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The term 'counter-power' is widely used in political debates and social struggles. Scientifically, however, there is no clear distinction between powers and counter-powers. In the academic debate, largely based on methodological individualism, power is mostly conceived as an interpersonal relation, and counter-powers have no specific role, unless as opposing powers. In this paper, I develop an ontology of capitalist power, based on Marx's critique of capital, and I clarify the role of counter-powers in this ontology. With these lenses, I reconsider critically the debate on power in economics and I discuss the limits of the individualist approach, from neoclassical ultra-liberalism to radical political economics. Finally, I discuss the implications of my ontological enquiry into counter-powers as far as theoretical research and political struggle are concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses methodological individualism and the perceived “need” for microfoundations in economic theory. It argues that the persistent focus on microfoundations has led a large part of the field to overlook the complexity of social interactions, the relevance of historical processes, and the characteristics of each society in understanding economic growth and development. The paper suggested focusing on social foundations as an alternative to microfoundations that is particularly relevant for studying economic development processes. It proposes framing the post-Keynesian view of demand-led growth and distribution-led growth within a conceptual framework of socio-economic development as a valid approach, consistent with social foundations, to understand a phenomenon as complex and multi-causal as development.

The practice of Corrective Feedback (CF), which is situated within a Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Paradigm, is currently positioned towards an accuracy-orientated delivery based on native speaker norms. This is despite the recognition in different areas of linguistic research that there is considerable variation in the way that English is spoken around the world. This paper argues that the epistemological assumptions and methodological approaches to investigate CF within an SLA paradigm have various underlying weaknesses that undermine research findings. These findings purport to provide support for an accuracy-orientated CF in the English classroom. However, it is suggested in this paper that a meaning-orientated CF would be more reflective and beneficial for students given the transformative changes that have occurred to English over the past 30 years. This perspective is discussed in relation to one teacher's approach to CF who participated in a larger project which examined CF conducted in a British-Sino University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoclassical economics has established itself as the discipline of rational choice. Consequently, under methodological individualism and in the context of consumption, an agent's choice is based on the ordering of preferences determined exogenously, disregarding any emotional, biological influences, or factors from socio-economic dynamics. Therefore, this paper aims to present an alternative framework for the decision-making of economic individuals at a theoretical and formal-mathematical level, grounded in the principles of evolutionary economics and complex adaptive systems. It is argued that the process of making choices in consumption is inherent to social dynamics. From an individual-holistic perspective, the mechanism motivating action can be characterized as an evolutionary algorithm that integrates biological, historical, cultural, social class, and market competition influences as endogenous elements in determining choice and consumption behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The article discusses the concept of zoon politikon in order to provide arguments justifying the attractiveness of Aristotle's practical philosophy. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: There are three quasidefinitions of man in Aristotle's works, each of which emphasises a different aspect of humanity. According to the philosopher, we are speaking animals, political animals (zoa politika) and the only animals endowed with reason. I argue that it is the condition of zoon politikon that comes to the fore as the most human of human properties. The article uses a historical-philosophical method supported by textual analysis. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: In the first part of the text, Aristotle's term zoon politikon is analysed as a concept intended to show the superiority of humanity over animality. In the second part, it is presented as a limitation that distinguishes humans from gods. By analysing how these two perspectives overlap, it is then possible to discuss some political consequences of the tension between them. RESEARCH RESULTS: The analysis leads to the conclusion that, according to Aristotle, a good human is not someone who "exercises rationality to a high degree" (Hurka, 1993, p. 3), but above all someone who is political to a high degree. It also suggests that Aristotle's concept can be used to distinguish between two kinds of politics, which should not be reduced to each other: "artificial" politics (which can be equated with power), and natural human politics (which is based on free individual action in the area of