Aesthetic perception is one of the most interesting topics for philosophers and scientists who investigate how it influences our interactions with objects and states of affairs. Over the last few years, several studies have attempted to determine “how aesthetics is represented in an object,” and how a specific feature of an object could evoke the respective feelings during perception. Despite the vast number of approaches and models, we believe that these explanations do not resolve the problem concerning the conditions under (...) which aesthetic perception occurs, and what constitutes the content of these perceptions. Adopting a naturalistic perspective, we here view aesthetic perception as a normative process that enables agents to enhance their interactions with physical and socio-cultural environments. Considering perception as an anticipatory and preparatory process of detection and evaluation of indications of potential interactions, we argue that the minimal content of aesthetic perception is an emotionally valued indication of interaction potentiality. Aesthetic perception allows an agent to normatively anticipate interaction potentialities, thus increasing sense making and reducing the uncertainty of interaction. This conception of aesthetic perception is compatible with contemporary evidence from neuroscience, experimental aesthetics, and interaction design. The proposed model overcomes several problems of transcendental, art-centered, and objective aesthetics as it offers an alternative to the idea of aesthetic objects that carry inherent values by explaining “the aesthetic” as emergent in perception within a context of uncertain interaction. (shrink)

Speculative logical theory, as provided in Hegel’s Science of Logic, consists of three main parts: the logic of being, the logic of essence, and the logic of the concept. The peculiar character of each logic’s starting point determines the most general character of each logic’s development. The present paper aims at making explicit the character of the starting-point of the third logic, the logic of the concept. This starting-point is exemplified by the category of universality. It is shown (a) that (...) the fundamental determination of this category is the harmonious unit y of self-identity and full determinacy and (b) that this unity has necessarily the logical structure of “double shining.” The latter is described in detail and justification is provided as to why it is preferred from “single shining.” I conclude the paper by defending the structure of “double shining” against certain objections raised against it by Friedrike Schick and Christian Iber. (shrink)

Spinoza’s definition of ‘attribute’ has been described as ‘one of the most puzzling passages in the Ethics’ and ‘a longstanding worry’ for Spinoza interpreters. Its puzzling status stems from its apparent ‘subjectivist’ character and the dominant understanding of Spinoza’s notion of attribute as an ‘objectivist’ notion. The paper aspires to remove this puzzlement by proposing and defending a reading of E1d4 in which it is understood to have two senses. First, I defend the objectivist character of Spinoza’s notion of attribute, (...) and explain why E1d4 is problematic within the framework of an objectivist interpretation of the Spinozistic attribute. Second, I propose a reading of E1d4 as having two senses and explain the cause of an apparent contradiction in E1d4. Finally, I devote the largest part of the paper to a defence of the Two-Sense Reading of E1d4. More specifically, I draw on four sources for this defence: the structure of E1d1 and E1d3, the content and form of E1p4 and its demonstration, Spinoza’s doctrine of parallelism and Descartes’ treatment of attribute and its influence on Spinoza. (shrink)

This paper examines what exactly amounts to the view commonly known as ‘perspectivism’, sometimes also known as ‘perspectivalism’. Of the various possible conceptions of perspectivism, four are singled out for closer inspection. Each makes clearly separable claims of varying strength. Their strength is judged against how much doubt they throw on key claims made by the view’s presumed arch-nemesis, namely realism. It is argued that the first two offer no serious challenge to realism. To be precise, it is argued that (...) the first one is blatantly false, while the second is true but utterly harmless. Things are less clear cut with the other two conceptions of perspectivism. If true, they appear to present a more serious challenge to realism. It is argued that considerable doubts hang over their truth as to date arguments raised in their support are far from compelling. Even so, these conceptions cannot be summarily dismissed. Indeed, under more reasonable construals, they need not be for realism to survive and thrive. This is because claims these conceptions make in the name of perspectivism turn out to be easily coupled with realism. (shrink)

