Sally Gadow's work is a sophisticated version of a familiar line of thought in nursing. She creates a chain of distinctions which is intended to differentiate cultural narratives, and particularly the ‘science narrative’, from imaginative narratives, especially poetry. Cultural narratives regulate and restrict; imaginative narratives are creative, liberating and potentially transcendent. These ideological effects are (supposedly) achieved through different structures of language. Scientific language, for example, is abstract and literal, while poetry is sensuous and metaphorical. In this paper, I argue (...) that Gadow's way of discriminating between science and poetry fails. In the first place, the ideological valence she assigns to each of them is unwarranted. Science and poetry can both be harnessed to the project of emancipation, just as both can be incorporated in a strategy of oppression. In the second place, the claim that poetry and science are distinguished by their respective linguistic features – specifically, that one is metaphorical and the other literal – cannot be sustained. I illustrate this argument, as Gadow illustrates hers, by reference to the concept of embodiment, and consider whether Gadow is correct in thinking that poetry, not science, makes it possible for individuals (especially women) to ‘reclaim the body’. I also suggest that Gadow's brand of postmodernism echoes Romanticism, whose defining characteristic was an insistent contrast between poetry and science. This is ‘flip side’ postmodernism, which merely opposes modernist values, preferring subjectivity to objectivity, feeling to rationality, and multiple realities to truth. It is less radical, and far less interesting, than ‘remix’ postmodernism, whose objective is not to reverse the polarities, but to reconfigure the entire circuit. (shrink)

Recent rhetorical critiques of philosophy and science assume a contrast between rational argument and rhetoric that is inherited from an antirhetorical tradition in philosophy. This article rejects that assumption. Rhetoric is compatible with reasoned discourse in a strong sense originally outlined by Aristotle. Rhetorical analysis reveals the inadequacy of purely demonstrative accounts of rational argument and cognitive accounts of the conditions for rational assent to propo sitions. Social studies of the rhetoric of science, and in particular of credibility claims, need (...) not fall into the forms of relativism and global antirealism with which they have become associated. (shrink)

The question is discussed how noise gained a functional meaning in the context of biology. According to the common view, noise is considered a disturbance or perturbation. I analyze how this understanding changed and what kind of developments during the last 10 years contributed to the emergence of a new understanding of noise. Results gained during a field study in a synthetic biology laboratory show that the emergence of this new research discipline—its highly interdisciplinary character, its new technologies and novel (...) modeling strategies—provided essential impulses, which led to the observed change in the concept of noise. The laboratory study is combined with a historical analysis, which explores the general question as to how concepts travel between disciplines and, specifically, how noise was transferred from engineering and physics into biology. In the past, scientists, such as Lotka and Goodwin, tried to introduce a statistical mechanics into biology and discussed the problem of “unfitting” concepts. The change in the meaning of the concept can be interpreted as a way of making it fit to the novel context in which it is applied. (shrink)

Using an analogy in science and everyday life is a double-edged sword because they are accompanied by alternative ideas, in addition to scientific concepts. Schools and public education explain global warming by making a common analogy between this phenomenon and greenhouse effects. Unfortunately, this analogy sometimes produces various incorrect explanatory mental models. To construct a correct understanding of global warming, it is necessary: first, to investigate the attributes of analogical reasoning; second, to understand these features by restructuring the greenhouse analogy; (...) and third, to explore the problems and benefits of the greenhouse analogy. The characteristics of relations, rather than objects, must be mapped according to the principle of systematicity, but the public tends to preserve the attributes of the base domain, which is mapped relatively easily. In conclusion, certain facets of the prevailing greenhouse analogy cause a distorted public view of climate change. We must use the greenhouse analogy and yet simultaneously emphasize the relations and attributes highlighted and hidden in the analogy during evaluation. (shrink)

In this essay, I first consider a popular view of models and modeling, the similarity view. Second, I contend that arguments for it fail and it suffers from what I call “Hughes’ worry.” Third, I offer a deflationary approach to models and modeling that avoids Hughes’ worry and shows how scientific representations are of apiece with other types of representations. Finally, I consider an objection that the similarity view can deal with approximations better than the deflationary view and show that (...) this is not so. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith propose that the correspondence metaphor captures the essence of everyday memory research. We suggest that correspondence is often not at issue because objective assessments of everyday events are frequently lacking. In these cases, other questions arise, such as how individuals evaluate the validity of memories and the significance they attach to those evaluations.

