Chciałem Go pożegnać. Kilkakrotnie próbowałem napisać choć parę słów. O Nim samym. Okazało się, że nie potrafię. Udało mi się tylko przedstawić Jego poglądy na reizm Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, ale uczyniłem to gdzie indziej. Muszę tu poprzestać na ofiarowaniu Mu tego, co napisałem na Jego dziewięćdziesiąte urodziny, w osiemdziesięciolecie naszej przyjaźni.

Jerzy Perzanowski s ideas were based on an original blend of logic and ontology in what he called onto/logic, where the slash is meant to suggest a quotient of ontology by logic. Perzanowski began as a logician, his early works being on modal logic, then gradually shifted his interest to logical philosophy, meaning not so much philosophy of logic as philosophy informed by logic. Perzanowski was a rare breed of analytical philosopher who thought that a philosophical theory of everything (...) was worthwhile. In this systematic spirit, he began with method. He presented his method of total analysis and synthesis quite simply: reduce the object of research to its simplest possible constituents, and then combine them in some way. Better still, combine them in every possible way, thereby producing a space of possibilities analogous to (and in certain cases identical with) the logical space. Thus, analysis and synthesis differ from a trivial disassembly and reassembly.". (shrink)

Background: Magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging is a neuroimaging technique that may be useful for non-invasive mapping of brain temperature over a large brain volume. To date, intra-subject reproducibility of MRSI-based brain temperature has not been investigated. The objective of this repeated measures MRSI-t study was to establish intra-subject reproducibility and repeatability of brain temperature, as well as typical brain temperature range.Methods: Healthy participants aged 23–46 years were scanned at two time points ~12-weeks apart. Volumetric MRSI data were processed by reconstructing (...) metabolite and water images using parametric spectral analysis. Brain temperature was derived using the frequency difference between water and creatine for 47 regions of interest delineated by the modified Automated Anatomical Labeling atlas. Reproducibility was measured using the coefficient of variation for repeated measures, and repeatability was determined using the standard error of measurement. For each region, the upper and lower bounds of Minimal Detectable Change were established to characterize the typical range of TCRE values.Results: The mean global brain temperature over all subjects was 37.2°C with spatial variations across ROIs. There was a significant main effect for time [F = 37.0, p < 0.0001] and for brain region [F = 2.66, p < 0.0001]. The time*brain region interaction was not significant [F = 0.80, p = 0.83]. Participants' TCRE was stable for each ROI across both time points, with ROIs' COVrep ranging from 0.81 to 3.08% ; majority of ROIs had a COVrep <2.0%.Conclusions: Brain temperature measurements were highly consistent between both time points, indicating high reproducibility and repeatability of MRSI-t. MRSI-t may be a promising diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic tool for non-invasively monitoring brain temperature changes in health and disease. However, further studies of healthy participants with larger sample size and numerous repeated acquisitions are imperative for establishing a reference range of typical brain TCRE, as well as the threshold above which TCRE is likely pathological. (shrink)

The so-called ‘type method’ widely employed in biological taxonomy is often seen as conforming to the causal-historical theory of reference. In this paper, I argue for an alternative account of reference for biological nomenclature in which taxon names are understood as descriptive names. A descriptive name, as the concept came to be known from the work of Gareth Evans, is a referring expression introduced by a definite description. There are three main differences between the DN and the causal account. First, (...) according to the DN account, rather than fixing a name to a referent, the assignment of a type specimen to serve as the name-bearer for a taxon should be seen as performatively establishing a synonymy between a name and a definite description of the form “the taxon whose type is t”. Each taxon name is therefore associated with a criterion of application, a semantic rule that establishes the connection between the name and the descriptive content. This is the second major difference from the causal account: taxon names do have some descriptive content associated with them. The final locus of dissent concerns the strength of the modality resulting from the usage of taxon names. In order to address this point, I use the DN account to focus on the debate between Matt Haber and Joeri Witteveen concerning misidentification of type specimens, misapplication of names, and the truth conditions of Joseph LaPorte’s de dicto necessary sentence “Necessarily, any species with a type specimen contains its type specimen”. Using a pragmatic variant of the distinction between attributive and referential uses of descriptions, I argue that a metalinguistic version of the de dicto sentence is in fact falsified, as previously argued by Haber. (shrink)

In the article I defend some of the thesis presented in my book ‘Art as Adaptation: Universalism in Evolutionary Aesthetics’ against the claims of my critics. I focus especialy on some misreadings regarding the explanatory power of evolutionary science. I try to show that even though evolutionarily informed aesthetics is not a handy tool for analyzing the intrinsically diverse currents of modern and neo-avant-garde art, it does an excellent job of explaining the mental tendencies and typical behaviors behind these practices. (...) I also focus on the artistic abilities of animals and the problematic dominance of the visuality paradigm in the evolutionary approach, topics that are unjustifiably considered to be most momentous in evolutionary aesthetics. (shrink)

Der Lebenslauf Edith Steins ist vielen Menschen bekannt. Viele wissen, daß sie bei Edmund Husserl, einem der bedeutendsten Philosophen des 20. Jahrhunderts, studierte und mit einer ausgezeichneten Arbeit promovierte, daß sie vom Judentum zum Christentum konvertierte, daß sie im KZ-Lager Auschwitz umgebracht wurde. Vom Papst Johannes Paul II. wurde sie zuerst selig, dann heilig gesprochen und auf der Schwelle in das dritte Jahrtausend zur Patronin Europas erhoben.

