26,772 research outputs found
Fundamental concepts in management research and ensuring research quality : focusing on case study method
This paper discusses fundamental concepts in management research and ensuring research quality. It was presented at the European Academy of Management annual conference in 2008
Causality and inference in economics: An unended quest
The aim of this article is to point to the unsolved research problems connected to causation in the philosophy of economics. First, the paper defines causation and discusses two notable approaches, i.e. the realist theory of causation and the instrumentalist theory of causation. Second, it offers a review the current research activity focusing on the problem of causation in economics. Third, it discusses several case studies. On the grounds of comparison of the research practice of economists and the current issues undertaken by the philosophers of economics, the paper concludes that there is a gap between the research practice and the normative methodological analyses and indicate the research questions that need to be addressed.Financed by the National Science Center (grant No. 2015/19/N/HS1/01066); financed through contract no. 501/1/P-DUN/2017 from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Educatio
Agent-Based Models and Simulations in Economics and Social Sciences: from conceptual exploration to distinct ways of experimenting
Now that complex Agent-Based Models and computer simulations
spread over economics and social sciences - as in most sciences of complex
systems -, epistemological puzzles (re)emerge. We introduce new
epistemological tools so as to show to what precise extent each author is right
when he focuses on some empirical, instrumental or conceptual significance of
his model or simulation. By distinguishing between models and simulations,
between types of models, between types of computer simulations and between
types of empiricity, section 2 gives conceptual tools to explain the rationale of
the diverse epistemological positions presented in section 1. Finally, we claim
that a careful attention to the real multiplicity of denotational powers of
symbols at stake and then to the implicit routes of references operated by
models and computer simulations is necessary to determine, in each case, the
proper epistemic status and credibility of a given model and/or simulation
An âaxe for the frozen seaâ : Estrinâs magic agential realism, insect thigmotaxis, and the problem with Kafka
This paper seeks to demonstrate how Marc Estrinâs Insect Dreams: the Half Life of Gregor Samsa constitutes the first piece of magic agential realist literature about insects. The term âmagic agential realismâ has been coined from an observed coincidence in the literary commitments of Estrinâs novel to the literary genre of magic realism and the posthumanist assumptions it shares with the agential realism of Karen Barad. Given Kafkaâs axiom that a literary work ought to function as an âaxe for the frozen sea within usâ. A further claim will be defended is the claim that Estrinâs Insect Dreams is the magic agential axe that shatters the frozen sea of liberal humanist representationalism within Kafka. In providing us with a book that affects us like a disaster and like a suicide (both of which are evoked and exceeded by the ever-more pressing concerns of posthumanism), I will demonstrate how Estrin both fulfils the literary criteria laid out by Kafka to Oskar Pollak and opens up the possibility of re-configuring ethics in order to account for insects through the observed phenomenon of thigmotaxis.peer-reviewe
Induction and Natural Kinds Revisited
In âInduction and Natural Kindsâ, I proposed a solution to the problem of induction according to which our use of inductive inference is reliable because it is grounded in the natural kind structure of the world. When we infer that unobserved members of a kind will have the same properties as observed members of the kind, we are right because all members of the kind possess the same essential properties. The claim that the existence of natural kinds is what grounds reliable use of induction is based on an inference to the best explanation of the success of our inductive practices. As such, the argument for the existence of natural kinds employs a form of ampliative inference. But induction is likewise a form of ampliative inference. Given both of these facts, my account of the reliability of induction is subject to the objection that it provides a circular justification of induction, since it employs an ampliative inference to justify an ampliative inference. In this paper, I respond to the objection of circularity by arguing that what justifies induction is not the inference to the best explanation of its reliability. The ground of induction is the natural kinds themselves
Justification and Explanation in Mathematics and Morality
In his influential book, The Nature of Morality, Gilbert Harman writes: âIn explaining the observations that support a physical theory, scientists typically appeal to mathematical principles. On the other hand, one never seems to need to appeal in this way to moral principles.â What is the epistemological relevance of this contrast, if genuine? This chapter argues that ethicists and philosophers of mathematics have misunderstood it. They have confused what the chapter calls the justificatory challenge for realism about an area, Dâthe challenge to justify our D-beliefsâwith the reliability challenge for D-realismâthe challenge to explain the reliability of our D-beliefs. Harmanâs contrast is relevant to the first, but not, evidently, to the second. One upshot of the discussion is that genealogical debunking arguments are fallacious. Another is that indispensability considerations cannot answer the BenacerrafâField challenge for mathematical realism
Political ecology and the epistemology of social justice
Piers Blaikieâs writings on political ecology in the 1980s represented a turning point in the generation of environmental knowledge for social justice. His writings since the 1980s demonstrated a further transition in the identification of social justice by replacing a Marxist and eco-catastrophist epistemology with approaches influenced by critical realism, post-structuralism and participatory development. Together, these works demonstrated an important engagement with the politics of how environmental explanations are made, and the mutual dependency of social values and environmental knowledge. Yet, today, the lessons of Blaikieâs work are often missed by analysts who ask what is essentially political or ecological about political ecology, or by those who argue that a critical approach to environmental knowledge should mean deconstruction alone. This paper reviews Blaikieâs work since the 1980s and focuses especially on the meaning of âpoliticsâ within his approach to political ecology. The paper argues that Blaikieâs key contribution is not just in linking environmental knowledge and politics, but also in showing ways that environmental analysis and policy can be reframed towards addressing the problems of socially vulnerable people. This pragmatic co-production of environmental knowledge and social values offers a more constructive means of building socially just environmental policy than insisting politics or ecology exist independently of each other, or believing environmental interventions are futile in a post-Latourian world
HOW EXPERIENCED PHENOMENA RELATE TO THINGS THEMSELVES: KANT, HUSSERL, HOCHE, AND REFLEXIVE MONISM
What we normally think of as the âphysical worldâ is also the world as experienced, that is, a world of appearances. Given this, what is the reality behind the appearances, and what might its relation be to consciousness and to constructive processes in the mind? According to Kant, the thing itself that brings about and supports these appearances is unknowable and we can never gain any understanding of how it brings such appearances about. Reflexive monism argues the opposite: the thing itself is knowable as are the processes that construct conscious appearances. Conscious appearances (empirical evidence) and the theories derived from them can represent what the world is really like, even though such empirical knowledge is partial, approximate and uncertain, and conscious appearances are species-specific constructions of the human mind. Drawing on the writings of Husserl, Hoche suggests that problems of knowledge, mind and consciousness are better understood in terms of a âpure noematicâ phenomenology that avoids any reference to a âthing itselfâ. I argue that avoiding reference to a knowable reality (behind appearances) leads to more complex explanations with less explanatory value and counterintuitive conclusionsâfor example Hocheâs conclusion that consciousness is not part of nature. The critical realism adopted by reflexive monism appears to be more useful, as well as being consistent with science and common sense
- âŠ