1,721,007 research outputs found
Determining technology: myopia and dystopia
Get PDFThroughout its brief history the philosophy of technology has been largely concerned with the debate over the nature of technology. Typically, technology has been viewed as being essentially another term for applied science, the practical application of scientific theory to the material world. In recent years philosophers and cultural critics have characterised technology in a far more problematic fashion, as an authoritarian power with the ability to bring about far-reaching cultural, political and ecological effects. Proponents of the former view are often termed instrumentalists and those of the latter technological determinists. The debate between them revolves around the question of the fact/value distinction, namely whether technology can be deemed to be value-neutral. I argue that employing a phenomenological approach to technology grants us a fresh perspective on the instrumentalism-determinism debate. It enables us to recast the instrumentalist/determinist debate as a debate between technological idealism and materialism, and to ground the instrumentalist and determinist positions in different experiential relations to technology. It also gives us a better grasp of the function of the different critiques of technology, with idealists concerned primarily with the misapplication of technology as a form of knowledge, and materialists with the existential implications of concrete technological relations.South African Journal of Philosophy 2014, 33(2): 201–21
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
The authoritarian character: revisited.
No full textMaster’s Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.In this thesis, I revisit the authoritarian character concept, as developed by members of the first-generation Frankfurt School. The authoritarian character concept (ACC) was a concept developed to understand the predisposition of individuals and societies towards seeking the domination of authoritarian demagogic as opposed to realising their own liberation. The need to revisit the ACC came about due to a noticeable rise of authoritarian demagogic leaders within liberal democracies. However, in researching the ACC, I observed that the dominant narrative was incorrect in its interpretation of the conceptual development of the ACC, and subsequently, is overly restrictive with regards to its conceptual parentage as it did not consider conceptual developments outside of 1936-1939. Therefore, in this project, I revisit the ACC with the aim of detailing a conceptually clear understanding of the ACC so that it could be used to help analyse the problem of contemporary authoritarianism. In revisiting the ACC, I hope to achieve four objectives. Firstly, to set out the foundations of the ACC by looking at the Frankfurt School and the conceptual makeup of the ACC. Secondly, was establishing a dominant narrative surrounding the ACC, which I termed the received view of the ACC. This received view holds the conceptual lifespan of the ACC as starting in 1936 and ending in 1939. Thirdly, to show that the received view of the ACC is incorrect with regard to the genesis of the ACC as work had been ongoing on the development of key concepts prior to 1936 and provide a revised account of the ACC to include this early conceptual development. Fourthly, to show that the received view of the ACC is incorrect with regards to the demise of the ACC, in 1939, as work was ongoing on evolving the ACC to meet more modern challenges well into the 1970s. Furthermore, these later developments of the ACC would ultimately complete the teleological arc of the ACC as a concept of Critical Theory as it is within these later developments that the ACC finally fulfils its goal of detailing a possible praxis that works towards an emancipated society
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
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
The Revolt Against Reason: Oswald Spengler and Violence as Cultural Preservative
Get PDFIn The Decline of the West, Spengler argues that cultures have lifecycles. Although he warns that the end of Faustian (western) culture is nigh, Spengler suggests that the death of the culture might be forestalled if a rapprochement can be brought about between the technologized powers of Reason and the remains of cultural life. This portrayal of Reason as a salvific force seems to contradict Spengler’s typical depiction of Reason as a violent anti-cultural force. This paper reconstructs Spengler’s account of Reason as both killer and preserver of western culture and argues that in both roles it remains inherently violent
Determining technology: myopia and dystopia
No full textThroughout its brief history the philosophy of technology has been largely concerned with the debate over the nature of technology. Typically, technology has been viewed as being essentially another term for applied science, the practical application of scientific theory to the material world. In recent years philosophers and cultural critics have characterised technology in a far more problematic fashion, as an authoritarian power with the ability to bring about far-reaching cultural, political and ecological effects. Proponents of the former view are often termed instrumentalists and those of the latter technological determinists. The debate between them revolves around the question of the fact/value distinction, namely whether technology can be deemed to be value-neutral. I argue that employing a phenomenological approach to technology grants us a fresh perspective on the instrumentalism-determinism debate. It enables us to recast the instrumentalist/determinist debate as a debate between technological idealism and materialism, and to ground the instrumentalist and determinist positions in different experiential relations to technology. It also gives us a better grasp of the function of the different critiques of technology, with idealists concerned primarily with the misapplication of technology as a form of knowledge, and materialists with the existential implications of concrete technological relation
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