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User:SteRos7/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar 1/History

History of Sociology
The roots of modern sociological thought have often been thought to be located in the European Age of Enlightenment and its influence on positivist thinking, with writers such as [|Henri di Saint-Simon] cited as providing the foundations of a 'New science of society' in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Auguste Comte, similarly, in the late 18th Century with his Course of Positive Philosophy, has been said to have set the foundations for the science of society ; outlining a theory of progressive stages of societal development and focusing on issues including the division of labour, religion, and social cohesion. Other prominent writers have also been noted for their contributions to the beginnings of sociological thought, including Marx: for his contributions on political economy and his materialist conception of history, and Weber: for his focus on the rise of modern Western society, the cultural determinants of capitalism, bureaucracy, and the development of the modern state.

Distinctions have been made between early sociological thought; characterised by narratives of progressive history, and classical sociological thought; characterised by the application of the scientific method to studying society.

Despite multiple early influences on sociological concepts, it is Durkheim, known most famously for his concepts of anomie and solidarity, who has most widely been recognised as the founding father of Sociology as a discipline. The process of institutitonalisation has been described as a slow one due to resistance from other dominant disciplines of the time. It was Durkheim himself that founded L'Année Sociologique, an academic sociological journal in which he, along with others, published several writings including his infamous Le Suicide in 1897. Rene Worms also played a role in establishing Sociology in France at this time with the International Institute of Sociology and other journals.

In England, the first sociology society (The Institute of Sociology) was founded following the death of then influential Herbert Spencer in 1903. The first courses offered in University were at the University of London, beginning in 1907 with Professors Leonard Hobhouse and Edward Westermarck.

In the United States, the beginnings of Sociology have often been attributed to Albion Small at the University of Chicago in 1892. However, this interpretation has been disputed with recognition of the fact that Frank Wilson Blackmar initiated his 'Elements of Sociology' class at the University of Kansas early as 1890.

More recently within the discipline, proposals have been made to recognise earlier influential origins of sociological thought outside of Europe, with debates over the extent to which Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun could justifiably be recognised as one of the founding fathers. It has been argued that he "discovered the essentials of sociology such as the systematic analysis of social structure and group behaviour...some five centuries before Comte coined the word". Similarly, efforts have also been made to recognise other Non-Western and female influences which have hitherto been underrepresented in the traditional sociological canon.

Understanding How Biology Evolved Through Evolution
Knowledge and concepts related to the contemporary understanding of biology can be found dating back to 200BCE in manuscripts from Ancient Egyptians. However, it was not until the 19th century where the discipline had begun to be realised as a result of paradigm shifts and scientific breakthroughs which consequently formed the basis of our modern understanding in biology.

Before that, the natural science had close roots to theistic explanations with notable biologists as well as academics such as William Paley, Louis and Alexander Agassiz, George McCready Price subscribing to the creationist explanation that we are the product of an intelligent designer: a god. Because of this, though Darwin published his theory of evolution, 'On the Origin of Species' in late 1859, the scientific community stuck to what they were familiar with, rejecting the explanation of how modern organisms emerged via natural selection. However, like his peers, Darwin believed in blending inheritance, a now invalidated theory which inhibited Darwin from understanding his observations on how genetic variation in an animal population could be preserved, thereby failing to offer a holistic explanation to support his theory.

At the turn of the century in 1900, scientists rediscovered an 1866 paper by Gregor Mendel and his study with pea plants; filling in the gaps of knowledge in Darwin’s theory with what we now know as the Mendelian ratios, explaining how favourable traits remained amongst the next generation, thus earning it more credibility. The following decades reformed the understanding amongst scientists regarding our origins with the publication of Dobzhansky’s '[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics_and_the_Origin_of_Species#:~:text=Genetics%20and%20the%20Origin%20of%20Species%20is%20a%201937%20book,American%20evolutionary%20biologist%20Theodosius%20Dobzhansky.&text=Dobzhansky%20implements%20theories%20of%20mutation,effects%20on%20their%20genetic%20behavior. Genetics and the Origin of Species]'. The paper draws from both Darwin and Mendel’s observations; offering a comprehensive explanation of evolution, consequently conceding Darwin’s theory to be universally accepted.

This paradigm shift was a result of various pieces of information from different researches over time, all contributing to consolidating a prominent theory within biology. Subsequently, a new sub-discipline, evolutionary biology gradually formed with evolutionary biologists looking to the past whilst using contemporary theories and methods to reconstruct the events/processes that led to evolution. Such methods have proved beneficial to related disciplines, especially Medicine in tracing the "origins of pandemic-causing viruses, informing research in cancer treatment and determining susceptibility to specific diseases". In parallel, by assessing the discipline’s history, one can infer how knowledge in biology or in the natural sciences as a matter of fact can drastically change through time; welcoming understood truths supported by replicable evidence whilst refuting false assumptions as new information is attained.

The rise of a new discipline: The Philosophy of Chemistry
Disciplines can die out due to lack of inputs or advancements. Indeed, brutal change of direction, emphasis or approach on the subject can be dramatic for some disciplines. On the contrary, new disciplines can also come up from from related areas inputs. The key factor is the emergence of new knowledge from some disciplines. Indeed, it is the result of the formal coming together of multiple disciplines to focus on a common issue or problem. This interdisciplinarity allows new fields to come up. That is the case for the philosophy of chemistry. Philosophy has always been related to Chemistry. In the past greatest philosophers as Hegel,Comte or Engels, claimed that chemistry was a source of fundamental insights into physical reality. At first, philosophers of science didn't consider this discipline as they preferred “grand, unifying theoretical visions instead of complicated local sights.”. Among those philosophers, Dirac even claimed in 1929 that chemistry was nothing more than applied quantum mechanics.

However, philosophers started to focus their attention into the chemistry field. First of all chemistry received wide-spread attention regarding the reduction of chemistry to physics. Indeed for a long time, scientists and philosophers believed that any chemical phenomenon could be deduced from the Schrodinger equation. It appeared that application to quantum mechanics of problem of molecular structures require to have some basic knowledge of chemistry. Thus, this shows that chemistry is an autonomous discipline from physics.

This discipline thinks of time more than an axis on the graph. In fact, temporal dimension and spatial dimension have to be conferred with the same complexity to explain important phenomenons. In contrast with Physics, Chemistry has its own distinct language organized and classified in the famous periodic table. Furthermore, it has unique visual representations of molecules. Its uniqueness means it deserves its own philosophical investigation. Models of nature are central in Chemistry as chemists don't deal directly with nature. Because models are never absolutely true or false they stay effective more or less for a given task. Then chemists rely heavily on those models to explain experimental observations.

The phrase “natural kind” denotes a group of objects that share a significant characteristic or property. Examples of natural kinds often used by Philosophers are fundamental physical particles and chemical elements. Furthermore, synthetic chemists are able to produce artificial compounds identical to natural ones. They can also create new compounds that have never existed before. These achievements shows that the impact of chemistry on society goes far beyond the substances. After those achievements, boundaries between natural and unnatural has been then well debated in the centuries religions and philosophical discussions. Therefore, that is how emerged this new discipline joining philosophy and chemistry, two areas that are closely linked to each other.

Before the 1980s the term philosophy of chemistry would have been considered as irrelevant. However with the evolution of sits content and the way to approach the discipline of chemistry by philosophers, this new discipline nowadays makes sense. Indeed, two journals are devoted to the field : Hyle and Foundations of Chemistry. In addition, the society for the philosophy of chemistry has emerged in 1997 and holds meetings each year since that date discussing the philosophy of science. The link between philosophy and chemistry is therefore well illustrated and explained by the following article Physical Chemistry

History of Clinical Psychology
The field of clinical psychology, recognized as assessment and treatment of persons with emotional, cognitive and behavioural problems, is widely considered to have originated in 1896, when an American psychologist, [|Lightner Witmer], the founding father of clinical psychology, established the first facility that treated patient with mental disorders at the University of Pennsylvania. Witmer was one of the first advocates of applying psychology to treat patientsand not only carry out academic research. He devoted his early work to study and help children with learning disabilities. The discipline itself has a somewhat autonomous emergence as professional practice rather than sole academic research. Although 1896 is formally acknowledged as birth of clinical psychology, many previous events of great importance have contributed to the development of the discipline.

