Theme 5: Design Research

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

First we have to take a look at what empirical data is in general. Empirical data is the information that is collected in a scientific research. The way how the researchers are getting access to the data (interviews, surveys, observations, analyses, etc.) can vary and depend on the used methodology. The raw empirical data in used in researches to answer hypotheses (quantitative) or form hypotheses (qualitative). Only through the interpretation of this data new knowledge can be formed.

The empirical data in the first paper (Designing for Tangible Interactions) are the observations of children using the design prototypes and their staged activities. This information was gathered and analyzed in a next step to make it usable for its purposes.

In the second paper (Differentiated Driving Range: Exploring a Solution to the Problems with the “Guess-O-Meter“ in Electric Cars) the empirical data looks differently. Here the empirical data is collected on different ways. The information provided by state-of-the-art analysis including an online research about about user interfaces and product reviews was used in the beginning. Further the information provided by an analysis of discourse in online forums gave an additional perspective about the electric car range and opinions about it. The last piece of empirical data was collected through interviews with experts, early adopters, and other drivers of electric cars. Specifically here the empirical data was formed when the information from the interviews was analyzed based on concrete questions.

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

In the beginning of a research is the research question. After a analyzing the status quo in this topic the researches have to decide in which way they want to answer their question. The way they choose is called research design and it is a framework for the methods to collect data. According to my understanding the practical design work is the process to find the right methods for answering the research question. This question can mostly have several different ways to be answered. Depending on the research design the approach to the topic can be differently and through that the final outcome can vary. To my mind the process of choosing the right way for a specific research is already a contribution to the desired outcome and through that a knowledge contribution.

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

Design in a research context means the framework that you giving your research to get to a desired outcome. So the design in the way to get something or create new knowledge. Design in general is not so much describing the way how to get somewhere, but more the outcome. This could be for example the design of a product.

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?

Normally research should be replicable. According to the quality criteria of empirical research methods researches should be objective, reliable, and valid. Especially the second criteria, reliability, covers the issue that a research method should be replicable and come to the same conclusions under the same conditions. The problem is that it is almost impossible to replicate a research in the exact same way about the exact same topic. Especially in the field of technology and media this procedure is difficult. There are too many factors that are changing too fast to replicate it appropriately. New technologies are coming up that raise a need for new research tools or technologies bring up new tools that makes it easier to collect specific data. Further the designers could have different previous knowledge than the designers of a first research. In my opinion there are too many variable factors to replicate a research. Further we learned in the lecture of the last theme already that journals don‘t like to accept researches that have been made already, even though this might provide a lot of new knowledge. Anyway this is not a problem of the research itself, but the system.

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

The biggest difference is that in a design driven research you decide on the research framework in advance. You are not as free anymore to change the setting. Compared to that you can be more free in other researches and also change your methods throughout researching.

Theme 2: Comments

I commented on the following blogs:

1. https://omg-dm2572.blogspot.se/2016/09/after-theme-2_19.html?showComment=1474627927934#c2960017321352188674
2. https://u1h4muxc.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-22-reflection.html?showComment=1474904324601
3. https://u1bauz11.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2-reflection.html?showComment=1474908919232#c4042203043371805173
4. https://u17fpbu5.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1474909628077#c7786670900428651432
5. https://u1gixy4z.blogspot.se/2016/09/after-theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1474910256568#c7103355725439305591
6. https://u1h02pv3.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflection-on-theme-2-critical-media.html?showComment=1474911037995#c2546049649586536858
7. https://u1dn0y6t.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-reflection-theme-2.html?showComment=1474911674062#c5876676397349467307
8. https://u11zdo9t.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-2.html?showComment=1474912108982#c8864403842976531813

Theme 3: Reflection

In the beginning of my reflection I have to admit that I forgot to describe the used theory type in the first blog post about theme 3. The theory used in my paper was the Theory of Planned Behavior. I think it belongs to the type of explanation, because the whole theory surrounds and describes the actions that lead to behavior. The theory focuses mostly on causalities that lead to the so called “planned behavior“. 

