Praca zawiera pogłębioną analizę dwóch ważnych, powiązanych ze sobą doktryn – utylitaryzmu i liberalizmu. Ich powstanie i rozwój zbiega się z historią uprzemysłowionego świata Zachodu. XIX wiek to bez wątpienia okres pełnego rozkwitu liberalizmu w jego klasycznej postaci. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) jest kluczową postacią w historii obydwu doktryn. Jego dialog z utylitaryzmem ma w tle współczesne dylematy i takież interpretacje.

Tekst stanowi tłumaczenie traktatu Tomasza z Akwinu pt. De principiis naturae (O zasadach natury), stanowiącego opis podstawowych zagadnień filozofii przyrody i metafizyki w ujęciu Akwinaty. Są to przede wszystkim zagadnienia związane z powstawaniem, które stanowi dla Tomasza podstawowy przedmiot badań filozofa natury. Zajmuje się on odróżnieniem substancji od przypadłości, złożeniem materii i formy, czterema rodzajami przyczyn i ich wzajemnymi relacjami, a także rodzajami konieczności i identyczności.

In the nineteenth century, the French utopian socialists, Saint-Simonians and Fourierists, developed different concepts of the colonisation of Africa. These concepts collided in Algeria. The Saint-Simonians were impressed by the Arab system of the tribal ownership of land. They wanted to preserve it and ultimately bring the two peoples, the Arabs and the French, together in the spirit of a commune. On the other hand, the Fourierists wanted to expropriate Arabs from their land and hand it over to the French (...) colonists so that they could build new economic communities of a phalanstery type. This article presents the theoretical disputes between the two schools and also describes the actual practical consequences of these disputes for the French colonial politics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the theory of artefacts presented by the 15th-century thinker Paul of Venice, paying special attention to the views of authors often referred to as ‘nominalists’ (e.g. O...

This paper analyzes selected issues related to the philosophy of the Krakow physicist Andrzej Fuliński. Since the 1970s, Fuliński has been strongly associated with the interdisciplinary milieu gathered around Heller and Życiński. His activity can therefore be considered within the context of the broader phenomenon known as the Krakow School of Philosophy in Science, which was founded by Heller and Życiński. This paper proposes the thesis that Fuliński’s style of philosophy is connected with the concept of philosophy in science and (...) tries to justify the thesis that Fuliński, due to his cooperation with the interdisciplinary milieu in Krakow and the specificity of his philosophical works, deserves to be regarded as a representative of the Krakow School of Philosophy in Science. (shrink)

En las dos últimas décadas, se ha producido dentro de la filosofía analítica un aumento repentino de la investigación sobre la naturaleza y el papel que juea la intuición. Los filósofos empezaron a investigar qué es la intuición, cómo debería definirse, qué papel desempeña en la filosofía, cuál es su estatus epistémico, entre otras cosas. También hay un número creciente de filósofos que sostienen que todo el debate se basa en un error: la intuición en filosofía no desempeña papel alguno (...) y los filósofos no la utilizan como (fuente de) prueba para sus afirmaciones filosóficas. Esta estrategia se lleva a cabo a menudo diferenciando entre los dos sentidos en los que se supone que la intuición desempeña un papel evidencial en filosofía. Así, la intuición puede entenderse como un estado de intuir o como un contenido proposicional que se intuye. En el primer sentido, se argumenta, la intuición no puede ser tratada como evidencia, ya que presentaría el riesgo de psicologizar la evidencia en filosofía. Sin embargo, si tomamos la intuición como evidencia en el segundo sentido, no hay nada distintivo en ella: en última instancia, toda evidencia en filosofía es de naturaleza proposicional, independientemente de la intuitividad de una proposición dada. En mi artículo, sostengo que esta estrategia fracasa y propongo, en su lugar, una visión de la intuición que, en primer lugar, explica por qué la distinción mencionada no hace que la intuitividad del contenido sea irrelevante para su estatus epistémico; en segundo lugar, está de acuerdo con los hallazgos actuales en psicología; y, en tercer lugar, es lo suficientemente mínima como para permitir la incorporación de las diferentes perspectivas sobre las intuiciones. En particular, sostengo que un juicio intuitivo, caracterizado por su no inferencialidad y revocabilidad, sirve de prueba para determinadas afirmaciones filosóficas, mientras que su fuente es una intuición entendida como un estado de carácter no proposicional que puede examinarse empíricamente. (shrink)

This paper is focused on one of the key questions constituting the medieval debate about the ontological status of artefacts, which has to do with the productivity of art. We ordinarily speak about artefacts, such as statues or chairs, as produced by their artificers, and Aristotle describes art in general as a productive habit. In the first part of the paper, I look at how the proponents of the realist view of artefacts argue that the productivity of art can only (...) be explained if we endorse their view, on which by producing an artefact an artificer brings about a new thing in the world, which is distinct from the natural things used in its production. I then turn to the reductionist account of artefacts and examine how its proponents want to show that the productivity of art can be preserved without positing that an artefact must be a new thing in the world, distinct from its natural components. In the final part of the paper, I look at one of the further corollaries of this debate, which has to do with the connection between the productivity of art and natural change. (shrink)

