This article focuses onsarcasm, for which the definitions have often been loose and confusing, integrating it into the concept ofirony. My approach is based on a large corpus of examples taken from two contemporary television-series, which help identify the wide range of linguistic processes at the core of sarcastic utterances. I present a quantitative and descriptive analysis of the main processes found in two American television-series:House M.D.andThe Big Bang Theory. The results show the intricate meanings created in sarcasm through various (...) linguistic mechanisms, such as repetition, explicitation, metonymy, metaphor, shift of focus, reasoning, and rhetorical questions. This more holistic analysis, including a broad corpus of instances and a more detailed analysis of the examples, aims to fill the unexplored gaps in more classical analyses, emphasizing the complexities and implications that can be drawn in interaction. (shrink)

Sabina Alkire shows how Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen's capability approach can be coherently---and practically---put to work in poverty reduction activities so that the voices and values of the poor matter. This provides economists, philosophers, theologians, and development practitioners with a way forward that addresses both theoretical and practical challenges.

A heated debate surrounds the significance of reproducibility as an indicator for research quality and reliability, with many commentators linking a "crisis of reproducibility" to the rise of fraudulent, careless and unreliable practices of knowledge production. Through the analysis of discourse and practices across research fields, I point out that reproducibility is not only interpreted in different ways, but also serves a variety of epistemic functions depending on the research at hand. Given such variation, I argue that the uncritical pursuit (...) of reproducibility as an overarching epistemic value is misleading and potentially damaging to scientific advancement. Requirements for reproducibility, however they are interpreted, are one of many available means to secure reliable research outcomes. Furthermore, there are cases where the focus on enhancing reproducibility turns out not to foster high-quality research. Scientific communities and Open Science advocates should learn from inferential reasoning from irreproducible data, and promote incentives for all researchers to explicitly and publicly discuss their methodological commitments, the ways in which they learn from mistakes and problems in everyday practice, and the strategies they use to choose which research component of any project needs to be preserved in the long term, and how. (shrink)

What is the best way to analyse abstraction in scientific modelling? I propose to focus on abstracting as an epistemic activity, which is achieved in different ways and for different purposes depending on the actual circumstances of modelling and the features of the models in question. This is in contrast to a more conventional use of the term ‘abstract’ as an attribute of models, which I characterise as black-boxing the ways in which abstraction is performed and to which epistemological advantage. (...) I exemplify my claims through a detailed reconstruction of the practices involved in creating two types of models of the flowering plant Arabidopsisthaliana, currently the best-known model organism in plant biology. This leads me to distinguish between two types of abstraction processes: the ‘material abstracting’ required in the production of Arabidopsis specimens and the ‘intellectual abstracting’ characterising the elaboration of visual models of Arabidopsis genomics. Reflecting on the differences between these types of abstracting helps to pin down the epistemic skills and research commitments used by researchers to produce each model, thus clarifying how models are handled by researchers and with which epistemological implications. (shrink)

Este texto tiene por objetivo investigar los orígenes del movimiento ideológico anarco-feminista en el Río de la Plata, examinando las circunstancias históricas que propiciaron su surgimiento y que lo caracterizaron. Analizando sus posturas y opiniones contenidas en su principal medio impreso de difusión: el periódico La Voz de la Mujer, las bases de su pensamiento crítico, libertario y emancipatorio respecto a la condición de la mujer, contenidos en su consigna: ni dios, ni patrón, ni marido. Así como sus repercusiones en (...) las transformaciones sociales que se gestaron a finales del siglo XIX.Palabras clave: Feminismo. Anarquismo. Río de la Plata. La Voz de la Mujer. AbstractThis text aims to investigate the origins of the anarcho-feminist ideological movement in the Río de la Plata, examining the historical circumstances that led to its emergence and characterized it. Analyzing their positions and opinions contained in their main print media: the newspaper La Voz de la Mujer, the bases of their critical, libertarian and emancipatory thinking regarding the condition of the women, contained in their slogan: neither god, nor boss, nor husband. As well as its repercussions in the social transformations that took place at the end of the 19th century.Keywords: Feminism. Anarchism. Río de la Plata. La Voz de la Mujer. (shrink)

