Heuristic Instrument Research Articles

THE METAPHOR OF THE ARCHITECT IN DARWIN: CHANCE AND FREE WILL

AbstractIn The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, published in 1868, Darwin used the metaphor of the architect to argue in favor of natural autonomy and to clarify the role of chance in his theory of adaptive change by variation and natural selection. In this article, I trace the history of this important heuristic instrument in Darwin's writings and letters and suggest that this metaphor was important to Darwin because it helps him to explain the role of chance, and gives an argument in favor of the free will.

Construção de um Vê de Gowin para análises de produções acadêmicas de Enfermagem

O artigo apresenta uma ferramenta da Aprendizagem Significativa denominada V de Gowin e a possibilidade de seu uso em um processo de desempacotamento de produções acadêmicas de Enfermagem. Objetiva construir uma proposta de alteração da ferramenta com a utilização dos elementos que compõem a trajetória processual da Teoria da Intervenção Práxica da Enfermagem em Saúde Coletiva (TIPESC) e analisar uma dissertação produzida nesta área de conhecimento. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo e exploratório que apresenta o V de Gowin, propondo alterações no seu domínio metodológico. Constatou-se a possibilidade de utilização para análises de produções acadêmicas de enfermagem deste instrumento heurístico que já se mostrou útil para apoiar processos de ensino e aprendizagem e analisar produções acadêmicas na área, pela capacidade de captar e interpretar qualquer fenômeno articulado aos processos de produção e reprodução social.

Effizienzbewertung von Städten auf der Grundlage von Data Envelopment Analysis

Efficiency aims among others to achieve with the same effort the maximum benefit. For measuring the efficiency of products and processes there are various economic models. This raises the question, whether and to which extent such models can be used to measure the efficiency of cities. In this context, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), commonly used in the field of economics production, has been tested to its applicability to cities. The DEA is a nonparametric, deterministic method to measure the efficiency of economic production, in which the relative efficiency of decision units (DMU) is calculated. In the presented investigation, 116 urban municipalities in Germany were taken as DMUs of the DEA. A discussion about possible values to indicate efficiency of the cities in conjunction with first calculation tests led to a model, by which the economic and the ecological point of view is calculated separately by DEA. Hypotheses were established for both perspectives. Central assumption was: In the economic and ecological model we are looking for cities with least input of the resource “land use” and with high economic resp. ecological performance on output side. The selected input and output values are indicators to deliver an image of prospected correlations. The results allowed a ranking related to economic and ecological efficiency of cities as well as an assessment of the proportions of economic and ecological efficiency of the analyzed cities, realised with the aid of a nine-area-matrix (portfolio). The analysis showed that small and middle sized cities with low population, a medium settlement density and land productivity per unit area as well as a high ecological performance will meet the chosen efficiency criteria most likely. Based on the experience with these still very simple models, DEA appears to be an inspiring heuristic instrument for the attempt to draw near to a concept of an efficient city. English Title: Assessment of the efficiency of cities by using Data Envelopment Analysis

Creativity and Physics Learning as Product of the Intervention with Conceptual Maps and Gowin’s V Diagram

This paper shows the impact of a methodological renewal, based on conceptual maps and Gowin’s V diagram, in academic performance and creativity of freshman students from Civil Engineering in University of Bio Bio, Concepcion, Chile, who participate in subject Physics with me in the modular system. The objective in incorporating both heuristic instruments is to facilitate the reflection of information and problem solving in physics. The study is quasi-experimental with pre-and post-test in the study variables. The results show that the proposed methodological renewal significantly influences academic performance, and in certain categories, is of creativity. The analysis also shows a relation between academic performance and creativity, which would predict the success or fail in physics.

Moving towards Energy Self-Sufficiency Based on Renewables: Comparative Case Studies on the Emergence of Regional Processes of Socio-Technical Change in Germany

The change of conventional energy systems to a system mainly based on renewable energies is occurring in many parts of the world. A processual analysis of three case studies from regions in Germany that are moving towards renewable energy self-sufficiency were conducted in order to better understand this process of socio-technical change. This paper scrutinizes the role of actors and their activities, which are driving the change of the local energy system. Three discrete distinguishable phases of this change were found: pioneer phase, pivotal network phase, and extended network and emerging market dynamic phase. Each phase can be characterized by the type of actor, their specific activities, artifacts involved, and their underlying motives. We suggest using the phase model as a heuristic instrument to identify the elements which shape socio-technical change.

