This article focuses on Bob Zajonc’s views on unconscious emotion, especially in the context of the debates about the independence of affect and cognition. Historically, Bob was always interested in the “mere”—basic, fundamental processes. His empirical demonstrations of precognitive and preconscious emotional processes, combined with his elegant expositions of them, sharply contrasted with cold and complex cognitive models. Interestingly, Bob tended to believe that whereas the causes of emotion can be unconscious, the emotional state itself tends to be conscious. However, (...) he reconsidered this assumption and in his later work showed that subjects in affective priming experiments do not experience conscious affect, but instead act on basic preferences. Today, Bob’s insights continue to inspire research on “unconscious emotion.”. (shrink)

It seems that nonmonotonicity of our reasoning is an obvious truth. Almost every logician not even believes, but simply knows very well that a human being thinks in a nonmonotonic way. Moreover, a nonmonotonicity of thinking seems to be a phenomenon parallel to the existence of human beings. Examples allegedly illustrating this phenomenon are not even analyzed today. They are simply quoted. Nowadays, this is a standard approach to nonmonotonicity. However, even simple analysis of those “obvious” examples shows that they (...) illustrate various problems of our thinking, among which none concerns nonmonotonicity. (shrink)

In the paper we examine the method of axiomatic rejection used to describe the set of nonvalid formulae of Aristotle's syllogistic. First we show that the condition which the system of syllogistic has to fulfil to be ompletely axiomatised, is identical to the condition for any first order theory to be used as a logic program. Than we study the connection between models used or refutation in a first order theory and rejected axioms for that theory. We show that any (...) formula of syllogistic enriched with classical connectives is decidable using models in the domain with three members. (shrink)

The paper concerns the origin and early stage of development of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków. Center for Interdisciplinary Studies was founded by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński in the late 1970s. It was an informal institution which focused on conducting scientific activity in the area of philosophy of nature, relationship between mathematical & natural sciences and philosophy, history of science, as well as relationships between science and religion. In this paper I (...) would like to present how this institution developed, I will discuss various forms of its activity and discuss—very generally—what kind of philosophy was promoted by M. Heller, J. Życiński as well as their pupils and close associates. An important part of the paper will also concern the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies as a unique institution, which has developed—in difficult historical period in Poland—philosophical research in the spirit of freedom and respect for the new achievements of science, and also promoted interdisciplinary dialogue between scientists and philosophers. (shrink)

Reiterative coordination games in large groups demonstrate that social norms, once attained, create stable equilibria. This shows that thin social capital is stable, and in some cases preferable to thick SC since it lowers transacting costs. This finding, supported indirectly by R. Putnam’s own early research, runs counter to his claim that the loss of thick social capital is detrimental to the modern society and to Coleman’s argument that closure is required for maintaining social capital.

In my paper I'm going to present and evaluate position that science and religion (Christianity) do not contradict each other and that they rather answer different kinds of questions and solve different problems. Even if they both claim anything about the origin of Universe or human their claims are made from various, independent perspectives. Advocates of complementarity of science and religion state that science is a search for empirical data while religion refers to the domain of values and meaning. In (...) effect they are complementary to each other and their connection gives richer and consistent picture of reality. I agree that there are many problems and questions that are not common to scientific and religious domains, but I'm also going to show that meaning of many religious claims - also the crucial ones - is dependent upon existence of some facts in empirical world included to realm of science. I will also argue that the thesis of complementarity of science and religion is based on discredited neopositivistic picture of science as free from any philosophical commitments. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to present moral philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre in its relation to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. For that purpose, his specific understanding of the tradition, a mode of its relation with an individual, and the distinction between practical and theoretical knowledge are discussed in the paper. Considered primarily as Thomist and Marxist thinker, MacIntyre’s conceptions emerge as strongly influenced by continental hermeneutics. From the hermeneutical point of view, some key elements of MacIntyre’s thought can be understood (...) in a new way, enabling in this way to overcome the most commonly expressed reservations formulated against his views.Key words MORAL PHILOSOPHY, HERMENEUTICS. (shrink)

Philippa Foot once said: I'm not clever at all. I have a certain insight into philosophy, cost I think. But I'm not clever, I don't find complicated arguments easy to follow. Foot's cleverness enticed many thinkers to take these Gombrowiczian lines seriously.

