How is scientific data used to represent phenomena and as evidence for claims about phenomena? In this paper, I propose that a specific type of claims – evidential claims – is involved in data practices to define and restrict the representational and evidential content of a dataset. I present an account of data practices in the epidemiology of the exposome based on the notion of evidential claims, which helps unpack the approaches, assumptions and warrants that connect different stages of research. (...) I identify three different strategies to generate different types of evidential claims in this case. The macro strategy, which individuates the dataset that serves as the initial evidential space for research. The micro strategy, which is used to generate evidential claims about the microscopic and individual component of target phenomena. The association strategy, that uses evidence from the other strategies to identify a dataset as representation of the different levels and relations of exposure and disease. Differentiating between these strategies sheds light on the multi-faceted landscape of biomedical research on environment and health; and the roles of data and evidence in the process of inquiry. (shrink)

In current philosophical discussions on evidence in the medical sciences, epidemiology has been used to exemplify a specific version of evidential pluralism. According to this view, known as the Russo–Williamson Thesis, evidence of both difference-making and mechanisms is produced to make causal claims in the health sciences. In this paper, I present an analysis of data and evidence in epidemiological practice, with a special focus on research on the exposome, and I cast doubt on the extent to which evidential pluralism (...) holds in this case. I start by focusing on the claim that molecular data allows for the production of mechanistic evidence. On the basis of a close look at the ways in which molecular data is used in exposome research, I caution against interpretations in terms of mechanistic evidence. Secondly, I expand my critical remarks on the thesis by addressing the conditions under which data is categorised as evidence in exposome research. I argue that these show that the classification of a dataset as a type of evidence is dependent on the ways in which the data is used. This is in contrast with the approach of evidential pluralism, where evidence is classified in different types on the basis of its intrinsic properties. Finally, I come back to what I consider the core of the thesis and suggest that the epidemiological research analysed in the paper indicates different interpretations of evidential pluralism and its applicability in the health sciences. (shrink)

In this commentary, I propose a framework for thinking about data quality in the context of scientific research. I start by analyzing conceptualizations of quality as a property of information, evidence and data and reviewing research in the philosophy of information, the philosophy of science and the philosophy of biomedicine. I identify a push for purpose dependency as one of the main results of this review. On this basis, I present a contextual approach to data quality in scientific research, whereby (...) the quality of a dataset is dependent on the context of use of the dataset as much as the dataset itself. I exemplify the approach by discussing current critiques and debates of scientific quality, thus showcasing how data quality can be approached contextually. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse the relation between the use of environmental data in contemporary health sciences and related conceptualisations and operationalisations of the notion of environment. We consider three case studies that exemplify a different selection of environmental data and mode of data integration in data-intensive epidemiology. We argue that the diversification of data sources, their increase in scale and scope, and the application of novel analytic tools have brought about three significant conceptual shifts. First, we discuss the EXPOsOMICS (...) project, an attempt to integrate genomic and environmental data which suggests a reframing of the boundaries between external and internal environments. Second, we explore the MEDMI platform, whose efforts to combine health, environmental and climate data instantiate a reframing and expansion of environmental exposure. Third, we illustrate how extracting epidemiological insights from extensive social data collected by the CIDACS institute yields innovative attributions of causal power to environmental factors. Identifying these shifts highlights the benefits and opportunities of new environmental data, as well as the challenges that such tools bring to understanding and fostering health. It also emphasises the constraints that data selection and accessibility pose to scientific imagination, including how researchers frame key concepts in health-related research. (shrink)

