In this new book, Marko Zlomislić argues that Slavoj Žižek's work does not contain any sort of radical emancipatory project, especially as it passes through the ideology of communism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The evidence for the failure of communism is vast and includes the more than six hundred mass graves recently located in Žižek's homeland of Slovenia. Zlomislić demonstrates that the way out of the capitalist dilemma is not a repetition of communism but a return to the late medieval (...) notion of haecceity or "individual thisness" that was rejected by modernity. Haecceity, or the indescribable and indefinite here and now of the person, shows that the late medieval Franciscans were already "postmodernists." It is no wonder that the totalitarianism of the modernist Hegel is embraced by thinkers such as Žižek, Badiou, Hardt, Negri, and Laclau and was already rejected by Leibnitz, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Levinas, Deleuze, and Derrida. This important book shows that Žižek's work must be rejected because it does not uphold the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of the person. (shrink)

We provide a novel Bayesian justification of inference to the best explanation. More specifically, we present conditions under which explanatory considerations can provide a significant confirmatory boost for hypotheses that provide the best explanation of the relevant evidence. Furthermore, we show that the proposed Bayesian model of IBE is able to deal naturally with the best known criticisms of IBE such as van Fraassen?s?bad lot? argument.

In this study, we examine the influence of senior leadership on firms’ corporate social responsibility. We integrate upper echelons research that has investigated either the influence of the CEO or the top management team on CSR. We contend that functional experience complementarity between CEOs and TMTs in formulating and implementing CSR strategy may underlie differentiated strategies in CSR. We find that when CEOs who have predominant experience in output functions are complemented by TMTs with a lower proportion of members who (...) have experience in output functions, there is a pronounced effect on the community, product, and diversity dimensions of CSR. In turn, when output-oriented CEOs are complemented by output-oriented TMTs, we observe an effect on the employee relations dimension of CSR. Interestingly, we find no influence of CEO-TMT complementarity on the environment dimension of CSR. In general, our empirical results support the relevance of the interaction between CEOs and their TMTs in defining their firms’ CSR profile. (shrink)

Derrida has been interpreted as a nihilist and relativist. This study demonstrates that he has an ethics and a concern for religion that goes beyond the structures of the philosophical tradition.

Both G.F.W. Hegel and Carl Schmitt took seriously the problem of political sovereignty entailed by liberal political theories. In Dictatorship (1919) and Political Theology (1922), Schmitt rejects liberal political theories that argue for the immediate unity of democracy and legality i.e., popular sovereignty, because he thinks they cannot secure political sovereignty. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel denounces popular sovereignty for similar reasons. Yet given Schmitt’s negative assessment of Hegel their positions are seldom related to one another. I argue in (...) this paper that Schmitt’s analysis of liberal political theories is similar to Hegel’s analysis of Rousseau’s liberal ideas. I contend, however, that Schmitt’s solution, which collapses the distinction between the executive and the legislative power in favor of the former, fails to secure political sovereignty. Contrary to Schmitt, Hegel conceives of the liberal predicament as a basic determination of any political state that rests on the division of the legislative and executive power. Hegel argues that the constitutional monarchy is a genuine instantiation of political sovereignty that can maintain not only the division of these powers, but also their unity. In this regard, I argue that Hegel’s conception of the division of powers provides a more convincing theory of the problem afflicting modern states than Schmitt’s and at least deserves to be taken more seriously by critics of Schmitt’s solution such as Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Jurgen Habermas, Andreas Kalyvas and Chantal Mouffe. (shrink)

In their 2010 paper, Dizadji-Bahmani, Frigg, and Hartmann argue that the generalized version of the Nagel–Schaffner model that they have developed is the right one for intertheoretic reduction, i.e. the kind of reduction that involves theories with largely overlapping domains of application. Drawing on the GNS, DFH presented a Bayesian analysis of the confirmatory relation between the reducing theory and the reduced theory and argued that, post-reduction, evidence confirming the reducing theory also confirms the reduced theory and evidence confirming the (...) reduced theory also confirms the reducing theory, which meets the expectations one has about theories with largely overlapping domains. In this paper, I argue that the Bayesian analysis presented by DFH faces difficulties. In particular, I argue that the conditional probabilities that DFH introduce to model the bridge law entail consequences that run against the GNS. However, I also argue that, given slight modifications of the analysis that are in agreement with the GNS, one is able to account for these difficulties and, moreover, one is able to more rigorously analyse the confirmatory relation between the reducing and the reduced theory. (shrink)

