Institute for Philosophical Studies

In the quest for a new social turn in philosophy of science, exploring the prospects of a Vygotskian perspective could be of significant interest, especially due to his emphasis on the role of culture and socialisation in the development of cognitive functions. However, a philosophical reassessment of Vygotsky's ideas in general has yet to be done.
As a step towards this direction, I attempt to elaborate an approach on scientific representations by drawing inspirations from Vygotsky. Specifically, I work upon Vygotsky’s understanding on the nature and function of concepts, mediation and zone of proximal development.

I maintain that scientific representations mediate scientific cognition in a tool-like fashion (like Vygotsky’s signs). Scientific representations are consciously acquired through deliberate inquiry in a specific context, where it turns to be part of a whole system, reflecting the social practices related to scientific inquiry, just scientific concepts do in Vygotsky’s understanding. They surrogate the real processes or effects under study, by conveying some of the features of the represented systems. Vygotsky’s solution to the problem of the ontological status of concepts points to an analogous understanding for abstract models, which should be regarded neither as fictions nor as abstract objects.
I elucidate these views by using the examples of the double-helix model of DNA structure and the development of our understanding of the photoelectric effect.

In this paper, I attempt to sketch an approach on scientific representations as artifacts mediating scientific cognition. I deploy this approach by bringing some ideas of thinkers whose work is more or less neglected in the relevant discussion nowadays in dialogue with currently discussed approaches.
Specifically, I attempt to elaborate a comprehensive approach by adopting a Vygotskian perspective on cognitive activities. On these grounds, I canvass the role of representations in scientific cognition, reclaiming some of M. Wartofsky’s views on models. Furthermore, I explore the sustainability of introducing E.V. Ilyenkov’s elaboration on the concept of ideal in the relevant discussion.

In this paper, I attempt to sketch a dialectical approach on scientific representations and their role in scientific cognition. In my understanding, scientific representations can be construed as ‘tools’ mediating scientific cognition. These ‘tools’ are products of our cognitive activity, by which we signify which features of certain objects or states of affairs should be embodied in abstractive representations of them. In such a context, I explore the merits of bringing some ideas of thinkers whose work is underestimated in the relevant discussion nowadays (such as K. Marx, E.V. Ilyenkov, L.S. Vygotsky, M. Wartofsky) in dialogue with currently discussed approaches.

Rockmore’s paper offers a nice discussion on how classical German idealism provides a plausible account of the Parmenidean insight that thought and being are identical and suggests that idealist epistemic constructivism is arguably the most promising approach to cognition. In this short commentary, I will explore the implications of adopting other interpretations of Parmenidean identity thesis, which arguably lead to different conclusions than the ones drawn by Rockmore. En route to disavow the distinction between ontology and epistemology, I argue that one may adopt an approach on cognition which would be immunized to worries that prompt Rockmore’s elaboration and also embrace (at least) some of its benefits.

Einstein’s relativity and its reception is definitely a prominent option for a case-study aiming to highlight the impact of the socio-cultural environment to the formulation of the scientific image of the world and other aspects of the worldview of a given era. Indeed, Einstein’s relativity clearly marked the course of 20th-century science, changed our
view and shaped our experience of time.

