The paper I read for Theme 1, I believe,
was negatively affected by general and not concrete hypotheses. While reading
for Theme 2 I saw the quote “prior
findings cannot by themselves motivate hypotheses” in What Theory Is Not by Robert Sutton and Barry Staw. This is what
the authors did in the paper I read for theme 1, as they based their hypotheses
on previous research. The quote could explain and confirm my thoughts about them
and might be a possible reason to why, as I believe, they affected the whole
paper in a negative way. More
individual thought to the hypotheses by the authors, and not relying as much on
previous studies, may have improved the paper.
During the seminar I heard of the paper On Social Websites by Kim, Jeong and
Lee. Because of my interest in social media I found the topic very interesting. I later read the paper and it presents the use of social websites and
potential issues regarding them. The paper was interesting, but mostly
an introduction to social media websites. They didn’t focus on any specific
type of social media and the use and issues presented seemed to not be
applicable on all of the social media. Some of the conclusions became common
because of its use of unspecific data.
I noticed that the paper
hadn’t been cited as much as others, and, for example, the one I chose. Though I believe it was a good paper, I think that
because of its generality it isn´t really applicable and useful for deep research.
Thus, it is natural that it hasn’t been cited a lot.
Theory of knowledge is an interesting
and confusing subject. One part I found especially fascinating is the theory of
what it takes to say that you know something, as mentioned both in the book by
Russell and in Dahlberg’s lecture.
A possible, but not certain, definition of what could be called knowledge is:
“(1)
S believes p, (2) p is true and (3) S has justified belief of p”
It might not be enough that we are certain
that something will happen for it to be called knowledge. If I believe that, as
Dahlberg mentioned, the sun will rise tomorrow, I have a justified belief. It
has happened every day since I was born, but theoretically that might not ensure
it will happen again. It’s interesting to think about what we can say that we
know and what are only justified “guesses” that often or always come true.
It was interesting to read your reflection on why one paper was cited a lot while an other paper was not. There are of course many reason behind different number of citations for different papers. One could simply be that you are more likely to be cited if you publish in a good journal that many other scholars read it. Another common reason for being cited is that your propose a new theory, novel conclusion, something innovative and new that will inspire many other researchers.
SvaraRaderaThat being said, a study that builds on previous research and makes a small step forward is also important, although it might not be cited as much. One of the basic ideas of science is that researchers should build on the work of other researchers.
The definition you propose on knowledge is good, but I think your reasoning right after could be more comprehensive. If we spin on with the sun as example: you [as an individual human] may not know why the sun is rising every morning, but we [as a species] can describe with the help of physics, mathematic, chemistry and so on. So since we can predict when the sun no longer shines, is it still a justified belief or is it knowledge?
SvaraRaderaI don't know if what I've wrote makes sense, just ask and I'll try to clarify.