: One of the outcomes from low self-confidence of basketball is aggressive behavior. Helpless feeling caused by low self-confidence could turn an athlete using aggressive behavior as alternate behavior in the interaction with the opponent during a game. The level of the aggression can be seen in the injury rate in that particular sport. This research objective is to find out the relation between self-confidence and the appearance of the aggressive behavior in basketball player. It involves 64 athletes in West (...) Jakarta between 17 to 28 years old. Data that was measured by questionnaires has shown there is a negative association between self-confidence and aggressive behavior in basketball athlete.  . (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an epistemological argument for freedom from poverty, building on Gerald Gaus’ work on political and moral disagreement in New Diversity Theory (NDT). NDT argues that diversity and disagreement are fundamental to political and moral learning. In this paper, I address Gaus’ central arguments in NDT, and focus on what I argue to be the key epistemological distinction of his account—namely, the argument that the relevant diversity, which is conducive to political and moral learning and should (...) therefore be protected by an institutional order, should not be defended or defined by reference to its performance with regards to discovery of true beliefs, but by reference to the independent epistemic value of protection of disagreeing, redundant and distant investigators. I develop a restatement of this argument from the perspective of institutional epistemology, and show that (along with constitutional liberties, polycentric self-governance and markets) freedom from poverty must be considered an institutional “device” conducive to such a conception of diversity. While Gaus rejects redistributive policies at the level of an institutional order, it is precisely his account of the epistemic powers of diversity and disagreement which provides the strongest defense of minimal redistribution. (shrink)

Die Untersuchung gliedert sich in drei durch eine Einführung und eine Schlussbetrachtung eingerahmte Hauptkapitel. Im ersten Hauptkapitel geht es um Kants Raum- und Zeitkonzeption in seiner vorkritischen Phase unter Berücksichtigung seiner Reaktion auf die zeitgenössische Kritik an seiner Konzeption von 1770. Dabei wird Kants komplexer Denkweg hin zu seiner Wende zum Verständnis von Raum und Zeit als reinen Anschauungen thematisiert. Hieran schließt sich im zweiten Hauptkapitel die Behandlung der prominenteren, systematisch ausgereiften Raum- und Zeitkonzeption in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft (...) an, wobei zunächst die unterschiedlichen Argumente aus der transzendentalen Ästhetik sukzessive und unter Einschluss der Forschungsliteratur diskutiert werden und Raum und Zeit als formale Anschauungen in der transzendentalen Analytik sowie als Ideen der Vernunft in der transzendentalen Dialektik zur Sprache kommen. Ein dritter Hauptteil widmet sich Kants Verständnis von Raum und Zeit in der Kritik der Urteilskraft, wo Kants Lehre neue Impulse erfährt und im Kontext der philosophischen Ästhetik, der Kultur sowie des Erhabenen relevant wird. Abschließend wird auf Kants schwieriges Nachlasswerk hinsichtlich der Themen Raum und Zeit eingegangen, das auf die Werke Fichtes und Schellings vorausweist. (shrink)

Attempts to explain behavior genetically face two major problems: the application of the concept of genetic coding and the theoretical possibility of decomposing behavior. This paper argues that using the notion of genetic coding is appropriate in explanations of protein synthesis but inadequate and even misleading in the context of explanations of behavior. Genes should be regarded as disparate components of mechanisms that account for behavior rather than as codes for behavioral phenotypes. Such mechanistic explanations, however, presuppose the possibility of (...) decomposing behavioral phenotypes, which is strongly disputed by researchers holding an interactionist view of behavior. It is argued that these researchers fail to distinguish etiological from constitutive decomposition, and that their objections apply to the former but not to the latter kind. Constitutive decomposition might identify genes as disparate components and open up the possibility of explaining behavior mechanistically by isolating causal paths from genes to behavior. Finally, research on the single gene disorder phenylketonuria is introduced to illustrate and test these views. With respect to this disorder it is demonstrated that applying the concept of genetic coding would be inappropriate and misguiding, while nonetheless the phenotype is decomposable and can be explained mechanistically by singling out a genetic causal path.t is demonstrated that applying the concept of genetic coding would be inappropriate and misguiding, while nonetheless the phenotype is decomposable and can be explained mechanistically by singling out a genetic causal path. (shrink)

