The ineffable: A framework for the study of methods through the case of mid-century mind-brain sciences

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 789-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Stark ◽  
Nancy D Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
The One ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
New Framework

Conventionally, the story of modern research methods has been told as the gradual ascendancy of practices that scientists designed to extract evidence out of minds and bodies. These methods, which we call ‘methods of extraction’, have not been the exclusive ways in which experts have generated evidence. In a variety of case studies, scholars in Science and Technology Studies have persuasively documented scientists’ efforts to know the extra-linguistic, internal experiences of other beings – prior to or aside from their efforts to represent those experiences in words and images. We propose a new framework to resolve a seeming contradiction in STS, which stems from the fact that the language of ‘subjectivity’ has been used to refer to two analytically distinct features of scientists’ methods: the epistemological premises of a method, on the one hand, and the evaluation of the method in the moral economy of science, on the other hand. Building on Shapin’s provocation to study the ‘sciences of subjectivity’, we analyze three sites in the epistemic niche of 1950s US Federal mind-brain scientists and find that ‘methods of extraction’ neither replaced nor invariably trumped additional methods that researchers designed to provide evidence of people’s interior experiences. We call these additional approaches ‘methods of ingression’ because researchers purported to generate authoritative evidence by climbing inside the experience of another being, rather than pulling the evidence out. Methods of ingression and methods of extraction coexisted and developed iteratively in dynamic relationship with each other – not in isolation nor in competition, as is commonly assumed. Through this empirical study, we provide a new framework that departs from the binary framework of objectivity-subjectivity to allow scholars in STS to more aptly describe scientists’ epistemic worlds; to discern a greater range of methods at play; and to appreciate the warrants for knowledge used in our own field.

scholarly journals Evangelical and Catholic Timespace in Work: An Argument against a Homeless Eschatology

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Maria Ledstam
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Business As Mission ◽  
Achievable Goal ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

This article engages with how religion and economy relate to each other in faith-based businesses. It also elaborates on a recurrent idea in theological literature that reflections on different visions of time can advance theological analyses of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. More specifically, this article brings results from an ethnographic study of two faith-based businesses into conversation with the ethicist Luke Bretherton’s presentation of different understandings of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. Using Theodore Schatzki’s theory of timespace, the article examines how time and space are constituted in two small faith-based businesses that are part of the two networks Business as Mission (evangelical) and Economy of Communion (catholic) and how the different timespaces affect the religious-economic configurations in the two cases and with what moral implications. The overall findings suggest that the timespace in the Catholic business was characterized by struggling caused by a tension between certain ideals on how religion and economy should relate to each other on the one hand and how the practice evolved on the other hand. Furthermore, the timespace in the evangelical business was characterized by confidence, caused by the business having a rather distinct and achievable goal when it came to how they wanted to be different and how religion should relate to economy. There are, however, nuances and important resemblances between the cases that cannot be explained by the businesses’ confessional and theological affiliations. Rather, there seems to be something about the phenomenon of tension-filled and confident faith-based businesses that causes a drive in the practices towards the common good. After mapping the results of the empirical study, I discuss some contributions that I argue this study brings to Bretherton’s presentation of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism.

scholarly journals Wealth, Slave Ownership, and Fighting for the Confederacy: An Empirical Study of the American Civil War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew B. Hall ◽  
Connor Huff ◽  
Shiro Kuriwaki
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Confederate Army ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Personal Wealth ◽  
The One

How did personal wealth and slaveownership affect the likelihood southerners fought for the Confederate Army in the American Civil War? On the one hand, wealthy southerners had incentives to free-ride on poorer southerners and avoid fighting; on the other hand, wealthy southerners were disproportionately slaveowners, and thus had more at stake in the outcome of the war. We assemble a dataset on roughly 3.9 million free citizens in the Confederacy, and show that slaveowners were more likely to fight than non-slaveowners. We then exploit a randomized land lottery held in 1832 in Georgia. Households of lottery winners owned more slaves in 1850 and were more likely to have sons who fought in the Confederate Army. We conclude that slaveownership, in contrast to some other kinds of wealth, compelled southerners to fight despite free-rider incentives because it raised their stakes in the war’s outcome.

MDO-LWIGT: An Mobile Device Oriented Lightweight Interactive Graphics Toolkit

2011 ◽  
Vol 268-270 ◽  
pp. 1745-1749
Author(s):  
Hong An Pan ◽  
Qing Yi Hua ◽  
Yan Shuo Chang ◽  
Xiao Dong Qi
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Mobile Device ◽  
The Other ◽  
Interactive Graphics ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Application Model ◽  
The One

In the development of interactive graphics application on mobile devices, we are puzzled by two problems: The one is how to make graphics application adapt to the intrinsic limitations of mobile devices; The other one is how to rapidly and effectively build graphics application. This paper proposes a MDO-LWIGT(Mobile Device Oriented Lightweight Interactive Graphics Toolkit) to provide a graphics application model that can help developers rapidly build graphics application on mobile devices. The application based on such a model not only can be adaptive to the limitations of mobile devices but also can effectively represent and manage graphics objects, maitain the dynamic relationship between the application datas related to graphics objects.

