In this paper, we indicate how Jan Woleński’s non-linguistic concept of the norm allows us to clarify the deontic relationship between sentences and the given normative system. A relationship of this kind constitutes a component of the metalogic of relating deontic logic, which subjects the logical value of the deontic sentence to the logical value of the constituent sentence and its relationship with a given normative system in the accessible possible worlds.

Poznawalność jako modalność de re: pewne rozwiązanie paradoksu Fitcha W artykule staramy się znaleźć nowe, intuicyjne rozwiązanie paradoksu Fitcha. Twierdzimy, że tradycyjne wyrażenie zasady poznawalności opiera się na błędnym rozumieniu poznawalności jako modalności de dicto. Zamiast tego proponujemy rozumieć poznawalność jako modalność de re. W artykule przedstawiamy minimalną logikę poznawalności, w której zasada poznawalności jest ważna, ale paradoks Fitcha już nie obowiązuje. Logikę charakteryzujemy semantycznie, a także poprzez podejście aksjomatyczne i tabelaryczne.

It is often taken for granted that there exists a more or less “natural” link between left-wing politics and the progressive social movements referred to as “cultural”, such as feminist, ecological or LGBT struggles. This article argues that if an alliance between the Left and the LGBTQ movement is to be real and operational, it must be worked out, rather than presupposed, via a thorough rethinking of the political as such, of its axioms, goals and ethical frameworks. The authors see (...) a parallel between the dissatisfaction that recent grassroots left-wing movements feel towards more established parties and institutions, and the dissatisfaction that a new wave of queer activism feels towards more traditional policies of mainstream LGBT organizations. Much of this dissatisfaction can be derived, in both cases, from the perceived neoliberalization of the political and social spheres and the subsequent cooptation of leftist / queer politics and activism to the neoliberal, or even neoconservative, agenda. This moment of shared dissatisfaction should be used creatively to devise common strategies, rather than maintain the artificial and disadvantageous division between the so-called “economic” and “cultural” lefts. Regrettably, at the moment there is very little understanding of queerness on the Left, just as there is little dedication to countering the disastrous effects of capitalism among LGBT activists. The New Left and the queer movement have much to learn and gain from each other, but to make this happen new leftists must rethink the political through the sexual, whereas the queer movement must rethink the sexual through the economic, to put it simply. The article ends with an outline of a new comprehensive ethical and political model from which an anti-exclusionary and pro-social ethics could be derived as a common ground for a workable queer and left alliance. (shrink)

The relation between indicative conditionals in natural language and material implication wasn’t a major topic in the Lvov-Warsaw school. However, a major defense of the claim that the truth conditions of these two are the same has been developed by Ajdukiewicz. The first major goal of this paper is to present, assess, and improve his strategy. It turns out that it is quite similar to the approach developed by Grice, so our second goal is to compare these two and to (...) argue that the accuracy of Ajdukiewicz’s explanation is less dependent on controversial properties of a systematic but convoluted general theory of cooperative communicative behavior. In Lvov-Warsaw school the relation between material implication and indicative conditionals was also discussed by Goł ąb :27–29, 1949) and Słupecki :32–35, 1949), so the third part of our paper is devoted to their discussion and relating it to Ajdukiewicz’s views. (shrink)

