On the 11th of January, 2001 the Philosophical Circle of the University School of Philosophy and of Education Ignatianum in Cracow organised a philosophical symposium on: The subject of metaphysics and the way of its determination. This problem seems important nowadays, although it has been discussed throughout the whole philosophical tradition. Solutions concerning basic philosophical problems have their impact on the understanding of reality, first of all the human being and the culture created by him which is expressed in knowledge, (...) morality, arts and religion. Reflection on the foundations of philosophy is especially important in the contemporary intellectual climate which is dominated by relativism and nihilism. This is demonstrated by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, which also proposes the way of overcoming the crisis through the return to the philosophy of being, that is metaphysics. The guests invited to the symposium belong to the above-mentioned philosophical trend. (shrink)

Wiodący cel artykułu stanowi analiza zaburzeń języka i mowy w kategoriach ucieleśnionego poznania. Autorzy podejmują w nim próbę pokazania natury i mechanizmów takich zaburzeń jak na przykład afazja, dyzartria, apraksja mowy w świetle tego ujęcia, oraz wskazują na wynikające z tego implikacje dla ich diagnostyki i terapii. Podstawę materiałową dla prezentowanych rozważań stanowi koncepcja ucieleśnionych metafor George’a Lakoffa i Marka Johnsona w powiązaniu z fenomenologiczną koncepcją prerefleksyjnej intencjonalności Maurice’a Merleau-Ponty’ego oraz współczesne badania z zakresu psychologii eksperymentalnej, lingwistyki kognitywnej i neuronauki. (...) Szczególną uwagę poświęcono pod tym względem zagadnieniu roli układu sensomotorycznego, w tym funkcji neuronów lustrzanych, oraz teoretycznym modelom fonologicznym. Metodologia badawcza opiera się na analizie porównawczej teoretycznych modeli ucieleśnionego poznania oraz ich aplikacji w wyjaśnieniu specyfiki mechanizmów zaburzeń języka i mowy. Artykuł integruje wyniki badań fenomenologicznych z empirycznymi ustaleniami neuropsychologicznymi, tworząc podstawy dla interdyscyplinarnego podejścia do problematyki języka. Główną tezę artykułu stanowi założenie, iż procesy językowe są ściśle związane z mechanizmami sensomotorycznymi oraz doświadczeniami o charakterze cielesnym, a ich zakłócenia należy interpretować jako zaburzenia interakcji między ciałem a procesami poznawczymi. Wnioski wskazują na konieczność uwzględnienia cielesnych uwarunkowań języka w praktyce diagnostycznej i terapeutycznej. Autorzy podkreślają efektywność metod angażujących ciało, takich jak terapia intonacyjno-melodyczna czy techniki ruchowe, w rehabilitacji zaburzeń języka. Artykuł stanowi również argument na rzecz dalszych badań interdyscyplinarnych, łączących psychologię, neuronaukę i lingwistykę, w celu lepszego zrozumienia związków między ciałem, umysłem i językiem. (shrink)

Introduction to a special issue of Erkenntnis.

The European Summer Schools in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI) have been organised every year since 1989 under the auspices of the Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI) in different cities around Europe. The 24th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI 2012) took place at the University of Opole, Poland, during August 6-17, 2012. The organisation committee was chaired by Janusz Czelakowski and Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska (Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Opole) and the programme committee (...) was chaired by Andreas Herzig (University of Toulouse and CNRS). During two weeks, over 340 participants from 36 countries were offered a rich academic program of their choice from 9 foundational, 16 introductory and 17 advanced courses and 6 workshops. Just as in the previous years, the 17th conference on Formal Grammar collocated with ESSLLI. Besides the regular courses, a traditional highlight of the summer school were the 4 evening lectures by distinguished academics: - Johan van Benthem (Institute for Logic, Language & Computation (ILLC), Amsterdam and Department of Philosophy, Stanford University), "Computation as Agency''; - Melvin Fitting (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, City University of New York), "Reasoning About Games''; - Jonathan Ginzburg (UFR Études anglophones, Université Paris-Diderot (Paris 7)), "False starts, jokes, and music:semantics in the 21st century''; - Adam Przepiórkowski (Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), "Secret life of corpora''. Another traditional event was the student session, organised by a student programme committee chaired by Rasmus K. Rendsvig (University of Copenhagen): master and doctoral students presented 16 papers and 5 posters, and Michał Zawidzki obtained the best paper award and Raul Fervari obtained the best poster award. Moreover, the Beth Dissertation Prizes were announced at the FoLLI General Meeting and went to Andreas Kapsner (University of Barcelona) and Daniel R. Licata (Carnegie Mellon University). Apart from the busy academic programme, participants of the summer school were offered an exciting social program as well. In addition to the traditional ESSLLI Party and the famous Students vs. Lecturers Soccer Match (also called `Johan van Benthem Cup'), kayaking, and excursions to Kraków and Wrocław were offered. -/- . (shrink)

