scholarly journals Phenomenology and Experimental Psychology: On the Prospects and Limitations of Experimental Research for a Phenomenological Epistemology

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Berghofer
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Phenomenology ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Phenomenological Conception

AbstractHusserl’s transcendental phenomenology is first and foremost a science of the structures of consciousness. Since it is intended to yield eidetic, i. e., a priori insights, it is often assumed that transcendental phenomenology and the natural sciences are totally detached from each other such that phenomenological investigations cannot possibly benefit from empirical evidence. The aim of this paper is to show that a beneficial relationship is possible. To be more precise, I will show how Husserl’s a priori investigations on consciousness can be supplemented by research in experimental psychology in order to tackle fundamental questions in epistemology. Our result will be a phenomenological conception of experiential justification that is in accordance with and supported by empirical phenomena such as perceptual learning and the phenomenon of blindsight. Finally, I shall shed light on the systematic limits of empirical research.

scholarly journals Surveillance and Ethnography: Researching Surveillance as Everyday Life

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Green ◽  
Nils Zurawski
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Future Contribution ◽  
Surveillance Studies ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Over Time

This article argues for a wider and more nuanced understanding of ethnography’s role in Surveillance Studies than has sometimes historically been the case. The article begins by (briefly) deconstructing some of the ways that the concepts of both ‘surveillance’ and ‘ethnography’ have been deployed in empirical surveillance research over time, in order to set the scene for a critical interrogation of the variety of ethnographic approaches so far used within Surveillance Studies. The paper then goes on to review Surveillance Studies approaches broadly, and a range of qualitative and ethnographically-informed approaches in particular, within interdisciplinary empirical research related to surveillance relations. The ensuing discussion identifies several points where the existing empirical evidence base would benefit from more extensive ethnographic studies, at multiple sites and scales, that methodologically recognize surveillance as situated and meaningful everyday life processes and practices, rather than surveillant activities and relationships in settings defined as ‘surveillance’ in an a priori fashion. The article concludes by suggesting that approaches oriented towards empirically understanding surveillance practices as ‘everyday life’ have a significant future contribution to make, particularly with respect to building and developing our theoretical understandings of surveillant assemblages in everyday life contexts.

TRYGVE HAAVELMO’S EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY AND SCENARIO ANALYSIS IN A COINTEGRATED VECTOR AUTOREGRESSION

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Hoover ◽  
Katarina Juselius
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Scenario Analysis ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Vector Autoregression ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Experimental Methodology ◽  
Controlled Experiments ◽  
Probability Approach ◽  
Scenario Analyses ◽  
Shed Light

The paper provides a careful, analytical account of Trygve Haavelmo’s use of the analogy between controlled experiments common in the natural sciences and econometric techniques. The experimental analogy forms the linchpin of the methodology for passive observation that he develops in his famous monograph,The Probability Approach in Econometrics(1944). Contrary to some recent interpretations of Haavelmo’s method, the experimental analogy does not commit Haavelmo to a strong apriorism in which econometrics can only test and reject theoretical hypotheses, rather it supports the acquisition of knowledge through a two-way exchange between theory and empirical evidence. Once the details of the analogy are systematically understood, the experimental analogy can be used to shed light on theory-consistent cointegrated vector autoregression (CVAR) scenario analyses. A CVAR scenario analysis can be interpreted as a clear example of Haavelmo’s ‘experimental’ approach; and, in turn, it can be shown to extend and develop Haavelmo’s methodology and to address issues that Haavelmo regarded as unresolved.

Armchair Arguments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Lafollette
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Know How

Valuable armchair arguments are shaped by significant reservoirs of knowledge, albeit knowledge that lies in their background, rather than the foreground. So understood armchair arguments are essential to any serious investigation of the issue of gun control. They help establish the burden of proof: they show what it is reasonable to believe if the rights-based arguments and the empirical evidence are less than compelling. They inform the arguments about the serious right to bear arms. They are essential in seeking and evaluating empirical evidence: they enable researchers to know how to structure empirical research and how to interpret their findings.

Small-Scale Deliberation and Mass Democracy: A Systematic Review of the Spillover Effects of Deliberative Minipublics

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110072
Author(s):  
Ramon van der Does ◽  
Vincent Jacquet
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Mass Democracy

Deliberative minipublics are popular tools to address the current crisis in democracy. However, it remains ambiguous to what degree these small-scale forums matter for mass democracy. In this study, we ask the question to what extent minipublics have “spillover effects” on lay citizens—that is, long-term effects on participating citizens and effects on non-participating citizens. We answer this question by means of a systematic review of the empirical research on minipublics’ spillover effects published before 2019. We identify 60 eligible studies published between 1999 and 2018 and provide a synthesis of the empirical results. We show that the evidence for most spillover effects remains tentative because the relevant body of empirical evidence is still small. Based on the review, we discuss the implications for democratic theory and outline several trajectories for future research.

