How should ethical standards be maintained within engineering and engineering education? The present paper addresses this question with relation to the dominant models of engineering ethics (EE) to show that their limits might be overcome by incorporating the vocabulary of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. On the basis of the MacIntyrean concept of practice, the secondary role of engineering is highlighted which echoes similar debates concerning education. This similarity is picked up to argue that the role of the engineer in relation to (...) the end-users of their projects should be understood as on a par with the teacher-student relationship. This enables us not only to redefine the internal good of engineering and the ground for EE, but also to indicate the key virtues and educational models for engineering that they should be key parts of. (shrink)

This paper combines Langacker’s notion of intersubjectivity with research into the discursive purposes of the first-person plural to analyse the 2008 debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox Has Science Buried God? The analysis identifies several differences and similarities between the debaters. Both speakers navigate the objectivity – (inter)subjectivity continuum in similar ways. Both speakers also use we to create their unique discursive identities. Dawkins primarily uses we to refer to himself as a member of an atemporal or cross-generational scientific (...) community. This use was often exclusive as part of his argument seemed to be that he was a scientist in a way that Lennox was not. In contrast, Lennox’s uses are primarily inclusive, placing himself, Dawkins, and all scientists as part of the human race and using the human predicament as his main argument. Although only one debate is examined here, this paper may serve as a model for conducting a larger-scale project. With the recent increased polarisation of society, this analysis of we and intersubjectivity within a debate over an often volatile topic could provide insight for improving dialogue. Thus, this study is also relevant to fields beyond linguistics. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate that metaphor should be viewed as a gradable conceptual phenomenon, and to elucidate further the notion of minimal metaphoric mapping between subordinate level concepts dominated by the same basic level category, which I called “syntaphor” in my previous studies. Since the concepts involved in metaphor represent different conceptual distances, metaphor appears to be gradable, starting from the lowest level of syntaphors through the level of close metaphors, to the level of distant and (...) maximally distant metaphors, which have been the focus of interest in most cognitive studies of metaphor so far. In Section 1 I describe briefly an approach to metaphor from the point of view of the theory of categorization, whereby metaphor is defined in terms of mappings between concepts rather than domains. Section 2 presents the notion and four degrees of conceptual distance between the concepts involved in metaphor based on the subordinate, basic and superordinate levels of categorization. In Section 3 four kinds of metaphor are distinguished depending on three degrees of conceptual distance between the source and the target concepts: distant metaphors, close metaphors and syntaphors. The role of syntaphors is further discussed in polysemy and novel metaphors. Some of the crucial aspects of syntaphors are highlighted when they are compared with image metaphors. The most important implications of the study for the theory of metaphor are presented in Conclusions. (shrink)

The paper proposes a novel longitudinal approach to the study of the rhetorical effects of media by combining Audience Research (e.g. Schrøder et al., 2003), Social Semiotics (e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2001; van Leeuwen, 1999; Machin and Mayr, 2012) and Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995). After introducing a more nuanced model of RT’s contextual effect, the paper reports an empirical case study to explicate the methodological approach. Evidence is provided that a specific text can have a long-lasting (...) effect on an audience: a hierarchy of effects and the cognitive circumstances under which this may happen are discussed. (shrink)

A bi- or multilingual repertoire is a complex and dynamic system of languages (Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Herwig, 2001; Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Stotz & Cardoso, 2022) which interact with each other and with the conceptual system (Kroll & Stewart, 1994; Pavlenko, 2009). Importantly, fluent and regularly used native languages are not spared from the influence of later acquired non-native ones. The paper presents the results of a case study conducted with a native speaker of Polish with three additional languages: (...) English, German, and French. Based on the analysis of the instances of lexical reverse transfer observed in the spoken production in her L1, it is concluded that reverse transfer may lead to partial L1 attrition, at least when the monolingual perspective is taken. From the multilingualism point of view, reverse transfer should rather be treated as a phenomenon leading to partial restructuring and enhancement of mother tongue competences. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present the way of economic thinking particularly visible in the social teaching of the Church of John Paul II, through the prism of rhetoric and economic discourse. The authors use the method of analysis and synthesis, focusing on a man being at the center of economic activity. The paper shows the sensitivity of the great twentieth-century thinker to economic matters. His thought could be an inspiration for creating and implementing the concept of economic (...) and social policy and then it would be able to constitute a huge potential of guidelines for a better understanding of the functioning of the modern world and building and implementing solutions that can have an impact on improving the human condition. (shrink)

