Objects and the production of technological forms of life:understanding organisational arrangements from a postsocial perspective

Objects are produced within, and simultaneously affect, the process of organizing as a consequence of their interaction within social collectives. This paper discusses the impact and influences of the growth of post-social relations, between human and technological objects, on social and organisational arrangements. The paper presents a discussion largely at the conceptual level and draws from a variety of literatures, including the burgeoning sociology of science literature. The discussion in this paper is based on a view that posits the growth of intimate links with epistemic objects within organisations and society. Organising through networks of post-social relations increasingly comes to affect the manner in which differing groups of organisational participants, and particularly various categories of knowledge workers, experience time and spatial arrangements within organisations.

Material artifacts:practices for doing strategy with 'stuff'

This paper addresses the dearth of research into material artifacts and how they are engaged in strategizing activities. Building on the strategy-as-practice perspective, and the notion of epistemic objects, we develop a typology of strategy practices that show how managers use material artifacts to strategize by a dual process of knowledge abstraction and substitution. Empirically, we study the practice of underwriting managers in reinsurance companies. Our findings first identify the artifacts – pictures, maps, data packs, spreadsheets and graphs – that these managers use to appraise reinsurance deals. Second, the analysis of each artifact’s situated use led to the identification of five practices for doing strategy with artifacts: physicalizing, locating, enumerating, analyzing, and selecting. Last, we developed a typology that shows how practices vary in terms of their level of abstraction from the physical properties of the risk being reinsured and unfold through a process of substituting. Our conceptual framework extends existing work in the strategy-as-practice field that calls for research into the role of material artifacts.

Textbook (non-)adoption motives, legitimizing strategies and academic field configuration

Textbooks are an integral part of structured syllabus coverage in higher education. The argument advanced in this article is that textbooks are not simply products of inscription and embodied scholarly labour for pedagogical purposes, but embedded institutional artefacts that configure entire academic subject fields. Empirically, this article shows the various ways that motives of the (non-) adoption of textbooks have field institutional configuration effects. The research contribution of our study is threefold. First, we re-theorise the textbook as an artefact that is part of the institutional work and epistemic culture of academia. Second, we empirically show that the vocabularies of motive of textbook (non-) adoption and rhetorical strategies form the basis for social action and configuration across micro, meso and macro field levels. Our final contribution is a conceptualization of the ways that textbook (non-) adoption motives ascribe meaning to the legitimating processes in the configuration of whole subject fields.

“Currículo encarnado”: cartografia simbólica e afinidades pós-coloniais

This thesis has as main objective to reflect about the defining conceptual elements of the embodied curriculum concept, ident ified curriculum conception from the analysis about the rationality employed in the doctoral work of teacher Antonio Fernando Gouvê a da Silva, entitled The construction of the curriculum in popular critical perspective: the significant words to the context ualized practices , written and defended in the Postgraduate Program in Education: Curriculum, in the Pontifícia Catholic University of São Paulo, in 2004. We looked, also, on the problematization of the affinities between postcolonial theories – analytical perspectives towards the discussion about coloniality and their effect on contemporary social weaving – and the embodied curriculum concept. We argue that the reflections present in the aforementioned work bring an articulated curriculum concept based on three conceptual symbiotic elements, namely: negativity, dialogue and praxis, which, by endorsing the possibility of a curricular ingrained practice in the life context of the individuals, have some post - colonial inclinations that lead to the problematizat ion about the neo - colonial manifestations in curricular sphere, outlining a critique of the modus operandi of the colonialism, particularly, in its cultural and epistemic dimension from which the education is inseparable. For that, we used as methodologica l procedure the symbolic cartography, knowledge building strategy systematized by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, which allowed us to construct interpretive maps that enabled the symbolization of the universe which we longed to understand, that is, the concept ual categories mentioned above, which, in our view, underlie the concept of embodied curriculum. In this direction, we anchored ourselves in a meaningful dialogue with the theoretical approach of Paulo Freire and some of his interpreters regarding the disc ussion on curriculum, especially the reflections dev eloped by Antonio Fernando Gouvê a da Silva, and authors whose theoretical developments resonate in prospects for humanization, social justice and empowerment, among which we highlight: Theodor Adorno, Hug o Zemelman, Wilfred Carr, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, among others. We seek, in the same manner, on the contributions of authors considered post - colonial, as Hugo Achugar, Gayatri Spivak, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Enrique Dussel, to name a few, the reason s why we consider the embodied curriculum as a place of political - pedagogical enunciation, conducive to an educational praxis that engages in a curricular work of reality translation in order to see what overwhelms it to, then, elicit the construction of a school curriculum as an awareness project for releasing in relation to what is unjust and inhumane. We consider, finally, that the success of this curriculum embodied translation implies a larger number of speakers mobilized in the production of knowledge that yearns for social emancipation and contribute to the enrichment of human capabilities as the maintenance of the life and the dignity of people.

