Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The aim of this article is to develop a concept of knowledge that is both philosophically transparent and empirically helpful for understanding basic structures of the knowledge society. The author uses a pragmatic epistemology for this purpose. Whereas the classical philosophical definition of knowledge as “justified true belief” offers no sufficient explanation of how belief is socially structured and why truth actually matters, social theory and distinctions that it permits between knowledge and information help in the elaboration of an alternative approach. If information is understood as difference (in signaling patterns) that makes a difference (for practical operations), then knowledge can be defined as the organized structure that provides constant access to such information. An important consequence of such a definition is that it facilitates recognition and continued investigation of the problematic spatial dispersion of knowledge (in minds, skills, libraries, organizations, and technical information-processing systems).

The main thesis of this chapter is that children do not learn single new words but rather new words that belong to the same domain. For example, once they learn a word for a color, other color words will be learned soon after. The chapter presents a model of such domain-oriented language learning. Conceptual spaces are used as a framework for modeling the semantic processes involved in language acquisition. The author illustrates the model with some of the semantic domains that a child acquires during the first formative years of life. Linguistic data is also presented in support of the hypothesis that semantics knowledge is organized into domains.

This chapter investigates the relationship between physical space and processes of creative thinking and action. The authors build on organizational and sociological literature about social space and aesthetics, then illustrate how the latter two aspects influenced each other in five action experiments. Small mixed groups explored how they would use a studio to facilitate social innovation and to strengthen the link between the Max Stern Jezreel Valley College in Israel and the surrounding communities. Analysis of the video recordings identified seven configurations of social space that changed over time as the participants engaged in the task. The authors suggest that the undifferentiated and unencrusted nature of the space was both a source of uncertainty and potential for the participants. Some groups generated more innovative processes and products than others. The study also offers insights into the importance of embodied action and verbal discourse in innovative processes.

The relationship between rationality and action in the domain of space is closely related to the prototypical human action in space, namely, walking. This contribution from social anthropology looks at the prime cognitive challenge in this context: human practical reasoning about movement, the decision to go or to stay. Based on ethnographic work with various groups of mobile hunters and gatherers in southern Africa and Australia, the chapter presents an investigation of rationality and action in terms of human mobility in space. It begins with a critical assessment of probabilistic rational choice models of mobility and decision-making and suggests that more promising approaches are informed by work on the pragmatics of dialogues and on abductive reasoning. Rationality in that view is no longer a purely mental phenomenon, for it is distributed across social practice and is partially contained in features of the environment that western philosophy has long dismissed as irrelevant for understanding human rationality.

Starting from the assumption that both personal resources and environmental conditions can affect an individual’s desired mobility, this chapter focuses on long-term stability and change in major aspects of out-of-home mobility. It explores the subjective meaning of mobility over time, perceived changes in mobility and perceived reasons for change, the course of satisfaction in various mobility domains and with life in general, and interindividual variation. The authors take a qualitative-quantitative approach to analyzing data gathered from 82 participants at three points over 10 years (1995, 2000, 2005; mean age at T3: 75.2 years). Results reveal stability in the meaning imposed on mobility between 1995 and 2005, while perceived changes point to major loss of mobility and decreasing satisfaction with mobility possibilities, out-of-home leisure activities, and travel. Satisfaction with public transport increased. Case analyses contrasting trajectories of satisfaction ratings with a qualitative view of perceived changes in various life domains underscore the pronounced and explicable variation in the dynamics of long-term mobility as people age. The findings confirm that out-of-home mobility remains crucial when people move from late midlife onto old age.