In 1953, exactly 50 years ago to this day, the first volume of Studia Logica appeared under the auspices of The Philosophical Committee of The Polish Academy of Sciences. Now, five decades later the present volume is dedicated to a celebration of this 50th Anniversary of Studia Logica. The volume features a series of papers by distinguished scholars reflecting both the aim and scope of this journal for symbolic logic.

Organizational ecology is commonly seen as a Darwinian research program that seeks to explain the diversity of organizational structures, properties and behaviors as the product of selection in past social environments in a similar manner as evolutionary biology seeks to explain the forms, properties and behaviors of organisms as consequences of selection in past natural environments. We argue that this explanatory strategy does not succeed because organizational ecology theory lacks an evolutionary mechanism that could be identified as the principal cause (...) of organizational diversity. The “evolution” of organizational populations by means of selection, which organizational ecologists put forward as the mechanism responsible for the extant diversity of organizational forms, is not evolution in any proper sense, because organizational populations do not have what it takes to participate in evolutionary processes. This implies that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program and that it cannot explain organizational diversity. (shrink)

Recently, constructivism has become one of the most important movements in metaethics. According to metaethical constructivism, moral judgements do not refer to moral facts but are constructed as solutions to practical problems. At the same time this claim is not seen as incompatible with cognitive realism. A variant of metaethical constructivism, developed in opposition to the dominant Kantian branch, alludes to Aristotle’s practical philosophy. In this article I raise two issues. Firstly, I present a new version of the Aristotelian constructivism (...) in metaethics, more elaborate than the previous proposals. Its fundamental element is the concept of the coherence of emotional response seen as a complex cognitive-affective state. Secondly, I argue that the acceptance of the Aristotelian version of metaethical constructivism entails the need to accept constructivism in the area of the theory of knowledge, which is contrary to the metaethical premises of constructivism. (shrink)

Long description: Trotz ”Spatial Turn“ in den Kulturwissenschaften bildet die Verknüpfung von Raum, Wissen und Medien noch immer ein Forschungsdesiderat. Dem begegnet dieser Band, indem er die Wechselverhältnisse von räumlichen Zusammenhängen, medialen Konstellationen und Wissenskonstitution untersucht. Die medien- und geschichtswissenschaftlichen Beiträge analysieren sowohl räumliche und mediale Bedingungen wissenschaftlicher Praxis als auch Räume und Räumlichkeiten von Medien. Dabei richten sie den Blick vornehmlich auf die Konstruktionsweisen von Wissensräumen durch analoge und digitale Medien und fragen aus einer topologischen Perspektive nach der epistemischen (...) Relevanz medialer Anordnungen. (shrink)

Jedną z konsekwencji przyjmowania podmiotowej perspektywy w etyce jest coraz bardziej szczegółowy opis właściwości samego podmiotu moralnego ujmowanego jako wyjątkowe indywiduum. Takie podejście prowadzi do fundamentalnego dla etyki pytania: jak połączyć wyjątkowość indywidualnej sytuacji podmiotu moralnego z uniwersalnością sądów moralnych? Barbara Chyrowicz w książce Widok stąd. Dlaczego działamy tak, a nie inaczej? opisuje różne elementy składające się na wyjątkowość sytuacji moralnej oraz rysuje dwie strategie rozwiązania problemu uniwersalizacji: kantowską, odwołującą się do kategorii wolności, oraz arystotelesowską, wskazującą na potrzebę samodoskonalenia. W (...) artykule staram się pokazać, że takie strategie podważają jednak dwa przeświadczenia kluczowe dla współczesnej filozofii moralnej: znaczenie indywidualności podmiotu moralnego (Bernard Williamsa) oraz ograniczenia poznawcze związane z opisem sytuacji moralnej i jego niemożliwy do wyeliminowania wartościujący charakter. Akceptacja tych przeświadczeń nie da się pogodzić z tradycyjnym ujęciem etyki, lecz wymaga rozdzielenia ocen moralnych od całościowej oceny aktywności podmiotu dokonywanej w kategoria sensowności życia, akceptacji konstruktywizmu, relatywizmu oraz partykularyzmu etycznego. (shrink)

Our conception of thought experiment may be summarized as follows.

