As scientific discoveries and technological advances continue to modify our perceptions of reality at an unprecedented rate, the traditional frameworks for understanding and organizing our experience of truth and Knowledge have become less and less adequate. David Rich comes to grips with this problem in his innovative study, which shows how both knowledge and truth are conditioned by experience and explores the dynamics of creativity that generate knowledge.

Studies of knowledge utilization in public policy-making have important practical and theoretical implications. Accordingly, a voluminous work has been done on understanding and explaining the process of knowledge utilization (see Rich and Oh, 1993). However, we can easily find that there is the conspicuous absence of a greatly expanded understanding of the use of knowledge from those studies (Mandell and Sauter, 1984). Taken as a whole, empirical studies in the area of knowledge utilization have suffered (...) from several critical problems (see Rich, 1991; Oh, 1996a). More importantly, there appears to be serious conceptual and methodological gaps which need to be filled. This article focuses on one of the most significant methodological problems: measuring “knowledge utilization” from an evaluation perspective and offers some suggestions for future studies. (shrink)

Sarah Moss’ thesis that we have probabilistic knowledge is from some perspectives unsurprising and from other perspectives hard to make sense of. The thesis is potentially transformative, but not yet elaborated in sufficient detail for epistemologists. This paper interprets Mossean probabilistic knowledge in a suitably-modified Kripke framework, thus filling in key details. It argues that probabilistic knowledge looks natural and plausible when so interpreted, and shows how the most pressing challenges to the thesis can be overcome. Most (...) importantly, probabilistic knowledge can satisfy factivity in the framework, though we are not forced to accept a specific account of probabilistic “facts”. The framework also reflects Moss’ claim that old-fashioned propositional knowledge is just a limiting case of probabilistic knowledge, and all knowledge is fundamentally probabilistic. Finally, Moss endorses a failure of contraposition: for example, p implies probably p, but not probably p does not imply not p. The framework makes clear the sense in which the valid inferences regarding probably p are as Moss claims. (shrink)

During the past several decades, many epistemologists have argued for and contributed to a paradigm shift according to which knowledge is central to assertion, action, and interaction. This general position stands in sharp contrast to several recently developed accounts regarding specific epistemic contexts. These specific accounts resist applying traditional epistemic norms, including strong knowledge norms, to real-world situations of interest. In particular, I consider recent arguments about the epistemic standards for scientific pronouncements, expert testimony in a political context, (...) and interactive reasoning. I argue, firstly, that knowledge does have a crucial role to play in each case, contrary to appearances. Clarifying the role of knowledge fills gaps in our understanding left open by the existing accounts. Secondly, I show that combining the insights from the knowledge-centric approach and from the more specific accounts provides a new perspective on the open problem of developing an account of knowledge-based decisions. Specifically, I argue that the biggest open problem regarding knowledge-based decisions is not how we respond to uncertainty, but rather how we assess the relevance of our many disparate pieces of knowledge, choosing which to integrate, and how. A strong case emerges for a procedural solution to this part of the problem of how to make knowledge-based decisions. (shrink)

Knowledge-first epistemology includes a knowledge norm of action: roughly, act only on what you know. This norm has been criticized, especially from the perspective of so-called standard decision theory. Mueller and Ross provide example decision problems which seem to show that acting properly cannot require knowledge. I argue that this conclusion depends on applying a particular decision theory which is ill-motivated in this context. Agents’ knowledge is often most plausibly formalized as an ambiguous epistemic state, and (...) the theory of decision under ambiguity is then the appropriate modeling tool. I show how to model agents as acting rationally on the basis of their knowledge according to such a theory. I conclude that the tension between the knowledge norm of action and formal decision theory is illusory; the knowledge-first paradigm should be used to actively select the decision-theoretical tools that can best capture the knowledge-based decisions in any given situation. (shrink)

