Journal articles on the topic 'Epistemic excellence'
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Baril, Anne. "Pragmatic encroachment in accounts of epistemic excellence." Synthese 190, no. 17 (January 5, 2013): 3929–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0234-4.
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Scholten, Wout, Thomas P. Franssen, Leonie van Drooge, Sarah de Rijcke, and Laurens K. Hessels. "Funding for few, anticipation among all: Effects of excellence funding on academic research groups." Science and Public Policy 48, no. 2 (March 24, 2021): 265–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scab018.
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Abstract In spite of the growing literature about excellence funding in science, we know relatively little about its implications for academic research practices. This article compares organizational and epistemic effects of excellence funding across four disciplinary fields, based on in-depth case studies of four research groups in combination with twelve reference groups. In spite of the highly selective nature of excellence funding, all groups employ dedicated strategies to maximize their chances of acquiring it, which we call strategic anticipation. The groups with ample excellence funding acquire a relatively autonomous position within their organization. While the epistemic characteristics of the four fields shape how excellence funding can be used, we find that in all fields there is an increase in epistemic autonomy. However, in fields with more individual research practices a longer time horizon for grants, beyond the usual 5 years, would fit better with the research process.
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Holliman, Richard. "Supporting excellence in engaged research." Journal of Science Communication 16, no. 05 (December 13, 2017): C04. http://dx.doi.org/10.22323/2.16050304.
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This paper reviews the purposes, definitions and criteria designed to embed ‘engaged research’ as a strategic priority with universities, and explores some of the challenges of implementation. Surveys of academics have shown various understandings of, and attitudes to, the practices of engaged research, but also impediments to realising the aspirations it expresses. Drawing on the experience as the academic lead for engaged research at the Open University, the author explores questions of professionalisation, for example, through training, support mechanisms and measures of recognition for engaged research. He concludes by arguing that, if done well, engaged research can promote epistemic justice.
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Hellström, Tomas, Leila Jabrane, and Erik Brattström. "Center of excellence funding: Connecting organizational capacities and epistemic effects." Research Evaluation 27, no. 2 (December 27, 2017): 73–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvx043.
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Vitéz, Kitti. "Mi és ők? Egy felsőoktatási értékelési rendszer vizsgálata a nemzetközi hallgatók szemszögéből." Autonomy and Responsibility Journal of Educational Sciences 5, no. 1-4 (June 22, 2022): 123–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.15170/ar.2020.5.1-4.7.
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Hayes, Aneta, and Jie Cheng. "Datafication of epistemic equality: advancing understandings of teaching excellence beyond benchmarked performativity." Teaching in Higher Education 25, no. 4 (April 29, 2020): 493–509. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1689387.
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Pyrcz, Gregory E., Tessa Claire MacLean, and Mark E. Hopkins. "Demanding Epistemic Democracy and Indirect Civics Pedagogy: The Performance-Oriented Music Ensemble." Philosophical Inquiry in Education 24, no. 3 (July 20, 2020): 237–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1070609ar.
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The participation of young adults in performance-oriented music ensembles can be seen to enhance democratic capacities and virtues. Much, however, turns on the particular conception of democracy at work. Although contemporary currents in music education tend towards models of liberal and participatory democracy to govern music ensembles, this essay contends that demanding epistemic democracy allows performance-oriented music ensembles the achievement of democratic virtues without sacrificing excellence as a central regulatory ideal. The inclusion of both men and women is shown to be particularly significant in this light. Central to its democratic epistemic ambition, the role of the conductor is considered in the last section of this article.
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Guoqiang, Chen, Tan Jianping, and Tao Yourui. "A Reliability-Based Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Method with Evidence Theory and Probability Theory." International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering 25, no. 01 (February 2018): 1850003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0218539318500031.
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Uncertainties, including aleatory and epistemic uncertainties, always exist in multidisciplinary system. Due to the discontinuous nature of epistemic uncertainty and the complex coupled relation among subsystems, the computational efficiency of reliability-based multidisciplinary design optimization (RBMDO) with mixed aleatory and epistemic uncertainties is extremely low. A novel RBMDO procedure is presented in this paper based on combined probability theory and evidence theory (ET) to deal with hybrid-uncertainties and improve the computational efficiency. Firstly, based on Bayes method, a novel method to define the probability density function of the aleatory variables is proposed. Secondly, the conventional equivalent normal method (J-C method) is modified to reliability analysis with hybrid-uncertainties. Finally, a novel RBMDO procedure is suggested by integrating the modified J-C method into the frame of sequence optimization and reliability analysis (SORA). Numerical examples and engineering example are applied to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. The examples show the excellence of the RBMDO method both in computational efficiency and accuracy. The proposed method provides a practical and effective reliability design method for multidisciplinary system.
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Lushetich, Natasha. "Idiosyncrasy as Strategy in the Age of Epistemic Violence." Artnodes, no. 20 (December 15, 2017): 111–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.7238/artnodes.v0i20.3149.
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One of the first principles of capitalism is, undeniably, instrumentalisation; the subjection of one thing to another with the speculative aim of producing some future ‘value’, regardless of how dubious – or even noxious this ‘value’ may be. In the knowledge economy, which produces value from accelerated innovation (also interpretable as the overproduction of the minimally different) value is extracted in two chief ways: via the misplaced rhetoric of excellence, and via netocratic quantification. Both of these processes are further aggravated by the additive nature of the digital media (Han); the irrationality of rationality (Ritzer); and attention deficit. Despite the fact that knowledge in general, and artistic knowledge in particular, is heterogeneous as well as, essentially, undecidable, in this essay I argue for a specific brand of knowledge: idiosyncratic, and, if need be, incomprehensible. Not as a weak ‘I would rather not’ strategy of resistance – to borrow from Herman Melville’s over-exploited, half-dead anti-hero Bartleby – but as an antidote to reductionism, information deluge, and their increasing neurological consequences, such as Information Fatigue Syndrome.
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Bandola-Gill, Justyna. "Between relevance and excellence? Research impact agenda and the production of policy knowledge." Science and Public Policy 46, no. 6 (August 1, 2019): 895–905. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scz037.
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Abstract The recent moves towards incentivising ‘impact’ within the research funding system pose a growing challenge to academic research practices, charged with producing both scientific, and social impact. This article explores this tension by drawing on interviews with sixty-one UK academics and policymakers involved in publicly-funded knowledge exchange initiatives. The experiences of the interviewed academics point to a functional separation of academic practices into three distinct types: producing traditional research, translating research, and producing policy-oriented research. These three types of practices differ in terms of both the epistemic qualities of the produced knowledge and its legitimacy as valid academic work. Overall, the article argues that the relationship between relevance and excellence of research within the impact agenda is characterised by simultaneous contradiction and co-dependence, leading to hybridisation of academic knowledge production and expansion of the boundaries of policy expertise into the traditionally-academic spaces.
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BITTLINGER, MERLIN. "Call of Duty at the Frontier of Research: Normative Epistemology for High-Risk/High-Gain Studies of Deep Brain Stimulation." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 27, no. 4 (September 10, 2018): 647–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0963180118000142.
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Abstract:Research participants are entitled to many rights that may easily come into conflict. The most important ones are that researchers respect their autonomy as persons and act on the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Since 2014, research subjects from numerous states in the United States of America also have a legal “right to try” that allows them, under certain circumstances, to receive experimental (i.e., preliminarily tested) interventions, including medical devices, before official approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration. In the context of experimental interventions, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Alzheimer’s disease, this article argues that research participants ought never to have a legal “right to try” without a corresponding “right to be sure.” The latter refers to external epistemic justification construed in terms of reliance on reliable evidence. This article demonstrates that the mere complexity of intervention ensembles, as in the case of DBS for Alzheimer’s disease which serves as a paradigm example, illustrate how unanswered and/or unasked open questions give rise to a “combinatorial explosion” of uncertainties that require epistemic responses that no single research team alone is likely able to provide. From this assessment, several epistemic asymmetrical relations between researchers and participants are developed. By elucidating these epistemic asymmetries, this article unravels the reasons why open science, transparent exhaustive data reporting, preregistration, and continued constant critical appraisal via pre- and postpublication peer review are not scientific virtues of moral excellence but rather ordinary obligations of the scientific work routine required to increase reliability and strength of evidence.
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Hayes, Aneta. "Epistemic Democracy and International Students." Journal of International Students 10, no. 2 (May 15, 2020): vi—vii. http://dx.doi.org/10.32674/jis.v10i2.1968.
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In this 10th anniversary essay, I would like to address the topic I have been writing about for quite a while now- namely, how to create conditions for epistemic democracy for international students attending our universities. By ‘epistemic democracy’ I mean not being silenced and ‘wronged’ as knowers through teaching experiences which prevent any distortion and discreditation of particular intellectual traditions. I believe this topic is important because, despite institutional announcements which commit universities to building on the strengths that come from the diversity of internationalisation of higher education, the problem intellectual subordination of international students in university classrooms has still not been adequately addressed.
In my recent monograph 'Inclusion, Epistemic Democracy and International Students: The Teaching Excellence Framework and Education Policy', I have argued that the intellectual benefits of learning alongside international students are insufficiently appreciated because educational policies, which for many years have represented international students as ‘foreigners’ who benefit from Western education systems, socialise university staff and home students into the view that these ‘foreigners’ are intellectually inferior. Home students therefore, on their own and without the help of their institutions, lack agency to engage with international students on epistemologically equal terms. But how can these home students be expected to deal with the lack of epistemic democracy on their own, if the limitations of the policies that govern their education systems, especially those that constitute official university rankings, do not establish any obligation for universities to engage with international people on more reciprocal terms?
They can’t because when the problem is systemic, it needs to be addressed by a change in the system. This change needs to aim to socialise universities into new interdependencies with international students. That is why I argue in my work that we need a ‘ranking’ that will afford knowledge production to all people (as nowadays what is not measured, does not happen); one that will lead to epistemic democracy – that is, a situation whereby universities collectively work towards fighting coloniality in internationalisation (i.e. intellectual, social and political domination over international students in an education system).
People have often asked me: ‘How could such a ranking work?’ Well, in my work I have specifically undertaken some data modelling of some sample national data in the UK to answer this question. I have shown sample analytical models which conceptualise and show in practice steps towards critical pedagogy of internationalisation (i.e. how to ‘measure’ the type of the education process which is guided by ‘teaching standards’ of equal, just and free from coloniality participation in knowledge production in the classroom). I have shown that it is possible, through specific data modelling, to capture the extent to which intellectual reciprocity is invited by university tutors, as the analyses that I have proposed ‘measure’ therelationalities between inclusive characteristics of the teaching process and realisation of students as epistemic equals.
There are of course some limitations of the analysis I have used, which will probably annoy many statisticians. But they can be addressed and are no greater than that the caveats that characterise the current nature and scope of many university rankings. The most important thing however is that through the analyses I discuss,we can actually ‘measure’ the type of pedagogical intentionality that can lead to intellectual transformations in university seminar rooms. By nature, such intentionality is a relative concept, which means that we can measure how each university performs to their own specification (and consequently will be able to take account of any changes to these specifications when they occur).