The earliest notions of scientific approaches (from as early as 7000 years ago) to treat mental issues were recorded as a combination of religious, magical and medical techniques. Trephination, for instance, was one of the ancient procedures that were believed to improve one's mental soundness.

History of Behavioural Economics
Behavioural economics as an idea originally arose during the classical period of economics which was a school of economic thought in the late 18th century. This was a way of explaining people’s behaviour when it came to economic decisions by implementing psychological underpinnings. Adam Smith, who is a key figure in classical economics, drew inspiration from psychology for his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759. Other notable figures of the era also touched upon this such as Jeremy Bentham also wrote extensively on psychological aspects of utility. This would be further studied and elaborated upon developing into its own field during the neo-classical period of economics during the late 20th century where economic psychology and the concept of homo economicus was birthed. This concept demonstrated how in many instances; humans would not behave under the assumption of being rational beings which was the basis many historical economic models.

Herbert A. Simon introduced bounded rationality as an alternative basis for decision-making. This is the idea that humans are limited by information processing and prioritise satisfaction over optimality. Bounded rationality was the basis of later works and models such as Gerd Gigerenzer’s “Fast and Frugal Heuristics”, and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” in 2008.

In 1979, Prospect Theory was published by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman which undermined mainstream economic ideas of the time. They used cognitive psychology to explain how decision-making is not always optimal focusing on principles including loss aversion, reference dependence, non-linear probability weighing. They would revisit this in 1992, in the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, with cumulative prospect theory looking at traits such as overconfidence and projection bias.

These behavioural models combine ideas of psychology and neuroscience into microeconomic theory to better understand market decisions and public choice.

History of Demarcation between Scientific and Pseudoscientific Disciplines
Definitions

Science and pseudoscience group together similar disciplines. Many study similar topics, yet have different rhetoric’s, methodologies and tests to validate their truths.

Science - Disciplines with knowledge gained objectively through established rules and evidence. This knowledge is used to further our understanding of the world.

Pseudoscience - Disciplines that are incompatible with the modern scientific content/methodologies yet say or imply they are grounded in it. Examples of classified pseudosciences are alternative medicine, parapsychology, transcendental meditation movement and paranormal studies. Non-disciplines, rather theories, such as flat-earth conspiracies, climate change denial, aryanism and ancient astronauts are included as well.

History

In 1796 J. P. Andrews used ‘fantastical pseudoscience’ to describe alchemy, this is the first known use of the word. Frequented use began in the 1880s and has been of defamatory meaning throughout, so those who work within pseudoscientific disciplines don’t declare their work as such because of the word’s connotations.

It was the 1960s when Karl Popper put forward ‘falsifiability’ in order to solve the demarcation challenge of how to separate disciplines of science from pseudoscience disciplines or religious or metaphysical claims. If a discipline or theory focuses on a topic that cannot be disproved (proved to be not falsifiable) then it can be classed as pseudoscience. In 1978, Thagard put forward additional criteria for classification as a pseudoscience if there is selectivity in ‘considering confirmations and disconfirmations’ by practitioners, and if there is a lack of progression or comparative evaluation of a theory.

The classification of disciplines can be difficult due to the historical nature of them. Many disciplines relating to the pseudosciences began in the pre-scientific era, with some scientific disciplines deriving from pseudoscientific ones.

On a surface level, the categorisation into pseudoscience can come from when disciplines are ‘bad science’ and fail the tests that scientific disciplines use to validate their truths. The separation can also occur when a discipline is unrelated to science, but its content threatens the public’s understanding of science, for example eugenics or creationism. Or if a discipline is posing and claiming to be science.

The Need to Redefining Pseudoscience for the Sake of Interdisciplinarity

I believe such a short history of demarcating disciplines into pseudoscience and science shows there’s work to do before we reach a better way of categorising that keeps dangerous theories separate from science without losing and demonising disciplines that can help and inform others in interdisciplinary ways.

Many disciplines are categorised as pseudoscience because their methodologies and motives don’t match that of modern science and they can’t be falsified by modern Western scientific methods, not because they are a threat, this leads to disciplines being grouped with theories that don’t make sense together. For example, Chinese medicine, an established discipline since 3rd Century BC, still has formalised teaching globally, societies and published journals, which can’t be falsified by modern scientific methods, is grouped with the clear threat to humanity that is aryanism. This is problematic as pseudoscience is a negative relational category to science, so any disciplines classed as pseudoscience are automatically put in a negative light and generalised as ‘quackery’, ‘dangerous’ and are discredited. Obviously, this is correct in the case of theories like aryanism, but I believe the negative relational category mean we will miss content and ways of thinking that are unique to non-threatening pseudoscience disciplines that can inform other disciplines in new and exciting ways.

Like with Chinese medicine, many disciplines within pseudoscience are Eastern, and I believe it’s problematic to categorise them with such a derogatory term just because they don’t match modern science standards stemming from the European ‘Age of Enlightenment’ and the ‘[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution#:~:text=The%20Scientific%20Revolution%20was%20a,views%20of%20society%20about%20nature. Scientific Revolution]’. I believe this type of grouping hierarchy of disciplines is counterproductive to interdisciplinary approaches and encourages academic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism#:~:text=In%20art%20history%2C%20literature%20and,and%20artists%20from%20the%20West. orientalism]. For example, Vastu Shastra which is the ancient Hindu system of architecture is classed as pseudoscience, as is Feng Shui (astrology-based Chinese aesthetic system) or crystal healing (Indian, Chinese and Native American origins).

I also believe the relational categorisation of pseudoscience goes against an interdisciplinary approach as it perpetuates a hierarchical categorisation of disciplines rather than promoting them spectrum that all inform and intersect. It also means it can be used by scientific academics (whether consciously or subconsciously) as a manifestation of the sociological idea of intergroup comparisons where the academics gain self-esteem from their in-group (science) being presented in a positive light and the out-group (pseudo-science) being presented in a negative light, and want this to perpetuate to continue gaining self-esteem, which is counterproductive to free-thinking, exploration across discipline boundaries and open-mindedness.

Artificial Intelligence: A trendy discipline
Artificial Intelligence (AI) are two words that make most of those who hear them dream. Inventors are not trying to replace muscles and bodies, which was the case during the Industrial revolution for example with strong machines capable of acting faster and sometimes better than humans but brains and minds. If the society was to be replaced by machines for every manual task, Humans would still have their minds, their brains, their capacity to think intelligently to differentiate themselves. Artificial Intelligence is about imitating human brain and conscience: invent a machine able to think and therefore conscient that it is, that it (or he?) exists. AI obviously is a discipline: there are Department of AI such as the DAI in the School of Informatics of Edinburgh. What is the history of this discipline? The term was first used by John McCarthy in 1956 during an academic conference. Yet, one of the first inventor that got interested in AI is Alan Turing, the father of the famous Enigma. He wrote a paper in 1950 on the concept of Artificial Intelligence as we define it: machines capable of “being” human. AI progress went up and down from 1957 to this day. From 1957 and 1974, inventors were able to create more and more advanced machines (which can be called robots) thanks to the innovations related to computers, electronic systems and coding. Nevertheless, the objectives of the scientists weren’t met, mostly because the memory in computers wasn’t sufficient. Therefore, the discipline stagnated for ten years long until the 1980’s when the computers became more powerful and the funds sky-rocketed. From 1982 to 1990, the improvement of AI wasn’t as big as the inventors thought it would, but some progress was made. During this period, the rise of expert systems, the revolution of knowledge and the money returns enabled a Boom in the field of AI. Resulting this in 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue Computer, which basically was an AI, won against the world chess champion. Machine-learning became achievable: in 2012, a Google Brain managed to train himself to recognize a cat by watching millions of videos. This discipline inspires a lot of young scientists and inventors so it’s future is guaranteed as we make technological inventions every day. How did AI become so known? The History of AI was told to the general public mainly with movies and books that make people fantasize about it. As an example, in 1950, Isaac Asimov wrote I, Robot, in 1984, the famous movie Terminator by James Cameron was released and in 2001, A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg was a hit. These movies helped the discipline to be so well known on one hand, but also so little on the other hand. It made people think that the concept of AI was achievable but, whereas for now and for a large number of years before, it has been in a difficult posture. One of the main reasons for this are the ethics related to AI. Are the robots (physical incarnation of AI) going to be under laws like humans? If they can think and have feelings, will they be able to revolt against humans when they don’t want to do what they are supposed to do?