O cinema como educação do olhar

The knowledge is only possible due to we exist bodily. However, during the educational experience, the epistemic potency of the body is neglected, declining the registers of the intelligibility. The current thesis approaches that problem obliquely: from a body and image philosophy which has revealed other ways of doing those registers in the modernity – understood not as period itself, but as a qualification for the negotiations between the real and the intelligible. The referred ways are explored through Merleau- Ponty’s and Michel Foucault’s works, which offer a spectrum about that new negotiation of the real. In order to approach the studied problem, the visibility and the human body motricity in the cinema are taken as analysis object. The mentioned objects have been analyzed through a corpus of movies of which plots are centered at the formal education and they require from the characters and the spectators engagement into a visual performance. Aiming to approach the object, it is questioned how the Education phenomenon is represented by the cinema; how the body is exposed and how spectators can see it. Analyzing the corpus and articulating Merleau- Ponty’s and Michel Foucault’s theories, it has been possible to state the following thesis: the cinema as an education of the gaze. The general objective of this study is to reveal the educational potency of the filmic experience, which provides a new path of intelligibility for Education. In that sense, the body as a visual operator widens the capacity of understanding the real. The current work is divided in three chapters. The first one brings the methodological approach: it is pointed how the theoretical articulation is properly arranged; it explains the method of using the images as indirect language as part of the reality description; the filmic corpus is presented, as well the criteria for the films choices and for the construction of instrument adopted during the object analysis are described. In the second chapter, it is problematized the incapacity of the western society of formulating the real discursively by debating Merleau-Ponty’s and Foucault’s theoretical contributions about the visual performance displayed on the images while the films are watched and analyzed. In the third chapter, the implications of the education of the gaze provided by the cinema are developed, mainly concerning about the place attributed to the visibility during the formulation of the real. Finally, paths are designed for the construction of another approach for the visibility in Education. Assuming the gaze as an experience of knowledge, this study aims to present other ways of being, seeing, thinking and feeling the world. Therefore, it is a proposal to reset the epistemic and subjectification patterns at the educational context.

Validade científica de conhecimento epidemiológico gerado com base no estudo Saúde Bucal Brasil 2003

Indicators and analyses that used the database from SB Brazil 2003 (the most recent nationwide oral health survey) have been criticized as unreliable due to sampling problems. The current study countered that this critique was based solely on statistical concepts, unsupported by empirical evidence. The critique's essentially epistemic approach leads to peremptory reductionism that denies other forms of knowledge and fails to recognize the multidisciplinary nature of epidemiology. The current study retrieves information on the implementation of the oral health survey and its impact on knowledge output in the field. The article draws an analogy between science and art, demonstrating the multifaceted images obtained by both. Thus, recognition of validity requires a full grasp of the field and appropriate use of value criteria. The current article concludes that use of the SB Brazil 2003 database is a reliable and relevant application of epidemiology to oral health.

