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)

Dans le cadre de divers contextes insulaires, les auteurs, adoptant des approches exploratoires et interdisciplinaires, analysent les processus de (re)médiation des apprenants au savoir, en situation d'interactions authentiques à l'école et hors de l'école, en intégrant la question des cultures plurielles.

This paper discusses the establishment of a governance framework to secure the development and deployment of “good AI”, and describes the quest for a morally objective compass to steer it. Asserting that human rights can provide such compass, this paper first examines what a human rights-based approach to AI governance entails, and sets out the promise it propagates. Subsequently, it examines the pitfalls associated with human rights, particularly focusing on the criticism that these rights may be too Western, too individualistic, (...) too narrow in scope and too abstract to form the basis of sound AI governance. After rebutting these reproaches, a plea is made to move beyond the calls for a human rights-based approach, and start taking the necessary steps to attain its realisation. It is argued that, without elucidating the applicability and enforceability of human rights in the context of AI; adopting legal rules that concretise those rights where appropriate; enhancing existing enforcement mechanisms and securing an underlying societal infrastructure that enables human rights in the first place, any human rights-based governance framework for AI risks falling short of its purpose. (shrink)

Black Existential Freedom looks at the ways in which Black cultural productions reflect a constant struggle for freedom and a refusal to surrender to the destructive forces of dehumanization. This book offers a counter-narrative to current Afro-Pessimist theorizations of Blackness that choose the power of death and nihilism over life.

Melancholia Africana argues that in the African and Afro-diasporic context, melancholy is rooted in collective experiences such as slavery, colonization, and the post-colony.

It is important to understand the drivers of green consumption, because of growing concern for the health of the planet. In this paper, the assumption that a virtue-green product relationship exists is tested. The objective is to understand how product morality can influence the valuation of green products. Relying on virtue theory and positive spillover as conceptual bases, the research implicitly and explicitly tests and confirms green product virtue. The results demonstrate that perceived green product virtue leads to positive emotions, (...) which explain heightened purchase intentions. In line with the conceptualization, I show that the effect is moderated by the importance consumers place on their own morality. Importantly, explicitly framing green products as virtuous activates positive spillover by consumers; when green products are branded with a virtue cue, they encourage consumers to be more virtuous. Beyond being perceived as better people, when consumers interact with green products they effectively engage in more moral acts, such as making donations. The results confirm the perception of green products as moral agents and provide marketers with insights into the marketing value of virtue cues in green product consumption. (shrink)

La 4ème de couv. porte : "Depuis quelques années s'intensifient les rapports entre une société de l'information et une économie de l'attention : plus l'information est abondante, plus l'attention est rare. Alors que le travail se formule comme une lutte contre l'oisiveté et impose une certaine discipline de l'attention, la consommation, quant à elle, impose précisément de capter et perturber l'attention disciplinée. Progressivement, elle se monétise et progressivement, nous nous en sentons dépossédés. Pourquoi tenons-nous au concept d'attention? L'attention ne constitue (...) pas simplement un nouvel objet auquel l'éthique et la philosophie politique devraient s'intéresser. Loin de se limiter à développer une éthique appliquée de l'attention, problématiser l'attention nous amène à re-questionner les champs de l'éthique et de la philosophie politique. Pour répondre à ces questions, ce livre fait le pari de la pluridisciplinarité en rassemblant des travaux de différents horizons.". (shrink)

Research on the influence of industry on chemical regulation has mostly been conducted within the framework of the production of ignorance. This special issue extends this research by looking at how industry asserts its interests––not just in the scientific sphere but also at other stages of policy-making and regulatory process––with a specific focus on the types of tools or instruments industry has used. Bringing together sociologists and historians specialized in Science and Technology Studies, the articles of the special issue study (...) the arenas in which instruments and practical guidelines for public policy are negotiated or used. The aim is to observe the devices in the making or in action, from the selection of actors to the production of thresholds, criteria, and other technical regulations. The introduction highlights how industry influence on expertise and regulation is undoubtedly far more pervasive and multifarious than has been conceptualized to date by social scientists. Putting this issue back at the heart of both the STS and social sciences research agendas is increasingly urgent and could lead to new inquiries able to highlight these logics even more widely, using fresh empirical examples. (shrink)

Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing (...) about causality. Together, hierarchy and causality theories explain how biorealities form and diversify with time. This paper analyzes how Applied EE redefines both hierarchy and causality theories in the light of the recent explosion of network approaches to causal reasoning associated with studies on reticulate and macroevolution. Causality theories have often been framed from within a rigid, ladder-like hierarchy theory where the rungs of the ladder represent the different levels, and the elements on the rungs represent the evolving units. Causality then is either defined reductionistically as an upward movement along the strands of a singular hierarchy, or holistically as a downward movement along that same hierarchy. Upward causation theories thereby analyze causal processes in time, i.e. over the course of natural history or phylogenetically, as Darwin and the founders of the Modern Synthesis intended. Downward causation theories analyze causal processes in space, ontogenetically or ecologically, as the current eco-evo-devo schools are evidencing. This work demonstrates how macroevolution and reticulate evolution theories add to the complexity by examining reticulate causal processes in space–time, and the interactional hierarchies that such studies bring forth introduce a new form of causation that is here called reticulate causation. Reticulate causation occurs between units and levels belonging to different as well as to the same ontological hierarchies. This article concludes that beyond recognizing the existence of multiple units, levels, and mechanisms or processes of evolution, also the existence of multiple kinds of evolutionary causation as well as the existence of multiple evolutionary hierarchies needs to be acknowledged. This furthermore implies that evolution is a pluralistic process divisible into different kinds. (shrink)

