Kato Van Roey | Vrije Universiteit Brussel (original) (raw)
Hi! I'm a PhD researcher at the Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp. I'm working in the field of philosophy of science in scientific practice. The topic of my project is evidence-based policy: what is it and what should it be? Within this framework, my main research interests are evidence; science, democracy and values; and political philosophy of science broadly construed.
Supervisors: Bert Leuridan
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Papers by Kato Van Roey
Both cultural relativists and enactivists oppose the same universalist view on mind and meaning a... more Both cultural relativists and enactivists oppose the same universalist view on mind and meaning and both appeal to context in their attempt to do so. Accordingly, a scrutiny was in order to clarify how enactivism and cultural relativism relate. An analysis of Sapir’s and Whorf’s work shows that while enactivism may support most of their relativist conclusions, they depart from a different ontological premise: enactivism rejects the existence of representations in toto, while relativists only dismiss universal representations. Another difference became apparent in comparing enactivist and relativist assumptions: while relativists hold that there are no universal criteria to decide between different worldviews, enactivists claim that efficiency does the job. By reconceptualizing knowledge as know-how, knowledge no longer must be true to be relevant. Overall, I conclude that enactivism necessarily entails a form of cultural relativism because of its focus on context, yet one that is rid of uncomfortable consequences.
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Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) and Evidence-Based Management+ (EBMgt+) are two approaches to m... more Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) and Evidence-Based Management+ (EBMgt+) are two approaches to management according to which managerial decisions should be based on the best available evidence, as this increases the likelihood of their effectiveness. In these approaches, four types of evidence are considered: evidence from the scientific literature, from practitioners, from the organisation and from stakeholders. In EBMgt+, evidence is characterised as a three-place relation between information, a claim and a method. In many circumstances, probability sampling methods (PSMs) are the best methods to gather the abovementioned types of evidence. We present a case study concerning harassment in the workplace to illustrate a circumstance in which fact-finding methods, rather than PSMs, are the best methods to gather evidence. We argue that information thus gathered should count as evidence in the spirit of EBMgt+. However, while part of the evidence needed in the case study comes from the stakeholders, it does not fit the characterisations of 'evidence from stakeholders' considered in EBMgt and EBMgt+. Therefore, we disentangle sources and types of evidence which, in turn, enables us to characterise a new type of evidence-testimonial evidence-that should be included in the theory of evidence-based management. Differentiating between sources and types has the potential to bring theory and practice closer together, whereas including testimonial evidence has the potential to make the theory of evidence-based management applicable in a wider range of circumstances, such as trade secret theft and conflicts of interest.
Both cultural relativists and enactivists oppose the same universalist view on mind and meaning a... more Both cultural relativists and enactivists oppose the same universalist view on mind and meaning and both appeal to context in their attempt to do so. Accordingly, a scrutiny was in order to clarify how enactivism and cultural relativism relate. An analysis of Sapir’s and Whorf’s work shows that while enactivism may support most of their relativist conclusions, they depart from a different ontological premise: enactivism rejects the existence of representations in toto, while relativists only dismiss universal representations. Another difference became apparent in comparing enactivist and relativist assumptions: while relativists hold that there are no universal criteria to decide between different worldviews, enactivists claim that efficiency does the job. By reconceptualizing knowledge as know-how, knowledge no longer must be true to be relevant. Overall, I conclude that enactivism necessarily entails a form of cultural relativism because of its focus on context, yet one that is rid of uncomfortable consequences.
Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) and Evidence-Based Management+ (EBMgt+) are two approaches to m... more Evidence-based Management (EBMgt) and Evidence-Based Management+ (EBMgt+) are two approaches to management according to which managerial decisions should be based on the best available evidence, as this increases the likelihood of their effectiveness. In these approaches, four types of evidence are considered: evidence from the scientific literature, from practitioners, from the organisation and from stakeholders. In EBMgt+, evidence is characterised as a three-place relation between information, a claim and a method. In many circumstances, probability sampling methods (PSMs) are the best methods to gather the abovementioned types of evidence. We present a case study concerning harassment in the workplace to illustrate a circumstance in which fact-finding methods, rather than PSMs, are the best methods to gather evidence. We argue that information thus gathered should count as evidence in the spirit of EBMgt+. However, while part of the evidence needed in the case study comes from the stakeholders, it does not fit the characterisations of 'evidence from stakeholders' considered in EBMgt and EBMgt+. Therefore, we disentangle sources and types of evidence which, in turn, enables us to characterise a new type of evidence-testimonial evidence-that should be included in the theory of evidence-based management. Differentiating between sources and types has the potential to bring theory and practice closer together, whereas including testimonial evidence has the potential to make the theory of evidence-based management applicable in a wider range of circumstances, such as trade secret theft and conflicts of interest.