Who Wants to Know?

Author(s):  
Jennifer Nado

This chapter argues that professional inquirers, including professional philosophers, are subject to special epistemic obligations which require them to meet higher standards than those that are required for knowing. Perhaps the most obvious examples come from the experimental sciences, where professionals are required to employ rigorous methodological procedures to reduce the risk of error and bias; procedures such as double-blinding are obligatory in many experimental contexts, but no parallel bias-reducing measures are generally expected in ordinary epistemic activity. To expect such would, in fact, be over-demanding. I argue that this variation in epistemic requirements cannot be accounted for adequately via the usual standard-shifting accounts of knowledge, such as contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism. Instead, it calls for a more pluralistic approach—it suggests that knowledge is simply not the only epistemic state worthy of philosophical attention.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq ◽  
Muhammad Riaz Mahmood

The problématique of governing diversity has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention but literature has largely overlooked the challenges appertaining to growing religious diversity in many places. The contemporary power sharing models and multicultural policies which are of a secular nature fall short of the expectations to foster peaceful coexistence in multi-religious societies. The primary concern of this paper is to manifest how religion can help us to lessen faith based violence. It is argued that religious traditions may offer valuable insights to design more inclusive governance. In this backdrop, the current paper evaluates the Islamic values of religious accommodation to gauge how helpful they are for designing inclusive policies in religiously diverse societies. The analysis illustrates that Islamic doctrine contemplates the politics of accommodation and forbearance. The pluralistic approach of Islam offered religious autonomy to non-Muslims in the state of Madinah. The ‘millet system’ established by the Ottoman Empire is widely admired for granting non-territorial autonomy in the matters related to religion, culture, and personal laws to non-Muslims. This display of an Islamic pluralistic approach at different junctures of Muslim history attests the capacity of the Islamic values of accommodation to nurture peaceful coexistence in modern societies. However, it requires a more unbiased and rigorous analysis to convince the global audience in this regard.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-301
Author(s):  
Alexandra Jarošová

Abstract The first part of this paper outlines the relevant aspects of functional structuralism serving lexicographers as a departure point for building a model of lexical meaning useable in the Dictionary of Contemporary Slovak Language. This section also points to some aspects of Klára Buzássyová’s research on lexis and word­formation that have enriched the functional­structuralist paradigm. The second section shows other theoretical and methodological frameworks, such as linguistic pragmatics, cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics (all of them departing in some respect from the structuralism and, in other aspects, being complementary with it) that can enhance the structuralist basis of the model. The third section outlines an extended model of lexical meaning that represents a synthesis of all those theoretical frameworks and, at the same time, represents a reflection of three language constituents: 1. The social constituent is present in consideration of communicative functions of utterances, naming functions of lexical units, functional styles and registers, language norms, and situational contexts; 2. The psychological component takes the form of consideration of the prototype effect, the abolition of boundaries between linguistic meaning and other parts of cognition; 3. Thanks to the structural/systematic component, a description of paradigmatic and syntagmatic behaviour of words can be performed, and an inventory of formal­content units and categories (lexemes, lexies, word­forming and grammatical structures) can be provided. In our dictionary practice, the above­mentioned model is reflected in the methodological procedures as follows: 1. Systemization of repetitive (regular, standardized) phenomena; 2. Prototypicalization of meaning description; 3. Contextualization/encyclopedization of meaning description; 4. Pragmatization of meaning description; 5. Continualized presentation of language phenomena, i.e., introduction of numerous phenomena of transient and indeterminate nature and indicating the existence of a semantic­pragmatic and lexical­grammatical continuum; 6. “Discretization” of combinatorial continuum, i.e., identification and description of entrenched word combinations with naming functions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-380
Author(s):  
Antônio Emanuel dos' Santos Silva ◽  
Matheus Silveira Pinheiro ◽  
Davis Pereira de Paula

