Sociologists of science have noted that the institutional cultures and practices of research tend to de-emphasize the risks produced in the lab, resulting in injuries and deaths in recent lab accidents and increased dangers for surrounding communities. In response to these accidents, science ethics and policy increasingly focus on risk management. One strategy to confront these problems is to implement more procedural safeguards, but ethnographies of science suggest that procedural forms can have the unintended effect of contributing to complacency. What (...) is also needed is a focus on the character of the individual researcher who acts under conditions of risk, such as that provided in virtue ethics. This article shows how prudence can help to meet the problem of risk and how contemporary ideas of risk can reshape understandings of prudence. By so doing, it also suggests ways to encourage sensitivity to risk in the moral education of contemporary scientists. (shrink)

(2013). The future of research in moral development and education. Journal of Moral Education: Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 1-11. doi: 10.1080/03057240.2012.757102.

In the United States, various forms of character education have become popular in both elementary and professional education. They are often criticised, however, for their reliance on Aristotle, who is said to be problematic at several points. In response to these criticisms, I argue that Aristotle?s ancient account of character and its formation remains viable in light of work over the last decade in psychology and the neurosciences. However, some lacunae remain that can at least be partially filled with insights (...) drawn from the work of Michael Polanyi, a scientist-turned-philosopher whose larger philosophical project was launched by a desire to see Western society flourish. Insights from these varied sources can provide the building blocks with which to construct an account of character and its development that preserves Aristotle?s best insights in ways that answer the concerns voiced by the critics. (shrink)

Learning about ‘nature’ has particular significance for education because the idea of nature is an important source of inspiring meaning‐rich experience and creation. In order to have meaningful experiences in learning and living, this paper argues for a personal subject‐related lifeworld approach to the learning of ‘nature’. Many authors claim that the lifeworld‐led learning approach helps to enrich educational experience. However, there can be various interpretations of the lifeworld approach, as the concept of lifeworld is diversely understood. This paper proposes (...) a personal, subject‐related lifeworld approach from a Husserlian‐Merleau‐Pontian perspective. I suggest that it holds great potential for improving our current curriculum which suffers from meaning‐impoverishment. This paper comprises the following parts: the elucidation of the lifeworld approach to learning, a demonstration of the flaws of current curricula by discussing and analysing the Taiwanese curriculum guidelines, and an exposition of the contribution of the Husserlian‐Merleau‐Pontian lifeworld approach towards improving our current curriculum. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophically informed contribution to debate about the values that might inform and be communicated by a further education. It includes a historical review of the concern of colleges of further education with economic and personal development that was reflected in the distinction between vocational and liberal studies. This distinction is seen to arise out of a mistaken epistemology which attempts to distinguish once and for all as it were, objective facts from subjective values. As instrumentalism came (...) to dominate the further education sector, the idea of liberal studies became obsolete and the sector might now appear to some commentators to be little concerned with values other than those of a monetary kind. The paper is focused on a traditional conception of further education colleges as places where people learn practices such as plumbing, joinery and hairdressing. It is argued that the distinction between academic and vocational practices is not based on the logic of the practices, but on the primary purpose of the person who is making the distinction. Practices such as plumbing, joinery and hairdressing are value laden as, more obviously, are other practices such as literary criticism and feminist pedagogy. The idea that the former type of practices are somehow value free and in need of additional study in moral competence or life skills is mistaken. Instead it is argued that all practices are evaluative and that an induction into any practice is bound to be a form of values education. (shrink)

