The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a sudden and significant change in the conditions of various academic activities. In the present study, we wanted to investigate the influence of the first pandemic lockdown on procrastination tendencies among Polish students. To achieve this goal we employed a mixed-method, embedded longitudinal study. In the quantitative part of the research, the same group of university students completed the procrastination questionnaire twice: a year before, and two months after the introduction of the (...) first pandemic lockdown. The qualitative part included the open-ended questions about the perceived reasons for an observed change in a tendency to postpone tasks after the pandemic outbreak. Our analyses showed a significant increase in academic procrastination after the lockdown introduction. In particular, students reported a decrease in the study interest and lower working discipline. As the causes of higher procrastination during the lockdown period, students most frequently pointed out the reduced monitoring of work progress by supervisors and lower negative consequences of delaying tasks. The second most frequent theme in provided answers included difficulty in restraining from alternative activities and problems with focusing on tasks or ignoring distractions. Embedding qualitative and quantitative data gave a consistent picture of students' situation in the first lockdown and provided potential explanation for the exacerbation of procrastinatory behaviors after the pandemic outbreak. (shrink)

In the paper I defend the idea of metametasemantics against the arguments recently presented by Ori Simchen. Simchen attacks the view, according to which metametasemantics incorporating all possible metasemantic accounts is necessary to protect the metasemantic theories from the notorious problem of inscrutability of reference. Simchen claims that if metametasemantics is allowed it ‘absorbs’ metasemantic theories to the extent that it diminishes their explanatory value. Furthermore, in this way Simchen sets up two main metasemantic paradigms i.e. productivism and interpretationism as (...) the rival theories inevitably excluding each other. I endeavour to undermine Simchen’s point by demonstrating that his argumentation mixes up deflationary reading of the predicate ‘is true’ with its substantial reading. Consequently, I demonstrate that accepting metametasemantics does not diminish explanatory value of various metasemantic theories and thus that there is no good reason to forbid metametasemantics. I also argue that even if we ignore the above-mentioned confusion in Simchen’s reasoning, his arguments still fail when considering various problems with the notion of diminishment of explanatory value and because the analogy that his arguments are based on is fairly weak. Eventually, I conclude that metametasemantics does not pose any danger to metasemantics and that it provides a solid ground for developing a theory that benefits from both productivism and interpretationism. (shrink)

Artykuł stanowi porównanie dwóch strukturalnych teorii sądów logicznych: teorii Kazimierza Ajdukiewicza z lat sześćdziesiątych XX wieku oraz teorii Jeffreya Kinga z początku XXI wieku. Pierwsza część artykułu zawiera charakterystykę obu teorii. W części drugiej szczegółowo omówione zostają istotne podobieństwa pomiędzy stanowiskami. Następnie identyfikowane są różnice między nimi i przeprowadzona jest analiza mająca doprowadzić do uzyskania odpowiedzi na pytanie o to, czy różnice te są istotne, czy pozorne. Część trzecia dotyczy tego, czy możliwe jest uodpornienie omawianych teorii na tzw. problem Benacerrafa.

In the paper, I discuss a possibility of defending the Direct Reference theory from its most dangerous threaten which is the notorious Frege's puzzle. I discuss two possible ways of doing that. First is based on King's theory of propositions as facts. I show that tools provided by King's theory are not enough to solve the puzzle. More promising is a method supported by new Soames's theory of propositions as cognitive event-types. I try to show that this framework allows us (...) to develop a satisfying solution of the puzzle, which focuses​ on the notion of the cognitive value of the sentence. (shrink)

The main topic of this paper is the distinction between attributive and referential uses of definite descriptions. The first influential account of what is the logical form of a proposition expressed by a sentence 'The f is y' was proposed by Russell. Donellan noticed later that Russellian account does not apply to all such sentences and drew the distinction in question. First, we have to consider which language units are to be explored -- said Donnellan. Speaking of types involves unwelcome (...) generality while speaking of tokens overlooks the role of speaker's intentions. The finest approach then is speaking of uses (according to the characteristics given by Jerzy Pelc). Specific feature which distinguish descriptions used referentially (in a sentence of the form 'The f is y') from those used attributively is that the descriptive aspect of the former is not essential (in contradiction to that of the latter), i.e. the description used referentially can be exchanged for another one (such that it is literally false about the object referred to), and the extension as well as the proposition expressed by the sentence will not change. To explain this effect (which is only described in Donellan's paper) we can adopt and extend Kaplan's view on propositions (originally designed for sentences with demonstratives) to sentences with descriptions used referentially and say that a proposition expressed by such a sentence consists of sense of the description used attributively in predicate and the object itself as a physical thing. This solution does not decide however, whether the distinction is semantic or pragmatic. To give the answer we would need to have precisely marked border between two mentioned disciplines. (shrink)