The following is an attempt to grasp synthetically the strategy and development of Jean Baudrillard’s intellectual standpoint. My view emphasizes late ideas by French Philosopher, while the earlier ones are treated from this perspective as preliminary. After having left Marxist and post-Marxist positions, Baudrillard developed an original and idiosyncratic way of thinking about contemporary world that—inspired by Nietzschean idea that the power of interpretation prevails over representation of truth—evolves around rejection of the traditional ideas of the social, reality and revolt, (...) while employing categories of mass, simulation or catastrophe. This attitude took him not only beyond good and evil, but also to affirmation of death and terror, conducting to an extreme standpoint of “intellectual terrorism”. (shrink)

In this article I introduce a hybrid view of persistence whereby simple objects persist by enduring while composite objects persist by being stage-related. I first show how, by sharing certain features and not others with the standard views of persistence, this hybrid view navigates two metaphysical problems that have been raised against such standard views. I then consider some implications of the view by addressing a couple of worries that may be raised against it. I conclude that this hybrid view (...) provides an attractive theory, one that deserves further investigation in the debate on persistence. (shrink)

In this article we consider linear isomorphisms over the field of rational numbers between the linear spaces ℝ2 and ℝ. We prove that if f is such an isomorphism, then the image by f of the unit disk is a strictly nonmeasurable subset of the real line, which has different properties than classical non-measurable subsets of reals. We shall also consider the question whether all images of bounded measurable subsets of the plane via a such mapping are non-measurable.

Jacek Urbaniec: Platonism in the philosophy of mathematics does not necessarily imply that there are links between the temporal physical world and the eternal world of mathematics..

The paper briefly presents a genesis of the research project called the theology of science initiated by Michał Heller in early 1980s, but also enriched by the remarks of Józef Życiński. Then the main features of the new Heller’s book Science and theology – not necessarily exclusively on one planet are discussed. The book develops and strengthens the early ideas of theology of science. The paper draws also attention to another author—C.B. Kaiser who—since a dozen years—has been developing a similar (...) project: theology of scientific endeavor. It is also suggested that the Heller’s project, especially in its axiological and praxeological aspects, could take advantage of the achievements of several Francophone authors who once developed a field of the so-called theology of earthly realities. (shrink)

In the present article I explain the role of the figure of “the last god” in Heidegger’s thought after the so-called Heideggerian “turn.” Drawing on Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), it is argued that the figure of “the last god” demonstrates Heidegger’s path to “being itself,” which I distinguish from the path to being presented by him in his earlier thought, mainly laid out in Being and Time. The figure of the last god is not to be understood as (...) a god in a religious framework, but rather as an explication of metaphysical radical thinking, rendered as Heidegger’s view of “divinity of the other beginning.” The notion of the last god is presented against the background of several of Heidegger’s ideas (as specifications) discussed in Contributions namely: disclosure of being itself, the renewal of metaphysics, the understanding of nothing/nothingness in relation to being, the problem of the “sign” (Wink) or the ontic and ontological differences. In a metaphorical form, Heidegger leads us – by means of the specifications given – towards the experience of the “last god,” whose “passage” is for Dasein the experience of being itself, is the event of being. In the text presented here, I will “lead” the reader along such “path.” At the same time, I will engage Heidegger’s language without neglecting its semantic “depth,” showing how Heidegger extracts hidden meanings from words. (shrink)

The following is an attempt to grasp synthetically the strategy and development of Jean Baudrillard’s intellectual standpoint. My view emphasizes late ideas by French Philosopher, while the earlier ones are treated from this perspective as preliminary. After having left Marxist and post-Marxist positions, Baudrillard developed an original and idiosyncratic way of thinking about contemporary world that—inspired by Nietzschean idea that the power of interpretation prevails over representation of truth—evolves around rejection of the traditional ideas of the social, reality and revolt, (...) while employing categories of mass, simulation or catastrophe. This attitude took him not only beyond good and evil, but also to affirmation of death and terror, conducting to an extreme standpoint of “intellectual terrorism”. (shrink)

