Online research in philosophy

: Being scientific research a process of social interaction, this process can be studied from a game-theoretic perspective. Some conceptual and formal instruments that can help to understand scientific research as a game are introduced, and it is argued that game theoretic epistemology provides a middle ground for 'rationalist' and 'constructivist' theories of scientific knowledge. In the first part ('The game theoretic logic of scientific discovery'), a description of the essential elements of game of science is made, using an inferentialist conception of rationality. In the second part ('Sociology of science and its rational reconstructions'), some ideas for the reconstruction of case studies are introduced, and applied to one example: Latour's analysis of Joliot's attempt to build an atomic bomb. Lastly, in the third part ('Fact making games'), a formal analysis of the constitution of scientific consensus is offered.

The production of manuscripts can be an indication for the scientific, linguistic or medical interests of a community. In this paper the author argues that Parisinus Graecus 2293, a bilingual Greek-Arabic manuscript, containing parts of the first three books of Paul of Aegina's medical encyclopaedia, was produced in Sicily or Southern Italy, probably in Palermo during the reign of the Hohenstaufen. It is thus a testimony to the fervent scientific and medical interest of the Swabian court which promoted cultural exchange between the East and the West. The purpose of the manuscript was not so much to help medical practice but rather to further bilingualism by giving the reader a tool with which he could improve his knowledge of either language.

This paper argues that scientific studies distinguish themselves from other studies by a combination of their processes, their (knowledge) elements and the roles of these elements. This is supported by constructing a process model. An illustrative example based on Newtonian mechanics shows how scientific knowledge is structured according to the process model. To distinguish scientific studies from research and scientific research, two additional process models are built for such processes. We apply these process models: (1) to argue that scientific progress should emphasize both the process of change and the content of change; (2) to chart the major stages of scientific study development; and (3) to define “science”.

During eighteenth century England the Excise Department was at the vanguard of negotiating the criteria and parameters of what I call "practical objectivity", namely, putting objectivity into administrative practice. This frequently required both the space of production and the actual product to be reconfigured to meet the criteria of the excise's form of measurement. As this essay shows this was a contested, mutable and ambiguous process. Within this context ultimate agreement over objectivity was administratively rather than philosophically driven.

Visualizations used in the practice of neuroscience, as one example of a scientific practice, can be sorted according to whether they represent (A) actual things, (B) theoretical models, or (C) some integration of these two. In this paper I hypothesize that an assessment of a chain of visual representations from (A) through (C) to (B) (and back again) is used, as part of the practice of scientific judgment, to assess the adequacy of the "working fit" between the theoretical model and the actual thing or process that the model is intended to explain.

Pictures are tactile as well as visual. Outline pictures stand for the same kinds of surface features in touch and vision. Vantage point geometry is used by blind and sighted perceivers in pictures. Limits of pictures may be comparable for the blind and sighted, and transcended in useful ways. Introduction In keeping with a conference on the multimodality of human communication, the purpose of this paper is to show that some aspects of pictures are tangible as well as visual. Many means of communication are often considered to be exclusively visual or auditory, but the exclusionary view requires radical revision, the evidence from pictures tells us.

What do pictures and mental images have in common? The contemporary tendency to reject mental picture theories of imagery suggests that the answer is: not much. We show that pictures and visual imagery have something important in common. They both contribute to mental simulations: pictures as inputs and mental images as outputs. But we reject the idea that mental images involve mental pictures, and we use simulation theory to strengthen the anti-pictorialist's case. Along the way we try to account for caricature and for some basic features of pictorial representations.

This paper explores the scientific production of experimental wounds, suggesting that these scientific research programs illuminate the consequences of the historical relationship between technical knowledge production and the state's monopoly on violence.

Challenging Situatedness contends that the production of knowledge is just that—a production, and one fraught with intrinsic and often unconscious biases. In fact, to assume that scientific research is inherently objective, neutral, and therefore genderless can, quite literally, be harmful to one's health. The contributors to this volume instead argue for a situated knowledge, a research model that acknowledges different cultural realities and actively articulates context-rich ways of knowing. Drawing on international research studies—from Cameroon, Ghana, India, and Sweden, among others— Challenging Situatedness is a vital exploration of feminist theory in practice.

This paper reports on objectivity and knowledge production in the process of submitting, revising, and publishing an experimental research article in cognitive neuroscience. The review process, as part of scientific practice, is of particular interest, since it puts the research team in direct dialog with a larger scientific community concerned with fMRI evidence. By bringing this often ?black?boxed? dimension of the manuscript?s production into the picture, I illustrate the role that the visual brain representations played in the practice of scientific fact production. This allows me to point out how the knowledge is constructed through seeing, and how the showing of the fact through images bears traits of the scientific culture of which it is part.