How do the heavenly bodies physically affect the sublunary world? On this topic, the few fragmentary statements by Aristotle were refined and expanded by his Greek commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. In the Kind-circle adaptations of Alexander and al-Kind-circle's Alexander was closely followed by al-Kind himself exerted a reciprocal influence on the Arabic Alexander, who was largely the product of his own group of translators. The appendix contains English translations from Arabic of two adapted Alexander's treatises.

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 4 Seiten: 433-457.

Prologo -- Introduzione -- Leggere Lambda per intero e come un intero -- Motivi conduttori e scopo peculiare del libro Lambda -- Trama e argomento del libro Lambda, per capitoli -- Addendum sulla costituzione del testo -- Commento.

This paper provides an annotated list of printed editions of Aristotle’s Metaphysica Nova, i.e. of the Arabic-Latin 13th-century version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which circulated within the Latin translation of Averroes’ Commentarium Magnum (Tafsīr mā baʿd al-ṭabīʿat). It is shown that this version – the impact of which was second to none –was never printed without at least one Greek-into-Latin version. From the 1473 editio princeps to the 1562 Iunctasedition, complementary material from the Greek into Latin and from the Arabic into (...) Latin Aristotelian traditions was increasingly added. Links to relevant digital reproductions are also provided. (shrink)

L’identité et la datation de Nicolas le Péripatéticien, l’auteur d’un sommaire de la philosophie d’Aristote, ont fait l’objet d’un article récent de Silvia Fazzo paru dans la Revue des Études Grecques. Contre la datation courante, fondée sur l’identification de Nicolas à l’historien de grand renom Nicolas Damascène , Fazzo a montré que Nicolas avait probablement vécu au cours de la période couvrant les IIIe au Ve siècles ap. J.-C., et plus problablement à l’époque de l’empereur Julien l’Apostat (...) . Cette hypothèse trouve un appui dans un nouveau fragment en traduction hébraïque découvert par Mauro Zonta, dans lequel Nicolas cherche à expliquer la Trinité de Dieu au moyen de la doctrine aristotélicienne des causes: Dieu est un, en tant que sa substance est une, mais Dieu est également trois, puisqu’il est à la fois causes motrice, formelle et finale du monde. Dans la mesure, évidemment réduite, où un fragment si court est susceptible de datation, l’époque de Julien paraît la plus probable. (shrink)

In June 2023, a group of ‘Aristotelians without Borders’ met in the splendid Villa San Remigio in Verbania, one of the beautiful premises of the University of Eastern Piedmont. Following in the footsteps of Aristotelians over the centuries, the participants were committed to the belief that engaging in dialogue has a value in itself. Our Aristotelian predecessors have collectively bequeathed to us a common language, a shared form of rationality and a grammar of thought which allow us to engage in (...) dialogue despite our differences. (shrink)

I. Introduzione. I.1. Un’editio minor come sfida aperta. I.2 Per una più selettiva eliminatio. II.1 Sulla storia del problema : l’eredità del XIX secolo (Brandis 1823, Christ 1885, Gercke 1892) nelle edizioni del XX (Ross 1924, Jaeger 1957). II.2. Studi recenti : la necessità di un superamento. II.3. Lo stemma di riferimento : Harlfinger (1979). II.4. L’applicazione dello stemma nel libro Alpha edito da Primavesi. II.5. La revisione dello stemma, proposta per Kappa e Lambda (2009, 2010). II.6. La reazione : (...) discussioni sul ruolo della tradizione β in Kappa e Lambda (2015). III. Una verifica dello stemma in agenda : la divisione delle due famiglie. III.1 Fra i codici β : L’Ambrosianus F 113 Sup. come codex descriptus ? (libri I-IX inc.). III.2. L’ipotesi dell’ interpositus ε e le sue implicazioni sistematiche. III.3 Allievo e maestro nel XV secolo : Matthaios Chamariotes (C) e Giorgio Scholarios, Gennadeios II (Vk). III.4. Il non liquet sulle parti inferiori dello stemma e il concetto di contaminazione. IV.1. Rivedendo lo stemma dall’interno : il problema critico degli errori-guida (Leitfehler). IV.2. Iudicium e valutazione degli errori. IV.3. Errori separativi ed errori congiuntivi secondo la Textkritik di Paul Maas. IV.4. Una verifica importante : il ruolo di γ. V. Un’ipotesi alternativa . V.1. Il testo della Metafisica nei codici poziori. V.2. Un ritorno alla sigla ". V.3. Un nuovo stemma dei codici principali della Metafisica. Appendice : una verifica sull’ipotesi γ. (shrink)