One of the distinguishing features of Alasdair MacIntyre’s political theorising is his trenchant critique of the modern state. The article aims to explore the underlying reasons behind MacIntyre’s antistatism. Beginning with MacIntyre’s critique of the traditional arguments justifying political obligation, it then proceeds to the crucial issue of politics of common good. The author argues that MacIntyre rejects the modern state as an instrument of politics of common good mainly for two main reasons: 1) the close partnership between the modern (...) state and capitalism; 2) the bureaucratic and often unjustly coercive character of the modern state. The article concludes with several polemical remarks concerning MacIntyre’s position. (shrink)

Amerykański filozof Richard Rorty wytrwale pracował na etykietkę intelektualnego enfant terrible. Jednym z przejawów jego oryginalności w akademickim milieu była zdecydowana obrona amerykańskiego patriotyzmu przedstawiona w Spełnianiu obietnicy naszego kraju i innych pismach. W niniejszym artykule staram się uwypuklić pewne cechy Rortiańskiego patriotyzmu oraz powiązać je z jego krytyką lewicy kulturowej. Jego zdaniem utraciła ona polityczne wpływy i uczyniła swoim fetyszem radykalne teoretyzowanie właśnie na skutek swojego antyamerykanizmu. Na koniec stawiam pytanie o to, czy wzrost znaczenia lewicy kulturowej w USA (...) w ostatnich latach nie poddaje w wątpliwość diagnozy Rorty’ego. (shrink)

At Protagoras 353de, Socrates gives three possible reasons for calling some pleasures `wrong'. Scholarly attention has focused on the second of these, according to which pleasures are `wrong' when they have negative consequences. This paper argues that the first reason (the pleasures are fleeting) corresponds to beliefs held by Democritus, among others; and that the third reason (the pleasant things “give pleasure in whatever way and for whatever reason“) is the view adopted by Socrates in the dialogue.

Book review: Dominique Lambert, Ryzykowne spotkanie teologii z nauką, przeł. P. Korycińska, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2018, ss. 268.

Parkinson’s Disease can be treated with the use of microelectrode recording and stimulation. This paper presents a data stream classifier that analyses raw data from micro-electrodes and decides whether the measurements were taken from the subthalamic nucleus (STN) or not. The novelty of the proposed approach is based on the fact that distances based on raw data are used. Two distances are investigated in this paper, i.e. Normalized Compression Distance (NCD) and Lempel-Ziv Jaccard Distance (LZJD). No new features needed to (...) be extracted due to the fact that in the case of high-dimensional data the process is extremely time-consuming. The k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) was chosen as the classifier due to its simplicity, which is essential in data stream classification. Results obtained from classifiers based on k-NN: k-NN, k-NN were compared with Probabilistic Approximate Window (k-NN with PAW); k-NN with Probabilistic Approximate Window and Adaptive Windowing (k-NN with PAW and ADWIN); and Self Adjusting Memory k-NN (SAM k-NN), which use the proposed distances, with the performance of the same classifiers but using standard Euclidean distance. Prequential accuracy was chosen as the performance measure. The results of the experiments performed with the described approach are in most cases better, i.e. the performance measures for kNN classifiers that use NCD and LZJD distances are better by up to 8.5 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively. Moreover, the proposed approach performs better when compared with other stream classification algorithms, i.e. Hoeffding Tree, Naive Bayes, and Leveraging Bagging. In the discussed case, an improvement of classification rate of up to 17.9 per cent when using Lempel-Ziv Jaccard Distance instead of the Euclidean was noted. (shrink)

This article deals with the key concepts - practice, narrative unity of a human life and tradition - in what might be described as a positive, constructive side of Alasdair MacIntyre's philosophical contribution.

Robots are becoming more visible parts of our life, a situation which prompts questions about their place in our society. One group of issues that is widely discussed is connected with robots’ moral and legal status as well as their potential rights. The question of granting robots rights is polarizing. Some positions accept the possibility of granting them human rights whereas others reject the notion that robots can be considered potential rights holders. In this paper, I claim that robots will (...) never have all human rights, even if we accept that they are morally equal to humans. I focus on the role of embodiment in the content of the law. I claim that even relatively small differences in the ontologies of entities could lead to the need to create new sets of rights. I use the example of Neanderthals to illustrate that entities similar to us might have required different legal statuses. Then, I discuss the potential legal status of human-like robots. (shrink)

This short work presents a popular fringe theory as a source of case studies for use in teaching informal logic in an introductory course. It puts forward ancient astronaut theory as the candidate source, together with a characterization of why it fits the bill. The televised material associated with that theory is well suited to being used as case studies given that they are easy to follow, contain a surprising number of arguments and fallacies, and keep students reliably engaged. The (...) paper includes an overview of the forms of argumentation and fallacies that these cases may be used to teach, along with a sketch of how to best implement them in the classroom. (shrink)