Hegel’s Science of Logic is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest works of European philosophy. However, its contribution to arguably the most important philosophical problem, Pyrrhonian scepticism, has never been examined in any detail. Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Hegel's Theory of Judgement fills a great lacuna in Hegel scholarship by convincingly proving that the dialectic of the judgement in Hegel’s Science of Logic successfully refutes this kind of scepticism. Although Ioannis Trisokkas has written the book primarily for those students (...) of philosophy who already have an interest in Hegel’s epistemology and philosophy of language and/or his Science of Logic, it will also appeal to those who investigate the problem of scepticism independently of the Hegel corpus. (shrink)

An integral part of the schooling of scientists, especially experimental ones, is the cultivation of the significance and role of scientific evidence. Naturally this schooling is not conducted in vacuuo. Budding scientists already have experiences of, and intuitions about, the use of evidence in everyday life. In this talk I take a sustained look at the relations between common-sense notions of evidence and scientific ones. Among other things, I argue that scientific notions of evidence and associated practices are in many (...) ways conservative extensions of what is best about our common-sense notions and practices. This contradicts a rather widely held but often tacit view that science and its notions are largely insular. (shrink)

Structural realists of nearly all stripes endorse the structural continuity claim. Roughly speaking, this is the claim that the structure of successful scientific theories survives theory change because it has latched on to the structure of the world. In this paper I elaborate, elucidate and modify the structural continuity claim and its associated argument. I do so without presupposing a particular conception of structure that favours this or that kind of structural realism. Instead I focus on how structural realists can (...) best account for the neutrally formulated historical facts. The result, I hope, crystallises some of the shared commitments, desiderata and limits of structural realists. (shrink)

This paper counters an objection raised against one of Bertrand Russell’s lesser-known epistemological views, viz. ‘‘structural realism’’ (SR). In short, SR holds that at most we have knowledge of the structure of the external (i.e., physical) world. M. H. A. Newman’s allegedly fatal objection is that SR is either trivial or false. I argue that the accusation of triviality is itself empty since it fails to establish that SR knowledge claims are uninformative. Moreover, appealing to Quine’s notion of ontological relativity, (...) I suggest that far from being false, SR knowledge claims seem to be the most that we can hope for. (shrink)

In this paper, we would show how the logical object “square of opposition”, viewed as semiotic object, has been historically transformed since its appearance in Aristotle’s texts until the works of Vasiliev. These transformations were accompanied each time with a new understanding and interpretation of Aristotle’s original text and, in the last case, with a transformation of its geometric configuration. The initial textual codification of the theory of opposition in Aristotle’s works is transformed into a diagrammatic one, based on a (...) new “reading” of the Aristotelian text by the medieval scholars that altered the semantics of the O form. Further, based on the medieval “Neo-Aristotelian” reading, the logicians of the nineteenth century suggest new diagrammatic representations, based on new interpretations of quantification of judgements within the algebraic and the functional logical traditions. In all these interpretations, the original square configuration remains invariant. However, Nikolai A. Vasiliev marks a turning point in history. He explicitly attacks the established logical tradition and suggests a new alternation of semantics of the O form, based on Aristotelian concepts that were neglected in the Aristotelian tradition of logic, notably the concept of indefinite judgement. This leads to a configurational transformation of the “square” of opposition into a “triangle”, where the points standing for the O and I forms are contracted into one point, the M form that now stands for particular judgement with altered semantics. The new transformation goes beyond the Aristotelian logic paradigm to a new “Non-Aristotelian” logic, i.e. to paraconsistent logic, although the argumentation used in support of it is phrased in Aristotelian style and the context of discovery is foundational. It establishes a bifurcation point in the development of logic. No unique logic is recognized, but different logics concerning different domains. One branch of logic remains to be the “Neo-Aristotelian” one, while the new logic is “Non-Aristotelian”. (shrink)

Scientific realists endeavour to secure inferences from empirical success to approximate truth by arguing that despite the demise of empirically successful theories the parts of those theories responsible for their success do in fact survive theory change. If, as some anti-realists have recently suggested, those parts of theories that are responsible for their success are only identifiable in retrospect, namely as those that have survived, then the realist approach is trivialised for now success and survival are guaranteed to coincide. The (...) aim of this paper is to counter this argument by identifying successful theory parts independently from their survival. (shrink)

In a recent PSA paper (2001a) as well as some other papers ((1995), (2000), (2001b)) and a book chapter (1999, ch. 7), Stathis Psillos raised a number of objections against structural realism. The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) to evaluate part of Psillos’ offence on the Russellian version of epistemic structural realism (ESR for short), 2) to elaborate more fully what Russellian ESR involves, and 3) to suggest improvements where it is indeed failing.

