The goal of perception is to infer the most plausible source of sensory stimulation. Unisensory perception of temporal order, however, appears to require no inference, since the order of events can be uniquely determined from the order in which sensory signals arrive. Here we demonstrate a novel perceptual illusion that casts doubt on this intuition: in three studies (N=607) the experienced event timings are determined by causality in real-time. Adult observers viewed a simple three-item sequence ACB, which is typically remembered (...) as ABC (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2016), in line with principles of causality. When asked to indicate the time at which events B and C occurred, points of subjective simultaneity shifted so that the assumed cause B appeared earlier and the assumed effect C later, despite full attention and repeated viewings. This first demonstration of causality reversing perceived temporal order cannot be explained by post-perceptual distortion, lapsed attention, or saccades. (shrink)

Combining philosophical and political analysis, this study offers a comprehensive reassessment of Castoriadis' contribution to critical theory in and through his critical confrontation with both the crisis of the traditional Left and the crisis of modern capitalist societies. The key concepts of 'crisis' and 'critique' are considered throughout the text and Castoriadis' ideas are situated in a critical debate with other radical thinkers, such as Lefort, Pannekoek, Arendt, Althusser, Axelos, Papaioannou and Marx. The study supplies an extensive analysis and explores (...) the contemporary relevance of Castoriadis' views regarding the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and the events of May 1968 in France. It argues for a re-radicalization of his thought in light of the current capitalist crisis and seeks to trace his radical alternative to crisis by critically examining and further elaborating his positions with respect to socialism, autonomy and revolution. (shrink)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we created and implemented from November 2020 to February 2021 a monthly educational pilot program of philosophical management of stress based on Science, Humanism and Epicurean Pragmatism, which was offered to employees of 26 municipalities in the Prefecture of Attica, Greece. The program named “Philosophical Distress Management Operation System” (Philo.Di.M.O.S.) is novel and unique in its kind, as it combines a certain Greek philosophical tradition (Epicurean) that concurs with modern scientific knowledge. The (...) program was designed to be implemented in a period of crisis; therefore, it used a fast-paced, easy to learn and practice philosophical approach to stress management, based on cognitive psychotherapy. The philosophical approach to stress management has the advantage that it can be offered to most people, regardless of age and educational level. The pilot program was effective in achieving its objectives, shown by statistical comparisons of the trainees’ responses to anonymous questionnaires before and after the month-long training. The successful Philo.Di.M.O.S. program, thus, based on a solid scientific and philosophical basis, offers a paradigm of stress management during crises and could be useful in Greece and internationally. (shrink)

Perceptual experience is one of our fundamental sources of epistemic justification—roughly, justification for believing that a proposition is true. The ability of perceptual experience to justify beliefs can nevertheless be questioned. This article focuses on an important challenge that arises from countenancing that perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable. -/- The thesis of cognitive penetrability of perception states that the content of perceptual experience can be influenced by prior or concurrent psychological factors, such as beliefs, fears and desires. Advocates of this (...) thesis could for instance claim that your desire of having a tall daughter might influence your perception, so that she appears to you to be taller than she is. Although cognitive penetrability of perception is a controversial empirical hypothesis, it does not appear implausible. The possibility of its veracity has been adduced to challenge positions that maintain that perceptual experience has inherent justifying power. -/- This article presents some of the most influential positions in contemporary literature about whether cognitive penetration would undermine perceptual justification and why it would or would not do so. -/- Some sections of this article focus on phenomenal conservatism, a popular conception of epistemic justification that more than any other has been targeted with objections that adduce the cognitive penetrability of experience. (shrink)

An Introduction to basic metaepistemological debates and positions.

