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)

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)

We determined the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms among elite Spanish athletes from a broad range of sports and levels of competition and examined the associations between the presence of symptoms and perceived sport-specific weight pressures. We surveyed 646 elite athletes representing 33 sports from top-division teams and two elite athlete training centers in Catalonia. Based on the results of the Eating Attitudes Test-26 responses, 5.1% of athletes were at risk of EDs. The highest rates of ED symptoms were observed (...) in male endurance athletes and female esthetic athletes. Competition level was not a risk factor. The only gender differences in the presence of ED symptoms by competing level were observed in athletes competing at the national level. Female athletes with ED symptoms scored higher on the two subscales of the Spanish version of the Weight Pressures in Sport tool: coach and sport-specific pressures and pressures from teammates and due to uniform. Male athletes with ED symptoms scored higher on the pressures due to uniform subscale. Finally, symptomatic female but not male athletes competing at international and national levels also perceived greater sport-specific weight pressures. (shrink)

Plantar un árbol dónde se necesita es un acto solidario. Investigar las características del bosque y las causas de su degradación, es una actividad de aprendizaje. Comprometerse en una campaña de reforestación aplicando y aprovechando lo estudiado, es aprendizaje-servicio.

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)

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)

Exploring emotions, in terms of their evolutionary origin; their basic neurobiological substratum, and their functional significance in autonomous agents, we propose a model of minimal functionality of emotions. Our aim is to provide a naturalized explanation – mostly based on an interactivist model of emergent representation and appraisal theory of emotions – concerning basic aesthetic emotions in the formation of aesthetic judgment. We suggest two processes the Cognitive Variables Subsystem (CVS) which is fundamental for the accomplishment of the function of (...) heuristic learning; and Aesthetic Appraisal Subsystem (AAS) which primarily affects the elicitation of aesthetic emotional meanings. These two subsystems (CVS and AAS) are organizationally connected and affect the action readiness of the autonomous agent. More specifically, we consider the emotional outcome of these two subsystems as a functional indication that strengthens or weakens the anticipation for the resolution of the dynamic uncertainty that emerges in the particular interaction. (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)

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)

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 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.

This paper seeks to examine the relationship and the interaction between institutions, policy and the labour market in the light of the ideas of the first generation of institutional economists, who, in contrast to neoclassicals, conceived of the economy as a nexus of institutions, underlining, therefore, the significant role of institutional and non-market factors in the functioning of an economic system. They also criticised those who define (economic) welfare only in terms of efficiency and satisfaction of consumer interests; institutionalists instead (...) focus on issues related to justice, human self-development and labourers' welfare. In addition, early institutionalists paid considerable attention to the institutional framework of the labour market. In particular, the first generation of institutional economists highlighted the importance of institutions and other non-market parameters in determining the level of wages and employment (e.g. the role of the bargaining power of workers and employers). Furthermore, they made substantial contributions towards the field of labour policy and they were pioneers in the formulation of economic and social policy. Specifically, various modern institutions and labour market policies, such as unemployment benefits, industrial training and active employment policies, were implemented in the US, during the first decades of the 20th century, after the recommendation of the institutional labour economists. Therefore, their ideas, besides being interesting from a historical point of view, may also be useful in today's analysis of workers' problems and the functioning of modern labour markets. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 1 Seiten: 175-220.

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)

Aesthetic experience, as a cognitive activity is a fundamental part of the interaction process in which an agent attempts to interpret his/her environment in order to support the fundamental process of decision making. Proposing a four-level interactive model, we underline and indicate the functions that provide the operations of aesthetic experience and, by extension, of aesthetic judgment. Particularly in this paper, we suggest an integration of the fundamental Peircean semiotic parameters and their related levels of semiotic organization with the proposed (...) model. Our aim is to provide a further theoretical understanding with respect to the perception of aesthetics and to enrich our models regarding the functionality of aesthetic interpretation, using the theoretical interpretive richness provided by the semiotic perspective. (shrink)

Human rights have become an important ideal in current times, yet our age has witnessed more violations of human rights than any previous less enlightened one. This book explores the historical and theoretical dimensions of this paradox. Divided into two parts, the first section offers an alternative history of natural law, in which natural rights are represented as the eternal human struggle to resist opression and to fight for a society in which people are no longer degraded or despised. At (...) the time of their birth in the 18th Century and again in the popular uprisings of the last decade, human rights became the dominant critique of law and society. The radical rhetoric of rights and its apparently endless expansive potential has led to its adoption by governments and individuals alike seeking to justify their actions on moral grounds and has undermined its radical edge. Part Two examines the philosophical logic of rights. The classical critiques of Kant, Burke, Hegel and Marx illuminate traditional aproaches to the concept of human rights. The work of Heidegger, Sartre and psychoanalysis is used to deconstruct the metaphisical essentialism of bothe universalists and cultural relativists. Finally, through a consideration of the ethics of otherness, and with reference to recent human rights violations, it is argued that the end of human rights is to judge law and politics from a moral stand point which both transcends the present and is historically relevant. (shrink)