praxis). CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The notion of zoon politikon reflects the relational character of the individual human self, and thus offers a perspective that allows both methodological and political individualism to be challenged. It can also be (and is; see: Arendt, 1958; Crick, 1962) a source of inspiration for those scholars, who argue that politics cannot be reduced to power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The individual-community relationship has always been one of the most fundamental topics of social sciences. In sociology, this is known as the micro-macro relationship while in economics it refers to the processes, through which, individual actions lead to macroeconomic phenomena. Based on philosophical discourse and systems theory, many sociologists even use the term "emergence" in their understanding of micro-macro relationship, which refers to collective phenomena that are created by the cooperation of individuals, but cannot be reduced to individual actions. "Emergence" theories attempt to explain the nature of society as a complex system by examining how individuals and their relationships lead to the creation of integrated and macro-social phenomena such as markets, educational systems, cultural beliefs, and shared social practices. As a prelude to activity, every researcher has to answer the question from the methodological point of view, how is it possible to study the behavior of social groups and how can we gain knowledge about the laws related to social groups? Anyone who deals with humanities and social sciences or any reality and phenomenon that affects human beings, inevitably deals with the reality that is emerging. In fact, emergence occurs when one level of reality emerges radically from another level. Examples of emergent levels of reality include how the mind emerges from the body; or the way society emerges from human beings. Therefore, when there is an emerging factor, different scientific disciplines should be used, because it is inevitable to talk about social affairs, psychology and neurobiology, as well as physical and even chemical.

Anthropologists are often averse to the decontextualized approaches of moral and other forms of philosophy, arguing that they lack the thickness required to think well and carefully about issues of import. Based on fieldwork with a group of people who meet regularly in pubs to do philosophy, this article argues that decontextualization and abstraction can be useful in attempts to think well about big questions with others, but for oneself. Pub philosophers attempt in their weekly conversations to balance an attention to positioned knowledge with an effort to arrive at general ways of thinking about something. It is not only professional academics and philosophers who value thinking for its own sake, and not in order to find resolutions or conclusions to tricky questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen participation under the lens of Hayek's methodological Individualism demonstrates that individuals are the ones who have the capacity to act and interact, being these agents of change in the social context. In this sense, the types of motivations they have for getting involved in public issues in their community impact the different levels of participation. Furthermore, the premise that guides this essay is the idea that higher levels of participation stimulate democracy for the exercise of active citizenship, and this citizenship provides opportunities for more participation, thus generating what we call the boomerang effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monique Deveaux's Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-led Social Movements makes a significant contribution to contemporary capability theories by challenging their individualism. Mainline versions of the Capabilities Approach (CA), including those developed by Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, and Ingrid Robeyns, insist on a methodological and normative individualism. And with good reason: communitarianism most often reinscribes patriarchal power, especially within the family. Deveaux, however, argues that this individualism yields a depoliticized account of poverty as capability deprivation, thereby downplaying or even denying the agency of the poor. But poor-led social movements politicize poverty, understanding it as a social and political relation between individuals and institutions. These movements build collective political capabilities: capabilities that can be exercised only by groups or that promote collective goods. The current paper explicates, extends, and defends this powerful challenge to mainline capability theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the interdisciplinary approach of Edwin Hutchins, analyzing his conception of distributed cognition as probably the most important and lasting contribution of anthropology to the repertoire of theoretical tools in cognitive science. At the same time, this conception resulted in one of the most interesting relationships between cognitive science and social sciences. These relationships are made possible by the assumptions of Hutchins’ conception, which directly contribute to interdisciplinary collaboration. His account of distributed cognition has enormous potential, allowing the integration of research into cognitive and social processes. This is also because it breaks with methodological individualism.

