In this wide-ranging volume of papers on Greek and Roman philosophy, a group of distinguished scholars has come together to honor Phillip Mitsis as a teacher, scholar, and colleague. Apart from examining a range of topics and philosophers that covers most areas of Classical philosophy and even beyond, the volume is particularly noteworthy for the variety of critical and philosophical methodologies it embraces. This reflects the honorand's belief that our understanding of philosophy and its relation to its own history must (...) be continually re-examined and that such examinations inevitably benefit from the mutual engagement of different traditions and styles of philosophical argument, even when they seem to conflict. While not explicitly setting up methodological debates, the volume manages to intimate the benefits of more polyphonic discussions by showing eminent practitioners of various approaches going about their craft and presenting their arguments in the spirit of a friendly gift, or philodorema. Edited by David Konstan and David Sider, the volume collects essays in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy by Pietro Pucci, Gerasimos Santas, David Sider, Darren Gardner, Nathaniel Nicol, Heather L. Reid, Carlo DaVia, Theodore Scaltsas, David O. Brink, Fred D. Miller, Jr., Paul Schollmeier, Enrico Piergiacomi, David Konstan, Jean-Philippe Ranger, Paul A. Vander Waerdt, Joseph G. DeFilippo, Jon Miller, Brad Inwood, Paul T. Keyser, Christos C. Evangeliou, David Robertson, Michael Erler, and Alain Gigandet. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging historical introduction to philosophical hermeneutics, Jean Grondin discusses the major figures from Philo to Habermas, analyzes conflicts between various interpretive schools, and provides a persuasive critique of Gadamer's view of hermeneutic history, though in other ways Gadamer's Truth and Method serves as a model for Grondin's approach. Grondin begins with brief overviews of the pre-nineteenth-century thinkers Philo, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Flacius, Dannhauer, Chladenius, Meier, Rambach, Ast, and Schlegel. Next he provides more extensive treatments of such major (...) nineteenth-century figures as Schleiermacher, Böckh, Droysen, and Dilthey. There are full chapters devoted to Heidegger and Gadamer as well as shorter discussions of Betti, Habermas, and Derrida. Because he is the first to pay close attention to pre-Romantic figures, Grondin is able to show that the history of hermeneutics cannot be viewed as a gradual, steady progression in the direction of complete universalization. His book makes it clear that even in the early period, hermeneutic thinkers acknowledged a universal aspect in interpretation--that long before Schleiermacher, hermeneutics was philosophical and not merely practical. In revising and correcting the standard account, Grondin's book is not merely introductory but revisionary, suitable for beginners as well as advanced students in the field. (shrink)

Appearing in English for the first time, Jean-Luc Nancy’s 2002 book reflects on globalization and its impact on our being-in-the-world. Developing a contrast in the French language between two terms that are usually synonymous, or that are used interchangeably, namely globalisation (globalization) and mondialisation (world-forming), Nancy undertakes a rethinking of what “world-forming” might mean. At stake in this distinction is for him nothing less than two possible destinies of our humanity, and of our time. On the one hand, with (...) globalization, there is the uniformity produced by a global economical and technological logic leading to the contrary of an inhabitable world, “the un-world” (l’im-monde)—as Nancy refers to it—an un-world that entails social disintegration, misery, and injustice. And, on the other hand, there is the possibility of an authentic world-forming, that is, of a making of the world and of a making sense that Nancy calls a “creation” of the world. Nancy understands such world-forming in terms of an inexhaustible struggle for justice. This book is an important contribution by Nancy to a philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of globalization and a further development on his earlier works on our being-in-common, justice, and a-theological existence. (shrink)

In experimental settings, scientists often “make” new things, in which case the aim is to intervene in order to produce experimental objects and processes—characterized as ‘effects’. In this discussion, I illuminate an important performative function in measurement and experimentation in general: intervention-based experimental production. I argue that even though the goal of IEP is the production of new effects, it can be informative for causal details in scientific representations. Specifically, IEP can be informative about causal relations in: regularities under study; (...) ‘intervention systems’, which are measurement/experimental systems; and new technological systems. (shrink)