History of Epistemology
Today, epistemology is considered a major branch of philosophy, but it was not till the 17th century that it was referred to with a single word for the first time, indicating it was recognised as a unified field of study. Yet the nature of knowledge is such a central philosophical problem that philosophers as early as the pre-Socratics held the position that knowledge was unchangeable, though their work did not directly focus on it – indeed, any inquiry must directly or indirectly address epistemological issues.

Later, Plato built a theory of knowledge that more directly grappled with epistemological issues, as did Aristotle. A more radical development stemmed from the Ancient Skeptics, such as Arcesilaus, Carneades and Pyrrho, who held that knowledge was impossible. Fast forward to the modern day and philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, John Locke and Bertrand Russell have all made contributions to this millennia-old field of philosophy. Of course, such a central philosophical problem was not tackled just by Western philosophy; for instance, epistemology featured heavily in ancient Indian and Buddhist thought.

History of Epistemology and Historical Epistemology

With such a rich and storied history, there is much debate about how historical perspectives on epistemology should be considered in the present day. Some hold that the problems of epistemology are so fundamental and unchanging that the perspectives, definitions and arguments of philosophers throughout history have value even within a modern framework – a sort of ‘historical epistemology’ – while others believe that the discipline has built upon and progressed past historical work in epistemology. While every discipline is informed by historical perspectives, it is often not to such a large extent as the philosophical disciplines. The fact that such a debate continues at all may suggest that while the literature has undeniably grown and become more complex, we are barely closer to answering foundational questions about knowledge than we were millennia ago.

Art History as a Discipline
Art history is the study of various objects of art in their respective historical contexts. Traditionally, this has meant material objects such as paintings, sculptures, and buildings. However, art history has since evolved to include different art forms and media, such as fashion, photography, and performance art.

It is important to distinguish art history as a discipline from art criticism and philosophy of art. Art criticism concerns itself with interpreting meaning and evaluating specific works of art, i.e. it asks the question “is this work of art good?”. It serves to help pass judgement on artworks. Meanwhile, philosophy of art as a discipline concerns itself with the fundamental nature of art and aesthetics. It asks the questions “what is art?” and “what makes something beautiful?”. On the other hand, art history does not deal with these questions. It uses the historical method to analyze objects of art within their time period. Art history concerns itself with questions of “why and for whom was this work of art created?” and “why was this artwork created this particular way and by this particular artist?”. It is essential that this distinction be made to prevent any confusion between disciplines. Art history requires the rigour of historical analysis along with the visual skills required to interpret works of art and examine their form.

History of Art History

The roots of art history can be traced back to passages in Pliny The Elder’s Natural History where there are passages about the development of Greek sculpture and painting. Pliny The Elder wrote extensively about the history of sculpture and painting and it is believed that his writing was strongly influenced by the work of Xenokrates, one of the world’s first art historians.

Giorgio Vasari wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which is known as “the first important book on art history”. Vasari’s writing has been described as “by far the most influential single text for the history of Renaissance art”. However, Vasari’s work holds biased views and contains various inaccuracies.

Heinrich Wölfflin is known as the “father” of modern art history. He introduced a scientific approach to art history and was instrumental in devising a method for distinguishing the development in style over time and making distinctions between different artistic style. Furthermore, unlike Vasari, Wölfflin was uninterested in the biographies of artists and proposed the creation of an “art history without names”.

We can observe how over time, art history developed to become a more rigorous, scientific, and accurate discipline.

History of Interdisciplinarity in the study of Artificial Intelligence
The formal study of AI as an academic discipline began in 1956 at the Dartmouth conference when a team of scientists convened to attempt to make technical advancements in the field which had been purely theoretical up until then. This team was comprised of scientists from a wide variety of disciplines including mathematicians, computer scientists, neuroscientists, psychologists and economists. From its formal inception as an academic discipline it has been an interdisciplinary field but even before study of AI began, it has been a topic discussed in disciplines such as philosophy and literature.

The question of whether all intelligence could be reduced to mathematical reasoning was discussed by philosophers such as Leibniz, Thomas Hobbes and Descartes in the 17th century. In 1950 Alan Turing gave grounding to the formerly abstract question of what constitutes intelligence. In his paper, titled Computing Machinery and Intelligence, he described a test called ‘The imitation game’ in which a machine attempts to deceive an interrogator into believing it is human. He proposed that a machine’s success in this game would be a valid metric for intelligence.

Biological principles have been responsible for many major breakthroughs in the field of Artificial Intelligence. In 1943, modelling of the human brain by neuroscientists inspired McCulloch and Pitts to design neural networks, which are now a staple technique in AI development. Another notable example is genetic algorithms, developed by Lawrence J. Fogel in 1960. These use random mutation and natural selection iteratively to fine tune algorithms to a specific task.

In the 21st century, as AI started to become ubiquitous in society, there have been warnings from respected academics, such as Stephen Hawking, on the potential dangers that a rise in automation may bring. An inevitable flaw of AI is that the techniques used to develop it often result in the creators having very little understanding of how they work and what unforeseen consequences may arise from their implementation. A notable example is an algorithm called COMPAS which was used to assist judges in determining sentence length. Unbeknownst to its creators, racial biases from the data set of previous rulings it was trained on were embedded in the algorithm. This highlights a need for research in ethics and social sciences to combat the moral downfalls of AI.

History of Mathematics
Mathematics can be generally divided into four categories: number, space, symbols and inference. It is generally assumed to be a common mode of thought called "mathematics" that is hardwired in human. For example, counting and common shapes, such as squares and rectangles, have the same meaning to everyone. . The practice of mathematics can be dated back to pre-history. For example, a wolf bone was discovered in Czech in 1937, with two series of notches, grouped by fives, which indicated the people were conducting counting with the bone. There were disagreements on how old the bone was. Some believed it could be 30,000 years old. Throughout human history, the recognition and application of numbers, space, symbols and inference can be detected in archaeological evidence and primary source. . However, the application of mathematics cannot be equal as the beginning of mathematics as a discipline. It was not until later in history that people began to develop more sophisticated and systematic methods of dealing with numbers, space, symbols and inference, leading to arithmetic, geometry, logic and beyond, which then formed mathematics as a discipline. .Some groups of people began to devote to learning and studying those mathematical areas, and people began to pass on, acquire and improve the knowledge, which indicated the beginning of mathematics as a discipline. . The birth of mathematics as a discipline differed in countries and regions. The earliest sophisticated studies of Mathematics alone can be traced back to around 4000 years ago in some areas, but the earlies proposals or practice of establishing mathematics as a discipline in educational systems can only be dated back to around 2000 years ago in some countries. . For example, in Plato's Republic, which was written more than 2500 years ago, Socrates decided on four subjects the leaders of the ideal state must learn, namely arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, three of four fall into Mathematics. . This can be seen an early recognition of Mathematics as a discipline. In China, the earliest book on mathematical study that was found was more than 2000 years ago, but it was not until the Tang Dynasty in 7th Century that Mathematics became a curriculum in a standardised educational system for the training of civil servants. .


