Research on natural and artificial brains is proceeding at a rapid pace. However, the understanding of the essence of consciousness has changed slightly over the millennia, and only the last decade has brought some progress to the area. Scientific ideas emerged that the soul could be a product of the material body and that calculating machines could imitate brain processes. However, the authors of this book reject the previously common dualism—the view that the material and spiritual-psychic processes are separate and (...) require a completely different substance as their foundation. -/- Reductive Model of the Conscious Mind is a forward-thinking book wherein the authors identify processes that are the essence of conscious thinking and place them in the imagined, simplified structure of cells able to memorize and transmit information in the form of impulses, which they call neurons. The purpose of the study is to explain the essence of consciousness to the degree of development of natural sciences, because only the latter can find a way to embed the concept of the conscious mind in material brains. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 works to convince readers that the emergence of consciousness does not require detailed knowledge of the structure and morphology of the brain, with the exception of some specific properties of the neural network structure that the authors attempt to point out. Part 2 proves that the biological structure of many natural brains fulfills the necessary conditions for consciousness and intelligent thinking. Similarly, Part 3 shows the ways in which artificial creatures imitating natural brains can meet these conditions, which gives great hopes for building artificially intelligent beings endowed with consciousness. Covering topics that include cognitive architecture, the embodied mind, and machine learning, this book is ideal for cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, neuroscientists, psychologists, researchers, academicians, and advanced-level students. The book can also help to focus the research of linguists, neurologists, and biophysicists on the biophysical basis of postulated information processing into knowledge structures. (shrink)

Liberalism and political polarization: The customary classification of the ideological doctri‑ nes in democratic systems, which expanded along a left–right axis, is nowadays obsolescent and has been deconstructed. At the same time, the close and strong connection between de‑ mocracy and liberalism, on which the primary model of liberal democracy was established, has been broken in many places of the world. The emerging of illiberal democracies has made the liberal component the main criterion for the classification of contemporary political systems, (...) instead of dividing them into democratic and nondemocratic systems as before. Numerous ideological options could also be classified as being contrary to the liberal one. Liberalism has thus become important in the typologies and analyses of contemporary political systems and ideological options as the opposite to those systems on many new axes. (shrink)

Agresja putinowskiej Rosji na Ukrainę postawiła wobec dramatycznego wyzwania nobliwą doktrynę non‑violence. Zgodnie ze sformułowanym w latach 80. XX wieku wywodem antysowieckiego dysydenta rosyjskiego Władimira Bukowskiego to nie wojna jest przeciwieństwem pokoju, lecz przemoc, a do jej powstrzymania niekiedy konieczny jest zbrojny opór, czyli prowadzenie wojny. Według Clausewitza do wywołania stanu wojny nie wystarczy militarna agresja, lecz konieczne jest przeciwstawienie się jej, czyli aktywna obrona ze strony napadniętego, chcąc zatem uniknąć wojny, nie należy stawiać oporu agresorowi. Agresja na Ukrainę złamała (...) dwie zasady prowadzenia wojen: ius ad bellum i ius in bello. Według typologii Michaela Walzera jest to zatem niesprawiedliwa wojna prowadzona niesprawiedliwymi metodami, więc przeciwstawianie się jej, także militarne, jest prowadzeniem wojny sprawiedliwej. Zgodnie z analizą Slavoja Žižka tworzy to klarowną z etycznego punktu widzenia sytuację, zło jest łatwo identyfikowalne, a przeciwstawienie się mu stanowi etyczny obowiązek. Według filozofa Étienne’a Balibara w tej sytuacji pacyfizm nie jest żadną opcją. Helplessness as Acquiescence to Evil The aggression of Putin’s Russia towards Ukraine has posed a dramatic challenge to the noble doctrine of non-violence. In line with an argument made in the 1980s by anti-Soviet Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, war is not the opposite of peace; instead, violence is. Armed resistance, or warfare, is sometimes necessary to stop violence. According to Clausewitz, military aggression is insufficient to evoke a state of war; in its place, it is necessary to oppose aggression, i.e., actively mount a defense by the attacked party, thereby avoiding war requires not resisting the aggressor. However, the aggression against Ukraine broke two tenets of warfare: ius ad bellum and ius in bello. According to Michael Walzer’s typology, it is an unjust war waged by unjust methods, so resisting it, including militarily, amounts to waging a just war. According to Slavoj Žižek’s analysis, this establishes an ethically clear situation: evil is easily identifiable, and opposing it is an ethical duty. According to the philosopher Étienne Balibar, pacifism is not an option in such a situation. (shrink)

This volume explores the range of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy and his relevance to contemporary philosophical traditions.

