"Der Aufsatz plädiert dafür, die Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Computersimulation auf eine spezifisch medienhistorische Weise zu untersuchen. Nach einigen Vorschlägen zur Charakterisierung der Besonderheiten von Computersimulationen werden zwei Beispiele interpretiert (Management-Simulationen der 1960er und verkehrstechnische bzw. epidemiologische Simulationen der 1990er). Daraus leiten sich Fragen nach dem veränderten Status wissenschaftlichen Wissens, nach der Genese wissenschaftstheoretischer Konzepte und nach wissenschaftskritischen Optionen ab. The paper suggests to analyze the history of scientific computer simulations with respect to the history of media. After presenting some ideas (...) concerning the peculiarities of computer simulation, two examples (management simulations of the 1960s; traffic-related and epistemological simulations of the 1990s) are interpreted. From them, further questions concerning the status of scientific knowledge, the genesis of epistemological concepts and their critique are derived. ". (shrink)

Der Beitrag von Claus Pias geht von zwei Beobachtungen aus: einem Zurücktreten des Medienbegriffs innerhalb medienwissenschaftlicher Forschung und eines Desinteresses sogenannter ›Digitalisierung‹ ihr gegenüber. Er untersucht, inwiefern Medientheorie (von McLuhan und Kittler bis zu den sogenannten Digital Humanities) durch einen starken Medienbegriff an der Herausbildung von Zeitsemantiken und Narrativen von ›Digitalisierung‹ beteiligt war und von ihnen profitiert hat. Als Konsequenz fordert Pias zu medienwissenschaftlicher Grundlagenforschung auf, die mit einer strategischen Revision und Aktualisierung von ›Medien‹ als Begriff und (...) Gegenstand einhergeht. Der Beitrag von Kathrin Peters stimmt mit dieser Lagebeschreibung nur teilweise überein. Die Skepsis gegenüber den Zukunfts- und Dringlichkeitsrhetoriken gegenwärtiger Digitalisierungsoffensiven wird von ihr geteilt, dass allerdings vor allem eine Medienwissenschaft des ›medientechnischen a priori‹ eine Antwort auf den gegenwarts- und an- wendungsfixierten Digitalisierungsdiskurs liefern könnte, erscheint Peters als zu kurz gegriffen. Andere medienwissenschaftliche Ausrichtungen sind dazu ebenso in der Lage: medienwissenschaftliche Analysen zu Kolonialität und Postkolonialität, feministische, gen- der- und queertheoretische Fragestellungen, eine medienwissenschaftlich informiert Wissenschaftsforschung und Affekttheorie – um nur einige zu nennen. Es geht um Konzepte von Medienwissenschaft als Fragestellung, die ihre Gegenstände in den verschiedensten Bereichen hervorbringen, dabei aber zugleich als Mittel und Mittler immer wieder unsichtbar werden. Debate: Media Studies without Media Claus Pias’ article starts out from two points of observation: a recession of the term media within the field of media studies and a dis- interest of the so-called digitalization in this particular term. Pias examines the impact media theory (ranging from McLuhan and Kittler to the so-called Digital Humanities) had on the development of time semantics and the narratives of ›digitalization‹ due to the use of a strong media term, and how media theory profited from it. mAs a result, Pias calls for establishing basis research in media studies, going hand in hand with a strategic revision and update of media, as a term as well as a subject. In her article, Kathrin Peters only partially agrees with this evaluation. She shares the scepticism concerning future-rhetoric as well as priority-rhetoric, both featuring heavily in current digital offensives; however, in her opinion it is not enough to hope for answers on today’s digitalization-discourse from media studies hailing the media-technical a priori. There are other approaches in media studies which are able to offer these answers: analysis of colonialism and post-colonialism, feministic, gender- and queer-theoretical questions, a media-informed science of knowledge and affect theory, just to name a few of them. It is all about concepts of media science being perceived as problems which bring forth their own subjects in various areas of research, yet as a tool as well as an intermediary, they are frequently overlooked. (shrink)

