Theme 5: Design research

For this week's theme, Design Research, we read the following papers: Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space - Fernaeus & Tholander & Differentiated Driving Range - Lundström. This is my discussion based on the reading.

What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

The term 'empirical' in general refers to information or knowledge that is based on experience. Further, in the context of science, 'empirical data' means knowledge that is gained through observation and experimentation. Two types of research methods are used to gather empirical data, and those methods are of course either qualitative or quantitative.

In the paper written by Fernaeus and Tholander the empirical data was gathered through a qualitative method. The researchers based the experimental part of the study on interaction between children and chosen design prototypes, meaning that the data was gathered through observing how children in staged activities were using the tangible prototypes. Observations were also made with the help of interaction analysis based on the recorded video material about the interaction in the tangible programming space created by the researchers.

As for Lundström’s paper, the researchers first conducted a pre-study based on analysis of discourse in online forums, and also interviews. This was necessary in order to conduct the actual empirical part of the study, because the experiment methods arouse from the findings of the pre-study. So, an iterative and explorative design process was then carried out and the process resulted a prototype that was then tested while driving an electric car. The empirical data was about driving range, and it was quantitative.

One could conclude that both of these research papers exploited a design method that includes the process of first conceptualizing of the idea, then sketching the initial design and building a prototype, testing it, analyzing and finally ending up with the an improved version based on the learnings from the testing situations. Above I may have mostly described the process through which the empirical data was gathered and not so much the data itself, but for me the process seems more essential here than the results.

Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

In my opinion, yes. From what I have understood from these papers, practical design work is specifically a process which always results as increased level of knowledge. In order to do practical design work one has to examine the subject and prepare the conditions for empirical study, which in itself is already very broadening. For example, in the name of preparing proper conditions for his study, Lundström conducted a pre-study, which was very enlightening and resulted as knowledge contribution for the experiments.

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

Design intentions usually have similar characteristics regardless of the context, so it's a bit tricky task to determine the exact differences. Of course in a research project the aim is very carefully considered and already the research questions narrow down the subject about which the researchers want to gain knowledge, whereas 'design' in general can be whatever from product development to graphic design or brand design.

Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc?

After putting some serious thought to this, I strongly believe that these kind of researches are replicable. For me it seems that if they weren't, they weren't considered as reliable scientific knowledge either. One of the biggest requirements for scientific studies is that the same results are possible to be obtained by another researcher – it can not be depended on the person conducting the study or otherwise the research set-up has some serious deficiencies. Time and historical setting of course has its input in the level of knowledge at the time, but I don't see any of these factors (skills, tools) being a problem. In order to repeat the study the other researchers would  have to create as creating similar circumstances as possible, and if they succeed doing that (are able to critically evaluate the conditions) the results could be considered reliable. If they differ, there's always room for doubt as well, but I think that after mentioning it on the paper, it can be left for the readers own consideration.

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

Mostly the difference is about the process, a very carefully and well-designed process of the experiment. In design driven research the process is maybe even more important than the result, since the result is worthless without a properly designed process?

Theme 2: Comments

Here are my comments on theme 2:

1. https://u1wdx0i7.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-theme2-forpreparation-of-this.html?showComment=1474806352538#c3694287480028926879

2. https://scarsickbg.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2-blog-post-2-critical-media.html?showComment=1474810453150#c812340827879212735

3. https://pgd7117.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2-reflection-nowadays-cultureis.html?showComment=1474815675225#c5151073493354440665

4. https://u1dn0y6t.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-reflection-theme-2.html?showComment=1474921106172#c7081346378206342546

5. https://u11zdo9t.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-2.html?showComment=1474922486767#c5711431688682867424

6. https://u1h02pv3.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflection-on-theme-2-critical-media.html?showComment=1474924653797#c1548671753639897183

7. https://u1kq1ay0.blogspot.se/2016/09/second-blogpost-theme-2-critical-media.html?showComment=1474965864918#c4733532195378139335

8. https://u1cq6h0z.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2reflection-on-critical-media.html?showComment=1474966666739#c7575044918175135476

Theme 4: Quantitative research

I chose the following article for this blog post: "Participatory journalism – the (r)evolution that wasn't. Content and user behavior in Sweden 2007–2013" and the article can be found here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12115/full

The researchers used a mixed methods approach drawing from two Swedish datasets – one a content analysis and the other a survey. Sweden is one of the top 10 countries in terms of Internet access, skills, and usage and has a history of high Internet news. Therefore the preconditions for online participation are favorable, suiting the researchers aim to track development over time in order to take stock of participatory journalism.