Disciplinary Translations

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-250
Author(s):  
Casper Bruun Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Research Community ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Knowledge Change ◽  
Technical Mediation ◽  
The One ◽  
Nonhuman Agency ◽  
Instructive Case

Early in his career, Bruno Latour’s limited readership consisted mainly of the research community in science and technology studies (STS) that he helped to inaugurate. Today the situation could hardly be more different. Latour is now subject to the “translations”—the processes by which ideas travel—that he has provided such powerful tools for analyzing. He has become a “mutable mobile”—eminently transportable but always changing as he goes—that in different contexts exists as a variety of conceptual characters or figurations. As the Latour network continues to see significant extensions and transformations, it offers an instructive case for understanding the potentials and dynamics of traveling texts and ideas—and of their relation to existing disciplinary formations—as ecologies of knowledge change. This article examines the reception and adaptation of Latour’s ideas in two quite different intellectual contexts: anthropology and literary studies. The proliferation of Latour figurations is shown to be a consequence of interactions between, on the one hand, existing disciplinary constellations of ideas, concerns, and practices, and, on the other hand, his own often ambiguous arguments on topics including theory and method, nonhuman agency and politics, and technical mediation.

scholarly journals REGIMES DE INTERAÇÃO EM UMA NARRATIVA DA REPERCUSSÃO: O Boticário, os “Casais”, Malafaia e “eu”.

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 847
Author(s):  
José Maria Mendes Pereira Junior ◽  
Rogério Covaleski
Keyword(s):  
Participatory Culture ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Constituent Element ◽  
Valentine's Day ◽  
The One

As narrativas da repercussão surgem, de um lado, das tentativas de programação e manipulação das empresas e de sua publicidade, assim como, do outro lado, das lógicas de ajustamento e acidente que se encontram nas narrativas dos consumidores. Um continuum entre os regimes de interação (LANDOWSKI, 2014), materializados neste artigo pela publicidade de O Boticário para o Dia dos Namorados (2015) e a repercussão posterior a sua veiculação, que permite refletir sobre a dinâmica relação entre as marcas e seus consumidores no contexto de cultura participativa (JENKINS, 2008), em que os atos funcionais da publicidade (adesão e compra) misturam-se com as apropriações que o “receptor” faz das mensagens publicitárias, usando-as como mais um elemento constituinte de seu tecido social.   PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Publicidade; Narrativas; Regimes de Interação; Cultura Participativa; Repercussão.     ABSTRACT The narratives of the repercussion arise, on the one hand, from the attempts of programming and manipulation of the companies and their publicity, as well as, on the other hand, the logics of adjustment and accident found in the narratives of the consumers. A continuum between the interaction regimes (LANDOWSKI, 2014), embodied in this article by O Boticário's advertising for Valentine's Day (2015) and the subsequent repercussion of its advertising, which allows us to reflect on the dynamic relationship between brands and their consumers In the context of participatory culture (JENKINS, 2008), where the functional acts of advertising (adhesion and purchase) blend with the appropriations that the "receiver" makes of advertising messages, using them as another constituent element of their fabric social.   KEYWORDS: Advertising; Narratives; Interaction Regimes; Participatory Culture; Repercussion.     RESUMEN Las narrativas de la repercusión surgen, por un lado, de los intentos de programación y manipulación de las empresas y de su publicidad, así como, del otro lado, de las lógicas de ajuste y accidente que se encuentran en las narrativas de los consumidores. Un continuum entre los regímenes de interacción (LANDOWSKI, 2014), materializados en este artículo por la publicidad de O Boticário para el Día de San Valentín (2015) y la repercusión posterior a su difusión, que permite reflexionar sobre la dinámica relación entre las marcas y sus consumidores en el contexto de cultura participativa (JENKINS, 2008), en que los actos funcionales de la publicidad (adhesión y compra) se mezclan con las apropiaciones que el “receptor” hace de los mensajes publicitarios, usándolos como más un elemento constituyente de su tejido social.   PALABRAS CLAVE: Publicidad; Narrativas; Regímenes de Interacción; Cultura Participativa; Repercusión.