In Between Us: On the Transparency and Opacity of Technological Mediation

In recent years several approaches—philosophical, sociological, psychological—have been developed to come to grips with our profoundly technologically mediated world. However, notwithstanding the vast merit of each, they illuminate only certain aspects of technological mediation. This paper is a preliminary attempt at a philosophical reflection on technological mediation as such—deploying the concepts of ‘transparency’ and ‘opacity’ as heuristic instruments. Hence, we locate a ‘theory of transparency’ within several theoretical frameworks—respectively classic phenomenology, media theory, Actor Network Theory, postphenomenology, several ethnographical, psychological, and sociological perspectives, and finally, the “Critical Theory of Technology.” Subsequently, we render a general, systematic overview of these theories, thereby conjecturing what a broad analysis of technological mediation in and of itself might look like—finding, at last, an essential contradiction between transparency of ‘use’ and transparency of social origins and effects.

Two New Heuristic Instruments and the Ideal Order of Research in Medieval Philosophy

This essay proposes an ideal order of research in medieval philosophy and theology, historically exemplified, which progresses from heuristic works to critical editions to interpretive studies to, finally, translations of Latin texts into modern vernacular languages (the value of which is not unambiguous). Thereafter the essay offers reviews of two new heuristic instruments, the Repertorium initiorum manuscriptorum latinorum medii aevi, 4 volumes, by Jacqueline Hamesse assisted by Slawomir Szyller, and A Catalogue of 13th-Century Sophismata, 2 volumes, by Sten Ebbesen and Frédéric Goubier.

Remedying the obsolescence of digitised surveys of medieval sources. Narrative Sources and Diplomata Belgica

High level and original basic research in the field of medieval studies is extremely dependent upon reliable heuristic instruments as well as easy access to primary source materials. Within the Humanities, it is the medievalists in particular who have pioneered the use of IT for the editing, description and analysis of primary sources. The projects Narrative Sources and Nouveau Wauters – the latter today called Diplomata Belgica – thus very early on resulted in the development of innovative electronic databases which have proved their usefulness and reliability for more than a decade, and which have had a significant impact on the progress of the study of the medieval Low Countries. An argument which was often used in the 1990s, when scholars and publishers chose to publish new heuristic instruments electronically – whether on CD-Rom or on the Internet – was that in this way the ageing of such instruments could be prevented because of the possibility of continuous updating. Paradoxically, it now seems that electronic publications are among the first to suffer from problems of sustainability due to the rapid evolution of electronic media. Today, both Narrative Sources and Diplomata Belgica are seriously subject to what the Dutch historian Jan Romein has termed the ‘law of the retarding lead’. 2 The two databases are not, however, facing exactly the same problems of obsolescence. Narrative Sources, which was very recently moved under the auspices of the Belgian Royal Historical Commission, has been subjected to a project in which completely new software has been developed. The main challenge to this database is therefore the question of how to make and keep its contents up to date. Diplomata Belgica, on

"Frames" in sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorieansätzen - Ein Vergleich aus der Perspektive der Technikforschung

A society’s reactions to technological developments are not predetermined by the latter. Just as little, however, is the response of a social environment to a certain technical innovation merely shaped by arbitrariness or individual rational decision-making. Frames as discursive mental or cultural constructs conciliate between a technological phenomenon and its social context. According to the respective conceptual design, frames underlie policy positions, reflect and reproduce themselves in media coverage, are strategically promoted by social movements or affect individual perception and situational interpretations. This article structures the framing-literature, scattered widely across various disciplines, and sketches possible applications of frame concepts from the perspective of social science based technology studies. It sharpens respective notions and points out where and how we can harness frames as heuristic instruments for an analysis of interactions between technologies and society. A comparison with related concepts from the theoretical works of Michel Foucault and Ulrich Oevermann rounds off the discussion.