Unethical behavior in organizations has garnered more and more attention in the last decades but most of the scholarly work has used a static approach relying on methodological individualism and a mechanistic worldview when studying this topic. The process of moral disengagement and organizational culture have been linked to the prevalence of unethical behavior earlier, but this paper uses a complexity-informed systems perspective to explore the dynamic relationship of these concepts and aims to improve our understanding of the often unnoticeable, step-by-step process through which organizational cultures can become conducive to unethical behavior. Organizations are conceptualized as complex adaptive systems in which transformative and stabilizing processes based on feedback loops take place continuously. It is discussed how these processes can lead to a phase transition driving organizations towards a state where unethical behavior is the general norm. The process is illustrated through real-life examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic question of sociology is what sets of rules and order are used in society and how they are maintained. One possible answer is based on the concept of institutions, which still provokes theoretical discussions due to, among other things, a certain ambiguity, since the term ‘institution’ is, figuratively speaking, shrouded in a kind of fog that prevents it from being captured in any direct, clear way. Today, ambitions of philosophy, political science, anthropology or mathematical game theory, which try to solve this problem outside the sociological framework, contribute to the deepening of the ambiguities surrounding the concept of institutions. Some approaches tend to define institutions as a cyber black box with inputs and outputs, whose working remains largely hidden (especially philosophical and mathematical approaches strive to find some common universal principle or even mathematical formula). From the perspective of general sociological theory, the article considers the topic of institutions. The author identifies this topic as a central issue that needs to be reconsidered in sociology. The starting point of the article is the analysis of concepts related to the topic, their definitions and paradigmatic integration. In the following part, the author considers the theoretical interpretations in the works of Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann, John Searle, and the concepts inspired by game theories and rational behaviour theories. After that, ten basic issues of the current approaches are identified. The author pays particular attention to the fact that methodological individualism tends to dominate, which explains the ignorance of certain issues, especially of a holistic and macro-social nature, thus, leading to some problematic simplifications. The article shows what needs to be changed in the current social-scientific thinking on institutions in order to develop a more appropriate starting point for the further development of sociological theory.

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Seminare Learned Investigations / Seminare. Poszukiwania naukowe is the property of Francis de Sales Scientific Society / Towarzystwo Naukowe Franciszka Salezego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakültesi Dergisi DTCF Dergisi is the property of Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakultesi (DTCF Dergisi) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to vindicate the importance of the individual for sociology. Its main objective is to discuss and problematise the way in which various sociological perspectives (classical sociology, the action-structure debate, microsociology, methodological individualism, dispositionalist sociologies, the individualization thesis and the new institutional individualism, the sociology of social trials) have theorised the individual and the place it should occupy in sociology. We offer a critical review of each of these sociological approaches, showing some of their weaknesses and their potential to analyse current societies and the type of individual they produce. In this way, this article defends the project of a sociology of the individual that makes the individual a primary heuristic tool to understand our societies at a time when there is increasing demand for forms of social representation rooted in individual experiences.

Alcohol consumption takes place in society and because of society. The “social” aspect of this phenomenon gives a meaning that manifests itself in the framework of interaction. This paper discusses basic problems of previous sociological approaches to alcohol consumption: (1) focus on a problem-oriented approach – drinking and alcoholism, (2) abstract empiricism of alcohol consumption, and (3) unclear theoretical background for a sociological approach to alcohol consumption. Focusing exclusively on alcoholism or excessive drinking neglects a number of social dimensions inherent in alcohol consumption. Therefore, when considering this phenomenon in sociological terms, clear theoretical-methodological starting points should be established in order to understand the social consumption of alcohol. The main objective of this paper was to provide a basic paradigmatic and epistemological framework for the development of a sociology of alcohol consumption. The paper starts from the assumption that two theoretical-methodological principles should be considered: methodological individualism and methodological situationism. Each of these approaches has certain advantages and disadvantages, but in further conceptualising the paradigmatic foundations of the sociology of alcohol consumption, the paper proposed a two-level approach, that is, a synthesis of methodological situationism and methodological individualism. However, this synthesis does not constitute a theory of the sociology of alcohol consumption, but a framework for a sociological approach to the phenomenon, as well as the possibility of overcoming the problems presented in the sociological analysis of this topic.

