DSA Webinar: Gaining understanding by structuring inquiry: probing data with one right question after another

Dear colleagues,

 

You are warmly invited to an online webinar hosted by The Digital Statecraft Academy (DSA), which may be of interest to those working with data and evidence in social policy.

 

DSA Webinar: Gaining understanding by structuring inquiry:
probing data with one right question after another

 

Date: Thursday 8 October 2026

Time: 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST

Register: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/c6b38f8d-8f6c-4324-8c98-a73eeb36af86@f8ff7417-c954-4bf8-ba5a-1c103f38279d

 

Good analysis on clean data can still give a poor answer if the question behind it is wrong. This session looks at how we move from questions to evidence, in two steps.

 

Dr Stefaan Verhulst (Co-Founder, The GovLab at New York University and The Data Tank; Co-Editor-in-Chief, Data & Policy) will look at where questions come from, which questions get asked, and how governance priorities and political context shape them long before anyone opens a dataset.

 

Professor David Hand (Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Imperial College London) will look at the next step: turning a real-world question into a statistical one that data can answer, and how this step can go wrong.

 

The session will be chaired by Dr Zeynep Engin, Co-Founder and Director of The Digital Statecraft Academy.

 

The discussion draws on Professor Hand's new book, What is the Question? Deciding What You Really Want to Know (2026)

 

The webinar is open to all. Register via this form. Please feel free to share this invitation with colleagues who may be interested.

 

Best wishes,

The Digital Statecraft Academy

 

My source: JISC SocioTech list - https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=SOCIOTECH

Sometimes it can take an old model ...

 

'Sometimes it can take an old model, 
to build a new one, 
that makes the existing model obsolete.'

To borrow from Buckminster Fuller.                         

 
Resurgence & Ecologist, Sept/Oct 2020, Issue 322, p.33.

The Sciences: Points, lines, angles and perspectives on Domains

In Hodges' model the axes are presented - by convention - as perpendicular. From this it follows that the resulting four domains, or quadrants appear as equivalent in terms of the space they each occupy. There are many posts on the blog that present a 2x2 table. When in template form Hodges' model is also a potential corpus, empty apart from its structure, then there must surely be a gross asymmetry in the SCIENCES domain compared with the others, including the SPIRITUAL. Discuss?

#simplicity #complexity #folktheory #humanities #arts #humanistic #emotion #balance

See also: https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2026/06/h2cm-domains-symmetry.html

Complexity science as a frame; or, a frame for complexity science?

In reading for WCCS later this month, I wonder if Braithwaite et al. (open access) may have found Hodges' model useful in addressing both the learning objectives and questions they raise in their chapter; and as a response to the recommendations?

Braithwaite J, Ellis LA, Churruca K, et al. Complexity Science as a Frame for Understanding the Management and Delivery of High Quality and Safer Care. 2020 Dec 15. In: Donaldson L, Ricciardi W, Sheridan S, et al., editors. Textbook of Patient Safety and Clinical Risk Management [Internet]. Cham (CH): Springer; 2021. Chapter 27. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585611/ doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-59403-9_27

' Learning Objectives and Questions Covered in the Chapter

• How does a linear view of improvement contrast with a complexity science approach? 
• The complexity frame makes it harder to manage and deliver high quality and safer care — does it therefore need to be rejected in favour of simpler improvement models?
• What examples can be brought to bear to show how studies in the complexity frame can lead to good outcomes and positive change?'

'In addition, in homing in on any part of a CAS, we can discern elements of both selfsimilarity and local nuances. Self-similarity can manifest fractally, at different scales (e.g., features of the culture of the organisation at the team level approximate to that of the culture of the department, and then division, and then the whole organisation) or laterally (e.g., one department looks comparable structurally to another). It might seem paradoxical, but healthcare levels or departments, despite being self-similar in some respects, also each operate as unique entities. There are always localised contextual, cultural and structural distinctions. Such local nuances occur as the result of the particular configurations of agents (e.g., nurses, doctors, quality managers, patients) following their internalised rules and shared mental models (e.g., put the patients first, project a good reputation to the outside world, prioritise safety) in that unique setting.' pp.378-379.

'Bringing clinicians from different departments together with the patient as the focus, provided a deeper understanding of other’s roles and barriers, helped create a shared mental model, and fostered a whole-of-system approach to the care for patients with this condition.' p.382.

[CAS - Complex Adaptive System]
 

'Recommendations

1. Sensitise those with responsibility for leading, managing, improving or researching care settings to a systems view. 
2. Train sufficient staff in the tools of complexity: FRAM, network analyses, system dynamics modelling, process mapping, and the like. 
3. Approach quality and safety and risk management activities with a knowledge of complexity science, sense-making, and non-linearity rather than as a set of linear problems amenable to simplistic causal change logic. 
4. Consider how our studies, borrowing from complexity theory, have resisted simplifying the challenges, but have nevertheless made progress in understanding care systems and their improvement.' p.389.

 [FRAM - Functional Resonance Analysis Method]

 I will include this in my presentation, duly cited:

 'Complexity science as a frame: or, frame for complexity science?'