To see "democracy as a tragic regime", as Cornelius Castoriadis did, is to recognize the ever-present risk of democracy’s cancellation, but it also means to emphasize the anti-democratic nature of such cancellation, thus its incompatibility with democracy. In the context of this understanding of democracy, the article takes the political to consist of those relations among people and among institutions within the polis, which aim at deciding about the polis’ fate. It takes the social to be those relations among people (...) and among institutions within the polis, to whom such decisions about the polis’ fate apply and whom they create. If democracy is understood as tension between the two, then the relation between those who decide and those who are subject of the decision is never entirely pacified – hence, always contested and in need of specification. Using the examples of the state of exception and totalitarianism (temporary and permanent self-cancellation), the article argues that these situations are outside a linear continuation with the democratic phenomenon and are due to a displacement, which is akin to the hubristic displacement. (shrink)

The fundamental difference between Castoriadis' and Papaioannou's accounts of the link between tragedy and the political is that Castoriadis insists on a political form whilst Papaioannou insists on a social actor. The starting point for this essay, then, are two thinkers: one whose main interest was a political and philosophical reflection on the social-historical and one whose main interest was a philosophical reflection on the arts. Surprisingly, however, the end situation is one where Castoriadis gives us a political explanation of (...) the link between tragedy and the political whilst Papaioannou gives us a social explanation of the same phenomenon. How can this difference be accounted for? First, distinguishing their respective conceptualisations of the political allows us to see that where one thinker privileges restlessness and revolution, the other privileges law and regime. Second, looking at their depictions of the essential aspects of tragedy places them on opposing sides of the couple hubris- dike, in a way that leads to two radically different conceptualisations of the relation in question. (shrink)

Human language, hominin tool production modes, and multimodal communications systems of primates and other animals are currently well-studied for how they display compositionality or combinatoriality. In all cases, the former is defined as a kind of hierarchical nesting and the latter as a lack thereof. In this article, I extend research on combinatoriality and compositionality further to investigations of everyday primate skills. Daily locomotion modes as well as behaviors associated with subsistence practices, hygiene, or body modification rely on the hierarchical (...) nesting of different behavioral and cognitive actions into complex skills. I introduce a scheme which uses hierarchical organization to differentiate combinatorial from compositional skills. Combinatorial skills are defined either as aggregational or linearly hierarchical depending on whether the skill occurs momentarily in space or unfolds sequentially over time. Compositional skills are defined either as nested or interactionally hierarchical depending on whether the skill results in new constructs or in new interactions between existing constructs. The methodology I propose combines epistemological hierarchy theory with data from primatological field research and experimental and comparative psychological research and provides a means to integrate current constructionist and extended views on cognition and action with older research on behavioral logics in psychology and operational chain thinking in anthropology. The approach furthermore synchronizes with ongoing research on teleonomy, intentionality, and creativity. -/- . (shrink)

In this special issue, Steins and Edwards introduced the notion of nested platforms for resource use negotiation as a tool to facilitate collective action amongst multiple-users in complex common-pool resource management scenarios. Five discussion statements were put forward to aid the debate on multi-use platforms. This paper is a synthesis of the responses to these statements by the other contributors to this special issue. It aims to further stimulate the debate on the management of complex, multiple-use common-pool management scenarios.

Many who evoke the term solidarity are influenced by an underlying sense of urgency and whether the use of the term plays upon an intellectual concept or harnesses solidarity’s more practical expressions, this political buzzword wields influence. _European Solidarity_ proposes a variety of sophisticated historical and theoretical conceptualizations of solidarity, while simultaneously exposing the practical implications of its contemporary expressions. An empirical investigation of solidarity’s crucial challenges in the EU today and a comprehensive consideration of the history of the term (...) in the context of changing social, religious, and political conditions within Europe, _European Solidarity_ will be required reading for scholars and students of social theory and European studies alike. (shrink)

Sous l'impulsion d'associations militantes ou de politiques publiques, la ville se modifie. Le vert gagne du terrain. Plus profondément, plus durablement peut-ètre, l'environnement ordinaire des citadins contemporains est reconfiguré. Il se pare désormais d'une nouvelle esthétique urbaine, associée aux politiques de ville durable, d'urbanisme écologique... Cette esthétique transforme l'espace public. Son aspect ornemental réduit la ville et ses espaces à un décor vert, fabriqué par le capitalisme contemporain et la multiplication des innovations technologiques vertes. L'investissement des citoyens, sur un mode (...) participatif et productif, laisse place à une ville « jardinée », écologisée et gérée en partenariat. De nouvelles manières d'habiter les lieux urbains émergent peu à peu. De telles évolutions dessinent-elles les prémices d'une restructuration de l'espace social dans son ensemble? Comment des enjeux urbains condensent-ils une métaphore nouvelle de l'espace public? Spécialisée dans les questions d'environnement et d'esthétique, Nathalie Blanc est directrice de recherche au Cnrs Umr Ladyss Paris 7. (shrink)