In this paper, I present main ideas of the Hybrid Theory of Reference for Proper Names. First, I try to define the ​position of the Hybrid Theory within the discussion about reference. Then I briefly explain most significant aspects of the theory as they were defined by Gareth Evans. Apart from that, I also offer some additions to the theory. The addition, I spend most space on concerns phrases that I call “mock names” which are expressions that look like proper (...) names but in fact are nothing more than abbreviations for descriptions used attributively. (shrink)

Singular propositions are structured entities which sometimes include macroscopic concrete things as their elements. That leads to numerous difficulties, also those concerning modalities, good example of which is the famous argument developed by Plantinga, who concludes that accepting a theory of singular propositions leads to necessary existence of (apparently contingent) objects — elements of such propos¬itions. In the paper I present a possible way to avoid such harmful consequences and to undermine Plantinga’s reasoning. My approach involves the idea of two (...) modes of evaluating propositions: “in a possible world” and “with regard to a possible world”, which I try to defend by introducing some solutions from the Hybrid Theory of proper names. I also argue that disposing of singular propositions and accepting Descriptivism does not allow to deal with the modal difficulties. (shrink)

The confession quoted above by way of introduction reveals with tragic sincerity the fatal passion of an overly avid reader, unlimited in curiosity certainly but fully conscious of the demanding finality of the work he had to accomplish: the scientific critique of an international system of social organization, “in which man is a humiliated, enslaved, abandoned and scornful being” (1844). Cultivating poetry and philosophy in a world felt to be unlivable meant becoming an accomplice of those individuals and institutions principally (...) responsible for the barbarity called modern civilization. But to combat this, it was necessary to scour the murky historical horizon issued from a distant past where only great social revolutions marked the stages of a progression seen as ambiguous because realized by means of unspeakable phenomena of regression. Only one revolution took place under the contradictory sign of an emancipation with universal ambitions and of a decline with indelible consequences: the French Revolution. Conclusion as well as beginning, it was studied by Marx as a unique event, both in relation to its antecedents as well as its liberating promises. Although it is true that Marx “never wrote a history of the ancien régime”, a hardly significant remark, it is no less true that he studied and compiled, with the eagerness of a schoolboy enthralled by history, an enormous mass of documentation that can “help understand how (the ancien regime) gave birth to the Revolution”, despite what François Furet might think (Marx et la Révolution française, Paris, 1986, p. 79). Moreover, the author of Das Kapital drew from the revolutionary history of France the inspiration for a “poetry of the future” in which the following vision was designed:“The old bourgeois society, with its classes and its class antagonism, gave way to an association in which the free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of the whole” (1848). (shrink)

In the paper I make an attempt to preserve Singular Propositions from the attack carried out by Jason Stanley. Stanley argues that propositions, in general, are not the bearers of modal properties, and thus he refutes one of the major arguments in favour of singular propositions (offered by David Kaplan). My aim is to show that Stanley’s reasoning is fallacious​ since the Expression-Communication Principle which is the basis for his argument suffers from being circular. In brief, a deeper insight into (...) Stanley’s theory called Indexicalism reveals that according to the Principle two sentences express the same proposition when they... express the same proposition. (shrink)

The paper concerns life and scientific achievements of Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa who was a significant logician, philosopher of language and epistemologist belonging to the second generation of the Lvov-Warsaw School. She is mostly known as the author of the important argumentation against neopositivism of the Vienna Circle as well as one of the main critics of relativistic theories of truth. The article is divided into five sections: 1. Life, 2. Main papers, 3. Views, 4. Pupils, 5. Summary, 6. References.