This paper examines the nature of model-based reasoning in the interplay between theory and experiment in the context of biomedical engineering research laboratories, where problem solving involves using physical models. These "model systems" are sites of experimentation where in vitro models are used to screen, control, and simulate specific aspects of in vivo phenomena. As with all models, simulation devices are idealized representations, but they are also systems themselves, possessing engineering constraints. Drawing on research in contemporary cognitive science that construes (...) cognition as occurring in a complex distributed system comprising people and artifacts, I argue that reasoning with model systems is a constraint satisfaction process involving co-construction, manipulation, and revision of mental and physical models. (shrink)

Investigations of metacognition – and also the application of the storehouse and correspondence metaphors – seem as appropriate for laboratory research as for naturalistic research. In terms of measurement, the only quantitative difference between the “input-bound percent correct” and “output-bound percent correct” is the inclusion versus exclusion (respectively) of omission errors in the denominator of the percentages.

This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

This paper addresses the role of analogical reasoning in archaeoastronomy - the discipline which studies the connections between the ancient monuments and the heavens. Archaeoastronomy is a highly interdisciplinary science, placed at the border between the humanities – especially archaeology – and the scientific approach to cultural heritage. As a consequence, its scientific foundations are a delicate matter. We plan to investigate here the question of what constitutes the evidence for analogical inferences in archaeoastronomy and to what extent one can (...) achieve confirmation of archaeoastronomical hypotheses by means of such analogies. Our claim will be that, when deployed in accordance with the methodology articulated in this paper, analogies can be a highly effective epistemic tool for generating and supporting hypotheses about the relation of archaeological sites with astronomical events. (shrink)

The provocative paper by John Forrester ‘If p, Then What? Thinking in Cases’ opened up the question of case thinking as a separate mode of reasoning in the sciences. Case-based reasoning is certainly endemic across a number of sciences, but it has looked different according to where it has been found. This article investigates this mode of science – namely thinking in cases – by questioning the different interpretations of ‘If p?’ and exploring the different interpretative responses of what follows (...) in ‘Then What?’. The aim is to characterize how ‘reasoning in, within, with, and from cases’ forms a mode of scientific investigation for single cases, for runs of cases, and for comparative cases, drawing on materials from a range of different fields in which case-based reasoning appears. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith's thesis is provocative but has three problems: First, quantity and accuracy are not simply related, they are complementary. Second, the storehouse metaphor is not the driving force behind contemporary theories of memory and may not be viable. Third, the taxonomy is incomplete, leaving unclassified several extremely influential methods and measures, such as priming and response latency.

The value of accuracy and quantity as memory measures is assessed. It is argued that (1) accuracy does not measure correspondence (monitoring) because it ignores omissions and correct rejections, (2) quantity is confounded with monitoring in recall, and (3) in recognition, if targets and foils are unequal, both measures, even together, still ignore correct rejections.

Over the last few decades, theoretical discussions about metaphors have appeared with increasing frequency in the literature and, during the last fifteen years or so, such discussions have become more and more common in the methodology of economics. But what exactly is a metaphor? According to a tradition which dates back to Aristotle, a metaphor is the attribution to one object, A, of the name of another object, B, while this name or these qualities do not properly or normally belong (...) to A. Thus, a metaphor is present when a term used to describe A is a term which is already commonly used to name B. Defined in such a way, one must admit that metaphors are frequently found in economics as well as in other sciences. Let us consider, for example, a term like ‘elasticity’ which is extensively used by economists. According to the ordinary dictionary definition, this word designates a property of bodies by which they recover their initial form after having been submitted to a pressure; in a less technical sense, it refers to the flexibility of some bodies or to their responsiveness to pressures. (shrink)