Copyright of Revija za Sociologiju is the property of Revija za Sociologiju and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Economics takes an individualistic approach to human behaviour. This is reflected in the use of 'contingent valuation' surveys to conduct cost benefit analysis for economic policy evaluation. An individual's valuation of a policy is assumed to be unaffected by the burdens it places on others. We report a survey experiment to test this supposition in the context of climate change policy. Willingness to pay for climate change mitigation was higher when richer individuals were to bear higher costs than when, as is usual, no explicit information was provided about cost distribution. This result is inconsistent with the usual interpretation of contingent valuation data. It also suggests that the data may be biased indicators of policy acceptance. Additional survey questions suggest that a collective mode of reasoning is common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various forms of lying are ubiquitous even amongst Christians, harming our integrity and witness. This article identifies reasons why lies are so common and acceptable and deploys biblical truth to call all of us to a higher standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to answer the question: On what basis, or under what conditions can moral responsibility be attributed to a collective? The author assumes that the moral world is not only populated by individuals, but it also includes groups. The goal of the paper is to show that raising the question of collective responsibility in its moral dimension depends on the ontological recognition of the collective as a new entity with its own intentions, which is different from the entities of individuals who make it up. The author first presents some solutions based on the methodological individualism, which derive the existence of collective moral responsibility from the internal rules of group decision-making and from collectively shared goals. The author sees the problem of the examined views in the fact that the combination of the methodological individualism with a certain collectivist vision does not guarantee the recognition of collective entities in their real existence. Based on the holistically oriented research of V. Descombes, the study subsequently focuses on defining the ontological status of the collective. Using his arguments, the paper concludes that applying the idea of moral responsibility at the collective level presupposes recognition of the collective as a supra-individual entity sui generis and as a subject of collective intentionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As incoming Editor and Deputy Editor we describe our impression of the current situation that those committed to understanding and upholding environmental values find themselves in. We consider some of the factors that make enviornmental concern difficult to maintain, including conditions that affect us as academics, publishers, global citizens and activists. We describe some of the emerging trends that have appeared in Environmental Values in recent years, in philosophy, ecological economics, critical social science and widening interdisciplinarity in the environmental humanities. We highlight the journal's commitment to engaged, plural and open investigation of environmental values and consider what we might expect and hope for in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Academic Inquiries / Akademik Incelemeler Dergisi is the property of Akademik Incelemeler Dergisi (Journal of Academic Inquiries) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bajo Palabra: Journal of Philosophy is the property of Bajo Palabra: Journal of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The method of the public finance theory is understood as a set of the following components: initial positions and worldviews; specific research methods; and the ways to verify the results. The initial assumptions and worldviews of the Western public finance theory, modern Ukrainian public finance theory and its Soviet predecessor are compared. The difference of approaches within these theories concerning worldview is revealed, namely: their conceptual and philosophical basis (materialism / idealism); traditions of using the historical method; the role of the base and superstructure in financial science; focus on value / utility in studies dealing with the nature of fiscal phenomena; differences in interpreting the basic unit of analysis (individual, group, or class); the organic / mechanistic concepts of state used; explanation of the nature of the interaction between the basic units of analysis; attitude to the positive / normative approach. The methodological orientation of the Western financial thought on methodological individualism; that of the Soviet state finance theory on methodological holism, and the lack of precision in these issues of Ukraine’s modern financial science are mentioned. The author refers to the negative trend in assessing fiscal phenomena in Ukraine from the standpoint of state-centrism and the interests and needs of the state, which arises precisely on the basis of the holistic methodological attitudes and the predominance of the organic view of the state. It is shown that modern domestic financial science is still in transition. Due to its worldview, it is a theory of state finance (financial resources of the state), while the Western science is a theory of public finance (public funds, belonging to the society as a whole). The paper outlines the guidelines for further transforming the methodological foundations of financial science in Ukraine.

