Epistemological Work Research Articles

The work “husn-u dil” by muhammadniyaz nishoti and the “ten methods” in the doctrine of kubra and the interpretation of colors

Changes in the epistemological works of Muhammadniyaz Nishoti Najmiddin Kubro, one of the leading artists of the Khorezm literary environment of the XVIII century,was greatly influenced by the mystical images in his lyrics and as a result created mature works.His epic “Husn-u Dil”, written on the basis of symbolic images, Sufi views, is a proof of our opinion. In his dissertation he studied at the school of theology of Nishati,it was emphasized that he was aware of the state of science. Indeed, Nishati ’s experiences in the process of spiritual upbringing, brought up by Eshan Sharafiddin, were one of the main reasons for the success of the work.The state of the sect reflected in the works of the sheikh, such as “Favaih ul-jamol” and comparative analysis has proved that the philosophical and theoretical views on the status of the status are expressed in a symbolic metaphorical manner in the epic “Husn-u Dil ”.Through the works of Kubro and the epic Husn-u Dil, it was revealed that the essence of mysticism could be explained more deeply by showing this tradition. The mystical terms in the Sheikh’s works: husn, fuod, vahm, aql, hayrat, etc. are transformed into lyrical heroes in Nishati’s epic, creating a very vivid picture.

The ethical and epistemic roles of narrative in person-centred healthcare

Positive claims about narrative approaches to healthcare suggest they could have many benefits, including supporting person-centred healthcare (PCH). Narrative approaches have also been criticised, however, on both theoretical and practical grounds. In this paper we draw on epistemological work on narrative and knowledge to develop a conception of narrative that responds to these concerns. We make a case for understanding narratives as accounts of events in which the way each event is described as influenced by the ways other events in the narrative are described. This view of narratives recognises that they can contribute knowledge of different kinds of connections between events: not just causal, and not just of patient’s perspectives. Additionally, narratives can add further epistemic value by suggesting potentially useful lines of inquiry. We take narrative approaches to healthcare to include clinicians considering both patients’ informational offerings and their own professional understandings as narratives. On this understanding, our account is able to overcome the major theoretical and practical criticisms that have been levelled against the use of narrative approaches in healthcare, and can help to explain why and how narrative approaches are consistent with PCH.

Les Consignes Médicales en Psychiatrie, définition législative et état des lieux bibliographiques

IntroductionMedical instructions are a well spread practice among French psychiatric wards, yet they are non homogeneous. There is not even a univocal name to specify it. ObjectivesFrom a descriptive approach of the ordinary practice of medical instructions, we will make an operational definition for them. From there, we will look for its definition and delimitation through legislative, jurisprudence, and deontological corpus, and clarify its difference with a medical prescription. We will extend the bibliography by a medical search through the scientific literature and French guidelines. MethodsA review of the French Code de Santé Publique, the deontological code from the French Medical Order, the reports of the Contrôleur Général des Lieux de Privation de Liberté (the General Controller of Liberty Deprival Places), and the French jurisprudence. We proceeded with keywords. As for the medical bibliography, we looked through the scientific literature as well as in the French guidelines from the Haute Autorité de la Santé. ResultsWe found no legislative caracterisation of medical instructions. When mentioned, they are not considered as medical prescriptions, but rather as a medical practice, or general care strategy, which the doctor is (the only one) responsible for. The jurisprudence clearly delimits the liberty restrictions that are possible for a medical doctor to prescribe, in the context of a suicidal risk. The CGPL reports point at various use of the “care framework” as a reason to limit the freedom of movement, without a proper medical necessity. The guidelines mostly raise the difficulty at stake with this practise (in terms of scientific validation and ethics), rather than suggesting the modality of its use. Medical literature does not provide focused studies on medical instructions. They do reveal their uses, and we have found several paramedical authors addressing them. DiscussionMedical instructions are a difficult object to study with the methodology of Evidence Based Medicine, because they are not quantifiable. Epistemological work could bring us some insight over this very contemporary practise. Alongside of which, case report studies are necessary to underline the different problematics at stake through the various systems they imply: the doctor-patient one, the doctor-staff and the staff-patient ones. Our bibliographic review has revealed how medical instructions are a singular object, from one prescriber (the doctor) but supported by teamwork and moreover permitting its coherence, its effectiveness. ConclusionWe have arrived to an operational definition of medical instructions: they are a medical order, with an individual therapeutic aim, that the staff has to execute, also the patient has a right to refuse it (like all treatment, emergencies aside). Medical instructions are not a law (that could lead to punition), nor an internal regulation (it is not general but individually thought), and neither a simple advice (the staff is bound to execute it). Medical instructions are a practical entry point to study the broader “care framework” that conditions the practice of institutional psychiatric care. We believe a good practise of medical instructions has to be reflected on, through regular Multidisciplinary meetings, inclusive of the different health care professionals involved: so they can be evaluated properly, and benefit from a comprehensive execution.