This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

La obra es un estudio de una de las nociones fundamentales en la filosofía de Gadamer, el concepto de aplicación. Se intenta dar cuenta de la manera en que dicho concepto viene a solucionar, o tal vez sería mejor decir, a disolver, en la reflexión del siglo XX, el problema que enfrentaban las ciencias históricas en el siglo XIX para convertirse en conocimiento objetivo. Dicho problema consistía en dos importantes dificultades vinculadas entre sí: la imposibilidad de disponer de un objeto (...) independiente, el pasado “tal cual ocurrió” para confrontar la adecuación de las visiones del mismo constituidas desde el presente, por un lado, y la imposibilidad de erradicar la perspectiva del presente (intereses, ideologías, etc.)en los relatos históricos. Para abordar este problema, Gadamer acomete nada menos que una revisión de las categorías fundamentales en las cuales se inserta esta dificultad, esto es, las nociones de conocimiento, realidad y verdad modeladas, a través de Kant, de acuerdo a la perspectiva de la moderna ciencia de la naturaleza. Un paso fundamental será entonces examinar el problema del valor cognitivo del arte, esto es, elucidar las nociones de realidad y experiencia a partir de la experiencia artística, para extender luego estas conclusiones a la historia y el lenguaje. En el marco de esta revisión se perfila el concepto de aplicación, el cual destaca que nuestra condición de agentes históricos, insertos en una tradición y en una comunidad lingüística, no es un obstáculo, sino justamente la condición que hace posible que podamos comprender lo diferente a lo propio, ya sea en la forma de la alteridad histórica, lingüística o meramente personal. La tesis de la obra que presentamos es que la estructura de la aplicación, con la consecuente historicidad que acarrea, se presenta de manera semejante tanto en las macro-estructuras de la comprensión (comprensión de textos, de la tradición, del arte) como en las estructuras de un nivel inferior o más básico, como la realización de juicios y la comprensión de conceptos, punto que se elabora, en esta obra, a través de una comparación con las ideas del segundo Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The Dreyfus account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way Dreyfus encourages a more reflexive approach. The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The paper considers (...) whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)

Modernity has imposed on many of us, and perhaps especially on academics, a habit of silence with regard to what John Rawls called deeply held ‘comprehensive’ moral beliefs. According to Rawls and his many disciples, the survival of liberalism depends upon the bracketing of comprehensive beliefs whenever we step into the public sphere. And in the field of higher education, that would have to include the classroom, the lab, the library carrel, the hotel conference suites where we confer and exchange (...) ideas, as well as the vast academic publishing apparatus. I would like to call attention to the way that the supposed requirement of the Rawlsian silence is being challenged, not just by conservative critics but even by such a staunch defender of conventional liberalism as Jürgen Habermas. Second, if Habermas and the other critics are right, then a fortiori, the public university—perhaps the most representative and exemplary of all the institutions of civil society—ought to welcome the infusion of relevant but closely held beliefs, including religious ones, in carrying out its research and teaching responsibilities. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the emerging position in metaphysics that artifact functions characterize real kinds of artifacts. We analyze how it can circumvent an objection by David Wiggins (Sameness and substance renewed, 2001, 87) and then argue that this position, in comparison to expert judgments, amounts to an interesting fine-grained metaphysics: taking artifact functions as (part of the) essences of artifacts leads to distinctions between principles of activity of artifacts that experts in technology have not yet made. We show, (...) moreover, that our argument holds not only in the artifactual realm but also in biology: taking biological functions as (part of the) essences of organs leads to distinctions between principles of activity of organs that biological experts have not yet made. We run our argument on the basis of analyses of artifact and biological functions as developed in philosophy of technology and of biology, thus importing results obtained outside of metaphysics into the debate on ontological realism. In return, our argument shows that a position in metaphysics provides experts reason for trying to detect differences between principles of activities of artifacts and organs that have not been detected so far. (shrink)

Probably the most distinctive feature of synthetic biology is its being “synthetic” in some sense or another. For some, synthesis plays a unique role in the production of knowledge that is most distinct from that played by analysis: it is claimed to deliver knowledge that would otherwise not be attained. In this contribution, my aim is to explore how synthetic biology delivers knowledge via synthesis, and to assess the extent to which this knowledge is distinctly synthetic. On the basis of (...) distinctions between knowledge-how and knowledge-why, and between syntheses that succeed and syntheses that fail, I argue that the contribution of synthesis to knowledge is best understood when syntheses are construed as experimental interventions that aim at probing causal relationships between properties of the entities that are combined through these syntheses and properties of their target products. The distinctiveness of synthetic biology in its quest for knowledge through synthesis stems from its ability to sample at will a space of empirical possibilities that is not only huge but also that has been so scarcely sampled by nature. (shrink)

