In this paper, I re-interpret Hart’s concept of the rule of recognition using the theoretical framework of J. L. Austin’s speech act theory, in particular by treating recognition, change and adjudi...

W 1983 roku Benjamin Libet wraz ze współpracownikami po raz pierwszy wykazał, że w prostym działaniu dobrowolnym świadoma intencja nie pełni funkcji inicjującej. Czasowy przebieg tego typu działania wskazuje również, że intencja oraz samo działanie to produkty procesów nieświadomych. Na podstawie wyniku Libeta oraz wybranych koncepcji psychologicznych Daniel Wegner zaproponował teorię pozornej mentalnej przyczynowości, w ramach której intencja to rodzaj konstruktu umożliwiającego agentowi zrozumienie własnego zachowania w kategoriach przyczynowych, gdzie jego stan mentalny (intencja) jawi mu się jako przyczyna, a działanie (...) jako skutek. Ujęcie Wegnera rodzi jednak pytanie, jaka jest faktyczna relacja pomiędzy intencjami, a celami kształtującymi nasze decyzje. Biorąc pod uwagę wyjaśnienie amerykańskiego psychologa, nie możemy być pewni, że te dwa elementy mają ze sobą jakiś związek. Może to prowadzić do zaskakującego wniosku, że nasza świadoma wola jest w gruncie rzeczy iluzją. Korzystając z wyników badań Read’a Montague nad mechanizmami ustanawiania i osiągania celów wskazuję na alternatywną możliwość rozumienia roli intencji. Zgodnie z analizą Montague, możemy postulować, że przynajmniej w wybranych przypadkach treść intencji działania oraz przebieg zachowań celowych oparte są na tej samej abstrakcyjnej reprezentacji. Znaczy to, że interpretacja świadomej woli, jako przydatnej iluzji jest za szeroka, gdyż znamy (wskazane w tekście) przypadki, kiedy treść intencji jest tożsama z reprezentacją pełniącą rolę nagrody w systemie ustanawiania i osiągania celów. (shrink)

The author presents a model of moral responsibility based on the actual sequence and the notion of reason-responsiveness, and draws an analogy between this model and Robert Nozick’s model of knowledge based on the actual sequence. In addition, the concept of semicompatibilism is introduced and explained.

The article describes Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec's perspective on four classic philosophical images of man and the resulting theoretical and practical implications for the nursing profession. The first three images, namely man as a set of elements, man as a soul imprisoned in the body and man as a rational animal, are regarded by Krąpiec as reductionist anthropologies and are thus inadequate for nursing. The first image reduces man to a biological element. The second one reduces man to a soul and (...) treats a body as something an obstacle in personal development. The third image absolutizes reason in man. While the body is not rejected in this image, it is viewed as an indifferent mass. The last image, which regards man as a person, is an adequate image for nursing. The exceptional character of man emphasized in this image is determined by the following personal qualities: the ability for cognition, freedom, love, religiousness, dignity, subjectivity to law and completeness. These characteristics reveal the specificity of personal being in both the body and the spirit. By viewing man as a person, a nurse discovers a wide range of possibilities of providing effective help to the patient. (shrink)

This paper examines the interplay between integrative explanatory pluralism and the quest for unified theories. We argue that when grounded in virtues associated with satisfactory explanations, integrative pluralism exhibits an inherent instability stemming from the conflict between the demand for unity and the commitment to preserving a patchwork of disparate partial explanations. A case study in cognitive science illuminates the challenges of maintaining both systematicity and depth in explanations within this framework. While this instability does not render integrative pluralism fundamentally (...) flawed, it stresses the importance of a diachronic analysis of scientific dynamics and norms. The conclusion highlights the continued value of integrative pluralism in interdisciplinary research programs, while emphasizing its role as a temporary rather than permanent approach. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose foundations for a formal model of representation and numerical evaluation of a possibly broad class of arguments, including those that occur in natural discourse. Since one of the most characteristic features of everyday argumentation is the occurrence of convergent reasoning, special attention should be paid to the operation ⊕, which allows us to calculate the logical force of convergent arguments with an accuracy not offered by other approaches.