We formulate a cosmogonic indifference principle in cosmology in terms of a dynamical system theory. While the choice between generic and fine tuned initial condition for our Universe has a rather philosophical character, there is a very generic set of initial conditions which give rise to the concordance inflectional ΛCDM model which becomes in good agreement with astronomical observations.

The article proposes some extension of the concept of reasoning that includes also operations on interrogative sentences and imperative sentences , or rather on their contents — interrogations and prescriptions. Key words REASONING.

In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

The problem we discuss is whether mammalian cells possess genes whose expression is specifically enhanced by DNA damage in order to cope with the damage. The paradigm is the SOS response in E. coli. We conclude that there is compelling evidence that DNA‐damaging agents do affect gene expression, and that mutation frequencies are increased, but proof that a repair process per se is induced remains elusive. We offer here the hypothesis that recognition of the presence of DNA damage by poly(ADPribose) (...) polymerase effects preprogrammed changes in gene expression. (shrink)

The Polish society has perceived privatization as an issue of special importance which enables a free market economy in a short time. Privatization has always raised hopes and expectations. It is the lack of experience in the field of ownership transformations, the level of their complexity and the economic, legal, psychological and other conditionings that have confronted those transformations with many hindrances. They have also raised numerous moral and ethical dilemmas among the staff of privatized companies and founding organs including (...) the staff of the Voivodship Council of Łódź. The decisions of the Working Board of one company about the future path of privatization have raised concerns among the staff uncertain of the fate of their place of work. In such cases the voice of the staff, which previously contributed to the company’s financial status, has always been decisive when choosing the path of privatization; this concerns mostly workers’ partnerships. It was John Paul II’s words about people of conscience who are needed in Poland, which were said in Skoczów, that were crucial for privatization decisions by the Voivodship Council of Łódź. (shrink)

This volume investigates what is beyond the Principle of Non-Contradiction. It features 14 papers on the foundations of reasoning, including logical systems and philosophical considerations. Coverage brings together a cluster of issues centered upon the variety of meanings of consistency, contradiction, and related notions. Most of the papers, but not all, are developed around the subtle distinctions between consistency and non-contradiction, as well as among contradiction, inconsistency, and triviality, and concern one of the above mentioned threads of the broadly understood (...) non-contradiction principle and the related principle of explosion. Some others take a perspective that is not too far away from such themes, but with the freedom to tread new paths. Readers should understand the title of this book in a broad way,because it is not so obvious to deal with notions like contradictions, consistency, inconsistency, and triviality. The papers collected here present groundbreaking ideas related to consistency and inconsistency. (shrink)

Beiträge zu einer Fachtagung der Universität Ulm 1990, auf der erstmalig israelische und deutsche Psychiater und Juristen über Psychiatrie und Justiz während der nationalsozialistischen Herschaft referierten. Die israelischen Referenten berichten über Entstehung, Manifestation und Behandlung der psychischen Leiden bei den Überlebenden und bei den Tätern der Vernichtungsmaschinerie: u. a. von der nationalsozialistischen Psychiatrie am Beispiel Grafeneck und der Situation in Grafeneck 50 Jahre danach.

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..

