This article investigates the concept of the ground truth as both an epistemic and technical figure of knowledge that is central to discussions of machine vision and media techniques of visuality. While ground truth refers to a set of remote sensing practices, it has a longer history in operational photography, such as aerial reconnaissance. Building on a discussion of this history, this article argues that ground truth has shifted from a reference to the physical, geographical ground to the surface of (...) the images echoing earlier points raised by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy that there is a ground of the image that is central to the task of analysis beyond representational practices. Furthermore, building on the practices of pattern recognition, composite imaging, and different interpretational techniques, we discuss contemporary practices of machine learning that mobilizes geographical earth observation datasets for experimental purposes, including tests such as “fake geography” as well as artistic practices, to show how ground truth is operationalized in such contexts of AI and visual arts. (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)

Conçues pour des biens ayant une consistance matérielle, nombre d'infractions pénales ont été sollicitées ces dernières années pour s'appliquer à des biens immatériels tels qu'un numéro de carte bancaire, un projet de borne informatique, du temps de travail ou encore des données informatiques. Au-delà de la matière répressive, l'ambition de cet ouvrage est de se livrer à une étude plus générale de l'adaptation du droit au développement de l'immatériel pour déterminer jusqu'où l'on peut juridiquement aller dans sa prise en compte. (...) C'est un fait indéniable que l'immatériel prend une place de tout premier plan dans la société contemporaine. Le droit des siècles passés connaissait, certes, déjà l'incorporalité, mais nul doute que les potentialités actuelles ouvrent des perspectives nouvelles. L'ouvrage propose tout d'abord de préciser la notion d'immatériel en recourant à des approches non juridiques. Le point de vue du philosophe et celui du physicien peuvent fournir des clés pour percer un concept que le juriste pourra ensuite aborder de manière pragmatique. S'agissant de l'appréhension juridique de l'immatériel, deux mouvements peuvent être observés. D'une part, l'immatériel est un objet que le droit s'efforce d'intégrer ; d'autre part, il est un outil que le droit peut exploiter. Sur le premier point, il s'agit d'examiner comment le droit parvient à s'adapter à l'émergence de nouvelles formes d'objet et surtout d'identifier les limites qui ne pourront ou ne devront pas être dépassées. Même lorsque l'on s'intéresse à des matières qui ont été conçues pour régir l'immatériel, telle que la propriété intellectuelle, on observe en effet que tout objet ne peut être saisi et on devine alors que de telles limites doivent a fortiori exister lorsque l'on est en présence de branches du droit qui n'étaient originairement pas destinées à s'appliquer à de tels biens et qui ne peuvent y parvenir qu'au terme d'une adaptation. Sur le second aspect, il s'agit d'observer les perspectives qu'ouvre l'immatériel comme moyen d'accéder au droit et de mettre en relation les acteurs de la scène juridique. Là aussi, certains aspects ne sont pas totalement nouveaux et si la prolifération des contrats conclus par voie électronique ne constitue que le développement récent du phénomène ancien des contrats à distance, la dématérialisation des procédures et des échanges entre professionnels du droit va être relayée par un accès direct du justiciable aux services judiciaires qui est de nature à changer de manière significative le mode de relation au juge et à l'institution judiciaire. (shrink)

