1,721,042 research outputs found
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
W. V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein: Two approaches to philosophy.
No full textThis dissertation explores the works of W. V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It provides a detailed and comprehensive discussion of their distinct conceptions of philosophy. It shows how Quine is involved in a scientific philosophy aimed at the discovery of truth and explanation. It also demonstrates how Wittgenstein's critical approach attempts to dissolve philosophical problems and theories. The main purpose of this work is to explain how a proper understanding of each philosopher's framework of study, is crucial to the understanding and criticism of their respective philosophical ideas. The only way to properly refute Quine's theories is to evaluate them in a scientific framework. Any other interpretation could change his intention and weaken his arguments. Similarly, the only way to refute Wittgenstein's claims is to interpret them in everyday language. However, this is not to say that either view can be refuted. It is simply to point out that any attempt to oppose Wittgenstein's claims from a scientific viewpoint, or Quine's from a non-scientific perspective, will be flawed since it is contrary to the way in which each view was conceived
Incommensurability revisited.
No full textIn the dissertation, I propose to consider the vicissitudes of Thomas Kuhn's historical approach to science with an eye to clarifying his controversial notion of incommensurability. Although the notion of incommensurability, one of the most significant results of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, has been much criticized in recent Anglo-American philosophy, I argue that it incorporates insights that are still worth reviving and defending. Moreover, since these insights derived from Kuhn's syntheses of the ideas of thinkers such as L. Fleck, A. Koyre, L. Wittgenstein, N. Hanson, M. Polanyi, H. Gadamer and P. Feyerabend, my defence of Kuhn's concept of incommensurability provides a review of some profound issues in recent Anglo-American philosophy. Also in this connection, I assume that the"Kuhnian Revolution" in philosophy of science in the 1960s did not occur by chance in the avenue of contemporary American philosophy. Rather, the appearance, the reception and the subsequent criticism of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, including Kuhn's later conversion to the "analytical tradition", must be interpreted in their respective philosophical contexts. I maintain that the debate between the Kuhnian school and its opponents should be examined historically in the light of the deeper and broader cultural and philosophical issues involved, issues that even Kuhn seems not to have fully appreciated. Through investigating the debate, I argue that the critiques of Kuhn's original ideas, including his own later objections to the ideas, presuppose as well as impose the analytical standard of legitimatization that underlies present-day Anglo-American ways of reasoning. It is this standard, however, that presupposes the very requirement whose feasibility Kuhn's notions of paradigms and incommensurability put into question. More specifically, I defend Kuhn's historical approach to philosophy of science in 1962 against those criticisms which are guided merely by ahistorical and linguistic requirements of analyzability, and criticize Kuhn's acceptance of the precepts of the analytical tradition since 1969. Central to this research is the view that there are phenomena of incommensurability in the process of communication and understanding and that no account of rationality is valid unless it recognizes the development of reason in history. In light of this, I hold, the analytical approach should always allow a historically-oriented vision in order to detect the real picture of our everyday thinking. To understand different rationalities in history and culture, philosophy must go to the history of sciences and to the real process of our everyday thinking. Methodologically, I approach the vicissitudes of Thomas Kuhn's notion of incommensurability in two ways: in Part I by historical case studies of Kuhn's changing views, and in Part II by philosophical reflections on those consequences of the historical case studies. (Abstract shortened by UMI.
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
Wittgenstein on nonsignificant propositions.
No full textThis dissertation is a systematic study of Wittgenstein's ideas on non-significant propositions, specifically tautologies, mathematical propositions, scientific laws in the Tractatus, grammatical propositions in the Investigations, and Moore-type propositions in On Certainty . My aim is to show that these propositions are closely connected. I take Wittgenstein's discussions of them to be a theme developed both in the early and later periods of his philosophy. His idea is that since such propositions cannot be properly regarded as empirical or true or false, they are radically different from propositions that are. He sees the conflation of these two kinds of proposition as a major source of philosophical illusions. For this reason, it is important for him to clarify the logical status of such nonsignificant propositions
Naturalism and nonsense: Quine and Wittgenstein on ethics.
