally, I give an account of Descartes’ use of ‘cognoscere’, ‘scire’, and ‘scientia’ as three distinct epistemic levels, providing a valuable structure within which one can see the meditator progress (§3.2).

Completely Theorized Agreements. A Different Reading of the Consensus Paradox Hypotheses

This article contributes to the debate on the consensus and deliberation. While the relevant literature claims that consensus undermines further deliberation, this article argues that it depends on the aim of the process. In particular, I argue that if the aim of deliberation is understood as reaching a certain epistemic level, reaching consensus does not need to decrease the rationality of the group. In short, such deliberation is a process of debate, reason-giving and listening which aims at establishing a result of certain epistemic value. In order to shed new light on the debates on the consequences of consensus for further deliberation, I introduce a detailed conceptualization of a full agreement. I call it Completely Theorized Agreements. In this article, I argue that reaching consensus in an epistemic setting does not need to have negative consequences. Further, I argue, that the truth-tracking quality of deliberation need not be worse in a group that reached a full consensus as opposed to a partial one.

Teachers’ negative emotional feedback can facilitate students’ learning: the role of epistemic motivation in undertaking divergent- and convergent-thinking tasks

Epistemic motivation, which is the desire to understand the environment and others’ emotions more accurately, influences individuals’ behaviour. To explore the role of university students’ epistemic motivation in learning, I examined the interaction effects of teachers’ emotional feedback type (positive vs. negative) × students’ epistemic motivation level (high vs. low) × task type (divergent vs. convergent) on enjoyment, effort, feedback perception and performance. Regardless of task type, students in the high epistemic motivation condition showed higher task effort and performance, whereas students in the low epistemic motivation condition showed lower task enjoyment when receiving negative emotional feedback. The students who undertook a divergent-thinking task in the low epistemic motivation condition and received negative (vs. positive) emotional feedback perceived that the feedback was less helpful in improving their performance. This study indicates that the effects of negative emotional feedback on learning can be differentiated by students’ epistemic motivation level and task type.

Intellectualizing know how

Following Gilbert Ryle’s arguments, many philosophers took it for granted that someone knows how to do something just in case they have the ability to do it. Within the last couple decades, new intellectualists have challenged this longstanding anti-intellectualist assumption. Their central contention is that mere abilities aren’t on the same rational, epistemic level as know how. My goal is to intellectualize know how without over-intellectualizing it. Intelligent behavior is characteristically flexible or responsive to novelty, and the distinctive feature of creatures who exhibit flexible behavior is their capacity to learn. As it turns out, Ryle already identified a core characteristic of learning shared widely across the animal kingdom from the lowly rat to the top athlete. Taking my cues from Ryle, I argue that know how is successful performance resulting from self-regulated abilities. To regulate an ability is to be disposed to adjust to error and respond to feedback. While regulating sophisticated human abilities often requires propositional knowledge, in many simpler cases it does not. I focus on the navigational know how of rats and honeybees. Although they possess know how, whether they possess propositional knowledge is at best an open question.

An Operationalist Perspective on Setting Dependence

A well known logical loophole for Bell’s theorem is that it relies on setting independence: the assumption that the state of a system is independent of the settings of a measurement apparatus probing the system. In this paper the implications of rejecting this assumption are studied from an operationalist perspective. To this end a generalization of the ontic models framework is proposed that allows setting dependence. It is shown that within this framework Bell’s theorem reduces to the conclusion that no-signaling requires randomness at the epistemic level even if the underlying ontology is taken to be deterministic. The ideas underlying the framework are further used to defend setting dependence against the charges of being incompatible with free will and scientific methodology. The paper ends however with the sketch of a new problem for setting dependence: a necessary gap between the ontic and the epistemic level that may prevent the formulation of a successful setting dependent theory.

The semantics of the simple tenses and full-verb inversion in English

AbstractThis paper offers a fresh perspective on (restrictions on) aspectual coercion, thereby focusing on the essentially epistemic import of aspectual constructions. The case study that I will discuss is the unexpected use of the simple tenses for ongoing event reports in sentences involving full-verb inversion. I will argue that this attestation of the simple present/past in inverted sentences can be analyzed as a kind of aspectual mismatch between the higher-order construction and the embedded tenses. Yet at a more basic, epistemic level of analysis, there is no mismatch: the full-verb inversion construction and the embedded tenses are similar in the sense that both report events that are conceived of as fully and instantly identifiable.

