We owe most scientific knowledge to methods of inquiry that are never formally analyzed. The analysis of behavior does not call for hypothetico-deductive methods. Statistics, taught in lieu of scientific method, is incompatible with major features of much laboratory research. Squeezing significance out of ambiguous data discourages the more promising step of scrapping the experiment and starting again. As a consequence, psychologists have taken flight from the laboratory. They have fled to Real People and the human interest of “real (...) life,” to Mathematical Models and the elegance of symbolic treatments, to the Inner Man and the explanatory preoccupation with inferred internal mechanisms, and to Laymanship and its appeal to “common sense.” An experimental analysis provides an alternative to these divertissements.The “theories” to which objection is raised here are not the basic assumptions essential to any scientific activity or statements that are not yet facts, but rather explanations which appeal to events taking place somewhere else, at some other level of observation, described in different terms, and measured, if at all, in different dimensions. Three types of learning theories satisfy this definition: physiological theories attempting to reduce behavior to events in the nervous system; mentalistic theories appealing to inferred inner events; and theories of the Conceptual Nervous System offered as explanatory models of behavior. It would be foolhardy to deny the achievements of such theories in the history of science. The question of whether they are necessary, however, has other implications.Experimental material in three areas illustrates the function of theory more concretely. Alternatives to behavior ratios, excitatory potentials, and so on demonstrate the utility of rate or probability of response as the basic datum in learning. Functional relations between behavior and environmental variables provide an account of why learning occurs. Activities such as preferring, choosing, discriminating, and matching can be dealt with solely in terms of behavior, without referring to processes in another dimensional system. The experiments are not offered as demonstrating that theories are not necessary but to suggest an alternative. Theory is possible in another sense. Beyond the collection of uniform relationships lies the need for a formal representation of the data reduced to a minimal number of terms. A theoretical construction may yield greater generality than any assemblage of facts; such a construction will not refer to another dimensional system. (shrink)

Radin's timeless critique of anthropological theory and methods from a humanistic perspective provides an overall assessment of the field of ethnology, its shortcomings, errors, and misdirections.

Radin's timeless critique of anthropological theory and methods from a humanistic perspective provides an overall assessment of the field of ethnology, its shortcomings, errors, and misdirections.

This paper presents the content of this thematic issue of Diogenes on Asian studies in Turkey. It explains the origins of this set of papers in light of relevant scholarship, relates it to current academic work in the field, and provides a rationale for issuing a volume on Asian scholarship in Turkey.

This paper presents the content of this thematic issue of Diogenes on Asian studies in Turkey. It explains the origins of this set of papers in light of relevant scholarship, relates it to current academic work in the field, and provides a rationale for issuing a volume on Asian scholarship in Turkey.

This paper presents the content of this thematic issue of Diogenes on Asian studies in Turkey. It explains the origins of this set of papers in light of relevant scholarship, relates it to current academic work in the field, and provides a rationale for issuing a volume on Asian scholarship in Turkey.

This paper presents the content of this thematic issue of Diogenes on Asian studies in Turkey. It explains the origins of this set of papers in light of relevant scholarship, relates it to current academic work in the field, and provides a rationale for issuing a volume on Asian scholarship in Turkey.

Comparative psychology is a strongly interdisciplinary field that shares many of its experimental methods and observational techniques with ethology and developmental psychology. The great variety of theories that comparative psychology evokes to explain behavior generates a wide array of exciting and potentially fruitful accounts, but is also problematic. It increases the risk of error in the forms of inconsistent background assumptions, conceptual misunderstandings, unfalsifiable hypotheses and incoherent explanations, which in spite of perhaps being minor by themselves will impede scientific progress (...) in the long run. Moreover, similarly to psychology at large, comparative psychology tends to emphasize empirical investigations to the disadvantage of the analysis and development of theories and concepts. Consequently, disagreements that have their roots elsewhere than in methodology and experimental design do not receive sufficient attention. Furthermore, while evidence about biological evolution is notoriously hard to find, the methodology for comparing the capacities of different species is under continuous development. This forces comparative psychology to rely on the adequacy of the theoretical and conceptual framework to a greater extent than normally in the empirical sciences. In view of investigating the background of the problems that contemporary comparative psychology is facing, the present chapter examines central parts of the methodology and explanatory framework of comparative psychology as well as its global objective. (shrink)

