Hasil untuk "Epistemology. Theory of knowledge"

J. Spender

Катерина УШКАЛО

The article analyzes the interrelation between the components of mass media (mass information and mass communication) and social networks in the context of their influence on users’ perception and trust in information. The theoretical research focuses on identifying the features of the functioning of the modern media space, where traditional mass media increasingly intertwine with digital technologies, creating new opportunities for content dissemination but also generating new risks. The purpose of the study is to analyze the impact of new media, particularly social networks, on the spread of manipulative content such as fake news, disinformation, and emotional narratives in the national information space of Ukraine. The article emphasizes that the development of digital technologies has significantly changed society’s attitude toward searching for and processing information, especially after the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine. The popularity of social networks compared to other mass media has been analyzed, and the factors contributing to the spread of manipulative information have been identified, including: algorithm-based content promotion, the «echo chamber» effect, the mass use of digital bots, the application of artificial intelligence technologies, the spread of memes and visual narratives, as well as the growing activity of Telegram channels and alternative media platforms following the decline in trust toward traditional media. It is substantiated that despite the gradual decline in trust in social networks, users continue to actively consume news from these sources, valuing their speed, convenience, and the ability to independently select and filter information. Such a trend increases citizens’ vulnerability to informational manipulation, weakens the information resilience of society, and poses security risks to the state. The obtained results provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of public opinion formation in the context of digitalization and highlight the need to enhance critical thinking and media literacy at the national level.

João Pedro Ocanha Krizek

Visões distorcidas da natureza da ciência, que retratam os cientistas como gênios peculiares, neutros e isolados, justificam, em grande medida, tanto o insucesso de uma educação científica adequada, como a resistência à ciência por parte de muitos estudantes. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) é um exemplo dessa representação e o presente artigo busca desconstruí-lo. Com o objetivo de oferecer elementos que tornem os processos de ensino e aprendizagem mais alinhados com uma abordagem realista da natureza da ciência, utilizou-se a sociologia da ciência latouriana para empreender uma análise acerca da inserção de Darwin no fluxo sanguíneo da ciência, valendo-se de fontes históricas primárias e secundárias. Os resultados mostram que Darwin estabeleceu conexões multifacetadas com uma variedade de atores. Eles também destacam as inter-relações e a interdependência entre diferentes circuitos que permearam a trajetória de Darwin – circuitos estes que envolveram não apenas aspectos científicos, como geologia, zoologia e botânica, mas também campos aparentemente distantes, como religião, política e cultura. Ao adotar a perspectiva latouriana sobre a ação conjunta de humanos e não humanos, esta pesquisa fornece material que pode enriquecer estudos em educação científica e a formação de professores.

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Albert Sadowski, Jarosław A. Chudziak

Legal reasoning requires both precise interpretation of statutory language and consistent application of complex rules, presenting significant challenges for AI systems. This paper introduces a modular multi-agent framework that decomposes legal reasoning into distinct knowledge acquisition and application stages. In the first stage, specialized agents extract legal concepts and formalize rules to create verifiable intermediate representations of statutes. The second stage applies this knowledge to specific cases through three steps: analyzing queries to map case facts onto the ontology schema, performing symbolic inference to derive logically entailed conclusions, and generating final answers using a programmatic implementation that operationalizes the ontological knowledge. This bridging of natural language understanding with symbolic reasoning provides explicit and verifiable inspection points, significantly enhancing transparency compared to end-to-end approaches. Evaluation on statutory tax calculation tasks demonstrates substantial improvements, with foundational models achieving 76.4\% accuracy compared to 18.8\% baseline performance, effectively narrowing the performance gap between reasoning and foundational models. These findings suggest that modular architectures with formalized knowledge representations can make sophisticated legal reasoning more accessible through computationally efficient models while enhancing consistency and explainability in AI legal reasoning, establishing a foundation for future research into more transparent, trustworthy, and effective AI systems for legal domain.

Milena Trajanoska, Riste Stojanov, Dimitar Trajanov

Enterprises often maintain multiple databases for storing critical business data in siloed systems, resulting in inefficiencies and challenges with data interoperability. A key to overcoming these challenges lies in integrating disparate data sources, enabling businesses to unlock the full potential of their data. Our work presents a novel approach for integrating multiple databases using knowledge graphs, focusing on the application of large language models as semantic agents for mapping and connecting structured data across systems by leveraging existing vocabularies. The proposed methodology introduces a semantic layer above tables in relational databases, utilizing a system comprising multiple LLM agents that map tables and columns to Schema.org terms. Our approach achieves a mapping accuracy of over 90% in multiple domains.