Working Women’s Decision-Making Power at Home: Evidence from Four North Indian Urban Clusters

Urbanisation ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 245574712110258
Author(s):  
Megan Maxwell ◽  
Milan Vaishnav
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Significant Heterogeneity ◽  
Household Decision ◽  
Household Decision Making ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Shed Light

Do working women enjoy greater levels of human agency? While the theoretical foundations underlying this connection are clear, the empirical evidence is quite mixed. We leverage detailed, new data on intra-household decision-making and labour market behaviour from four north Indian urban clusters to shed light on this question. We find that women who work exercise greater say in important decisions around the home. However, this ‘work advantage’ exhibits significant heterogeneity across decision types, decision-making domains, and definitions of work.

scholarly journals The Mode Heuristic in Service Consumers’ Interpretations of Online Rating Distributions

2021 ◽  
pp. 109467052110124
Author(s):  
Sarah Köcher ◽  
Sören Köcher
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Graphical Display ◽  
Visual Salience ◽  
Graphical Displays ◽  
Volume Average ◽  
Online Rating ◽  
Process Level ◽  
Shed Light

In this article, the authors demonstrate a tendency among consumers to use the arithmetic mode as a heuristic basis when drawing inferences from graphical displays of online rating distributions in such a way that service evaluations inferred from rating distributions systematically vary by the location of the mode. The rationale underlying this phenomenon is that the mode (i.e., the most frequent rating which is represented by the tallest bar in a graphical display) attracts consumers’ attention because of its visual salience and is thus disproportionately weighted when they draw conclusions. Across a series of eight studies, the authors provide strong empirical evidence for the existence of the mode heuristic, shed light on this phenomenon at the process level, and demonstrate how consumers’ inferences based on the mode heuristic depend on the visual salience of the mode. Together, the findings of these studies contribute to a better understanding of how service customers process and interpret graphical illustrations of online rating distributions and provide companies with a new key figure that—aside from rating volume, average ratings, and rating dispersion—should be incorporated in the monitoring, analyzing, and evaluating of review data.

Forging Women's Substantive Representation: Intersectional Interests, Political Parity, and Pensions in Bolivia

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Ewig
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Pension Reforms ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Political Intersectionality

AbstractLacking tools to measure substantive representation, empirical research to date has determined women’s substantive representation by identifying “women’s interests” a priori, with little attention to differences across race, class, or other inequalities. To address this problem, I develop the concept of intersectional interests and a method for identifying these. Intersectional interests represent multiple perspectives and are forged through a process of political intersectionality that purposefully includes historically marginalized perspectives. These interests can be parsed into three types: expansionist, integrationist, and reconceived. Identification of intersectional interests requires, first, an inductive mapping of the differing women’s perspectives that exist in a specific context and then an examination of the political processes that lead to these new, redefined interests. I demonstrate the concept of intersectional interests and how to identify these in Bolivia, where I focus on the political process of forging reconceived intersectional interests in Bolivia’s political parity and pension reforms.

scholarly journals An interdisciplinary perspective on the value of envy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Lange ◽  
Sara Protasi
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
The Self ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multiple Components ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Theoretical Investigations ◽  
The Way

The public and scholars alike largely consider envy to be reprehensible. This judgment of the value of envy commonly results either from a limited understanding of the nature of envy or from a limited understanding of how to determine the value of phenomena. Overcoming this state requires an interdisciplinary collaboration of psychologists and philosophers. That is, broad empirical evidence regarding the nature of envy generated in psychological studies must inform judgments about the value of envy according to sophisticated philosophical standards. We conducted such a collaboration. Empirical research indicates that envy is constituted by multiple components which in turn predict diverse outcomes that may be functional for the self and society. Accordingly, the value of envy is similarly nuanced. Sometimes, envy may have instrumental value in promoting prudentially and morally good outcomes. Sometimes, envy may be non-instrumentally prudentially and morally good. Sometimes, envy may be bad. This nuanced perspective on the value of envy has implications for recommendations on how to deal with envy and paves the way toward future empirical and theoretical investigations on the nature and the value of envy.

scholarly journals How to tell about errors not boringly: methodological analysis of expounding the basis of data processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (2 (131)) ◽  
pp. 104-115
Author(s):  
Oksana Lozovenko ◽  
Yevgeny Sokolov
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Interval ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Basic Skills ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Measured Quantity ◽  
General View ◽  
True Value ◽  
Training Interval ◽  
The Mean

The authors continue to report about results they have obtained in the process of creating a special introductory one-semester Laboratory Physics course «Search for Physics laws». It is known that the teaching experience and the results of the performed tests show that most students do not acquire the basic skills for conducting an experimental research. This course was built on the basis of the algorithm of systematic construction of students’ skills for carrying out an experimental research. The authors have used Galperin’s stepwise teaching procedure which was developed on the assumption that learning any kind of knowledge involves different kinds of actions. The authors have analysed different ways of how to expound the basic ideas of data analysis, and shown their connection with the point, syncretic and training-interval paradigms. Action diagrams are provided for each type of expounding. As an example of using the training-interval paradigm for teaching first-year students of a technical university, a specially designed lab session is presented in the article. The topic of the session is “The concept of a confidence interval”. Laboratory Work 1 “The Buffon-de Morgan Experiment”. This lab session meets several important requirements: a) the number of computations is minimised; b) a directly measurable quantity is considered; c) students are provided with a “fulcrum” in the form of a priori known true value of a quantity. A general view on measuring physics quantities is summarised in four quite unexpected for students “unpleasant axioms”: 1) none of measured values coincides with the true value of a quantity; 2) the mean of measured values does not coincide with the true value of a quantity; 3) even if, by a lucky chance, one of measured values or the mean coincided with the true value of a quantity, we would never know about it; 4) a confidence interval catches the true value of a measured quantity only in 68% of cases. The authors claim that the presented lab lesson allows demonstrating the equity of these “axioms” clearly and vividly, and that the organised laboratory sessions in the new way are significantly more successful in improving students’ basic skills of error analysis than traditional laboratory sessions.

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