A case study of the development of quantum field theory and of S-matrix theory, from their inceptions to the present, is presented. The descriptions of science given by Kuhn and by Lakatos are compared and contrasted as they apply to this case study. The episodes of the developments of these theories are then considered as candidates for competing research programs in Lakatos' methodology of scientific research programs. Lakatos' scheme provides a reasonable overall description and a plausible assessment of the relative (...) value of these two programs in terms of progressive and degenerating problem shifts. Also discussed are the roles of various types of models as they have been used in these areas of theoretical high-energy physics. (shrink)

In this paper, a criticism of the traditional theories of approximation and idealization is given as a summary of previous works. After identifying the real purpose and measure of idealization in the practice of science, it is argued that the best way to characterize idealization is not to formulate a logical model – something analogous to Hempel's D-N model for explanation – but to study its different guises in the praxis of science. A case study of it is then made (...) in thermostatistical physics. After a brief sketch of the theories for phase transitions and critical phenomena, I examine the various idealizations that go into the making of models at three difference levels. The intended result is to induce a deeper appreciation of the complexity and fruitfulness of idealization in the praxis of model-building, not to give an abstract theory of it. (shrink)

Unlike basic sciences, scientific research in advanced technologies aims to explain, predict, and (mathematically) describe not phenomena in nature, but phenomena in technological artefacts, thereby producing knowledge that is utilized in technological design. This article first explains why the covering-law view of applying science is inadequate for characterizing this research practice. Instead, the covering-law approach and causal explanation are integrated in this practice. Ludwig Prandtl's approach to concrete fluid flows is used as an example of scientific research in the engineering (...) sciences. A methodology of distinguishing between regions in space and/or phases in time that show distinct physical behaviours is specific to this research practice. Accordingly, two types of models specific to the engineering sciences are introduced. The diagrammatic model represents the causal explanation of physical behaviour in distinct spatial regions or time phases; the nomo-mathematical model represents the phenomenon in terms of a set of mathematically formulated laws. (shrink)

The paper, as Part I of a two-part series, argues for a hybrid formulation of the semantic view of scientific theories. For stage-setting, it first reviews the elements of the model theory in mathematical logic (on whose foundation the semantic view rests), the syntactic and the semantic view, and the different notions of models used in the practice of science. The paper then argues for an integration of the notions into the semantic view, and thereby offers a hybrid semantic view, (...) which at once secures the view's logical foundations and enhances its applicability. The dilemma of either losing touch with the practice of science or yielding up the benefits of the model theory is thus avoided. (shrink)

Mathematical models and their modeling frameworks developed to advance knowledge in one discipline are sometimes sourced to answer questions or solve problems in another discipline. Studying this aspect of cross-disciplinary transfer of knowledge objects, philosophers of science have weighed in on the question of whether knowledge about how a mathematical model is previously applied in one discipline is necessary for the success of reapplying said model in a different discipline. However, not much has been said about whether the answer to (...) that epistemological question applies to the reapplication of a modeling framework. More generally, regarding the nature of the production of knowledge in science, a metaphysical question remains to be explored whether historical contingencies associated with a mathematical construct have a genuine impact on the nature—as opposed to sociological practices or individual psychology—of advancing scientific knowledge with said construct. Focusing on this metaphysical question, this paper analyzes the use of mathematical logic in the development of the Chomsky hierarchy and subsequent reapplications of said hierarchy; with these examples, this paper develops the notion of “spillovers” as a way to detect cross-disciplinary justifications for better understanding the relations between reapplications of the same mathematical construct across disciplines. (shrink)

Nineteenth and twentieth century philosophies of science have consistently failed to identify any rational basis for the compelling character of scientific analogies. This failure is particularly worrisome in light of the fact that the development and diffusion of certain scientific analogies, e.g. Darwin’s analogy between domestic breeds and naturally occurring species, constitute paradigm cases of good science. It is argued that the interactivist model, through the notion of a partition epistemology, provides a way to understand the persuasive character of compelling (...) scientific analogies without consigning them to an irrational or arational context of discovery. (shrink)