Predicting vibrancy of metro station areas considering spatial relationships through graph convolutional neural networks: The case of Shenzhen, China

2020 ◽  
pp. 239980832097786
Author(s):  
Longzhu Xiao ◽  
Siuming Lo ◽  
Jiangping Zhou ◽  
Jixiang Liu ◽  
Linchuan Yang
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spatial Relationships ◽  
Transit Oriented Development ◽  
Metro Station ◽  
The One

Vibrancy is one of the most desirable outcomes of transit-oriented development (TOD). The vibrancy of a metro station area (MSA) depends partially on the MSA’s built-environment features. Predicting an MSA’s vibrancy with its built-environment features is of great interest to decision makers as these features are often modifiable by public interventions. However, little has been done on MSAs’ vibrancy in existing studies. On the one hand, seldom has the vibrancy of MSAs been explicitly explored, and measuring the vibrancy is essential. On the other hand, because MSAs are interconnected, one MSA’s vibrancy depends on the MSA’s features and those of relevant MSAs. Hence, selecting a suitable metric that quantifies spatial relationships between MSAs can better predict MSAs’ vibrancy. In this study, we identify four single-dimensional vibrancy proxies and fuse them into an integrated index. Moreover, we design a two-layer graph convolutional neural network model that accounts for both the built-environment features of MSAs and spatial relationships between MSAs. We employ the model in an empirical study in Shenzhen, China, and illustrate (1) how different metrics of spatial relationships influence the prediction of MSAs’ vibrancy; (2) how the predictability varies across single-dimensional and integrated proxies of MSAs’ vibrancy; and (3) how the findings of this study can be used to enlighten decision makers. This study enriches our understandings of spatial relationships between MSAs. Moreover, it can help decision makers with targeted policies for developing MSAs towards TOD.

Object reference in a shared domain of conversation

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robbert-Jan Beun ◽  
Anita H.M. Cremers
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
The Other ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The One ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
Total Effort ◽  
Simple Block ◽  
Object Reference

In this paper we report on an investigation into the principles underlying the choice of a particular referential expression to refer to an object located in a domain to which both participants in the dialogue have visual as well as physical access. Our approach is based on the assumption that participants try to use as little effort as possible when referring to objects. This assumption is operational-ized in two factors, namely the focus of attention and a particular choice of features to be included in a referential expression. We claim that both factors help in reducing the effort needed to, on the one hand, refer to an object and, on the other hand, to identify it. As a result of the focus of attention the number of potential target objects (i.e., the object the speaker intends to refer to) is reduced. The choice of a specific type of feature determines the number of objects that have to be identified in order to be able to understand the referential expression. An empirical study was conducted in which pairs of participants cooperatively carried out a simple block-building task, and the results provided empirical evidence that supported the aforementioned claims. Especially the focus of attention turned out to play an important role in reducing the total effort. Additionally, focus acted as a strong coherence-establishing device in the studied domain.

WALKING CLOCKS AND SWIRLING GORGES: CONSTRUAL OF OBJECTS AND EVENTS IN DESCRIPTIONS OF PAINTINGS

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-46
Author(s):  
O.K. Iriskhanova ◽  
◽  
O.N. Prokofyeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Artistic Styles ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Discourse Units ◽  
Event Construal

Despite numerous studies, the difference between objects and events remains one of the most debatable issues, and scholars look for arguments relying on ontology, epistemology, and language. The authors of the paper hypothesize that differences between objects and events construal can be observed not only in linguistic expressions referring to these entities, but in the gestures that accompany them. To verify the hypothesis, an empirical study was carried out, with 20 Russian participants spontaneously describing four paintings belonging to different artistic styles. The authors analyze co-occurrence of the units of speech (Elementary Discourse Units, or EDU) denoting either objects or events with gestures classified into mimetic modes and mimetic categories (Molding, Acting, Drawing, and Representing categories). The results show that there exists significant correlation between object-construal EDU and Molding gestures, on the one hand, and between event-construal EDU and Acting gestures, on the other hand. Besides, the study reveals that some speech-gesture patterns relate to such qualities of the paintings, as content, style, genre, and technique.

scholarly journals Keeping Systems at Work

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Mikko J Virtanen
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Electricity System ◽  
The One ◽  
Electricity Infrastructure ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

This article discusses the reliability of electricity supply and the management of its uncertainties from a systems theoretical point of view. We begin by outlining recent Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature about energy systems, infrastructures and practices concerning their use and argue that many current discussions hold promise in two directions: one concerns the brittleness and uncertainty of the electricity system that is seen as an ongoing achievement, the other is about broader structuring factors and contexts that should also be acknowledged when researching such systems. With an aim of developing this two-part focus, the paper advances systems theoretical considerations about the electricity infrastructure and proposes an analysis tool to study the necessary reductions of complexity of the infrastructure in two emblematic settings. The sites are infrastructure control rooms on the one hand and households on the other hand. The article concludes by discussing the different reductions of complexity by electricity users and electricity experts through using the theoretical point of view presented in the article.

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