Seeds of Knowledge

2011 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Eliezer Geisler
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

What is the basic unit of knowledge? To answer this pesky query means to also reveal what is knowledge and perhaps even what is the structure of knowledge. In such a pursuit we should start with some definitions of types and forms of knowledge, so that we can possibly gain desired common ground. In the previous chapter I discussed the recent focus on propositions and language as descriptors of knowledge. These are active at the level of words, concepts, and even complex notions, such as “belief” and “justification.”

Dream to Go Crazy?

2020 ◽  
pp. 170-194
Author(s):  
Sue Llewellyn
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Creative People ◽  
Two Sides

The previous chapter argues that creative people are in a hybrid, disordered state in-between dreaming and wake. In this chapter I propose that if this in-between, de-differentiated state becomes more severe and enduring, psychiatric disorders will result. De-differentiation of wake and dreaming has two sides: dreaming suffuses wake and wake permeates dreaming. The idea that madness results from dreaming invading wake is of long standing. So is the notion that highly creative people are somewhat crazy. But the conception of a wake-like state pervading dreaming hasn’t been explored. Chaos theory delineates the dynamics of de-differentiation, disorder, and madness. Madness is defined as mistaking a complex non-obvious pattern in your experience for your experience.

The Constitutive A Priori

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 179-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graciela De Pierris
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
A Priori ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge

The modem rationalist tradition initiated by Descartes has as one of its central tenets the independence of the human understanding from the senses. Regardless of the different ways in which independence from experience is understood, there is much common ground among the modem views on the a priori. Yet Kant, culminating this tradition, introduces an entirely new conception of the a priori never before articulated in the history of philosophy. This is the notion of elements in knowledge which are independent of experience but nevertheless closely connected, in a special way, with experience.Although for Kant the a priori has a privileged position in the structure of knowledge - as it has for other modem rationalist philosophers - one of the most striking, and often neglected, aspect of his conception of the a priori is the great extent to which it is opposed to foundationalism.

Reflections

2010 ◽  
pp. 30-52
Author(s):  
Lars Taxén
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network

In this chapter, I take a step back from the whirling flow of events related in the previous chapter, and try to make sense of what happened during these years. In the first section, I analyze the evolution of the Framework using the vocabulary of the Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Latour, 1992). Next, I relate some observations from Ericsson outside the activities I was directly involved in; observations that somehow seemed to be in line with the pattern that began to emerge. Finally, I summarize the insights and needs from the practical trail.

Enacting Global Enterprise Transitions

2005 ◽  
pp. 94-111
Author(s):  
Yi-chen Lan ◽  
Bhuvan Unhelkar
Keyword(s):  
Business Strategy ◽  
The State ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Third ◽  
Survival And Growth ◽  
On The Road

Enactment is the application of the theory of the Global Enterprise Transition (GET) process in practice. Thus, while the discussion up to the previous chapter in this book may be considered akin to a roadmap, the discussion here is more like actual driving on the road. Figure 4.1 explains the subtle differences between enactment and the earlier works an organization undertakes during the globalization process. In Figure 4.1, the “Consider GET” phase indicates that the organization is investigating and weighing various options, issues and factors in terms of globalization. These options and factors were considered in detail in Chapter I. As described earlier, this is the state when the organization realizes that irrespective of its current profitability and position in the market, globalization is becoming a serious part of its business strategy for survival and growth. Once the organization is satisfied and its stakeholders are convinced of the need to globalize, it then moves into the phase of “Planning and Documenting the GET process”as shown in Figure 4.1. During this phase, the organization is again applying the discussions undertaken so far in this book, particularly Chapters II and III, which encompass the vision, framework and technologies for global enterprise transitions. These visions and frameworks provide the backdrop for the planning and documentation activities that described the GETs. The organization may be considered in a strategic mode thus far. However, once the strategic aspect of the GET is consummated, the very practical phase of the process — the launching and management of the GET begins. These are the third and fourth states in which the organization finds itself, together called “Enactment,” as shown in Figure 4.1. With the commencement of this practical enactment phase of the GET, various additional and valuable activities like handling the “feedback” from the stakeholders in terms of the efficacy of the process of GET, mechanisms to manage the process in practice and approach to measuring the results of the GET, all come into play. It is this practical phase

