The size and variation in both meaning-making and populations that characterize much contemporary text data demand research processes that support both discovery, interpretation and measurement. We assess one dominant strategy within the social sciences that takes a computer-led approach to text analysis. The approach is coined computational grounded theory. This strategy, we argue, relies on a set of unwarranted assumptions, namely, that unsupervised models return natural clusters of meaning, that the researcher can understand text with limited immersion and that indirect (...) validation is sufficient for ensuring unbiased and precise measurement. In response to this criticism, we develop a framework that is computer assisted. We argue that our reformulation of computational grounded theory better aligns with the principles within grounded theory, anthropological theory generation and ethnography. (shrink)

The era of ‘big data’ studies and computational social science has recently given rise to a number of realignments within and beyond the social sciences, where otherwise distinct data formats – digital, numerical, ethnographic, visual, etc. – rub off and emerge from one another in new ways. This article chronicles the collaboration between a team of anthropologists and sociologists, who worked together for one week in an experimental attempt to combine ‘big’ transactional and ‘small’ ethnographic data formats. Our collaboration is (...) part of a larger cross-disciplinary project carried out at the Danish Technical University, where high-resolution transactional data from smartphones allows for recordings of social networks amongst a freshman class. With a parallel deployment of ethnographic fieldwork among the DTU students, this research set-up raises a number of questions concerning how to assemble disparate ‘data-worlds’ and to what epistemological and political effects? To address these questions, a specific social event – a lively student party – was singled out from the broader DTU dataset. Our experimental collaboration used recordings of Bluetooth signals between students’ phones to visualize the ebb and flow of social intensities at the DTU party, juxtaposing these with ethnographic field-notes on shifting party atmospheres. Tracing and reflecting on the process of combining heterogeneous data, the article offers a concrete case of how a ‘stitching together’ of digital and ethnographic data-worlds might take place. (shrink)

El texto es una traducción de la conferencia que Hannah Arendt dió en la Rand School of Social Science en 1962. Retoman importancia sus palabras en torno al argumento del analísis filosófico de la técnica y especialmente frente a producciones cinematográficas como Oppenheimer y nuevas tecnologías como la inteligencia artificial y los drones usados en la invasión a Ucrania.

Many democracies use geographic constituencies to elect some or all of their legislators. Furthermore, many people regard this as desirable in a noncomparative sense, thinking that local constituencies are not necessarily superior to other schemes but are nevertheless attractive when considered on their own merits. Yet, this position of noncomparative constituency localism is now under philosophical pressure as local constituencies have recently attracted severe criticism. This article examines how damaging this recent criticism is, and argues that within limits, noncomparative constituency (...) localism remains philosophically tenable despite the criticisms. The article shows that noncomparative constituency localism is compelling in the first place because geographic constituencies foster partisan voter mobilisation, and practices of constituency service help to sustain deliberation among constituents and within the legislature and promote the realisation of equal opportunity for political influence. The article further argues that it is unwarranted to criticise geographic constituencies for being biased against geographically dispersed voter groups, for causing vote-seat disproportionality, and for being vulnerable to gerrymandering. The article also discusses the criticisms that local constituencies may pose risks of inefficiency and injustice in resource allocation decisions, may lead legislators to neglect the common good, and may limit citizens’ control over the political agenda. Whilst conceding that these objections may be valid, the article argues that they do not outweigh the diverse and normatively weighty considerations speaking in favour of noncomparative constituency localism. Finally, the article’s analysis is defended against several variants of the charge that it exaggerates the benefits of geographic constituencies. (shrink)

This article discusses the epitaphs with epithets from two burial grounds at Carthage excavated by Alfred-Louis Delattre in the last decades of the 19 th century. He found more than 900 Latin inscriptions that can be dated between the late first century and the early third century CE. Most of those buried at the so-called ‘cimetières des _ officiales _ ’ were imperial slaves and freedmen together with their relatives and include almost 1300 individuals. Epithets occur just in about sixty (...) epitaphs or about 6 % of the inscriptions from the imperial burial grounds at Carthage. The inscriptions are mostly short with certain conventions. The employment of epithets characterized the moral qualities of the commemorated seen from the commemorator’s point of view and is an expression of feelings, emotions and grief. The epitaphs from Carthage come from a well-defined context within a well-defined group, which may share the same feelings and be called an emotional community. The analysis of the most common epithets demonstrates remarkable differences between their use at Carthage and in the funerary inscriptions found in Rome. (shrink)