Paper: 'Intra-Personal Compromises'

ARGUMENTA

Issue 21

November 2025

https://www.argumenta.org/issue/issue-21/

Intra-Personal Compromises  

Juha Räikkä

University of Turku 

Abstract

The most usual philosophical questions about compromises have been those related to inter-personal compromises, in which parties are compromising with each other, rather than intra-personal compromises, which are often psychologically demanding. This paper aims to fill the gap in the discussion and briefly analyze the nature of intra-personal compromises. The starting point here is the assumption that inter-personal compromises cannot be made without intra-personal compromises, although intra-personal compromises are common even when they are not linked to inter-personal compromises. The main question addressed in the paper is whether the intra-personal compromises that we accept in all kinds of contexts are similar to those intra-personal compromises that we make when we compromise with others. I argue that they are more or less similar, although there are also some distinctive features in intra-personal compromises that are involved in inter-personal compromises. When a person makes an intra-personal compromise in the context of an inter-personal compromise she is forced to act under uncertainty, as she cannot know beforehand what options are really available. The price of the compromise is known only after the negotiation process. This is a special feature, or so I will claim. 

Keywords: Inter-personal compromise, Intra-personal compromise, Bargaining, Uncertainty. 

Räikkä, R. 2025, “Intra-Personal Compromises”, Argumenta 11, 1, 149–162.
https://www.argumenta.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Argumenta-11-1-Juha-Raikka-Intra-Personal-Compromises.pdf
 

For a long time I have viewed the INTERPERSONAL domain of Hodges' model as being concurrent, interchangable, working as the INTRAPERSONAL domain. This paper is a helpful discovery, c/o Philos-L "The Liverpool List" which is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/

There are several examples/cases discussed. While brief, a HOSPITAL CEO example is relevant to studies for Hodges' model, as with, a CRITICAL CITIZEN:

'The above examples are rather similar but have small differences. In the ‘Judge’ example, the overriding principle is based on the importance of institutional rules. In the ‘Hospital CEO’ example, the main concern and the strongest value is pragmatic. In the ‘Critical Citizen’ example, the question is about omission rather than action.' p.157. 

The observation about the CEO speaks volumes, across public and private health sectors (and social care?). There is no discussion of reflection, reflexivity, or critical thinking explicitly. But individual, and collective distinctions, and impacts are explored, especially responsibility and mutuality. Three arguments precede concluding remarks. Further progress might be made exploring and relating these to the concepts of bargaining, uncertainty and compromise through Hodges' model and identity: both person-al and organisational?

European Character and Virtue Association (ECVA) Conference 2026

Theme: Bridging the Knowledge – Action Gap in Character Development

Re: invitation to the ECVA 2026 conference: reminder ...

Established in 2022, the European Character and Virtue Association offers a forum for promoting research, training and networking in the field of character education. We bring together educational institutions in Europe and scholars from around the world, providing unrivalled opportunities for members to share best practices and shape European policies affecting higher education and research. 

The 2026 conference of ECVA will take place in Trnava University, Slovakia, in cooperation with the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham, the Private University College of Teacher Education of Christian Churches, and the Virtues and Values Education Center of Francisco de Vitoria University. 

The Executive Board of the European Character and Virtue Association (ECVA) cordially invites you to attend the 2026 ECVA Conference in Trnava, Slovakia. 

• President: Prof. Dr. James Arthur (Harvard University)
• Vice President: Prof. Dr. Verónica (Francisco de Vitoria University Madrid)
• Secretary: Prof. Dr. Tom Harrison (Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham)
• Treasurer: Prof. Dr. Roland Bernhard (University of Teacher Education of Christian Churches Austria)

Conference Information Trnava, Slovakia, 2026, 24th to 26th of June 

We expect more than: 📍100+ researchers 🏫 40+ universities 🌍 20+ countries 🎤 60+ presentations & keynote addresses 

📝 Submit your abstract and find all conference details at the link below:

👉 https://ecva-character.org/ecva-conference-2026

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 31st of January, 2026.

All abstracts will undergo a review process over the course of the following month. Once your proposal has been accepted, you will receive detailed information about registration, conference fee (275,- EUR) processing, accommodation options, and other necessary information.

Notification of Acceptance: 1st of March 2026.

Contributions that demonstrate high quality and close relevance to the main theme of the conference will be accepted for review in preparation for the next scientific monograph produced by the ECVA.

Warm regards,

Dr. Martin Brestovanský
(Trnava University, Slovakia)

on behalf of the ECVA Steering Group

Prof. James Arthur (Harvard University)
Prof. Verónica Fernández (Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid)
Prof. Tom Harrison (Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue, University of Birmingham)
Prof. Roland Bernhard (University of Teacher Education of Christian Churches, Vienna)
Prof. Claudia Navarini (Università degli Studi Europea di Roma)
Prof. Ines Weber (Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg)

Conference description 

Bridging the Knowledge – Action Gap in Character Development 

Moral education often assumes that ethical knowledge or cognitive competence alone will result in moral behaviour. Yet lived experience, philosophical reflection, and empirical research consistently show otherwise. A persistent gap exists between what individuals know is right and what they actually do—a phenomenon recognized since antiquity. 

Aristotle observed that “we reason here not to know what virtue is, but to become good” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1103b), highlighting that moral reasoning is directed toward formation, not just information. Immanuel Kant similarly acknowledged that a person may clearly understand moral duty and yet lack the will to act accordingly, pointing to the human struggle between reason and inclination. 

David Hume went further, arguing that “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,” insisting that moral knowledge without rightly ordered desires lacks the power to move us to action. And Martin Buber wittily adds: “The worst notorious liar in the classroom will write a brilliant treatise on the destructive power of falsehood”. 