Aspects of human symbolic evolution are studied by scholars active in a variety of fields and disciplines in the life and the behavioral sciences as well as the scientific-philosophical, sociological, anthropological, and linguistic sciences. These fields and disciplines all take on an evolutionary approach to the study of human symbolism, but scholars disagree in their theoretical and methodological attitudes. Theoretically, symbolism is defined differentially as knowledge, behavior, cognition, culture, language, or social group living. Methodologically, the diverse symbolic evolution sciences establish (...) their teachings upon diverging evolutionary biological schools and paradigms. This chapter reviews past and current research fields in human symbolic evolution for how they differentially implement tenets of the major evolution schools that were discussed in the previous chapter. Traditional evolutionary epistemology and biosemiotics bring in a mesoevolutionary outlook by drawing on early Darwinism and evolutionary developmental biology movements that emphasize the role of the organism in evolution. Communication studies instead originally take on a microevolutionary perspective by investigating how units of information are transmitted across generations through time. Only later do they integrate studies on meaning-making at the organismal level. Sociobiology complements a microevolutionary with a macroevolutionary outlook by implementing population genetic approaches, typical of the Modern Synthesis, into studies on individual and group behavior. The new symbolic evolutionary sciences build upon these traditions and include disciplines such as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary archaeology, evolutionary sociology, and evolutionary economics. Originally centered on implementing Darwinian selection theory, these fields are now including ecological and evolutionary developmental biology as well as reticulate evolutionary paradigms. As diverse in outlook and scope as they are, no discipline holds a privileged position over the other and all have made valuable contributions to our understanding of human symbolic evolution. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the main research schools and paradigms along which the field of evolutionary biology has been developing. Evolutionary thinking was originally founded upon the Neo-Darwinian paradigm that combines the teachings of traditional Darwinism with those of the Modern Synthesis. The Neo-Darwinian paradigm has since further diversified into the Micro-, Meso-, and Macroevolutionary schools, and it has also started to integrate the school of Ecology. Together, these schools establish the paradigm called Ecological Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Eco-Evo-Devo). A final school (...) studies Reticulate Evolution as it occurs by means of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, infective heredity, and hybridization. This chapter reviews the major tenets and points of differentiation that exist between these distinct evolution schools. The chapter ends by looking into how evolution can be defined and how distinct units, levels, and mechanisms underlie theorizing on evolutionary hierarchies and evolutionary causation. The following chapter examines how the different evolution schools are implemented into the symbolic sciences. (shrink)

" Pourquoi demandons-nous avec tant d'empressement au cerveau d'expliquer ce qui nous arrive et ce que nous devons faire? On se dit, n'est-ce pas dans ses replis que nous devons désormais chercher notre sort? La philosophie peut-elle rester indifférente à un tel sujet? [...] Mais avons-nous éclairci notre monde et résolu nos questions de vie en les enracinant dans nos cerveaux? A-t-on rendu la conscience moins mystérieuse? Et penser? L'organe de la pensée va-t-il enfin nous en dispenser? " L'auteur s'interroge (...) avec une douce ironie sur les espoirs et les fragilités qui s'expriment dans cette nouvelle quête de fondement que nous avons entreprise. Qu'on ne s'attende pas à trouver ici une théorie du fonctionnement cérébral, mais mille interrogations, mille formulations des questions qui surgissent dès lors qu'on interpose l'idée de cerveau entre nous et le monde. L'ensemble compose une suite de méditations, ramassées en brefs chapitres, pour trouver une place au cerveau et varier notre distance à son égard. (shrink)

In the original publication of the article, the following paragraphs have been indented wrongly in the published article.

C'est par anachronisme que l'on distingue aujourd'hui en Taine l'historien, le psychologue, le critique et l'écrivain. Cet ouvrage entreprend de montrer l'unité de son oeuvre et propose une réflexion sur la nature propre des sciences humaines, dont Taine a contribué à forger l'identité moderne.

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)

The Clinical ethics centre in Paris offers its services equally to doctors and patients/proxies. Its primary goal is to re-equilibrate doctor–patient roles through giving greater voice to patients individually in medical decisions. Patients are present at virtually all levels, initiating consults, providing their point of view and receiving feedback. The implications of patients' involvement are threefold. At an operational level, decision-making is facilitated by repositioning the debate on ethical grounds and introducing a dynamic of decisional partnership, although contact with patients (...) can make it difficult to deny their demands and set the limits of our role. Ethically, it reinforces patients' autonomy and grants them a place of veritable ethics ‘actors’, with the danger that this may become excessively autonomy oriented. Finally, at a collective level, the programme fulfils its political purpose in promoting patients' rights and the ideal of démocratie sanitaire, but complicates balancing individual demands with collective values. (shrink)