This article explores the philosophical underpinnings and implications of the idea of the public in the US state processes of knowledge production and control. In it we take up questions of public and counterpublic political philosophical knowledge production and mediation in relation to an expanding state. Specifically, we examine the political philosophies of racialized counterpublics since the 1960s, considering the particular knowledge production genre of the political prison letter. We suggest that the philosophical principles of the dominant public in the (...) US have a proclivity to merge with state mechanisms of domination and to thwart counterpublics and their modes of political knowledge production. (shrink)

Cilj je slušanja glazbe u školi oblikovati kulturno-umjetnički svjetonazor učenica i učenika te doprinijeti njihovom estetskom odgoju. U hrvatskim osnovnim školama realizira se prema tzv. standardnom modelu kojemu je težište na spoznajnoj dimenziji. Kako bi se povećali pozornost, motivacija, slušalačke navike i prihvaćanje umjetničke glazbe, predlaže se spoznajno-emocionalni pristup koji višemodalno povezuje glazbene i izvanglazbene sadržaje. Cilj istraživanja bio je usporediti utjecaje spoznajno-emocionalnog i standardnog pristupa u nastavi glazbene kulture na spoznajni i emocionalni aspekt slušanja glazbe. Sudjelovalo je 557 učenika (...) i učenica iz 30 petih razreda. Slušali su Hačaturjanovu Maskaradu, Beethovenovu Wellingtonovu pobjedu, Rimski Korsakovljevu Šeherezadu i Fauréovu Pavanu te odgovarali na pitanja vezana za spoznajni i emocionalni aspekt slušanja glazbe. Petnaest razreda imalo je nastavu po standardnom, a 15 razreda po spoznajno emocionalnom pristupu. U spoznajnom aspektu odgovori učenika i učenica uglavnom se nisu razlikovali. U emocionalnom aspektu, u Šeherezadi i Pavani nešto su intenzivnije doživljavane dominantne emocije kada je bio primijenjen spoznajno-emocionalni pristup. The purpose of music listening in school is to shape students’ world view regarding culture and arts, as well as to contribute to their aesthetic education. Croatian elementary schools use the ‘standard model’, which focuses on the cognitive dimension. In order to increase attention, motivation, listening habits, and acceptance of artistic music, a cognitive-emotional approach is suggested that connects musical and extra-musical content in multiple modalities. The goal of the research is to compare the effects of the cognitive-emotional approach versus the standard approach to music teaching on the cognitive and emotional aspects of music listening. 557 year 5 students from 30 classes participated in the research. They listened to Khachaturian’s Masquerade, Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory, Rimsky- Korsakov’s Scheherazade, and Fauré’s Pavane, as well as answering questions related to the cognitive and emotional aspects of music listening. Fifteen classrooms used the standard approach, while the other fifteen used the cognitive-emotional approach. Student responses generally did not differ in the cognitive aspect. In the emotional aspect, Scheherazade and Pavane engendered somewhat more intense dominant emotions when the cognitive-emotional approach was used. (shrink)

While increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the relation between Foucault’s conception of critique and Kant’s, much controversy remains over whether Foucault’s most sustained early engagement with Kant, his dissertation on Kant’s Anthropology, should be read as a wholesale rejection of Kant’s views or as the source of Foucault’s late return to ethics and critique. In this paper, I propose a new reading of the dissertation, considering it alongside 1950s-era archival materials of which I advance the first (...) scholarly appraisal. I argue that Foucault manifests a fundamental ambivalence to Kantian anthropology, rejecting it in theoretical terms while embracing its practical (‘pragmatic’) conception of the subject. Furthermore, I take these texts to collectively evidence Foucault’s attempt to situate himself within the anthropological-critical tradition rather than extricating himself from it. If we interpret Foucault to reject this tradition’s appeal to an essentialized, theoretical conception of subjectivity, what remains of anthropology is its inherent practical reflexivity in structure. Thus, I situate Foucault’s conception of ethics as one’s relation to oneself in continuity with this tradition. (shrink)

