Quantitative researchers often discuss research ethics as if specific ethical problems can be reduced to abstract normative logics (e.g., virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology). Such approaches overlook how values are embedded in every aspect of quantitative methods, including ‘observations,’ ‘facts,’ and notions of ‘objectivity.’ We describe how quantitative research practices, concepts, discourses, and their objects/subjects of study have always been value-laden, from the invention of statistics and probability in the 1600s to their subsequent adoption as a logic made to appear as (...) if it exists prior to, and separate from, ethics and values. This logic, which was embraced in the Academy of Management from the 1960s, casts management researchers as ethical agents who ought to know about a reality conceptualized as naturally existing in the image of statistics and probability (replete with ‘constructs’), while overlooking that S&P logic and practices, which researchers made for themselves, have an appreciable role in making the world appear this way. We introduce a different way to conceptualize reality and ethics, wherein the process of scientific inquiry itself requires an examination of its own practices and commitments. Instead of resorting to decontextualized notions of ‘rigor’ and its ‘best practices,’ quantitative researchers can adopt more purposeful ways to reason about the ethics and relevance of their methods and their science. We end by considering implications for addressing ‘post truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ problems as collective concerns, wherein it is actually the pluralistic nature of description that makes defending a collectively valuable version of reality so important and urgent. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to clarify an aspect of Descartes’s conception of mind that seriously impacts on the standard objections against Cartesian dualism. By a close reading of Descartes’s writings on imagination, I argue that the capacity to imagine does not inhere as a mode in the mind itself, but only in the embodied mind, that is, a mind that is not united to the body does not possess the faculty to imagine. As a mode considered as a (...) general property, and not as an instance of it, belongs to the essence of the substance, and as imagination (like sensation) arises from the mind-body union, then the problem arises of knowing to what extent a Cartesian embodied mind is separable from the body. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é provar que a experiência tem um papel central na ciência cartesiana e que, portanto, Descartes está disposto a abandonar alguns pressupostos teóricos para adequar-se a algumas observações científicas. Meu ponto é que o compromisso de Descartes com as observações científicas é tão forte que, no estudo do magnetismo, ele opta pela inconsistência do seu sistema quando adota uma propriedade do magnetismo que contraria a lei da conservação da quantidade de movimento. Ou seja, mostrarei que Descartes (...) acata uma propriedade do ímã, observada por vários cientistas, especialmente Gilbert, que é contrária à lei da conservação da quantidade de movimento para resguardar uma sintonia com as observações empíricas. Esse compromisso com a experiência reforça a imagem de que Descartes não era indiferente às observações empíricas do seu tempo, mas opera uma ciência que tenta adequar-se a elas. This article sets out to prove that experience plays a central role in Cartesian science and, therefore, that Descartes is willing to let go of some theoretical assumptions in order to accommodate scientific observations. My point is that Descartes' commitment to scientific observation is so strong that in the study of magnetism, he chooses not to keep his system not completely consistent when he adopts a magnetic property (a property that was observed by several scientists, especially Gilbert) that contradicts the law of conservation of quantity of motion in order to keep in touch with empirical observations. This commitment to experience further strengthens the notion that Descartes was not indifferent to the empirical observations of his time, and actually engages in scientific work that tries to adapt itself to them. (shrink)

This essay seeks to contribute to the critical reception of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by tracing the Taxonomy’s underlying philosophical assumptions. Identifying Bloom’s work as consistent with the legacy of Cartesian thought, I argue that its hierarchy of behavioral objectives provides a framework for certainty and communicability in ascertaining student learning. However, its implicit rejection of intuitive knowledge as well as its antagonism between the human subject and the known object promote the Enlightenment ideal of education as “intellectual work.” (...) When embodied in the Taxonomy, Cartesian assumptions foster a fundamental disposition in front of reality that is ultimately alienating. The paper begins with an explication of the Taxonomy’s affordances and philosophical assumptions. I then identify the Cartesian elements of these assumptions, particularly the Taxonomy’s inherent mind–body dualism and primacy of method. Finally, the paper employs these elements as an explanatory factor for the predominant critiques of the Taxonomy in educational theory literature. An addendum questions the possibility or plausibility of distance from objectives frameworks in the contemporary classroom. (shrink)