We compared the processing of natural language quantifiers in a group of patients with schizophrenia and a healthy control group. In both groups, the difficulty of the quantifiers was consistent with computational predictions, and patients with schizophrenia took more time to solve the problems. However, they were significantly less accurate only with proportional quantifiers, like more than half. This can be explained by noting that, according to the complexity perspective, only proportional quantifiers require working memory engagement.

The novel "Mephisto" is one of the most well-known texts by Klaus Mann. Its fame results not only from its literary virtuosity, but also and primarily from the enormous media attention which was caused by the novel’s publication. The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, in which it dealt with the relationship between freedom of art and other constitutionally guaranteed rights of individuals, launched the unprecedented career of this novel. This article describes Klaus Mann’s political views and their development in (...) the 1920s during the time when the National Socialist movement was strengthening and the writer made the decision to emigrate. The essay deals with the circumstances of creating the novel considering both biographical and political issues. The novelist is described from the perspective of the reality of the 1930s during the National Socialist regime and the time after his emigration. The concern of the article is not a literary analysis of the novel, but to take a look at the novelist’s development up until the moment of finishing his work as a protest against National Socialism. Another goal of the essay is to analyze the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, which regards the balance between freedom of art and other basic rights. Considering the synergy of both methodological approaches and the interdisciplinary view on the problem, the article represents a novel attempt to give a complex view on the relationship between art and the reality of a totalitarian state and between the relationship art–state in the conditions of a democratic state. (shrink)

Użytkownicy języka potrafią często zupełnie nieświadomie przywołać elementy struktury rodzaju tekstu potrzebnego do realizacji celów pozajęzykowych. Niniejszy artykuł stawia sobie za zadanie przybliżenie struktury i zadań komentarza prasowego jako funkcjonalnej części kompleksu informująco-opinotwórczego. Zamiarem było jednocześnie pokazanie, że wynikające z potrzeb komunikacyjnych tendencje w formułowaniu tekstów przenikają do świadomości użytkowników języka i mogą być przywoływane, jeżeli zachodzi taka potrzeba. Opierając się na opracowaniach lingwistycznych i podręcznikach dla przyszłych dziennikarzy przedłożony artykuł prezentuje wybrane definicje, a także schematy strukturalne i opisy funkcjonalne (...) dla rodzaju tekstu komentarz prasowy, usiłując jednocześnie udowodnić na wybranym przykładzie tekstu z prasy niemieckojęzycznej, że nie tylko dziennikarzom dane jest odtworzenie tego wzoru tekstowego. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a critical overview of Jacques Derrida’s objections to the theories of phenomenological experience. I present and analyze Derrida’s principal arguments which show that the primordial character of such experiences is only apparent. I also try to sketch a possible line of defense and to undermine some of the interpretational presuppositions introduced by the author of La voix et le phénomène.

Author: Moskalewicz Marcin Title: AESTHETIZATION OF POLITICS ACCORDING TO HANNAH ARENDT (Estetyzacja polityki w ujęciu Hannah Arendt) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2005, vol:.5, number: 2005/1, pages: 203-220 Keywords: ARENDT, AESTHETIZATION OF POLITICS, CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The article reflects on the problem of aesthetization of politics in Hannah Arendt’s work. It starts with the reconstruction of Arendt’s concept of the human condition, with the intention of placing (...) the political within it. Then, by exploring the theatrical metaphor of political life the author attempts to show in what sense can we say that the political and the aesthetical intertwine in Arendt’s thought. The author also discusses the reproach of the aesthetization of politics and its link to fascism, arguing that paying a closer attention to the distinction between creative and performative arts may help to avoid it. In conclusion, Arendt’s reading of Kant’s Critique of Judgment serves as a basis for a more sympathetic interpretation of her aesthetization of politics, in which the gap between the moral and the aesthetical is reduced. (shrink)