The contributions in our contemporary era have been tremendous: atomic energy for generating electricity, jet travel, near-instant communications, great advancements in medicine and treatment of diseases, and advances in education. For all these advancements, there is still poverty, ignorance, bigotry, and the call for a new religious domination. For all the brilliance demonstrated in our era, there are signs of darkness lurking not far away. These are the factors that will bring our era to a close, and another era--perhaps of (...) the darkness of religious domination and intolerance of the past in the form of another Dark Ages to rise in its place The contributions in our contemporary era have been tremendous: atomic energy for generating electricity, jet travel, near-instant communications, great advancements in medicine and treatment of diseases, and advances in education. For all these advancements, there is still poverty, ignorance, bigotry, and the call for a new religious domination. For all the brilliance demonstrated in our era, there are signs of darkness lurking not far away. These are the factors that will bring our era to a close, and another era--perhaps of the darkness of religious domination and intolerance of the past in the form of another Dark Ages to rise in its place. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problems that must be considered if computers are going to treat their users as individuals with distinct personalities, goals, and so forth. It first outlines the issues, and then proposes stereotypes as a useful mechanism for building models of individual users on the basis of a small amount of information about them. In order to build user models quickly, a large amount of uncertain knowledge must be incorporated into the models. The issue of how to (...) resolve the conflicts; hot will arise along such inferences is discussed. A system, Grundy, is described that builds models of its users, with the aid of stereotypes, and then exploits those models to guide it in its task, suggesting novels that people may find interesting. If stereotypes are to be useful to Grundy, they must accurately characterize the users of the system. Some techniques to modify stereotypes on the basis of experience are discussed. An analysis of Grundy's performance shows that its user models are effective in guiding its performance. (shrink)

Participants struck 500 golf balls to a concealed target. Outcome feedback was presented at the subjective or objective threshold of awareness of each participant or at a supraliminal threshold. Participants who received fully perceptible feedback learned to strike the ball onto the target, as did participants who received feedback that was only marginally perceptible . Participants who received feedback that was not perceptible showed no learning. Upon transfer to a condition in which the target was unconcealed, performance increased in both (...) the subjective and the objective threshold condition, but decreased in the supraliminal condition. In all three conditions, participants reported minimal declarative knowledge of their movements, suggesting that deliberate hypothesis testing about how best to move in order to perform the motor task successfully was disrupted by the impoverished disposition of the visual outcome feedback. It was concluded that sub-optimally perceptible visual feedback evokes implicit processes. (shrink)

Acting as part of a corporation may allow an individual more easily to rationalize participating in a harmful act, but there are countervailing forces in corporate action that increase moral oversight and accountability. Making use of group agency to explain membership as a special feature of some corporate agents, I argue that when someone becomes a member of an organized group like a company, their own moral responsibility becomes entangled with the decisions of other members of the company, whether or (...) not they intend this effect. This moral entanglement in corporate decision-making explains why individuals have a moral obligation to act in their role as a corporate officer when they would not have an obligation to act in a personal capacity even if they had identical knowledge. The entanglement affects the individual’s own moral status and the moral status of the company itself. Moral entanglement of corporate decision-makers provides a principled explanation for a rule that is present in corporate criminal law that corporate officers with knowledge that another employee is about to commit a crime must actively intervene, and cannot rely on their status as bystanders. (shrink)

Mixed member legislative systems have proliferated in the last twenty years, and while our knowledge of the institutional impacts has grown, we have had difficulty in separating institutional and contextual (namely party) influences. Through an analysis of Taiwan before and after the implementation of a mixed member majoritarian (MMM) system, the level of contamination between tiers and variance between parties becomes clearer. Survey results show a marked shift in constituency focus for district candidates, moving from multimember to single-member districts, (...) while party list seats focus on district factors at higher rates post-reform. Variance between the two major parties further suggests differing levels of party pressure. (shrink)

What knowledge is of most worth? / Herbert Spencer -- The basis of education / Robert M. Hutchins -- The ultimate aims of education / Edward L. Thorndike and Arthur I. Gates -- Aims in education / John Dewey -- Leviathan / Thomas Hobbes -- Of civil government, second treatise / John Locke -- Man and society : the art of living together / Reinhold Niebuhr -- Civilization and its discontents / Sigmund Freud -- Education and nationality / Giovanni (...) Gentile -- Education and social change / I.L. Kandel -- Education and social change / John Dewey -- Social reconstruction through education / Harold Rugg -- Protagoras / Plato -- Decisions of principle / R.M. Hare -- Reconstruction in moral conceptions / John Dewey -- Public education and the good life / William K. Frankena -- Metaphysics / Aristotle -- Hierarchy of the positive sciences / Auguste Comte -- Structure of the disciplines : meaning and significances / Joseph J. Schwab --. (shrink)