Speaking: from Intention to Articulation Willem J. M. Levelt, 1989 (1993 paperback) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press ISBN: 0–262–12137–9(hb), 0–262–62089–8(pb)Rules for Reasoning Richard E. Nisbett (Ed.), 1993 Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates ISBN: 0–8058–1256–3(hb), 0–8085–1257–1 (pb)Readings in Philosophy and Cognitive Science Alvin I. Goldman, 1993 Cambridge, MA, MIT Press ISBN: 0–262–07153–3(hb), 0–262–57100–5(pb)Language Comprehension in Ape and Child, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Serial No. 233, Vol. 58, Nos 3–4 Sue Savage‐Rumbaugh, Jeannine Murphy, Rose A. Sevcik, Karen E. (...) Brakke, Shelly L. Williams & Duane M. Rumbaugh, with commentary by Elizabeth Bates, and a reply by the authors, 1993 Chicago: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0–226–73542–7Language, Music and Mind Diana Raffman, 1993 Cambridge, MIT Press/Bradford Books ISBN: 0–262–18150–9Psychology of Proof Lance J. Rips, 1994 Cambridge, MA, MIT Press ISBN: 0–262–18153–3Human and Machine Thinking P. Johnson‐Laird, 1993 Hillsdale, NJ, Erlbaum ISBN: 0–8058–0921‐XIntelligent Behavior in Animals and Robots David McFarland & Thomas Bosser, 1993 Cambridge, MA and London, UK: MIT Press/ Bradford Books ISBN: 0–262–13293–1The Eye and the Mind: Reflections on Perception and the Problem of Knowledge Charles Landesman, 1993 Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers ISBN: 0–7923–2586–9The Moral Self GilG. Noam & Thomas E. Wren (Eds), in cooperation with Gertud Nunner‐Winkler & Wolfgang Edelstein, 1993 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press ISBN: 0–262–14052–1The Logic of Discovery: A Theory of the Rationality of Scientific Research Scott A. Kleiner, 1993 Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers ISBN: 0–7923–2371–8Folk Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind S.M. Christenson & D.R. Turner (Eds), 1993 Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum ISBN: 0–805–80931–7. (shrink)

The correspondence view of memory is not a metaphor. However, correspondence is the essential feature of the archaeology metaphor, which harks back to Freud and Neisser. A modern version of this metaphor and some of its implications are briefly described. The archaeology metaphor integrates the idea of stored traces in a nonmechanistic framework.

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

In contrast to its aims, Koriat & Goldsmith's article vividly demonstrates(1) the complementarity of ecological and traditional approaches and (2) the difficulty of characterising the growing diversity of memory research with a single set of distinctions. Moreover, the contrast between correspondence and storehouse metaphors is important enough to stand alone without reference to an everyday/laboratory controversy, which is neither acute nor necessary.

The novel correspondence metaphor outlined by Koriat & Goldsmith offers important advantages for studying critical issues of memory-accuracy. It also fits well with the current emphasis on the reconstructive nature of memory and on the role of cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational factors in memory performance. These positive features notwithstanding, the storehouse/correspondence framework faces potential perils having to do with its implied linkage to the laboratory/real-life controversy and its proposal of studying correspondence issues in isolation from memory phenomena captured by the (...) storehouse paradigm. (shrink)

This two-part article presents the research program for a theory and empirical analysis of religious evolution. It is assumed that religion isprimarilya co-evolution to societal evolution, which in turn is a co-evolution to mental, organic, and physical evolution. The theory of evolution is triangulated with the systems theory and the semiotically informed theory of communication, so that knowledge can be gained that would not be acquired by only one of the three theories: The differentiation between religion and its environment can (...) be reconstructed based on the theory of evolution. The elements of the theory of evolution can be understood as the formation of systems. The semiotically informed theory of communication clarifies the conditions of the combination of both the systems theory and the theory of evolution as well as its objects. In turn, the combination of the systems theory and the theory of evolution can describe how communication—including religion and science—evolves and is structured. (shrink)