How are action researchers contributing to knowledge democracy? A global perspective

ABSTRACTAlthough action research has been widely recognized as an appropriate methodology for promoting the democratization of knowledge, it is not always conducted from an emancipatory and transformative paradigm. Using AR in a technical way, renders it no more than a researcher-driven, problem-solving heuristic that perpetuates the intellectual colonization of local knowledge. This begs the question: how can action researchers work in ways that are contextually and culturally relevant, and generate knowledge that enables people to take control of improving their own lives as they see fit? This paper presents a thematic analysis of the narrative reports from seven participatory workshops held around the world for the purpose of dialoging around this and related questions. Findings indicate that, generally, action researchers are indeed facing challenges on many personal, institutional and epistemic levels as they endeavor to promote knowledge derived from the principles of authentic participation and dialogue with those whom it is intended to benefit. However, the analysis also reveals creative responses of practitioners to these challenges. In keeping with the special issue theme, we offer this analysis as a starting point for further discussion around how we can mobilize knowledge for equitable social progress.

Dis-orienting Western Knowledge

The decolonization movement is a knowledge project insofar as colonialism was an epistemological form of imperialism. As such, curricular change in the primary grades to university life requires a fundamental reworking of theories of knowledge, if not knowledge itself. To interrogate this problem and pose possible interventions, this article explicates Edward Said’s conceptualization of colonialism as taking place on an epistemic level that orients western knowledge towards non-western ways through a will to dominate. Extending beyond the administrative colonial era, coloniality in the modern era, more appropriately called postcoloniality, transforms as a knowledge relation. Decolonization requires dis-orienting this relationship through Said’s methodology. Finally, the article argues that a ‘travelling curriculum’ poses an alternative against the dominant mode of knowledge that aims to fix and essentialize people, ultimately opening up the known world towards processes of co-existence.

Cross-disciplinary evolution of the genomics revolution.

Born out of the Human Genome Project (HGP), the field of genomics evolved with phenomenal speed into a dominant scientific and business force. While other efforts were intent on estimating the economic impact of the genomics revolution, we shift focus to the social and cultural capital generated by bridging together biology and computing-two of the constitutive disciplines of "genomics". We quantify this capital by measuring the pervasiveness of bio-computing cross-disciplinarity (XD) in genomics research during and after the HGP. To provide interlocking perspectives at the career and epistemic levels, we assembled three data sets to measure XD via (i) the collaboration network between 4190 biology and computing faculty from 155 departments in the United States, (ii) cross-departmental affiliations within a comprehensive set of human genomics publications, and (iii) the application of computational concepts and methods in research published in a preeminent genomics journal. Our results show the following: First, research featuring XD collaborations has higher citation impact than other disciplinary research-an effect observed at both the career and individual article levels. Second, genomics articles featuring XD methods tend to have higher citation impact than epistemically pure articles. Third, XD researchers of computing pedigree are drawn to the biology culture. This statistical evidence acquires deeper meaning when viewed against the organizational and knowledge transfer mechanisms revealed by the data models. With cross-disciplinary initiatives set to dominate the agenda of funding agencies, our case study provides a framework for appreciating the long-term effects of these initiatives on science and its standard-bearers.

The Forest as a Territory for the Operations of Planetary Urbanisation: Sorting Forest Areas on the Vasser Valley in Romania

Abstract Lefebvre’s 1970 prophecy of the total urbanisation of society has come true with the expansion of the urban into natural and rural territories. For Lefebvre, the question of nature is closed by its ‘steady, violent death’ (Lefebvre, 2003) and its replacement by a ‘second nature’ (Schmid, 2014; Smith, 2008). This closure accounts at an epistemic level, for the dominance of the urban (Krause, 2013; Brenner and Schmid, 2014). Far from being closed, the question of nature is renewed within the present conditions of planetary urbanisation, as the interiorised non-urban is ‘operationalised’ to sustain urban growth, thus making the non-city ‘an essential terrain of capitalist urbanisation’ (Brenner, 2016). In what follows, I present how the Romanian forest is operationalised as a territory of planetary urbanisation through forest management practices. Looking into the negotiations and manipulations on the ground provides a way to ‘pay attention’ (Stengers, 2010) to those practices that sort and select natural areas. In the face of the recorded disappearance of the forest, the effort of making visible the rationality of planning, and the challenges that are posed upon it inscribes itself within an ‘ethics of visibility’ (Roberts, 2012; Topalovic, 2016).