There are therefore no absolutes against which the output can be assessed, nor are there any universal benchmarks. This is the most significant difference that distinguishes the proposed ‘ranking for epistemic democracy’ from the existing ones.
The absence of such benchmarks makes the proposed ranking apolitical as the analysis of data is focused purely on the educational process that underlies intellectual inclusion of all students. As such, the ranking can be distanced from any national self-interests which we know are often associated with internationalisation, and can also prevent further politicisation of international students. Instead, the universities can focus on assessing one core idea - that is, how and to what extent international students’ rights to knowledge production are actually shaped and enacted on the ground in our universities.
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Allo, Awol K. "The Courtroom as a Site of Epistemic Resistance: Mandela at Rivonia." Law, Culture and the Humanities 16, no. 1 (April 21, 2016): 127–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1743872116643274.
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The 1963–64 trial of Nelson Mandela and other leading members of the liberation movement was a political trial par excellence. In the courtroom, the Apartheid government was trying the accused for the crime of sabotage but in the court of public opinion, it was using the event of the trial to produce images and ideas aimed at slandering and discrediting the African National Congress (ANC) and the movement for a free and democratic South Africa. The defendants, on their part, used their trial to denounce the racist policies of Apartheid and to outline their vision of a post-Apartheid society. In this article, I want to read Nelson Mandela’s counter-historical mobilization of lived experiences and memories of Africans – the scars, chains, the rage and Apartheid’s unlivable juridical bind – as an act of epistemic resistance that re-opened epistemic battles and effected epistemic renegotiations. By submitting himself to the very law he denounces, strategically positioning himself at law’s aporetic sites and moments – those most fragile frontiers that are so heavily policed from transformative interventions – he bears witness to Apartheid’s rotten foundation. Drawing on modes of critique that are performative and genealogical, those that are possible within law’s frameworks and categories, Mandela both obeys and defies the law, uses and critiques it, resists and claims authority, at the very site he is called to account for charges of sabotage. The article will show, how, by attending to contradictions, discursive dynamics, and points of tension, Mandela the accused creates conditions of possibility for forms of critique that register without being co-opted or domesticated by the discourse and the system it resists.
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Santos, Maria José Costa dos, Rodolfo Sena da Penha, and Wendel Melo Andrade. "The pedagogue and the teaching of mathematics." Research, Society and Development 9, no. 7 (June 3, 2020): e669974652. http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v9i7.4652.
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In the scenario of discussions about the didactic and epistemological obstacles that 'haunt' the teaching and learning processes of Mathematics content in Elementary School in the early years, we find among other Santos theorists (2007; 2014; 2015; 2017). In this study, we aim to present the importance of challenging the Pedagogy graduate to leave his 'comfort zone', where he reproduces the mathematical contents/models, and provoke him to deconstruct/reconstruct/discover the mathematical concepts, to the detriment of a paralytic reproduction, and thus, we contribute to the thinking/questioning, from challenging situations. This practice has also contributed to the pedagogist's perception that his knowledge must exceed that of the student; and, above all, it has made it possible for the pedagogist to reflect more on his praxis, in order to constitute himself within the process as an epistemic subject, providing him with a rethinking of his action in a vision of what it is to teach. The actions have awakened us to the need for a more innovative teaching formation that overcomes challenges and difficulties in the exercise of teaching with excellence.
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Rabello, Rodrigo. "Information actions in science and technology: institutionalities, agencies and subjects." Perspectivas em Ciência da Informação 20, no. 4 (December 2015): 129–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1981-5344/2483.
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Considering the influence of new agency forms - intervention and interaction among subjects - in the context of information intermediation, we aim to approach information actions in Science and Technology (S&T) taking into consideration the institutionalities involved. For such, we assume there is an influence of a theoretical model emerging in Information Science (IS) regarding current inventive and interactive form propitiated by the Web. The text is structured in two central topics bringing: i) theoretical and epistemic constructions of the "information action" concept; and ii) a certain interpretation oriented by the "informational action in S&T" construct, taking as its object the actions performed by IBICT (Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology), directed towards excellence in information. Finally, we discuss how limitations of the "systemic model" propitiate the construction of new study objects in the model emerging in IS from theoretical innovations and counterpoints thoughts facing the diverse forms of information action, considering, for instance, the action of subjects on what concerns the validation of information in the current scenery of institutional intermediation.
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Calnan, Michael. "Decision-making in the midst of uncertainty: appraising expensive medicines in England." Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 26, no. 11 (November 2021): 5523–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1413-812320212611.41872020.
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Abstract Decisions need to be made about which services or technologies should be prioritized for provision in the NHS in England .The analysis focuses specifically on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and on how they appraise expensive medicines. This analysis takes a sociological perspective on decision-making in relation to uncertainty and how uncertainties are managed, drawing on evidence from a scoping study and an ethnographic study. Uncertainties were central to these rationing decisions. Three types of layers of uncertainty -epistemic, procedural and interpersonal - were shown to be salient. Another form of uncertainty was associated with the complexity of the science and that included the level of technicality of the information provided. The analysis highlighted the salience of uncertainties associated with interpersonal relations and the relations between the committees and the drug industry, clinical and patient experts. A key element in these relationships was trust. Decision makers adopted a mixture of formal and informal, collective and individual strategies in making decisions and a need to exercise pragmatism within a more formal institutional framework. The paper concludes by considering more recent policy developments in relation to appraising expensive medicines.
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Šaulauskas, Marius Povilas. "MODERNIOSIOS EPISTEMOLOGIJOS SOLIPSIZMAS EX PRINCIPIO INTERNO. METAFILOSOFINIS AGNEOLOGIJOS SVARSTYMAS." Problemos 81 (January 1, 2012): 33–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/problemos.2012.0.1293.
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Konstitutyvinė moderniojo filosofavimo savastis – epistemologinis svarstymas. Pažinimo teorija, o ne aksiologinė ir ontologinė žiūra, čia pašaukta pagrįsti tinkamą filosofinės problematikos visetą. Todėl episteminės filosofinio diskurso pretenzijos privalo būti artikuliuojamos metafilosofinės refleksijos horizontene tik nuosekliai redukuojant bet kokius sprendžiamus klausimus į filosofinio tyrimo sui generis euristinį potencialą, bet ir įtvirtinant tokio potencialo būtinumą, patikimumą ir nelygstamumą. Taip metafilosofinė filosofinio moderno savigrinda išvirsta episteminio ir epistemologinio ego principio tapatumoimperatyvu: žinojimas teįmanomas tik kaip save patį reglamentuojantis ir įteisinantis savo paties neatšaukiamą įsisteigimą aktas. Iš čia ir refleksyviosios epistemologijos primatas, ir eo ipso solipsizmo išvangos implikatyvas, verčiantis tokią neatsiejamą epistemologinio ir episteminio ego sąjungą agneologiniu svarstymu par excellance: modernioji pažinimo teorija išvirsta pirmapradės nežinojimo duoties, jo būdų ir jo sąlyginės įveikos galimybių konceptualinio tyrimo sistematika. Solipsizmo grėsmės genama modernioji epistemologinė metafilosofija ex principio interno tampa ne žinojimo įtvirtinimo, o nežinojimo amelioracijos ieška.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: metafilosofija, modernioji filosofija, epistemologija, agneologija, solipsizmas.Metaphilosophy of Modern Agneological Epistemology: Solipsism ex principio internoMarius Povilas Šaulauskas SummaryEpistemology serves as a crucial constituent of modern philosophy. Theory of knowledge, in contrast to axiological and ontological theorization, provides the ultimate framework underpinning the problematic whole of philosophical inquiry. Therefore, epistemic claims of the philosophical discourse should be articulated in terms of metaphilosophical reflection not only by reducing scrutinized problematics into the heuristic potential of philosophical analysis sui generis, but also by grounding such a potential in terms of its necessity, certainty and uniqueness. Metaphilosophical self-founding of the philosophical modernity dwells on an imperative identification of the epistemic and epistemological ego: knowledge posits itself only by providing its own procedural principals and grounds of justification. Hence the unsurpassable primacy of reflective epistemology, and by the same token the urgent necessity to avoid solipsism transforming the enterprise of modern epistemology into the agneological discourse par excellence. Modern epistemological metaphilosophy, in the wake of solipsism, turns into agneology ex principio interno: epistemologically grounded philosophy unfolds not as a fortification of knowledge and truth, but as the unremitting search after the amelioration of ignorance and falsehood.Key words: metaphilosophy, modern philosophy, epistemology, agneology, solipsism.
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Paya, Ali. "The Faqīh as Engineer." American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33, no. 1 (January 1, 2016): 24–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajiss.v33i1.245.
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Following a brief discussion on the differences between science and technology as well as engineering’s main characteristics, I explore fiqh’s epistemological features. The upshot of my discussion is that although Muslim scholars like Farabi and Ghazzali consciously placed fiqhin the category of “applied sciences,” it seems that many of the fuqahā’ and other Muslim (or even non-Muslim)s cholars have not fully appreciated the significance of this point.T he result, as I argue, has been epistemic confusion on the part ofm any fuqahā’and perhaps other Muslim scholars. It has generally been assumed that fiqhhas the (immediate) aim of acquiring knowledge and discovering objective truth about reality, and that by doing so it can fulfill its other purpose: dealing with practical issues. I shall argue that this misconception has contributed to some unfortunate consequences. Equating a faqīh, who is a practical problem-solver par excellence (i.e., an engineer), with an ‘ālim (a man of knowledge) has helped the fuqahā’ further consolidatet heir dominant position in the ecosystem of Islamic culture. In turn,t his has paved the way for the dominance of instrumentalistic/p ragmatic approaches, in contrast to truth-oriented activities, in tra-d itional centers of learning in Muslim societies.
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Sand, Martin. "Did Alexander Fleming Deserve the Nobel Prize?" Science and Engineering Ethics 26, no. 2 (October 31, 2019): 899–919. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00149-5.
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Abstract Penicillin is a serendipitous discovery par excellence. But, what does this say about Alexander Fleming’s praiseworthiness? Clearly, Fleming would not have received the Nobel Prize, had not a mould accidently entered his laboratory. This seems paradoxical, since it was beyond his control. The present article will first discuss Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin as an example of moral luck in science and technology and critically assess some common responses to this problem. Second, the Control Principle that says that people are not responsible for things beyond their control will be defended. An implication of this principle is that Alexander Fleming’s desert, which is based on his epistemic skills, remains untouched by luck. Third, by distinguishing different notions of praiseworthiness, a way to resolve the paradox of moral luck will be elaborated. Desert provides only a pro tanto reason to determine whether someone is an appropriate addressee of reward. Here, luck can make a difference. Forth, it will be argued that stimulating the quest for socially beneficial science provides a compelling reason to treat scientists with equal desert differently. Penicillin provides striking evidence for the importance of this quest and showcasing it incentivizes the making of socially beneficial science. Ultimately, it will be justified why Fleming deserved the Nobel Prize in at least one sense of the concept.
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Samuel, Michael. "Developing a syntax for SOTL." Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South 1, no. 1 (September 11, 2017): 19. http://dx.doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v1i1.11.