Our response to the commentators covers four general issues: (1) How useful is our proposed conceptualization of the real-life/laboratory controversy in terms of the contrast between the correspondence and storehouse metaphors? (2) What is the relationship between these two metaphors? (3) What are the unique implications of the correspondence metaphor for memory assessment and theory? (4) What are the nature and role of memory metaphors in memory research? We stress that the correspondence metaphor can be usefully exploited independent of the (...) real-life/laboratory controversy, but that a variety of other metaphors, including the storehouse, should also be utilized in order to more fully capture the myriad facets and functions of memory in everyday life. (shrink)

Muitos termos possuem um sentido técnico sem que ele seja evidente para todos, por exemplo, a "governança ambiental", termo que remete no contexto atual a uma participação cidadã nesse tipo de questão, por exemplo, da saúde de um ecossistema específico, tal como uma floresta ou um vale agrícola, a partir de preocupações partilhadas e não a partir de uma problemática de controle organizacional. Após ter tornado preciso o que é a expertise e quais são os principais problemas postos pelo recurso (...) à expertise nos contextos da ação cidadã, proponho que as expertises técnicas podem ser postas no mesmo patamar que outros tipos de expertise, referindo principalmente aos saberes comuns, à prática e à experiência concreta, dita "de campo", o que corresponde a uma ampliação. Sugere-se, então, o modelo de fórum híbrido como quadro teórico possível dessa reformulação da concepção de expertise. Many terms have a technical meaning although it is not evident for everyone, for example, the "environmental governance", term that refers in the present context to citizen participation on this type of question, for example, of the health of a specific ecosystem, such as a forest or an agricultural field, from shared preoccupations and not from a problematic of organizational control. After having made precise what is the expertise and what are the main problems posed by the recourse to the expertise in the contexts of citizen action, I propose that technical expertise can be tantamount to other types of expertise, referring mainly to profane knowledge, to the practice and concrete experience called "of field", which corresponds to an enlargement. Then it is suggested the model of an hybrid forum as a possible theoretical frame of this reformulation of the conception of expertise. (shrink)

Traditional logical empiricist and more recent historicist positions on the logic of discovery are briefly reviewed and both are found wanting. None have examined the historical detail now available from recent research on Darwin, from which there is evidence for gradual transition in descriptive and explanatory concepts. This episode also shows that revolutionary research can be directed by borrowed metascientific objectives and heuristics from other disciplines. Darwin's own revolutionary research took place within an ontological context borrowed from non evolutionary predecessors (...) with methodological objectives borrowed from and justified by their success in Newton's physics. The logic of discovery is not a special form of inference from observation to theory, but rather a theory of the rationality of research, including principles bearing upon the rational choice of problems, or epistemic objectives, and heuristic, or means to solving the problems. Such choices can be justified only locally in the context of a relatively stable background ontology and substantive epistemology, not globally for all science. (shrink)

In order for theology to have a cognitive dimension, it is necessary to have procedures for testing and critically evaluating theological models. We make use of certain features of scientific models to show how science has been able to move beyond the poles of foundationalism, represented by logical positivism, and antifoundationalism or relativism, represented by the sociologists of knowledge. These ideas are generalized to show that constructing and testing theological models similarly offers a means by which theology can move beyond (...) confessionalism and postmodernism. Our starting point is Paul Tillich's concept of God as the ground of being and the different levels of consciousness and thinking that accompany his understanding of theology. The ontological argument of Anselm is shown to play a key role, not as a proof for the existence of God but as a means for testing theological models. An example of a theological model, drawn from the domain of philosophy of science, is presented to show how theological models are constructed and tested. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith restrict their definition of memory to “being about some past event,” which causes them to ignore the most common use of memory: everyday visual-motor tasks. New techniques make it possible to study memory in the context of these natural tasks with which memory is so tightly coupled. Memory can be more fully understood in the context of these actions.