Some think that issues to do with scientific method are last century's stale debate; Popper was an advocate of methodology, but Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others are alleged to have brought the debate about its status to an end. The papers in this volume show that issues in methodology are still very much alive. Some of the papers reinvestigate issues in the debate over methodology, while others set out new ways in which the debate has developed in the last decade. The (...) book will be of interest to philosophers and scientists alike in the reassessment it provides of earlier debates about method and current directions of research. (shrink)

This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that knowledge in health care is a multidimensional dynamic construct, in contrast to the prevailing idea of knowledge being an objective state. Polanyi demonstrated that knowledge is personal, that knowledge is discovered, and that knowledge has explicit and tacit dimensions. Complex adaptive systems science views knowledge simultaneously as a thing and a flow, constructed as well as in constant flux. The Cynefin framework is one model to help our understanding of knowledge as a personal construct (...) achieved through sense making. Specific knowledge aspects temporarily reside in either one of four domains – the known, knowable, complex or chaotic, but new knowledge can only be created by challenging the known by moving it in and looping it through the other domains. Medical knowledge is simultaneously explicit and implicit with certain aspects already well known and easily transferable, and others that are not yet fully known and must still be learned. At the same time certain knowledge aspects are predominantly concerned with content, whereas others deal with context. Though in clinical care we may operate predominately in one knowledge domain, we also will operate some of the time in the others. Medical knowledge is inherently uncertain, and we require a context-driven flexible approach to knowledge discovery and application, in clinical practice as well as in health service planning. (shrink)

Une analogie entre les aspects épistémologiques et méthodologiques de l'activité des services de renseignement et certaines disciplines scientifiques, en préconisant une approche plus scientifique du processus de collecte et d'analyse de l'information au sein du cycle du renseignement. J'affirme que les aspects théoriques, ontologiques et épistémologiques de l'activité de nombreux services de renseignement sont sous-estimés, ce qui conduit à une compréhension incomplète des phénomènes actuels et à une confusion dans la collaboration interinstitutionnelle. Après une brève Introduction, qui inclut un historique (...) de l'évolution du concept de service de renseignement après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Renseignement définit les objectifs et l'organisation des services de renseignement, le modèle de base de ces organisations (le cycle du renseignement) et les aspects pertinents de la collection de l'information et l'analyse du renseignement. Dans la section Ontologie, je souligne les aspects ontologiques et les entités qui menacent et qui sont menacés. La section Épistémologie comprend des aspects spécifiques à l'activité de renseignement, avec l'analyse du modèle traditionnel (Singer) utilisé traditionnellement, et j'expose une approche épistémologique possible à travers le concept de connaissance tacite développé par le scientifique Michael Polanyi. La section Méthodologie contient diverses théories méthodologiques mettant l’accent sur les techniques analytiques structurelles ainsi que certaines analogies avec la science, l’archéologie, les affaires et la médecine. L'article se termine par les Conclusions sur la possibilité d'une approche plus scientifique des méthodes de collecte d'information et d'analyse des services de renseignement. SOMMAIRE: Abstract 1. Introduction 1.1. Histoire du renseignement 2. Renseignement 2.1. Organisations 2.2. Cycle du renseignement 2.3. La collecte du renseignement 2.4. Analyse du renseignement 2.5. Contre-espionnage 2.6. Communautés épistémiques 3. Ontologie 4. Épistémologie 4.1. La connaissance tacite (Polanyi) 5. Méthodologies 6. Analogies avec d'autres disciplines 6.1. Science 6.2. Archéologie 6.3. Affaires 6.4. Médecine 7. Conclusions Bibliographie DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35970.22729 . (shrink)

