Bacchylides 16 is a hybrid poem. It sets out to explore the relation of cognate types of choral song, the paean and the dithyramb, in one and the same narrative. To that end, it poses a ritual section, which deals with Apollo's stop by the banks of the river Hebrus on his way back from the Hyperboreans to Delphi, ahead of a mythic section whose thematic spine focusses on the aftermath of Oechalia's sack by Heracles and his marital crisis with (...) Deianeira leading up to his death and deification. My concern, here, lies with the very beginning of the Apolline paeanic section, which lacks a gratifying supplement of the few words missing, so one can get a glimpse of how the poet's voice positions itself with respect to the god's upcoming arrival at Delphi. I understand the first line in the following way :Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν] ἐπεὶὁλκ]άδ’ ἔπεμψεν ἐμοὶ χρυσέανΠιερ]ίαθεν ἐ[ΰθ]ρονος [Ο]ὐρανία,πολυφ]άτων γέμουσαν ὕμνωνWe sense Loxias ever sinceOurania of the fair throne sent mefrom Pieria a golden cargofraught with much-praised songs.Relying on the way editors read the papyrus, the traces that precede the concluding ἐπεί of the first line suggest that it is occupied by a glyconic. (shrink)

This paper deals with a textual problem in the Io story of Bacchylides 19. My aim is to provide a supplement for line 19.29 that introduces a preliminary state to the way in which Argus has been overpowered by Hermes. The supplement I propose assumes a hapax attested, expanded form of ἐριούνιος for Hermes, εἰριούνιος, and puts forward an etymological explication of the epithet as ‘efficient in words’, ergo a ‘smooth talker’.

Pindar's Celedones have raised much controversy over the years. Their identity still remains uncertain, although there have been many attempts from scholars to specify whether the term refers to mythical creatures comparable to the Sirens of Homer or to elaborate life-like statues adorning the gable of a long-lost Delphic temple. In this paper, I wish to argue for a metaphorical reading of the Celedones in Pindar's Paean 8 that resides in the poetic signification of proper names and how they are (...) put into narrative. Drawing intratextual evidence from Olympian 1 and intertextual evidence from early Greek epic, I contend that the Celedones, richly semanticized as they are, become the means by which Pindar deals with the rigours of the song-making process, as he strives to introduce an ambivalent take on the choral praise of Apollo at Delphi, one that rests on the paradox of song exquisiteness and its negative consequences. (shrink)

Should decision-making algorithms be held to higher standards of transparency than human beings? The way we answer this question directly impacts what we demand from explainable algorithms, how we govern them via regulatory proposals, and how explainable algorithms may help resolve the social problems associated with decision making supported by artificial intelligence. Some argue that algorithms and humans should be held to the same standards of transparency and that a double standard of transparency is hardly justified. We give two arguments (...) to the contrary and specify two kinds of situations for which higher standards of transparency are required from algorithmic decisions as compared to humans. Our arguments have direct implications on the demands from explainable algorithms in decision-making contexts such as automated transportation. (shrink)

It is generally argued that if the wave-function in the de Broglie–Bohm theory is a physical field, it must be a field in configuration space. Nevertheless, it is possible to interpret the wave-function as a multi-field in three-dimensional space. This approach hasn’t received the attention yet it really deserves. The aim of this paper is threefold: first, we show that the wave-function is naturally and straightforwardly construed as a multi-field; second, we show why this interpretation is superior to other interpretations (...) discussed in the literature; third, we clarify common misconceptions. (shrink)

Most social scientists and philosophers claim that sociology and philosophy are disjoint fields of inquiry. Some have wondered how to trace the precise boundary between them. Mario Bunge argues that the two fields are so entangled with one another that no demarcation is possible or, indeed, desirable. In fact, sociological research has demonstrably philosophical pre-suppositions. In turn, some findings of sociology are bound to correct or enrich the philosophical theories that deal with the world, our knowledge of it, or the (...) ways of acting upon it. While Bunge's thesis would hardly have shocked Mill, Marx, Durkheim, or Weber, it is alien to the current sociological mainstream and dominant philosophical schools. Bunge demonstrates that philosophical problematics arise in social science research. A fertile philosophy of social science unearths critical presuppositions, analyzes key concepts, refines effective research strategies, crafts coherent and realistic syntheses, and identifies important new problems. Bunge examines Marx's and Durkheim's thesis that social facts are as objective as physical facts; the so-called Thomas theorem that refutes the behaviorist thesis that social agents react to social stimuli rather than to the way we perceive them; and Merton's thesis on the ethos of basic science which shows that science and morality are intertwined. He considers selected philosophical problems raised by contemporary social studies and argues forcefully against tolerance of shabby work in academic social science and philosophy alike. (shrink)

Slightly revised version of the author's habilitation--Universitèat Gèottingen, 2014.

