tisdag 27 oktober 2015

Theme 1-6: Comments

Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science
1.      Hi,
During the seminar I attended a discussion was made on the differences between Kant’s and Plato’s view on objectivity in knowledge. (I came to think of it when I read about what you had discussed about the metaphor of God’s point of view and the conception of scientific knowledge.)
In that discussion it was said that Kant means that we cannot ignore our senses when we try to develop knowledge. However Plato means that we are able to find a way to not let our senses be a part of the knowledge we develop and that we should strive for that objectivity.
I like that you both mention the different terms you have learnt and also show that you have learnt them by having explanations and/or examples for them.

2.      I think that you have asked an interesting question with “is a priori = an analytical judgement?”
To add to earlier comment I have an example:
During a lecture these words were discussed. And as far as I understand they mean the same thing, even though they are two different ways of saying the same thing. An example that was mentioned was:
“There are pupils in this class” = analytical judgement.
“There are 39 pupils in the class” = synthetic judgement.
An analytical judgement means that what is being stated does not need for someone to see if the statement is true. As in “there are pupils in this class”, because the word “class” is a word that in itself means “a group of pupils”. So we know without double checking that it is true that there are pupils in a class.
A synthetic judgement means that we can only know that the statement is true by experiencing/testing. To know if the statement “there are 39 pupils in the class” is true we have to calculate the pupils in the room to see if the statement is true.
Now I believe that to say “to have knowledge a priori” means the same as the knowledge being an analytical judgement. We do not have to have experience to know a priori to be true.
To say that a knowledge is “a posteriori” means that it is a knowledge that requires experience before we know the knowledge to be true. It is therefore equal to a synthetic judgement.
I hope I did not misunderstand your question!

3.      Great summary and I also think that it can be difficult to understand the different concepts at times.
I agree with you that it is a whole new way of approaching a question, to sit and discuss it without really having a clear answer in the end. In the seminar I attended we entered the topic of “is a table actually a table?” And that discussion ended with “it is, because the majority can accept the concept of the object being a table. But some might not agree on that concept and perceive the object as something else”.
To add to the comment on getting to know what you thought before and after the seminar: Seeing that you mention different concepts that you have discussed I think that it would be interesting to read what you learned about the concepts from those discussions :).

4.      I do not think you are alone about feeling that the texts are confusing (at least I felt the same way). Sounds like a good thing to mark words and concepts in the texts while reading them!
I think that maybe you can use some examples or further explanations about your thoughts in your blog posts? It seems like you have thoughts about the different concepts in the texts, and it would be interesting to read what they are :).
I have a question about where you wrote:
“Things like analytic judgement, where you will know after investigating something (aposteriori knowledge), sounded quite intriguing.”
Do you mean that an analytic judgement = aposteriori knowledge?
I might be mistaken but I interpreted it to be that:
Analytic judgement = a priori knowledge
And
Synthetic judgement = aposteriori knowledge

5.      Your reflective text is easy to follow and I too found that I felt like I got a deeper understanding of the texts after the seminars and the lectures.
I also think that when you say that you tried to “simplify something very complex” you are not alone! These texts share some complex thoughts on knowledge and how we perceive things, and it is hard to understand it all at once.
However I liked the fact that you tried to “simplify” things in your first blog post in terms of you writing examples on how you understood the texts. They made it easier to understand how you interpreted the texts.

6.      I think that both of your blog posts are well written and I think that your first blog post showed that you understood Kant’s and Plato’s texts really well! I did not think of reading study guides or text analysis, but they seem to help give a good understanding of the texts.
I found it interesting that you mention that you think that you after the seminar and lecture no longer agree with your previous answers to the questions. (I felt the same way about my own blog post)
It would be interesting to read how your answers differ now compared to the answers in your earlier blog post.

7.      Did you discuss Plato’s text in the seminar? Did you learn anything new about Plato’s ideas concerning knowledge and perception after your first blog post?
Side note: In your first blog post you switch between using quotation marks and colon when you quote a person, the quotation marks made it easier to read. (I am referring to the sentence that starts with “What he says is: since metaphysics hasn’t been able to enter upon…”)
I did not think of reading the texts referred to in our texts. That sounds like a good way to understand their thoughts better!