Citizenship is usually seen as a product of modern nation-states, or of other political entities which possess institutional infrastructures and political systems capable of producing a coherent framework that defines the relationship between that system and its members. In this paper, we show that an early system of modern citizenship was created in the absence of a formal state, notably by the cultural elite of a stateless nation. The Polish case illustrates that an elite may become a dominant class in (...) the given society only later, and institutionalize that early citizenship system within the framework of a newly founded state. As a result of the legacy of the emergence of citizenship predating the restoration of statehood, the contemporary Polish citizenship model is influenced by a strong and largely overlooked cultural component that emerged at the turn of the 19th century. This model uses the figure of the intelligentsia member as its ideal citizen. Despite the dramatic political and economic changes in the decades which have passed since its emergence, this cultural frame, which was institutionalized during the interwar period, still defines the key features of the Polish citizenship model. Consequently, we argue that the culturalization of citizenship is hardly a new phenomenon. It can be seen as a primary mechanism in the formation of civic polities within the imperial context. Moreover, it shows that such processes can have many ambiguous aspects as far as their Orientalizing forces of exclusion are concerned. (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł został poświęcony charakterystyce poglądów wybranych scholastyków i dekretalistów z XIII wieku dotyczących kwestii spożywania w poście słodkich wyrobów aptekarzy, zwanych po łacinie _electuaria_, w angielskiej literaturze przedmiotu znanych jako _electuary_. Autor omówił to zagadnienie, opierając się na analizie fragmentów dzieł autorstwa: Wilhelma z Auxerre (_Summa aurea_, znanym też jako _Summa in IV Sententiarum_), Aleksandra z Hales (_Summa teologii_), Tomasza z Akwinu (_Komentarz do czterech ksiąg Sentencji Piotra Lombarda_ (łac. _Scriptum super libros Sententiarum_) i _Summa teologii_), Innocentego IV (_Commentaria (...) super libros quinque decretalium_) oraz Henryka z Ostii (znanego jako Hostiensis, _Apparatus in Decretales_). Poglądy poszczególnych autorów niniejszej kwestii były zbieżne i sprowadzały się do stwierdzenia, że spożycie elekwarzy w poście jest dopuszczalne, o ile będą traktowane jako słodycze. Każdy z wymienionych autorów używał nieco odmiennych argumentów. I tak Wilhelm z Auxerre wskazał, że przyjmowanie powidełek leczniczych, choć prowadzi do złamania postu, nie skutkuje utratą zasługi, tj. nagrody do życia wiecznego. Aleksander z Hales dokonał analizy typologicznej produktów spożywczych i podzielił je na cztery kategorie, takie jak: lekarstwa, właściwa żywność, lekarstwa pokarmowe i żywność lecznicza. Elekwarze zostały zaliczone do grupy trzeciej i z tego względu mogły być spożywane w poście. Święty Tomasz z Akwinu podkreślił znaczenie czynnika ilościowego i roli walorów smakowych jako kryteriów oceny dopuszczalności spożywania elekwarzy w czasie postu. Zaś zarówno Innocenty IV, jak i Henryk z Suzy (Hostiensis) uwypuklili jedyny warunek spożycia powidełek leczniczych w czasie postu, jakim jest choroba. W konkluzji autor dochodzi do wniosku, że uwaga wybitnych przedstawicieli ówczesnej myśli teologicznej, jak i prawniczej, poświęcona zagadnieniu dopuszczalności spożywania w poście elekwarzy, czyli słodkich wyrobów aptekarskich, stanowiła odpowiedź na zmieniającą się wówczas rolę tego typu wyrobów aptekarskich. Traktowane uprzednio jako lekarstwa na różne dolegliwości (na ogół o podłożu gastrycznym), stawały się słodyczami jedzonymi dla przyjemności i w nadmiarze. Tym samym ich przyjmowanie w czasie postu, czyli umartwiania, rodziło istotny dylemat moralny. W zgodnej opinii zarówno scholastyków, jak i dekretalistów zostały one uznane jako medykamenty i jako takie mogły być przyjmowane w poście. W efekcie ten typ wyrobów aptekarskich, obok kontektów (łac. _confectes_), na trwałe wszedł do menu postnego u schyłku średniowiecza. Co więcej, postrzegane jako produkty postne, cieszyły się rosnącą popularnością, niezależnie od uwarunkowań ówczesnej medycyny, jak i poglądów myślicieli i dekretalistów z XIII wieku. (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł został poświęcony charakterystyce poglądów wybranych scholastyków i dekretalistów z XIII wieku dotyczących kwestii spożywania w poście słodkich wyrobów aptekarzy, zwanych po łacinie _electuaria_, w angielskiej literaturze przedmiotu znanych jako _electuary_. Autor omówił to zagadnienie, opierając się na analizie fragmentów dzieł autorstwa: Wilhelma z Auxerre (_Summa aurea_, znanym też jako _Summa in IV Sententiarum_), Aleksandra z Hales (_Summa teologii_), Tomasza z Akwinu (_Komentarz do czterech ksiąg Sentencji Piotra Lombarda_ (łac. _Scriptum super libros Sententiarum_) i _Summa teologii_), Innocentego IV (_Commentaria (...) super libros quinque decretalium_) oraz Henryka z Ostii (znanego jako Hostiensis, _Apparatus in Decretales_). Poglądy poszczególnych autorów niniejszej kwestii były zbieżne i sprowadzały się do stwierdzenia, że spożycie elekwarzy w poście jest dopuszczalne, o ile będą traktowane jako słodycze. Każdy z wymienionych autorów używał nieco odmiennych argumentów. I tak Wilhelm z Auxerre wskazał, że przyjmowanie powidełek leczniczych, choć prowadzi do złamania postu, nie skutkuje utratą zasługi, tj. nagrody do życia wiecznego. Aleksander z Hales dokonał analizy typologicznej produktów spożywczych i podzielił je na cztery kategorie, takie jak: lekarstwa, właściwa żywność, lekarstwa pokarmowe i żywność lecznicza. Elekwarze zostały zaliczone do grupy trzeciej i z tego względu mogły być spożywane w poście. Święty Tomasz z Akwinu podkreślił znaczenie czynnika ilościowego i roli walorów smakowych jako kryteriów oceny dopuszczalności spożywania elekwarzy w czasie postu. Zaś zarówno Innocenty IV, jak i Henryk z Suzy (Hostiensis) uwypuklili jedyny warunek spożycia powidełek leczniczych w czasie postu, jakim jest choroba. W konkluzji autor dochodzi do wniosku, że uwaga wybitnych przedstawicieli ówczesnej myśli teologicznej, jak i prawniczej, poświęcona zagadnieniu dopuszczalności spożywania w poście elekwarzy, czyli słodkich wyrobów aptekarskich, stanowiła odpowiedź na zmieniającą się wówczas rolę tego typu wyrobów aptekarskich. Traktowane uprzednio jako lekarstwa na różne dolegliwości (na ogół o podłożu gastrycznym), stawały się słodyczami jedzonymi dla przyjemności i w nadmiarze. Tym samym ich przyjmowanie w czasie postu, czyli umartwiania, rodziło istotny dylemat moralny. W zgodnej opinii zarówno scholastyków, jak i dekretalistów zostały one uznane jako medykamenty i jako takie mogły być przyjmowane w poście. W efekcie ten typ wyrobów aptekarskich, obok kontektów (łac. _confectes_), na trwałe wszedł do menu postnego u schyłku średniowiecza. Co więcej, postrzegane jako produkty postne, cieszyły się rosnącą popularnością, niezależnie od uwarunkowań ówczesnej medycyny, jak i poglądów myślicieli i dekretalistów z XIII wieku. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss parthood status in mereologi- cally interpreted Daoist metaphysics, based on the Daodejing. I depart from the dao and you interrela- tion, which mereologically overlap by sharing parts. I consider the case of a complete overlap, which (a) challenges proper parthood, according to which a part cannot be identical with the whole that it com- poses, and (b) entails the question of identity that, while complying with classical mereology, cannot be consis- tent with Daoist metaphysics. The (...) discussion leads to abandoning proper parthood and antisymmetry axiom from classical axiomatics. It also shows a plausible fur- ther direction for mereological reconstruction. (shrink)