This paper investigates the historical origin and ancestors of typicality, which is now a central concept in Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics and Bohmian Mechanics. Although Ludwig Boltzmann did not use the word typicality, its main idea, namely, that something happens almost always or is valid for almost all cases, plays a crucial role for his explanation of how thermodynamic systems approach equilibrium. At the beginning of the 20th century, the focus on almost always or almost everywhere was fruitful for developing measure (...) theory and probability theory. It was apparently Hugh Everett III who first mentioned typicality in physics in 1957 while searching for a justification of the Born rule in his interpretation of quantum mechanics. The historically closest concept before these developments is moral certainty, which was invented by the medieval French theologian Jean Gerson, and it became a standard concept at least until the Age of Enlightenment, when Jakob Bernoulli proved the Law of Large numbers. (shrink)

We put forth an account for when to believe causal and evidential conditionals. The basic idea is to embed a causal model in an agent’s belief state. For the evaluation of conditionals seems to be relative to beliefs about both particular facts and causal relations. Unlike other attempts using causal models, we show that ours can account rather well not only for various causal but also evidential conditionals.

We propose a method of learning indicative conditional information. An agent learns conditional information by Jeffrey imaging on the minimally informative proposition expressed by a Stalnaker conditional. We show that the predictions of the proposed method align with the intuitions in Douven, 239–263 2012)’s benchmark examples. Jeffrey imaging on Stalnaker conditionals can also capture the learning of uncertain conditional information, which we illustrate by generating predictions for the Judy Benjamin Problem.

I want to combine two hitherto largely independent research projects, scientific understanding and mechanistic explanations. Understanding is not only achieved by answering why-questions, that is, by providing scientific explanations, but also by answering what-questions, that is, by providing what I call scientific descriptions. Based on this distinction, I develop three forms of understanding: understanding-what, understanding-why, and understanding-how. I argue that understanding-how is a particularly deep form of understanding, because it is based on mechanistic explanations, which answer why something happens in (...) virtue of what it is made of. I apply the three forms of understanding to two case studies: first, to the historical development of thermodynamics and, second, to the differences between the Clausius and the Boltzmann entropy in explaining thermodynamic processes. (shrink)

The ontological models framework distinguishes ψ-ontic from ψ-epistemic wave- functions. It is, in general, quite straightforward to categorize the wave-function of a certain quantum theory. Nevertheless, there has been a debate about the ontological status of the wave-function in the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics: is it ψ-epistemic and incomplete or ψ-ontic and complete? I will argue that the wave- function in this interpretation is best regarded as ψ-ontic and incomplete.

To go through the pages of the Autobiography of Mario Bunge is to accompany him through dozens of countries and examine the intellectual, political, philosophical and scientific spheres of the last hundred years. It is an experience that oscillates between two different worlds: the different and the similar, the professional and the personal. It is an established fact that one of his great loves was, and still is, science. He has always been dedicated to scientific work, teaching, research, and training (...) men and women in multiple disciplines. Life lessons fall like ripe fruit from this book, bringing us closer to a concept, a philosophical idea, a scientific digression, which had since been uncovered in numerous notes, articles or books. Bunge writes about the life experiences in this book with passion, naturalness and with a colloquial frankness, whether they be persecutions, banishment, imprisonment, successes, would-be losses, emotions, relationships, debates, impressions or opinions about people or things. In his pages we pass by the people with whom he shared a fruitful century of achievements and incredible depths of thought. Everything is remembered with sincerity and humor. This autobiography is, in truth, Bunge on Bunge, sharing everything that passes through the sieve of his memory, as he would say. Mario's many grandchildren are a testament to his proud standing as a family man, and at the age of 96 he gives us a book for everyone: for those who value the memories that hold the trauma of his life as well as for those who share his passion for science and culture. Also, perhaps, for some with whom he has had disagreements or controversy, for he still deserves recognition for being a staunch defender of his convictions. (shrink)

Questions of boosting human potential and biomedical techniques by modifying the normal way in which the human body works. This text first explains this phenomenon then reflects on it, drawing on philosophy, bioethics, law and technology.