L'esistenza del commento di Alessandro di Afrodisia al De generatione aristotelico, perduto nella versione greca e nella traduzione araba, è attestata da numerose fonti arabe, tra le quali Averroè, nel suo commento alla stessa opera. L'A. rintraccia la presenza, la tipologia e la distribuzione delle citazioni tratte dal commento di Alessandro nel Kitab al-Tasrif, un'opera del corpus alchemico attribuita a Gabir ibn Hayyan. Secondo l'A., la sezione interessata dalle citazioni assembla tre diversi tipi di testi: 1) lemmi del De generatione (...) in traduzione araba; 2) frammenti lacunosi della traduzione araba del commento di Alessandro; 3) interventi di collegamento. Una più ampia discussione si trova in un saggio visibile sulla pagina "publicationslist" dell'autore: "Alessandro di Afrodisia sulle 'contrarietà tangibili' (De gen. et corr. II.2): fonti greche e arabe a confronto" in: Aristotele e Alessandro di Afrodisia nella tradizione araba, a c. di C. D'Ancona e G. Serra, “Il Poligrafo”, Padova 2002, pp. 151-189. Notasi che il testo ricostruito di Alessandro in GC 2.2-5 è stato pubblicato da E. Gannagé nella serie ACA, che però non menziona il contributo di SF, dalla cui iniziativa, dalle cui analisi e dalla cui ricostruzione integrale, svolta sul manoscritto arabo Paris. 5099, la ricerca prese l'avvio. (shrink)

The particular subject of this article is the very first sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics book Lambda: what does it really mean? I would stick to the most generous sense: (Aristotelian) theoria is about substance. Indeed, it has been often held that Lambda ignores the so-called focal meaning, and shows a remarkably rough stage of Aristotle’s conception of prime philosophy. By contrast, in this light, the very incipit of Lambda appears to testify Aristotle’s concern in an ontological foundation of theoretical wisdom (...) as such, which Lambda shares with the Metaphysics “central books”, Zeta in particular, in a not less coherent and possibly more advanced form. (shrink)

One of the main philosophical works by Alexander of Aphrodisias, De principiis, is lost in its original Greek text, but it is preserved in three extant Medieval Semitic versions, one in Syriac and two in Arabic, which were written in the Near East between 500 and 950 AD. These versions are not totally identical and, as we have shown in 2012, they are in a rather complex textual relationship. As we will show in this article, a tentative reconstruction of the (...) lost text should be based upon an attentive and point‑to‑point comparative analysis of some aspect of all three versions. We have tentatively called the abore way “critical translation”. (shrink)

This analysis of Ptolemy's Teatriblos deals with how the social and cultural role of astrology changed between lì and III century a D.: from a practice hard fought, although successful, to a generally accepted branch of knowledge. In Ptolemy's treatise astrology is shown to be not a science but an art: a techne" fallible but not controvertible. As the basis for such a project of reforming common opinion about astrol¬ogy, we find a quiet yielding attitude toward sceptical antidogmatism, and a (...) non-deterministic way of conceiving man 's naturai relationship with heavenly bodies. (shrink)

Un certain nombre de sources arabes font état d'une polémique entre Alexandre et Galien. Une tendance marquée de la recherche a été de lire nos sources grecques, relativement peu nombreuses, à la lumière de cette tradition. L'objectif de cet article est de contester le bien-fondé d'une telle orientation, et de dégager en même temps le statut spécifique de ce genre de récit biographique.

Edition of newly discovered 'Ruoli' of Public Schools (scuole del Broletto, later called 'Scuole Palatine) in the XVIth c. Milan.

