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Petter
Ne6ssMarch
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Petter Ne6ssMarch 10, 2012I have a few comments on two of the poerospd definitions:Academic rigor/quality. In the text, validity and causal claims and generalizability are referred to as positivist values. However, these criteria are used also by non-positivist, albeit with a different conception of the concepts than those used by positivists. For example, critical realists aim at explanation and identification of causal powers but understand causality in a way very different from positivists. Since the world (apart from artificially constructed natural science experiments) consists of more or less open systems where many causal influences are at work simultaneously but in different configurations, a causal factor does not always produce the same effect, since it may be counteracted, augmented or modified by other causal powers operating at the same time. There is therefore no real-world regularity between cause and effect like the Humean notion of ’each time X, then Y’ embraced by positivist and the principle of ’covering law’. In critical realism, causality is understood in terms of causal powers operating through generative mechanisms, not in terms of regularity between different events. And what can be generalized from an empirical study is how causal powers operate, not the events they produce.I therefore strongly recommend that the word ’positivist’ is deleted in the glossary description of academic rigor/quality, since positivism does not have any monopoly on the notions referred to.Sustainable accessibility. The definition of this term is somewhat problematic for two reasons. For one thing, it does not include any aspects of social sustainability, only environmental (the latter of course being very important). However, the possibility for vulnerable groups (low-income, disabled, elderly, etc.) to reach facilities for daily activities should perhaps be included in the definition, since non-marginalization of such groups is arguably part of the sustainability concept. Secondly, the formulation concerning environmentally harmful use of resources is somewhat inconsistent. It is formulated as if it were an indicator rather than a definition (‘the amount and diversity of’) divided by (‘the use of resources’). Instead of formulating the definition as such a quasi-quantitative indicator I would recommend to formulate the definition in a purely qualitative way, stating its different dimensions, which dimensions to increase and which ones to minimize.
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(VISITOR) AUTHOR'S NAME
Emna
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
16 december 2014, 19:40:30
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
62.210.78.179
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