Recently, it has been argued that the use of Big Data transforms the sciences, making data-driven research possible and studying causality redundant. In this paper, I focus on the claim on causal knowledge by examining the Big Data project EXPOsOMICS, whose research is funded by the European Commission and considered capable of improving our understanding of the relation between exposure and disease. While EXPOsOMICS may seem the perfect exemplification of the data-driven view, I show how causal knowledge is necessary for (...) the project, both as a source for handling complexity and as an output for meeting the project’s goals. Consequently, I argue that data-driven claims about causality are fundamentally flawed and causal knowledge should be considered a necessary aspect of Big Data science. In addition, I present the consequences of this result on other data-driven claims, concerning the role of theoretical considerations. I argue that the importance of causal knowledge and other kinds of theoretical engagement in EXPOsOMICS undermine theory-free accounts and suggest alternative ways of framing science based on Big Data. (shrink)

In this commentary, I discuss the scientific changes brought by the exposome, asking what is new about this approach and line of research. I place the exposome in a historical perspective, by analyzing the conditions under which the exposome has been conceived, developed and established in the context of contemporary epidemiological research. I argue that the exposome has been developed by transferring approaches, methods and conceptualizations from other lines of research in the life and health sciences. I thus discuss the (...) conceptual and methodological innovations of the exposome as a result of the merging and adaptation of these elements for new uses and purposes. On this basis, I argue that the novelty of the exposome should be seen in incremental rather than revolutionary terms and, in this sense, the exposome shares significant elements with other projects and repertoires in postgenomics. I conclude by discussing the consequences of this analysis for the potential limitations and future development of exposome research. (shrink)

I propose an approach that expands philosophical views of scientific change, on the basis of an analysis of contemporary biomedical research and recent developments in the philosophy of scientific change. Focusing on the establishment of the exposome in epidemiology as a case study and the role of data as a context for contrasting views on change, I discuss change at conceptual, methodological, material, and social levels of biomedical epistemology. Available models of change provide key resources to discuss this type of (...) change, but I present the need for an approach that models transfer, alignment, and influence as key processes of change. I develop this as a pragmatic approach to scientific change, where processes might change substantially depending on specific circumstances, thus contributing to and complementing the debate on a crucial epistemological issue. (shrink)

Calls for evidence-based approaches to COVID-19 have sparked up discussions on the use of evidence for policy. In this note, we expand these discussions: while the debate has mostly focused on the types of evidence to be used for policy, we argue that the assessment of judgments involved in data practices and evidence production should play a central role in evaluating policy.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the epistemological tensions embedded within big data and data-driven technologies to advance a socio-political reconsideration of the public dimension in the assessment of their implementation. Design/methodology/approach This paper builds upon (and revisits) the European Union’s (EU) normative understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven technologies, blending reflections rooted in philosophy of technology with issues of democratic participation in tech-related matters. Findings This paper proposes the conceptual design of sectorial and/or local-level e-participation (...) platforms to ignite an ongoing discussion – involving experts, private actors, as well as cognizant citizens – over the implementation of data-driven technologies, to avoid siloed, tech-solutionist decisions. Originality/value This paper inscribes the EU’s normative approach to AI and data-driven technologies, as well as critical work on the governance of these technologies, into a broader political dimension, suggesting a way to democratically and epistocratically opening up the decisional processes over the development and implementation of these technologies and turn such processes into a systemic civic involvement. (shrink)

This article seeks to reconcile a fundamental normative tension that underlies most international reconstruction efforts in war-torn societies: on the one hand, substantial outside interference in the domestic affairs of such societies may seem desirable to secure political stability, set up inclusive governance structures, and protect basic human rights; on the other hand, such interference is inherently paternalistic—and thus problematic—since it limits the policy options and broader freedom of maneuver of domestic political actors. I argue that for paternalistic interference in (...) foreign countries to be justified, it needs to be strictly proportional to domestic impediments to self-government and basic rights protection. Based on this claim, I model different degrees of interference that are admissible at particular stages of the postwar reconstruction process. Extrapolating from John Rawls'sLaw of Peoples, I suggest that full-scale international trusteeship can be justified only so long as conditions on the ground remain “outlaw”—that is, so long as security remains volatile and basic rights, including the right to life, are systematically threatened. Once basic security has been reestablished, a lower degree of interference continues to be justified, until new domestic governance structures become entirely self-sustaining. During this second phase of postwar reconstruction, external actors ideally ought toshare responsibilityfor law-enforcement and administration with domestic authorities, which implies in practice that domestic and international officials should jointly approve all major decisions. I discuss various approximations of such shared responsibility in recent international peace operations and speculate about how best to ensure a timely transition toward full domestic ownership. (shrink)