ABSTRACT:The profound influence of Thomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee’s integrative social contracts theory on the field of business ethics has been challenged by Andreas Scherer and Guido Palazzo’s Habermasian approach, which has achieved prominence of late with articles that expressly question the defensibility of ISCT’s hypernorms. This article builds on recent efforts by Donaldson and Scherer to bridge their accounts by providing discursive foundations to the hypernorms at the heart of the ISCT framework. Extending prior literature, we propose an ISCT* (...) framework designed to retain ISCT’s practical virtue of managerial guidance while answering the demands of Scherer and Palazzo’s discursive account. By subscribing to a suitable portfolio of discursively justified hypernorms, we argue, companies unlock the valuable moral guidance of ISCT*, which says to treat these hypernorms as unequivocal outer bounds to the pursuit of business and as a starting point to tailor local norms through discursive stakeholder engagement. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to rethink the role of actuality in the branching model of possibilities. We investigate the idea that the model should be enriched with an additional factor—the so-called Thin Red Line—which is supposed to represent the single possible course of events that gets actualized in time. We believe that this idea was often misconceived which prompted some unfortunate reactions. On the one hand, it suggested problematic semantic models of future tense and and on the other, (...) it provoked questionable lines of criticism. We reassess the debate and point to potential pitfalls, focusing on the semantic dimension of the Thin Red Line theory. Our agenda transcends the semantics, however. We conclude that semantic considerations do not threaten the Thin Red Line theory and that the proper debate should be carried in the domain of metaphysics. (shrink)

In the chapter on Observing Reason in the Phenomenology, as well as in §368 of the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel deals with the life sciences of his time. There, he labels the methodology of its representatives, namely zoology and comparative anatomy, as external teleology. In this paper I want to show that by doing so he is actually discussing a general kind of functionalism. Thereby, I want to highlight a line of thought in Hegel's texts which represents a productive reading (...) of external teleology contrary to a destructive reading on which scholars have mainly focussed. (shrink)

I argue that the right to solidarity may be understood as the negative right not to be hindered by social vulnerabilities in the exercise of citizen rights. I define social vulnerabilities as those vulnerabilities that result from structures of society. As a negative right, the right to solidarity shifts attention away from what is necessary for basic flourishing, and toward what is social structures that hinder full participation in other civic or political obligations and rights.

We present the results of research carried out as a part of the project “Current Controversies about Human Origins: Between Anthropology and the Bible”, which focused on the supposed conflict between natural sciences and some branches of the humanities, notably philosophy and theology, with regard to human origins. One way to tackle the issue was to distribute a questionnaire among students and teachers of the relevant disciplines. Teachers of religion and the natural sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics) and students of (...) theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences (specializing in biology and/or anthropology) were asked to answer eleven questions concerning the perception of the conflict between evolutionism and creationism, the definitions of creation and evolution, the existence of a human spiritual element, and the ways of interpreting the Bible, especially the first chapters of the book of Genesis. In the paper we present and analyze selected results of this questionnaire. Among interesting findings there are the following: 1) the opinion concerning the relationship between evolutionism and creationism largely depends on the respondent’s general attitude toward religion, and not on their field of study or teaching expertise, which runs contrary to the received view attributing the opinion of the conflict between science and religion to people’s educational or professional background; 2) The conflict is far more pronounced in the group of nonbelievers. This distinguishes Poland from other countries, notably the United States, where the majority of people with strong religious beliefs seem to maintain that there is a conflict between the natural sciences and religion; 3) literal understanding of the Bible was rejected by vast majority of the respondents, including those who insist on the ‘conflict view’, which seems to make the situation in Poland again quite different from that in some other countries; 4) Unsophisticated understanding of creation positively correlates with the ‘conflicting view’ on the one hand, while, on the other, erroneous understanding of the basics of the theory of evolution appears to have its bearing on too optimistic vision of certain coherence between religion and science. We suggest some hypotheses to explain these and other results of the questionnaire. (shrink)

What are experts? Are there only experts in a subjective sense or are there also experts in an objective sense? And how, if at all, may non-experts recognize experts in an objective sense? In this paper, I approach these important questions by discussing Alvin I. Goldman's thoughts about how to define objective epistemic authority and about how non-experts are able to identify experts. I argue that a multiple epistemic desiderata approach is superior to Goldman's purely veritistic approach.

