Program
10.00 - 10.10 – Introduction
10.15 - 10. 45 - Signy Grape. «Er vi planteblinde? Et fagretorisk program for økoretorikk»
10.50 - 11.20 - Jon Carlstedt. “A web of metaphors. The Oslonett actors' translation of knowledge about internet and the web from research to infotainment, 1991-95”.
11.25 - 11.55 - Philippe Stamenkovic. “Lessons from the observation of the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate”
12.00 - 12.30 - Pål Stokholm. “Artificial beliefs”
12.35 – 13.05 – lunch break
13.10 - 13.40 - Martin Mogseth. “Conceiving Ontology: Donor Conception and the Reality of Genetic Heredity”
13.45 - 14.15 - Yael Friedman - “Holistic Medicine - A systematic philosophical approach”
14.20 - 14.50 - Johan Marius Nærøy - “Precariously bipolar? - Negotiating pathology in the “psy” infrastructures of Norwegian healthcare”
List of abstracts
Jon Carlstedt - “A web of metaphors. The Oslonett actors' translation of knowledge about internet and the web from research to infotainment, 1991-95”. Contrasting explanations that the prevalence of internet during the 1990s was a commercialisation of researchers’ network-based infrastructure, this study argue that the changes can be explained as a popularisation of networked media, and a socio-cultural migration of knowledge about the use of computed network communications. Through a qualitative study of actors in the pioneering internet access providing company Oslonett, the study maps how researchers circulated knowledge from academic institutions to a wide range of inexperienced users, actively using metaphors and analogies to explain the potential of the World Wide Web. Through this use of metaphors, the Oslonett entrepreneurs contributed to a social process where internet and the web was constructed in the public as a meaningful communication technology.
Yael Friedman. “Holistic Medicine —A systematic philosophical approach”. In this talk, I propose a systematic analysis of holistic medicine taken from a philosophical perspective on medical practice today. I differentiate between three streams of holistic medicine: mind-body medicine, anti-oppressive medicine, and plural medicine. The analysis focus on the new stream of plural medicine. Using the biopsychosocial model as an analytical tool, I show how recent theoretical contributions in biology and developments in medical technology require an epistemological change that blurs the sharp traditional dichotomy between holism and reductionism.
Signy Grape. «Er vi planteblinde? Et fagretorisk program for økoretorikk. Spredning av invaderende arter er en av de største truslene mot naturen. I motsetning til det abstrakte fenomenet klimaendringer, er invaderende arter noe vi kan observere i nærmeste veikant. Likevel kan man påstå at oppmerksomheten om dette ikke samsvarer med problemet. Er det fordi vi er planteblinde?
«Planteblindhet» kan vise til det å ikke kunne artsdefinere planter, men kan også forstås mer filosofisk som en måte å forklare noe av distansen vi har til naturen. Skal vi løse både klima- og naturkrisa, må vi begynne med en dyp erkjennelse om hvilket problem vi står overfor og ta et oppgjør med dette natursynet.
Oppgaven vil være en normativ, delvis anvendt, teoretisk oppgave, som søker å utvikle noen prinsipper for et fagretorisk program for det jeg velger å kalle økoretorikk. «Øko» viser her både til å se klima og miljø under ett som økosystemer; og til å ta utgangspunkt i et økosentrisk fremfor et antroposentrisk verdensbilde. Jeg vil deretter si noe overordnet om hvordan denne økoretorikken kan fremstå i et illustrerende eksempel – «pøbelgran» på Vestlandet.
Martin Mogseth. “Conceiving Ontology: Donor Conception and the Reality of Genetic Heredity”. What can we learn about reality by taking people’s ideas about genetic relatedness seriously? Breakthroughs in genetic science, particularly those shedding light on what is genetically inherited, pose fundamental challenges to many social sciences. Social anthropology, moreover, is deeply concerned with reality: what is true, what is real – for the people we study, certainly, but also – what are the causal mechanisms that originate and constitute epistemic agential space? In approaching some of these problems, this project will explore the ontological implications of Californian ideas about genetic relatedness and of opinions on Californian donor conception praxis. The project is concerned with both expert and non-expert ideas about genetic relatedness and heredity, and the central issue of (not) having access to information about one’s genetic relatives, and what this information may “contain”. The ideas explored will be compared to the Californian
fertility industry’s current praxis of donor conception, including number of donations per donor, eligibility for donating, and donor anonymity. The exploration of various persons’ ideas of genetic relatedness and regulation begs a fundamental question: what are the ontological dimensions of genetic relatedness, and how do anthropologists relate to these dimensions?
Johan Marius Nærøy. “Precariously bipolar? - Negotiating pathology in the “psy” infrastructures of Norwegian healthcare”. An ethnographic project on getting to grips with ‘the bipolar’ - among those who, in various ways, live and work with the condition.
If the biomedical model of disease gives meaning to its diagnoses as discrete ‘things’ or processes in the body, where and how does one locate disease in life at large? What can people’s day-to-day demarcation/management of pathology tell us about our psychiatric forms of “knowing” and the processes of healing these are meant to facilitate?
I present a brief introduction to the project at large and share with you the work I’ve done with one of my participants.
Philippe Stamenkovic. “Lessons from the observation of the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate”. In this talk, I will first introduce the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate (CCC) and the interdisciplinary research collaboration allowed to observe it. I will then present the empirical work I have undertaken during several sessions of the CCC, namely direct participant observation and design of questionnaires submitted to them. I will then summarize the analytical work I have performed on the basis of this material: the co-writing of a collective article (Giraudet et al., “Co- construction” in Deliberative Democracy? Lessons from the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate”, submitted) and two individual presentations (“Experts 'on tap' or 'on top'? Some observations and recommendations based on the Citizen Convention for Climate”; and “A Citizens’ Assembly on the use of Digital Technology. Insights from the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate”). I will conclude with the (negative) lessons I have learned from this empirical work, namely the difficulty to gather empirical material without predefined research questions, and the difficult storage and sharing of data between competing researchers.
Pål Stokholm - “Artificial Intelligence”. For a subject (“S”) to know proposition (“p”) based on the output of AI; what conditions are necessary and/or sufficient for us to say that “S” knows “p”? I argue that these conditions change depending on the degree of opacity and autonomy of the AI, measured on a scale of the system's total complexity. Following this line of reasoning, I propose four basic ways of justifying output from AI that are relative to the system's degree of opacity, autonomy and complexity.