This paper is concerned with an important variant reading discovered at the beginning of Book VIII of Aristotle’s _Physics_. The reading is found in J, the oldest manuscript of this work (Vind. phil. gr. 100, 9th c.): at VIII 1.250b13, J reads εἰ ἦν, “if it [_scil_. the movement] was”, instead of ἀεὶ ἦν, “it always was”, the only reading so far taken into account. Several early witnesses support J: E (Paris. gr. 1853, 10th c.), the Greek into Latin translation (...) by James of Venice (first half of the 12th c., _si erat_); the earliest Arabic version (_ap_. Jabir ibn Hayyan, انكنات, “if [the movement] was”). Such early sources thus agree as witnesses of a hypothetical premise concerning the eternity of cosmic motion against the standard vulgate text of the _Physics_. Once the if-reading at 250b13 is accepted, as opposed to the vulgate, Aristotle’s conclusion about the eternity of motion will apply not absolutely, but under the condition of the given premise that in no plausible way could motion have begun in time. The difference is important on several grounds. In particular, it fits better with the manner in which the argument is then developed by Aristotle throughout chapter 1 of _Phys_. VIII and with the parallel discussion about the eternity of the cosmos in _De caelo_ I 10 and _Metaphysics_ Λ 6. However, favouring the variant reading of J for _Phys_. 250b13 raises the problem of evaluating with special care the authority of manuscript J for the textual constitution of the _Physics_, which remains an open question for future scholarship. (shrink)

This article proposes a follow up of Fazzo’s contributions on the stemma codicum of Aristotle’s Metaphysics – including her Chora 2015 paper, its completion in the 2017 Revue d’Histoire des Textes and, most recently, a contribution on the text of Zeta 17 in Aristotelica 1 2022. All of these are summarized and framed here in the context of today’s lively debate. We then introduce the data of Marco Ghione’s collation and comparison of the readings of the two oldest manuscripts (...) J and E : J, the Vind. phil. gr. 100, early 9th century – the so‑called “Aristotle of Vienna” – is thus extensively compared with E, Paris. gr. 1853, early 10th century, with selected reference to the earliest hands at work (J, J2, E1). Based on Paul Maas’ theory of errors, we are now in condition to face the crucial issue : does the latter depend on the former? This helps resolving the one residual opacity or incertitude concerning the upper part of the Metaphysics’ stemma. (shrink)

This paper emphasizes an unnoticed connection between two lines in Aristotle, Metaphysics Λ.1, 1069a32, and Λ.2, 1069b26. It argues that the Greek text of the former has been obscured in standard editions by unnecessary emendation: if the reading of the mss. is preserved, the text here sets out a programme for research into the elements of heavenly bodies which is taken up in the second part of Λ.2. There, Aristotle distinguishes the matter of heavenly substance as if it were matter (...) in a certain sense only, and not sensu stricto: the only change it underlies is coming-to-be ποθέν ποι, ‘from one place to another’ . In Θ.8 as well, this is what allows Aristotle to deny that eternal things can have matter as an element of their substance. The reading argued for here may also explain how Aristotle can claim, by the end of Lambda, that he has succeeded in responding to an important aporia which was neglected by predecessors, namely ‘why some things are corruptible and other incorruptible’. (shrink)

Le commentaire continu d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise sur le livre Lambda de la Métaphysique d’Aristote était déjà perdu au XIIe siècle. Néanmoins, il exerçait toujours une influence par l’entremise du commentaire d’Averroès et de deux autres textes d’Alexandre: le traité Sur les principes de l’univers et la Quaestio I.1. Le présent article montre que ces deux derniers textes renferment chacun une section qui s’appuie sur Métaphysique Lambda, chapitres 6 et suiv., ce qui confirme le fait, ayant été établi ailleurs, que tous les (...) textes d’Alexandre revêtent un caractère exégétique et prennent pour base les textes d’Aristote. Qui plus est, une comparaison entre le texte du chapitre Lambda et l’interprétation alexandriste permet d’apercevoir l’apport distinctif d’Alexandre à ce que la tradition a reçu comme la théologie d’Aristote. Entre autres choses, nous devons à Alexandre, ou à ses sources proches, l’idée que les cieux, étant animés, se meuvent en cercle parce qu’ils désirent imiter la parfaite quiétude du Premier Moteur. Nous devons également à Alexandre une mise en rapport détaillée de la théorie du livre Lambda avec les analyses du chapitre 8 de la Physique. (shrink)

Not many texts from the Greek classical literature focus on the nature of the Good more closely than Aristotle’ Metaphysics Lambda 10. The first section raises the question to be answered henceforth : is the Good to be conceived as anything separated or does it intrinsically belong to the universe, as a way of being? And if both ways, how so, and which way first, and why?According to a current reading, which is well established in the commentary tradition, Aristotle’s Good (...) comes, first of all, as a separate being, namely God ; as a consequence, it also belongs to every kind of being. My aim is to show that this view, though playing a significant role in late Aristotelian scholastics, is scarcely supported in Aristotle’s text. In fact, it is unlikely to grasp whatever Aristotle has been willing to say in this final chapter of book Lambda, which brings to conclusion his overall theory about the principles of the world. (shrink)