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This article presents an overview of conceptions of a scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) as reflected by one specific conference held in South Africa. The data draws inductively on the abstracts and reflective analysis of the presentations made which interpreted the relationships between teaching and research excellence in higher education (HE). A team of critical reviewers of these inputs summarised the interrelated conceptions of SOTL: firstly, as a micro-level description of “best practices” (pedagogical action); and secondly, as a meso-level alignment between individual/ disciplinary/ departmental pedagogical practices and the HE institutional environment (institutional action). The latter agenda spanned staff capacity-building initiatives, collaborative curriculum planning, institutional quality assurance regimes and the use of institutional data analytical approaches to planning. Many presentations also argued that the micro- and meso-levels need to be more aligned strategically to matters of social justice and reconstruction of the HE system at a macro-level (social action). This transformative agenda requires individuals, disciplines and institutions to become more comfortable with boundary-crossings across disciplines, more shared work in collaborative curriculum planning, and increased awareness of the co-optive econometric and epistemic Eurocentric discourses surrounding the HE system. A syntax for SOTL, especially in developing world contexts, should consciously aim at interpreting the tensions and intersections between micro-, meso- and macro-levels of influence. This should not mean capitulating to (externally-driven) agendas, but engaging in a form of “epistemic disobedience”, which consciously challenges the sources of SOTL choices in relation to their appropriateness for specific situated contexts of the marginalised South. A sensitive and relevant SOTL for the South agenda is robust (conscious of its choices), responsive (cognisant of the likely consequences of options) and resilient (conscious of long-term sustainability and uncertainty).
How to cite this article:
SAMUEL, Michael. Developing a syntax for SOTL. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, [S.l.], v. 1, n. 1, p. 19-38, sep. 2017. Available at: <http://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=11>. Date accessed: 12 sep. 2017.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Ferron, Benjamin, Johana Kotišová, and Simon Smith. "The Primacy of Secondary Things: A Sustained Scientific Dialogue on Three Edges of the Journalistic Field." Journalism and Media 3, no. 1 (March 8, 2022): 212–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3010016.
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While the sociology of journalism has traditionally granted epistemic privilege to the mainstream news media, professional elites and their dominant meta-discourse, there is a recent trend to research journalism from other points of view. Researchers have investigated alternative and community media, journalists with low visibility or legitimacy in the workplace, as well as heterodox conceptions of professional excellence. These studies shed new light on little studied sub-groups and practices. How can we integrate them into a sustained scientific dialogue between researchers? This paper presents a methodologically original attempt to do so by dialogically re-interrogating material from studies of three situations where journalism absorbs precarious and politicised agents in the field (media activists), new practices and tasks that need doing (online discussion administration) and unusual kinds of professional attributes (experiencing emotionality in crisis reporting). In each case journalism’s pursuit of professional autonomy is at stake, since conditions of production clash with established professional myths and practices or generate incompatibilities with institutionalised expectations. Our three-way exchange using the bridging/sensitising concept of edge focuses on the conversion or convertibility of external forms of capital (legitimacies, resources and experiences) into forms redeemable and tradeable in a professional field. It exhibits how forces external to the journalistic profession are (made) present in each case but refracted differently in each local configuration. We call for a more systematic and relational study of these kinds of localised refractions.
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Mcculloch, Sharon. "Hobson’s choice: the effects of research evaluation on academics’ writing practices in England." Aslib Journal of Information Management 69, no. 5 (September 18, 2017): 503–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ajim-12-2016-0216.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of research evaluation policies and their interpretation on academics’ writing practices in three different higher education institutions and across three different disciplines. Specifically, the paper discusses how England’s national research excellence framework (REF) and institutional responses to it shape the decisions academics make about their writing. Design/methodology/approach In total, 49 academics at three English universities were interviewed. The academics were from one Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics discipline (mathematics), one humanities discipline (history) and one applied discipline (marketing). Repeated semi-structured interviews focussed on different aspects of academics’ writing practices. Heads of departments and administrative staff were also interviewed. Data were coded using the qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti. Findings Academics’ ability to succeed in their career was closely tied to their ability to meet quantitative and qualitative targets driven by research evaluation systems, but these were predicated on an unrealistic understanding of knowledge creation. Research evaluation systems limited the epistemic choices available to academics, partly because they pushed academics’ writing towards genres and publication venues that conflicted with disciplinary traditions and partly because they were evenly distributed across institutions and age groups. Originality/value This work fills a gap in the literature by offering empirical and qualitative findings on the effects of research evaluation systems in context. It is also one of the only papers to focus on the ways in which individuals’ academic writing practices in particular are shaped by such systems.
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Šaulauskas, Marius Povilas. "DVILYPĖ FILOSOFINIO MODERNO SAVIGRINDA IN PECTORE – TVARUSIS HYPOKEIMENON IR ATOMON SĄJUNGOS TRAPUMAS." Problemos 83 (January 1, 2013): 7–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/problemos.2013.0.837.
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Modernusis epistemologinis metanaratyvas randasi kaip universalusis žmogiškojo pažinimo savigrindos projektas. Retrospektyviąją šio projekto pagrindų rekonstrukciją įgalina dekartiškojo subjectum kaip epistemologinio ego siejimas ne tik, sekant Heideggeriu, su hypokeimenon, bet ir, reinterpretuojant Habermaso įžvalgas, su atomon kaip performatyviąja moderniosios individualumo sampratos versme. Epistemologinis ego kaip atomon apnuogina solipsistinę moderniosios pažinimo teorijos agneologinę priedermę, o epistemologinis ego kaip hypokeimenon išreiškia dekartiškojo subjectum performatyvumą. Toks agneologinis performatyvumas ir yra agneologinis antropocentrinės epistemologijos branduolys, atskleidžiantis ir sisteminantis darnią jame ex necessitate rei slypėjusių pažintinių galių visumą galimos pažinti būties ir metafilosofinių ego cogito steiginių izomorfijos horizonte. Tad klausimas „Kaip įmanomas pažintinių patikimumo pretenzijų įteisinimas reflektyviosios epistemologinio ego savipratos ištekliais?“ laikytinas visos moderniosios, par excellence agneologinės, filosofijos ašimi. Būtent tokia nuolat replikuojama epistemologinio ego metafilosofinė performacija ir yra tvariojo moderniosios Vakarų filosofijos trapumo – jos agneologinio gymio – laidas, raiška ir lemtis.Bifurcating Foundationalism of the Philosophical Modernity in pectore: Persistent Lability of the Hypokeimenon-Atomon JointureMarius Povilas Šaulauskas SummaryThe primary desiderata of the modern epistemological metanarrative eventually hinges on the reflexively founded certainty and universality of human knowledge. The retrospective reconstruction of the conceptual underpinnings of this modernity’s project dwells on the reinterpretation of Cartesian subjectum, posited as an epistemological ego, in terms of not only Heideggerian hypokeimenon, but also of Habermasian atomon, understood as a performative constituent of the modern nuclear individuality. While hypokeimenon pinpoints the irreducible performativity of the epistemological ego, its atomon determinant unveils the agneological and solipsistic nature of modern epistemology. It is the agneological performativity of the modern anthropocentrical epistemology that serves as an ultimate basis for the systematic disclosure of the unified epistemic potential of modern knowledge, unfolded along the isomorphic lines of the metaphilosophical presumptions of ego cogito and universal pretensions of empirical natural philosophy. Thus the question how to establish the certainty of reliable human knowledge on the ground of reflexive self-understanding of the epistemological ego stands as the ultimate basis of the par excellence agneological modern philosophy. The metaphilosophical performation of the epistemological ego is unremittingly replicated as a warrant, expression and fortune of the persistent lability of modern Western philosophy, its ineradicably agneological posture.
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Sharmelly, Rifat, and Anton Klarin. "Customer Value Creation for the Emerging Market Middle Class: Perspectives from Case Studies in India." Journal of Risk and Financial Management 14, no. 10 (September 23, 2021): 455. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jrfm14100455.
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This paper examines the customer value creation framework and discusses the design of the key elements for product development in emerging markets. A scientometric/bibliometric scoping literature review identifies a clear gap in the current research in studying prerequisites for customer value creation in emerging market contexts. Observing experiences of Daikin and Renault in the context of India, the purpose of this paper is to identify value creation strategic choices following which comprehensive customer value offerings in products and services can be successfully created by firms across the four facets of the framework in emerging markets. Value creation strategies include having a nuanced understanding of the latent contextual needs to offer localized high-quality products that embody distinct functional attributes that provide a functional value and being responsive to specific emotional needs and epistemic experiences of the target customers in product and service offerings to deliver a greater experiential value. Furthermore, the products should adopt a localized operational excellence strategy throughout the value chain to reduce costs for competitive price offerings in order to deliver superior cost value and develop brand image and equity strategy, thereby allowing for the provision of a greater symbolic value. Experiences of successful firms demonstrate the need for extensive local research into the emerging market followed by localization of production and development of a distribution network to be able to offer customized products at competitive prices whilst maintaining the brand value. We thus extend the customer value creation framework by introducing localization as a necessary condition for successful organizational performance in emerging markets.
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Hallonsten, Olof. "How scientists may ‘benefit from the mess’: A resource dependence perspective on individual organizing in contemporary science." Social Science Information 53, no. 3 (May 8, 2014): 341–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0539018414524037.
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There is general consensus in the study of science, and especially research policy studies, that a wave of profound change has struck academic science in the past decades. Central parts of this change are increased competition, growing demands of relevance and excellence, and managerialism reforms in institutions and policy systems. The underpinning thesis of this article is that, if seen from the perspective of individual scientists, these changes are exogenous and lead to greater environmental complexity and uncertainty, which in turn induces or forces individuals towards strategic planning and organizing in order to maintain control over their own research programs. Recent empirical studies have made various worthy contributions to the understanding of the macro-level (institutions, policy and funding systems, and broader epistemic developments) and the micro-level (individual and group behavior) developments of the social system of science, but there is a lack of comprehensive conceptual tools for analysis of change and its effect on individual scientists. This article takes the first steps towards developing a conceptual scheme for use in empirical studies of the (strategic) response of individual scientists to exogenous change, based on an adaptation of Resource Dependence Theory (RDT). The intended theoretical contribution builds on conceptualization of the individual researcher as crucially able to act rationally and strategically in the face of potentially conflicting demands from a growingly unpredictable environment. Defining a basic framework for a broad future research program, the article adds to the knowledge about the recent changes to the academic research system and calls for renewed interest in organizing in science and an analysis of the complex social system of science from the perspective of its smallest performing units: individuals.
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Njuguna, Bernard G., and Helga Schröder. "Figurative language and persuasion in CPG sermons: The Example of a Gĩkũyũ televangelist." Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 18, no. 1 (May 1, 2022): 151–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2022-0007.
