I argue for two claims. First I argue against the consensus view that accurate behavioral prediction based on accurate representation of cognitive states, i.e. mind reading , is the sustaining function of propositional attitude ascription. This practice cannot have been selected in evolution and cannot persist, in virtue of its predictive utility, because there are principled reasons why it is inadequate as a tool for behavioral prediction. Second I give reasons that favor an alternative account of the sustaining function of (...) propositional attitude ascription. I argue that it serves a mind-shaping function. Roughly, propositional attitude ascription enables human beings to set up regulative ideals that function to mold behavior so as to make it easier to coordinate with. (shrink)

Argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.

Argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.

Author: Wojewódzki Tadeusz Title: REMARKS BASED AN A WAY OF THINKING (Uwagi na kanwie sposobu myślenia) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.12, number: 2011/1, pages: 213-237 Keywords: JERZY KMITA, THEORY OF CULTURE, WAY OF THINKING, KNOWLEDGE Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:In the interpretation of the actions of communities, teams or organizations – it is crucial, according to the author of this publication, to consider their way of thinking. Referring to (...) Professor Jerzy Kmita’s theory of culture, the way of thinking adopted in the publication is identified based on values and knowledge that are shaped within the frame of the intellectual partnership, as well as being respected and applied in practice. The way of thinking – reproduced on the basis of the actual actions – can significantly deviate from that which is stated, accepted, or articulated as desired. Mental barriers determine this. Their identification is based – in the proposed concept – on an analysis of syndromes. The more significant the share of mental barrier syndromes is for the organization’s way of thinking, the greater the difference between the actual and desired state of affairs. The competences achieved through academic humanistic education are necessary in the blocking of mental barrier syndromes. From the perspective of the needs of modern organizations, skills in information processes appear to be very useful. The author attributes a special role to the quantification of knowledge. Reflections on the mental barrier syndromes are included by the author in The Theory of a thinking organization analogously to The Theory of a learning organization or The Theory of constraints. At the same time he highlights its interdisciplinary character and intellectual pedigree, pointing at the methodological school of Poznań, especially the thoughts of Professor Jerzy Kmita. (shrink)

The article presents two concepts of indexicality. The first, more standard and narrow, identifies indexicality with systematic (meaning controlled) context-sensitivity. The second, broader (derived from the work of Jerzy Pelc), conceives indexicality in terms of the potential variability of the general semiotic characteristics expressions (with respect to the context of use). The text introduces the concept of a pragmatic matrix that serves for a schematic representation of contextual variation. I also recapitulate briefly the views of Jerzy Pelc on the meaning (...) (manner of use) and use of expressions, and briefly indicate its relationship approaches with contemporary debates around contextualism and status of non-sentential speech acts. Finally, the relationship between the broader notion of indexicality and the directival theory of meaning is analyzed. (shrink)

I defend an alternative to the two traditional accounts of the relationship between metacognition and social cognition: metacognition as primary versus social cognition as primary. These accounts have complementary explanatory vices and virtues. They also share a natural assumption: that interpretation in terms of mental states is “spectatorial”, aiming exclusively for an objective description of the mental facts about self and others. I argue that if one rejects this assumption in favor of the view that interpretation in terms of mental (...) states also plays important regulative roles with respect to minds and behavior, a new and superior conception of the relationship between metacognition and social cognition comes into view. On this conception, person-level metacognitive concepts are socio-cognitive tools that shape us into better cognitive agents and more predictable cognitive objects, thereby enhancing our abilities at social coordination. Mastery of these metacognitive concepts relies on subpersonal, non-conceptual, procedural metacognition. This reconceptualization of the relationship between metacognition and social cognition combines the complementary explanatory virtues of the two traditional conceptions, while avoiding their complementary explanatory vices. (shrink)

