scholarly journals Introduction: When Difference Makes a Difference

Episteme ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Personal History ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Point Of Departure

Taking seriously the social dimensions of knowledge puts pressure on the assumption that epistemic agents can usefully be thought of as autonomous, interchangeable individuals, capable, insofar as they are rational and objective, of transcending the specificities of personal history, experience, and context. If this idealization is abandoned as the point of departure for epistemic inquiry, then differences among situated knowers come sharply into focus. These include differences in cognitive capacity, experience, and expertise; in access to information and the heuristics that make it intelligible; and in motivating interests and orienting standpoint. Dissent takes on rather different significance, as a potentially productive feature of epistemic life rather than evidence of a failure of aperspectivality or an indication of error. The central questions are, then, what forms of diversity are epistemically consequential, and how can they best be deployed to ensure that the beliefs we warrant as knowledge are as well grounded and truth-tracking as possible.

Modeling the Intellect from a Coordination Perspective

2011 ◽  
pp. 413-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Taxén
Keyword(s):  
Research Program ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Central Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Preliminary Research ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Point Of Departure

Usually, models of the intellect take the individual mind and body as the point of departure and proceed outward towards the social and natural environment in which the individual is immersed. As a consequence, important social dimensions contributing to the epigenetic development of the individual are less articulated. This chapter suggests modeling the intellect from a more balanced perspective that recognizes both social and individual aspects–the coordination of actions. The author argues that coordination is made possible by certain innate dispositions called activity modalities: contextualization, spatialization, temporalization, stabilization, and transition. Consequently, a central task for modeling the intellect is to understand how perceptions received through sensory modalities are related to the activity modalities. To this end, the author proposes a research program for modeling the intellect, based on the concept of “activity” in the Russian Activity Theory and the activity modalities. Provisional arguments for the relevance of these modalities are discussed in three different realms associated with the intellect: the social, conceptual, and neural ones. The chapter is concluded with some preliminary research questions, pertinent for the research program.

Fakir Baykurt’un Almanya öykülerinde Türk göçmen çocukları

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Efnan Dervişoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Home Life ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Life Education

Almanya’ya işçi göçü, neden ve sonuçları, sosyal boyutlarıyla ele alınmış; göç ve devamındaki süreçte yaşanan sorunlar, konunun uzmanlarınca dile getirilmiştir. Fakir Baykurt’un Almanya öyküleri, sunduğu gerçekler açısından, sosyal bilimlerin ortaya koyduğu verilerle bağdaşan edebiyat ürünleri arasındadır. Yirmi yılını geçirdiği Almanya’da, göçmen işçilerle ve aileleriyle birlikte olup işçi çocuklarının eğitimine yönelik çalışmalarda bulunan yazarın gözlem ve deneyimlerinin ürünü olan bu öyküler, kaynağını yaşanmışlıktan alır; çalışmanın ilk kısmında, Fakir Baykurt’un yaşamına ve Almanya yıllarına dair bilgi verilmesi, bununla ilişkilidir. Öykülere yansıyan çocuk yaşamı ise çalışmanın asıl konusunu oluşturmaktadır. “Ev ve aile yaşamı”, “Eğitim yaşamı ve sorunları”, “Sosyal çevre, arkadaşlık ilişkileri ve Türk-Alman ayrılığı” ile “İki kültür arasında” alt başlıklarında, Türkiye’den göç eden işçi ailelerinde yetişen çocukların Almanya’daki yaşamları, karşılaştıkları sorunlar, öykülerin sunduğu veriler ışığında değerlendirilmiş; örneklemeye gidilmiştir. Bu öyküler, edebiyatın toplumsal gerçekleri en iyi yansıtan sanat olduğu görüşünü doğrular niteliktedir ve sosyolojik değerlendirmelere açıktır. ENGLISH ABSTRACTMigration and Children in Fakir Baykurt’s stories from GermanyThe migration of workers to Germany has been taken up with its causes, consequences and social dimensions; the migration and the problems encountered in subsequent phases have been stated by experts in the subject. Fakir Baykurt’s stories from Germany, regarding the reality they represent, are among the literary forms that coincide with the facts supplied by social sciences. These stories take their sources from true life experiences as the products of observations and experiences with migrant workers and their families in Germany where the writer has passed twenty years of his life and worked for the education of the worker’s children; therefore information related to Fakir Baykurt’s life and his years in Germany are provided in the first part of the study.  The life of children reflected in the stories constitutes the main theme of the study.  Under  the subtitles of “Family and Home Life”, “Education Life and related issues”, “Social environment, friendships and Turkish-German disparity” and “Amidst two cultures”, the lives in Germany of children who have been  raised in working class  families and  who have immigrated from Turkey are  evaluated under the light of facts provided by the stories and examples are given. These stories appear to confirm that literature is an art that reflects the social reality and is open to sociological assessments.KEYWORDS: Fakir Baykurt; Germany; labor migration; child; story

The Social Dimensions of Shoreline Quality in Upstate New York

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (23) ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Hisayoshi Mitsuda ◽  
Charles C. Geisler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
The Social