Matthew Kelly

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have rendered visible the fragility of contemporary knowledge infrastructures by simulating coherence while bypassing traditional modes of citation, authority, and validation. This paper introduces the Situated Epistemic Infrastructures (SEI) framework as a diagnostic tool for analyzing how knowledge becomes authoritative across hybrid human-machine systems under post-coherence conditions. Rather than relying on stable scholarly domains or bounded communities of practice, SEI traces how credibility is mediated across institutional, computational, and temporal arrangements. Integrating insights from infrastructure studies, platform theory, and epistemology, the framework foregrounds coordination over classification, emphasizing the need for anticipatory and adaptive models of epistemic stewardship. The paper contributes to debates on AI governance, knowledge production, and the ethical design of information systems by offering a robust alternative to representationalist models of scholarly communication.

Angjelin Hila

We examine epistemological threats posed by human and LLM interaction. We develop collective epistemology as a theory of epistemic warrant distributed across human collectives, using bounded rationality and dual process theory as background. We distinguish internalist justification, defined as reflective understanding of why a proposition is true, from externalist justification, defined as reliable transmission of truths. Both are necessary for collective rationality, but only internalist justification produces reflective knowledge. We specify reflective knowledge as follows: agents understand the evaluative basis of a claim, when that basis is unavailable agents consistently assess the reliability of truth sources, and agents have a duty to apply these standards within their domains of competence. We argue that LLMs approximate externalist reliabilism because they can reliably transmit information whose justificatory basis is established elsewhere, but they do not themselves possess reflective justification. Widespread outsourcing of reflective work to reliable LLM outputs can weaken reflective standards of justification, disincentivize comprehension, and reduce agents' capacity to meet professional and civic epistemic duties. To mitigate these risks, we propose a three tier norm program that includes an epistemic interaction model for individual use, institutional and organizational frameworks that seed and enforce norms for epistemically optimal outcomes, and deontic constraints at organizational and or legislative levels that instantiate discursive norms and curb epistemic vices.

R. Vivas-Reyes

In this contribution, the role of epistemology in understanding quantum chemistry is discussed. Quantum chemistry is the study of the behavior of atoms and molecules using the principles of quantum mechanics. Epistemology helps us evaluate claims to knowledge, distinguish between justified and unjustified beliefs, and assess the reliability of scientific methods. In quantum chemistry, the epistemology of knowledge is heavily influenced by the mathematical nature of quantum mechanics, and models can be tested, proven, and validated through experimentation. This paper also discusses key concepts used in quantum chemistry, such as the wave-particle duality of matter and the uncertainty principle. This work utilizes Kant’s philosophy of science to frame debates and discussions in quantum chemistry, particularly with regard to the interplay between empirical observation and theory. Additionally, the text explores how Kant’s ideas about the role of the mind in constructing our understanding of the world can help us comprehend the counterintuitive phenomena of quantum mechanics and its applications in quantum chemistry theory.

Микола БОГАЧЕНКО

The study aims to analyze the political mechanisms essential for the effective realization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the local government framework. The research employs a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses to evaluate the interaction between local self-government bodies (LSGs) and businesses, improving investment resources, and directing investment capital towards human resources. The study reveals that the peculiarities of implementing SDGs in Ukraine involve ensuring the stabilizing and distributive functions of the state, which contribute to stimulating economic growth and efficient resource allocation. A new paradigm of local self-government is proposed, characterized by minimal state intervention in regional economies. The results highlight the importance of decentralization and the empowerment of local authorities, aiming to enhance the efficiency and responsiveness of local governance. The study identifies that fostering closer collaboration between local governments and businesses creates a conducive environment for economic development and innovation. Human capital development, through directing investment capital towards education, training, and skill development, is found to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the local workforce, attracting more investment and creating new job opportunities. The research underscores the significance of international cooperation in achieving SDGs, encouraging local enterprises to engage in international projects and partnerships to leverage global expertise and resources. Innovative financing mechanisms, including public-private partnerships and impact investing, are proposed to support local development initiatives, aiming to reduce dependency on state budgets and enhance financial sustainability. Theoretical implications suggest that the proposed model can be applied to other regions with similar economic and governance structures. Practically, the study offers actionable insights for policymakers and local governments to design strategies for sustainable local development. The originality of the research lies in its comprehensive approach, integrating political, economic, and social dimensions of sustainable development at the local level. Further research should explore the long-term impacts of these mechanisms and address potential limitations related to varying regional contexts. This empirical study provides a foundation for future studies on sustainable development in local governance.

