Philosophy of Science Commons^™

Trust, Power, And Transformation In The Prison Classroom, Fran Fairbairn

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry

This article does three things. First, it asks a new question about transformative education, namely ‘what is the role of power and trust in the decision of whether to transform one’s meaning scheme in the face of new information or whether to simply reject the new information?’ Secondly, it develops a five-stage model which elaborates on the role of this decision in transformative learning.[1] Finally, it uses grounded-theory and the five-stage model to argue that power and trust play an important role in facilitating transformative learning.

[1] This account should be thought of as complementary to (not exclusionary ...

Essays On Communication, Shawn M. Simpson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One of the central issues of contemporary philosophy and biology is the nature of communication. Early accounts of communication tended to focus on just one side of the communicative divide – the speaker side or the receiver side – and took as their starting point the case of human language. Animal communication, historically, was largely treated as a special case. Now things are different. Now it appears we might have a model that makes sense of sign use in both the human and animal realms and brings together both sides of the signaling divide. It’s still to be seen, however, how ...

Perceiving The Body: On The Bodily Senses And The Nature Of Perception, Fiona C. Schick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Visual perception dominates the philosophical study of perception. This dissertation shows that a complete understanding of the nature of perception as a general category requires a consideration of the nature of the bodily modalities such as interoception, proprioception, pain, touch, and thermoception. By understanding these modalities, we come closer to understanding the nature of perception (what it is, how it works, and what systems it encompasses). While non-visual modalities have been gaining more attention in philosophy, much of this work looks to philosophical issues particular to these modalities—not necessarily how they relate to questions about the nature of perception ...

A Defense Of The Compatibility Of Science And Religion, Daniel Lightsey

Ephemeris, the Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy

No abstract provided.

To Know The Land With Hands And Minds: Negotiating Agricultural Knowledge In Late-Nineteenth-Century New England And Westphalia, Justus Hillebrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the eighteenth century, experts have tried to tell farmers how to farm. The agricultural enlightenment in Europe marked the beginning of a long arc of new experts aiming to change agricultural knowledge and practice. This dissertation analyzes the pivotal period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Germany and the United States when scientists, improvers, and market agents began to develop comprehensive ways to communicate agricultural innovation to farmers. In a functional approach to analyzing the negotiation of agricultural knowledge through its communication in things, words, and practices, this dissertation argues that the process of change ...

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain ...

The Vector Of Scientific Disciplinarity: An Exploration Of Scientific Disciplines And The Future Of Interdisciplinary Research, Emma K. Garrison

Senior Theses

The disciplinarity of science and the future of interdisciplinarity in science is deeply connected with understanding the scope of scientific practice as well as the demarcation and organization of scientific disciplines. These topics, explored through the structure of their subjects, theories, methods, and interpretation, lead to the conclusion that science and its disciplines are largely defined by the integration of philosophical principles into the ethos of the practices rather than by any specific criteria. The ways in which different disciplines behave and interpret philosophies impact how those disciplines are organized and categorized, resulting in deep philosophical and perspective divides between ...

Beyond Mental And Physical Pain: A Non-Reductive Account Of Suicide, Aya Aly Ragheb

Theses and Dissertations

What is the stigma behind our understanding of suicide? What causes this stigma? Should suicide only be viewed in relation to physical pain, as medicine often views it, or mental pain, as psychiatry views it? Or is it a more complex phenomenon? Can we think of suicide as a rational act that is, on the one hand, independent of pain, without, on the other hand, reducing it to mental illness? I will argue that if we can, we can give a less reductive account of suicide. In this paper, we shall attempt to give an answer to the above questions ...

Nourishment For Life: A Study In Nutrition From A Philosophical & Scientific Perspective, Erin C. Black

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper attempts to demonstrate that the conventionally scientific approach to food is insufficient and provide an alternative pathway to approach the subject of nutrition with an additional layer of philosophical thought for an improved result. This paper attempts to lay the early groundwork for an expanded model, which necessarily includes a philosophical angle from which to work. This proposal is a model that will enable considerations about nutrition more broadly, in ways that are critical in thinking and creative in process towards exploring options for arriving at ultimately best practices with best outcomes in mind. The examination of practices ...

The “Age Of Rock” Versus The “Rock Of Ages”: Naturalism, Social Darwinism, And Fundamentalism In The Scopes Monkey Trial, Bessie Blackburn

CULTURE & CRISIS: Reconciling Constitutionalism & Federalism in a Time of Crisis

Greek mythology once predominated the highest forms of culture known to man. Myths of how fire came to be in the hands of humans, or how the peacock got its spotted feathers were beloved cultural tales of origins.[1] With the decline of the ancient cultures, new ones blossomed in their place. However, the question of origin has remained a pertinent, central question of each culture, no matter how modern. The question of origin dictates who a person believes himself to be, where he believes himself to be going, and what he believes himself to be doing. The question of ...

