The aim of this dissertation is to explore the nature of scientific progress and to broaden existing theories of what constitutes progress in science. I do this by means of a close analysis of the main post-Kuhnian philosophical accounts of scientific progress, namely those put forward by Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan and Philip Kitcher. I test these three accounts by reconstructing a series of scientific episodes in evolutionary ecology in terms of each account and then assessing the degree to which each account incorporates what is progressive. The episodes I have selected concern the resource competition research of Dolph Schluter on Galapagos finches and related work leading up to it. After distinguishing between macroscopic and microscopic levels in science, I attend carefully to the microscopic level of each episode as it relates to epistemic progress. This investigation demonstrates that some important aspects of scientific progress have been overlooked. I conclude that there are three main ways in which the philosophies of science surveyed do not adequately represent instances of scientific progress. First, the accumulation of factual knowledge is not well accommodated. Second, the role of evidence and argument in scientific theories is not adequately captured. Third, the fine-grained level at which much important epistemic progress in science occurs is often not accounted for. These criticisms relate to a more general tendency of contemporary philosophical accounts to emphasize the macroscopic level of entire research programmes and traditions while failing to attend to the microscopic level of progress inherent in a detailed case study. I end by offering a positive account of scientific progress in light of these criticisms.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Philosophy)--Vanderbilt University, Aug. 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the nature of scientific progress and to broaden existing theories of what constitutes progress in science. I do this by means of a close analysis of the main post-Kuhnian philosophical accounts of scientific progress, namely those put forward by Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan and Philip Kitcher. I test these three accounts by reconstructing a series of scientific episodes in evolutionary ecology in terms of each account and then assessing the degree to which each account incorporates what is progressive. The episodes I have selected concern the resource competition research of Dolph Schluter on Galapagos finches and related work leading up to it. After distinguishing between macroscopic and microscopic levels in science, I attend carefully to the microscopic level of each episode as it relates to epistemic progress. This investigation demonstrates that some important aspects of scientific progress have been overlooked. I conclude that there are three main ways in which the philosophies of science surveyed do not adequately represent instances of scientific progress. First, the accumulation of factual knowledge is not well accommodated. Second, the role of evidence and argument in scientific theories is not adequately captured. Third, the fine-grained level at which much important epistemic progress in science occurs is often not accounted for. These criticisms relate to a more general tendency of contemporary philosophical accounts to emphasize the macroscopic level of entire research programmes and traditions while failing to attend to the microscopic level of progress inherent in a detailed case study. I end by offering a positive account of scientific progress in light of these criticisms. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

The overall aim of this thesis is to assess the legitimacy of constitutional laws and bills of rights within the framework of procedural epistemic democracy. The thesis is divided into three sections. In the first section, I discuss the relevance of an epistemic argument for democracy under the circumstances of politics: I provide an account of reasonable disagreement and explain how usual approaches to the authority of decision-making procedures fail to take it seriously. In the second part of the thesis, I provide an account of the epistemic features of democracy and of the requirements of democratic legitimacy. I develop a revised pragmatist argument for democracy which relies on three presumptive aims of decision-making: justice, sustainability and concord. In the third and last section, I first argue for the desirability of constitutionalism. I then explain why constitutionalism, as it is usually understood, is incompatible with my procedural epistemic account of democratic legitimacy. In the last chapter, I offer a two-pronged solution to the apparent incompatibility of constitutionalism and epistemic democracy. I first argue for the appropriateness of political constitutionalism, as opposed to legal constitutionalism, in understanding the relationship between rights and democracy. I then provide an account of rights protection and judicial review compatible with epistemic democratic legitimacy. Finally, I use the notion of pragmatic encroachment to explain how constitutional laws can achieve normative supremacy through the increased epistemic credentials of the procedure.

The current thesis explores conditions for participation in interview interaction. Drawing on the ethnomethodological idea that knowledge is central to participation in social situations, it examines how interview participants navigate knowledge and competence claims and the institutional and moral implications of these claims. The data consists of, in total, 97 audio-recorded interviews conducted as part of a national Swedish evaluation of support interventions for children exposed to violence. In three studies, I use discursive psychology and conversation analysis to explicate how interview participants in interaction (1) contribute to and negotiate institutional constraints and (2) manage rights and responsibilities related to knowledge. The findings of study I and study II show that child interviewees actively cooperate with as well as resist the constraints of interview questions. However, the children’s opportunities for participation in this institutional context are limited by two factors: (1) recordability; that is, the focus on generating recordable responses and (2) problematic assumptions underpinning questions and the interpretation of interview answers. Apart from restricting children’s rights to formulate their experiences, these factors can lead interviewers to miss opportunities to gain important information. Also related to institutional constraints, study III shows how the ideal of model consistency is prioritized over service-user participation. Thus, the three studies show how different practices relevant to institutional agendas may hinder participation. Moreover, the findings contribute to an understanding of how issues of knowledge are managed in the interviews. Study II suggests the importance of the concept of believability to refer to people’s rights and responsibilities to draw conclusions about others’ thoughts. And the findings of study III demonstrate how, in evaluation interviews with social workers, children’s access to their own thoughts and feelings are based on a notion of predetermined participation; that is, constructed as contingent on wanting what the institutional setting offers. Thus, child service users’ low epistemic status, compared to the social workers, trumps their epistemic access to their own minds. These conclusions, about recordability, believability, and predetermined participation, are based on interaction with or about children. However, I argue that the findings relate to interviewees and service users in general. By demonstrating the structuring power of interactive practices, the thesis extends our understanding of conditions for participation in the institutional setting of social research interviews.