Compared to the first two themes, theme 3 was not as abstract anymore as the question what knowledge is and how it affects our percetions, or the similarities between enlightenment and myth. Of course theory is always something abstract, because a theory is nothing that exists or we can perceive with our senses. A theory tries to explain what is occuring or not occuring in an abstract version of the reality.

In the seminar last week and the group discussions I felt for the first time the interdisciplinary character of our programme. It was interesting to get more perspectives on theories from students who did already a lot of research and the ones who had to think for the first time about the role of theories in research. So in the last blog post I focussed too much on the theory that it was based on and not the theory that the outcome of the research. So the important mediators for the investigated selfie behavior, like narcissm were just left out by me. In the group discussion we had, I realized that the newly produced part of the theory is at least as important at the theory a research is based on. In my opinion it is interesting what researchers do with these small extensions of the established and more “old“ theories. Are they valued by other or not? Is it really an extension of the theory or was the good old theory just used to justify the importance of a research and not let it “go down“, just because a completely new theory was found. I think many researchers nowadays make it easy for themselves, because they just use the existing structured theory and apply it to the new circumstances or changes in the media world. The question is, if these theories can actually be applied for all these new fields of social media and so on? During the research for my Bachelor thesis (that was about the motives of Facebook use of different aged groups) I had really much the feeling, that a lot of people search for patterns in new fields that can be explained by old theories. Instead of accessing a new field open minded with the perspective for maybe a new theory that could explain even better what occurs or not occurs. At the same point the question is how much room for new theories exists? Would a research with a new theory or approach be as accepted as the same research based on older theories?

Theme 4: Quantitative Research

The paper I chose is called „The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behavior: The Case of Chile“ from Sebastián Valenzuela, Arturo Arriagada, and Andrés Scherman. It was published in the Journal of Communication in 2012. In this paper a research about the connection between social media usage and political protest behavior of individuals aged 18 – 29. The quantitative research method used was a survey that covered the following scales: Protest behavior, Facebook use, Grievances, Values, Resources, News media use. The data was collected in a face-to-face interview, what is not the very best method to collect survey data, but it was necessary to get something close to a representative sample. In the end they achieved a representative sample of 80%. In my opinion their strategy of analyzing the field and finding a mathematical procedure to receive a random representative sample was very well done. The most populated urban areas were chosen and proportionally to the size different communes the amount of samples from that area were chosen. In a further step the households with at least one 18 to 29 year old person, who were questioned were randomly chosen. This is a good way to get a representative sample, because if you‘d just share the survey online, the sample would just cover (1) the people that are online, (2) the people who are on the same platform as you, and (3) people who have some kind of link to you to be able to access the survey (school, university, specific discussion forums, etc). This excludes whole population groups. At the same time CATI (computer assisted telephone interviews) are not representative anymore, because especially the phone contacts to the target group of this survey are mostly not in good old telephone books anymore. To come back to the topic, the face-to-face interviews are having some disadvantages, but in this case it was the best method to use them. To mention some of the disadvantages of face-to-face interviews: The appearance of the interviewer can influence the answers of the participants highly. The participants could just feel uncomfortable of talking to someone they just met, what might lead to wrong answers. Especially social desirability comes often up in face-to-face interviews (although it occurs more often in interviews with open questions than closed ones that we had in this research). Social desirability means that participants answer questions according to what they believe they should answer in the society’s or interviewer’s opinion. A neutral background to the survey might lower this effect.

What made me think a little bit when I read through the paper were the measured scales. It wasn‘t clear for me where they were coming from or if the researchers just made them up. Further I wasn‘t sure if the Cronbach’s α values were coming from earlier researches where the scales might have been taken from or from a Pre-test (what was either not done or not mentioned as well).

In the paper „Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play“ from Konstantina Kilteni, Ilias Bergström, and Mel Slater was about the behavior of people in an immersive virtual reality. The in-between experiment focused on the reaction and change in behavior of Caucasians when their body in the virtual reality was changed to a casual dark-skinned or formal light-skinned. To read about this experiment was really interesting, especially the outcome that participants of both groups showed a strong body ownership illusion. I think this experiment is just a start in future researches about the influences of body ownership illusion in virtual realities on real life behavior. 

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

The benefits are to be able to reduce complex relationships between constructs to only a few statements. With quantitative methods you are able of making statements about a very big sample group. Results can be representative for a specific population or main unit.

