Despite the great interest on Peirce’s work in Europe especially from the 1960s onwards, Peirce’s name in Greek literature could be found only in introductory books of philosophy and in particular in those concerned with the theory of language. An exception is Evangelos Papanoutsos’ Pragmatism or Humanism: Elaboration and Criticism of the Theories of a Great Current of Contemporary Philosophy (Papanoutsos 1924), which studies pragmatism as it had been shaped mainly by F. C. S. Schiller. Refer...

The linguistic foundations of science and technology include many terms that have been borrowed from ancient languages. In the case of terms with origins in the Greek language, the modern meaning can often differ significantly from the original one. Here we use the PubMed database to demonstrate the prevalence of words of Greek origin in the language of modern science, and call for scientists to exercise care when coining new terms.

The goal of perception is to infer the most plausible source of sensory stimulation. Unisensory perception of temporal order, however, appears to require no inference, since the order of events can be uniquely determined from the order in which sensory signals arrive. Here we demonstrate a novel perceptual illusion that casts doubt on this intuition: in three studies (N=607) the experienced event timings are determined by causality in real-time. Adult observers viewed a simple three-item sequence ACB, which is typically remembered (...) as ABC (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2016), in line with principles of causality. When asked to indicate the time at which events B and C occurred, points of subjective simultaneity shifted so that the assumed cause B appeared earlier and the assumed effect C later, despite full attention and repeated viewings. This first demonstration of causality reversing perceived temporal order cannot be explained by post-perceptual distortion, lapsed attention, or saccades. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose that economic sustainability is seen in terms of (inter-temporal and inter-national) value creation. We claim that value appropriation (or capture), can become a constraint to economic sustainability. We propose that for sustainable value creation to be fostered, corporate governance needs to be aligned to public and supra-national governance. In order to achieve this, a hierarchically layered set of ‘agencies’, needs to be diagnosed and the issue of incentive alignment addressed. Enlightened self-interest, pluralism and diversity, as (...) well as a representative supra-national organisation for world-wide economic sustainability can serve as a new, more ‘ethically correct’ governance for economic sustainability, but not a panacea. (shrink)

I develop one partial explanation of the origins of our fallibilist intuitions about knowledge in ordinary language fallibilism and argue that this explanation indicates that our epistemic methodology should be more impartial and theory-neutral. First, I explain why the so-called Moorean constraint (cf. Hawthorne 2005, 111) that encapsulates fallibilist intuitions is fallibilism’s cornerstone. Second, I describe a pattern of fallibilist reasoning in light of the influential dual processing and heuristics and biases approach to cognition (cf. Kahneman 2011; Thaler and Sunstein (...) 2008; Evans 2017). I suggest that this pattern of reasoning involves the question-substitution heuristic, the availability and representativeness heuristics, the focusing bias as well as framing effects, priming and the anchoring and adjusting heuristic. Third, I argue that this fallibilist pattern of reasoning is methodologically dubious because it involves a vicious circularity and briefly outline an alternative, more impartial and theory-neutral abductive methodology for the theory of knowledge. Finally, I briefly explain how this analysis sheds light on the ordinary language fallibilism of Moore (1939), Austin (1961), Wittgenstein (1969) and Chisholm (1982). (shrink)

This paper analyses and criticizes the idea that powers are representable as vectors. Mumford and Anjum have recently developed a vector model of powers as part of their account of dispositional causation. The purpose of this model is to represent dispositionality, i.e. a sui generis type of modality introduced by their power-based ontology, as well as to explain various features of their account of causation. In this paper, we criticise both the claim that powers are vectors and the concomitant claim (...) that the composition of causes can be understood as vector addition. We argue that powers cannot be thought of as even analogous to vectors, and that the vector model is simply misleading. We show that the root of the problem is in Mumford and Anjum’s thought that powers have magnitude and direction. (shrink)

