Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, which can be understood as a philosophical debate between a questioner and a respondent. In book 2, Aristotle mainly develops strategies for making deductions about 'accidents', which are properties that might or might not belong to a subject (for instance, Socrates has five fingers, but might have had six), and about properties that simply belong to a subject without further specification. In the present commentary, here translated into English for the first time, Alexander (...) develops a careful study of Aristotle's text. He preserves objections and replies from other philosophers whose work is now lost, such as the Stoics. He also offers an invaluable picture of the tradition of Aristotelian logic down to his time, including innovative attempts to unify Aristotle's guidance for dialectic with his general theory of deductive argument (the syllogism), found in the Analytics. The work will be of interest not only for its perspective on ancient logic, rhetoric, and debate, but also for its continuing influence on argument in the Middle Ages and later. (shrink)

: In APo II 3-7 Aristotle discusses a series of difficulties concerning definition, deduction, and demonstration. In this paper I focus on two interrelated but distinct questions: firstly, what are exactly the difficulties emerging from or alluded to in the discussion in II 3-7; secondly, whether and in what sense the discussion in II 3-7 can be considered an aporetic discussion with a specific role to play in the development of the argument in APo II.

In his commentary on Aristotle’s De intepretatione, Ammonius criticises the view, which he ascribes to Alexander of Aphrodisias, that epirrhêmata, ‘adverbs’, fall under the rubric of onoma. While it is difficult to establish Alexander’s view on the basis of Ammonius’s criticism, I argue that an intelligible view can be reconstructed, mainly based on evidence in Alexander’s commentary on the Topics, about different types of adverbs. In particular, I suggest that Alexander, apparently unlike Ammonius, may have drawn a distinction between two (...) classes of adverbs Aristotle deals with in his logical writings: tropoi (modal operators); and ptôseis, i.e. the specific type of ‘inflections’ (adverbs in -ôs derived from a noun – usually an abstract noun) playing a prominent role in several of the topoi Aristotle gives in the Topics. (shrink)

The paper analyses the argumentative structure of a difficult passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics XII 7 on the basis of a topos of sameness provided in Top. VII 1. In doing this the article gives an example of how Aristotle's treatises on dialectic can prove useful to understand what he says in his more philosophically committed writings. The article also shows how general argumentative techniques and more or less explicit specific philosophical assumptions interact in shaping Aristotle's arguments and how the distinction (...) of these different factors can help us have a better grasp on Aristotle's text. (shrink)

Volume 27, Issue 5, September 2019, Page 1041-1046.

This is an Editorial Note for the special volume of the journal Manuscrito (42: 4) devoted to Aristotle's theory of demonstration and its logical and metaphysical entanglements, which has been organized by me and Breno Zuppolini (as Guest Editors), with papers authored by Benjamin Morison, Owen Goldin, David Bronstein, Michail Peramatzis, Andrea Falcon, Laura Castelli, Paolo Fait, Joseph Karbowski, Adam Crager, Klaus Corcilius, Robert J. Hankinson, Raphael Zillig and Pieter Sjoerd Hasper.

La notion de mesure traverse les traités du corpus d'Aristote en connexion des problèmes qui sont d'une importance centrale. Le recueil est composé d'une série d'études de: Tomàs Calvo, R.Loredana Cardullo, Laura Castelli, Lambros Couloubaritsis, Paolo Crivelli, Sylvain Delcomminette, Giovanna R.Giardina, David Lefebvre, Antonio P.Mesquita, Pierre-Marie Morel, Marco Panza, Fernando Rey Puente. -- Provided by publisher.

IRBs in action -- Everyone's an expert? Warrants for expertise -- Local precedents -- Documents and deliberations: an anticipatory perspective -- Setting IRBs in motion in Cold War America -- An ethics of place -- The many forms of consent -- Deflecting responsibility -- Conclusion: the making of ethical research.

Bringing together Luce Irigaray's early psychoanalytically orientated writings with her more recent and more explicitly political writings, Irigaray and Politics weaves together the ontological, political and ethical dimensions of Irigaray's philosophy of sexuate difference in imaginative ways.