Since quantitative research is always focused on proving hypotheses with the measurement of indicators and scales, it is a limitation that no new constructs or mediators can be found.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

The limitation of quantitative methods is on the other hand is the main benefit of qualitative methods. Especially in new or unknown research fields the method of just taking a look at a small sample gives the opportunity to find new constructs or mediators. On the other hand the outcomes on qualitative research can just be a implication of how it might look like on a bigger scale. To make representative statements qualitative results have to be verified quantitatively.

Sources:
Kilteni, K., Bergström, I., & Slater, M. (2013). Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 19 (4), pp. 597-605.
Valenzuela, S., Arriagada, A., & Scherman, A. (2012). The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behavior: The Case of Chile. Journal of Communication, 62, pp. 299-314.

Theme 2: Reflection

Through the lecture and seminar on this topic in the last week I understood better what "Enlightenment" actually is. In my last post I sticked to much to the text in my explanation, meaning that I didn‘t really understand it that much by myself, because I couldn‘t form it only in my own words. Enlightenment has actually a strong connection to the Enlightenment movement in which people wanted to free themselves from consistent structures in the society, like traditions, culture, religion, etc. It is the „advance of thought“ – as I described it last time – in a way that we as human beings have the power to get over these structures, that were built and existed over hundreds of year, and give the world a new understanding just through logic and based on natural concepts. I understood the last time correctly the meaning of myth as the erasing of the unknown. I also kind of perceived a strong connection between both Myth and Enlightenment, but couldn‘t really explain why it was there. After the lecture this is more clear to me. The main link is that both concepts lead to Mimesis, the imitation of the word. Through thinking we can only reproduce the world, what makes us as human beings trapped in Mimesis. Enlightenment came to destroy Myths, to replace the ideas with something else, but that just means that Enlightenment created other Myths, a new version of erasing the unknown.

What I didn‘t realise the last time is that Adorno and Horkheimer see Enlightenment quite critical. It is based on receiving knowledge through Nominalism. I didn‘t explain that deeply enough the last time either. It is not just a theory that all things are simply names, as I wrote in my first blog post. Nominalism is a liberating movement, that questions and redefines the world through observation and defining objects just as general objects with no varieties. So any leaf would just be a leaf, although each single one of them is unique. The problem about Nominalism is that we tend to confirm the world, but it might not be the objective truth that we are confirming. That goes back to the Allegory of the Cave from Plato, what says that everything we perceive with our senses might just be a "shadow" of a higher reality. During the seminar this reminded me of the movie Matrix, which plays with this allegory. To come back to Adorno and Horkheimer: They said, that Nominalism leads us to view on the world that mirrors just the status quo that is observed without any moral judgement. So their critique about Enlightenment is that we have to question and rethink it again to get over this state of just having a descriptive version of status quo.

In my first blogpost I explained correct how Benjamin defines "aura", but here again, like in the other topics before, I didn‘t give the explanation enough deepness and meaning. Although the concept of aura fascinates Benjamin and he explains the loss of aura through reproduction (of painting, pictures, etc.), Benjamin sees something very positive in this. According to him the aura could be a tool of the bourgeoisie of keeping the access to art and the value of it to themselves. The multiplying of pieces of art the unique position (and the aura) are indeed erased, but that gives it a huge revolutionary potential.

In his essay in general he explains the huge potential of technological progresses in the area of art. Especially the tool of deconstructing and reconstructing things. He sees it as something highly positive without knowing how it will be misused as a tool of manipulation in the following years after the publication of his essay.

Theme 3: Research and theory

The journal I chose is called Computers in Human Behavior. According to Thomson Reuters Journal Citation comes the Impact Factor to 2.880 (Elsevier B.V., 2016). The journal covers researches in the field of psychology and any related discipline to interactions between humans and computers. The focus is on the human behavior through or influenced by computer interaction. It is relevant for media technology, because it covers the influence from media usage on human behavior, what is a highly important aspect towards understanding media effects on society.

