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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Skeptical invariantism does not account for the intuitive connections between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning and this constitutes a significant problem for the position because it does not save corresponding epistemic appearances (cf. Hawthorne (2004:131-5)). Moreover, it is an attraction of fallibilist over infallibilist-skeptical views that they can easily account for the epistemic appearances about the connections between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning (cf. Williamson (2000:249-255)). Call this argument ‘the argument from the knowledge norm’. I motivate and develop a Humean, (...) pragmatist strategy for a skeptical response to ‘the argument from the knowledge norm’. Afterwards I outline a ‘toy’ version of pragmatic skepticism that can implement the strategy and save our everyday practice of assertion and practical reasoning. To this effect, I distinguish between assertibility conditions and truth conditions for ‘know’ and suggest that while assertibility conditions are pragmatic conditions sensitive to practical exigencies, truth conditions are semantic conditions sensitive only to truth. I briefly respond to three objections and conclude that pragmatic skepticism is resourceful enough to save our everyday practice of (fallibilist) assertion and practical reasoning and, hence, pay some due respect to corresponding epistemic appearances. (shrink)

Charles Jarrett and P. D. Zuk have argued on independent grounds that Spinoza's Ethics delineates a moral antirealist/constructivist position. I reconstruct their basic arguments, present their textual evidence, and suggest that the evidence is, in principle, compatible with moral realism. As I argue, Jarrett and Zuk have opted for an antirealist/constructivist interpretation of the adduced textual evidence because they tacitly rely on a mistaken metaethical assumption: that relational normativity entails moral antirealism/constructivism. I explain why this is not the case by (...) reference to Aristotle's virtue ethics, as well as by reference to various contemporary metaethical positions that conjoin relational normativity and moral realism. I conclude that the textual evidence Jarrett and Zuk rely on does not suffice to render Spinoza's Ethics unequivocally morally antirealist/constructivist and that the morally realist interpretation remains defensible. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that the things one does in the course of skilled and habitual activity present a difficult case for the ‘standard story’ of action. They are things intentionally done, but they do not seem to be suitably related to mental states. I suggest that once manifestations of habit are properly distinguished from exercises of skills and other kinds of spontaneous acts, we can see that habit raises a distinctive sort of problem. I examine certain responses that have (...) been given, as well as responses that could be given on behalf of the standard story to the problems presented by habitual activity. These responses rely on the idea of a kind of intention that does not ensue from conscious thought or deliberation. I raise three different objections to this line of response. The conclusion is that habit explains aspects of human behavior that cannot be accounted by ascribing intentions of any kind. (shrink)

Learning Analytics und Künstliche Intelligenz in der Hochschulbildung versprechen individualisierte und personalisierte Verbesserung des Lernens und Lehrens. Bildungstechnologien bieten aus ethischer Perspektive jedoch nicht nur Verbesserungspotentiale und -chancen, sondern sie bringen auch Risiken und potenzielle Gefahren mit sich, für das Individuum, aber auch für die Gesellschaft als Ganzes. Eine ethische Reflexion und Diskussion der Chancen und Risiken ist für eine ethisch vertretbare Gestaltung, Implementierung und Nutzung von solchen Technologien von fundamentaler Bedeutung, wie z. B. im Rahmen des Projekts KI:edu-nrw an (...) der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Eine solche Reflexion und Diskussion bedarf allerdings gewisser ethischer Basiskompetenzen. Das Teilprojekt Ethik entwickelte ein Konzept tugendethischer Kompetenzbildung, um u. a. disziplinäre Barrieren abzubauen sowie um Praktizierenden Basiswerkzeuge der ethischen Reflexion und Entscheidungsfindung in ihren jeweiligen Anwendungskontexten bereitzustellen. In diesem Beitrag stellen wir sowohl die theoretischen Fundamente unseres Ansatzes als auch den Prozess und die Ergebnisse unserer Arbeit dar. (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)

The intellectual ferment that emerged in postwar France was marked by the renaissance of Hegel’s thought and the focus on Marx's early writings. In a parallel way, the death of Stalin, the uprising of 1953 in East Germany and the revolts in Hungary and Poland in 1956 provoked a thorough critique against the theory and practice of orthodox Marxism. The relationship between Marx and Marxism or the issue about the philosophical foundations of Marx’s thinking became the subject of long-standing controversy (...) and gave rise to several interpretations of Marx’s work. These debates were decisively fostered by the foreign intellectuals and refugees who arrived in France after the end of the Second World War; inter alia, a generation of young Greek intellectuals that included the prominent figures of Kostas Axelos, Cornelius Castoriadis and Kostas Papaioannou. This article focuses on Axelos’, Castoriadis’ and Papaioannou’s critique of Marx and provides an anti-critique of their intellectual endeavour. It outlines the common basis of their critical confrontation with the Marxian theorizing and argues that they interpreted Marx’s thought in a manner similar to orthodox Marxism. Despite the undoubted merits of their critique, they did not take it to all its theoretical and political conclusions. As a result, the horizons they opened lack radicalism and their dialogue with Marx was left open to being misunderstood. (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 domain of agential powers is marked by a contrast that does not arise in the case of dispositions of inanimate objects: the contrast between propensities or tendencies on the one hand, and capacities or abilities on the other. According to Ryle (1949), this contrast plays an important role in the ‘logical geography’ of the dispositional concepts used in the explanation and assessment of action. However, most subsequent philosophers use the terms of art ‘power’ or ‘disposition’ indiscriminately in formulating central (...) metaphysical claims about human agency, assuming that an adequate account of inanimate dispositions can safely be used for such purposes. As a result, the distinctive features of propensities and capacities drop out of view. This is bound to obscure distinctions of crucial importance to the understanding of human agency. In order to show this, I undertake to articulate some central differences between propensities and capacities. Propensities and capacities have a different relation to value, as well as a concomitant difference in their metaphysical structure. The argument points to an explanation of why the distinction between propensities and capacities does not arise in the case of non-agential powers. This explanation takes us back to questions about the nature of human agency. (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 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 widely claimed that climate change has increased the magnitude and the frequency of natural phenomena such as storms, droughts, and floods with the concomitant costs in terms of damages and victims. This paper using weekly data from global stock market indices in a Fama–French model, examines how and to what extent market agents and investors react to such events. As a yardstick for comparison purposes, the possible market impact of industrial accidents is also incorporated and examined in the (...) empirical investigation. The study uses in a comparative approach the STOXX Global ESG Environmental Leaders index and the STOXX Global index diversified across 1800 top companies. Results reported herein seem to indicate that natural and anthropogenic adversity have no immediate impact on the stock indices, while wildfires have an immediate reduction impact on market risk in the case of the ESG Environmental Leaders index. Moreover, wildfires and industrial accidents appear to cause a significant reduction of systematic risk over the next week following the incident. However, the magnitude of the effect is higher in the case of the ESG Environmental Leaders stock index. Finally, the effect on systematic risk by industrial accidents is temporarily without any lasting imprint. (shrink)