Whether or not we call a love-like relationship with robots true love, some people may feel and claim that, for them, it is a sufficient substitute for love relationship. The love relationship between humans has a special place in our social life. On the grounds of both morality and law, our significant other can expect special treatment. It is understandable that, precisely because of this kind of relationship, we save our significant other instead of others or will not testify against (...) her/him. How as a society should we treat love-like relationships humans with robots? Based on the assumption that robots do not have an inner life and are not moral patients, I defend the thesis that this kind of relationship should be protected by criminal law. (shrink)

In recent years a lot of metaphilosophical attention has been paid to the role of thought experiments in philosophical inquiry. According to the popular picture, thought experiments are among the most prominent methods for conceptual analysis. However, it is also often claimed that thought experiments in ethics differ from those that are used in other fields of philosophy as being of a different nature—they are not about the concepts, but rather about the things in the world (what those things exactly (...) are depends on the particular metaethical theory one subscribes to). In the paper I argue that this claim is wrong. Conceptual analysis is of a huge value to ethics for it substantially helps to clarify the concepts one uses while making a moral judgment. It is very often the case that the apparent moral disagreement between two subjects turns out to be superficial since it is rooted in the misunderstanding on the conceptual level, for example when one uses some concept equivocally. Moreover, through thought experiments conceptual analysis can help to bring out the tacit assumptions that relate to the concepts involved. (shrink)

This article examines the pedagogic vision of audiovisual archives in Ici et ailleurs ( Here and Elsewhere, 1974/1978) (shot by Sonimage and drawn from the abandoned project Jusqu’à la Victoire [1970]) in terms of the stratification of images and sounds. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, Tom Conley writes that a diagram that depends upon the division between the visible and the enunciable may be comprehended in terms of a map and as a line of forces. Such strata can (...) act as signposts for diverse and multilateral readings of film, as viewers “read” cinematic landscapes and time-images. In Ici et ailleurs, stratigraphic shots juxtapose the Western, static home life of a family in France with the nomadic life of Fedayeen troops in Jordan and Palestine. This article argues that Sonimage’s narrative specificity relies upon an “in-between” method that defines an inter-space between semantic orders. (shrink)

Foundational theories of meaning, and the broader metasemantic projects they contribute to, promise to answer that seemingly simple yet intractable question of what meaning consists in and where it comes from. Naturally, they build upon expressions that we already know and recognize to develop their positions. This focus on language as we know it, however, leaves aside the no less significant matter of language in terms of possible expressions - the strange and distant expanses of language beyond our everyday stock (...) of expressions. This work sets out to explore possibility in the context of the meaning of simple expressions. In the process, words, phrases, and sentences are thoroughly explicated as types of expressions before being leveraged to engineer unique and unusual possible words. These exotic possibilities are then confronted with two major positions on meaning in philosophy, introducing novel difficulties and suggesting the significance of this otherwise neglected perspective on language. (shrink)

The inferentialism due to Robert Brandom presents a compelling normative-deontic picture of language and discursive practices, and as such it is well positioned to address phenomena like lying. This short work outlines a simple account of how lying can be conceptualized within that framework. To that end, the basic Brandomian position is extended to include a novel type of status – namely, pseudo-commitments, which are unique in their being non-binding. The traditional definition of lying is then given a status-oriented form, (...) such that lying consists in presenting a pseudo-commitment with the intention for it to be attributed as a standard commitment. Importantly, this can be articulated in our scorekeeping practices, which is demonstrated with three example exchanges – one featuring an undetected lie, one featuring a detected lie, and one featuring a bald-faced lie. Though simple, the account works and invites extension to other similar phenomena, like sarcasm, acting, bullshit, etc. The notion of pseudo-commitment may also find application outside of the inferentialist context. (shrink)

We examine how social diversity and inclusiveness on corporate boards affect corporate performance and monitoring in Sri Lanka, a country subject to decades of polarization, civil war, and even genocide. Barely more than a decade after the civil war, we find that board social diversity on the basis of ethnicity, religion, language, gender, and nationality of the board members is positively related to corporate performance, both in terms of stock market performance and accounting returns, and to corporate financial stability. The (...) main positive effects of social diversity derive from ethno-linguistic inclusiveness. The results are confirmed by an instrumental variable approach that addresses endogeneity issues. We find no evidence that inter-personal and moral conflicts or communication problems among board members negatively affect firm performance. (shrink)

In the late Middle Ages, there was an intense debate about the metaphysical status of artefacts, in particular about whether an artefact is a new thing over and above the natural things that make it up. Realists about artefacts argued for a positive reply. In this paper, I will examine the following objection against artefact realism raised by artefact nominalists: The making of artefacts involves nothing more than local motion of already existing natural things or their parts, and local motion (...) by itself does not lead to the production of any new thing; therefore, the making of artefacts does not involve the production of any new thing. I will look at various attempts by realists to respond to this argument and offer one possible complication for the nominalist view. (shrink)