What does it take to understand a phenomenon ideally, or to the highest conceivable extent? In this paper, we answer this question by arguing for five necessary conditions for ideal understanding: (i) representational accuracy, (ii) intelligibility, (iii) truth, (iv) reasonable endorsement, and (v) fitting. Even if one disagrees that there is some form of ideal understanding, these five conditions can be regarded as sufficient conditions for a particularly deep level of understanding. We then argue that grasping, novel predictions, and transparency (...) are not reasonable conditions for ideal understanding. (shrink)

Quanto spazio concedono alla libertà dell'interprete un testo sacro come una sonata di Beethoven o un articolo della Costituzione? Nella musica così come nel diritto, di fronte a una legge o a una suite di Bach, l'interprete si muove sempre in una delicata zona di confine che si situa tra l'eseguire e il creare. Dall'anelito alla perfezione alla deriva dei virtuosismi, dal gusto dell'improvvisazione alla necessità dell'innovazione, il compito più alto, e arduo, dell'interprete è quello di farsi tramite fra passato (...) e futuro. (shrink)

Philosophers now seem to agree that frequentism is an untenable strategy to explain the meaning of probabilities. Nevertheless, I want to revive frequentism, and I will do so by grounding probabilities on typicality in the same way as the thermodynamic arrow of time can be grounded on typicality within statistical mechanics. This account, which I will call typicality frequentism, will evade the major criticisms raised against previous forms of frequentism. In this theory, probabilities arise within a physical theory from statistical (...) behavior of almost all initial conditions. The main advantage of typicality frequentism is that it shows which kinds of probabilities (that also have empirical relevance) can be derived from physics. Although one cannot recover all probability talk in this account, this is rather a virtue than a vice, because it shows which types of probabilities can in fact arise from physics and which types need to be explained in different ways, thereby opening the path for a pluralistic account of probabilities. (shrink)

Through a close examination of philosopher Leopoldo Zea's historicist phenomenology, Mario Saenz offers fresh insights into the role of Mexican intellectuals in the creation of a Latin American "philosophy of liberation". While this philosophy of liberation has been widely recognized as the most intellectual political ideology to emerge from Latin America this century, few scholars have specifically explored the Mexican roots of this intellectual movement. Saenz redresses this imbalance by placing Zea and his contemporary intellectuals firmly within the context of (...) post-revolutionary Mexico, a political and social landscape that fostered criticisms of colonial and neo-colonial structures of dependence. Saenz demonstrates how Zea's philosophy was informed by a sense of Mexico's distinctive social and cultural identity. (shrink)

Biomedical research, on the one hand, contributes to important goals from generation of knowledge about the human body to the development and testing of therapeutics of all kinds. On the other hand, it can produce serious and sometimes unforeseeable consequences. In the ethical analysis of these two aspects of biomedical research, two important argumentative strategies play a major role. First, slippery slope arguments are used to warn of potential risks and to highlight knowledge-based limitations. Second, a dual-use problem describes the (...) challenge that already established techniques can be used for both morally wrong and morally right purposes. These two argumentative strategies appear to share several similarities, which will be investigated in this article. For this purpose, the article will first provide clear working definitions for both types of argument. This lays the foundation for the further ethical analysis. In a second step, and in order to investigate the similarities and differences of the argumentative strategies with an example from current ethical debates, CRISPR-Cas9, a currently very promising tool of genome editing, will be examined. The extent to which the possible applications of this genome editing tool can be addressed by slippery slope arguments or the dual use problem will be investigated. For this purpose, selected studies involving the use of CRISPR-Cas9 will be examined. Based on this two-step, analytic and example-based comparison of slippery-slope argumentation and dual-use considerations, the article will detail the ethically relevant difference between the two argumentative strategies and at the same time contribute to the ongoing ethical debate about CRISPR-Cas9. (shrink)

This book offers the most complete and up-to-date overview of the philosophical work of Evandro Agazzi, presently the most important Italian philosopher of science, and one of the most influential in the world. Scholars from seven countries explore his contributions in areas ranging from philosophy of physics and general philosophy of science to bioethics, philosophy of mathematics and logic, epistemology of the social sciences and history of science, philosophy of language and artificial intelligence, education and anthropology, metaphysics, and philosophy of (...) religion. Agazzi developed a complete and coherent philosophical system, anticipating some of the turns in the philosophy of science after the crisis of logical empiricism and exerting an equal influence on continental hermeneutic philosophy. His work is characterized by an original synthesis of contemporary analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and classical philosophy, including the scholastic tradition, and these threads are reflected in the different backgrounds of the contributors to this book. While upholding the epistemological value of science against scepticism and relativism, Agazzi eschews scientism by stressing the equal importance of non-scientific forms of thought, such as metaphysics and religion. While defending the freedom of research as a cognitive enterprise, he argues that as a human and social practice it must nonetheless respect ethical constraints. (shrink)

Philosophy is sometimes perceived as an abstract and nerdy discipline dealing with problems of its own creation in an isolated chamber of the Ivory Tower. And there is some truth to this view. But philosophy can help us deal with common problems, such as the disagreements we have in our everyday lives.