Bill Pollard has recently developed an account of habits of action, endeavoring to rehabilitate the traditional notion of habit in a way that can be used to address current philosophical concerns. I argue that Pollard’s account has important shortcomings. The account is intended to apply indiscriminately to both habitual and skilled acts, but this overlooks crucial distinctions. Moreover, Pollard’s account fails to do justice to the various ways in which the idea of habit figures in the explanation and assessment of (...) action. These shortcomings are a consequence of certain assumptions Pollard shares with the accounts of mind and action he sets to criticize. As long as these assumptions are left intact, the potential of dispositional notions such as habit and skill to contribute to contemporary debates will not be realized. (shrink)

Patients living with chronic pain require appropriate access to opioid therapy along with improved access to pain care and additional therapeutic options. It's both medically reasonable and ethical to consider opioid therapy as a treatment option in the management of chronic, non-cancer pain for a subset of patients with severe pain that is unresponsive to other therapies, negatively impacts function or quality of life, and will likely outweigh the potential harms. This paper will examine opioid therapy in the setting of (...) the opioid epidemic, why critics feel that the CDC guideline has resulted in harsh consequences for patients and their physicians, and the rationale for opioid therapy as a means of providing ethical and compassionate pain care. (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 study, we investigate the way in which Damascius describes the relation of the ‘forms’ with the ‘parts’ and the ‘elements’ in his treatise De Principiis, in which he utilizes aspects of the Pre-Socratic natural philosophy as well as Aristotle’s Physica. We also shed light on the epistemological terms and conditions of his analysis. From a methodological point of view, we follow the categorical schemas found in the text, which reflect the philosopher’s general positions with respect to the formation (...) of the natural world, through which a particularly advanced and mathematically expressed natural science for studying the structures of the universe is revealed. Considering that Damascius’ main research goal is to analytically describe the general archetypical categories of the sensible world, the greatest conclusion that we draw is that the formation of the natural world came from the activation-composition of the ‘elements’, that is, the material projections, in their separations, of the productive manifestations of the metaphysical archetypal Ideas. (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)

This paper addresses the relation between the intelligible and the material world in the works of the Neoplatonic philosopher Damascius (ca. 460-ca. 538 AD), who uses the theory of the Platonic Ideas in order to discuss the evolution from the One to the Manifold. This relation arises through specific laws that lead to the development of a harmonious cosmic system. The vertical and the horizontal segmentation of metaphysical causes is implemented in the process of the generation of the empirical world, (...) which is nevertheless imperfect in the sense that it is an image of the metaphysical world and is subject to generation and decay. The metaphysical world constitutes a normative basis for the beings of the world of experience to the same extent in the ontological as in the aesthetic and ethical area. The vertical segmentation cannot be understood without the horizontal because in that case the generation of tangible beings, which are complex realities, would be implausible. At the same time, the horizontal segmentation without the vertical would result in inactive metaphysical causes. The simple fact that the empirical world exists excludes such alternatives. (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 1, February 2020, Page 128-135.

The question of what role sex plays in evolution is still open despite decades of research. It has often been assumed that sex should facilitate the increase in fitness. Hence, the fact that it may break down highly favorable genetic combinations has been seen as a problem. Here, we consider an alternative approach. We define a measure that represents the ability of alleles to perform well across different combinations and, using numerical iterations within a classical population-genetic framework, show that selection (...) in the presence of sex favors this ability in a highly robust manner. We also show that the mechanism responsible for this effect has been out of the purview of previous theory, because it operates during the evolutionary transient, and that the breaking down of favorable genetic combinations is an integral part of it. Implications of these results and more to evolutionary theory are discussed. (shrink)

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)

Recent literature has paid considerable attention to evolutionary debunking arguments. But the cogency of evolutionary debunking arguments is compromised by a problem for such arguments that has been somewhat overlooked, namely, what we may call ‘the demarcation problem.’ This is the problem of asking in virtue of what regulative metaepistemic norm evolutionary considerations either render a belief justified, or debunk it as unjustified. In this paper, I present and explain why in the absence of such a regulative metaepistemic norm any (...) appeal to evolutionary considerations (in order to justify or debunk a belief) is bound to be ad hoc and question-begging and, therefore, ultimately unjustified. (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 survey of basic metaepistemological positions and debates.