Purpose This study advances a reconceptualization of data and information which overcomes normative understandings often contained in data policies at national and international levels. This study aims to propose a conceptual framework that moves beyond subject- and collective-centric normative understandings. Design/methodology/approach To do so, this study discusses the European Union (EU) and China’s approaches to data-driven technologies highlighting their similarities and differences when it comes to the vision underpinning how tech innovation is shaped. Findings Regardless of the different attention to (...) the subject (the EU) and the collective (China), the normative understandings of technology by both actors remain trapped into a positivist approach that overlooks all that is not and cannot be turned into data, thus hindering the elaboration of a more holistic ecological thinking merging humans and technologies. Originality/value Revising the philosophical and political debate on data and data-driven technologies, a third way is elaborated, i.e. federated data as commons. This third way puts the subject as part by default of a collective at the centre of discussion. This framing can serve as the basis for elaborating sociotechnical alternatives when it comes to define and regulate the mash-up of humans and technology. (shrink)

This book seeks to rectify misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, an approach which applies his own mature view, that we gain knowledge through conjectures and refutations, to his own development, by portraying him in his intellectual growth as just such a series. Gattei seeks to reconstruct the logic of Popper’s development, in order to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.

Comment une nouvelle divinité, munie de ses attributs spécifiques, ses timai et ses épiphanies, peut-elle être créée? Par qui? Et à quelles fins? Qui seront ses prêtres et ses fidèles? La documentation hellénistique confère une perspective historique aux aspects cultuels, sociaux et idéologiques de ces phénomènes religieux et les cultes des souverains sont un cas particulier de l’établissement et de l’acceptation de nouveaux dieux. Les cultes de souveraines n’ont que très récemment reçu l’attention qu’ils méritent. L’article étudie les cas de (...) Bérénice Ire, Arsinoé II et Laodice V afin de fournir de nouvelles interprétations de quelques fêtes dynastiques et d’étudier la relation entre les cultes de souverains et la légitima­tion du pouvoir féminin. La discussion repose surtout sur des papyrus et des inscriptions, mais l’analyse conclusive de l’Idylle XVII de Théocrite montre que la logique poétique de la légitimation du pouvoir entre en résonance avec celle qu’attestent les sources non littéraires. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering by Mara van der LugtStefano BrogiMara van der Lugt. Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021. Pp. xi + 450. Hardback, $37.00.Mara van der Lugt's book (awarded Honorable Mention for the JHP Book Prize in 2022) has the merit of bringing attention to some crucial yet often overlooked topics by providing a contribution (...) that cannot fail to elicit broad interest. Her book does not simply discuss the theodicy and anti-theodicy of the modern age; against this background, she also brings out the often-ignored tradition of philosophical pessimism. What interests van der Lugt, however, is not "future-oriented" pessimism, which is opposed to "progressivist" theories of history, but an ontological or "value-oriented" pessimism that stresses "the terrible side of [End Page 163] life" in order to answer a series of crucial questions in a way very different from Leibniz's or Pope's approaches: Are there more evils than goods in our lives? Is life worth living for all of us, for any of us? Why do some people choose death despite their blessings? Why do some people choose life despite their sufferings? Do animals suffer as we do? Are we responsible for our own happiness? Is it better never to have been? According to van der Lugt, "The various ways in which these questions have been answered throughout the centuries have created the competing philosophical traditions known as optimism and pessimism. This book traces the intersection of the debate on the problem of evil with the debate on pessimism from the late seventeenth century onwards, seeking throughout to evaluate pessimism on its own terms" (20).A reassessment of this kind of pessimism serves an explicitly theoretical and moral purpose: van der Lugt herself states that her book is not exclusively a contribution to the history of philosophy, but "partly ethical or evaluative" (18). Indeed, pessimism and optimism "go hand in hand": they stem from a moral need and aim to respond to the