In my 'Ideality, Symbolic Mediation and Scientific Cognition: The Tool-Like Function of Scientific Representations' (Kilakos 2016b) I have inadvertently missed to give credits to Siyaves Azeri for his great help in the deployment of several thoughts I have elaborated in this paper and to properly cite his (2013) in the relevant passages. While developing his interesting model of conceptual cognitive organs (CCO), Azeri underlines that it is based on an alternative epistemological stance that defines knowledge in terms of act-change and points out that the questions that any epistemology must answer is what it means to know and how something is known. As he states, '[t]o know, in this model, means to manipulate the object in the sense of changing it into a tool of action' (Azeri 2013, 1099). This idea has been very influential for me to propose that since, as I argue dealing with the case of scientific representations, cognition is construed as an active process. On these grounds, in my (2016b) I propose that 'to know means to manipulate the object of knowledge, to transform it into a tool of action; it is active interference in objective reality by means of our cognitive artifacts, sign-systems and conceptual frameworks'. In his (2013), Azeri explains that Vygotsky introduces consciousness as a responsive function, and argues that the thesis that concepts are cognitive organs and extensions of body is in harmony with Vygotskian materialist methodology, which represents a positive rejection of dualistic systems and consistent with the instrumental character of concepts, implying that concepts are means of action. Following Vygotsky, Azeri proposes that concepts are introduced when specific questions cannot be answered with the use of existing cognitive tools including the present conceptual stockpile. Moreover, he argues that new concepts are introduced not only when particular questions remain unanswered, but also when the very phenomena are formulated as particular questions, that is, when these phenomena are conceived as objects of cognition (Azeri 2013, 1099). Azeri's approach has informed my approach about the mediating the role of models. In my (2016b) I argue that, based on Vygotsky's understanding of mediation, 'I maintain that scientific representations mediate scientific cognition in a tool-like fashion (like Vygotsky's signs). They do not intervene between the human agent and the object of cognition which they are meant to represent, as if the human agent does not access or act upon the object of cognition itself; rather, they pilot and enact this cognitive activity. Therefore, I contend that scientific representations are mediating cognitive tools, which compass scientific cognition, operating as a grapnel in our inquiries for the essence of reality. In this sense, scientific representations are introduced in scientific inquiries when our existing cognitive tools are unable to provide answers to questions which are raised in the course of our scientific inquiries'. On these grounds, I proceed by arguing that 'scientific representations yield novel ways of thinking and acting, which were unavailable to us prior to their introduction. Hence, scientific representations not only facilitate our engagement in certain, already emerged problems, but they also contribute formulating new questions that may guide new forms of practical activity or enable us to unveil new phenomena as objects of cognition'. Siyaves Azeri has been a great friend and exchanging ideas with him by 2014 has been a great help in my first steps in academia. Sharing similar views and ideals, our communication has been thought-provoking and a precious intellectual influence for me, as it is also mentioned in my (2016a). He is to be credited not only for the aforementioned ideas, but also for stimulating a great deal of the ideas I elaborate in my research. I am pretty sure that in the near future, this exchange will give even more interesting outcomes.

It is plausible to think that, in order to actively employ models in their inquiries, scientists should be aware of their existence. The question is especially puzzling for realists in the case of abstract models, since it is not obvious how this is possible. Interestingly, though, this question has drawn little attention in the relevant literature. Perhaps the most obvious choice for a realist is appealing to intuition. In this paper, I argue that if scientific models were abstract entities, one could not be aware of them intuitively. I deploy my argumentation by building on Chudnoff's elaboration on intuitive awareness. Furthermore, I shortly discuss some other options to which realists could turn in order to address the question of awareness.

Taking user’s role and features as milestones for an approach on scientific representation has become a growing trend. We shall investigate the implications that pragmatics bring in the relevant debate. Proponents of pragmatic approaches support that questions such as ‘how an object represents another’ or ‘which features of a certain object represent the target of the representation and in what way’ can be answered only within the given context of representation’s use. Thus, attention is drawn to the intentionality of the representation, in contrast to the semantic tradition, according to which the representational function is based on morphic relations between the representation and the represented object. Given that scientific representations surrogate objects and phenomena in our studies, they should reproduce aspects, relations and interactions of them, possessing the appropriate features. Therefore, we support that user’s intention is not enough to build the representational relation on it. We claim that a) a sustainable and successful theory of scientific representations cannot be grounded on pragmatics b) pragmatic approaches undermine the objectivity of the knowledge inferred by representations c) the important role of the cognizing subject in a theory of scientific representation can be rescued without the burden coming with pragmatic approaches.

The influence of religious beliefs to several leading mathematicians in early Soviet years, especially among members of the Moscow Mathematical Society, had drawn the attention of militant Soviet marxists, as well as Soviet authorities. The issue has also drawn significant attention from scholars in the post-Soviet period. According to the currently prevailing interpretation, reported purges against Moscow mathematicians due to their religious inclination are the focal point of the relevant history. However, I maintain that historical data arguably offer reasons to cast reasonable doubts on this interpretation. In this paper, by reviewing the relevant literature, I raise some methodological and philosophical concerns, in an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of the issue. I maintain that an efficient line of reasoning is to discuss issues in the context of their making, taking into consideration the specific features of each era’s culture. Thus, by focusing on P.A. Nekrasov’s case, I attempt to point to an alternative interpretation, in which the different treatment of religious inclined mathematicians by Soviet authorities is explained in the context of the ideological confrontation between two contrasting worldviews, as part of the ongoing class war in the several phases of Soviet history.