No description available.

This paper investigates the roles of disagreement and trust in multicultural teamwork on an English-medium master's programme at an Austrian business university. The teamwork project - assigned by the content teacher - took place mostly outside the classroom and simulated business practice both in terms of the tasks and the multicultural context. Each team comprised two Austrian students and two international students, resulting in an English as a lingua franca (ELF) setting. The teams were observed and audio-/video-recorded, with the analysis focusing on an early stage of the project where they laid the groundwork for the team mental models in terms of establishing the team goals, relationships and communicative practices. Additionally, retrospective interviews were conducted at the end of the project with each of the team members and the lecturer to gain emic insights into the project. The findings suggest a symbiotic relationship between disagreement and trust, in which high levels of trust and the construction of a psychologically safe space allow the team members to disagree with and challenge each other without damaging their relationships, leading to better decisions. In turn, these decisions can contribute to a sense of shared success that strengthens the team's joint identity.

The ability to change one's beliefs in a rational manner is one of many facets of the abilities of an intelligent agent. Central to any investigation of belief change is the notion of an epistemic state. This dissertation is mainly concerned with three issues involving epistemic states: 1. How should an epistemic state be represented? 2. How does an agent use an epistemic state to perform belief change? 3. How does an agent arrive at a particular epistemic state? With regard to the first question, note that there are many different methods for constructing belief change operations. We argue that semantic constructions involving ordered pairs, each consisting of a set of beliefs and an ordering on the set of "possible worlds" (or equivalently, on the set of basic independent bits of information) are, in an important sense, more fundamental. Our answer to the second question provides indirect support for the use of semantic structures. We show how well-known belief change operations and related structures can be modelled semantically. Furthermore, we introduce new forms of belief change related operations and structures which are all defined, and motivated, in terms of such semantic representational formalisms. These include a framework for unifying belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning, new versions of entrenchment orderings on beliefs, novel approaches to withdrawal operations, and an expanded view of iterated belief change. The third question is. one which has not received much attention in the belief change literature. We propose to extract extra-logical information from the formal representation of an agent's set of beliefs, which can then be used in the construction of epistemic state. his proposal is just a first approximation, although it seems to have the potential for developing into a full-fledged theory. / Computing / D.Phil.(Computer Science)

