The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

Nowadays, protecting trust in social sciences also means engaging in open community dialogue, which helps to safeguard robustness and improve efficiency of research methods. The combination of open data, open review and open dialogue may sound simple but implementation in the real world will not be straightforward. However, in view of Begley and Ellis’s (2012) statement that, “the scientific process demands the highest standards of quality, ethics and rigour,” they are worth implementing. More importantly, they are feasible to (...) work on and likely will help to restore plausibility to social sciences research. Therefore, I feel it likely that the triplet of open data, open review and open dialogue will gradually emerge to become policy requirements regardless of the research funding source. (shrink)

This article defends laws in the social sciences. Arguments against social laws are considered and rejected based on the "open" nature of social theory, the multiple realizability of social predicates, the macro and/or teleological nature of social laws, and the inadequacies of belief-desire psychology. The more serious problem that social laws are usually qualified ceteris paribus is then considered. How the natural sciences handle ceteris paribus laws is discussed and it is argued (...) that such procedures are possible in the social sciences. The article ends by arguing that at least some social research is roughly as well as confirmed as good work in evolutionary biology and ecology. (shrink)

For decades, scholars in the social sciences and humanities have questioned the appropriateness and utility of prior review of their research by human subjects' ethics committees. This essay seeks to organize thematically some of their published complaints and to serve as a brief restatement of the major critiques of ethics review. In particular, it argues that 1) ethics committees impose silly restrictions, 2) ethics review is a solution in search of a problem, 3) ethics committees lack expertise, 4) (...) ethics committees apply inappropriate principles, 5) ethics review harms the innocent, and 6) better options exist. (shrink)

The persistence of “stargazing,” p-hacking and HARKing4 are among the main causes for the severity of the irreproducibility problem in social sciences.

We live in a world of crowds and corporations, artworks and artifacts, legislatures and languages, money and markets. These are all social objects — they are made, at least in part, by people and by communities. But what exactly are these things? How are they made, and what is the role of people in making them? In The Ant Trap, Brian Epstein rewrites our understanding of the nature of the social world and the foundations of the social (...) sciences. Epstein explains and challenges the three prevailing traditions about how the social world is made. One tradition takes the social world to be built out of people, much as traffic is built out of cars. A second tradition also takes people to be the building blocks of the social world, but focuses on thoughts and attitudes we have toward one another. And a third tradition takes the social world to be a collective projection onto the physical world. Epstein shows that these share critical flaws. Most fundamentally, all three traditions overestimate the role of people in building the social world: they are overly anthropocentric. Epstein starts from scratch, bringing the resources of contemporary metaphysics to bear. In the place of traditional theories, he introduces a model based on a new distinction between the grounds and the anchors of social facts. Epstein illustrates the model with a study of the nature of law, and shows how to interpret the prevailing traditions about the social world. Then he turns to social groups, and to what it means for a group to take an action or have an intention. Contrary to the overwhelming consensus, these often depend on more than the actions and intentions of group members. (shrink)

Written with the suppression of the Tunisian students by their own government in view, Michel Foucault’s March 1968 ‘Linguistics and Social Sciences’ opens up a new horizon of historical inquiry and epitomises Foucault’s abiding interest in formulating new methods for studying the interaction of language and power. Translated into English for the first time by Jonathan D.S. Schroeder and Chantal Wright, this remarkable lecture constitutes Foucault’s most explicit and sustained statement of his project to revolutionise history by transposing (...) the analysis of logical relations into the history of knowledge. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social (...) sciences, this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

The first systematic treatment of Karl Popper’s contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences.