This book offers the first comprehensive assessment of Heidegger’s account of affective phenomena. Affective phenomena play a significant role in Heidegger’s philosophy — his analyses of mood significantly influenced diverse fields of research such as existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, theology and cultural studies. Despite this, no single collection of essays has been exclusively dedicated to this theme. Comprising twelve innovative essays by leading Heidegger scholars, this volume skilfully explores the role that not only Angst plays in Heidegger’s work, but also love (...) and boredom. Exploring the nature of affective phenomena in Heidegger, as well as the role they play in wider philosophical debates, the volume is a valuable addition to Heideggerian scholarship and beyond, enriching current debates across disciplines on the nature of human agency. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to articulate a distinction between habit and bodily skill as different ways of acting without deliberation. I start by elaborating on a distinction between habit and skill as different kinds of dispositions. Then I argue that this distinction has direct implications for the varieties of automaticity exhibited in habitual and skilful bodily acts. The argument suggests that paying close attention to the metaphysics of agency can help to articulate more precisely questions regarding the varieties (...) of automaticity exhibited in overt action. (shrink)

The Dutch Reformed Church had a strong missionary DNA since the planting of the church. This missionary focus and fervour, however, ebbed and flowed during the history of the church. Saayman described that the mission upsurges in the DRC in four waves or 'periods of extraordinary mission endeavour'. The current research aimed to develop this theory through a literature study on the sociopolitical context and the developments in the ecclesiology and missiology of the DRC since the planting of the church (...) up to 2013. The research found strong evidence to define a fifth wave. The fifth wave was influenced by contextual changes and loss of influence and money by the DRC. Furthermore, the growth in the church's missional identity can be seen in the following aspects: the influence of theologians like Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch; a belief that mission is not something the church does but something the church is; a shift from a Christocentric theology to a Trinitarian theology; a holistic view of salvation; a commitment to the local context of the congregation and a focus on bringing healing to their local communities; and lastly, the success of the Gestuurde Gemeentes network and, more recently, the Mission Shaped Ministry training. (shrink)

Metaepistemology Metaepistemology is, roughly, the branch of epistemology that asks questions about first-order epistemological questions. It inquires into fundamental aspects of epistemic theorizing like metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, agency, psychology, responsibility, reasons for belief, and beyond. So, if as traditionally conceived, epistemology is the theory of knowledge, metaepistemology is the theory of the theory of knowledge. … Continue reading Metaepistemology →.

A central argument against Ryle’s (The concept of mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) distinction between propositional and non propositional knowledge has relied on linguistic evidence. Stanley and Williamson (J Philos 98:411–444, 2001) have claimed that knowing-how ascriptions do not differ in any relevant syntactic or semantic respect from ascriptions of propositional knowledge, concluding thereby that knowing-how ascriptions attribute propositional knowledge, or a kind thereof. In this paper I examine the cross-linguistic basis of this argument. I focus on the (...) linguistic analysis of practical knowledge ascriptions in Modern Greek, although the issues raised are not restricted to one language. It is relatively straightforward to show that none of the three types of practical knowledge ascriptions in Modern Greek is an embedded question configuration, and hence Stanley and Williamson original claim is confined to certain languages only. This is not the end of the matter, however, since Stanley (Nous 45:207–238, 2011) argues that the equivalents of ‘knowing-how’ ascriptions in certain languages should be semantically analyzed as embedded questions despite their syntactic form. I argue that this fallback position faces a host of empirical and theoretical problems, in view of which it cannot bear the weight Stanley puts on it, supporting a conclusion about the kind of knowledge thereby attributed. (shrink)

Expressivism is a blossoming meta-semantic framework sometimes relying on what Carter and Chrisman call “the core expressivist maneuver.” That is, instead of asking about the nature of a certain kind of value, we should be asking about the nature of the value judgment in question. According to expressivists, this question substitution opens theoretical space for the elegant, economical, and explanatorily powerful expressivist treatment of the relevant domain. I argue, however, that experimental work in cognitive psychology can shed light on how (...) the core expressivist maneuver operates at the cognitive level and that this: raises worries about the aptness of the expressivist question substitution and supports an evolutionary debunking argument against expressivism. Since evolutionary debunking arguments are usually run in favor of expressivism, this creates an obvious puzzle for expressivists. I wrap up by briefly responding to the objection that the debunking argument against expressivism overgeneralizes and, therefore, should be rejected. (shrink)

