BackgroundData processing of health research databases often requires a Data Protection Impact Assessment to evaluate the severity of the risk and the appropriateness of measures taken to comply with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. We aimed to define and apply a comprehensive method for the evaluation of privacy, data governance and ethics among research networks involved in the EU Project Bridge Health.MethodsComputerised survey among associated partners of main EU Consortia, using a targeted instrument designed by the principal investigator (...) and progressively refined in collaboration with an international advisory panel. Descriptive measures using the percentage of adoption of privacy, data governance and ethical principles as main endpoints were used for the analysis and interpretation of the results.ResultsA total of 15 centres provided relevant information on the processing of sensitive data from 10 European countries. Major areas of concern were noted for: data linkage, access and accuracy of personal data and anonymisation procedures. A high variability was noted in the application of privacy principles.ConclusionsA comprehensive methodology of Privacy and Ethics Impact and Performance Assessment was successfully applied at international level. The method can help implementing the GDPR and expanding the scope of Data Protection Impact Assessment, so that the public benefit of the secondary use of health data could be well balanced with the respect of personal privacy. (shrink)

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with (...) philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. ​. (shrink)

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Steven Lukes, one the most eminent critics of methodological individualism. The focus is on Lukes’ interpretation of methodological individualism in terms of linguistic exclusivism (i.e., naive reductionism), the multiple-realization problem, Boudon’s and Elster’s micro-foundationalist approach, ontological individualism, and the rationality of human action.

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Joseph Agassi, regarding the relationship between methodological individualism and institutional individualism. The focus is on Agassi’s interpretation of traditional methodological individualism in terms of psychologism; the role of institutions and structural factors in social explanation; Popper’s theory of World 3; the application of Weber’s interpretative approach—Verstehen—to typical ways of thinking and acting; and the Austrian School of economics.

Popper’s theory of World 3 is often regarded as incongruent with his defense of methodological individualism. This article criticizes this widespread view. Methodological individualism is said to be at odds with three crucial assumptions of the theory of World 3: the impossibility of reducing World 3 to subjective mental states because it exists objectively, the view that the mental functions cannot be explained by assuming that individuals are isolated atoms, and the idea that World 3 has causal power and influences (...) both individual minds and actions. This article demonstrates that the inconsistency thesis stems from a confusion between methodological individualism as understood by Popper and reductionism. The reasons for this confusion are analyzed and clarified. It is argued that two variants of methodological individualism can be distinguished, and that unlike psychologistic individualism, Popper’s nonatomistic individualism is fully consistent with his theory of World 3. (shrink)

In this chapter Nathalie Bulle and Francesco Di Iorio present critical realism’s take on methodological individualism, their affinities and differences relating to notions of structure and agency in interpreting social reality, and challenge Margaret Archer’s criticisms of MI, which seem to combat a “straw man.”.

This book contributes to the developing dialogue between cognitive science and social sciences. It focuses on a central issue in both fields, i.e. the nature and the limitations of the rationality of beliefs and action. The development of cognitive science is one of the most important and fascinating intellectual advances of recent decades, and social scientists are paying increasing attention to the findings of this new branch of science that forces us to consider many classical issues related to epistemology and (...) philosophy of action in a new light. This book encourages scholars from different fields who are interested in the dialogue between cognitive science and social sciences, to develop and analyze new perspectives that allow us to elucidate the mystery of rationality. What is rationality? What are its limitations? What rationality assumptions must be used to study social and economic phenomena? The target audience primarily comprises researchers and experts in the field. Analysis of the concept of rationality is a leitmotiv in the history of the social sciences and has involved endless disputes. Since it is difficult to give a precise definition of this concept, and there is a lack of agreement about its meaning, it is possible to say that there is a ‘mystery of rationality’. What is it to be rational? Is rationality merely instrumental or does it also involve the endorsement of values, i.e. the choice of goals? Should we consider rationality to be a normative principle or a descriptive one? Can rationality be only Cartesian or can it also be argumentative? Is rationality a conscious skill or a partly tacit one? This book, which has been written by an outstanding collection of authors, including both philosophers and social scientists, tries to make a useful contribution to the debates on these problems and shed some light on the mystery of rationality. (shrink)

The European Union Data Protection Regulation will have profound implications for public health, health services research and statistics in Europe. The EU Commission's Proposal was a breakthrough in balancing privacy rights and rights to health and healthcare. The European Parliament, however, has proposed extensive amendments. This paper reviews the amendments proposed by the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and their implications for health research and statistics. The amendments eliminate most innovations brought by the Proposal. Notably, (...) derogation to the general prohibition of processing sensitive data shall be allowed for public interests such as the management of healthcare services, but not health research, monitoring, surveillance and governance. The processing of personal health data for historical, statistical or scientific purposes shall be allowed only with the consent of the data subject or if the processing serves an exceptionally high public interest, cannot be performed otherwise and is legally authorised. Research, be it academic, government, corporate or market research, falls under the same rule. The proposed amendments will make difficult or render impossible research and statistics involving the linkage and analysis of the wealth of data from clinical, administrative, insurance and survey sources, which have contributed to improving health outcomes and health systems performance and governance; and may illegitimise efforts that have been made in some European countries to enable privacy-respectful data use for research and statistical purposes. If the amendments stand as written, the right to privacy is likely to override the right to health and healthcare in Europe. (shrink)

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Daniel Little regarding the relationship between methodological individualism and methodological localism. The focus is on Little’s view that methodological individualism is incompatible with the assumption that actors are socially constituted and socially situated as well as on other topics such as micro-foundations, the micro–macro link, ontological individualism, causal explanation, rationality, Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, and Durkheim.