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Abstract As a part of religious discourse, Christian sermons are a “…persuasive discourse par excellence” (Adams 2019:7). This is more pronounced in the Christian Prosperity Gospel (CPG), a system of thought and belief in which preachers The word preacher and speaker are used interchangeably in this paper. attempt to convince audiences to donate to their churches with the expectation that God will reward them with health and wealth. Previous research shows that the use of metaphors and metonymies pervade CPG sermons but an explanation on the mechanisms through which they persuade is rarer. With this in mind and viewing CPG sermons from their persuasive angle; this paper sets out to investigate how metaphors and metonymies are used for persuasion purposes in televised sermons presented in the Gĩkũyũ language Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Agĩkũyũ who are largely found in central Kenya as well as in some other parts of the country. It is a Bantu language classified as a Zone E (E51) language by Guthrie (1971). According to the 2019, Population and Housing Census, the gĩkũyũ is the largest tribe in Kenya at 8,148,668 individuals. The community has dominated in televangelism but the position is changing due to the proliferation of many vernacular television stations. . The data is drawn from authentic televised sermons. The findings indicate that metaphors and metonymies engender persuasion in sermons by affecting the perceived altruism and trustworthiness of a speaker in a sermon. This is done by means of manipulating various forms of distance suggested in the Media Proximization Approach (Kopytowska 2015, 2022). Metaphor is found to affect the axiological, epistemic, temporal and emotional distances while metonymy affects the axiological and spatial distances to activate certain pragmatic presuppositions which make them persuasive in a covert way.
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Siddiqui, Sohni, Naureen Nazar Soomro, and Reena Majid Memon. "EPISTEME AIMS OF EDUCATION." Asia-Pacific - Annual Research Journal of Far East & South East Asia 38 (February 5, 2021): 202–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.47781/asia-pacific.vol38.iss0.2641.
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Finland educational system is among the top systems in the world and Finnish students have proven themselves as intellects and responsible citizens in the past. In contrast, Pakistan is facing substantial education challenges and despite efforts been made, providing quality education to all children is still a dream. More than half of the adult population is not able to read and write, and there is huge inadequacy of skilled human resource that can impact the economy of the country. Malaysia, like other developed countries, has recognized importance of lifelong learning and is advancing it as a major source for economic growth. Competence, skills needed to ensure holistic growth of students is mentioned explicitly. Besides comprehensive curriculum development, Malaysia introduces such programs as to generate human capital by means of education and training. The creative learning environment and constant encouragement to students is provided to focus on latest skills that are need of the labour market. In Pakistan, it seems curriculum is properly documented with clear aims of what excellences to be fostered in individual but how to foster such excellence is missing.
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Kulmala, Meri, Michael Rasell, and Zhanna Chernova. "Overhauling Russia’s Child Welfare system: Institutional and Ideational Factors behind the Paradigm Shift." Journal of Social Policy Studies 15, no. 3 (September 25, 2017): 353–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.17323/727-0634-2017-15-3-353-366.
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Meri Kulmala – Dr., Finnish Centre for Russian and East European Studies/Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: meri.kulmala@helsinki.fi
Michael Rasell – Dr., School of Health & Social Care, University of Lincoln, UK. Email: mrasell@lincoln.ac.uk
Zhanna Chernova – Dr. Sciences, Department of Sociology, National Research University 'Higher School of Economics', Saint Petersburg. Email: zhchernova@hse.ru
This article studies the causal factors behind the major overhaul of Russia’s system for children in substitute care that has been taking place since the late 2000’s. A series of reforms have promoted fostering and family-like care in contrast to the large residential homes used in the Soviet period and 1990’s. We highlight the fundamental change in the 'ideal of care' represented by the move to 'deinstitutionalise' the care system by promoting domestic adoptions, increasing the number of foster families, creating early support services for families as well as restructuring remaining residential institutions into smaller, home-like environments. These are all key elements of the global deinstitutionalisation trend that is taking place around the globe. We look at the evolution of the related policies and ask why this policy shift happened during the 2010’s even though the issue of reform had partially been on the Russian policy agenda for some time. Building on an explanatory approach to family policy changes by Magritta Mäztke and Ilona Ostner, which incorporates material and ideational driving forces, we explain that the 'political will from above' behind these major reforms was shaped by a range of other societal and political factors. Multiple factors drove Russian political actors to adopt new ideas about care for children left without parental care. For instance, the increasing conservative turn in policies towards children and families, which are driven by the severe demographic decline in the country, work alongside the influence of international norms around children’s rights and changing socio-economic circumstances. In the 1990’s Russian NGOs had considerable input into the reforms as 'epistemic communities' in policy formation thanks to the high level of expertise that they developed in international networks and the increasing number of cross-sector consultative platforms at governmental bodies in contemporary Russia. We conclude that ideational factors were necessary preconditions for the reforms, but that political forces were ultimately the key driving force. The recentralisation of power and prioritisation of social policy under President Putin allowed new ideas to gain concrete policy realisation.
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Karimov, Artur R. "Through Virtues to Knowledge." Epistemology & Philosophy of Science 58, no. 4 (2021): 6–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/eps202158455.
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By all accounts, virtue epistemology is making a value turn in contemporary analytic epistemology. In this article, this twist is explicated through the transformation of the understanding of epistemic values and the value of the epistemic. In the first sense, we are talking about how the view has changed on what determines the epistemic value of such categories as truth, knowledge, understanding, etc. In the second sense, we are talking about the value of our epistemic concepts (the value of the epistemic): what is true belief, knowledge, etc. for? It is shown how the causal link between our beliefs and intellectual virtues allows us to explain the nature and value of knowledge as a central category of epistemology. The author reveals the difference between the main types of virtue epistemology through the prism of two different approaches to the justification of values: value internalism and value externalism. Value externalism assumes that a state/motive/action gains value from something outside of a person's consciousness. In contrast, value internalism holds that the conditions that determine value are internal to consciousness. For reliabilism, the value of cognitive success lies in its causal connection with the reliable competences of the subject, for responsibilism – with virtuous motives of cognitive activity. Common to reliabilism and responsibilism is that they shift the focus from the value of an effect (truth) to its relationship with the value of a cause – an ability or excellent trait of intellectual character. The main approaches to substantiating the fundamental value of knowledge in virtue epistemology are analyzed. If for reliabilism the highest epistemic value is truth as cognitive achievement, then for responsibilism the value of epistemic categories is primarily in their moral significance – the achievement of a good life and happiness (eudaimonia). In conclusion, the problematic aspects of virtue epistemology are formulated and promising directions for its further development are shown.
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Kotsonis, Alkis. "Safeguarding against failure in intellectual character education: The case of the eristic agent." Theory and Research in Education 17, no. 3 (November 2019): 239–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1477878519893955.
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The vast majority of contemporary scholars working in intellectual character education endeavor to identify those elements that render an educational program reliably successful at fostering the growth of intellectual excellences in students. In this article, I adopt an opposite perspective: I examine potential reasons as to why virtue-based approaches to education might fail to enable students to acquire intellectual virtues. Given the scarcity of accounts of educational failure in contemporary intellectual character education, I search for such accounts in the philosophical roots of the concept of intellectual virtues. In this article, I focus on Plato’s discussion of the eristic agent, namely, an individual who has developed epistemically valuable cognitive abilities but, due to insufficient moral character education, results in misusing them to pursue non-epistemic and quite often also non-moral ends. I argue that Plato’s account of the eristic practice has much to offer to intellectual character education today. It strongly indicates that intellectual virtues cannot be fostered in isolation from moral virtues and that the development of the students’ (1) epistemic emotions and (2) moral virtues should take place prior to the fostering of intellectual excellences in them.
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Wijewickrama, Madduma Kaluge Chamitha Sanjani, Nicholas Chileshe, Raufdeen Rameezdeen, and Jose Jorge Ochoa. "Information Processing for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains: An Organizational Information Processing Theory Perspective." Sustainability 14, no. 9 (May 3, 2022): 5493. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14095493.
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Every year, the construction industry produces a large volume of demolition waste (DW) recovered through reverse logistics supply chains (RLSCs). Information-centric QA plays an important role in the RLSC, providing an excellent solution for inferior-quality reprocessed products. However, information deficiency creates epistemic uncertainties that lead to information-processing needs (IPNs) for QA, for which the internal stakeholders in the RLSC should respond by undertaking appropriate information-processing mechanisms (IPMs). Given this, the current study aims to explore how internal stakeholders process information for QA in RLSC of DW through the organizational information processing theory (OIPT) perspective. The study follows a qualitative approach encompassing 30 semi-structured interviews with internal and external stakeholders in the RLSC of DW. The study found eight uncertainties that stem from the internal organizational environment and two uncertainties caused by the interactions with stakeholders in the supply chain. In addition, 15 IPMs were identified, which the demolishers and waste processors could undertake in response to the epistemic uncertainties. The study developed an information-processing management framework that would serve practitioners and academics to understand how effectively process, people, policy and technology elements contribute to responding to the epistemic uncertainties for successful QA in RLSC of DW.
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Sanger, Lawrence M. "The Fate of Expertise after Wikipedia." Episteme 6, no. 1 (February 2009): 52–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/e1742360008000543.
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ABSTRACTWikipedia has challenged traditional notions about the roles of experts in the Internet Age. Section 1 sets up a paradox. Wikipedia is a striking popular success, and yet its success can be attributed to the fact that it is wide open and bottom-up. How can such a successful knowledge project disdain expertise? Section 2 discusses the thesis that if Wikipedia could be shown by an excellent survey of experts to be fantastically reliable, then experts would not need to be granted positions of special authority. But, among other problems, this thesis is self-stultifying. Section 3 explores a couple ways in which egalitarian online communities might challenge the occupational roles or the epistemic leadership roles of experts. There is little support for the notion that the distinctive occupations that require expertise are being undermined. It is also implausible that Wikipedia and its like might take over the epistemic leadership roles of experts. Section 4 argues that a main reason that Wikipedia’s articles are as good as they are is that they are edited by knowledgeable people to whom deference is paid, although voluntarily. But some Wikipedia articles suffer because so many aggressive people drive off people more knowledgeable than they are; so there is no reason to think that Wikipedia’s articles will continually improve. Moreover, Wikipedia’s commitment to anonymity further drives off good contributors. Generally, some decisionmaking role for experts is not just consistent with online knowledge communities being open and bottom-up, it is recommended as well.
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Weedon, Gavin, and Brian Wilson. "Textbook journalism? Objectivity, education and the professionalization of sports reporting." Journalism 21, no. 10 (August 1, 2017): 1375–400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464884917716503.
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In this article, we present an analysis of recent handbooks, field guides and other educative texts on sports journalism. Authored mostly by current and former journalists turned university educators, these books signal the professionalization of sports journalism amid changes and challenges to news media industries. In offering guidance on best practice sports reporting, they are also situated in tension with the long-standing denigration of sports journalism as the trivial back-page filler that props up more serious, substantive content. Through a thematic analysis of the textbooks’ contents and the epistemic, economic and educative context of their collective emergence, we address the following question in what follows: How do these textbooks advise would-be sports journalists to respond to ‘serious’ social, ethical and political matters? In doing so, we detail how established categories of objectivity and ethics are the primary points of recourse through which these books advise on reporting about the many social issues in which sport is implicated. In turn, we reflect on the virtues of – and the tensions and contradictions surrounding – these advocations. By way of conclusion, we contend that professionalization represents an opportunity for collaborations between sport media scholars and current and former journalists – in their shared roles as educators – in the pursuit of ‘excellent’ sports reporting. The notion of ‘strong objectivity’ is our conceptual guide for how such collaborations might be fostered.