Although it has long been known that time is a cue to causation, recent work with adults has demonstrated that causality can also influence the experience of time. In causal reordering (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2013, 2016) adults tend to report the causally consistent order of events, rather than the correct temporal order. However, the effect has yet to be demonstrated in children. Across four pre-registered experiments, 4- to 10-year-old children (N=813) and adults (N=178) watched a 3-object Michotte-style ‘pseudocollision’. While in (...) the canonical version of the clip object A collided with B, which then collided with object C (order: ABC), the pseudocollision involved the same spatial array of objects but featured object C moving before object B (order: ACB), with no collision between B and C. Participants were asked to judge the temporal order of events and whether object B collided with C. Across all age groups, participants were significantly more likely to judge that B collided with C in the 3-object pseudocollision than in a 2-object control clip (where clear causal direction was lacking), despite the spatiotemporal relations between B and C being identical in the two clips (Experiments 1—3). Collision judgements and temporal order judgements were not entirely consistent, with some participants—particularly in the younger age range—basing their temporal order judgements on spatial rather than temporal information (Experiment 4). We conclude that in both children and adults, rather than causal impressions being determined only by the basic spatial-temporal properties of object movement, schemata are used in a top-down manner when interpreting perceptual displays. (shrink)

Perceptual experience is one of our fundamental sources of epistemic justification—roughly, justification for believing that a proposition is true. The ability of perceptual experience to justify beliefs can nevertheless be questioned. This article focuses on an important challenge that arises from countenancing that perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable. -/- The thesis of cognitive penetrability of perception states that the content of perceptual experience can be influenced by prior or concurrent psychological factors, such as beliefs, fears and desires. Advocates of this (...) thesis could for instance claim that your desire of having a tall daughter might influence your perception, so that she appears to you to be taller than she is. Although cognitive penetrability of perception is a controversial empirical hypothesis, it does not appear implausible. The possibility of its veracity has been adduced to challenge positions that maintain that perceptual experience has inherent justifying power. -/- This article presents some of the most influential positions in contemporary literature about whether cognitive penetration would undermine perceptual justification and why it would or would not do so. -/- Some sections of this article focus on phenomenal conservatism, a popular conception of epistemic justification that more than any other has been targeted with objections that adduce the cognitive penetrability of experience. (shrink)

This article draws on contributions from the Sociology of Science and Technology and Science and Technology Studies, the Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty, and the Sociology of Work, focusing on the transformations of employment regarding expanded automation, robotization and informatization. The new work patterns emerging due to the introduction of software and hardware technologies, which are based on artificial intelligence, algorithms, big data gathering and robotic systems are examined closely. This article attempts to “open the black boxes” of the “black (...) carpet” (robotic sorting system) and examine the reorganization of Greek postal services through the introduction of software and hardware technologies, highlighting a) the high risk of flexible, pluralistic, decentralized (under)employment and aspects of the sub-politics of automation, b) the new forms of work organization and c) aspects of labor precariousness as a result of de-specialization or “flexible expertise” interconnected with new forms of inequalities based on AI, algorithms, big data and robots as reflected in the lived experiences of workers. The above are investigated through primary empirical social research in postal service companies in Greece. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the status of relations in two prominent views in metaphysics of science, i.e. dispositionalism and structuralism, and argue that the current consensus about the metaphysics of relations, according to which relations are to be viewed as internal and as constituting no addition of being over and above their relata, needs to be re-examined. After discussing what we call internalism and externalism about relations, we show that dispositionalism and structuralism lead to opposite but equally controversial accounts (...) of the metaphysics of relations. While we criticise some widespread versions of those views, we identify versions of dispositionalism and structuralism that we deem more promising. A core feature of both of these more promising variants is an externalist view about relations. Against the current internalist consensus, we claim that a version of externalism about relations is the view that best combines metaphysical rigour with a naturalistic stance. (shrink)