Bergson's views on time are supported by the time operator qualifying complex systems with a concept of time that is essentially difierent from the clock time used to register the events. Irreversibility, unpredictability, and innovation characterize complex systems in contrast with the reversibility, predictability and lack of novelties of the regular motions of integrable systems. The idea for this work came from our teacher Ilya Prigogine who pointed out repeatedly that the time operator actually incorporates Bergson's views on time. We (...) construct a time operator which incorporates Bergson's intuitive views on durations, indeterminism, innovations and irreversibility and the significance of events in terms of inno- vation and aging. In addition, Bergson emphasized that the signif- icance of durations depends on consciousness and memory, a discussion beyond the proposed time operator. Moreover we discuss the relation of Bergson's time with the internal time concepts of Husserl and Heidegger. (shrink)

The present volume originates in an international conference in honor of Peter Funke held in April 15–18, 2015 in the Villa Vigoni (Loveno di Menaggio, Italy). It consists of fifteen contributions—each one with its own bibliography—and concluding remarks that serve also as a kind of summary of the entire volume. There is no introduction setting up the aims and methodologies of the volume, only a two-page foreword (p. vii–viii) by the two editors. Although it is not stated explicitly, the volu...

The richly illustrated volume represents the probably first serious attempt to bring astronomy, the perception of real and cosmic time, and the nocturnal experience of cults and cult places into the discussion about religion and sacred space. It consists of seven chapters—two of which are the introduction and the conclusions—an appendix, a glossary, notes, bibliography, and an index. Between p. 144 and p. 145 the volume contains a series of color plates that duplicate some of the black-and-wh...

The present article reports several applied experiments in the generation of aesthetic forms from algorithms and data. In these experiments algorithms and data are the driving morphogenetic force to such an extent that the role of the human creator must be reexamined case-by-case. Artists that program the graphics or sound generating algorithms may in turn be said to be programmed perceptually by the resulting artworks, in the sense that they must adapt their perception in a conscious or involuntary effort to (...) detect or project meaning in their form. While forms generated by algorithms or data are to a large extent unpredictable, an intimate relationship between programmer, performer/listener/viewer and the piece is created through instinctive, empirical familiarity with the tools and the creative process, which is afforded by the immediate and highly interactive nature of the frameworks employed. A simple iterative algorithm that produces a novel kind of chaotic geometric shapes is presented. Examples of an application of Paul Klee’s principles of visual form in programming interactive audio-visual dance performance are given. These principles are directly derived from the language-based metaphor of active, medial and passive voice. Finally, ongoing experiments in letting language structures emerge from data derived from a sound database are presented. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine a view called ‘Epistemic Structural Realism’, which holds that we can, at best, have knowledge of the structure of the physical world. Put crudely, we can know physical objects only to the extent that they are nodes in a structure. In the spirit of Occam’s razor, I argue that, given certain minimal assumptions, epistemic structural realism provides a viable and reasonable scientific realist position that is less vulnerable to anti-realist arguments than any of its rivals.