This article examines three cases of mid-20th-century oil media—oil-related imagery, iconographies, and media—in visual culture: a series of popular science books entitled The Story of Oil published in the US, an oil-themed set of Kuwaiti postage stamps (1959), and an art exhibition in Zurich (1956) titled Welt des Erdöls: Junge Maler sehen eine Industrie (World of Petroleum: Young Artists See an Industry). While depicting crude oil in its natural habitat was a common photographic theme in the early 20th-century United States, (...) the material discussed shows that, by the mid-20th century, crude oil no longer had the same visual presence. The iconography of oil in the three case studies came to rely increasingly on images of oil infrastructure and on context-specific depictions of living within petro-modernity or petro-culture, meaning lifestyles fueled by cheap fossil energy. However, it is not just the changes in visual representations of petroleum that matter; any debate about the visibility and invisibility of petroleum has to take into account the very media through which petroleum has become visually communicated—that is, the precise forms of oil's mediatization. The aesthetic negotiation of petroleum through media-based visual representations has been crucial for the dematerialization of fossil matter in its conversion to fossil energy, as well as the decoupling of sites of extraction from sites of production and consumption in the public imagination. As petro-culture has morphed into national or even global culture (rather than representing just one possible energy source among many), oil media has paved the way for our intimate relationship with fossil energy-dependent lifestyles, which is one of the biggest drivers of climate change. (shrink)

The 2006 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, traced to bagged spinach from California, illustrates a number of contradictions. The solutions sought by many politicians and popular food analysts have been to create a centralized federal agency and a uniform set of production standards modeled after those of the animal industry. Such an approach would disproportionately harm smaller-scale producers, whose operations were not responsible for the epidemic, as well as reduce the agroecological diversity that is essential for maintaining healthy human beings (...) and ecosystems. Why should responses that only reinforce the problem be proffered? We use the framework of accumulation and legitimation to suggest corporate and government motives for concealing underlying problems and reinforcing powerful ideologies of individualism, scientism, and centralizing authority. Food safety (or the illusion of safety) is being positioned to secure capital rather than public welfare. We propose implementing the principle of subsidiarity as a more democratic and decentralized alternative. Because full implementation of this principle will be resisted by powerful interests, some promising intermediate steps include peer production or mass collaboration as currently applied to disease prevention and surveillance, as well as studying nascent movements resisting current food safety regulations. (shrink)

Moral disengagement is the process by which individuals mitigate the consequences of their own violations of moral standards. Although MD is understood to be co-determined by culture norms, no study has yet explored the extent to which MD applied to safety at work fosters safety violations, nor the role of organizational culture as a predictor of JS-MD. The current study seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining individual- and organizational-level factors that explain why employees fail to report (...) workplace accidents. We tested a latent variable structural model positing organizational culture typologies as predictors of JS-MD, which in turn is expected to mediate the relationship with accident underreporting. Using data from 1033 employees in 28 Italian organizations, findings suggest that bureaucratic safety culture was related to lower levels of JS-MD, whereas technocratic safety culture was related to greater JS-MD. In turn, JS-MD positively predicted employee accident underreporting and fully mediated the relationship between culture and underreporting. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of the increasing focus on underreporting as well as the adverse individual and organizational consequences of failing to report workplace accidents. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

The Generalized Integration Challenge is the task of providing, for a given domain of discourse, a simultaneously acceptable metaphysics, epistemology and metasemantics and showing them to be so. In this paper, we focus on a metaethical position for which seems particularly acute: the brand of normative realism which takes normative properties to be mind-independent and causally inert. The problem is that these metaphysical commitments seem to make normative knowledge impossible. We suggest that bringing metasemantics into play can help to resolve (...) this puzzle. We propose an independently plausible metasemantic constraint on reference determination and show how it can provide a plausible response to for this brand of normative realism. (shrink)

Background Intensivists must provide enough analgesia and sedation to ensure dying patients receive good palliative care. However, if it is perceived that too much is given, they risk prosecution for committing euthanasia. The goal of this study is to develop consensus guidelines on analgesia and sedation in dying intensive care unit patients that help distinguish palliative care from euthanasia. Methods Using the Delphi technique, panelists rated levels of agreement with statements describing how analgesics and sedatives should be given to dying (...) ICU patients and how palliative care should be distinguished from euthanasia. Participants were drawn from 3 panels: 1) Canadian Academic Adult Intensive Care Fellowship program directors and Intensive Care division chiefs (N = 9); 2) Deputy chief provincial coroners (N = 5); 3) Validation panel of Intensivists attending the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group meeting (N = 12). Results After three Delphi rounds, consensus was achieved on 16 statements encompassing the role of palliative care in the intensive care unit, the management of pain and suffering, current areas of controversy, and ways of improving palliative care in the ICU. Conclusion Consensus guidelines were developed to guide the administration of analgesics and sedatives to dying ICU patients and to help distinguish palliative care from euthanasia. (shrink)