This enduring challenge – now referred to as the knowledge–action gap – remains a pressing concern across education, psychology, and the social sciences. Scholars have described related phenomena in various conceptualizations, such as the reason–action gap, attitude–behaviour gap, intention–behaviour gap, or the knowledge–attitudes–practice (KAP) gap. Each term reflects a common concern: knowing what is right does not reliably lead to doing what is right. 

Bridging this divide is a complex task, compounded by the dynamic, deeply personal, and context-sensitive nature of character formation. Educational and behavioural sciences are increasingly turning to integrative approaches that go beyond cognitive instruction. Interventions such as moral sensitization, dramatization, habit training, and reflective practice are being explored to enhance the coherence between values and actions. 

There is growing consensus that this so-called “gappiness problem” cannot be resolved through one-size-fits-all solutions (e.g., moral emotions alone or identity-based interventions). Instead, promising “multi-component” models are emerging that draw on diverse disciplines and methodologies to address the challenge. 

Conference Goals 

By bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives and diverse methodologies, the ECVA 2026 conference aims to deepen our understanding of the knowledge–action gap and to promote innovative, research-informed strategies for strengthening moral coherence and character development in real-world settings. 

We look forward to welcoming those committed to advancing theory-informed practice and practice-informed theory in the service of ethical integrity and flourishing lives.

Previously: 'character' 

ii Learn your lines and the hyperplanes will follow

With these lines, partitions, axes and domains in mind, when a clinical practitioner is presented with a new person, whether as a patient, client, or carer ... they can, using Hodges' model (and other tools!) approach their assessment in an open and receptive manner.

This means that the information provided by the 'patient' can be readily fielded, captured whatever the context and situation.

As noted previously, my study of Hodges' model began in the late 1980s. Application in my work as a community mental health nurse, with an interest in informatics followed quite naturally(?). Primed as I was, for various reasons to carry this forward, I also carried a mathematical learning disability. At the risk of getting bogged down in my thought, use and approach to Hodges' model I need a challenge.

Mathematics is the challenge for me. It's fascinating how we have in-built 'calculators' that can help us catch a ball, and judge fairly well where to throw a ball for interception. There seems then to be an informal or naïve  mathematics, at work unconsciously. Does the same apply to Hodges' model? If so, how can I isolate, and identify it?

• Is it represented somewhere, implicit in Hodges' model itself?
• Is it (once again) to be found in the user of the model?
• Is it (more likely, and obviously) a combination of these two?
• Or, is it a product of the system, or a series of systems? 

I was reminded of what is a Sober toy, several years ago:

Is Hodges' model a selection machine?

All four original purposes of Hodges' model:

1. Person-centred, integrated and holistic care;
2. To bridge the theory - practice gap;
3. To facilitate reflection and reflective practice;
4. To support curriculum development;

- are concerned with conjunction and choice, selection. So is life itself through distinction, difference, and differentiation.

Hodges' model is a selection machine, that is both fhuman and machine driven.

A clinician may obtain the referral information through an email, a history of previous contacts can be retrieved from a clinical information system; the context and purpose supporting access to the information.   

A whole series of blog posts describe the role of Hodges' model to help assure parity of esteem across mental and physical health. What does this mean in practice?

For the practitioner, they take selected data from the referral, a history - if available, an initial telephone contact, a conversation with a colleague who remembers the person re-referred and starts to populate Hodges' model. What are the psychological concepts that arise? What are the physical?

If a referral in whatever form, or a database record can be viewed as a bag-of-words, then Hodges' model is a collection of care concepts. Four bags then. Sets or classes. An experienced user of Hodges' model may position care concepts that throws attention on the INDIVIDUAL↔GROUP axis. Lying between the INTRA- INTERPERSONAL and SCIENCES domains, this axis (like all the others) earns its keep. There is work to be done that is also of interest in machine learning:

'A support vector machine (SVM) is a supervised machine learning algorithm that classifies data by finding an optimal line or hyperplane that maximizes the distance between each class in an N-dimensional space.

SVMs were developed in the 1990s by Vladimir N. Vapnik and his colleagues, and they published this work in a paper titled "Support Vector Method for Function Approximation, Regression Estimation, and Signal Processing"¹ in 1995.' 

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/support-vector-machine

Strange to think that perhaps the VERTICAL axis and others in Hodges' model are not precisely S-N-E-W in their bearing? There may also be several vectors at work in fact?

Image: c/o https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/support-vector-machine

The word 'naïve' has been bubbling away for a good-many years. A close colleague Silvana Bettiol, Univ. of Tasmania kindly read my draft on Hodges' model as a mathematical object, and mentioned the introduction points to Bayes theorem even if informally. Even in those initial 'clinical' encounters (and social meetings, that attend to empathy, rapport and engagement...) complex judgements are being made, beliefs tested, from what is often partial and disparate sources of information.

Checking other leads led to Frequentist and Bayesian Approaches

'Statistical inference is a series of methods used to make decisions and draw conclusions based on available data. There are two primary approaches for inference: Frequentist and Bayesian. Each framework relies on a different philosophical perspective on probability and modeling, leading to different techniques and interpretations. Each has its own strengths and drawbacks, so understanding the distinctions between them is vital for researchers, data scientists, and statisticians who aim to choose the most suitable approach for their specific analysis.'
https://www.statology.org/comparing-frequentist-and-bayesian-approaches/

More reading required and threads to run.

