Epistemological Research Articles

Cultura política (concepto e imaginarios sociales)

La entrada ofrece un itinerario complementario al trabajo de Andrea Greppi, abordando la categoría de ‘cultura política’ desde la teoría de la historia, la historiografía intelectual, los análisis de los imaginarios sociales, los estudios de los nacionalismos y la historia internacional. En primer lugar, se ofrecerá un excurso sobre su adopción en la historiografía y los estudios culturales, acompañándolo con una definición sintética del término. Luego se procederá a evaluar sus virtudes epistémicas, exponiendo sus aplicaciones en la historiografía reciente y las ventajas epistemológicas que ha comportado. Más adelante, la entrada incorporará tres secciones propositivas. La primera postulará relacionar la categoría con el estudio de las ideologías políticas y los imaginarios sociales, como vía para delimitar las escalas de los actores grupales analizables. La segunda ofrecerá un modelo heurístico para optimizar el análisis de las culturas políticas en base a su relación con la categoría de ‘conciencia histórica’. Finalmente, se valorarán las potencialidades que ofrecen las relaciones entre el concepto abordado y dos campos de tanta relevancia como los estudios sobre el nacionalismo y la teoría de las relaciones internacionales.

Janina Wellmann, The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm, 1760–1830 (translated by Kate Sturge). New York: Zone Books, 2017, 432 pp. ISBN: 978–1-935,408–76-5

Janina Wellmann, The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm, 1760–1830 (translated by Kate Sturge). New York: Zone Books, 2017, 432 pp. ISBN: 978–1-935,408–76-5

Democracy and Epistemic Egalitarianism

Dans leur approche non-instrumentaliste fondée sur l’épistémologie pragmatiste de Charles Sanders Peirce, Cheryl Misak et Robert Talisse proposent une version unique et importante des justifications épistémiques de la démocratie, suivant l’argument que la démocratie est un élément constituant de l’idéal peircien de l’enquête. Cet article interprète cet idéal comme reposant sur une conception relationnelle de l’égalité épistémique. L’article avance aussi que cette conception ne peut pas donner lieu à une justification sans équivoque d’institutions réalisant une conception d’égalité politique. L’objectif plus général est de mettre en garde contre l’emploi des affinités conceptuelles entre l’égalité démocratique, ses incitations à l’autoréflexion parmi les citoyens, et les relations épistémiques intrinsèquement valables pour fonder une justification de la démocratie.

CRITIQUE OF KENYA EDUCATION SYSTEM TOWARDS ACHIEVING TRAINEE SELF-RELIANCE: AN EXISTENTIALIST PERSPECTIVE

Education and training has been a tool for economic, social and political development of any state towards realizing the common good for all. Ancient Greece philosophers identified the human person as a critical player in state development agenda and therefore the goal on human empowerment is key and central in the process of attaining the “good” life in a state. Thus, according to Aristotle, the state has to take full control of the education of the young towards becoming responsible citizens. The study interrogated the goals of education, critically examined the concept self-reliance, analyzed the epistemological, metaphysical and axiological tenets of existentialism and synthesized the implications of existentialism in education and training Kenya for self-reliance. The study found out that the empowerment process is dual in nature, individual student and state development. The individual development has been emphasizing skill development at the expense of economic and values. It is therefore necessary to embrace multidimensional orientations in reforming education and financing education and training that do not enslave the trainees after graduation. Article visualizations:

How to do Things without Words: Multisemiotic visualization in LEGO vs. IKEA building instructions

