European Journal of Social Theory 10(3)(2007; forthcoming) / Forthcoming in 2007 in the European Journal of Social Theory 10 (3). The intellectual organization of the sciences cannot be appreciated sufficiently unless the cognitive dimension is considered as an independent source of variance. Cognitive structures interact and co-construct the organization of scholars and discourses into research programs, specialties, and disciplines. In the sociology of scientific knowledge and the sociology of translation, these heterogeneous sources of variance have been homogenized a priori in the concepts of practices and actor-networks. Practices and actor-networks, however, can be explained in terms of the self-organization of the cognitive code in scientific communication. The code selects knowledge claims by organizing them operationally in the various discourses; the claims can thus be stabilized and potentially globalized. Both the selecting codes and the variation in the knowledge claims remain constructed, but the different sub-dynamics can be expected to operate asymmetrically and to update with other frequencies.

One way to engage with ethics is in a thoughtful way. Chapter 1 shows that there is disagreement about the value of ethical thoughtfulness. Chapter 2 gives a careful account of ethical thoughtfulness in terms of four norms. Chapter 3 shows that being ethically thoughtful is possible for many of us, but is also likely to be costly. Chapter 4 argues that connections between ethical thoughtfulness and behavior do not provide compelling reasons to pursue ethical thoughtfulness. Chapter 5 argues that ethical thoughtfulness is not significant because of connections to moral epistemology, moral accountability, or moral standing. Chapter 6 argues that it is unlikely that ethical thoughtfulness is good for all humans, but that it may be a good for some people in some circumstances.

<p> Simulation based learning (SBL) is pedagogical method poised to innovate nursing educational approaches. Yet, despite a growing body of research into SBL, limited investigation exists regarding assumptions and beliefs that underpin SBL pedagogy. Even though key simulation design characteristics exist, the particular methods nurse educators use to operationalize simulation design characteristics and how these choices are viewed from the perspective of nursing students is unknown. Without understanding what motivates educators to design simulations as they do, it is difficult to interpret the evidence that exists to support chosen methods. Through the exploration of perspectives (points-of-view), underlying beliefs can be uncovered. Educators readily share their points-of-view on simulation design both formally (in literature) and informally (ordinary conversations). These conversations portray the subjectivity surrounding simulation design and become a vehicle for exploration. The purpose of this study was to describe and compare nurse educators' and nursing students' perspectives about operationalizing design characteristics within educational simulations. The National League for Nursing-Jeffries Simulation Framework guided this study by identifying the interaction of teacher, student, and educational practices on the five design characteristics (objectives, student support, problem solving, fidelity, and debriefing). It was from this interaction that perspectives were investigated. A Q-methodological approach was employed to investigate the subjectivity inherent in perspectives. Derived from 392 opinions on simulation design, a 60-statement Q-sample was rank-ordered into a quasi-normal distribution grid by 44 nurse educators and 45 nursing students recruited from two national organizations. Factor analysis and participants' explanations for statement placement contributed to factor interpretation. Factor analysis revealed nurse educators share a common, overriding <i>Facilitate the Discovery</i> perspective about operationalizing simulation design. Two secondary bipolar factors revealed that even though educators share a common perspective, there exist aspects of simulation design held in opposition regarding student role assignment and how far to let students struggle including when and if to stop a simulation. Factor analysis revealed nursing students hold five distinct and uniquely personal perspectives labeled <i>Let Me Show You, Stand By Me, The Agony of Defeat, Let Me Think it Through,</i> and <i> I'm Engaging and So Should You.</i> Second-order factor analysis revealed nurse educators share similar aspects of thinking with four of the five nursing students' perspectives. Results suggest ongoing and sustained educational development along with time for nurse educators to reflect on and clarify their perspective about simulation design is essential. Educators need to emotionally prepare and support nursing students prior to and during simulation activities. Further educational research is needed on how operationalizing simulation design characteristics differ based on a SBL activity with either a formative or a summative purpose.</p>

There is an as yet unacknowledged and incomparable contribution to the philosophical debates about know-how to be found in the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is sourced in his investigations into knowledge and certainty in On Certainty, though it is not limited to these late passages. Understanding the ramifications of this putative contribution (even if one does not agree with it) highlights the extent to which (i) there is now a new range of issues pertaining to know-how which no future philosophical consideration of the topic can ignore, except on pain of failing to engage comprehensively with the subject; (ii) the topic of know-how has been inappropriately marginalised by naturalized epistemology, and may well be as central to epistemology as the propositional knowledge which currently dominates epistemology’s attention; and (iii) any engagement with these potential Wittgensteinian contributions will need to be conducted in tandem with a reflection on the meta-philosophy of epistemology, since their potential impact extends to epistemology’s main methodology, i.e., naturalized reflective equilibrium. These three conclusions, together with a diagnosis of where and why all the current intellectualist accounts of know-how are either internally inconsistent, or irreconcilably flawed on their own terms, provide the motivation and the opportunity for a New Epistemology of Know-How. These conclusions established, I offer one possible Wittgensteinian-orientated version of the New Epistemology of Know-How, providing the first example of a non-naturalized philosophical approach to the topic since Gilbert Ryle.