In this presentation, principles of ethics are confronted with the desire of the inventor to make a profit. To this end the presentation is focused on patent protection. Patents should guarantee the return of an inventor’s investment and profit and, on the other side, ensure availability — by patent disclosure — of the invention for the society when the patent terminates. Recent patent applications made by inventors are infringing this principle and societies are paying an unexpected price for these practices. (...) Patent claims are too broad and disclosures too poor. Extreme examples will be discussed. (shrink)

In 1968 the authors of the so-called Harvard Report, proposed the recognition of an irreversible coma as a new criterion for death. The proposal was accepted by the medical, legal, religious and political circles in spite of the lack of any explanation why the irreversible coma combined with the absence of brainstem reflexes, including the respiratory reflex might be equated to death. Such an explanation was formulated in the President’s Commission Report published in 1981. This document stated, that the brain (...) is the central integrator of the body, therefore the destruction of the brain results in the lack of that integration and the death of the organism. Therefore, according to that document, the so-called “brain dead” patients are really, biologically dead; strictly speaking they are not any more biological organisms but collections of organs and tissues. Their death was masked by the use of the medical equipment, but it was a real, biological death. Thus, the explanation given by the President’s Commission Report constituted a biological rationale for the new concept of death, known as “brain death.” However, after the long discussion, this rationale was refuted because of the evidence given by many medical authorities, that the bodies of the “brain dead” and “brainstem dead” patients are alive. In the context of the discussion about the neurological criteria for death, some authors follow the idea of Plato, that human being is the soul or mind, and the body does not belong to the human essence. Therefore, the loss of consciousness, which may be identified with the mind, constitutes the loss of personhood and may be interpreted as human death. The other group stresses the Aristotelian and Thomistic concept that the body belongs to the essence of every living creature, including human. Therefore, as long as the body is alive, the human being is alive and we cannot call the given patient dead even if he is deeply comatose. Moreover, in spite of the opinions dominating in the mass-media, these patients should be considered not only alive but also may be conscious to some degree and their state can be reversible. Their brains are lacking the electrical functions, but the neuronal tissue is alive and that state is reversible for at least first 48 hours since the onset of coma; this phenomenon is called “global ischemic penumbra” and is responsible for the regularly happening events interpreted as miracles, when some of the “brain dead” or “brainstem dead” patients turn to be alive and come back to normal life. Therefore, the neurological criteria of death are still lacking generally accepted scientific basis and should not be used in medicine and in the legal systems as a basis for diagnosing comatose/having no brainstem reflexes/apneic patients dead. (shrink)

Since the very dawn of its history, modern philosophical anthropology has been addressing the issue of the human body. As a result of those efforts, Descartes, de Biran, Husserl, Sartre, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty and others have brought forward a variety of conceptions concerning various aspects of human corporeality. Anthropological explorations concerning the question of the human body, appear in a particularly interesting way, when they are considered in the context of those points of view which, in an essential way, refer to (...) the subjective character of the human being. It is a matter of reconstructing and analyzing how the subject's corporeality is given to the subject, originarily, according to the phenomenological rule zu den Sachen selbst. The aim of this paper is thus to put into some order the concerns of a variety of anthropologists with regard to the question of the human body, as it is given to, or experienced by, the subject. A metatheoretical analysis of this field proves it is possible to do so with the use of a tool, which is called here, a dimension of corporeality. (shrink)

The crux of the dispute on the mutual relations between attention and consciousness, and to which I have referred in this paper, lies in the question of what can be attended in spatial attention that obviously resonates with the phenomenological issue of intentionality. The discussion has been initiated by Christopher Mole. He began by calling for a commonsense psychology, according to which one is conscious of everything that one pays attention to, but one does not pay attention to all the (...) things that one is conscious of. In other words, attention is supposed to be a condition which is sufficient but not necessary for consciousness, i.e., consciousness is a necessary concomitant of attention, but attention is not a necessary concomitant of consciousness. Mole seeks to validate his stance with data from psychology labs. His view is, however, partly confronted, for instance, by Robert Kentridge, Lee de-Wit and Charles Heywood, who used their experimental research on a neurological condition called blindsight as evidence of a dissociation between attention and consciousness, i.e., that visual attention is not a sufficient precondition for visual awareness. In this meta-theoretical state of affairs, I would like to focus on the cognitive phenomenon most often referred to as Inhibition of Return and suggest that, following its micro dynamics from the perspective of micro-phenomenology, it can be used to actually showcase all of the options on both sides of the argument. One of my leading goals would be also to follow Mole’s attempt to link attention with agency but where we differ is that I wish to heuristically articulate the matter in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of embodied pre-reflective intentionality. (shrink)