A normal state on a von Neumann algebra defines a countably additive probability measure over its projection lattice. The von Neumann algebras familiar from ordinary QM are algebras of all the bounded operators on a Hilbert space H, aka Type I factor von Neumann algebras. Their normal states are density operator states, and can be pure or mixed. In QFT and the thermodynamic limit of QSM, von Neumann algebras of more exotic types abound. Type III von Neumann algebras, for instance, (...) have no pure normal states; the pure states they do have fail to be countably additive. I will catalog a number of temptations to accord physical significance to non-normal states, and then give some reasons to resist these temptations: pure though they may be, non-normal states on non-Type I factor von Neumann algebras can't do the interpretive work we've come to expect from pure states on Type I factors; our best accounts of state preparation don't work for the preparation of non-normal states; there is a sense in which non-normal states fail to instantiate the laws of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Predicativity is a notable example of fruitful interaction between philosophy and mathematical logic. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century from methodological and philosophical reflections on a changing concept of set. A clarification of this notion has prompted the development of fundamental new technical instruments, from Russell's type theory to an important chapter in proof theory, which saw the decisive involvement of Kreisel, Feferman and Schütte. The technical outcomes of predica-tivity have since taken a life of their own, (...) but have also produced a deeper understanding of the notion of predicativity, therefore witnessing the " light logic throws on problems in the foundations of mathematics. " (Feferman 1998, p. vii) Predicativity has been at the center of a considerable part of Feferman's work: over the years he has explored alternative ways of explicating and analyzing this notion and has shown that predicative mathematics extends much further than expected within ordinary mathematics. The aim of this note is to outline the principal features of predicativity, from its original motivations at the start of the past century to its logical analysis in the 1950-60's. The hope is to convey why predicativity is a fascinating subject, which has attracted Feferman's attention over the years. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of quantum theory commonly suppose that the observables of a quantum system form a Type-I factor von Neumann algebra. Such algebras always have atoms, which are minimal projection operators in the case of quantum mechanics. However, relativistic quantum field theory and the thermodynamic limit of quantum statistical mechanics make extensive use of von Neumann algebras of more general types. This chapter addresses the question whether interpretations of quantum probability devised in the usual manner continue to apply in the (...) more general setting. Features of non-type I factor von Neumann algebras are cataloged. It is shown that these novel features do not cause the familiar formalism of quantum probability to falter, since Gleason's Theorem and the Lüders Rule can be generalized. However, the features render the problem of the interpretation of quantum probability more intricate. (shrink)

Some feminist epistemologists make the radical claim that there are varieties of epistemically valid warrant that agents access only through having lived particular types of contingent history, varieties of epistemic warrant to which, moreover, the confirmation-theoretic accounts of warrant favored by some traditional epistemologists are inapplicable. I offer Aristotelian virtue as a model for warrant of this sort, and use loosely Aristotelian vocabulary to express, and begin to evaluate, a range of feminist epistemological positions.

In this paper we address a frontier topic in the humanities, namely how the cultural and natural construction that we call landscape affects well-being and health. Following an updated review of evidence-based literature in the fields of medicine, psychology, and architecture, we propose a new theoretical framework called “processual landscape,” which is able to explain both the health-landscape and the medical agency-structure binomial pairs. We provide a twofold analysis of landscape, from both the cultural and naturalist points of view: in (...) order to take into account its relationship with health, the definition of landscape as a cultural product needs to be broadened through naturalization, grounding it in the scientific domain. Landscape cannot be distinguished from the ecological environment. For this reason, we naturalize the idea of landscape through the notion of affordance and Gibson’s ecological psychology. In doing so, we stress the role of agency in the theory of perception and the health-landscape relationship. Since it is the result of continuous and co-creational interaction between the cultural agent, the biological agent and the affordances offered to the landscape perceiver, the processual landscape is, in our opinion, the most comprehensive framework for explaining the health-landscape relationship. The consequences of our framework are not only theoretical, but ethical also: insofar as health is greatly affected by landscape, this construction represents something more than just part of our heritage or a place to be preserved for the aesthetic pleasure it provides. Rather, we can talk about the right to landscape as something intrinsically linked to the well-being of present and future generations. (shrink)

Prominent accounts of collective intentional activity explain the nature of social groups by virtue of a specific criterion: goal-directedness. In doing so, these accounts offer little in the way of determining whether there are any differences among social groups. In this paper, I propose a refined framework of collective intentional activity that can distinguish among social groups better than alternative accounts, and which has revisionary but nevertheless plausible implications for the nature of the family: specifically, that certain friendship relationships may (...) count as genuinely familial, and that we ought to count them as such. I argue that social groups are distinguished by what we can expect from one another within different kinds of social groups; specifically, that there is an important difference between reciprocity that is equivalent in performance and reciprocity that is equivalent in intention; familial groups are specifically guided by this latter kind of reciprocity. This more inclusive definition of familial groups may have important implications for how such groups are supported within a given society – for instance, by recognizing certain caring relations as essential for well-being and supporting them accordingly. (shrink)

