Against Epistemological Virus of Scepticism: Davidson on Objectivity of Knowledge

This paper provides a short overview of approaches to epistemological issues as represented by Donald Davidson, an American philosopher. This is an attempt to analyse Davidson’s essential postulates, in order to construct a framework for understanding a highly authentic epistemological position and the way in which it appears as an antipode to the sceptical epistemological strategies. In other words – the goal is to identify a coordinate system, through a set of postulates, from which Davidson projects his epistemological attitudes. For that purpose, the paper presents the developmental process of Davidson’s epistemological thought that goes through triangulation of notions subjective, intersubjective, and objective. The paper places special emphasis on Davidson’s concentration on communicative practices and intersubjectivity as the only topoi in which the issue of objectivity can be raised.

Misleading Higher-Order Evidence, Conflicting Ideals, and Defeasible Logic

Thinking about misleading higher-order evidence naturally leads to a puzzle about epistemic rationality: If one’s total evidence can be radically misleading regarding itself, then two widely-accepted requirements of rationality come into conflict, suggesting that there are rational dilemmas. This paper focuses on an often misunderstood and underexplored response to this (and similar) puzzles, the so-called conflicting-ideals view. Drawing on work from defeasible logic, I propose understanding this view as a move away from the default meta-epistemological position according to which rationality requirements are strict and governed by a strong, but never explicitly stated logic, toward the more unconventional view, according to which requirements are defeasible and governed by a comparatively weak logic. When understood this way, the response is not committed to dilemmas.

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces

This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music’s role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious—even liturgical—music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII’s Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to “rally” with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the “secular” Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre’s famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

Critical Realism: The Epistemic Position of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy

Summary In this contribution, I discuss the relevance of epistemological models for psychotherapy. Despite its importance epistemology is seldom explicitly dealt with in the psychotherapeutic landscape. Based on the presentation of “Critical Realism (CR),” the epistemological position of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy (GTP), I intend to show to which extent this explanatory model supports a differentiated understanding of problems between human beings, arising from the differences in experiencing “reality.” The presentation deals explicitly with some conclusions that can be drawn from the CR model for practical psychotherapeutic work. In particular, the aspects of basic therapeutic attitude, therapeutic relationship, and praxeology are highlighted.

Decolonial Feminism and Global Politics: Border Thinking and Vulnerability as a Knowing Otherwise

Decolonial thinking has introduced border thinking as an epistemological position that contributes to a shift in the forms of knowing in which the world is thought from the concrete incarnated experiences of colonial difference and the wounds left. In this chapter, Argentinean feminist philosopher Maria Lugones’ (1992) interpretation of Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands foregrounds its main argument: border thinking as an embodied consciousness in which dualities and vulnerability are central for a decolonisation of how we think about the geo and body politics of knowledge, coloniality, political economy and of course, gender in International Relations and Global Politics.

Reflective or Diffractive Learning/Teaching? Concurrences of Paul Ramsden And Karen Barad’s Approaches

In this article it is argued that the optical metaphor and critical practice of diffraction further developed by Donna Haraway and Karen Barad might be no less significant than the widely spread notion of reflection, when the questions of various practices of knowledge are addressed. By considering Paul Ramsden’s approach to learning/teaching and its underlying theory in higher education alongside Karen Barad’s methodology of diffraction, it is shown that Ramsden’s understanding of learning/teaching is rather based on the theoretical assumptions of diffractive practice. His notion that teaching/learning are closely related and actively shaping each other, and that learners are not disconnected from the environment and their previous experiences with the subject matter and learning process itself, adds to Barad’s onto-epistemological position that knowers know the world at the same time as being the part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity. Ramsden’s understanding of relation is diffractive, because it is not about predefined binary entities and their fixed identities, but about layers and entanglements of various previous experiences and reactions to the learning environment. In addition, looking at learning/teaching processes through a different perspective also leads to a different approach to teaching and other ways of problem-solving. Both Ramsden and Barad distrust homologies, analogies, and causality-based conceptions of knowledge sharing. Instead, the ability to respond to an always new learning/teaching environment is assessed, which implies a diffractive type of sensitivity to the context, iterative process of re-turning, and the creation of dangerously indeterminate relationships and commitments. In this way, some of Barad’s philosophical notions, i.e., the diffraction pattern, intra-activity, re-turning, and others, also may acquire new practical content.