This book offers a bold and controversial new thesis regarding the nature of prejudice. The authors' central claim is that prejudice is not simply learned, rather it is predisposed in all human beings and is thus the foundation for ethical valuation. They aim to destroy the illusion that prejudice is merely the result of learned beliefs, socially conditioned attitudes, or pathological states of development. Contrary to traditional accounts, prejudice itself is not a negative attribute of human nature, rather it is (...) the necessary precondition for the self and civilization to emerge. Defined as the preferential self-expression of valuation, prejudice gives rise to greater existential complexities and novelties that elevate selfhood and society to higher states of ethical realization. Rather than offer another contribution that highlights the destructive nature of prejudice, Mills and Polanowski address the ontological, psychological, and dialectical origins of prejudice as it manifests itself in the process of selfhood and culture. They provide an original conceptualization of the phenomenology of prejudice and its dialectical instantiation in the ontology of the individual, worldhood, and the very structures of subjectivity. As a unique synthesis of psychoanalysis, Hegelian idealism, Heideggerian existential ontology, and Whiteheadian process philosophy, prejudice is the indispensable ground for humanity to actualize its highest potentiality-for-Being. The striking result is (1) a revolutionary theory of human nature, (2) a new ethical system, and (3) the elevation of dialectical ethics to the domain of metaphysics. (shrink)

The article explores the concept of infodemics during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the propagation of false or inaccurate information proliferating worldwide throughout the SARS-CoV-2 health crisis. We provide an overview of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation and discuss the notion of “fake news”, and highlight the threats these phenomena bear for health policies and national and international security. We discuss the mis-/disinformation as a significant challenge to the public health, intelligence, and policymaking communities and highlight the necessity to design measures (...) enabling the prevention, interdiction, and mitigation of such threats. We then present an overview of selected opportunities for applying technology to study and combat disinformation, outlining several approaches currently being used to understand, describe, and model the phenomena of misinformation and disinformation. We focus specifically on complex networks, machine learning, data- and text-mining methods in misinformation detection, sentiment analysis, and agent-based models of misinformation spreading and the detection of misinformation sources in the network. We conclude with the set of recommendations supporting the World Health Organization’s initiative on infodemiology. We support the implementation of integrated preventive procedures and internationalization of infodemic management. We also endorse the application of the cross-disciplinary methodology of Crime Science discipline, supplemented by Big Data analysis and related information technologies to prevent, disrupt, and detect mis- and disinformation efficiently. (shrink)

W tym artykule zaproponuję konstrukcję trójwartościowej logiki przekonań, którą nazywam: LSB3_1. Podam również i udowodnię kompletność LSB3_1 w odniesieniu do danej semantyki. LSB3_1 opiera się na preformalnych założeniach i intuicjach, które przedstawiono w sekcji 1. Sekcja 2 zawiera składnię i podział instrukcji LSB3_1 na wewnętrzne i zewnętrzne. Rozdział 3 przedstawia semantykę LSB3_1, a także szereg tautologii i formuł nietautologicznych w LSB3_1 wraz z ich intuicyjną interpretacją. System aksjomatyczny dla LSB3_1 i jego porównanie z silną logiką Kleene'a są przedstawione w sekcji (...) 4. Twierdzenie o kompletności dla LSB3_1 jest przedstawione w rozdziale 5. Zdefiniuję termin koniunkcyjna forma normalna i przedstawię lematy, które prowadzą do udowodnienia redukcji języka LSB3_1 wzory przed udowodnieniem twierdzenia o zupełności. (shrink)

Although it became customary to warn against confusing postmodernism with deconstructionism, it seems plausible to suggest that their central agendas are not dissimilar. Moreover, from the philosophical point of view, it is the idea of the 'deconstruction of meaning' that can be said to constitute the foundation of postmodernism understood here as an intellectual movement. It is true that grounded in the poststructuralist language analysis, deconstructionism seeks primarily to challenge the attempts inherent in the Western philosophical tradition to establish ultimate (...) meaning in a text. However, as one might have anticipated, the deconstruction of meaning of texts provided a basis for a large scale project leading to deconstruction of all 'truths', as conceived in the mainstream philosophical tradition. And it did it by questioning the coherence of the very concept of 'truth'. Eclectic as postmodernism is, it can be recognized by the fundamental assumption that there is no common denominator that guarantees the one-ness of the world, or the possibility of objective or neutral thought. This assumption would suffice to make one expect that postmodernism will challenge the very foundations of any metaphysical or religious system of beliefs. And so it does. In this paper I would like to ellucidate just one way this challange may be construed, poiting to the example of Don Cupitt, the leading exponent of the 'antirealist' critique of the discourse of theism. (shrink)

We propose a new schema for the deduction theorem and prove that the deductive system S of a prepositional logic L fulfills the proposed schema if and only if there exists a finite set A(p, q) of propositional formulae involving only prepositional letters p and q such that A(p, p) L and p, A(p, q) s q.