Logic of the Phantasm: From Speech to the Verb

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Collett
Keyword(s):  
Speech And Language ◽  
Theory Of Language

Now, while we have established that in ultimately speaking the event speech genetically founds language, it is nonetheless ultimately language which expresses the event by retroactively framing speech. At the end of the previous chapter I started touching on the articulation between speech and language, but primarily from the side of speech; to examine this articulation in more depth and detail, it is necessary to now turn to Deleuze’s theory of language (or of the proposition), in relation to which, I will show, speech takes on the function of the verb. Furthermore, this articulation is a specifically phantasmatic framing of speech by language, and therefore also brings us to an analysis of the functioning of the psychoanalytic phantasm in the dynamic genesis. The phantasm is the culmination of the dynamic genesis or the structure it generates, as well as underpinning The Logic of Sense’s theory of the proposition, and finally it also dramatically opens onto the book’s ontological and literary themes which I will discuss in the following chapter. Indeed, it is through the phantasm that all these elements combine giving The Logic of Sense its topological continuity.

A New Materiality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Wiberg
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Road ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
The One

The previous chapter provided us with a theory of the materiality of interaction. So, where do we go from here? Well, in order to move forward, I use this chapter to suggest that we might now need to look back in order to see the road ahead of us more clearly. In this chapter I therefore present how a focus on the materiality of interaction one the one hand leaves any distinctions between the physical and the digital behind, and how it on the other hand presents us with three distinct challenges as we move forward through the material turn.

Discovery and Design

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce I. Blum
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
New Era ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
Design Paradigm ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This book is about a paradigm shift in the development of software; a move to a new era of design for software (and, for that matter, all manufactured artifacts). The goal of Part I is to lay out the scientific and technological foundations for this new era of design. In the chapter just concluded, we have seen how the Legend of science has become tarnished. During the stored-program computer’s brief history, we observe the general perceptions of science and scientific knowledge undergoing a fundamental change. I have focused on the philosophy of science because that tells us something about the theoretical limits of science; it suppresses the details of the day-to-day conduct of science that make it such a successful enterprise. This reassessment of science, of course, has been independent of the growth of computing; indeed, my examination has been free of any technological considerations. From the perspective of computer science, much of this revolution has gone unnoticed. Many still walk in the pathways first laid out in the era of the Legend; some even try to fit computer science into the framework of the Received View. If the conclusions of Chapter 2 are valid, however, such approaches cannot be sustained indefinitely. Therefore, any response to the evolving understanding of science ultimately must lead to a reexamination of computer science. If we are to shift the software design paradigm, we must expect modifications to the underlying principles embedded in computer science. How will these changes take place? will there be new scientific findings that alter the technology, or will a shift in the technology modify what the computer scientists study? To gain insight into the answers to these questions, this chapter addresses the relationship between science and technology and, in particular, between computer science and software engineering. As in the previous chapter, I conduct a broadly based, general review. The traditional relationship between science and engineering normally is described as being causal. Science creates knowledge, and technology consumes knowledge. This has been depicted as an assembly line: “Put money into pure science at the front end of the process.