Background: Academic productivity has been studied by scholars all round the world for many years. However, in Vietnam, this topic has scarcely been addressed. This research therefore aims at better understanding the correlations between gender, age, research experience, the leading role of corresponding authors, and the total number of their publications in the specific realm of social sciences and humanities. Methods: The study employed a Scopus dataset with publication profiles of 410 Vietnamese researchers between 2008 and 2017. Results: (...) Men did not differ from women in academic publications (P=0.827). The proficiency of corresponding authors positively correlated with the number of published papers (rs=0.61, P<0.001). Lastly, the age of lead authors strongly correlated with scientific output (rs=0.74, P<0.001 for authors between 40 and 50 years of age). Conclusion: While scientific output correlated with the author ages and number of articles in which they led, it was not correlated with their gender in Vietnamese social science and humanities authors. (shrink)

The feminist philosopher and social scientist shows how "gendering" has affected the social and natural sciences as she reconciles the long-standing dichotomy between the quantitative and qualitative methods and demonstrates the tandem use of both experimental and intuitive approaches.

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists’ self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social (...) class='Hi'>sciences and humanities who have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management. (shrink)

Richard Bernstein is among the pragmatist philosophers that have most significantly contributed to the advancement of a philosophical conversation between the American and the European traditions. His work has greatly helped the task of dismantling the boundaries that in the last decades had been erected between philosophical traditions. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that The European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy inaugurates his series of monographs with Bernstei...

This fourth part outlines a strategy for overcoming the limitations of the knowledge system for engineering by combining intellectual maps, preventive approaches, umbrella concepts, and round tables as described in the earlier parts. A discussion of the issues faced by modern medicine illustrates the paradigmatic nature of the diagnosis and prescription made for engineering. The social sciences face mirror-image problems. One response has been the rise of new disciplines such as communications, environmental studies, urban affairs, criminology, and policy (...) studies. To avoid the limitations of discipline-based knowing and doing, a similar strategy for their transformation will have to be implemented. Considerable synergies would result if parallel efforts to transform the present knowledge system were carried out throughout the university. Some suggestions are made as to how this can be supported by organizational and institutional changes. Finally, it is suggested that such a transformation of the university could make a critical and decisive contribution to overcoming the current economic, social, and environmental crises. (shrink)

_The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences _collects newly commissioned essays that examine fundamental issues in the social sciences.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics in the Social Sciences is an in-depth exploration of ethics across multiple different fields. Editors Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry collate entries from global experts to provide an incisive look into applied ethics on both methodological and theoretical bases. Covering a vast array of disciplines, this prescient Encyclopedia analyzes the many roles that applied ethics plays in the social sciences. Entries scrutinize the various manifestations of ethics across a range of (...) disciplines and subdisciplines such as animal studies, criminology, and global health. The entries on sociology, social psychology, welfare economics, and corporate social responsibility discuss historical development through ethical concepts, while entries such as conflict studies, strategic management and future studies seek to predict future paradigm changes. On the theoretical level, the framing of research questions also entails ethical choices, which is emphasized in the entries for archaeology, food system studies, global health, and migration studies. This thought-provoking Encyclopedia is a crucial resource for scholars of economic thought and methodology, legal philosophy, human rights, politics and public policy research, and sociology and sociological theory. It will also benefit those researching and working across the social sciences more broadly. Key Features: Flexible interdisciplinary approach. International point of entry into applied ethics in the social sciences. 57 authors representing a wide variety of fields in the social sciences. 35 in-depth entries organized alphabetically for accessibility and ease of navigation. (shrink)

Uncovers the methodological principles that govern interpretive change.

When the social sciences parted company from evolutionary biology almost exactly a century ago, they did so at a time when evolutionary biology was still very much in its infancy and many key issues were unresolved. As a result, the social sciences took away with them an understanding of evolution that was in fact based on 18th- rather than 19th-century biology. I argue that contemporary evolutionary thinking has much more to offer the social sciences (...) than most people have assumed. Contemporary evolutionary research on human behaviour focuses on two main issues at the micro-social scale: understanding the trade-offs in individual decision-making and understanding the cognitive constraints that limit flexibility of decisions. I offer examples of both of these approaches. Finally, I consider the broader question of the macro-social scale. (shrink)

