Writing under the pseudonym "Jotabeche," José Joaquín Vallejo wrote forty-one short articles on Chilean life and society in the early republic. Known for their caustic wit, his writings were an instant success when they were first published in Chilean magazines and newspapers. This volume presents these vivid essays for the first time in English. Vallejo made famous the style of writing termed "costumbrista"—sketches and vignettes of society and local customs. He focused on the Norte Chico, or the mining zone of (...) Copiapó where he was born and where he lived most of his later life. His essays include vivid studies of mineworkers; the advancement of modernity in the steamships at Caldera; the religious, intensely cultural province of Copiapó; and the general atmosphere of liberalism beginning to pervade the country of Chile during that time. Considered the founder of his country's "genuinely national literature," he is the first creative writer of stature to emerge in Chile after the country's wars of independence. A provincial northerner, his writings give a sense of what these parts of Chile looked and felt like during the years of the early Chilean republic, and are consequently of ultimate value. (shrink)

Integrating concepts of maintenance and of origins is essential to explaining biological diversity. The unified theory of evolution attempts to find a common theme linking production rules inherent in biological systems, explaining the origin of biological order as a manifestation of the flow of energy and the flow of information on various spatial and temporal scales, with the recognition that natural selection is an evolutionarily relevant process. Biological systems persist in space and time by transfor ming energy from one state (...) to another in a manner that generates structures which allows the system to continue to persist. Two classes of energetic transformations allow this; heat-generating transformations, resulting in a net loss of energy from the system, and conservative transformations, changing unusable energy into states that can be stored and used subsequently. All conservative transformations in biological systems are coupled with heat-generating transformations; hence, inherent biological production, or genealogical proesses, is positively entropic. There is a self-organizing phenomenology common to genealogical phenomena, which imparts an arrow of time to biological systems. Natural selection, which by itself is time-reversible, contributes to the organization of the self-organized genealogical trajectories. The interplay of genealogical (diversity-promoting) and selective (diversity-limiting) processes produces biological order to which the primary contribution is genealogical history. Dynamic changes occuring on times scales shorter than speciation rates are microevolutionary; those occuring on time scales longer than speciation rates are macroevolutionary. Macroevolutionary processes are neither redicible to, nor autonomous from, microevolutionary processes. (shrink)

Offers a vital, unique and agenda-setting perspective for the field of social epistemology – the philosophical basis for prescribing the social means and ends for pursuing knowledge.

This edited collection charts the development of, and prospects for, conceiving knowledge as a social phenomenon. The origin, aims and growth of the journal Social Epistemology , founded in 1987, serves to anchor each of the book’s contributions. Each contribution offers a unique, but related, insight on current issues affecting the organization and production of knowledge. In addition, each contribution proposes necessary questions, practices and frameworks relevant to the rapidly changing landscape of our conceptions of knowledge. The book examines the (...) commercialization of science, the neoliberal university, the status and conduct of philosophy, the cultures of computer software and social networking, the practical, political and anthropological applications of social epistemology, and how we come to define what human beings are and what activities human beings can, and should, sustain. A diverse group of noted, international scholars lends necessary, original and challenging perspectives on our collective approach to knowledge. This book was originally published as a special issue of Social Epistemology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Social Epistemologists at the Crossroads:Authorizing Agents of ChangeJames H. CollierIn this issue of Philosophy and Rhetoric, Thomas Basbøll and Christine Isager and Sine Just provide a vital, constructive forum for discussing the first and second editions of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge (PREK) and Steve Fuller's broader project of social epistemology. More specifically, both Basbøll's review and Isager and Just's suggest innovative proposals for applying and assessing (...) PREK's ideas and influence. In response, I analyze and counter Basbøll's and Isager and Just's conceptions of how agency is configured, and how criticism is authorized, at the level of textuality. I end by calling for deliberations to sort out what we, as social epistemologists and critical intellectuals, know and what we want to do about it.A Job for Social EpistemologistsIf the reader of PREK wants to "be" a social epistemologist, or "do" social epistemology, what would the job and its duties entail? Thomas Basbøll offers a job description for the social epistemologist as a "postmodern grammarian"—one "who corrects academic texts to suit them for strange times." This description strikes the dissonant chord of being at once pragmatic and abstract. On the one hand, correcting academic texts is a specific task reminiscent of the duties of writing instructors or editors. On the other hand, the specificity of the labor stands in juxtaposition to the surreal working conditions—the "strange times." And in the end, "postmodern grammarian" is hardly a position for which one could apply. Yet the specificity and dissonance in Basbøll's description reveals the difficulty and ambiguity of what Fuller asks the reader to do in PREK. Basbøll gets at this problem by [End Page 269] shifting the subject position of the social epistemologist to the postmodern grammarian. This move is necessary to bring social epistemology down from "the highest level" and make it task oriented. Interestingly, the job that Basbøll describes offers a return to textuality and, I would argue, critical intellectualism. Yet these positions appear somewhat removed from the role of the rhetorician as portrayed in PREK.In proposing a specific job for the social epistemologist, Basbøll develops a microlevel application of Fuller's macrolevel vision. Basbøll's task is not easy: "One of the greatest difficulties encountered in reading PREK is its willingness to make a great many philosophical commitments for openly rhetorical purposes. Not the least of these is the concept of knowledge that a research program and policy platform that calls itself 'social epistemology' is obviously dutybound to provide." The willingness of social epistemologists to occupy many philosophical positions also obscures what labor and service commitments they might make. Moreover, since PREK's initial publication (1993) Fuller has continued to multiply social epistemologists' roles regarding scientific conduct (Science, 1997; The Governance of Science, 2000a; Knowledge Management Foundations, 2002). Further, these commitments shift as Fuller has continued to reinterpret the historical record and to recast philosophical debates (Thomas Kuhn, 2000b; Kuhn vs. Popper, 2003). The ability to both destabilize and maintain such a fluid intellectual environment is something only Fuller, or the postmodern grammarian, could—or would want to—accomplish. More on that idea in a moment.Despite the moving target, defining the subject position of the social epistemologist has been a parallel conversation accompanying much of Fuller's work. I proposed the less "stylish" idea of the social epistemologist as technical communicator in PREK's first edition and in Scientific and Technical Communication (1997). Contemplating the social epistemologist's position as rhetorician, or vice versa, has been taken on by Keith (1995; 1996), Zagacki (1995), and Campbell and Benson (1996) (as summarized by Isager and Just). In contrast to these previous configurations, Basbøll situates the labor of the social epistemologist on the level of reading and writing. As he puts it:And it is precisely because the social epistemologist assists the writer of academic texts in the difficult task of connecting utterances to particular conditions (under which they are read) that social epistemology becomes a critical force. It is not by reconfiguring the knowledge-producing practices themselves [End Page 270] that this... (shrink)