In the social sciences and, in particular, in economics, the debate on the most adequate model of explanation of social phenomena has been centred around two models: Methodological Individualism and Holism. While Methodological Individualism claims to be the most rigorous attempt to explain social phenomena by reducing them to their ultimate components, Holism stresses the primacy of the social relation, outside of which individuals cannot be understood as analytical units. In the analysis, we will refer to the way the debate has influenced economics education too through the debate on microfoundations and the role of individual preferences. In synthesis, we aim to show that the two explanatory models, rather than being opposed, need to be integrated, because they need each other. But for this to be done, we need to reflect on the role that the concept of 'relation' plays in our understanding of the social structure and of the dynamics that characterises it. Indeed, the holistic systemic model, although privileging the relation, must acknowledge that the relation needs some ultimate elements (individuals), which in turn are prioritised by methodological individualism. But these entities, individuals, in order to be what they are, i.e., each a determinate identity, need each to be referred to other individuals, which are essential to determine the single determinate identity. This means that each individual needs the relation. To prevent a circular explanation, we claim that a correct methodology should understand both the individual and society in the light of the unity of sense that emerges at the end of the process, rather than focusing on its starting point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conception of the founder of the Austrian School in his book on the philosophy of social sciences has been described by the supporters of this school as a total methodological individualism, upholding the absolute specificity of these sciences to those of nature, and as rejecting the use of mathematics in economics. On the contrary, we shall see that for Carl Menger the human individual was only the fundamental element of socio-economic structures, not reducible to it. Economic theory was to be inspired by the 'atomism' of natural sciences and determine the causes, effects, and laws of the studied phenomena, with the aim of predicting and controlling them. Empirical study had to unite with conceptual abstraction and mathematics in the degree determined by the simplicity or complexity of the field of research. These characteristics of C. Manger's conception, like others, make us assume an important (but unconfessed) influence of A. Comte's positivism. However, in order to prove it, we will try to restore his true philosophy of science, warped by the neo-positivism of the energeticist scientists and of the Vienna Circle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to vindicate the importance of the individual for sociology. Its main objective is to discuss and problematise the way in which various sociological perspectives (classical sociology, the action-structure debate, microsociology, methodological individualism, dispositionalist sociologies, the individualization thesis and the new institutional individualism, the sociology of social trials) have theorised the individual and the place it should occupy in sociology. We offer a critical review of each of these sociological approaches, showing some of their weaknesses and their potential to analyse current societies and the type of individual they produce. In this way, this article defends the project of a sociology of the individual that makes the individual a primary heuristic tool to understand our societies at a time when there is increasing demand for forms of social representation rooted in individual experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the role of methodological individualism as a methodology for the social sciences by briefly discussing its forerunners in economics and sociology, especially in the works of Carl Menger and Max Weber, followed by some comments on Karl Popper's and other critical rationalists' contributions as well as rational choice theories. Some recent arguments against methodological rationalism are then provided, including counterarguments, mainly based on exemplary work by economists and sociologists. This paper proposes a scheme for analyses using (weak) methodological individualism, in particular, arguing that evolutionary approaches to the explanation of economic and other social phenomena that accord with methodological individualism suggest that it is a successful and progressive methodology for economics and sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definitions and theoretical cores of ‘heterodox’ economics remain subject to debate, as do those of ‘mainstream’ economics. The theoretical elements that could unambiguously differentiate both perspectives are therefore debated. Common features are difficult to highlight within ‘heterodox’ economics. Symmetrically, ‘mainstream’ economics is uneasy to describe via necessary and sufficient features, as numerous authors within its field claim to have enriched neoclassical economics, and to use concepts from other social sciences. On the other hand, ‘heterodox’ policies and their differences with mainstream ones (e.g., ‘austerity’) appear to be more identifiable. Despite these uncertainties, the paper shows that some core concepts and theoretical assumptions may represent a distinction between heterodox and mainstream economics. The contribution of the paper is to argue that many conventional distinctions may in fact not be unambiguous criteria of distinguishing the two epistemic frameworks (e.g., self-interested agents, the methodology of modelling, use of concepts of social sciences), and to suggest a few theoretical issues that could constitute lines of difference – notably related to the concepts of causality, time and society.