Philosophy and anaesthesiology are disciplines that are rarely associated despite their respective interests in human consciousness. In this paper, we consider the advantages of integrating anaesthesiology and philosophy in the endeavour of discovering the neural correlates of state consciousness. We venture the following twopart argument. First, we argue that philosophical debates about the correlation conditions for state consciousness can be improved by focusing on how anaesthesiologists actually measure and study consciousness in practice. We present Integrated Information Theory as a promising (...) framework for discriminating features hitherto considered relevant to the identification of the neural correlates of state consciousness. Second, we argue that an improved philosophical understanding of what comprises the correlation conditions for state consciousness can, in turn, advance anaesthesiological methodologies; not only can it improve how potential evidence is gathered and assessed, but it can aid in the prevention of intraoperative awareness, increasing patient safety and well-being. (shrink)

The social brain hypothesis implies that humans and other primates evolved “modules“ for representing social knowledge. Alternatively, no such cognitive specializations are needed because social knowledge is already present in the world — we can simply monitor the dynamics of social interactions. Given the latter idea, what mechanism could account for coalition formation? We propose that statistical learning can provide a mechanism for fast and implicit learning of social signals. Using human participants, we compared learning of social signals with arbitrary (...) signals. We found that learning of social signals was no better than learning of arbitrary signals. While coupling faces and voices led to parallel learning, the same was true for arbitrary shapes and sounds. However, coupling versus uncoupling social signals with arbitrary signals revealed that faces and voices are treated with perceptual priority. Overall, our data suggest that statistical learning is a viable domain-general mechanism for learning social group structure. Keywords: social brain; embodied cognition; distributed cognition; situated cognition; multisensory; audiovisual speech; crossmodal; multimodal. (shrink)

The social brain hypothesis implies that humans and other primates evolved “modules” for representing social knowledge. Alternatively, no such cognitive specializations are needed because social knowledge is already present in the world — we can simply monitor the dynamics of social interactions. Given the latter idea, what mechanism could account for coalition formation? We propose that statistical learning can provide a mechanism for fast and implicit learning of social signals. Using human participants, we compared learning of social signals with arbitrary (...) signals. We found that learning of social signals was no better than learning of arbitrary signals. While coupling faces and voices led to parallel learning, the same was true for arbitrary shapes and sounds. However, coupling versus uncoupling social signals with arbitrary signals revealed that faces and voices are treated with perceptual priority. Overall, our data suggest that statistical learning is a viable domain-general mechanism for learning social group structure. Keywords: social brain; embodied cognition; distributed cognition; situated cognition; multisensory; audiovisual speech; crossmodal; multimodal. (shrink)

J. W. Goethe is well known as one of the world's greatest poets. Some are also aware that throughout his long and active life Goethe devoted much of his time to natural science. His theory of colour and studies in the morphology of plants are acknowledged contributions in their fields. What is much less known is that in his scientific work Goethe was attempting to elaborate and justify a new basic methodology for the natural sciences. He opposed and wished to (...) refute the one-sided quantitative-mechanistic method which had been dominant since Galileo and Newton (and in principle still prevails today) and to set up against it a qualitative method. An essential characteristic of this qualitative method, according to Goethe, is that it is immune to a Humean reduction of the status of 'natural laws' to mere hypotheses. This claim makes Goethe's view directly relevant for current discussion of such questions as the status of scientific 'laws' and the correct method of theory construction. The present essay tries to show the fruitfulness of Goethe's view for such discussions, partly by means of an exposition of the view — drawn from various works — and partly by drawing consequences from it which bring it into direct contact with contemporary discussions in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Tracing increasing distrust of politicians and democratic institutions back to the negative idea of political power and freedom as always being a 'power over' and 'freedom from', this text examines Foucault's alternative conception of the politician as one who has the courage to tell people the truth about what has to be done in the face of the dangers they confront. Telling the truth is not sufficient, but must be complemented with empowering people to actively help in overcoming the dangers (...) themselves. Breaking with conceptions of politics as hierarchy and anarchy, Foucault contended that where there is obedience, there cannot be truth and genuine freedom. This book offers a redefinition of power and freedom within a circular logic of true authority and self-governance. It argues that democracy cannot survive without being innovated along these lines, and considers what can be done to reconnect politicians and laypeople in order to rebuild their mutual trust in each other's political capacities. (shrink)

- om Peter Sloterdijks reaktualisering af den muntre videnskab.