Ambientalmente as dunas frontais constituem estruturas verdes de proteção costeira contra o avanço do mar, em muitos casos, são responsáveis pela manutenção do equilíbrio sedimentar do sistema praia-duna, impedindo que processos como a erosão costeira e a inundação marinha se tornem danosos a sociedade civil e ao patrimônio construído. O objetivo deste estudo foi monitorar as variações morfológicas e sedimentares do sistema praia-duna entre os anos de 2016 e 2018, no trecho extremo oeste da Praia do Icaraí, através da determinação das taxas granulométricas, volumétricas e morfológicas do sistema praia-duna na Praia do Icaraí. Os procedimentos metodológicos foram divididos em três etapas principais: levantamento bibliográfico, geocartográfico e experimentos de campo. Considerou-se que as forçantes oceanográficas foram as principais responsáveis pela erosão e solapamento das dunas frontais presentes na área de estudo. Em linhas gerais, os resultados deste trabalho significam um importante instrumento de análise dos impactos das condicionantes oceanográficas e antrópicas sobre uma praia que sofre de erosão costeira acentuada. O estudo em um trecho mais preservado dessa praia indicou de forma direta os impactos sofridos em um litoral que vem passando por transformações contínuas em suas praias, como é o caso do litoral de Caucaia.Palavras-chave: Morfodinâmica; Sistema Praial; Dunas Frontais. ABSTRACTEnvironmentally the frontal dunes constitute green structures of coastal protection against the advance of the sea, in many cases, they are responsible for the maintenance of the sedimentary balance of the beach-dune system, preventing that processes such as coastal erosion and marine flooding become harmful to civil society and built heritage. The objective of this study was to monitor the morphological and sedimentary variations of the beach-dune system between the years 2016 and 2018, in the extreme west section of Icaraí Beach, by determining the granulometric, volumetric and morphological rates of the beach-dune system in Praia of Icaraí. The methodological procedures were divided into three main stages: bibliographic survey, geocartographic and field experiments. It was considered that the oceanographic forcings were the main responsible for the erosion and overlap of the frontal dunes present in the study area. In general terms, the results of this work represent an important instrument for analyzing the impacts of oceanographic and anthropogenic conditions on a beach that suffers from marked coastal erosion. The study in a more preserved stretch of this beach indicated in a direct way the impacts suffered on a coast that has undergone continuous transformations in its beaches, as is the case of the coast of Caucaia.Keywords: Morphodynamics; Praial System; Fore Dunes. RESUMENAmbientalmente, las dunas frontales son estructuras verdes de protección costera contra el avance del mar. En muchos casos, son responsables de mantener el equilibrio sedimentario del sistema de dunas de playa, evitando que procesos como la erosión costera y las inundaciones marinas dañen a la sociedad civil. y el patrimonio construido. El objetivo de este estudio fue monitorear las variaciones morfológicas y sedimentarias del sistema de dunas de playa entre 2016 y 2018, en el extremo occidental de Praia do Icaraí, determinando el tamaño de partícula, las tasas volumétricas y morfológicas del sistema de dunas de playa en Praia de Icaraí Los procedimientos metodológicos se dividieron en tres etapas principales: estudio bibliográfico, geocartográfico y experimentos de campo. El forzamiento oceanográfico se consideró el principal responsable de la erosión y el debilitamiento de las dunas frontales presentes en el área de estudio. En general, los resultados de este trabajo representan un instrumento importante para analizar los impactos de las condiciones oceanográficas y antropogénicas en una playa que sufre una severa erosión costera. El estudio en un tramo más preservado de esta playa indicó directamente los impactos sufridos en una costa que ha sufrido cambios continuos en sus playas, como es el caso de la costa de Caucaia.Palabras claves: Morfodinámica; Sistema de playa; Dunas frontales.


Author(s):  
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín ◽  
Kristen Intemann

This chapter considers whether the reliable identification of normatively inappropriate dissent (NID) would be helpful in addressing many of the adverse epistemic and social impacts that can result from it. It considers a variety of ways in which such identification could be used to minimize the epistemic and social damages that NID can inflict, including prohibiting the dissent in question, targeting it for special scrutiny, placing limits on scientists’ epistemic obligations, guiding public beliefs, emphasizing the existence of a consensus, and discrediting dissenters. It shows that although some of these strategies could be useful, others are unhelpful in limiting the negative impacts of NID, and may even exacerbate them or generate other equally serious problems.