evil present in the world by opening up glimmers of "hope, compassion, and consolation" (12, emphasis in original). Pessimism, in particular, is not intended to be "a philosophy of despair"; rather, it draws its strength from an "ethical commitment." Stemming from the latter is a tradition that "may be reinterpreted as a moral source" (22) and which "has not only its own epistemological and methodological concerns and presuppositions but, crucially, its own sets of virtues and moral aims" (13).The theoretical/moral purpose of Dark Matters is evident through its unfolding, even though eight of its nine chapters are roughly devoted to providing an accurate historical-philosophical reconstruction. Here, in brief, are the titles of the chapters that make up the over four hundred pages of this volume, which provide a good idea of the main authors discussed: (1) "The Complaint: Bayle and Malebranche on Physical Evil"; (2) "The Optics of Optimism: Leibniz and King Respond to Bayle"; (3) "Of Hope and Consolation: Voltaire and the Deists"; (4) "When Stoicism Meets Pessimism: La Mettrie and Maupertuis"; (5) "The Dispositional Problem of Evil: David Hume"; (6) "The Art of Suffering: Jean-Jacques Rousseau"; (7) "The Failure of Theodicy: Immanuel Kant"; (8) "The Flute-Playing Pessimist: Arthur Schopenhauer"; and (9) "Dark Matters: Pessimism as a Moral Source." To some extent, the rich itinerary provided by van der Lugt may be compared to those studies that have long undermined the idea of a monolithic and compact Enlightenment, characterized by unlimited faith in reason and its potential for liberation, and—more specifically—by a fundamental optimism with regard to human nature and the possibility of reformulating social and political structures in such a way as to enable each person to pursue happiness. However, the historical reconstruction provided here is based on an attempt to bring out the recurrent theoretical core of a philosophical perspective that first emerges with Pierre Bayle and runs through the modern and contemporary age, resurfacing in an evident way in the present-day antinatalism of David Benatar (often cited in the footnotes).According to van der Lugt, it is with Bayle (and not... (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Logic and Logical Philosophy Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 3 Seiten: 255-293.

This article offers a thorough study of Virgil's interaction with the myth of Eteocles and Polynices' war for the throne of Thebes, as represented especially in Athenian tragedy. It demonstrates that allusions to the Theban myth are crucial to the Aeneid's construction of a set of tensions and oppositions that play an important role in Virgil's reflection on the historical experience of Rome, especially in connection with the transition from Republic to Empire. In particular, interaction with Theban stories allows Virgil (...) to explore: the dichotomy between similarity and foreignness in the depiction of Rome's enemies; the tension in differing attitudes towards the state as reflected in antithetical character types—namely, the selfless youth who sacrifices himself for the community and the would-be tyrant prepared to go to any lengths to achieve sole power; and, finally, the dichotomy between opposing notions of time defined by teleology, on the one hand, and circularity and repetition on the other, the two representing the differing temporalities of epic and tragedy, respectively. (shrink)

This volume features forty-two essays written in honor of Joseph Agassi. It explores the work and legacy of this influential philosopher, an exciting and challenging advocate of critical rationalism. Throughout six decades of stupendous intellectual activity, Agassi called attention to rationality as the very starting point of every notable philosophical way of life. The essays present Agassi’s own views on critical rationalism. They also develop and expand upon his work in new and provocative ways. The authors include Agassi's most notable (...) pupils, friends, and colleagues. Overall, their contributions challenge the received view on a variety of issues concerning science, religion, and education. Readers will find well-reasoned arguments on such topics as the secular problem of evil, religion and critical thinking, liberal democratic educational communities, democracy and constitutionalism, and capitalism at a crossroad.“/div>divTo Joseph Agassi, philosophy is the practice of reason, where reason is understood as the relentless search for criticisms of the best available explanations that we have to the world around us. This book not only honors one of the most original philosophers of science today. It also offers readers insights into a school of thought that lies at the heart of philosophy. (shrink)