We divided the many diverse comments on our book into categories. These are: theory, scope and goals of our project, methods, comments on specific anatomical areas, the concept of attention, consciousness and cognitive control, and finally other issues. Although many of the points of the critics are certainly well taken, we believe studies that have emerged since our book provide strong evidence that the general approach taken in our book is now yielding important new data on the relation of (...) cognitive processes to underlying brain activity. (shrink)

This paper has already been published in the Proceedings of the International Conference Urban Design Research : Method and Application, held at Birmingham City University — 3 - 4 December 2009. Edited by Mohsen Aboutorabi & Andreas Wesener.: In his last project the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre aimed to develop rhythmanalysis. This was an attempt to understand the pulse and life of the city combining the strengths of the overview of the urban choreography as seen from a - Urbanisme (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

This book presents state of the art philosophical work on conspiracy theory research that brings in sharp focus on central and important insights concerning the supposed irrationality of conspiracy theory and conspiracy theory belief, while also proposing several novel solutions to long standing issues in the broader academic debate on these things called ‘conspiracy theories’. -/- It features a critical history of conspiracy theory theory, emphasising the role of the ‘first generation’ of philosophers in conspiracy (...) theory research. This book also includes discussions of a range of key issues such as: -/- What counts as conspiracy theory? Who counts as a conspiracy theorist? How are these terms variously understood by academics and the wider public, and Are conspiracy theories automatically suspect, and is it ever reasonable to be a conspiracy theorist? The book then builds upon that work by looking at how people’s political views affect both the conspiracy theories they believe and their beliefs about conspiracy theories; how we might defend conspiracy theorising without endorsing mad, bad or dangerous conspiracy theories; and contains several proposals for unifying conspiracy theory research under one theoretical framework: particularism. -/- This volume will be a key resource for philosophers and social scientists interested in recent work on the philosophy of conspiracy theory theory and its implications for conspiracy theory research. It will also appeal to members of the public, who want to know what, if anything, is wrong with these things called “conspiracy theories”. It was originally published as a special issue of Social Epistemology. (shrink)

This volume explores the many different meanings of the notion of the axiomatic method, offering an insightful historical and philosophical discussion about how these notions changed over the millennia. The author, a well-known philosopher and historian of mathematics, first examines Euclid, who is considered the father of the axiomatic method, before moving onto Hilbert and Lawvere. He then presents a deep textual analysis of each writer and describes how their ideas are different and even how their ideas progressed (...) over time. Next, the book explores category theory and details how it has revolutionized the notion of the axiomatic method. It considers the question of identity/equality in mathematics as well as examines the received theories of mathematical structuralism. In the end, Rodin presents a hypothetical New Axiomatic Method, which establishes closer relationships between mathematics and physics. Lawvere's axiomatization of topos theory and Voevodsky's axiomatization of higher homotopy theory exemplify a new way of axiomatic theory building, which goes beyond the classical Hilbert-style Axiomatic Method. The new notion of Axiomatic Method that emerges in categorical logic opens new possibilities for using this method in physics and other natural sciences. This volume offers readers a coherent look at the past, present and anticipated future of the Axiomatic Method. (shrink)

This book presents 18 essays by leading scholars covering mortuary analysis, the archaeology of foraging and agricultural societies, cultural evolution, and archaeological method and theory, which transcend the processual/postprocessual debate in archaeology and provide examples of how archaeologists think about, and go about, studying the past. As archaeology encounters the 21st century, debate over the nature of the discipline dominates professional discourse. Archaeologists are embattled over isms: processualism, postprocessualism, scientism, and humanism are ubiquitous buzzwords in the literature. Yet (...) archaeology is a craft practiced by individuals, learned from and influenced by other individuals. Sometimes a peson, through sheer force of intellectual spirit, rises above the debate to make a mark on the field in ways that cross out schools, paradigms, and factions. It is fitting to look back at the influence one such individual has had on archaeological methods, theory, data collection, and syntheses over the last half century. This volume draws on the experience of students and colleagues who worked with and were strongly influenced by James A. Brown's approach to the past. The volume is divided into five categories, each reflecting one distinctive facet of Brown's affect on archaeology: mortuary analysis, foraging and horticultural societies, complex agriculturalists, proto-historic and historic societies, and method and theory. These diverse categories, with articles by archaeologists of many backgrounds, are drawn together by the threads of Brown's intellectual legacy. Not all authors here are in agreement with Brown's views on their subjects, but all acknolwedge that his work in the area sets a standard that needs to be met if one is to succeed. (shrink)

This textbook for postgraduate students learning mathematical methods in economics provides a comprehensive account of mathematics required to analyse and solve problems of choice encountered by economists. It looks at a wide variety of decision-making problems, both static and dynamic, in various contexts and provides mathematical foundations for the relevant economic theory.

