Uppsatsen är en beskrivande och reflekterande studie över ett kombinerat demonstrations- och intervjuprogram. Programmet programmerades och användes i syfte att förbereda utvecklingen av ett datorprogram som ska lära ut och träna argumentation. Studien beskriver hur intervjuprogrammet konstruerades med avseende på teorier från retorik och pedagogik, samt resultat därur. Avslutningsvis diskuteras processen och potentialen i att skapa ett program som skulle kunna ligga till grund för ett personligt kunskapande, ett argumentationsprogram. Sammanfattning; Tekniker för argumentation tränas inte naturligt i skolorna, inte heller i vardagen. Successivt lärs argumentation på olika vis, självständigt eller genom andra. Man lär sig eller blir lärd. Intervjuprogrammet gav tydliga signaler om hur ett argumentationsprogram bör utformas för att tala till användaren på ett så tydligt och personligt vis som möjligt. Slutdiskussionen redogör för vad ett sådant argumentationsprogram skulle kunna innebära för användaren. Ett eventuellt argumentationsprogram kommer att lära ut en stabil, lite förenklad grund, som ger användaren fem tydliga topiker och träning i att använda dem. Verktyg som senare och i andra situationer kan tillämpas vid argumentation.

ICT has become so deeply embedded into the fabric of European society – in economic, political, and socio-cultural narratives, practices, and structures – that it has been constructed as holding tremendous untapped and inestimable potential for instigating and unleashing far-reaching societal transformation, addressing key societal challenges, and solving all societal problems. It has recently been seen, given its ubiquity, as a critical driver and powerful catalyst for sustainable urban development due to its potential to enable substantial energy savings and GHG emissions reductions in most urban sectors, especially buildings. However, related to this ubiquity, there are also a lot of visions (of limited modern applicability), hopes, myths, fallacies, and oxymora, which applies for the environmental subsystem of information society where debates focus on whether ICT can advance environmental urban sustainability. There are intricate relationships and tradeoffs among the multidimensional effects of ICT for the environment that flow mostly from the use and application of ICT – e.g. energy efficiency technology - throughout the urban sphere. Regardless, the technological orientation and framing of the sustainable city and the green economy has gained dominance in European society and become prevalent in what has come to be identified or known as the discourse of ICT for sustainable urban development (ICT4SUD). The aim of this study is to carry out a critical reading of the social construction of ICT4SUD, the underlying ideology about the ICT potential in advancing environmental urban sustainability. To achieve this aim, a Foucauldian-Faircloughian discursive approach is employed to examine the selected empirical material. This approach consists of nine stages: (1) surface descriptors and contextual elements; (2) historical-diachronic dimension; (3) epistemic and cultural frames; (4) discursive constructions and discourses; (5) social actors and framing power; (6) discursive strategies; (7) discursive mechanisms; (8) political practice, knowledge, and power; and (9) ideological standpoints.As a scholarly discourse, ICT4SUD is inherently part of and influenced by economic, societal, and political structures, and produced in social interaction. ICT4SUD is thus neither paradigmatic nor value-free, but rather socio-politically situated. It is shaped by cultural frames that are conventionalized by European society and attuned to its values, and it is a matter of a pre-intellectual space where ICT and sustainability constitute salient defining factors of the dominant configuration of knowledge, institutions, and material forces of European society. Indeed, ICT4SUD is impacted by earlier representations of reality and how they were reproduced in relation to the significance of discursive constructions of ICT and sustainability issues in the broader context of European culture. Moreover, the ICT4SUD discourse plays a major role in (re)constructing the image of the ICT industry as a social actor and in defining its identity and relation with other constituents of society, in that it is relocated new roles and attributed new societal missions. The dominant framing of the reports is clearly the one advanced by the ICT industry: it is constituted into the main definer of the represented reality. Further, positioning the ICT industry as the driver of the low-carbon city/economy aids the construction of an image of leadership in creating a low carbon society. The reports’ construction of energy efficiency technology is a powerful legitimation of the ICT industry’s views and actions. In addition, the ICT4SUD discourse is exclusionary, namely a number of facts and issues pertaining to structural, indirect, and systemic effects of ICT and the associated rebound effects are left out, concealed, or neglected. Also, the discourse is inclined to be deterministic, i.e. it postulates that ICT, supported by policy, will achieve SUD while it falls short in considering social behaviour and socio-economic relationships. It moreover tends to be rhetorical – that is, it promises environmentally SUD without really having a holistic strategy to achieve that goal. Furthermore, given the scientific discourse and the legitimation capacity of computing, climatology, and sustainability indicators, one can subsume a range of social and political effects under the category of discourse mechanisms through which ICT4SUD operates, which both show the power of discourse and potentially empower the ICT industry and its cohorts. There are different justifications for the development of energy efficiency technology in relation to decision-making processes. Plus, politics, as a consequence of its interaction with ICT4SUD, forces, though different mechanisms, the emergence and development of the ICT4SUD discourse, which is, simultaneously, influenced by the power/knowledge relations established in European society that bounds or expands its success. Finally, as to ideological reproduction, the ICT4SUD discourse reconstructs cultural claims, conveys ideological messages, and reproduces and legitimizes power structures.