The initial dilemma. I.1. The gradual rise of the Metaphysics. I.2. A bold contribution from textual history. I.3. A new perspective on late ancient commentaries. I.4. First philosophy or Metaphysics? I.5. Can tradition be ignored? II. ‘Being’ and οὐσία at the core of Aristotle’s theoretical research. II.1. Ontology as a science of ‘being’ in Aristotle: “What is X?” in the foreground. II.2. The first caveat: the copula function of Aristotle’s ‘being’. II.3. The definite article τό as quotation marks before the (...) flexed forms of ‘be’: τὸ ὄν, τὸ εἶναι, τὸ ἔστιν. II.4. Further explanations about Aristotle’s ‘being’. III. Οὐσία, the core of Aristotle’s theoretical philosophy. III.1. οὐσία and the criterion of pre‑eminence as Plato’s legacy. III.2. The dialectical roots of ontology. III.3. οὐσία from Zeta to Lambda. III.4. οὐσία as essence and οὐσία as substance. III.5. οὐσία as a syntactical core; the word’s etymology. III.6. οὐσία as the first sense of being in Aristotle’s first philosophy. III.7. Ontology as science, science of the science. IV. Historicizing: the semantic gap. IV.1. Editorial tradition: ontology and οὐσία as a fil rouge in the order of Metaphysics books. IV.2. οὐσία in the first century B.C. IV.3. οὐσία by Alexander of Aphrodisias. IV.4. Metaphysics and its purpose: the role of the Lambda book. IV.5. Being and οὐσία: a relationship lost over time. IV.6. The Aristotelian tradition as a way to cooperation. (shrink)

The paper firstly focuses on a rare vox, that is, the verb μετίσχω, as a new finding in two different sources: the Π text of Methaphysics Lambda 1075b19 and the “Ai Khanoum philosophical papyrus” (not only at column II.9, but arguably at II.11 and IV.8–9 as well). Using the verb μετίσχω testifies for a “2.0 version” of the theory of ideas, in a subsequent phase to Plato’s Parmenides. Xenocrates is likely to have played a role. This suggests a deeper connection (...) than previously thought between Aristotelian theories and Plato’s Academy. (shrink)

Prolegomena pour une nouvelle modalite critique d’edition et de reference concernant le temoignage d’Alexandre sur le texte de la Metaphysique d’Aristote. Methode et cas d’etude : ‘Alexandre’ et le ‘telephone sans fil’ des apparats critiques in Metaphysique 1072b2‑3. Quel ‘Commentaire’ d’Alexandre? Un texte a re‑etablir. Les editions du commentaire d’Alexandre au XIXe siecle : le role du manuscrit Monacensis gr. 81, a. 1550 env.. L’edition Hayduck 1888 du commentaire d’Asclepius comme etude de cas parallele et comme source supplementaire. Le commentaire (...) d’Alexandre selon la recensio laurentiana. L’independance des deux recensiones comme dilemme. La tradition indirecte de la tradition indirecte de la Metaphysique : le commentaire d’Asclepius. L’analyse des parties communes entre Asclepius et la recensio laurentiana sur Δ29 : un cas particulier. Les arguments de Hayduck 1891 pour l’athetese du texte du Laurentianus. L’argument de Hayduck 1891 sur la recensio laurentiana in Arist. 985a18‑20 et ses developpements recents : la suppression des mots d’Aristote concernant la fonction du νοῦς chez Anaxagore. La nouvelle athetese de la recensio laurentiana : arguments pro et contra. Discussions de nos jours sur l’edition d’Alexandre : l’hypothese du Paris. 1878 comme branche β. Tradition d’exegese, souci de legitimation, perte d’information, normalisation du langage. L’hypertexte possible et autres perspectives. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 4 Seiten: 458-473.

