scholarly journals Social-Epistemic Rhetoric of (Un)certainty in Biomedical and Psychiatric Scientific Academic Writing: a Diatextual Analysis

Human Arenas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelia Manuti ◽  
Giuseppe Mininni ◽  
Rosa Scardigno ◽  
Ignazio Grattagliano

Abstract In line with the general aims of scientific textuality, research papers in the biomedical and psychiatric academic domains mostly attempt to demonstrate the validity of their assumptions and to contrast with the sense of uncertainty that sometimes frames their conclusions. Moving from this premise, the present paper aimed to focus on these features and to investigate if and the extent to which biomedical and psychiatric texts convey different social-epistemic rhetoric of uncertainty. In view of this, a qualitative study was conducted adopting diatextual analysis to investigate a corpus of 298 scientific articles taken from the British Medical Journal and from the British Journal of Psychiatry published in 2013. Our analytical approach led to identifying two different types of social-epistemic rhetoric. The first one was mostly oriented to “describing” the world, accounting for the body-mind nexus as conceptualized within the “medical” point of view. On the other hand, the second one was oriented to “interpreting” the world, debating the problematic and critical features of the body-mind relationship as developed within the psychiatry discursive realm.

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. e043339
Author(s):  
Camila Olarte Parra ◽  
Lorenzo Bertizzolo ◽  
Sara Schroter ◽  
Agnès Dechartres ◽  
Els Goetghebeur

ObjectiveTo evaluate the consistency of causal statements in observational studies published in The BMJ.DesignReview of observational studies published in a general medical journal.Data sourceCohort and other longitudinal studies describing an exposure-outcome relationship published in The BMJ in 2018. We also had access to the submitted papers and reviewer reports.Main outcome measuresProportion of published research papers with ‘inconsistent’ use of causal language. Papers where language was consistently causal or non-causal were classified as ‘consistently causal’ or ‘consistently not causal’, respectively. For the ‘inconsistent’ papers, we then compared the published and submitted version.ResultsOf 151 published research papers, 60 described eligible studies. Of these 60, we classified the causal language used as ‘consistently causal’ (48%), ‘inconsistent’ (20%) and ‘consistently not causal’(32%). Eleven out of 12 (92%) of the ‘inconsistent’ papers were already inconsistent on submission. The inconsistencies found in both submitted and published versions were mainly due to mismatches between objectives and conclusions. One section might be carefully phrased in terms of association while the other presented causal language. When identifying only an association, some authors jumped to recommending acting on the findings as if motivated by the evidence presented.ConclusionFurther guidance is necessary for authors on what constitutes a causal statement and how to justify or discuss assumptions involved. Based on screening these papers, we provide a list of expressions beyond the obvious ‘cause’ word which may inspire a useful more comprehensive compendium on causal language.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-86
Author(s):  
Zainal Lutfi

This article discusses the problem of Islamic education from a theological and sociological point of view. The emergence of normative and verbalist Islamic education curriculum distorts the universality of Islam. Islam that is contextual in space and time, always in contact with sociological aspects, should be understood as something that can change its partiality dynamics continuously, even though there is a universal thing that is maintained as a normative belief. On the other hand, the failure of education to produce educational output that is dignified and virtuous has caused some people to distrust the world of education in developing the character and ethics of children. The vote of disbelief is getting stronger with the emergence of the National curriculum model which gives a greater portion of general subjects than religious subjects. This paper is a criticism of the development of the world of education in Indonesia, with the hope that education stakeholders make changes to the education system and the applicable curriculum.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Lipsit

Forming. Shifting. Shaping. The envelope of one’s physiological body extends outwards in multiple shells, layer by layer. The versions of this envelope exist in the interstitial moment between clothing and architecture; ever forming and being formed, they shift and shape the circulation and happenings of the body on one side and the world on the other. The study of garments lends architecture recognition of various visible and invisible forces that create space and envelope. When space becomes dress, body specificity and movement is emphasized, and the geometries of the physiological body and what it means to experience space as an individual becomes primary, achieving a qualitative, sensory experience extending from the powers of kinaesthetic sense. Oscillating between scales and acts of making, model experimentation invents new ways to conceive and create architecture — a soft architecture finds itself operating here: on the liminal edge of body, envelope, and space


