The European Union Data Protection Regulation will have profound implications for public health, health services research and statistics in Europe. The EU Commission's Proposal was a breakthrough in balancing privacy rights and rights to health and healthcare. The European Parliament, however, has proposed extensive amendments. This paper reviews the amendments proposed by the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and their implications for health research and statistics. The amendments eliminate most innovations brought by the Proposal. Notably, (...) derogation to the general prohibition of processing sensitive data shall be allowed for public interests such as the management of healthcare services, but not health research, monitoring, surveillance and governance. The processing of personal health data for historical, statistical or scientific purposes shall be allowed only with the consent of the data subject or if the processing serves an exceptionally high public interest, cannot be performed otherwise and is legally authorised. Research, be it academic, government, corporate or market research, falls under the same rule. The proposed amendments will make difficult or render impossible research and statistics involving the linkage and analysis of the wealth of data from clinical, administrative, insurance and survey sources, which have contributed to improving health outcomes and health systems performance and governance; and may illegitimise efforts that have been made in some European countries to enable privacy-respectful data use for research and statistical purposes. If the amendments stand as written, the right to privacy is likely to override the right to health and healthcare in Europe. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion tends to converge on the view that narratives are at the center of the emotion of grief. In this article, I expand on this kind of view. On the one hand, I argue that key strands of phenomenological and neuroscientific studies suggest that grief consists in a complex emotional process of disconfirmation-and-updating of the narrative self-model. By heuristically drawing on an analogy between binocular rivalry and grief, I show that certain salient aspects of the phenomenology of grief, such (...) as self-alienation and ambiguity, are straightforwardly reflected by this account. On the other hand, I argue that this hierarchical approach has the resources to: (i) show that both narratable and unnarratable experiences of personal loss are both instances of grief; and (ii) differentiate between narratable and unnarratable experiences of grief, without compromising the view that self-constituting narratives are at the center of the phenomenon. (shrink)

Sender–receiver games, first introduced by David Lewis ([1969]), have received increased attention in recent years as a formal model for the emergence of communication. Skyrms ([2010]) showed that simple models of reinforcement learning often succeed in forming efficient, albeit not necessarily minimal, signalling systems for a large family of games. Later, Alexander et al. ([2012]) showed that reinforcement learning, combined with forgetting, frequently produced both efficient and minimal signalling systems. In this article, I define a ‘dynamic’ sender–receiver game in which (...) the state–action pairs are not held constant over time and show that neither of these two models of learning learn to signal in this environment. However, a model of reinforcement learning with discounting of the past does learn to signal; it also gives rise to the phenomenon of linguistic drift. 1 Introduction2 Dynamic Signalling Games with Reinforcement Learning2.1 Introducing new states2.2 Swapping state–action pairs3 Discounting the Past3.1 Learning to signal in a dynamic world3.2 An unexpected outcome: linguistic drift4 ConclusionAppendix: A Markov Chain Analysis. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to Mario Bunge in honor of his sixtieth birthday. Mario Bunge is a philosopher of great repute, whose enormous output includes dozens of books in several languages, which will culminate with his Treatise on Basic Philosophy projected in seven volumes, four of which have already appeared [Reidel, I 974ff. ]. He is known for his works on research methods, the foundations of physics, biology, the social sciences, the diverse applications of mathematical methods and of systems analysis, (...) and more. Bunge stands for exact philosophy, classical liberal social philosophy, rationalism and enlightenment. He is brave, even relentless, in his attacks on subjectivism, mentalism, and spiritualism, as well as on positivism, mechanism, and dialectics. He believes in logic and clarity, in science and open-mindedness - not as the philosopher's equivalent to the poli tician's rhetoric of motherhood and apple pie, but as a matter of everyday practice, as qualities to cultivate daily in our pursuit of the life worth living. Bunge's philosophy often has the quality of Columbus's egg, and he is prone to come to swift and decisive conclusions on the basis of argu ments which seem to him valid; he will not be perturbed by the fact that most of the advanced thinkers in the field hold different views. (shrink)