Data concerning the facilitation of comments on news sites was based on a yearly longitudinal study spanning from 2007 to 2013. The study focused on the four largest, nationwide news sites in Sweden: Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), Expressen and Dagens Nyheter (DN). The data was based on quantitative content analysis. 8,459 news items were analyzed for various variables – two of them being whether comments and blog links were allowed for the specific news item. In order to be able to accurately study changes over time it was necessary to collect the data at roughly the same time period every year. 

When conducting a study over a long time-period and gathering a large sample it is necessary to use quantification in order to draw conclusions and generalizations about the data. However, that method also has some major limitations which is why in this particular paper the researchers decided to use mixed methods. The main methodological problems of the study were also paradoxically the mixing of different methods, although it was also necessary because of the type of data and the broad study subject.

One should keep in mind that planning a quantitative experiment is a complex process where the steps have to be followed carefully. One formulates a hypothesis (which is actually a special feature of quantitative research method – not qualitative), selects a sample population and designs an experiment from which the data will be gathered. Then, beforehand, the type of analysis is chosen – one that suits the hypothesis and manages to grasp the phenomenon which you want to measure. Often this is followed by a pilot experiment which shows the shortcomings and directs the experiment to a new direction. Finally, the experiment is conducted by following the plan closely.

Ilias Bergström and colleagues conducted a study of body ownership illusions with he help of immersive virtual reality. They had a sample of 36 university students in total, all of whom were Caucasian. I found it extremely interesting, that the external habitus virtual avatar had such a big impact on the behavior and frequency of movement in a drumming task. At first I wondered why to choose specifically an African drum, but the researchers justified it well by arguing for the little amount of particular technique needed for producing a sound. I'm also highly curious to see how the results of the study can be implied to "use" in behavioral sceneries. For example, the suggestion of "empathy machine" is extremely fascinating, since there are a lot of behavioral disorders.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

From what I have understood, quantitative method means applying statistical methods to the study and making generalizations based on the statistics. It doesn't examine a single case but rather shows causalities among a big group of examinees. However, quantitative doesn't necessarily answer to the questions of why the results are what they are, what is actually behind the numbers. Quantitative method isn't necessarily the best option when trying to examine the phenomenon as a whole.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

Compared to quantitative method, qualitative is a more descriptive method of research. Qualitative method is not able to measure the frequency or generalities that well, its aim is more to narrate the phenomenon. The weaknesses of qualitative methods are sometimes in the data gathering methods. For example, in the case of ethnographic research: if one decides to go with unstructured interview, there exists a risk that the researcher's own perceptions and expectations color the outcome of the transcribe.

Theme 3: Reflection

In this post I will be discussing my reflections on theme 3 based on the reading, seminars and group discussions that we had during the seminar. Read the previous blog post on this theme here.

For this theme, we read the texts of  The Nature of Theory in Information Systems by Gregor, S. (2006) as well as What Theory is Not by Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M. (1995).

Reflecting back on the first blog post, at first it felt indeed easier to state what theory is not. During my bachelors degree and before the lecture I had already gained much knowledge of the meaning and importance of theory as well as how to use it in an academical context, but I have certainly never been critical enough towards the concept itself. I've never misinterpret theory to the five guidelines which Sutton and Staw advice to avoid though. The first blog post managed to capture the basic idea of theory, so there is no need to repeat that on this one.

During the seminar, we discussed the institutional perspective of theory, which I hadn't reflected on earlier. I was focusing more on the question "what is theory" rather than "who can produce/present a theory", but the second question is also highly relevant and worth of giving a thought. In this context, with the concept of 'institution' I mean the academic ground on which the theory is built: the institution that allows the theory to be presented. Whether a theory is presented by a single researcher or a group of them, the theory is considered justified because of their academic background and a credible academic journal. So is anyone allowed to come up with theory and if so, who values the theory? The institution alias the reviewers of the journal? Does theory even have value if not reviewed?