Theories of emotion propose that responses to emotional pictures can occur independently of whether or not people are aware of the picture content. Because evidence from dissociation paradigms is inconclusive, we manipulated picture awareness gradually and studied whether emotional responses varied with degree of awareness. Spider fearful and non-fearful participants viewed pictures of spiders and flowers at four levels of backward masking while electrodermal activity and heart rate were measured continuously. Recognition ratings confirmed that participants’ picture awareness decreased with masking. (...) Critically, effects of spider fear on emotion ratings and heart rate also decreased with masking. These findings suggest that effects of spider fear on emotion ratings and heart rate are closely related to picture awareness. (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)

The biological and neurological capacity to symbolize, and the products of behavioral, cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic, and technological uses of symbols (symbolism), are fundamental to every aspect of human life. The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution explores the origins of our characteristically human abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various areas of human life. The field is (...) intrinsically interdisciplinary - considering findings from fossil studies, scientific research from primatology, developmental psychology, and of course linguistics. Written by world leading experts, thirty-eight topical chapters are grouped into six thematic parts that respectively focus on epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological, linguistic, and social-technological aspects of human symbolic evolution. The handbook presents an in-depth but comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the of the state of the art in the science of human symbolic evolution. This work will be of interest to academics and students active in all fields contributing to the study of human evolution. (shrink)

A pilot center for clinical ethics in France opened with the establishment of the “Centre d'éthique clinique” at Cochin Hospital in Paris, September 2002. Unlike the longer history in the United States of providing ethics consultation for ethical issues deriving from physician–patient interactions, this center marks a new development in bringing clinical ethics to Europe.

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)

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)

Advance directives have been hailed for two decades as the best way to safeguard patients’ autonomy when they are totally or partially incompetent. In many national contexts they are written into law and they are mostly associated with end-of-life decisions. Although advocates and critics of ADs exchange relevant empirical and theoretical arguments, the debate is inconclusive. We argue that this is so for good reasons: the ADs’ project is fraught with tensions, and this is the reason why they are both (...) important and deeply problematic. We outline six such tensions, and conclude with some positive suggestions about how to better promote patients’ autonomy in end-of-life decision. We argue that ADs should continue to be an option but they cannot be the panacea that they are expected to be. (shrink)

En 1988, la fouille sous‑marine du port de Thasos permettait l’extraction d’un imposant carreau de marbre, en même temps que d’autres blocs entassés en avant de la jetée antique. En 2017, un nouvel examen de la pierre, qui appartenait originellement à l’élévation d’un édifice de l’agora toute proche, a révélé une inscription rendue très difficilement lisible par un séjour prolongé dans l’eau de mer. Le Peuple des Thasiens y honorait son patron, Caius Octavius, proconsul de Macédoine en 60‑59 av. J.‑C.

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)

Volume 1: The Dance of Civa Collum Originally published in 1927. "It has substance and thought to it." Spectator "A very interesting account of the work of Sir Jagadis Bose." Oxford Magazine This essay suggests that recognition of the ceaseless flow of the Dance of Civa is the most promising cure for the misunderstandings that have arisen from a Western habit of assuming that conventional categories have tangible existence. Quo Vadimus? Glimpses of the Future E E Fournier d’Albe Originally (...) published in 1925. "A wonderful vision of the future. A book that will be talked about." Daily Graphic "Interesting and singularly plausible" Daily Telegraph This volume discusses the possible advances of life on earth and asks whether a new race will arise or whether the earth will remain the dominant planet in the solar system for human life. 92pp. Ethnos or the Problem of Race Arthur Keith Originally published in 1931 The author argues that the global unrest of the 1930s arises from qualities inherent in human races and he maintains that if the world is to have peace the problems engendered by diversity of race must first be understood. 86pp Tantalus Or the Future of Man F C S Schiller Originally published in 1924. "…brilliantly clever…" Morning Post "Immensely valuable and infinitely readable" Daily News This volume discusses the threats which face mankind and ways in which destruction may be avoided. 66pp. (shrink)