Afin de légitimer une approche des systèmes d’information plus documentaire que technologique bien peu en accord avec l’air du temps, le besoin impérieux s’est fait ressentir de faire appel aux fondements théoriques de la fonction renseignement et de son exploitation étroitement dépendante de la maîtrise d’une information devenue surabondante. Ce regard, plus analogique que numérique, s’est intéressé à la construction de sens dans une mémoire partagée, organisée autour d’un besoin collectif de savoir qui la conditionne entièrement. Il s’agit d’assurer la cohésion des actions individuelles en s’appuyant sur la synergie des intentions qui orientent l’action collective et lui donnent ainsi tout son sens. Cette recherche s’est fondée sur une expérience professionnelle ponctuellement réussie, bien que peu suivie par une administration trompée par le mirage d’une technologie omnipotente. Ses résultats sont décrits pour tenter de les pérenniser, dans l’idée d’en élargir la portée et d’en promouvoir l’usage chez d’autres professionnels aux besoins analogues, dans des domaines différents comme, par exemple, celui de la recherche scientifique. / Despite the current trend, the pressing need arose to legitimize a documentary approach to information system rather than a technological one, based on the theoretical foundations of intelligence and its exploitation, which is directly connected to the control of an information that has become overabundant. This vision, rather analogical than numerical, focuses on creating sense within a shared memory that is organized around a collective need of knowledge, which directly impacts this memory. The aim is to ensure the cohesion of individual actions by relying on the synergy of intentions, which orient the collective action and give it its meaning. This research was built on a professional experience successful, although little followed by an administration mistaken by the mirage of an omnipotent technology. Its results are described in an attempt to perpetuate them, with the idea of extending their scope and promoting their use to other professionals with similar needs, in different fields such as, for example, scientific research.

Platonic Craft and Medical Ethics examines the Platonic theory of craft and shows its application to different ethical problems in medicine, both ancient and modern. I begin by elucidating the Platonic use of the term “craft” or “technē”, using especially the paradigmatic craft of medicine, and explicate a number of important principles inherent in his use of the term. I then show how Plato’s framework of crafts can be applied to two ancient debates. First, I show how Plato’s understanding of crafts is used in discussing the definition of medicine, and how he deals with the issue of “bivalence”, that medicine seems to be capable of generating disease as well as curing it. I follow this discussion into Aristotle, who, though he has a different interpretation of bivalence, has a solution in many ways similar to Plato’s. Second, I discuss the relevance of knowledge to persuasion and freedom. Rhetors like Gorgias challenge the traditional connections of persuasion to freedom and force to slavery by characterizing persuasion as a type of force. Plato addresses this be dividing persuasion between sorcerous and didactic persuasion, and sets knowledge as the new criterion for freedom. Finally, I discuss three modern issues in medical ethics using a Platonic understanding of crafts: paternalism, conclusions in meta-analyses and therapeutic misconceptions in research ethics. In discussing paternalism, I argue that tools with multiple excellences, like the body, should not be evaluated independently of the uses to which the patient intends to put them. In discussing meta-analyses, I show how the division of crafts into goal-oriented and causal parts in the Phaedrus exposes the confusion inherent in saying that practical conclusions can follow directly from statistical results. Finally, I argue that authors like Franklin G. Miller and Howard Brody fail to recognize the hierarchical relationship between medical research and medicine when they argue that medical research ethics should be autonomous from medical ethics per se.

Platonic Craft and Medical Ethics examines the Platonic theory of craft and shows its application to different ethical problems in medicine, both ancient and modern. I begin by elucidating the Platonic use of the term “craft” or “technē”, using especially the paradigmatic craft of medicine, and explicate a number of important principles inherent in his use of the term. I then show how Plato’s framework of crafts can be applied to two ancient debates. First, I show how Plato’s understanding of crafts is used in discussing the definition of medicine, and how he deals with the issue of “bivalence”, that medicine seems to be capable of generating disease as well as curing it. I follow this discussion into Aristotle, who, though he has a different interpretation of bivalence, has a solution in many ways similar to Plato’s. Second, I discuss the relevance of knowledge to persuasion and freedom. Rhetors like Gorgias challenge the traditional connections of persuasion to freedom and force to slavery by characterizing persuasion as a type of force. Plato addresses this be dividing persuasion between sorcerous and didactic persuasion, and sets knowledge as the new criterion for freedom. Finally, I discuss three modern issues in medical ethics using a Platonic understanding of crafts: paternalism, conclusions in meta-analyses and therapeutic misconceptions in research ethics. In discussing paternalism, I argue that tools with multiple excellences, like the body, should not be evaluated independently of the uses to which the patient intends to put them. In discussing meta-analyses, I show how the division of crafts into goal-oriented and causal parts in the Phaedrus exposes the confusion inherent in saying that practical conclusions can follow directly from statistical results. Finally, I argue that authors like Franklin G. Miller and Howard Brody fail to recognize the hierarchical relationship between medical research and medicine when they argue that medical research ethics should be autonomous from medical ethics per se.

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