Underlying the recent focus on embodied and interactive aspects of social understanding are several intuitions about what roles the body, interaction processes, and interpersonal experience play. In this paper, we introduce a systematic, hands-on method for investigating the experience of interacting and its role in intersubjectivity. Special about this method is that it starts from the idea that researchers of social understanding are themselves one of the best tools for their own investigations. The method provides ways for researchers to calibrate (...) and to trust themselves as sophisticated instruments to help generate novel insights into human interactive experience. We present the basics of the method, and two empirical studies. The first is a video-study on autism, which shows greater refinement in the way people with autism embody their social interactions than previously thought. The second is a study of thinking in live interactions, which provides insight into the common feeling that too much thinking can hamper interaction, and into how this kind of interactional awkwardness might be unblocked. (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

There is a current debate about if, and in what sense, machine learning systems used in the medical context need to be explainable. Those arguing in favor contend these systems require post hoc explanations for each individual decision to increase trust and ensure accurate diagnoses. Those arguing against suggest the high accuracy and reliability of the systems is sufficient for providing epistemic justified beliefs without the need for explaining each individual decision. But, as we show, both solutions have limitations—and it (...) is unclear either address the epistemic worries of the medical professionals using these systems. We argue these systems do require an explanation, but an institutional explanation. These types of explanations provide the reasons why the medical professional should rely on the system in practice—that is, they focus on trying to address the epistemic concerns of those using the system in specific contexts and specific occasions. But ensuring that these institutional explanations are fit for purpose means ensuring the institutions designing and deploying these systems are transparent about the assumptions baked into the system. This requires coordination with experts and end-users concerning how it will function in the field, the metrics used to evaluate its accuracy, and the procedures for auditing the system to prevent biases and failures from going unaddressed. We contend this broader explanation is necessary for either post hoc explanations or accuracy scores to be epistemically meaningful to the medical professional, making it possible for them to rely on these systems as effective and useful tools in their practices. (shrink)

The financial crash of 2008 following the selling of fictitious derivatives was a crisis of both rationality and values whose aftermath has thrown the legitimation of deregulated markets, and governments, into question. This paper critiques the Becker metaphor of human capital and submits that human value is central to and the fulcrum of both economic and social values. It illustrates that Hume and Adam Smith directly countered the Hobbesian hypothesis that human nature is based only on self-interest, distinguishes market values (...) from social values, explicit from implicit values and parallels Sen in adopting an ordinal ranking of what people value rather than a search for cardinality. It draws on cognitive psychology, neural research, revealed preference theory and a principle of implicit verification. It also outlines implications for what Adam Smith centrally valued as concern for the welfare of the whole of society. (shrink)

This work analyzes the central role of interpretation in non-routine design. Based on this analysis, a theory of computer support for interpretation in cooperative design is constructed. The theory is grounded in studies of design and interpretation. It is illustrated by mechanisms provided by a software substrate for computer-based design environments, applied to a sample task of lunar habitat design. ;Computer support of innovative design must overcome the problem that designers necessarily make extensive use of situated tacit understanding while computers (...) can only store and display explicit representations of information. The automation techniques used for routine design are not applicable: techniques are needed to support creative, tacit human understanding with explicit computer representations. ;The process by which designers transform their tacit preunderstanding into explicit knowledge is termed "interpretation". Interpretation is necessary for solving design problems and collaborating with other designers. Considerable explicit knowledge is thereby generated in the natural course of designing. Often this knowledge includes the most valuable information that can be presented to designers who revisit these design projects or undertake similar projects in the future. If representations of this knowledge have been defined using computer-based design support systems, then the representations can be captured by these systems for the support of subsequent design work. ;A theory of computer support for interpretation in design is presented in three stages. First, the role of interpretation in design is explored by reviewing descriptions of design by Alexander, Rittel, and Schon; by conducting a protocol analysis of lunar habitat design; and by applying Heidegger's philosophy of situated interpretation. Second, this analysis of interpretation is extended to define a theory of computer support. The features of this theory--support for the situated, perspectival, and linguistic characteristics of interpretation--are used to evaluate previous work on software design rationale systems. Third, design principles are discussed for H scERMES, a prototype hypermedia substrate for building computer-based design environments to support interpretation in tasks like lunar habitat design. The hypermedia integrates a perspectives mechanism and an end-user language to capture and modify representations of the design situation, alternative perspectives on design tasks, and terminology for conceptualizing design issues. (shrink)