This paper criticizes non-constructive uses of set theory in formal economics. The main focus is on results on preference aggregation and Arrow’s theorem for infinite electorates, but the present analysis would apply as well, e.g., to analogous results in intergenerational social choice. To separate justified and unjustified uses of infinite populations in social choice, I suggest a principle which may be called the Hildenbrand criterion and argue that results based on unrestricted axiom of choice do not meet this criterion. The (...) technically novel part of this paper is a proposal to use a set-theoretic principle known as the axiom of determinacy ), not as a replacement for Choice, but simply to eliminate applications of set theory violating the Hildenbrand criterion. A particularly appealing aspect of \ from the point of view of the research area in question is its game-theoretic character. (shrink)

Dnia 2 czerwca zmarł w Warszawie Jerzy Pelc, założyciel oraz wieloletni redaktor „Studiów Semiotycznych”. Przez prawie pół wieku troszczył się On o to, aby na ich łamach ukazywały się wspomnienia pozgonne upamiętniające polskich i zagranicznych uczonych semiotyków. Wspomnienia te albo pisał sam, albo prosił o ich napisanie osoby najlepiej znające dorobek i działalność naukową zmarłego. Jego odejście postawiło nas wszystkich w sytuacji niemożliwej: sam nie może być autorem wspomnienia, a tylko On mógłby kompetentnie napisać kilka słów o swoim ogromnym dorobku (...) naukowym [...]. (shrink)

Summary The logical structure of the complete process of argumentation in the historical science is deductive. It implies confirmation and disconfirmation of hypotheses with the help of the concept of the indicator, which is more objective and more universal than the one of the source; the problem of the objectivity of criteria of the reasoning of hypotheses is being discussed.

dr Tadeusz Adam Ożóg, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan.

As with any historical study, including that of knowledge and ideas, the progress of the semiology of the theater is subject to periodicity. The aim of any division into periods is to obtain a global view, even at the price of simplifications, but it can also bring out the hidden aspects of the phenomena under study.The semiology or semiotics of the theater, that is, the application of the idea of sign to the art of the spectacle, has a long past, (...) in which several stages may be distinguished, and first of all those that I would call the presemiology and the protosemiology of the theater. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to pose a problem for theories that claim that belief reports are context dependent. Firstly, I argue that the claim is committed to verbalism, a theory that derives the context sensitivity of belief reports from the context sensitivity of the psychological verbs used in such reports. Secondly, I argue that verbalism is not an attractive theoretical option because it is in conflict with the non-proto-rigidity of verbs like ‘believe’. Finally, I describe various consequences that (...) the argument has for invariantism and moderate contextualism. (shrink)

The popular interpretation of token‐reflexivism states that at the level of logical form, indexicals and demonstratives are disguised descriptions that employ complex demonstratives or special quotation‐mark names involving particular tokens of the appropriate expression‐types. In this article I first demonstrate that this interpretation of token‐reflexivism is only one of many, and that it is better to think of token‐reflexivism as denoting a family of distinct theoretical frameworks. Second, I contrast two interpretations of the idea of the token‐reflexive paraphrase of an (...) indexical sentence. The utterance approach claims that token‐reflexive paraphrases involve tokens of entire utterances. The sub‐utterance approach maintains that token‐reflexive paraphrases involve tokens of the particular indexical words used in the utterance. Next, I pose a problem that shows that neither of the two approaches is correct. The problem shows that the only viable version of the token‐reflexive proposition must somehow take into account the referential intentions of the speaker of the context. Therefore I conclude the article by sketching the framework of restricted intentional token‐reflexivism. I argue that it is an attractive semantic theory of distributed utterances that, among other things, enables automatic and intentional indexicals to be distinguished. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is modern representative democracy. Instead of discussing the many theories which strive to define and describe the essence of democracy, such as the classic, the competitive, the structural, the participatory, the concessionary, etc., it is our aim to present the various practical approaches to "democracy in action" in the post-Communist period, i.e., to characterize the various notions of the axiological and philosophical assumptions that provide the cornerstone of democracy.

L’autodeterminazione è una categoria fondamentale nella visione personalistica di K. Wojtyła. Essa è una relazione entro la volontà. Una relazione di cui si potrebbe dire: la volontà si rivela come proprietà della persona e la persona come realtà che, riguardo al suo dinamismo, è constituita propriamente dalla volontà. L’autodeterminazione non è un atto chiuso entro se stesso, preché essenziale è il momento della verità e nella verità.