Earlier this week I posted re. Cromer's book -

Cromer, A. (1997) Connected Knowledge: Science, Philosophy, and Education, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Before passing the book on, p.198, Chapter 8 notes, #4:

'"Understanding" is a commonly used English word which has no precise meaning. It's sometimes taken to mean the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. In this sense, it is a very high-level skill. Benchmarks for Science Literacy says, "Learning to solve problems in a variety of subject-matter contexts, if supplemented on occasion by explicit reflection on that experience, may result in the development of a generalized problem-solving ability that can be applied in new contexts' (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993)." The key word here is "may." 'We really don't know how to help students develop a generalized problem-solving ability, or whether there is such an ability apart from mere knowledge of many different problem-solving strategies. Whatever the case, since we do know how to teach students to solve specific, problems. this should be the primary focus of science education' p.198.

Ack. IBM.

Learn your lines and the hyperplane will follow i

Take an empty [rectangular] space (A4 paper in landscape)

Blank! Isn't it?

Take a line. Yes, call it that.

Divide the space vertically, and equally, in two. 

Do this again but horizontally.

You can call these lines, partitions if you wish?

Or, as per adopted convention here, axes.

Now, there are four empty spaces.

These spaces can be called quadrants, planes, or domains. The latter term usually adopted here.

Labels can be decided, and assigned to the axes and the resulting domains.

Given a purpose, in practice (initially) the 'empty' spaces have the ability to assign significance to what may be placed within them.

Such decisions are non-trivial, in the sense that context and situation determine what follows, influenced by objective and subjective considerations.

The domains can contain concepts, or keywords with decisions driven by categorical reasoning.

The content of the domains can also be viewed as classes and sub-classes.

ii to follow (with revision here?)

Tongues: The Edinburgh Companion to the Global Medical Humanities

Editors: Benjamin Dalton (Lancaster University), Steven Wilson (Queen’s University Belfast), Alex Wragge-Morley (Lancaster) and Stephanie Wright (Lancaster)

NEW Deadline for abstracts: 30 January 2026

The deadline for proposals to participate in a new Edinburgh Companion to the Global Medical Humanities has been extended. Following on from the landmark Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities, this handbook aims to catalyse the emerging field of global, multilingual work in the medical humanities. In its earliest form, the medical humanities sought to recognize the importance of literature and the arts to medical education and communication. In the following decades, scholars have recognized the entanglements that have existed between mind, body and environment – entanglements that call into question still prevalent distinctions between the sciences and the humanities, or between biology and culture (Whitehead et. al., 2016). Now, scholars and practitioners are increasingly bringing global cultures, epistemologies, and languages to bear on the medical humanities. At the same time, new approaches that both challenge and extend the concerns of the medical humanities are emerging in non-Anglophone and non-Western contexts.

This volume will give students and scholars a comprehensive guide to the dynamic and emerging field of global medical humanities – identified as such in recent editorials in Medical Humanities, The Polyphony and The Routledge Handbook of the Medical Humanities. This is a field that engages critically with the notion of global studies, recognizing that some of its iterations simply perpetuate the cultural, epistemic, and cultural hierarchies that have so long dominated the fields of health and the humanities. At once synthesizing and developing the insights of the field, this Edinburgh Companion will deploy the metaphor of the tongue to bring together, without homogenizing, a globally diverse range of contexts and interconnections. The tongue is at once an instrument of speech and a bodily organ that connects people to their cultures and environments. Indeed, through its communicative function and the pleasures and pains of taste, the tongue relates people to the language and foodways frequently taken to define cultures and societies. Moreover, the tongue is an interface for pleasure, intimacy and connection between bodies. And, of course, the tongue quite literally brings the world into the body through acts of taste and eating (Mol, 2021).

On the one hand, therefore, this Companion will deal with language, exploring the manifold ways in which translation between cultural and linguistic contexts can change our understandings and experiences of health. But at the same time, taking its cue from the corporeality of the tongue, it will explore how thought, perception and bodily reality may alter or be altered by movement in and between cultural and linguistic settings. This new handbook will thus serve as a crucial resource for anybody engaging with the trans-cultural and trans-linguistic aspects of health and wellbeing, from scholars and students to medical practitioners and carers.

The handbook will include a foreword by Angela Woods (Durham University), and the editors invite proposals for chapters on any topic relating to the global medical humanities, including but not restricted to:

• Translating the medical humanities across cultures (broadly conceived)
• Vernaculars of healthcare
• Non-verbal languages
• Global conceptions or expressions of pleasure, sexuality, taste, and/or pain
• Bodies, senses and environments
• Failures of language to communicate pain and/or bodily resistance to translation

Abstracts of between 200-300 words should be sent along with a short (50-word max) bio to a.wragge-morley AT lancaster.ac.uk, b.dalton AT lancaster.ac.uk, s.wright9 AT lancaster.ac.uk and steven.wilson AT qub.ac.uk by 30 January 2026. Informal enquiries can be directed the same addresses.

My source: NNMHR list www.jiscmail.ac.uk/NNMHR

Hodges' model - Locus of Care & Control?