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User talk:SteRos7/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar 1/History

Seem to have had trouble with being able to use hyperlinks to wikipedia pages. For many I was told a wiki page for the topic/person simply didn't exist even though they do. Would appreciate any corrections anyone can make as this might be a technical issue with my laptop? Xrcaatnp (discuss • contribs) 08:31, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

History of Biology
I was wondering whether it might be useful to include an explanation for why Darwin’s theory of natural selection was not originally taken up? Perhaps there could be a short sentence on how he was at the time unable to provide evidence which solved the issue of how variation was maintained within a population without an understanding of genetics. There could even simply be a link to the wiki-page on ‘blending inheritance’... What do you think? Xrcaatnp (discuss • contribs) 14:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

It's really interesting to contrast biology and epistemology (which I wrote about) because they show quite different approaches to historical knowledge - biology has more or less completely refuted a lot of historical knowledge whereas historical knowledge is still very relevant in epistemology and in many other philosophical disciplines. Something I want to think about is what this has to do with the role and nature of evidence in these two discplines. 10:09, 20 October 2020 (UTC)Pacific23

Artificial Intelligence: A trendy discipline
I think the section on public perception of AI is really interesting. AI systems are very complex and often the creators of these systems don't understand how they work but people often assume specific behaviours can be explicitly programmed. This might be due to the popularity of Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics. Fantastical representations of AI can be very dangerous in the way they shape public perception. People's fears, brought about by movies like Terminator, could result in a reluctance to trust new technology like self-driving cars and significantly slow progress in AI. On the other hand certain aspects of AI might be thought to be safer than they actually are. For example an AI judge might seem more objective than a human judge but AI can easily be just as biased as humans and a large part of AI research is dedicated to making AI safe, like the work of Open AI or the CSER (Centre for Study of Existential Risk). Does AI research need to devote efforts to improving the public's perception and understanding of AI?

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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History of programming
The history of programming finds its sources in a sequence of computer programs published by the English noblewoman Ada Lovelace ad in 1883. Those type of programmation were the first to compute bernouilli numbers for example. This was developed for Charles Babbage’s Analytical engine, which would remain as the first program written. Babbage was a pionneer in computer programming as he perceived calculations as composed of a lot of smaller mechanisms, that could be transalted in an input device, a processor , a control unit and an output device. In 1936, a british physician and chemist Alan Turing came around the machine''' and became the foundator of the computer language as we know it today. His computer machine was able to translate encrypted messages that the Nazi were communicating to their different armies. Computer language weren't as powerful as: are nowadays, they had to be composed of Assembly language that were limited in speed and memory capacity. This new age of internet that embraced the world in 1980 has lead us to IA, with upcoming countries like India with anchored links to mathematics and algorithms that have beome the third in the world in AI development and industry. . On the other hand, superpowers are trying to gain larger importance in the Ai domain.
 * Java that is ckncerned over concept of object-oriented programming model
 * Python that was first released in 1991
 * C created by Dennis Ritchie mainly used in game development and supercomputers..

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History of Interdisciplinarity
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User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar 2020/21)/Seminar 18/Suggested readings

Please use this page to share any interesting readings you've discovered.


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User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar 2020/21)/Seminar 12/Suggested readings

Please use this page to share any interesting readings you've discovered.

I found it while preparing for my sandbox, ended up forgetting about sb and reading the whole thing:)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273598523_Truth_Objectivity_and_Evidence_in_History_Writing

I really recommend a book called The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells for anyone who is interested in climate change.


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User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar 2020/21)/Seminar 9/Suggested readings

Please use this page to share any interesting readings you've discovered.

Interesting blog post about antidisciplinarity I found on the MIT website. (link) --5050clown (discuss • contribs)

General introduction to the postmodern philosophical concept of the rhizome, which is an interesting way to look at disciplinary relationships. (link) --5050clown (discuss • contribs)

Stan had recommended these readings a few weeks ago. It's very interesting so I'll put the links here if anyone is interested: https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/designandscience/release/2. It's about “antidisciplinarity”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish. These books might be useful for this module. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizome_(philosophy). This concept is good but dense. A.ren01 (discuss • contribs) 15:43, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

 * These are really helpful and interesting readings, thank you! Inorganic-Yogi (discuss • contribs) 13:55, 31 October 2020 (UTC)


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History of Environmental Sciences as a discipline
To try and understand the history of environmental sciences as a discipline, we must first explore its place as one.

Traditionally, a discipline is an academic area of study, typically studied in higher education.

Many universities across the world now offer an environmental sciences degree, however, to name these studies as a discipline can be tricky given the fact that environmental sciences combine a wide range of different disciplines such as biophysical (biology, geology, chemistry) and societal (anthropology, ethics, economics) studies. Environmental sciences can be understood as the study of the relationship between humans and the environment. This understanding is not obtained through a simple combination of the disciplines listed above but through an integration of the knowledge that exists between them. Thus, environmental studies - not just a discipline but an interdisciplinary matter. We can, in this case, define environmental studies as a meta discipline.

Indeed, we can date environmental awareness to about 5000 years ago in indigenous rituals. For example, Taoists always praised a more eco-friendly way of life, where humans would live in a way that respects nature. For instance, the Taoists always perceived nature and the Earth as something conscious, something that needs to be taken care of. Humans were never put at the centre of the universe. Finally, Taoists believed that nature was a gift from Heaven and that humans are not above it. This can be perceived as the first environmentalism. However, environmental studies as a discipline fully emerged only throughout the 1960s due to a combination of different factors: post-war and pacific movements, civil rights movement and the rise of feminism. Feminism and environmental awareness went hand in hand with the hazardous nuclear waste dumps and water pollution that increased in the 60s. It was a way for women to stand up and defy the patriarchal political structures which were held responsible for these environmental problems with ecological and human consequences. Similarly, the civil rights movement helped environmental awareness to make a change in social inequalities, as these inequalities were especially reenforced in a disproportionate manner in which minority communities were more affected by the rising environmental problems. Moreover, pacific movements found a new reason for ending the war through environmental justice. In fact, the use of various chemicals in the Vietnam war not only destroyed human lives but also the natural surroundings. Therefore, the three movements all found through environmental awareness, new ways to defy the government's political decisions and structure in general.

However, the movements previously mentioned were not the only support to impose environmental awareness and thus its establishment as a discipline. Indeed, many professionals from various scientific and non-scientific fields engaged and supported the environmental cause. An example - the creation of the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1968, which established a real academic investment for studying the Environmental Sciences.

We could also mention Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), as a turning point in the emergence of this interdisciplinary study: the focus was not only about natural resources and their uses but also on the effects of pollution on all life. In consequence, the 70s saw the start of environmental studies programs in universities due to a major demand from students, for a degree which suited the current social needs and a better understanding of environment.

Psychology's Transition to a Scientific Discipline
The current definition of psychology according to the Oxford dictionary is “the scientific study of the mind and how it influences behaviour”. Even in other dictionaries, like on dictionary.com, and in the Cambridge dictionary, psychology is always defined as “science” or “scientific study”.

Despite the general acceptance of modern psychology as a science, the roots of the discipline can be traced back to Ancient Greece, around 500 BC, where psychology and philosophy were intrinsically entwined. . In fact, many of what are regarded as significant contributions to the development of understanding psychology were made by known philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, John Locke, and Renee Descartes. Prior to the late 1800s, despite documented theories which later led to definitive concepts and groundbreaking research in the field, psychology was inherently as philosophical and physiological as psychological.

During the 19th century, psychology began transitioning from a largely speculative subject to being approached in an empirical fashion. Wilhelm Wundt’s founding of the first laboratory dedicated specifically to experimental psychology in 1879 is often seen as the founding of modern psychology. The British Psychological Society, a network for psychologists and a source of subject-related news, was founded in 1901, the same year psychology was first recorded being taught at the University of Bristol (at the time University College, Bristol). Oxford University, England’s oldest school, first incorporated the subject of psychology in 1898 with the establishment of a Readership of “Mental Philosophy”. Their transition to experimental psychology occurred in 1906, and a diploma course was established in 1936. Arguably the most respected scientific society, the Royal Society currently includes psychology related publications on their website, and several psychologists hold fellowships at the society (the oldest current member was elected in 1993).

As mentioned above, the formation of the British Psychological Society in October 1901 was a fundamental building block for making psychology into an academic discipline. The society was formed at University College, London, by a small company of 10 people, amid whom were such noblemen as William McDougall (a British psychologist who developed various unorthodox theories ), and W.H.R. Rivers. In later years, one of the societies honorary fellow members was also the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. The formation of the British Psychological Society was pivotal for shaping psychology as a discipline, because before its existence, psychology was perceived more as a quiet hobby rather than a serious study. By creating such a society with an un-precedent success in doing so, the founders made sure that psychology as a discipline follows certain rules of psychological research which can be employed by all members of the society.