Debate: Media Studies without MediaClaus Pias’ article starts out from two points of observation: a recession of the term media within the field of media studies and a dis- interest of the so-called digitalization in this particular term. Pias examines the impact media theory (ranging from McLuhan and Kittler to the so-called Digital Humanities) had on the development of time semantics and the narratives of ›digitalization‹ due to the use of a strong media term, and how media theory (...) profited from it. mAs a result, Pias calls for establishing basis research in media studies, going hand in hand with a strategic revision and update of media, as a term as well as a subject. In her article, Kathrin Peters only partially agrees with this evaluation. She shares the scepticism concerning future-rhetoric as well as priority-rhetoric, both featuring heavily in current digital offensives; however, in her opinion it is not enough to hope for answers on today’s digitalization-discourse from media studies hailing the media-technical a priori. There are other approaches in media studies which are able to offer these answers: analysis of colonialism and post-colonialism, feministic, gender- and queer-theoretical questions, a media-informed science of knowledge and affect theory, just to name a few of them. It is all about concepts of media science being perceived as problems which bring forth their own subjects in various areas of research, yet as a tool as well as an intermediary, they are frequently overlooked. (shrink)

The paper suggests to analyze the history of scientific computer simulations with respect to the history of media. After presenting some ideas concerning the peculiarities of computer simulation, two examples (management simulations of the 1960s; traffic-related and epistemological simulations of the 1990s) are interpreted. From them, further questions concerning the status of scientific knowledge, the genesis of epistemological concepts and their critique are derived.

Altersarmut, Bildungsunterschiede, eine wachsende Kluft zwischen Arm und Reich - die deutsche Gesellschaft spaltet sich, und viele fordern mehr Soziale Gerechtigkeit. Die Autorin untersucht, wie sich das Verstandnis von Sozialer Gerechtigkeit in Philosophie und Politik gewandelt hat, und hinterfragt, inwieweit Politiker Soziale Gerechtigkeit als Akzeptanzmittel fur ihre Entscheidungen nutzen.

Pia Becker entwirft eine Konzeption von Patientenautonomie, die sich im Gegensatz zu in der Medizinethik bisher dominierenden Konzeptionen an der grundsätzlichen Fähigkeit des Patienten zur Autonomie orientiert. Ausgangspunkt bildet die Notwendigkeit der informierten Einwilligung, die neben der Patientenautonomie vor allem auch die körperliche Integrität des Patienten schützt. Als Adäquatheitsbedingungen dienen die beiden normativen Funktionen der Patientenautonomie als Barriere und Schlüssel einer medizinischen Behandlung. Diese Konzeption von Patientenautonomie hat den Vorteil, Patienten besser vor Überforderungen zu bewahren und deren Bedarf an Unterstützungsangeboten (...) zur Förderung der Patientenautonomie deutlicher hervorzuheben. (shrink)

Cultures and moral expectations differ around the globe, and so the management of corporate responsibilities has become increasingly complex. Is there, however, a humanistic consensus that can bridge cultural and ethnic divides and reconcile the diverse and contrary interests of stakeholders world-wide? This book seeks to answer that question.

Democracy is increasingly being challenged, by disengagement and by anti-pluralist movements (Levitsky and Ziblatt in How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future, Viking, New York, 2018; Wikforss in _Därför demokrati. Om kunskapen och folkstyret_ [Because of this, democracy. On knowledge and people’s rule] Fri Tanke, 2021; Svolik et al. in J Democr 34(1):5–20, 2023). This article draws upon a theoretical discussion about democracy, pluralism, and threats to democracy. Departing from Dewey, Laclau, Mouffe, Young and Allen, we address democracy (...) as an ideology that centers around pluralism, or an ever-increasing inclusion of voices from the margins as its goal. We argue that perceiving democracy pedagogically as a pluralistic ideology would support students’ democratic citizenship and equip them for a world where threats to democracy are being reported. Employing a case study on Finnish social studies textbooks, we analyze how democracy as well as threats to democracy are discursively portrayed. Our study shows that the textbooks present democracy as predominantly institutional and static. We also find that while disengagement is portrayed as a problem for democracy, anti-pluralist movements are generally not referred to as a threat. Additionally, we examine a discourse in the textbooks that connects freedom of speech with democracy in a way that favors a multitude of opinions, even antidemocratic ones, over creating space for marginalized voices. Drawing on the theoretical discussion and the results of the analysis, we argue that a focus on pluralism as the core of democracy makes the opposition between restricting hate speech and advocating for democracy redundant. (shrink)