O método analógico em Freud

In this conference, I intend to show that the use of analogies and comparisons of the type "as if" corresponds to a heuristic instrument of research, configuring a methodological procedure of research put by Freud in the setting of the sciences of nature. The goal in his use is both to furnish a "rule of searching" and to give to some concepts, or processes, an empirical content, not easily apprehensible, or even impossible to be found. This conception about nature and the function of analogies and comparisons of the type "as if " in sciences is not a novelty introduced by Freud, but a common practice in empirical sciences, which Freud has learnt in his education as scientist. In this way, after explaining the conceptions of Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach about the use of analogies and comparisons of the type "as if ", I try to recapture Freud’s opinions about this issue, showing that they reaffirm the conceptions of those authors.

Recognition Based upon the Vitality Criterion: A Key to Sustainable Economic Success

Recognition is a basic precondition of participation. This article applies the dimension of recognition to business ethics. A case is made for normative stakeholder management as a voluntary commitment at the level of corporate leadership; this also meets management’s strategic demands. A vitality criterion is offered as a heuristic instrument, suggesting that any operation should be avoided which would violate the legitimate interests of stakeholders. For this reason, the recognition of mutually-conditioned stakeholder claims is understood as the central management idea.

Figuration

Trained and working in literary studies, i began to analyze visual artifacts such as paintings sometime in the late 1980s. My interest in visual aspects has grown out of the realization that subjectivity is formed by a perpetual adjustment of images passing before the subject, who, as focalizer, makes them into a whole that is comprehensible because it is continuous. Having a certain continuity in one's thought depends, at a level more subliminal than conscious, on having a certain continuity in one's images.But continuity is not the same thing as coherence. This distinction is another source of interest that informs work on visual narrativity. In such historically and sociologically varied texts and images as modern novels, the ancient and incomplete fragments that make up the Hebrew bible, and Rembrandt's paintings, I constantly came up against that which eludes the coherence of these artifacts. My attention was systematically arrested by the detail that seems out of place, the contradiction that tears open the work, the monstrous element that reveals flaws and disparities and, because it provokes astonishment, offers never-ending possibilities for the understanding of these works. Such experiences led me to consider those dimensions of literature that classical narratology has tended to think marginal and that pictorial narratology, unbounded by the presumption of linearity, would promote to the forefront or, at least, deploy as heuristic instruments with which to grasp structure outside linear plots.

Figuration

Trained and working in literary studies, i began to analyze visual artifacts such as paintings sometime in the late 1980s. My interest in visual aspects has grown out of the realization that subjectivity is formed by a perpetual adjustment of images passing before the subject, who, as focalizer, makes them into a whole that is comprehensible because it is continuous. Having a certain continuity in one's thought depends, at a level more subliminal than conscious, on having a certain continuity in one's images.But continuity is not the same thing as coherence. This distinction is another source of interest that informs work on visual narrativity. In such historically and sociologically varied texts and images as modern novels, the ancient and incomplete fragments that make up the Hebrew bible, and Rembrandt's paintings, I constantly came up against that which eludes the coherence of these artifacts. My attention was systematically arrested by the detail that seems out of place, the contradiction that tears open the work, the monstrous element that reveals flaws and disparities and, because it provokes astonishment, offers never-ending possibilities for the understanding of these works. Such experiences led me to consider those dimensions of literature that classical narratology has tended to think marginal and that pictorial narratology, unbounded by the presumption of linearity, would promote to the forefront or, at least, deploy as heuristic instruments with which to grasp structure outside linear plots.

Habitus y sentido práctico: la recuperación del agente en la obra de Bourdieu. Habitus and practice sense: the retrieval of the agent in Bourdieu’s literature

The concept of habitas plays a central role in Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice. In this paper critically explore some relevant aspects of this heuristic instrument: its philosophical and sociological origins; the reasons for its sociological reinvention; the nature of habitas as a generative matrix of the most diverse patterns of social practice; its mediation functions between structure and action; its origins from the conditions of life of social groups, the relationship between habitus, common sense and the strategies of adaptation to objective conditions; the different kinds of habitus: the role of a symbolically structured environment in the production and reproduction of habits of masculine domination. In a conclusive summary, make some suggestions about the relevance that Bourdieu’s theory of habitus may have, in my opinion, for the theory and practice of Social Work.