This study explores LEGO and IKEA building instructions within the broader landscape of multisemiotic qualitative data visualization practices. Building instructions are defined as procedural texts, in which an encoder plans ahead how a practical action is to be undertaken in the real world, and as cognitive protocols, guiding users in the performing of complex tasks by way of rescaling the latter in a sequence of smaller problems, and therefore turning representation into action. The peculiarity of LEGO and IKEA building instructions lays however in the multisemiotic mix through which they perform their referential and instructional functions, which does not comprise verbal language. By way of multisemiotic visualization strategies, LEGO and IKEA building instructions present numerical, topographical, analytical and processual meanings in synoptic, integrated fashion, so as to allow the grasping of articulated data sets on the part of the user. Incorporating Systemic Functional Grammar, classic Social Semiotics and Cognitive Discourse Analysis, this study analyses and contrasts the ideational and interpersonal processes through which LEGO and IKEA building instructions codify empirical phenomena and procedures in such a way as to get unspecialized users to obtain a complete and concrete object from a box of scattered pieces. Attention is finally given to the overarching cultural and epistemological tendency that may be detected behind the fast-growing diffusion of visualization in today’s information dissemination practices, i.e. the spatialization of temporal processes.

Quine on Analyticity and Holism: A critical appraisal in dialogue with Sandro Nannini

The first four sections evaluate Quine’s thesis that the two dogmas of empiricism (analyticity and reductionism) are at root identical. In particular, a full compatibility is developed and defended between epistemological, anti-reductionist holism and both the analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori distinctions. According to the view defended here, understanding the relations between theory and experience requires not the rejection of such distinctions, but rather their relativization. In the fifth and final section, the importance of such distinctions is shown regarding epistemological analysis and discussions of the relations between science and philosophy.

Introduction. Paolo Parrini & relative a priori principles

Paolo Parrini devoted concerted philosophical attention to theoretical phi- losophy, re-examining core issues in epistemology, philosophy of language and history and philosophy of science, not only for their intrinsic philosophical interest, but also for their cultural significance. This pair of papers published here in English he himself affiliated closely. “Analyticity and Epistemological Holism: Prague Alternatives” appeared originally in Italian in 2006; “Quine on Analyticity and Holism. A critical appraisal in dialogue with Sandro Nannini,” in 2018. He translated both into English early in 2020, posting their original Italian together with their new English versions on his own website. Doubtless both are related to his research interests in Herbart’s conceptual Bearbeitung, which surely must be a vigorous form of conceptual explication. Most unfortunately, Paolo was taken from us suddenly, unexpectedly, at the start of July (2020). What more we can learn from him, we shall learn from his considerable published accomplishments. This brief Introduction seeks to epitomize the core issues and significance of this pair of papers, in tribute to him and his very substantial philosophical achievements.

Naturalism, pragmatism and historical epistemology

Historical Epistemology is a discipline that draws on quite distinct sources, straddling the analytic-continental divide within the history and philosophy of science. In this paper, I examine the analytic side of the equation, namely the tradition of empiricist naturalism, and the emergence, within the work of Goodman, Kuhn and Hacking, of naturalized transcendental structures resembling Wittgensteinian language-games, and the correlated multiplication of “worlds”.

Analyticity and Epistemological Holism: Prague alternatives

In the early 1930’s Carnap and Quine met in Prague and discussed logic and philosophy. Carnap was working on the Logische Syntax der Sprache; when Quine went back to Harvard he published “Truth by Convention.” The purpose of the present paper is to establish three main points: (1) in “Truth by Convention” some important aspects of the future position Quine will assume about the analytic/synthetic and the a priori/a posteriori dichotomies are already expressed; (2) in the Logische Syntax der Sprache, Carnap maintains the distinction between L-rules and P-rules, at the same time being aware of the holistic character of empirical control and of the possibility to revise the acceptance of every kind of sentences; (3) Quine’s idea that the holistic conception requires completely abandoning the analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori distinctions does not seem wholly correct. On the contrary, in the Logische Syntax Carnap takes a step forward in his conception of the “relativized a priori”. Thus, we can say that in the Prague years two alternative accounts of the theory/experience relation began to emerge. These two alternatives are still pivotal in the contemporary epistemological debate.