Orchestrating the emergence of conceptual learning: a case study in a geometry class

This paper is about orchestrating the emergence of conceptual learning in a collaborative setting. We elaborate on the idea of critical moments in group learning, events which may lead to a particular development at the epistemic level regarding the shared object. We conjecture that teachers’ identification of critical moments may help them guide students to the emergence of conceptual learning. The complexity of small group settings in classrooms prevents teachers from noticing these critical moments, though. Here we present an environment, SAGLET (System for Advancing Group Learning in Educational Technologies), based on the VMT (Virtual Math Teams) environment (Stahl 2009), which allows teachers to observe multiple groups engaging in problem-solving in geometry. SAGLET capitalizes on machine learning techniques to inform teachers about on-line critical moments by sending them alerts, so that they can then decide whether (and how) to use the alerts in guiding their students. One teacher in an elementary school used SAGLET to help multiple groups of students solve difficult problems in geometry. We observed how the teacher mediated two cohorts of multiple groups at two different times in a mathematics classroom. We show that in both cases the teacher could detect the needs of the groups (partly thanks to the alerts) and could provide adaptive guidance for all the groups.

The Hunting of the SNaRC: A Snarky Solution to the Species Problem

We argue that the logical outcome of the cladistics revolution in biological systematics, and the move towards rankless phylogenetic classification of nested monophyletic groups as formalized in the PhyloCode, is to eliminate the species rank along with all the others and simply name clades. We propose that the lowest level of formally named clade be the SNaRC, the Smallest Named and Registered Clade. The SNaRC is an epistemic level in the classification, not an ontic one. Naming stops at that level because there is no currently acceptable evidence for clades within it, not because no smaller clades exist. Later, included clades may be named. They would then become the SNaRCs, while the original SNaRC would keep its original name. We argue that all theoretical tasks of biology, in evolution and ecology, as well as practical tasks such as conservation assessment, are better approached using this rankless phylogenetic approach.

Race, embodiment and later life: Re-animating aging bodies of color

This theoretical essay examines the intersections between race, ethnicity and old age from an inter-disciplinary lens. Drawing on cultural gerontology (especially embodied aging studies) and post-colonial perspectives on aging, it explores how an emphasis on the body and embodiment can serve as a conceptual lens for understanding racialized aging bodies. A tentative framework for analysis is proposed. The concept of exile explores how bodies of color and older bodies are denigrated through the hegemonic (white, youth-centered, masculinist) gaze. Re-animation can take place by transcending double-consciousness: ‘seeing beyond’ the dominant gaze. Othering and otherness are explored in relation to both raced and aging bodies. The limits of ethnic aging are scrutinized at an epistemic level, simultaneously informing, and obscuring the understanding of lived experiences of racialized ethnic minorities in old age. Visible and invisible difference provide a way of unpacking the simultaneous hypervisibility of older (female) bodies of color, and their invisibility in institutional and policy discourses. De-coloniality is considered, by exploring ways to resist hegemonic power through embodied ways of knowing. This article concludes by exploring how recent methodological innovations – especially the visual and sensory turn – can offer new ways of understanding the lived experiences of aging bodies of color.

Pojam »Metafizike spoznaje« Nicolaia Hartmanna

Metaphysics of knowledge is u unique name for Hartmanns epistemology. According to it, there is a basic difference between ontological and epistemological considerations. Using knowledge at the epistemic level only, epistemology generates problems that cannot be solved by means of its own methodology. The ones that rest on ontological considerations are irreducible, they belong to the very nature of things, or to the structure of mind. Hartmann calls them »metaphysical problems«. To solve the difference between ontological and epistemological judgements, describing existence of phenomena, we have to take a certain standpoint. He calls it »metaphysics of standpoint«. That is precisely what he would like to avoid. For when we do so, we take metaphysical (metaphenomenological) assumptions, illegitnimate from the phenomenological point of view. According to him, minimum of assumptions makes a maximum of metaphysics, valid for a narrow field of phenomena only, and the other way around. The prior emphasis of his »metaphysics of knowledge« is an approval of maximum of phenomena, no matter whether they can be explained or not. That is why he names his epistemology an »outline« for a broader ontological concern. The question is to be raised, nevertheless, whether the paradoxies we delt with, on the epistemological grounds, can be solved simply by taking an ontological standpoint, or does this switch of attitude at the same time produce a »maximum of methaphysics«.