Hayek repeatedly refers to 'the twin ideas of evolution and spontaneous order'. Yet, critics argue that Hayek's theory of cultural group selection is inconsistent with his theory of spontaneous order. To assess these criticisms, this paper situates Hayek's social theory in the contemporary discussion surrounding multilevel selection. Hayek's theory posits two main levels—rules and order—that exhibit upward and downward causation. An examination of Hayek's theory of cultural group selection and his account of methodological individualism reveals that neither one can provide a fully adequate explanation of social phenomena. Neither individualistic nor group-selectionist analyses allow the theorist to fully account for social order, but taken together they provide a more complete explanation. Far from being substitutes, therefore, both types of analysis are complementary aspects of Hayek's social theory. Understanding Hayek's theory in this way allows us to glimpse how he might weigh in on contemporary debates surrounding multilevel selection in human societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cumulative transmission and innovation are the hallmark properties of the cultural achievements of human beings. Cognitive scientists have traditionally explained these properties in terms of social learning and creativity. The non-social cognitive dimension of cumulative culture, the so-called technical reasoning, has also been accounted for recently. These explanatory perspectives are methodologically individualistic since they frame cumulative and innovative culture in terms of the processing of inner cognitive representations. Here we show that going beyond methodological individualism could facilitate an understanding of why some inventions are disseminated in a stable form and constitute the basis for further modifications. Drawing on three cases of cognitive history of prominent achievements of Antiquity, i.e., Homerian epics, Euclidean geometry, and Roman law, we investigate which properties of cognitive artifacts shaped cognitive niches for modifying original cognitive tasks or developing new ones. These niches both constrained and enabled the cognitive skills of humans to promote cumulative culture and further innovations. At the same time, we claim that "wide cognition," incorporating both intracranial resources and external cognitive representations, constitutes a platform for building explanations of cognitive phenomena developing over a historical time scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today a convergence between the fields of anthropology and economics has re-emerged after decades during which the dictates of methodological individualism, as strikingly elucidated by Kenneth Arrow, had seriously limited and hampered effective scholarship in studies of economic and social development in developing countries. A new generation of development economists represented by Spolaori and Wacziarg (2013) and (Spolaori 2016) has reopened the possibility of fruitful cross-disciplinary interaction, enabling economists and anthropologists to investigate those many social structures wherein resources are jointly held and wherein social goals are the product of interests held by groups, rather than exclusively by pairs of individuals stripped of a context of ethics.The continually expanding data of Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock and White 1969) provide a wide range of variables that make it possible to test theories regarding development and causality in human societies. Furthermore, new software facilitates the testing of these theories in the context of diffusion, historical language families and ecological contexts. Together, the data and the new software are essential to any effort to test theories of human evolutionary history and development.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn resorts to concepts from several disciplines in order to describe the general patterns of scientific development. This blend of disciplines can be explained in part by Kuhn's intellectual path, from physics to history and then to philosophy of science; but it also points to a deeper methodological problem, which is the question of what is the real unity of analysis in his model of science. The primary intention of this article is, thus, to give a solution to this difficulty. The answer, I believe, rests on identifying three fundamental units present in Kuhn's theory of scientific development. They are, respectively, the individual, responsible for producing evidence, spreading information, and choosing theories; the community, a set of scientists investigating a series of phenomena; and the groups, individuals with similar behavior but with looser institutional or social ties — a usually neglected category in Kuhnian literature, but equally fundamental for the final outcome of scientific debates. After investigating these categories in detail, I propose a way of integrating them into a general model for explaining the resolution of scientific controversies. Finally, I try to resolve the apparent conflict among disciplinary vocabularies by offering an account of the function of sociological, psychological, and epistemological concepts for describing controversies, and some of the methodologies appropriate for each of these tasks.