It might seem natural to approach the topic of habitual acts by focusing on the kinds of case where we tend to use the word ‘habit’. Thus several authors are interested in the distinctive features of habit-explanations, delineated as those that feature ‘habit’ in the explanans. I suggest that this is a misleading theoretical procedure which, in combination with the common assumption that habit essentially involves a variety of automaticity, is largely responsible for the current predominance of a restrictive conception (...) of habit. On this conception, the operation of habit as a determinant of action is inaccessible to the agent’s consciousness and not sufficiently responsive to their motivational makeup. I do not question the usefulness of this conception for certain theoretical purposes. The problem is that it can hardly make sense of the traditional role of habit in ethical theory and related endeavors. I argue, however, that there is a broader conception of habit, which operates in the explanation and assessment of conduct under various linguistic guises, if somehow covertly. I identify the common semantic features of the associated ascriptions and argue that they all partake in the distinctive mode of explanation made available by the idea of habit. Then I appeal to pragmatic considerations to explain why it is often preferable to ascribe habits under these guises than to use overt habit ascriptions. Once this is done, a theoretically unified conception of habit emerges under the various guises, which has a richer theoretical potential than the restrictive conception. (shrink)

With contributions from a number of pioneering researchers in the field, this collection is aimed not only at researchers and scientists in nonlinear dynamics but also at a broader audience interested in understanding and exploring how modern chaos theory has developed since the days of Poincaré. This book was motivated by and is an outcome of the CHAOS 2015 meeting held at the Henri Poincaré Institute in Paris, which provided a perfect opportunity to gain inspiration and discuss new perspectives on (...) the history, development and modern aspects of chaos theory. Henri Poincaré is remembered as a great mind in mathematics, physics and astronomy. His works, well beyond their rigorous mathematical and analytical style, are known for their deep insights into science and research in general, and the philosophy of science in particular. The Poincaré conjecture (only proved in 2006) along with his work on the three-body problem are considered to be the foundation of modern chaos theory. (shrink)

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

In this paper, we propose that economic sustainability is seen in terms of (inter-temporal and inter-national) value creation. We claim that value appropriation (or capture), can become a constraint to economic sustainability. We propose that for sustainable value creation to be fostered, corporate governance needs to be aligned to public and supra-national governance. In order to achieve this, a hierarchically layered set of ‘agencies’, needs to be diagnosed and the issue of incentive alignment addressed. Enlightened self-interest, pluralism and diversity, as (...) well as a representative supra-national organisation for world-wide economic sustainability can serve as a new, more ‘ethically correct’ governance for economic sustainability, but not a panacea. (shrink)

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

The domain of agential powers is marked by a contrast that does not arise in the case of dispositions of inanimate objects: the contrast between propensities or tendencies on the one hand, and capacities or abilities on the other. According to Ryle (1949), this contrast plays an important role in the ‘logical geography’ of the dispositional concepts used in the explanation and assessment of action. However, most subsequent philosophers use the terms of art ‘power’ or ‘disposition’ indiscriminately in formulating central (...) metaphysical claims about human agency, assuming that an adequate account of inanimate dispositions can safely be used for such purposes. As a result, the distinctive features of propensities and capacities drop out of view. This is bound to obscure distinctions of crucial importance to the understanding of human agency. In order to show this, I undertake to articulate some central differences between propensities and capacities. Propensities and capacities have a different relation to value, as well as a concomitant difference in their metaphysical structure. The argument points to an explanation of why the distinction between propensities and capacities does not arise in the case of non-agential powers. This explanation takes us back to questions about the nature of human agency. (shrink)

The article focuses on Burke’s engagement with India and the Impeachment of Warren Hastings. It attempts to trace the way in which Burke, in his rhetoric on India, uses the sentimentalist vocabulary of the Scottish Enlightenment and, more particularly, the concept of sympathy. Burke, it is suggested, passes from a Humean to a Smithian understanding of sympathy, giving however, at every stage of this development, his own turn and character to the concept. Overall, Burke’s writings on India reveal quite advanced (...) for his time political reflexes and oblige us to reconsider the stereotypic image of Burke as an icon of conservatism. (shrink)

The article sets the most eminent defender of the French Revolution, Immanuel Kant, against its most eminent critic, Edmund Burke, articulating their radically different stance toward the French Revolution. Specifically, this juxtaposition is attempted through the concept of enthusiasm; a psychological state of intense excitement, which can refer to both actors and spectators, to both the motivation of someone, acquiring thus a practical significance, or to their distanced contemplation, thereby acquiring the character of aesthetic appreciation. Using the concept of enthusiasm, (...) Ι aspire to bring out Kant’s and Burke’s radically different approaches to society as well as its history and prospects of progress, ultimately suggesting that enthusiasm can provide a vantage point for the dialogue between the enlightenment and counter-enlightenment theses. (shrink)