How to Deal with Several Reservoirs

1991 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. G. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Euler Method ◽  
Coupled Systems ◽  
Algebraic Equations ◽  
Coupled Equations ◽  
Linear Algebraic Equations ◽  
Linear Differential ◽  
Surface Reservoir

The previous chapter showed how the reverse Euler method can be used to solve numerically an ordinary first-order linear differential equation. Most problems in geochemical dynamics involve systems of coupled equations describing related properties of the environment in a number of different reservoirs. In this chapter I shall show how such coupled systems may be treated. I consider first a steady-state situation that yields a system of coupled linear algebraic equations. Such a system can readily be solved by a method called Gaussian elimination and back substitution. I shall present a subroutine, GAUSS, that implements this method. The more interesting problems tend to be neither steady state nor linear, and the reverse Euler method can be applied to coupled systems of ordinary differential equations. As it happens, the application requires solving a system of linear algebraic equations, and so subroutine GAUSS can be put to work at once to solve a linear system that evolves in time. The solution of nonlinear systems will be taken up in the next chapter. Most simulations of environmental change involve several interacting reservoirs. In this chapter I shall explain how to apply the numerical scheme described in the previous chapter to a system of coupled equations. Figure 3-1, adapted from Broecker and Peng (1982, p. 382), is an example of a coupled system. The figure presents a simple description of the general circulation of the ocean, showing the exchange of water in Sverdrups (1 Sverdrup = 106 m3/sec) among five oceanic reservoirs and also the addition of river water to the surface reservoirs and the removal of an equal volume of water by evaporation. The problem is to calculate the steady-state concentration of dissolved phosphate in the five oceanic reservoirs, assuming that 95 percent of all the phosphate carried into each surface reservoir is consumed by plankton and carried downward in particulate form into the underlying deep reservoir. The remaining 5 percent of the incoming phosphate is carried out of the surface reservoir still in solution.

Further Exclusions

2020 ◽  
pp. 178-190
Author(s):  
Dominic Scott
Keyword(s):  
The Many

This chapter examines two more excluded groups, starting with the incontinent. As with the young, there is an apparent tension in the work, because in I 3 he states that argument will fail to benefit the incontinent (since they live by their feelings) and yet in VII 8 he says that, unlike intemperate people, they are open to persuasion, which I take to involve some sort of argument. I resolve the tension in the same way as the previous chapter, by distinguishing between analytical and rhetorical modes of argument. In the rest of the chapter I turn to Aristotle’s exclusion of the many even from rhetorical argument (X 9). I ask what justifies their exclusion and why Aristotle took a more severe line than Plato, who was still open to arguing with them in the Republic.

Landscape and Scale

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Bauder
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Cultural Image

That the offshore program has remained in place for decades and public outcry against it has been minimal is partly the achievement of a carefully spun discourse of foreign farm labor, as we saw in the previous chapter. In this chapter, I examine how this discourse makes use of several strategies. First, it situates the foreign migrant workers in the context of the familiar landscape of rural Ontario. Second, it frames the representation of offshore labor in dualisms of belonging and nonbelonging. Third, it associates various dualisms with different geographical scales. These scale-particular representations enable seemingly contradictory narratives to coexist. However, in the context of the wider discourse, geographical scales and associated dualisms interlock in a manner that situates seasonal migrant labor in subordinate economic and marginal social roles. It is still common among scholars to use essentialized ethnic categories to assess rural landscapes and examine social relationships in agricultural production. In view of such scholarly practices, it is particularly important to expose the ideological underpinnings of landscape representation. Geography has offered many approaches, associated with different traditions of scholarship, to the study of landscape. These approaches variously treat landscape as an expression of rural lifestyle, a manifestation of everyday social space, a material reflection of social relations, and an ideology. I assume the fourth perspective on landscape, which George L. Henderson (2003) also describes as “apocryphal” landscape because it reveals, not authentic social relations, but ideological ways of seeing. When Stephen Daniels and Denis Cosgrove (1988: 1) say, “A landscape is a cultural image,” they refer to the ideological representation of people and objects through landscape. According to this approach to landscape, the manner in which people are situated and represented in landscape can reveal ideologies of subordination and exclusion. For example, the portrayal of Gypsies as uncivilized, dirty, and a “polluting presence” in the English countryside reflects “the assumption that the countryside belongs to the privileged” (Sibley 1995: 107). In this context, landscape is the discursive construction of “a stereotyped pure space which cannot accommodate difference” (108).

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