2008 ◽  
Vol 56 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 63-83
Author(s):  
Hugo Letiche

The theory of the body I want to explore here, assumes that researcher and researched are part of the same flesh of the world and can be understood in radical conjunction and not in duality. An interview is examined, first from the lifeworld (nursing) research paradigm and thereafter on the hand of Merleau-Ponty's concept of the reversibility of touching and being touched, wherein ‘subject’ (who touches) and ‘object’ (who is touched) are radically interrelated and coconstituted. Merleau-Ponty develops his reflections on this radical interaction as the ‘chiasm’. Although investigating the ‘chiasm’ can be seen as lifeworld research, the more common lifeworld approach only leads to rich description, which lacks the radical relational understanding of Merleau-Ponty's insights. I believe that acknowledgement of the chiasms of interrelationship reveals complex processes of enfoldment taking place between researcher and researched, writer and reader. All of them are enclosed in what Merleau-Ponty called the enfoldments or flesh of the world; which makes it very difficult to determine who touches whom and who is touched by whom. Research, when it tries to see, interpret and study the other, focuses on the visible of touching and being touched; but these inherently carry with them the invisible of the same actions. The consequences of these relationships for my study of a specific elderly woman are explored here.


2001 ◽  
Vol 204 (13) ◽  
pp. 2331-2338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen G. Gibbs ◽  
Luciano M. Matzkin

SUMMARYFruit flies of the genus Drosophila have independently invaded deserts around the world on numerous occasions. To understand the physiological mechanisms allowing these small organisms to survive and thrive in arid environments, we performed a phylogenetic analysis of water balance in Drosophila species from different habitats. Desert (cactophilic) species were more resistant to desiccation than mesic ones. This resistance could be accomplished in three ways: by increasing the amount of water in the body, by reducing rates of water loss or by tolerating the loss of a greater percentage of body water (dehydration tolerance). Cactophilic Drosophila lost water less rapidly and appeared to be more tolerant of low water content, although males actually contained less water than their mesic congeners. However, when the phylogenetic relationships between the species were taken into account, greater dehydration tolerance was not correlated with increased desiccation resistance. Therefore, only one of the three expected adaptive mechanisms, lower rates of water loss, has actually evolved in desert Drosophila, and the other apparently adaptive difference between arid and mesic species (increased dehydration tolerance) instead reflects phylogenetic history.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Stanghellini

This chapter discusses how perspectivism is the device through which each one of us, who first and foremost sees the world from his point of view, is able to recognize that precisely as just one point of view, and thereby to change it. A healthy mental condition implies the ability to change one’s point of view and temporarily take the perspective of another person. The stronger the reciprocity of perspectives between my former and my present ego, and between my own vantage and the Other’s, the weaker the tendency to perceive my motivations as absolutely necessary. Perspectivism allows me to see myself as not strictly determined by the past and by the involuntary, and may restore a sense of agency. This explains why the reciprocity of perspectives is a therapeutic goal and perspectivism—the attempt to see things from the point of view of the Other—is a therapeutic device.


Think ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (51) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
Chad Engelland

The traditional problem of other minds is epistemological. What justification can be given for thinking that the world is populated with other minds? More recently, some philosophers have argued for a second problem of other minds that is conceptual. How can we conceive of the point of view of another mind in relation to our own? This article retraces the logic of the epistemological and conceptual problems, and it argues for a third problem of other minds. This is the phenomenological problem which concerns the philosophical (rather than psychological) question of experience. How is another mind experienced as another mind? The article offers dialectical and motivational justification for regarding these as three distinct problems. First, it argues that while the phenomenological problem cannot be reduced to the other problems, it is logically presupposed by them. Second, the article examines how the three problems are motivated by everyday experiences in three distinct ways.