The arising of smart cities has shown the limitations of the traditional attempts to understand and characterize cities. The smart city marks a relevant step in the evolution of urban systems which is expected to have disruptive impacts in the near future. Indeed, the ‘smartness’ qualification of cities points to relevant changes in the possibilities these complex systems offer mainly due to changes in the information which is made available. This chapter studies the notion of city from an ontological viewpoint, (...) and provides the first elements of a general framework aimed to characterize and unify how to understand the city and its evolution. It starts from historical considerations to isolate the factors that drove the changes from ancient to modern cities, and the complexity that characterizes the nature of cities. Our analysis departs from the traditional views and leads to distinguish three ontological components in the city: the modified physical place, the distributed agentivity, and the knowledge present in the system. The analysis of these components and their interactions, we argue, provides a coherent reading of the city across its evolution steps, and may be used to establish the maturity of today’s smart cities. (shrink)

We introduce quantificational modal operators as dynamic modalities with (extensions of) Henkin quantifiers as indices. The adoption of matrices of indices (with action identifiers, variables and/or quantified variables as entries) gives an expressive formalism which is here motivated with examples from the area of multi-agent systems. We study the formal properties of the resulting logic which, formally speaking, does not satisfy the normality condition. However, the logic admits a semantics in terms of (an extension of) Kripke structures. As a consequence, (...) standard techniques for normal modal logic become available. We apply these to prove completeness and decidability, and to extend some standard frame results to this logic. (shrink)

Gegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Pr fung der Frage, ob und inwieweit die Mitgliedstaaten der Europ ischen Gemeinschaft Kulturg ter im Privateigentum als nationales Kulturgut einstufen und ihre Verbringung ins Ausland verbieten d rfen, wenn die Eigent mer solcher Kulturg ter ihr Recht auf Freiz gigkeit aus ben. Kernpunkt dieser Studie ist, das Spannungsverh ltnis zwischen dem nationalen Kulturg terschutz und der europarechtlichen Freiz gigkeit der Unionsb rger aufzuzeigen.

This article adopts a transmedial perspective in order to investigate narrative similarities and differences between print and online travel writing. Texts, which are contemporary and Western-authored, are written either in English, French and Italian and they all focus on China as the travel destination. Drawing upon Gérard Genette and Mieke Bal's studies on the narrative discourse, it is contended that travel books and travel blogs, despite sharing basic generic features, present substantial differences. In the former, readers are presented with a (...) coherent and self-exhaustive narrative. This means that the representation of both China and the traveller results as a progressive discovery. On the other hand, travel blogs provide fragmented and objectified accounts rich in touristic tips. As a consequence, the narrative loses its internal development and takes on an informative value in which the portrayal of China and the traveller recede to the background. (shrink)

Per conoscere la medicina sono necessari strumenti teorici, pratici, tecnologici e culturali, ma non solo: come mostra il volume, anche la riflessione filosofica può svolgere un ruolo cruciale sui suoi vari aspetti. Analizzando esempi concreti e grazie ai contributi di medici, epidemiologi e ingegneri, il libro fornisce strumenti filosofici per leggere le caratteristiche fondamentali della medicina contemporanea, i suoi recenti sviluppi e le sfide che è chiamata ad affrontare: una lente di grande utilità per la formazione dei medici e per (...) la ricerca dei filosofi che vogliano guardare realmente da vicino le scienze biomediche. (shrink)