Typowe stanowisko w kontekście procesów wyobrażeniowych zakłada, że takie procesy realizują się bez obecności bodźca percepcyjnego. Celem artykułu jest wykazanie, że istnieją specyficzne procesy wyobrażeniowe transformujące bodziec percepcyjny w jego obecności. Inaczej mówiąc, niektóre wyobrażenia mają status on-line w procesie przetwarzania informacji wizualnej. Można się o tym przekonać analizując przykłady prostych iluzji wzrokowych. Podczas doznawania iluzji włączają się prawdopodobnie dodatkowe operacje wyobrażeniowe, które pozwalają na wizualizację osobliwych własności w bodźcach iluzorycznych. W konsekwencji proces rejestracji iluzji ma charakter dwutorowy, tj. percepcyjny (...) i wyobrażeniowy. W procesie percepcji system wizualny przetwarza informacje o dostępnych danych i formułuje hipotezę o specyficzności obiektu. Natomiast weryfikację hipotezy przeprowadza system wyobrażeniowy, który rekonstruuje wizualnie niekompletne informacje w bodźcach. Zarysowany pogląd opieram na wynikach współczesnych badań neurokognitywnych w zakresie przetwarzania informacji wizualnej. (shrink)

The aim of the thesis is to provide the foundations for a representation-based theory of meaning, i.e. a theory of meaning that encompasses the psychological level of cognitive representations. This is in opposition to the antipsychologist goals of the Fregean philosophy of language and represents the results of a joint analysis of multiple philosophical problems in contemporary philosophy of language, which, as argued in the tesis, stem from the lack of recognition of a cognitive level in language. In the thesis, (...) I first provide and argue a definition of cognitive/mental representations based on results in developmental psychology as well as theoretical considerations. Then, I use the definition to build upon it a richer theory of concepts and apply it to various philosophical conundra. The problems tackled include the problem of proper names (for which a solution is proposed that respects the post-Kripkean criticism), a unified meaning postulate for modalities and the epistemology and ontology of mathematical terms. The thesis concludes with a proposed application of the newly acquired framework to select social aspects of language use. (shrink)

Naszym dążeniem nie jest osiągnięcie ostatecznych rozwiązań w kwestii Cóż jest prawda? , obraliśmy skromniejszy cel. Podtytuł O prawdzie nie sugeruje, iż praca stanowi kompendium wiedzy o problemie prawdy w całej filozofii współczesnej. Rezygnujemy bowiem z ujęć syntetycznych i systematycznych, w zamian chcemy skupić się na obiektywnych i rzetelnych prezentacjach i interpretacjach wybranych koncepcji prawdy w poglądach Martina Heideggera, Johna Graya, Xaviera Zubiriego, Jacques'a Derridy, Johna Rawlsa i Stefana Swieżawskiego. Zdaniem autorów tekstów, poglądy tych właśnie filozofów wskazały nowe drogi myślenia (...) o prawdzie bądź twórczo nawiązywały do ujęć tradycyjnych. My ufamy, iż pozwolą one dostrzec panoramę filozoficznych dyscyplin debatujących o prawdzie (ontologia, epistemologia, filozofia polityki, historiozofia) oraz dylematy związane z prawdą, które są ważne dla innych dziedzin wiedzy i życia codziennego, w różnych jego aspektach (prywatnym, społecznym, politycznym). (shrink)

Trivalence is quite natural for deontic action logic, where actions are treated as good, neutral or bad.We present the ideas of trivalent deontic logic after J. Kalinowski and its realisation in a 3-valued logic of M. Fisher and two systems designed by the authors of the paper: a 4-valued logic inspired by N. Belnap’s logic of truth and information and a 3-valued logic based on nondeterministic matrices. Moreover, we combine Kalinowski’s idea of trivalence with deontic action logic based on boolean (...) algebra. (shrink)

English title: Master Eckhart’s God Confronted with Nietzschean Critique of Christianity. Author tries to demonstrate that the way of thinking about Christian God developed in the late Middle Ages by Master Eckhart goes beyond the interpretation which underlies Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity as a religion of the other world. In the paper, Author first presents the said criticism, followed by the vision of God outlined by Eckhart. He demonstrates that Christianity, criticized by Nietzsche, uses a commonsense vision of God’s transcendence (...) based on spatial images. The author also demonstrates that Eckhart defines this transcendence in such a way that it does not fall under Nietzsche’s criticism, in particular it cannot lead to the depreciation of worldliness in favour of an invented other world, which Nietzsche observes. Eckhart’s thought makes room for Christianity ‘after Nietzsche.’. (shrink)