This brings us to the probably most important feature of theory: it doesn't necessarily have to be true or right. Theory can not be valued based on its veracity because if it is well-argued, it's still a theory – even if proven wrong. Ilias mentioned that theory is right until replaced by another one, which is a valid statement. But from where I see it, even then it doesn't stop being a theory, it just wasn't right at the time. That is why we have so many great theories arguing against each other even today, and with the help of dialectics we can manage to see how there is room for all of them.

One could describe theory as a spine for all scientific research. When it comes to credibility of the research, theory has an essential role in that. Like I wrote above, proving the theory wrong doesn't make it any less a theory, but it does indeed have an enormous impact on the final outcome of the study. Scientific studies aim to provide knowledge, which at its most concrete results as changes in behavior. If a nutrition study claims that carbs are bad for you, we'll start avoiding them. If a neurological study proves that having a phone in the pocket near your body causes cancer, we would probably stop putting our phones there.

Sutton and Staw discuss the credibility issue as well and they argue for the importance of empirical evidence when testing a theory:"When theories are particularly interesting or important, there should be greater leeway in terms of empirical support. A small set of interviews, a demonstration experiment, a pilot survey, a bit of archival data may be all that is needed to show why a particular process might be true." As a final statement I would say that theory alone is not much, rather it's the empirical evidence that truly justifies its existence and gives the theory value. Only if we strictly review the term "theory" itself, it gets its legitimacy because of the features that are considered as qualities of a good theory.

Theme 1: Comments

Here are the links to my comments on the posts of theme 1:

1. https://u12vkokq.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflections-on-theme-1-theory-of.html?showComment=1474382621903#c8012768233548945985

2. https://u1818rgq.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-post-2.html?showComment=1474385563848#c8519093943359711431

3. https://u1j8du7c.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-post-2.html?showComment=1474393054181#c3919764515393269969

4. https://u1cq6h0z.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflection-on-theme-1theory-of.html?showComment=1474400526894#c2246818666965099173

5. https://u1kq1ay0.blogspot.se/2016/09/second-blog-post-theme-1-theory-of.html?showComment=1474401713497#c4524822284967868659

Theme 2: Reflection

This is my reflection on the theme 2, after reading and then further reflecting the subjects in the seminars. I brought up my thoughts and perceptions about the concepts in the texts during the group discussion and equally took part in the conversation.

In the first text for this theme I perceived the concept of enlightenment mostly as rationalizing and seeking for knowledge slowly taking over the mythological and mystifying way of perceiving the world. During the seminar and group discussion we aimed at understanding how the concept is also an ultimate outcome of historical movement, which has its roots on church as an institution which held the position of leading voice for such a long time in the history of human kind. Enlightenment is also not just about knowledge, but it's actually a hierarchy of dominance in the modern society – a system that is created to maintain the structures. Enlightenment is not only dominating nature but ourselves as well, as we are more or less voluntarily settling into those structures.

In the first post, the concept of dialectic was defined as a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas aiming at finding the truth. In addition to this, dialectic is also finding a consensus from two different standing points. Benjamin writes about opposition, two sides of different values both contributing to the subject in order to find something new.

Nominalism evoked most discussion during the seminar since at least I was facing some difficulties understanding how it rejects universals and categorization but – at the most extreme – also leads to a new kind of system of categories. As described, nominalism is rejection of the generalizations. It also prevents an antithesis and tends to maintain structures. According nominalists we should only observe and use no judgement at all, which means not applying anything to the things we observe: you can't find human rights or feminism in the nature (those things are human invented concepts).
Outside the texts this is an important question even today: What should govern our societies and communities? Should we come up with new kind of visions or concepts and what could it change?

My perception of Horkheimer's and Adorno's conception of myth expanded as we discussed the mythological bridges. When we argue that there's no other thing than universal regularities, the enlightenment and myth are actually similar in a way that they both show that we are just chained in a system of hierarchies. This is also the functioning logic of the media industry, since it gives us the feeling of freedom yet at the same time we are controlled what and when to do. We can look for anything on the internet, but when it comes down to facts (google shots, Facebook sensuring), that kind of freedom is very debated whether it's actually freedom or not.

According to Marx & Benjamin, the substructure changes first and affects the superstructure, so one should try to get hold on the production dimension and try to change that rather than people's opinions. That's why Marx suggests that the government should own all the production, so that it would be easier to change the substructures.