The training analysis at a time when theory is in short supply

The author discusses the risks confronting the training analysis when original theoretical production is lacking. In his view, little progress has been made since Freud's time in establishing a general science of the psyche based on Freud's interpretive method. What has been transmitted is stated to be not Freud's method of discovery but the knowledge thereby produced, which has been handed down in the form of doctrines, defined as theory presented as psychic fact. Hence analyses tend to apply theories rather than to discover unconsciouses. Some of today's most common interpretational aberrations are described, and the author shows the powerful suggestive effect on patients of using doctrines as metaphors of psychic life. Where such a training analysis is reinforced by a like form of theoretical teaching and supervision, candidates may uncritically assimilate the relevant theory. The author uses his concept of the reality‐providing circuit to show how belief in a doctrine imparted by the training analysis makes that doctrine appear as the ideological basis of psychoanalytic knowledge. He finally notes that, theories being essentially heuristic instruments and not bodies of acquired information, the consequence of the current dearth of theories, which have degenerated into doctrines, is that the training analysis itself has come to constitute the theory of training in many institutes.

THE TRAINING ANALYSIS AT A TIME WHEN THEORY IS IN SHORT SUPPLY

The author discusses the risks confronting the training analysis when original theoretical production is lacking. In his view, little progress has been made since Freud's time in establishing a general science of the psyche based on Freud's interpretive method. What has been transmitted is stated to be not Freud's method of discovery but the knowledge thereby produced, which has been handed down in the form of doctrines, defined as theory presented as psychic fact. Hence analyses tend to apply theories rather than to discover unconscious. Some of today's most common interpretational aberrations are described, and the author shows the powerful suggestive effect on patients of using doctrines as metaphors of psychic life. Where such a training analysis is reinforced by a like form of theoretical teaching and supervision, candidates may uncritically assimilate the relevant theory. The author uses his concept of the reality-providing circuit to show how belief in a doctrine imparted by the training analysis makes that doctrine appear as the ideological basis of psychoanalytic knowledge. He finally notes that, theories being essentially heuristic instruments and not bodies of acquired information, the consequence of the current dearth of theories, which have degenerated into doctrines, is that the training analysis itself has come to constitute the theory of training in many institutes.

Дилемма Этнологии ХХ Века: “Культура” – Ключевое Слово или Лозунг?

SUMMARY: Undoubtedly, “culture” was the signature and the Leitmotif of the XX century. Increasingly, we describe and interpret social spheres in cultural terms. This notion was still based on Johann Gottfried Herder’s cultural concept that had drawn on a double perspective of social processes: it included on the one hand the historical view of traditionalized images of the “Volk” and the “Nation” and on the other hand the view of the broad diversity of the world cultures. Especially from the sixties onward the ideas of cultural tradition referring to cultural diversity embodied two major perspectives in the debates on social identity. These perspectives paved the way for new conceptual views of popular culture and everyday culture in industrial societies as well as of specific ethnic and cultural traditions in postcolonial countries, as the article demonstrates by examples and theories of the XX century. However, this cultural concept came with a certain price: more and more, culture appeared to be static, homogeneous and confined within the frame of that concept. Inwardly, the results were “cultural integration” and outwardly “cultural difference”. Any further “culturalization” would be misleading, especially since in times of globalization thinking within the categories of cultural systems – national, social, ethnic or religious – seems inappropriate. Culture cannot simply be the subject matter for “politics of identity”, but on the contrary it ought to be understood as an open and symbolic practice of “negotiating society” beyond false ideas and ideologies of genuineness, unity and authenticity. Along these lines culture then will be an indispensable heuristic instrument for analysing society as well as for a reflexive perspective within society even in the XX century – not only for cultural studies.

Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion

The well-known substantialist-'Frazerian'-definitions of magic as distinct from religion by its immediate and individual goals, the concomitant manipulative and coercive attitude, the instrumental and mechanical type of action etc., have been under attack for more than half a century. Anthropologists in particular have argued that no meaningful contrast between religion and magic can be gained from this approach and that our notion 'magic' is a modern-western biased construct which does not fit representations of other cultures. Consequently, in the view of some of them, the term 'magic' should be altogether avoided. Furthermore, with respect to the ancient and early modern world, in which the opposition religion-magic is supposed to have originated, it is argued that magic and religion function exclusively as value-judgments, terms indicating 'magic' being exploited to stigmatize illegitimate or undesired (religious) behaviour of socially or culturally deviant groups. In the present article it is argued that-although admittedly this functionalist approach has yielded remarkable and lasting results-rejection of the term 'magic' will soon turn out to be unworkable and, in fact, is putting the cart before the horse. From an etic point of view-which in the view of the author is the only possible way to conduct scholarly discourse-it will be impossible to do cultural research without the aid of heuristic instruments such as-at least broad, polythetic or prototypical-definitions. And, if possible at all, it would be utterly unpractical to completely eliminate religion as one of the obvious models of contrast. This position is substantiated with some practical instances from the Graeco-Roman world. It is shown that, at least in the context of (magical) curse-tablets and-related but clearly distinct-(religious) prayers for justice or vengeance, the ancient authors were clearly aware of the very same distinctions modern people normally associate with the notions of magic and religion.

Some Reflections On the Relationship Magic-Religion

AbstractThe well-known substantialist-'Frazerian'-definitions of magic as distinct from religion by its immediate and individual goals, the concomitant manipulative and coercive attitude, the instrumental and mechanical type of action etc., have been under attack for more than half a century. Anthropologists in particular have argued that no meaningful contrast between religion and magic can be gained from this approach and that our notion 'magic' is a modern-western biased construct which does not fit representations of other cultures. Consequently, in the view of some of them, the term 'magic' should be altogether avoided. Furthermore, with respect to the ancient and early modern world, in which the opposition religion-magic is supposed to have originated, it is argued that magic and religion function exclusively as value-judgments, terms indicating 'magic' being exploited to stigmatize illegitimate or undesired (religious) behaviour of socially or culturally deviant groups. In the present article it is argued that-although admittedly this functionalist approach has yielded remarkable and lasting results-rejection of the term 'magic' will soon turn out to be unworkable and, in fact, is putting the cart before the horse. From an etic point of view-which in the view of the author is the only possible way to conduct scholarly discourse-it will be impossible to do cultural research without the aid of heuristic instruments such as-at least broad, polythetic or prototypical-definitions. And, if possible at all, it would be utterly unpractical to completely eliminate religion as one of the obvious models of contrast. This position is substantiated with some practical instances from the Graeco-Roman world. It is shown that, at least in the context of (magical) curse-tablets and-related but clearly distinct-(religious) prayers for justice or vengeance, the ancient authors were clearly aware of the very same distinctions modern people normally associate with the notions of magic and religion.

The role of the left and right thalamus in language asymmetry: Dichotic listening in Parkinson patients undergoing stereotactic thalamotomy

Fourteen patients with Parkinson's disease (rigidity and unilateral tremor as main symptoms) were treated with stereotactic thalamotomy. The operation was performed in either the left or right ventrolateral thalamus, depending on which hand (or foot) was most affected with tremor. Nine patients were operated on the left side and four on the right side. All patients were tested for asymmetry of language functioning with dichotic presentations of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The patients had to indicate which of the two syllables he/she heard on each trial. Dichotic listening was performed before and after the operation, as well as during electrical stimulation of the VL nucleus just before the lesion was carried out. The results revealed essentially three things: an overall reduced right ear advantage (REA) in the patient group compared to what is known from studies of healthy individuals; an increase in REA during left-sided stimulations; and a marked reduction in REA after left-sided lesions. It is concluded that the present data support the notion put forward by Ojemann (e.g., 1975) of a lateralized activating gating mechanism in the left VL nucleus that gates access for language information to the appropriate cortical areas. The gating mechanism seems to be activated by stimulation, and deactivated after lesions. Dichotic listening may thus be a heuristic instrument in assessment of language functions in Parkinson patients.