Theories: Reconsidering Ramsey In The Philosophy Of Science, John D. Lehmann

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This work is an analysis of F. P. Ramsey's philosophy of science. Twentieth-century philosophy of science was marked by attempts to consider the relation between scientific theories and our knowledge of the empirical world through considerations of abstract mathematical structure. Such considerations led Bertrand Russell to an account of the relation between our theoretical picture of the world and its real nature as a relation of structural similarity. Subsequently, Max Newman gave what has become a well-known logico-mathematical objection to this account. William Demopoulos recently showed that Newman's problem applied not only to Russell's realist account, but ...

Another Case For Posthuman Dignity, Amy Azwell

Merge

No abstract provided.

Extended Minds: The Externalization And Expansion Of Human Minds Beyond The Body, Dmitri Wolfe

Penn Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics

Despite the commonly accepted notion that the mind is inseparable from the body, the extended mind hypothesis claims human minds can become linked with the world around us. Through various avenues such as spoken and written language, humans may use non-biological means to allow the mind to store, access, and communicate information in extended capacities not otherwise possible. Though the extended minds hypothesis may be viewed as a result of advancing technology, it makes up only a small part of the way in which externalization may occur. Everyday life is full of examples of extended minds, from computers and phones ...

A Literary Analysis Of The Origin Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Its Advancements, Philosophical, Ethical, Sociocultural, And Political Aspects; An Investigation Of The Underlying Attributes That Affect One’S Views On Hesc Research To Resolve Turkey And Brazil’S Hesc Policy, Religious, And Cultural Conflicts, Haleema Shamsuddin

Honors Theses

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are cells derived from 5-day human embryos and are self-renewing cell lines that change into any type of cell in the body, a trait called pluripotency. hESCs have almost unlimited clinical and medical research potential. Despite the great therapeutic promise of hESC research, it comes with a controversial ethical debate due to its involvement with the destruction of the human embryo. The central argument revolves around the question of whether or not these human embryos should be ascribed equal moral status to fully developed humans. This thesis aims to analyze the origin and advancements of ...

The Three “Cs” Of Animal Self-Consciousness: Complex Nervous System, Communication And Collaborative Social Play, Elena Bernewitz

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Back To The Beginning: An Empiricist Defense Of Scientific Stories About The Past, Craig William Fox

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Earth has not always been accompanied by its celestial partner, the Moon. In fact, the Moon was acquired by the Earth about 100 million years after the start of the solar system. It was acquired in the aftermath of a massive collision between the Earth and another planet, dubbed “Theia,” the mythological mother of the Greek goddess of the Moon. Most of the iron-rich cores of Earth and Theia merged almost immediately, while the rest of the two planets vaporized. Some of the impact ejecta was lost, but enough remained in gravitationally bound orbit around what was then $ 98 ...

The Dna Cloud: Is It Alive?, Theodoros Bargiotas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this analysis, I will firstly be presenting the current knowledge concerning the materiality of the internet based Cloud, which I will henceforth be referring to as simply the Cloud. For organisation purposes I have created two umbrella categories under which I place the ongoing research in the field. Scholars have been addressing the issue of Cloud materiality through broadly two prisms: sociological materiality and geopolitical materiality. The literature of course deals with the intricacies of the Cloud based on its present ferromagnetic storage functionality. However, developments in synthetic biology have caused private tech companies and University spin-offs to flirt ...

What Documents Cannot Do: Revisiting Michael Polanyi And The Tacit Knowledge Dilemma, C. Sean Burns

Information Science Faculty Publications

Our culture is dominated by digital documents in ways that are easy to overlook. These documents have changed our worldviews about science and have raised our expectations of them as tools for knowledge justification. This article explores the complexities surrounding the digital document by revisiting Michael Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowledge—the idea that “we can know more than we can tell.” The theory presents to us a dilemma: if we can know more than we can tell, then this means that the communication of science via the document as a primary form of telling will always be incomplete ...

Promote Mutual Learning And Progress Together Of Science And Philosophy, Contributing Editor

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

No abstract provided.

Building Brain-Bridge Between Scientists And Philosophers, Contributing New Wisdom To Science And Technology Development, Chunli Bai

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

In the new era, China's scientific and technological development is undergoing historic changes, with its fundamental feature as to put "the promotion of original innovation capabilities in a more prominent position". The study proposes that in this context, we should attach great importance to the connection between science and philosophy, as well as the alliance of scientists and philosophers. It also discusses the positive effects of philosophy on science from the origin of science, development momentum, and the shaping of scientists' creative thinking. The study also puts forward three policy recommendations on how to establish an alliance between scientists ...