Epistemological Research Articles

Phenomenal explanationism and non-inferential justification

In this note, I argue that McCain and Moretti’s account of non-inferential justification is subject to the subjective point of view objection, and that for this reason, it does not provide an internalistically acceptable alternative to the account of this justification supplied by Huemer’s Phenomenal Conservatism (PC). Moreover, I contend that PC’s account is not afflicted by the same problem and that it does not generate the over-intellectualization and regress problem. Finally, contra McCain and Moretti, I argue that the non-inferential justification described by PC does not engender a form of vicious epistemic circularity, and so that it does not raise the reflective awareness problem.

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.

Epistemic Circularity: Worry, Illusion, and Determination

Epistemic Circularity: Worry, Illusion, and Determination

When Is a Belief Formed in an Epistemically Circular Way?

Abstract While there has been a great deal of discussion of whether and when beliefs formed in an epistemically circular manner can be justified, there has been almost no discussion of exactly which beliefs are formed in a circular manner. These discussions have tended to focus on an extremely limited number of intuitively-identified paradigm examples concerning attempts to establish the reliability of a method of belief formation. Here, I seek to answer a prior analytical question about the nature of epistemic circularity by developing a criterion which sorts epistemically circular beliefs from non-epistemically circular beliefs.

A new role of mathematics in science: Measurement normativity

The applicability of mathematics in science has received renewed attention in recent years.The most influential recent approachesfocus on how mathematical structures relate to empirical structures. I argue that these accounts leave an important normative aspect of mathematics, which is key for scientific measurement, unaddressed. Building on the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, Icharacterize how mathematical models have both an empirical and a normative aspect: sometimes they are falsified or refined, but on other occasions they are used as rules of measurement. Thus, the normative aspect of mathematics contributes to its applicability in science in practice without precluding (but at the expense of) its empirical aspect. I illustrate this dual character with two simple examples first and then with a more substantial case study in neuroscience. Whilethe normative aspect of mathematics isoften desirable, the epistemic circularity that it entails may be epistemically harmful in some scenarios.

Traduzione audiovisiva e accessibilità. Riflessioni a partire da alcuni conflitti epistemici in ambito formativo

Over the past few years, the question of accessibility has become a central driver in Audiovisual Translation and, through this area, has spread into the field of Translation Studies. However, the ways in which accessibility is discussed and framed within Audiovisual Translation are not neutral. Following a short introduction to threshold concepts theory, the results of an investigation on threshold concepts conducted with a group of postgraduate Audiovisual Translation students are discussed. I then elaborate on some of their replies, which highlight a series of epistemic conflicts. I discuss how those conflicts may be related to the different ways that accessibility is introduced and discussed in AVT education. In the conclusion, I briefly discuss how such conflicts are connected to different ways of interpreting the claim that (audiovisual) translation is accessibility , and I argue in favour of a weak interpretation of said claim.

Epistemic insouciance, souciance, and hypersouciance

AbstractRefining and extending Cassam's important account of the vice of epistemic insouciance, I distinguish between expressive and receptive forms of it. Focusing on the latter, I discuss its perniciousness. I then delineate a virtue and a vice that have hitherto not been discussed in the literature: epistemic souciance and epistemic hypersouciance.

Теория «эпистемных сообществ» Питера Хааса: основные положения и возможности применения для анализа национальных систем внешнеполитической экспертизы

Автором сделана попытка применения находящейся на стыке сетевой методологии и конструктивизма теории «эпистемных сообществ» американского политолога П.М. Хааса для изучения национальных систем внешнеполитической экспертизы. С этой целью впервые в российской политологии систематизированы и проанализированы основные положения указанной теории, а также с ее позиций сформулирована научная интерпретация национальной системы внешнеполитической экспертизы. Последняя представляет собой сообщество (сеть) экспертов в сфере международных отношений и внешней политики, объединенных общей или схожей политической картиной мира, политическими убеждениями, ценностями, способных оказывать влияние на формирование и реализацию внешнеполитического курса своего государства посредством предлагаемых оценок и рекомендаций. Применение данного определения и в целом теории «эпистемных сообществ» позволит актуализировать политологические исследования интеллектуальных продуктов, ценностных оснований, новаторской и социализационной составляющих внешнеполитической экспертизы, а также будет способствовать выработке эффективных механизмов выявления проявлений псевдоэкспертизы.

The Epistemology and Science of Justified Reason

The Epistemology and Science of Justified Reason

Stefano Bordoni. When Historiography Met Epistemology: Sophisticated Histories and Philosophies of Science in French-Speaking Countries in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Pp. xii+335. $172.00 (cloth and e-book). ISBN 978-90-04-31522-8.

Stefano Bordoni. <i>When Historiography Met Epistemology: Sophisticated Histories and Philosophies of Science in French-Speaking Countries in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century</i>. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Pp. xii+335. $172.00 (cloth and e-book). ISBN 978-90-04-31522-8.

