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An epistemology of noise
Get PDFMalaspina’s An Epistemology of Noise is a philosophical discussion of the concept of noise, illuminating both its preconditions and its far-reaching im- plications. In a literal sense, “noise” describes possible forms of human percep- tion related to aesthetics, acoustics, and audiometry. Figuratively, noise con- notes a range of negative qualities associated with disturbance, disruption, or perturbation. After we recognize that noise, especially in its aesthetic or com- monsense usage, is defined relationally, and occupies the negative position in a dichotomy with sound, we might ask: is there anything more to know to about noise? An Epistemology of Noise proves that there is. Considering noise an epis- temological problem as Malaspina does, its structural relevance for the theory of knowledge becomes clear. Indeed, Malaspina shows that noise allows us to address the epistemological question “how does knowledge constitute itself in the face of contingency”? and its flip-side “what role does uncertainty play in the constitution of knowledge”? (39) In this respect, the potential of the notion of noise has been largely neglected and is therefore still unexplored
Ian Hacking the philosopher of the present: An interview by Matteo Vagelli
No full textIn this interview, Ian Hacking explains why philosophy should essentially be concerned with science and scientific problems. By retracing his education and career, together with the genesis of his major works, he draws out the trajectory that lead his far-reaching philosophy of «scientific styles» from his works on probability, through the «new scientific realism» fostered by his philosophy of the experiment, to his philosophy of mathematics. In the foreground is the overall influence of Foucault, in particular on Hacking's «making up people» project, and in general on his idea that we should be writing the «history of our present»
Studying economic thought through the prism of historical epistemology
No full textDe nombreux ouvrages récents ont pu reprocher à la pensée économique, notamment depuis la crise financière de 2008, de ne pouvoir fournir les ressources nécessaires à la résolution de divers problèmes économiques et sociaux (Laval 2007 ; Nelson 2014 ; Earle et al. 2016 ; Pilkington 2016 ; Kwak 2017). Ainsi, certains travaux, issus par exemple de la sociologie (Bourdieu 1996, 2000), critiquent le caractère limité de la rationalité à l’œuvre dans les théories économiques : cette rationalité réduirait le caractère polyvalent des actions humaines à la seule quête de la richesse matérielle.
Une étude détaillée de l’histoire de la pensée économique manifeste pourtant que la pensée économique ne se focalise plus, depuis le tournant marginaliste ou subjectiviste, sur l’aspect dit matériel de la vie humaine : elle s’intéresse à l’action humaine dans toutes ses dimensions, en tant que cette action incarne un choix, individuel ou social
Georges Canguilhem on sex determination and the normativity of life
Get PDFOur goal in this paper is to reassess the relationship between norms and life by drawing on the philosophy of Georges Canguilhem, particularly some of his unpublished lectures about teratology and sexual determination. First, we discuss the difficulties Canguilhem identified in the introduction of life and sexuality as objects of philosophical reflection. Second, we reassess Canguilhem’s understanding of normativity as rooted in life and the axiological activity of the living. Third, we analyze how Canguilhem drew from past and contemporary teratology to conceive of the notions of anomaly and abnormality. Finally, we reconstruct Canguilhem’s analysis of a case of hermaphroditism, highlighting how he presented it as evidence that sexual determination is the result of a normative choice. One of the key contributions of the paper to scholarly literature on Canguilhem is a better understanding of his notion of choice, which was considered not the conscious and intentional act of a subject but rather an axiological activity of the living. We conclude by positioning Canguilhem’s concept of normativity and his belief that norms are produced by the living in relation to the naturalist/normativist divide in medicine
Thinking Crossroads: from Scientific Pluralism to Pluralist History of Science: Introduction
No full textIt is difficult not to notice the enthusiasm that has surrounded pluralism in recent years. Beginning with the fields of anthropology and sociology (Despres 1968; Newman 1973; Young 1976), the word “pluralism” has taken hold as an early twenty-first century watchword in domains like political theory (Gatson 2002; Flathman 2005) and legal theory (Krisch 2010). The concept has also entered the philosophical arena, which now acknowledges ontological (Turner 2010), epistemic (Coliva and Pedersen 2017), ethical (Stocker 1991; Kekes 1993), and even logical (Beall and Restall 2006) forms of pluralism. Moreover, the “pluralist turn” in philosophy of science now characterizes the current paradigm of post-positivist philosophy of science, following the earlier “historical turn” (Bird 2008) and “practice turn” (Soler et al. 2014). As a variety of this larger pluralist turn in contemporary theory, this growing interest in scientific pluralism has both nourished and been influenced by other forms of pluralism originating in the philosophical and non-philosophical domains (Kellert et al. 2006). The proliferation of pluralisms in science studies can be seen as a reaction against the prevalently monist approach of mainstream philosophy of science during the first half of the twentieth century
Were experiments ever neglected? Ian Hacking and the history of the philosophy of experiments
Get PDFIan Hacking’s Representing and Intervening is often credited as being one of the first works to focus on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, catalyzing a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of experiment” or “new experimentalism”. In the 1980s, a number of other movements and scholars also began focusing on the role of experimentation and instruments in science. Philosophical study of experimentation has thus seemed to be an invention of the 1980s whose central figure is Hacking. This article aims to assess this historical claim, made by Hacking himself as well as others. It does so first by highlighting how a broader perspective on the history of philosophy reveals this invention narrative to be incorrect, since experimentation was a topic of interest for earlier philosophers. Secondly, the article evaluates a revision of this historical claim also made by some philosophers of experiment: the rediscovery narrative, which frames Hacking and others as having rediscovered the work of these earlier authors. This second narratives faces problems as well. Therefore we develop a third narrative which we call the contextualist narrative. Rather than considering experimentation in an essentialist manner as a fixed research object that is either present or not in the work of specific authors, experimentation should be addressed through a narrative that asks in what way it becomes a philosophical problem for certain authors and for what purpose. Such contextualization enables a repositioning of Hacking’s philosophy of experiment in relation to the specific debates in which he intervened, such as the realism-antirealism debate, the Science Wars and the debate on incommensurability.sponsorship: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoekstatus: Publishe
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
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