O presente trabalho busca mostrar o processo de criação sob o ponto de vista da poesia mística de Rumi. Portanto, procura demonstrar como Rumi dá vida, em seus escritos, ao máximo ato vivificador, à beleza com a qual ele entende e transporta, pelas palavras, o conhecimento do ato criador divino. Trata-se, portanto, de mostrar o processo de criação pelo qual as criaturas recebem a filiação do Criador, e como esse elo primordial com a transcendência é então capaz de inspirar todo (...) movimento observado pelo místico em direção ao processo de união, que no caso de Rumi, remete ao movimento de influxo do amor. É pelo amor que as criaturas são chamadas a reconhecer, no mundo e no cosmos os atributos de Deus, dos quais elas participam por filiação. (shrink)

A Moisés ben Maimón, nuestro Maimónides, le gustaba auto llamarse "Moisés el Español" o "Moisés el Cordobés". En una ocasión, ya largamente asentado en el viejo Cairo, escribía: "Entre nosotros, en al-Ándalus". Esta referencia, constante y repetida, a su tierra, al lugar que lo vio nacer, significa algo más que amor al terruño, a la patria chica...Las obras de Maimónides han generado y siguen generando innumerables ediciones, reediciones, traducciones y estudios que podrían llenar bibliotecas enteras. Por esto es encomiable el (...) formidable trabajo que ha realizado Mario Eduardo Cohen, quien, con admirable ahínco, con pasión y entrega, ha leído, analizado y estudiado innumerables obras, estudios, artículos, también los escritos del propio Maimónides, desgranando de manera antológica y muy pedagógica lo más preciso de su pensamiento y de su aportación a la cultura humana y al conocimiento del legado rabínico judaico. De seguro que el lector tras la lectura de esta obra divulgativa va a tomar conciencia de la grandeza de aquel hebreo cordobés, cuya obra es como un pedernal que despide la chispa creativa en quien con fuerza la golpea en la lectura y el estudio. Ahí radica el secreto de la actualidad permanente y viva de su obra y el noble afán de Mario Eduardo Cohen de hacer de las grandes obras de Maimónides una referencia viva de nuestro tiempo.EDITORIAL UNIVERSIDAD MAIMÓNIDES - ARGENTINA Este libro contiene el desarrollo de los siguientes temas, entre otros: -Época de guerras y profundos cambios-Documentos de la Guenizá de El Cairo-De Córdoba a Fostat-El Príncipe de los Médicos-Consejos para la Vida-Aportes para el Judaísmo-Guía de perplejos-Maimónides. Un canto a la solidaridad y a la humildadCon este libro usted podrá conocer mas sobre este gran pensador.¡Descargue ya este libro y comience a aprender sobre Maimónides!maimónides, maimonides, mario eduardo cohen, sefardi, sefardí, judaísmo, pedagogía. (shrink)

Das Buch entwickelt und verteidigt eine Form des ethischen Naturalismus. Es kreist um zwei Fragen, die durch einen Leitgedanken eng verbunden sind. Dieser Leitgedanke lautet, dass das Leben, das wir führen, mit allen seinen ethischen Aspekten als Teil der Natur anzusehen ist. Die erste Frage lautet, wie dieser Leitgedanke näher zu verstehen ist. Die zweite Frage lautet, was aus diesem Leitgedanken, so verstanden, folgt. Wie könnte das ethische Leben im Verlauf der Evolution des Menschen entstanden sein? Welche Folgen hätte das (...) für uns? Die Untersuchung setzt bei Darwins Grundeinsichten an, die sie durch die weitere Entwicklung der Theorie der Evolution durch natürliche Selektion und moderne Hypothesen zur Erklärung der Entstehung des ethischen Lebens bis zum aktuellen Stand der Diskussion verfolgt. Wie sich zeigt, ist eine naturalistische Deutung nicht nur mit ethischem Denken und Handeln vereinbar, sondern trägt auch dazu bei, dessen Strukturen zu erklären. Relativiert werden dagegen die Ansprüche vieler Moraltheorien, die von überzogenen Erwartungen im Hinblick auf die Objektivität oder die Formalisierbarkeit des Ethischen geleitet sind. Den Abschluss bildet eine Fallstudie zur Menschenwürde, die nach der Deutung dieses Buchs zwar naturalistisch umgedeutet werden muss, aber als eine zentrale ethische Idee erhalten bleiben kann. (shrink)