Artykuł zawiera prezentację, analizę oraz interpretację pojęcia przemocy zbędnej, które pojawia się w piątej części książki Primo Leviego Pogrążeni i ocaleni. Levi podjął próbę uchwycenia przy pomocy tego pojęcia specyfiki przemocy stosowanej przez niemieckich nazistów. Sposób ujęcia fenomenu bezużytecznej przemocy przez tego autora zostaje rozszerzony o dodatkowe relacje świadków oraz ustalenia badaczy, którzy zajmują się sposobem funkcjonowania obozów koncentracyjnych oraz fenomenem nazistowskiego terroru. W ten sposób charakterystyka pewnej formy przemocy, którą wypracował autor, będący jednocześnie jej ofiarą, uzyskuje poparcie i szeroki (...) komentarz. (shrink)

The paper presents a partial evaluation of employment and factors related to the labour markets in European countries in 2007-2016. The interconnectedness of these determinants in the context of GDP dynamics per capita for each country was examined. The quoted partial subject literature and empirical research allowed to formulate the most important conclusions, among others: in the context of GDP dynamics per capita, at least four groups of countries can be distinguished in Europe, each of them has completely different characteristics (...) having an influence (in the Granger causality sense) on change in GDP per capita of these countries for various time steps. (shrink)

The term “personhood” has a long history and is deeply rooted in the bioethical debate. Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby argues that bioethicists should abandon the concept of personhood, because “‘person...

Application of either the harm principle or the best interest standard to medical decision making conflicts with some types of pediatric research that pose elevated risk without the reasonable prob...

This editorial complements the editorial opening Philosophies eight years ago. The success of the original vision of the journal has been confirmed by the high quality of published works and its institutional recognition. The journal Philosophies evolves, but this evolution is an adaptation to the conditions of better realization of its original mission to promote the reintegration of fragmented by specialization knowledge guided by philosophy. In contrast to the editorial published at the time of the opening of the journal presenting (...) general philosophical principles guiding its early development which are equally valid today as eight years ago, the present editorial focuses on philosophical but also more practical aspects of its operation and its role in the academic community together with an extensive clarification of their misunderstanding in decisions regarding submission of contributions. (shrink)

The predictive processing account of action, cognition, and perception is one of the most influential approaches to unifying research in cognitive science. However, its promises of grand unification will remain unfulfilled unless the account becomes theoretically robust. In this paper, we focus on empirical commitments of PP, since they are necessary both for its theoretical status to be established and for explanations of individual phenomena to be falsifiable. First, we argue that PP is a varied research tradition, which may employ (...) various kinds of scientific representations, differing in the scope of empirical commitments they entail. Two major perspectives on PP qua cognitive theory may then be distinguished: generalized vs. hierarchical. The first one fails to provide empirical detail, and the latter constrains possible physical implementations. However, we show that even hierarchical PP is insufficiently restrictive to disallow incorrect models and may be adjusted to explain any neurocognitive phenomenon–including non-existent or impossible ones–through flexible adjustments. This renders PP a universal modeling tool with an unrestricted number of degrees of freedom. Therefore, in contrast with declarations of its proponents, it should not be understood as a unifying theoretical perspective, but as a computational framework, possibly informing further theory development in cognitive science. (shrink)

A child’s objection, refusal and dissent regarding participation in non-beneficial biomedical research must be respected, even when the parents or legal representatives have given their permission. There is, however, no consensus on the definition and criteria of a meaningful and valid child’s objection. The aim of this article is to clarify this issue. In the first part we describe the problems of a child’s assent in research. In the second part we distinguish and analyze two models of a child’s objection (...) to research: the capacity-based model and the distress-based model. In the last part we present arguments for a broader and unified understanding of a child’s objection within regulations and practices. This will strengthen children’s rights and facilitate the entire process of assessment of research protocols. (shrink)