The Dutch Reformed Church had a strong missionary DNA since the planting of the church. This missionary focus and fervour, however, ebbed and flowed during the history of the church. Saayman described that the mission upsurges in the DRC in four waves or 'periods of extraordinary mission endeavour'. The current research aimed to develop this theory through a literature study on the sociopolitical context and the developments in the ecclesiology and missiology of the DRC since the planting of the church (...) up to 2013. The research found strong evidence to define a fifth wave. The fifth wave was influenced by contextual changes and loss of influence and money by the DRC. Furthermore, the growth in the church's missional identity can be seen in the following aspects: the influence of theologians like Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch; a belief that mission is not something the church does but something the church is; a shift from a Christocentric theology to a Trinitarian theology; a holistic view of salvation; a commitment to the local context of the congregation and a focus on bringing healing to their local communities; and lastly, the success of the Gestuurde Gemeentes network and, more recently, the Mission Shaped Ministry training. (shrink)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we created and implemented from November 2020 to February 2021 a monthly educational pilot program of philosophical management of stress based on Science, Humanism and Epicurean Pragmatism, which was offered to employees of 26 municipalities in the Prefecture of Attica, Greece. The program named “Philosophical Distress Management Operation System” (Philo.Di.M.O.S.) is novel and unique in its kind, as it combines a certain Greek philosophical tradition (Epicurean) that concurs with modern scientific knowledge. The (...) program was designed to be implemented in a period of crisis; therefore, it used a fast-paced, easy to learn and practice philosophical approach to stress management, based on cognitive psychotherapy. The philosophical approach to stress management has the advantage that it can be offered to most people, regardless of age and educational level. The pilot program was effective in achieving its objectives, shown by statistical comparisons of the trainees’ responses to anonymous questionnaires before and after the month-long training. The successful Philo.Di.M.O.S. program, thus, based on a solid scientific and philosophical basis, offers a paradigm of stress management during crises and could be useful in Greece and internationally. (shrink)

It is essential for an introductory book, addressed to the reader who is new to the philosophical discourse, not only to give a representative picture of the main issues of the philosophical area which it studies, but also to be clear about its aims and its methodological approach. Furthermore, ideally it would not only refer to the literature for further independent investigation, but it would inspire the reader to pursue such an investigation too. Effingham’s Introduction to Ontology meets all the (...) aforementioned aims. Its light, yet careful and systematic, way of introducing the field of ontology and also presenting some background metaphysical concepts certainly does not scare off the uninitiated reader. In what follows I will present Effingham’s approach, focusing especially on some of the features of the book that reveal its contribution to the ontology educational literature.The book is comprised of ten chapters, which can be categorised into three parts: an introductory part (Ch .. (shrink)

Objective Although patients exercise greater autonomy than in the past, and shared decision making is promoted as the preferred model for doctor-patient engagement, tensions still exist in clinical practice about the primary locus of decision-making authority for complex, scarce, and resource-intensive medical therapies: patients and their surrogates, or physicians. We assessed physicians’ attitudes toward decisional authority for adult venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO), hypothesizing they would favor a medical locus. Design, Setting, Participants A survey of resident/fellow physicians and internal medicine (...) attendings at an academic medical center, May to August 2013. Measurements We used a 24-item, internet-based survey assessing physician-respondents’ demographic characteristics, knowledge, and attitudes regarding decisional authority for adult VA-ECMO. Qualitative narratives were also collected. Main Results A total of 179 physicians completed the survey (15 percent response rate); 48 percent attendings and 52 percent residents/ fellows. Only 32 percent of the respondents indicated that a surrogate’s consent should be required to discontinue VA-ECMO; 56 percent felt that physicians should have the right to discontinue VA-ECMO over a surrogate’s objection. Those who self-reported as “knowledgeable” about VA-ECMO, compared to those who did not, more frequently replied that there should not be presumed consent for VA-ECMO (47.6 percent versus 33.3 percent, p = 0.007), that physicians should have the right to discontinue VAECMO over a surrogate’s objection (76.2 percent versus 50 percent, p = 0.02) and that, given its cost, the use of VA-ECMO should be restricted (81.0 percent versus 54.4 percent, p = 0.005). Conclusions Surveyed physicians, especially those who self-reported as knowledgeable about VA-ECMO and/or were specialists in pulmonary/ critical care, favored a medical locus of decisional authority for VA-ECMO. VA-ECMO is complex, and the data may (1) reflect physicians’ hesitance to cede authority to presumably less knowledgeable patients and surrogates, (2) stem from a stewardship of resources perspective, and/or (3) point to practical efforts to avoid futility and utility disputes. Whether these results indicate a more widespread reversion to paternalism or a more circumscribed usurping of decisional authority occasioned by VA-ECMO necessitates further study. (shrink)