The paper investigates, in the framework of branching space–times, whether an infinite EPR-like correlation which does not involve finite EPR-like correlations is possible.

The paper extends the framework of outcomes in branching space-time (Kowalski and Placek [1999]) by assigning probabilities to outcomes of events, where these probabilities are interpreted either epistemically or as weighted possibilities. In resulting models I define the notion of common cause of correlated outcomes of a single event, and investigate which setups allow for the introduction of common causes. It turns out that a deterministic common cause can always be introduced, but (surprisingly) only special setups permit the introduction of (...) truly stochastic common causes. I analyse next the Bell-Aspect experiment and derive the Bell-CH inequalities. I observe that we postulate there not a common cause for outcomes of a single event but rather a common common cause that accounts for outcomes of many events, where 'events' mean 'measurements with (different) directions of polarization'. Since the inequalities are violated, I claim that no causal story can be told about the Bell correlations, where causality is subliminal and restricted by screening-off condition. Similarly, given certain intuitive principles, no deterministic story can be told about these correlations. (shrink)

We prove that the intuitionistic sentential calculus is Ł-decidable, i.e. the sets of these of Int and of rejected formulas are disjoint and their union is equal to all formulas. A formula is rejected iff it is a sentential variable or is obtained from other formulas by means of three rejection rules. One of the rules is original, the remaining two are Łukasiewicz's rejection rules: by detachement and by substitution. We extensively use the method of Beth's semantic tableaux.

In earlier publications of the first author it was shown that intentional explanation of actions, functional explanation of biological traits and causal explanation of abnormal events share a common structure. They are called explanation by specification (of a goal, a biological function, an abnormal causal factor, respectively) as opposed to explanation by subsumption under a law. Explanation by specification is guided by a schematic train of thought, of which the argumentative steps not concerning questions were already shown to be logically (...) valid (elementary) arguments.Independently, the second author developed a new, inferential approach to erotetic logic, the logic of questions. In this approach arguments resulting in questions, with declarative sentences and/or other questions as premises, are analyzed, and validity of such arguments is defined. (shrink)

Indeterminism, understood as a notion that an event may be continued in a few alternative ways, invokes the question what a region of chanciness looks like. We concern ourselves with its topological and spatiotemporal aspects, abstracting from the nature or mechanism of chancy processes. We first argue that the question arises in Montague-Lewis-Earman conceptualization of indeterminism as well as in the branching tradition of Prior, Thomason and Belnap. As the resources of the former school are not rich enough to study (...) topological issues, we investigate the question in the framework of branching space-times of Belnap (Synthese 92:385–434, 1992). We introduce a topology on a branching model as well as a topology on a history in a branching model. We define light-cones and assume four conditions that guarantee the light-cones so defined behave like light-cones of physical space-times. From among various topological separation properties that are relevant to our question, we investigate the Hausdorff property. We prove that each history in a branching model satisfies the Hausdorff property. As for the satisfaction of the Hausdorff property in the entire branching model, we prove that it is related to the phenomenon of passive indeterminism, which we describe in detail. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to defend the view according to which all simple fictional sentences are meaningless. If their assertions seem to convey some truth evaluable information, and fictional sentences themselves seem to be true or false, it is because some pragmatic mechanisms are operative, enabling the expression of propositions not encoded in the semantic content of these sentences. According to some theorists, the mechanisms responsible for that process are the same as those responsible for generating conversational implicatures. (...) I argue against that claim and maintain that to comprehend the information conveyed by a fictional assertion, one must determine what kind of fictional assertion it is and only then apply the relevant interpretative rule adjusted to the fictional sentence used in that act. (shrink)