In this exciting Handbook, Ian Jarvie and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla have put together a wide-ranging and authoritative overview of the main philosophical currents and traditions at work in the social sciences today. Starting with the history of social scientific thought, this Handbook sets out to explore that core fundamentals of social science practice, from issues of ontology and epistemology to issues of practical method. Along the way it investigates such notions as paradigm, empiricism, postmodernism, naturalism, language, agency, (...) power, culture, and causality. (shrink)

The history of the influences and interactions between pragmatism and the social sciences is as rich as it has been neglected as a field of research. This volume – the first of a series of two – tries to explore both historically and theoretically some of these multiple relationships, building upon the assumption that pragmatism has been one of the philosophical traditions that have taken most seriously the study of the social. In fact, since its origins classical (...) American pragmatism has been... (shrink)

Debates about explanation in the social sciences often proceed without any clear idea what an 'account' of explanation should do. In this paper I take a stance - what I will call contextualism - that denies there are purely formal and conceptual constraints on explanation and takes standards of explanation to be substantive empirical claims, paradigmatically claims about causation. I then use this standpoint to argue for position on issues in the philosophy of social science concerning reduction, (...) idealized models, social mechanisms, functional explanations, inference to the best explanation and interpretive understanding. (shrink)

The so-called “problem” of structure and agency is clearly related to the philosophical problem of free will and determinism, yet the central philosophical issues are not well understood by theorists of structure and agency in the social sciences. In this article I draw a map of the available stances on the metaphysics of free will and determinism. With the aid of this map the problem of structure and agency will be seen to dissolve. The problem of structure and (...) agency is sustained by a failure to distinguish between metaphysical and empirical senses of the relation between social structure and individual agency. The ramifications of this distinction are illustrated via a case study of competing explanations of perpetrator behavior in Christopher Browning’s and Daniel Goldhagen’s studies of the German Order Police in the Holocaust. (shrink)

The article discusses the concept of truth in social sciences. Based upon Leibniz’s sufficient reason principle, it is proposed three stadiums of the principle of sufficient reasons: ontological, epistemological and existential, which in turn allow three versions of the concept of truth in the social sciences. El artículo discute el concepto de verdad en las ciencias sociales. Basado en el principio de razón suficiente de Leibniz, se proponen tres estadios del principio de razón suficiente: ontológico, epistemológico (...) y existencial, los cuales permiten entender tres versiones del concepto de verdad en las ciencias sociales. (shrink)

This review seeks to present a comprehensive picture of recent discussions in the social sciences of the anticipated impact of AI on the world of work. Issues covered include: technological unemployment, algorithmic management, platform work and the politics of AI work. The review identifies the major disciplinary and methodological perspectives on AI’s impact on work, and the obstacles they face in making predictions. Two parameters influencing the development and deployment of AI in the economy are highlighted: the capitalist (...) imperative and nationalistic pressures. (shrink)

The era of Big Data comes with the omnipresent metaphor of the Cloud, a term suggesting an ephemeral and seemingly endless storage space, unhindered by time and place. Similar to the satellite image of the Whole Earth, which was the icon of technological progress in the late 60s, the Cloud as a metaphor breathes the promise of technology, whilst obfuscating the hardware reality of server farms and software infrastructure necessary to enable the proliferation of data. This article presents projects from (...) the fields of humanities, social sciences and the arts that formulate a response to Big Data and its human and automated practices, from data analytics dashboards to critical reflections on smart technologies and objects. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to provide an adequate theoretical framework to understand the biological basis of human rights. We argue that the skepticism about human rights is increasing especially among the most rational, innovative and productive community of intellectuals belonging to the applied sciences. By using examples of embryonic stem cell research, a clash between applied scientists and legal scientists cum human rights activists has been highlighted. After an extensive literature review, this paper concludes that the advances in (...) applied sciences proven by empirical evidence should not be restricted by normative theories and philosophies of the social sciences. If we agree on these premises that Human Rights are biological, then biology can provide a framework of cooperation for social and applied scientists. (shrink)