Bhabha in the clinic

Before professional diagnosis, the determination of whether one is ‘ill’ or ‘well’ rests within the patient. These moments, when sufferers (re)cognize their own bodily and phenomenological experience as abnormal or different, are critical to the positioning of healer and patient. So too are moments when diagnosed patients, struggling with a treatment regime, compromise and adjust to embrace, if only partially, disparate ideas of health. In this article, I apply Homi Bhabha’s framework of hybridity and difference to think about the perception of illness, self-diagnosis, and power in healing relationships. I consider how sufferers enact hybrid positions between their bodily perceptions and their professional diagnoses. To illustrate the utility of Bhabha’s colonial critique for health care, I examine narratives by patients with diabetes-related vision loss about: (1) first realizations that something was wrong, what Bhabha might call the ‘intervention of difference’; (2) expressed differences between self-knowledge and biomedical knowledge, corresponding to Bhabha’s ‘partial embrace’ of the colonial ideal; and (3) the self-colonizing epistemological work that compliant patients do as they re-orient their pre-diagnostic self to a post-diagnostic habitus of self-monitoring, timed medications, and other treatments. I conclude with a discussion of how Bhabha’s colonial hybridity supports a more productively contentious medical anthropology that envisions and pursues decolonized health care.

Students as epistemological agents: claiming life experience as real knowledge in health professional education

University teachers’ practices of resistance against dominant epistemological norms have been described in recent critical higher education literature, but comparatively little work has explored students’ practices of intellectual resistance and negotiation within the university. As part of a larger study on students’ experiences of study-life overlap in health professional education, this paper examines students’ responses when their knowledge arising from life experience was marginalised. Students used five epistemological strategies to respond to this side-lining of lived knowledge, i.e. building the case that lived knowledge is ‘academic’, switching to institutionally recognisable language, considering epistemological framing when responding to discrimination or assumptions, sustaining friendships as epistemological work and seeking out settings where their lived experience was valued. This paper argues for the need to understand students as active epistemological agents within the university. It adds to existing critical scholarship on staff practices of intellectual resistance by considering students’ practices as part of the academic community.

Lokale und globale Idealisierungen

AbstractErnst Cassirer’s epistemological trilogy –Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff(1910),Zur Einsteinschen Relativitätstheorie(1921) andDeterminismus und Indeterminismus(1937) – is well known to Western scholars, some of whom recently devoted a number of in-depth and interesting studies to Cassirer’s epistemology. Nonetheless, they overlooked aspects of Cassirer’s concept of idealisation and his model of science as found in his last epistemological work:Determinismus und Indeterminismus. In this essay I will consider these two almost disregarded aspects of Cassirer’s epistemology in order to provide a better understanding of his idea of science.

Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics: Investigating the Nexus between Culture and African Philosophy

This article attempts to uncover a foundational drive in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and its importance in steeping the tension of the philosophical link of culture and African Philosophy. In his work Gadamer presents culture as the foundation of philosophy. Okere rising from the latter posits that hermeneutics is the mediator between culture and African philosophy. The polemical argument of the rationality of African philosophy though interwoven with skeptical epistemological assumptions which increasingly emphasizes in the ethno decade-long debate is aggregated in mediating stance of hermeneutics as adduced by Okere and other notable African scholars. This article shows that in his most popularity oriented epistemological work, Gadamer did not mute the obstacles that epistemic uncertainty poses to the quest for mere ethno dimension in the light of critical ratiocination in order to avoid acceptance of views without examination .This article pursues this mediating strategy not just for rhetorical but also for a substantive reason on the rational foundation of African Philosophy against the nauseating position that African philosophy is mere cultural beliefs.
 Keywords: Hermeneutics, Culture and Mediation

A justiça teórico-política ao matriarcado para se pensar a África contemporânea

The text is part of the epistemological works that value African thought. It aims to test the power of Amadiume's matriarchy concept to think about contemporary African realities. African matriarchy is seen here as an ideology built by African women since the pre-colonial period and which aims to structure, in an autonomous way, their organizations in all life plans. It is critical of the rigid notion of gender proposed by Euro-Western-American feminism and is against patriarchy, which manifests itself through toxic masculinity, which denies the dignity of women. The previous productions by the author of this text on the UNILAB African Women's Collective and the Movement of Rape Survivors and Sexual Violence in the DRC, revisited to achieve the objective of this work, revealed the plausibility of the concept in question in understanding the ways in which African women articulate, locally and transnationally, in the Brazilian diaspora and on the African continent, in academia and in civil society to demand recognition of their rights.

Re)Animating Sociology of Suicide in Bangladesh

Durkheim classic Le Suicide (1897) gave birth to ‘sociology of suicide’ and set down an influential theoretical and methodological framework to study the phenomenon. Its impact notwithstanding, the framework has received trenchant critiques as well as attracted modifications and revisions by many sociologists. Whilst the sociology of suicide appears not to attract large numbers of scholars in the global South, even though the magnitude of the problem is striking in some countries, we consider a way of (re)animating the area of study. To this end, we focus on Bangladesh as case study to think about as well as think with Durkheimian and post-Durkheimian propositions concerning sociology of suicide. Stated differently, we employ Bangladesh to work through some of the tenets, contestations, and revisions regarding suicide made by post-Durkheimian sociologists. Characterized by high rates of suicide, Bangladesh is an amply suitable case given the lack of any evidence of research envisioned under the framework of sociology of suicide. Taking off this we then make some suggestions regarding how sociologists in Bangladesh and more broadly the global South might (re)vitalize their methodological and epistemological work on suicide.

Mutual Determination, Concrescence and Transition. Whitehead’s Speculative Conception of Temporal Subjectivity Interpreted from a Merleau-Pontyan Standpoint

The interpretive approach adopted in this paper is influenced by Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and in particular by his understanding of Nature, which in turn takes into consideration Whitehead’s work. Whitehead’s philosophy of organism is seen by its author as the metaphysical generalization of problems found in his investigation of natural knowledge. Whitehead admits that a speculative approach is necessitated by the very questions arising from the mathematical concepts of the material world and the revolutions undergone in logic, mathematics and physics at the turn of the century.Whitehead’s understanding of nature is framed from the beginning in terms of a processual approach. However, this notion of process is not fully worked out in the epistemological works and requires a metaphysical deepening. This is due to the fact that the notion of duration adopted in the epistemological works is not sufficient to convey the notion of process. This lack of adequacy is coupled by Whitehead with the need to interpret process in terms of experience. In turn, this notion of experience is wider than the usual one, for it implies that there is experience from the lowest levels onwards. Matter itself experiences. Seen in this perspective, reality is thus conceived in terms of a whole in constant change, whose parts are in mutual connection. This conception derives from Whitehead’s criticism of Aristotle’s substantialism and from his preference for a relationist ontology. The outcome of this approach is a speculative conception of reality in terms of a twofold notion of process: concrescence and transition, which Whitehead sees as the two faces of the creative advance of nature. This dual notion of process is interpreted in this essay in a merleau-pontyan perspective.