In this article I scrutinise a crucial tension in understanding the debate over shale gas production in Europe. On the one hand, analyses predominantly grasp the debate in terms of pro-and-con dialectics, as if the pro-shale gas camp faced the anti-shale gas camp in a dyadic clash of opposing voices. On the other hand, it is commonly recognised that this debate is driven by multi-party and multi-position argumentative dynamics. In this broader context, I focus on one pivotal contribution to the (...) debate – Gazprom’s press release from October 2013 outlining Russia’s energy giant’s strategy of dealing with unconventional gas production. I employ concepts and methods of argumentative discourse analysis to contend that an arguer to a multi-party debate – argumentative polylogue – faces a number of constraints and opportunities that cannot be adequately grasped in terms of dyadic pro-and-con dialectics. The analysis reveals how Gazprom needs to simultaneously design its discourse to address a number of other parties who might also disagree among themselves: from Greenpeace to European Union governments to shale gas companies. I show why and how a stakeholder analysis used in organisational communication might lead to a better understanding of this form of multi-party public argumentation. (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.

Dialectical approaches traditionally conceptualize argumentation as a discussion in which two parties debate on “two sides of an issue”. However, many political issues engender multiple positions. This is clear in multi-party online deliberations in which often an array of competing positions is debated in one and the same discussion. A proponent of a given position thus addresses a number of possible opponents, who in turn may hold incompatible opinions. The goal of this paper is to shed extra light on such (...) “polylogical” clash of opinions in online deliberation, by examining the multi-layered participation in actual online debates. The examples are drawn from the readers’ discussions on Osama bin Laden’s killing in online versions of two British newspapers: The Guardian and The Telegraph. As a result of the analysis, a distinction between sides, positions, and cases in argumentative deliberation is proposed. (shrink)

The discussion around dignity in nursing philosophy has been underway for many years. The literature still lacks philosophical arguments that would justify the thesis that all people have dignity. Scholars who defend dignity as an intrinsic value most often refer to Kant. However, Kant does not seem to be the most suitable candidate to defend the thesis that all human beings possess dignity. In this paper, I attempt to show that Aristotle's and Aquinas's views can help justify this thesis. To (...) this end, I distinguish between actual dignity, potential dignity, and existential dignity. I state that all human beings have existential dignity or potential dignity. (shrink)

One of the critical issues in the philosophy of science is to understand scientific knowledge. This paper proposes a novel approach to the study of reflection on science, called “cognitive metascience”. In particular, it offers a new understanding of scientific knowledge as constituted by various kinds of scientific representations, framed as cognitive artifacts. It introduces a novel functional taxonomy of cognitive artifacts prevalent in scientific practice, covering a huge diversity of their formats, vehicles, and functions. As a consequence, toolboxes, conceptual (...) frameworks, theories, models, and individual hypotheses can be understood as artifacts supporting our cognitive performance. It is also shown that by empirically studying how artifacts function, we may discover hitherto undiscussed virtues and vices of these scientific representations. This paper relies on the use of language technology to analyze scientific discourse empirically, which allows us to uncover the metascientific views of researchers. This, in turn, can become part of normative considerations concerning virtues and vices of cognitive artifacts. (shrink)

In this article I address the following question: When are reformulations in argumentative criticisms reasonable and when do they become fallacious straw men? Following ideas developed in the integrated version of pragma-dialectics, I approach argumentation as an element of agonistic exchanges permeated by arguers’ strategic manoeuvring aimed at effectively defeating the opponent with reasonable means. I propose two basic context-sensitive criteria for deciding on the reasonableness of reformulations: precision of the rules for interpretation (precise vs. loose) and general expectation of (...) cooperativeness (critical vs. constructive). On the basis of analysis of examples taken from online political discussions, I argue that in some contexts, especially those that are critical and loose, what might easily be classified as a straw man following conventional treatment should be taken as a harsh, yet reasonable, strategic argumentative criticism. (shrink)

The problem of computational complexity of semantics for some natural language constructions – considered in [M. Mostowski, D. Wojtyniak 2004] – motivates an interest in complexity of Ramsey quantifiers in finite models. In general a sentence with a Ramsey quantifier R of the following form Rx, yH(x, y) is interpreted as ∃A(A is big relatively to the universe ∧A2 ⊆ H). In the paper cited the problem of the complexity of the Hintikka sentence is reduced to the problem of computational (...) complexity of the Ramsey quantifier for which the phrase “A is big relatively to the universe” is interpreted as containing at least one representative of each equivalence class, for some given equvalence relation. In this work we consider quantifiers Rf, for which “A is big relatively to the universe” means “card(A) > f (n), where n is the size of the universe”. Following [Blass, Gurevich 1986] we call R mighty if Rx, yH(x, y) defines N P – complete class of finite models. Similarly we say that Rf is N P –hard if the corresponding class is N P –hard. We prove the following theorems. (shrink)