Luana Beatriz Xavier Nunes

William Harvey (1578-1656) apresentou a doutrina da circulação do sangue em 1628, em sua obra De motu cordis, considerada seu trabalho mais importante. O tratado foi resultado de nove anos de observações e demonstrações anatômicas de animais e humanos e causou grande impacto entre médicos, filósofos e anatomistas do período, gerando diversos comentários e refutações, principalmente porque as ideias de Harvey sobre a circulação implicavam a quebra de autoridade e do conhecimento tradicional que era aceito na época. Entretanto, a doutrina da circulação do sangue foi resultado de um conhecimento construído desde a Antiguidade até o início do século XVII e apesar de a obra de Harvey ser considerada um marco na mudança do pensamento fisiológico e anatômico e devido a seu estilo de pensamento lógico e sua firmeza em refutar ideias de seus antecessores, é inegável a contribuição de seus antecessores na construção do conhecimento sobre a circulação sanguínea. Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar alguns dos pressupostos que constituíram a tradição médica do período e como essas contribuições influenciaram Harvey, seu método e suas conclusões a respeito da anatomia cardiovascular, movimentos do coração e movimento do sangue em sistema fechado.

Taha Sochi

This is the first of a series of papers that we intend to publish about the epistemology of fundamental physics in its current state. One of the main objectives of these papers is to improve our understanding of fundamental physics (and modern physics in particular) from an epistemological and interpretative perspective (i.e. versus formal perspective). Another main objective is to investigate and assess the merit of searching for a unified physical theory (the so-called ``theory of everything'') considering the fact that contemporary physics is a collection of theories created and developed by different individuals and groups of scientists in different eras of history reflecting different levels of scientific, philosophical and epistemological development and dealing with largely separate physical phenomena and hence such unification may mean ``stitching together'' an inhomogeneous collection of theoretical structures which may be clumsy (if not impossible) at least from an epistemological viewpoint.

Max Carter

The unitary representation theory of locally compact contraction groups and their semi-direct products with $\mathbb{Z}$ is studied. We put forward the problem of completely characterising such groups which are type I or CCR and this article provides a stepping stone towards a solution to this problem. In particular, we determine new examples of type I and non-type-I groups in this class, and we completely classify the irreducible unitary representations of the torsion-free groups, which are shown to be type I. When these groups are totally disconnected, they admit a faithful action by automorphisms on an infinite locally-finite regular tree; this work thus provides new examples of automorphism groups of regular trees with interesting representation theory, adding to recent work on this topic.

Igor V. Nikolaev

We study a relation between the Drinfeld modules and the even dimensional noncommutative tori. A non-abelian class field theory is developed based on this relation. Explicit generators of the Galois extensions are constructed.

Paolo Pepe

A hundred years separate two of the most successful masterpieces of English Gothic Fiction: The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis and Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. The significance of this circumstance goes beyond the mere chronological coincidence and is revealing of a close connection linking the two texts. Such a connection, made up of a network of allusions, echoes, anticipations and cross-references, derives from a specific set of narrative situations that The Monk presents and Dracula redefines in order to reflect new and different axiologies. These situations are centred on the motif of the Sleeping Beauty and its variations, a narrative topos whose morbid connotations both novels emphasize in a typically Gothic manner. The analysis of the ways in which Lewis and Stoker develop this motif sheds light on the dialectical relationship connecting the two texts, and, with specific reference to Dracula, provides a new interpretative perspective based on a metaliterary reading of Stoker’s novel, of the dark desires and evil pleasures it evokes one hundred years after Lewis’s The Monk.

C. Bratianu, Ruxandra Bejinaru

The emergence of knowledge economy and knowledge management revealed the need for reconsidering the concept of knowledge in a larger framework than that created by philosophers from ancient times. While the epistemology as a theory of knowledge and justification considers knowledge as a justified true belief, experts in knowledge management consider knowledge as a strategic resource. The new economic interpretation of knowledge as a strategic resource and a key contributor to achieving a competitive advantage generated a search of new metaphors to supply the attributes needed in constructing the new framework of understanding and operating with a working concept of knowledge in management. The most widespread knowledge metaphors are based on analogies with stocks, flows, and stock-and-flows. These metaphors induce, beyond some useful attributes, the Newtonian mechanics paradigm which is limited by the properties of linear spaces and reversible processes. The purpose of this paper is to show how we can enrich the theory of knowledge by introducing the concepts of knowledge fields and knowledge dynamics based on metaphorical thinking and the thermodynamics principles. The focus of our research is the energy metaphor which considers energy as a source semantic field. The main outcome of the present research is that knowledge can be considered as a field, which is manifesting in different forms like energy. This thermodynamics framework opens new directions for research in knowledge management, decision-making and leadership.