Psychological research is based on philosophical assumptions which are not always explicitly formulated. On the other hand, the results of these investigations affect philosophical thinking and the conception of human nature. For a long time it was a ruling conception in psychology that the essence of human nature consists in the existence of driving mechanisms with homeostatic properties drives or needs – which, principally, are inborn mechanisms modified by learning. The analysis of driving mechanisms founded on psychological and neuro-physiological data, (...) brought about a modification of this traditional view. Starting from the concept of need as an objective phenomenon it can be stated that the higher organisms have a special mechanisms securing the satisfaction of needs. They are drives. These mechanisms do not exist in a ready form in man but only potentially, as an ability to organize a functional unit in result of certain experience. The formation of drives includes: making connections between certain internal stimuli and some forms of activity reducing these stimuli; learning how to find things which are necessary to reduce them; and, finally, the acquisition of the ability to give verbal labels to the occurring processes. In consequence, the final form of a drive is determined by biological and social factors as well as by individual experiences. (shrink)

An individual-based approach is used to describe population dynamics. Two kinds of models have been constructed with different distributions illustrating individual variability. In both models, the growth rate of an individual and its final body weight at the end of the growth period, which determines the number of offspring, are functions of the amount of resources assimilated by an individual. In the model with a symmetric distribution, the half saturation constant in the Michaelis–Menten function describing the relationship between the growth (...) of individuals and the amount of resources has a normal distribution. In the model with an asymmetric distribution, resources are not equally partitioned among individuals. The individual who acquired more resources in the past, will acquire more resources in the future. A single population comprising identical individuals has a very short extinction time. If individuals differ in the amount of food assimilated, this time significantly increases irrespectively of the type of model describing population dynamics. Individuals of two populations of competing species use common resources. For larger differences in individual variability, the more variable species will have a longer extinction time and will exclude less variable species. Both populations can also coexist when their variabilities are equal or even when they are slightly different, in the latter case under the condition of high variability of both species. These conclusions have a deterministic nature in the case of the model with the asymmetric distribution—repeated simulations give the same results. In the case of the model with the symmetric distribution, these conclusions are of a statistical nature—if we repeat the simulation many times, then the more variable species will have a longer extinction time more frequently, but some results will happen when the less variable species has a longer extinction time. Additionally, in the model with the asymmetric distribution, the result of competition will depend on the way of the introduction of variability into the model. If the higher variability is due to an increase in the proportion of individuals with a low assimilation of resources, it can produce a longer extinction time of the less variable species. (shrink)

As a specific type of operational behaviour intended to furnish solutions of social problems social engineering functions in virtue of certain moral norms and evaluations. The directives and methods of social engineering are conceived and applied in accordance with a moral point of view held by the social engineer. This moral point of view, with its characteristic values, goals, norms and evaluations, influences the selection of the ways and means that he makes to realize his project. The social engineer is (...) both a specialist who designs and applies certain norms, and a moralist who identifies, explains and justifies the motives and objectives underlying them. The directives of the adherent to a moral system and those of the engineer with a certain professional specialization constitute independent variables in his mind. (shrink)

Paul Edwards' October 1989 essay, ‘Heidegger's Quest for Being’ illustrates the wisdom of the dictum that the only legitimate criticism of a philosopher's position is a constructive criticism. His negative critique amounts to no more than expressions of distaste, dislike, and displeasure, and nothing of philosophical interest follows from his assertions, as the discourse is primarily an argument ad hominem . He grossly misinterprets Heidegger on some elemental and fundamental matters as well. In particular, he sorely misinterprets what he refers (...) to as the ‘Quest for Being’, which only further contributes to the objectionable character of the essay. (shrink)

The paper analyses various conceptions of good and evil, as well as the bases of these two basic values. The author does not present these values in isolation but as elements of metaphysical conceptions and also of social systems.