The article elaborates a theoretical discussion about the potentialities and productivity of Barberians concepts and studies in the field of communication -- especially the multiple maps created by that author from 1987 to 2017--, aiming at understanding the contemporary phenomena of digital vulnerabilities. It investigates the ways in which the different mediations sequentially mobilized by Martín-Barbero, over 30 years, can collaborate to understand the impacts of the uses and appropriations of ICT in contexts of hyperconnectivity and big data, causing different individual and collective risks. Methodologically, we adopted bibliographic research with a focus on critical analysis of the approaches of different national and international authors on the communicational and informational phenomena involved with the issue of digital vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological individualism provides important insights into spontaneous orders abstracted from their environments, but cannot probe the depth of their impact upon individuals whose actions generate the system, comprehend learning across generations, or the mutual impact of different spontaneous orders. Systems theory suffers no such limitations. This paper integrates Paul Lewis's exploration of emergent qualities in complex orders with the author's exploration of interactions between multiple such orders. Such an approach enriches our understanding of social complexity by demonstrating how causality flows in both directions, from individuals to society and from society and back. There is no starting point. Secondly, it provides a foundation for understanding civil society as a higher order adaptive system than are spontaneous orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the quantitative study of conflict has increasingly focused on small-scale and/or localized conflicts in the developing world. In this paper, we analyze and critically reflect upon a major methodological shortcoming of many studies in this field of research. We argue that by using group- or macro-level empirical data and modelling techniques, while at the same time theoretically underpinning observed empirical associations with individual-level mechanisms, many of these studies risk committing an ecological fallacy. The individual-level mechanism on which many studies rely concerns the presence of grievances which mobilize people to participate in contentious politics. This motivational approach was also present in early studies on protest mobilization in Western societies, which often relied on similar research designs. However, subsequent advances in this literature and the use of methods that were targeted more directly at the individual level uncovered that grievances alone cannot explain mobilization and that organizational capabilities and complex psychological mechanisms of belonging also form part of the puzzle. While drawing on conflict events as well as survey data from Africa, we demonstrate empirically that here, as well, inferring micro-level relations and dynamics from macro-level empirical models can lead to erroneous interpretations and inferences. Hence, we argue that to improve our understanding of conflict mobilization in the developing world, especially for conflicts with low levels of violence, it is necessary to substantially expand our methodological toolbox beyond macro-level analyses.

While ecological psychology and embodied approaches to cognition have gained traction within the literature on non-human primate tool use, a fear of making assumptions on behalf of animal minds means that their application has been conservative, often retaining the methodological individualism of the cognitivist approach. As a result, primate models for technical and cognitive evolution, rooted in the teleological functionalism of the Neo-Darwinist approach, reduce tool use to the unit of the individual, conflating technology with technique and physical cognition with problem-solving computations of energetic efficiency. This article attempts, through the application of material engagement theory, to explore non-human primate technology as a non-individualistic phenomenon in which technique is co-constructed through the ontogenetic development of skill within a dynamic system of structured action affordances and material interactions which constitute an emergent, species-specific mode of technical cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative research approaches under the umbrella of phenomenology are becoming overly prescriptive and dogmatic (e.g., excessive and unnecessary focus on the epoché and reduction). There is a need for phenomenology (as a qualitative research approach) to be renewed and refreshed with opportunities for methodological flexibility. In this process paper, we offer one way this could be achieved. We provide an overview of the emerging paradigm of post-cognitivism and the aligned movement of enactivism which has roots in phenomenology and embodied cognition. We argue that enactivism can be used as a flexible resource by qualitative researchers exploring the unfolding of first-person (subjective) experience and its meanings (i.e., the enactive concept of sense-making). Enactive approaches are commonly tethered to "E-based" theory, such as the idea that sense-making is a 5E process (Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Emotive, and Extended). We suggest that enactivism and E-based theory can inform phenomenological research in eclectic and non-prescriptive ways, including integration with existing methods such as observation/interviews and thematic analysis with hybrid deductive-inductive coding. Enactivism-informed phenomenological research moves beyond methodological individualism and can inform novel qualitative research exploring the complex, dynamic, and context-sensitive nature of sense-making. We draw from our enactive study that explored the co-construction of pain-related meanings between clinicians and patients, while also offering other ways that enactive theory could be applied. We provide