To note, although psychology is now generally regarded as a wholly scientific discipline, there are still arguments as to whether psychology meets the same standards as other sciences given the difficulty in defining terms, quantifying subjective data, and hindered replicability of experimentation in the field.

Neuroscience as an Academic Discipline
Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system and the brain. However, its purpose is to understand not only the physiology and anatomy of the central nervous system, but also to look into the disorders of the brain, the development of the nervous system, behavior, cognition and language, et al. Around the 1980s, neuroscience and psychology came together to shed some light onto the less empirical manifestations of the brain as well: consciousness.

By looking into the history of neuroscience as an academic discipline and as an enquiry, it is apparent that humanity has had an interest in the brain and its function from as early as the 17th century BC. However, notable contributions to the science of the brain only began during Renaissance when people like Andreas Vesalius, René Descartes and Thomas Willis studied the physiology of the brain in depth.

The more technology progressed, the easier it became for scientists to study the brain. Camillo Golgi’s method of silver staining alongside the invention of the microscope led to the discovery of neurons and later he shared the Nobel Prize with Santiago Ramón y Cajal in 1906 for coming up with the neuron doctrine. As in the case of Golgi and his discoveries, developments in technology have been essential to many scientific discoveries. For example, x-ray diffraction (which was discovered in the early 1900s) was a technique key later used to understand the structure of DNA, a discovery that revolutionised the way genetic diseases are discovered and treated, how they are inherited, and informed the processes of using DNA for individual identification.

In spite of the interest people held for neuroscience and the importance of its practice, it wasn’t recognized as a discipline in itself until later in the 20th century. The first use of the word “Neuroscience” was by Francis O Schmitt in 1962 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he founded a neuroscience research program. However, there was no official department assigned to neuroscience. This happened for the first time at the University of California in 1964 but was initially named “Psychobiology”. Stephen Kuffler, known as the “Father of Modern Neuroscience”, founded the Department of Neurobiology in 1966 at Harvard Medical School. Today, neuroscience keeps its name and can be studied as a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree in most universities.

Creation of Modern Nutritional Science as a Discipline
Nutrition is the science that interprets the nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism. It includes ingestion, absorption, assimilation, biosynthesis, catabolism and excretion. Because of its vital importance, nutrition goes back as far as prehistory . and it evolved through time with empirical farming, then genetic engineering.

The Discipline of Modern nutritional science was recognized in 1926 with the first chemical synthetization of Vitamin B. However, modern nutritional science as we know it today is very Eurocentric. Evidence of creation of a scientific method is found in non-European cultures like south Asian “Qi, yin/yang theory” and “Dosha theory”, however they are not referred to when talking about nutrition science. Lavoisier also contributed greatly to the chemical side of nutritional science in the mid 1900s notably with his creation of a calorrimeter that initiated the way we calculate calories in food today. He measured the heat expired by a guinea pig over a 10‐hr period that melted 13 ounces of ice. This expermient showed the link between cellular respiration (using energy intake) and a simple combustion.

Nutritional science is most likely going to evolve according to societal needs and 21st century issues. It can help resolve issue such as famine with calculations that can establish the optimal dietary balance. It is also at the heart of the fight against the “global epidemic of diabetes” Today, nutrition can commonly be studied at university at the bachelor and master level and is usually within the department of biomedical studies. In essence, nutritional science has evolved through time alongside societal needs and scientific knowledge to better human health with an increasing respect to the environment.

Nutrition Science, today, can englobe a large number of disciplines included in the Biological Field as well as the Social Sciences. It encompasses for example biomedical sciences with the relation of the human body to food; sociology with the rising cases of nutritional diseases in western societies such as diabetes; environmental sciences with the issue of intensive farming among other disciplines (economy, religion, ethics etc…). Hence Nutrition is an interdisciplinary discipline at its core.

Emergence of Advertising as a Discipline
A lot of influential brands in the world – i.e., Microsoft, MasterCard , YouTube , or Samsung – use the power of advertising and known advertising agencies to popularise their product. Advertising stays in people’s minds with creative ad rolls made from carefully-knitted marketing and strategy schemes. In the late 1960s, one could have found himself at a position in an advertising agency by accident, but as of now, to endure the competition for securing a workplace in an agency of such sort, a degree in advertising certainly helps.

The noun “advertising” mostly is associated with its first definition which introduces it as a business activity conducted for persuading one to purchase certain items or services. It is portrayed as a singular, linear process, however, it is more complex.

The second definition gives the word a meaning that includes a whole industry consisting of many diverse structures with one main task – to publicise and market the items, and do so in a manner that would inevitably influence the potential buyer. Here, advertising is described as a type of business, a multi-level enterprise whose main purpose is to draw attention to products rather than just the former one-dimensional activity.

To call something a discipline (“a branch of knowledge studied at a university level” ), this study has to fulfil some criteria. A. Krishnan in his research (2009) named six specific characteristics that denote an academic discipline – an object which can be researched ("research-object"), a body of knowledge created by specialists working with the research object, theories developed which "put" the produced knowledge in shelves, terminology, methods for research which have been developed over time, and, most importantly, the institutionalisation of the discipline in the form of a degree taught in universities (and the last requirement can only be fulfilled if all of the other 5 have been completed). Also, first examples of advertisements should not be considered as starting indicators of advertising, since their existence (without specialists’ analysis and the new knowledge’s organisation) did and does not shape advertising as an academic discipline, rather, their existence marks them as research objects of this discipline. Here, the year of the discipline’s institutionalisation into an academic degree is to be considered as the emergence year due to this characteristic’s ability to fulfil the previous criteria.

Whilst journalism students at the University of Pennsylvania were taught about advertising in various courses starting from 1893 and undergraduates at the Harvard School of Business Administration (1909) were offered a module named “Commercial Organisation and Methods” as part of their business studies, the first-ever degree that could be pursued purely in advertising was set up in 1915, at the New York University when the department of Advertising & Marketing was established. Also, in the previous and following years, the people whose ideas shaped the discipline of advertising, all were from the United States, making it the country that initiated the discipline and determined its start date.

Such a degree in advertising (Bachelor of Arts) usually included (and still includes) the study of strategic planning, sales, management, creative design and product image development. However, since advertising aims to create convincing perceptions of products, the discipline’s theories and research object is very much dependant to the changes in sociological happenings. Earlier (in the 1920s), the discipline of advertising was taught by analysing and drawing on the ideas, successes of F. Wayland Ayer (the owner of the first advertising agency), Phineas Taylor Barnum (a man who knew how to persuade people with fake news), and Helen Lansdowne Resor (a woman that introduced the use of sexual appeal in advertisements). Yet, later, the academic discipline gained a lot from such persons as William Bernbach and David Ogilvy, both of whom directed advertising into the creative ensemble of catchy engaging texts and visual escapade that it is today.

Women's Studies as a Discipline
An academic discipline is a field of knowledge, including research and teaching, thought generally in higher education as part of a Department of Study.

Several academic fields cover the role of women and their contribution of knowledge in specific subjects, but never has Women's Studies been a full proper academic field. As very little consideration was given to the status of women in History, there were no academic degrees studying their contribution to the society nor their condition. However, since the second half of the 20th century, the beginning of women’s emancipation, and the empowerment through feminist movements such as the suffragette movement, the study of women has gained interest among scholars. As a result, the first university course about Women’s History appeared in the early 1950s at Sydney University, led by the work of the feminist Madge Dawson, who was also the teacher in her “Women in a changing world” course, which was in the first place only experimental. But the first official Women’s Studies program was established in the United States in 1970, in the San Diego State College.

The popularity of the course due to its large number of female students starting to get access to university, contributed to its spreading all around the world. It has then been officialized as a multidisciplinary degree in the department of Arts and Humanities, and gather the historic of women’s work in all the major academic disciplines. It is likely that with the 21st century and the expansion of women’s empowerment and feminists movements such as the Movement #MeToo, the Women’s Studies field will only grow and enrich itself.