Draft notes:

There are obvious geometric features (Stewart, 1981) in Hodges’ model. Application of the model is a holistic affair. The centre of the model is its centre (as a template), but in application it is not fixed. There are several degrees of freedom, determined by the context of application. Consider figures 4a, 4b and 4c. Perhaps it can be argued there is what amounts to a care locus? As Persons (2025) notes:

‘Primary care is considered the first line of defense in health care, and it is the locus of the maintenance of both individual and population health.‘ p. 15.

 Emphasis can be placed on selected domains, as the situation dictates:

Stewart, I. (1981) Concepts of Modern Mathematics, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Persons, G. A. (2025). Health Care Safety Nets: Vital Participant Roles and Varying Policy Contexts. Phylon (1960-), 62(1), 5–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27396595

ii Editorial: Persistent Positive Change in Challenging Times ...

To Howden's editorial it's worth highlighting that Hodges' model is situated. So, whether the 'challenge' that is faced is individual, or collective Hodges' model can help to identify the issues, problems, strengths, opportunities, threats, where we are, where we would like to be and more. Surely, reflection, critical thinking is about confiming, or regaining our perspective, correcting our orientation or improving alignment and synchronisation with others? The time this entails, whether exercised on paper, or cognitively (yes, humans thinking is still an option) this is equivalent to a time-out even if momentary. This can be critical in clinical encounters, were emotions are raised, or there is risk of escalation.

So whether the challenge is personal, lived experience, bullying, finance, physical, or mental health, simulation (fidelity, testing), ethical ...; or collective (a team) - service and organisational change, major incident, policy, clinical or management supervision, whistleblowing, public / patient engagement, complaints and challenging relationships; Hodges' model is a tool (one of many) to call upon.

It could be the context causes you to focus on one or two care (knowledge) domains. Or, there is a need to step back in order to 'see' the big picture (integrated care, risk assessment, holistic care, psychosocial view ...) - the spiritual too.

While Hodges' model is simple, please consider this: there aren't many tools that can facilitate articulation and dissemination of the 'big picture' in a form that is (imho) readily transferable and translatable.

Howden, S. (2025). Editorial: Persistent Positive Change in Challenging Times. International Journal of Practice-based Learning in Health and Social Care, 13(1), ii-iii.

Narketpally syndrome: A different approach to medical education and research

From: Marc Jamoulle
MD (UCL 1974), PhD (ULg 2017)
Family physician, Belgium (INAMI 15324119004)
marc.jamoulle AT uliege.be
Associate researcher at HEC-Liège, BAS-SCM, University of Liège, University of Rouen, D2IM & CAMG-UCL, Brussels

hi friends,

in an unknown syndrome, another way to deal with the patient, to learn from the patient, to develop a partnership with the patient, caring while waiting for the cure,

Jamoulle, M., & Soylu, S. (2025). Phenotyping Long COVID in Children in Primary Care: A Case-Based Study Using the Human Phenotype Ontology. ORBi-University of Liège. https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/334447

From: Rakesh Biswas
rakesh7biswas AT gmail.com

This paper illustrates a global patient-centered learning ecosystem, anchored in Narketpally, that adopts a syndromic approach to medical education and research. Rooted in the etymological origins of 'syndrome' ("together we flow"), this approach reframes medical research as a collective, contextual response to individual patient needs.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40674544/

Methods: The structure of the paper is intentionally modeled as a team-based learning exercise, grounded in our prior Web 2.0-based cognitive tools: CBBLE (Case-Based Blended Learning Ecosystem) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6163835/ and PaJR (Patient Journey Record) https://pajr.in/. These are framed against the conceptual scaffolding provided by three key publications: a framework by Sturmberg et al. and two contrasting commentaries by Greenhalgh and Ioannidis.

Results: Through our ongoing CBBLE-PaJR workflow, thematic learning outcomes emerged in response to these frameworks. Sturmberg's stratified realism helped us recognize how individual patient connections, recorded in our daily practice and online learning portfolios, can drive both contextual learning and meaningful changes in patient outcomes. Greenhalgh's commentary inspired our conceptualization of a 'wildebeest river crossing value model,' contrasting population-based efficiency with individual-centered compassion. Ioannidis's critique of methodological rigor highlighted the potential for expanding low-resource, high-impact research through patient-centered designs, particularly in phases 1 and 4 of the clinical trial hierarchy.

Podder, V., Kulkarni, R., Samitinjay, A., Salam, A., Gade, S., Agrawal, M., Surendran, A. K., & Biswas, R. (2025). Narketpally Syndrome and the Embedding of Contextual Values in Real-Life Patient Pathways. Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 31(5), e70186. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.70186
[Citation added PJ].
--

My source:
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Relational Equality and Intergenerational Justice

Relational Equality and Intergenerational Justice
edited by Devon Cass and Andre Santos Campos

ABSTRACT

Intergenerational justice has in recent decades become an increasingly important subfield of political philosophy. However, due to the absence of coexistence and other aspects of the intergenerational context, it is often unclear whether and how many ideals of justice apply. As such, relational egalitarianism – the view that justice requires equal social relationships – may appear particularly implausible in this domain. In this introduction, we explain this issue, motivating its further examination. Finally, we briefly summarize how the papers in this volume take up this challenge and offer insightful developments on both fronts, advancing our understanding of intergenerational justice and relational egalitarianism.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

I - self - identity ancestor - descendant	space - resources past - now - future
INTERGENERATIONAL -	- JUSTICE

My source: WHO - Humanizing Health Care Through Relationality: Exploring The Science And Practice Of Community Engagement

Joint-carving - 'The First Cut is the Deepest' c/o Traldi

Last Friday I joined in another online session of the Argumentation network c/o Andrew Aberdein and Kat Stevens. 