Is Big Data science a whole new way of doing research? And what difference does data quantity make to knowledge production strategies and their outputs? I argue that the novelty of Big Data science does not lie in the sheer quantity of data involved, but rather in the prominence and status acquired by data as commodity and recognised output, both within and outside of the scientific community and the methods, infrastructures, technologies, skills and knowledge developed to handle data. These developments (...) generate the impression that data-intensive research is a new mode of doing science, with its own epistemology and norms. To assess this claim, one needs to consider the ways in which data are actually disseminated and used to generate knowledge. Accordingly, this article reviews the development of sophisticated ways to disseminate, integrate and re-use data acquired on model organisms over the last three decades of work in experimental biology. I focus on online databases as prominent infrastructures set up to organise and interpret such data and examine the wealth and diversity of expertise, resources and conceptual scaffolding that such databases draw upon. This illuminates some of the conditions under which Big Data needs to be curated to support processes of discovery across biological subfields, which in turn highlights the difficulties caused by the lack of adequate curation for the vast majority of data in the life sciences. In closing, I reflect on the difference that data quantity is making to contemporary biology, the methodological and epistemic challenges of identifying and analysing data given these developments, and the opportunities and worries associated with Big Data discourse and methods. (shrink)

Scientific knowledge production is currently affected by the dissemination of data on an unprecedented scale. Technologies for the automated production and sharing of vast amounts of data have changed the way in which data are handled and interpreted in several scientific domains, most notably molecular biology and biomedicine. In these fields, the activity of data gathering has become increasingly technology-driven, with machines such as next generation genome sequencers and mass spectrometers generating billions of data points within hours, and with little (...) need for human supervision. Given the relative ease and low costs with which datasets can be produced (that is, once a laboratory has been able to afford .. (shrink)

The Opera of the National Theater in Belgrade was founded in 1920, but it is well known that opera performances were held long before its official opening. Despite the fact that this is the sole opera house in Belgrade, as well as the fact that it did not face any strong audience fluctuation, it is unusual that no one ever tried to investigate and profile its audience. During the last decades we were witnessing the popularization of the opera via various (...) medias, as well as development and extention of the music industry, which surely changed its social status. The aim of the investigation that is going to be presented is to discover if this social life of opera changed its audience and does it still consists of - according to stereotypes - elderly, high educated individuals of certain professions and high material standards, i.e. at which level the opera is present in the private and public sphere of their lives. Opera Narodnog pozorista u Beogradu osnovana je 1920. godine, ali je poznato da su operske predstave izvodjene i pre njenog zvanicnog osnivanja. Iako u radu nije nailazila na vecu fluktuaciju publike, a i dalje predstavlja jedinu opersku kucu u Beogradu, do sada nije bilo pokusaja da se naucno istrazi i profilise njena publika. Poslednjih decenija svedoci smo sve vece popularizacije operske muzike putem razlicitih medija, te razvijanjem i sirenjem muzicke industrije, sto dovodi i do promene njenog socijalnog statusa. Cilj ovog dela istrazivanja jeste da sazna da li je izmenjeni socijalni zivot opere izmenio i njenu publiku, da li nju - prema ustaljenim shvatanjima - i dalje pretezno cine visokoobrazovani, stariji pojedinci odredjenih zanimanja i visokog materijalnog standarda, odnosno koliko je opera zaista prisutna u privatnoj i javnoj sferi njihovih zivota. (shrink)

O presente texto tem por objetivo expor a tematização de J. Chasin acerca da natureza da política em Karl Marx. Segundo Chasin, a crítica marxiana à política tem caráter ontológico, permitindo conhecer o significado maior do ideário marxiano: a distinção necessária entre revolução política e emancipação humana. Tema de fundo que permeia diretamente os propósitos marxianos de revolver e transformar a anatomia da sociedade civil na direção da emancipação humana. Em outras palavras, segundo Chasin, a problemática nodal do pensamento marxiano (...) é a emancipação humana, tema, ele mesmo, decorrente imediato da própria determinação marxiana da individualidade humana: ser ativo e social, autoconstrutor de si e de sua mundaneidade, ainda que de modo contraditório e estranhado. Chasin determina, desse modo, que é na condição de raiz que a crítica ontológica à política se põe e é trabalhada por Marx, de sorte que a não compreensão do sentido real da crítica ao complexo categorial da politicidade – o poder, a política e o estado - reduz, quando não obstaculiza, o real acesso ao texto marxiano. (shrink)

