Epistemological Reflection Research Articles

Academic Listening Practices and Synodality: Reflections from a Study of World Youth Days

In order to analyze the possible contribution of academic listening practices to the synodal process, this article offers a reflexive analysis of two social science studies of World Youth Days. The first investigation is a historical work carried out between 2017 and 2020 on John Paul II’s World Youth Days, based on archives and testimonies collected in seven different countries. The second is a sociological and anthropological study carried out in July-August 2023 on the occasion of the WYD in Lisbon: as part of a delegation of pilgrims, the author experienced the pilgrimage in Portugal among the young people and their chaplains, while carrying out research work. At the crossroads of epistemological reflection and life review, the paper presents the opportunities and risks of such empirical research from the viewpoints of the researcher, respondents, and Catholic institution. While highlighting misunderstandings that can arise, the article emphasizes the mutual enrichment academic listening practices in a church setting can bring. If the researcher and researched agree to let go of their rigidities, their companionship can purify both faith and science by desacralizing what should not be sacred.

Epistemology and History of Science in the reflections of Evandro Agazzi

The merit of Evandro Agazzi’s epistemological reflection can be found in the following proposal: the history of science should be understood and studied as a meeting point between philosophical reflection and scientific research. Science and philosophy are thus closely united. In the words of Kant, science without philosophy is blind and philosophy without science is empty. Not only that: for Agazzi, the philosophy of science helps society as a whole to better understand the cultural (and human) value of science. Conversely, the history of science helps us to understand the perennially progressive nature of our knowledge. Why is this so? Because we can never disregard the intrinsic historicity of scientific knowledge.The historical approach to science also helps us to understand how scientific development always takes place within different choices. Conversely, epistemological reflection also helps historical research to better understand the development of our cognitive and technical heritage. On this basis, Agazzi worked - in collaboration with Ludovico Geymonat - to spread the institutional presence of the philosophy of science and the history of science (as well as mathematical logic) in universities, especially in Italy. Today, all of us are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, since we can better understand the connections between science and philosophy precisely because we can avail ourselves of Evandro Agazzi’s historical contributions.

Central and Eastern Europe in Academic Internationalization: Peripherality, Neoliberalism, and Knowledge Production

The article reflects on knowledge production in the context of research internationalization, seen as an aspect of a broader trend in the changing higher education and other academic institutions. It focuses on Central and Eastern Europe as a post-communist and (semi)peripheral region, which has been the subject of historical and theoretical analysis often accompanied by epistemological reflection among researchers. As an introduction to the theme of the issue, the article addresses questions concerning epistemic approaches to Central and Eastern Europe via critical reflection on the “post-socialism” framework. The authors discuss major analytical responses of scholars in this research field, including the authors of articles published in this issue of Studia Litteraria et Historica, such as peripherality, postcolonialism, and rethinking of the category of the “East”. In the concluding part, they outline possible directions for further inquiry, including a spatial-temporal conceptualization informed by Wallerstein’s historical social science as well as ethical considerations in the current political context shaped by international security concerns as much as epistemic ones.

The Dream Vision and Medieval Incubation in the Hypnerotomachia P. Epistemological Reflections on the Dream in Literature

The Dream Vision and Medieval Incubation in the Hypnerotomachia P. Epistemological Reflections on the Dream in Literature

The Importance of Epistemological Reflection in the Pedagogical Act: Pedagogical Paradigms in Light of the UNESCO Report on the Futures of Education

In this essay, the importance of epistemological reflection in the educational context is emphasized in light of the 2022 report from the International Commission on the Futures of Education (CIFE) by UNESCO. I argue that teachers play a crucial role in students' skill development, highlighting Trindade & Cosme's (2016) pedagogical paradigms as fundamental for understanding and implementing the report's recommendations. Additionally, the essay addresses possible epistemological misconceptions in contemporary educational trends, such as post-critical curriculum theories and methodological innovations related to technology. Mindful of profit-driven motives, I underscore the significance of the communication paradigm in aligning discourse with educational practices, ensuring that students develop a wide range of skills while being encouraged to pursue their interests. Epistemological reflection is presented as a vital tool to avoid blind activism and promote critical engagement in education, in line with Paulo Freire's ideas about transforming the world through education. Overall, the essay highlights the need to balance pedagogical approaches and underscores the importance of epistemological reflection in guiding more effective and meaningful educational practices.

