Epistemological Influences Research Articles

A pesquisa sobre o fazer pesquisa: uma análise de citação da literatura periódica em Ciência da Informação

Introdução: Considera que a literatura na área de Ciência da Informação (CI) compreende uma diversidade temática com baixo destaque para assuntos relacionados aos modos de fazer pesquisa. Analisa a produção científica dos autores que tratam da temática metodologia de pesquisa na literatura de Ciência da Informação (CI) e o referencial no qual se fundamentam as questões metodológicas relativas à área. Discute as posições metodológicas e epistemológicas dos pesquisadores destacados como mais produtivos nacionalmente na temática. Metodologia: Adota a modalidade de análise de conteúdo aliada aos estudos métricos para contextualizar os indicadores gerados referentes à produção, à colaboração relacionada aos tipos de autoria e à análise de citação. Considera o acoplamento bibliográfico como uma modalidade de análise em que são estudadas as citações concomitantes. Desenvolve referencial teórico sobre a importância da análise de produção científica nos domínios do conhecimento. Explora concepções teóricas sobre metodologia de pesquisa e a complementaridade desta com a epistemologia no fazer pesquisa. Resultados: Evidencia, na produção dos autores, a metodologia como foco temático aplicado a contextos da CI e também como objeto de pesquisa da referida área. Considera que a produtividade proeminente dos autores justifica-se especialmente pelo aprofundamento nos metaestudos sobre modos de fazer pesquisa em CI. Identifica a tendência aos estudos de autoria única sobre o tema. Conclusão: Considera que a realização de metaestudos e também de estudos aplicados e metodológicos é importante para que se reconheça, na área de CI, um núcleo teórico e prático consistente. Em relação às influências epistemológicas identificadas com a análise de acoplamento, observa que a epistemologia racionalista crítica e a epistemologia social e política são destacadas na construção do referencial teórico dos autores.

The "Prince of Medicine": Yūhannā ibn Māsawayh and the foundations of the western pharmaceutical tradition.

This essay examines three medieval pharmaceutical treatises purportedly authored by Yūhannā ibn Māsawayh (anglicized to John Mesue) and traces their immense influence on the development of pharmacy in early modem Europe and the Hispanic world. Despite the importance of these works throughout the early modern period, Mesue is relatively unknown in the history of pharmacy and medicine, and his exact identity remains unclear. This essay argues that "Mesue" was most likely a pseudonym used by an unknown author of the Latin West and that the three works were crafted to meet the demands of the developing "medical marketplace" of late thirteenth-century Europe, where the manuscripts first appeared. At the same time, however, as the Arabic reference of the pseudonym suggests, these treatises were clearly products of the medieval Islamic world, including many innovations that would provide the basis for the theory and practice of pharmacy for centuries and arguably formed part of the artisanal epistemological influence on the Scientific Revolution.

Islam and Post modernity: M. Arkoun on Deconstruction

Ideologies are directly albeit not always perceptibly related to methodological and epistemological themes. Social psychology also reveals that knowledge depends upon the policy of rejection or incorporation of various philosophies. In the journey of human thought dawned the age of reason with the Era of Enlightenment. Gradually, universal values and the scientific method gained supremacy. And then all the grand narratives stood redundant and rejected, giving rise to the need to re-search, re-analyze, and re-think every work donethus far with the aim to de-construct the now-discarded. This research studies the greatly admired post structural theory of deconstruction and its proponents in the Muslim civilizations to evaluate its impact on contemporary Muslim thought. The rationale of the study is a critical appraisal of the theoretical concepts in the Muslim world in response or reaction to the current epistemological influences from the West. This exploration led to the conclusion that the scholars of the Islamic world missed the point by going a bit too far as the Holy Quran and collections of authentic Ahadith explicitly state what Muslims should reject or incorporate. The remedy comprises in updating the conventional way of thinking and interpreting things, acquiring the ability to think the unthinkable and the previously unthought, honest hard word, incessant striving for excellence, as well as discarding getting overwhelmed by whatever gains ‘currency’ in the largely impulsive Western thought.