The paper I chose in Computers in Human Behavior is titled “Predicting selfie-posting behavior on social networking sites: An extension of theory of planned behavior“ and written by Eunice Kim, Jung-Ah Lee, Yongjung Sung, and Sejung Marina Choi. It was published in the beginning of the year 2016 so it is quite new.
In their research they focus on the growing interest in posting selfies on social network sites (SNS). Selfies are seen as a way of constructing a self-identity online that is based on how the user or poster wants to be seen by others. Their research is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1991) and though that on the concepts about subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, narcissism, and behavioral intention. In their quantitative study the behavior and attitudes of 85 participants was investigated in two waves of data collection. In the first wave their attitudes were surveyed and in the second wave their posting behavior was observed. All of their hypotheses predicted a positive correlation between the concepts and the selfie-posting behavior and were confirmed.
Looking at their study from a quite critical perspective some more unanswered questions are coming up. First, they did mention the amount of participants and their demographical background, but the information about how exactly these participants were found is missing. Especially in their field, a connection between the participants or how they were found (online, through friends, etc.) might have a big influence on the outcome. Second, their method was not as transparent as it is supposed to bo. Especially the second wave of data collection was lacking of information. They simply imply with a single example what was examined. This makes the whole research unreliable, what should be a standard of all researches to prove its validity. However they mention some limitations of their study as well, like their focus on Instragram users and not on more SNS. This should have been mentioned in the title already.

What is theory and what is it not?
A theory is needed to understand and explain different ways of how something should be done, gives different views on the world and how they work and shows relationship between constructs.
It all starts with a problem that has to be solved or a question of interest. This leads to research whose outcome is in the best way the development of a theory.

Problem to solve/ question to answer → Research → Development of theory

In the field of natural sciences, social sciences, and sciences of the artificial there are five primary goals of a theory:

• Description of a problem or question of interest and analysis of relationships between constructs.

• Explanation of how, why, and when something happened, leading to a causality.

• Prediction of future perspectives. Meaning the theory keeps existing if it is not proven wrong.

• Prescription. Theory covering a method and/or structure for solving a problem/answering a question.

Theories can have focuses on different goals. Not all of them can or have to be covered in a theory.
How does a theory look like? In general a theory should represent (in words or graphically) constructs and the relationships between them, plus the limitations of the theory.
At the same time it is important to take a look at what is not a theory, especially in scientific papers:
(1) References are not theory. Just the accumulation of other authors arguments doesn‘t state a theory.
(2) Data are not theory. Empirical evidence shall confirm a theory, but the theory has to be on a more abstract level than the data. It is the explanation of why data is as it is.
(3) Lists of variables of constructs are not theory. Theories should show the connections between them.
(4) Diagrams are not theory. They can underline a theory, but additionally should be explained causations, relations, interventions, or moderations between units or constructs.
(5) Hypotheses (or predictions) are not theory. They are the connections between theory and data. They should reflect the what and not the why of expectations.

The Theory of Planned Behavior
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is the used theory in my selected paper. It says basically that human behavior is planned. The planning is based on attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. These factors lead to intention, what leads to behavior. It can be located at the theory type of explanation and prediction.
It‘s benefits are the successful explanation of behavior in different areas (e.g. health, shopping, self-expression). Limitations are that according to the theory behavior should always happen knowingly and rational. Additionally neither the influence of previous behavior, nor the control of behavior is not included.

Additional sources:
Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: a theory of planned behavior. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Orgnizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, pp. 179-211.
Elsevier B.V. (2016). Computers in Human Behavior. Available on: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-in-human-behavior/
Kim, E., Lee, J., Sung, Y., & Choi, S.M. (2016). Predicting selfie-posting behavior on social networking sites: An extension of theory of planned behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, pp. 116-123.