8.      I like your blog design and the fact that your reflection is easy to follow. It sounds like you had an interesting example to explain a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Before reading your blog post I had only heard explanations in the form of “bachelors” and “pupils”. It would have been interesting to hear how the discussion about “E.T.” and a “rabbit” discussion went and how it helped you in order to understand the two concepts :).

9.      I like the fact that you use the terms presented in the texts when you are discussing the answers to the questions.
I think it would be interesting to read some more about what you feel that you have learned or what concept you think of differently after the seminar and lecture. It would also be interesting to hear some examples of what you discussed during the seminar :).

10.   I think that both of your blog posts had very well explained thoughts in them and were easy to follow. I think that you did a great job on giving examples and explaining the concepts a priori and posteriori knowledge. And in your first blog post I think that your method to do research on what Kant opposes to in order to get a better understanding of his ideas is really interesting.

Theme 2: Critical media studies
1.      I think your reflection really captured what we have talked about in seminars and what has been presented during the lecture. I like your explanation of why Adorno & Horkheimer thought of nominalism as something that could be used in a negative manner in movies. I also like that you have written a clear distinction of how Adorno & Horkheimer think that media can affect people versus how Benjamin think that media could affect people.
I think that you have understood the terms we have discussed and I think that your last part was very interesting, and would have liked to read more and maybe have gotten some examples of what you mean by us thinking freely by conceptualising what we see.

2.      I find your text very easy to follow and you are good at summarizing what you have learnt. I find the last part of your reflection interesting. Especially where you write that media “takes away people’s ambition for change. Just as enlightenment, media fails to question the world. “
I find the discussion about mass media and media in these seminars interesting, because I am curious as to what kind of media we sometimes are discussing. My thought is that media in the form of cinema and media in the form of news are different ways of talking about media. With that in mind, maybe media in some cases is able to raise awareness by mirroring a current situation, and thereby encourage a change?

3.      I really like your explanation of Platonic realism, it explains the concept well and is easy to understand. I think it shows that you have a good understanding of it.
I think that the examples with the paintings in the Swedish university are interesting, and it would have been interesting to hear more about what you think the connection between them and historically influenced perception is:).

4.      I agree that it is interesting how time and perception are connected in a sense. I like that you elaborated your thoughts on time and perception with your own example, and not only with examples from the lecture.
Do you mean that:
A nominalist would not question the chair. It is a chair, it stands there and it looks a certain way and that is it.
The realist, however, would look at it as a perception of a chair. It is “not only” a chair to a realist, it is our perception that tells us that it is a chair. There is more to it than we perceive?
If you do, then I think I understood what you meant by the example with the chair.

5.      It seems like you had an interesting seminar with an interesting discussion on mass media. I agree that naturally and historically determined perception are interesting concepts!
I think your overall discussion and thoughts about historically determined perception is easy to follow and interesting to read.
Sometimes I feel that you do not follow through with explaining your thoughts and the structure of the reflection becomes a bit unclear. However you should follow your thoughts through, they are interesting to read :)! For example in the beginning where you mention eight questions that helped you understand clearly. What were the questions? What did they help you understand?

Theme 3: Research and theory
1.      Hi,
I like your discussion on truth and that you connect it with what we have learnt earlier in the course. I think that you have given an interesting perspective on how we develop theories by comparing this to the earlier discussions on how we develop knowledge.
To add to your discussion on having old theories and making new once, there is also the situations where the new theories replaces the old ones, which the term “paradigm shift” refers to.

2.      Hi,
I think that your reflection was very interesting to read. We also discussed if there are any “absolute truths” during the seminar I attended. I feel like my thoughts on it are similar to what you have written. We will never be absolutely sure that we have found a theory that is true. In other words even if we were to develop a theory that is true we will not have a way of being absolutely certain of it being so. Furthermore I was intrigued by your discussion on that there are no theories that are not built upon other theories. It made me think: “what theory was the first theory that humans developed?”
Interesting discussions and interesting read!

