Epistemology Commons^™

Llms And Crisis Epistemology: The Business Of Making Old Crises Seem New, Mich Ciurria

Critical Humanities

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have set in motion a series of crises. These include disruptions to the labor force, education, and democracy. Some people believe that rich technocratic ‘saviors’ should solve these crises. Naomi Klein, however, argues that this is a neoliberal fantasy. Tech CEOs will not solve AI-related crises because they have a vested interest in perpetuating disaster capitalism and the social inequalities that keep wages low. Who, then, can solve the AI crisis? I submit that the answer is: oppressed groups with experiential and intergenerational knowledge of crises. To oppressed folks, technological crises are not new, …

Community Resilience And Creating Capacities For Risk Reduction In First Nations Communities, Case Study In Minegoziibe Anishinabe (Pine Creek First Nation), Brittany S. Lavallee

Capstone Collection

The colonization of Indigenous peoples in Canada has serious consequences on First Nations, including forced removal and displacement from their ancestral lands, environmental degradation, declining resources and capacities, and human rights violations. First Nations communities are currently facing the amplified effects of human-driven climate change. Sustainability of the environment is not just a concept, but a practiced way of life, that recognizes the interdependence of all living things. This deep respect for Aki (earth) is at the foundation of First Nations cultures and continues to guide their actions to insure better futures for Seven Generations. The community of Minegoziibe Anishinabe …

Critical Autism Studies Beyond Academia: An Annotated List, Alyssa Hillary Zisk

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This is an introduced and annotated list of sources from beyond academia which are, have been, or may yet be important texts for critical autism or neurodiversity studies. The defining actions of critical autism studies, or of critical neurodiversity studies, have been taken outside academia and will continue to be taken outside academia. This list serves as a reminder of this reality through examples.

Imagination Grasping Reality: An Ignatian Foundation For Critical Hope In Jesuit Education, Susan Haarman

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

As public faith in higher education faces an all time low, the need for hope to both infuse and be a product of our institutions of higher learning is paramount. Rather than a simple hopeful optimism, Henry Giroux conceptualized critical hope - an educated hope that will form students capable and willing to view themselves and the world through a critical lens and then imagine new ways of proceeding that serve the public good and honor human dignity. Jesuit education, at its best, is rooted in expressions of critical hope with a world-affirming commitment to depth of thought and imagination …

Investigation Of Public Trust In Science In Connection With Views About Tentative Nature Of Science And Epistemological Beliefs, Asghar Pervaiz Gill

Dissertations

Trust in science is contested in everyday discourse and decision-making. Science education research and instruction must delve into and contribute to enhancing public trust in science. In this context, nature of science (NOS), and epistemological beliefs (EBs) emerge as closely related research areas highlighting the tentative NOS and uncertain aspects of knowledge, which can potentially influence trust in science. In a series of three interrelated studies, this research explores the public trust in science in relation to NOS views and EBs.

The first study emphasizes the role of science education in building trust among undergraduate chemistry students. It assesses the …

The Association Between Maternal Exposure To Traffic-Related Air Pollution And Neonatal Death, Low Birthweight, And Orofacial Clefts Among Newborns In New York State, Excluding New York City (1999-2019), Douglas Done

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The following dissertation describes three case-control studies designed to investigate the association between maternal exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) and the following three outcomes in newborns: 1) neonatal death; 2) low birthweight; and 3) orofacial clefts. Exposure to TRAP will be assessed using distance-weighted traffic density (DWTD), measured in vehicles per day (VPD) that accounts for all roadways within 228.6-meter (750 ft) of the mother’s residence at the time of birth and the intensity of their average annual daily traffic (AADT) based on roadway and traffic data collected by the NYS Department of Transportation (NYS DOT) from 1995 to …

How Is The Christian Virtue Of Detachment Epistemically Transformative?, Simon C. Summers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to understand how the Christian virtue of detachment, understood as the proper ordering of one’s desires toward God, contributes to epistemic transformation. In order to achieve this result, I rely on the work of the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, beginning by mapping out his conception of detachment and demonstrating how it helps one to overcome competing desires and find their true self. Following this, I offer an account of the type of epistemic transformation required to access some theistic knowledge in order to connect Merton’s views on the topic with those of modern-day philosophers and show the …