1917 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tokuzo Ohira ◽  
Hideyo Noguchi

Trichomonades from the mouth were studied by Steinberg who proposed to group them into three distinct types; namely, Trichomonas elongata, Trichomonas caudata, and Trichomonas flagellata. Doflein (3) regards them as probably identical with Trichomonas hominis. Opinions differ as to whether or not Trichomonas vaginalis Donné and Trichomonas hominis Grassi are the same species. Lynch, for instance, believes that they are the same species, while von Prowazek (4), Bensen (5), and others (6, 7) insist that they are different types. Bensen's view seems to be well supported by the difference alleged to be found between the mode of encystment in the two trichomonades, were it not for the fact that our knowledge about the so called cyst of trichomonades is still obscure. According to Alexeieff (8) many of the so called cysts were evidently blastomyces contained in the cell body of the trichomonas. An autogamy alleged to take place in cysts as described by Bohne and von Prowazek (9) has not been confirmed by Dobell (10). And Wenyon (11) contends that it has never been found possible to produce any development of these cysts outside the body on the warm stage as can be done with the cysts of Entamœba coli. Therefore, it is still premature to take the process of encystment into consideration as far as the classification of trichomonas is concerned. On the other hand, Rodenwaldt (12) seems to think that there are many species of trichomonas in the human intestines, and Wenyon has described a new trichomonas from the human intestines (Macrostoma mesnili Wenyon). Further cultural studies in the morphology and biology of these organisms must be carried out in order to solve these problems. In the light of modern investigations there are five subgenera to be included under the genus Trichomonas Donné. They are as follows: (1) Protrichomonas Alexeieff, with three anterior flagella, without an undulating membrane. (2) Trichomastix Biitschli) with three anterior flagella and a trailing flagellum (Schleppgeissel) without an undulating membrane. (3) Trichomonas Donné, with three anterior flagella and an undulating membrane. (4) Macrostoma Alexeieff, Amend, Wenyon (11), with three anterior flagella and an undulating membrane wedged in a deep groove (peristome). (5) Tetratrichomonas Parisi (13), with four anterior flagella and an undulating membrane. As far as our culture trichomonas from the human mouth is concerned, it has been shown that it is not strictly a trichomonas and that it should be classed under the subgenus Tetratrichomonas.


Phronesis ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Makin

AbstractIn this paper I offer a new interpretation of Melissus' argument at DK 30 B8.In this passage Melissus uses an Eleatic argument against change to challenge an opponent who appeals to the authority of perception in order to support the view that there are a plurality of items in the world. I identify an orthodox type of approach to this passage, but argue that it cannot give a charitable interpretation of Melissus' strategy. In order to assess Melissus' overall argument we have to identify the opponent at whom it is aimed. The orthodox interpretation of the argument faces a dilemma: Melissus' argument is either a poor argument against a plausible opponent or a good argument against an implausible opponent.My interpretation turns on identifying a new target for Melissus' argument. I explain the position I call Bluff Realism (contrasting it with two other views: the Pig Headed and the Fully Engaged). These are positions concerning the dialectical relation between perception on the one hand, and arguments to counter-perceptual conclusions on the other. I argue that Bluff Realism represents a serious threat from an Eleatic point of view, and is prima facie an attractive position in its own right.I then give a charitable interpretation of Melissus' argument in DK 30 B8, showing how he produces a strong and incisive argument against the Bluff Realist position I have identified. Melissus emerges as an innovative and astute philosopher.


2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Owen Clark

In an essay entirely devoted to the subject of dance in Alain Badiou's Handbook of Inaesthetics [Petit manuel d'inesthétique (Badiou 2005b)], we find the following contentious statement: “Dance is not an art, because it is the sign of the possibility of art as inscribed in the body” (69). At first glance, this statement seems strangely familiar to the reader versed in writing about dance, particularly philosophical writing. “Dance is not an art”: Badiou critiques Mallarmé as not realizing this as the true import of his ideas. It is familiar because it attests to a certain problem in aesthetic thinking, one that relates to the placement and position of dance and the works that comprise its history into what can be seen as certain evaluative hierarchies, particularly vis à vis the relation of dance to other art forms, and in particular, those involving speech and writing. Dance seems to suffer from a certain marginalization, subtraction, or exclusion, and its practice seems to occupy a place of the perennial exception, problem, or special case. The strangeness of the statement, on the other hand, relates to the widespread view outside of academic writing that the status of dance “as art” is actually completely unproblematic. What follows therefore is a critical commentary on this assertion of Badiou, placed both in the context of Badiou's writing, and in the wider one pertaining to the problem of exclusion just outlined.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document