How distinct is European philosophy of science? The first step is to characterize what is or might be considered as ‘European philosophy of science’. The second is to analyse philosophy of the social sciences as a relevant case in the European contribution to philosophy of science. ‘European perspective’ requires some clarification, which can be done from two main angles: the historical approach and the thematic view. Thus, there are several structural and dynamic things to be considered in European (...) philosophy of science and compare with other conceptions: the topics discussed; the contents proposed; and the style of thought used. The case of philosophy of the social sciences is relevant for the historical approach and for the thematic view. Historically, the Erklären–Verstehen methodological controversy arose in this continent, where the main authors and most of the influential approaches are located. Thematically, we can consider the contributions made by these European approaches... (shrink)

This paper draws some bold conclusions from modest premises. My topic is an old one, the Neohumean view of practical rationality. First, I show that this view consists of two independent claims, instrumentalism and subjectivism. Most critics run these together. Instrumentalism is entailed by many theories beyond Neohumeanism, viz. by any theory that says rational actions maximize something. Second, I give a new argument against instrumentalism, using simple counterexamples. This argument systematically undermines consequentialism and rational choice theory, I show, using (...) detailed examples of their many social science applications. There is no obvious fix. (shrink)

Following in the wake of a certain epistemological and analytical crisis in positivism (its methodology is mercifully in good shape), a revival in the popularity and `scientific' legitimacy of various `comprehensive' analytical approaches in the social sciences has been witnessed over the last ten years. However, by insisting on the significant subjective dimension of action, these interpretive approaches have brought the problem of normativity inherent in the research object, as well as the problem of the `ideological' implication of (...) the human sciences, back into the centre of epistemological preoccupations. The question now is to know to what extent the so-called human sciences are prepared to accept, from a theoretical point of view, this dual objective and subjective dimension of their cognitive practice, seen in critical relationship with society. It is also a question as to whether the human sciences have at their disposal an adequate model for recognizing this normative dimension in its ontological and epistemological specificity. This article sets out to outline just such a model from a philosophical point of view in order to identify some main ideas relating to a pedagogical reorientation, introspective rather than dogmatic, of the normative task which has fallen to the human sciences in contemporary society. (shrink)

As concepts, communication and information are very closely related, but they also designate more than their usual conceptual meaning when they are called upon in social theories as well as in philosophical theories about the reality and the truth of social life; information and communication are then designating physical events or event like objects of the observable reality, which will be hereafter described as a procedural ontologization of information. Why do they have this role and how do they (...) play it in contemporary social sciences and philosophy of social sciences? This article questions the scientificity of these concepts in these theoretical contexts. It wants to propose a framework for an epistemology of communication and information that is critical about the cybernetician paradigm in the social sciences. It presents this paradigm’s main features: informational ontology and probabilistic sociality. It offers a critique of this paradigm’s epistemological and methodological pretensions. It finally exposes the basis of an alternative philosophical theory of communication that wants to support the thesis that the cybernetician paradigmatic communication theory is not scientifically productive; and that it cannot be used in social scientific theoretical contexts without being dramatically redesigned and reoriented towards new goals. (shrink)

Ethics review processes are frequently perceived as extending from codes and protocols rooted in biomedical disciplines. As a result, many researchers in the humanities and social sciences (HASS) find these processes to be misaligned, if not outrightly obstructive to their research. This leads some scholars to advocate against HASS participation in institutional review processes as they currently stand, or in their entirety. While ethics review processes can present a challenge to HASS researchers, these are not insurmountable and, in (...) fact, present opportunities for ethics review boards (ERBs) to mediate their practices to better attend to the concerns of the HASS disciplines. By highlighting the potential value of the ethics review process in recognising the nuances and specificity across different forms of research, this article explores the generative possibilities of greater collaboration between HASS researchers and ERBs. Remaining cognisant of the epistemic and methodological differences that mark different disciplinary formations in turn will benefit the ethical conduct of all researchers. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging work, now available in paperback, Habermas presents his views on the nature of the social sciences and their distinctive methodology and concerns. He examines, among other things, the traditional division between the natural sciences and the social sciences; the characteristics of social action and the implications of theories of language for social enquiry; and the nature, tasks and limitations of hermeneutics. Habermas' analysis of these and other themes is, as always, (...) rigorous, perceptive and constructive. This brilliant study succeeds in highlighting the distinctive characteristics of the social sciences and in outlining the nature of, and prospects for, critical theory today. (shrink)

