What role does gender have in shaping knowledge that underpins the practice of midwifery?

Midwifery is an ancient profession that continues to be practiced almost exclusively by women. This paper explores the role that millennia of gender exclusivity has had in shaping the knowledge that informs the profession. Prior to the Renaissance this knowledge was exclusively female, largely oral, tacit and intuitive whilst recognising childbearing as an important transformative period in a woman’s lifecycle. Male scientific enquiry in the seventeenth century into human anatomy extended to women’s bodies and childbirth and disrupted the female ways of knowing. Their positivist ontology focussing on the mechanics of childbirth created an opportunity for intervening in a normal process and receiving payment for it. The perceived structural superiority of a male obstetric ontology of childbirth has posed an existential threat to the midwifery profession. This paper concludes by discussing how 20^th century professional regulation of midwifery has encouraged midwives to use patriarchal structures and frameworks of knowledge to co-exist within the hegemonic biomedical model advocated by the majority of their obstetric colleagues.     

Make Hegel great again: on Hegel’s epistemological contribution to critical terrorism studies

ABSTRACT

Despite the contribution of Foucaultian inspired approaches to Critical Terrorism Studies, this article invites us to consider Hegel’s epistemological insights. Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus is an invaluable intellectual tool which reveals how terrorism can be a “social fact”, yet it rests on a genealogical account of history and a passive notion of subjectivity determined by power (regimes). Hegelian philosophy maintains some of the benefits met in Foucault’s approach (sociality and contingency of knowledge) while providing a richer epistemological account. This article introduces Hegel’s epistemological insights to: i) challenge the portrayal of terrorism as a major external threat against the western liberal democratic states in the vein of “New Terrorism” or the “Clash of Civilizations”; and ii) domestically explore how the concept of liberal democratic rights, equality, freedom affect the interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, the threat perception of terrorism and domestic polarisation. Hegel’s insights critically interrogate the notions of “liberal rights”, “equality” and “freedom”, revealing how their ambiguous definition accommodates inherent contradictions which can fuel a controversial interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, leading to domestic polarisation and (reciprocal) radicalisation. Therefore, Hegel’s epistemological insights reveal how the defective definition of human rights, equality and liberty can amplify the effects of Terrorism and radicalisation.     

Educação do Campo [Education for and by the countryside] as a political project in the context of the struggle for land in Brazil

Latin American and Brazilian rural social movements believe that significant social transformation requires the collective construction of a political project of an historical character. Education is conceived as an historical–cultural and political project to transform the peasantry into an historical subject through emancipatory educational–pedagogical praxis. The Landless Workers Movement (MST), the most emblematic peasant movement in Brazil, has played the leading role in this debate, which also includes many other peasant organizations. The MST has identified education as the key element in forging an historical–political actor out of the landless peasantry. This is articulated through the struggle for education for rural peoples, and along a theoretical–epistemic axis that revolves around the emergent concept of Educação do Campo (‘Education for and by the Countryside’). I ask how the MST conceptualizes education, and what the role is of education in strengthening peasant resistance and sharpening the dispute between political projects for the countryside. I focus on the epistemic dimensions of the concepts of education and pedagogy in the trajectory of the MST in Brazil, and I examine Educação do Campo as an educational-political project and in terms of policy conquests in the political dispute between the rival political projects for the Brazilian countryside of peasants and capital.     

《实践论》对马克思主义认识论的新贡献

毛泽东的<实践论>在马克思主义认识史上具有重要地位.<实践论>在中国革命的实践中捍卫了马克思主义认识论的基本原理,并且在许多方面发展了马克思主义认识论思想,对马克思主义哲学发展作出了重要贡献.     

科学客观性的历史建构--科学哲学视域中的历史认识论

在尼采的视角主义和福柯的主体解释学等欧陆哲学的影响下,历史认识论结合观念史、思想史和文化史的历史语境,考察了科学客观性的概念的历史建构过程,加深了人们对科学实践的复杂性的认识,并为科学哲学在新世纪的发展提供了诸多有价值的启示。     

Life,reason and history: reading Georges Canguilhem today

This paper outline some of the central feature of the approach to historical epistemology developed by Georges Canguilhem and argues for their contemporary significance in relation to recent changes in the life sciences. It develops this in relation to three lines of enquiry.The first concerns the specific characteristics of scientific reason.The second conerns the relations betweeen knowledge of life and life itself.The third concerns the role that historical work on scientific reason can play within contemporary critical thought.In each area it proposes some developments of Canguilhem's approach, and illustrates this with examples from biology,medicine and psychology.     

司法解释概念的认识论分析

人们在不同的论域中使用司法解释概念:权力说与手段说的司法解释、理性与非理性的司法解释、方法论与本体论的司法解释。从认识论角度看,不同的概念又具有共同之处。司法解释活动本身就是一种不同于反映性认识的解释性认识活动。司法解释体现了认识性活动与实践性活动的统一,法官司法判断的方法论与本体论的统一,理解、解释、论证、应用等阶段性活动的统一。     

经济法认识论探略

经济法认识论是经济法学研究中一个值得关注的部分。在今天“重写法律史”的时代条件下,我们除了应该对其间新兴的经济法律现象加以认识之外,更应该对这种认识的过程及其成果进行系统的反思,即加强经济法的认识论研究。惟有如此,我们才能深化对经济法的理解,进而以正确的认识成果指导经济法实践。     

审判监督的认识论分析

文章以认识论作为理论基础,以刑事诉讼的认识论为例,论述了审判监督是认识的非至上性的客观要求,我们不仅不应弱化审判监督,而应加强审判监督.     

证据法学的理论基础

认识论是证据法学的理论基础之一 ,追求客观真实是刑事诉讼的主要目标之一。认识活动是判决的基础 ,构成了诉讼活动的主要内容 ,其中在审判阶段进行的证明活动的就是通过举证、辩论达到说服裁判者使之形成特定认识的活动。证据法的另一重要的理论基础是法律价值及其平衡、选择理论。本文批驳了贬低诉讼中认识活动的意义和将认识论摈除于证据法学理论基础的观点 ,对于证据规则的工具价值进行了正面阐述 ,并对于马克斯·韦伯的“形式理性”的概念进行了诠解 ,同时提出了证据法价值的多元论观点 ,指出对于存在冲突的法律价值应依特定的标准进行权衡和选择。