The subject was “The Epistemology and Politics of Redefinition” by Oliver Traldi.

As ever, it was interesting, technical, relevant and a prompt to concepts new, briefly encountered previously. I can't remember if in the talk, or Q&A, but mention was made of 'joint-carving' but I checked some sources:

'Because properties are so abundant, they are undiscriminating. Any two things share infinitely many properties, and fail to share infinitely many others. That is so whether the two things are perfect duplicates or utterly dissimilar. Thus properties do nothing to capture facts of resemblance. That is work more suited to the sparse universals. Likewise, properties do nothing to capture the causal powers of things. Almost all properties are causally irrelevant, and there is nothing to make the relevant ones stand out from the crowd. Properties carve reality at the joints -- and everywhere else as well. If it's distinctions we want, too much structure is no better than none.' p.346.

Lewis, D. 1983. New Work for a Theory of Universals, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61(4): 343–377. doi:10.1080/00048408312341131

'Though the facts or truths that the realist judges mind-independent are most commonly put in terms of a kind’s ‘naturalness’ (or lack thereof), they may be formulated in alternative locutions, such as the ‘reality,’ ‘non-reality,’ or ‘artificiality’ of a kind or kinds. For example, that human races are not real, or that protons form a natural kind, both express such facts. Equivalently, Plato’s famous carving metaphor may be used to do so, as when it is asserted that the classifications of the DSM-5 do not carve nature at the joints. For the sake of expository simplicity I will exclusively use the language of ‘naturalness’ here, but translations into alternative terminology are straightforward.'

Franklin-Hall, L. 2015. Natural kinds as categorical bottlenecks. Philosophical Studies 172 (4):925-948.

Further, Sass writes:

'The goal is to have a consistent and informative test for what counts

as a realist versus an anti-realist view about natural kinds. Bird’s(2018) taxonomy,

building on Hawley and Bird(2011), focuses on the questions of whether natural

kinds exist, and if so, what sort of entity kinds are. Franklin-Hall’s (2015) taxonomy

focuses instead on whether kinds are individuated by a mind-independent principle,

or whether kinds “carve at the joints”.1 This paper focuses mainly on the issues raised

by Bird’s (2018) taxonomy.' p.11862.

Sass, R. 2021. An ontology of weak entity realism for HPC kinds. Synthese, 198(12), 11861–11880. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48692794 [ homeostatic property cluster (HPC) theories of kinds ].

In the past, I've written about the (nursing, IT, psychological...) models muddle. At the risk of adding to my muddle, Traldi's presentation is a timely prompt. Timely, because trying to looking at Hodges' model as a mathematical object, it needs to be stripped down to its bare components (and purposes?). Is redefinition the order of the day? I will leave defining the components to one-side at present (in drafted notes). But even from Hodges' model as a template, with its (two) axes and (four) domains we can (must) consider:

1. The two axes taken as a whole - do they intersect, or not?*

Relationally, the axis between:

INTERPERSONAL | SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY | POLITICAL

INTERPERSONAL - SOCIOLOGY

SCIENCES - POLITICAL

2. Each axis (treated independently) to the centre of Hodges' model. (See 1.)

The conjoining of axes (do they?):

The INDIVIDUAL - HUMANISTIC and INDIVIDUAL - MECHANISTIC.

The HUMANISTIC - GROUP and GROUP - MECHANISTIC.

                                

Hodges' model

I won't continue now, but I have wondered if one axis is primary? Which one comes first? Faced with a blank piece of paper, or flipchart ... which axis gets drawn first?

In guided discovery workshops, teaching sessions I have been directed by the context and duty of care. Given that this is clinical then the I-G is where I start, or lead the discussion.

Perhaps, (as per the previous post) there is a safety dividend in having to consider this question more formally (forcibly)?

I remember Rod Stewart's rendition of  'The First Cut is the Deepest' - even as governments work to make this cut as shallow as possible.

The INDIVIDUAL - GROUP cut: has it every time.

Previously: 'argumentation'

'Life's compass' ...

'... I have been thinking a lot about the responsibilities of leadership. How do people in positions of power reach decisions and do they fully consider the consequences of these decisions? In questioning how someone chooses to lead, I'm also asking how that individual navigates the possible courses of action, and what kind of compass is being used to guide them. It has made me think about how any of us choose to navigate our way through life and where we look for a sense of direction. I wonder what we might change about the choices we make if we were more reflective about what serves as a compass in our lives.'

'"The Invention of the Compass" is attributed to an anonymous painter of the late 16th century, although there exists a roughly contemporaneous plate of the same title, and of an almost identical image, engraved by the Dutch artist Jan Collaert the Elder. In the original painting an old man with a long white beard, and dressed in a voluminous red and brown cloak, sits behind a large table in the centre of a room. As well as a canopied bed and another desk spread with books and scientific instruments, there is a model, or vision perhaps, of a carrack sailing ship hanging from the ceiling. There is also a large round compass device that sits heavy on the floor on the left foreground of the canvas. ...'