This article analyses the ethical aspects of multistakeholder recommendation systems (RSs). Following the most common approach in the literature, we assume a consequentialist framework to introduce the main concepts of multistakeholder recommendation. We then consider three research questions: who are the stakeholders in a RS? How are their interests taken into account when formulating a recommendation? And, what is the scientific paradigm underlying RSs? Our main finding is that multistakeholder RSs (MRSs) are designed and theorised, methodologically, according to neoclassical welfare (...) economics. We consider and reply to some methodological objections to MRSs on this basis, concluding that the multistakeholder approach offers the resources to understand the normative social dimension of RSs. (shrink)

The first part of this paper will provide a reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s interpretation of Academic scepticism, Pyrrhonism, and Dogmatism, and its sources throughout his large corpus. It shall also analyze Bacon’s approach against the background of his intellectual milieu, looking particularly at Renaissance readings of scepticism as developed by Guillaume Salluste du Bartas, Pierre de la Primaudaye, Fulke Greville, and John Davies. It shall show that although Bacon made more references to Academic than to Pyrrhonian Scepticism, like most of (...) his contemporaries, he often misrepresented and mixed the doctrinal components of both currents. The second part of the paper shall offer a complete chronological survey of Bacon’s assessment of scepticism throughout his writings. Following the lead of previous studies by other scholars, I shall support the view that, while he approved of the state of doubt and the suspension of judgment as a provisional necessary stage in the pursuit of knowledge, he rejected the notion of acatalepsia. To this received reading, I shall add the suggestion that Bacon’s criticism of acatalepsia ultimately depends on his view of the historical conditions that surround human nature. I deal with this last point in the third part of the paper, where I shall argue that Bacon’s evaluation of scepticism relied on his adoption of a Protestant and Augustinian view of human nature that informed his overall interpretation of the history of humanity and nature, including the sceptical schools. (shrink)

euroscience of Rule-Guided Behavior brings together, for the first time, the experiments and theories that have created the new science of rules. Rules are central to human behavior, but until now the field of neuroscience lacked a synthetic approach to understanding them. How are rules learned, retrieved from memory, maintained in consciousness and implemented? How are they used to solve problems and select among actions and activities? How are the various levels of rules represented in the brain, ranging from simple (...) conditional ones if a traffic light turns red, then stop to rules and strategies of such sophistication that they defy description? And how do brain regions interact to produce rule-guided behavior? These are among the most fundamental questions facing neuroscience, but until recently there was relatively little progress in answering them. It was difficult to probe brain mechanisms in humans, and expert opinion held that animals lacked the capacity for such high-level behavior. However, rapid progress in neuroimaging technology has allowed investigators to explore brain mechanisms in humans, while increasingly sophisticated behavioral methods have revealed that animals can and do use high-level rules to control their behavior. The resulting explosion of information has led to a new science of rules, but it has also produced a plethora of overlapping ideas and terminology and a field sorely in need of synthesis. In this book, Silvia Bunge and Jonathan Wallis bring together the worlds leading cognitive and systems neuroscientists to explain the most recent research on rule-guided behavior. Their work covers a wide range of disciplines and methods, including neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neurophysiology, electroencephalography, neuropharmacology, near-infrared spectroscopy, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. This unprecedented synthesis is a must-read for anyone interested in how complex behavior is controlled and organized by the brain. (shrink)

Pluralist mathematical realism, the view that there exists more than one mathematical universe, has become an influential position in the philosophy of mathematics. I argue that, if mathematical pluralism is true (and we have good reason to believe that it is), then mathematical realism cannot (easily) be justified by arguments from the indispensability of mathematics to science. This is because any justificatory chain of inferences from mathematical applications in science to the total body of mathematical theorems can cover at most (...) one mathematical universe. Indispensability arguments may thus lose their central role in the debate about mathematical ontology. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

This article presents the first, systematic analysis of the ethical challenges posed by recommender systems through a literature review. The article identifies six areas of concern, and maps them onto a proposed taxonomy of different kinds of ethical impact. The analysis uncovers a gap in the literature: currently user-centred approaches do not consider the interests of a variety of other stakeholders—as opposed to just the receivers of a recommendation—in assessing the ethical impacts of a recommender system.