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Bialek, Spencer, Sébastien Fabbro, Kim A. Venn, Nripesh Kumar, Teaghan O’Briain, and Kwang Moo Yi. "Assessing the performance of LTE and NLTE synthetic stellar spectra in a machine learning framework." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 498, no. 3 (August 26, 2020): 3817–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2582.
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ABSTRACT In the current era of stellar spectroscopic surveys, synthetic spectral libraries are the basis for the derivation of stellar parameters and chemical abundances. In this paper, we compare the stellar parameters determined using five popular synthetic spectral grids (INTRIGOSS, FERRE, AMBRE, PHOENIX, and MPIA/1DNLTE) with our convolutional neural network (CNN, StarNet). The stellar parameters are determined for six physical properties (effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, [α/Fe], radial velocity, and rotational velocity) given the spectral resolution, signal-to-noise ratio, and wavelength range of optical FLAMES-UVES spectra from the Gaia-ESO Survey. Both CNN modelling and epistemic uncertainties are incorporated through training an ensemble of networks. StarNet training was also adapted to mitigate differences between the synthetic grids and observed spectra by augmenting with realistic observational signatures (i.e. resolution matching, wavelength sampling, Gaussian noise, zeroing flux values, rotational and radial velocities, continuum removal, and masking telluric regions). Using the FLAMES-UVES spectra for FGK-type dwarfs and giants as a test set, we quantify the accuracy and precision of the stellar label predictions from StarNet. We find excellent results over a wide range of parameters when StarNet is trained on the MPIA/1DNLTE synthetic grid, and acceptable results over smaller parameter ranges when trained on the 1DLTE grids. These tests also show that our CNN pipeline is highly adaptable to multiple simulation grids.
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Shen, Zhanpeng, Xinen Liu, Chaoping Zang, and Shaoquan Hu. "Bayesian Uncertainty Identification of Model Parameters for the Jointed Structures with Nonlinearity." Shock and Vibration 2021 (November 22, 2021): 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/2638995.
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Jointed structures in engineering naturally perform with some of nonlinearity and uncertainty, which significantly affect the dynamic characteristics of the structural system. In this paper, the method of Bayesian uncertainty identification of model parameters for the jointed structures with local nonlinearity is proposed. Firstly, the nonlinear stiffness and damping of the joints under the random excitation are represented with functions of excitation magnitude in terms of the equivalent linearization. The process of uncertainty identification is separated from the representation of local nonlinearity. In this way, the dynamic behavior of the joints is penetratingly characterized instead of ascribing the nonlinearity to uncertainty. Secondly, a variable-expanded Bayesian (VEB) method is originally proposed to identify the mixed of aleatory and epistemic uncertainties of model parameters. Different from traditional Bayesian identification, the aleatory uncertainties of model parameters are identified as one of the most important parts rather than only measurement noise of output. Notablely, a series of intermediate variables are introduced to expand the parameter with aleatory uncertainty in order to overcome the difficulty of establishing the likelihood function. Moreover, a 3-DOF numerical example is illustrated with case studies to verify the proposed method. The influence of observed sample size and prior distribution selection on the identification results is tested. Furthermore, an engineering example of the jointed structure with rubber isolators is performed to show the practicability of the proposed method. It is indicated that the computational model updated with the accurately identified parameters with both nonlinearity and uncertainty has shown the excellent predictive capability.
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Kirkwood, Charlie, Theo Economou, Nicolas Pugeault, and Henry Odbert. "Bayesian Deep Learning for Spatial Interpolation in the Presence of Auxiliary Information." Mathematical Geosciences 54, no. 3 (January 17, 2022): 507–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11004-021-09988-0.
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Abstract Earth scientists increasingly deal with ‘big data’. For spatial interpolation tasks, variants of kriging have long been regarded as the established geostatistical methods. However, kriging and its variants (such as regression kriging, in which auxiliary variables or derivatives of these are included as covariates) are relatively restrictive models and lack capabilities provided by deep neural networks. Principal among these is feature learning: the ability to learn filters to recognise task-relevant patterns in gridded data such as images. Here, we demonstrate the power of feature learning in a geostatistical context by showing how deep neural networks can automatically learn the complex high-order patterns by which point-sampled target variables relate to gridded auxiliary variables (such as those provided by remote sensing) and in doing so produce detailed maps. In order to cater for the needs of decision makers who require well-calibrated probabilities, we also demonstrate how both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty can be quantified in our deep learning approach via a Bayesian approximation known as Monte Carlo dropout. In our example, we produce a national-scale probabilistic geochemical map from point-sampled observations with auxiliary data provided by a terrain elevation grid. By combining location information with automatically learned terrain derivatives, our deep learning approach achieves an excellent coefficient of determination ($$R^{2} = 0.74$$ R 2 = 0.74 ) and near-perfect probabilistic calibration on held-out test data. Our results indicate the suitability of Bayesian deep learning and its feature-learning capabilities for large-scale geostatistical applications where uncertainty matters. Graphic Abstract
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Papageorgiou, Konstantinos G., and Demetrios E. Lekkas. "The predicate fabric of abstraction: the hard test of logical inversion." Epistēmēs Metron Logos, no. 2 (June 8, 2019): 69. http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/eml.20573.
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The paper starts with an ultra-compact deposition on the two ubiquitouscomplementary dual pairwise organized methodological proceduresof episteme, i.e. the analytic method (analysis – synthesis)& the abstract process (abstraction – structure). Next, the authors examinesome ground rules and concepts pervading causality and inference andtheir junctions, attempting to discriminate between information flow inempiricism and theoretical causality of proof; only then is a connectionbetween them attempted and investigated. In the authors’ effort to establisha consistent theoretical outlook, if not approach, the technique of logicalinversions is also used as a partial yet powerful guide elucidating how successfultheir attempts were. Apart from clarifying some opaque concepts inlogic, in set theory and in the staple empiricism of science, this paper alsosets the stage for questioning whether some grave flaws could be locatedin traditional, save ill-founded, notions in hardcore science, on occasion ofthe par excellence typical example of fundamental and never challenged approaches in physics. The fact that something has been accepted as holdingdoes not at all mean that cracks may not be located in its epistemologicalmakeup at some posterior time. And it is the text’s task here to ask somepainful questions and try to set some realistic boundaries to things by aptlyutilizing available irresistible standard «tricks» from logic and from theclassical scientific method and from reverting to fruitful techniques and totelling examples, pushing hard for convincing answers.
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Do Mar Pereira, Maria. "”Man kan känna utmattningen i luften”." Tidskrift för genusvetenskap 38, no. 4 (June 9, 2022): 7–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.55870/tgv.v38i4.2887.
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Science and higher education have, in many countries, undergone profound changes in recent decades, often leading to the institutionalisation of academic cultures of performativity. These cultures reconceptualise academic work as labour which must aim to achieve the highest possible productivity and profitability, and whose quality can be assessed on the basis of amount of outputs and income generated. In several contexts, these changes transformed longstanding discourses about which kinds of scholars are “excellent” and which disciplines produce valuable knowledge. In this article, I examine how the institutionalisation of performative academic cultures affects the work and lives of scholars in women’s, gender, feminist studies (WGFS), often in paradoxical ways. Drawing on an ethnography of Portuguese academia (conducted between 2008 and 2016), I show that the emphasis on productivity can create possibilities for WGFS, but also make much WGFS work impossible. Many WGFS scholars have been able to use performative academic cultures to expand the space for WGFS. At the same time, however, they are finding several epistemic activities increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to sustain – that is, reading, thinking, peer reviewing, attending academic events – due to intensifying workloads and escalating productivity expectations. This produces a mood of exhaustion, depression and alienation, particularly among women, often disproportionately saddled with the demanding pastoral work that neoliberal universities require but do not reward. I examine this mood and its impacts, arguing that the performative university is both toxic and stimulating, both destructive and seductive, for WGFS. I draw on this paradox to call for debate in WGFS about our ambivalent personal investments in work, our collective working cultures, and our collegial working relationships with each other.
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Yeh, Cathery. "Democratic accountability in the neoliberal era: The politics of teaching and teacher education in mathematics classrooms." Policy Futures in Education 16, no. 6 (June 4, 2018): 764–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1478210318776470.
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The effects of neoliberal policies have increased inequalities globally and nationally, diminishing democratic accountability. They have also tainted the goals, motivations, methods, and standards of excellence with regard to teacher preparation. Although various programs of research have examined teacher preparation in terms of diversity and equity, fewer studies have raised questions about institutional constructs of power and privilege: what counts as knowledge?; whose experiences frame curricular and instructional design?; and why and how are systems of inequality perpetuated within and after university-based teacher preparation? In response, this article uses critical pedagogy as a lens through which to view teacher preparation programs as institutions that support neoliberalism by giving unconditional support to a Western episteme that eradicates the knowledge systems of students and teachers of color, including their languages and experiences of the world. The article describes the experiences of four bilingual teachers and teachers of color and their attempts to make mandated mathematics programs more responsive to the needs of their bilingual students. The study follows the four teachers for three years—from their year in teacher preparation to their first two years of classroom teaching—to examine the relation between their experiences as classrooms teachers and their exclusion in the teacher preparation phase. The article then argues that teacher preparation programs should move away from narrow definitions of what counts as knowledge to representing, valuing, and legitimizing teachers and students whose knowledge spans multiple cultural and political frames.
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McGrath, Alister E. "The Territories of Human Reason: Science and Theology in an Age of Multiple Rationalities." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 73, no. 3 (September 2021): 178–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-21mcgrath.