The syncretism of environmental and social responsibility with business economic performance

PurposeThe present conceptual study aims to discuss the integration of corporate social and environmental responsibility (ESR/CSR) into business strategies and operations. The objective is to propose a conceptual framework for synthesising pragmatic and constructionist theoretical discourses on ESR.Design/methodology/approachThe paper applies the concept of syncretism – and inherent objective and subjective perspectives – to the field of ESR/CSR. A review of existing literature unfolds the construct of syncretism as a continuum integrating both systemic/pragmatic narratives and constructionist/ethnographic. The metabolism analogy is further discussed to stress the salience of ESR in determining the prospects for corporate sustainable development.FindingsThe achievement of syncretistic equilibrium is understood to occur at the intersection of constructionist and pragmatic epistemological influences. Existing research suggest that reducing or removing the external cost induced in industrial processes and exploiting marketing opportunities to signal positive ethicality of the firm are possible pathways for syncretistic equilibrium. The metabolism analogy is argued to abound with constructive implications on how businesses can provoke synergistic or symbiotic correlations between ESR and economic sustainability.Practical implicationsBy integrating constructionist and pragmatic narratives into one conceptual proposition, it is hoped that this paper can lead to a better understanding of the way societal responsibility appears to business managers and, through that insight, lead to improvement in practice. Examining the extent to which metabolic processes and the functioning of the business system inspire comparable challenges can offer supportive basis for contriving effective ESR integration strategies.Originality/valueBoth constructionist (e.g. individuals’ values) and systemic (e.g. business case for CSR) narratives have received considerable attention form scholars in the field of ESR/CSR, yet they have never been assembled into one conceptual proposition. Syncretism constitutes a new line of thinking for conceptualising the constructionist and pragmatic challenges related to the integration of ESR into business strategies and operations.

The Maya world of communicating objects: quadripartite crosses, trees, and stones

Although anthropologists have been observing and analyzing the religious practices of Mayan people for about a hundred years, this perceptive study suggests that anthropological interpretation of those practices and of Maya cosmology has never escaped the epistemological influence of Christianity. Whereas the objects used in Christian rituals are treated with reverence, such ritual objects as Mayan crosses can be used, reused, enshrined, communicated with or manipulated, disregarded, or destroyed - the apparent equivalent of defacing the image of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Astor-Aguilera holds that we cannot understand these practices by trying to fit them into a European Cartesian mindset but must instead recognize and try to understand indigenous Mayan epistemology. The western concept of religion, he suggests, is not the framework for understanding Mayan cosmology or practice. Using ethnographic, archaeological, and glyphic evidence, he traces modern Mayan attitudes toward sacrality and sacred objects back to Classic Maya beliefs. No scholar of Maya religion, archaeology, or history can afford to overlook this long overdue approach to a widely misunderstood subject.

Michael Polanyi and the Social Sciences

In this article, the author attempts three things: (a) to describe the main beliefs of the “continental empiricist” epistemology that dominated the study of the social sciences in North America since the mid 1930s; (b) to speak of the influence of this epistemology on the dominant or mainstream school in the study of politics; and (c) to propose a new-old approach to the study of politics, based on the thinking of Michael Polanyi (1891-1976).

Un protocollo per il disturbo da deficit d'attenzione ed una tipologia delle famiglie dei bambini che lo presentano

- In this article a professional path in the child and adolescent mental health field is exposed. Namely, one answer to the attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is considered. The author's first epistemological influences were followed by others, and she assimilated new ideas to embody in her practice. The opening to psychotropic drugs, concretely to metilphenidat, was made with some conflict and prudence as it meant a change from a mainly psychotherapist orientation. Reasons for that choice are shown, which are based on a complex vision of the child as an individual. The context is described (CSMIJ: Centre de Salut Mental Infanto Juvenil) where a method to give pharmacological answers to ADHD was developed. A typology of families is also presented, classifying the 71 cases that reacted favourably to the metilphenidat treatment. Such classification, going from the least to the most malfunctioned, is also a way to find better indications to every type of family. Finally, guidelines for the future are sketched using the concepts previously developed.