No full textW. V. Quine's and Ludwig Wittgenstein's (early) ethical views are compared. The aim of the comparison is to show that despite many similarities between the two philosophers' views, their approaches to the subject are fundamentally different. Underlying the points of affinity are two fundamentally different philosophical temperaments. Both put forward complete philosophical structures with which their ethical views are remarkably consistent; both see everything from their own philosophical standpoint. Accordingly, Quine's naturalistic stance and Wittgenstein's transcendental stance are explored in order to expose the deep differences between their ethical views, despite many seeming similarities. Further, it is shown that their ethical views can only be understood when placed within the context of their respective philosophical frameworks. A comparison of Quine and Wittgenstein on ethics, then, reveals many components of the general philosophical positions of two of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, while clarifying their respective ethical views and the deep differences between them
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
Tradition in science.
No full textThomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" got people to pay attention to tradition in science. This thesis considers how what Kuhn says about paradigms is closely linked with the idea of science as involving tradition. Kuhn takes paradigms to be a source of coherence in scientific traditions and the carrier of them, i.e., in normal science traditions are embodied in paradigms and hence maintained by them. I argue that when Kuhn emphasizes the priority of paradigms, he is actually emphasizing the role of tradition in normal science. I suggest that Kuhn's discussion about the priority of paradigms not only shows that he emphasizes the role of tradition, it also clarifies how traditions are formed and changed. Kuhn's work is often taken as the basis for resisting the rational view of science. His "incommensurability thesis" and "community authority thesis" are viewed by people, such as Feyerabend, as implying science is arational of irrational. They suggest that in science there is only replacement of paradigms, not the continuation of tradition. To better understand Kuhn's view about tradition, I argue that we need to understand his views about practice, rule, and theory. Comparing Kuhn's and Wittgenstein's views, I argue that Kuhn holds that practice and rules stand at the same level. Thus when Kuhn emphasizes the priority of paradigms, what he wants to say is that paradigms are more binding and more complete than any set of rules for research that could be unequivocally abstracted from them. For Kuhn paradigm changes are caused by the discovery of new facts and the invention of new theories together and this takes time. Thus, when the old tradition gives way to the new one, many concepts and ideas of the old tradition will inevitably be retained. Moreover, during the change of tradition, the old tradition plays a role in the formation of the new one, a point that Kuhn overlooks. In addition, a change of tradition in the development of science usually appears as a change of a small part of science while the main part of it continues as before. I examine how tradition plays a role in scientific discovery and justification. I first clarify the understanding of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. What Kuhn should have said, I believe, is that just as in normal science scientists use solutions to typical problems as paradigms and solve new problems by imitating the way in which typical problems were solved, so they use paradigms of individual sciences as examples of inquiry and deal with crises in scientific revolutions. I argue that the process of the establishment of a new tradition is a rational process. In addition to these arguments, I argue against Kuhn's"community authority thesis". I point out that for Kuhn community authority does not come from or represent tradition, rather, it seems to be independent of traditional authority, even to be definitive of tradition. (Abstract shortened by UMI.
Science and the limits of language: An interpretation of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus", 6.3-6.372.
No full textThis thesis, "Science and the Limits of Language: An Interpretation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 6.3-6.372" is a detailed examination, remark by remark, of Wittgenstein's section on science in the Tractatus. In general, much less attention has been devoted to Wittgenstein's remarks about science than to other sections in the Tractatus. I bring out some of the ways in which recent interpretations by commentators are in conflict with each other and argue that they fail to account for all of Wittgenstein's remarks in this section. I then show that Wittgenstein's remarks about science, both individually and as a whole, are very much in keeping with his remark in the Preface to the Tractatus that he is "draw (ing) a limit ... to the expression of thoughts". On my view, the 6.3s is best seen not as an isolated section contributing solely to philosophy of science, but rather as an integral part of Wittgenstein's larger task of delineating the limits of the expression of thoughts
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