National Socialism did not only constitute a political doctrine; it was also a kind of worldview that left its mark on German and pan­-European culture of the 20th century. The drastic changes that were linked to Hitler’s takeover of power confronted writers and poets with a completely new reality and wholly new conditions of the creative process. Those who could not or would not emigrate had to submit themselves to the policies and norms decreed by the National Socialists. National Socialism (...) – a conglomerate of different ideologies and ideologemes – perverted certain middle­-class values and ultimately aimed towards the total subjugation of all areas of life, culture being among them. The fact that the German middle­-class partly shared the values propagated by the Nazis led to an overhasty and unjust assessment of the attitude of writers belonging to the so­-called ‘Inner Emigration’. The article at hand outlines the principles of National Socialist cultural politics as well as its relationship to artists. The complicated creative situation of writers and poets in the Third Reich will be shown by representative examples. (shrink)

Book review: Łukasz Hardt, Economics Without Laws. Towards a New Philosophy of Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017, pp. 220.

In the book, I argue that the mind can be explained computationally because it is itself computational—whether it engages in mental arithmetic, parses natural language, or processes the auditory signals that allow us to experience music. All these capacities arise from complex information-processing operations of the mind. By analyzing the state of the art in cognitive science, I develop an account of computational explanation used to explain the capacities in question.

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)

In this paper, I argue that even if the Hard Problem of Content, as identified by Hutto and Myin, is important, it was already solved in natu- ralized semantics, and satisfactory solutions to the problem do not rely merely on the notion of information as covariance. I point out that Hutto and Myin have double standards for linguistic and mental representation, which leads to a peculiar inconsistency. Were they to apply the same standards to basic and linguistic minds, they would (...) either have to embrace representationalism or turn to semantic nihilism, which is, as I argue, an unstable and unattractive position. Hence, I conclude, their book does not offer an alternative to representation- alism. At the same time, it reminds us that representational talk in cognitive science cannot be taken for granted and that information is different from men- tal representation. Although this claim is not new, Hutto and Myin defend it forcefully and elegantly. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that several recent ‘wide’ perspectives on cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive, and distributed) are only partially relevant to the study of cognition. While these wide accounts override traditional methodological individualism, the study of cognition has already progressed beyond these proposed perspectives towards building integrated explanations of the mechanisms involved, including not only internal submechanisms but also interactions with others, groups, cognitive artifacts, and their environment. The claim is substantiated with reference to recent developments in the (...) study of “mindreading” and debates on emotions. We claim that the current practice in cognitive (neuro)science has undergone, in effect, a silent mechanistic revolution, and has turned from initial binary oppositions and abstract proposals towards the integration of wide perspectives with the rest of the cognitive (neuro)sciences. (shrink)

I argue that there are no plausible non-representational explanations of episodes of hallucination. To make the discussion more specific, I focus on visual hallucinations in Charles Bonnet syndrome. I claim that the character of such hallucinatory experiences cannot be explained away non-representationally, for they cannot be taken as simple failures of cognizing or as failures of contact with external reality—such failures being the only genuinely non-representational explanations of hallucinations and cognitive errors in general. I briefly introduce a recent computational model (...) of hallucination, which relies on generative models in the brain, and argue that the model is a prime example of a representational explanation referring to representational mechanisms. The notion of the representational mechanism is elucidated, and it is argued that hallucinations—and other kinds of representations—cannot be exorcised from the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Despite the continuous emphasis on globalization, we witness increasing divisions and divisiveness in all domains of human activities. One of the reasons, if not the main one, is the intellectual fragmentation of humanity, compared in the title to the failed attempt at building the Biblical Tower of Babel. The attempts to reintegrate worldview, fragmented by the specialization of education (C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures) and expected to be achieved through reforms in curricula at all levels of education, were based on (...) the assumption that the design of a curriculum should focus on the wide distribution of subjects of study, as if the distribution was the goal. The key point is not the distribution of themes, but the development of skills in the integration of knowledge. The quantitative assessment of the width of knowledge by the number of disciplines is of secondary importance. We cannot expect the miracle that students without any intellectual tools developed for this purpose would perform the job of integration, which their teachers do not promote or demonstrate, and which they cannot achieve for themselves. There are many other reasons for the increasing interest in making inquiries interdisciplinary, but there is little progress in the methodology of the integration of knowledge. This paper is a study of the transition from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity, and further, to transdisciplinarity, with some suggestions regarding the use of methodological tools of structuralism and the choice of a conceptual framework. (shrink)