The fall of the nineteenth century abounded in discoveries of natural laws, that is, strict and unequivocal rules of the development of life. These laws stated for example that ontogeny of individuals repeats, or recapitulates, phylogeny of the species; that big and specialized forms originate in evolution from small and unspecialized ones, while the reverse is not true; that endothermic animals are larger-sized and more compact in cool than in warm climates, and so on. Louis Dollo, a Belgian palaeontologist, proposed (...) the so-called law of irreversibility of evolution which stated that an organic structure lost in evolution cannot reappear with all the peculiarities of its design. This law seems indeed to be true but not particularly original. It was Heraclitus who first observed that one could not enter the same river twice. Dollo's law says essentially the same thing. The flow of evolutionary events combines so many processes in so many ways that past evolutionary events cannot recur exactly. “What is done, is done forever”. Time itself introduces asymmetry into the evolutionary process. (shrink)

This paper offers a new way to make sense of disagreement expansion from a polylogical perspective by incorporating various places in addition to players and positions into the analysis. The concepts build on prior implicit ideas about disagreement space by suggesting how to more fully account for argumentative context, and its construction, in large-scale complex controversies. As a basis for our polylogical analysis, we use a New York Times news story reporting on an oil train explosion—a significant point in the (...) broader controversy over producing oil and gas via hydraulic fracturing. (shrink)

Kazimierz Twardowski was renowned as an outstanding philosopher, teacher, and organizer of academic life. No less famous was his style of work, depicted in many recollections of his students. In the paper, I present three aspects of good mental work: a) stoic inspiration for Kazimierz Twardowski’s style of work, b) the place of the techniques of mental work in the program of pragmatic logic according to the views of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, and c) selected contemporary approaches consistent with (...) the direction provided by the Lvov-Warsaw School. By exploring a new perspective in the study of good mental work by linking it to the ancient philosophy of life as well as to the most recent developments in the theory of good mental work, the paper reveals unexplored insights into the tradition of the Lvov-Warsaw School, demonstrating its significance, depth, and relevance to modern times. (shrink)

This paper centers around the notion that internal, mental representations are grounded in structural similarity, i.e., that they are so-called S-representations. We show how S-representations may be causally relevant and argue that they are distinct from mere detectors. First, using the neomechanist theory of explanation and the interventionist account of causal relevance, we provide a precise interpretation of the claim that in S-representations, structural similarity serves as a “fuel of success”, i.e., a relation that is exploitable for the representation using (...) system. Then, we discuss crucial differences between S-representations and indicators or detectors, showing that—contrary to claims made in the literature—there is an important theoretical distinction to be drawn between the two. (shrink)

Brandt J.: Thomas G. Masaryk: Zum Gegenstand der Psycholgie. In: T. G. Masaryk und Brentano Schule. Beiträge zur gleichnamigen Symposium vom 15. – 17. October 1991. Praha, Graz 1992.

The first principle of evolution is immutability; the primary objective of a species is to perpetuate itself. A transition from one species to another has never been observed and never will be; even in paleontology the study of fossils will never bring to light a continuity in the history of life: the passage from one form to another is always abrupt, and the “missing links” are only a creation of our imagination, an answer to satisfy our expectation.

Problem relacji między religią i nauką, rozumiany jako relacja między doktryną chrześcijańską i naukami przyrodniczymi, jest dzisiaj powszechnie znany i dyskutowany. Artykuł podejmuje bardzo praktyczne zagadnienie, jakim jest formowanie oraz rewidowanie światopoglądu chrześcijańskiego w kontekście spotkania się w człowieku religijnym dwóch wielkich idei: stworzenia i ewolucji. Wychodząc od zaproponowanej definicji światopoglądu, w artykule zostanie ukazany fundamentalny rys światopoglądu chrześcijańskiego oraz jego istotne cechy. Dopiero w takim świetle próbuje się przedstawić propozycję interpretacji spotkania i wzajemnego oddziaływania idei stworzenia i ewolucji. Zaproponowana (...) relacja dialogu jest drogą do zdobywania dojrzałej postawy względem rzeczywistości zarówno dla człowieka religijnego, jak i dla ludzi uprawiających nauki przyrodnicze. Jednocześnie jest to propozycja, która, prowadząc do wewnętrznej integracji człowieka, może stać się odpowiedzią na niektóre współczesne kryzysy kultury. (shrink)

