Belief revision as a problem of scientific epistemology

The fundamental question that must be answered by any theory of knowledge that claims to be adequate is the question of how it is possible to change our knowledge. The very fact of change undoubtedly takes place, and the problem is to theoretically explicate this fact. The methodological significance of this issue is due to the fact that changing knowledge means nothing more than its development, namely, the question of the ways and means of developing our knowledge is of central importance both for the logic and methodology of science, and for general epistemology. This work is of a review character, and aims to draw the reader’s attention to a new promising direction in the modern theory of knowledge called “belief revision”.

Application of Science Media for Science Communication in Postgraduate Course to Elicit Emancipation

This study reports on redesigning learning outcomes in terms of postgraduates’ communication skills through science media communication with the aim for interactive teaching and learning. Communication in science education entails the image of science known as scientific epistemology. Therefore, the inclusion for learning about the philosophy of science among postgraduate students must not be limited to understanding the descriptive tenet of the philosophy. The initial work for this study attempts to assess whether learning about the philosophy of science dictates reflexivity and emancipation. Previous studies have not reached a consensus on how the impact of transformation can be created and recreated for others. Therefore, this study focuses on leveraging science media communication to foster conformity between oneself and others. Analysis was performed on ten postgraduate students’ reports, writings, and portfolios obtained throughout the semesters. The analysis aims to critically discuss the proposed solution for the paradigm shift in teaching practice, with a specific focus on the course design outcomes. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), the analysis identified liminal phases due to bearer as a professional among the respondents that habitually liberated through the five stages of transformation designed for this course. The following four liminal phases were interpreted from the students’ reflexivity: identify negotiation, setup condition, a masking mechanism, and formation of oneself and others. Such points to the conclusion that placing students as the protagonist during the transformation process when learning the philosophy of science would expand their self-realization on the role of scientific epistemology in science education.

Literary Neurophysiology

Writing about neurophysiology more than a century ago, what were US authors doing? Literary Neurophysiology: Memory, Race, Sex, and Representation in U.S. Writing, 1860–1914 examines their use of literature to experiment with the new materialist psychology, which bore upon their efforts to represent reality and was forging new understandings of race and sexuality. Sometimes they emulated scientific epistemology, allowing their art and conceptions of creativity to be reshaped by it. Sometimes they imaginatively investigated neurophysiological theories, challenging and rewriting scientific explanations of human identity and behavior. By enfolding physiological experimentation into literary inquiries that could account for psychological and social complexities beyond the reach of the laboratory, they used literature as a cognitive medium. Mark Twain, W. D. Howells, and Gertrude Stein come together as they probe the effects on mimesis and creativity of reflex-based automatisms and unconscious meaning-making. Oliver Wendell Holmes explores conceptions of racial nerve force elaborated in population statistics and biopolitics, while W. E. B. Du Bois and Pauline Hopkins contest notions of racial energy used to predict the extinction of African Americans. Holmes explores new definitions of “sexual inversion” as, in divergent ways, Whitman and John Addington Symonds evaluate relations among nerve force, human fecundity, and the supposed grave of nonreproductive sex. Carefully tracing entanglements and conflicts between literary culture and mental science of this period, Knoper reveals unexpected connections among these authors and fresh insights into the science they confronted. Considering their writing as cognitive practice, he provides a new understanding of literary realism.

Why archaeology's relevance to global challenges has not been recognised

Archaeologists are increasingly publishing articles proclaiming the relevance of our field for contemporary global challenges, yet our research has little impact on other disciplines or on policy-making. Here, the author discusses three reasons for this impasse in relevance: archaeologists do not understand how relevance is constructed between fields; too little of our work follows a rigorous scientific epistemology; and we are confused about the target audiences for our messages concerning our discipline's relevance. The author suggests two strategies for moving forward: transdisciplinary collaborative research and the production of quantitative scientific results that will be useful to scientists in disciplines more closely involved in today's global challenges.

at home” for people with dementia in care environments.

This review summarises the challenges of applying evidence that built environment factors contribute to people with dementia feeling at home in long-term care institutions. Eighteen reviewed publications are classified into research-focused and practice-focused study. Research-focused studies from scientific epistemology focus on physical environment aspects that influence residents feeling at home in the care institution. Design-focused studies develop specific design strategies based on evidence from research-focused studies. However, there are limitations in transforming research evidence into design practice due to a mismatched knowledge foundation. Future research should consider standing on design epistemology to gain new insights which reflect built environment contributions to the sense of home for people with dementia living in care institutions by Research through Design approach.