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THE TERRITORIES OF HUMAN REASON: Science and Theology in an Age of Multiple Rationalities by Alister E. McGrath. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. ix + 288 pages. Hardcover; $35.95. ISBN: 9780198813101. *In The Territories of Human Reason, Alister McGrath argues against the dated "conflict" and "independence" models of science and religion by carefully cultivating a sophisticated integrative model which affirms an ontological unity of existence, complemented with an epistemological plurality of knowledge discourses that inquire into the nature of that existence. The book comes in two parts: Part 1 (chapters 1-3) provides an overview of the concept of rationality, carefully delineating how rationality is expressed in "distinct, yet occasionally overlapping and competing, epistemic territories and communities" (p. 3). This fact secures the distinct autonomy of science and theology. Part 2 (chapters 4-8) moves on to the process of critical engagement between science and religion. *Since both natural science and religion are vast topics, McGrath narrows his focus to the relationship between the physical and biological sciences on the one hand, and specifically Christian theology on the other (with a particular focus on theology since the late-nineteenth century). He seeks to adopt an empirical approach to the subject which eschews reductionism while grappling with the complexity and integrity of each field in its respective domain. In this way, he seeks to pursue what he calls a colligation, that is, "an ‘act of thought' that brings together a number of empirical facts by ‘superintending' upon them a way of thinking which united the facts" (p. 211). The end goal is a true consilience between respective fields, though not the kind proposed by E. O. Wilson which is a bottom-up scientistic imperialism. The goal, rather, is an integration in which respective fields grow into one another in mutual understanding and illumination, rather like the merging sections of a jigsaw puzzle (my image). *For McGrath, rationality emerges as natural human cognitive processes interact with the overarching metanarrative through which one thinks, while engaging with the specific dataset available to oneself informed by one's community and tradition (p. 25). It should be kept in mind that plurality exists within the disciplines: thus, there is no single scientific method, but rather multiple methods, each specific to its domain of inquiry. For example, some modes of scientific inquiry depend on repetition or prediction as an essential heuristic, while others (e.g., particular historical scientific investigation) are concerned with the best explanation for unique and unrepeatable past events (e.g., the origin of the universe). *Given the complexity and richness with which reason is expressed, McGrath argues that we should think in terms of a multiplicity of distinct rationalities. The challenge arises when we mistake culturally contingent forms of reasoning for the intellectually necessary (p. 46). That, of course, embodies the seductive error of the Enlightenment which has emerged time and again, as in logical positivism of the mid-twentieth century and the new atheism of our own day. *McGrath also identifies levels of explanation and the symbiotic relationship between both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms (p. 66), which need to be synthesized into a unified picture of reality. When it comes to imaging what that looks like, McGrath invokes the illustration of five biologists offering five different explanations of a frog jumping into a pond: from the physiologist to the evolutionary biologist, each offers a unique insight and the challenge is to bring them all into a seamless account of reality (p. 59). *As noted above, McGrath is committed to an ontological unity of reality, one that maintains a critical realist orientation, not least because "the success of science would be a miracle if our theories were not at least (approximately) true" (p. 107). That said, the fact that we can advance in understanding objective reality from our particular situatedness is no basis for triumphalism, for a healthy grasp of these multiple, perspectival rationalities should remain open to mystery. McGrath devotes chapter 7 to a careful articulation of the concept of mystery--both that which is temporary and that which may be intrinsic--that conditions all our enquiries, whether in science or theology. *In the middle chapters, McGrath explores several topics, including the nature of theories as complex explanatory frameworks with particular virtues such as objectivity, simplicity, beauty, and prediction (chap. 4); the relationship between causality and unification as two aspects of explanation (chap. 5); and the primary tools of inquiry and argument, including deduction, induction, and abduction (chap. 6). The book concludes with the above-mentioned chapter on mystery (chap. 7) and a concluding chapter on consilience with an interesting parallel exploration of how natural science might relate first to socialism and then to Christian theology. *From the perspective of this reviewer, there are some lacuna in the book, and while some may seem nitpicky, others are perhaps more substantive. While McGrath's discussion of mystery engages in passing with the mysterianism of atheist Colin McGinn, there is no engagement with some of the important recent work among Christian philosophers such as James Anderson's work on paradox, J. C. Beall on nonclassical logic and dialetheism (true contradictions), or the sizable literature on skeptical theism. It is also unfortunate that there is a general absence of analytic theology in McGrath's discussion. While I recognize that one cannot cover every recent school of thought in a prolegomenal survey of this type, the absence is most notable when McGrath discusses deductive, inductive, and abductive models of reasoning in theology, at which point he focuses on arguments drawn from theism simpliciter (e.g., the Kalam cosmological argument). This seems to me a lost opportunity, as recent analytic theology is yielding a harvest of sophisticated deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments which are not limited to mere theism but also distinctively Christian doctrines such as incarnation, atonement, and Eucharist. *Perhaps more notable is the absence of any mention of intelligent design theory. While I recognize that for many the cultural associations of intelligent design with conservative Christian hermeneutics and courthouse shenanigans have constituted a poison pill for further discussion, the basic question of whether (or under what conditions) natural science may appeal to intelligent/agent causal explanations is a critical one which is right on the vanguard of fruitful scientific and theological interaction. It seems to me that the movement deserves at least a mention, even if a critical one. *In my view, the most significant challenge to McGrath's project is another point which receives insufficient attention in the book, and that is the unique plurality that characterizes contemporary theology. Theology is fractured not only into multiple competing models (e.g., neoclassical, process, and open models of God) but also into fundamental disagreements on the function of doctrine (e.g., post-liberalism, metaphorical theology, analytic theology). McGrath clearly privileges a realist orientation in theology, but it would be interesting to hear more on the specific challenges that theology faces in addressing this fracturing, perhaps in an exploration with the similar debates over models and methods that characterize modern science. *While those may be taken as criticisms, they are admittedly modest. For the most part, I found The Territories of Human Reason to offer a rich and eminently helpful survey of the land. McGrath's realist orientation combined with his commitment to multiple situated rationalities strikes just the right balance between the Scylla of Enlightenment reason and the Charybdis of postmodern skepticism. The Territories of Human Reason would make an excellent (and surprisingly affordable) textbook for a course in science and theology, prolegomena/fundamental theology, or philosophy of religion. *Reviewed by Randal Rauser, Taylor Seminary, Edmonton, AB T6J 4T3.
41
Boccaletti, Dino. "The Waters above the Firmament: An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 73, no. 3 (September 2021): 166–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf9-21boccaletti.
Full textAbstract:
THE WATERS ABOVE THE FIRMAMENT: An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict by Dino Boccaletti. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020. 136 pages. Hardcover; $99.99. ISBN: 9783030441678. Paperback; $69.99. ISBN: 9783030441685. *The Waters Above the Firmament is a fascinating tour through the exegetical history of an offbeat subject: the waters above the firmament. In both popular and scholarly conversations about science and religion, a few subjects tend to dominate the landscape, with the topic of origins dominating the conversation since Darwin's day. Interestingly, however, the "waters above the firmament" references have been largely overlooked, even though they bear on the cosmology and view of creation held by biblical authors. In this volume, physicist Dino Boccaletti takes readers through an in-depth tour of how these passages have been understood by Christian exegetes from the early centuries of the Christian era through the seventeenth century. *The driving question tackled by the exegetes is how to understand the following verses from the first chapter of the book of Genesis: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day" (Gen. 1:6-8, KJV). *In the history of exegesis of this passage (and others that build on it, such as Psalm 148:4, "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens"), many different theories about its meaning have been put forward. In our own day, those familiar with the young-earth creation (YEC) movement may have heard a bit of exegesis of this passage from a peculiarly YEC point of view. In their hands, it is sometimes understood to teach that the earth was surrounded by a canopy of water that made the whole world a paradise and reduced the harmful effects of the sun, enabling people to live the centuries-long lives described in Genesis. The canopy was then collapsed to become the source of the waters that flooded the earth in the days of Noah. *Boccaletti does not address that claim. Instead, he presents a historical overview that marches chronologically through the works of classical, medieval, and early modern commentators, trying to interpret a claim that seems to be plainly contradictory to common sense: that there is a shell of water surrounding the earth, or maybe the whole cosmos. While there was no definitive scientific refutation of this view in either the classical or medieval world, its prima facie implausibility nevertheless led to a persistent apparent conflict between faith and reason that needed to be contended with if the Bible's authority was to remain intact. There is also the thorny question of uncovering the cosmology that gave rise to such a description, along with its background in extra-biblical writings. *Boccaletti describes the first few centuries of Christianity, during which there were primarily three approaches to understanding the passage in question. First, it could be allegorized so that the waters were representative of something else, such as exalted spiritual beings who worship God. The second approach was to accept something like an ancient Near Eastern belief that the earth is shaped like a flat disc, and add the literal claim that there is an aqueous shell above it. The third, and most difficult, was to try to reconcile Greek cosmology with the claim about the waters. Incorporating the Greek picture, which posited a spherical earth at the center of the cosmos, led to the most creative, and sometimes convoluted, interpretive schemes. For example, Boccaletti brings us into Augustine's discussion about a theory that the waters above the firmament are held in place by God in order to cool and slow down the movement of the outer planets, which would otherwise overheat owing to their great velocities. Thus the waters above the firmament might serve to temper the heat of the empyrean. While many exegetes in the first millennium would also endorse this view or a variation on it, some thinkers, such as John Scotus Eriugena, would deny that such waters existed at all. No consensus was reached during the Middle Ages about which of these approaches was superior. *Boccaletti describes the increasing pressure to abandon the geocentric model owing to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo, and how those theories in astronomy were received by interpreters of the Bible. For reasons unrelated to science, Protestant thinkers such as Luther and Calvin began to consult sources outside the Latin interpretive tradition, most significantly the Hebrew text in which Genesis was originally written. Both men considered it vital to embrace the highest possible view of biblical authority, and inclined toward believing the waters were just that: waters, held in place in the heavenlies by a mysterious work of God. Allegories were rejected, as was the burgeoning heliocentrism of the day. Catholic interpreters of the period such as Benedictus Pererius and David Pareus also turned back to the Hebrew text, freeing themselves from the strictures of the Latin Vulgate of Jerome and its limitations about what firmamentum might mean. Thus they could posit that Moses's teaching in Hebrew, aimed at the everyman of his day, was consistent with the reasonable, common-sense claim that the waters above the firmament are just clouds, making the firmament the sky rather than the outer heavens. *Boccaletti does an excellent job of collecting the sources that address the passage in question. The book contains innumerable lengthy quotations that give context to the exegetes' perspectives, and he also provides helpful background to each thinker. There are over thirty interpreters presented in depth, scores more referred to, and abundant primary source materials. Boccaletti adds helpful commentary and interpretation of his own, including a nice comparison of the cosmology of Moses and the Greeks, guiding the reader through the development of interpretive movements and then situating them in their historical setting. In fact, if there is a complaint it might be that there is much more background than is needed to understand the various interpretations in question--but those who love history will revel in his thoroughness. *Despite Boccaletti's comprehensiveness and attention to detail, there were a few things a reader might expect to find that were not a part of this work. Billing itself as "An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict," one might have anticipated more depth of analysis of the underlying methodological, epistemic, and exegetical issues. There were descriptions of some of those things, but they were not very well developed. Readers looking to get some new insights into those aspects of faith-reason conflicts--looking for a beefier treatment of theology and philosophy--will likely be disappointed. Along those lines, it is not at all clear what Boccaletti thinks we should take away from his careful study about faith-reason conflicts. What should we conclude? What are the lessons? He does not make it clear. The book is rich with history and primary sources, but very light on insight about the nature of science-religion tensions and how to resolve them; those looking for a new angle on these perennial problems may need to look elsewhere. But for those who desire to immerse themselves in all the intriguing commentary about the waters above the firmament throughout the first seventeen centuries of Christian history, this book will be a real treat. *Reviewed by Bradley L. Sickler, University of Northwestern, St. Paul, MN 55113
42
Zaman, Maheen. "Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power." American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 35, no. 3 (July 1, 2018): 104–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajiss.v35i3.490.