Pedagogical knowledge axiology: a palette of views and logical-epistemological code

Based on the analysis of epistemological works, the spectrum of components reflecting the value-loaded pedagogical knowledge is designated: a) knowledge embedded in the cultural environment; knowledge that has become a cultural phenomenon; b) knowledge enabling to solve practical problems relevant to the society; c) knowledge, recognized from the point of view of epistemological attributes, methods for its production, “protoform” and the degree of empirical, theoretical and contextual validity; d) pedagogical knowledge as a part of social reality or, otherwise, social determination of pedagogical knowledge. The third and the fourth components are discussed in detail. The project of “incorporating” pedagogy into the philosophical and epistemological glossary is presented: the categories of quantity and quality, of the part and the whole, identity and difference, form and content, essence and phenomenon, direct and indirect knowledge, pedagogical concept, judgment, inference analyzed in the light of an individual’s awareness of the way of its obtaining and degree of reliability. “Minto code” (complex cases of a causal analysis of the pedagogical field) is given a special attention. “Social determination of academic pedagogical cognition” is presented as a “lower layer” of the value-loaded knowledge.

Locke’s Theory of Ideas: A Critical Exposition

John Locke, Bishop Berkeley and David Hume are the pioneers of modern British Philosophy during 17th and 18th centuries. Among them, John Locke‟s epistemological work is one of the greatest defenses of modern empiricism. He attempts to determine the limits of human understanding and seeks to clear the ground for future developments by providing a theory of knowledge compatible with the study of human nature. In his discussion the term „ideas‟ plays an important role. To understand Locke‟s empiricism, one must realize what he means by „ideas‟. For Locke, ideas are all signs which represent the external world of physical objects and the inner world of consciousness. However, in his book, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he discusses „ideas‟ in details but he does not provide a sufficiently clear account of the nature of ideas. This paper is an attempt to give a critical exposition of John Locke‟s theory of ideas in which I will try to show that his explanation about the nature of idea is not sufficient enough to establish the theory of ideas he presented.
 Philosophy and Progress, Vol#61-62; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2017 P 133-146

Porn studies or pornology? Network analysis of the keywords of scientific articles published between 2006 and 2017

ABSTRACT This article questions the scientific model of porn studies following Kuhn’s epistemological work. Can porn studies be thought of as a pornology; that is, an organized and coherent scientific discipline? Keywords used in the scientific literature dealing with pornography are analyzed through a lexical network approach. A request for the term ‘Pornography’ was made on two databases (ScienceDirect and PubMed) for the period 2006–2017. Analyses were conducted to study interactions between keywords so that themes emerge and to determine whether the network of concepts might reflect a small-world organization, indicative of the paradigmatic aspects of a discipline. Six themes were identified, underlying a negative conceptualization of pornography. The most important themes are related to legal issues posed by cybersex and to forensic problems. Globally, the scientific approach to pornography appears coherent and organized (S > 1). However, temporal analysis shows a gradual decline in the consistency of the works.

Contemplative Teaching and Learning: Opportunities for Asian Studies

Keynote Address, 2018 ASIANetwork Conference Contemplative education is a contemporary movement in higher education that builds upon the epistemological work of cognitive scientists in conversation with contemplative traditions of Asia, integrating critical subjectivity into the classroom. This article traces the development of this movement, identifying key innovators who are from the field of Asian Studies, and outlining the theoretical basis of first-person inquiry in learning. Sample findings of meditation science support the impact of these innovations, showing why contemplative pedagogy is beneficial for students. In addition, the author surveys pedagogies for introducing mindfulness, contemplation, and compassion practices into the curriculum in rudimentary and more complex ways, giving examples of best practices for the undergraduate professor. A bibliography of additional readings and sources is included, for further information.