The paper aims to analyse how native speakers of English and Polish understand one of the basic cultural concepts: English PEACE and Polish POKÓJ. By juxtaposing the current understanding of these concepts with the data recorded in dictionaries, an attempt is made to catch a glimpse of what is meant by peace in English and pokój in Polish and, what follows, to reflect on them in terms of translation and intercultural communication. The study was inspired by elements of the methodology (...) developed by the Lublin School of Ethnolinguistics for the purpose of research into cultural concepts and constructing their cognitive definitions. In particular, my analysis begins with a textual illustration that prompts the research direction, in which etymology as well as unique connotations recorded by the survey respondents are granted as much significance as the dictionary material, with attention paid to the dimension of metonymy and metaphor in the analysed cultural concepts of PEACE and POKÓJ. Comparing and contrasting the core meanings with their current shifts and extensions is aimed to help embed words in their broader linguacultural context and thus shed some light on aspects of intercultural communication, operationalised via translation. (shrink)

The paper presents a comparison of two generalised sequent calculi for temporal logics. In both cases the main technical solution is the multiplication of the sorts of sequents and, additionally, the application of some kind of labelling to formulae. The first approach was proposed by Kaziemierz Trzęsicki at the 1980s. The second, called Multiple Sequent Calculus (MSC), was proposed in the beginning of the present century. Both approaches are examples of the family of multisequent calculi.

This corpus-based study focuses on the revival of the geopolitical struggle in Africa between the U.S. and Russia (Stronski, 2019; Cohen, 2020). I investigate a corpus of speeches given by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during their respective visits to Africa in July and August 2022. On the one hand, I examine to what extent the two antagonists combine figurative language with various discursive and psycho-cognitive strategies in order to sustain and (...) convey their ideological standpoint and their geopolitical agenda in Africa. On the other hand, I analyze how they select and construe some particular lexical units and structures, literally or figuratively, for the sake of foregrounding or backgrounding events, participants, and the relationships between them. Finally, based on a sample of reactions to the narratives, section (2.5) deals with their socio-cognitive perceptions by the African leaders and people. (shrink)

The paper presents a cognitive semiotic perspective on spontaneous gesturing (or singular gestures), understood as spontaneous co-speech embodied activity, devoid of linguistic properties, and not conforming to social conventions. In line with the cognitive-semiotic attitude, the paper addresses the so far underexplored methodological issue of complementing third-person methods of gesture studies with first- and second-person perspectives on speech and gesturing in line with phenomenological triangulation. Merleau-Ponty’s ideas presented in Phenomenology of Perception are the starting point for the exploration of aspects (...) of a phenomenological view of gestural meaning-making. Gesturing, as a meaning-making activity, is analyzed in terms of embodied accomplishment of meaning. Gestural bodily activity is subsequently analyzed in terms of pre-reflective self-consciousness and reflective self-consciousness. The paper is intended as a contribution to studies on the phenomenology of gesturing, with perspectives for further research sketched in the concluding section. (shrink)

One of the claims of creole exceptionalism is that creole languages have lexicons of reduced conceptual and expressive complexity. Building on previous studies of the lexicon of Nigerian Pidgin/NP and the applications of the cognitive linguistic framework in creole linguistics, the present paper aims to counter the exceptionalism claim by analysing the conceptual structure of body part expressions in NP. It is argued that the expressions not only involve embodied universal patterns of imaginative reasoning, but also blend the substratum patterns (...) of West African languages with the superstratum influence of colonial lexifiers, especially English. Thanks to this, NP speakers can deal with diverse aspects of experience, such as emotions, mental life, social interaction, or business transactions, which is strong evidence for the complex conceptual structure and the richly expressive character of the NP lexicon. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present ways in which gestures combine with the verbal layer of an utterance, thus reflecting embodied thinking and the rooting of abstract concepts in human bodily experience. The article discusses two different ways in which gestures, described in the literature as metaphoric, illustrate both linguistically expressed metaphors and abstract concepts that are not verbally expressed as metaphors. The data analyzed in this paper have been taken from speeches of politicians and other public figures.