Validade científica de conhecimento epidemiológico gerado com base no estudo Saúde Bucal Brasil 2003

Indicators and analyses that used the database from SB Brazil 2003 (the most recent nationwide oral health survey) have been criticized as unreliable due to sampling problems. The current study countered that this critique was based solely on statistical concepts, unsupported by empirical evidence. The critique's essentially epistemic approach leads to peremptory reductionism that denies other forms of knowledge and fails to recognize the multidisciplinary nature of epidemiology. The current study retrieves information on the implementation of the oral health survey and its impact on knowledge output in the field. The article draws an analogy between science and art, demonstrating the multifaceted images obtained by both. Thus, recognition of validity requires a full grasp of the field and appropriate use of value criteria. The current article concludes that use of the SB Brazil 2003 database is a reliable and relevant application of epidemiology to oral health.

Testimonial Injustice without Credibility Deficit (or Excess)

Peer reviewed

Procéduralisme épistémique et légitimité démocratique : une défense de l'égalité politique

Ce mémoire explore la relation qui lie démocratie et légitimité politique, dans une perspective épistémique. La démocratie, dans son acception la plus générale, confère à chacun la possibilité de faire valoir les intérêts qu'il estime être les siens et ceux de sa communauté, en particulier à l’occasion d’un scrutin. Cette procédure décisionnelle qu’est le vote consacre ainsi en quelque sorte la liberté et l’égalité dont profitent chacun des citoyens, et confère une certaine légitimité au processus décisionnel. Cela dit, si le vote n’est pas encadré par des considérations épistémiques, rien ne garantit que le résultat politique qui en découlera sera souhaitable tant pour les individus que pour la collectivité: il est tout à fait permis d’imaginer que des politiques discriminatoires, économiquement néfastes ou simplement inefficaces voient ainsi le jour, et prennent effet au détriment de tous. En réponse à ce problème, différentes théories démocratiques ont vu le jour et se sont succédé, afin de tenter de lier davantage le processus démocratique à l’atteinte d’objectifs politiques bénéfiques pour la collectivité. Au nombre d’entre elles, la démocratie délibérative a proposé de substituer la seule confrontation d’intérêts de la démocratie agrégative par une recherche collective du bien commun, canalisée autour de procédures délibératives appelées à légitimer sur des bases plus solides l’exercice démocratique. À sa suite, la démocratie épistémique s’est inspirée des instances délibératives en mettant davantage l’accent sur la qualité des résultats obtenus que sur les procédures elles-mêmes. Au final, un même dilemme hante chaque fois les différentes théories : est-il préférable de construire les instances décisionnelles en se concentrant prioritairement sur les critères procéduraux eux-mêmes, au risque de voir de mauvaises décisions filtrer malgré tout au travers du processus sans pouvoir rien y faire, ou devons-nous avoir d’entrée de jeu une conception plus substantielle de ce qui constitue une bonne décision, au risque cette fois de sacrifier la liberté de choix qui est supposé caractériser un régime démocratique? La thèse que nous défendrons dans ce mémoire est que le concept d’égalité politique peut servir à dénouer ce dilemme, en prenant aussi bien la forme d’un critère procédural que celle d’un objectif politique préétabli. L’égalité politique devient en ce sens une source normative forte de légitimité politique. En nous appuyant sur le procéduralisme épistémique de David Estlund, nous espérons avoir démontré au terme de ce mémoire que l’atteinte d’une égalité politique substantielle par le moyen de procédures égalitaires n’est pas une tautologie hermétique, mais plutôt un mécanisme réflexif améliorant tantôt la robustesse des procédures décisionnelles, tantôt l’atteinte d’une égalité tangible dans les rapports entre citoyens.