Epistemic circularity and measurement validity in quantitative psychology: insights from Fechner's psychophysics.

The validity of psychological measurement is crucially connected to a peculiar form of epistemic circularity. This circularity can be a threat when there are no independent ways to assess whether a certain procedure is actually measuring the intended target of measurement. This paper focuses on how Fechner addressed the measurement circularity that emerged in his psychophysical research. First, I show that Fechner's approach to the problem of circular measurement involved a core idealizing assumption of a shared human physiology. Second, I assess Fechner's approach to this issue against the backdrop of his own epistemology of measurement and the measurement context of his time. Third, I claim that, from a coherentist and historically-situated perspective, Fechner's quantification can be regarded as a first successful step of a longer-term quantification process. To conclude, I draw from these insights some general epistemological reflections that are relevant to current quantitative psychology.

A metrópole do capital de rede: mobilidades socioespaciais e iniquidades urbanas

Abstract The circulation of bodies, objects, and information is intrinsic to the definition of city. However, what asymmetries in access arise from these movements and what mobility regimes stratify them within our globally interconnected world? By approaching mobility as both the object of analysis and the analytical framework, I propose the idea of "metropolis of network capital" to account for territorialities that organize themselves on a continuum between physical and digital spaces, in which multiscale movement becomes a "way of inhabiting." Such territorialities find, in the ambivalence of mobility – simultaneously a right and a coercive device –, their main factor of stratification. These epistemological reflections presuppose that cities are relational and politically contested spaces of systemic mobilities – the expression of intersections between infrastructures, materialities, and signs.

Logic and Law: A Matter of Values Behind Content and Form

Abstract This special issue on Logic and Law consists of four research papers and one interview focusing on epistemological reflections on relationships between logic and law, whether in a reductionist or complementary approach. Logic aims to elucidate through formal frameworks, yet it often grapples with the intricate nuances of everyday legal discourse. While law endeavors to delineate permissible conduct within defined jurisdictions, it often encounters challenges stemming from the ambiguity of terms, leading to frequent judicial interpretations and the perception that proliferating exceptions undermines the efficacy of the rule itself.

Design: Episteme and Doxa. Co-design as an Opportunity to Share Choices

This paper delves into the concept of co-design, a collaborative approach involving stakeholders in the conceptualization and design phases to understand diverse perspectives and jointly define project directions. Examining the relationships between co-design, Design Thinking, and user-centred design, the paper emphasises distinctions in their goals and methods. It addresses potential biases in co-design processes, providing strategies to mitigate analogical relations, cognitive effort minimization, and emotional influences. Epistemological reflections highlight the efficacy of participatory methods in generating theoretical hypotheses while underscoring the need for evidence-based validation. The article explores co-design’s applications in speculative design and ludo-didactics (game design). In speculative design, co-design aids in framing problems and generating plausible contextualizations, while in game design, participatory processes, particularly playtesting, enhance the exploratory and refinement phases. The paper suggests avenues for further research, emphasising the strategic placement of Co-design processes in project phases, considering potential biases, and exploring its application in disruptive innovation contexts.

‘Types’ of Popular Musicians: From Musical to Professional Styles: Some Epistemological Reflections Based on the Case of French-Speaking Swiss Musicians

In academic research on popular music, the framing by musical genres and styles such as ‘Rock’, ‘Jazz’, and ‘Electro’ often seems obvious to social sciences scholars. The history, aesthetic features, and boundaries of musical idioms are major concerns for cultural studies, and the notion that musical styles shape the professional musical landscape is commonly accepted. This article is based on a survey involving 125 respondents in French-speaking Switzerland. It combines network analysis based on musical pairings during the year before the survey, with a typical socio-economic approach to understanding the features and resources of musicians. We demonstrate that the conventional approach of classifying musicians by ‘musical styles’ is not the most effective way to understand the structure of the musical occupational group. Instead, work pairings in music, and more broadly, sub-networks that emerge within our population, effectively group musicians according to their ‘professional style’ rather than their ‘musical style’. The focus is not on playing ‘Rock’, ‘Pop’, or ‘Jazz’, but rather on performing original compositions or covers, and whether one is a unique creative artist playing concerts or a service provider performing for entertainment gigs.