I present an argument for a sophisticated version of sceptical invariantism that has so far gone unnoticed: Bifurcated Sceptical Invariantism (BSI). I argue that it can, on the one hand, (dis)solve the Gettier problem, address the dogmatism paradox and, on the other hand, show some due respect to the Moorean methodological incentive of ‘saving epistemic appearances’. A fortiori, BSI promises to reap some other important explanatory fruit that I go on to adduce (e.g. account for concessive knowledge attributions). BSI can (...) achieve this much because it distinguishes between two distinct but closely interrelated (sub)concepts of (propositional) knowledge, fallible-but-safe knowledge and infallible-and-sensitive knowledge, and explains how the pragmatics and the semantics of knowledge discourse operate at the interface of these two (sub)concepts of knowledge. I conclude that BSI is a novel theory of knowledge discourse that merits serious investigation. (shrink)

Patients living with chronic pain require appropriate access to opioid therapy along with improved access to pain care and additional therapeutic options. It's both medically reasonable and ethical to consider opioid therapy as a treatment option in the management of chronic, non-cancer pain for a subset of patients with severe pain that is unresponsive to other therapies, negatively impacts function or quality of life, and will likely outweigh the potential harms. This paper will examine opioid therapy in the setting of (...) the opioid epidemic, why critics feel that the CDC guideline has resulted in harsh consequences for patients and their physicians, and the rationale for opioid therapy as a means of providing ethical and compassionate pain care. (shrink)

Most philosophers and psychologists assume that habitual acts do not ensue from deliberation, but are direct responses to the circumstances: habit essentially involves a variety of automaticity. My objective in this paper is to show that this view is unduly restrictive. A habit can explain an act in various ways. Pointing to the operation of automaticity is only one of them. I draw attention to the fact that acquired automaticity is one outgrowth of habituation that is relevant to explanation, but (...) not the only one. Habituation shapes our emotional and motivational make up in ways that affect deliberation itself. Hence mentioning a habit might be indispensable in explaining an act which nevertheless ensues from deliberation. The view that habitual acts are direct responses to the circumstances implies an impoverished conception of habit, which fails to do justice to its rich explanatory potential in theoretical and pre-theoretical contexts, as well as to its role in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is implemented through social partnerships. Drawing on previous literature and case study research, it presents a conceptual model of the process of implementation. An exploratory case study of the social responsibility partnership programme at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has been conducted. The case study draws on interview data and documentary sources of evidence gathered from UEFA and the six partner organisations that comprise its CSR portfolio. The conceptual model identifies (...) three stages of the implementation process (selection, design, management), with partnership evaluation being an ongoing process during all three. The latter consists of two elements, namely project and process evaluation. A key finding is the lack of process evaluation due to a high degree of inter-personal trust. The conceptual model adds to the growing body of research on the implementation of social partnerships and CSR. This paper is also the first to empirically explore the process of CSR implementation through social partnerships in the football sector. (shrink)

This article draws on contributions from the Sociology of Science and Technology and Science and Technology Studies, the Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty, and the Sociology of Work, focusing on the transformations of employment regarding expanded automation, robotization and informatization. The new work patterns emerging due to the introduction of software and hardware technologies, which are based on artificial intelligence, algorithms, big data gathering and robotic systems are examined closely. This article attempts to “open the black boxes” of the “black (...) carpet” (robotic sorting system) and examine the reorganization of Greek postal services through the introduction of software and hardware technologies, highlighting a) the high risk of flexible, pluralistic, decentralized (under)employment and aspects of the sub-politics of automation, b) the new forms of work organization and c) aspects of labor precariousness as a result of de-specialization or “flexible expertise” interconnected with new forms of inequalities based on AI, algorithms, big data and robots as reflected in the lived experiences of workers. The above are investigated through primary empirical social research in postal service companies in Greece. (shrink)