Bringing a fresh contemporary Freudian view to a number of current issues in psychoanalysis, this book is about a psychoanalytic method that has been evolved by _Fred Busch_ over the past 40 years called _Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind_. It is based on the essential curative process basic to most psychoanalytic theories - the need for a shift in the patient's relationship with their own mind. _Busch_ shows that with the development of a psychoanalytic mind the patient can acquire the (...) capacity to shift the inevitability of action to the possibility of reflection. _Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind _is derived from an increasing clarification of how the mind works that has led to certain paradigm changes in the psychoanalytic method. While the methods of understanding the human condition have evolved since Freud, the means of _bringing this understanding to patients in a way that is meaningful_ have not always followed. Throughout, _Fred_ _Busch_ illustrates that while the analyst's expertise is crucial to the process, the analyst's stance, rather than mainly being an expert in the content of the patient's mind, is primarily one of helping the patient to find his own mind. _Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind _will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists interested in learning a theory and technique where psychoanalytic meaning and meaningfulness are integrated. It will enable professionals to work differently and more successfully with their patients. (shrink)

This title presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today.

The volume presents phenomena of classification and categorisation in ancient and modern cultures and provides an overview of how cultural practices and cognitive systems interact when individuals or larger groups conceptually organize their world. Scientists of antiquity studies, anthropologists, linguists etc. will find methods to reconstruct early concepts of men and nature from a synchronic and diachronic comparative perspective.

The problems of referential opacity in psychological contexts require a solution, of which three types are indicated, that contains a profound theory of predication, identity, and individuation. a radical theory, not in the spirit of the current fashions, is outlined. it is called the guise-consubstantiation, conflation, and consociation theory. this theory was first expounded in "thinking and the structure of the world," "philosophia" (1974) and "critica" (1972). the present paper is an introduction to this essay, motivated (...) by two criticisms of romane clark in "not every object of thought has being," "nous" (1978). it is shown that clark's arguments rest on equivocations, one involving the data and the theory, and the other within the theory itself. thus, a discussion of philosophical method turns out to be crucial, and an analysis of expression 'true of' is offered. (shrink)

Chow's endorsement of a limited role for null hypothesis significance testing is a needed corrective of research malpractice, but his decision to place this procedure in a hypothetico-deductive framework of Popperian cast is unwise. Various failures of this version of the hypothetico-deductive method have negative implications for Chow's treatment of significance testing, meta-analysis, and theory evaluation.

Business Ethics: Theories, Methods, and Applications provides a new systematic approach to normative business ethics that covers the complex and various ethical challenges of modern business. It aims to train analytical thinking skills in the field of business ethics and to approach ethical issues in business in a rational and systematic way. The book develops a number of specific methods for business ethics analysis that are tailored for ethical decision-making in business and for analysing complex ethical topics in business. The (...) book discusses fundamental ethical questions regarding the meaning of business and the economy for the individual person, society, the environment, and people around the world. As a result, Business Ethics: Theories, Methods, and Applications develops normative guidelines for business in the 21st century and its fundamental challenges and will be key reading for undergraduate, postgraduate, and MBA students of business ethics, business strategy, business and society, and related fields. This second edition is fully updated to recognize the changing nature of ethics and corporate responsibility in a globalized world and include online support material. (shrink)

More than half of the book is devoted to what is almost a catalogue exposition of Western moral philosophy from Kant to Nowell-Smith. Although the author claims in the preface to have included "suitable references to Indian points of view, including the Buddhist," what references there are are usually too general, and never fully explained to be of any use to Western readers. Exposition tends to be disjointed, and the English leaves much to be desired. On the whole there is (...) much eclecticism and little originality.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