Knowledge-making practices in biology are being strongly affected by the availability of data on an unprecedented scale, the insistence on systemic approaches and growing reliance on bioinformatics and digital infrastructures. What role does theory play within data-intensive science, and what does that tell us about scientific theories in general? To answer these questions, I focus on Open Biomedical Ontologies, digital classification tools that have become crucial to sharing results across research contexts in the biological and biomedical sciences, and argue that (...) they constitute an example of classificatory theory. This form of theorizing emerges from classification practices in conjunction with experimental know-how and expresses the knowledge underpinning the analysis and interpretation of data disseminated online. (shrink)

This paper claims that Kant’s conception of culture provides a new means of understanding how the two parts of the Critique of Judgment fit together. Kant claims that culture is both the ‘ultimate purpose’ of nature and to be defined in terms of ‘art in general’ (of which the fine arts are a subtype). In the Critique of Teleological Judgment, culture, as the last empirically cognizable telos of nature, serves as the mediating link between nature and freedom, while in the (...) Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, the connection between art and morality passes through culture. In either case, Kant offers distinct, yet interdependent, arguments for how culture demonstrates the amenability of nature to its supersensible ground: the central question Kant claims in the Introduction that the work seeks to answer. Thus, not only does this account advance a concept essential to both parts of the work; it also demonstrates how the two parts can be conceived as complementary, with each supplementing the other to solve Kant’s central question. As such, understanding the Critique of Judgment in terms of culture enables us to see how the two parts of the work do not merely share points of similarity or common themes, but presuppose one another in order to understand how nature is amenable to freedom. (shrink)

Community databases have become crucial to the collection, ordering and retrieval of data gathered on model organisms, as well as to the ways in which these data are interpreted and used across a range of research contexts. This paper analyses the impact of community databases on research practices in model organism biology by focusing on the history and current use of four community databases: FlyBase, Mouse Genome Informatics, WormBase and The Arabidopsis Information Resource. We discuss the standards used by the (...) curators of these databases for what counts as reliable evidence, acceptable terminology, appropriate experimental set-ups and adequate materials (e.g., specimens). On the one hand, these choices are informed by the collaborative research ethos characterising most model organism communities. On the other hand, the deployment of these standards in databases reinforces this ethos and gives it concrete and precise instantiations by shaping the skills, practices, values and background knowledge required of the database users. We conclude that the increasing reliance on community databases as vehicles to circulate data is having a major impact on how researchers conduct and communicate their research, which affects how they understand the biology of model organisms and its relation to the biology of other species. (shrink)

This paper discusses what it means and what it takes to integrate data in order to acquire new knowledge about biological entities and processes. Maureen O’Malley and Orkun Soyer have pointed to the scientific work involved in data integration as important and distinct from the work required by other forms of integration, such as methodological and explanatory integration, which have been more successful in captivating the attention of philosophers of science. Here I explore what data integration involves in more detail (...) and with a focus on the role of data-sharing tools, like online databases, in facilitating this process; and I point to the philosophical implications of focusing on data as a unit of analysis. I then analyse three cases of data integration in the field of plant science, each of which highlights a different mode of integration: inter-level integration, which involves data documenting different features of the same species, aims to acquire an interdisciplinary understanding of organisms as complex wholes and is exemplified by research on Arabidopsis thaliana; cross-species integration, which involves data acquired on different species, aims to understand plant biology in all its different manifestations and is exemplified by research on Miscanthus giganteus; and translational integration, which involves data acquired from sources within as well as outside academia, aims at the provision of interventions to improve human health and is exemplified by research on Phytophtora ramorum. Recognising the differences between these efforts sheds light on the dynamics and diverse outcomes of data dissemination and integrative research; and the relations between the social and institutional roles of science, the development of data-sharing infrastructures and the production of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Open Science policies encourage researchers to disclose a wide range of outputs from their work, thus codifying openness as a specific set of research practices and guidelines that can be interpreted and applied consistently across disciplines and geographical settings. In this paper, we argue that this “one-size-fits-all” view of openness sidesteps key questions about the forms, implications, and goals of openness for research practice. We propose instead to interpret openness as a dynamic and highly situated mode of valuing the research (...) process and its outputs, which encompasses economic as well as scientific, cultural, political, ethical, and social considerations. This interpretation creates a critical space for moving beyond the economic definitions of value embedded in the contemporary biosciences landscape and Open Science policies, and examining the diversity of interests and commitments that affect research practices in the life sciences. To illustrate these claims, we use three case studies that highlight the challenges surrounding decisions about how––and how best––to make things open. These cases, drawn from ethnographic engagement with Open Science debates and semistructured interviews carried out with UK-based biologists and bioinformaticians between 2013 and 2014, show how the enactment of openness reveals judgments about what constitutes a legitimate intellectual contribution, for whom, and with what implications. (shrink)