K. Marx’s 200th jubilee coincides with the celebration of the 85 years from the first publication of his “Mathematical Manuscripts” in 1933. Its editor, Sofia Alexandrovna Yanovskaya (1896–1966), was a renowned Soviet mathematician, whose significant studies on the foundations of mathematics and mathematical logic, as well as on the history and philosophy of mathematics are unduly neglected nowadays.Yanovskaya, as a militant Marxist, was actively engaged in the ideological confrontation with idealism and its influence on modern mathematics and their interpretation. Concomitantly, she was one of the pioneers of mathematical logic in the Soviet Union, in an era of fierce disputes on its compatibility with Marxist philosophy. Yanovskaya managed to embrace in an originally Marxist spirit the contemporary level of logico-philosophical research of her time. Due to her highly esteemed status within Soviet academia, she became one of the most significant pillars for the culmination of modern mathematics in the Soviet Union. In this paper, I attempt to trace the influence of the complex socio-cultural context of the first decades ofthe Soviet Union on Yanovskaya’s work. Among the several issues I discuss, her encounter with L. Wittgenstein is striking.

Одной из особенностей прагматизма является, как известно, трактовка познания, свободная от апелляции к корреспондентной теории истины и постулирования независимой (от человека) реальности. Все прагматисты, к каким бы воззрениям по частным вопросам они ни склонялись, придерживаются операциональной концепции познания. Согласно этой концепции, достаточным основанием знания является его применимость на практике. Данный
аспект неоднократно затрагивался в ходе дискуссий о сходствах и различиях марксизма и прагматизма.
Несмотря на существенное расхождение между прагматизмом и марксизмом в понимании природы знания, многие исследователи пытались провести параллели между этими двумя интеллектуальными традициями. В частности, Бертран Рассел указывал на близость философии Дьюи «доктрине другого экс-гегельянца, Карла Маркса, как она была сформулирована в его “Тезисах о Фейербахе”». По мнению Рассела, если не придавать слишком большого значения терминологическим нюансам, Марксова теория деятельности, или праксиса, в главных моментах «едва отличима от инструментализма». Этот взгляд получил распространение даже среди прагматистов, а также американских марксистов (точнее, троцкистов), которые в конце 40-х годов прошлого века трактовали прагматизм Дьюи как прямое продолжение и развитие марксизма. Дж. Новак, к примеру, утверждал, что «самым выдающимся современным мыслителем, впитавшим в себя все лучшее, что было у Маркса, является Дьюи». В. Ленина — как практика, а не теоретика — Новак считал, в свою очередь, «скрытым последователем» Дьюи. Согласно бывшему марксисту С. Хуку, прагматизм — это философия «экспериментального натурализма», т. е. теория, «развивающая наиболее здравые и продуктивные идеи Маркса о мире».
В статье (с опорой главным образом на аргументацию советских марксистов) критически пересматривается философский диалог между марксизмом и прагматизмом. Основное внимание уделяется понятию деятельности, или
праксиса, а также взаимосвязи субъекта и объекта в познании. //
It is well-known that pragmatism advocates an approach on cognition without appealing to man-independent reality and truth as correspondence with reality. Instead, pragmatists, notwithstanding the diversity of their particular views, hold an operational conception of knowledge, according to which all that is needed is knowledge to have a suitable kind of correspondence with practice. This point has been scrutinized in the long standing discussion about the convergences and deviations between Marxism and pragmatism.
The profound divergence between Marxism and pragmatism with regard to the aforementioned issues was not enough to prevent philosophers from attempting to trace affinities between these two distinct intellectual trends. For example, Bertrand Russell pointed out the “close similarity” of Dewey’s doctrine to “that of another exHegelian, Karl Marx, as it is delineated in his Theses on Feuerbach.” Russell thinks that Marx’s concept of activity or praxis is in spite of differences in terminology “essentially indistinguishable from instrumentalism.” This line of reasoning seems to be quite influential, even among pragmatists. Notably, some American Marxists (especially Trotskyists, to be exact) at the late 40’s overemphasized the affinity between Dewey’s pragmatism and Marxism, and even understood Dewey’s pragmatism as a continuation of Marxism. For example, G. Novack comments that “[t]he most outstanding figure in the world today in whom the best elements of Marx’s thought are present is John Dewey,” and presents Lenin as “an unavowed disciple of Dewey in practice.” According to S. Hook, a former Marxist who turned to pragmatism and became one of the most influential philosophers who discussed the relation between Marxism and pragmatism, the latter is “the philosophy of experimental naturalism” which can be regarded “as a continuation of what is soundest and most fruitful in Marx’s philosophical outlook upon the world.”
In this paper, I intend to critically reassess this philosophical dialogue between Marxism and pragmatism, by further deploying the argumentation provided mainly by Soviet Marxists with regard to the aforementioned issues, focusing especially on two of them: the concept of activity (or praxis) and the interrelation of subject and object in cognition.