In the paper we provide an overview of issues related to the models used in the research on the logic of norms and actions. We present two models of the variability of the world: temporal (acyclic) and atemporal (cyclic). In the first one the past is always clearly defined, and the future is potentially “branched”. The second type of model allows for a return to the situation that took place. Next we describe different approaches towards agency modeling. We present the (...) most important paradigms, including the logic of actions, where actions are interpreted as transitions between the situations and STIT logic, which states only the responsibility of the agent for particular states of affairs. We discuss questions of determinism and indeterminism of actions, identification of basic actions and operations and the issue of identity. The final part of the paper is devoted to deontic categories. In particular, the applicability of the concepts of strong and weak permission and prohibition in different situational contexts, and their relationship to the two concepts of obligation: abstract and derived. (shrink)

We investigate a speci c model of knowledge and beliefs and their dynamics. The model is inspired by public announcement logic and the approach to puzzles concerning knowledge using that logic. In the model epistemic considerations are based on ontology. The main notion that constitutes a bridge between these two disciplines is the notion of epistemic capacities. Within the model we study scenarios in which agents can receive false announcements and can have incomplete or improper views about other agent's epistemic (...) capacities. Moreover, we try to express the description of problem speci cation using the tools from applied ontology { RDF format for information and the Protege editor. (shrink)

In the paper we discuss different intuitions about the properties of obligatory actions in the framework of deontic action logic based on boolean algebra. Two notions of obligation are distinguished–abstract and processed obligation. We introduce them formally into the system of deontic logic of actions and investigate their properties and mutual relations.

Aristotle in Analytica Posteriora presented a notion of proof as a special case of syllogism. In the present paper the remarks of Aristotle on the subject are used as an inspiration for developing formal systems of demonstrative syllogistic, which are supposed to formalize syllogisms that are proofs. We build our systems in the style of J. Łukasiewicz as theories based on classical propositional logic. The difference between our systems and systems of syllogistic known from the literature lays in the interpretation (...) of general positive sentences in which the same name occurs twice (of the form SaS). As a basic assumption of demonstrative syllogistic we accept a negation of such a sentence. We present three systems which differ in the interpretation of specific positive sentences in which the same name occurs twice (of the form SiS). The theories are defined as axiomatic systems. For all of them rejected axiomatizations are also supplied. For two of them a set theoretical model is also defined. (shrink)

THE PROBLEM OF BEING IN PLATONISM FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THOMAS AQUINAS. A META-SYSTEMATIC ESSAY In spite of the apparent opposition to Plato, Aristotle accepted a lot from the thought of his master. The intuition, which plays the key role in the system of Plato, was understood by Aristotle in terms of how we grasp the middle term of syllogism. It is not, therefore, the intuition of being, but the reasoning, departing from the experience (nature’s “intention”), which is the way (...) of the cognition of the ultimate. The teleology of being, which Plato was so keen on finding, was found by Aristotle in the physical world as a counterpart of motion. Alas, Aristotle lost sight of what is most valuable in Plato: the sense of being that transgresses the categories. According to Thomas, being is what is the most perfect in things; so, consequently, what is the proper effect of the Ultimate Cause, and what is Its primary aim. It is better to be, i.e. to exist. Each thing craves for being. Being, however, is, in the Dionysius’ sense, a problem; it might guide us to God, but veil Him before us as well. It is a perfection, but not the Perfection itself, Plato was right at this point. Keywords: BEING, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, THOMAS AQUINAS. (shrink)

Les références à la crémation sont extrêmement rares dans les textes bibliques. L’histoire de Saül et de ses trois fils reste un cas unique d’usage de l’incinération (1 S 31, 12-13). La signification de ce geste inhabituel dans le contexte biblique n’est pas claire. Depuis longtemps, le passage de 1 Samuel 31, 12 pose problème aux exégètes et aux historiens de la religion de l’ancien Israël. Cet article présente les diverses hypothèses qui furent proposées au sujet de la crémation de (...) Saül à partir de sources textuelles et matérielles provenant des fouilles de sépultures. (shrink)