This paper's purpose is to set forth the conditions of explanation in the domain of formal modelling of social action. Explanation is defined as an adequate account of the underlying factors bringing about a phenomenon. The modelling of a social phenomenon can claim explanatory value in this sense if the following two conditions are fulfilled. (1) The generative mechanisms involved translate the effects of real factors abstracted from their phenomenal context, not those of purely ideal ones. (2) The explanatory hypotheses, (...) which account for the effects of explanatory factors, and the purely descriptive hypotheses, which introduce conceptual simplifications and summarise complex secondary mechanisms, are relatively independent from each other with regard to the phenomenon represented. This condition subjects the model to testing by alternatives through the development of purely descriptive hypotheses in the sense of explanatory or analytical realism. (shrink)

We examine how insights made in socio-anthropological and evolutionary schools of thought necessitate us to reevaluate the classic philosophical distinction between epistemology and ontology. We adopt an applied evolutionary epistemological stance and demonstrate that both epistemology and ontology evolve. Epistemology is broadened to include all knowledge and information that all life forms evolve, and ontology encompasses all biologically informed realities that life builds. Through processes such as symbiosis and niche construction, organisms acquire and extend information and knowledge into their offspring, (...) onto unrelated organisms, and onto their niches. Life builds biorealities that change over time. Consequently, knowledge and reality are mutable and truth is spatiotemporally bounded. We conclude that the classic distinction between epistemology and ontology has become superfluous and instead, we argue that the evolving knowledge that comes in the form of organisms and their extended niches equals ontological realities. (shrink)

People hope that their efforts will count towards the fulfilment of a fundamental duty, a just struggle, or a hopeful development. While such an affirmation will hearten them, conversely a negation will mean injury or humiliation.This is perhaps the reason why in each community, certain projects become idealised, and take the form of new dreams at every turn. These dreams give people courage and self-confidence.Where this sort of justifying project traditionally had an explicitly religious character, in latter days they often (...) stand under the sign of economic progress, or of one or another hope-giving technological development.Once a project has acquired this inspirational character in a community, it will face very little criticism and will in political addresses, or academic statements of intent often be treated with staggering solemnity. If ethicists do not wish to portray reality as more rosy than it is, they must take the critique of ideology seriously.This at least seems to be the conviction of Lars Reuter, who believes that the discourse in which biotechnology appears as a most promising science may be shown as a contemporary example of a platform used for giving meaning.Helder De Schutter's contribution places us squarely in the debate over the possibilities and limits of multicultural society.In her acticle, Yvonne Denier seeks and accurate definition of public health. She is aware of the cultural determinations of this concept, but makes plain that there are sufficient objective elements to define health in a balaced way.Professional ethics needs no intrduction. In Asa Kasher's place, we learn more about the various criteria which, in according to the author a proper professional ethics must meet. (shrink)

1. Dilthey et Husserl -- 2. Schütz et Mead -- 3. Après le tournant sémiotique.

Cet ouvrage est né d'une réalité et d'un besoin. La petite Maëlle, enfant autiste, est devenue adolescente, alors il fallait la suivre pour mieux l'accompagner dans cette nouvelle étape de sa vie. Comme cela arrive chez les autres enfants qui entrent dans l'adolescence, tout est remis en question : les idéaux, l'identité, l'amitié, l'amour. Entre-temps, il y a eu la publication de la cinquième version du Manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles mentaux (DSM-5). Il fallait donc étudier cette entrée dans (...) l'adolescence à partir des données diagnostiques les plus récentes. Autisme et adolescence est la suite de L'autisme, un jour à la fois et d'Accompagner un enfant autiste. Encore ici, la mère Catherine Kozminski et la psychologue Nathalie Poirier entrent en dialogue afin de se mettre à l'écoute des besoins de l'adolescente et d'élaborer les meilleures formes d'accompagnement. Il en résulte un ouvrage plein de sensibilité et rempli de solutions pratiques. (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.”.

It is argued that methodological individualism entails a holism of the parts, as originally proposed by Jan Smuts (1926/1927), where (1) the properties of entities involved in explanation are inherent to their participation in the whole they constitute, and (2) the whole does not act as a separate cause, distinct from its parts. This holism of parts involves a non-positivist and non-reductionist epistemology that is consistent with the analytical decomposition of wholes into basic units as advocated by methodological individualism (MI) (...) for the social sciences. According to MI, social actors are the basic units of analysis, and their rational capacity (understood in a broad sense as a general—trans-situational—capacity of understanding) is an explanatory principle inherent in their social being. The epistemological and ontological incompatibilities between methodological individualism's holism of the parts and mainstream reductionist or non-reductionist physicalist approaches, as well as emergentist approaches of critical realism, may explain the misunderstanding of methodological individualism within Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy. (shrink)