Ontology and Methodology of studying cultural trauma in social-philosophical discourse

The article describes the essence of the moderate constructivist approach to the study of cultural trauma, its difference from the traditional objectivist approach. The onto-gnoseological foundations of the study of the phenomenon of cultural trauma, characteristic of the «strong program» of cultural sociology, are considered. Instead of analyzing social conditions and situations, cultural sociology examines the semiotic codes that underlie the construction of cultural trauma.

CRITICAL POTENTIAL OF FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY

The article explores the arguments in favor of feminist epistemology used in the works of L. Code, S. Harding, D. Haraway, J. Lloyd and other gender (radical) feminists. The sources of feminist epistemology are the naturalized epistemology and the thesis of underdetermination by W. Quine, the views of W. Sellars, Marxism, the strong program of sociology of knowledge, logical positivism. The features of feminist epistemology include many signature schemes, the tendency to use different schemes from suitable disciplines, rethinking of the concepts «knowledge» and «knower» for previously excluded or non-included groups of women, people with disabilities, representatives of different races, sexual minorities. Another feature is that «Feminine» experience and voice, viewed from an essentialist or non-essentialist approach, are considered the grounds for the position of «knower». The article examines the critical remarks made by feminists against the assumptions of traditional epistemology: universal human nature, «a view from nowhere», pureimpersonal reason, the assumption of «Robinsonade». Attention to subjectivity, values and selfish interests in the production of knowledge should be considered a merit of feminist epistemology. However, L. Laudan has already shown that no one, including representatives of feminist epistemology, have demonstrated the plausibility, let alone the veracity of judgements that justify any number of possible interpretations of the knowledge gained. The paper shows that feminist epistemology cannot avoid the well-known vicissitudes of epistemological relativism. However, feminist epistemology deserves the attention of philosophers because it is part of a broader relativist turn in social sciences and the humanities that seeks to extend its criticism to scientific knowledge.

Growing up Strong Program, positive youth development and education: A healthy framework

The Growing up Strong Program has been designed within the framework of positive psychology as an exercise in character education based on the identification, recognition, and use of character strengths among teenagers in secondary school. The study explores the role of mental health (understood as proper psychosocial functioning) in the promotion of adolescent psychological well-being and positive youth development. The aim of this research was to evaluate the resources of the subjects following their participation in the Program. The sample comprised 221 male and female adolescents, aged between 12 and 15. The data were collected using the Scale of Psychological Well-Being for Adolescents and the Factors in Youth Development Scale, both with demonstrated reliability and validity. The results showed, after the Program: good levels of positive youth developmental resources (self-esteem, optimism, self-efficacy and future orientation); evidence of prevention of psychosocial risk behaviors, specifically in relation to raised awareness of substance use, alcohol consumption and smoking, and non-specifically in relation to social-relational risks; good levels of life satisfaction and psychological well-being; positive correlations between positive youth development, psychological well-being, life satisfaction and prevention of psychosocial risks. It can be concluded that the Growing up Strong Program is an instance in character, emotional and well-being education, which generates a healthy network among adolescent users in the educational community.

Literature and Science

Though “literature and science” has denoted many distinct cultural debates and critical practices, the historicist investigation of literary-scientific relations is of particular interest because of its ambivalence toward theorization. Some accounts have suggested that the work of Bruno Latour supplies a necessary theoretical framework. An examination of the history of critical practice demonstrates that many concepts presently attributed to or associated with Latour have been longer established in the field. Early critical work, exemplified by Marjorie Hope Nicolson, tended to focus one-sidedly on the impact of science on literature. Later work, drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts, and on Mary Hesse’s and Max Black’s work on metaphor and analogy in science, identified the scope for a cultural influence on science. It was further bolstered by the “strong program” in the sociology of scientific knowledge, especially the work of Barry Barnes and David Bloor. It found ways of reading scientific texts for the traces of the cultural, and literary texts for traces of science; the method is implicitly modeled on psychoanalysis. Bruno Latour’s accounts of literary inscription, black boxing, and the problem of explanation have precedents in the critical practices of critics in the field of literature and science from the 1980s onward.

Introduction

This chapter is based on a long tradition in the sociology of knowledge originating from the strong program that found answers by examining alternative arguments, disagreements, and pathways that were not followed. It mentions financial economists, who built their discipline on new ways of manipulating data. In the 1950s, these financial economists developed the capacity to muster data with ease in formats that permitted endless manipulations. And as a result, they began to use those data as truthful representations of markets. The chapter explains how financial economists use those truthful representations of markets to produce empirical patterns to which they could give economic meaning rather than frame data as foundations for new theoretical advances. In the case of market efficiency, financial economists articulated the notion of unpredictability of future prices from the data rather than from theory.

Promoting character strengths through the Growing Up Strong Program: The students’ perspective

The purpose of this article is to report on levels of satisfaction, applicability and subjective experience in relation to the Growing Up Strong Program for secondary school students from the perspective of its users. The objectives of the research were to assess the level of satisfaction of student users with the Growing Up Strong Program; to explore the applicability of the learning generated by the program according to its participants; and to learn about their subjective experience of applying the character strengths promoted by the program. The study consisted of a cross-sectional descriptive survey of 590 secondary school students from seven different schools, using a validated data collection instrument. The respondents reported good levels of satisfaction with the Growing Up Strong Program and confirmed the applicability of the learning received in relation to self-regulation, social intelligence, gratitude, courage and open-mindedness in intrapersonal and interpersonal contexts. The results of the study confirm positive levels of user satisfaction, applicability and subjective experiences based on the lessons in positive psychology promoted by the program.