In a range of contexts, individuals arrive at collective decisions by sharing confidence in their judgements. This tendency to evaluate the reliability of information by the confidence with which it is expressed has been termed the ‘confidence heuristic’. We tested two ways of implementing the confidence heuristic in the context of a collective perceptual decision-making task: either directly, by opting for the judgement made with higher confidence, or indirectly, by opting for the faster judgement, exploiting an inverse correlation between confidence (...) and reaction time. We found that the success of these heuristics depends on how similar individuals are in terms of the reliability of their judgements and, more importantly, that for dissimilar individuals such heuristics are dramatically inferior to interaction. Interaction allows individuals to alleviate, but not fully resolve, differences in the reliability of their judgements. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of confidence and collective decision-making. (shrink)

For much of their history, the relationship between anthropology and psychology has been well captured by Robert Frost's poem, “Mending Wall,” which ends with the ironic line, “good fences make good neighbors.” The congenial fence was that anthropology studied what people think and psychology studied how people think. Recent research, however, shows that content and process cannot be neatly segregated, because cultural differences in what people think affect how people think. To achieve a deeper understanding of the relation between process (...) and content, research must integrate the methodological insights from both anthropology and psychology. We review previous research and describe new studies in the domain of folk biology which examine the cognitive consequences of different conceptualizations of nature and the place of humans within it. The focus is on cultural differences in framework theories among Native Americans and European American children and adults living in close proximity in rural Wisconsin. Our results show that epistemological orientations affect memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceived role of humans in nature. This research also demonstrates that cultural differences in framework theories have implications for understanding intergroup conflict over natural resources and are relevant to efforts to improve science learning, especially among Native American children. (shrink)

Electoral representation is a cornerstone of contemporary democracy. Democracy today is widely interpreted to mean that the people governs itself through electing officials of government. But while...

How and why could some stories be construed as sacred in organizations, and what functions does the sacred have in organizational values work? Research has shown how values can be made formative of a range of organizational purposes and forms but has underscored their performative, situated, and agentic nature. We address that void by studying the sacred as a potentially salient yet under-researched realm of values work. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a faith-based health care organization and the (...) ethical philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, we describe how the sacred is figured in two sets of tales that were lived and told with surprising intensity and consistency: the parable of the Good Samaritan and the tale of the legacy bestowed by the organization’s founder. We theorize how this figuring of the sacred in story and in action recasts values work from a centralized and unitary process to a two-way learning dialectic between the ongoing creative imitation of action and narrative. Values in the shape of stories of the sacred do not achieve their meaning as unchangeable cores or sanctioned beliefs. Rather, they come to life in a process of ongoing moral inquiry that co-evolves with moral agencies. In the latter regard, the sacred primarily becomes manifest in everyday work in the form of questioning and creative acts of care. People become moral agents when they feel and respond to the sacred in the call of the other. (shrink)

Early modern medicine was much more dependent on the senses than its contemporary counterpart. Although a comprehensive medical theory existed that assigned great value to taste and odor of medicaments, historical descriptions of taste and odor appears imprecise and inconsistent to modern eyes. How did historical actors move from subjective experience of taste and odor to culturally stable agreements that facilitated communication about the sensory properties of medicaments? This paper addresses this question, not by investigating texts, but by going straight (...) to the sensory impression, which certain substances convey. The aim is not to overwrite or rectify historical descriptions but to investigate whether modern methodologies for sensory assessment can be enlisted to understand the past. We draw on history of science for framing and research questions, pharmaceutical science for knowledge of pharmaceuticals and preparations, and food and meal science for assaying procedures and protocols. We show that sensory evaluation can yield precise descriptions that would not have been alien to early modern medicine makers. However, there are problems with translating descriptions of taste between different historical contexts. By comparing contemporary descriptions of sensations with eighteenth‐century ones, the article discusses how sensory descriptions are highly dependent on context, and subject to historical change. (shrink)

Die operationale Definitionsweise; Umsetzung nominell beschriebener Typenbegriffe in operational beschriebene und die Transformation von Typologien in Systeme von Faktoren.

The relationship between workaholism and work performance is explored by meta-analysis in this article. After searching relevant references, we had gained 94 individual effect sizes, 45 individual samples, and 37 references. Through the heterogeneity test, it was shown that the random effect model is more suitable. The main effect analysis showed that there is a significant positive correlation between workaholism, working excessively, working compulsively, and work performance, and further analysis showed that workaholism emphasizes the improvement of contextual performance. The subgroup (...) test showed that the relationship between workaholism, working excessively, working compulsively, and work performance is influenced by the measurement tools of workaholism, but not influenced by the cultural background differences and time-lag research. The above results show that workaholism and its dimensions have different influences on different aspects of work performance. Besides, it is worthy to consider the moderating function of the measurement tools of workaholism in the relationship between workaholism and work performance. (shrink)