The COVID‐19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented health crisis that impacted healthcare systems worldwide. This study explores how Spanish healthcare workers learned, internalised and integrated values and work behaviours during the COVID‐19 pandemic and their impact on the personal sphere. This documentary research, using images, narratives and audiovisual content, was framed within the interpretative hermeneutic paradigm. Categories and subcategories emerged after a final theoretical sampling that focused on the analysis. Data triangulation between researchers favoured theoretical saturation. A total of 117 images (...) and 27 texts were selected. The analysis identified three stages: bewilderment, seeking functionality in the chaos and integrating chaos into care. The data reflects how the need for security and knowledge, and the exhaustion and frustration caused by the initial working conditions, prompted adaptive responses. These responses involved focusing on problem‐solving and strengthening group sentiments and solidarity. Subsequently, the data indicates the acceptance of new structural, organisational and communication aspects. The findings of the analysis will contribute towards finding a framework that can help understand community health crisis events. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have attempted to understand the role of information in policymaking by developing several models of information utilization and have tested them empirically, at both national and state levels. This paper has called into question past studies as they relate to describing and explaining use of information. This paper tests an integrated model of information utilization that contains four sets of primary variables: decision makers’ environments (i.e., nature of policy issues), organization, individual characteristics, and characteristics of information. (...) Based on the conceptual framework, a path model is built and tested against data about knowledge utilization and policy change in two areas of mental health policy (i.e., service and financing). The findings of the study have demonstrated that decision makers’ behavior does not conform to the assumptions put forward by either the organizational interest (e.g., information source or content of information) or the communications perspective (e.g., decision makers’ attitudes toward social science research). Instead, we have shown that information utilization is affected directly and indirectly by a variety of factors and their linkage, and not dominated by one set of factors that is defined by a singe perspective. The most important paths in the model are those between factors associated with information (e.g., the amount of information received or information source) and the use of information. Interestingly, these factors also play the role of major intervening mechanisms for linking other factors to decision makers’ use of information. More importantly, the general pattern of the findings indicates that policy areas make a difference in the process of information utilization. (shrink)

In conversation with Emmett Harsin Drager and Andrea Long Chu's “After Trans Studies,” this collaborative essay also turns to questions of field formation and the ethos of trans studies. Situating the growth of the field in the material conditions of precarity under which trans knowledge-workers work, the authors argue that trans studies can't be “over” because, in fact, it isn't yet here. Rather than viewing this as only a dismal proposition, however, they insist that the tenuousness of trans studies (...) provides us with the opportunity to envision and enact more sustaining ways of being “in the field.”. (shrink)

It is critical to remember details about meetings with healthcare providers. Forgetting could result in inadequate knowledge about ones' health, non-adherence with treatments, and poorer health outcomes. Hearing the health care provider plays a crucial role in consolidating information for recall. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has meant a rapid transition to videoconference-based medicine, here described as telehealth. When using telehealth speech must be filtered and compressed, and research has shown that degraded speech is more challenging to remember. Here we (...) present preliminary results from a study that compared memory for health information provided in-person to telehealth. The data collection for this study was stopped due to the pandemic, but the preliminary results are interesting because the pandemic forced a rapid transition to telehealth. To examine a potential memory deficit for health information provided through telehealth, we presented older and younger adults with instructions on how to use two medical devices. One set of instructions was presented in-person, and the other through telehealth. Participants were asked to recall the instructions immediately after the session, and again after a 1-week delay. Overall, the number of details recalled was significantly lower when instructions were provided by telehealth, both immediately after the session and after a 1-week delay. It is likely that a mix of technological and communication strategies by the healthcare provider could reduce this telehealth memory deficit. Given the rapid transition to telehealth due to COVID-19, highlighting this deficit and providing potential solutions are timely and of utmost importance. (shrink)

Taking Culture Seriously in Community Mental Health is a community-based participatory action research project in Ontario devoted to developing, pilot testing, and evaluating mental health service models grounded in the concept of "cultural empowerment." To ensure that the knowledge generated in the project is shared and used, the research collaborative places a heavy emphasis on communicating with stakeholder groups. This paper provides an overview of a communications policy designed to facilitate such sharing and use. It describes the development and (...) key features of the policy, focusing on the broad issues of principles, authorship and acknowledgment, and planning and procedures. (shrink)