This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

Social Epistemology, Volume 25, Issue 2, Page 123-124, April 2011.

In his book Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, Henry Giroux bemoans, “[H]igher education increasingly stands alone, even in its attenuated state, as a public arena where ideas can be debated, critical knowledge produced, and learning linked to important social issues.”1 Colleges of education, like public schools themselves, have become more fragmented and compartmentalized in recent years. Persistent at universities is “the view that students are basically consumers and faculty providers of a saleable commodity such as a credential or a set (...) of workplace skills.”2 Professors and teachers alike feel the impact of neoliberal policies aimed at efficiency and productivity, which further alienate and emphasize data... (shrink)

Questions of Miracle will be a valuable reference book and teaching tool for scholars and students of theology, religious studies, and philosophy. Contents The Logic of Probabilities in Hume's Argument against Miracles - Fred Wilson David Hume and the Miraculous - Robert Larmer Miracles and the Laws of Nature - Robert Larmer Against Miracles - John Collier Against "Against Miracles" - Robert Larmer Miracles and Conservation Laws - Neil MacGill Miracles and Conservation Laws: A Reply to Professor MacGill - (...) Robert Larmer Miracles and Criteria - Robert Larmer Miracles and Natural Explanations - David Basinger Miracles and Natural Explanations: A Rejoinder - Robert Larmer Miracles as Evidence for Theism: A Surrejoinder - David Basinger Miracles, Evidence, and Theism: A Further Apologia - Robert Larmer Authenticating Biblical Reports of Miracles - Phillip Wiebe Miracles and Testimony: A Reply to Wiebe - Robert Larmer Miracles as Evidence against the Existence of God - Christine Overall Miracles and the Existence of God: A Reply - Robert Larmer. (shrink)

Byzantine Empire; economic and social conditions; history.

The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences provides a remarkable comparative assessment of the variations of positivism and alternative epistemologies in the contemporary human sciences. Often declared obsolete, positivism is alive and well in a number of the fields; in others, its influence is significantly diminished. The essays in this collection investigate its mutations in form and degree across the social science disciplines. Looking at methodological assumptions field by field, individual essays address anthropology, area studies, economics, history, the philosophy (...) of science, political science and political theory, and sociology. Essayists trace disciplinary developments through the long twentieth century, focusing on the decades since World War II. Contributors explore and contrast some of the major alternatives to positivist epistemologies, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, narrative theory, and actor-network theory. Almost all the essays are written by well-known practitioners of the fields discussed. Some essayists approach positivism and anti-positivism via close readings of texts influential in their respective disciplines. Some engage in ethnographies of the present-day human sciences; others are more historical in method. All of them critique contemporary social scientific practice. Together, they trace a trajectory of thought and method running from the past through the present and pointing toward possible futures. Contributors. Andrew Abbott, Daniel Breslau, Michael Burawoy, Andrew Collier , Michael Dutton, Geoff Eley, Anthony Elliott, Stephen Engelmann, Sandra Harding, Emily Hauptmann, Webb Keane, Tony Lawson, Sophia Mihic, Philip Mirowski, Timothy Mitchell, William H. Sewell Jr., Margaret R. Somers, George Steinmetz, Elizabeth Wingrove. (shrink)

H G WellsHerbert George Wells, an English writer, was born on 21st 1866 and died on 13 Aug 1946. He was renowned for his works of science fiction especially 'The Time Machine'. He is also referred as 'The Father of Science Fiction'.

The dominant approach to environmental policy endorsed by conservative and libertarian policy thinkers, so-called “free market environmentalism”, is grounded in the recognition and protection of property rights in environmental resources. Despite this normative commitment to property rights, most self-described FME advocates adopt a utilitarian, welfare-maximization approach to climate change policy, arguing that the costs of mitigation measures could outweigh the costs of climate change itself. Yet even if anthropogenic climate change is decidedly less than catastrophic, human-induced climate change is likely (...) to contribute to environmental changes that violate traditional conceptions of property rights. Viewed globally, the actions of some countries—primarily industrialized nations—are likely to increase environmental harms suffered by other countries—less developed nations that have not made any significant contribution to climate change. It may well be that aggregate human welfare would be maximized in a warmer, wealthier world, or that the gains from climate change will offset environmental losses. Yet such claims, even if demonstrated, would not address the normative concern that the consequences of anthropogenic global warming would infringe upon the rights of people in less-developed nations. As a consequence, this paper calls for a rethinking of FME approaches to climate change policy. (shrink)

al-Qism al-awwal. Fī ḍawābiṭ al-fikr (manṭiq) --.