Public engagement is one of the fundamental pillars of the European programme for research and innovation _Horizon 2020_. The programme encourages engagement that not only fosters science education and dissemination, but also promotes two-way dialogues between scientists and the public at various stages of research. Establishing such dialogues between different groups of societal actors is seen as crucial in order to attain epistemic as well as social desiderata at the intersection between science and society. However, whether these dialogues can actually (...) help attaining these desiderata is far from obvious. This paper discusses some of the costs, risks, and benefits of dialogical public engagement practices, and proposes a strategy to analyse these argumentative practices based on a three-tiered model of epistemic exchange. As a case study, we discuss the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, arguably a result of suboptimal public engagement, and show how the proposed model can shed new light on the problem. (shrink)

Can art, religion, or philosophy afford ineffable insights? If so, what are they? The idea of ineffability has puzzled philosophers from Laozi to Wittgenstein. In Ineffability and its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion and Philosophy, Silvia Jonas examines different ways of thinking about what ineffable insights might involve metaphysically, and shows which of these are in fact incoherent. Jonas discusses the concepts of ineffable properties and objects, ineffable propositions, ineffable content, and ineffable knowledge, examining the metaphysical pitfalls involved (...) in these concepts. Ultimately, she defends the idea that ineffable insights as found in aesthetic, religious, and philosophical contexts are best understood in terms of self-acquaintance, a particular kind of non-propositional knowledge. Ineffability as a philosophical topic is as old as the history of philosophy itself, but contributions to the exploration of ineffability have been sparse. The theory developed by Jonas makes the concept tangible and usable in many different philosophical contexts. (shrink)

It is well-established that algorithms can be instruments of injustice. It is less frequently discussed, however, how current modes of AI deployment often make the very discovery of injustice difficult, if not impossible. In this article, we focus on the effects of algorithmic profiling on epistemic agency. We show how algorithmic profiling can give rise to epistemic injustice through the depletion of epistemic resources that are needed to interpret and evaluate certain experiences. By doing so, we not only demonstrate how (...) the philosophical conceptual framework of epistemic injustice can help pinpoint potential, systematic harms from algorithmic profiling, but we also identify a novel source of hermeneutical injustice that to date has received little attention in the relevant literature: epistemic fragmentation. Epistemic fragmentation is a structural characteristic of algorithmically-mediated environments that isolate individuals, making it more difficult to develop, uptake and apply new epistemic resources. This, in turn, can impede the identification and conceptualisation of emerging harms in these environments. We trace the occurrence of hermeneutical injustice back to the fragmentation of the epistemic experiences of individuals, who are left more vulnerable by the inability to share, compare, and learn from shared experiences. (shrink)

What are the relevant values to the appraisal of research programs? This question remains hotly debated, as philosophers have recently proposed many lists of values potentially relevant to scientific appraisal. Surprisingly, despite being mentioned in many lists, little attention has been paid to fruitfulness. It is unclear how fruitfulness should be explicated, and whether it has any substantial role in scientific appraisal. In this paper, I argue we should explicate fruitfulness as the capacity to develop of research programs. Moreover, I (...) provide a novel strategy to assess and compare the fruitfulness of programs focused on their research questions and heuristics. To illustrate how this strategy would work, I will discuss a case study, namely the adaptationist program in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

The Feeling Brain — The Thinking Soul Recent advances in neuroscience have dramatically improved our understanding of human emotional states. With the help of new technologies and models, scholars are beginning to unravel the "mystery" of emotional life. Confusions in contemporary emotion studies are due to the traditional model of a person as a rational conscious agent. The paper highlights two problematic aspects of this prevailing model: the relation between emotion and reason and the relation between emotion and consciousness. Firstly, (...) it is claimed that the difference between emotions and thoughts does not transcend their mutual interconnectivity. Secondly, conscious content and emotional responses are both products of specialized emotion systems that operate unconsciously. Both claims are supported by experimental findings and clinical practice. (shrink)

Modulating connectivity measures in EEG-based neurofeedback studies is assumed to be a promising therapeutic and training tool. However, little is known so far about its effects and trainability. In the present study, we investigated the effects of up- and down-regulating SMR coherence by means of neurofeedback training on EEG activity and memory functions. Twenty adults performed 10 neurofeedback training sessions in which half of them tried to increase EEG coherence between Cz and CPz in the SMR frequency range, while the (...) other half tried to down-regulate coherence. Up-regulation of SMR coherence led to between- and within-session changes in EEG coherence. SMR power increased across neurofeedback training sessions but not within training sessions. Cross-over training effects on baseline EEG measures were also observed in this group. Up-regulation of SMR coherence was also associated with improvements in memory functions when comparing pre- and post-test results. Participants were not able to down-regulate SMR coherence. This group did not show any changes in baseline EEG measures or memory functions comparing pre- and post-test. Our results provide insights in the trainability and effects of connectivity-based neurofeedback training and indications for its practical application. (shrink)