Empirical Methods to Predict Takeoff Field Requirements for Single-Engine Aircraft

This chapter examines the currently fashionable notion of ‘experimental semantics’, and argues that most work in natural language semantics has always been experimental. The oft-cited dichotomy between ‘theoretical’ (or ‘armchair’) and ‘experimental’ is bogus and should be dropped form the discourse. The same holds for dichotomies like ‘intuition-based’ (or ‘thought experiments’) vs. ‘empirical’ work (and ‘real experiments’). The so-called new ‘empirical’ methods are often nothing more than collecting the large-scale ‘intuitions’ or, doing multiple thought experiments. Of course the use of multiple subjects could well allow for a better experiment than the more traditional single or few subject methodologies. But whether or not this is the case depends entirely on the question at hand. In fact, the chapter considers several multiple-subject studies and shows that the particular methodology in those cases does not necessarily provide important insights, and the chapter argues that some its claimed benefits are incorrect.

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Assessing Medical Evidence

10.1093/oso/9780198747048.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jacob Stegenga

Keyword(s):

Quality Assessment ◽

Randomized Trials ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Allocation Concealment ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Medical Evidence ◽

Empirical Methods ◽

First Order ◽

First Order Methods

Medical scientists employ ‘quality assessment tools’ to assess evidence from medical research, especially from randomized trials. These tools are designed to take into account methodological details of studies, including randomization, subject allocation concealment, and other features of studies deemed relevant to minimizing bias. There are dozens of such tools available. They differ widely from each other, and empirical studies show that they have low inter-rater reliability and low inter-tool reliability. This is an instance of a more general problem called here the underdetermination of evidential significance. Disagreements about the quality of evidence can be due to different—but in principle equally good—weightings of the methodological features that constitute quality assessment tools. Thus, the malleability of empirical research in medicine is deep: in addition to the malleability of first-order empirical methods, such as randomized trials, there is malleability in the tools used to evaluate first-order methods.

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The Duty of Philosophy

10.1093/oso/9780198810384.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Donald C. Williams

Keyword(s):

Empirical Methods ◽

General Terms ◽

The World

This chapter concerns the nature of metaphysics and a defense of it through a clarification of what role it plays in our theorizing of the world. It is argued that metaphysics and science are on the same continuum and that therefore the same empirical methods apply to metaphysics and the sciences. The ontology/cosmology distinction and the analytic/speculative distinction are introduced and explained. Ontology is the study of being as such and is concerned with general features of every existent, whereas cosmology is the study of how every existent is related to every other in general terms. Analytic inquiry concerns the nature of something and is therefore deductive, whereas speculative inquiry concerns why certain things come into being and is therefore inductive. Both distinctions are distinct. The resulting proposal is that metaphysics has two branches: ontology and cosmology, and either branch can be investigated analytically or speculatively.

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Epistemic corruption and the research impact agenda

Theory and Research in Education ◽

10.1177/14778785211029516 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 148-167

Author(s):

Ian James Kidd ◽

Jennifer Chubb ◽

Joshua Forstenzer

Keyword(s):

Research Impact ◽

Interview Data ◽

Empirical Methods ◽

Epistemic Practice ◽

Academic Researchers ◽

Critical Scrutiny ◽

The Impact

Contemporary epistemologists of education have raised concerns about the distorting effects of some of the processes and structures of contemporary academia on the epistemic practice and character of academic researchers. Such concerns have been articulated using the concept of epistemic corruption. In this article, we lend credibility to these theoretically motivated concerns using the example of the research impact agenda during the period 2012–2014. Interview data from UK and Australian academics confirm that the impact agenda system, at its inception, facilitated the development and exercise of epistemic vices. As well as vindicating theoretically motivated claims about epistemic corruption, inclusion of empirical methods and material can help us put the concept to work in ongoing critical scrutiny of evolving forms of the research impact agenda.

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