Integrasi Islam dan Sains: Sebuah Telaah Epistemologi

Abstrak Pemisahan Islam dan sains berakibat pada kemunduran peradaban umat Islam, di satu sisi, dan krisis eksistensial pada sisi yang lain. Integrasi keduanya dapat mengantarkan umat Islam pada prestasi peradaban sekaligus kesempurnaan moral. Upaya Integrasi Islam dan sains telah dimulai oleh para pemikir Muslim baik melalui dewesternisasi ilmu, Islamisasi ilmu, ilmuisasi Islam, dan lain sebagainya. Berbeda dengan tulisan serius para cendekiawan muslim tersebut, tulisan ini hanya akan berupaya mendeskripsikan integrasi bangunan epistemologis Islam dengan sains melalui library research berdasar pada data kepustakaan yang terkait. Fokus tulisan ini dibatasi pada masalah sebab keterpisahan umat Islam dengan sains dan bagaimana pola keselarasan espistemologi Islam dan sains. Tulisan ini menyimpulkan dua hal. Pertama, keterpisahan Islam dengan sains lebih dikarenakan aspek historis, sosiologis, politis dan bukan karena faktor sistem ajaran. Islam sebagai sebuah ajaran yang komprehensif tidak menempatkan “ilmu agama” dan “ilmu umum” dalam posisisi diametral-paradoksial. Kedua, pola keselarasan epistemologi Islam dan sains adalah kulli-juz’i (universal-partikular). Dengan kata lain, sains merupakan salah satu bagian dari ajaran Islam dalam satu keutuhan dan kesatuan sistem yang disebut sebagai way of life (jalan hidup). Kata Kunci: Islam, Sains, Epistemologi Abstract The separation of Islam and science resulted in the decline of Muslim civilization, on the one hand, and an existential crisis on the other. The integration of fatigue can lead Muslims to achievement as well as moral perfection. Efforts to integrate Islam and science have been initiated by Muslim thinkers through the dewesternization of science, the Islamization of science, the science of Islam, and others. In contrast to the serious writings of these Muslim scholars, this paper will only attempt to describe the integration of Islamic epistemological buildings with science through library research based on related library data. The focus of this paper is on the problem of the separation of Muslims from science and how the pattern of harmony between Islamic espistemology and science. This paper concludes two things. First, the separation of Islam and science is based more on historical, sociological, political aspects and not because of the teaching system factor. Islam as a teaching includes not placing "religious knowledge" and "general science" in a diametral-paradoxical position. Second, the pattern of harmony between Islamic and scientific epistemology is kulli-juz'i (universal-particular). In other words, science is a part of Islamic teachings in a whole and unified system known as a way of life. Keywords: Islam, Science, Epistemology

The cultural evolution of epistemic practices: the case of divination

While a substantial literature in anthropology and comparative religion explores divination across diverse societies and back into history, little research has integrated the older ethnographic and historical work with recent insights on human learning, cultural transmission and cognitive science. Here we present evidence showing that divination practices are often best viewed as an epistemic technology, and formally model the scenarios under which individuals may over-estimate the efficacy of divination that contribute to its cultural omnipresence and historical persistence. We found that strong prior belief, under-reporting of negative evidence, and mis-inferring belief from behavior can all contribute to biased and inaccurate beliefs about the effectiveness of epistemic technologies. We finally suggest how scientific epistemology, as it emerged in the Western societies over the last few centuries, has influenced the importance and cultural centrality of divination practices.

Life outside the Dome

This article uses a non-Western, scientific, and ecocritical perspective to explore the nature-cultural phenomenon of “smog life,” that is, outdoor activities taking place on a smog day, such as hiking, enjoying the fog, or practicing taiji. It presents a sharp contrast with environmentally focused, avant-garde smog art. Although avant-garde smog art is in line with today's scientific correctness by virtue of its strong commitment to activism, I believe that everyday smog life, which is viewed either as “ecoambiguous” or as “smog Ah-Q,” is in effect more subversive than its avant-garde smog art counterpart. What has undergirded smog life is a collective ecological unconsciousness—the premodern “mist” consciousness—that is suppressed in “smog modernity,” of which scientific discourse pertaining to topics such as toxic smog (mai) has become the predominant way of conceptualizing air. The author reads this suppressed mist (wu) or qi consciousness as a form of resistance against the current scientific-corrective discourse and scientism. If we situate smog life in the context of how traditional Chinese culture has been systematically marginalized in the imperialization of technological modernity, today's air-pollution-induced smog life is in actuality an invitation to explore other cognitive possibilities for air beyond the scientific. The hidden ecological consciousness and its discourse help subvert the cyberization of life and the legitimacy of an exclusive scientific epistemology as the only means of knowing.

Irrlichtelieren (Will-o’-the-wisping-around)

The lexeme Irrlichtelieren (will-o’-the-wisping-around, i.e. thinking outside the box) is Goethe’s neologism for a heterodox line of thought that displaces traditional methods of philosophy and science. Although the term occurs only once, in the student scene of Faust, Part One (FA 1.7:83.1917), the shifting value of will-o’-the-wisps in Faust and other works corresponds to the theories of scientific method Goethe advanced in essays of the 1790s and especially to the methodology of his Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of Color) of 1810. While in Goethe’s letters and in the devil’s language in Faust, will-o’-the-wisps betoken illusion, they develop in the course of Faust into symbols of the ineffable truth that Kantian metaphysics had effectively substituted for God. The ironic dialectic of the will-o’-the-wisps shapes Goethe’s views of pedagogy and scientific epistemology and his positions on the idealist subject/object dichotomy, on the relationships of nature and truth, on representation and knowledge, and on knowledge and community.