The study of information based on the approach of Shannon was detached from problems of meaning. Also, it did not allow analysis of the structural characteristics of information, nor describe the way structures carry information. An outline of a different theory of information, including its semantics, was earlier proposed by the author. This theory was using closure spaces to model information. In the present paper, structures (called syllogistics) underlying syllogistic reasoning as well as ethnoscientific classifications are identified together with the (...) conditions for the lattice of closed subsets describing information to allow its existence. The structures can be used for logical analysis outside of language at the more general level of information, which in turn can be applied to the description of semantic relations in the context of information. (shrink)

Artykuł jest zaproszeniem do ponownego namysłu nad nienową i niekoniecznie oryginalną kwestią — rolą metafory w pisarstwie naukowym. Bezpośrednim pretekstem jest metafora kompasu, mapy i treningu, a w innym planie „starych bukłaków, do których wlewa się młode wino”. Figur tych używa Sebastian Gałecki jako swoistego zwieńczenia swojej rozprawy Etyka chrześcijańska dla postchrześcijańskiej epoki, konfrontującej koncepcje: etyki sprawności charakteru (cnoty) (Alasdair MacIntyre), sumienia (John Henry Newman) i nowej teorii prawa naturalnego (John Finnis). Pozostawiając na uboczu istotę treści rozprawy, próbuję rozpoznać kilka (...) kwestii i zagrożeń związanych ze stosowaniem przez autorów metafor. Uchodzą one, w nomenklaturze Umberto Eco, za „gorące” i metodologicznie podejrzane elementy tak samej refleksji, jak i sposobu pisania w nauce. Mimo wątpliwości i zastrzeżeń wobec metafory jako figury „nienaukowej”, chciałbym bronić prawa do jej poprawnego używania w filozofii, szczególnie – etyce. Za przykład takiego właśnie użycia uważam ich zastosowanie w książce Sebastiana Gałeckiego. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present possible consequences caused by the development of commodity market financialization understood by the influence of financial investor’s speculation. Also the task of elaboration is to outline the existence of financial factors in the price creation process of commodities. The existing impact of financialization on the volatility of commodity prices significantly modifies the market. The results of the research and analyzes carried out indicate a similarity in the behavior of the markets of commodities. (...) The situation results from the redistribution of the risk of financial investors who having a few goods in the investment portfolio, next to large transaction volumes affect the unification of price trends. Price shaping factors are being transformed. The decrease importance of supply or consumption in the context of the commodities market changes its form. The growing influence of investors who create numerous speculations transforms the market. Trade in futures contracts affects the level of commodities prices. (shrink)

The author argues that behind the apparent randomness of interactions between cabdrivers and their fares in Warsaw is a temporal structure. To capture this temporal structure, the author introduces the notion of a linking ecology. He argues that the Warsaw taxi market is a linking ecology, which is structured by religious time, state time, and family time. The author then focuses on waiting time, arguing that it too structures the interactions between cabdrivers and their fares. The author makes a processual (...) argument that waiting time has been restructured by the postsocialist transformation, but only because this transformation has been continually encoded through the defensive and adaptive strategies of cabdrivers responding to the repetitive and unique events located across the social space. The author concludes with the claim that linking ecologies are a recurring structure of the social process and that they form the backbone of globalization, financialization, and mediatization. (shrink)

Using known facts we give a simple characterization of the distributivity of lattices of finite length.

The debate between the defenders of explanatory unification and explanatory pluralism has been ongoing from the beginning of cognitive science and is one of the central themes of its philosophy. Does cognitive science need a grand unifying theory? Should explanatory pluralism be embraced instead? Or maybe local integrative efforts are needed? What are the advantages of explanatory unification as compared to the benefits of explanatory pluralism? These questions, among others, are addressed in this Synthese’s special issue. In the introductory paper, (...) we discuss the background of the questions, distinguishing integrative theorizing from building unified theories. On the one hand, integrative efforts involve collaboration between various disciplines, fields, approaches, or theories. These efforts could even be quite temporary, without establishing any long-term institutionalized fields or disciplines, but could also contribute to developing new interfield theories. On the other hand, unification can rely on developing complete theories of mechanisms and representations underlying all cognition, as Newell’s “unified theories of cognition”, or may appeal to grand principles, as predictive coding. Here, we also show that unification in contemporary cognitive science goes beyond reductive unity, and may involve various forms of joint efforts and division of explanatory labor. This conclusion is one of the themes present in the content of contributions constituting the special issue. (shrink)