We began with the observation that language is often held to enact the world. We have examined several instances of this notion, beginning with a discussion of the folk etymology of certain words, moving through an example of Freud, to Morgenstern, Lettvin, and Stevens. The method shared by these examples assumes that words are literally saturated with meaning; that what appears arbitrary or senseless in them can be made to render up its sense and its motivation through a kind of (...) inspired analysis. Our intent has been to show how this principle of folk etymology lies behind some sophisticated creative thinking. In Freud, it is hypothesized to be a psychological mechanism of some depth. In Morgenstern and Lettvin, it forms the basis for a resonant poetic joke, while in Stevens it appears to have the same major status as the mythic principle of creation-through-language illustrated in our first examples from Egyptian mythology and from Genesis. Stevens, of course, uses the principle to create poetry, not religion; for as he says in section 5 of "The Man with the Blue Guitar": Poetry Exceeding music must take the placeOf empty heaven and its hymns . . . Samuel Jay Keyser, head of the department of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and editor of Linguistic Inquiry, is the coauthor of English Stress: Its Form, Its Growth and Its Role in Verse and of Beginning English Grammar. Alan Prince, an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has written on stress and linguistic rhythm and is currently working, with Keyser, on the poetry of Wallace Stevens. (shrink)

In biomedical measurement, biomarkers are used to achieve reliable prediction of, and useful causal information about patient outcomes while minimizing complexity of measurement, resources, and invasiveness. A biomarker is an assayable metric that discloses the status of a biological process of interest, be it normative, pathophysiological, or in response to intervention. The greatest utility from biomarkers comes from their ability to help clinicians (and researchers) make and evaluate clinical decisions. In this paper we discuss a specific methodological use of clinical (...) biomarkers in pharmacological measurement: Some biomarkers, called ‘surrogate markers’, are used to substitute for a clinically meaningful endpoint corresponding to events and their penultimate risk factors. We confront the reliability of clinical biomarkers that are used to gather information about clinically meaningful endpoints. Our aim is to present a systematic methodology for assessing the reliability of multiple surrogate markers (and biomarkers in general). To do this we draw upon the robustness analysis literature in the philosophy of science and the empirical use of clinical biomarkers. After introducing robustness analysis we present two problems with biomarkers in relation to reliability. Next, we propose an intervention-based robustness methodology for organizing the reliability of biomarkers in general. We propose three relevant conditions for a robust methodology for biomarkers: (R1) Intervention-based demonstration of partial independence of modes: In biomarkers partial independence can be demonstrated through exogenous interventions that modify a process some number of “steps” removed from each of the markers. (R2) Comparison of diverging and converging results across biomarkers: By systematically comparing partially-independent biomarkers we can track under what conditions markers fail to converge in results, and under which conditions they successfully converge. (R3) Information within the context of theory: Through a systematic cross-comparison of the markers we can make causal conclusions as well as eliminate competing theories. We apply our robust methodology to currently developing Alzheimer’s research to show its usefulness for making causal conclusions. (shrink)

In this article we provide a unifying neural hypothesis on how individuals understand the actions and emotions of others. Our main claim is that the fundamental mechanism at the basis of the experiential understanding of others' actions is the activation of the mirror neuron system. A similar mechanism, but involving the activation of viscero-motor centers, underlies the experiential understanding of the emotions of others.

Since the death of Jacques Lacan, Jean Laplanche is now considered to be one of the worlds foremost psychoanalytic thinkers. In spite of the influence of his work over the last thirty years, remarkably little has been available in English. Essays On Otherness presents for the first time in English many of Laplanche's key essays and is the first book to provide an overview of his thinking. It offers an introduction to many of the key themes that characterise his (...) work: seduction, persecution, revelation, masochism, transference and mourning. Such themes have been increasingly both in psychoanalytic thought and in continental philosophy, social and cultural theory, and literature making Essays On Otherness indispensable reading for all those concerned with the implications of psychoanalytic theory today. (shrink)