The article sets the most eminent defender of the French Revolution, Immanuel Kant, against its most eminent critic, Edmund Burke, articulating their radically different stance toward the French Revolution. Specifically, this juxtaposition is attempted through the concept of enthusiasm; a psychological state of intense excitement, which can refer to both actors and spectators, to both the motivation of someone, acquiring thus a practical significance, or to their distanced contemplation, thereby acquiring the character of aesthetic appreciation. Using the concept of enthusiasm, (...) Ι aspire to bring out Kant’s and Burke’s radically different approaches to society as well as its history and prospects of progress, ultimately suggesting that enthusiasm can provide a vantage point for the dialogue between the enlightenment and counter-enlightenment theses. (shrink)

En octobre 2006, à 150 m du stade antique d’Olympie, a été mis au jour un mur en calcaire daté de l’époque romaine. La fouille d’urgence menée par la VIIe éphorie des Antiquités préhistoriques et classiques en 2007 et 2008 a dégagé un édifice antique rectangulaire à deux pièces, en poros coquillier, probablement du ve s. av. J.‑C. et, à l’Est, des bains romains. Au cours de la fouille, furent découverts des cerbères bicéphales avec des galettes (popana) dans la gueule. (...) L’un d’eux porte l’inscription dédicatoire ΜΑΤΡΙ ΚΟΡ[ΑΙ ΒΑ]ΣΙΛΕΙ (« à Déméter, à Coré et au roi [c.‑à‑d. Pluton] »), ce qui nous autorise à identifier le sanctuaire comme celui de Déméter Chamyné dont parle Pausanias (VI 21, 1‑3). Cette fouille a aussi livré 33 monnaies de bronze et une monnaie fourrée, dont les mieux conservées datent principalement du iiie s. et du ive s. apr. J.‑C. Dans le lot, on reconnaît parmi les monnaies locales six exemplaires d’Élis, dont les plus anciennes remontent au ive s. av. J.‑C. et les plus récentes datent de l’époque d’Hadrien. La présence de quatre monnaies de Sicyone et de deux monnaies de la région d’Héraia atteste des liens de l’Élide avec le reste du Péloponnèse. (shrink)

Monarchy is a form of government that, roughly, dictates that the right to rule is inherited by birth by a single ruler. But monarchy (absolute or constitutional) breaches fundamental moral principles that undergird representative democracy, such as basic moral equality, dignity and desert. Simply put, the monarchs (and their family) are treated as morally superior to ordinary citizens and as a result ordinary citizens are treated in an unfair and undignified manner. For example, monarchs are respected, enjoy dignity, income, opportunity, (...) public office and exalted social status just because of their inherited office, which is due to the mere historical accident of family lineage. Hence, we have good moral reason to abolish monarchy. Finally, I briefly reply to the pragmatic argument for constitutional monarchy, namely, the argument that monarchy can be allowed to play a largely ceremonial role in the context of democracy because it is beneficial for the function of society. As I argue, societies run by presidential democracies can function equally well and, what is more, no matter what the pragmatic reasons for constitutional monarchy are, we still have stronger moral reasons against it. Therefore, it should be abolished. (shrink)

'Presents a good balance in terms of perspectives and content... should appeal to a large audience of scholars from multiple disciplines, including business history, organisational economics, international business, and strategic management.' -Academy of Management Review 'Pitelis's book opens our eyes to the variety of contexts in which Penrose's theory of firm-level growth is applicable... Rereading Penrose after reading Pitelis's book should result in a different learning experience for the reader, who will connect the dots between Penrose's ideas and different research (...) contexts more naturally.' -Academy of Management ReviewThis book celebrates the monumental contribution to economics, strategic management, international business, and more of Edith Penrose -- the first person to analyse the theory of the growth of the firm. She examined knowledge creation within firms, leading to endogenous growth and to limits to growth, and applied her insights to business strategy and industrial organisation. In this volume, eminent economists and management scholars assess, apply, and extend Penrose's contribution to new fields of enquiry. (shrink)