Theme 1: Comments

I commented on the following blogs:

1. https://u1j8du7c.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-post-2.html?showComment=1473867571773#c4245230982069417194
2. https://u1h4muxc.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-12.html?showComment=1473918188928 
3. https://u1bauz11.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-reflection.html?showComment=1473919360493#c7223721059179806244
4. https://dm2572-16.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-12.html?showComment=1473927404045 
5. https://u11873yx.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and-theory_14.html?showComment=1473930569983#c6195842985983485521 
6. https://u17fpbu5.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and.html?showComment=1473931519806#c4801440535414395526 
7. https://u1gixy4z.blogspot.se/2016/09/after-theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and.html?showComment=1473938283738#c3133000797430672030 
8. https://u1dn0y6t.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-reflection-theme-1.html?showComment=1473939696092#c5804099174027966035 
9. https://u11zdo9t.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-post-2.html?showComment=1473940706413#c3312329155374472981 
10. https://u12vkokq.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflections-on-theme-1-theory-of.html?showComment=1473941457296#c6658376560277215536
    

Theme 1: Reflection

The first topic we had to cover in our blogpost was quite challenging. Especially if you never had philosophy in school or university. To try understanding Kant in the beginning was really demanding. Especially because of the language he used. Looking back after a week with a lecture about this topic and group discussions, I think I understand both texts from Kant and Plato much better. Although the main focus of both lecture and group discussion was set on Kant.

When I take a look at my first blogpost I see that I tried to understand and explain the right things, but didn‘t really see through the whole topic. Mostly because I missed background information about the positioning of "Critique of Pure Reason" in a historcial context and the other contents covered in the book. In the lecture we heard about these things and it gave us more clearity about Kant and his thoughts about knowledge. As he says there is a priori and a posteriori. I understood right in the first post that a priori means gaining knowledge (or verify/falsify it) prior to sense experience, just through our thoughts and theoretical understanding of the world. It is also called analytical judgement. A posteriori covers knowledge gained after sense experience and is decribed as sythetic judgement. The importance of these judgemental differences I didn‘t capture in the first blogpost.

Now Kant‘s question is if systhetic judgement is possible a priori, for example when it comes to metaphysics. According to him it should be possible just through pure reason. His assumption is that   everything should be definable by the Faculties of Knowledge. In contrary to previous philosophers he is of the opinion that the human is capable of understanding the world as it is. In advance the perspective was common that the world is different as it is as we perceive it. Our knowledge was seen as only a part of the reality in the construct of a god-centered knowledge. According to that it wouldn‘t be possible for us to receive objectivity about the world as it is. This state is covered by him in the first part of the quotation: "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."
His solution to find out more about the truth or falsity of metaphysical theories is to "assume that objects must conform to our cognition". So to assume that objects do conform to our faculties of knowledge. This goes along with the Copernican Revolution, as I mentioned already in the last blogpost. My problem then was that I just thought it would be a shift of perspectives.
Moreover we learned in the lecture about gaining knowledge through perceptin and conception. About this our teacher said "Perception without conception is blind, conception without perception is empty."

This goes into the same direction as Socrates thoughts, that we don‘t understand with, but through our senses. The sense impression, or perception of the senses, is not giving us knowledge. Just through organising it according to our faculties of knowledge and interpreting it according to pure reason we might understand. Platos thoughts already went into the direction of Kant‘s thoughts, but he couldn‘t express it properly.

Theme 2: Critical media studies

Adorno, T.W.,  & Horkheimer, M. - Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)

1. What is "Enlightenment"?
In the beginning of the book enlightenment is defined as "the advance of thought" (p.1). The enhancement of the human understanding goes over the simplicity of nature. So knowledge is an outcome of enlightenment and the knowledge of men has no limits. To be enlightened we have to be aware of "calculability and utility" (p. 3). Everything whose existense can‘t be explained by these two factors, has to be questioned and reflected. Despite this statement the authors claim that "myth becomes enlightenment and nature mere objectivity" (p.6), but at the same time enlightenment is thereby in the position of destroying myths.

2. What is "Dialectic"?
Dialectical thinking is based on the assumption that "each thing is what it is only by becoming what it is not" (p.11), but this might lead us limited understanding. So it is rather giving us "each image as a script" (p.18) and it is in our hands to read and interpret the script to allow the understanding of the non-truth and lead us through that to the truth. So it is basically the investigation of truth.

3. What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism can be explained as the theory that all things are simply names. It is important, because it emphasises the understanding of the world as it is, despite the mystical perspective to the world.

4. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
Myth is an imaginary truth that shall explain the world. Especially the unexplainable. It seems like Adorna and Horkheimer see a strong connection between myth and enlightenment. Myth, same as enlightenment, is something that lies outside our direct preception of nature. They are somehow tied to each other, but through enlightenment the possiblity of falsifying myth is given.