We investigate the impact of perceived greenwashing on customer satisfaction. Unlike prior research that largely examines customer perceptions associated with irresponsible behavior, we focus on cases where firms overcommit and/or do not deliver on promised socially responsible actions. We theorize that this type of greenwashing is associated with lower customer satisfaction because customers perceive greenwashing through the lens of corporate hypocrisy. Using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for U.S. companies during the period 2008–2016, we document a negative (...) link between perceived greenwashing related to green product innovation (GPI) and the ACSI index. We demonstrate that this effect is primarily triggered by corporate policies exceeding the corresponding implementation actions and not by lower levels of implementation. We also show that a firm’s capability reputation mitigates the negative effect of greenwashing on customer satisfaction. Moreover, we conduct an experiment and provide evidence confirming that GPI greenwashing is in fact perceived by customers as corporate hypocrisy. (shrink)

Nowadays, aesthetics are generally considered as a crucial aspect that affects the way we confront things, events, and states of affairs. However, the functional role of aesthetics in the interaction between agent and environment has not been addressed effectively. Our objective here is to provide an explanation concerning the role of aesthetics, and especially, of the aesthetic experience as a fundamental bodily and emotional activity in the respective interactions. An explanation of the functional role of the aesthetic experience could offer (...) new orientations to our understanding of embodied cognition and of aesthetics as a fundamental part of it. We argue that aesthetic experience, especially its emotional dimension, is an evaluative process that influences the anticipation for stable and successful interactions with the environment. In other words, aesthetics facilitates sense-making as they affect what might be anticipated by an action tendency with respect to an environment. (shrink)

The plague of 541–542 ad started in Pelusium, a town in Egypt, and reached Constantinople in 542 ad. The following series summarizes the event and its repeated appearance until 746 ad.

The unauthorized 1650 publication of The Elements of Law broke Hobbes’s treatise into two parts that were inconsistent with his own division of the work. This obscured what is arguably the most important insight into Hobbes’s method: his account of how human beings use language to instigate and appease others. I review the evidence of how the publication history of the Elements resulted in a break between I.13 and I.14 that Hobbes did not intend. I then argue that as the (...) description of the very method that Hobbes was using to counteract dangerous dogmatists and appease his fellow citizens, the discussion in question made sense in a work intended for private circulation but not in treatises to be read by those on whom the method was to be applied. I show how reading I.13 and I.14 together, as Hobbes had intended, shows that Hobbes never changed his mind about rhetoric. (shrink)

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is twofold: to provide an overview of related studies and to highlight research gaps and questions that need to be addressed. Research conducted in three-dimensional (3D) online environments constitutes a different research context, not least because it involves the recruitment of avatars in the research process. Researchers need to appreciate better the ethical concerns that arise in this novel, fast-evolving context and how these concern different stakeholders.Design/methodology/approach– The paper employs an interdisciplinary desk-research approach. It (...) critically reviews related literature, highlights the involved stakeholders, discusses ethical issues from a marketing research perspective and concludes with a discussion of related studies and research gaps, providing direct future research avenues.Findings– The characteristics of the 3D online environments and the behaviour and experiences of their users set the boundaries and guide the way regarding the ethical research in this context.Research limitations/implications– The paper does not present primary empirical results, instead it reviews and critiques related literature in 3D online environments and sets the agenda for future research.Practical implications– The paper provides ethical guidelines and identifies blurred areas in conducting or participating in research in 3D online environments.Originality/value– Based on earlier studies and examples of ethical concerns when studying 3D online environments, this paper emphasises the parameters that should be taken into consideration in current and future research studies. (shrink)

This book examines the place of physical bodies, a major topic of natural philosophy that has occupied philosophers since antiquity. Aristotle's conceptions of place (topos) and the void (kenon), as expounded in the 'Physics', were systematically repudiated by John Philoponus (ca. 485-570) in his philosophical commentary on that work. The primary philosophical concern of the present study is the in-depth investigation of the concept of place established by Philoponus, putting forward the claim that the latter offers satisfactory solutions to problems (...) raised by Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition regarding the nature of place. Philoponus' account proposes a specific physical model of how physical bodies exist and move in place, and regards place as an intrinsic reality of the physical cosmos. Due to exactly this model, his account may be considered as strictly pertaining to the study of physics, thereby constituting a remarkable episode in the history of philosophy and science. (shrink)