Abstract.Evolutionary psychology and behavioural genomics are both approaches to explain human behaviour from a genetic point of view. Nonetheless, thus far the development of these disciplines is anything but interdependent. This paper examines the question whether evolutionary psychology can contribute to behavioural genomics. Firstly, a possible inconsistency between the two approaches is reviewed, viz. that evolutionary psychology focuses on the universal human nature and disregards the genetic variation studied by behavioural genomics. Secondly, we will discuss the structure of biological explanations. (...) Some philosophers rightly acknowledge that explanations do not involve laws which are exceptionless and universal. Instead, generalisations that are invariant suffice for successful explanation as long as two other stipulations are recognised: the domain within which the generalisation has no exceptions as well as the distribution of the mechanism described by the generalisation should both be specified. It is argued that evolutionary psychology can contribute to behavioural genomic explanations by accounting for these two specifications. (shrink)

What are the similarities and the differences of icons from the same workshop depicting the same subject? An important portable icon with the representation of the Dormition of the Virgin, hitherto unknown, preserved today in the Art Collection of the University of Göttingen, helps answering this question. The studydeals with the fascinating journey of this icon from Venetian-dominated Crete in the 15th century to Germany of the 18th century. Furthermore, this paper shows that the icon of Göttingen belongs to a (...) group of a numerous icons that they all derive from the same icon-workshop of the renowned Cretan painters Andreas and Nikolaos Ritzos in Candia. Finally, it turned out that this icon was also the inspiration for Cretan painters of the 17th CE such as Emmanuel Lambardos and Viktor. (shrink)

Motivated by the analogy which holds within the context of discovery between mathematics and physics, we aim to show that there is a connection between two fields within the context of justification too. Based on the careful analysis of examples from science (especially within the domain of physics) we suggest that the logic of scientific research, which might appear as enumerative induction, is deduction, and we propose it to be universal generalization inference rule. Our main argument closely follows the analysis (...) of the structure of physical theory proposed by theoretical physicist Eugene P. Wigner. (shrink)

The concept of the ‘infodemic’ has become a popular explanation for the rejection of anti-COVID-19 crisis governance measures. In this paper, we argue that infodemic is an inherent property of society under free institutions misused to pursue an epistemically vicious political epistemology. Furthermore, we provide an alternative account of political epistemology of COVID-19 governance and popular resistance to it. Namely, we argue that 1) pandemics represent a complex problem, and some level of resistance to governance which restricts liberties while informed (...) by ongoing scientific and political learning processes is inevitable, and 2) the resistance is exacerbated by the history of technocratization of governance and the exclusionary socio-economic inequalities which condition political and epistemic deficiencies easily exploitable by the political entrepreneurs of right-wing populism, particularly under the conditions of social media which gamifies public discourse. Thus, we argue, the correct response to the cultures of rejection of anti-COVID-19 measures is to change the underlying political and economic conditions and not to limit speech or restrict franchise as the infodemic diagnosis suggests. (shrink)

Immersive virtual environments can produce a state of behaviour referred to as ‘presence’, during which the individual responds to the virtual environment as if it were real. Presence can be arranged to scientifically evaluate and affect our consciousness within a controlled virtual environment. This phenomenon makes the use of virtual environments amenable to existing and in-development forms of therapy for various conditions. Delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU) is one such condition for which virtual reality (VR) technology has not (...) been evaluated to date. We are currently assessing the feasibility and utility of a delirium prevention and treatment system, which implements VR to improve quality of sleep, reduce pain, lower usage of sedatives, and stimulate cognition. The proposed system will consist of 3-axis wearable accelerometers, 6-DOF position trackers, a VR system and apps designed to promote sleep quality and mindfulness. Our a priori hypothesis is that our VR therapy system would lower the occurrence of delirium in patients admitted to ICUs. (shrink)

Building on Friedrich A. Hayek’s work in social philosophy, the paper gives an account of the central role of ignorance in institutional epistemology. The first part of the paper argues that if individuals involved in the search for knowledge are constitutionally ignorant and guided by norms, as Hayek saw them, they are more likely to attain knowledge if they follow different norms, including those that are redundant. The second part of the paper argues that the market as an institutional arrangement, (...) preferred by Hayek for its epistemic features, may lead to an epistemically detrimental reduction of agents following redundant norms. (shrink)

The article explores the specific conception of art developed by Danko Grlić, a prominent member of the Yugoslav Praxis School. Grlić conceptualised art beyond both aesthetic norms and technological determinism. Within the context of praxis philosophy, a distinct theory of the subject and a Marxist humanist approach, he reconceptualised art as a distinct type of praxis, a revolutionary and creative practice of changing existing living conditions. The article explains how his unique understanding of art leads Grlić to analyse, criticise and (...) refute various Marxist approaches to art: art as an ideology, art as a reflection of the objective world, art as sociological analysis. Moreover, while sharing many ideas and conceptions with Walter Benjamin’s materialist conception of art, Grlić reached the point where he became critical due to Benjamin’s belief in technology concerning processes of emancipation, which Grlić viewed with scepticism. (shrink)

