A citation index is a bibliographic database that provides citation links between documents. The first modern citation index was suggested by the researcher Eugene Garfield in 1955 and created by him in 1964, and it represents an important innovation to knowledge organization and information retrieval. This article describes citation indexes in general, considering the modern citation indexes, including Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Crossref, Dimensions and some special citation indexes and predecessors to the modern citation index like (...) Shepard’s Citations. We present comparative studies of the major ones and survey theoretical problems related to the role of citation indexes as subject access points (SAP), recognizing the implications to knowledge organization and information retrieval. Finally, studies on citation behavior are presented and the influence of citation indexes on knowledge organization, information retrieval and the scientific information ecosystem is recognized. (shrink)

Introduction -- Repression, ignorance, and undone science -- The epistemic dimension of the political opportunity structure -- The politics of meaning: from frames to design conflicts -- The organizational forms of counterpublic knowledge -- Institutional change, industrial transitions, and regime resistance politics -- Contemporary change: liberalization and epistemic modernization -- Conclusion.

Nurse philosopher Sally Gadow (1999) has proposed the relational narrative between patient and nurse as a ‘postmodern turn’ for nursing ethics. She has conceptualized this moral approach as the construction by patient and nurse of a coauthored narrative describing the good they are seeking, as well as the means to achieve this good. The purpose of this article is to provide an elaboration of Gadow's seminal conceptualization of relational narrative based on her writings and those of other philosophers. The article (...) will further develop relational narrative's foundations in relationship and narrative and will explore engagement as a dimension essential to its creation and growth. The elaboration first builds on the notion of relationship as foundational to this postmodern moral perspective. Narrative then is advanced as being at the heart of the patient–nurse relationship and their relational narrative, based on an exploration of narrative's role in the moral realm as an epistemology for patient and nurse. Finally, the dialogic and embodied engagement expressed by a relational narrative is developed as a critical element of the ethic. (shrink)

In this book, Michael Arbib, a researcher in artificial intelligence and brain theory, joins forces with Mary Hesse, a philosopher of science, to present an integrated account of how humans 'construct' reality through interaction with the social and physical world around them. The book is a major expansion of the Gifford Lectures delivered by the authors at the University of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1983. The authors reconcile a theory of the individual's construction of reality as a network of (...) schemas 'in the head' with an account of the social construction of language, science, ideology and religion to provide an integrated schema-theoretic view of human knowledge. The authors still find scope for lively debate, particularly in their discussion of free will and of the reality of God. The book integrates an accessible exposition of background information with a cumulative marshalling of evidence to address fundamental questions concerning human action in the world and the nature of ultimate reality. (shrink)

This article is the first in a trilogy about the concept “science”. Section 1 considers the historical development of the meaning of the term science and shows its close relation to the terms “knowl­edge” and “philosophy”. Section 2 presents four historic phases in the basic conceptualizations of science science as representing absolute certain of knowl­edge based on deductive proof; science as representing absolute certain of knowl­edge based on “the scientific method”; science as representing fallible knowl­edge based on “the scientific method”; (...) science without a belief in “the scientific method” as constitutive, hence the question about the nature of science becomes dramatic. Section 3 presents four basic understandings of the scientific method: Rationalism, which gives priority to a priori thinking; empiricism, which gives priority to the collection, description, and processing of data in a neutral way; historicism, which gives priority to the interpretation of data in the light of “paradigm” and pragmatism, which emphasizes the analysis of the purposes, consequences, and the interests of knowl­edge. The second article in the trilogy focus on different fields studying science, while the final article presets further developments in the concept of science and the general conclusion. Overall, the trilogy illuminates the most important tensions in different conceptualizations of science and argues for the role of information science and knowl­edge organization in the study of science and suggests how “science” should be understood as an object of research in these fields. (shrink)

Advancements in science and technology have not only brought hope to humankind to produce disease-free offspring, but also offer possibilities to genetically enhance the next generation’s traits and capacities. Human genetic enhancement, however, raises complex ethical questions, such as to what extent should it be allowed? It has been a great challenge for humankind to develop robust ethical guidelines for human genetic enhancement that address both public concerns and needs. We believe that research about public concerns is necessary prior to (...) developing such guidelines, yet the issues have not been thoroughly investigated in many countries, including Malaysia. Since the novel often functions as a medium for the public to express their concerns, this paper explores ethical concerns about human genetic enhancement expressed in four Malay science fiction novels namely Klon, Leksikon Ledang, Transgenesis Bisikan Rimba and Transgenik Sifar. Religion has a strong influence on the worldview of the Malays therefore some concerns such as playing God are obviously religious. Association of the negative image of scientists as well as the private research companies with the research on human genetic enhancement reflects the authors’ concerns about the main motivations for conducting such research and the extent to which such research will benefit society. (shrink)

Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents themselves qualify as agents, with their own beliefs, desires, and intentions; even, some claim, as moral agents. However, others have independently argued that fully-fledged moral agency involves a capacity for reactive attitudes such as guilt and indignation, and these capacities might seem beyond the ken of “collective” or “ corporate ” agents. Individuals embodying such agents can of course be ashamed, proud, or indignant about what (...) the agent has done. But just as an entity needs to have its own beliefs, desires, and intentions to qualify as a bona fide agent, the required capacity for reactive attitudes is a capacity to have one’s own reactive attitudes. If fully-fledged moral agency requires reactive attitudes, the corporate agent must itself be capable of guilt and indignation. In this paper, we argue that at least certain corporate agents are. Or, more precisely, we argue that if there are bona fide corporate agents, these agents can have the capacities that are both associated with guilt and indignation and plausibly required for moral agency; in particular certain epistemic and motivational capacities. (shrink)

There have been several calls from LIS researchers for practical or applied research not to ignore the epistemological assumptions underlying the systems and artifacts they design lest they showcase only the dominant theory at a given time. Others have also deplored the "epistemological promiscuity" or "eclecticism" of the field, its incessant borrowing of theories and models from elsewhere and the fact that the field has largely neglected the contributions that philosophy and epistemology could have made in its research. This problem (...) raises that of the boundaries of LIS and is all the more troublesome because boundaries between epistemological theories are fuzzy. Indeed, some epistemological theories share the same basic assumptions or are historically derived from one another. Gathering a wide array of acknowledged theorists in philosophy of science and epistemology, this panel aims to examine how research work in the LIS field can clearly articulate the epistemological assumptions underlying that research and under what constraints this can be achieved. The topic is of prime importance to Information studies as a whole and to ASIST as the scientific flag bearer of information scientists worldwide. (shrink)

Contemporary scholarship interprets Sergej Bulgakov’s sophiology as an engagement of Orthodox theology with the modern world and as being on its way to becoming a political theology. In this paper I undertake a re-evaluation of the kind of engagement sophiology was and was intended to be, and of the kind of world it was destined for. It will be argued that sophiology was not so much a political-theological engagement with the world concentrating on the relation of religion and politics or (...) state and church, but rather an economic-theological engagement in the tradition of oikonomia theology that tried to understand the world in its relation to and as part of divine oikonomia. Furthermore, the world sophiology promotes engagement with is not only the real contemporary world, or the sociological ideal type of modernity, but primarily the world as such, this secular and human world over and against the divine and transcendent world. (shrink)