Revisiting the Theory-Constitutive Metaphor

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ii (15) ◽  
pp. 36-55
Author(s):  
Bent Sørensen ◽  
Torkild Thellefsen ◽  
Amalia Dewi

In his seminal article “Metaphor and Theory Change: What is `Metaphor ́ a metaphor for?” (1993, [1979]), Richard Boyd describes a certain class of metaphors within science, namely, the theory-constitutive metaphors (henceforth the TCMs); this class of metaphors, Boyd explains, plays an important role in the formulation and development of theories because they express explanatory claims which, at least for the time being, cannot be conceived in any other known (literal) way. Hence, TCMs become a part of scientific thought and the development of concepts. TCMs can fix reference to casual relations in the physical world, even though they have an open-endedness (vagueness and are not fully explicated); the TCMs, therefore, have a programmatic character or they invite further research. In the following we try to add more characteristics to the TCMs from a Peircean perspective, namely, that the TCMs depend on abduction – this 1) makes them both creative and explanatory, 2) relates them to guessing and anchors them in instinct, whereby 3) their plausibility concerns an affinity between mind and nature.

Author(s):  
Burkhard Müller ◽  
Jürgen Gehrke

Abstract. Planning interactions with the physical world requires knowledge about operations; in short, mental operators. Abstractness of content and directionality of access are two important properties to characterize the representational units of this kind of knowledge. Combining these properties allows four classes of knowledge units to be distinguished that can be found in the literature: (a) rules, (b) mental models or schemata, (c) instances, and (d) episodes or chunks. The influence of practicing alphabet-arithmetic operators in a prognostic, diagnostic, or retrognostic way (A + 2 = ?, A? = C, or ? + 2 = C, respectively) on the use of that knowledge in a subsequent test was used to assess the importance of these dimensions. At the beginning, the retrognostic use of knowledge was worse than the prognostic use, although identical operations were involved (A + 2 = ? vs. ? - 2 = A). This disadvantage was reduced with increased practice. Test performance was best if the task and the letter pairs were the same as in the acquisition phase. Overall, the findings support theories proposing multiple representational units of mental operators. The disadvantage for the retrognosis task was recovered in the test phase, and may be evidence for the importance of the order of events independent of the order of experience.


2004 ◽  
pp. 107-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Tarasevich

The general scientific context of evolution of fundamental economic science is considered in the article. Possible changes of the status of economics as one of the universum spheres, shifts in fundamental economic science, its subject, object, subject space and methodical toolkit in connection with priority development of a post-nonclassical paradigm of scientific thought are analyzed.


Author(s):  
Okolie S.O. ◽  
Kuyoro S.O. ◽  
Ohwo O. B

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) will revolutionize how humans relate with the physical world around us. Many grand challenges await the economically vital domains of transportation, health-care, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, defence, aerospace and buildings. Exploration of these potentialities around space and time would create applications which would affect societal and economic benefit. This paper looks into the concept of emerging Cyber-Physical system, applications and security issues in sustaining development in various economic sectors; outlining a set of strategic Research and Development opportunities that should be accosted, so as to allow upgraded CPS to attain their potential and provide a wide range of societal advantages in the future.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 473-478
Author(s):  
Ahmad Gashamoglu ◽  

The Article briefly discusses the need for generation of the Science of Ahangyol, and this science’s scientific basis, object and subject, category system, scientific research methods and application options. Ahangyol is a universal science and may be useful in any sphere. It may assist in problem solving in peacemaking process and in many areas such as ecology, economics, politics, culture, management and etc. This science stipulates that any activity and any decision made in the life may only and solely be successful when they comply with harmony principles more, which are the principles of existence and activity of the world. A right strategic approach of the Eastern Philosophy and the Middle Age Islamic Philosophy and scientific thought has an important potential. This strategic approach creates opportunities to also consider irrational factors in addition to rational ones comprehensively in scientific researches. The modern scientific thought contributes to implementation of these opportunities. Ahangyol is a science of determination of ways to achieve harmony in any sphere and of creation of special methods to make progress in these ways through assistance of the modern science. Methods of the System Theory, Mathematics, IT, Astronomy, Physics, Biology, Sociology, Statistics and etc. are more extensively applied. Information is given on some of these methods. Moreover, the Science of Ahangyol, which is a new philosophical worldview and a new paradigm contributes to clarification of metaphysic views considerably and discovery of the scientific potential of religious books.


Author(s):  
Krittika Singh

The Internet of things is the internetworking of physical devices, vehicles, buildings, and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and/or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit in addition to reduced human intervention. In this research an expert system based upon the IOT is developed in which the next event in the flight schedules due to any kind of medical emergencies is to be predicted. For this the medical data of all the patients are to be collected through WBAN.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 943-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Ravanis

The representation of the properties and phenomena of the physical world exists from the beginning of life, as a first datum of reality. In several studies focused on children's representations we find that these representations these representations are critical to education and are often incompatible with the scientific model. This article presents the results of an empirical research on the representations of young children for melting and solidification of salt. The research sample consisted of 79 pre-school children (five to six years old) from one state kindergarten in Greece. Data were collected through expanded, open type, semi-structured individual conversations between a child of the sample and one researcher. The results of the interviews show that these children use different types of representations, the majority dominated by the nature of the substance under study.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
José Ramón Lizárraga ◽  
Arturo Cortez