What exactly is reasoning? While debate on this question is ongoing, most philosophers seem to agree on at least the following: reasoning is a mental process operating on contents, which consists in adopting or revising some of your attitudes in light of others. In this paper, I argue that this characterisation is mistaken: there is no single mental phenomenon that satisfies both of these conditions. Instead, I characterise two distinct mental phenomena, which I call ‘deducing’, on the one hand, and (...) ‘reasoning’ or ‘inference’ on the other, to play each of these roles. Recognising this division of labour is essential to developing a better understanding of our rational economy. (shrink)

This paper argues that Thomas Hobbes?s theory contains an account of progressive defragmentation and unification of power, accompanied by the progression in human reasoning capacities. If the consequence of human nature is abandonment of natural condition and subjection to a sovereign, then similar principles should apply to the sovereigns themselves, since Hobbes sees them as continuing to exist in the state of nature. In turn, the relations between sovereigns must also lead to defragmentation of political authority, either by conquest or (...) through peaceful submission. Total defragmentation of power might also have eschatological consequences, as the unified power of one human being over the whole world would remove?external violence? as a cause of?the dissolution of a commonwealth? while the perfection of reason would progressively remove the?internal? causes. This is a hypothetical situation that could relate Hobbes?s description of the Kingdom of God from Leviathan to his wider political theory by marking the single sovereign representative of now immortal all-encompassing Leviathan as the Antichrist and thus announcing the second coming of Christ. nema. (shrink)

This paper explores the phenomenon of revisionism in historiography, while focusing in particular on illegitimate revisionism and negationism. It is indisputably true that historiography must be subject to constant revisions. Like all scientific theories, it needs to be characterized by a sort of?conservative? openness towards new ideas; however, revisions and negations are often put forward without scientific grounding. They reject the well-established historiographical methods, while opening themselves to various kinds of ideologies, biases and manipulations. The paper further offers a synthesized (...) overview of the revisionist practice in dominant parts of the society and historiography in post-communist Serbia. The change in the ideological paradigm that occurred in the 1980s was accompanied by a politically motivated reinterpretation of the past, which primarily focused on World War II in Yugoslavia. In Serbia in the 1990s, Tito?s Partisans were no longer celebrated as national heroes and fighters against fascism; they were replaced by the royalist and nationalist Chetniks led by Draza Mihailovic, whose collaboration with the occupying forces was purposefully glossed over. The nationalist interpretation of history and the new revisionist politics in Serbia were supported by the state and the activities of its three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. In spite of the political changes that took place in Serbia in 2000, the dominant nationalist matrix in historical interpretations and revisionist politics remained unchanged. (shrink)

The articles in this volume offer a fresh perspective on the important role of the concept of law (lex) in the moral and political philosophy of the 'School of Salamanca'.

The paper highlights shortcomings in the public consultation practices on the deliberate release and placing on the market of GMOs in the European Union and in one of its member countries, Finland. It is argued that current GMO consultation practices do not meet the aims and objectives on which their introduction is typically justified. Specifically, they do not serve democracy, increase consensus, enable better decisions to be made, or establish trust. We conclude that there is a clear need for the (...) active development of the GMO consultation practices and for a further critical discussion on the ethical and socio-political foundation of public engagement. (shrink)

The philosophical literature on reasoning is dominated by the assumption that reasoning is essentially a matter of following rules. This paper challenges this view, by arguing that it misrepresents the nature of reasoning as a personal level activity. Reasoning must reflect the reasoner’s take on her evidence. The rule-following model seems ill-suited to accommodate this fact. Accordingly, this paper suggests replacing the rule-following model with a different, semantic approach to reasoning.

We prove, by a probabilistic argument, that a class of ω-categorical structures, on which algebraic closure defines a pregeometry, has the finite submodel property. This class includes any expansion of a pure set or of a vector space, projective space or affine space over a finite field such that the new relations are sufficiently independent of each other and over the original structure. In particular, the random graph belongs to this class, since it is a sufficiently independent expansion of an (...) infinite set, with no structure. The class also contains structures for which the pregeometry given by algebraic closure is non-trivial. (shrink)

Regress arguments have convinced many that reasoning cannot require beliefs about what follows from what. In this paper I argue that this is a mistake. Regress arguments rest on dubious (although deeply entrenched) assumptions about the nature of reasoning — most prominently, the assumption that believing p by reasoning is simply a matter of having a belief in p with the right causal ancestry. I propose an alternative account, according to which beliefs about what follows from what play a constitutive (...) role in reasoning. (shrink)