Education And The Epistemological Crisis In The Age Of Chatgpt, Casandra Silva Sibilin

Publications and Research

The emergence of ChatGPT and its ability to imitate student work has precipitated a crisis in education. Responses range from practical efforts to detect or prevent ChatGPT use to existential reflection about learning and assessment. However, the crisis is also epistemological, with educators struggling to determine what students know and fearing that student knowledge is diminishing. The educational philosophies of Socrates, Dewey, and Freire suggest that recognition of ignorance of different kinds (inquisitive, predictive, and practical)on the part of educators is uncomfortable but essential for improving the aims and methods of education. In this way, ChatGPT and the philosophy of …

Making Decisions "In The Dark": Learning Through Uncertainty In Clinical Practice During Covid-19, Urvashi Vaid, Henriette Lundgren, Karen E. Watkins, Deborah Ziring, Grace A. Alcid, Victoria J. Marsick, Dimitrios Papanagnou

Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine Faculty Papers

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore how decision making and informal and incidental learning (IIL) emerged in the clinical learning environment (CLE) during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors' specific interest was to better understand the IIL that took place among frontline physicians who had to navigate a CLE replete with uncertainty and complexity with the future goal of creating experiences for medical students that would simulate IIL and use uncertainty as a catalyst for learning.

METHOD: Using a modified constructivist, grounded theory approach, we describe physicians' IIL while working during times of heightened uncertainty. …

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō––“Self-Determination Of The Eternal Now” 「永遠の今の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著（昭和六年七月） (July 1931) §1 Of 4; Complete Draft (Supersedes Draft Of 2 Jan 19); Translated By Christopher Southward; Revision And Expansion Underway, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Nishida Kitarō––“Self-Determination of the Eternal Now” (July 1931) 「永遠の今の自己限定」、西田幾多郎著（昭和六年七月）

§1 of 4; Complete Draft (Supersedes Draft of 2 Jan 2019)

Translated from the Japanese by Christopher Southward; Revision and Expansion Underway, October 2023

Japanese-English Translation: Miki Kiyoshi —Thinking With Master Nishida (First Published In Fujin Kōron, August 1941) Complete Draft; Translated, Edited, And Revised By Christopher Southward, October 2022-September 2023 「西田先生のことども」、三木清著（初発 婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Miki Kiyoshi —Thinking with Master Nishida (First Published in Fujin Kōron, August 1941) Complete Draft; Translated, Edited, and Revised by Christopher Southward, October 2022-September 2023「西田先生のことども」、三木清著（初発 婦人公論、昭和十六年八月）

Source text transcribed and published by Aozora Bunko–a compendium of public-domain Japanese literature, philosophy, and criticism

General website: https://www.aozora.gr.jp

Current text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000218/files/50538_37481.html

Early Response To False Claims In Wikipedia, 15 Years Later, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Fifteen years ago, I conducted a small study testing the error-correction tendency of Wikipedia. Not only is Wikipedia different now than it was then, the community that maintains it is different. Despite the crudity of that study’s methods, it is natural to wonder what the result would be now. So I repeated the earlier study and found surprisingly similar results.

Being Curious With Secrecy, Clare Stevens, Elspeth Van Veeren, Brian Rappert, Owen D. Thomas

Secrecy and Society

This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center “We the Curious” and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of …

Book Review: Kumar, Ashwani. (Ed.). (2022). Engaging With Meditative Inquiry In Teaching, Learning, And Research: Realizing Transformative Potentials In Diverse Contexts. New York, Ny: Routledge., Giovanni Rossini Phd

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Book Review of following text:

Kumar, Ashwani. (Ed.). (2022). Engaging with Meditative Inquiry in Teaching, Learning, and Research: Realizing Transformative Potentials in Diverse Contexts. New York, NY: Routledge.