La interacción entre contexto social y método científico: implicancias epistemológicas.

Abstract: This paper examines the interaction between the sociocultural environment and scientific progress om an epistemological perspective. It analyzes how exogenous factors, beyond the inherent logical foundations, permeate research work. The study contrasts the internalist tradition, which prioritizes conceptual aspects, with the externalist approach,which contemplates social, political and economic conditioning factors. A critical scrutiny of historical cases shows the reciprocal influences between society and science. Although the scientific community applies rigorous intersubjective controls, it is not exempt from contextual biases. Consequently, a reflexive epistemological perspective is proposed that combines situated knowledge with notions of relative objectivity. This raises important questions: To what extent does science transcend the conditioning factors of its environment to achieve objectivity? How can we discern the validity of scientific findings linked to social interests? A comprehensive understanding of science demands a balance between constructive skepticism about one’s own assumptions and reasonable confidence in solid empirical evidence. Therefore, a critical but open view is required that recognizes contextual limitations and the capacity of science to transcend them through rigorous methods and the inquiry of objective knowledge. This paper seeks to contribute to this epistemological reflection by investigating the complex intertwining of science and society. Keywords: Social context, scientific method, epistemology.

Speculative and anticipatory urban futures

In this short comment on Beveridge and Koch's intervention on radical democracy and urbanization, I wish to take their idea of democratic engagement and push it towards epistemological reflections. Democratic engagement is a form of anticipation of urban futures – futures characterized by caring democracy. Adjusting our analytical lens to better see these everyday practices requires rebalancing critical versus generative epistemologies.

A “BIOLOGICAL” MOTHER RESEARCHING ON ASSISTED REPRODUCTION: EPISTEMOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS FROM AN EMBODIED AND FEMINIST ANTHROPOLOGY

Este artículo propone un ejercicio reflexivo y encarnado sobre las implicaciones de mi condición de madre biológica, que pudo embarazarse y llevar adelante la gestación sin intervenciones biotecnológicas y embarazada durante algunas de las entrevistas realizadas para mi tesis de maestría, en el encuentro etnográfico y en la producción de conocimiento. Pero también de una madre mujer cis que tiene una trayectoria heterosexual y reproductiva en la que también hubo biotecnologías implicadas, fundamentalmente anticonceptivas y abortivas. Me interesa poner esta dimensión en diálogo con mi cuestionamiento a las biotecnologías reproductivas por su impacto político y sanitario en relación al cuerpo reproductivo.

Toward Epistemological Development Across the Curriculum: The Effect of Embedded Epistemic Instruction

Abstract: The present study investigated enhancing undergraduates' epistemological beliefs by integrating epistemological insights into a regular university course using an immersion framework. It was conducted with second-year students in the Department of English Language and Cultures in an Algerian university. The 48-student group received a two-semester study skills course designed with built-in notions about the nature, construction, sources, and certainty of knowledge, along with the original course content. A 19-subject group received a traditional study skills course. Both samples' epistemological beliefs were measured using Baxter Magolda's epistemological reflection model before and after the treatment. A qualitative analysis of the data indicated a significantly greater increase in the sophistication of the treatment group's epistemological beliefs when compared to the control group. These results highlight the considerable potential that a curriculum design informed by personal epistemology research has to offer to all educational endeavors and, hence, to overall epistemological complexity in society. Recommendations are made for policymakers, instructional designers, and teachers.

Riflessione epistemologica, analisi pedagogica e prospettiva intergenerazionale

This contribution, without any claim to exhaustiveness, focuses on the relationship between epistemological reflection, pedagogical analysis and intergenerational perspective. What does it mean to inherit in education? Does learning (also) mean inheriting? Pedagogy is called to interpret the multiple meanings underlying intergenerational relationships, which can be harbingers of unprecedented and fecund flowerings of the humanum.

Hegemonic Knowledge and Situated Knowledge

What is power? What is knowledge? What is the link between power and knowledge? This paper interrogates the relationship between knowledge and power in the context of Guinea's epidemic crises and political events. It draws on observational data collected during the Ebola epidemic (2013-2016), the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), and the ongoing military transition in the country since September 2021. The article first looks at the conception of the relationship between power and knowledge in decolonial literature and the writings of Amadou Hampâté Bâ. The text then describes this relationship in the context of the Ebola and Covid-19 epidemics, and in the ongoing political transition. Finally, the analysis provides an epistemological reflection on knowledge-situated in Guinea to rethink the conceptual and empirical research perspective on the production and circulation of (academic) knowledge in the country's knowledge ecology.