Aura is uniqueness but also cult value. You have one piece of unique art, which only rich people had the access to before. Then media production came an destroyed the uniqueness of the aura because now we can copy or mass produce it. Anyone can "see" Mona Lisa by downloading it on the internet. Reproducing stuff makes it available to everyone.

All in all, thanks to the cultural revolution, as the receiving party has become producing party (anyone can produce the content), people are allowed to have a voice. Yet at the same time the ruling class creates the level of freedom of expression, which on the other hand gives the negative nuance to all this. However, during this theme we came a little closer today's media industry by arguing the dimensions of mass culture and production.

Theme 3: Research and theory

'Theory' in its broadest form used in every day speech is a rather vague concept, which can refer to a single hypothesis or supposed chain of events. In science, however, one should be more careful with the concept since – depending on the scientific field – it has very specific characteristics and must not be used in a wrong context.

Theory could be described as a scientific model or chain of ideas that aims at explaining causalities. Theory is always presented as "possibly true" and it can be tested as well, but proving the theory right or wrong doesn't make any less of a theory. So theory is a system of ideas that provides knowledge via analysis and predictions. Theory gives the study its framework by reflecting the upcoming results on the scientific research that is done before.

According to Sutton & Staw (1995) a strong theory is none of the following:
- References to other theories without causal explanations
- Empirical findings from data (both qualitative and quantitative) are not the foundation of theory: they can support the theory, but they should not be construed as theory themselves
- Lists of variables or constructs are not theory
- Diagrams
- Hypotheses or predictions

To me it felt like these are very basic things. However, some of things listed above can indeed support the formation of a theory, but they are not to be considered as theory alone. I also believe the concept of theory is very much contextual and needs to be evaluated always depending on the context.

My choice of a scientific journal and article:

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is a web-based journal focusing in social science research on communicating with computer-based media technologies. Within that general purview, the journal is broadly interdisciplinary, publishing work by scholars in communication, business, education, political science, sociology, psychology, media studies, information science, and other disciplines. Its impact factor is 3.451 so it can be considered as valid for this assignment.

Without commenting whether the following was a good study or not, my choice for the article is "Who creates Trends in Online Social Media: The Crowd or Opinion Leaders?" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12145/epdf by Leihan Zhang, Jichang Zhao and Ke Xu. The researchers aim to research what causes a subject to become popular on the social media, is it the opinion leaders or crowds who decide what is worth sharing. In this post I am not going to pay that much attention to the subject or results of this study, but more to the theories and methods that were used conducting the study as well as the way of presenting the findings.

The empirical data was collected through the open API (Application Program Interface) under Weibo's license (the Chinese variant of Twitter). The size of the sample was 700 000 tweets from the Weibo stream during every day of 2013. The method used in this study was quantitative. The sample was analyzed and a certain amount of internet slang words were found and then further given value based on the appearance of those slang words. The users of Weibo themselves were analyzed as well and divided into groups based on the amount of followers they have. The figures support the findings of what's the significance of early adopters or opinion leaders at a certain peaks of subjects.

The major theory which creates the basis for this scientific article is conventional diffusion theory also known as the influental hypothesis. The theory states that a minority of people, called influentials, are generally considered to be the most critical factors affecting information cascades. According to the researchers this theory motivates the need for further study:

"However, empirical data to carefully validate these controversial arguments against the influentials hypothesis are still missing, which is the second motivation for our study."

When taking a closer look to the paper one could say it is both explanative and predictive. As Shirley Gregor defines on her paper, the definition of explanation and prediction (EP) type of theory fulfills when a theory says what is, how, why, when, where, and what will be. It also provides predictions and has both testable propositions and causal explanations.

Theme 1: Reflection

All in all this first theme was a well-grounded introduction to this course, which I believe is going to justify itself even better as the course goes on to a deeper level. In the paragraphs below I'm discussing a couple of the topics and thoughts that rose as a result of the reading, lecturers, seminars and group discussions. Unfortunately everything didn't fit inside the word limit, so certain concepts are left out for a reason.

Kant's and Plato's texts introduced and questioned the concept of knowledge and made us process it from various angles. 'Knowledge' as a term has established its position in everyday speech, but how often do we actually stop to define the meaning of it?