Social media and libraries in scientific production in United States

Introdução: Como organizações responsáveis por disponibilizarem informações precisas e atualizadas, as bibliotecas estão continuamente experimentando novos recursos tecnológicos e remodelando seus serviços para atender expectativas de seus usuários. No início do século XXI, as mídias sociais surgiram como mais uma oportunidade para eles se conectarem a esses espaços e acessarem seus recursos informacionais. Objetivo: Diante disso, este estudo busca identificar as características de investigações sobre mídias sociais e bibliotecas na produção científica estadunidense, de modo a acompanhar sua evolução e apontar tendências. Metodologia: Para tanto, optou-se pela pesquisa descritiva, de natureza qualiquantitativa, fundamentada na análise de domínio, proposta por Hjørland. O corpus é constituído por 69 artigos, publicados em periódicos científicos da Ciência da Informação dos EUA. Nesse sentido, constatou-se que a temática mídias sociais e bibliotecas tem sido discutida no contexto observado desde 2006, principalmente no âmbito das bibliotecas universitárias. Resultados: Identificou-se, ainda, uma possível comunidade epistêmica em formação. Por sua vez, o conceito Library 2.0 surgiu como uma das contribuições teóricas que influenciou bibliotecários e impactou serviços realizados no segmento. Além da Ciência da Informação, o conhecimento produzido sobre o interdomínio analisado circula por vários campos, como Comunicação Social, Educação, Ciência da Computação, Sociologia, dentre outros. Fora o termo Web 2.0, redes sociais é o mais usado por essa comunidade discursiva, embora mídias sociais se destaque como uma tendência. Há também uma predisposição para pesquisas de aplicações práticas, seguida de estudos teóricos. Conclusão: Foram identificados termos emergentes e representantes do interdomínio analisado ainda não contemplados nos principais tesauros utilizados por pesquisadores da área.

Corpo e ciência do conhecimento disciplinar à visão plural

Neste breve ensaio, procuramos refletir sobre como a razão consagrou a divisão do homem em corpo e alma e sobre como essa dualidade se revelou na tradição hierárquica de estratificação do saber e do conhecimento científico, servindo para justificar dicotomias com alto e poderoso capital simbólico (teoria e prática). Mais do que refutar uma educação do corpo baseada no conhecimento disciplinar ou na ciência cartesiana, que, aparentemente, só reconhecem um ponto de vista sobre ele - como se a pessoa fosse apenas uma dimensão -, desejamos ousadamente, a partir dessa herança histórica, argumentar, embora de forma breve, que, através do movimento do corpo, ao longo dos tempos, podemos compreender o movimento da própria ciência como resultado de nossa visão sobre corpo e mundo. Nessa construção foram utilizados contributos teóricos que dissertam sobre epistemologia científica (ARDOINO, 1998), teoria da complexidade (MORIN, 2003), corpo (NIETZSCHE, 2012a, 2012b, 2013, 2014, 2015).

IMPLICATIONS OF ARISTOTLE’S THEORY OF EDUCATION TO TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN KENYA

Since ancient civilizations, education and training has been regarded as the tool for individual and societal development. All developing nation thus have embraced education and training as part of state agenda in realizing better citizenry and societal growth. In Kenya various efforts in reforming Technical education and training in order to reorient training to the countries developmental agenda and empowering the youth for employability have been undertaken from time to time in order to review the relevance of education and training in Kenya. This paper attempts to analyze Aristotle’s metaphysical, ethical and epistemological principles with the view to render salient ideas that contribute to the formulation of worthwhile theories of education in the context of Kenya’s 21st century realities. In addition, Aristotle’s views “experiential learning” and “lifelong learning” are analyzed. Consequently, it is evident that contemporary education in Kenya is inadequate in several ways. It is therefore recommended that education in Kenya should embrace a multidimensional orientation that ensures the physical development, mental development and moral development for realization of individual empowerment. Article visualizations:

Democratizar la democracia: el programa descolonizador del cosmopolitismo subalterno