3.      Hi,
I found your post interesting in terms of understanding difference in the term theory itself. I think that your discussion on which concept of theory, philosophical theory or scientific theory, is the more objective one is really interesting. I think that it all depends on what one means by “objective”. If objective would mean that the theory should not be able to be further developed or questioned I do not think that either concept of theory could live up to that.
Interesting discussion with interesting perspectives!

4.      Hi,
I like that you have taken what was said during the lecture and compared it to what you found during your discussions at the seminar. The discussion you had during the seminar on snow on trees reminded me of a discussion of perception knowledge that was held during another seminar that I attended. There it was said that “a table is considered being a table because enough people are willing to except the concept of the object being a table”. We were discussing why perception in some cases were considered knowledge. I think that both theories and knowledge have in common that they require for people to accept them in order to be considered more or less true.
Interesting summary and reflection of what you discussed!

5.      Hi,
I think that your reflection is well structured and you also present your thoughts well. Interesting discussion on the contradiction between the two authors. At first I interpreted Suttan and Staw to mean that one has to explain or motivate why the diagrams or figures are relevant for the theory and not only present them, which would mean that their statement not necessarily contradicts Gregor’s statement.
During my seminar we discussed the reason behind the question “What is man?” and we also asked Ilias. His thought was that it was a way of giving us the experience of how a theory is formed, in this case a theory about what man is.

Theme 4: Quantitative research
1.      Hi,
I think that your reflection presents a very interesting perspective on quantitative and qualitative data. I agree with your argument that quantitative data is not automatically objective by being presented with numbers, and that for example depending on which variables is decided to be included in a questionnaire the information that will be received will be shaped from the beginning.
To add to your discussion I came to think about the first lecture for Theme 5. Among other topics I think that the term “curse of dimensionality” relates to your discussion. In other words that numerical data do not always represent all aspects/dimensions of the observations that can be made in a study. There is information that can be difficult to include in numerical data.
Interesting reflection and great use of examples from research papers!

2.      Hi,
I think that you have written a great summary of what you have learnt and discussed during the seminar. It seems that you had an interesting discussion on the text about drumming and how culture was presented in it.
I also feel that the papers have given me a new understanding of how many different ways it is possible to do research, and that not only one useful method exists. To add to your discussion I also thought that they gave a deeper understanding of different types of data that can be used in quantitative research methods. As for the text about drumming where motion was measured and later on analysed.
Great reflection with a good summary of texts and interesting discussions based on your thoughts!

3.      Hi,
I think that it was really good that you researched the term qualitative research in order to be more prepared for discussing the differences between qualitative and quantitative research methods.
I also think that it was interesting to hear about the importance of testing for example a questionnaire before handing it out to the participants. In a paper that I read for Theme 6 they discuss how they did not test their questions before they held interviews, and the participants thought that the questions were difficult to understand. So I agree with you that it is important to test the methods of collecting data before using them.
I like that you have written both what you have learnt and what methods you have used to get a deeper understanding for Theme 4.
Interesting reflection!

4.      Hi,
I also found the lecture on "Drumming in Immersive Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play" interesting. I think that you have pointed out an interesting aspect of the paper when discussing the participants and how representative they are. I think that your suggestion for further research have an interesting perspective on how not only methods and data are important for the generalisation of an experiment, yet also the participants. I had not taken this perspective in to consideration when reading the paper at first and therefore I found this interesting to read.
Great reflection with good explanations of your thoughts and what you have learnt for this theme!

5.      Hi,
I think that you have an interesting discussion on collecting objective data with the help of quantitative and qualitative research methods.
To add to your discussion on quantitative methods:
I think that an example of focusing on a minor set of data from a big set of data is when a questionnaire consists of predefined answers. In this case the answers lead to not collecting all types of answers to a question. Instead a certain amount of alternatives are presented, which can be discussed in terms of leading to objective data or not.
Great reflection with a clear explanation of the discussions held on the different topics!

Theme 5: Design research
1.      Hi,
I think that you have a great summary on what has been said during the lectures of this theme. To add to your discussion on the second lecture. I also found it interesting that Anders also explained that the difference between design in research and design in general was that design in general aims more to seem appealing, to for example a customer, rather than to gain knowledge.
Great reflection and great summary with clear examples from what was said during the lectures!