Pieter Vermeulen

What, if anything, can literature and critical theory contribute to our understanding of dementia? Their contribution to insight into disease and illness has customarily taken place under the rubric of the medical humanities, as that interdisciplinary field has gained institutional visibility since the beginning of the new millennium. In the so-called first wave of the medical humanities (Whitehead and Woods 2016, 1), literature participated in a fairly strict division of labour: while the biomedical sciences provided scientific knowledge, literature figured as a purveyor of affect – as a conduit of feeling that humanises the encounter between the biomedical apparatus and ill bodies and minds. In offering ethical considerations, educational perspectives and personal accounts of illness experience (3), literature functioned less as an independent source of knowledge than as a corrective to the dehumanising drift of science. This relation of complementarity informed two distinct roles for humanities scholarship: either it served as a “positive, pliant and benevolent” helpmate of medicine, or it did duty as its “antagonistic, noisy and opinionated” bad conscience (Viney et al. 2015, 3; similarly Maginess 2017, 6). Arguably, this bifurcation between antagonistic and conciliatory roles precludes a truly interdisciplinary encounter between literature, critical theory and biomedicine. A recent wave of critical medical humanities scholarship has called for a more “robust commitment to new forms of interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration” (Viney et al. 2015, 2). In this new dispensation, the humanities would no longer only supply experience, education and empathy but would recognise that encounters with illness are often marked by negative affects – by “affective distance, and even a lack of care” (Whitehead and Woods 2016, 5). A critical medical humanities would continue to honour “a tradition of antagonistic thinking” (8), but it would mobilise critical ideas for constructive purposes: while “sensitive to imbalances of power, implicit and explicit,” such a critical medical humanities would include “activist, skeptical, urgent and capacious modes of making and re-making medicine [. . .] and hence [medicine’s] ability to transform, for good and ill, the health and well-being of individuals and society” (Viney et al. 2015, 3). The emphasis, in this critical or second-wave medical humanities, is

V. Lobovikov

The research purpose is invention (construction) of a formal logical inference of the Law of Conservation of Energy within a logically formalized axiomatic epistemology-and-axiology theory Sigma from a precisely defined assumption of a-priori-ness of knowledge. For realizing this aim, the following work has been done: 1) a two-valued algebraic system of formal axiology has been defined precisely and applied to proper-philosophy of physics, namely, to an almost unknown (not-recognized) formal-axiological aspect of the physical law of conservation of energy; 2) the formal axiomatic epistemology-and-axiology theory Sigma has been defined precisely and applied to proper-physics for realizing the above-indicated purpose. Thus, a discrete mathematical model of relationship between philosophy of physics and universal epistemology united with formal axiology has been constructed. Results: 1) By accurate computing relevant compositions of evaluation-functions within the discrete mathematical model, it is demonstrated that a formal-axiological analog of the great conservation law of proper physics is a formal-axiological law of two-valued algebra of metaphysics. (A precise algorithmic definition of the unhabitual (not-well-known) notion “formal-axiological law of algebra of me-taphysics” is given.) 2) The hitherto never published significantly new nontrivial scientific result of investigation presented in this article is a formal logical inference of the law of conservation of energy within the formal axiomatic theory Sigma from conjunction of the formal-axiological analog of the law of conservation of energy and the assumption of a-priori-ness of knowledge.

A. K. M. Skarpelis

SANTOEMMA, ILARIA

My Mother was a… Cyborg. New technologies and Hybrid Subjectivities This paper starts from the current querelle regarding the ethical and ontological status of techno-assemblages and embodied subjectivities. Critical aspects of New Technologies have been raised in a fertile debate from different perspectives, above all concerning the cutting-edge fields of life sciences and genetics. From this debate emerges how NT potentiality could act as a device to improve, enhance and exploit the embodied subject. Some of these critics lead to a dualistic understanding of the body, conceived as either natural or artificial. To overcome this dichotomy which polarize the debate, the hereby proposed essay assumes the notion of hybrid subjectivity as a category from which a deeper reflection may set off. Aiming at critically recognizing the multiple relations that the contemporary techno-hybrid subject experiences, the paper will examine different shades and declinations of the hybrid subjectivity, following the two categories of “uncanny” and “enhancement”. The argumentative process will therefore present two ongoing research lines addressing the topics of hybrid subjectivity, also known as the Cyborg: Feminist Critical Posthumanism and Transhumanism. It will be considered how these brunches of thought are respectively connected to A)a teratological idea of the Cyborg and B)an enhanced sight of the artificial hybridization and, consequently, how the two have a different conception of the subjectivity and of technology’s ontological status. The thesis is that the resulting difference could inform the debate on NT by considering the latter a contingence and not the only feature of today’s hybrid forms of life.