1,632 research outputs found
Objectual understanding, factivity and belief
Should we regard Jennifer Lackeyâs (2007) âCreationist Teacherâ as understanding evolution, even though she does not, given her religious convictions, believe its central claims? We think this question raises a range of important and unexplored questions about the relationship between understanding, factivity and belief. Our aim will be to diagnose this case in a principled way, and in doing so, to make some progress toward appreciating what objectual understandingâi.e., understanding a subject matter or body of informationâdemands of us. Here is the plan. After some ground clearing in §1, §2 outlines and motivates a plausible working modelâmoderate factivityâfor characterising the sense in which objectual understanding should be regarded as factive. §3 shows how the datum that we can understand false theories can, despite initial suggestions to the contrary, be assimilated straightforwardly within the moderate factivity model. §4 highlights how the inverse kind of case to that explored in §3âviz., a variant of Lackeyâs creationist teacher caseâposes special problems for moderate factivity. With reference to recent work on moral understanding by Hills (2009), §5 proposes a solution to the problem, and §6 attempts to diagnose why it is that we might originally have been led to draw the wrong conclusion
Knowledge, Assertion and Intellectual Humility
This paper has two central aims. First, we motivate a puzzle. The puzzle features four independently plausible but jointly inconsistent claims. One of the four claims is the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm of assertion (KNA-S), according to which one is properly epistemically positioned to assert that p if one knows that p. Second, we propose that rejecting (KNA-S) is the best way out of the puzzle. Our argument to this end appeals to the epistemic value of intellectual humility in social-epistemic practice
Googled Assertion
Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010a; Clark 2010b; Palermos 2014) can help to explain why certain kinds of assertionsâmade on the basis of information stored in our gadgets rather than in biological memoryâare properly criticisable in light of misleading implicatures, while others are not
Social epistemology and the acquisition of understanding
Contemporary discussions of testimony in social epistemology have traditionally focused on how epistemic justication and especially propositional knowledge can pass from speaker to hearer. By contrast, objectual understanding â i.e. the kind of epistemic standing one attains when one understands a subject matter or body of information â has for the most part been ignored entirely in these debates. This is surprising, in part, because recent literature on epistemic value (e.g. Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2010; Riggs 2009) has witnessed increased attention to understanding and the kind of purely epistemic value it might have, and which knowledge by contrast lacks. If this line in the epistemic value literature is right, the acquisition of understanding in social epistemic practice should be at least as important a topic of study as the social acquisition of knowledge
Alien Registration- Gordon, Emma J. (Hermon, Penobscot County)
https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/8186/thumbnail.jp
Designing Sugaropolis:digital games as a medium for conveying transnational narratives
In this paper, the authors present a case study of âSugaropolisâ: a two-year practice-based project that involved interdisciplinary co-design and stakeholder evaluation of two digital game prototypes. Drawing on the diverse expertise of the research team (game design and development, human geography, and transnational narratives), the paper aims to contribute to debates about the use of digital games as a medium for representing the past. With an emphasis on design-as-research, we consider how digital games can be (co-)designed to communicate complex histories and geographies in which people, objects, and resources are connected through space and time
Alien Registration- Morine, Emma M. (Medway, Penobscot County)
https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/8249/thumbnail.jp
Evaluating Streptococcus mutans strain dependent characteristics in a polymicrobial biofilm community
Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate strain dependent differences of the cariogenic biofilm forming Streptococcus mutans within both simple and complex communities.
Methods: A mono-species containing representative S. mutans clinical isolates (caries and non-caries), and a multispecies in vitro caries biofilm model containing Lactobacillus casei, Veillonella dispar, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Actinomyces naeslundii, and either of two representative S. mutans clinical isolates (caries and non-caries), was developed as a comparison model. Compositional analysis of total and live bacteria within biofilms, and transcriptional analysis of biofilm associated virulence factors were evaluated by live/dead PCR and quantitative PCR, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to analyze the architecture of biofilm. One-way analysis of variance and t-tests were used to investigate significant differences between independent groups of data.
Results: Within a mono-species biofilm, different S. mutans strains responded similarly to one another during biofilm formation in different carbohydrate sources, with sucrose showing the highest levels of biofilm biomass and galactose showing the lowest. Within the polymicrobial biofilm system, compositional analysis of the bacteria within the biofilm showed that S. mutans derived from a caries-free patient was preferentially composed of both total and viable L. casei, whereas S. mutans derived from a caries patient was dominated by both total and viable S. mutans (p < 0.001). Normalized gene expression analysis of srtA, gtfB, ftf, spaP, gbpB, and luxS, showed a general upregulation within the S. mutans dominant biofilm.
Conclusion: We were able to demonstrate that individual strains derived from different patients exhibited altered biofilm characteristics, which were not obvious within a simple mono-species biofilm model. Influencing the environmental conditions changed the composition and functionality S. mutans within the polymicrobial biofilm. The biofilm model described herein provides a novel and reproducible method of assessing the impact on the biofilm microbiome upon different environmental influences
Perceiving and expressing feelings through actions in relation to individual differences in empathic traits : the Action and Feelings Questionnaire (AFQ)
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Norms of assertion: the quantity and quality of epistemic support
We show that the contemporary debate surrounding the question âWhat is the norm of assertion?â presupposes what we call the quantitative view, i.e. the view that this question is best answered by determining how much epistemic support is required to warrant assertion. We consider what Jennifer Lackey (2010) has called cases of isolated second-hand knowledge and showâbeyond what Lackey has suggested herselfâthat these cases are best understood as ones where a certain type of understanding, rather than knowledge, constitutes the required epistemic credential to warrant assertion. If we are right that understanding (and not just knowledge) is the epistemic norm for a restricted class of assertions, then this straightforwardly undercuts not only the widely supposed quantitative view, but also a more general presupposition concerning the universalisability of some norm governing assertionâthe presumption (almost entirely unchallenged since Williamsonâs 1996 paper) that any epistemic norm that governs some assertions should govern assertionsâas a class of speech actâuniformly
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