Music in the mind and primitive sounds: «only differences in kind»

Summary During his prolific career, the German Jewish scientist Franz Boas (Minden, 1858 - New York, 1942) recognized as the founding father of American Cultural Anthropology – maintained assiduous contacts with the European scientific community, in a privileged way with that of the German area. The contribution addresses the Boasian correspondence with the two directors of the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv, the philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf, and the ethnomusicolo-gist Erich Moritz von Hornbostel. All three were united by a common scientific experimental training and a solid musical education, typical of their Bildungsbu ü rgertum. With them, Boas consistently shared his fieldwork findings regarding music, sound, and language among the Indians of British Columbia: indeed, their epistolary exchanges intertwine epistemological reflections centered on the study of «exotische Musik» in context with technical problems, derived from the use of phonographic recordings and the relative shipments of wax cylinders by Boas to the Phonographic Archive. So far, the critical literature has not paid particular attention to their correspondence, that offer instead a privileged look in observing the birth of Ethnomusicology, at the time still defined as comparative Musicology (vergleichende Musikwissenschaft). Starting from a biographical contextualization and following the micro-history of the scientific and personal relationship of these scientists, the contribution aims to explore the hypothesis that the emerging Ethnomusicology significantly contributed to the definition of Cultural Anthropology as a discipline. In his painstaking research devoted to the Native Indian sounds and languages, Boas observed indeed what happens if a mind is exposed to a new sound, musical or linguistic context; he had therefore to rigorously deal with the phenomena of mishearing, sound-blindness and biasing filter related to the perception of «new sounds». Thanks to his fieldwork, Boas would endorse a relativistic and “in context” approach to perception and mental representations of sounds, fostering his eventual lifelong, hectic concern about a broaden antiracist theory of human mental functions.

“OMNICRÍTICA”

This study was centered on the debate that we held at the III Simposio Latinoamericano y Caribeño on Investigation of Inclusive Education (2022) and aimed to understand the relationship existing on the concept of "Inclusion in Education", in a theoretical discussionof cultures, policies and practices, adopting the "Omnilexic Perspective" in dialogue with the Critical Theory of Society, with emphasis on the thought of Theodor Adorno. In view of the above, the choice of the "lenses" of Adornian thought is certified as a theoretical-methodological contribution because it allows us to unveil the historical, social, political and cultural issues related to "Inclusion in Education". The discussions allow the conceptual and epistemological reflection on the concepts mentioned above, allowing the production of new meanings and understandings about the phenomena related to the discussion. The results reveal that the permanent struggle for "Inclusion in Education" is undoubtedly related to the understandings that are established in the theoretical field, because depending on the "lenses" that are used for analysis, certain contradictions are invisibilized.

Creativity, Adaptation, and Innovation in Contemporary Paganism and New Age during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This special issue of Nova Religio aims to document and analyze how creativity, adaptation, and innovation occurred in contemporary Paganism and New Age during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on long-term fieldworks mainly focused on ritual practices, the four articles gathered here provide original ethnographic case studies on the reception of the coronavirus crisis in five European locations: Portugal, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom, and France. In addition to investigating ritual creativity, these articles offer innovative discussions on central concepts for the study of contemporary Paganism and New Age, as well as methodological and epistemological reflections on conducting ethnography, both offline and online, during challenging times.

Christian epistemology. How faith can shape and promote rationality

AbstractCan epistemology be shaped by the Christian faith? Is there anything specific to this faith that can give rise to an equally specific epistemology without compromising the autonomy that the latter requires from faith? In the footsteps of Aquinas's religious epistemology, I first focus on the fact that Christian faith seems to characterize intellectual activity in a way that appears to be irreconcilable with epistemological perspectives that are not shaped by faith. Second, I argue that it is possible to do justice to the irreconcilability in question by making reference to what radically distinguishes the Christian faith from the epistemological reflection. Finally, I focus on two ways in which the specific nature of Christian faith can shape and promote rationality, and give rise to a Christian epistemology.