Givenness and Revelation represents both the unity and the deep continuity of Jean-Luc Marions thinking over many decades. This investigation into the origins and evolution of the concept of revelation arises from an initial reappraisal of the tension between natural theology and the revealed knowledge of God or sacra doctrina. Marion draws on the re-definition of the notions of possibility and impossibility, the critique of the reification of the subject, and the unpredictability of the event in its relationship to (...) the gift in order to assess the respective capacities of dogmatic theology, modern metaphysics, contemporary phenomenology, and the biblical texts, especially the New Testament, to conceive the paradoxical phenomenality of a revelation. This work thus brings us to the very heart and soul of Marions theology, concluding with a phenomenological approach to the Trinity that uncovers the logic of gift performed in the scriptural manifestation of Jesus Christ as Son of the Father. Givenness and Revelation enhances not only our understanding of religious experience, but enlarges the horizon of possibility of phenomenology itself. With a Foreword by Ramona Fotiade, Senior Lecturer in French, and David Jasper, Professor of Literature and Theology, both at the University of Glasgow. (shrink)

Scientists often use multiple independent methods of identification to distinguish reliable results from those produced in error. This process is referred to as ‘robustness analysis’. I argue that even though robustness analysis is useful for differentiating natural phenomena from artifacts, it fails to differentiate experimentally produced effects from artifacts. I argue that to bypass this problem, we can re-frame the role of robustness analysis to focus on cross-comparison between methods of production. Focusing on the production relation provides information about how (...) changes in conditions alter given effects, without first having to make a distinction between effect and artifact. (shrink)

In Éléments de l'art de la teinture, Claude-Louis Berthollet organized and described knowledge of a chemical craft in terms of contemporary chemical science. The resulting intellectual structure of his treatise established a programme and method for the subsequent improvement of dyeing. Berthollet's descriptive and hierarchical systematization of knowledge rendered problems intelligible and isolated them so that they could be attacked and solved by methodical experimentation. This double-edged processes of solving practical problems, first cognitively and then experimentally, provides a key to (...) understanding the way science has contributed to rapid and systematic technological change. (shrink)

In biomedical measurement, biomarkers are used to achieve reliable prediction of, and useful causal information about patient outcomes while minimizing complexity of measurement, resources, and invasiveness. A biomarker is an assayable metric that discloses the status of a biological process of interest, be it normative, pathophysiological, or in response to intervention. The greatest utility from biomarkers comes from their ability to help clinicians (and researchers) make and evaluate clinical decisions. In this paper we discuss a specific methodological use of clinical (...) biomarkers in pharmacological measurement: Some biomarkers, called ‘surrogate markers’, are used to substitute for a clinically meaningful endpoint corresponding to events and their penultimate risk factors. We confront the reliability of clinical biomarkers that are used to gather information about clinically meaningful endpoints. Our aim is to present a systematic methodology for assessing the reliability of multiple surrogate markers (and biomarkers in general). To do this we draw upon the robustness analysis literature in the philosophy of science and the empirical use of clinical biomarkers. -/- After introducing robustness analysis we present two problems with biomarkers in relation to reliability. Next, we propose an intervention-based robustness methodology for organizing the reliability of biomarkers in general. We propose three relevant conditions for a robust methodology for biomarkers: (R1) Intervention-based demonstration of partial independence of modes: In biomarkers partial independence can be demonstrated through exogenous interventions that modify a process some number of “steps” removed from each of the markers. (R2) Comparison of diverging and converging results across biomarkers: By systematically comparing partially-independent biomarkers we can track under what conditions markers fail to converge in results, and under which conditions they successfully converge. (R3) Information within the context of theory: Through a systematic cross-comparison of the markers we can make causal conclusions as well as eliminate competing theories. We apply our robust methodology to currently developing Alzheimer’s research to show its usefulness for making causal conclusions. (shrink)

The living man is thus bound within a net of epistemological and ontological premises which—regardless of ultimate truth or falsity—become partially self-validating for him. (Bateson 2000, 314)Epis...