Jerzy Franczak comprehensively presents Jacques Rancière's thought by emphasizing the relations between politics and literature. The detailed analysis considers the context of modern aesthetics and political philosophy, which is why the book introduces further protagonists, such as Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, or Jean-François Lyotard. Franczak first reconstructs Rancière's original philosophy of literature so as to then immediately apply it in readings of select world literature masterpieces by Gustav Flaubert, Max Jacob, Bertold Brecht, Vladimir Nabokov, and Philip Roth.

It is shown explicitly that the linearized theory does not constitute any approximation to the exact solutions in the case of free fields. The only regular solution satisfying, as boundary condition, the requirement of a sufficiently rapid decrease at infinity is a flat space. The problem of conservation laws is discussed anew. The continuity equation satisfied by Einstein's pseudotensor does not guarantee the existence of global conservation laws. Solutions violating the energy conservation are interpretable as representing gravitational radiation absorbed or (...) emitted by sources at infinity. (shrink)

In the first part of the article, Giuseppe Veronese’s concept of arithmetical constructivism is reconstructed from his dispersed remarks. It is pointed out that although for Veronese time is a necessary condition for the construction of natural numbers by an individual subject and the subject cognizes time in an a priori way, it is not a (proto-)intuition of the subject. This is a fundamental difference between the concept proposed by Veronese and the constructivism of Kant and Brouwer. Veronese’s justification of (...) the subject’s ability to cognize infinity, represented in his text by infinite sequences, is analyzed in the second part of the paper. The only condition for the cognition of the infinite sequence is to have a rule according to which its successive terms “follow one another.” The price of the ability to cognize the infinitive “whole” (sequence) may be the uncognizability of certain “parts” (terms of sequence). Infinite sequences, cognizable according to Veronese, are allowed as objects of mathematical research, although they do not meet the condition of constructability. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the evaluation of the ecological alternative in cognitive psychology. The theory of „extended minds” is discussed in this paper as a version of ecological psychology. The authors of the theory of extended mind advocate „active externalism”, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes. The environment, driving cognitive processes, comprises books, diagrams, language, and other culture products. Władysław Witwicki's psychology and his idea of real presence of persons in cultural products which (...) they create, provide a conceptual framework for the undertaken analysis and evaluation. (shrink)

This editorial presents the special issue with papers derived from presentations at the 13th Principia International Symposium, held in 2023. A brief context of the symposium is given, as well as an abstract of the keynote talks. Finally, the editorial introduces the main theme of the 14th Principia International Symposium, to be held in 2025.

Presentism faces the following well-known dilemma: either the truth-value of past-tense claims depends on the non-existing past and cannot be said to supevene on being, or it supervenes on present reality and breaks our intuition which says that the true past-tense claims should not depend on any present aspect of reality. The paper shows that the solution to the dilemma offered by Kierland and Monton’s brute past presentism, the version of presentism according to which the past is supposed to be (...) both a fundamental and present aspect of reality, is implausible and proposes how to cure presentism: the dillema can be avoided by taking a third road consisting of introducing dynamics into presentism in the form of the real passage of time. Dynamic presentism, which is constructed in such a way, can overcome the dilemma by providing an ontological basis for the past-tense propositions in the form of the real past. Dynamic presentism also offers a rationale for treating the future as being open. (shrink)

The contributions in this book deal with the issue of normativity from various academic and scientific perspectives. The reader will learn how phenomena - such as norms, morality, and rule-following - are described and explained in philosophy, biology, psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. In addition, a discussion of the naturalistic fallacy, from philosophical and ethical perspectives, is included.

Author tells the story of his close and very long-lasting acquaintance with Leszek Kołakowski as well as commentates on his intellectual biography and achievements as political and literary essayist, philosopher, historian of ideas, and public figure. In particular, he describes in details the first half of Kołakowski’s life, namely the period when he made his long journey from being communist in his student years to becoming as a young scholar the leading figure of Marxist revisionism in the late fifties and, (...) after a time, a principled critic of Marxism itself and a fervent anti-communist.In many respects, Kołakowski’s itinerary was not exceptional but it had at least two noteworthy characteristics. First, in opposition to quite a few other cases, his way away from communism turned out to be scholarly fruitful as it resulted in an uniquely indepth historical research, covering the founders, the golden age and the breakdown of so called “scientific socialism” (his voluminous work Main Currents of Marxism remains one of the best and the most comprehensive monographs of the topic). Second, Kołakowski’s abandoning of his former Weltanschauung was followed by his discovery of religion as an extremely important part of human experience and sine qua non condition of the survival of civilization, permanently menaced by barbarians. However, it is to be doubt whether he may be considered as a convert or a religious thinker in the strict sense of the word since he believed in horrors of the absence of God rather than in the real presence of his in the world. As defender of transcendence and tradition, Kołakowski certainly became a kind of catholic-Christian without denomination but as acritical philosopher remained at the same time highly skeptical about everything. Dreaming of solid fundaments, he was all his life an uncompromising enemy of any fundamentalism. Being nostalgic about the Absolute, he was incurable anti-absolutist. (shrink)