In June 2018 the Texan philosopher and distinguished bioethicist Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. crossed the great divide to meet his maker, as he would probably put it. His work remains till now the most systematic effort to fully revise Bioethics based on the doctrines of the Orthodox Christian theology, while it is also apreciseaccount ofEthics and Bioethics in the “after God” era. Engelhardt was anexcellent master of ancient Greek, medieval, western and eastern philosophy, and after heconverted from the Roman Catholic to (...) the Eastern Orthodox Church – officially the Orthodox Catholic Church – he indulged in the works of the Holy Fathers andbecame greatly influenced by them. This is clearlymanifest in his views and continuous reference to Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers. His conversion crucially influenced not only his bioethical views, but also his entire philosophical system. This magnificent journey obviously turned the Texan philosopher into a true Theologist – not in the academic sense, but in the one the Orthodox Catholic Church accepts, according to which “a Theologist is a person of God, from God, before God and speaks to praise God”. Engelhardt was not the first to deal with bioethical issues under the spectrum of Orthodox Theology, but he was the first to unravel both secular and Western-Church Bioethics and suggest a totally different version of Bioethicsbased on the principles of Orthodox ethics, the ceremonial and esoteric life of the Orthodox Church, having previously made himself a true communicant of both the paternal tradition and dogmatic teaching. (shrink)

Erudite and timely, this book is a key contribution to the renewal of radical theory and politics.

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)

Jurisprudence is the prudence of jus, law's consciousness and conscience. Throughout history, when thinkers wanted to contemplate the organisation of society or the relationship between authority and the subject, they turned to law. All great philosophers, from Plato to Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber had either studied the law or had a deep understanding of legal operations. But jurisprudence is also the conscience of law, the exploration of law's justice and of an ideal law or equity at the bar (...) of which state law is always judged. Jurisprudence brings together 'is' and 'ought', the positive and the normative, law and justice. But after a long process of decay, legal theory is today characterised by cognitive and moral poverty. Jurisprudence has become restricted and academically peripheral, a guidebook to technocratic legalism and a legitimation of the existent. Critical jurisprudence returns to the classical tradition of a general philosophy of law and adopts a much wider concept of legality. It is concerned both with posited law and with the law of the law. All legal aspects of the economic, political, emotional and physical modes of production and reproduction of society are part of critical jurisprudence. This widening of scope allows a radical rethinking of the nature of rights, justice, sovereignty and judgement. A political philosophy of justice today must examine the political economy of law; transitions from Empire to nation; ideological and imaginary constructions through which we understand ourselves and relate to others; ways in which gender, race or sexuality create forms of identity that both discipline bodies and offer sites of resistance. Law's complicity with political oppression, violence and racism has to be faced before it is possible to speak of a new beginning for legal thought, which in turn is the necessary precondition for a theory of justice. Critical Jurisprudence offers an ethics of law against the nihilism of power and an aesthetics of existence for the melancholic lawyer. (shrink)

Emilios Christodoulidis’ The Redress of Law: Globalisation, Constitutionalism and Market Capture is a rare work in its magnitude and ambition. More than on an argument, the book centres on an impas...

This book explores the way in which the fear of enemies shapes political groups at their founding and helps to preserve them by consolidating them in times of crisis. It develops a theory of “negative association” that examines the dynamics captured by the maxim “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and then traces its role in the history of political thought, demonstrating that the fear of external threats is an essential element of the formation and preservation of political (...) groups and that its absence renders political association unsustainable. (shrink)

The concept of fitness, central to population genetics and to the synthetic theory of evolution, is discussed. After a historical introduction on the origin of this concept, the current meaning of it in population genetics is examined: a cause of the selective process and its quantification. Several difficulties arise for its exact definition. Three adequacy criteria for such a definition are formulated. It is shown that it is impossible to formulate an adequate definition of fitness respecting these criteria. The propensity (...) definition of fitness is presented and rejected. Finally it is argued that fitness is a conceptual device, a useful tool, only for descriptive purposes of selective processes, changing from case to case, and thus devoid of any substantial physical counterpart. Any attempt to its reification is an apport to the metaphysical load evolutionary theory has inherited from Natural Theology. (shrink)

Ovid's disclaimers in theArs Amatorianeed to be read in this context. My main argument is that, in his disclaimers, Ovid is rendering his female readership socially unrecognizable, rather than excluding respectable virgins andmatronaefrom his audience.Ars1.31–4, Ovid's programmatic statement about his work's target audience, is a case in point. A closer look at the passage shows that he does not necessarily warn off Roman wives and marriageable girls:este procul, uittae tenues, insigne pudoris,quaeque tegis medios instita longa pedes:nos Venerem tutam concessaque furta (...) canemusinque meo nullum carmine crimen erit. Ov.Ars Am.1.31–4Stay away, slender fillets, symbol of modesty,and you, long hem, who cover half the feet:we shall sing of safe sex and permitted cheatingand there will be no wrong in my song. (shrink)

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)

Commentators have found Hobbes's translation of Thucydides? history puzzling. It was Hobbes's first publication and it preceded his earliest political treatise by more than a decade. Although towards the end of his life Hobbes himself claimed that he published it in order to warn his compatriots of the dangers of democracy and demagoguery, some commentators have dismissed his explanation as an attempt to tie it to his own political theory, in hindsight. Through an examination of Hobbes's preface and essay on (...) the life and history of Thucydides, published alongside his translation, this paper shows that Hobbes's view of Thucydides and his usefulness remained consistent throughout. Siding with Plutarch, Hobbes valued Thucydides for his ability to turn the auditor into a spectator, thereby protecting him, as far as possible, from the dangers of demagoguery. (shrink)