Author(s):  
Luc Faucher ◽  
Pierre Poirier

Research on the adaptive characteristics of the human immune system reveals that evolutionary algorithms are not strictly matters of replication. And research in genomics suggests that there is no a single source of evolutionary information that carries the same content in every environment. A plausible theory of cultural evolution must acknowledge the possibility that multiple selective algorithms are operating at different time-scales, on different units of selection, with different logical structures; but it must explain how different selective processes are interfaced to yield culturally stable phenomena. This paper advances an empirically plausible approach to memetics that recognizes a wider variety of evolutionary algorithms; and it advances a pluralistic approach to cultural change. Finally, it shows that multiple forms of processing, operating at different timescales, on different units of selection, collectively sustain the human capacity to form and use certain types of representations.


Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Boyd Millar

Abstract Very often when the vast majority of experts agree on some scientific issue, laypeople nonetheless regularly consume articles, videos, lectures, etc., the principal claims of which are inconsistent with the expert consensus. Moreover, it is standardly assumed that it is entirely appropriate, and perhaps even obligatory, for laypeople to consume such anti-consensus material. I maintain that this standard assumption gets things backwards. Each of us is particularly vulnerable to false claims when we are not experts on some topic – such falsehoods have systematic negative impacts on our doxastic attitudes that we can neither prevent nor correct. So, when there is clear expert consensus on a given scientific issue, while it is permissible for experts to consume anti-consensus material, laypeople have an epistemic obligation to avoid such material. This argument has important consequences for philosophical discussions of our epistemic obligations to perform or omit belief-influencing actions. Such discussions typically abstract away from the important differences between experts and laypeople. Accordingly, we should reject this typical practice as problematic, and insist instead that laypeople and experts have fundamentally different epistemic obligations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Author(s):  
Hannah Charlotte Freiwald ◽  
Nico Peter Schwarzbach ◽  
Anne Wolowski

Abstract Objectives The German Society of Craniomandibular Function and Disorders recommends that patients suffering from temporomandibular dysfunctions should practice sports in order to compensate for everyday stress. This raises the question as to what extent competitive athletes develop temporomandibular dysfunctions or whether their athletic activities protect them. With the present literature review, the authors intend to give an overview of the currently available publications on this topic. Materials and methods A literature research in the PubMed and Google Scholar databases was performed to filter out the currently available publications on the topic ‚sports, and temporomandibular dysfunction. Results Out of 114 available articles, seven met the inclusion criteria. Two other relevant articles were found in the list of references, so that in total, nine publications were picked for the review. In case numbers ranging from eight to 347 subjects, a temporomandibular dysfunction was detected with a prevalence between 11.7% and 100% for athletes and between 11.11% and 14.3% for non-athletes. Different kinds of sports were evaluated, all of them contact sports: basketball, handball, wrestling, boxing, karate, mixed martial arts, field hockey, water polo, and soccer. One study compared athletes with and without consumption of anabolic steroids, regardless of the type of sport. The level of athletic performance varied across the different studies. Conclusions Currently, studies dealing with the effect of competitive sports on temporomandibular dysfunction are scarce. Inconsistent methodological procedures permit only limited comparability. Clinical relevance A general trend, however, can already be discerned: professional athletes suffer from temporomandibular dysfunctions more frequently than non-athletes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 014920632110064
Author(s):  
Gerard George ◽  
Martine R. Haas ◽  
Anita M. McGahan ◽  
Simon J. D. Schillebeeckx ◽  
Paul Tracey

Purpose is a concept often used in managerial communities to signal and define a firm’s benevolent and pluralistic approach to its stakeholders beyond its focus on shareholders. While some evidence has linked purpose to positive organizational outcomes such as growth, employee satisfaction, innovation, and superior stock market performance, the definition and application of purpose in management research has been varied and frequently ambiguous. We review literature streams that invoke purpose in the for-profit firm and propose a unifying definition. Next, we develop a framework to study purpose that decouples its framing and formalization within firms from its realization, thus helping to avoid conflation of the presence of purpose with positive organizational outcomes. The framework also highlights internal and external drivers that shape the framing of purpose as well as the influence of the institutional context on its adoption and effectiveness. Finally, we provide a rich agenda for future research on purpose.


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