The Formalist tradition in late-scholastic philosophy has gone unnoticed in standard historiography. This article’s overall objective is to add the Formalist tradition to what we know about Renaissance philosophy. I first show how the Formalist tradition was born out of some innovative considerations of hierarchies of distinctions in the wake of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus’s teaching on the formal distinction in the beginning of the fourteenth century (especially Francis of Meyronnes’s model of four distinctions and Petrus Thomae’s more elaborate (...) doctrine of seven kinds of distinctions). I then trace how Formalist literature developed from being an exclusively Franciscan affair to becoming a much more widespread phenomenon. Thus, from the decades up to 1500 and onwards, authors from various late-scholastic schools (Thomism, Lullism, Averroism, and others) produced Formalist literature, i.e., treatises on multiple kinds of distinctions. I highlight particularly how one Franciscan philosopher of the sixteenth century, Jean Du Douet, proposed to view the Formalist preoccupation with distinctions as a discipline in its own right, a proper scientia formalitatum. I finally argue that while this proposal met with dismissive reactions, Du Douet’s idea does in fact reflect the role Formalism played in the scholastic curriculum in the late sixteenth century, at least in Franciscan milieus. (shrink)

This paper sets out to conduct an embodied and situated aural analysis of what silence in Northern Norway is about, with the aim of bringing forward the background noise. The paper brings together theories on construction of the rural, time-space relations, soundscape ecology, and on affect and power, and it merges academic traditions about how to communicate findings from non-visual biased studies. This interdisciplinary framework provides a novel structure for both analysing material and communicating findings from embodied studies of listening (...) out. The study found that silence in Northern Norway is about not listening to the economy of scale, to the commodification of the natural conditions and the suppression of lifestyles and territory. The paper illustrates how power is an inherent part of listening and how listening is a practice that is enacted to create emotions that are associated with a specific time-space relation. (shrink)

The basics -- The dignity of the human person -- Autonomy, consent, refusing treatment and boundaries -- Ethics and non-autonomous patients -- Confidentiality, privacy, data protection, truth telling and trust -- Ethical issues at the beginning of life -- Ethical issues about babies, children and young adults -- Ethical issues at the end of life -- Dying and death: ethical issues -- Loss, grief and bereavement, burn-out and the wounded healer -- Conscientious objection and loyalties.

This chapter uncovers a less investigated aspect of the relationship between the two most important scholastic schools of the Renaissance, Thomism and Scotism: the influence of Scotist literature on distinctions as seen in some sixteenth-century Thomists. The chapter has a primary focus on Chrysostomus Javelli’s engagement in his discussion of divine attributes with the Scotist doctrine of distinctions, but also considers other Thomist sources. First, the beginnings of the highly specialised Scotist literature on distinctions are traced back to the start (...) of the fourteenth century; I show how some early followers of Duns Scotus, in particular Francis of Meyronnes and Petrus Thomae, systematised Scotus’ ontology of the various grades of being by compiling lists of subtle distinctions to be applied to various levels of reality. I give some indications as to the later reception of these models of distinctions in the Scotist school. Special attention is paid to Étienne Brulefer, since his summary of Petrus Thomae’s model of seven distinctions was Javelli’s source for the Scotist doctrine. I then investigate how Javelli worked with Brulefer’s summary, and how he sought to integrate the Scotist doctrine into his own discussion of divine attributes. Thomists traditionally allowed only a rational or mental kind of distinction among divine attributes, and between them and the divine essence. Javelli, however, endeavours to show how the Thomist position may be reconciled with the Scotist doctrine of a formal or ex natura rei distinction. He did not always endorse this conciliatory approach; I hypothesise that he changed his mind on the subject over time. Finally, I show how other Renaissance Thomists reacted to the Scotist system of distinctions; in particular, I draw attention to the Thomists Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Bartolomeo Manzoli, and Mattia Gibboni da Aquario, who all wrote treatises on Thomist distinction theory modelled on the Scotist system of distinctions. In some of this literature, lists of distinctions based on Thomist metaphysics were compiled in order to replace the Scotist system. I argue that Javelli’s approach is more conciliatory and, in fact, has some overlap with the concordist thought of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who himself considered Scotus and Aquinas to be in fundamental agreement as regards the distinction between divine attributes. (shrink)