Viral terrorism and terrifying viruses: the homological construction of the war on terror and the avian flu pandemic

In the climate of panic following the September 11 attacks, previously little-discussed threats were publicized as potential instruments for terrorist attacks. Anxious discourses in the media surrounding anthrax, smallpox, dirty bombs and suitcase nukes blurred distinctions between viruses, bacteria and radiation, creating a generalized environment of fear which facilitated and legitimized controversial government initiatives. This essay argues that this environment of fear was advanced and maintained not only through explicit discursive invocations of terrorism, but also through seemingly unrelated issues, such as a possible bird flu pandemic. By rhetorically constructing bird flu as a threat that is ontologically homologous to that of terrorism, the nature of pandemic disease and the policies and programs designed to counter it have been fundamentally misconstructed, leaving us in some ways more vulnerable to pandemic disease than before. With the recent international swine flu pandemic revealing just how underprepared we are to deal with serious pandemic threats, it is clear that our social and political conceptual frameworks for conceiving of pandemic disease must be rethought. We must sunder the present reality of pandemic threats from the beclouding epistemological influence of the 9/11 attacks, and re-learn the differences between terrifying viruses and viral terrorism.

Journey to the Headwaters: Bartolomé de Las Casas in a Comparative Context

This essay compares the theological orientation of Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566) with those of two other notable colonial Latin American ecclesial figures: Toribio de Benavente Motolinía (1494/95–1565), and Juan Vasco de Quiroga (1477/78–1565). An examination of the experiential and theoretical epistemological sources of their theological orientations reveals the influence of different temporal, social, and geographic experiences as well as of their common and distinctive intellectual formations. Their understandings of and activities in the New World reflect these epistemological influences. The data demonstrate that Las Casas’s theological orientation was primarily prophetic in his quest for justice for the Indigenous and drew from Thomism and Scripture; Motolinía’s was predominantly millenarian in his ardor to establish the New Jerusalem and mirrored the Franciscan Spirituals’ tradition; Quiroga’s was principally utopian in his approach to Christianize, civilize, and educate the Indigenous as well as employed Christian humanist ideas. A summary analysis argues that the prophetic dimension of Las Casas’s theological orientation is further differentiated from that of his two contemporaries by its universalist character and its dynamic development during the course of his lifetime.

An Expansion of a Scholar's Social Justice Perspective: A Meeting at the Crossroads

Using a life notes methodology (Bell-Scott, 1994; Dillard, 2000, 2006; Simmons, 2007), I use personal narratives to describe my epistemological influences on my approach to educational practice, research, and the preparation of school leaders. Second, I share personal accounts of how my social justice lens expanded to be inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals. Finally, I draw four important lessons from my personal social justice journey for educators to incorporate within their social justice educational leadership curriculum. These lessons include helping students be reflective practitioners, acknowledging the baggage of misinformation and prejudice that they may bring to a social justice education, being able to connect with students at their points of advocacy, and reminding future leaders of their unquestionable responsibility to support all students regardless of their identities.

The impact of epistemology on learning: A case study from introductory physics

We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student’s difficulties were epistemological in nature. Our primary goals are to show instructors and curriculum developers that a student’s personal epistemological stance—her ideas about knowledge and learning—can have a direct, causal influence on her learning of physics, and to describe a mechanism for this interaction. This influence exists even when research-based curriculum materials provide implicit epistemological support. For this reason, curriculum materials and teaching techniques could become more effective by explicitly attending to students’ epistemologies.

A Poetics of Social Work: Personal Agency and Social Transformation in Canada, 1920-1939

In A Poetics of Social Work, Ken Moffatt considers the epistemological influences in the field of Canadian social work and social welfare from 1920 to 1939. Here, modernist constructs of knowledge are explored through the analysis of the thought of leading social welfare practitioners, namely Dorothy Livesay, Carl Dawson, Charlotte Whitton, and E.J. Urwick. These four figures represent a wide cross-section of Anglo-Canadian social thought at two of Canada's most influential universities (McGill and Toronto), and Moffatt's study of their thinking reveals the presence of a diversity of approaches to social work and social change during this period. By challenging the notion that human values and humanitarian concerns were abandoned in favour of science, empirical findings, and technical interpretation of authoritative knowledge, the author attempts to expand the concept of the social work knowledge base and explores how social work emerged as a profession in Canada. Moffatt's study presents a broad context for analysis, and provides fascinating reading and source material for those interested in history, philosophy, literature, and biography, as well as social work and the social sciences.