En este trabajo presentamos dos formas en las que puede enunciarse un programa descolonizador en el cosmopolitismo subalterno, la plataforma crítica de Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Partiendo de la crítica a una modernidad en confluencia con el capitalismo, enmarcamos este programa como una práctica descolonizadora frente a las pulsiones fascistas de la sociedad. Para conseguir este propósito explicaremos la manera en la que la modernidad extendió la desigualdad y la exclusión como mecanismo de integración, estableciendo una racionalidad colonial de límites radicales. El programa descolonizador del cosmopolitismo subalterno representa, frente a este pensamiento colonial, un campo de ampliación e intensificación democrática basada en un principio ético, político y epistemológico fundamental identificado con la ecología de saberes y las epistemologías del Sur.

Comment: on Sosa’s telic epistemology

Comment: on Sosa’s telic epistemology

The epistemic role of early vision: Cognitive penetration and attentional selection

Abstract: In this article I discuss Athanasios Raftopoulos’ view on the epistemic role of attention and early vision, as outlined in his most recent book. I start by examining his view on attention, which he illustrates during his discussion of structured cognitive contents and their interactions with perceptual contents, as well as during his discussion of selection effects. According to Raftopoulos, attention not only operates pre-perceptual input selection, but also influences perceptual processing during late vision biasing the sampling of the iconic image for perceptual hypotheses-testing. Afterwards, I critically assess Raftopoulos’ conclusions about the epistemic role of early vision, which are based on his view about the role of attention. From this assessment, I raise a potential concern for his proposal in the form of a new problem of selection: the interesting epistemic consequences of cognitive penetrability either follow or do not follow from selection effects, depending on how these selection effects are construed, but regardless of the stage of visual processing in which they take place. Keywords: Cognitive Penetration; Attention; Constructivism; Selection Effects; Perceptual Epistemology Il ruolo epistemico della visione primaria: penetrazione cognitiva e selezione attentiva Riassunto: In questo articolo discuto la proposta di Athanasios Raftopoulos riguardo al ruolo epistemico dell’attenzione e della early vision , contenuta nella sua recente monografia. La mia discussione comincia da un esame delle sue idee riguardo all’attenzione, che illustra sia durante la sua discussione dei contenuti cognitivi strutturati e delle loro interazioni con i contenuti percettivi, sia durante la sua discussione degli effetti di selezione. Secondo Raftopoulos, l’attenzione non opera solamente una selezione pre-percettiva degli input, ma influenza anche i processi percettivi di late vision orientando il processo di valutazione delle ipotesi percettive sulla base dell’immagine iconica. Successivamente, valuto criticamente le conclusioni di Raftopoulos’ riguardo al ruolo epistemico di early vision , fondate sulla sua concezione del ruolo dell’attenzione. Da questo esame, evidenzio una potenziale criticita nella sua proposta costituita da un nuovo problema della selezione: le conseguenze epistemiche della penetrabilita cognitiva seguono o non seguono dai processi di selezione, a seconda di come tali effetti sono concepiti, ma indipendentemente dal livello nella serie dei processi visivi nel quale si verificano. Parole chiave: Penetrabilita cognitiva; Attenzione; Costruttivismo; Effetti di Selezione; Epistemologia percettiva

Epistemology and Practice of Believing

Discussion: Butakov, P. A. 2020. “Vo chto i kak nado verit’: otvet sobesednikam [What to Believe and How to Believe It: A Response to My Interlocutors]” [in Russian]. Filosofiya. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki [Philosophy. Journal of the Higher School of Economics] 4(4), 167-184.