This multilevel meta-analysis examines whether emotional intelligence can be enhanced through training and identifies training effects’ determinants. We identified 24 studies containing 28 samples aiming at increasing individual-level EI among healthy adults. The results revealed a significant moderate standardized mean change between pre- and post-measurement for the main effect of EI training, and a stable pre- to follow-up effect. Additionally, the type of EI model, dimensions of the four branch model, length, and type of publication turned out to be significant (...) moderators. The results suggest that EI trainings should be considered effective interventions. (shrink)

Bogen and Woodward characterized data as embedded in the context in which they are produced (‘local’) and claims about phenomena as retaining their significance beyond that context (‘nonlocal’). This view does not fit sciences such as biology, which successfully disseminate data via packaging processes that include appropriate labels, vehicles, and human interventions. These processes enhance the evidential scope of data and ensure that claims about phenomena are understood in the same way across research communities. I conclude that the degree of (...) locality of both data and claims about phenomena varies depending on the packaging used to make them travel and on the research setting in which they are used. †To contact the author, please write to: ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society, University of Exeter, Byrne House, St. Germans Road, EX4 4PJ Exeter, United Kingdom; e‐mail: s.leonelli@exeter.ac.uk. (shrink)

Scientific classification has long been recognized as involving a specific style of reasoning and doing research, and as occasionally affecting the development of scientific theories. However, the role played by classificatory activities in generating theories has not been closely investigated within the philosophy of science. I argue that classificatory systems can themselves become a form of theory, which I call classificatory theory, when they come to formalize and express the scientific significance of the elements being classified. This is particularly evident (...) in some of the classification practices used in contemporary experimental biology, such as bio-ontologies used to classify genomic data and typologies used to classify “normal” stages of development in developmental biology. In this paper, I explore some characteristics of classificatory theories and ways in which they differ from other types of scientific theories and other components of scientific epistemology, such as models and background assumptions. (shrink)

Dans le contexte d’une révision de l’élargissement de l’UE aux Balkans, la couverture médiatique du Monténégro, l’un des principaux acteurs de ce processus, dans la presse allemande est devenue plus présente ces dernières années. Cette recherche a pour but d’explorer les représentations du Monténégro dans quatre journaux allemands de premier plan. La contribution propose une approche d’analyse de données textuelles appliquée à un corpus composé d’articles consacrés au Monténégro entre 2016 et 2023. Grâce à des méthodes statistiques de texte telles (...) que le z-score et les calculs de cooccurrences, l’article explore l’interaction complexe des facteurs sociopolitiques, historiques et internationaux qui influencent l’image du pays dans la presse allemande. Les résultats révèlent des variations significatives dans les perspectives et les niveaux de représentation entre les journaux, ce qui est révélateur de leur position idéologique. Malgré sa taille géographique relativement modeste, le Monténégro suscite un niveau d’attention modéré dans ces journaux allemands, comme le montrent les marqueurs linguistiques identifiés par l’analyse statistique. En tant qu’étude pionnière, cet article contribue à une meilleure compréhension de la manière dont l’image et la perception de pays comme le Monténégro sont façonnées dans les contextes de la presse étrangère. (shrink)