De Kant a Kuhn, acotando por Putnam

Our aim in this paper is to trace in some detall the deep influence of Kant's epistemology on T.S. Kuhn's model of scientific change, specially on the kind ofrealism this model presupposes. In order to do this, we highlight the hard core thesis of what H. Putnam (1981) has called «intemal realism» —a kind of kantian realism— and then we try to show the strong resemblance between these thesis and Kuhn's ontological commitments. Last, we point to some advantages this kantian perspective offers in the way to construct a more adequate notion of objectivity and rationality

Un-American Anthropological Thought: The Opler-Meggers Exchange

This paper examines the public and private context of Morris Opler's Cold War criticism that Betty Meggers's and Leslie White's theoretical perspective was laden with the ideas of crypto-Marxism. While White was significantly influenced by the Marxist tradition, Opler's attacks went beyond the establishment of epistemological influences and entered the realm of McCarthyistic Red baiting. The climate of McCarthyism gave Opler the opportunity to strengthen his criticisms of Meggers's and White's attacks on psychological anthropology with a powerful political threat by linking their work with Stalinism and Marxism. The history of White and Opler's relationship, and the correspondence of Meggers, Opler, White, and others indicate Opler's criticisms were influenced by long-standing personal and professional quarrels with White.

The Influence of Epistemology on the Design of Artificial Agents

Unlike natural agents, artificial agents are, to varying extent, designed according to sets of principles or assumptions. We argue that the designer's philosophical position on truth, belief and knowledge has far reaching implications for the design and performance of the resulting agents. Of the many sources of design information and background we believe philosophical theories are under-rated as valuable influences on the design process. To explore this idea we have implemented some computer-based agents with their control algorithms inspired by two strongly contrasting philosophical positions. A series of experiments on these agents shows that, despite having common tasks and goals, the behaviour of the agents is markedly different and this can be attributed to their individual approaches to belief and knowledge. We discuss these findings and their support for the view that epistemological theories have a particular relevance for artificial agent design.

Continuity and change in language arts textbooks in Greek primary schools

The aim of this article is to describe and explain changes in the Greek textbooks for language arts teaching in view of epistemological and political developments. The textbooks of the 1980s, still in use and still called ‘new books’ are considered a pivotal point in the description of the situation before their introduction, as well as in the experience of their use for the last twenty years. In view of the latter and under the influence of post-modernist epistemology and Greece's membership to the European Union, needed changes should encompass a number of factors. These include textbooks promoting critical thinking, communication and cooperation skills, tolerance and acceptance of differences as well as a high level of oral and written language command. The new curriculum and the concomitant textbooks, being in the phase of preparation, lead in this direction.

Social Dimensions of Epistemological Disputes: The Case of Literary Theory

Epistemological reflection has been a major source of innovation in the human sciences while having very little influence on the arts or sciences. This variation is explained using a sociological framework emphasizing the organizational forms that underpin or are implicit in epistemological positions. The fine arts and the harder sciences are, respectively, too weakly and too strongly organized to be open to epistemological influence. By contrast, the human sciences might plausibly be organized either more loosely or more tightly, and epistemological argument is used in part to urge movement in one or the other direction. This perspective is applied to the academic study of literature both historically and in relation to a current epistemological dispute between realist and relativist scholars. The argument is unresolvable in practice, it is argued, because of constraints on scholarly interpretation set by consumers. Parallels are drawn with circumstances in sociology.

Flexible Mentoring: Adaptations in Style for Women's Ways of Knowing

This study examines the influence of epistemology on women's perceptions of the workplace, themselves, and their work, and the relationship of these perceptions to career mentoring. Three epistemol...