The rise of Big Data changes the context in which organisations producing official statistics operate. Big Data provides opportunities, but in order to make optimal use of Big Data, a number of challenges have to be addressed. This stimulates increased collaboration between National Statistical Institutes, Big Data holders, businesses and universities. In time, this may lead to a shift in the role of statistical institutes in the provision of high-quality and impartial statistical information to society. In this paper, the changes (...) in context, the opportunities, the challenges and the way to collaborate are addressed. The collaboration between the various stakeholders will involve each partner building on and contributing different strengths. For national statistical offices, traditional strengths include, on the one hand, the ability to collect data and combine data sources with statistical products and, on the other hand, their focus on quality, transparency and sound methodology. In the Big Data era of competing and multiplying data sources, they continue to have a unique knowledge of official statistical production methods. And their impartiality and respect for privacy as enshrined in law uniquely position them as a trusted third party. Based on this, they may advise on the quality and validity of information of various sources. By thus positioning themselves, they will be able to play their role as key information providers in a changing society. (shrink)

Epidemiological studies have shown that environmental green space contributes to the reduction of psychosis incidence in the population. Clarifying the psychological and neuro-functional mechanisms underlying the risk-decreasing effects of green surroundings could help optimize preventive environmental interventions. This perspective article specifically aims to open a new window on the link between environmental green space and psychosis by considering its core psychopathological features. Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, are essentially characterized by self-disturbances. The psychological structure of the self has been described (...) as a multidimensional phenomenon that emerges from the reciprocal interaction with the environment through intrinsic and extrinsic self-processes. The intrinsic self refers to the experience of mental activity and environmental information as inherently related to one’s own person, which involves self-referential processing, self-reflection, memory, interoception, and emotional evaluation. The extrinsic self refers to sensorimotor interactions with the environment and the sense of agency, that is, the experience of being the source of one’s own actions and the multisensory consequences thereof. In psychosis, anomalous self-processing has been related to a functional fragmentation of intrinsic and extrinsic self-processes and related brain networks. Moreover, evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that green space could have beneficial effects on self-related processing. Based on the literature, it could be hypothesized that self-processing is involved in mediating the beneficial effects of green space for psychosis. Considering the multidimensionality of the self, it is proposed that urban green space design aimed at improving mental health ideally impacts the complexity of self-facets and thus restores the individual’s self. (shrink)

Burgess, J.P. and Rosen, G. Subject with No ObjectElliott, R.Faking Nature.

In this paper I show why Norbert Hoerster's plea for atheism is rather unconvincing.

Dissecting Bioethics, edited by Tuija Takala and Matti Hayry, welcomes contributions on the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of bioethics. The department is dedicated to the idea that words defined by bioethicists and others should not be allowed to imprison people’s actual concerns, emotions, and thoughts. Papers that expose the many meanings of a concept, describe the different readings of a moral doctrine, or provide an alternative angle to seemingly self-evident issues are particularly appreciated. To submit a paper or to discuss (...) a suitable topic, contact Tuija Takala [email protected].:This article examines some of the assumptions and implications associated with the Belmont era context in which the concept of therapeutic misconception was forged. We argue that the justification of therapeutic misconception should be reconsidered based on less paternalistic and more participatory models of research. Finally, we identify conceptual and practical approaches that might better reflect contemporary research practice. (shrink)

The object of this article is to examine, with the work of Jeremy Bentham as the principal example, one strand in the complex pattern of European social theory during the second half of the eighteenth century. This was of course the period not only of the American and French revolutions, but of the culmination of the movements of thought constituting what we know as the Enlightenment. Like all great historical episodes, the Enlightenment was both the fulfilment of long-established processes and (...) the inauguration of new processes of which the fulfilment lay in the future. Thus the seminal ideas of seventeenth-century rationalism (in moral and social theory the idea, above all, of natural law) realized and perhaps exhausted their potentialities in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The ideas with which this article is concerned, however—conveniently grouped and labelled as the ideas of utilitarianism—only began to achieve systematic development in these later decades of the eighteenth century. Within that period—during the first half and more of Bentham's long life—attempts to apply those ideas to the solution of social problems met largely with failure and frustration. Yet unrealized potentialities remained, the realization of which was reserved for a time when the world of thephilosophesno longer existed. The movements for social and political reform which have played so large a part in modern history since the French Revolution may be judged in widely differing ways; but whatever the verdict, these movements surely cannot be understood without due consideration of that part of their origins which lies in eighteenth-century utilitarianism. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the predominant arguments that have been proposed either in favour or against non-benefit medical research with human subjects incapable of informed consent. It is argued that none of the arguments succeeds, while acknowledging that such research is necessary.

In this paper I critically examine Peter Byrne's arguments against theological realism.

Is there a place in scientific inquiry for guessing? Jonathan Cohen has recently argued that resorting to guesswork entails a loss of objectivity and regard for evidence which are essential to proper scientific investigation. I assess the merits of Cohen’s view first by taking as a test case Aristotle’s positive view of the role of guesswork (anchinoia) and conjecture (eustochia) in the search for the connections essential to the construction of scientific demonstrations. I then argue contra Cohen that one can (...) usefully employ guesswork while also employing reason; that it is possible to guess either intelligently or mindlessly; and consequently, that the use of guesswork need not represent a diminution in respect for the objectivity essential to scientific investigation. Although I would not claim that guesswork has a role to play in all scientific inquiry, there appear to be some datable instances of the useful and respectable scientific guess. (shrink)

Truth and Meaning is a classic collection of original essays on fundamental questions in the philosophy of language. It was first published in 1976, and has remained essential reading in this area ever since. The contributors include leading figures in late twentieth-century philosophy, such as Donald Davidson, Saul Kripke, P. F. Strawson, and Michael Dummett.

In this paper I argue that Norton's case against Brown's rationalism about thought experiments suffers from serious shortcomings, which relate to the nature of induction.

This paper and its predecessor () are about the question: 'Are the events in the entire universe encoded in and predictable from any of its parts?' To approach a positive answer in classical physics, the following result is proved and commented on: in Newton's theory of gravitation, the entire trajectory of a particle can be predicted given any segment of it, regardless of how the other particles are moving-provided that there is only a finite number of particles and that their (...) speeds remain bounded. (It is this condition, together with a set of parameters characterising the motion of the other particles, which enables us to estimate the effect of the other particles on the trajectory of the given particle.) The extension of this result to other theories, in particular to special relativity, is discussed. (shrink)