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with (...) philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. (shrink)

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 207-234, July 2022. According to Searle’s theory of collective intentionality, the fundamental structure of any society can be accounted for in terms of cooperative mechanisms that create deontic relations. This paper criticizes Searle’s standpoint on the ground that, while his social ontology can make sense of simple systems of interaction like symphony orchestras and football teams, the whole coordinative structure of the modern market society cannot be explained solely in terms (...) of we-intentional collaboration and deontic relations. As clarified by Hayek, because of its complexity, this society is a self-organizing system. It results not only from micro-level agreed constraints, but also from an unintended cybernetic mechanism that affects and shapes both its micro and macro dynamics via a circular causality. Searle ignores the coordination problem posed by complexity and provides strawman arguments against the theory of action underpinning the invisible hand explanation of social phenomena. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show that Boudon’s explanation of action in terms of “good reasons” can be philosophically enriched by merging his methodological perspective with Mises’ praxeology and Gadamer’s hermeneutics. In order to develop our goal of merging Boudon’s approach with Mises’ and Gadamer’s, we will focus on two points. The first is the identification of the invariable structure of human action. Unlike Boudon, we suggest that the best way to establish this invariable structure, which makes the (...) explanation of action possible, is not to refer to the controversial concept of “human nature,” but rather to use Mises’ praxeological analysis of the invariable logic which all actions have in common. The second point analyzed in this article is the temporal and cultural dimension of the interpretative process which individuals elaborate to develop their reasons. This point, which is related to hermeneutical philosophy and is not investigated in detail by Boudon, is largely discussed by Gadamer. In our opinion, merging Gadamer’s description of the interpretative process – a process that Gadamer calls “hermeneutical circle” – and Boudon’s sociology of “good reasons” is useful because, unlike Boudon, Gadamer clarifies the epistemological nature of the interpretative process as well as the reasons why this process – which is a trial and error process – allows us to understand the actions of people who belong to different cultures. (shrink)

The semantical structures called T×W frames were introduced in (Thomason, 1984) for the Ockhamist temporal-modal language, ℒO, which consists of the usual propositional language augmented with the Priorean operators P and F and with a possibility operator ⋄. However, these structures are also suitable for interpreting an extended language, ℒSO, containing a further possibility operator ⋄s which expresses synchronism among possibly incompatible histories and which can thus be thought of as a cross-history ‘simultaneity’ operator. In the present paper we provide (...) an infinite set of axioms in ℒSO, which is shown to be strongly complete forT ×W-validity. Von Kutschera (1997) contains a finite axiomatization of T×W-validity which however makes use of the Gabbay Irreflexivity Rule (Gabbay, 1981). In order to avoid using this rule, the proof presented here develops a new technique to deal with reflexive maximal consistent sets in Henkin-style constructions. (shrink)

In this thesis I defend and pursue that line about the foundations of probability theory which has come to be known as "the logicist view about probability", and, in particular, the shape which it took in Carnap's Inductive Logic. ;Most philosophers who now deal with probability theory claim that Carnap's program of Inductive Logic has failed. The main aim of my thesis is to show that this judgment is based on a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature and the aim of (...) inductive logic. To that end, I follow, in chapter 1, the events in the history of probability, logic and mathematics which led to choosing certain requirements as the requirements which any theory about the foundations of probability must fulfill in order to be acceptable. ;In chapter 2 I explain how Carnap's inductive logic fulfills those requirements and how the method it uses to give foundations to probability theory can also be used to solve another major problem about probability, namely, the problem of statistical inference. ;Chapter 3 shows how the ideas explained in chapter 2 were developed, formally, by Carnap, and how Carnap's program can be continued in a particular case, that of reasoning by analogy. ;Finally, in chapter 4, I attempt to show that subjectivism about probability theory, the rival theory to Carnap's logicism, does not succeed in meeting the most basic requirement for the acceptability of any theory about the foundations of probability. (shrink)