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada made it clear that understanding the historical, social, cultural, and political landscape that shapes the relationships between Indigenous peoples and social institutions, including the health care system, is crucial to achieving social justice. How to translate this recognition into more equitable health policy and practice remains a challenge. In particular, there is limited understanding of ways to respond to situations in which conventional practices mandated by the state and regulated by its legal apparatus (...) come into direct conflict with the values and autonomy of Indigenous individuals, communities, and nations. In this paper, we consider two cases of conflict between Indigenous and biomedical perspectives to clarify some of the competing values. We argue for the importance of person‐ and people‐centered approaches to health care. These value conflicts must be understood at multiple levels to clarify their personal, social, cultural, and political dimensions. Taking into account the divergence between epistemic cultures and communities allows us to understand the multiple narratives deployed in decision‐making processes in clinical, community, and juridical contexts. Recognizing the knowledge claims of Indigenous peoples in health care can help clinicians avoid reinforcing the divides created by the structural and institutional legacy of colonialism. This analysis also provides ways to adjudicate conflicts in health care decision‐making by disentangling cultural, political, medical, and pragmatic issues to allow for respectful dialogue. Insofar as the engagement with cultural pluralism in health care rights is conducted with reciprocal recognition, the medical community and Indigenous peoples can address together the difficult question of how to integrate different epistemic cultures in the health care system. (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)

Sociologue hors normes, Norbert Elias, né en Allemagne en 1897, mort aux Pays-Bas en 1990, est considéré comme l'un des plus grands représentants de sa discipline. Son oeuvre n'a été introduite en France que dans les années 1970, mais bénéficie aujourd'hui d'une reconnaissance internationale et pluridisciplinaire. Pour introduire à cette oeuvre au croisement et de l'histoire, de l'anthropologie et de la psychologie et en restituer l'unité substantielle, Nathalie Heinich dégage d'abord les motifs sous-jacents aux grands travaux d'Elias sur le (...) processus de civilisation et ses choix : la contextualisation plutôt que la généralisation, les relations plutôt que les objets, la neutralité plutôt que le jugement de valeur. Comment penser avec Elias? C'est ce que propose cet ouvrage, à l'approche didactique. (shrink)

Comment l’art vient-il aux personnes, aux objets, aux activités? Comment passe-t-on d’une activité quelconque à un art, d’un simple artefact à une oœuvre et d’un praticien à un artiste? C’est cette opération qu’explore ce livre, sous le nom d’« artification » : un déplacement durable et collectivement assumé de la frontière entre art et non-art. Conditions pratiques, techniques, sémantiques, juridiques, institutionnelles, organisationnelles... Les enquêtes réunies ici explorent ces différentes dimensions avec les outils de la sociologie pragmatique, attentive à la matérialité (...) des actions observées en situation. Le lecteur circulera ainsi de la danse hip-hop à la photographie, du graf aux métiers d’art, de l’art naïf à l’art brut, des arts primitifs au théâtre, du cirque à la magie, de la typographie au cinéma, de la mode aux objets de culte et de la bande dessinée au patrimoine. Et c’est au terme de ce petit voyage en artification qu’il aura enfin réponse, précisément, à la question : quand y a-t-il art? (shrink)

Presents a step-by-step action plan to take ownership of your happiness through simple but effective changes to the way you approach health, love, presence, and prosperity.

The explanatory power of structures in analytical sociologists’ agent-based models brings into question methodological individualism. We defend that from an explanatory point of view, the syntactic properties of models require semantic conditions of interpretation drawn from a conceptual research framework; in such a framework, social/relational structures have only partial, explanatory power ; and taking the explanation further through generative mechanism modeling necessitates calling upon methodological individualism’s generic framework of interpretation that relies on social actors’ rational capacity. According to this interpretive (...) framework, forces in action in society are governed by the subjective meaning of/the reasons for individual actions. (shrink)