Apologies. The purpose of the following talk is to give an overview of the present state of aims, methods and results in Pure Proof Theory. Shortage of time forces me to concentrate on my very personal views. This entails that I will emphasize the work which I know best, i.e., work that has been done in the triangle Stanford, Munich and Münster. I am of course well aware that there are as important results coming from outside this triangle and (...) I apologize for not displaying these results as well.Moreover the audience should be aware that in some points I have to oversimplify matters. Those who complain about that are invited to consult the original papers.1.1. General. Proof theory startedwithHilbert's Programme which aimed at a finitistic consistency proof for mathematics.By Gödel's Theorems, however, we know that we can neither formalize all mathematics nor even prove the consistency of formalized fragments by finitistic means. Inspite of this fact I want to give some reasons why I consider proof theory in the style of Gentzen's work still as an important and exciting field of Mathematical Logic. I will not go into applications of Gentzen's cut-elimination technique to computer science problems—this may be considered as applied proof theory—but want to concentrate on metamathematical problems and results. In this sense I am talking about Pure Proof Theory.Mathematicians are interested in structures. There is only one way to find the theorems of a structure. Start with an axiom system for the structure and deduce the theorems logically. These axiom systems are the objects of proof-theoretical research. Studying axiom systems there is a series of more or less obvious questions. (shrink)

In the recent past, attempts to revitalize historico-religious studies have challenged the charismatic appeal of some of the most celebrated scholars of the twentieth century. At the same time, the old and ideological frameworks that characterized the field have been critically analyzed and deconstructed. The disciplinary status quo, taken for granted for quite a long time, has been shaken to its foundation, paving the way for new approaches. However, the postmodern tenet of problematizing any authority has also become a convenient (...) shortcut to blur the distinction between scientific signal and nonepistemic noise. Despite this troublesome feature, some scholars have deployed postmodern and poststructuralist tools to study the genealogy, reception, implementation, and diffusion of cultural representations within the aforementioned academic discipline. The present article briefly reviews one of the most recent and remarkable examples of such scholarship, that is, The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Change, 1800–2000. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises because of the standard method for (...) assessing the truth of certain counterfactuals. The truth of deterministic laws is `modally fragile' on the standard semantics for counterfactuals: if determinism is true and you were to do otherwise, the laws would be different. We provide two ways of avoiding this problem: 1) supplement the standard semantics for counterfactuals with impossible worlds, or 2) introduce rigid designators into the description of problematic decision situations. We argue that both of these approaches are well-motivated and can be readily incorporated into Lewisian Causal Decision Theory. (shrink)

Both individually and as a collection, these essays will promote understanding and provoke further debate amongst students and established scholars alike.

The “DNA is a program” metaphor is still widely used in Molecular Biology and its popularization. There are good historical reasons for the use of such a metaphor or theoretical model. Yet we argue that both the metaphor and the model are essentially inadequate also from the point of view of Physics and Computer Science. Relevant work has already been done, in Biology, criticizing the programming paradigm. We will refer to empirical evidence and theoretical writings in Biology, although our arguments (...) will be mostly based on a comparison with the use of differential methods (in Molecular Biology: a mutation or alike is observed or induced and its phenotypic consequences are observed) as applied in Computer Science and in Physics, where this fundamental tool for empirical investigation originated and acquired a well-justified status. In particular, as we will argue, the programming paradigm is not theoretically sound as a causal(as in Physics) or deductive(as in Programming) framework for relating the genome to the phenotype, in contrast to the physicalist and computational grounds that this paradigm claims to propose. (shrink)

This book presents emerging work in the co-evolving fields of design-led systemics, referred to as systemic design to distinguish it from the engineering and hard science epistemologies of system design or systems engineering. There are significant societal forces and organizational demands impelling the requirement for “better means of change” through integrated design practices of systems and services. Here we call on advanced design to lead programs of strategic scale and higher complexity while adapting systems thinking methods, creatively pushing the boundaries (...) beyond the popular modes of systems dynamics and soft systems. Systemic design is distinguished by its scale, social complexity and integration – it is concerned with higher-order systems that that entail multiple subsystems. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centred design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems. As designers engage with ever more complex problem areas, it is necessary to draw on a basis other than individual creativity and contemporary “design thinking” methods. Systems theories can co-evolve with a new school of design theory to resolve informed action on today’s highly resilient complex problems and can deal effectively with demanding, contested and high-stakes challenges. (shrink)