This paper addresses the following question: Can one and the same utterance token, in one unique speech situation, intentionally and conventionally perform a plurality of illocutionary acts? While some of the recent literature has considered such a possibility Perspectives on pragmatics and philosophy. Springer, Cham, pp 227–244, 2013; Johnson in Synthese 196:1151–1165, 2019), I build a case for it by drawing attention to common conversational complexities unrecognized in speech acts analysis. Traditional speech act theory treats communication as: a dyadic exchange (...) between a Speaker and a Hearer who trade illocutionary acts endowed with one and only one primary force. I first challenge assumption by discussing two contexts where plural illocutionary forces are performed in dyadic discussions: dilemmatic deliberations and strategic ambiguity. Further, I challenge assumption by analyzing poly-adic discussions, where a speaker can target various participants with different illocutionary acts performed via the same utterance. Together, these analyses defend illocutionary pluralism as a significant but overlooked fact about communication. I conclude by showing how some phenomena recently analyzed in speech act theory—back-door speech acts New work on speech acts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 144–164, 2018) and dog-whistles New work on speech acts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 360–383, 2018)—implicitly presuppose illocutionary pluralism without recognizing it. (shrink)

This is a short presentation by the Guest Editors of the series of Special Issues of the journal _Philosophies_ under the common title “Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies” in which we present Part 2. The series will continue, and the call for contributions to the next Special Issue will appear shortly.

In the paper we investigate Birkhoff’s conditions and. We prove that a discrete lattice L satisfies the condition ) if and only if L is a 4-cell lattice not containing a cover-preserving sublattice isomorphic to the lattice S*7. As a corollary we obtain a well known result of J. Jakub´ık from [6]. Furthermore, lattices S7 and S*7 are considered as so-called partially cover-preserving sublattices of a given lattice L, S7 ≪ L and S7 ≪ L, in symbols. It is shown (...) that an upper continuous lattice L satisfies if and only if L is a 4-cell lattice such that S7 ≪/ L. The final corollary is a generalization of Jakubík’s theorem for upper continuous and strongly atomic lattices. Keywords: Birkhoff’s conditions, semimodularity conditions, modular lattice, discrete lattices, upper continuous lattice, strongly atomic lattice, cover-preserving sublattice, cell, 4-cell lattice. (shrink)

A few side notes on Logic and Argumentation by Andrzej KisielewiczIn the paper we discuss selected philosophical theses presented in the book Logic and Argumentation. Practical Course in Critical Thinking by Andrzej Kisielewicz. In particular, we reflect on formal logic and practical reasoning, their merits and limitations, and we ask about a sensible compromise between the generality of the former and the usefulness of the latter.

: Research done in recent years shows that Virtual Reality can be an effective tool for distracting attention from pain. The purpose of this study was to test how the complexity of Virtual Environment influences the experienced intensity of thermal pain stimuli. A within-subjects design experiment was conducted, using cold pressor test for pain stimulation. Research was done on 31 students of Wroclaw Universities. Participants played games created for the purpose of the study, using head mounted displays and movement sensors. (...) Two Virtual Environments differing in the level of complexity and non-VR control condition were used. The order of all conditions was counterbalanced. Participants reported significantly lower pain intensity after playing the high complexity game, compared to the low complexity game. There were also significant differences between non-VR control condition and high complexity game, but not between non-VR and low complexity game. The pain tolerance was significantly higher in both VR conditions comparing to non-VR conditions. However, no significant differences between VE’s were found in pain tolerance ratings. Results of this study provide preliminary evidence that game complexity can be related to pain experience during VR interventions. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to describe possible e-learning activities that a university can develop. Examples of projects carried out in Warsaw School of Economics have been presented with conclusions and experience gathered during their implementation. In the last part, trends for the future of academic e-learning have been discussed.