Traditional interpretations of Aristotle’s theory of perception mainly focus on uncovering the underlying mechanisms that are at stake when perceivers are affected by sensible qualities. Investigating the nature of sense perception is one of Aristotle’s main worries and one that he explicitly relates to the question of its causes (e. g.Sens. 436a16–17, 436b9) and its ends (e. g.de An. 434a30 ff.). Therefore I suggest that, in order to fully explain Aristotle’s view of perceptual phenomena, the possibilities, the constraints, and the (...) goals defined by the embodied and situated engagement of perceivers with the external world must be taken into account. Accordingly, in this paper, I provide an affective reading of Aristotle’s theory of perception. I shall ask what, in addition to functioning sense organs and appropriate response mechanisms, the perceiver contributes to perceptual content. Specifically, I propose to shed light on the significance of perceptual experience for the perceiver and I aim to show that, according to Aristotle, one’s biological and personal qualities are perceptually relevant, meaning that they underpin perception, rather than coming into play after perception has occurred and its objects have been discerned. The paper is divided into two parts, respectively dealing with sensory affections and more complex affective phenomena. As regards the domain of primal sense perception, I will focus on smell as a representative example: since Aristotle identifies it as the least developed of human sensory faculties, it will serve as a revealing illustration of how sense perception is informed and qualified by what, drawing on contemporary philosophical terminology, I will call ‘perceptual interests’, viz. the affective sense of what is at stake in the living being’s interaction with the environment. I will then proceed to consider the way more complex affective phenomena underpin perception by examining the case of emotions and that of virtues of character. By showing how perception is affectively inflected and how emotion is rooted in perception’s bodily nature, I aim to sketch out the general lines along which I believe that the Aristotelian theory of perception should be approached. (shrink)

Developing virtues requires attending to the affective and cognitive components of virtue. The former component implies cultivating apt emotional responses to specific situations. The cognitive part requires the (meta) virtue of phronesis. In dealing with “Phronesis in educating emotions,” this article attends to the nature of emotions and phronesis as its role in cultivating good action habits and virtuous emotional habits. It understands emotion regulation as one of the functions of phronesis. In the broader sense, phronesis includes elements other than (...) deliberation, such as dialectics and rhetoric, which can be helpful to induce a certain suspicion or to persuade somewhat since our affectivity is susceptible to persuasion (i.e. Aristotle’s political dominion of emotions). As a topic in the intersection of moral psychology and moral philosophy, we get valuable insights into a psychologist’s work, Magda Arnold’s (1903–2002) emotion theory. Her understanding of emotion elicitation elucidates the relation between phronesis and emotions. The article focuses on one of the central elements of emotion elicitation, the appraisal. This piece can make the education of emotions for virtue development more understandable. At first glance, our initial appraisal may be hasty and inaccurate, leading to emotional reactions. However, with careful reflection, we can correct and improve upon our initial appraisal and subsequent emotions. If our initial assessment was flawed, this second, more thoughtful evaluation can be enhanced through phronesis. Due to the appraisal’s spontaneity, cultivating educated emotions requires values’ teaching, learning, and thus, appraising good things. With the development of virtues, intuitive estimates become adequate, so emotional responses are more attuned to diverse situations. (shrink)

Die Arbeit zur regionalen Variation der Intonation bietet einen Forschungsüberblick über existierende Studien zum Thema und widmet sich dann der Analyse der Intonation der kölnischen Regionalvarietät auf der Basis von spontansprachlichen Daten. Die Analyse kombiniert Methoden des autosegmental-metrischen Ansatzes mit denen der Interaktionalen Linguistik. Da sich der autosegmental-metrische Ansatz in den letzten Jahren zum gängigen Beschreibungsansatz in der Intonationsforschung entwickelt hat, ist auf diese Weise eine Vergleichbarkeit der verschiedenen Untersuchungsergebnisse gewährleistet. Der Ansatz der Interaktionalen Linguistik erlaubt es darüber hinaus, die (...) tatsächliche Verwendungsweise der Intonationsverläufe durch die Interaktionsteilnehmer aufzuzeigen. Im Zentrum des Interesses stehen zwei steigend-fallende Konturen, die typisch für das Kölnische sind. Sie werden auf phonetischer, tonologischer und phonologischer (d.h. konversationell-funktionaler) Ebene analysiert. Die Arbeit verdeutlicht die große Bandbreite formaler Variation und zeigt, wie die Beteiligten Intonation als Ressource zur Gestaltung der Interaktion nutzen. (shrink)