'It is as if this painting (Caravaggio) intended to serve as a compass, helping to move our steps and actions in the direction of caring for others. This is a powerful idea, and it suggests that all images contain that potential to influence how we live. Where we choose to direct and keep our gaze to some extent can determine how we permit our lives to be guided, if not in a physical sense then toward a value system that can end up having an impact on the way we engage with the wider world.' (My emphasis)

Ack. Enuma Okoro, Life's compass, The art of life, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 1-2 February 2025. p.2. (Still need to subscribe, marvellous reading!)

Caravaggio, The Seven Works of Mercy

The Invention of the Compass

INDIVIDUAL

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

moral compass personal values my choices	maps - compass position - navigation direction - distance degrees of freedom
the public the public good group think	leadership power political freedom

Enuma Okoro, Life's compass, The art of life, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 1-2 February 2025. p.2.

Images: 

New Inventions of Modern Times [Nova Reperta], The Invention of the Compass, plate 2
https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/659663/1403273/main-image

By Caravaggio - Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10286196

Previously:

'compass' :: 'map'

Hornberger (1989) 'Continua of Biliteracy'. Review of Educational Research

The axes of Hodges' model present a problem in:

• theory
• practice
• evidence - research terms (data!).

The easiest to resolve is practice, which is were Hodges' model can lay claim to being a pragmatic solution. Of course, it isn't the axes that are the difficulty, it is the labels that Brian Hodges originally applied in the early-mid 1980's, followed by other users of the model since. From:

INDIVIDUAL <> GROUP - variations here in 'Welcome to the QUAD' [W2tQ] Patient <> Carer - Family : Client <> Health professional. You can progress to the "patient zero" and a population in an pandemic.

These are fundamental elements in clinical encounters, whether face-to-face, online, and across settings.

The same applies to the horizontal axis: HUMANISTIC <> MECHANISTIC.

As presented - in the sidebar, and the two-by-two table found in many posts - the model has a distinct dichotomous quality. It seems to set up, or invite opposition, or polarities. Sometimes I've viewed the axes as continua, but they are not graduated, incremental in a quantitative sense.

Do the axes of Hodges' model serve a need (do their work) by allowing the user to differentiate through opposition and relational appraisal (testing)? Perhaps, qualified in a respective profession / subject area, the user of Hodges' is employing other axes?

This brings us to intersectionality and the cognitive work of placing the person (couple, family, community ... biosphere) at the centre of our deliberations.

In biliteracy studies, Hornberger (1989) is perhaps more accurate in seeing a series of multidimensional and interrelated continua (p.273) which form a framework.

There are three figures in this paper and many other points of use:

"Contexts of biliteracy are defined, then, by these three continua. Any particular instance of biliteracy is located at a point of intersection among the three." p.280.

In health care this is readily understood given the varied contexts of the centre, the nexus of Hodges' model. When we say Hodges' model is situated, the centre of the model is the sweet and sour spot. For Hornberger, the context determines the use and significance of the continua.

This opens up Hodges' model as a potential tool to better understand the dimensions of diversity, inclusion and intersectionality.

Hornberger, N. H. (1989). Continua of Biliteracy. Review of Educational Research, 59(3), 271–296. https://doi.org/10.2307/1170183

No! This post hasn't been in draft since 1990. ;-)

'Domain-specific is wider than specific domain knowledge' Kalyuga (2013)

 'Developing learner ability to apply knowledge in relatively new situations is an important aim of learning and instruction, and many instructional programs and materials explicitly state this goal. However, not many of them demonstrate a consistency in achieving this goal using sufficiently well-specified instructional procedures and techniques. According to a popular view, transferable knowledge and skills in complex domains result from problem solving experiences (e.g. Inagaki and Miyake 2007). At the same time, there is evidence indicating the importance and effectiveness of explicit learning generalized theoretical frameworks and abstract conceptual knowledge for deep understanding of tasks and en hancing transfer capabilities (Karpov and Bransford 1995; Hinds et al. 2001). Gick and Holyoak (1983) convincingly demonstrated the value of the acquisition of abstract schémas as mediators of analogical transfer between very different task areas.'

'Many studies in expert problem solving have demonstrated that relying on highly contextualized domain-specific knowledge associated with concrete situations is the most effective way to solve problems in familiar task areas and that expert performance is largely based on the acquisition of organized domain-specific knowledge structures (schémas; Chi et al. 1982). ... For example, the game of chess has traditionally represented a classical example of expertise based on the acquisition of a huge amount of highly specific knowledge structures (chunks) corresponding to various concrete game situations (De Groot 1965; Chase and Simon 1973). However, more recent studies have indicated that experts use not only concrete chunks but also more general patterns, such as "templates" (Gobet and Simon 1998) or generalized chunks (Walczak and Fishwick 1997) representing typical classes of chess positions with substantial variations in concrete board locations. Based on his observations of the behaviour of rats in maze situations, Tolman (1948) was one of the first to discuss the role of broad vs. narrow cognitive constructs (cognitive maps) in both animal and human learning. 

Domain-specific knowledge that is applicable only to a limited range of tasks represents the most powerful tool for dealing with these tasks in terms of efficiency of achieving immediate results. On the other hand, knowledge that can be applied more broadly is likely to be less efficient for solving specific problems since it would require additional searching, reasoning, and elaborating activities, whilst specific knowledge directly leads to a definite solutions.' pp.1478-1479.