Notes on Cynical Speech. Callicles and Thrasymachusas Cynical SpeakersCynical speech is a proper form of manifestation of what we call cynicism. It takes the form of a persuasive strategy which assumes the achievement of the rhetorical consubstantiation of a cynical speaker and her/his auditorium. Cynical speech is a game that takes place between three sides: a cynical speaker posing as an immoralist, a moralist and an auditorium, the acquisition of which is the aim of both interlocutors. At the outset, the (...) cynical speaker gives the identity of naive dilettantes’ to both the members of the auditorium and the moralist and then tries to persuade the audience to side with him and take on the role of the students of a cynical expert. This is what can be described as cynical modulation. In its course, the initial opposition of a professional versus dilettante turns into an opposition of master versus student, while the unattractive identity of a dilettante is transferred to a moralist. In this way, the speaker achieves what Kenneth Burke thinks is the right goal for any rhetorical act: the speaker’s consubstantiation with the auditorium. This process is presented based on the example of the disputes between Socrates, as a moralist on the one hand, and sophist-politicians Thrasymachus and Callicles, who personify the type of cynical speakers, on the other. The analysis of cynical speech carried out in the paper leads to an indication of some basic features of this way of speaking, as well as the relationship that exists between them and the content of viewpoints voiced by cynical speakers. These viewpoints have been described as aristocratic democratism and people’s anti-democratism. These are two forms of what has been described as the cynical counter-ideal. The adoption of these positions is an indirect expression of the same systematic ambiguity that lies in the form of cynical speaking, which belongs to the very essence of cynicism as a cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

Almost four years ago, a new editorial team took over working on Forum Philosophicum. We were given the task of editing a journal whose character and status were already well established, even though its history has been much briefer than that of many Polish and international philosophical periodicals. We hope we have managed to preserve this legacy, while trying to modernize the editorial process and bring the journal into compliance with an increasingly rigorous set of international standards.

Publication date: 30 November 2016 Source: Author: Marcin Böhm The Empire of Nicaea was a successor of the Byzantium shattered in 1204. In the newly established state marine traditions of Byzantines, remain alive. The best testimony to this, are the evidence contained in the chronicle of Georgios Akropolites, devoted to activities of the rulers of Nicaea, aimed to build their own naval forces. In this paper I'll also try to answer, where was beating the heart of the Nicean shipbuilding (...) industry and how large was the navy of this state. This is important from point of view of the maritime history, because of the fleet of the Empire of Nicaea, filled the gap created after the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, which was the local naval power in previous centuries. Akropolites give us a clear and direct answer to a question, where we should search for a center of Nicaean shipbuilding industry. Georgios Akropolites suggest us, that was in two towns, Holkos and Smyrna. The above-mentioned fleet consisted of the few squadrons, each counting 5-6 ships. We can only guess that a fleet of the John III, could count about 50 warships, whose quality was worse to that belonging to the Venetians. We must say that the fleet of the Empire of Nicaea, which we see in the chronicle of Akropolites, was the force, that lent itself to the support of ground forces. And in this role worked well. The situation was different when it comes to clashing with the Venetians, with the experienced crews of their ships, who surpassed Nicaean in this matter. Even with the advantage of numbers, Nicaean was unable to overcome at the sea, the citizens of the Republic of St. Mark. The plan to build their own naval forces, which was taken by the emperors of Nicaea, was a good direction. (shrink)

In this article, I illustrate the universalism of logic using the example of Stephen Langton’s ($$\dagger $$ † 1228) exegesis presented in his theological question 103. This text refers to the biblical story of Isaac blessing his son Jacob, who pretended to be his brother, Esau. I present the universalism of logic understood as its broad applicability and effectiveness. I argue that logic is very useful even in analyzing biblical exegesis. Langton’s exegesis benefits from logical knowledge on different levels. One (...) of them is the application of a semiotic theory to formulate a solution to the problem of the validity of Isaac’s blessing. Above all, Langton distinguishes between a discrete and a vague (or simple) use of the pronoun “you.” Notably, Langton’s analysis of various speech acts in terms of his semiotic (or pragmatic) theory is also a basis to formulate the conditions of felicity of the act of blessing (understood in the theological context), which shows that logic can be not only broadly applicable, but also effective. Finally, question 103 proves that logic is universal also in a different way, namely: it can provide solutions which are acceptable for representatives of different traditions. (shrink)