Full textAbstract:
In this critically insightful and highly readable book of political ethnogra- phy, Aisha Ahmad, a political scientist at University of Toronto, seeks to explain how and why Islamist movements continue to militarily prevail and politically succeed in forming proto-states, over clan, ethnic, and/or tribal based competitions, amidst the chaos and disorder of civil wars across the contemporary Muslim world, from Mali to Mindanao. To this end, Ahmad seeks to go beyond the usual expositions that center the explanatory power of Islamist ideologies and identities, which dominate the scholarly fields of political science, international relations, security studies as well as the global public discourse shaped by journalists, politicians, and the punditry of shouting heads everywhere. Through a deep, immersive study of power in Afghanistan and Soma- lia, Ahmad demonstrates the profoundly symbiotic relationship between Islamists and the local business class. While recognizing the interconnec- tions between violent conflict and illicit trade is nothing new, Ahmad’s explication of the economic logics of Islamist proto-states furnishes a nov- el two-stage dynamic to explain the indispensability and ubiquity of this Islamist-business alliance in conflict zones. The first is the gradual social process of conversion of the business class’ worldview and practice to align them with Islamist identity formations, which is “aimed at mitigating un- certainty and improving access to markets” (xvii). Alongside this long-term socialization is a second, short-term political-economic dynamic of rapid shift in the business class’s collective patronage of a new Islamist faction, based on the assumption that it will lower the cost of business. The for- midable alliance between business class interests and Islamist institutions brings forth the new Islamist proto-state. Chapter one of the book adum- brates this two-stage argument and offers justifications for the two case studies, namely the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. The second chapter unpacks the two-stage dynamic in detail. We learn that in modern civil wars across the Muslim world, business communi- ties intentionally adopt ardent Islamist identities as a practical means to- ward building trust and lowering cost. Islamist factions, aspiring toward hegemony, offer the possibility of economic relationships that transcend the ethnic boundaries which limit rival factions rooted in clan, tribal, or ethno-linguistic social formations. This leads to the second, faster conver- gence of business-Islamist interests, wherein the Islamist groups leverage their broader social identity and economic market to offer stronger secu- rity at a lower cost. This development of an economy of scale leads the local business elites to throw their financial support behind the Islamists at a critical juncture of militant competition. Once this threshold is met, Islamist factions rapidly conquer and consolidate territories from their rel- atively socially constrained rivals to form a new proto-state, like the Taliban regime and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). When we look at the timeline of their development (the Taliban in 1994 and the ICU in 2006), we notice a similar length of gestation, about 15 years of war. This similarity may be coincidental, but the political-military threshold is the same. Both societ- ies, ravaged by civil war, reached a stalemate. At this critical juncture the positional properties of Islamist formations in the field of civil war factions gives the Islamists a decided economic (cost analysis) and social (trust building across clan/tribal identities) advantage. Chapters three to six examine each of the two processes for the se- lected sites of inquiry. Thus chapters three and five, respectively, explore the long-term Islamist identity construction within the smuggling industry in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderland, and the Somali business elites’ gradual convergence with Islamists. In chapter four, Ahmad explores the second dynamic in the context of rising security costs during the Afghan civil war. Mullah Omar’s Taliban provided the order and security across the borderland that had previously eluded the variety of industries. This allowed the Taliban to expand on the backs of voluntary donations, rather than extortions like their rival tribal warlords, which in turn allowed them to recruit and retain more disciplined fighters (81). The source of these donations was the business class, especially those involved in the highly lucrative transit trade, which, before the rise of Taliban, paid immense op- portunity cost at the hands of rapacious local and tribal warlord fiefdoms and bandits. Instead of the multitude of checkpoints crisscrossing south- ern Afghanistan and the borderlands, the Taliban presented a simplified administration. While the rest of the world took notice of their repressive measures against women’s mobility, education, and cultural expression, the men of the bazaar appreciated the newly acquired public safety to ply their trade and the lowered cost of doing business. Chapter six, “The Price of Protection: The Rise of the Islamic Courts Union,” demonstrates a similar mutually beneficial Islamist-business relationship emerging out of the incessant clan-based militia conflicts that had especially plagued southern Somalia since the fall of the last national government in 1991. Businesspeople, whether they were tycoons or small business owners, had to pay two types of tax. First was what was owed to the local racket or warlord, and the second was to the ever-fragmenting sub-clan militias and their checkpoints on the intercity highways. Unlike their rival, the Transitional Federal Government (TGF), ICU forged their supra-clan institutional identity through a universalist legal discourse and practice rooted in Islamic law and ethics. They united the courts and their associated clan-based militias, including al-Shabaab. Ahmad demonstrates, through a synthesis of secondary literature and original political ethnogra- phy, the economic logics of ICU’s ability to overcome the threshold of ma- terial and social support needed to establish the rule of law and a far-reach- ing functioning government. If the Taliban and the ICU had solved the riddle of creating order and security to create hegemonic proto-states, then what was their downfall? Chapter seven gives us an account of the international interventions that caused the collapse of the two proto-states. In the aftermath of their de- struction, the internationally supported regimes that replaced them, de- spite immense monetary and military aid, have failed to gain the same level of legitimacy across Afghanistan and Somalia. In chapter eight, Ahmad expands the scope of analysis to North/Western Africa (Al-Qaeda in the Is- lamic Maghrib: AQIM), Middle East (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: ISIS), and South Asia (Tahrik-i Taliban-i Pakistan: TTP). At the time of this book’s publication, these movements were not yet, as Ahmad posits, closed cases like the Taliban and the ICU. Thus, the data from this chapter’s comparative survey furnishes suggestive arguments for Ahmad’s larger thesis, namely that Islamist proto-states emerge out of a confluence of economic and security interests rather than mere ideological and identity politics. The epistemic humility of this chapter signals to this reader two lines of constructive criticism of some aspects of Ahmad’s sub- stantiation of this thesis. First, the juxtaposing of Islamist success against their clan-/tribal iden- tity-based rivals may be underestimating the element of ethnic solidarity in those very Islamists’ political success. The most glaring case is the Taliban, which in its original formation and in its post-American invasion frag- mentations, across the Durand Line, was more or less founded on a pan- or-tribal Pashtun social identity and economic compulsions relative to the other Afghan ethno-linguistic communities. How does one disaggregate the force of ethnic solidarity (even if it is only a necessary condition, rather than a cause) from economic calculus in explaining the rise of the Taliban proto-state? The second issue in this juxtaposition is that when we compare a suc- cessful Islamist movement against socially limited ethnocentric rivals, we discount the other Islamist movements that failed. Explanations for those Islamists that failed to create a proto-state along the lines of the ICU or the Taliban, such as al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (Somalia) or Gulbuddin Hekmat- yar’s Hezb-e Islami (Afghanistan), needed to be more robustly taken into account and integrated into the substantiation of Ahmad’s thesis. Even in the section on ISIS, it would have been helpful to integrate the case of Jabhat al-Nusra’s (an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria) inability to create a proto-state to rival ISIS. We must ask, why do some Jihadi Islamist movements prevail against each other and why do others fail? Perhaps some of these Islamist movements appear too early to scale up their operation (i.e., they precede Ahmad’s ‘critical juncture’), or they were too embroiled and too partisan in the illicit trade network to fully leverage their Islamist universalism to create the trust and bonds that are the first part of Ahmad’s two-stage dy- namic. Possible answers would need to complement Ahmad’s excellent po- litical ethnography with deeper quantitative dives to identify the statistical variations of these critical junctures: when does the cost of warlords and mafias’ domination outweigh the cost of Islamist-Jihadi movements’ social- ly repressive but economically liberating regimes? At which point in the social evolution of society during an unending civil war do identities forged by the bonds of blood give way to those imagined through bonds of faith? These two critical suggestions do not diminish Ahmad’s highly teach- able work. This book should be read by all concerned policy makers, schol- ars in the social sciences and humanities, and anyone who wants to go be- yond ‘culture talk’ historical causation by ideas and identity and uncover structuralist explanations for the rise of Jihadi Islamist success in civil wars across the Muslim world. It is especially recommended for adoption in cog- nate courses at the undergraduate level, for its combination of erudition and readability.
Maheen ZamanAssistant ProfessorDepartment of HistoryAugsburg University
43
Zaman, Maheen. "Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power." American Journal of Islam and Society 35, no. 3 (July 1, 2018): 104–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v35i3.490.