In a paper published in 2021, Thomas Metzinger proposed a global moratorium on development of synthetic phenomenology, with this beginning in 2021 and lasting until 2050, arguing that the development of conscious artifacts would bring about an explosion of human-like suffering on a global scale. The paper argues that Thomas Metzinger’s call for a global moratorium is unsound as it is currently formulated. Metzinger’s argument is based on a category error, a common mistake in AI discussions. For the sake of (...) clarity in AI discourse, and for reasons explained in the paper, such an error should be at least pointed out, if not corrected. This is the primary purpose of the paper. However, Metzinger’s proposal, can be taken as a generic warning against uncontrolled development of AI – the position we fully agree with. (shrink)

This paper shows that Wittgenstein’s situational approach applied to Hume’s is-ought problem leads to the conclusion that this famous Hume thesis is false both in its original version (lack of logical value of deontic sentences) and in its modern understanding (logical separation of deontic sentences and sentences about facts).

The research aim of this article is to answer the question of the validity of the dialogical paradigm when confronted with the challenges posed by new digital technologies. The article is a synthetic and selective study of this issue. The research intention is realised in several points. The scope of considerations includes a brief presentation of the issue of paradigm as an important element in contemporary science, the presentation of key issues in the field of philosophy of dialogue and the (...) significance of the dialogical approach for challenges that arise in the context of new technologies. The thesis of this article is that the way of understanding the phenomenon of encounter proposed by dialogicalists makes it possible to assess the directions of the development of new technologies in such aspects as: the experience of the subjectivity of the Other in technological mediation, personal authenticity versus mediality, the limitation of human autonomy. The next part of the article will be a discussion of selected digital technologies which, due to the effects produced on their users, pose a social challenge. In the article, I apply the critical-analytical method, there is also an attempt to reconstruct concepts and an application of own observations. The article ends with conclusions based on the analysis presented. (shrink)

The article refers to a valid and current research area related to business sustainability. The development of the concept of sustainability has resulted in the linking of the overall concept to the actions that entrepreneurs take for sustainable development. Thus, it has moved the discussion to the level of sustainable business models, taking into account economic, environmental and social aspects together. The paper focuses on the social layer of the sustainable business model. The main objective of this article is to (...) identify the relationship between activities in the social dimension and sustainable outcomes. Research covers organizations operating in Poland and is based on a questionnaire (the statistical analysis is based on empirical studies conducted in 303 companies operating in Poland). The data collected allowed the construction of a regression model and the results revealed statistically significant relationships between social outcomes and values for society and employees. (shrink)

The obligation to make women’s rights to health services a reality rests with the state authorities. However, in Poland, women wishing to carry out a legal termination of pregnancy are often confronted with institutional abuse on the part of health care providers who deny women the possibility of carrying out the procedure because gynaecologists invoke the institution of the conscience clause. The aim of this article is to show the mutual normative complexity of the research problem, i.e. the possibility for (...) a doctor to invoke the conscience clause in the case of a patient’s right to an abortion. The paper verifies the research hypothesis that in the field of the conscientious objection clause, systemic solutions are necessary, but not only consisting in specifying the legal provisions but also in enforcing the respect of the law by its addressees. The hypothesis is to be verified using the dogmatic method. (shrink)