The theoretical prediction of Higgs boson was arguably one of the most important contributions in particle physics in the 20th century, with significant implications for modern cosmology. Its reported discovery in 2012 was celebrated as one of the most significant scientific achievements of all times. The fierce public discourse that followed was at large ignited by the media-hyped nickname “God particle” attributed to Higgs boson. The debate regarding the science-religion relation reinvigorated once again and plenty theologically informed views were expressed. In this paper, I take into consideration the authoritative views expressed by the Catholic Church and the Greek-Orthodox Church and I discuss them in comparison with each other, as well as in juxtaposition with other views expressed in the public discussion on the issue, in an attempt to draw philosophically interesting inferences.

Echoing the long-held JTB account of knowledge, according to which knowledge can be conceptually analyzed as justified true belief, Backes (2019) argues that our epistemic aim is to believe truly or accurately and emphasizes on that “a belief is justified iff it is highly probable”. We maintain that this line of reasoning is deficient, in terms of epistemic concerns and non-epistemic concerns of interest for both philosophy and legal theory. Specifically, in this short paper, we argue for the ineffectiveness of the aforementioned Backes’ view to meet the challenges posed by the ongoing rapid techno-scientific transformation of our contemporary societies and ways-of life.

In the original version of the book, the new reference "Azeri S. (2013) Conceptual Cognitive Organs: Toward an Historical Materialist Theory of Scientific Knowledge, Philosophia 41(4), 1095-1123" has to be included in Chap. 11 and the citation for this reference has to be included after paragraph 2 in Pg. no. 207 & after paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 in Pg. no. 210. The erratum chapter and the book have been updated with the changes.

The influence of religious beliefs to several leading mathematicians in early Soviet years, especially among members of the Moscow Mathematical Society, had drawn the attention of militant Soviet Marxists, as well as Soviet authorities. The issue has also drawn significant attention from scholars in the post-Soviet period. According to the currently prevailing interpretation, reported purges against Moscow mathematicians due to their religious inclination are the focal point of the relevant history. However, I maintain that historical data arguably offer reasons to cast reasonable doubts on this interpretation. In this paper, by reviewing the relevant literature, I raise some methodological and philosophical concerns, in an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of the issue. I maintain that an efficient line of reasoning is to discuss issues in the context of their making, taking into consideration the specific features of each era's culture. Thus, by focusing on P.A. Nekrasov's case, I attempt to point to an alternative interpretation, in which the different treatment of religious inclined mathematicians by Soviet authorities is explained in the context of the ideological confrontation between two contrasting worldviews, as part of the ongoing class war in the several phases of Soviet history.

K. Marx’s 200th jubilee coincides with the celebration of the 85 years from the first publication of his “Mathematical Manuscripts” in 1933. Its editor, Sofia Alexandrovna Yanovskaya (1896–1966), was a renowned Soviet mathematician, whose significant studies on the foundations of mathematics and mathematical logic, as well as on the history and philosophy of mathematics are unduly neglected nowadays. Yanovskaya, as a militant Marxist, was actively engaged in the ideological confrontation with idealism and its influence on modern mathematics and their interpretation. Concomitantly, she was one of the pioneers of mathematical logic in the Soviet Union, in an era of fierce disputes on its compatibility with Marxist philosophy. Yanovskaya managed to embrace in an originally Marxist spirit the contemporary level of logico-philosophical research of her time. Due to her highly esteemed status within Soviet academia, she became one of the most significant pillars for the culmination of mode...

The theoretical prediction of Higgs boson was arguably one of the most important contributions in particle physics in the 20 th century, with significant implications for modern cosmology. Its reported discovery in 2012 was celebrated as one of the most significant scientific achievements of all times. The fierce public discourse that followed was at large ignited by the media-hyped nickname "God particle" attributed to Higgs boson. The debate regarding the science-religion relation reinvigorated once again and plenty theologically informed views were expressed. In this paper, I take into consideration the authoritative views expressed by the Catholic Church and the Greek-Orthodox Church and I discuss them in comparison with each other, as well as in juxtaposition with other views expressed in the public discussion on the issue, in an attempt to draw philosophically interesting inferences.

Rockmore's paper offers a nice discussion on how classical German idealism provides a plausible account of the Parmenidean insight that thought and being are identical and suggests that idealist epistemic constructivism is arguably the most promising approach to cognition. In this short commentary, I will explore the implications of adopting other interpretations of Parmenidean identity thesis, which arguably lead to different conclusions than the ones drawn by Rockmore. En route to disavow the distinction between ontology and epistemology, I argue that one may adopt an approach on cognition which would be immunized to worries that prompt Rockmore's elaboration and also embrace (at least) some of its benefits.