Epistemological Criteria Research Articles

Why are there no objective values?

Using the mathematical frameworks of economic preference ranking, subjective probability, and rational learning through empirical evidence, the epistemological implications of teleological ethical intuitionism are pointed out to the extent to which the latter is based on cognitivist and objectivist concepts of value. The notions of objective value and objective norm are critically analysed with reference to epistemological criteria of intersubjectively shared valuative experience. It is concluded that one cannot meaningfully postulate general material theories of morality that could be tested, confirmed or refuted by intersubjective empirical evidence of preferences and values, however loosely the empirical evidence of values may be interpreted. This situation is explained with reference to the ways in which preceived values become systematically influenced by the concomitants of individual valuative experience, but which have nothing to do with contingent subjective interests.

Attachment as an informative relationship

Abstract Attachment is considered as a unique informative relationship between the child and an adult who is regarded as an authoritative source of information. Mother and child are able to relate through those aspects of reality construed through genetically shared constructs. The information content of attachment may be divided into three levels 1. The superordinate level concerns the difference between the subject and the object of his or her knowledge (self and non-self). 2. The intermediate level defines the epistemological criteria; that is, it provides answers to the question, how is knowledge obtained? It also distinguishes between speculative knowledge subordinate to the pole self and acquired knowledge subordinate to the pole non-self, thus defining the relationship between two kinds of knowledge. 3. The third subordinate level concerns the constructs through which reality is construed. The epistemological criteria that define the relationship between acquired and speculative knowledge can be ei...

Developing Criteria for Formal Theory Building in Adult Education

This paper proposes basic epistemological, communicative and critically analytic criteria for the development of formal theory in adult education. Epistemological criteria focus on the ways in which the categories of knowledge comprising a theory are judged to be intellectually sound. Communicative criteria focus on the necessity for a theory to communicate its tenets clearly to practitioners. Critically analytic criteria refer to the manner in which a theoretical effort invites and exemplifies the critical scrutiny of its central propositions.

Nursing knowledge and human science: ontological and epistemological considerations.

This article examines the meaning of human science in relation to extant nursing knowledge. The origins of the human science tradition are traced to the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, who challenged the dominance of the positivist perspective for generating knowledge of the human lifeworld. Specific ontological and epistemological criteria for human science are proposed. Four nursing frameworks, Paterson and Zderad's humanistic nursing, Newman's model of health as expanding consciousness, Watson's human science and human care, and Parse's theory of human becoming, are found to have consistencies and inconsistencies with the human science tradition. It is proposed that the human science perspective is present in and will continue to be reflected in the evolution of nursing science.

Biosystems theory and empirical aesthetics

The project of an ‘empirical aesthetics’ in the sense of a rigorous ‘science of art’ is subjected to critical analysis. The underlying traditional naive idea of universalist, ‘objective’, knowledge is exposed as a paradoxical myth by a brief recapitulation of both the self-disenchantment of physics and mathematics and the empirical analysis of science history. Some of the essential constraints on human cognition are then proposed in the context of a radically new approach to the theory of living systems as autopoietic systems. This new self-referential views of cognition yields stringent epistemological criteria. It proves, furthermore, that all cognitive phenomena are products of the selective historical operation of interacting living systems and, therefore, neither determined by biological mechanisms nor reducible to them. Both ‘art’ and ‘science’ are thus not amenable to biological self-explanation and critical control, or, more generally, to traditional ‘scientific’ understanding.

Wissenschaftsgeschichte, rationale Rekonstruktion und die Begründung von Methodologien

The paper exposes the principal procedures of assessing methodological theories. The first one is based on a consensus about the aims of science, the second uses epistemological criteria, and the third checks the adequacy of methodological requirements against the history of science. This third procedure (Lakatos' rational reconstruction) is singled out for a more detailed treatment. It is argued that rational reconstruction constitutes a separate level of historiography (distinct from the interpretation of a scientist's thinking and the study of reception of ideas) and concerns historical explanation. The subject of a rational reconstruction is the methodological explanation ofall basic value judgments, whereas all additional factors (such as an individual scientist's choice between competing theories or his motives for this choice) are not determined by methodological rules. It is further specified in which way rationally reconstructed history should correspond to the actual course of historical events, i. e. to which extent rational reconstruction is free to interpret history according to methodological categories. In the last paragraph the connection between scientific progress and the growth of knowledge is discussed.

Marksistinė-leninistinė ideologijos samprata

Straipsnis skirtas vienam svarbiausių materialistinio istorijos aiškinimo skyrių – teorijai apie ideologiją, kaip specifinę visuomeninės sąmonės formą. Ikimarksistinė filosofija, aiškindama visuomenę bei jos istoriją, rėmėsi atskiru individu, kuris, siekdamas patenkinti savo poreikius, užmezga ryšius su kitais individais. K. Marxas pirmasis sukritikavo tokią poziciją ir savo ekonominiuose tyrinėjimuose teigė, kad vadovaujantis šiuo požiūriu nebuvo galima sukurti visuomeninės būties ir ją atitinkančios visuomeninės sąmonės sąvokų. Metafizinis išorinio pasaulio atsispindėjimo žmogaus sąmonėje aiškinimas buvo vienas iš silpniausių ikimarksistinių materialistų teorijoje, dėl to materialistinės atspindžio sąvokos jie negalėjo pritaikyti viso sąmonės turinio analizei, įvairių jos formų tyrimui. Visuomeninės sąmonės, gamtos ir visuomenės mokslų ideologijos lyginamoji analizė atskleidžia ne tik šių objektyvios tikrovės dvasinio įsisavinimo formų skirtumus, bet ir jų vienybę, kurią sąlygoja mokslinės-filosofinės pasaulėžiūros galimybė materialistiškai aiškinti istoriją. Šią galimybę realizavo marksizmas, įrodęs, kad ji atsiranda ir vystosi socialistinėje ideologijoje.

Relevanz und Trivialität in der soziologischen Forschung / Relevance and Triviality in Sociological Enquiry

Abstract Although the word ‚relevance’ is increasingly used in current sociology, its meaning is uncertain. Three typical usages may be distinguished: epistemological, political and professional criteria of relevance. It can be shown that the first two usages may be reduced to the third one. We are thus faced with the question: how is it possible to identify a particular substance of social knowledge which is specifically the product of professional sociological work? The question is analysed in terms of T. KUHN’s notion of a ‚scientific paradigm’, as a result, normative patterns of institutionalized scientific praxis rather than formalized rules of procedure emerge as crucial to sociological relevance. Evidence to support this is obtained by comparing two paradigmati- cally representative textbooks, T. PARSONS’ „The Social System“ and H. ZEISEL’S „Say it with figures“. It appears that methodologically the two texts are astonishingly similar, despite the extreme difference in levels of abstraction: both are using the method of successive dichotomization in the formation of concepts. Moreover, both reveal a surprising degree of paradigmatic ‚stability’. But the stability rests on different modes of scientific praxis. The stability of theoretical concept formation derives from a standardized high level of abstraction; the stability of empirical (statistical) praxis is rooted in a standardized repertoire of selected independent variables. In each case, the standardized praxis has come about as a historical process, guided largely by pragmatic criteria of increasingly ‚successful’ attempts in grasping social reality. Thus, instead of one we have in fact two sociological paradigms which developed independently of each other. This makes the task of creating a new (and presumably more ‚relevant’) paradigm all the more difficult: to find out what should be centrally important to professional sociologists at present, „recalcitrant anomalies“ from both the theoretical and the empirical domain will have to be assimilated. This cannot be achieved if one continues to speak vaguely of „social-scientific“ relevance.