Cette recherche vise à analyser et à interpréter les modes de construction, de diffusion et d’appropriation des sens et significations des instruments de langages médiatiques au sujet des campagnes présidentielles de 2007, 2012 et 2017 par les journaux de la presse française. Notre problématique peut s’exprimer par les deux questions suivantes : en quoi les outilslangagiers, iconiques et plastiques des couvertures de journaux constituent-ils des instruments techniques visant le choix présidentiel dans la période de 2007 et 2012 en France ? En quoi les outils de langage des médias jouent un rôle d’instruments techniques et psychologiques dans les représentations et l’appropriation des messages médiatiques par des étudiant-e-s en Sciences de l’Education au cours de la campagne présidentielle de 2017 ? Pour ce faire, nous avons analysé, comparé et interprété le réseau de relations entre les modes de construction et de diffusion des outils de langage utilisés par les journaux pour présenter des campagnes présidentielles au cours de deux périodes historiques. Une étude complémentaire nous a permisd’analyser et d’interpréter les représentations et l’appropriation des messages médiatiques par des étudiant-e-s en Sciences de l’éducation pendant la campagne présidentielle de 2017. Au plan théorique, nous nous sommes appuyée sur la théorie historico-culturelle de Vygotski (1985), la notion d’artefact de Rabardel (1995), les théories en éducation aux médias, la notion de cadre de Goffman (1991), la théorie de l’acteur-réseau de Latour (2007). Au plan méthodologique, nous avons opté pour une démarche quali-quantitative en utilisant, en particumier, les logiciels CHIC, Tropes et Iramuteq, une méthode d’analyse de contenu (Bardin, 1993) et de discours (Maingueneau, 2014) des outils de langage des couvertures de journaux. Nous avons adopté une approche méthodologique croisée intégrant la méthode d’analyse statistique implicative, une approche psycho-socio-sémiolinguistique etpragmatique. Le corpus a été constitué de 239 éditions de journaux, 293 images des unes des journaux français (20 Minutes, Métro, Lyon Plus, Le Figaro, Le Monde, et Le Progrès) et 15 entretiens réalisés auprès d’étudiant-e-s en Sciences de l’Education. Les résultats montrent que les outils de langage médiatique constituent des instruments techniques via la mise en place de différents procédés, de cadres naturels et sociaux de conceptualisation, via la mise en évidence d’une diversité de visées (pathémiques, persuasives, de faire agir, cognitives) et la nature des styles discursifs (statif, déclaratif, narratif, argumentatif). Les schèmes heuristiques et pragmatiques sont davantage sollicités en 2007 que les schèmes épistémiques dont la mise en visibilité a été renforcée en 2012. L’examen des instruments destinés à la diffusion des savoirs médiatiques non formels et informels au sujet des campagnes présidentielles montre des indices que la pensée se construit et évolue en fonction d’un contexte socio-historique donné avec des formes d’actualisation, de nouveauté et de redondance. La prise en compte d’une dimension sociale, symbolique, privée, consciente, inconsciente est intégrée à l’appropriation des instruments médiatiques mais aussi aux pratiques d’étudiants dans la formation de leurs décisions. L’analyse et l’interprétation de l’appropriation des messages médiatiques par les étudiant-e-s démontrent que la consultation et l’appropriation de ceux-ci remplissent un besoindavantage cognitif, conatif que comportemental. / The aim of this research is to analyze and interpret form of construction, providing and appropriation of senses and meanings of mediatic languages tools about presidential campaigns of 2007, 2012 and 2017 through the french newspapers. Firstly, we wanted to know how can linguistic, iconic and plastic tools of the first page of newspapers can be considered like technictools with the aim of the presidential choice during the period 2007 and 2012. Secondly, we wanted to find out how media language tools can contribute to be psychological and technic through the representations and appropriation of mediatic messages by students in Education Science during the presidential campaign 2017? On the one hand, we have planned to analyze, compare and interpret network relation between construction and providing of tools language used by the newspapers to present presidential campaigns during two historic periods. On the other hand, a complementary study has allowed us to analyse and interpret the representations and appropriation of mediatic messages by students in Education Science. On the theoretical aspect; we based our research on historical-cultural theory of Vygotski (1985), the concept of artefact (Rabardel, 1995), media education theories, concept of frame (Goffman, 1995), the network-actor theory (2007). On the methodological aspect, we have chosen a qualiquantitative method (with the softwares CHIC, Tropes, Iramuteq), a content (Bardin, 1993) anddiscourse (Maingueneau, 2014) analysis methods of language tools of first page of newspapers. We opted for a cross-cultural approach including statistical implicative analysis, a psychosocio-semio-linguistic, semiological and pragmatic approaches. The corpus have been made up of 239 newspapers editions, 293 pictures of the first coverture of french newspapers (20 Minutes, Métro, Lyon Plus, Le Figaro, Le Monde, et Le Progrès) and 15 interviews collected from students in Education Science. The results show that media language tools can be established as technical tools through the introduction of different mechanisms, natural and social frames of conceptualization, through a hightlighting types of discourse (stative, declarative, narrative and argumentative). Heuristics and pragmatics schemes are mainly requested in 2007 than epistemics schemes which have been reinforced in 2012. The analysis of tools made for the spread of formal and informal mediatic kwnowledges or news aboutpresidential campaigns show that the thought is built and it is developed depending on sociohistorical context with form of actualisation, novelty, and redundancy. The taking into account of social, symbolic, private, conscious, onconscious dimension is involved to the mediatic tools appropriation but also with the practices of students in the construction of their decisions. Theanalysis and the interpretation of the apropriation of mediatic messages by the students in Education Science demonstrate that the consultation and the appropriation of this fulfill more a cognitive, conative than behavioural needs.

The ability to change one's beliefs in a rational manner is one of many facets of the abilities of an intelligent agent. Central to any investigation of belief change is the notion of an epistemic state. This dissertation is mainly concerned with three issues involving epistemic states: 1. How should an epistemic state be represented? 2. How does an agent use an epistemic state to perform belief change? 3. How does an agent arrive at a particular epistemic state? With regard to the first question, note that there are many different methods for constructing belief change operations. We argue that semantic constructions involving ordered pairs, each consisting of a set of beliefs and an ordering on the set of "possible worlds" (or equivalently, on the set of basic independent bits of information) are, in an important sense, more fundamental. Our answer to the second question provides indirect support for the use of semantic structures. We show how well-known belief change operations and related structures can be modelled semantically. Furthermore, we introduce new forms of belief change related operations and structures which are all defined, and motivated, in terms of such semantic representational formalisms. These include a framework for unifying belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning, new versions of entrenchment orderings on beliefs, novel approaches to withdrawal operations, and an expanded view of iterated belief change. The third question is. one which has not received much attention in the belief change literature. We propose to extract extra-logical information from the formal representation of an agent's set of beliefs, which can then be used in the construction of epistemic state. his proposal is just a first approximation, although it seems to have the potential for developing into a full-fledged theory. / Computing / D.Phil.(Computer Science)