What I found most interesting in this theme in general was the attempt to define 'objectivity', which is often considered as the ideal type of knowledge, especially when it comes to science. Objective knowledge could be defined as describing the world in itself independent of our experience of the world. Objective knowledge is essential when thinking about scientific researches, where the same study results have to be attained even though a different researcher repeats the experiment. By using the same methods and conducting the study under the same conditions, one should be able to also get the same results (and process those results further to knowledge).

As for our group, we discussed Kant's and Plato's views about knowledge and by diving very deep we came to the very confusing conclusion that there is no such thing as pure, unconditional objectivity. Even such "absolute" things as mathematics or biological truths are always filtered through perception and what Kant argues are the 'faculties of knowledge'. However, Kant himself thinks it is actually possible to have a priori knowledge without exploring the world. That is by using synthetic judgement, which could be briefly explained through one famous example concerning causality: cause leads always to effect, and those terms are true in every case regardless of our knowledge of the events themselves.

Let's take a closer look to Kant's concept 'faculties of knowledge', which is a rather interesting concept and has considerable similarities to other fields of science even today. I find it relevant to find the connections between different scientific fields and these faculties of knowledge certainly have a strong one to psychology, where the same experience-based cognitive framework is called shcema. I discussed this already in the part one, but found it even more relevant after the lectures. So knowledge is what forms after perception has combined with conception – when the raw data that is received through senses has connected with earlier experiences, i.e. has been filtered through our ' faculties of knowledge'.

"Perception without conception is blind; conception without perception is empty." - Kant

Kant argues that we all have these glasses on through which we are filtering the world, but the thing itself – how the world is outside our glasses – we can not know anything about. So Kant is also a transcendental idealist. He wishes to call it as formal or critical idealism instead, so that he would not be misinterpreted as a sceptical idealist or empirical idealist.

During the seminar we had a very interesting discussion about the question if knowledge is always a blessing. There's a saying "what adds to knowledge, adds to pain", which refers to the sometimes quite radical changes that occur in our way of structuring the world after receiving new information. Whether it is about our relationships, famine or the horrible results of warfare, people have a tendency to choose not to know the truth. Perhaps it's because of the major conflict between reality and what we would like the reality to be, or maybe we are just afraid of unknown. Whichever the reason, the formation of knowledge requires re-arranging the already existing forms and often questioning your conceptions about the world. I bet we all have experienced the phenomenon when after a long chain of deep thoughts we arrive to that one point where you actually question your own existence. An ability to question and reflect, does it always lead to unhappiness?

As a final thought I'd like to discuss what is objectivity actually good for. It's a concept defined by human beings – and also through Kant's faculties of knowledge – in order to prove that some things are true and objective regardless of our perception. However, the sentence in itself already proves it false. Our conception of the world is limited by our thinking, and our thinking is limited by our perception. Having said all that I must ask, why couldn't we just admit the fact that (at least in some level) everything is subjective?

Theme 2: Critical media studies

The second theme introduced us to interesting yet sometimes challenging new concepts and ideas by great minds in the history. In this post I will discuss the definitions of a few concepts based on the reading of these two texts: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (Walter Benjamin, 1936) and "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944).

Dialectic of Enlightenment

What is "Enlightenment"?
Enlightenment is a concept used in philosophy that has developed through times by advocating the view that science and logical thinking give more knowledge to people rather than religious or mythological way of thinking.

What is "Dialectic"?
The term 'dialectic' could be defined in philosophy as a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas aiming at finding a consensus.

"Enlightenment and myth are not seen, therefore, as irreconcilable opposites but as dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. Myth is already enlightenment, and: enlightenment reverts to mythology. " This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.

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What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism rejects the universals, which means there is no concepts or categories outside the human mind. It has its base on ontology and the term comes from a Latin word "nomen" = name. Nominalism is the answer to the problem of universals: what do we base on our categorizations? That is one of the reasons why extreme nominalism rejects them as well as Plato's thoughts of a another world of abstract shapes, ideas or universals, which is separately from our physical world. However, Horkheimer and Adorno argue that nominalism leads to new kind of categorizing, because if we say that there is no such thing as concepts or categories, that we just sense "what is", the lion still beats the antelope.