Full textAbstract:
In this critically insightful and highly readable book of political ethnogra- phy, Aisha Ahmad, a political scientist at University of Toronto, seeks to explain how and why Islamist movements continue to militarily prevail and politically succeed in forming proto-states, over clan, ethnic, and/or tribal based competitions, amidst the chaos and disorder of civil wars across the contemporary Muslim world, from Mali to Mindanao. To this end, Ahmad seeks to go beyond the usual expositions that center the explanatory power of Islamist ideologies and identities, which dominate the scholarly fields of political science, international relations, security studies as well as the global public discourse shaped by journalists, politicians, and the punditry of shouting heads everywhere. Through a deep, immersive study of power in Afghanistan and Soma- lia, Ahmad demonstrates the profoundly symbiotic relationship between Islamists and the local business class. While recognizing the interconnec- tions between violent conflict and illicit trade is nothing new, Ahmad’s explication of the economic logics of Islamist proto-states furnishes a nov- el two-stage dynamic to explain the indispensability and ubiquity of this Islamist-business alliance in conflict zones. The first is the gradual social process of conversion of the business class’ worldview and practice to align them with Islamist identity formations, which is “aimed at mitigating un- certainty and improving access to markets” (xvii). Alongside this long-term socialization is a second, short-term political-economic dynamic of rapid shift in the business class’s collective patronage of a new Islamist faction, based on the assumption that it will lower the cost of business. The for- midable alliance between business class interests and Islamist institutions brings forth the new Islamist proto-state. Chapter one of the book adum- brates this two-stage argument and offers justifications for the two case studies, namely the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. The second chapter unpacks the two-stage dynamic in detail. We learn that in modern civil wars across the Muslim world, business communi- ties intentionally adopt ardent Islamist identities as a practical means to- ward building trust and lowering cost. Islamist factions, aspiring toward hegemony, offer the possibility of economic relationships that transcend the ethnic boundaries which limit rival factions rooted in clan, tribal, or ethno-linguistic social formations. This leads to the second, faster conver- gence of business-Islamist interests, wherein the Islamist groups leverage their broader social identity and economic market to offer stronger secu- rity at a lower cost. This development of an economy of scale leads the local business elites to throw their financial support behind the Islamists at a critical juncture of militant competition. Once this threshold is met, Islamist factions rapidly conquer and consolidate territories from their rel- atively socially constrained rivals to form a new proto-state, like the Taliban regime and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). When we look at the timeline of their development (the Taliban in 1994 and the ICU in 2006), we notice a similar length of gestation, about 15 years of war. This similarity may be coincidental, but the political-military threshold is the same. Both societ- ies, ravaged by civil war, reached a stalemate. At this critical juncture the positional properties of Islamist formations in the field of civil war factions gives the Islamists a decided economic (cost analysis) and social (trust building across clan/tribal identities) advantage. Chapters three to six examine each of the two processes for the se- lected sites of inquiry. Thus chapters three and five, respectively, explore the long-term Islamist identity construction within the smuggling industry in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderland, and the Somali business elites’ gradual convergence with Islamists. In chapter four, Ahmad explores the second dynamic in the context of rising security costs during the Afghan civil war. Mullah Omar’s Taliban provided the order and security across the borderland that had previously eluded the variety of industries. This allowed the Taliban to expand on the backs of voluntary donations, rather than extortions like their rival tribal warlords, which in turn allowed them to recruit and retain more disciplined fighters (81). The source of these donations was the business class, especially those involved in the highly lucrative transit trade, which, before the rise of Taliban, paid immense op- portunity cost at the hands of rapacious local and tribal warlord fiefdoms and bandits. Instead of the multitude of checkpoints crisscrossing south- ern Afghanistan and the borderlands, the Taliban presented a simplified administration. While the rest of the world took notice of their repressive measures against women’s mobility, education, and cultural expression, the men of the bazaar appreciated the newly acquired public safety to ply their trade and the lowered cost of doing business. Chapter six, “The Price of Protection: The Rise of the Islamic Courts Union,” demonstrates a similar mutually beneficial Islamist-business relationship emerging out of the incessant clan-based militia conflicts that had especially plagued southern Somalia since the fall of the last national government in 1991. Businesspeople, whether they were tycoons or small business owners, had to pay two types of tax. First was what was owed to the local racket or warlord, and the second was to the ever-fragmenting sub-clan militias and their checkpoints on the intercity highways. Unlike their rival, the Transitional Federal Government (TGF), ICU forged their supra-clan institutional identity through a universalist legal discourse and practice rooted in Islamic law and ethics. They united the courts and their associated clan-based militias, including al-Shabaab. Ahmad demonstrates, through a synthesis of secondary literature and original political ethnogra- phy, the economic logics of ICU’s ability to overcome the threshold of ma- terial and social support needed to establish the rule of law and a far-reach- ing functioning government. If the Taliban and the ICU had solved the riddle of creating order and security to create hegemonic proto-states, then what was their downfall? Chapter seven gives us an account of the international interventions that caused the collapse of the two proto-states. In the aftermath of their de- struction, the internationally supported regimes that replaced them, de- spite immense monetary and military aid, have failed to gain the same level of legitimacy across Afghanistan and Somalia. In chapter eight, Ahmad expands the scope of analysis to North/Western Africa (Al-Qaeda in the Is- lamic Maghrib: AQIM), Middle East (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: ISIS), and South Asia (Tahrik-i Taliban-i Pakistan: TTP). At the time of this book’s publication, these movements were not yet, as Ahmad posits, closed cases like the Taliban and the ICU. Thus, the data from this chapter’s comparative survey furnishes suggestive arguments for Ahmad’s larger thesis, namely that Islamist proto-states emerge out of a confluence of economic and security interests rather than mere ideological and identity politics. The epistemic humility of this chapter signals to this reader two lines of constructive criticism of some aspects of Ahmad’s sub- stantiation of this thesis. First, the juxtaposing of Islamist success against their clan-/tribal iden- tity-based rivals may be underestimating the element of ethnic solidarity in those very Islamists’ political success. The most glaring case is the Taliban, which in its original formation and in its post-American invasion frag- mentations, across the Durand Line, was more or less founded on a pan- or-tribal Pashtun social identity and economic compulsions relative to the other Afghan ethno-linguistic communities. How does one disaggregate the force of ethnic solidarity (even if it is only a necessary condition, rather than a cause) from economic calculus in explaining the rise of the Taliban proto-state? The second issue in this juxtaposition is that when we compare a suc- cessful Islamist movement against socially limited ethnocentric rivals, we discount the other Islamist movements that failed. Explanations for those Islamists that failed to create a proto-state along the lines of the ICU or the Taliban, such as al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (Somalia) or Gulbuddin Hekmat- yar’s Hezb-e Islami (Afghanistan), needed to be more robustly taken into account and integrated into the substantiation of Ahmad’s thesis. Even in the section on ISIS, it would have been helpful to integrate the case of Jabhat al-Nusra’s (an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria) inability to create a proto-state to rival ISIS. We must ask, why do some Jihadi Islamist movements prevail against each other and why do others fail? Perhaps some of these Islamist movements appear too early to scale up their operation (i.e., they precede Ahmad’s ‘critical juncture’), or they were too embroiled and too partisan in the illicit trade network to fully leverage their Islamist universalism to create the trust and bonds that are the first part of Ahmad’s two-stage dy- namic. Possible answers would need to complement Ahmad’s excellent po- litical ethnography with deeper quantitative dives to identify the statistical variations of these critical junctures: when does the cost of warlords and mafias’ domination outweigh the cost of Islamist-Jihadi movements’ social- ly repressive but economically liberating regimes? At which point in the social evolution of society during an unending civil war do identities forged by the bonds of blood give way to those imagined through bonds of faith? These two critical suggestions do not diminish Ahmad’s highly teach- able work. This book should be read by all concerned policy makers, schol- ars in the social sciences and humanities, and anyone who wants to go be- yond ‘culture talk’ historical causation by ideas and identity and uncover structuralist explanations for the rise of Jihadi Islamist success in civil wars across the Muslim world. It is especially recommended for adoption in cog- nate courses at the undergraduate level, for its combination of erudition and readability.
Maheen ZamanAssistant ProfessorDepartment of HistoryAugsburg University
44
Hayes, Sarah, and Petar Jandrić. "From slogans to frameworks: Embedded values or postdigital positionality?" Policy Futures in Education, December 7, 2022, 147821032211452. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14782103221145242.
Full textAbstract:
This article explores ways in which higher education (HE) slogans, together with related frameworks and policies, increasingly invade the personal, cultural and positional values of individual staff and students. After a quick exploration of examples of embedded university values that are expected to be ‘lived’, the article outlines some epistemic implications in areas including epistemic positioning, epistemic injustice, epistemic space, data epistemologies, epistemic dominance and epistemic violence. Concluding that epistemologies are always lived, the article explores slogans at the intersections of biology, information and society using the case of excellence. Finally, the article briefly opens up the question of consent. Slogans, frameworks and policy texts exist as all other data assemblages that are subject to regulation. Should they also need to conform to such, or similar, regulations?
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FORSTENZER, JOSHUA. "The Teaching Excellence Framework, Epistemic Insensibility and the Question of Purpose." Journal of Philosophy of Education, December 26, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12319.
Full text
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Jabrane, Leila. "Individual excellence funding: effects on research autonomy and the creation of protected spaces." Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9, no. 1 (October 20, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01404-0.
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AbstractThis article contributes to the emerging body of literature which investigates the mechanisms through which funding conditions affect research. It is an interview-based case study of the Distinguished Professor Grant (DPG); an excellence funding instrument aimed at individuals. The study uses the concept of “protected space” to explore the epistemic and organizational dynamics enabled by the DPG. By virtue of their larger size and longer timeframe, excellence funding schemes are assumed to promote greater research autonomy and risk-taking, providing a “protected space”. Semi-structured interviews with DPG recipients revealed that the autonomy afforded by the funding instrument extends to three areas: epistemic, strategic, and temporal. However, this autonomy is modulated by the characteristics of the researchers and the environment in which they operate. The article concludes that, rather than involving a one-time accomplishment, enacting “a protected space” using a grant like the DPG requires constantly balancing investments and adjustments in different priority areas.
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Hou, Minghui. "Inclusion, epistemic democracy and international students: the teaching excellence framework and education policy." Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, August 24, 2020, 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2020.1810431.
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Stahnisch, F. W. "Émigré neurophysiologists' situated knowledge economies and their roles in forming international cultures of scientific excellence." Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, March 16, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2021.0049.
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This article investigates the scientific performance and impact of Jewish and politically oppositional émigré German-speaking neurophysiologists from Nazi-occupied Europe since the 1930s. The massive loss of nearly 30% of all academic psychiatrists and neurologists in Germany between 1933 and 1945 also shattered the basis of German-speaking neuroscientific research. A focus will be laid here on the contingency of situated knowledge economies in Central Europe, the UK and North America, as well as their roles in the formation of international cultures of scientific excellence in the forced migration process. While examining excellent émigré laboratory research, the intriguing biographies of three Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologists––Otto Loewi (1873–1961; from Germany/Austria to the USA), Bernard Katz (1911–2003; from Germany to the UK) and Eric Kandel (b. 1929; from Austria to the USA)—can tell us considerably more about the appraisal of medico-scientific knowledge through an epistemic lens representing world history along explicit regional knowledge economies. This article examines some of the more intricate scientific practices and professional patterns of determining academic excellence related to situated knowledge communities in the contemporary brain sciences.
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"Systemic Model of Implementation of the Blended Learning Modality in the Social Sciences and Education Careers at the Ecuadorian University." WSEAS TRANSACTIONS ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 16 (September 28, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.37394/232015.2020.16.68.
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Systemic model of implementation of the blended learning modality in the Social Sciences andEducation careers of the Ecuadorian university, which is argued and constructed from the epistemic referencesof the systemic approach, has the purpose of revealing and socializing the systemic dynamics of the process ofimplementation of the blended learning modality in the Ecuadorian university and its formative logic, conditionedby the essential relationships that occur between the subsystems that comprise it. The methodology used for theconstruction of the model is based on the systemic method and for the analysis of feasibility on the criterion ofusers, who contribute evaluative criteria with scores between good and excellent, which allows to sustain that theproposed model presents a suitable argumentation, a correct structuring, internal logic of cardinal importance thatsatisfies the demands of its implementation in the management of the process of professional formation in thesemipresential modality, guaranteed by an integral fashion of 4 equivalent to good and an integral average of 4.46 equivalent to very good, with a tendency to excellence
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Liou, Daniel D., and Jia “Grace” Liang. "Toward a Theory of Sympathetic Leadership: Asian American School Administrators’ Expectations for Justice and Excellence." Educational Administration Quarterly, July 17, 2020, 0013161X2094191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013161x20941915.
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Purpose: This qualitative case study illuminates the leadership practices of four female Asian American administrators in urban schools. Due to their underrepresentation in leadership roles, the need is pressing for research to capture concrete exemplars on beliefs and practices of sympathy based on an asset-oriented approach to school leadership. The study’s research questions include (a) How do Asian American school administrators define their social justice beliefs and expectations for their school community? (b) How do these four Asian American school administrators communicate their expectations through sympathetic leadership to resist deficit models of education? Method: This study includes four research participants from two states. Data collection includes two rounds of in-depth interviews, field observations, reflective memos, and archival sources. Data analysis is guided by inductive approaches. Findings: Research findings demonstrate how Asian American school administrators define social justice through four relational practices with their community: (a) develop intimate knowledge of students and their racialized history, (b) enact asset-based sympathy as a condition of solidarity, (c) form connections based on relational equity to counteract White supremacy, and (d) prepare students for an equitable future through intellectual rigor. Implications: This study contends that leadership must begin with an epistemic shift from racial indifference and deficit thinking to the practice of sympathetic touch. Social justice revolution in schools and society starts when the minds and expectations of the leaders and those they serve become one and the same.