Barring some civilisation-ending natural or man-made catastrophe, future scientists will likely incorporate fully fledged artificially intelligent agents in their ranks. Their tasks will include the conjecturing, extending and testing of hypotheses. At present human scientists have a number of methods to help them carry out those tasks. These range from the well-articulated, formal and unexceptional rules to the semi-articulated rules-of-thumb and intuitive hunches. If we are to hand over at least some of the aforementioned tasks to artificially intelligent agents, we (...) need to find ways to make explicit and ultimately formal, not to mention computable, the more obscure of the methods that scientists currently employ with some measure of success in their inquiries. The focus of this talk is a problem for which the available solutions are at best semi-articulated and far from perfect. It concerns the question of how to conjecture new hypotheses or extend existing ones such that they do not save phenomena in gerrymandered or ad hoc ways. This talk puts forward a fully articulated formal solution to this problem by specifying what it is about the internal constitution of the content of a hypothesis that makes it gerrymandered or ad hoc. In doing so, it helps prepare the ground for the delegation of a full gamut of investigative duties to the artificially intelligent scientists of the future. (shrink)

Kyle Stanford (2006) argues that the most serious and powerful challenge to scientific realism has been neglected. The problem of unconceived alternatives (PUA), as he calls it, holds that throughout history scientists have failed to conceive alternative theories roughly equally wellconfirmed (by the available evidence) to the theories of the day and, crucially, that such alternatives eventually were conceived and adopted by some section of the scientific community. PUA is a version of the argument from the underdetermination of theories by (...) evidence (UTE) but departs from it in two significant ways: (i) there is a shift from artificially produced rival theories - of the kind typically talked about in the underdetermination debate - to actual rivals and (ii) there is a shift from empirically equivalent rivals to rivals that are equally well-confirmed by the available evidence at a given point in time. In this talk I will argue that by these shifts Stanford successfully manages to find more historical evidence for PUA (than do proponents of UTE), but only at the expense of making his thesis ineffectual. (shrink)

Even though aesthetics and affordances are two important factors based on which designers provide effective ways of interaction through their artifacts, there is no study or theoretical model that relates these two aspects of design. We suggest a theoretical explanation that relates the underlying functionality of aesthetics, in particular, of interaction aesthetics and of affordances in the design process. Our claim is that interaction aesthetics are one among other factors that allow users to enhance the detection of action possibilities and (...) consequently, the detection of affordances. Our aim is first to discuss the role of interaction aesthetics in the design process, and second to suggest an explanation for their role in the detection of affordances when users interact with artifacts. (shrink)

This is the first part of a study on cardinals that are characterizable by Scott sentences. Building on previous work of Hjorth, Malitz, and Baumgartner, we study which cardinals are characterizable by a Scott sentence $\phi$, in the sense that $\phi$ characterizes $\kappa$, if $\phi$ has a model of size $\kappa$ but no models of size $\kappa^{+}$. We show that the set of cardinals that are characterized by a Scott sentence is closed under successors, countable unions, and countable products. We (...) also prove that if $\aleph_{\alpha}$ is characterized by a Scott sentence, at least one of $\aleph_{\alpha}$, $\aleph_{\alpha+1}$, or $$ is homogeneously characterizable. Based on an argument of Shelah, we give counterexamples that characterizable cardinals are not closed under predecessors or cofinalities. (shrink)

Within the Computer Science community, many ethical issues have emerged as significant and critical concerns. Computer ethics is an academic field in its own right and there are unique ethical issues associated with information technology. It encompasses a range of issues and concerns including privacy and agency around personal information, Artificial Intelligence and pervasive technology, the Internet of Things and surveillance applications. As computing technology impacts society at an ever growing pace, there are growing calls for more computer ethics content (...) to be included in Computer Science curricula. In this paper we present the results of a survey that polled faculty from Computer Science and related disciplines about teaching practices for computer ethics at their institutions. The survey was completed by respondents from 61 universities across 23 European countries. Participants were surveyed on whether or not computer ethics is taught to Computer Science students at each institution, the reasons why computer ethics is or is not taught, how computer ethics is taught, the background of staff who teach computer ethics and the scope of computer ethics curricula. This paper presents and discusses the results of the survey. (shrink)