This collection of original essays explores the topic of skeptical invariantism in theory of knowledge. It eschews historical perspectives and focuses on this traditionally underexplored, semantic characterization of skepticism. The book provides a carefully structured, state-of-the-art overview of skeptical invariantism and offers up new questions and avenues for future research. It treats this semantic form of skepticism as a serious position rather than assuming that skepticism is false and attempting to diagnose where arguments for skepticism go wrong. The essays take (...) up a wide range of different philosophical perspectives on three key questions in the debate about skeptical invariantism: whether the standards for knowledge vary, how demanding the standards for knowledge are, and whether the kind of evidence, reasons, methods, processes etc. that we can bring to bear are sufficient to meet those standards. Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in epistemology and philosophy of language. (shrink)

Economics has an impoverished view of virtuous human behaviour in general, and corporate social responsibility in particular. We claim that this is due to a particular, albeit currently dominant approach to economics. This approach focuses on the pursuit of wealth through efficient allocation of scarce resources by ‘rational’ utility‐maximizing economic agents and institutions, such as markets, firms and states, in the exclusive pursuit of ‘efficiency’. This results in an ethic‐free and often inimical approach to virtuous behaviour. However, a different approach (...) to economics, which focuses on sustainable global resource creation and allocation, asserts virtuous responsible behaviour to be part and parcel of economic analysis and performance. (shrink)

Much of the debate over the definition and criteria for determining our death has focused on disagreement over the correct biological account of death, i.e., what it means for any organism to die. In this paper, we argue that this exclusive focus on the biology of death is misguided, because it ignores ethical and social factors that bear on the acceptability of criteria for determining our death. We propose that attention shift from strictly biological considerations to ethical and social considerations (...) that bear on the determination of what we call “civil death.” We argue for acceptance of a neurological criterion for determining death on grounds that it is the most reasonable way to synthesize biological, ethical, and social considerations about our death.. (shrink)

In this contribution, an aspect of the research of one of the more distinct voices in South African theology, Jaco Gericke, is contextualised and outlined. Although Old Testament Theology is an oft-enough reflected on topic by South African Bible scholars, such a theology is never written by South African scholars. However, Gericke’s work tends in this direction. His work on God-talk, theo-logy, is the more important for our time, because it often relates to the kind of ideas popularly related to (...) for instance God as creator in the Genesis texts. Gericke’s work is however also attractive to intellectuals who work from the precepts of modernism or who are engaged in interdisciplinary research or who for purposes of decoloniality explore alternatives to Western scholarship. However, it is initially not easy for many readers to understand Gericke’s contribution in combining philosophy and Old Testament studies, both practised on high levels. To this end, three instances of Gericke’s argumentation are related as examples, with explanatory and interpretative comments made to demonstrate the high heuristic value of his contributions.Contribution: Jaco Gericke’s work can be characterised as theo-logy, in that he takes seriously the implications of modernism for ‘God-talk’. He combines Philosophy and Old Testament Exegesis as academic enterprises, the intellectual productivity of which is demonstrable by means of examples. (shrink)

In A Metaphysics for Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Helen Steward develops a distinctive account of agency designed to support her argument for ‘Agency Incompatibilism’. I argue that Steward’s account of agency has two main shortcomings. First, the extension of the agency concept Steward is committed to is problematic. Second, Steward’s account of agency turns out on inspection to have significant structural affinities to the accounts it is meant to oppose, and thus faces similar potential problems. One of these (...) problems has to do with Steward’s conception of bodily control. (shrink)

I present an argument for a sophisticated version of sceptical invariantism that has so far gone unnoticed: Bifurcated Sceptical Invariantism (BSI). I argue that it can, on the one hand, (dis)solve the Gettier problem, address the dogmatism paradox and, on the other hand, show some due respect to the Moorean methodological incentive of ‘saving epistemic appearances’. A fortiori, BSI promises to reap some other important explanatory fruit that I go on to adduce (e.g. account for concessive knowledge attributions). BSI can (...) achieve this much because it distinguishes between two distinct but closely interrelated (sub)concepts of (propositional) knowledge, fallible-but-safe knowledge and infallible-and-sensitive knowledge, and explains how the pragmatics and the semantics of knowledge discourse operate at the interface of these two (sub)concepts of knowledge. I conclude that BSI is a novel theory of knowledge discourse that merits serious investigation. (shrink)

