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)

Bilingualism has been shown to induce neuroplasticity in the brain, but conflicting evidence regarding its specific effects in grey matter continues to emerge, probably due to methodological differences between studies, as well as approaches that may miss the variability and dynamicity of bilingual experience. In our study, we devised a continuous score of bilingual experiences and we investigated their non-linear effects on regional GM volume in a sample of young healthy participants from an immersive and naturalistic bilingual environment. We focused (...) our analyses on cortical and subcortical regions that had been previously proposed as part of the bilingual speech pipeline and language control network. Our results showed a non-linear relationship between bilingualism score and grey matter volume of the inferior frontal gyrus. We also found linear increases in volumes of putamen and cerebellum as a function of bilingualism score. These results go in line with predictions for immersive and naturalistic bilingual environments with increased intensity and diversity of language use and provide further evidence supporting the dynamicity of bilingualism’s effects on brain structure. (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)

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)

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)

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)

In Politics I 2 (1253a18–27), Aristotle makes a controversial claim that the polis is prior in nature to the individual. The aim of this article is to reconstruct this thesis. According to recent scholarship, there are two main ways to understand priority in nature in Aristotle. It may be construed as ‘existential priority, or as ‘priority in being’. It is argued that: (a) The first option is problematic; it cannot give us a viable reading of the thesis in Politics I (...) 2. Whereas (b) The second option provides us with a sound approach to the puzzle at hand. Furthermore, it is argued that the exegetical plausibility of the suggested reading of the thesis in Politics I 2 (1253a18–27) may be bolstered if we note that, for Aristotle, the polis is a particular kind of hylomorphic whole. (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)

Politikoje I 2 Aristotelis pateikia kontroversišką teiginį, kad polis pagal prigimtį turi pirmumą prieš individą. Straipsnyje siekiama rekonstruoti šį teiginį. Pastarojo meto tyrimai siūlo du būdus suprasti prigimtinį pirmenybiškumą Aristotelio veikaluose. Jį galima interpretuoti kaip „egzistencinį pirmumą“ arba kaip „pirmumą būtyje“. Teigiama, kad pirmasis variantas kelia problemų; jis neatveria priimtinos šio teiginio skaitymo Politikoje I 2 perspektyvos. Antroji alternatyva teikia patikimą prieigą prie šios mįslės. Taip pat teigiama, kad šios siūlomos teiginio iš Politikos I 2 (1253a18–27) interpretacijos egzegetinis tikėtinumas dar (...) labiau išauga, jei atkreipiame dėmesį į tai, kad Aristoteliui polis yra tam tikra hilomorfinės visumos rūšis. (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)

Given the pervasiveness of habit in human life, the distinctive problems posed by habitual acts for accounts of moral responsibility deserve more attention than they have hitherto received. But whereas it is hard to find a systematic treatment habitual acts within current accounts of moral responsibility, proponents of such accounts have turned their attention to a topic which, I suggest, is a closely related one: unwitting omissions. Habitual acts and unwitting omissions raise similar issues for a theory of responsibility because (...) they likewise invite us to rethink the assumption that moral responsibility requires awareness of the relevant features of one’s conduct. And given the increasing interest in the problem of responsibility for unwitting omissions, it is reasonable to expect that the theoretical moves made in response to this problem might be used to make sense of judgments of responsibility regarding habitual acts. I substantiate these points by inquiring into whether some well-known accounts of unwitting omissions can be used to explain how we can be responsible for things we do out of habit. (shrink)

This paper examines Della Rocca’s critique of Aristotle’s conception of substance. The key point of the paper is that Aristotle’s homonymy principle and concept of enformed matter undermine Della Rocca’s claim that Aristotle is subject to a John Wayne moment. (To undergo a John Wayne moment is to propose an unilluminating or empty explanation, as in Wayne’s statement ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’.).