This article aims to show that Locke’s discussion of tacit consent and the right to punish aliens in the Second Treatise of Government has important bearings on the moral status of undocumented immigrants. It argues that Locke conceptualized both friendly and hostile aliens, counting the former as tacit consenters to whom host states owed rights and protection. Moreover, it highlights how his approach, unlike theorists before and after him, was one that saw individuals as capable of shaping their own relationship (...) with the host. The article also examines Locke’s discussion of the federative power of the state, which includes the power to vet aliens within the country. Seen through this Lockean lens, the article argues that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants can be understood as tacit consenters or potential citizens who should be judged by how they choose to relate to the host, and not by their country of origin. While noting that the Lockean approach is not incompatible with border control, the article also shows how it puts the onus on the host to justify the power it exercises and to engage in dialogue with undocumented immigrants about what their status should be in the country. (shrink)

Consider the problem of allocating a scarce resource to people. A fair decision procedure is one where each person has an equal chance of receiving the resource. An unfair decision procedure is one where the chances are not equal. Normally we think that, in an unfair decision procedure, that the correct way to redress the injustice is by rerunning the allocation using a fair decision procedure. In this paper, I show that this actually creates an overall bias favouring one person, (...) and solutions to this problem are counterintuitive, in that they typically involve introducing additional unfair elements into the situation. (shrink)

Although the theory of definability had many important antecedents—such as the descriptive set theory initiated by the French semi-intuitionists in the early 1900s—the main ideas were first laid out in precise mathematical terms by Alfred Tarski beginning in 1929. We review here the basic notions of languages, explicit definability, and grammatical complexity, and emphasize common themes in the theories of definability for four important languages underlying, respectively, descriptive set theory, recursive function theory, classical pure logic, and finite-universe logic. We review (...) the history of previous studies of the similarities and differences in the theories of definability of the first three of these four languages. A seminal role leading toward unification of the theories has been played by the separation principles introduced by Nikolai Luzin in 1927. Emphasizing analogies and driving toward further unification embracing finite-universe logic we concentrate on a simple example—the first and second separation principles for existential-universal first-order sentences . Using this as a test case for the fundamental problem of how to “finitize” arguments in classical pure logic to the finite-universe case, we are led to the analogous negative solution by using the theory of certain special graphs: a graph is - special for any positive integers m , n , p , q iff it is bipartite with m red points and n blue points and for every p -tuple of red points there is a blue point to which they are all connected . As an aside we introduce for further study a natural “Ramseyesque” increasing sequence A of positive integers, where A is the least positive integer n for which an -special graph exists. (shrink)

It is well known that mitto comes to mean ‘put’ in late Latin and that it shows reflexes with this sense in the Romance languages . But the nature of this semantic change has not been fully explained, nor has the relationship of the word with other placing-terms in Latin. E. Löfstedt has stated simply that it ‘takes over the meaning ot ponere’.2 But as pono itself remains common in all types of Latin, the question arises whether the two words (...) did really come into conflict. It is the purpose of the first two sections of this article to show that for a considerable period pono and mitto occupied complementary places in a lexical system. This system exhibits a definite structure which remains unaltered from early Latin to at least the sixth century A.D., though its component terms undergo some changes. In section I pono and the words which in earlier Latin performed the functions later assumed by mitto will be discussed. In section I I we shall move on to mitto itself. It will be necessary to consider the nature and motivation of the transition ‘throwput’ as it appears in Latin. (shrink)

Detecting sensitive information considering privacy is a relevant issue on Online Social Networks (OSNs). It is often difficult for users to manage the privacy associated with their posts on social networks taking into account all the possible consequences. The aim of this work is to provide information about the sensitivity of the content of a publication when a user is going to share it in OSN. For this purpose, we developed a privacy-assistant agent that detects sensitive information. Based on this (...) information, the agent provides a message through a nudge mechanism warning about the possible risks of sharing the message. To avoid being annoying, the agent also considers the user’s previous behaviour (e.g. if he previously ignored certain nudges) and adapts the messages it sends to give more relevance to those categories that are more important to the user from the point of view of the privacy risk. This agent was integrated into the social network Pesedia. We analysed the performance of different models to detect a set of sensitive categories (i.e. location, medical, drug/alcohol, emotion, personal attacks, stereotyping, family and association details, personal details and personally identifiable information) in a dataset of tweets in Spanish. The model that obtained the best results (i.e. F1 and accuracy) and that was finally integrated into the privacy-assistant agent was transformer-based. (shrink)