A central argument against Ryle’s (The concept of mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) distinction between propositional and non propositional knowledge has relied on linguistic evidence. Stanley and Williamson (J Philos 98:411–444, 2001) have claimed that knowing-how ascriptions do not differ in any relevant syntactic or semantic respect from ascriptions of propositional knowledge, concluding thereby that knowing-how ascriptions attribute propositional knowledge, or a kind thereof. In this paper I examine the cross-linguistic basis of this argument. I focus on the (...) linguistic analysis of practical knowledge ascriptions in Modern Greek, although the issues raised are not restricted to one language. It is relatively straightforward to show that none of the three types of practical knowledge ascriptions in Modern Greek is an embedded question configuration, and hence Stanley and Williamson original claim is confined to certain languages only. This is not the end of the matter, however, since Stanley (Nous 45:207–238, 2011) argues that the equivalents of ‘knowing-how’ ascriptions in certain languages should be semantically analyzed as embedded questions despite their syntactic form. I argue that this fallback position faces a host of empirical and theoretical problems, in view of which it cannot bear the weight Stanley puts on it, supporting a conclusion about the kind of knowledge thereby attributed. (shrink)

A sample of 259 South African managers completed a survey originally administered by Nel (1992). The results of the current study indicated a favourable move on four of the 15 questionable actions used to assess each group's ethical predisposition. Furthermore, the grand means for the two temporal-based samples also provided anecdotal evidence of a positive transition. Virtually identical results were in evidence when the segment of 89 top managers was compared to the sample of its higher level peers from the (...) earlier study by Nel. The results support the premise that today's South African managers have a more ethical predisposition than did their peers of some 20 years prior to them. However, the study concurrently documents the reality that there is ample room for further improvement. (shrink)

A survey of basic metaepistemological positions and debates.

In Politics I 2 (1253a18–27), Aristotle makes a controversial claim that the polis is prior in nature to the individual. The aim of this article is to reconstruct this thesis. According to recent scholarship, there are two main ways to understand priority in nature in Aristotle. It may be construed as ‘existential priority, or as ‘priority in being’. It is argued that: (a) The first option is problematic; it cannot give us a viable reading of the thesis in Politics I (...) 2. Whereas (b) The second option provides us with a sound approach to the puzzle at hand. Furthermore, it is argued that the exegetical plausibility of the suggested reading of the thesis in Politics I 2 (1253a18–27) may be bolstered if we note that, for Aristotle, the polis is a particular kind of hylomorphic whole. (shrink)

Dans ce livre un heritage est deliberement assume: celui de la linguistique structurale et fonctionnelle, celle qui, en Europe, s'inscrit dans la tradition saussurienne et pragoise. A la lumiere d'une experience d'une trentaine d'annees qui associe etroitement la recherche fondamentale en theorie linguistique et la pratique de la description des langues les plus diverses, l'auteur propose les innovations theoriques et methodologiques qui lui semblent necessaires pour maintenir une linguistique fonctionnelle dans le respect du reel et permettre a tous ceux qui (...) le souhaiteront d'acceder a la veritable organisation des langues et a leur dynamique interne. Les problemes abordes touchent a la phonologie, a la syntaxe, a la typologie ainsi qu'au processus de disparition des langues. Mettant en oeuvre une linguistique qui se veut resolument moderne, l'auteur pose le principe d'inachevement comme horizon symbolique d'une discipline qui ne saurait oublier que les faits de langue sont inexorablement lies a des faits de societe et reste ainsi tributaire de ces limites. (shrink)

Many commentators suppose that Anaximander subscribes to a multiple worlds thesis. In particular, they assume that: either Anaximander accepts that there are innumerable co-existent worlds, or he accepts that there are innumerable successive worlds. The first of these interpretations has been shown to be problematic. In this discussion note I present two new arguments against the multiple successive worlds reading of Anaximander, with the intent to buttress a single world reconstruction of his cosmology.

The objective of this paper is to articulate a distinction between habit and bodily skill as different ways of acting without deliberation. I start by elaborating on a distinction between habit and skill as different kinds of dispositions. Then I argue that this distinction has direct implications for the varieties of automaticity exhibited in habitual and skilful bodily acts. The argument suggests that paying close attention to the metaphysics of agency can help to articulate more precisely questions regarding the varieties (...) of automaticity exhibited in overt action. (shrink)