The Enigma of ‘Being There’: Choosing Between Ontology and Epistemology

The Enigma of ‘Being There’: Choosing Between Ontology and Epistemology

Ciencia, poder y regímenes de verdad en textos académicos sobre acceso a la profesión docente

El objetivo de este trabajo es poner en evidencia los efectos performativos-ideologizantes de los discursos científicos, en este caso, a través del análisis de textos académicos publicados en España sobre una temática muy específica: los “procesos selectivos para el acceso al trabajo docente” en el sistema educativo público. Epistemológicamente parte del supuesto de que las ciencias sociales en general y las educativas en particular han estado relacionadas desde su origen con los procesos de producción y reproducción del orden social. Por tanto, asumiendo la perspectiva bourdieana, la ciencia es abordada en este trabajo como un campo de poder que asume de manera explícita e implícita diversos supuestos con respecto al mundo. Metodológicamente se trata de un artículo de revisión desde una perspectiva histórica-dialéctica-crítica. De esta manera, los textos son analizados como expresión de intereses y posiciones diversas que forman parte de disputas vinculadas al campo educativo en particular o al orden social en general, lo instituido, “o político” en el sentido de Castoriadis (1996), poniendo en evidencia de esta manera una praxis política.

Pragmatism as Transcendental Philosophy, Part 2: Peirce on God and Personality

Pragmatism as Transcendental Philosophy, Part 2: Peirce on God and Personality

Nekrolog: Ivar Asheim (1927-2020)

Nekrolog: Ivar Asheim (1927-2020)

Rearticulating drunkenness and sobriety: Epistemology and literary embodiment in theShatḥiyātof Abū Bakr al‐Shiblī and Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh'sḤikam

Rearticulating drunkenness and sobriety: Epistemology and literary embodiment in the<i>Shatḥiyāt</i>of Abū Bakr al‐Shiblī and Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh's<i>Ḥikam</i>

El desarrollo y consolidación del paradigma experimental en Antropología Biológica

The experimental method is criticized and usually left behind in social sciences due to different reasons. Anyway, when resolving certain problems is treated, some biological anthropology researchers -Washbum and Pucciarelli initially- have recurred to the experimental method. This methodological changement a rupture in the discipline. From a epistemological perspective this arguments are very significant because they answer the mentioned objections against the use of the experimental method in the anthropology domain and social sciences. This is also very important in history of sciences, as much for the consolidation of the experimental conception in the biological anthropology as for the establishment, inside of that community in Argentina, of a new investigation strategy whit the following episodes of changes in this scientific community.

Discursos y episteme en torno a los derechos económicos: el iter de las antípodas a la posibilidad de conciliación

This paper analyses the gnoseological limits that restrict the contrasting of different paradigms. To this, a methodological programme is sketched in order to circumvent the apparent state of epistemic stagnation in which researchers may find themselves in the assumptions in which the theses under debate, as regards the heuristics of the sensitive material of study, reveal such a deleterious condition. It is argued that, in order to overcome the aforementioned state, the debate between different conceptual schemes can hardly be a sufficient condition. It is necessary to find new empirical regularities within each of the paradigms of reference or the adoption of new epistemological approaches, dissimilar to the traditional ones.

Examination of the Relationship Between Prospective Social Studies Teachers Epistemological Beliefs and Their Attitudes Towards Learning

This study was carried out to determine relationship between prospective teachers (studying at department of social studies teaching)’ attitudes towards learning and their scientific epistemological beliefs. The study was conducted with 213 prospective (preservice) social studies teachers who were studying at Faculty of Education of a public university during 2019-2020 Academic year. Mixed method was employed in the study. Attitude scale towards learning and epistemological belief scale were used in obtaining quantitative data; and qualitative ones (data) were collected by interview form. Analysis of quantitative data was carried out by SPSS 22 statistical package program. Content analysis was applied to qualitative data, obtained as a result of the interview with 25 prospective teachers. According to findings, obtained from the study, prospective teachers’ attitudes towards learning and epistemological beliefs, are at high level and medium-level, respectively. It was found to be a significant relationship between attitude towards learning and epistemological belief.

“But what’s so bad about inequality?” Ideological positioning and argumentation in the representation of economic inequality in the British press

The aim of this chapter is to explore the discursive construction and representation of economic inequality in the British press in the period 2016-2019. For this purpose, the corpus consists of selected newspaper articles from three online newspapers The Guardian (liberal and left-leaning), The Telegraph and Daily Mail (traditionally conservative). A comparative analysis shows not only how the newspapers differ on the lexico-semantic and grammatical level in the discursive construction of key clusters around economic inequality, but also on the ideological argumentative level, in the way journalists position their ideas and engage their readers in order to defend and legitimize arguments. In their representation of economic inequality, the newspapers show through linguistic and argumentation analysis, whether they are aligned with the government, and as such broadly welcome greater wealth inequality, or whether, they actually resist current government policies. Hence, the main objective is to show how UK national newspapers have a double function in both reporting information, and also in construing an argument and aligning the reader to accept that argument. The methodological approach combines Corpus Linguistics (CL) with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), informed by theories on epistemological and ideological positionings as forms of pragma-dialectical argumentation (van Eermeen 2017; White 2006).

Framing argument for specialised knowledge: interactional metadiscourse markers in economics and law research articles

This chapter examines the patterns of interactional metadiscourse use in the disciplines of Economics and Law, and draws upon Hyland’s (2005a) analytical framework of metadiscourse markers along with other integrative frameworks in an approximately 160,000-word corpus of social science empirical research articles in these fields. Both distributional and functional analyses of metadiscourse resources show that there are similarities as well as differences between the two disciplines in terms of how writers structure their argumentative texts for their readers, and how they draw on their understandings of these resources to report the results of their original study to their readers. It is argued that metadiscursive use may be accounted for by the epistemologies behind the existing qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical research alongside a range of experiential, social and identity-shaping variables of the writers involved in this kind of argumentative genre. By contributing additional evidence to current published research, this study aims to provide a greater understanding of metadiscourse in the argumentative writing practices of the research article.