Despite the many successes of generative AI, a number of fundamental questions have begun to arise around this technology. There is undoubtedly an interesting situation from a philosophical point of view. It can be carefully assumed that contemporary digital information processing technologies have arisen inside a circle of civilisation, one of the foundations of which is the classical account of truth. This account, even if seen as ideal and absolute, nevertheless seems to be a driving force in the field of (...) science. Is it possible that generative AI will result in the replacement of the pursuit of truth by a mere uncritical adherence to the results provided by AI systems, as well as the inhibition of lively creativity both scientific and artistic? (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper, which takes the form of an essay, is an attempt to answer the question of the limits of artificial intelligence (AI). In the introductory section, we present the key milestones in AI development, both historical and future projections, in which two terms – Artificial Human (AH) and Artificial ‘god’ (AG) – play a special role. In the second section, we clarify the question of the limits of AI by indicating the hypothetical goal of AI (...) development. The third section develops the argument proposed by C. F. Weizsäcker, originally formulated for cybernetics. The conclusion of this argument is optimistic about limitations to the possibilities of cybernetic simulations. We apply this argument to AI and subject it to a critique which ultimately undermines the legitimacy of its conclusion. We base the critique on two well-known results: the theorem of the unsolvability of the halting problem and Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem, and we formulate two objections interpreted without adopting Church’s thesis. In the crucial fourth section, we present a third objection in the form of a hypothesis for which we argue that AI (AH), understood as a subject, will always be solipsistic. (shrink)

The article presents philosophical challenges to the development of modern technoscience in the context of engineering education. We use the term technoscience because modern technology not only makes extensive use of the results of science, but also applies elements of scientific methodology. We find many philosophical issues in technology, but their influence is particularly evident in modern technoscience. Hence the question of how to prepare engineers for the rapid development of technoscience and the growing role of philosophy. To this end, (...) it was proposed to introduce philosophy as one of the pillars of engineering education and to base philosophical education on the concept of “philosophy in technology”. Why this concept is extremely useful for engineers is justified, allowing them to be well prepared for the uncertainties associated with the development of technoscience and to stimulate innovation. Concrete proposals for such a curriculum are also indicated. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the causes influencing the length and duration of online media discourse, which may also mean its “quality” or a kind of “attractiveness”. This goal sets out the issues and basic research questions related to these causes. What causes some discourses take a long time and others end as soon as they begin? What makes one discourse attract the attention of other participants in the discussion, and what causes less interest in the proposed (...) topics? In order to obtain answers to the above questions we study the structure of the text, stylistics, topics of discourses and social interaction of forum participants. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the diminutives in Miron Białoszewski’s Pamiętnik z powstania warszawskiego and how they are rendered in the English translation by Madeline G. Levine – A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising. We adopt the semantic account of the category of the diminutive proposed by John Taylor (1989), which treats meanings of the diminutive as a radial network of interrelated senses. In Pamiętnik…, the diminutive seems to be used most commonly in the descriptions of highly stressful and dangerous (...) events, possibly to make those experiences less frightening (the meaning of low intensity and low quality) and more manageable (the literal meaning of smallness). At times it seems to help re-interpret a bad experience, or rather to mitigate the subjectively experienced impact of a negative event. The proliferation of diminutives is made possible by the productivity of the morphology of the Polish language and by Białoszewski’s linguistic creativity. In the English version, the translator employs compensatory strategies to address linguistic nuances, but often omits the diminutive altogether. This work aims to investigate the effect the diminutive has on the construal of the analysed texts and to highlight the problems it poses for translation from Polish to English. (shrink)

The fourth industrial revolution, characterized by the development of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and automation, is radically changing the context of functioning of modern enterprises. In this environment, innovation is a key element of competitive advantage, and organizational culture is one of the fundamental factors enabling effective implementation of innovations. The aim of this article is to analyze the role of organizational culture as a catalyst for innovation in enterprises in the era of Industry (...) 4.0. The paper discusses the basic elements of organizational culture, such as openness to change, cooperation between teams and organizational flexibility, which are of key importance in innovation processes. On this basis, conclusions are formulated regarding the impact of organizational culture on the ability of enterprises to compete and develop in a dynamically changing economic environment. The study has a theoretical and empirical character. For the research, the authors used the descriptive method with elements of statistical data analysis. The analysis was based on reports of such institutions as the World Economic Forum, McKinsey and secondary data regarding Polish enterprises. (shrink)