Whilst many science educators, it is reported, associate knowledge with justified true belief, epistemologists have observed that the JTB model is an incomplete account of knowledge. Moreover, researchers from several fields have argued that developing scientific expertise involves not only the acquisition of knowledge that can be expressed in the form of a sentence, propositional knowledge, but also knowledge that cannot be articulated. This article examines the Mary’s room thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson and applies it to the context (...) of science education. The thought experiment imagines a scientist, Mary, who has learned all the available scientific information about the physical properties of a tomato and the process of colour vision without directly experiencing the fruit. Jackson poses the question of whether Mary will gain new knowledge when she encounters a tomato for the first time. An argument is put forward that propositional and non-propositional knowledge are distinct, and a case is made for the value of non-propositional knowledge in learning science. An analogy is drawn between the scientist in Jackson’s thought experiment and a learner in a science classroom who is taught propositional knowledge about a scientific concept without directly experiencing relevant phenomena. It is argued that this approach to teaching fails to develop the learner’s non-propositional knowledge. A number of strategies for supporting learners to develop non-propositional knowledge are discussed. It is argued that science educators should consider the phenomenological curriculum, the experiences that students should be introduced to alongside propositional knowledge, in order to develop scientific understanding. (shrink)

This article describes how a unique high school programme, not formally designed to teach moral principles or character lessons, contributed substantially to the character education of its students. Graduates over 20 years old were interviewed ( n =106) and completed a questionnaire ( n =204). Findings suggest the programme teachers helped students develop character attributes by providing a desirable character education environment. A majority of students reported that the programme was personalised, practical and, in many cases, life changing. A majority (...) of the students also indicated that the programme helped them develop an appreciation and respect for others and the environment, while helping them prepare for higher education. We present this programme as a model for character education at the high school level. Details are presented so that the programme can be replicated in other settings. We conclude that the success of this programme can be understood in terms of teachers' willingness to encourage students to take responsibility for their lives, and their learning through modeling of high character values, use of an integrated and experiential curriculum, and employment of a dialogical perspective on active education. (shrink)

The development of a robust, holistic theological anthropology will require that theology and biblical studies alike enter into genuine interdisciplinary conversations. Depth psychology in particular has the capacity to be an exceedingly fruitful conversation partner for theology because of its commitment to the totality of the human experience (both the conscious and unconscious aspects) as well as its unique ability to interpret archetypal symbols and mythological thinking. By arguing for a psycho-theological hermeneutic that accounts for depth psychology's conviction that myths (...) about the origin of the world are always simultaneously myths about the origin and emergence of human consciousness, I demonstrate that the presence of numerous Jungian archetypes in Genesis 1–3 suggests that the narrative can be read from a psychological perspective without diminishing or marginalizing the dominant theological themes of exile and return. Furthermore, such a reading fundamentally suggests that the narrative is not about how sin entered into creation, but rather how consciousness emerged in human community. (shrink)

In the context of technology development and systems engineering, knowledge is typically treated as a complex information structure. In this view, knowledge can be stored in highly sophisticated data systems and processed by explicitly intelligent, software-based technologies. This paper argues that the current emphasis upon knowledge as information (or even data) is based upon a form of rationalism which is inappropriate for any comprehensive treatment of knowledge in the context of human-centred systems thinking. A human-centred perspective requires us to treat (...) knowledge in human terms. The paper sets out the particular importance of tacit knowledge in this regard. It sets out two case studies which reveal the critical importance of a careful treatment of tacit knowledge for success in two complex, technology-driven projects. (shrink)