It is often suggested that during development the brain barriers are immature. This argument stems from teleological interpretations and experimental observations of the high protein concentrations in fetal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and decreases in apparent permeability of passive markers during development. We argue that the developmental blood–CSF barrier restricts the passage of lipid‐insoluble molecules by the same mechanism as in the adult (tight junctions) rendering the paracellular pathway an unlikely route of entry. Instead, we suggest that both protein and passive (...) markers are transferred across the epithelium through a transcellular route. We propose that changes in volume of distribution can largely explain the decrease in apparent permeability for passive markers and that developmentally regulated cellular transfer explains changes in CSF protein concentrations. The blood–CSF tight junctions are functionally mature from very early in development, and it appears that transfer from blood into embryonic brain occurs predominately via CSF rather than the vasculature. BioEssays 30:237–248, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The biological body has remained peripheral to much feminist theory which is the consequence of a legitimate critique of biologicaldeterminism. However, rejecting the biological body altogether runs the risk of treating the body as a sociopolitical effect. It is my argument that corporeal reality can be theorized without lapsing into the totalizing perspectives of essentialism or relativism. To do so Ipropose drawing upon Judith Butler’s analysis of the productive effect of power relations that materialize the body’s sex, and Margaret Lock’s (...) notion of local biology which introduces the notion that biological matter has dynamism of its own that is not reducible to discourse/power. Bringing together these two perspectives on the body holds the prospect of capturing the complex interrelationship between biology, culture, social structure, and power. (shrink)

The biological body has remained peripheral to much feminist theory which is the consequence of a legitimate critique of biologicaldeterminism. However, rejecting the biological body altogether runs the risk of treating the body as a sociopolitical effect. It is my argument that corporeal reality can be theorized without lapsing into the totalizing perspectives of essentialism or relativism. To do so Ipropose drawing upon Judith Butler’s analysis of the productive effect of power relations that materialize the body’s sex, and Margaret Lock’s (...) notion of local biology which introduces the notion that biological matter has dynamism of its own that is not reducible to discourse/power. Bringing together these two perspectives on the body holds the prospect of capturing the complex interrelationship between biology, culture, social structure, and power. (shrink)

The nature of attention is one of the oldest and most central problems in psychology. A huge amount of research has been produced on this subject in the last half century, especially on attention in the visual modality, but a general explanation has remained elusive. Many still view attention research as a field that is fundamentally fragmented. This book takes a different perspective and presents a unified theory of visual attention: the TVA model. The TVA model explains the many aspects (...) of visual attention by just two mechanisms for selection of information: filtering and pigeonholing. These mechanisms are described in a set of simple equations, which allow TVA to mathematically model a large number of classical results in the attention literature. The theory explains psychological and neuroscientific findings by the same equations; TVA is a complete theory of visual attention, linking mind and brain. Aimed at advanced students and professional researchers, Principles of Visual Attention contains a detailed review of the most important research done on attention in vision, spanning cognitive psychology, brain imaging, patient studies, and recordings from single cells in the visual cortex. The book explains the TVA model and shows how it accounts for attentional effects observed across all the research areas described. Principles of Visual Attention offers a uniquely integrated view on a central topic in cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

Verification and validation are methods with which computer simulations are tested. While many practitioners draw a clear line between verification and validation and demand that the former precedes the latter, some philosophers have suggested that the distinction has been over-exaggerated. This chapter clarifies the relationship between verification and validation. Regarding the latter, validation of the conceptual and of the computational modelComputational model are distinguished. I argue that, as a method, verification is clearly different from validation of either of the models. (...) However, the methods are related to each other as follows: If we allow that the validation of the computational model need not include the comparisonComparison between simulation output and measured data, then the computational model may be validated by validating the conceptual model independently and by verifying the simulation with respect to it. This is often not realistic, however, because, in most cases, the conceptual modelConceptual model cannot be validated independently from the simulation. In such cases, the computational modelComputational model is verified with the aim to use it as an appropriate substitute for the conceptual model. Then simulation output is compared to measured data to validate both the computational and the conceptual model. I analyze the underlying inferences and argue that they require some prior confidence in the conceptual model and in verification. This suggests that verification precede validation that proceeds via a comparisonComparison between simulation outputOutput and measured data. Recent arguments to the effect that the distinction between verification and validation is not clear-cut do not refute these results, or so I argue against philosopher E. Winsberg. (shrink)

