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a critical exploration of Richards Foley's minimalist and pragmatist theory of knowledge
No full textDie vorliegende Arbeit widmet sich der Erörterung, Weiterentwicklung und Verteidigung der von Richard Foley entwickelten analytischen Theorie des Wissens, der zufolge propositionales Wissen nicht mehr, aber auch nicht weniger als adäquate Information ist. Wissen ist, so Foley, eine Funktion der Güte des Informationszustands einer Person. Ein Subjekt S weiß, dass p, wenn der Informationszustand des Subjekts keine p-relevante Informationslücke aufweist. Anders formuliert: Weiß S nicht, dass p, obwohl S glaubt, dass p, so befindet sich S entweder im Irrtum oder dem Subjekt fehlt mindestens eine wichtige Information im Umfeld der Zielüberzeugung.
Das ist die Kernaussage der Adäquatheitstheorie. Klassische Zusatzbedingungen, beispielsweise epistemische Rechtfertigung, verlässliche Meinungsbildung oder sichere Überzeugung, sind lediglich Begleitphänomene, aber keine Bedingungen für Wissen. Es handelt sich um eine minimalistische Theorie des Wissens, weil es über wahre Überzeugung hinausgehend keiner weiteren epistemischen Schlüsseleigenschaft bedarf, um aus wahren Überzeugungen Wissen zu machen. Die Gleichsetzung von Wissen mit adäquater Information wird zuerst rekonstruiert (Kapitel 1 bis 5) und im Anschluss daran (Kapitel 6 bis 8) hinsichtlich ihrer Problemlösungskompetenz untersucht. Ich weise nach, dass Foleys Theorie plausible Antworten unter anderem auf das Gettierproblem und das Lotterieparadox zu geben vermag. Die Kapitel 9 bis 11 sind überwiegend kritischer Natur. Es wird untersucht, auf welche Weise die Adäquatheitstheorie dem philosophischen Außenwelt-Skeptizismus die Stirn bieten kann und ob sie, so ein prominenter Einwand, zirkulär ist.The aim of my doctoral thesis is to reconstruct, to refine, and finally to defend Richard Foley’s theory of knowledge. In his book When Is True Belief Knowledge? (2012), Foley argues that propositional knowledge is nothing more and nothing less than adequate information. As some commentators have recognized, the so-called adequacy theory of knowledge is novel, inspiring, and provocative. At the same time, the approach is underrepresented in current analytical epistemology. In the end I hope to remedy this deplorable state of affairs. Foley’s core idea is as follows: a subject knows that p if he or she truly believes that p and there is no important information about the situation the subject lacks. If S has a belief, but does not know, there are two possible shortcomings: either S is mistaken or S lacks some important information.
My dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the theoretical exploration of Foley’s knowledge account. I discus the two key concepts, information and adequacy (importance, relevance, significance), and explain why knowledge qua adequate information comes down to a fresh minimalist and pragmatist theory of knowledge. In contrast to the analytical orthodoxy, the concept of knowledge does not manifest a tripartite structure, for instance true belief plus justification, true belief reliable formed or (true and) safe belief. Instead knowing is just having enough true beliefs. The well-known additional conditions such as justification and reliability are accompaniments of knowledge but not prerequisites.
Any theory of knowledge must withstand most of the big epistemological challenges. Amongst others, the latter consists of Gettier’s challenge, barn façade cases, and the lottery paradox. In part two I argue that the equation between propositional knowledge and adequate information fares well in this respect. The approach is not only theoretical simple, but also has a lot of explanatory power. The third part is predominantly of critical nature. I struggle with the sceptical problem and with an objection of circularity. No theory will stand up to all objections. All things considered the benefits exceed the costs. If I had to bet, I would put my money on the thesis that knowing is having enough information
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Thinking with Notations: Epistemic Actions and Epistemic Activities in Mathematical Practice
No full textMathematical actions and activities, I wish to argue in this paper, are typically mediated by symbol systems, notations, and formalisms, in a way that not only allows for the seamless expression of mathematical concepts, but also actively shapes mathematical practice, both at the level of individual derivations and at the collective level of mathematics as a discipline. That is, notations and formalisms do not play a merely auxiliary role, in that they give neutral expression to the underlying foundational concepts, but they are themselves constituents of mathematical practice, without which certain connections and developments within mathematics (and certain ways of applying mathematics to the natural world) would not be possible. I shall highlight four areas where one might fruitfully look for epistemic actions in the course of studying mathematical practice. The four examples in question are the use of gestures and other anticipatory bodily movements (in particular in instructional settings), the application of material models to mathematics, the initially puzzling disciplinary practice of re-proving theorems (which, after all, should be epistemically redundant), and—finally—the creation of collectively shared symbolic and notational resources. As I shall argue, it is the latter example—the emergence of mature notational formalisms—which leads to a partial vindication of symbol use as a type of epistemic action, provided we make a slight (though well-motivated) modification of the very notion of epistemic action in question
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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