Research is increasingly recognised as a key component of medical curricula, offering a range of benefits including development of skills in evidence-based medicine. The literature indicates that experienced academic supervision or mentoring is important in any research activity and positively influences research output. The aim of this project was to investigate the human research ethics experiences and knowledge of three groups: medical students, and university academic staff and clinicians eligible to supervise medical student research projects; at two Australian universities. (...) Training in research ethics was low amongst academic staff and clinicians eligible to supervise medical student research. Only two-thirds of academic staff and students and less than half of clinicians surveyed indicated that specific patient consent was required for a doctor to include patient medical records within a research publication. There was limited awareness of requirements for participant information and consent forms amongst all groups. In the case of clinical trials, fewer clinicians and students than academics indicated there was a requirement to obtain consent. Awareness of the ethics committee focus on respect was low across all groups. This project has identified significant gaps in human research ethics understanding among medical students, and university academic staff and clinicians. The incorporation of research within medical curricula provides the impetus for medical schools and their institutions to ensure that academic staff and clinicians who are eligible and qualified to supervise students’ research projects are appropriately trained in human research ethics. (shrink)

Case-based instruction is a stable feature of ethics education, however, little is known about the attributes of the cases that make them effective. Emotions are an inherent part of ethical decision-making and one source of information actively stored in case-based knowledge, making them an attribute of cases that likely facilitates case-based learning. Emotions also make cases more realistic, an essential component for effective case-based instruction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of emotional case content, and (...) complementary socio-relational case content, on case-based knowledge acquisition and transfer on future ethical decision-making tasks. Study findings suggest that emotional case content stimulates retention of cases and facilitates transfer of ethical decision-making principles demonstrated in cases. (shrink)

Postdisciplinary Knowledge is the first book to articulate postdisciplinarity in philosophical, theoretical and methodological terms, helping to establish it as an important intellectual movement of the 21st century. It formulates what postdisciplinarity is, and how it can be implemented in research practice. The diverse chapters present a rich collection of highly creative thought-provoking essays and methodological insights. Written by a number of pioneering intellectuals with a range of backgrounds and research foci, these chapters cover a broad spectrum of (...) areas demonstrating alternative ways of producing knowledge. Essays are interspersed with dialogue, encouraging a comprehensive and engaging discussion on this emerging movement. Not limited to a specific field or discipline, this will be of great interest to upper level students and researchers in a wide range of subject areas, including: tourism, sociology, education, psychology, physiotherapy, fine arts, architecture and design, as well as those with a general interest in epistemology and methodology. (shrink)

Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy is the first volume of essays dedicated to the whole question of self-knowledge and its role in Platonic philosophy. It brings together established and rising scholars from every interpretative school of Plato studies, and a variety of texts from across Plato's corpus - including the classic discussions of self-knowledge in the Charmides and Alcibiades I, and dialogues such as the Republic, Theaetetus, and Theages, which are not often enough mined (...) for insights about this crucial philosophical topic. The rich variety of readings and hermeneutical methods allows for an encompassing view of the relevant scholarly debates. The volume is intended to serve as a standard resource for further research on Plato's treatment of self-knowledge, and will highlight the relevance of Plato's thought to contemporary debates on selfhood, self-reflection and subjectivity. (shrink)

Despite the problems students often have with the theory of knowledge, it remains, necessarily, at the core of the philosophical enterprise. As experienced teachers know, teaching epistemology requires a text that is not only clear and accessible, but also capable of successfully motivating the abstract problems that arise.In Knowledge Puzzles, Stephen Hetherington presents an informal survey of epistemology based on the use of puzzles to illuminate problems of knowledge. Each topic is introduced through a puzzle, and readers (...) are invited to work their own ways toward a solution. Hetherington’s light and undogmatic style encourages class discussion and independent thought rather than the memorization of “book” answers.Covering all of the most important epistemological issues, informed by classical and contemporary literature, and rich in probing questions and suggestions for further readings, Knowledge Puzzles is a pedagogical breakthrough. Whether it is used as a main text or supplement, this lucid and engaging text will be welcomed by both teachers and students. (shrink)

Recent challenges to Chomsky's poverty of the stimulus thesis for language acquisition suggest that children's primary data may carry “indirect evidence” about linguistic constructions despite containing no instances of them. Indirect evidence is claimed to suffice for grammar acquisition, without need for innate knowledge. This article reports experiments based on those of, who demonstrated that a simple bigram language model can induce the correct form of auxiliary inversion in certain complex questions. This article investigates the nature of the indirect (...) evidence that supports this learning, and assesses how reliably it is available. Results confirm the original finding for one specific sentence type but show that the model's success is highly circumscribed. It performs poorly on inversion in related constructions in English and Dutch. Because other, more powerful statistical models have so far been shown to succeed only on the same limited subset of cases as the bigram model, it remains to be seen whether stimulus richness can be substantiated more generally. (shrink)