The Discovery-Justification Distinction and the New Historiography of Science: On Thomas Kuhn’s Thalheimer Lectures

I will examine the first of Thomas Kuhn’s Thalheimer Lectures delivered in 1984, with the purpose of establishing a connection between Kuhn’s historiographical thought and his criticism of the traditional distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, or, as I call it, the DJ distinction. In order to do this, I will start by exploring the Kuhnian view of the so-called static approach in philosophy of science, taking as my main reference the work of Bacon, Descartes, and foundationalist epistemology. I will continue by examining the relationship between Kuhnian historiography and the DJ distinction, comparing the first Thalheimer Lecture with other texts published by Kuhn. Finally, I will assert that Kuhn’s rejection of the DJ distinction is the result of adopting a historiographical matrix whose philosophical consequences are irreconcilable with the static approach in history and philosophy of science, for which the DJ distinction is essential.

Evidence for personalised medicine: mechanisms, correlation, and new kinds of black box.

Personalised medicine (PM) has been discussed as a medical paradigm shift that will improve health while reducing inefficiency and waste. At the same time, it raises new practical, regulatory, and ethical challenges. In this paper, we examine PM strategies epistemologically in order to develop capacities to address these challenges, focusing on a recently proposed strategy for developing patient-specific models from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) so as to make individualised treatment predictions. We compare this strategy to two main PM strategies-stratified medicine and computational models. Drawing on epistemological work in the philosophy of medicine, we explain why these two methods, while powerful, are neither truly personalised nor, epistemologically speaking, novel strategies. Both are forms of correlational black box. We then argue that the iPSC models would count as a new kind of black box. They would not rely entirely on mechanistic knowledge, and they would utilise correlational evidence in a different way from other strategies-a way that would enable personalised predictions. In arguing that the iPSC models would present a novel method of gaining evidence for clinical practice, we provide an epistemic analysis that can help to inform the practical, regulatory, and ethical challenges of developing an iPSC system.

The Lockean Influence on Newman’s Epistemology: An Historical Analysis Describing Newman’s Engagement with Locke’s Ideas

This article discusses John Locke’s positive contribution to Newman’s epistemology throughout the latter’s career. Beginning with one of Newman’s earliest published works, his Essay on Miracles, he borrowed and further developed ideas from Locke’s A Discourse on Miracles regarding the necessity of miracles to validate the Christian message and the personal nature and cumulative method of weighing evidence. Later, in Newman’s most mature epistemological work, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, one can discern Locke’s influence on Newman’s views on the weaknesses of deductive logic, the personal nature of knowledge, and the role of connecting ideas to arrive at knowledge.

Epistemic Pluralism: From Systems to Stances

AbstractDrawing on insights from the epistemological work of the Jaina philosophers of classical India, I argue in defense of epistemic pluralism, the view that there are different but equally valid ways of knowing the world. The version of epistemic pluralism I defend is stance pluralism, a pluralism about epistemic stances or perspectives, understood to be policies or stratagems of knowing. I reject the view that the correct way to characterize epistemic pluralism is as consisting in a pluralism about epistemic systems.

Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean by Lyndon K. Gill

Reviewed by: Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean by Lyndon K. Gill Gabby M.H. Yearwood Lyndon K. Gill, Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. 267 pp. Lyndon Gill’s Erotic Islands is an exploration of Black Queer life in Trinidad and Tobago detailing the impact of HIV/AIDS within a community of Black gay men and the social and political responses to the epidemic. Gill’s conceptual and epistemological work centers Black Queer and Black Feminist theories and anthropological methodologies to demonstrate the impact of race, sexuality, and politics on the social productions of carnival, calypso, and grassroots mobilizations. Gill accomplishes this by organizing the text around three main subjects: the life of Peter Minshall, a Trinidadian Carnival designer; calypso singer Calypso Rose; and Friends for Life (FFL), an HIV/AIDS intervention organization. These three sections are intermixed with “Interludes,” insights into Gill’s personal yet deeply theoretical challenges to anthropological conventions. This ethnography brings into relief anthropological preoccupations with ethnography; the role, impact, and power of researchers; and the ethical, intimate, and political involvement of anthropologists in the field. Gill, unabashedly and courageously, shows his limitations, strengths, and weaknesses not merely as a researcher but as a person in the field. Gill’s self-identification as a Black Queer man examining Black Queer life in Trinidad and Tobago allows for opportunities to discuss how theory and praxis intermix within ethnographic methodology. The opening preface, “A Port of Entry,” introduces the framework Gill plans to develop for his project. The Caribbean is depicted as the original Garden of Eden, establishing the desire for both space and bodies that historically motivated European engagement with the region. Situated [End Page 1301] alongside other scholarship of the region, Erotic Islands informs us of how these motivations continue into the present while also demonstrating how the Caribbean as a site of Western desire may be understood differently when centrally grounded within Black Queer/Feminist epistemology. Gill describes Trinidad and Tobago as a twin island nation with Arawak, African, French, Spanish, South Asian, and English heritage combining to shape the contemporary space and place. Gill foregrounds and weaves these elemental components throughout to demonstrate their importance to the reader. Gill introduces us to the queerness of Trinidad and Tobago through the folkloric symbol of the soucouyant. A reworking of the soucouyant, traditionally depicted as a witch who sheds her skin at night and feeds on the blood of her primarily male victims, demonstrates that the queerness of Trinidad and Tobago has always been there and serves as a legitimizing motif which frames his analysis. To decenter older readings of the soucouyant as dangerous and threatening, Gill connects the figure to the region through motifs of blood and spirituality, themes Gill uses later in the ethnography to discuss HIV/AIDS and local responses to the disease. The figure of the soucouyant allows for a blurring of the overly determined heterosexist research and evaluations of the region by early scholars. Rather than establishing the importance within queer research projects of the hurt done to queer subjectivities, the introduction, “A Queer Cartography of Desire,” instead focuses on the triumphs and successes made possible through Trinidadian Carnival, the music of Calypso, and HIV/AIDS intervention programs. With a heavy grounding in Black Feminist and Black Queer theories, the erotic is a central component to the entire work. The erotic serves to structure every facet of the ethnography from methodology and epistemological frameworks to anthropological analysis. Gill draws his usage of the erotic from Lorde, detailing that a negation of the sensual, physical, and emotional, limits the possibilities of the motivations for politics and love. Gill, as both person and researcher, becomes an integral component that draws the reader into an understanding of queer life in Trinidad and Tobago not possible without the erotic as the guiding force. This allows for a potential reworking, re-reading, and destabilizing of ethnography and sanctions Gill’s corporeal body as an interpretive tool and diagnostic instrument. Building from this groundwork we are directed, through Gill’s body, to the use of Kant’s aesthetic principle of sensory experience. These sensory...

An Immobile Nomad: “the Peasant from the Danube”

Abstract European writer of Romanian origin, Vintila Horia (1915-1992) - Goncourt Prize in 1960 for the novel Dieu est né enexil - was a truly awakened consciousness of his time. Wherever he was - in Bucharest or Florence, Buenos Aires or Paris, Rome or Madrid - this “polyglot nomad” (Jean-François-Malherbe) never left the unyielding values of the spirit and of knowledge. His work of literary epistemology, hisnovelistic creation - fed by exile, love and by the divine -, as well as the Journal d’un paysan du Danube (1966), stand as testimony. Focal point of my approach, this text sheds light on the metaphysical realm of a way of thinking in which the undivided man (a double-faced reality: big infinity /small infinity) and the man to come are one and the same. Since for the exiled VintilaHoria,”the peasant from the Danube” is “celui dans lequel ce qui fut rencontre celui qui sera, dans un espace-temps non-euclidien”, and his journal emphasizes this “rediscovery”, in spite of the dark times of history; an encounter in, through and beyond the broken grounds of science, art and philosophy, but nevertheless, deeply anchored in philosophy, art and science. Apparently, rediscovery and isolation of the same proportion; in fact, we are talking about an anagnorisis: the inner man and the outer man have never separated, despite the “microbial fauna of Kali Yuga” (“la faunemicrobienne du Kali Yuga”). “Nomade polyglotte” through his evolution, a result of flawless reflexive stability, Vintila Horia proves himself to be, at the same time, animmobile nomad; “the peasant from the Danube” is the plenary expression of this unusual simultaneity.