The translation of proverbs is an act of cross-cultural transmission that plays a vital role in the preservation and dissemination of shared knowledge within a community. While traditional dictionaries are invaluable in the translation of sayings, there is a growing trend to replace them with machine translation (MT) programmes. Although some studies have investigated the quality of machine translation of proverbs, research in this area is relatively limited. The study evaluates the quality of machine translation of 18 proverbs in Google (...) Translate, DeepL, PONS, and the two most recent large language model tools, ChatGPT-3.5 and Google Bard. The research is conducted with two hypotheses: first, human translator supervision is essential in the case of non-literal translations such as proverbs; second, the role of the translator is changing, and in its current form, it is more often reduced to an attentive post-editor. The paper aims to achieve two objectives: first, the evaluation of the quality of machine-translated proverbs in the EN-PL pair, and second, the analysis and classification of errors occurring in machine translation of proverbs in the EN-PL pair. The research revealed that AI tools presented the highest accuracy for proverb translations, with scores of 61% (ChatGPT) and 44% (Google Bard) in Polish-to-English translation and 38% (ChatGPT) and 50% (Google Bard) in English-to-Polish translation. Furthermore, the study revealed errors typical of translation tools based on large language models such as ChatGPT and Google Bard. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that understanding AI hallucination requires an interdisciplinary approach that combines insights from epistemology and cognitive science to address the nature of AI-generated knowledge, with a terminological worry that concepts we often use might carry unnecessary presuppositions. Along with terminological issues, it is demonstrated that AI systems, comparable to human cognition, are susceptible to errors in judgement and reasoning, and proposes that epistemological frameworks, such as reliabilism, can be similarly applied to enhance the (...) trustworthiness of AI outputs. This exploration seeks to deepen our understanding of the possibility of AI cognition and its implications for the broader philosophical questions of knowledge and intelligence. (shrink)

In a related project, the social representation of public order among legal professionals has been explored by means of semi-structured interviews (Smejkalová et al. 2022). The participants of this research represent public order, inter alia, as a stable safeguard of fundamental social values while recognizing its vagueness and inherent propensity for change. This contradiction between its purpose to provide stability while being subject to social or temporal contexts seems akin to the structural approach to social representations. The social representations approach (...) (Moscovici 1961, 2001) is an approach used in social psychology, rooted in the idea that social objects or phenomena must be represented by a social group in order to perform any kind of social function. Within this approach, a structural (Abric 1993) differentiation between a stable, normative central core of a social representation, and flexible periphery has been developed. The contradictions between the stability and dynamics of public order the participants talk about are not dissimilar from the theoretical considerations of the structural approach to social representation. Moreover, Moscovici’s (2001) and Wachelke’s (2012) framing of social representations especially resonates when applied to public order, pointing towards its role as a system facilitating communication and orientation within a social group. The present study utilizes the data available from the transcripts of these interviews with a single focus on the themes of dynamics and stability. It aims to discuss these themes across various disciplines, offering links that might have been overlooked. This study further underscores the usefulness of the social representation approach in legal conceptualization, advocating for the necessity of more synthetic approaches merging philosophy, linguistics (semiotics), social psychology, and law to enrich further understanding in this domain. (shrink)

Designing and examining systems of action plays an important role in modern engineering. Such a general approach to actions is also supportive to the discussions on the development of artificial intelligence agents. As a philosophically remarkable and practically useful approach to actions the theory of action proposed by the Polish philosopher, scientist and military specialist Józef Konieczny undergoes here further considerations. The Konieczny’s concepts have not been intensively thoroughly researched and further developed, and a deep philosophical analysis is the condition (...) for their efficient application when solving real-life problems. This paper presents own interpretations of Konieczny’s views on action, including own clarifications or additions to the original solutions. The main aim is to identify the essential elements of the theory of action and analyse it in the ontological context. The selected structures of action were characterised, the analysis of the fundamental concepts was conducted, the ontological characterization of the types of actions and the objects involved in action was developed, and the certain issues of realism and functionalism identified were discussed. The results obtained constitute an important testimony to the practice of philosophy in technology and are useful when aiming at further development of the approach analysed. (shrink)

