Search

Copyright of Alpha: Revista de Artes, Letras y Filosofía is the property of Universidad de Los Lagos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scientific epistemology is a topic that has sparked centuries of philosophical discourse. In particular, understanding the role that scientists play in the creation and perpetuation of scientific knowledge is a subject that continues to be hotly debated. A relative new-comer to scientific epistemology is the field of virtue epistemology, which positions knowledge creation as integrally linked to specific character traits held by the scientist. Positioning scientific research as a distinct practice, virtue epistemologists strive to understand what virtues foster robust knowledge creation. Examinations of current scientific virtue epistemology, however, reveal how framings of "the scientist" tend to be highly individualistic and position the individual scientist as an actor with a high level of agency and autonomy. Such approaches, while following more conventional scientific epistemology discourse, contrast significantly with a growing body of social science literature that emphasizes the group nature of scientific research and education. This paper makes use of this social science literature to critically examine current deficits in narratives of scientific virtue epistemology. It highlights the need for the prioritization of virtues that enable scientists to work and learn in social environments through social processes. In particular, it discusses how the virtue of docility, best understood as being "open to learning", is a key virtue for training new scientists and for establishing robust processes of knowledge creation. By identifying current deficits in the manner in which science is taught, it demonstrates the considerable epistemic consequences of training scientists who do not embody docility in all aspects of their research activities. The paper concludes by discussing how docility may be considered a key factor in an alternate understanding of the current reproducibility crisis in modern science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the response of Noretta Koertge to the recent discussion in the journal of the book she edited. She describes features of scientific method and explains that scientists devote much of their energies to trying to exclude their own biases from their observations, and she lists the familiar techniques that are used to accomplish a degree of what is commonly called objectivity. It is noted that those who work in the history and sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) not only know scientific method and its aspirations, they value and cleave to it. Thus, SSK tries to generalize so that its results can be repeated in other settings, historical details are checked with respondents and, where possible, sources are carefully documented so that they can be checked by others.

This paper addresses the epistemological tensions generated due to the search for legitimization of scientific knowledge. It stems from the discussion about science seen through "nomothetic" and "ideographic" standpoints, coming to the conclusion that there is a tendency to theorize from a vision that comes from an organizational order, putting on the back burner, to a large extent, the legitimizer tension that occurs in the socialization of scientific knowledge. The paper also values possibilities to analyze social sciences from Bourdieu's scientific field concept, who breaks up certain inertias about the official positions that theorize about science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the question of whether, as Nanda claims, treating all knowledge traditions including science as local, denies the possibility of criticism. It accepts the necessity for criticism but denies that science can be the sole arbiter of truth and argues that we have to live with holding differing knowledges in tension with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scientific paper focuses the problem of classification of methods of scientific research. Probably covered in theoretical research, not just what they have been awarded scientific knowledge that it is obtained, but also the method by which it is obtained. Is there any chance that supports logical methodological consistency of classification methods in this science are instituted? What reason attends the defense of the idea, that the methodology of scientific research stands through empirical methods, where, regardless of the empirical constitutes the above to the scientific level, the theoretical and the empirical are exclusive natures of knowledge? What arguments invoked in order to demonstrate the falsity of the thesis in which I become identical knowledge and methods according to their scientific nature? Why cling undoubtedly the medieval universal educational thought to absolute canons and the concept of method as a way or path holding?, we would not be far from the scientificity that he quintessential definition and it should be given? The basal idea is to defend and to subsume questions formulated above is to be irrevocably dialectical relationship between the method and theory, which necessarily comes first classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the 5th Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists focusing on anthropology research and anthropological responses to science. Explorations of how scientific knowledge is absorbed by society; Post-positivist critiques of scientific truth claims; Evidence and truth in anthropological knowledge.

This paper highlights how results from large-scale studies can be used to understand students' knowledge of science. Several scholars express critique of today's PISA framework, especially with regard to the presentation of the results as national rankings, and suggest alternative and complementary methods. The present study has used PISA data to reveal hidden patterns in the results. The results show a general descending trend in items focusing on the nature of science and how new scientific knowledge is generated. On the other hand, there is an obvious upward trend regarding tasks that measure fact-based elementary or root knowledge. These trends are slightly differentiated at a national level, as the time and magnitude of the decline or increase may vary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the problem of knowledge as a human activity that embodies a set of different strategies to be solved. The current analysis focuses over a set of epistemic arguments about knowledge according to the modern science that began in the sixteenth century in Europe. In specific, scientific knowledge is explored as a fuzzy set, which it is establish its epistemic and methodological bounds. All of this under the central question: lineal scientific explanation is enough? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acciones e Investigaciones Sociales is the property of Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y del Trabajo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: This paper analyses the gynaecological literature on endometriosis, particularly endometriosis classification, to evaluate the epistemological concepts it uses. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on a sample of gynaecological literature published between 1985 and 2000, a period that witnessed the explosion of both evidence-based and patient-centred models of medicine, with their duelling emphases on science and experience. It was found that the discourse of science is used strategically in this literature as a formal epistemology to lend weight to authors'' claims and to guide medical thinking and research. However, gynaecologists also use the notion of experience to assert their own credibility and to question the credibility of other experts. In fact, accounts of their own experience and the experiential accounts of their patients are foundational to gynaecologists'' claims-making activities, including their engagement with scientific research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (EJER) is the property of Eurasian Journal of Educational Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Provides evidence on the circulative linkages between knowledge creation, sharing and utilization in regional innovative clusters in South Korea. Policy goals that promote scientific and technological knowledge activities; Acceleration of regional innovation.