2.      Hi,
Your reflection gave me a new perspective on what was said during the first lecture. I had a hard time understanding my own notes on the difference between validating and evaluating an idea. At first I interpreted the ANOVA technique to be a part of validating an idea. So your reflection helped me understand the difference between these strategies better.
Interesting reflection. I think that you have a great structure of your reflection, especially where you summarize what you have learnt from the first lecture!

3.      Hi,
I think that you have a great reflection on what you have learnt. I like that you have developed your discussion further by presenting your thoughts on for example how one as an engineer can communicate design research.
To add to earlier comment made on what was being said during the second lecture:
It was also mentioned that prototypes in themselves do not have to be the solution in a study.
I interpreted that Anders, who held the second lecture, meant that they instead allow for feedback to be generated that later on can be analysed and help answer the research question.
Great reflection with interesting discussions of your own thoughts!

4.      Hi,
I think that you have a written a great summary of the lectures. I also found the example of the bear from the first lecture to be good in terms of clarifying the importance of defining a problem.
To add to the discussion on the second lecture:
It was also said that analysis is important in design research. He mentioned that if the paper from Fernaeus had not included a chapter about “lessons learned” the paper would give less knowledge and less new theories. He further explained a definition of the term analysis.
I interpreted that analysis means to compare what has been done in the own research project, which is called the process, with theories that exist from earlier made research.
(I think that earlier made research also can mean that it is possible to compare the different feedbacks made on the different versions of a prototype used in the same design research project.)
Great summary with interesting explanations of your own perspective on the different methods that were mentioned!

5.      Hi,
I think that you have written a really interesting reflection. Especially where you discuss general knowledge and design research. I had not thought about design research from this perspective before. I also tried to come up with examples that lead to general knowledge myself, yet I found this very hard. I think that this would have been a great topic to discuss during a seminar.
Interesting reflection with an interesting perspective!

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research
1. Hi,
I think that you have written a good explanation of the purposes/benefits of a case study. Furthermore I had not thought about case studies being “cyclical” before, and this was an interesting perspective.
I agree with your thoughts on what a case study is. And I think that you have made a good point in that a case study can be used in order to do research in an “unknown field”. I also interpreted this to be one of the more characteristic benefits of a case study.
Great reflection, with a clear explanation on case studies!

2. Hi,
I think that you have written an interesting reflection. I like that you make correlations in between themes. For example by discussing a correlation between qualitative research methods and user experience testing that you mention in your blog post for Theme 5.
I had not thought about making this comparison before. To add to this discussion: I agree that they are similar in the sense that they both take the participants own answers as feedback to help them test or build a theory.
Interesting reflection, with a good summary of what was discussed during the seminar!

3. Hi,
I think that you have summarized case studies well by saying that they are targeting on understanding a phenomena instead of explaining a phenomena.
To add to your discussion:
I agree with that a case study can help form a hypothesis that is being used in further research. When it comes to the goals of conducting a case study, I had interpreted it to be to make observations in a certain setting to get a deeper understanding of how that setting works. In other words I had interpreted that the problem or question that might rise from making a case study would be a result of the study, yet not the goal or meaning behind it. So I found this part of your reflection very interesting and it presented a new perspective to me.
Great reflection with good explanations of what you have learnt from the seminar!

4. Hi,
I think that you have written a really interesting summary of the seminar.
To add to your discussion: At the seminar I attended we also, in a smaller group, discussed how to choose participants for a study. We discussed how to make generalisations in a study, and if the participants could have an effect on the result. We discussed that in a qualitative study all participants have different experiences and different perceptions, so depending on which participants are a part of a study they can affect the generalisations.
Great reflection with really interesting explanations from the seminar!

5. Hi,
I think that you have written a really interesting reflection. I liked that you for example discuss objectivity in scientific research.
To add to your discussion: I think that you are right in that all studies require a more or less defined case in order to do research.
I interpret the difference between a case study to for example a qualitative research study to be that a case study focuses on choosing a setting, or case, to make observations in. A qualitative method on the other hand I interpret to focus on having a hypothesis or research question that will help define the setting, or case, in which this study will take place.

Great reflection with interesting discussions!

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