Pathways Mentors

Nikolaos Bakalis

Nikolaos Bakalis was born in Northern Greece in 1957. As a child, he was always fascinated by the sayings of the Greek philosophers (Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus). Later on he started reading their writings and became full of enthusiasm about their wisdom, reasoning and searching for the underlying truth in all things. What really struck him was that their sayings after thousands of years remained still actual and modern. His inquiring inclination led him to the study of Physics and Chemistry, since at this time he believed that through those Sciences he could discover how and why the world works.

Afterwards he turned once again to the study of philosophy, beginning then with Marxism, Empiricism and Existentialism. His philosophical inquiry went on further up to Rationalism, Skepticism and Zen Buddhism. All that searching out led him finally to the thorough study of Greek philosophy, since he realized the necessity of studying the development of the method of philosophical reasoning. Since then Greek philosophy has become his inseparable companion; therefore he decided to write his book 'Handbook of Greek Philosophy'.

Nikolaos has been a High School teacher, spent some years in London and has lived since 2000 in Dusseldorf, Germany. He is currently working on philosophical research into the progress of science in the Interdisciplinary Centre (IZWT) at the University of Wuppertal.

Interests

Nikolaos' philosophical interests are mainly epistemological, ontological and metaphysical with a strong focus on Greek philosophy and philosophy of science. His main subjects of interest are the possibility of knowledge of the external world and its methods (rationalism, pragmatism, scientific realism, instrumentalism, constructivism etc.), reality as mind-independence or as mind-construction, truth as correspondence and representation, epistemic theories of truth and methodology of science.