Within the caring science paradigm, variations of a method of interpretation inspired by the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's theory of interpretation are used. This method consists of several levels of interpretation: a naïve reading, a structural analysis, and a critical analysis and discussion. Within this paradigm, the aim of this article is to present and discuss a means of creating distance in the interpretation and the text structure by using narration in a poetic language linked to the meaning of the (...) text. Ricoeur's ‘Hermeneutical function of distanciation’ will be introduced, and this concept of distanciation will be illustrated with reference to narrations from a study of patient's life experiences living with chronic illness and home mechanical ventilation in Denmark. Distanciation in the interpretation objectifies the text, and narration in a poetic language creates a particular kind of mediation in the interpretation. That narration represents an interpreted understanding of the whole, which facilitates an appropriate and evocative presentation of the interpreted data. This way of objectifying the text through narration can contribute yet another perspective to Ricoeur's rich and varied theory of interpretation. (shrink)

Some machine learning models, in particular deep neural networks (DNNs), are not very well understood; nevertheless, they are frequently used in science. Does this lack of understanding pose a problem for using DNNs to understand empirical phenomena? Emily Sullivan has recently argued that understanding with DNNs is not limited by our lack of understanding of DNNs themselves. In the present paper, we will argue, _contra_ Sullivan, that our current lack of understanding of DNNs does limit our ability to understand with (...) DNNs. Sullivan’s claim hinges on which notion of understanding is at play. If we employ a weak notion of understanding, then her claim is tenable, but rather weak. If, however, we employ a strong notion of understanding, particularly explanatory understanding, then her claim is not tenable. (shrink)

En el ensayo se propone una reflexión crítica sobre los presupuestos lógicos de la categoría de igualdad y sus ambivalencias. A una premisa teórica, que enmarca los términos de lo que se configura como un problema conceptual, seguirá una breve reconstrucción histórico-filosófica, que tiene el objetivo de arrojar luz sobre cómo podemos, leyendo a un clásico, repensar críticamente las premisas teóricas de la igualdad normativa a través de una recuperación de la valorización aristotélica de la dimensión cognitiva y moral de (...) emociones como la cólera y la indignación. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 6, June 2022.

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping (...) societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

The boundary work approach has been established as one of the main ways to study controversies in science. However, it has been proposed that it does not meet the power dynamics of the scientific field sufficiently. This article concentrates on the intertwining of boundary work and power. It combines the boundary work approach developed by Thomas Gieryn and the analysis of power in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Based on a literature review and an analysis of a controversy over therapeutic (...) touch, it finds four forms of boundary work: intradisciplinary, interdisciplinary, between science and society, and between science and other knowledge systems. The article shows how the different forms of boundary work reveal multiple power struggles, hierarchisations and tensions. The controversy appeared in Finnish nursing science when the Finnish Association of Sceptics gave its annual Humbug Award to a book on therapeutic touch. The book was based on a master’s thesis at the University of Tampere department of nursing science. The nursing scholars in the department reacted abruptly and banned certain books, which astonished the students, and a lively public debate followed. In the debate, nursing science was both defended and challenged. The framework of the study shows that the boundary work approach can be used to study different aspects of power. The article proposes that the framework could be used in other controversies as well to study the layers of power in boundary work. (shrink)

This volume is the first to provide a philosophical appraisal of probabilities in all of physics.

This article contributes to the current discussion on interdisciplinarity in the health research field. It focuses on the relationship between nursing research and gender research. Nursing research is a ‘health sciences’ field which draws from the social sciences, the humanities, and biomedicine. Previous research shows the difficulties that social scientists face in their efforts to integrate with biomedical scientists. The aim of this article is to analyse nursing researchers’ views about one potential collaboration partner in the social sciences and humanities: (...) gender research. The study draws its theoretical insights from research within the sociology of science. It uses ideas about the intertwining of power and knowledge, which is especially emphasised in the works of Pierre Bourdieu. The research material consists of 180 abstracts of nursing research articles that argue in some way about the relationship between nursing research and gender research. The Scopus database was selected because it covers nursing research in a broad sense. The scope of the study is long. The close reading of abstracts is inspired by rhetorical discourse analysis. We found three clearly different but also overlapping discourses that justified gender perspectives in nursing research: Gender research helps to highlight the socio-political context in nursing research; Gender research develops or reforms the nursing research tradition; and Gender research exists as a form of critique within nursing research. Most of the nursing research abstracts regard gender research positively for both external and internal reasons. The abstracts also demonstrate the tensions in the relationship and discuss the views and reasons that generate scepticism towards gender research in nursing research. (shrink)