Anthropology: A Protean Discipline
Anthropology comes from the Greek words ánthrōpos “human" and lógos "study": the study of mankind. Considered as a scientific but also humanistic discipline, it may be more difficult to grasp, although it is a critically essential part in the academia. Under the anthropological umbrella there are several types of studies: social anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and biological anthropology. In the United States and Canada, archaeology is also considered part of anthropology, but in Europe, it is seen as a discipline of its own, or as a part of the discipline of history. So, anthropology can be defined as the scientific study of humanity: of human behaviour and biology, as well as the societies constructed in the past and present.

Regarding the start of the study of mankind, anthropologists often consider Herodotus, a Greek historian from 400s BC, as the first to write on concepts that would later become key to anthropology. Early writings continued reflecting on questions of human origins and cultural development throughout the centuries, up to the Age of Enlightenment during the 17th century, as the rise of scientific and philosophical thought developed. Humanist thinkers, such as John Locke and Rousseau, wrote some works on the nature of humankind. Following this, the rise of imperialism commenced in the 18th-19th centuries, as well as industrialisation, leading to the discovery of foreign new cultures and societies for Europeans. This propelled the start of anthropological societies where people studied these different cultures, and it eventually became a profession. At the end of the century, anthropology began to institutionalise itself by taking academic positions in colleges and universities: modern anthropology finally took shape in the 1860s.

From then on, many anthropologists came along with new thoughts and ideas, discoveries and observations. From Darwin, to Boas, to Geertz, anthropological thought has continued to expand as an ever changing discipline as it grows with the societies that continue to form. Today, ethnographic fieldwork is practiced by many modern anthropologists as they expand their knowledge on past and today’s societies.

The emergence of law as a discipline
The legal profession was born in Ancient Greece and Rome. Indeed, Ancient Rome and ancient Greece had schools of rhetoric, which was the beginning of what was to become schools of law. These schools provided the skills to become an advocate. However, law was not always taught.

Proper legal classes came later on, during the 3rd BCE when Tiberius Caroncanius, consul of the roman republic, performed the first public legal instruction. . After this class, a student, who’s identity remains unknown, got very interested and learnt the law by attending consultations and by discussing with Caroncaniu, who became the first law teacher. After Coruncanius’ death, law became more and more formalized. Later on, wealthy citizens developed a group of specialists who learned the law: the jurisconsults. They advised advocates, who were only trained for rhetoric, and ordinary citizens. As the time went on, the new genre of legal literature has emerged, and some jurisconsults became regular law teachers. Hence, the Romans were the first to have a group of people who spent time thinking about legal problems. However, it was still unregulated.

The actual profession of lawyer appeared later in ancient Athens and Rome, where people would get help pleading their case by an advocate. The advocate would say that he is pleading for a “friend” because, at this time, individuals were supposed to plead their own case or get help from a friend only. Furthermore, the advocate could not get paid for their service.

Nevertheless, advocacy as a profession was made legal by Emperor Claudius, and thus, Roman advocates could get paid and practice openly. And, they became the first of what we know today: lawyers. The first European university to teach law was a Bologna University in Italy. Bologna law school has been established by legal scholars from glossator school in Bologna in 12th century. During Middle Ages most of European universities has taught Roman Law, and introduced the study of national law in the beginning of 18th century.

Artificial Intelligence - Future Discipline
Artificial intelligence are computers performing tasks which are usually performed by humans using theory and development. Artificial intelligence can be argued to have been explored through different disciplines such as biology, economics, maths and logic even before AI was given its own name. Philosophy is just one of these disciplines, from Descartes mind-body theory of dualism to Leibnitz later materialists’ perspectives, philosophy has had an underlying role in the development of AI. AI is also viewed in more artistic disciplines such as film and literature. Mary Shelley´s 1823 Frankenstein can be considered to include some parallels to our current artificial intelligence, showing how AI emerged within individual disciplines before it was even appreciated as a concept with its own name.

There are various moments in history which could be argued to have been the turning points for the development of AI, one of these is when robots started to develop intelligent connections rather solely focusing on the classical concepts of mechanical engineering. Some may argue that the main turning point for the acknowledgement of AI was Turing’s investigation of whether machines were capable of thinking, also known as The Turin Test and his theories of machine intelligence. However, it is also argued that it was John McCarthy who founded the idea of artificial intelligence as he was the one to name AI and form the first artificial intelligence conference, the Dartmouth Conference

AI is thought to be changing the job market and certain perspectives such as Yuval Noah Harari’s in his book 21 lessons for the 21st century believe a wave of unemployment due to the rise of AI is on its way, as well as believing moral and philosophical questions will arise from the further development of AI. The abuse of data by large corporations or people in power is also a concern raised by many. However, it is also viewed that AI is helping sectors such as Health care and that AI could possibly perform tasks more accurately than humans. Although there are different views on the current and further development of AI, it is clear our present and future is going to be affected by it.

Therefore, it may be argued that rather than AI just being a niche sector of the computer science discipline it will be developed into its own. It is argued that it will not only immensely affect our future, but that computer science is not enough to fully understand the complexity of AI and that subjects such as psychology, philosophy and sociology are essential to understand this phenomena, highlighting on its Interdisciplinarity, and therefore requiring IA to develop into its own individual discipline.

Emergence of Chemistry and Biology as Scientific Disciplines
Before the emergence of modern scientific disciplines, those who observed and studied the natural world were natural philosophers, who used philosophical thinking to understand their observations of the world. Pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Anaximenes of Miletus and Democritus, claimed that there were natural causes to the phenomena they observed, rather than attributing these phenomena to the action of gods. In the 16th and 17th century, a number of changes led to a shift in medieval natural philosophy, from the inventions of the microscope and the telescope, to the Protestant Reformation. This reformation not only challenged the Catholic Church, but also disagreed with Aristotelian thought, which was prevalent as the main school of thought during this time. Aristotle’s idea of the universe was challenged by Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the universe and Galileo’s use of the telescope could provide “visual evidence” unlike before. These events can be seen as having played a part in the Scientific Revolution, as well as the development of experimental science and the use of scientific method, leading to the emergence of natural sciences.

The establishment of scientific societies and journals further set apart this modern era of science from that of the Middle Ages. Scientific societies were established and aimed to produce new scientific knowledge instead of preserving previous knowledge. The first of these societies was the Academy of the Lynxes (Accademia dei Lincei) in Italy, where the members had scheduled meetings to share their work and ideas. This was followed by the Royal Society of London, which was established in 1660. In 1665, the secretary of the Royal Society of London, Henry Oldenburg, published what is described as the “first recognisable” scientific journal, the Philosophical Transactions.

Now, natural sciences can be divided into two main branches: life sciences (biology) and physical sciences (to include physics, chemistry, astronomy and Earth science). Chemistry, although one of the physical sciences, can be seen to bridge the gap between the biological and the physical, as a "central science".

In terms of modern scientific disciplines, biology and chemistry have become distinct branches of science, each encompassing a number of sub-disciplines, despite their common ancestry in the natural sciences.

In the 17th century, Robert Boyle is credited to have made a distinction between chemistry and its protoscience, alchemy in his book The Sceptical Chymist, in that chemists made use of the scientific method. The word chemistry, is derived from alchemy, which has been traced to have both Greek and Arabic origins, to mean “cast together” and “Egyptian art” or "black art", respectively. The definition of chemistry has continued to evolve with the discipline, and modern chemistry can now be defined as the study of the “composition, structure, and properties of substances and with the transformations that they undergo."

Before the development of biology as a separate field, the study of animals and plants came under natural history and natural philosophy. Similarly, early ideas that are still prevalent in modern chemistry came from natural philosophers such as Aristotle. In the 19th century, biology became a separate entity following vast advancements in the study of the subject such as the development of the microscope and cell theory. Biology as a modern scientific discipline is described as the study of “life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution.”

The Evolution of a Liberal Arts Education
Liberal Arts, from the Latin liberalis meaning ‘’free’’ and  ars meaning ‘’principled practice of’’, is considered by some to be the oldest curriculum in history. Originally comprised of the medieval quadrivium: astronomy, mathematics, geometry, music, the trivium consisting of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic (logic) was added later, during a period in Athens when public speaking was considered of greatest importance. The seven arts were thus considered essential teachings in becoming a 'free person' during the period of classical antiquity.