a sample interview guide and codebook, as well as key components of rigor to consider when designing, conducting, and reporting a trustworthy phenomenological study using enactive theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Behavioral approaches have been successful in challenging the rational actor model of international legal analysis and supplementing that model with empirical evidence. Yet observing a set of features about the world requires ignoring or bracketing others. Behavioral approaches retain their own inevitable blind spots, which are not necessarily products of flawed experimental design, but stem from the paradigmatic traits of these approaches. These blind spots derive from an emphasis on methodological individualism, positivism, and experimentation. This emphasis may obscure the social aspects of international legal decision-making. For example, behavioral approaches to international law often use experimental data to describe cognitive tendencies. In doing so, these approaches may not seek and likely will not have tools to discover the meaning of a state action, or the human actions that produce that state action. That latter inquiry requires "historical, ethnographic and other sociological methods that analyze social life outside of the experimental setting." In sum, behavioral approaches pursue both theoretical and empirical concerns different from those pursued in an interpretive mode of meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to investigate several issues related to the renewed social and political commitment of contemporary French literature. The article considers literature’s ability to oppose societal normativity as political storytelling through entrusting both individuals and the community with increased acting power, as well as through challenging critics and academics to take part in current debates. Showing that literature can become a tool of individual reconstruction and can recreate social links, or a remedy against various forms of individualism and tendencies towards commodifying the world, the article presents several types of contemporary French works of fiction whose main goals are theorizing, describing, expressing empathy towards those who are confronted with illness, death, exile or terrorism. Several literary works that contest identity or societal labels are added to these, since they help us debate upon and stand up against inequalities or normativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The method of the public finance theory is understood as a set of the following components: initial positions and worldviews; specific research methods; and the ways to verify the results. The initial assumptions and worldviews of the Western public finance theory, modern Ukrainian public finance theory and its Soviet predecessor are compared. The difference of approaches within these theories concerning worldview is revealed, namely: their conceptual and philosophical basis (materialism / idealism); traditions of using the historical method; the role of the base and superstructure in financial science; focus on value / utility in studies dealing with the nature of fiscal phenomena; differences in interpreting the basic unit of analysis (individual, group, or class); the organic / mechanistic concepts of state used; explanation of the nature of the interaction between the basic units of analysis; attitude to the positive / normative approach. The methodological orientation of the Western financial thought on methodological individualism; that of the Soviet state finance theory on methodological holism, and the lack of precision in these issues of Ukraine’s modern financial science are mentioned. The author refers to the negative trend in assessing fiscal phenomena in Ukraine from the standpoint of state-centrism and the interests and needs of the state, which arises precisely on the basis of the holistic methodological attitudes and the predominance of the organic view of the state. It is shown that modern domestic financial science is still in transition. Due to its worldview, it is a theory of state finance (financial resources of the state), while the Western science is a theory of public finance (public funds, belonging to the society as a whole). The paper outlines the guidelines for further transforming the methodological foundations of financial science in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we present different notions of convexity used in different works of recent times, both theoretical and applied, and based on them, we establish various relationships between them and make some methodological recommendations on the study of integral inequalities of the Hermite-Hadamard-Fejer type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of International Relations (IR) has experienced different waves of 'great debates' that have often maintained certain theoretical and methodological frameworks and perspectives as core to the field whereas others are seen as peripheral and merely a critique of the former. As a result of this segregation of knowledge, IR has not become as open to dialogue and diversity as we are made to believe. To be sure, aspects of the extant literature speak of IR as being 'not so international', a 'hegemonic discipline', a 'colonial household', and an 'American social science', among other derogatory names. Informed by such characterizations that depict a field of study that is not sufficiently diverse, the paper investigates the relationship between pedagogical factors and dialogue in IR. In doing so, it provides preliminary results from a pilot study in February-April 2019 that sought to examine different graduate-level IR syllabi from leading universities in the global North and South (Africa in particular). In particular, the objective was to decipher what course design, including required readings and other pedagogical activities in the classroom, tells us about dialogue and the sort of diversity needed to push IR beyond its conventional canons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]