The goal of this chapter is to catalogue ways in which practical argumentation —argumentation aimed at deciding on a course of action—is produced discursively in deliberative discussions. This is a topic largely neglected in the literature on PA focused primarily on the abstract features of practical inference. I connect to this literature by arguing that the complex scheme of PA inferentially hinges on three different principles for rationally selecting means to achieve the desired goal: the means have to be either (...) the best, satisfactory or necessary in order to ground the practical inference and thus be adopted. Based on these theoretically-derived distinctions, I scrutinise the linguistic indicators of the three types of means-goal inferences of PA. As a corpus, I use a set of official European Union policy documents called Transforming Europe’s energy system released in Brussels in July 2015. (shrink)

The paper examines both the phenomenology of the manic self as well as critical aspects of manic neurobiology, focusing, with respect to both domains, on manic temporality. We argue that the distortions of lived time in mania exceed mere acceleration and are fundamental for manic affectivity. Mania involves radical acceleration and radical asynchronicity, which result in an instantaneous existence. People with mania rebel against the facticity of reality and suffer from an existential leap towards the future, in which the self (...) abandons normal temporal boundaries. Excerpts from the interviews with persons with mania who experienced psychosis illustrate this phenomenon. Commenting upon disrupted circadian rhythms in mania and the role of lithium in its treatment the paper posits manic temporality as the link through which manic phenomenology and manic neurobiology intertwine. (shrink)

Many philosophers use “physicalism” and “naturalism” interchangeably. In this paper, I will distinguish ontological naturalism from physicalism. While broad versions of physicalism are compatible with naturalism, naturalism doesn't have to be committed to strong versions of physical reductionism, so it cannot be defined as equivalent to it. Instead of relying on the notion of ideal physics, naturalism can refer to the notion of ideal natural science that doesn't imply unity of science. The notion of ideal natural science, as well as (...) the notion of ideal physics, will be vindicated. I will shortly explicate the notion of ideal natural science, and define ontological naturalism based on it. (shrink)

EDUARD VON HARTMANN ON IMMANUEL KANT’S CONCEPT OF THE THING IN ITSELF. Immanuel Kant argues that recognition of the object of knowledge must be limited to the cognitive capacities of the subject. Hartmann takes the view that such an approach to the object of knowledge cannot lead to objectivity. He stated the necessity of the cognition referring to the thing in itself. The thing in itself, despite its fundamental unknowability, must be the basis of all cognition. Thus, our cognition can (...) be achieved only secondarily on the basis of the thing in itself. (shrink)

Syndrom uprzedmiotowienia narodowego Polaków jest systemem hamowania aktywności zbiorowej i jednostkowej. Wytwarzany jest poprzez redukcje instytucjonalnych podstaw samostanowienia obywateli, a pogłębiany z powodu niemożności akumulacji osobistej własności i gospodarowania dobrem wspólnym przez pojedyncze podmioty. Polega tez na blokowaniu personalnej dyspozycji do rozpoznania narzucanych zależności. W okresie transformacji politycznej w Polsce po 1989 roku takie strategie zostały skutecznie zastosowane.