According to current orthodoxy in the philosophy of action, intentional actions consist in intrinsically mindless bodily movements that stand in causal relations to appropriate mental states. This paper challenges this approach to intentional action, by arguing that there are not enough appropriate mental states around to ‘animate’ all of the bodily movements we intuitively count as intentional actions. In the alternative picture I suggest, the bodily movements that constitute our intentional actions are themselves to be thought of as cognitive events, (...) embodying our grasp of ways of acting. (shrink)

Recently it has been argued that certain neuropsychological findings on the decision-making, instrumental learning, and moral understanding in psychopathic offenders offer reasons to consider them not criminally responsible, due to certain epistemic and volitional impairments. We reply to this family of arguments, that collectively we call the irresponsibility of the psychopath argument. This type of argument has a premise that describes or prescribes the deficiencies that grant or should grant partial or complete criminal exculpation. The other premise contends that neuropsychological (...) evidence shows that psychopaths have incapacitates that are sufficient to ascribe complete or partially exculpatory deficiencies. The focus of our criticism is this latter premise. We argue that it requires that psychopathy should correlate significantly with certain rational incapacities that manifest across contexts. We show that the available neuropsychological data do not support the claim that psychopaths have such general exculpatory incapacities. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to show, first of all, how landscape cannot but stand out on the horizon of a cognitive flux that affects every aspect of our being in the world (or, better said, of our being in the world) world). A special role will be reserved for aesthetic mediation, to be understood as a n act that regulates the epistemic negotiation between what is in the center and what is ”in the surroundings”. In this sense, the (...) work will start from bio cognitive assumptions on the species specific ways in which an organism circumscribes and enriches its world, and will then finally arrive at considerations that should, in our hopes, demonstrate how aisthesis is, in fact, the conceptual category that best lends itself to describing this process, in virtue of the particular gnoseological value it assigns to the se nsitive body and its extension extension. (shrink)

Political extremism remains relatively insufficiently explored due to the fact that the phenomenon is controversial and hard to define. Its ambiguity and variability depending on time and spatial point of view further complicates its definition. Its structure is amorphous and eclectic as it often includes elements from different ideologies and connects incompatible ideas. A multidimensional conceptualization and an interdisciplinary approach - sociological, social, psychological and historical, are the Author’s tools in explaining the phenomenon of political extremism in Serbia, hopefully contributing (...) to its clarification and laying a foundation for its further explanatory theoretical studies. (shrink)

In this paper the author discusses some problems concerning the relationship between contemporary tendencies in Marxism and theology of liberation.

This book presents my concept of poetic thinking in the context of debates around the anthropological question, that is 'what is being human?', building on 'thinking language' and dialogical thinking, developing a poetological anthropology. It evokes political and social issues to demonstrate why poetics is of general relevance for our times. The essay relates these questions to insights of quantum physics and neurosciences and discusses aspects of contemporary technology, media and medicine, employing notions from contemporary thinkers, such as atmospheres, immanent (...) transcendence, silence and presence. Poetic thinking considers the world in its togetherness, offering an alternative to the opposition of subject and object. It demonstrates the transformative power in the interaction of the form of language and the form of life. Poetic thinking takes place when a subject constitutes itself in creative and dialogical language, transforming its ways of feeling and thinking, in short, its way of perceiving the world. (shrink)

_A proposal for individual responsibility in communal life._.

Which epistemic value is the standard according to which we ought to compare, assess and design institutional arrangements in terms of their epistemic properties? Two main options are agent development and attainment of truth. The options are presented through two authoritative contemporary accounts-agent development by Robert Talisse’s understanding in Democracy and Moral Conflict and attainment of truth by David Estlund’s treatment, most prominently in Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Both options are shown to be unsatisfactory because they are subject to (...) problematic risk of suboptimal epistemic state lock-in. The ability of the social epistemic system to revise suboptimal epistemic states is argued to be the best option for a comparative standard in institutional epistemology. (shrink)

Which epistemic value is the standard according to which we ought to compare, assess and design institutional arrangements in terms of their epistemic properties? Two main options are agent development and attainment of truth. The options are presented through two authoritative contemporary accounts-agent development by Robert Talisse?s understanding in Democracy and Moral Conflict and attainment of truth by David Estlund?s treatment, most prominently in Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Both options are shown to be unsatisfactory because they are subject to (...) problematic risk of suboptimal epistemic state lock-in. The ability of the social epistemic system to revise suboptimal epistemic states is argued to be the best option for a comparative standard in institutional epistemology. nema. (shrink)