| 1. |
- Benner, Mats, et al.
(författare)
-
Becoming World Class : What It Means and What It Does
- 2020
-
Ingår i: World Class Universities : A Contested Concept - A Contested Concept. - Singapore : Springer Nature Singapore. - 2570-026X .- 2570-0251. - 9789811575976 - 9789811575983 ; , s. 25-40
-
Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- On the basis of a critical survey of university strategies, it is argued that universities reify and objectify “world class” and turn it into absolute and precisely defined goals (location in ranking hierarchies, publication patterns, number of start-ups and licens-es, etc.) and that this in turn is based on a skewed reading of the ascendancy of some universities (notably leading US higher education institutions) to that level. The notion of a “world class university” may therefore be self-defeating as it entails even closer monitoring, adaptation and adoption of indicators and steering that is outlined accordingly.
|
|
| 2. |
- Boberg, Johan, 1984-
(författare)
-
Scientifically Minded : Science, the Subject and Kant’s Critical Philosophy
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Modern philosophy is often seen as characterized by a shift of focus from the things themselves to our knowledge of them, i.e., by a turn to the subject and subjectivity. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant is seen as the site of the emergence of the idea of a subject that constitutes the object of knowledge, and thus plays a central role in this narrative. This study examines Kant’s theory of knowledge at the intersection between the history of science and the history of the modern subject, on the one hand, and in the tension between modern experimental and mathematical science and more traditional Aristotelian conceptions of epistemic perfection, on the other.The dissertation consists of four chapters. In the first chapter, I examine Kant’s concept of experience, and its relation both to Early Modern experimentalism and to the Wolffian tradition. In the second chapter, I argue that Kant adheres to a broadly Aristotelian conception of epistemic perfection – the ideal of understanding – but transforms this ideal into the self-understanding of reason, where reason can only have insight into the products of its own activity. In the third chapter, I use Kant’s conception of space and time to exemplify such products of reason, and argue that, for Kant, space and time are constructively generated representations that function as principles for ordering empirical knowledge. In the fourth and final chapter, I examine Kant’s conception of the subject, and situate it in relation to both the long history of the modern subject and German Enlightenment philosophy. Whereas the modern philosophical conception of the subject is usually taken to combine an ‘I’ functioning as the subject to which mental acts are attributed and an ‘I’ that has the ability to immediately perceive itself as the subject of these acts, I argue that Kant reconceives this relation between the ‘I’ and its acts as a purely intellectual self-relation. The unity of the ‘I’ is not a perceived unity, but a unity brought about by the intellect.
|
|
| 3. |
- Jansson Boström, Erik, 1985-
(författare)
-
Max Weber och idealtypernas nödvändighet
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis has two aims: first, to investigate Max Weber’s account of “objective validity” in the cultural sciences; second, to elaborate a more concrete version of this position using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later remarks on language.Chapter 1 introduces Weber’s idea of objective validity and proposes that in order to understand Weber’s idea of ideal types, we need to re-evaluate Weber’s understanding of the term Bedeutung in “The ‘Objectivity’ of knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy”.Chapter 2 presents Weber’s notion of ideal types and raises a number of problems to be dealt with in the following chapters. The central questions are i) why Weber thinks that ideal types are sometimes necessary in order to reach objective validity, and ii) under which circumstances this might be the case. The chapter argues that the answer to the last question is that Weber thinks that ideal types are necessary for objectivity within a specific kind of study of meaning (Bedeutung) within the cultural sciences. Chapter 3, in turn, focuses on why ideal types are necessary within this kind of cultural science by taking a closer look at how to understand Weber’s concept of given reality and the connection between meaning, concepts, reality and values in the methodological writings that constitute “Roscher and Knies and the Logical Problems of Historical Economics”.In chapter 4, the central issue of objective validity can finally be addressed. The investigation shows that what Weber says about objective validity does not cohere with what follows from his arguments concerning the relation between meaning, given reality, values and concepts. I conclude that Weber fails to provide a clear and consistent account of what objectivity could mean in the cultural sciences. This also means that Weber fails to clarify the necessity of formulating ideal types.These deficiencies notwithstanding, I argue, Weber succeeds in formulating cogent arguments concerning the relationship between given reality, values and concepts. In chapter 5, I use Wittgenstein’s later remarks on language to develop a clear and consistent conceptualization of ideal types, and propose an account of what objectivity can mean in the cultural sciences and how it can be realized.
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Rider, Sharon, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
-
World Class Universities : A Contested Concept
- 2020
-
Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- This open access book focuses on the dimensions of the discourse of 'The World Class University', its alleged characteristics, and its policy expressions. It offers a broad overview of the historical background and current trajectory of the world-class-university construct. It also deepens the theoretical discussion, and points a way forward out of present impasses resulting from the pervasive use and abuse of the notion of "world-class" and related terms in the discourse of quality assessment. The book includes approaches and results from fields of inquiry not otherwise prominent in Higher Education studies, including philosophy and media studies, as well as sociology, anthropology, educational theory.The growing impact of global rankings and their strategic use in the restructuring of higher education systems to increase global competitiveness has led to a ‘reputation race’ and the emergence of the global discourse of world class universities. The discourse of world class universities has rapid uptake in East Asian countries, with China recently refining its strategy. This book provides insights into this process and its future development.
|
|
| 9. |
- Ördén, Hedvig, 1983-
(författare)
-
Securing Judgement : Rethinking Security and Online Information Threats
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The contemporary debate in democracies routinely describes online information threats such as misinformation, disinformation and deception as security-issues in need of urgent attention. Despite this pervasive discourse, policymakers often appear incapable of articulating what security means in this context. Turning to EU policy and previous research on cybersecurity, this dissertation empirically unpacks, critically interrogates and theoretically rethinks the meaning of security in relation to online information threats. In so doing, the articles elucidate a new ‘referent object’ implicitly guiding securitization. Contemporary interventions can be seen as grounded in assumptions about the protection of human judgement. Using Hannah Arendt’s writings on ‘political judgement’ as a point of reference for critically evaluating contemporary policy, the dissertation points to several problems with existing approaches to security in a democratic context where free debate constitutes a legitimizing element of political authority. The rethinking of security departs from this problematic and shows that treating human judgement as a ‘referent object’ – if firmly grounded in the interplay between independent human communicating subjects – can better address some problematic questions about legitimate authority and political community currently haunting security interventions in cyberspace.
|
|