On any speedometer, there are two kinds of what might very loosely be called ‘zones of indifference’. The first kind is found between any two marked speeds. If your speed is in fact 61 mph, it probably falls in one kind of zone of indifference. A normal speedometer is simply not designed to distinguish speeds between 60 and 65 mph, and if asked, we would probably report such a speed as ‘about 60’. There is, however, another kind of zone of (...) indifference. It is the one that extends beyond the highest marked speed, and includes all speeds that are too fast for the speedometer to register them—all the speeds that are literally off the scale. The big-picture theoretical aim of this paper is to explore the possibility that natural languages work in more or less the same way, with both kinds of zones of indifference. (shrink)

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)

Lipski's book on KOR can be read from one main perspective: how does opposition come about? This does not refer to opposition in general, but to opposition within totalitarian or nearly totalitarian conditions. Such conditions are interesting because they rule out social action by autonomous self-motivated subjects. Lipski answers the question directly in the chapter on “The Prehistory of KOR.” Birth is preceeded by a long process of formation of intellectuals' circles and the strengthening of social, occupational, and experiencial links, (...) e.g., the role of post-AK circles. In the footnotes one learns all about the “Neo-Pickwickists Club” founded after the war by Lipski and Manturzewski. Elsewhere in the text Lipski emphasizes “friendship.”. (shrink)

The Steprāns forcing notion arises as quotient of the algebra of Borel sets modulo the ideal of σ-continuity of a certain Borel not σ-continuous function. We give a characterization of this forcing in the language of trees and use this characterization to establish such properties of the forcing as fusion and continuous reading of names. Although the latter property is usually implied by the fact that the associated ideal is generated by closed sets, we show that it is not the (...) case with Steprāns forcing. We also establish a connection between Steprāns forcing and Miller forcing thus giving a new description of the latter. Eventually, we exhibit a variety of forcing notions which do not have continuous reading of names in any presentation. (shrink)

The paper offers a critical analysis of the research program for formalizing informal logic proposed by Douglas Walton and Thomas Gordon. Since their proposal is based on employing the Carneades Argumentation System, this paper aims at answering two questions: what are main benefits of applying CAS as means for formalizing informal logic, and what are possible extensions of Walton and Gordon’s research program and modifications in employing CAS?

Temporal interpretation of modal logic consists in replacing possible worlds with temporal states of the world or any time determinates and the accessibility relation with a relation of passage of time. That issue has been raised by A. N. Prior, who was thinking of propositions as things which could change their truth-values (could become true or become false) with the passage of time. Under such interpretation Prior was reading a formula as: it (is and) will always be the case that (...) or: it (is and) has always been the case that . The formula should be read respectively. In the present paper the interpretation in question is examined. Its sources are presented and its consequences are analysed. It is claimed, the interpretation to be highly disputable because of its disagreement with physical meaning of temporal statements, established in the special relativity theory. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a general mechanistic framework for analyzing causal representational claims, and offer a way to distinguish genuinely representational explanations from those that invoke representations for honorific purposes. It is usually agreed that rats are capable of navigation because they maintain a cognitive map of their environment. Exactly how and why their neural states give rise to mental representations is a matter of an ongoing debate. I will show that anticipatory mechanisms involved in rats’ (...) evaluation of possible routes give rise to satisfaction conditions of contents, and this is why they are representationally relevant for explaining and predicting rats’ behavior. I argue that a naturalistic account of satisfaction conditions of contents answers the most important objections of antirepresentationalists. (shrink)

The claim defended in the paper is that the mechanistic account of explanation can easily embrace idealization in big-scale brain simulations, and that only causally relevant detail should be present in explanatory models. The claim is illustrated with two methodologically different models: Blue Brain, used for particular simulations of the cortical column in hybrid models, and Eliasmith’s SPAUN model that is both biologically realistic and able to explain eight different tasks. By drawing on the mechanistic theory of computational explanation, I (...) argue that large-scale simulations require that the explanandum phenomenon is identified; otherwise, the explanatory value of such explanations is difficult to establish, and testing the model empirically by comparing its behavior with the explanandum remains practically impossible. The completeness of the explanation, and hence of the explanatory value of the explanatory model, is to be assessed vis-à-vis the explanandum phenomenon, which is not to be conflated with raw observational data and may be idealized. I argue that idealizations, which include building models of a single phenomenon displayed by multi-functional mechanisms, lumping together multiple factors in a single causal variable, simplifying the causal structure of the mechanisms, and multi-model integration, are indispensable for complex systems such as brains; otherwise, the model may be as complex as the explanandum phenomenon, which would make it prone to so-called Bonini paradox. I conclude by enumerating dimensions of empirical validation of explanatory models according to new mechanism, which are given in a form of a “checklist” for a modeler. (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)