Gothic cathedrals like Chartres were built in a discontinuous process by groups of masons using their own local knowledge, measures, and techniques. They had neither plans nor knowledge of structural mechanics. The success of the masons in building such large complex innovative structures lies in the use of templates, string, constructive geometry, and social organization to assemble a coherent whole from the messy heterogeneous practices of diverse groups of workers. Chartres resulted from the ad hoc accumulation of the work of (...) many men. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The need to cooperate in countless ways in a democracy raises the fundamental question posed by the prisoner's dilemma: How can self?interested individuals cooperate? Tocqueville recognized this problem and anticipated the most convincing solution to date: Robert Frank's conception of emotions as ?commitment devices.? Tocqueville's analysis of the miscalculations of modern ?individualism,? which lead people first into isolation and then into servitude, mirrors the failure of conscious rationality in the prisoner's dilemma. Conversely, Tocqueville emphasizes emotional ?habits of the heart? (...) as the key to resisting the blandishments of individualism. (shrink)

This article seeks to elaborate the step of epistemological affirmation that exists within every movement of learning. My epistemological method is rooted in philosophical hermeneutics in contrast to empirical or rationalist traditions. I argue that any movement of learning is based upon an entry into a hermeneutical circle: one is thrown into, or leaps into, an interpretation which in some sense has to be temporarily affirmed or adopted in order to be either absorbed and integrated, or overcome and rejected. I (...) illustrate this process through a retrieval of the concept of submission in pedagogy, particularly with reference to submission in Eastern traditions, as well as pre-modern Christian thought. These other traditions are introduced to contrast with the modern liberal Western perspective in which the role of submission has been almost entirely lost. (shrink)

This article examines the UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. It accepts the general case made by UNESCO, but urges greater attention to the ‘real-world’ knowledge of ordinary people. The paper rejects taxonomies of knowledge based on metaphysical discussions of knowing. Instead, it argues for an approach to knowledge based on the social production of ‘knowledge acts’. It concludes by asserting that support for the diversity of social enactment of knowledge could have valuable outcomes in the form of new ways (...) of understanding new and emerging technologies. (shrink)

Working in he 1930s, Albert Lautman described with extraordinary clarity the new understanding of mathematics of that time. He delighted in the multiple manifestations of a common idea in different mathematical fields. However, he took the common idea to belong not to mathematics itself, but to an 'ideal reality' sitting above mathematics. I argue in this paper that now that we have a mathematical language which can characterize these common ideas, we need not follow Lautman to adopt his form of (...) Platonism. On the other hand, Lautman should be much better known than he is for pointing philosophy towards this most important feature of mathematics. (shrink)

Although most of us know that human beings cannot and should not be replaced by computers, we have great difficulties saying why this is so. This paradox is largely the result of institutionalizing several fundamental misconceptions as to the nature of both trustworthy objective and moral knowledge. Unless we transcend this paradox, we run the increasing risks of becoming very good at counting without being able to say what is worth counting and why. The degree to which this is occurring (...) is the degree to which the computer revolution is already over — and the degree to which we human beings have lost. (shrink)

Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 publication What is Life? is a classic of twentieth century science writing. In his book, Schrödinger discussed the chromosome fibre as the seat of heredity and variation thanks to a hypothetical aperiodic structure – a suggestion that famously spurred on a generation of scientists in their pursuit of the gene as a physico-chemical entity. While historical attention has been given to physicists who were inspired by the book, little has been written about its biologist readers. This paper (...) examines the case of the English evolutionary botanist and cytologist Irène Manton, who took an interest in What is Life? for its relevance to her own research in chromosome structure as a clue to plant phylogeny. Drawing on recently discovered correspondence between Manton and Schrödinger, the paper reconstructs Manton ‘s path to the book and her response to it by way of throwing new light on a pivotal moment in the history of the debate on chromosome structure. (shrink)

The advent of extremely large data sets, known as “big data,” has been heralded as the instantiation of a new science, requiring a new kind of practitioner: the “data scientist.” This article explores the concept of big data, drawing attention to a number of new issues—not least ethical concerns, and questions surrounding interpretation—which big data sets present. It is observed that the skills required for data scientists are in some respects closer to those traditionally associated with the arts and humanities (...) than to those associated with the natural sciences; and it is urged that big data presents new opportunities for dialogue, especially concerning hermeneutical issues, for theologians and data scientists. (shrink)