In this paper I investigate the nature of the relation between meaning-interdependence and analyticity. The theory within which meaning-interdependence reaches its peak and becomes omnipresent is meaning holism, according to which every two expressions are meaning-interdependent. A lot of people reject holism partially due to the impression that the theory leads to the picture in which language is self-sufficient in the sense that it is nothing but a game of meanings which is detached from reality. What stands behind that impression (...) is probably something along the lines: analyticity stems from meaning-interdependence, so if all expressions are meaning-interdependent, then everything appears analytic. I defend holism from this kind of objection. I start with showing that analyticity traditionally understood cannot pour over language within holism, because it is not applicable to the theory at all. Then, I argue that adopting some weaker notion of analyticity leads to the ubiquity of analyticity indeed, but analyticity so understood is too weak to actually endanger holism. Finally, I demonstrate that the problems with analyticity appear only when meaning-interdependence is treated in extremely superficial way. I also propose a very simple hierarchy of meaning-interdependence, based on Pagin’s total-pair holism, which immediately repeal the ‘ubiquitous analyticity’ problem. (shrink)

This paper is a comparison of two structural theories of propositions: the theory proposed by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz in the 1960s and the theory developed by Jeffrey King at the beginning of the 21st century. The first section of the paper is an overview of these theories. The second part is a detailed discussion of significant similarities shared by them. In this section, I also identify and analyze ways in which these theories differ and attempt to determine if these differences are (...) substantial or apparent. The last part is an attempt to determine if the discussed theories are capable of coping with the Benacerraf Problem. (shrink)

Meaning Holism and Contextualism are standardly acknowledged to be similar relativistic theories that often lead to similar troubles, in particular to issues concerning instability. On the other hand, the main rival of Contextualism, which is Minimalism, is taken to be resistant to these problems. In effect, it seems inevitable to see Meaning Holism and Minimalism as natural enemies. In my paper, I attempt to reject such a view. My argumentation consists of three main parts. First, I argue that Minimalism does (...) not differ that much from Meaning Holism with respect to the instability issues as it also faces some of them (although in a slightly different way from the case of Holism of Contextualism). Second, I put forward several arguments to show that in fact Minimalism is not incompatible with the two versions of Meaning Holism I distinguish, namely Global Holism and Local Holism. I argue that a meaning holist has to accept some not uncontroversial principles to become an anti- minimalist – and vice versa. Finally, I demonstrate that Minimalism and Meaning Holism can be reconciled. Such a possibility occurs when something I called ‘purely semantic processes’ is allowed. The role of these processes is, roughly speaking, to protect literal meanings from being affected by strong pragmatic factors. (shrink)

Cette édition qui réunit l'ensemble des textes philosophiques écrits par Marx jusqu'en 1848 permettra de redécouvrir sa critique de l'aliénation de la conscience, de la réification du travail, du culte de l'Etat, des abstractions de la philosophie du droit.

En su discurso del 10 de mayo de 1793 sobre la Constitución, Robespierre combina una concepción fiduciaria de los representantes públicos con una defensa de las virtudes de la democracia, el único sistema político en el que los gobernantes, al ser parte del pueblo, tienen los mismos intereses que este. Es esta defensa de la soberanía popular, así como de la primacía del poder legislativo, lo que constituye la esencia de su “economía política popular”, una expresión que toma de Rousseau. (...) Para Robespierre, solamente esta clase de economía es compatible con una República cuyo primer objetivo sea la garantía de los derechos naturales del hombre. In his 10th May 1793 speech on the Constitution, Robespierre combines a fiduciary conception of public representatives with a defence of the virtues of democracy, the only political system in which the rulers, being part of the people, have the same interests as the latter. It is this defence of popular sovereignty, as well as of the primacy of the legislative power, what constitutes the essence of his “popular political economy”, an expression he takes from Rousseau. For Robespierre, only this kind of economy is compatible with a Republic whose first objective is to guarantee the natural rights of man. (shrink)

Republicanism is increasingly attracting more attention from political philosophy. However, a mere hermeneutical approach it is usually used, which tends to neglect the political, social and economic circumstances that shaped this tradition of thought. This article addresses the modern conception of republican freedom with the North American and the French case through the work of two of their most representative figures, Thomas Jefferson and Maximilien Robespierre. The article defends that the political, juridical and economic government – the republican political (...) economy– devised by both, keeps important similarities that the current political philosophy cannot ignore. To illustrate this relationship, it is shown that both thinkers received a deep and similar influence of natural law philosophy and of fiduciary theory when thinking and trying to implement their models of government and their idea of ownership. (shrink)

Les éditions Klincksieck viennent de rééditer Karl Marx, essai de biographie intellectuelle de Maximilien Rubel, paru pour la première fois en 1957. L’ouvrage est issu de la thèse de doctorat de l’auteur, chercheur au CNRS disparu en 1996 et notamment célèbre pour son édition controversée des œuvres de Marx dans la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. L’importante synthèse du parcours théorique de Marx que l’on trouve dans le livre faisait en son temps partie des travaux universitaires pionniers sur l...