The semantical structures called T x W frames were introduced in (Thomason, 1984) for the Ockhamist temporal-modal language, $[Unrepresented Character]_{o}$ , which consists of the usual propositional language augmented with the Priorean operators P and F and with a possibility operator ◇. However, these structures are also suitable for interpreting an extended language, $[Unrepresented Character]_{so}$ , containing a further possibility operator $\lozenge^{s}$ which expresses synchronism among possibly incompatible histories and which can thus be thought of as a cross-history 'simultaneity' operator. (...) In the present paper we provide an infinite set of axioms in $[Unrepresented Character]_{so}$ , which is shown to be strongly complete for T x W-validity. Von Kutschera (1997) contains a finite axiomatization of T x W-validity which however makes use of the Gabbay Irreflexivity Rule (Gabbay, 1981). In order to avoid using this rule, the proof presented here develops a new technique to deal with reflexive maximal consistent sets in Henkin-style constructions. (shrink)

The λ-continuum of inductive methods was derived from an assumption, called λ-condition, which says that the probability of finding an individual having property $x_{j}$ depends only on the number of observed individuals having property $x_{j}$ and on the total number of observed individuals. So, according to that assumption, all individuals with properties which are different from $x_{j}$ have equal weight with respect to that probability and, in particular, it does not matter whether any individual was observed having some property similar (...) to $x_{j}$ (the most complete proof of this result is presented in Carnap, 1980). The problem thus remained open to find some general condition, weaker than the λ-condition, which would allow for the derivation of probability functions which might be sensitive to similarity. Carnap himself suggested a weakening of the λ-condition which might allow for similarity sensitive probability functions (Carnap, 1980, p. 45) but he did not find the family of probability functions derivable from that principle. The aim of this paper is to present the family of probability functions derivable from Carnap's suggestion and to show how it is derived. In Section 1 the general problem of analogy by similarity in inductive logic is presented, Section 2 outlines the notation and the conceptual background involved in the proof, Section 3 gives the proof, Section 4 discusses Carnap's principle and the result, Section 5 is a brief review of the solutions which have previously been proposed. (shrink)

The Sphere Model of Consciousness (SMC) delineates a sphere-shaped matrix that aims to describe the phenomenology of experience using geometric coordinates. According to SMC, an experience of overcoming of the habitual self and the conditioning of memories could be placed at the center of the matrix, which can be then called the Place of Pre-Existence (PPE). The PPE is causally associated with self-determination. In this context, we suggest that silence could be considered as an intentional state enabling self-perception to be (...) focused on the “here and now,” which in turn improves perception of one’s own body in space. To investigate these hypotheses grounded in the model, the current preliminary study examined the Place of Pre-Existence Technique (PPEt), in which practitioners are guided to focus on a self-defined aim; reach a state of detachment from the habitual self; envision the future. 481 volunteers PPEt practitioners completed self-report questionnaires before and after an intensive 3-day meditative training. We analyzed the possibly relationship between subjective experiences related to physical, emotional, mental, temporal, and spatial aspects, as well as self-determination and silence, before and after training. The results indicated a shift from a prevailing influence of mental dimension on the other aspects of experience, to a prevailing influence of spatial dimension. Silence was reported more often following the training, and predominantly related to the mental and emotional experiences. The results are discussed in relation to the shift from Narrative to Minimal Self and to increased balance among the considered dimensions. (shrink)

Infant-directed speech, the particular form of spontaneous language observed in interactions between parents and their infants, is a crucial aspect of the mother-infant interaction and an index of the attunement of maternal linguistic input to her infant communicative abilities and needs during dyadic interactions. The present study aimed to explore linguistic and pragmatic features of IDS during mother-infant interactions at 3-month of infant age. The effects of infant, maternal and dyadic factors on IDS were explored. Results evidenced few differences between (...) the groups on IDS linguistic characteristics. Moreover, observing the interaction of birth status and dyadic co-regulation, full-term mothers varied their IDS pragmatic features according to the quality of co-regulation while preterm mothers did not. Parenting stress was associated to specific linguistic IDS features independently from the birth status. Findings are discussed underling implications for the study of preterm dyads interactions and the importance to consider the interplay of several factors in affecting the quality of IDS. (shrink)

Applying value relevance analysis to a sample of European banks, we test the following: (i) the direct effects of the sustainability report on stock price; (ii) whether the report modifies the value relevance of financial accounting variables (indirect effects); and (iii) whether the value relevance of sustainability reports varies across countries. Results show that investors appreciate the additional and complementary disclosure provided by the sustainability report and that this disclosure produces a positive effect on stock prices. Estimates of the indirect (...) effects demonstrate that it has a negative influence on book value per share, whereas the effect on earnings per share is not significant. Cross-country analysis shows that the value relevance of the sustainability report varies across European countries, consistent with the hypothesis that the value relevance of the sustainability report is likely to be influenced by different institutional contexts. (shrink)

Concetta Pennuto, « Pulsations du corps en médecine », Histoire, médecine et santé, 11, été 2017, p. 55-76. Cet article propose une illustration de la manière dont la musique a fourni, par le biais de ses harmonies et son langage, un outil aux médecins pour comprendre et maîtriser les pulsations du coeur. Après une courte exploration de l'acte de prendre le pouls dans l'Antiquité et au Moyen Âge, l'étude présente des exemples de médecins modernes qui utilisent non seulement les (...) moyens de l'harmonie - Médecine – Nouvel article. (shrink)