Novel computational representations, such as simulation models of complex systems and video games for scientific discovery, are dramatically changing the way discoveries emerge in science and engineering. The cognitive roles played by such computational representations in discovery are not well understood. We present a theoretical analysis of the cognitive roles such representations play, based on an ethnographic study of the building of computational models in a systems biology laboratory. Specifically, we focus on a case of model-building by an engineer that (...) led to a remarkable discovery in basic bioscience. Accounting for such discoveries requires a distributed cognition analysis, as DC focuses on the roles played by external representations in cognitive processes. However, DC analyses by and large have not examined scientific discovery, and they mostly focus on memory offloading, particularly how the use of existing external representations changes the nature of cognitive tasks. In contrast, we study discovery processes and argue that discoveries emerge from the processes of building the computational representation. The building process integrates manipulations in imagination and in the representation, creating a coupled cognitive system of model and modeler, where the model is incorporated into the modeler's imagination. This account extends DC significantly, and we present some of the theoretical and application implications of this extended account. (shrink)

This paper discusses the most persistent controversial issue that occurred in Western educational philosophy ever since Socrates questioned the Sophists: the role of truth in teaching. Ways of teaching these kinds of controversy issues are briefly considered to isolate their epistemic characteristics, which will enable the interpretation of Plato and Dewey as exemplars of rationalism and empiricism regarding the role of knowledge in the curriculum and thus include their partial truths in the epistemic ethos of teaching. The consideration of pedagogy (...) will then include the partial truths of rationalism and empiricism in the epistemic ethos of teaching by following Kant's ‘Concepts without percepts are empty; perceptions without conceptions are blind’. This claim, however, is narrowed down in two ways compatible with postmodernism and the heavy emphasis on constructionism in faculties of education. After quoting Harry Broudy's statement that the educational epistemic ethos should be domain‐specific, guided by the experts’ inquiry protocols in each curricular area, it is narrowed down further with Maxine Greene's explication that it should be pluralistic and lesson‐specific. This epistemic ethos is not argued as a synthesis but as an aggregate of the partial truths of various epistemologies in the spirit of the postmodern doubt in any one theory of knowledge without throwing out the baby with the dirty bath water. Finally, the streams of consciousness involved in teaching and learning good knowledge are described phenomenologically to disclose how truth can be disclosed in teaching, thereby grounding propositional knowledge, for example, ontologically in the being of the student and in the being of the world. (shrink)

How engineers know, and act on that knowledge, has a profound impact on society. Consequently, the analysis of engineering knowledge is one of the central challenges for the philosophy of engineering. In this article, we present a thematic multidisciplinary conceptual survey of engineering epistemology and identify key areas of research that are still to be comprehensively investigated. Themes are organized based on a survey of engineering epistemology including research from history, sociology, philosophy, design theory, and engineering itself. Five major interrelated (...) themes are identified: the relationship between scientific and engineering knowledge, engineering knowledge as a distinct field of study, the social epistemology of engineering, the relationship between engineering knowledge and its products, and the cognitive aspects of engineering knowledge. We discuss areas of potential future research that are underdeveloped or “undone.”. (shrink)

Between the fourth and the recent fifth IPCC report, science as well as policy making have made great advances in dealing with uncertainties in global climate models. However, the uncertainties public decision making has to deal with go well beyond what is currently addressed by policy makers and climatologists alike. It is shown in this paper that within an anthropocentric framework, a whole hierarchy of models from various scientific disciplines is needed for political decisions as regards climate change. Via what (...) is sometimes referred to as ‘uncertainty cascade’ in the technical literature, the uncertainties of various models accumulate in the input to political decision making. This paper aims to chart the uncertainties in the multi-disciplinary enterprise of current climate modeling in broad strokes. It is shown that the uncertainty cascade makes it impossible to quantify uncertainties in the form of probability estimates. Moreover the paper highlights how global climate models fail to provide probability estimates. A better treatment of the uncertainties of climate predictions on the political level would require an overhaul of the current IPCC practice that separates the various scientific fields in various working groups. (shrink)