The paper is a response to recent criticisms of agatheism, a new pluralistic interpretation of religious belief put forward by Janusz Salamon with the aim of accommodating the epistemological challenge of religious diversity. Agatheism is an axiologically grounded religious belief which identifies God, the Absolute or the ultimate reality religiously conceived with the ultimate good as the ultimate end of all human agency and thus an explanation of its irreducibly teleological character and a source of its meaning. Janusz (...) Salamon argues that this grounding of religious belief in the human axiological consciousness makes it immune to falsification by any future science. Replying to the concerns of the critics about about irrationality of doxastic commitment to a particular religious tradition, Janusz Salamon argues that to the extent the fundamental agatheistic religious belief is presupposed in such tradition as its doxastic core, its belief system - if internally coherent and aligned with a worldview that is consistent with undisputed scientific findings - may be considered rational, despite there being a plurality of such belief systems. (shrink)

We prove that if the Mathias forcing is followed by a forcing with the Laver Property, then any V\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {V}$$\end{document}-q\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {q}$$\end{document}-point is isomorphic via a ground model bijection to the canonical V\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {V}$$\end{document}-Ramsey ultrafilter added by the Mathias real. This improves a result of Shelah and Spinas.

We examine the notion of primitive satisfaction in logical matrices. Theorem II. 1, being the matrix counterpart of Baker's well-known result for congruently distributive varieties of algebras (cf [1], Thm. 1.5), links the notions of primitive and standard satisfaction. As a corollary we give the matrix version of Jónsson's Lemma, proved earlier in [4]. Then we investigate propositional logics with disjunction. The main result, Theorem III. 2, states a necessary and sufficient condition for such logics to be finitely based.

The philosophical challenge that religious diversity poses for religious belief has become in recent years the focal point of a very engaging theological and philosophical debate. The debate began in the Christian context and it would be fair to say that its main issue remains the relationship of Christianity to other major religions. Traditionally Christian thinkers faced with the fact of religious plurality have assumed that Christianity is the only way to salvation, and the truth-claims of other religions can be (...) refuted by way of argument. This position is described today as 'exclusivist'. John Hick's name has become synonymous with a radically different approach to the whole issue. Hick argues that all religious traditions make contact with the same Ultimate Reality, each encountering it through a variety of culturally shaped forms of thought and experience, but all offering equally effective paths to 'salvation/liberation'. Hick's pluralistic hypothesis, although very popular in some quarters, appears to many Christian and non-Christian thinkers as highly controversial. (shrink)

The class Matr(C) of all matrices for a prepositional logic (, C) is investigated. The paper contains general results with no special reference to particular logics. The main theorem (Th. (5.1)) which gives the algebraic characterization of the class Matr(C) states the following. Assume C to be the consequence operation on a prepositional language induced by a class K of matrices. Let m be a regular cardinal not less than the cardinality of C. Then Matr (C) is the least class (...) of matrices containing K and closed under m-reduced products, submatrices, matrix homomorphisms, and matrix homomorphic counter-images. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a calculus of paraconsistent logic. We propose an axiomatisation and a semantics for the calculus, and prove several important meta-theorems. The calculus, denoted as CB1, is an extension of systems PI, C min and B1, and a proper subsystem of Sette’s calculus P1. We also investigate the generalization of CB1 to the hierarchy of related calculi.

Dear Readers,After a long break caused, on the one hand, by staff changes in the Editorial Board and, on the other, by the lingering coronavirus pandemic, another issue of the Ignatianum Philosophical Yearbook is coming out. The new editorial team has decided to expand the journal’s formula to include texts from the general humanities; thus, there will be articles not only on philosophy, but also on history, cultural and religious studies, and theology, on top of Polish and foreign literature. The (...) journal is also open to a wide range of issues that take into account the mission of the Jesuit University Ignatianum as a Catholic research center. An important element of this approach is the issue of the Mediterranean civilizational tradition and cultural heritage, which in our understanding are the most important sources of knowledge and inspiration for the study of contemporary problems of individual people, societies and states as well. (shrink)

The article deals with compatible families of Boolean algebras. We define the notion of a partial Boolean algebra in a broader sense (PBA(bs)) and then we show that there is a mutual correspondence between PBA(bs) and compatible families of Boolean algebras (Theorem (1.8)). We examine in detail the interdependence between PBA(bs) and the following classes: partial Boolean algebras in the sense of Kochen and Specker (§ 2), ortholattices (§ 3, § 5), and orthomodular posets (§ 4), respectively.

The article reviews the book Jak to jest być świadomym? Analityczne teorie umysłu a problem świadomości [What Is It Like to be Conscious? Analytical Theories of Mind and the Problem of Consciousness], by Józef Bremer.