This paper presents an argument for the realism about mechanisms, contents, and vehicles of mental representation at both the personal and subpersonal levels, and showcases its role in instrumental rationality and proper cognitive functioning. By demonstrating how misrepresentation is necessary for learning from mistakes and explaining certain failures of action, we argue that fallible rational agents must have mental representations with causally relevant vehicles of content. Our argument contributes to ongoing discussions in philosophy of mind and cognitive science by challenging (...) anti-realist views about the nature of mental representation, and by highlighting the importance of understanding how different agents can misrepresent in pursuit of their goals. While there are potential rebuttals to our claim, our opponents must explain how agents can be rational without having mental representations. This is because mental representation is grounded in rationality. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend a representational approach to at least some kinds of non-human psychopathology. Mentally-ill non-human minds, in particular in delusions, obsessive-compulsive disorders and similar cognitive states, are traditionally understood in purely behavioral terms. In contrast, we argue that non-human mental psychopathology should be at least sometimes not only ascribed contentful mental representation but also understood as really having these states. To defend this view, we appeal to the interactivist account of mental representation, which is a kind of (...) a constructive approach to meaning. We follow Mark Bickhard in assuming that only an organism – either human or non-human – capable of detecting its own misrepresentations is representational. However, under his autonomy-based account of biological function these minds are incapable of misrepresentations because these minds are, ex hypothesi, unable to detect error in such representations. To solve this problem, we argue that adding a historical dimension – as in Millikan’s view on mental representations – to Bickhard’s account of function makes mental misrepresentation of mentally-ill minds possible. Using Bickhard’s dynamic account of function, it is possible to explain why delusions and other mental disorders can be seen as locally functional. However, an etiological dimension can further explain why misrepresentations seem to be globally dysfunctional. Even if representational or biosemiotic hypotheses about non-human psychopathology are difficult to confirm empirically, we defend the view that they can enrich our understanding of the causes and development of such pathologies, and may constitute a new progressive research programme. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical tourism, the practice of persons intentionally travelling across international boundaries to access medical care, has drawn increasing attention from researchers, particularly in relation to potential ethical concerns of this practice. Researchers have expressed concern for potential negative impacts to individual safety, public health within both countries of origin for medical tourists and destination countries, and global health equity. However, these ethical concerns are not discussed within the sources of information commonly provided to medical tourists, and as such, medical tourists (...) may not be aware of these concerns when engaging in medical tourism. This paper describes the methodology utilized to develop an information sheet intended to be disseminated to Canadian medical tourists to encourage contemplation and further public discussion of the ethical concerns in medical tourism.MethodsThe methodology for developing the information sheet drew on an iterative process to consider stakeholder feedback on the content and use of the information sheet as it might inform prospective medical tourists’ decision making. This methodology includes a literature review as well as formative research with Canadian public health professionals and former medical tourists.ResultsThe final information sheet underwent numerous revisions throughout the formative research process according to feedback from medical tourism stakeholders. These revisions focused primarily on making the information sheet concise with points that encourage individuals considering travelling for medical tourism to do further research regarding their safety both within the destination country, while travelling, and once returning to Canada, and the potential impacts of their trip on third parties. This methodology may be replicated for the development of information sheets intending to communicate ethical concerns of other practices to providers or consumers of a certain service. (shrink)

The article discusses the composition of Lysias’ speech, devoted to the history of music, in Pseudo-Plutarch’s treatise On Music. Close attention has been paid to the unifying mechanisms employed by Lysias to create the coherence and unity of the textual construction. The analysis of the speech presented in the article leads to the conclusion that the employment of clearly marked and coordinated two-part units became the most important technique of the organisation of this speech. The first part of each of (...) eleven pairs Lysias’ speech consists of includes quotations from earlier written sources, the second displays comments and interpreting remarks on these citations. This scheme of organisation of the speech provides the internal order and continuity of thought in the historical part of Pseudo-Plutarch’s work. (shrink)

SummaryInfand mortality for the period 1950—70 has been analysied in a North-Swedish isolate, a population characterized by a high incidence of schizopherenic psychoses and other neuorpsychiatric disorders. Infand mortality is higher than in Sweden generally. As many as 45·9% of the deceased infands in the population sccumbed during the first week of their life, compard to 28·1% in the general Swedish population.

La grande littérature française, de Marcel Proust à Michel Houellebecq, avec les chefs d'oeuvre d'André Gide, Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Giraudoux, Eugène Ionesco, Marguerite Yourcenar, Bernard-Marie Koltès, ou Enzo Cormann, reflète la condition humaine dans le monde des valeurs stables et celui de la modernité liquide décrite par Bauman. Ses interrogations concernent l'homme, confronté à l'Histoire, en proie au doute sur le Moi aussi bien que sur les religions.