Reference to the state is ubiquitous in debates about global justice. Some authors see the state as central to the justification of principles of justice, and thereby reject their extension to the international realm. Others emphasize its role in the implementation of those principles. This chapter scrutinizes the variety of ways in which the state figures in the global-justice debate. Our discussion suggests that, although the state should have a prominent role in theorizing about global justice, contrary to what is (...) commonly thought, acknowledging this role does not lead to anti-cosmopolitan conclusions, but to the defense of an “intermediate” position about global justice. From a justificatory perspective, we argue, the state remains a key locus for the application of egalitarian principles of justice, but is not the only one. From the perspective of implementation, we suggest that state institutions are increasingly fragile in a heavily interdependent world, and need to be supplemented—though not supplanted—with supranational authorities. (shrink)

A growing number of multi-stakeholder initiatives seek to improve labor and environmental standards through third-party certification. Fairtrade, one of the most popular third-party certifications in the agro-food sector, is currently expanding its operations from its traditional base in commodities like coffee produced by peasant cooperatives to products like flowers produced by hired labor enterprises. My analysis reveals how Fairtrade’s engagement in the hired labor sector is shaped by the tensions between traditional market and industrial conventions, rooted in price competition, bureaucratic (...) efficiency, product standardization and certification and alternative domestic and civic conventions, rooted in trust, personal ties, and concerns for societal wide benefits. At the global level, these tensions shape Fairtrade’s global standard setting as reflected in Fairtrade’s recently revised labor standards. At the local level, these tensions shape the varied impacts of certification on the ground as revealed through a case study of certified flower production in Ecuador. (shrink)

In the last decade, philosophy, neuroscience and psychology alike have paid increasing attention to the study of interpersonal affective touch, which refers to the emotional and motivational facets of tactile sensation. Some aspects of affective touch have been linked to a neurophysiologically specialised system, namely the C tactile system. While the role of this system for affiliation, social bonding and communication of emotions have been widely investigated, only recently researchers have started to focus on the potential role of interpersonal affective (...) touch in acquiring awareness of the body as our own, i.e. as belonging to our psychological ‘self’. We review and discuss recent developmental and adult findings, pointing to the central role of interpersonal affective touch in body awareness and social cognition in health and disorders. We propose that interpersonal affective touch, as an interoceptive modality invested of a social nature, can uniquely contribute to the ongoing debate in philosophy about the primacy of the relational nature of the minimal self. (shrink)

Background:The severity of the Coronavirus pandemic has led to lockdowns in different countries to reduce the spread of the infection. These lockdown restrictions are likely to be detrimental to mental health and well-being in adolescents. Physical activity can be beneficial for mental health and well-being; however, research has yet to examine associations between adolescent physical activity and mental health and well-being during lockdown.Purpose:Examine the effects of adolescent perceived Coronavirus prevalence and fear on mental health and well-being and investigate the extent (...) to which physical activity can be a protective factor against these concerns.Methods:During United Kingdom lockdown restrictions, 165 participants (100 female, aged 13–19) completed an online questionnaire assessing perceived Coronavirus prevalence and fear, physical activity, and indicators of mental health and well-being (stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, vitality, and perceived health). Separate hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses (with age, gender, perceived Coronavirus prevalence, and fear entered in step 1, and physical activity in step 2) were run to predict each well-being outcome.Results:Regression analyses indicated that in general, while Coronavirus fear was a negative predictor, physical activity was a positive and stronger predictor of enhanced mental health and well-being outcomes.Conclusion:Findings suggest that physical activity during the Coronavirus pandemic can counteract the negative effects of Coronavirus fear on adolescent mental health and well-being. Therefore, physical activity should be promoted during lockdown to support good mental health and well-being. (shrink)

Health policymakers employ utility measures to inform resource allocation decisions. They often rely on a conceptual tool called the quality-adjusted life year that discounts the value of years lived in a state of disability relative to years lived in full health. A representative sample of the general public is asked to place values on hypothetical health states as part of a standard gamble or time trade-off task. Policymakers use the resulting values to calculate the number of QALYs gained through particular (...) interventions. Utilitarian reasoning mandates that policymakers maximize QALYs gained per unit cost.Although many scholars have explored the problems of distributive justice that arise from this system... (shrink)