Multilingual Internet Space and Teaching Foreign Students the Russian language in Higher Education

The article is devoted to the consideration of teaching Russian to foreign students in the context of the growing popularity of the social network Instagram as an attractive learning environment that offers a variety of online services for Russian students. Particular attention is paid to foreign sites of the Russian language, which count from hundreds of thousands to a million or more views. This allowed, on the one hand, to identify the reasons for their relevance, and on the other hand, to reveal the underutilized potential of pedagogical discourse, which suggests 1) the human dimension of educational activity; 2) the attitude to the student as a person with his/her own project of selfdevelopment and 3) a certain epistemological position of the observer.

BEYOND THE HIJAB: SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES OF INDONESIAN MUSLIMAH BASKETBALL PLAYERS

This study aimed to explore the negotiation of Islam identity reflected from the hijabi basketball players' subjective experiences in Indonesia. A qualitative method was conducted from a subjectivist epistemological position. Six hijabi basketball players between the ages of 16 and 30 were recruited to participate in this study. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis was adopted to analyze the data since this analysis method allows the researchers to interpret based on the data's in-depth examination. The study results showed that the negotiation of Islam identity was found in the ways of modifying their sports attires and behaviors in and out of the basketball fields. All of the participants saw their modifications as positive actions to integrate the Islamic values in their lives. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui negosiasi identitas Muslim yang direfleksikan dari pengalaman para pemain bolabasket yang berhijab di Indonesia. Penelitian kualitatif ini menggunakan subjectivitas epistemologis. Enam pemain dari usia 16 hingga 30 tahun dipilih menjadi partisipan. Data dikumpulkan melalui interview semi struktural. Sedangkan analisa datanya merupakan analisa tematik karena dalam interpretasi data diperlukan pemeriksaan yang detail dan mendalam. Hasil analisa data menunjukkan bahwa negosiasi Identitas sebagai orang Islam dilakukan dengan cara memodifikasi kostum olahraga dan sikap mereka baik di dalam maupun di luar lapangan bolabasket. Mereka memandang penyesuaian tersebut sebagai tindakan yang positif untuk menerapkan nilai–nilai Islam di dalam kehidupan mereka.

»mit saurem Schweiß sagen, was man nicht weiß«

The present article focuses on the theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger (1887−1961) and his early attempts to popularize physics in the twenties and early thirties. Special attention is drawn to the ›entanglement‹ of media prerequisites and the subject Schrödinger deals with. Exemplary analysis of the magazines in which Schrödinger published, illustrations, and Schrödinger’s rather journalistic, zeitgeisty style of writing reveals a specific way of imparting the small world of atomic physics, hidden to the eye, to a broader audience. While the majority of contemporary quantum theorists rejected the allegedly old-fashioned physics of pictures and models, Schrödinger’s popular scientific praxis of a vivid explanation is even reflected in his epistemological position regarding the central goal of theoretical physics - namely, producing clear and illustrative models.

Destabilizing the privilege of the knower to establish forms of solidarity: Reflections on conducting fieldwork with vulnerable communities in India and Romania

In this article, I interrogate the researcher’s role in conducting ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork with vulnerable communities and argue that increased epistemological reflexiveness is needed to support solidarity ties between researchers and participants. In line with critical feminist literature and methodology, I present the inconsistencies of the power relations I entered as a researcher, as well as the systemic inequalities I found operating in the background. Using several vignettes based on my fieldwork with communities labeled as “Gypsy” in Romania and India, I make the argument that power dynamics encountered in the field reveal the researchers’ simultaneous privilege and their subaltern status, creating an epistemological position grounded in the intersection of gender, race/ ethnicity, and class, which in turn could deter from bonds of solidarity. In line with feminist methodologies and intersectionality literature, I argue that the researcher’s gender, race, ethnicity, and class (co)generate epistemological outcomes, and that without critical reflection researchers may reinforce hierarchies of power. Thus, I both adopt and innovate this approach, by showing how as researchers we inhabit concomitantly different and fluctuating positionalities. I end by advocating for reflexiveness on the researchers’ power to create epistemological categories and processes, which may (re)enforce solidarity relations between researchers and communities.