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Why Not Be Free: The Black Worldmaking Praxis, Research Method, & Manifesto For Developing Music Interventions Against Stress In Black Youth, Armond Epps Dorsey

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Why Not Be Free? is an interdisciplinary exploration of music intervention development demonstrating the application of my integrated research and artistic practices through an outlined antiracist method for designing music to reduce stress in Black college youth and a manifesto detailing the compositional process. I draw from Black feminist and womanist thought, music cognition, and public health literature to outline a framework for designing music interventions to reduce stress among Black populations: the Music Medicine Critical Race Praxis. I situate my work among Black speculative artists reimagining experiences in everyday Black life as well as music intervention researchers integrating …

New Commandments, Jacob Sussman

Masters Theses

I reach into the earth, pull out mud-encrusted objects, and recombine them to define new meanings. With every object transposed, the past breaks down; new potentials form. “New Commandments” recombines historical symbolism through an intuitive building, destroying, and merging to reimagine or re-establish meaning.

The work critiques rites of passage, masculinity, and stereotypes by deconstructing how histories, ideologies, and preconceptions form.

As a queer person raised in-between Judaism and Christianity, social preconceptions and religious expectations festered my formation. Our choice is taken away at this moment of conception. To take back autonomy, I reimagine historical, and religious symbolism and transmute …

Becoming The Imperfect Friend: Sḵwx̱Wú7mesh And Contemplative Pathways To Healing And Reconciliation In Higher Education, Denise Marie Findlay

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Throughout this reflective essay I explore Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Indigenous philosophy and contemplative education as ethical pathways to healing and reconciliation in higher education. I put forth the idea of becoming the imperfect friend in a world ethos of death by a thousand cuts as a response to the violence of colonialism perpetuated in academia. I reflect on the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh values of eslhélha7kwhiws and stélmexw as contemplative dispositions that lend themselves to the process of becoming the imperfect friend. I conclude by describing a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh -led program hosted by Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 2022-2023, named Moving Together In The Ways …

Remembering The Future: Wild Time And The Cosmic Imagination, Arabella Thaïs

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Entropy – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – is generally held to prove “time’s arrow”: that time is linear and unidirectional, and that the universe is following this trajectory. This paper presents a preliminary exposition into a new, integral ontology of time in which time is hyper-dimensional, non-linear and flows in both directions. This is supported through trans-disciplinary praxis at the intersection of aesthetics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. The metaphysical implications of reverse causality are investigated, and confer a teleological universe that is coherent with the paradigm of an intelligent, self-realising cosmos in which beauty is a fundamental …

Paraquat, Parkinson's Disease, And Agnotology, Amit Ray, E. Ray Dorsey

Articles

This commentary examines the controversial relationship between paraquat, a widely used herbicide, and Parkinson's disease through the lens of agnotology—the deliberate production of ignorance for commercial gain. Despite numerous animal and epidemiological studies linking paraquat to Parkinson's disease, its use in the United States doubled from 2013 to 2018. The authors reveal how the manufacturer allegedly employed tactics similar to the tobacco industry, including attempts to discredit scientific researchers and suppress unfavorable findings. While over 30 countries have banned paraquat due to health risks, the EPA reauthorized its use in 2021. The paper argues that internal company documents and emerging …

Running On Empty: Blanks And Voids In Academic Publishing, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

No abstract provided.

How Can I Thank Scott Tunison, Keith D. Walker, And Janet Mola Okoko For Presenting Over 70 Qualitative Research Concepts? A Book Review Of Varieties Of Qualitative Research Methods: Selected Contextual Perspectives, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

More than 70 qualitative research concepts that have been used by academics and researchers in the social sciences and humanities are presented in the book Varieties of Qualitative Research Methods: Selected Contextual Perspectives. The concepts of qualitative research are collected in this book by academics and research practitioners from around the world. Whilst critically assessing the book, the field of qualitative research has grown more diverse and inclusive of a variety of ways of knowing and inquiring. Indigenous, context-specific, and more creative epistemologies are becoming more prevalent in qualitative research scholarship and practice as the world becomes smaller …

Dissertation Chapters Underway: 10,000 Shards, Or Opening And Activating Depth: Handicraft, Value, And The Work Of Art (Shards 00000-00001), Christopher Southward, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Dissertation Chapters Underway: 10,000 Shards, Or Opening and Activating Depth: Handicraft, Value, and the Work of Art (Shards 00000-00001), Christopher Southward

An Anticolonial Dream Against The Disaffection And Dissonance: Teaching The (Other) International Law In India, Swati S. Parmar