Researchers and practitioners have much to learn from drag queens, specifically Latinx queens, as they leverage everyday queerness and brownness in ways that contribute to pedagogy locally and globally, individually and collectively. Drawing on previous work examining the digital queer gestures of drag queen educators (Lizárraga & Cortez, 2019), this essay explores how non-dominant people that exist and fluctuate in the in-between of boundaries of gender, race, sexuality, the physical, and the virtual provide pedagogical overtures for imagining and organizing for new possible futures that are equitable and just. Further animated by Donna Haraway’s (2006) influential feminist post-humanist work, we interrogate how Latinx drag queens as cyborgs use digital technologies to enhance their craft and engage in powerful pedagogical moves. This essay draws from robust analyses of the digital presence of and interviews with two Latinx drag queens in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the online presence of a Xicanx doggie drag queen named RuPawl. Our participants actively drew on their liminality to provoke and mobilize communities around socio-political issues. In this regard, we see them engaging in transformative public cyborg jotería pedagogies that are made visible and historicized in the digital and physical world.


Trictrac ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliana Danciu ◽  
Petru Adrian Danciu

The axes of the creation and birth of the imaginary as a mythical language. Our research follows the relationships of the concepts that are taking into account creation on the double axis of verticality and horizontality. We highlight those symbolic elements which would later constitute the mythical language about the sacred space-temporality. Inside this space-temporality a rich spectrum of mythical images develops; images capable of explaining the relationships of the creation plans. Without a religious perception of the temporality, the conceptualization of the axis would remain a philosophical approach. Through our point of view, the two are born simultaneously. Thanks to them, creation can be imagined. The first “frozen” formula of the mystical human spirit can be thought, brought to a palpable reality, expressed in an oral and then a written form. Studied together, temporality (sacred or not) and space are permanently imagined together. For example, a loss of mundane temporality in the secret ecstasy that offers to the soul an ascending direction does not mean getting out of universal temporality, but of its mundane section. In the sacred space the soul relates to time. Even the gods are submitted by the sacred, Aeon sometimes being synonymous to destiny. The universal creator seems to evade every touch, but not consistently, only when he avoids the descent into its created worlds. In sacredness, time and space seem or become confused, both expressing the same reality, by the immediate swing from thinking to deed. The mythical imagery conceives the displacement in the primary space-temporality by the spoken word. So, for something to appear and live, the spoken word is required. Even the divine dream appears as a pre-word of a creator’s thought. The thought follows the spoken word, the spoken word follows the gestures which finally indicate the meanings of the creative act, controlling the rhythm of the creation days. These three will later be adapted through imitation in rite. We are now situated at the limit of the physical world, a real challenge for the mythical imagery. The general feature of the mythical expression on the creation of the material world is the state of the divinity’s exhaustion, most often conceptualized by sacrifice or divine fatigue. The world geography identifies with the anatomy of a self-gutted god. Practically, material creation is most likely the complete revelation of God’s body autopsy. As each body decomposes, everything in it is an illusion. An axial approach of the phenomenon exists in all religious systems. The created element’s origin is exterior, with or without a pre-existing matter, by a god’s sacrifice or only because it has to be that way. This is the starting point of the discussion on the symbolism of axiality as a reason for the constitution of the language of creation, capable of retelling the imaginary construction of myth in an oral and then written form.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-67
Author(s):  
Vinesh M Basdeo ◽  
Moses Montesh ◽  
Bernard Khotso Lekubu

Investigating, deterring and imposing legal sanctions on cyber-criminals warrants an international legal framework for the investigation and prosecution of cybercrime. The real-world limits of local, state and national sovereignty and jurisdiction cannot be ignored by law-enforcement officials. It can be a strenuous task to obtain information from foreign countries, especially on an expedited basis – more specifically when the other country is in a different time zone, has a different legal system, does not have trained experts and uses different languages. In South Africa existing laws appear to be inadequate for policing the cyber realm. The effects and impact of information technology on the legal system have not yet received the attention they warrant. The challenges presented by the electronic realm cannot be solved merely by imposing existing criminal and criminal procedural laws which govern the physical world on cyberspace. The electronic realm does not necessarily demand new laws, but it does require that criminal actions be conceptualised differently and not from a purely traditional perspective. Sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of another state are fundamental principles grounding the relations between states; they constitute an important mechanism in the armoury of criminals. The harmonisation and enactment of adequate and appropriate transborder coercive procedural measures consequently play a pivotal role in facilitating effective international cooperation. This article examines the efficacy of South African laws in dealing with the challenges presented by police powers to search for and seize evidence in cyber environments. It analyses the rudimentary powers that exist in South African criminal procedure regarding the search for and seizure of evidence in cyber environments, and compares them against the backdrop of the more systemic and integrated approach proposed by the Cybercrime Convention.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24
Author(s):  
Edward A. Alpers

In this article I examine two of Michael Pearson’s most important contributions to our understanding of Indian Ocean history: the concept of the littoral, which he first articulated in his seminal article on “Littoral society: the case for the coast” in The Great Circle 7, no. 1 (1985): 1-8, and his comment in The Indian Ocean (London and New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 9) that “I want it to have a whiff of ozone.” Accordingly, I review Pearson’s publications to see how he has written about these two notions and how they have influenced historical scholarship about the Indian Ocean.


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