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)

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)

In this study, I attempt to shed light on whether some passages from the Platonic dialogue Cratylus that deal with language correspond to Karl Popper’s theory on the third world. Specifically, I attempt to prove that Plato’s third world contains both divine and human properties, something that is provided through language, that is, through the human rational and developing in objective terms construction. In the four subchapters of my study, I basically investigate the relationship between the thinking subject and the (...) noumenon as well as the role of the coiner of names and the dialectician with respect to the scientific foundation of the names. The most important conclusion drawn is that according to Plato these two are responsible for connecting a thinking subject with a noumenon by adding objective certainty to the meaning of everything is said. I also investigate how Plato’s archetypal Ideas could be considered to be the third world. (shrink)

This book explores the topography of Mount Athos, emphasizing the significance of silence and communal ritual in its understanding. Mount Athos, a mountainous peninsula in northern Greece, is a valuable case study of sacred topography, as it is one of the world’s largest monastic communities and an important pilgrimage destination. Its phenomenological examination highlights the importance of embodiment in the experience of religious places. Combining interdisciplinary insights from architectural theory, philosophy, theology and anthropology with archival and ethnographic materials, the book (...) brings a fresh contribution to both Athonite studies and scholarship on sacred space. By focusing on the interrelation between silence and communal ritual, it offers an alternative to the traditional art historical, objectifying approaches. It reintroduces the phenomenological understanding of place, investigating also how this is expressed through a number of narratives, such as travel literature, maps and diaries. (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)

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)

Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland argue that controlled donation after circulatory death (DCD), and normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) do not violate the dead donor rule (DDR) (Nielsen Busch and Mjaala...

'Presents a good balance in terms of perspectives and content... should appeal to a large audience of scholars from multiple disciplines, including business history, organisational economics, international business, and strategic management.' -Academy of Management Review 'Pitelis's book opens our eyes to the variety of contexts in which Penrose's theory of firm-level growth is applicable... Rereading Penrose after reading Pitelis's book should result in a different learning experience for the reader, who will connect the dots between Penrose's ideas and different research (...) contexts more naturally.' -Academy of Management ReviewThis book celebrates the monumental contribution to economics, strategic management, international business, and more of Edith Penrose -- the first person to analyse the theory of the growth of the firm. She examined knowledge creation within firms, leading to endogenous growth and to limits to growth, and applied her insights to business strategy and industrial organisation. In this volume, eminent economists and management scholars assess, apply, and extend Penrose's contribution to new fields of enquiry. (shrink)

An Introduction to basic metaepistemological debates and positions.

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 →.

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)

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)

Abstract Although expressivist theories have been applied to many normative discourses (moral, rationality, knowledge, etc.), the normative discourse of epistemic justification has been somewhat neglected by expressivists. In this paper, I aspire to both remedy this unfortunate situation and introduce a novel version of expressivist theory: Habits-Expressivism. To pave the way for habits-expressivism, I turn to Allan Gibbard's (1990, 2003, 2008) seminal work on expressivism. I first examine Gibbard's (2003, 2008) late plan-reliance expressivism and argue that it faces certain problems (...) when applied to epistemic justification discourse. As a response to these problems, I go on to introduce habits-expressivism and argue that not only does it avoid the identified problems for plan-reliance-expressivism, but it also captures the basic attractions of both plan-reliance expressivism and Gibbard's (1990) early theory of norm-expressivism. (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)

Cuneo and Shafer-Landau have argued that there are moral conceptual truths that are substantive and non-vacuous in content, what they called ‘moral fixed points’. If the moral proposition ‘torturing kids for fun is pro tanto wrong’ is such a conceptual truth, it is because the essence of ‘wrong’ necessarily satisfies and applies to the substantive content of ‘torturing kids for fun’. In critique, Killoren :165–173, 2016) has revisited the old skeptical ‘why be moral?’ question and argued that the moral fixed (...) points give us no reason to care about morality and, therefore, they are normatively irrelevant. He concluded that this is a counterintuitive implication that undermines the proposal. In this paper, I develop a rejoinder to Killoren’s argument that explains why, at least from the perspective of the moral fixed points framework, if the moral fixed points exist, they are necessarily normatively relevant for rational agents. I supplement this explanation with an explanation of why it might prima facie appear that moral fixed points are not normatively relevant, although ultima facie they are relevant. The supplementary explanation explains prima facie normative irrelevance as the upshot of failures of rational agency. I conclude that the moral fixed points, can, in principle, offer an interesting response to the skeptical ‘why be moral?’ question’. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 47-49.

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)

A sample of 259 South African managers completed a survey originally administered by Nel (1992). The results of the current study indicated a favourable move on four of the 15 questionable actions used to assess each group's ethical predisposition. Furthermore, the grand means for the two temporal-based samples also provided anecdotal evidence of a positive transition. Virtually identical results were in evidence when the segment of 89 top managers was compared to the sample of its higher level peers from the (...) earlier study by Nel. The results support the premise that today's South African managers have a more ethical predisposition than did their peers of some 20 years prior to them. However, the study concurrently documents the reality that there is ample room for further improvement. (shrink)