My main aim is to contribute to the exploration of the nature of the epistemic state of understanding. It seems that the most productive way in which this might be done is by (i) investigating what sort of conditions must be fulfilled in order for one to understand, and (ii) comparing understanding’s place in certain contemporary debates to the place that knowledge has in those debates. Regarding conditions for understanding, I will argue that there are two types of understanding that are most relevant to epistemology—objectual understanding and atomistic understanding. I will contend that atomistic understanding is entirely factive while objectual understanding is moderately factive, that objectual understanding admits of degrees, that both types involve some sort of grasp of explanatory relations, that both possess a measure of luck immunity, and that both are cognitive achievements with instrumental, teleological, contributory and (crucially) final value. It must be stressed that the general accounts of both types of understanding that I attempt to provide are not supposed to be exhaustive sets of necessary and sufficient conditions—I remain particularly open to the possibility that there are further necessary conditions that are as yet undiscovered, especially for objectual understanding. Regarding understanding’s place in contemporary debates, it is perplexing that existing work does not capitalise on the thought that treating understanding in conjunction with many of the most prominent issues in recent epistemology is a worthwhile project that could yield interesting and important results. I will summarise understanding's potential significance for a number of these topics, looking at all of the following (in varying degrees of detail): factivity, coherentism, norms of assertion, the transmission of epistemic properties, epistemic luck, the nature of cognitive achievement, and epistemic value. This last topic is one that I think is particularly important to an investigation into understanding, because it is quite plausible that there is a particularly strong revisionist theory of epistemic value focused on understanding. Such a view would be one on which knowledge is not finally valuable, but one by way of which we could nonetheless explain why we might pre-theoretically think that knowledge is finally valuable. Since revisionist views often involve a claim that we should think of a different, closely related epistemic state as distinctively valuable, it is natural to consider understanding as a prime candidate for the focus of such a theory.

Cognitive abilities have been invoked to do much work in externalist epistemology. An ability condition (sometimes in conjunction with a separate, anti-luck condition) is seen to be key in satisfying direction-of-fit and modal stability intuitions which attach to the accrual of positive epistemic status to doxastic attitudes. While the notion of ability has been given some extensive treatment in the literature (especially John Greco, Alan Millar and Ernest Sosa), the implications for these abilities being particularly cognitive ones has been given less attention. To rectify this oversight, I examine the debate over the nature of cognition from philosophy of cognitive science, paying particular attention to the debate between defenders of internalist theories (Fred Adams, Kenneth Aizawa and Rob Rupert) and externalist theories (so-called “extended mind” positions). Armed with substantive accounts of cognition, I argue that the epistemological externalist’s obligation to repudiate epistemological internalism forces her to adopt some sort of externalist account of cognition.

This thesis is an exploratory case study that investigates the epistemological beliefs of students’ on a Foundation degree in Teaching and learning, and the possible influence of these beliefs on their learning. Critical realism provides the theoretical context for this case study through a multi-phase approach. This study explores the students’ beliefs of knowledge, knowing and learning through the employment of questionnaires and in-depth interviews which reveals the stories and experiences of five of the students. The research data suggests there is an apparent relationship between personal epistemological beliefs and the engagement with learning in higher education for these students. Moreover it emerged that there were personal transformations in their attitudes and beliefs towards knowledge, knowing and learning that had a profound impact on their self-belief. The changes can be attributed, in part, to the students’ capacity for change-readiness and openness to learning mediated by the situated and contextualised nature of the learning environment. Findings from this case study are not generalisable due to its specificity to one particular setting and small number of participants. However, a conceptual model of the relationship between students’ epistemological beliefs and transformation is offered exposing the complexity of social phenomena in real-life settings. The findings are discussed within the context of previous research. As part of my own learning, and in harmony with the theme of learning and change of the participants, I have also explored my learning changes as a result of engaging in my doctoral studies.