From these origins, a Liberal Arts or humanistic teaching methodology spread throughout Europe and became the foundation of sixteenth century education for the European elites. It was during the next 300 years however, that would see the gradual dissipation of such a teaching philosophy and a growing movement towards specialisms. By the mid 19th to mid 20th centuries, despite a number of small Liberal Arts colleges in the United States, Europe would see a rise in single-honours degree programmes. It wouldn’t be until the late 1960s in wider Europe and the 1990s in the UK that ‘US-style’ Liberal Arts programmes would be re-introduced, with a further 20 years before they began to proliferate.

Liberal Arts programmes have since gained recognition in England as a course best fit for vastly changing epistemological, socio-cultural and econo-political landscapes ; with the conception of the Liberal Arts BA at the University of Winchester in 2010, the Arts and Sciences BASc at University College London and the Liberal Arts programme at King’s College London both in 2012. As disciplines are increasingly understood to be inextricably linked and social issues invariably multifaceted, a more comprehensive knowledge of subjects is increasingly desirable.

The definition of Liberal Arts as a discipline poses a unique question therefore, as it is both a degree programme offered in universities, but also a pedagogical philosophy rooted in ideas of individual freedom and society. Its current reincarnation as a degree programme worldwide maintains much of the same philosophy, however within practical constraints. It is such constraints which arguably make it a discipline over a philosophy in contemporary society.

Introduction and origins
Political Science, called also politology, is a social science focused on analysing political power, its allocation and transfer in decision making, the roles and systems of governance. Although it heavenly draws on different social sciences, political science is distinguished from them due to its focus on power. The contemporary discipline is broad, and it is interested in all the societal, cultural and psychological factors influencing actions of government and power bodies. Politology has some overlaps with the field of political philosophy, and historically they weren't always distinguished. Subfields of political science include international relations, public policy, public administration, comparative politics, political methodology and political economy. Like all sciences, political science includes empirical investigation drawing from methods originating in psychology, social research and cognitive neuroscience.

Interest in the subject matter of political science traces back to ancient times. One of the first recorded analysis of political power is by Aristotle (384–322 BC). Due to his attempt to introduce empirical observation in the study of politics, by many he is perceived as the founder of political science. Some of the other ancient influences include Confucius (551–479 BC) in China, and Kautilya (flourished 300 BC) in India and historic writing by Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406) in North Africa.

Emergence of the discipline
Term “political science” has existed and been noted throughout 1800, however it didn’t describe a specific discipline. Johnson has put it "politics was not viewed as a distinctive mode of action or even as a clearly defined structural feature of social life: it was continuous with moral conduct and social regulation". It is in 19th century when the creation of university departments and specialised chairs marked the beginning of political science as university discipline. Rapid growth of natural sciences during that time contributed to creation a new social science. In 1903 and 1906 respectively American Political Science Association and the American Political Science Review were founded. In 1872 in France the first school of political science has been established - the École Libre des Sciences Politiques (now the Institut d’Études Politiques). In 1895 London School of Economics and Political Science has formed and the first chair of politics was created at the University of Oxford in 1912. Political science has been a part of curricula in law, economics or philosophy in American universities, but became a distinct taught discipline in 1880 with established a school of political science at Columbia University, New York City. By 1920 most of major universities had departamentu named either politics, government or political science.

History and politics
Political science has been often taught alongside different academic disciplines and single honours politics degrees are less common. For many years history and political science were united disciplines in American colleges and universities. History and politics are still frequently taught together. Joint Honours degree can be found at multiple universities, such as Oxford University or Cambridge University. Existing critique for such practises is that history is an Important but no longer exclusive analytical technique within political science and politology itself cannot be successfully subsumed by the discipline of history.


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The Historical Development of History
--Gingerisadog3025 (discuss • contribs) 18:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Emergence of the discipline
There are multiple debates surrounding the emergence of the discipline History, one could argue that the discipline emerged from the processes that Herodotus authored his work, The Histories, from. While there was evidence of historical records predating this period, the methods used by the historian, such as "distinguishing between more or less reliable accounts", were the first recorded time the skill of analysis and evaluation, integral concepts within the methodology of contemporary historical thought. This claim is further substantiated by the term that Munslow defines in his book, What History Is, which is essentially a discipline that utilises a narrative form of writing to challenge, analyse and recount a series of past events.

On the other hand however, some would argue that by this point the discipline had not become an actual discipline and instead just a form of narrative literature. Some would argue that the creation of contemporary historical thought only emerged from the works of Leopold Von Ranke in the 1830s through his book Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 (Histories of the Latin and Teutonic Peoples from 1494 to 1514) where he argues that history should be “collected carefully, examined objectively and put together with critical rigor” ; essentially pioneering the methodology of critical historiography. Historians such as Fritz Stern argue that the creation of the discipline occurred in the "mid nineteenth century" where "history had ceased to be a branch of literature and had become an academic discipline" through the creation of academic journals such as the Historiche Zeitschrift in 1859 and the Revue Historique in 1876 who argued to approach history objectively - as Ranke did. The ‘Historiche Zeritschrift’ in particular, emphasises the significance of objectivity in the study of the discipline with its preface detailing that the “periodical should, above all, be a scientific one”.

Rather than arguing which one is more suited as the emergence of the discipline, I suggest that these two events serve as the introduction of two different concepts within historiography; the emergence of the historical method and the creation of modern historical thought.

The Paradigm Shift in Historical Approaches in the 20th Century
In 1961, E.H. Carr released What is History? whose theories were antithetical to the mainstream empiricist historiography that dominated the 19th and early 20th century. As a result, the theory of historiography in Britain, in particular, shifted towards a new equilibrium that pivoted from the preexisting epistemological certainty as delineated by Keith Windschuttle who writes how Carr's work was "one of the most influential books written about historiography, and that very few historians working in the English language since the 1960s had not read it". In response to Carr’s attack on the objectivist historical thought, G.C. Elton released the Practice of History in 1967 in defense of the Victorian style of writing which scathingly criticized how Carr's work embodied "an extraordinarily arrogant attitude both to the past and to the place of the historian studying it” .While one may argue that debate serves to show the prevailing tensions between the new and radical historical thought and the existing pillar of empiricism, it was one of the many examples that delineated a paradigm shift in the approaches of historical thought. R.G. Collingwood, whose works heavily influenced Carr’s book, was one of the many historians who spearheaded the emergence of relativist ideas into the conscious historical thought that appeared in the early 20th century . Carr's radical work served as just one example of how the predominant influence of empirical thought in history had already eroded. Today, historians have opted to adopt a middle-ground approach that maintains the skeletal form of appropriate analysis and evaluation but not to the extreme extent of extreme empiricism. This development that spanned for a whole century presents the idea that unlike the more quantitative disciplines, there isn't a specific event in history that could be pinpointed as a "turning point" that instantly shifted the approaches and methodology applied in history but rather a gradual development that caused a shift in the then-existing hegemony of logical positivism.

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User:JREverest/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/2020-21/Seminar group 6/Lucia Mari Sanguino

checking my account works


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local string, setmetatable, assert = string, setmetatable, assert

_ENV = nil

-- Initialize table of round constants -- (first 32 bits of the fractional parts of the cube roots of the first -- 64 primes 2..311): local k = { 0x428a2f98, 0x71374491, 0xb5c0fbcf, 0xe9b5dba5, 0x3956c25b, 0x59f111f1, 0x923f82a4, 0xab1c5ed5, 0xd807aa98, 0x12835b01, 0x243185be, 0x550c7dc3, 0x72be5d74, 0x80deb1fe, 0x9bdc06a7, 0xc19bf174, 0xe49b69c1, 0xefbe4786, 0x0fc19dc6, 0x240ca1cc, 0x2de92c6f, 0x4a7484aa, 0x5cb0a9dc, 0x76f988da, 0x983e5152, 0xa831c66d, 0xb00327c8, 0xbf597fc7, 0xc6e00bf3, 0xd5a79147, 0x06ca6351, 0x14292967, 0x27b70a85, 0x2e1b2138, 0x4d2c6dfc, 0x53380d13, 0x650a7354, 0x766a0abb, 0x81c2c92e, 0x92722c85, 0xa2bfe8a1, 0xa81a664b, 0xc24b8b70, 0xc76c51a3, 0xd192e819, 0xd6990624, 0xf40e3585, 0x106aa070, 0x19a4c116, 0x1e376c08, 0x2748774c, 0x34b0bcb5, 0x391c0cb3, 0x4ed8aa4a, 0x5b9cca4f, 0x682e6ff3, 0x748f82ee, 0x78a5636f, 0x84c87814, 0x8cc70208, 0x90befffa, 0xa4506ceb, 0xbef9a3f7, 0xc67178f2, }