Do the Messages Matter? An Investigation of Classroom Messages and College Students’ Personal Theories about Education

Students hold a number of personal theories about education that influence motivation and achievement in the classroom: theories about their own abilities, knowledge, and the learning process. Therefore, college instructors have a great interest in helping to develop adaptive personal theories in their students. The current studies investigated whether specific messages that instructors send in college classroom might serve as a mechanism of personal theory development. Across 2 studies, 17 college instructors and 401 students completed surveys assessing their personal theories about education at the beginning and end of college courses. Students and instructors reported hearing and sending many messages in the classroom, including instructor help messages, conciliatory messages, uncertainty in the field messages, differential ability messages and generalized positive and negative feedback. Between-class and within-class differences in message reports were associated with students’ personal theories at the end of their courses, controlling for initial personal theories. Students’ initial personal theories were also related to the messages students reported hearing. The findings demonstrate the utility of assessing non-content messages in college classrooms as potential mechanisms for changing students’ personal theories in college. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Akrasia and the Aesthetic: Human Agency and the Site of Literature, 1760-1820

This study focuses on a series of foundational stylistic and formal innovations in eighteenth-century and Romantic literature, and argues that they can be cumulatively attributed to the distinct challenges authors faced in representing human action and the will. The study focuses in particular on cases of “acting against better judgment” or “failing to do what one knows one ought to do” – concepts originally theorized as “akrasia” and “weakness of the will” in ancient Greek and Scholastic thought. During the Enlightenment, philosophy increasingly conceives of human minds and bodies like systems and machines, and consequently fails to address such cases except as intractable or incoherent. Yet eighteenth-century and Romantic narratives and poetry consistently engage the paradoxes and ambiguities of action and volition in representations of akrasia. As a result, literature develops representational strategies that distinguish the epistemic capacities of literature as privileged over those of philosophy.

The study begins by centering on narratives of distempered selves from the 1760s. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions and Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey narrate cases of knowingly and weakly acting against better judgment, and in so doing, reveal the limitations of the “philosophy of the passions” that famously informed sentimental literature at the time. These texts find that the interpretive difficulties of action demand a non-systematic and hermeneutic approach to interpreting a self through the genre of narrative. Rousseau’s narrative in particular informs William Godwin’s realist novels of distempered subjects. Departing from his mechanistic philosophy of mind and action, Godwin develops the technique of free indirect discourse in his third novel Fleetwood (1805) as a means of evoking the ironies and self-deceptions in how we talk about willing.

Romantic poetry employs the literary trope of weakness of will primarily through the problem of regretted inaction – a problem which I argue motivates the major poetic innovations of William Wordsworth and John Keats. While Samuel Taylor Coleridge sought to characterize his weakness of will in philosophical writing, Wordsworth turns to poetry with The Prelude (1805), revealing poetry itself to be a self-deceiving and disappointing form of procrastination. More explicitly than Wordsworth, John Keats identifies indolence as the prime symbol and basis of what he calls “negative capability.” In his letters and poems such as “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” (1817) and “Ode on Indolence” (1819), Keats reveals how the irreducibly contradictory qualities of human agency speak to the particular privilege of “disinterested aesthetics” – a genre fitted for the modern era for its ability to disclose contradictions without seeking to resolve or explain them in terms of component parts.

Causalité et explication causale chez James Woodward

Certains philosophes affirment que les relations causales sont fondées sur les lois de la nature. Cette conception cadre mal avec la réalité des sciences biomédicales et des sciences humaines. Pour se rapprocher de la pratique réelle des diverses sciences, James Woodward propose une conception de la causalité et de l’explication causale fondée sur une relation beaucoup moins exigeante que celle de loi de la nature, qu’il appelle l’invariance. Le but de ce mémoire est de présenter le concept d’invariance et les autres concepts causaux qui s’y rattachent et, d’identifier certaines difficultés, dans le but de cerner l’usage approprié de cette famille de concepts. La conception causale de Woodward suppose que le but de la recherche des causes est pratique plutôt que simplement épistémique : il s’agit pour les agents de s’appuyer sur les causes pour modifier les phénomènes. Cette conception est également non-réductive; elle utilise des contrefactuels et reflète les méthodes expérimentales des diverses sciences. La cohérence de cette conception avec les généralisations causales réelles des sciences fait en sorte qu’elle abandonne l’objectif d’universalité rattaché à la notion de loi de la nature, en faveur d’un objectif de fiabilité temporaire. De plus, comme le critère d’invariance est peu exigeant, d’autres critères doivent lui être ajoutés pour identifier, parmi les relations causales (c’est-à-dire invariantes), les relations les plus susceptibles d’être employées pour modifier les phénomènes de façon fiable.