Human mental well-being, measured by the frequency of experiencing happiness, may be one of the most important factors in supporting learning and stimulating creative thinking, so necessary during robotics and programming classes. Positive emotional states, mental well-being, and a sense of happiness are also closely related to social contacts, the development of which is undoubtedly contributed to by the participation of students in the performing of joint tasks during robotics and programming classes. The article presents the results of research on (...) the relationship between mental well-being, the measure of which is the frequency of experiencing happiness, and the implementation of robotics and programming classes in high school. The study covered 127 high school students in southern Poland. The Happiness Experience Scale (SDS) and a questionnaire were used in the research. On the basis of the obtained research results, it can be concluded that experiencing happiness is related to the development of creativity and social competences among students participating in robotics and programming classes. The issue of robots in education as a part of STEM education was considered. Initial qualitative research was also done on the organization of robotics and programming classes. (shrink)

The Turing test, which is a verbal test of the indistinguishability of machine and human intelligence, is a historically important idea that has set a way of thinking about the AI (artificial intelligence) project that is still relevant today. According to it, the benchmark/blueprint for AI is human intelligence, and the key skill of AI should be its communicative proficiency – which includes explaining decisions made by the machine. Passing the original Turing test by a machine does not guarantee that (...) the machine is, from the point of view of a human, trustworthy; on the contrary, the idea of a machine capable of “fooling” or “outsmarting” a human is inherent within the concept of the test. We postulate, that a test that guarantees a high level of trust should be: a) non-imitative, b) non-behavioral, c) focused on the ability to explain, taking into account, however, the design and rules of operation of the machine (and not just human expectations), d) focused on the machine’s ability to learn. (shrink)

In this article we will consider the application of tense logics enriched with additional modal operators or additional logical values to construct logical systems in which the thesis of logical determinism cannot be expressed.

In this article, we will consider the application of intuitionistic tense logics to construct logical systems in which the thesis of logical determinism cannot be expressed.

In this article, we will discuss the concept of logical determinism and arguments in favor of determinism based on the law of excluded middle and the principle of causality. We will also discuss minimal tense logic and tense logic of branched time, constructed to reject the thesis of logical determinism.

In 1960, A. N. Prior proposed a binary sentential functor defined by inferential rule (introduction) A ⊢ A tonk B, and (elimination) A tonk B ⊢ A. Later, this idea was discussed by several authors, including in the context of the question of whether the ab ove rule defines this functor in a sufficient manner. This paper shows that if we assume the standard matrix (truth-tables) characterization of classical sentential functors, no valuation agrees with rules generating the sense of tonk. (...) Moreover, these inferential prescriptions are at odds with the principle that if premises are true, the conclusion has to be such as well. A new solution is proposed. It consists in considering tonk-rules via so-called rejection consequence operation, that is, a dual with respect to the standard Cn. The general moral stemming from the proposed analysis says that inferentialism, the view that inference rules are purely syntactical, is dubious, because logic has its basis also in semantic presuppositions as well as in pragmatic ones. (shrink)

In cognitive semiotics, metaphor and metonymy are crucially treated as special forms of sign use. In contrast, researchers in cognitive linguistics have extended the scope of metaphor and metonymy far beyond the traditional understanding of these semiotic figures based on, respectively, iconicity and contiguity into purely mental processes. I argue that this has led to unbounded over-extension, and general confusion about what metaphor and metonymy actually are, and thus on how to be able to reliably identify them in language and (...) other semiotic systems like gesture and depiction. There is therefore an urgent need to constrain the concepts of metaphor and metonymy to more reasonable proportions, and in this article I propose such a more constrained approach, using the Motivation & Sedimentation Model (MSM) of meaning-making. For the purpose, I spell out an integrated definition of metaphor and metonymy along traditional lines, but not limiting them to language. I illustrate the applicability of this definition by offering analyses of political cartoons, showing how the two semiotic figures interact in complex ways, sometimes allowing for different interpretations. (shrink)