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What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
According to Adorno and Horkheimer, myth is not believing in God. It is the mechanism by which we're trying to control the world. They use the hunting stories as an example: when people go out to hunt, they dress up like bears or moose in order to have a good hunting luck. They don't just pray the God, but actually go to the nature and act the way they want the nature to act. So it is a matter of mirroring the nature for a hope of effect.

The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity

Substructure is the "breeding ground" for superstructure. For example, in media industry it could mean that the technology is substructure and the value created with it is superstructure. Substructure is the physical things and condition for the substructure to happen.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. By this he means that even though the scholars were the first to question the organization of perception at that time, their views were limited by the significant yet formal hallmark which was typical in the late Roman times. They didn't consider the social transformations expressed by the changes of perception.

In order to define the term aura, we first have to understand the concepts of uniqueness and authenticity in art and technical reproduction. Authenticity could be defined as unique, real or true. Authentication is distinguishing fake from authentic, recognizing unadulterated work of art from fake one.

An aura of a work of art is being destroyed when mechanical reproduction happens and the art as a cult (in religious context for example) transforms into an art which has exhibition value. Aura requires authenticity, but there is no authenticity without its destruction in mechanical reproduction. So there's a bit of a paradox with the destruction of an aura. One can even say that the idea of authentic art appears only when the art is under the threat of mechanical reproduction. This however, makes me a little confused. It is difficult to understand that the aura of an original art piece is destroyed, even though it was mechanically reproduced. It still doesn't make the unique one any less unique, the rest are just copies – right?

Benjamin argues also that our perception of art changes all the time. If you go to see a piece of art for the first time, you sense it differently than the one having viewed it a 100 times before. It's a matter of experience giving you just enough knowledge to expect something compared to the one that has no expectations whatsoever.

Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science

This post is about my thoughts on two texts Plato’s Theaetetus and the Preface to the second edition of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason before the lecture and seminars for this theme.

Critique of Pure Reason

"Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?

Ciritque of Pure Reason aims at answering the questions "what do we know" and "how do we know it". Those are both fundamental questions when thinking scientific matters, trying to understand them or even critically evaluate scientific studies. Kant's preface to the Critique of Pure Reason introduces us to the many problems of pure reason in general and makes us question the dimensions of a priori knowledge and knowledge gained through experience.

I myself was not so familiar with Kant's concepts, such as a a priori or posteriori before the reading, but I do believe I managed to form even a decent understanding, which I hope will be deepened as a result of the seminar. It feels even relatively difficult to start this course with these kinds of philosophical texts, when this is the by far the farthest I have gone when thinking about the philosophy of science.

Even though Kant's writings are arduous to read and it requires some serious repetition in order to truly internalize the content, they are the very solid ground of today's media processes. I also find it rather important to draw the connection between one of the world's most known philosopher's production and the functions of modern society. As for that matter, one can take a closer look for the functioning logistics of media, for example. Media's most profound reason for existing is to represent reality – weight being on the syllable re. By this I mean that the product of media is never the thing itself – even though it aims at producing objective knowledge – but it's always a re-something. When you look at the linguistic features, syllable re already includes the idea of something being done a over: reproduced, repeated, rerun, represented etc. Whether it is an article, news, movies, documents, photograph or which ever, it can never reach the purest form of appearance. The media allows us to see always a re-creation of reality by someone, framed by someone.

Knowledge is perception

At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

Plato's dialogue about knowledge discusses the subjectivity and various dimensions of knowledge in a way that questions our perceptions of reality. The dialogue actually reminds me of Platon's famous allegory of the cave, where a group of prisoners are kept chained and only able to see the shadows of people and things on a wall in front of them. It brings up the question of reality seen through ones senses as Socrates argues, because the senses are seen as tools in the process in forming a perception of reality. It also proves Socrates's point of knowledge actually being information which our mind or soul has filtered and combined with our existing perceptions.

Plato's dialogue processes the same subjects than other scientific areas, only with different terms. The process of sense perceptions being filtered through one's senses and then combined with the perceptions one already has (and always based on earlier experience) is known as schema in the science of psychology. The term 'schema' stands for a cognitive framework which helps us to organize and interpret information. I find this interesting since the different scientific fields are not actually that far from each other.