This paper is an examination of the development of standpoint epistemologies and their impact on the objective status of scientific knowledge. I explore both the origins of these epistemologies and their ironical maintenance of a textual or social realism while dispensing with the natural realism of science. I argue that both scientific realism and standpoint epistemologies are in need of a new, reconfigured understanding of realism. Borrowing from the work of Steve Shapin, Niklas Luhmann and Stephan Fuchs, I contend that realism can best be viewed as an associational code which links people together into a scientific community and differentiates science from other forms of life. Without these codes, science becomes something entirely different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst satellite observations over the Polar Regions yield vastly beneficial scientific knowledge, ethical questions complicate their use in the context of the Polar Regions, in particular, questions about military or strategic advantage vis-a-vis human security concerns. The Antarctic Treaty System is committed to use of its space for peaceful purposes which, in the fulfilment of high-level science, seems plausible. Yet where military endeavour is coupled with such scientific endeavour, or where global security concerns seek an entree to the knowledge acquired by such observation, the question of whether either Pole can remain free from human non-peaceful purpose is bedevilling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais is the property of DADOS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Filosofija, Sociologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An editorial is presented on the importance of movement and mobility to theories of knowledge and practices. Topics mentioned include the philosophy of scientific knowledge, the effects of mobility to infrastructures and technological innovation, and the science and technology studies (STS) that affects the character of sciences and mobility.

Copyright of RAE: Revista de Administração de Empresas is the property of Fundacao Getulio Vargas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The author discusses science and religion. He states that scientific knowledge is a set of theories and data obtained through experiments. Scientist Charles Darwin once stated that there is no good and original observation and careful attention paid to experiments leads to advancement of knowledge. Personal beliefs can be followed but should be kept out of lab in scientific experiments.

The article focuses on the issues discussed in the journal pertaining the science studies of Ludwig Fleck and the centrality of his thought to Thomas Kuhn. Likewise, the author cites several issues such as the relationship between the scientific work of Fleck in the field of medicine on syphilis. Another, is an enduring question in science studies with objectivity and value. Finally, is an analysis of Latourian criticism and its reluctance to adopt a critical attitude.

The article presents the author's views and opinion regarding the rapid growth of science and the natural limit of science. It gives a definition of science as a store of knowledge of natural phenomena. He notes that a store of knowledge can be called science if there are people who want to learn and use his knowledge. He remarks that the limitations of science are in human intellect, the capacity for interest and learning and memory and facilities for communication.

The aim of this article is to explain that, in the context of the production of scientific knowledge, it is logically impossible to define some institutional structures enabling the maximization of the social surplus.Our argumentation relies on the theory of Popper according to which it is impossible to anticipate the result of a given process of production of scientific knowledge. Consequently, we conclude that it is impossible to compare the respective efficiencies of alternative structures of production of scientific knowledge.The document consists in a critical review ofthe literature in economics of innovation and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Works in science and technology studies (STS) have repeatedly pointed to the importance of the visual in scientific practice. STS has also explicated how embodied practice generates scientific knowledge. I aim to supplement this literature by pointing out how sound and hearing are integral aspects of experimentation. Sound helps define how and when lab work is done, and in what kinds of spaces. It structures experimental experience. It affords interactions between researchers and instruments that are richer than could be obtained with vision alone. And it is a site for tacit knowledge, providing a resource for the replication of results, and the transmission of knowledge, and the construction of social boundaries within in instrumental communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of article is to analyze the arguments of Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar aimed at eliminating `superfluous' cognitive explanations from discussion of scientific activity. They proposed to a ten-year moratorium on cognitive explanations of scientific activity and promised to reassess explanation in terms of cognition after this period of time if some aspects of scientific inquiry would not be accounted by sociological explanations. Intensive laboratory studies of scientific practice indicated that scientific thinking is not based on mental processes alone but relies on external tools and instruments. On the basis of these kinds of observations, they rejected all cognitive explanations of scientific inquiry. By building on sociocultural theories of cognition, the present study makes the case that the use of conceptual tools significantly transforms cognitive processes. It is concluded that the failure to appreciate cognitive explanations reflects a far too narrow and non-social concept of cognition: Even after the ten-year moratorium there appears to be many good reasons to reassess the proposal of eliminating cognitive explanations altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the structure of technology knowledge. The author classified the technology knowledge in three main areas which include the knowledge about technologies or the engineer's or technician's knowledge, the theoretical technology knowledge or the knowledge of physical, chemical and electrical laws, and the knowledge through technologies or scientific knowledge. This article focuses on the scientific knowledge or the "technologically dependent" knowledge, as regarded by the author. Accordingly, the author stated that every technology brought by scientific knowledge has non-neutrally transformed both the project or object towards the goal of technology. He inferred that modern science depended on modern technology.

The article presents a study about the perception of the student on science model and their use. About thirty-three mixed ability students from 7th grade and twenty-two honor students from 11th grade were gathered for the study. The study analysis the characters of the students on their spontaneous answers to the questions, examines the students decision making ability and describes the students different levels of understanding that reflects on their different epistemological viewpoints. The study assessed that both groups have conceptions of models, which are consistent with a naive realist epistemology. Furthermore, the study concluded that the students need more experience in applying the models as their intellectual tools.