Kalyuga, S. (2013). Enhancing transfer by learning generalized domain knowledge structures. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 28(4), 1477–1493. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23580919

Ethics and the 'big picture'

'It has been my experience that many of the most successful and creative heads of major research labs around the country came to their place from other disciplines. For example, one prominent geneticist that I know has his Ph.D. in chemistry. He told me that coming to genetics from outside the discipline gave him an awareness of structures and values that were invisible to those laboring inside the established system. Much as one has critical insights into the ambience of a city or culture when one comes from outside as a foreigner, so also is there critical understanding of academic disciplines. Thus, one response to the add-on question is to reply that the material you are providing can make your students better scientists by giving them a more global, contextual perspective. A global, contextual perspective allows one to consider divergent research designs that approach a problem in many directions. This is sometimes called "big picture" thinking. Part of the big picture includes other scientific contexts. For example, biology is seen in the context of chemistry, and chemistry is seen in the context of physics. But it is more than that. It also includes values. Should I, as a scientist, pursue all questions with the same vigor? Are there some questions that should be avoided because of the social consequences of their results? Is the scientist compelled to think in terms of helping humankind or helping himself to a Nobel Prize in any way he can? All of these involve values and ethics. They are critical components to global big picture thinking. Such a perspective is a valuable tool for anyone seeking excellence in scientific research.' p.28.

Boylan, M., & Donahue, J. (2003). Ethics across the curriculum : a practice-based approach. Lexington Books. 

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

GROUP

PERSONAL ETHICS INDIVIDUAL INTEGRITY MY EXPERIENCE MY REFLECTIONS INTERSUBJECTIVITY PURPOSE BELIEFS CHARACTER EDUCATION PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

PROCESS OBJECTIVITY FACTS  EMPIRICISM 'We define ethics as the process of reflection on the moral meaning of actions.' p.5. 'BIG PICTURE' PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

PRACTICE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE ETHOS^ (Chap. 6) 'Ethics is not a discrete body of knowledge that one simply acquires for application and use in particular situations. It entails the ongoing appropriation of ideas of the good as they relate to the changig situations, contexts, and developments in individuals and groups lives. ^ Ethics reflects on actions the actions of individuals and groups.' p.5.

PROFESSIONAL BODIES PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS PROFESSIONAL & COMMERCIAL - ACCOUNTABILITY PROFESSIONAL ETHICS DUTY OF CARE POLICY LAW JUSTICE autonomy; nonmaleficence; beneficence; justice*

^Stackhouse, M. (1972) Ethics and the Urban Ethos: An Essay in Social Theory and Theological Construction, Boston: Beacon Press. (Chap. 6, Boylan & Donahue)

*Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2013). Principles of biomedical ethics (7th ed.). Oxford University Press. (Chap. 6, Boylan & Donahue)

'What Kingdom' by Fine Gråbøl

client - person - individual - self - patient

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

What Kingdom

'Gråbøl was lucky. Eventually she started seeing a new psychiatrist, who looked at that record "and was like, "Wow, you receive So much more medicine than all the other people who live there. Why is that?'" She didn't know. Gradually, though, she was able to come off the drugs; and two doctors decided that she didn't, in fact, have borderline personality and bipolar disorders, removing the diagnoses that had shaped her sense of her self. In time, she left the unit and rebuilt her life. She's no longer on medication today, but the ghosts of her past diagnoses haunt her. She wonders whether the conditions are merely in hibernation and she'll wake up one day and enter another depressive episode. She doesn't wish she'd never been diagnosed, but does feel that her doctors underestimated the effect those labels would have on her development. At 17, she points out - the age she was diagnosed as bipolar - most teenagers don't yet know who they are. "You want to find a box or language to define yourself, so that you can close yourself in. And one way of getting that sense is getting into the psychiatric system." Since returning to "normal" life, she has also struggled with survivor's guilt: the feeling that while she made it out of the system, others did not.

'Above all, she wishes that the emphasis would shift away from the suffering individual and onto their broader context. We need to become better, as a society, at making room for people who aren't fully functional citizens. Gråbøl's narrator phrases it as a question: "Could we not imagine treatments that are instead externally directed involving the outside world gearing itself towards a wider and more comprehensive emotional spectrum?" Gråbøl's answer, though, is the same as my own: "I don't know."'

the system citizens?

My source:
Leaf Arbuthnot, Interview. We need to make room for the mentally ill. Review, The Daily Telegraph, 21 September 2024, pp.8-9.

Image:
https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9781953861849

Books... Bakhtin's centripetal and centrifugal forces in relationships

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

"Bakhtin's dialogism is theory of the contradicting process as realized in the ongoing tension between centripetal (i.e. unifying) and centrifugal (i.e., differentiating) dialectical poles. Each pole of the centripetal-centrifugal contradiction is constituted in the particulars of the situation at a given point in time. The centripetal pole consists of whatever phenomenon or quality occupies the dominant or normative position, whereas the centrifugal pole consists of whatever phenomena are subordinate, peripheral, or secondary. Substantial fluidity characterizes centripetal and centrifugal poles, in that a phenomenon that is dominant at one point in time can be subordinate or secondary at another point in time, and vice versa. Because dialogism is a general theory of sociality, rather than a context-specific theory, Bakhtin did not pursue the particular  phenomena that constitute centripetal and centrifugal forces for any specific context, including the context of personal relationships. Thus a first step in extending dialogism to personal relationships is to particularize Bakhtin's abstract centripetal contradiction." p.141.

Duck, S. (Editor) Social Context and Relationships. London: SAGE Publications, 1993.