Is Consumer Culture Theory research or realpolitik? A sociology of knowledge analysis of a scientific culture

When Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) was introduced by Arnould and Thompson ( 2005 ) it was part of a strategy to create legitimacy for interpretive research. It was argued that interpretive researchers needed to be more pragmatic in their attitude. This was a fundamental change in the scientific culture in this stream of research. This paper analyses these changes and studies how CCT represents a new and pragmatic attitude. It is shown how the changes intended by CCT can imply a shift from a focus on new groundbreaking research to an awareness of the consequences of realpolitik. This strategic move can be seen as an example of how scientific cultures try to move from a marginal position to the mainstream. The consequences of this attempt to manage science are analysed, and solutions to problems created by these changes are developed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visual statistical learning produces implicit and explicit knowledge about temporal order information and scene chunks: Evidence from direct and indirect measures

We examined whether visual statistical learning (VSL) produced implicit and/or explicit knowledge about temporal order information and scene chunks, using a rapid serial visual presentation target detection task and a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) familiarity test as indirect and direct measures of VSL, respectively. In the familiarization phase, participants viewed a visual stream of natural scenes consisting of four triplets (i.e., three images that always appeared in the same order). In the subsequent target detection task, participants were required to detect target items embedded in a stream of 12 images or 12 words representing each natural scene. In the final 2AFC familiarity test, participants observed two test sequences (statistically related triplets vs. unrelated foils) and decided whether the first or second sequence was more familiar based on the familiarization phase. In both test phases, we included the same (forward) and reverse (backward) order of scenes as presented during the familiarization phase to examine whether the expression of VSL was based on temporal order of scenes or scene chunks. The results of the target detection task showed a learning effect for both temporal order in the forward condition and chunks in the backward condition, irrespective of whether stimuli were images or words; in contrast, we did not observe a learning effect in the backward condition for scene images in the familiarity test. Our findings are compatible with a learning mechanism that has both implicit and explicit components based on temporal order information and scene chunks.     

EAST ASIA AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE—A PERSONAL QUEST

This essay is a reflection on the ways we understand East Asia, as well as how East Asia is related to our knowledge construction. In spite of the personal tone, which I use strategically to formulate arguments in a carefully designed narrative flow, the article remains critical throughout and its conclusion is clear: exploration of the essence of East Asian civilization can constitute a meaningful effort to reevaluate and even restructure our current world of knowledge.     

汉语儿童语素意识与词汇知识的双向关系:一项追踪研究

以399名小学一、三、五年级学生为被试,进行为期一年的追踪研究,通过分层回归,系统考察了汉语儿童同音、同形和复合三类语素意识与词汇知识的双向关系。结果发现:(1)儿童语素意识和词汇知识随时间均有显著增长;(2)控制词汇知识的自回归效应后,一年级儿童的同音和复合语素意识对其二年级的词汇知识、三年级儿童的复合语素意识对其四年级的词汇知识、五年级儿童的同形和复合语素意识对其六年级的词汇知识有显著的预测作用;(3)分别控制三类语素意识的自回归效应后,一年级和五年级儿童的词汇知识可以显著预测其二年级和六年级的三类语素意识,三年级儿童的词汇知识对其四年级的同形和复合语素意识有显著预测作用。结果表明汉语儿童语素意识与词汇知识存在双向关系,且不同类型的语素意识与词汇知识的关系随年级的升高呈现规律性的变化。     

The ‘Two Worlds’ Theory in the Phaedo

At least in some dialogues, Plato has been thought to hold the so-called Two Worlds Theory (TW), according to which there can be belief but not knowledge about sensibles, and knowledge but not belief about forms. The Phaedo is one such dialogue. In this paper, I explore some key passages that might be thought to support TW, and ask whether they in fact do so. I also consider the related issue of whether the Phaedo argues that, if knowledge is possible at all, we can have it only when discarnate.     

Luis de Molina's ‘middle knowledge’: Thomas Stapleton's ‘antidote’ to John Calvin†

The Bible commentator, Thomas Stapleton (1535–98), an English Catholic exile in Leuven and Douai, played a vital role in the ‘golden age of biblical scholarship’ (1550–1650). His Antidota (1595) aimed at giving the ‘correct’ interpretation of the Bible in response to the ‘poisoned’ commentaries of Calvin and others. This battle for the ‘true’ faith also involved Stapleton in internal Catholic debates, especially the de auxiliis controversy pitting Jesuit theologians insisting on human free will against their more Augustinian-inclined peers emphasizing God's grace. While previous scholarship placed Stapleton within the latter camp because of his extensive citation of Augustine, this paper intends to establish that Stapleton actually belonged to the first group and that his orientation was not to Augustine, rather the Spanish Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina (1535–1600). Through an analysis of Stapleton's Antidota, and specifically his commentary on Matthew 11:21, this paper demonstrates Stapleton's dependence on Molina's so-called theory of ‘middle knowledge’.     

From Logos to Pathos in Social Psychology and Academic Argumentation: Reconciling Postmodernism and Positivism in a Sociology of Persuasion

This paper argues that one can empirically test, via positivist methods, the post-modern attack on positivist epistemologies: Postmodern perspectives hold Knowledge and Truth to be intersubjective, consensus-driven social constructions. But traditional scientific approaches to knowledge, exemplified here by the cognitive social psychology of persuasion, seem oblivious to this and continue to detach the study of attitudes, beliefs, and emotions from that of knowledge, facts, and reason. Abandoning these artificial distinctions in both epistemology and method would enable this social psychology, reconstituted as a Sociology of Persuasion, to contribute greatly to illuminating the processes of Truth and Knowledge construction in social interaction. Moreover, this would facilitate academic engagement in civic discourse.     

Individuation and paideia

This article attempts to discover an important historical precedent for the concept of individuation in the idea of paideia , which today, mistakenly, is often understood to have been simply the form of 'education' practised in ancient Greece. Paideia , however, was not limited to the instruction of youth and was based on no fixed programmes. It was conceived as continuing throughout the life of the individual, and as a development of natural, in-born potential. Paideia articulated a notion of 'inner culture', or cultura animi , which has since receded from Western civilization, with its anti-psychological emphasis on progress, specialization and extra-version, and with its notion that a civilization's 'culture' is primarily defined by its social structures and material tools. Present-day interest in the Jungian concept of individuation can thus be seen as a return of the repressed. An analysis of the Telemachy - the opening cantos of the Odyssey - in which Odysseus' son, Telemachus, accomplishes his passage to adulthood, reveals the need for the realization of natural potential to be an innate and archetypal ideal. Homeric poetry is then seen to have furnished a unified canon for the whole human being, whereas the subsequent course of European civilization, starting with the Greek Sophists and an ever more specialized notion of philosophy, is seen to have fostered a unilateral mode of maturation. It is argued that nostalgia for paideia indirectly reasserts itself through the widespread cultural interest in the idea of individuation.     

A Completeness Proof for a Logic with an Alternative Necessity Operator

We show the completeness of a Hilbert-style system LK defined by M. Valiev involving the knowledge operator K dedicated to the reasoning with incomplete information. The completeness proof uses a variant of Makinson's canonical model construction. Furthermore we prove that the theoremhood problem for LK is co-NP-complete, using techniques similar to those used to prove that the satisfiability problem for propositional S5 is NP-complete.