The Concept of Transparency in International Relations: towards a critical approach

Transparency is an important concept in International Relations. The possibility of realizing transparency in practice operates as a central analytical axis defining distinct positions on core theoretical problems within the field, from the security dilemma to the function of international institutions and beyond. As a political practice the pursuit of transparent governance is a dominant feature of global politics, promoted by a wide range of actors across a vast range of issue areas, from nuclear proliferation to Internet governance to the politics of foreign aid. Yet, despite its importance, precisely what transparency means or how the concept is understood is frequently ill-defined by academics and policy-makers alike. As a result, the epistemological and ontological underpinnings of approaches to transparency in IR often sit in tension with their wider theoretical commitments. This article will examine the three primary understandings of transparency used in IR in order to unpack these commitments. It finds that while transparency is often explicitly conceptualized as a property of information, particularly within rationalist scholarship, this understanding rests upon an unarticulated set of sociological assumptions. This analysis suggests that conceptualizing ‘transparency-as-information’ without a wider sociology of knowledge production is highly problematic, potentially obscuring our ability to recognize transparent practices in global governance. Understanding transparency as dialogue, as a social practice rooted in shared cognitive capacities and epistemic frameworks, provides a firmer analytical ground from which to examine transparency in International Relations.

Breves notas sobre un posible sentido común crítico ante los desafíos actuales

Basado en elementos de la filosofía clásica, el common sense británico y la Escuela de Frankfurt, el autor postula un sentido común guiado críticamente, que serviría para evaluar las tendencias históricas y los modelos de modernización en el Tercer Mundo. Evitando extremos, este teorema rechazaría tanto las pretensiones de verdad de muchos enfoques racionalistas como el relativismo epistemológico y ético. La existencia de leyes y etapas obligatorias de la historia es uno de esos extremos; otro es la opción teórica que afirma que los modelos culturales son incomparables e inconmensurables entre sí. La existencia de un solo paradigma normativo-positivo de desarrollo es insostenible, pero igualmente la posición que decreta la diversidad e incomparabilidad totales de los regímenes civilizatorios. Es conveniente adoptar una línea intermedia entre universalismo y particularismo y alcanzar una síntesis fructífera de ambos.

Narrative Deliberation? On Storytelling as a Necessary Component of Public Deliberation

This paper deals with the place of narrative, that is, storytelling, in public deliberation. A distinction is made between weak and strong conceptions of narrative. According to the weak one, storytelling is but one rhetorical device among others with which social actors produce and convey meaning. In contrast, the strong conception holds that narrative is necessary to communicate, and argue, about topics such as the human experience of time, collective identities and the moral and ethical validity of values. The upshot of this idea is that storytelling should be a necessary component of any ideal of public deliberation. Contrary to recent work by deliberative theorists, who tend to adopt the weak conception of narrative, the author argues for embracing the strong one. The main contention of this article is that stories not only have a legitimate place in deliberation, but are even necessary to formulate certain arguments in the fi rst place; for instance, arguments drawing on historical experience. This claim, namely that narrative is constitutive of certain arguments, in the sense that, without it, said reasons cannot be articulated, is illustrated by deliberative theory’s own narrative underpinnings. Finally, certain possible objections against the strong conception of narrative are dispelled.