This issue continues the symposia on Pragmatism and the Social Sciences: A Century of Influences and Interactions that has appeared in the vol. 2, year 2011 of this journal. For a general introduction to the issue we refer readers to our Editor’s introduction to the volume 1. This new issue, inspired by the same criteria used in the making of the first, is divided in three sections. In the first section, titled “Classical Pragmatists and contemporary sociology” contains three (...) papers, all deal... (shrink)

The paper analyzes Max Weber’s concepts of rationality and rationalization as components of modernization processes in modern society. The author reconstructs Weber’s interpretation of “spiritual factors” of social development, which emerge in the ethos of Protestantism. The research demonstrates how Weber’s study of capitalism in terms of rationality corresponds with concepts of other classics of German sociology, such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Werner Sombart, Georg Simmel and others. The article emphasizes the relevance of Weber’s sociology for XX— XXI centuries and (...) how its basic concepts and methodological approaches have been further developed by scholars, including Ukrainian ones. Weber’s concept of rationality is applicable not only to the mental-epistemological sphere, it also acquires a social meaning. This approach has gained recognition in phenomenological sociology, theory of social systems, communicative theory and more. In addition to the formal rationality of the economy, modern social sciences use such concepts as social, aesthetic, ethical, environmental, and practical rationality. Weber’s “diagnosis of the age” is still a component of the “diagnosis” of modern society. The gap between values and interests remains an integral feature of the “risks and threats society” in the XXI century. This situation is especially evident in international relations, when “real politics” (Realpolitik), based on interests, becomes insensitive to “value postulates”. The author also discovers ways of value (moral and ethical) reclamation of modern society, particularly in the concepts of “ethical economy”, universalist ethics of discourse, global ethos and more. Keywords: purposive rationality, rationality (formal, material, communicative, systemic), value, ethos. (shrink)

In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker employs the critical concept of hermeneutical injustice. Such injustice entails unequal participation in the epistemic practices of a community that often results in an inability of dominated subjects to understand their own experiences and have them understood by their community. I argue that hermeneutical injustice can be an aspect of institutions as well communites?to the extent that they too engage in epistemic practices that seek to understand the problems and experiences of their constituents. My primary (...) example is the case of development theory and international development agencies where human beings were objectified in undesirable ways by the prevailing neoliberal economic theories that guided development practice. Here economic theory and the power to achieve its vision of unconstrained economic growth were combined in various organizations. Consequently such organizations systematically misunderstood the problems of the very people they were supposed to help. I argue that if hermeneutical injustice can be the result of the intersection of science and organizations, we need to create more participatory ways of gleaning information about social ills to alleviate institutionally mediated hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

A recent movement in the social sciences and philosophy of the social sciences focuses on mechanisms as a central analytical unit. Starting from a pluralist perspective on the aims of the social sciences, I argue that there are a number of important aims to which knowledge about mechanisms—whatever their virtues relative to other aims—contributes very little at best and that investigating mechanisms is therefore a methodological strategy with fairly limited applicability. Key Words: social (...) science • mechanisms • explanation • critical realism • methodology. (shrink)

I introduce a case study from organization studies to argue that social epistemologists’ recommendation to cultivate diversity and dissent in science is unlikely to be welcomed in the social sciences unless it is coupled with another epistemic ideal: the norm of epistemic responsibility. The norm of epistemic responsibility enables me to show that organization scholars’ concern with the fragmentation of their discipline is generated by false assumptions: the assumption that a diversity of theoretical approaches will lead to (...) fragmentation and the assumption that an imposed consensus on a theoretical approach is needed to maintain the unity of the discipline. (shrink)