Concluding Summary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Research ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the argument of the book. It elaborates some of the benefits of Literalism, such as less conceptual confusion and an expanded range of entities for research that might illuminate human cognition. It motivates distinguishing the questions of whether something has a cognitive capacity from whether it is intuitively like us. It provides a conceptual foundation for the social sciences appropriate for the increasing role of modeling in these sciences. It also promotes convergence in terms of the roles of internal and external factors in explaining both human and nonhuman behavior. Finally, it sketches some of the areas of new research that it supports, including group cognition and artificial intelligence.

scholarly journals The Social Construction of Internet Addiction in China: Youth between Reality and Temporal Autonomy in the Documentary Web Junkie

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-105
Author(s):  
Annika Pissin
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Internet Addiction ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
The Core ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The Social ◽  
China Today ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article addresses issues surrounding the social construction of internet addiction, focusing on conceptualisations of reality, escape, hope, and time. Drawing on a critical realist account of semiosis, the framing of internet addiction in China is analysed using the documentary film Web Junkie as an empirical pivot and point of departure. A contextual overview of relations, interests, and tensions surrounding youth and the internet in China is provided, and the film Web Junkie is briefly presented. The main body of the article consists of a critical analysis of conceptualisations of “reality” and “escape.” The core tension focused on in the analysis is the struggle over time, necessitating engagement with critical thought on hope and utopia. The analysis concludes that struggles over temporal autonomy underlie conflicting claims about “reality” and “escape” that are central to “internet addiction” and its treatment in China today.

scholarly journals Preparing Education Students for an International Future? Connecting Students’ Experience to Institutional Contexts

2021 ◽  
pp. 102831532199849
Author(s):  
Nafsika Alexiadou ◽  
Zoi Kefala ◽  
Linda Rönnberg
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Intercultural Understanding ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Internationalization At Home

This article focuses on “internationalization at home” (IaH) for education students in Swedish Universities and its significance for their professional formation and future practice. We draw on research in two large institutions and explore the perceptions and experiences of internationalization of home students in education. We find that while the “intercultural” understanding of students is well developed, the international and intercultural dimensions of experiencing IaH are limited, due to several institutional and learning environment contexts. This has consequences for the social dimensions of future teaching practice. In addition, the perception of the discipline as “national” is significant in shaping the outlook of students toward international questions and their own future personal and professional mobility. We contextualize these findings using documentary analysis and staff interviews, and argue that to achieve intercultural and international learning environments of quality, social relevance, and long-term social benefit, we need to rethink how internationalization perspectives are integrated in teacher education courses.

The Social Dimensions of the Iron Quadrangle Region: An Educational Experience in Geodesign

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Mônica A. Haddad ◽  
Ana Clara Mourão Moura ◽  
Vivian M. Cook ◽  
Thiago Lima e Lima
Keyword(s):  
Educational Experience ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Iron Quadrangle ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Sociology’s Role in the Teaching of Organizational Behavior in Higher Education. The Case of Hospitality Management

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Ferraz
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Hospitality Management ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Structuring ◽  
Hospitality Organizations ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Productivity Gains

Teaching in universities, especially in management schools, is today orientated to solving-problems and operational skills’ development, short-term productivity gains and to a vocational perspective. This represents an impoverishment of a deeper learning, an obstacle to the development of competences in a broader and integrative sense and the absence of a critical thinking practice. These are important tools to enhance in students and future managers, as specific social actors, abilities to act in a conscious, autonomous and long-term efficacious manner in society. This essay’s objective is to problematize the role that sociology could assume in the overcoming of that impoverishment, namely within the curricular unit of organizational behavior in two ways. First, teaching the social and macro dimensions that contribute to explain organizational structuring and behavior. Secondly, enhancing reflexivity and contextualization on the practices and discourses of all social actors involved and disassembling the dominant ideological, naturalized and simplistic individualized view on the reality of labor, employment and organizations. This is especially relevant in hospitality management studies because the dominant discourse about hospitality organizations hide, under a hegemonic paradigm of naturalized and individualized explanations, the macro-social dimensions of its organizational culture, work conditions, employees’ behaviors, management styles and market labor.

scholarly journals Is and Ought? How the (Social) Ontological Circumscribes the Normative

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-525
Author(s):  
Dorothea Gädeke
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Normative Values ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Individual Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Argument Proceeds ◽  
Ontological Position ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Normative Content

Abstract Is normative theory grounded in ontology and if so, how? Taking a debate between Kwame Gyekye and Thaddeus Metz as my point of departure, my aim in this article is to show that something normative does indeed follow from ontological views: The social ontological, I maintain, circumscribes the normative without, however, fully determining its content. My argument proceeds in two steps: First, I argue that our social ontological position constrains what kind of normative theory we may plausibly defend. A relational ontology as defended by Gyekye entails a relational normative theory, whereas an atomist ontology calls for an individualist normative approach and a collectivist ontology for a strong communitarian one. Second, this link between the ontological and the normative has substantive implications for how to interpret the normative content of a theory; it entails interpreting normative values in light of the appropriate kind of normative thought. I illustrate the importance of this implication by showing that it suggests a decidedly relational reading of the core value of well-being in Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, that resolves the alleged tension between communal and individual values in his account.

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