Propuesta de intervención: Talleres con perspectiva literaria de formación en género y derechos humanos en clave intercultural

El proyecto parte de considerar la importancia de producir condiciones institucionales para que los derechos humanos en sentido amplio, no queden relegados a meras declaraciones retóricas, y en este sentido, procura aportar a la realización de un trabajo teórico y político pedagógico, que desde una epistemología crítica dispute las construcciones de sentido hegemónicas y avance en la transversalización, institucionalización e integralidad de este campo en la universidad pública. Los enfoques de género y derechos humanos en clave intercultural en la enseñanza práctica del derecho, vienen siendo debatidos en tanto se configuran en una vacancia en la formación docente y socio-profesional, aun cuando existe una producción teórica y política al respecto. Esta situación exige ser problematizada desde una interlocución interdisciplinaria que permita producir desplazamientos significativos que pongan en tensión enunciaciones tradicionales y aporten a la construcción de miradas inclusivas y democratizadoras de los espacios educativos.

EXPERIMENTAÇÃO NO ENSINO DE CIÊNCIAS: RELAÇÃO ENTRE CONCEPÇÕES DE ESTUDANTES E PROFESSORES SOBRE CIÊNCIAS E ATIVIDADES EXPERIMENTAIS

Experimental activities play a particular role in the teaching and learning of the natural sciences.Several studies focused on this topic to establish its specificities, objectives and implications. Thisarticle aims to present the results of a bibliographic review on the conception of students andteachers about experimental activities in Science teaching and learning. For this purpose, we carriedout a preliminary and non-systematic mapping on the subject in the Google Scholar bibliographicdatabase. The publications were analyzed using assumptions from Content Analysis. The analysisof the publications led to the following results: i) the conceptions about the characteristics ofscience are often naive, referring to idealistic or empirical visions about scientific activity,notwithstanding the age group or level of education of the subjects; ii) although students andteachers show common points regarding the characteristics of science, the subjects' conceptionstend to become more comprehensive along their formative path; iii) and, finally, although theresults reported in the literature are not consensual, some studies indicate that the strategies andactions developed by teachers reflect their epistemological conceptions concerning science. Resultsobtained reveal that students' and teachers' conceptions about the role of experimentation in scienceinfluence the planning and execution of the didactic sequence in which the experiment is inserted.These results allow stating that this review article can contribute to the deepening of the reflectionon important aspects inherent to the insertion of experimental activities in science teaching andlearning process.

Università e conoscenze: le relazioni fruttuose

The aim of the article is to offer a reflection on the relationship between university and knowledge. This relationship today is threatened by a drift towards economic interest and an excess of bureaucracy and evaluation, which are often taken for granted without problematizing them. In fact, the way we understand this relationship actually has significant consequences on the functioning of universities and, even more so, on the knowledge that they should build independently and freely. The article is divided into three parts. The first part identifies three main functions that the university performs with respect to knowledge (preserving, transmitting and expanding it). In the second part, some key aspects of the relationship between university and knowledge are discussed in an epistemological perspective: epistemological aspects related to the conception of knowledge and aspects related to the social structure of knowledge. Finally, the third part discusses the conditions for a communicational relationship between specialists, and between disciplines, that is able to integrate these aspects.

Epistemologias do Sul, História do Tempo Presente e a teoria alter-nativa Zapatista / Epistemologies of the South, History of the Present Time and the Zapatist alter-native theory

O presente artigo reflete sobre as bases históricas que fundaram uma hegemonia no campo epistemológico da produção de saberes válidos e, concomitantemente, suprimiram um vasto universo de saberes tradicionais, evidenciando a colonização como um evento histórico que, para além das expropriações físicas, também promoveu uma expropriação no campo epistemológico do saber. Assim, percebe-se a fragilidade do dito paradigma científico moderno para compreender as complexidades do mundo, fomentando discussões referentes a um novo paradigma científico insurgente, atrelado às Epistemologias do Sul e ao pensamento zapatista, como caminhos a serem trilhados na busca de um paradigma emergente, que compreenda de forma mais profunda as relações entre os homens, entre os homens e a natureza e com à própria temporalidade na qual está inserido. Finalmente, conclui-se que esta emergência de novas percepções científicas para o conhecimento suscita novas contribuições para as construções e desconstruções das fronteiras da ciência e do cientista, além de questões sobre o seu papel prático no mundo.