C’est à partir de l’idée des «paradigmes» en psychiatrie, formulée par le psychiatre G. Lantéri-Laura, que nous proposons la thèse du paradigme actuel de la psychiatrie, celui qui prédominerait dans la nosologie, la clinique, l’épidémiologie, la théorie et les traitements du champ psy. Suivant la thèse et la présentation de Lantéri-Laura des trois premiers paradigmes qu’il identifie, nous formulons, par hypothèse, l’existence d’un «Quatrième paradigme», qui est tributaire de l’apparition du premier médicament psychotrope, de la psychopharmacologie et de ce que nous appelons le «dispositif pharmaceutique». Ces nouveaux éléments et dispositifs auront des conséquences dans la clinique et le diagnostic, et dans la nosologie et la critériologie actuelles de tout le champ de la psychopathologie. Même si un champ du savoir psychiatrique préexiste à ce dispositif, c’est ce dernier qui va faire basculer ce champ, le transformer, redessiner ses contours et déclencher la rupture avec les éléments établis précédemment par la psychiatrie classique et la psychanalyse. Ce remaniement produira de nouvelles conceptions des «troubles»: il s’agit de ce que nous dénommerons des «troubles pharmaco-modifiés» et des «troubles pharmaco-déduits» ou «nouveaux syndromes». En outre, ces dispositifs modifieront à tout jamais la manière dont on conçoit les psychothérapies et les divers traitements inclus dans la praxis du champ «psy». Le dispositif pharmaceutique et la brèche ouverte par le médicament vont aussi remanier et permettre la parution de nouvelles formes des psychothérapies. L’incidence de la médecine des preuves sur la psychothérapie et la naissance depuis une vingtaine d’années des thérapies appuyées sur des épreuves empiriques (majoritairement thérapies cognitivo-comportementales), auront comme conséquence l’entrée d’un courant de pensée psychothérapeutique propre au Quatrième paradigme. / According to the idea of Ŗparadigmsŗ in psychiatry, formulated by psychiatrist G. Lantéri-Laura we propose the thesis of the current Ŗparadigmŗ of psychiatry, which predominates in the nosology, the clinics, the epidemiology, the theory and the treatments of the psychological field. Following the thesis and the presentation of Lantéri-Laura of the first three paradigms he identifies, we formulate, by hypothesis, the existence of a ŖFourth paradigmŗ, which is a result of the appearance of the first psychotropic drug, of psychopharmacology and of what we call the Ŗpharmaceutical apparatus.ŗ These new components and devices will have consequences in the clinical diagnosis, the nosology and the current criteria in all the field of psychopathology. Even if a field of psychiatric knowledge pre-exists this apparatus, it is the latter that will shake up this field, transform it, reshape its contours and trigger the rupture with the elements previously established by classical psychiatry and psychoanalysis. This overhaul will produce new types of Ŗdisordersŗ: this is what we will call Ŗpharmaco-modified disordersŗ and Ŗpharmaco-derived disordersŗ or Ŗnew syndromesŗ. Moreover, these apparatuses will change forever how one conceives psychotherapy and the various treatments included in the praxis of the psychological field. The Ŗpharmaceutical apparatusŗ and the breach opened by the drug will also redesign and allow the emergence of new forms of psychotherapy. The incidence of evidence-based medicine on psychotherapy and the rise in the last twenty years of empirically supported therapy (mainly cognitive behavior therapies) will result in the entry of a school of psychotherapeutic thought that belongs to the ŖFourth paradigm

The history of American philosophical thought is marked by a skepticism of epistemology and immutable truths, which is drawn under the term pragmatism. This skepticism is the genesis for the political and social attitudes that makes the United States exceptional. This thesis argues that this exceptionalism is important to the makeup of the American character and that it is being threatened by two front: ideologically driven politics, and the abuse of power by the majority. In the course of writing this essay I evaluated a large portion of the body of American philosophy as well as political and judicial writers in order to show that American exceptionalism is based upon a philosophical rejection of epistemology and immutable truth claims and that exceptionalism is integral to the progress of America as a nation.

One of the important discussions in the philosophy of mathematics, is that centered on Benacerraf’s Dilemma. Benacerraf’s dilemma challenges theorists to provide an epistemology and semantics for mathematics, based on their favourite ontology. This challenge is the point on which all philosophies of mathematics are judged, and clarifying how we might acquire mathematical knowledge is one of the main occupations of philosophers of mathematics. In this thesis I argue that this discussion has overlooked an important part of mathematics, namely mathematics as it is exercised by ordinary people (almost everyone without a mathematics degree). I do so by looking at the different theories that have been put forward in the recent debate, and showing for each of these that they are unable to account for the mathematical practices of ordinary people. In order to show that these practices do need to be accounted for, I also argue that ordinary people are (sometimes) doing mathematics, i.e. that they engage in properly mathematical practices. Because these practices are properly mathematical, they should be accounted for by any philosophy of mathematics. The conclusion of my thesis, then, is that current theories fail to do something that they should do, while remaining neutral on how well they perform when it comes to accounting for the practices of professional mathematicians.