According to a rich tradition in philosophy of action, intentional action requires practical knowledge: someone who acts intentionally knows what they are doing while they are doing it. Piñeros Glasscock argues that an anti-luminosity argument, of the sort developed in Williamson, can be readily adapted to provide a reductio of an epistemic condition on intentional action. This paper undertakes a rescue mission on behalf of an epistemic condition on intentional action. We formulate and defend a version of an (...) epistemic condition that is free from any luminosity commitments. While this version of an epistemic condition escapes reductio, it comes with substantive commitments of its own. In particular, we will see that it forces us to deny the existence of any essentially intentional actions. We go on to argue that this consequence should be embraced. On the resulting picture, intentional action is not luminous. But it still entails practical knowledge. (shrink)

Indigenous peoples possess enormously rich and articulated knowledge of the natural world. A major goal of research in anthropology and ethnobiology as well as ecology, conservation biology, and development studies is to find ways of integrating this knowledge with that produced by academic and other institutionalized scientific communities. Here I present a challenge to this integration project. I argue, by reference to ethnographic and cross-cultural psychological studies, that the models of the world developed within specialized academic disciplines (...) do not map onto anything existing within traditional beliefs and practices for coping with nature. Traditional ecological knowledge is distributed across a heterogeneous array of overlapping practices within Indigenous cultures, including spiritual and ritual practices that invoke categories, properties, and causal-explanatory models that do not in general converge with those of the academic sciences. In light of this divergence I argue that we should abandon the integration project, and conclude by sketching a notion of knowledge coordination as a possible successor framework. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel account of the value of knowledge. The account is novel insofar as it advocates a shift in focus from the value of individual items of knowledge to the value of the commodity of knowledge. It is argued that the commodity of knowledge is valuable in at least two ways: in a wide range of areas, knowledge is our way of being in cognitive contact with the world and for us the (...) good life is a life rich enough in knowledge. (shrink)

This book provides a rich collection of readings that challenge traditional understandings of knowledge and the view of mind that underpins them.

Richard Moran's Authority and Estrangement offers a subtle and tantalizing exploration of asymmetries that arise between first‐person and third‐person self‐knowledge. According to Moran's central claim, the distinction of first‐person self‐knowledge is to engage the responsibility of the person. I will focus my remarks on this issue. I wish to raise some questions about the nature of the third‐person perspective, and about how assuming it affects the responsibility of the person. In this connection, I examine in some detail Moran's (...) main examples of third‐person loss of responsibility. Moran's discussions are rich and provocative, and the questions I sketch out all too briefly here are primarily pleas for clarification. (shrink)

I argue that technological functions warrant specific epistemological attention, which they have not received thus far. From a user’s perspective, knowledge about the possible functions of an artefact is not provided exclusively by beliefs about its physical characteristics; it is primarily provided by know-how related to its use. Analysing the latter shows that standards of practical and not just theoretical reasoning are involved. Moreover, knowledge of the function of artefacts is primarily based on testimony and a social division (...) of labour with respect to rational artefact use. Combining these two features, knowledge of functions can be shown to create a rich normative context, manifest in notions such as ‘improper’ use: designers inform users about how they ought to use artefacts. This normativity in knowledge of functions, which takes a different shape for possible and proper functions, is lacking in standard, descriptive knowledge.Keywords: Epistemology; Function; Knowing-how; Testimony; Artefact; Practical rationality. (shrink)

This book is an accessible introduction to contemporary epistemology, the theory of knowledge. It introduces traditional topics in epistemology within the context of contemporary debates about the definition, sources, and limits of human knowledge. Rich in examples and written in an engaging style, it explains the field while avoiding technical detail. It relates epistemology to work in cognitive science and defends a plausible version of explanationism regarding epistemological method.

Business theory suggests that knowledge intensive professionslike law would devote major attention to knowledge management (KM) activities. Afterall, since a firm's combined knowledge is a key differentiating asset, one wouldexpect the exploitation of that asset to be a high priority. Yet new lawyers are oftensurprised at how little of such activities take place within firms. One might also expect tofind rich connections between academic research in knowledge management and law firmsusing that research. The rarity of (...) such connections stands in sharp contrast to thebreadth and depth of use of substantive legal research and analysis. These disappointmentsare not unrelated: a firm that allocates little time to systems for leveraging its intellectualcontent is unlikely to invest in staying up to date with externalresearch relating to such systems.The authors believe that significant progress nonetheless may bemade both in applying KM methodologies to law firm work and better connecting theacademic and practice sectors. To those ends, this article explores three theses: (1)Legal technologists can and should lead by example in utilizing KM tools and methods; (2) Theeconomics of legal practice still pose substantial challenges to even those knowledge technologies considered by some as truly ``disruptive''; and (3) Focussing onareas that could yield a tremendous economic harvest may help forge richer connections betweenthe work being done in academic and practice spheres. (shrink)

Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Fides et Ratio examines the foundations of epistemology and encourages a renewed discourse on what it actually means to know truth. The pontiff—both a philosopher and a theologian—reevaluates through the prism of man’s proper relation to truth the age-old question about the compatibility of faith and reason as means of acquiring knowledge. John Paul offers his perspective on the matter in the “Introduction” to Fides et Ratio by employing, in his native Polish, four (...) non-exchangeable epistemological terms. Due, however, to the rather imprecise translations of his work, the profundity of John Paul’s thought largely has been obscured.The author of this paper attempts to recover the pope’s particular understanding of the nature of knowledge by expounding on the epistemological paradigm and norm presented by John Paul in addition to critiquing his view that modern society’s pursuit of knowledge parallels sinking in quicksand. Uncovering these insights ultimately leads him to a fuller interpretation of what kind of “knowledge,” according to Pope John Paul II, properly reflects the totality of man’s innate personhood and therefore what ought to constitute the underpinnings of knowledge itself. (shrink)

Thomas Eisele explores the premise that the Socratic method of inquiry need not teach only negative lessons. Instead, Eisele contends, the Socratic method is cyclical: we start negatively by recognizing our illusions, but end positively through a process of recollection performed in response to our disillusionment, which ultimately leads to renewal. Thus, a positive lesson about our resources as philosophical investigators, as students and teachers, becomes available to participants in Socrates' robust conversational inquiry. __Bitter Knowledge __includes Eisele's detailed readings (...) of Socrates' teaching techniques in three fundamental Platonic dialogues, _Protagoras, Meno_, and _Theaetetus_, as well as his engagement with contemporary authorities such as Gregory Vlastos, Martha Nussbaum, and Stanley Cavell. Written in a highly engaging and accessible style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in philosophy, classics, law, rhetoric, and education. "This book is original, fresh, and of very high quality, opening up these Platonic texts, central to Western culture, in new ways. In addition, it establishes a method that others can use and apply to the other dialogues. It would be a wonderful text to assign in courses in philosophy, basic humanities, education, and law." --_James Boyd White, University of Michigan_ "Through his thoughtful and incisive readings of Plato, Thomas Eisele puts Socrates in a new light. In Eisele's hands, Socrates offers us a method not simply for philosophy but for the challenges of life and mind. This superb book builds on the great readings of Plato, adding to the richness of our understanding of the enigmatic figure of Socrates. These are profound readings of Plato." --_Dennis Patterson, Rutgers University School of Law_ "Eisele's book is much more than an erudite, seductive, and imaginative exploration of three central Platonic dialogues. It is also a fine general treatment of philosophy, discussing the kind of finality or closure to which philosophical questions are susceptible and the appropriate stance of the inquirer. It considers the pedagogy of philosophy and law brilliantly." --_Thomas Morawetz, University of Connecticut School of Law_. (shrink)

However much the three great traditions of medicine - Galenic, Chinese and Ayurvedic - differed from each other, they had one thing in common: scholarship. The foundational knowledge of each could only be acquired by careful study under teachers relying on ancient texts. Such medical knowledge is special, operating as it does in the realm of the most fundamental human experiences - health, disease, suffering, birth and death - and the credibility of healers is of crucial importance. Because (...) of this, scholarly medical knowledge offers a rich field for the study of different cultural practices in the legitimation of knowledge generally. The contributors to this volume are all specialists in the history or anthropology of these traditions, and their essays range from historical investigations to studies of present-day practices. (shrink)

Meta‐synthesis of qualitative research can be an important way to consolidate and grow nursing knowledge and theory. However, from recent readings of such works in the nursing literature, one can observe that there is increasing use of meta‐synthesis being used as a way to simply aggregate qualitative research findings in a manner claimed to be similar to quantitative meta‐research while also remaining compatible with the qualitative research tradition. The aim of this paper is to discuss whether this meta‐aggregation form (...) of research has a sound epistemological foundation and should be considered a viable form of meta‐synthesis. The conclusion drawn is that meta‐aggregation falls short of being a sound method and is not compatible with the qualitative research philosophy. It is also concluded that meta‐aggregation should not be seen as a form of qualitative meta‐synthesis. Meta‐synthesis is best understood as a way to re‐interpret, compare and translate disparate qualitative studies using different conceptual apparatus into a consolidated knowledge of fundamental importance to nursing care practitioners. To conclude, aggregating qualitative research tends to turn rich descriptions into thin abstractions that are of little use to nursing practice knowledge and does not advance nursing science. (shrink)

Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel are one of the most ancient communities in the world, one that has been detached from the known Jewish world for about 2,500 years. Throughout this very long period of isolation, the Ethiopian Jewish community maintained Jewish tradition and dreamed over the centuries to unite with the rest of the Jewish world and immigrate to the Jewish state—Israel. But this transition occurred within a short time from an agrarian society in Ethiopia (traditional culture) with an (...) oral culture to a knowledge society in Israel (modern culture) with a written culture. Most studies that examine cultural transition focus on anthropological, sociological, and cultural aspects; but there are nearly no studies that examine the technological knowledge of non-literate populations. The purpose of this study is to examine and characterize technological knowledge among this population—the case of Ethiopian non-literate immigrants in Israel. The study involved in-depth interviews to examine technological knowledge through using technological appliances in their everyday life, assembly of two simple technological systems, and a home technology profile compared to the general population in Israel. Participants included 50 non-literate Ethiopian immigrants between the ages of 40–60. The results of our study are surprising in that we have shown that non-literate immigrants adapt to a technology-rich environment at an average degree with respect to the general population in Israel. Also, comparing technological knowledge between traditional and modern cultures shows participants’ wide range of knowledge without ability to read and write. Illiteracy does not preclude the development of knowledge in general, technological knowledge particularly, and does not prevent non-literate populations from acquiring knowledge in a new environment. (shrink)

“Give to everyone who begs from you,” Jesus advised his followers. Most of us do not and rush on by, concerned for our safety, for what the beggar will buy with our gift of alms, for who will benefit from our gift. Fewer stop and give something: if not cash, then a snack or beverage, and their precious time. A century since Marcel Mauss published his famous essay, we all feel quite well informed about “the gift.” In this richly detailed (...) study, Caner's achievement is to show how different gift-giving was in the late antique Roman Empire, “the first truly affluent, complex Christian society.” Philanthropy was no longer the ancient “love of humanity,” the imperative to be generous to people, when you thought, or even knew, that they did not deserve it. Yet philanthropy was moreover not, or not only, a series of precisely calibrated acts of reciprocal giving.Caner's focus is on the religious gift. He identifies five distinct categories of religious gift-giving, which others have too easily conflated. The newest of these was the blessing (eulogia), which emerged only in the sixth century, in the thousands of sermons, saintly lives, and letters that Caner consulted. It has been identified similarly in other ascetic cultures, for example in Hinduism and Jainism, as the pure or free gift whose existence Mauss denied. The blessing is a gift of divine benevolence, grace delivered through a human mediator. It is not synonymous with the gift of alms (eleēmosynē), a very human act of mercy from one individual to another. These are in turn distinct from charity (agapē), “self-sacrificial gifts derived from essential resources”; two forms of offering—liturgical offerings (prosphorai), such as the communion bread, on the one hand, and fruit-bearing offerings (karpophoriai), along with agricultural and other gifts to support religious professionals. “Each category,” which has an equivalent in contemporary Syriac and Coptic writings, “was associated with a distinct set of goals, responsibilities, relationships, and material resources.”The late antique city was as busy with organized gangs of professional beggars as any modern downtown, but early Christians could not simply turn away. They were hectored into caring by golden-mouthed preachers like John, bishop of New Rome. Chrysostom insisted that almsgiving should be direct and personal, a source of discomfort for those who offered comfort. The rich might also, as ever, engage in ostentatious acts of giving, the exchange of worldly goods to redeem them from their sins, including the pride associated with ostentatious giving. Transactional gift-giving could end up with everyone insulted: generosity could be refused, donors repudiated, gifts returned. That much seems familiar at a time when museums and universities have felt compelled to remove the names of disgraced donors from their buildings and galleries. Caner's rich analysis, because it is so firmly rooted in early Byzantium, offers reasons, and some new tools, to think again and hard about the complexities of philanthropy. (shrink)

Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek saw the liberty principle as focal and accorded it strong presumption, but their wisdom invokes how little we can know. In Knowledge and Coordination, Daniel Klein re-examines the elements of economic liberalism. He interprets Hayek's notion of spontaneous order from the aestheticized perspective of a Smithian spectator, real or imagined. Klein addresses issues economists have had surrounding the notion of coordination by distinguishing the concatenate coordination of Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Michael Polanyi from the (...) mutual coordination of Thomas Schelling and game theory. Clarifying the meaning of cooperation, he resolves debates over whether entrepreneurial innovation enhances or upsets coordination, and thus interprets entrepreneurship in terms of discovery or new knowledge. Beyond information, knowledge entails interpretation and judgment, emergent from tacit reaches of the "society of mind," itself embedded in actual society. Rejecting homo economicus in favor of the "deepself," Klein offers a distinctive formulation of knowledge economics, entailing asymmetric interpretation, judgment, entrepreneurship, error, and correction-and kinds of discovery-which all serve the cause of liberty. This richness of knowledge joins agent and analyst, and meaningful theory depends on tacit affinities between the two. Knowledge and Coordination highlights the recurring connections to underlying purposes and sensibilities, of analysts as well as agents. Behind economic talk of market communication and social error and correction lies Klein's Smithian allegory, with the allegorical spectator representing a conception of the social. Knowledge and Coordination instructs us to declare such allegory. Knowledge and Coordination is an authoritative take on how, by confessing the looseness of its judgments and the by-and-large status of its claims, laissez-faire liberalism makes its economic doctrines more robust and its presumption of liberty more viable. (shrink)

Persons interested in developing virtue will find attending to, and attempting to act on, the right reason for action a rich resource for developing virtue. In this paper I consider the role of self-knowledge in intentional moral development. I begin by making a general case that because improving one’s moral character requires intimate knowledge of its components and their relation to right reason, the aim of developing virtue typically requires the development of self-knowledge. I next turn (...) to Kant’s ethics for an account which explains the reflexivity involved in moral reasoning generally, and the significance of self-knowledge to morality. I then take up Robert Audi’s interesting notion of the harnessing and unharnessing of reasons as a potential way of strengthening the agent’s connection to right reason, and his concerns about our limited and indirect resources for becoming virtuous. I argue that harnessing and unharnessing are not plausibly characterized as activities to be accomplished by an exertion of will, rather they involve a dynamic, cognitive, reflective attempt to gain self-knowledge and align oneself with one’s moral reasons for action. (shrink)

Making Knowledge presents the work of leading anthropologists who promote pioneering approaches to understanding the nature and social constitution of human knowledge. The book offers a progressive interdisciplinary approach to the subject and covers a rich and diverse ethnography. Presents cutting-edge research and theory in anthropology. Includes many beautiful illustrations throughout. The contributions cover a rich and diverse ethnography. Offers a progressive interdisciplinary approach to the eternal questions concerning 'human knowledge' Contributions by leading scholars in (...) the field who explore a wide range of disciplines through an anthropological perspective"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In rich detail Jonathan Berkey interprets the social and cultural consequences of Islam's regard for knowledge, showing how education in the Middle Ages played a central part in the religious experience of nearly all Muslims. Focusing on Cairo, which under Mamluk rule was a vital intellectual center with a complex social system, the author describes the transmission of religious knowledge there as a highly personal process, one dependent on the relationships between individual scholars and students. The great (...) variety of institutional structures, he argues, supported educational efforts without ever becoming essential to them. By not being locked into formal channels, religious education was never exclusively for the elite but was open to all. Berkey explores the varying educational opportunities offered to the full run of the Muslim population--including Mamluks, women, and the "common people." Drawing on medieval chronicles, biographical dictionaries, and treatises on education, as well as the deeds of endowment that established many of Cairo's schools, he explains how education drew groups of outsiders into the cultural center and forged a common Muslim cultural identity. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In this book, the first systematic study of Socrates' reflections on self-knowledge, Christopher Moore examines the ancient precept 'Know yourself' and, drawing on Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon, and others, reconstructs and reassesses the arguments about self-examination, personal ideals, and moral maturity at the heart of the Socratic project. What has been thought to be a purely epistemological or metaphysical inquiry turns out to be deeply ethical, intellectual, and social. Knowing yourself is more than attending to your beliefs, discerning the structure (...) of your soul, or recognizing your ignorance - it is constituting yourself as a self who can be guided by knowledge toward the good life. This is neither a wholly introspective nor a completely isolated pursuit: we know and constitute ourselves best through dialogue with friends and critics. This rich and original study will be of interest to researchers in the philosophy of Socrates, selfhood, and ancient thought. (shrink)