This discussion centers on two desiderata: the role of measurement in information-gathering and physical interaction in scientific practice. By taking inspiration from van Fraassen’s view, we present a methodological account of perspectival measurement that addresses empirical practice where there is complex intervention, disagreeing results, and limited theory. The specific aim of our account is to provide a methodological prescription for developing measurement processes in the context of limited theory. The account should be useful to philosophers of science, who are interested (...) in the intersection between representation and intervention; scientists, who are interested in methodological suggestions for theory-development and reliability; and interdisciplinary researchers, who are interested in the intersections between the pandemic, built environments, and social processes. We apply the process-view of measurement to COVID-19, specifically, measuring replication in the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The aim is to show that our account tracks key elements—manipulation/intervention, independence, invariance, and theory-development—by organizing unfolding measurement processes. Additionally, we use our account to make prescriptive suggestions for measurement practice in the COVID-19 context by discussing the need to broaden measurement perspective on interaction, manipulation, and production. (shrink)

Investigating the writings of the Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481), twelve scholars are shedding new light on Filelfo’s intellectual endeavors and literary journey. This collection offers new inroads into Filelfo’s vast oeuvre, and through it to the world of Quattrocento humanism.

This article first presents a codicological and paleographical analysis of the Bibliotheca Medicea Laurenziana's manuscript Plut. 57.12, a codex containing the Epistolographi Graeci that was owned and annotated by Francesco Filelfo. The original nucleus of this composite was produced in Constantinople in the third decade of the 15th century. Afterwards, Filelfo himself had two copyists -one of whom is identifiable as Gerard of Patras - transcribe supplements to be added to the codex. Filelfo's ownership is proved not only by autograph (...) marginal notes, but also by the use of this manuscript as the source of Filelfo's Latin translation of several of these pseudepigraphic letters that were incorporated in his Commentationes Florentinae de Exilio, and by the correspondences between the marginalia accompanying the Commentationes and those in the Laur. Plut. 57.12. (shrink)

Editors of Cicero'sPro Archiahave assumed that Petrarch's lost transcription of the equally lost Liège manuscript that he discovered in 1333 survives in an almost unaltered version in a single Florentine manuscript, while the remaining 265Italireflect another stage of the text, when conjectural corrections by its learned discoverer were introduced into the text. This article proposes a reassessment of that dichotomy, based on a first comprehensive study of the whole transmission.

Traditionally, in the literature on robustness analysis objects are classified as genuine phenomena (natural objects, events, and processes) or artifacts (results produced in error). But much of biological measurement requires the manipulation of local experimental conditions in order to produce new effects. These types of intervention-based regularities are neither natural objects nor artifacts; characterizing them as either fails adequately to address key ontological properties as well as their role in scientific practice. It is argued that a new classification, based on (...) methodological considerations, can be useful in order to characterize experimental productions. Experimentally-useful context-sensitive objects are referred to as ‘artefacts’. To show how the new classification works and why it is instructive for scientific practice, two case studies are discussed. First, the puzzle of arsenic-consuming living organisms is analyzed, where under a set of specific experimental conditions a given organism was found to replace phosphorous with arsenic in its DNA. Second, ecological epigenetic measurement is discussed to show the complexity of variant effects in the context of lab, field, and computer measurements. It is argued that the line between artifacts and artefacts is fluid because theoretical, experimental, and practical considerations vary. (shrink)

In this discussion I show that philosophy of science concepts, especially where examples and thought experiments are limiting, can be enriched with artistic examples. I argue that artistic examples show abstract components and relations that can then be used to engage with philosophical concepts. First, I discuss a useful representational model for thinking about the process of science as analogous to the process of art. I set up philosophy of science as not only open, but also closely connected to art (...) by using Giere’s and van Fraassen’s discussions of the connection between scientific and artistic perspectives. Second, I show how artistic examples can be engaging and informative for teaching philosophy of science concepts. I apply two artistic examples to the concept of quantum measurement ‘indeterminacy’: Jackson Pollock’s artistic process and Mark Dior’s fallen hemlock. Finally, I use anecdotal experience of creating art with a philosophy of science class in order to apply indeterminacy to social properties. (shrink)