Alireza Monajemi; Gholamhossein Moghaddam Heidari
Abstract
The evaluation of research in the humanities is a controversial topic. In Iran, this debate is often framed in terms of the International Scientific Index (ISI) and paper production. Two main groups can be identified in this debate. One group believes that the emphasis on articles and the ISI leads to ...
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The evaluation of research in the humanities is a controversial topic. In Iran, this debate is often framed in terms of the International Scientific Index (ISI) and paper production. Two main groups can be identified in this debate. One group believes that the emphasis on articles and the ISI leads to the quantification of humanities research, which ultimately damages the quality of the research. The other group believes that common scientometric methods are a reliable and precise standard for all fields, and that the humanities should adapt to these methods. The debate has been characterized by polemical and rhetorical arguments, and its theoretical and epistemological frameworks have been imprecise and chaotic.The aim of this article is to formulate this polemical debate into an epistemological problem in the philosophy of science, so that it can be properly formulated and understood.The article is divided into three parts. First, we show that scientometrics has its roots in the work of philosophers of science. However, over time, this connection has been broken, and the positivist view of science has come to dominate. This has led to the current crisis in scientometrics.In the second part, we argue that the understanding of this crisis depends on a return to the non-positivist approach in the philosophy of science. This approach sees science as based on the research practices of a research community, rather than as a set of true propositions. By uncovering the differences between the natural sciences and the humanities, we conclude that the contemporary scientometric criteria cannot be applied to the humanities.In the third part, we argue that criticizing common scientometric methods and highlighting their crisis does not mean that the evaluation of humanities research is impossible or unattainable. However, before defining a new set of criteria, we need to conduct philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and historical studies of research communities in the humanities.
Gholamhossein Moghaddam Heidari
Abstract
One of the important controversies in the biology of the 18th century was “the diversity of different forms of organisms”. "Why did this form of living creature appear among the various forms that had the possibility of life?" was the main question. Scientists resorted to the theory of stability ...
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One of the important controversies in the biology of the 18th century was “the diversity of different forms of organisms”. "Why did this form of living creature appear among the various forms that had the possibility of life?" was the main question. Scientists resorted to the theory of stability of types. This theory had its origins in theology, which believed that every type and form of living beings was created by God. The arguments that were expressed in this direction were usually teleological arguments, based on which the final explanation of creation, the goals and objectives of every creature and the final causes of its functioning, was considered the most justified explanation of the structure and form of a living being. George Cuvier, the famous French biologists of the 18th and 19th centuries, was among the most influential scientists who critically examined the teleological explanation of the life of a living organism by stating the " The Principle of the Conditions of Existence ". Without resorting to teleological explanations, he showed that the explanation of the life of a living being or its functions is related to a set of necessary conditions for the expression or existence of that function. In this article, first I try to show that the teleological explanation is based on the concept of "function" in biology. Secondly, I show how Cuvier presented a non-theological interpretation of the life form of a living being by stating" The Principle of the Conditions of Existence ".