An influential strand in philosophy of science claims that scientific paradigms can be understood as relativized a priori frameworks. Here, Kant’s constitutive a priori principles are no longer held to establish conditions of possibility for knowledge which are unchanging and universally true, but are restricted only to a given scientific domain. Yet it is unclear how exactly a relativized a priori can be construed as both stable and dynamical, establishing foundations for current scientific claims while simultaneously making intelligible the transition (...) to a subsequent framework. In this article, I show that important resources for this problem have been overlooked in Kant’s theory of reflective judgement in the third Critique. I argue that Kant accorded the task of formulating new scientific laws to reflective judgement, which is charged with forming new ‘universals’ that guide the experience of nature. I show that this is the very task attributed to the relativized a priori: the constitution of a given conceptual framework, not of the conditions for object-reference as such. I conclude that Kant’s considered conception of science encompasses the operations of both reflective and determining judgement. Relativizations of the a priori should follow Kant’s lead. (shrink)

Arabidopsis is currently the most popular and well-researched model organism in plant biology. This paper documents this plant's rise to scientific fame by focusing on two interrelated aspects of Arabidopsis research. One is the extent to which the material features of the plant have constrained research directions and enabled scientific achievements. The other is the crucial role played by the international community of Arabidopsis researchers in making it possible to grow, distribute and use plant specimen that embody these material features. (...) I argue that at least part of the explosive development of this research community is due to its successful standardisation and to the subsequent use of Arabidopsis specimen as material models of plants. I conclude that model organisms have a double identity as both samples of nature and artifacts representing nature. It is the resulting ambivalence in their representational value that makes them attractive research tools for biologists. (shrink)

Murdoch’s moral philosophy stresses the didactic theme of active self-improvement. To this end, she argues, we can work to amend the quality of our states of consciousness, and hence of our conduct. But while such work undoubtedly involves cognitive effort, Murdoch has much to say about the hazards of a specious or misguided intellectualism. By way of commentary on these views, the present paper suggests that Murdoch’s early apprenticeship in Marxist politics—and her subsequent rejection of Marxism—may have left a trace (...) both in the idea that ‘our states of consciousness differ in quality’ ; and in the specific, distinctively ‘idealist’ course proposed by her mature philosophy for the project of moral self-criticism. (shrink)

I argue that Open Science as currently conceptualized and implemented does not take sufficient account of epistemic diversity within research. I use three case studies to exemplify how Open Science threatens to privilege some forms of inquiry over others, thus exasperating divides within and across systems of practice, and overlooking important sources and forms of epistemic diversity. Building on insights from pluralist philosophy, I then identify four aspects of diverse research practices that should serve as reference points for debates around (...) Open Science: (1) specificity to local conditions, (2) entrenchment within repertoires, (3) permeability to newcomers, and (4) demarcation strategies. (shrink)

Sabina Lovibond invites her readers to see how the "practical reason view of ethics" can survive challenges from within philosophy and from the antirationalist postmodern critique of reason. She elaborates and defends a modern practical-reason view of ethics by focusing on virtue or ideal states of character that involve sensitivity to the objective reasons circumstances bring into play. At the heart of her argument is the Aristotelian idea of the formation of character through upbringing; these ancient ideas can be (...) made contemporary if one understands them in a naturalized way. She then explores the implications that arise from the naturalization of the classical view, weaving into her theory ideas of Jacques Derrida and J. L. Austin. The book also discusses two modes of resistance to an existing ethical culture--one committed to the critical employment of shared norms of rationality, the other aspiring to a more radical attitude, grounded in hostility to the "universal." Lovibond tries to determine what may be correct in this second, admittedly paradoxical, tendency. This is a timely and valuable effort to connect the most advanced forms of thinking in the analytic tradition and in the Continental tradition, and to extend our understanding of the intimacies and resistances between these two prominent strands of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The northern Mexican Ralámuli people consider plants to be their kin. First‐ and secondhand ethnographies bring forth fundamental issues that convey the possibility of communicating with plants. For example, the notion of an interconnected world has to do with roots, with threads, and with thought or nátali (consciousness, remembrance, ancestral memory), all of which embrace the life path. This path also refers to that used by healers, who in their dreams and through their chants communicate with sacred plants. This article (...) also deepens the understanding of textiles—originally made from vegetal fibers and considering that in Ralámuli origin stories the Earth was woven—and their iconography, which also appears in healing contexts, to see if there is a relationship between specific motifs and the information that, via dreams and chants, the plants are delivering. (shrink)