The author agrees with James Moor that computer technology, because it is ‘logically malleable’, is bringing about a genuine social revolution. Moor compares the computer revolution to the ‘industrial revolution’ of the late 18th and the 19th centuries; but it is argued here that a better comparison is with the ‘printing press revolution’ that occurred two centuries before that. Just as the major ethical theories of Bentham and Kant were developed in response to the printing press revolution, so a new (...) ethical theory is likely to emerge from computer ethics in response to the computer revolution. The newly emerging field of information ethics, therefore, is much more important than even its founders and advocates believe. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie wybranych wątków myśli Paula Ricreura, szczególnie jego rozważań dotyczących niewolnej woli. Po pierwsze, zaprezentowana zostaje Ricreurowska filozofia woli oraz koncepcja ludzkiej ułomności. Następnie omówionajest reinterpretacja fenomenologii Husserla, której dokonuje Ricreur, co prowadzi go do wypracowania hermeneutycznej formuły, wskazującej, że symbol daje do myślenia. Ostatecznie twierdzę, że fenomenologia hermeneu- tyczna Ricreura tworzy określoną wizję antropologiczną i rozumienie ludzkiej kondycji, które później stanie się częścią „hermeneutyki siebie”.

All empirical concepts belonging to natural language are vague. The vagueness of empirical discourse is a source of many semantical problems which have been known since ancient times. One of those problems concerns the so called sorites paradoxes. This article is an attempt to show that the paradoxes are either invalid or unsound inferences. Since classical logic is useless for semantical analysis of such inferences, the article makes use of the Belnap four-valued logic based on the bilattice FOUR. Belnap's logic (...) is the base logic for defining a nonmonotonic consequence relation which prefers models with classical valuations among all valuations of the four-valued logic whenever it is possible. The approach outlined in this article is intuitive, and has more advantages than the supervaluational approach. (shrink)

In the article, composed of two parts with the titles Spektakl modernistyczny czy seans spirytystyczny? (A modernist spectacle or a spiritistic seance?) and Dlaczego Słowacki niszczy konterfekt księcia Józefa? (Why does Słowacki destroy the portrait of Prince Józef?), presents a contextual interpretation of Jan Lechoń’s poem Duch na seansie (A Ghost at a Seance). The author questions the opinion, which was widespread in literary criticism, that Lechoń together with other members of the Skamander group discredited Romantic poetry and national mythology (...) on the threshold of independence. The analysis of the poem made in the article leads to the conclusion that the poet fought stereotypes deeply rooted in public opinion, which in the eyes of the general public were also reinforced by Slowacki’s poetry. Thus, Słowacki appears at the seance to demystify a belief in the messianic, necrotic and patriotic tone of his poetry, in the bard-creator of the national Gospel, who is endowed with the power to discover absolute truths, and in the „master of the word” as well as the „creator of artistic beauty” as well as the only generally-accepted opinion. Optimistic signs of revival have dominated the symbols of suffering, the talkativeness has been replaced by silence, the word by the iconoclastic deed, the mystical heat by ironic distance. The symbols, images, references to literary texts and other signes of culture help to create a revalued portrait of Słowacki and mould a myth of gray heroism, which is a complete contrast to the myth of the „colourful uhlan”. The destruction of the portrait of Prince Józef Poniatowski and a reference to Piłsudski found in the last line of Karmazynowy poemat (The Crimson Poem) are the signs of the ideological declaration of the young poet, who referring to great Romantic tradition, discovers new and new meanings. (shrink)

Pro-social basic human values and civic involvement. The moderating role of survival vs self-expression cultural context The present study investigated a hypothesis that the pro-social values differentiated by S. Schwartz's model of basic human values - universalism and benevolence - would positively predict civic involvement. Most importantly, authors expected that the type of pro-social value that would play a dominant motivational role would depend on moderating role of the level of self-expression and benevolence - cultural value dimension developed by R. (...) Inglehart. Based on discriminant function analyses performed on the data gathered in 17 European countries through the European Social Survey conducted in 2002, authors found that universalism predicts civic involvement only in self-expression countries, whereas the role of benevolence is rather neglectable and independent of the cultural context. The results are discussed with reference to cross-cultural differences in Europe. (shrink)

The contemporary changes in the countries of western culture include the refutation of the traditional principles of sexual relations; this is treated as a fundamental change which – as the author tries to show – has several entirely different consequences. The new moral situation stimulates.

In this paper, I analyze a type of externalist enactivism defended by Riccardo Manzotti. Such radical versions of enactivism are gaining more attention, especially in cognitive science and cognitive robotics. They are radical in that their notion of representation is purely referential, and content is conflated with reference. Manzotti follows in the footsteps of early causal theories of reference that had long been shown to be inadequate. It is commonly known that radical versions of externalism may lead to difficulties with (...) the notion of representation, especially if they cannot help themselves with the notion of syntax. I argue that a type of externalism present in Manzotti’s enactivism may well lead to anti-representationalism. (shrink)