Indonesian Journal of International Law

The States, self-defined as the civilised, clothed in the ‘refined’ urbane bourgeois created a modern cosmopolitan order at a civilizational scale. The remaining world was driven into a cultural subjection and classified by the ‘civilised’ into these fixated identities while their indigeneity and socio-cultural identity were marginalised. Projected itself as the cradle of intellect, Europe consciously crafted imperialism as a cultural reference for the rest of the world. The colonial encounters left imperial imprints on the peoples of these colonies, the consequences of which remain evident in the styles and pedagogies of teaching international law in the geographical South. Historical …

Salty: A Diffractive Inquiry Of Visceral Knowing And Embodied Aesthetics, Mei Ling Chua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes a diffractive, onto-epistemological approach to everyday practices with salt in order to articulate an expanded understanding of meaning making and knowledge production. This research reckons with and challenges dominant modes of knowing that engage a Cartesian perspective to situate knowing as the exclusive domain of the mind in both form and topic of inquiry. This research acts simultaneously as both a direct practice of and metacognition about knowledge production by examining 1. the embodied (including sensory and emotional aspects) and 2. the relational (including interpersonal and socio-cultural) dimensions of experience as visceral knowing. This articulation of …

Filling The Vacant Space: A Close Reading Of Kant’S Dialectic Of Pure Practical Reason, Mae Ashraf Ali Saafan

Theses and Dissertations

The main aim of this thesis is to explore Kant’s central notion of rational belief. Kant’s account of rational belief could be viewed as the ground on which rational moral agents assent to propositions that enable them to avoid any practical incoherence as they engage in their moral duty.

The paper will offer a close reading of the dialectic of pure practical reason, particularly the doctrine of the postulates of practical reason. In this doctrine, Kant argues that although there is no theoretical proof for or against freedom, God, and the immortality of the soul, rational moral agents ought to …

Engl 200: Writing About Writing (The Problem Of The University), Flora De Tournay

Open Educational Resources

"The Problem of the University" is a (largely) open education syllabus that marries a criticality of/with the university as a site and space of knowledge making and knowledge suppression with a metacognitive writing approach for undergraduate students. The syllabus' contents include texts from bell hooks, Paolo Freire, Derrida, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, among others.

Complete and updated syllabus available at https://waboutw.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Zero, Śūnya And Pūrṇa: A Comparative Analysis, Animisha Tewari

Comparative Philosophy

Due to apparent duality in this world, one has to face a lot of difficulties while searching for the Truth. Our ego is the root cause for perception of duality and this in turn leads to suffering. This suffering can only be extinguished by attainment of the Truth, i.e, non-duality. However, in order to enable the finite intellect to comprehend the incomprehensible non-duality, this undifferentiated whole is sometimes denoted by nothingness (śūnya) or fullness (pūrṇa). Non-duality is usually understood by the numeral ‘1’ which stands for unity or oneness. The main aim of this paper is …

How Al-Farabi’S Interpretative Method Can Engage With Aristotle’S Method In Cognition And Practical Philosophy, Meysam Shirvani

Comparative Philosophy

Following Aristotle, al-Farabi divides philosophy into theoretical and practical each of which requires some specific methodology both in interpretation and cognition. Based on this division, there may arguably be four methodologies for four parts: 1) cognition of theoretical philosophy 2) interpretation of practical philosophy 3) cognition of practical philosophy 4) interpretation of practical philosophy. This paper focuses on the last one: the methodology of interpreting practical philosophy. Al-Farabi has an undeniably significant contribution to practical philosophy as a commentator on Greek philosophy and as a founder. In this paper, I investigate how al-Farabi (870-950 AD) read classical practical philosophy to …

Dreaming Philosophers: The Daoist And The Metaphysician, Kelly S. Inglis

Comparative Philosophy

Is this just a dream? Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zi and metaphysician Descartes both considered this question but came to very different conclusions. In his Dream Hypothesis, Descartes imagined that all of his beliefs about the external world could be mistaken, which led him to the realization that the only thing that he could be certain of was his own existence: “I think therefore I am.” But what am “I”? “I am a thinking thing”, he said and concluded that the existence of one’s mental self is clear, certain and indubitable, while the existence of a physical world was open …