Benjamin, W. - The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity (1936)

1.  In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?
Superstructure is defined as slowly adapting structure to a cultural frame. Compared to that the transformation of substructure porcesses way faster than the transformation of the superstructure. In this context it means that cultural changes always show up later than the circumstances that induced them. Through analyzing the cultural production and interpreting it, the substructure‘s assumptions regarding the superstucture can be made and used as a weapon when it comes to a revolution.

2. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?
Benjamin states that "art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later". According to this the revolutionary potential in art is to announce or prepare for upcoming revolutionary changes. Further the art of the film has different revolutionary potentials. First it has the potential to give a critical perspective to traditional concepts of art. Second a revolutionary function of film is the combination of artistic and scientific use. In comparison to photography or paintings a film gives access to deeper and more more prespectively perception. Scenes or observations can be isolated and investigated separately. In contrast to that Adorno & Horkheimer believe rather in the revolutionary potential of technology and science.

3. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).
Natural determined perception of world through senses is strongly linked to the perception of aura. He defines it as "the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be". Historical determined perception of world through senses: Historically seen there have been transitions in the human perceptions. They were determined by visionarists like Riegl and Wickhoff who revalued older pieces of art through resiting to classical traditions. That influenced the preception of world for the future. Another historically determined perception is the view on the shape of the world. In early times people assumed the world to be flat, but after it was found out that this is not the case the perception was ongoingly changed.

4. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?
Aura is explained by Benjamin as the experience of nature, the sensing of it. It is something that surronds objects without being virtually existent. Natural objects, compared to art objects, have some kind of authenticy. The catching of natural objects and the reproduction of those replaces authenticy with with a more detailed version of the natural object. Perceptions can be made, that couldn‘t have been seen – or sensed – before. Furthermore the aura is the presence of the natural object. The presence is the main thing that you are losing when you transform natural objects into art, like photography, etc. So art objects are missing out the aura as Benjamin defines it for natural objects.

Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science

In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "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?

To understand the given statement by Kant we should start with taking a look at the central words of it: A priori, cognition, and object. According to the Oxford dictionaries a priori is „knowlegde which proceeds from theorectical deduction rater than from observation or experience“ (Oxford University Press, 2016). In comparison to that cognition is defined as „the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.“ (Oxford University Press, 2016). The observed object, that Kants is aiming is to understand, is described by „A material thing that can be seen and touched. A thing external to the thinking mind or subject.“ (Oxford University Press, 2016).The assumption that our cognition has to be conform to objects may lead us wrong in understanding the world and gaining knowledge. This assumption might keep us away from real understanding. Same if we only base our knowledge a priori. Easily said we shall not only rely on what we see. The cognition of objects through a new perspecive may help understanding the truth about it. Kant mentiones here the example of Copernicus. He assumed that the other planets might circle around our planet. This assumptions is exactly what Kant mentiones as „objects must conform to our cognition“. Only when Copernikus opened his mind to the new perspective of our planet might be the one moving in the system he got access to knowledge. This could be applied the the problems that metaphysics had back then.

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"?

The outcome of the dialogue between Socrates, Theateteus, and Theodorus circles around the definition of knowledge and where it comes from. The discussion ends with the definition „knowledge is perception“. Socrated states, and Theateteus agrees with him that we do not see and hear „with“, but „through“ our eyes and ears. This implies that we collect the information about our enviroment with our senses, but the processing to knowledge of these impressions happen through them. Not every human being has the same perception, because opinions and experiences influence our understanding of things. Socrates states throughout the dialogue that knowledge is perception and through sensing the environment everyone gains a different subjective truth about it. So bascially the knowledge that each individual perceives is differently from each other.The statement of Socrates goes along with the definition of empricism. It is „the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses.“ (Oxford University Press, 2016) This is exactly what Socrates explains. The senses are the access to everyones knowledge. We gather information with hearing, seeing or feeling and understand through the preception inside of ourselves.

Source:
Oxford University Press (2016). Oxford Dictionaries. Available under: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/ (Accessed on 02/09/16).