The Battered Woman Syndrome, like the Cycle Theory of Violence, helps to illuminate the situation of the person victimized by domestic violence. However, it may also contribute to the violence of the battering situation. In this paper, I explore some of the implications of the Battered Woman Syndrome for domestic violence cases wherein an abused woman kills her abuser. I begin by delineating some of the circumstances of a domestic violence situation. I then discuss the particular moral issue of subjectivity (...) or moral personhood involved in instances wherein a woman victimized by domestic violence responds by killing her batterer. Finally, I argue that the Battered Woman Syndrome and similar alternatives to or qualifications of self-defense are problematic because they strip a woman of her moral subjectivity. I conclude with a brief articulation of a proposal for reform of the criminal justice system specifically aimed at cases wherein there has been a long history of abuse or violence. This reform is unique because it does not rely on a separate standard of reasonableness particular to battered women, but arises out of consideration of the moral implications of legal proceedings involving domestic violence. (shrink)

Experiences of solidarity have figured prominently in the politics of the modern era, from the rallying cry of liberation theology for solidarity with the poor and oppressed, through feminist calls for sisterhood, to such political movements as Solidarity in Poland. Yet very little academic writing has focused on solidarity in conceptual rather than empirical terms. Sally Scholz takes on this critical task here. She lays the groundwork for a theory of political solidarity, asking what solidarity means and how it (...) differs fundamentally from other social and political concepts like camaraderie, association, or community. Scholz distinguishes a variety of types and levels of solidarity by their social ontologies, moral relations, and corresponding obligations. Political solidarity, in contrast to social solidarity and civic solidarity, aims to bring about social change by uniting individuals in their response to particular situations of injustice, oppression, or tyranny. The book explores the moral relation of political solidarity in detail, with chapters on the nature of the solidary group, obligations within solidarity, the “paradox of the privileged,” the goals of solidarity movements, and the prospects for global solidarity. ��. (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.

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 2, Page 270-289, June 2021.

An increasing number of drugs removed from the market because of unacceptable toxicity raises concerns regarding preapproval testing of drug safety. In the present paper it is postulated that the non-inferiority type of trial should be abandoned in favor of the superiority trial with active controls and less stringent (p<0.1, both for efficacy and toxicity) statistics. This approach will increase sensitivity of detection of drug-induced adverse effects at the expense of increasing false positive results regarding the difference in efficacy between (...) the tested and reference drug. Such a move will increase the protection of future patients. In addition, the proposed design is far more acceptable from the clinical (e.g. no need to specify the statistically expected “unimportant” number of deaths) and ethical points of view, as well as being favored by the strong incentive of involved parties. In the second part of this paper arguments are presented in favor of the hypothesis that placebo (still used in some superiority trials) does not induce adverse effects. The assertion that placebo may induce adverse effects is probably biased by the nature of the clinical experiment. Such a conclusion is supported by studies indicating that placebo-induced adverse effects are disease — and treatment — specific. The modification of clinical trials according to the proposed changes may increase the trials’ sensitivity at detecting adverse effects of drugs. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical companies developed Covid-19 vaccines in record time. However, it soon became apparent that global access to the vaccines was inequitable. Through a qualitative inquiry as the pandemic unfolded (to mid-2021), we provide an in-depth analysis of why companies engaged with the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX), identifying the internal (to the company) and external factors that facilitated or impeded engagement. While all producers of the World Health Organization (WHO)-approved vaccines engaged with COVAX, our analysis highlights the differential levels (...) of COVAX engagement and identifies contractual obligations, opportunities and company strategy, and reputational pressures as key explanatory factors. We discuss our empirical findings relative to the literature on political corporate social responsibility (PCSR). Accordingly, we question whether pharmaceutical companies lived up to their responsibilities as corporate citizens and conclude that they failed to fulfill the implied responsibility of combating inequitable vaccine distribution. We conclude with implications of our research for practice, in relation to the challenges of global access to Covid-19 vaccines and for access to medicines more generally. (shrink)

Every materially adequate explication of the concepts ``picture''and ``the pictorial'' has to appeal to syntactical properties.From the available definitions, a conception of syntax is extractedthat is applicable to symbol systems of any sort. Against thisbackground, it is shown that a non-semantical characterization ofthe pictorial is mandatory. Finally, specific syntactical featuresare explicated that recommend themselves as necessary conditions forthe application of the concept of a picture.