scholarly journals A Manifesto for Messy Philosophy of Technology: The History and Future of an Academic Field

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Morgan Swer ◽  
Jean Du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Analytical Structure ◽  
Field Of Inquiry ◽  
Pragmatist Philosophy ◽  
Complex Subject

Philosophy of technology was not initially considered a consolidated field of inquiry. However, under the influence of sociology and pragmatist philosophy, something resembling a consensus has emerged in a field previously marked by a lack of agreement amongst its practitioners. This has given the field a greater sense of structure and yielded interesting research. However, the loss of the earlier “messy” state has resulted in a limitation of the field’s scope and methodology that precludes an encompassing view of the problematic issues inherent in the question of technology. It is argued that the heterodox disunity and diversity of earlier philosophy of technology was not a mark of theoretical immaturity but was necessitated by the field’s complex subject matter. It is further argued that philosophy of technology should return to its pluralistic role as a meta-analytical structure linking insights from different fields of research.

Toward an Islamic Framework for Worldview Studies

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-43
Author(s):  
Abdelaziz Berghout
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Inductive Approach ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Field Of Inquiry ◽  
Muslim Scholars

The paper examines the importance of designing a framework for studying worldviews within the parameters of contemporary Islamic thought. It briefly reviews both selected western and Islamic stances on worldview studies. The literature reveals that research on this topic and its application to different spheres has become a topic of some interest to many intellectual circles, particularly in the western context. Hence, the possibility of forming an Islamic civilizational framework for an inquiry into people’s worldviews needs to be assessed. This article follows a textual analysis and inductive approach to analyze the prospects of formulating an Islamic framework for research on worldviews and its applications. It concludes that western scholars have made considerable efforts in treating people’s worldviews as a field of study, while Muslim scholars have not. In this respect, many western researchers have contributed to developing worldview studies as a separate field of inquiry, including the history of concept, subject matter, objectives, kinds, methods, and applications. Therefore, the need to enhance the Islamic input and research pertaining to this field by introducing an Islamic civilizational framework and approach of inquiry becomes apparent.

scholarly journals Realistic Realism about Unrealistic Models

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uskali Mäki
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Philosophy Of Economics ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Special Challenge ◽  
Complex Subject

The special challenge the philosophy of economics must meet is to provide a scientific realist account that is realistic of a discipline that deals with a complex subject matter and operates with highly unrealistic models. Unrealisticness in economic models must not constitute an obstacle to realism about those models. This article gives a selective and somewhat abstract summary of its author's thinking about economics, outlined from two perspectives: first historical and autobiographical, then systematic and comparative. The first angle helps understand motives and trajectories of ideas against their backgrounds in intellectual history. The story of this article turns out to have both unique and generalizable aspects. The second approach outlines some of the key concepts and arguments as well as their interrelations in this chapter's philosophy of economics, with occasional comparisons to other views. More space is devoted to this second perspective than to the first.

Neurointerventions and the Law

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Conversion Therapy ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
The Law ◽  
Tacit Assumptions ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

This volume makes a contribution to the field of neurolaw by investigating issues raised by the development, use, and regulation of neurointerventions. The broad range of topics covered in these chapters reflects neurolaw’s growing social import, and its rapid expansion as an academic field of inquiry. Some authors investigate the criminal justice system’s use of neurointerventions to make accused defendants fit for trial, to help reform convicted offenders, or to make condemned inmates sane enough for execution, while others interrogate the use, regulation, and social impact of cognitive enhancement medications and devices. Issues raised by neurointervention-based gay conversion “therapy”, the efficacy and safety of specific neurointervention methods, the legitimacy of their use and regulation, and their implications for authenticity, identity, and responsibility are among the other topics investigated. The focus on neurointerventions also highlights tacit assumptions about human nature that have important implications for jurisprudence. For all we know, at present such things as people’s capacity to feel pain, their sexuality, and the dictates of their conscience, are unalterable. But neurointerventions could hypothetically turn such constants into variables. The increasing malleability of human nature means that analytic jurisprudential claims (true in virtue of meanings of jurisprudential concepts) must be distinguished from synthetic jurisprudential claims (contingent on what humans are actually like). Looking at the law through the lens of neurointerventions thus also highlights the growing need for a new distinction—between analytic jurisprudence and synthetic jurisprudence—to tackle issues that increasingly malleable humans will face when they encounter novel opportunities and challenges.

scholarly journals A “complex” subject matter asks for a clear lead

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Verhagen
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Complex Subject

scholarly journals Maska jako aktorka

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Mirosław Kocur
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Complete Discussion ◽  
Social Anthropologist ◽  
Complex Subject

Mask as an actorThis paper proposes a performative analysis of a mask in order to research its agency, an active role in initiating world events. I will study four, in my opinion, basic “doings” of the mask: transformation, inspiration, transmission, and relocation. I am going to look at ancient masks as well as at Japanese, African and Asiatic ones. Of course, in a short paper the complete discussion of so complex subject matter is impossible. So, I will refer to selected case studies that most clearly expose the mask’s agency. I will use my own field research, my experience of directing plays and relevant scholarship — following a renown British social anthropologist Alfred Gell and archaeologist Ian Hodder.

scholarly journals Leading the Way: Indigenous knowledge and Collaboration at the Woolyungah Indigenous Centre

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Colleen McGloin ◽  
◽  
Anne Marshall ◽  
Michael Adams
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Indigenous Studies ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Student Responses ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Indigenous Knowledges ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

This paper derives from collaborative research undertaken by staff at the Woolyungah Indigenous Centre, into our own teaching practice. It articulates a particular strand of inquiry emanating from the research: the importance of Indigenous knowledges as this is taught at Woolyungah in the discipline of Indigenous Studies. The paper is a reflection of Woolyungah’s pedagogical aims, and its development as a Unit that seeks to embed other knowledges into the realm of critical inquiry within subjects taught at the Unit. It also reflects student responses to our pedagogy. The writers are Indigenous and non-Indigenous and have collaborated with all teaching staff involved to present this work as a starting point for discussions about the emerging discipline of Indigenous Studies, its rigour as an academic field of inquiry and our commitment as educators to the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges in our programme.

Adventure and Superheroes

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maaheen Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Complex Subject ◽  
Adventure Stories

This chapter begins with one of the earliest consecutive comics adventure stories to be published, namely Hugo Pratt’s La Ballade de la mersalée.Analyses of Dave McKean and Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and Neil Gaiman’sSandman: Preludes and Nocturnes then explore how conventions of the typical superhero adventure that have characterized American comics since the 1930s are overturned. The analysis of Edmond Baudoin’sLe Voyage, where the adventures develop in the interlinked internal and external worlds of the protagonist, highlights the scope of meaning harbored in abstract imagery. Since, like Voyage, the adventures in Sandman and Arkhamunfold on more psychological than physical terms, the analyses of the last three comics illustrate the inclination towards more complex subject matter in more comics since the 1980s.

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