Economics has an impoverished view of virtuous human behaviour in general, and corporate social responsibility in particular. We claim that this is due to a particular, albeit currently dominant approach to economics. This approach focuses on the pursuit of wealth through efficient allocation of scarce resources by ‘rational’ utility‐maximizing economic agents and institutions, such as markets, firms and states, in the exclusive pursuit of ‘efficiency’. This results in an ethic‐free and often inimical approach to virtuous behaviour. However, a different approach (...) to economics, which focuses on sustainable global resource creation and allocation, asserts virtuous responsible behaviour to be part and parcel of economic analysis and performance. (shrink)

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

I argue that, at least on the assumption that if there are epistemic facts they are irreducible, the evolutionary debunking maneuver is prima facie self-debunking because it seems to debunk a certain class of facts, namely, epistemic facts that prima facie it needs to rely on in order to launch its debunking arguments. I then appeal to two recent reconstructions of the evolutionary debunking maneuver (Kahane (2011), Griffiths and Wilkins (2015)) and find them wanting. Along the way I set aside (...) two ways (one envisaged, the other by Sterpetti (2015)) to avoid the self-debunking problem that I find unpromising. I conclude that the evolutionary debunking maneuver needs to clarify the meta-epistemological commitments upon which it is supposed to operate. (shrink)

This article aims to shed light on the interconnectedness between two important projects in applied philosophy: (a) Philosophy for Children (P4C), a movement for the introduction of philosophy in schools, and (b) Logic-based Therapy and Consultation (LBTC), a widely developed form of philosophical counselling. More specifically, it attempts to show how Michael Hand’s (2018) argument in favour of P4C can fruitfully be enhanced by the endorsement of fundamental theoretical assumptions of Elliot Cohen’s (2005, 2019) LBTC. Hand argues that philosophy should (...) be taught in schools as a mandatory subject by virtue of its distinctive educational value, namely its ability to contribute to justifying subscription to moral, political and religious standards. In turn, proponents of LBTC presuppose the distinctive capability of philosophy to assess and direct subscription to emotional standards, as well as to a broader category of standards, the practical ones. Given that subscribing to all those types of standards is of utmost importance for human life, an argument for mandatorily introducing philosophy in the school curricula starts taking a more concrete shape. (shrink)

In Metaphysics E. 3. 1027a29–30 Aristotle states that there are some causes, the incidental ones, that are generable and destructible but they have no coming to be. Furthermore, he asserts that if we deny this thesis, then we will have to give into determinism (1027a30–32). There are three persistent puzzles surrounding this chapter. First, what does it mean to say that a cause is generable and destructible but it has no coming to be? Second, what exactly is the connection between (...) this claim and determinism? And third, if we accept that in Metaphysics E. 3 Aristotle deals with incidental causation, then how is this discussion related to the treatment of incidentalness in E. 2? This article puts forward answers for these puzzles. I argue that there is textual evidence in Physics II. 5 that shows that the claim in Metaphysics 1027a29–30 is meant to capture the non-teleological nature of incidental causation. Moreover, I argue that this same textual evidence indicates that the thesis expressed at Metaphysics 1027a29–30 is in effect Aristotle’s response to teleological determinism. Finally, I suggest that it is plausible to suppose that chapter 3 does not quite belong with the rest of Metaphysics E. (shrink)

Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014) argued that there are moral conceptual truths that are substantive in content, what they called ‘moral fixed points’. I argue that insofar as we have some reason to postulate moral fixed points, we have equal reason to postulate epistemic fixed points (e.g. the factivity condition). To this effect, I show that the two basic reasons Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014) offer in support of moral fixed points naturally carry over to epistemic fixed points. In particular, epistemic fixed (...) points exhibit the four ‘marks’ of conceptual truths that they identify and can be utilized to address important challenges to epistemic realism. I conclude that insofar as we have some reason to postulate moral fixed points, we have equal reason to postulate epistemic fixed points. -/- . (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to build a parallelism between Aristotle’s debate with Plato on the merits of poetry and the debate of Hume with Smith on the nature of sympathy. My arguments is that the Aristotelian concept of pity, as presented in the Poetics, presupposes a mechanism of sympathy which is akin to the Smithian one, as articulated in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Accordingly, I reconstruct Aristotle’s debate with Plato on poetry as a debate on the operation (...) and value of sympathy, and I trace an intriguing contiguity on the way Plato and Hume understood the mechanism of sympathy. (shrink)