-- transform a string of bytes in a string of hexadecimal digits local function str2hexa (s) local h = string.gsub(s, ".", function(c)             return string.format("%02x", string.byte(c))            end) return h end

-- transform number 'l' in a big-endian sequence of 'n' bytes -- (coded as a string) local function num2s (l, n) local s = "" for i = 1, n do   local rem = l % 256 s = string.char(rem) .. s   l = (l - rem) / 256 end return s end

-- transform the big-endian sequence of four bytes starting at -- index 'i' in 's' into a number local function s232num (s, i) local n = 0 for i = i, i + 3 do   n = n*256 + string.byte(s, i)  end return n end

-- append the bit '1' to the message -- append k bits '0', where k is the minimum number >= 0 such that the -- resulting message length (in bits) is congruent to 448 (mod 512) -- append length of message (before pre-processing), in bits, as 64-bit -- big-endian integer local function preproc (msg, len) local extra = -(len + 1 + 8) % 64 len = num2s(8 * len, 8)   -- original len in bits, coded msg = msg .. "\128" .. string.rep("\0", extra) .. len assert(#msg % 64 == 0) return msg end

local function initH224 (H) -- (second 32 bits of the fractional parts of the square roots of the -- 9th through 16th primes 23..53) H[1] = 0xc1059ed8 H[2] = 0x367cd507 H[3] = 0x3070dd17 H[4] = 0xf70e5939 H[5] = 0xffc00b31 H[6] = 0x68581511 H[7] = 0x64f98fa7 H[8] = 0xbefa4fa4 return H end

local function initH256 (H) -- (first 32 bits of the fractional parts of the square roots of the -- first 8 primes 2..19): H[1] = 0x6a09e667 H[2] = 0xbb67ae85 H[3] = 0x3c6ef372 H[4] = 0xa54ff53a H[5] = 0x510e527f H[6] = 0x9b05688c H[7] = 0x1f83d9ab H[8] = 0x5be0cd19 return H end

local function digestblock (msg, i, H)

-- break chunk into sixteen 32-bit big-endian words w[1..16] local w = {} for j = 1, 16 do     w[j] = s232num(msg, i + (j - 1)*4) end

-- Extend the sixteen 32-bit words into sixty-four 32-bit words: for j = 17, 64 do     local v = w[j - 15] local s0 = bxor(rrotate(v, 7), rrotate(v, 18), rshift(v, 3)) v = w[j - 2] local s1 = bxor(rrotate(v, 17), rrotate(v, 19), rshift(v, 10)) w[j] = w[j - 16] + s0 + w[j - 7] + s1   end

-- Initialize hash value for this chunk: local a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h = H[1], H[2], H[3], H[4], H[5], H[6], H[7], H[8]

-- Main loop: for i = 1, 64 do     local s0 = bxor(rrotate(a, 2), rrotate(a, 13), rrotate(a, 22)) local maj = bxor(band(a, b), band(a, c), band(b, c)) local t2 = s0 + maj local s1 = bxor(rrotate(e, 6), rrotate(e, 11), rrotate(e, 25)) local ch = bxor (band(e, f), band(bnot(e), g)) local t1 = h + s1 + ch + k[i] + w[i]

h = g     g = f      f = e      e = d + t1      d = c      c = b      b = a      a = t1 + t2    end

-- Add (mod 2^32) this chunk's hash to result so far: H[1] = band(H[1] + a)   H[2] = band(H[2] + b)    H[3] = band(H[3] + c)    H[4] = band(H[4] + d)    H[5] = band(H[5] + e)    H[6] = band(H[6] + f)    H[7] = band(H[7] + g)    H[8] = band(H[8] + h)

end

local function finalresult224 (H) -- Produce the final hash value (big-endian): return str2hexa(num2s(H[1], 4)..num2s(H[2], 4)..num2s(H[3], 4)..num2s(H[4], 4)..            num2s(H[5], 4)..num2s(H[6], 4)..num2s(H[7], 4)) end

local function finalresult256 (H) -- Produce the final hash value (big-endian): return str2hexa(num2s(H[1], 4)..num2s(H[2], 4)..num2s(H[3], 4)..num2s(H[4], 4)..            num2s(H[5], 4)..num2s(H[6], 4)..num2s(H[7], 4)..num2s(H[8], 4)) end

-- local HH = {}   -- to reuse

local function hash224 (msg) msg = preproc(msg, #msg) local H = initH224(HH)

-- Process the message in successive 512-bit (64 bytes) chunks: for i = 1, #msg, 64 do   digestblock(msg, i, H)  end

return finalresult224(H) end

local function hash256 (msg) msg = preproc(msg, #msg) local H = initH256(HH)

-- Process the message in successive 512-bit (64 bytes) chunks: for i = 1, #msg, 64 do   digestblock(msg, i, H)  end

return finalresult256(H) end -- local mt = {}

local function new256 local o = {H = initH256({}), msg = "", len = 0} setmetatable(o, mt) return o end

mt.__index = mt

function mt:add (m) self.msg = self.msg .. m self.len = self.len + #m local t = 0 while #self.msg - t >= 64 do   digestblock(self.msg, t + 1, self.H)    t = t + 64 end self.msg = self.msg:sub(t + 1, -1) end

function mt:close self.msg = preproc(self.msg, self.len) self:add("") return finalresult256(self.H) end --

--return { -- hash224 = hash224, -- hash256 = hash256, -- new256 = new256, --}

local p = {}

function p.hash256(frame) return hash256(frame.args[1]) end

function p.hash224(frame) return hash224(frame.args[1]) end

return p

title: Module:SHA2


text:
User:Eagle1020/sandbox

What comes to mind when we hear the words “Computer Art”? Certainly not a Renaissance painter with a blank canvas in front of them. Perhaps an artist in front of a computer screen, who is developing algorithms that generate experimental art? Or perhaps even an Artificial Intelligence (AI) robot that creates paintings that are just as good as the ones in the National Gallery? All of the above are examples of Computer Art in the modern world. Art and Computer Science as disciplines use contrastingly different methodological approaches to arrive at knowledge. In recent years, however, a unique overlap between the two has led to the formation of a sub-discipline -- Computer Art -- an increasingly popular Bachelor program in universities across the world.

Computer Art could be viewed as a branch of both Art and Computer Science. As a branch of Art, the sub-discipline explores the development of new Art forms through the use of technology. In the context of Computer Science, it focuses on the development of technology (for example, algorithms) to create Art. An increasing number of artists nowadays learn to code in order to develop algorithms for aesthetic purposes. To go even further, AI advancements have allowed for the production of AI-generated paintings which are accessible to be viewed online and even purchased. Every day, the intersection between Art and Computer Science grows and History is made.

The exact point in time when Computer Arts first emerged as a sub-discipline is an academic debate. However, a possible answer would be the founding of the non-governmental organization “Experiments in Art and Technology” (E.A.T.) in 1966 by the electrical engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and the artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman. E.A.T. sought to forge collaboration between engineers and artists through industrial projects. The organization quickly gained popularity and a few years after its establishment, it had over 4,000 participants: artists, engineers, programmers, researchers, and scientists, whose collaborative efforts led to the development of new Computer Art forms, such as video and digital image. A disclaimer should be made that earlier examples of the presence of technology in Art exist but they do not point to the history of the sub-discipline and its methodologies, which is why they are not mentioned.

Nowadays, we consider digital image and video (and the technology involved in producing those) as an integral part of Art, however, 60 years ago, they were a revolutionary concept. Coding, as a means of creating Art, is also being normalized. Today, we tremble with excitement (and fear) at the thought of AI using complex algorithms to produce Art by itself. In 60 years, however, we may see AI as an inseparable part of Art.

title: User:Eagle1020/sandbox