Responsible speakers avoid trafficking in bad speech, that is, speech that they have reason to believe causes or constitutes net harm. Moreover, third parties have prima facie reason to suppress such speech. As recent events have made salient just how harmful speech can be, there has been a corresponding increase in calls to suppress or censor such speech. This article argues that there are three mechanisms by which calls to suppress bad speech themselves tend to cause or constitute harm. Paradoxically, (...) then, those most concerned about the pernicious effects of bad speech ought to be especially reluctant to call for its suppression. (shrink)

In this book, J.H. Plumb investigates the way that humankind has, since the beginning of recorded time, molded the past to give sanction to their institutions of government, their social structure and morality. The past has also been called upon to explain the nature of our destiny in order both to strengthen the objectives of society and to reconcile us to our lot. J.H. Plumb questions this sanction of the past, the force that it has on our sense of destiny (...) and its relevance to our own times. This classic text is now reissued with a new introduction by Niall Ferguson, placing it within a contemporary context, and with a new foreword by the eminent historian Simon Schama, a former student of J.H.Plumb himself. (shrink)

To be free is to escape all limitations and obstacles—or so we think at first. But if we probe further, we discover that freedom embraces its own necessities, a set of conditions without which it could not exist. _Freedom's Embrace_ explores these necessities of freedom. J. Melvin Woody surveys competing conceptions of freedom and traces debates about the nature and reality of freedom to confusions about knowledge, humanity, and nature that are rooted in some of the most fundamental assumptions of (...) modern Western thought. The preemption of freedom as an exclusively human privilege with all nature relegated to mechanical necessity is a fatal error that renders both humanity and nature equally unintelligible. What distinguishes human beings from other animals is not freedom but the use of symbols, which vastly extends the range of available options and enables us to envision freedom as an ideal by which customary institutions and norms may be judged and transformed. By carefully surveying its necessary conditions and limitations, Woody reconciles the salient competing conceptions of freedom and weaves them together into a richer and broader theory that resolves old controversies and opens the way toward an ethics of freedom that can meet the challenges of relativism and nihilism that arise from recognizing the historicity and malleability of culture. (shrink)

This paper traces an expanded ethical perspective for youth and community work (YCW) practice in response to the climate and biodiversity crises. Discussing ecological ethics, we problematise the liberal humanist emphasis on utilitarianism and reject it as inappropriate for YCW in these times. Instead, we argue for an ecocentric practice ethic which intrinsically values the non-human world. To advance an ecocentric ethical perspective for YCW we draw on decolonial and posthuman theory. Inspired by a Freirean dialogical approach, we apply these (...) theoretical domains as lenses to problematise YCW practice, seeking a generative dialogue between perspectives. Through this, we identify three emergent tasks for ecocentric YCW: (a) thinking and acting beyond the individual; (b) cultivating reciprocal care and connection and (c) practicing critical pedagogies of place. This third element builds on YCW's social pedagogic tradition and provides a practical means to incorporate ecocentric ideas into practice. We conclude that, given the unprecedented implications of climate crises and biodiversity collapse, a YCW ethics that does not consider these implications for young people is insufficient for the context of practice today. Enacting an ecocentric YCW ethics requires ongoing collective praxis and dialogue between young people, practitioners, educators, managers and students. (shrink)

J. J. Valberg; VIII*—Improper Singular Terms, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 121–146, https://doi.org/10.1093/a.

In his recent article ‘Notes Towards a Critique of Buddhist Karmic Theory’ Paul J. Griffiths makes four criticisms of Buddhist karmic theory: it is empirically false, it is incoherent, it is morally repugnant, and it is vacuous. After listing these four criticisms, Griffiths concludes that ‘all these mean that Buddhist karmic theory as expounded in the major theoretical works devoted to it must be false’.