In the first part of the book Ewa Bińczyk discusses postulates that have been formulated in response to the problem of the unwanted consequences of the practical success of technoscience (deriving mainly from science and technology studies). In the second part Tomasz Stępień analyses nanotechnology as example of technoscience development and presents the nano-assessment framework.

We assess Cartwright's models for probabilistic causality, and in particular, her models for EPR-like experiments of quantum mechanics. We show that her models for the EPR are mathematically incorrect and physically implausible. Finally, we argue that her models are not adequate for EPR-phenomena, since they ignore modal and spatiotemporal aspects inherent in their setup.

We investigate the concepts of past, present, and future that build upon a modal distinction between a settled past and an open future. The concepts are defined in terms of a pre-causal ordering that is determined by the qualitative differences between alternative possible histories. We look what an event’s past, present, and future look like in the so-called Minkowskian Branching Structures, one in which histories are isomorphic to Minkowski space-time.

Counterpossibles are counterfactuals with an impossible antecedent. According to the orthodox view of counterfactuals, all counterpossibles are vacuously true. This is puzzling because some counterpossible statements seem to be false. The paper analyzes two approaches to explaining why certain counterpossibles, though perhaps true, may appear to be false. The first, which appeals to the Gricean mechanism of conversational implicatures, asserts that some counterpossibles appear to be false because their assertion carries with it a false conversational implicature. However, I argue that, (...) under a closer scrutiny, this approach collapses. I therefore turn to a second approach, proposed by Timothy Williamson. It appeals to a heuristic according to which speakers may regard a counterpossible to be false if they have previously accepted its opposite. Since the applicability of Williamson’s solution is limited, I suggest a more general account. Its underlining idea is that a counterpossible is rejected if the speaker cannot find what they regard as a universally true conditional function derivable from the counterpossible by substitutions and syntactic transformations. (shrink)

We propose an intuitive understanding of the statement: ‘an axiom (or: an axiomatic basis) determines the meaning of the only specific constant occurring in it.’ We introduce some basic semantics for functors of the category s/n,n of Lesniewski’s Ontology. Using these results we prove that the popular claim that the axioms of Ontology determine the meaning of the primitive constants is false.

Respecting the rights of man, the social market economy is aimed at maintaining a high rate of economic growth, price stability, full employment, healthy competition, good working conditions and public services. That is just why the social market economy is not far removed from the objective demands of the moral order, from the exigencies of justice and social love.

The aims of this paper are to provide a detailed taxonomy of noncanonical uses of interrogative sentences, i.e. when they are used not to ask a question but to convey some information, or to ask a question albeit not that expressed by the interrogative sentence exploited in the act, to identify properties of circumstances where an interrogative sentence is being used in this way, and to propose some maxims that govern the rational use of questions. Four main categories of such (...) cases are presented, and a few further subclasses are differentiated. I show how these types are interrelated, and what logical features differentiate them. I also propose a hypothesis for when an interrogative sentence is not being used in its primary mode. Studies on circumstances in which questions are used in other ways can shed light on maxims that govern asking and questioning in a rational conversation; therefore, some possible maxims of this kind are proposed. (shrink)

The Gettier problem concerns the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. In the paper I argue that Gettier's cases are not cases of justified true belief because Gettier's examples rely on some problematic assumptions. The first is rather elementary definition of justification and the other is that justification is preserved by entailment, that is, (A) for all agents X, if X is justified in believing that p , and X realizes that the truth of p entails the truth of (...) q , then X would also be justified in believing that q . For the simplistic conception of justification has some alarming consequences we pursue more adequate definition of justification which would satisfy the idea that a necessary condition of justification is to entail or to be entailed by a true proposition. We also show that the (A) is not necessary to provide an elegant counter-example to the definition of knowledge if the elementary definition of justification is adopted. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the most important voices on the role of the US in the international order during Donald Trump’s presidency in the debate held in the Foreign Affairs. The authors assume that Foreign Affairs expresses the opinions of the most crucial organisation bringing together the elites of American foreign affairs – the Council on Foreign Relations. The paper proposes a hypothesis according to which there is a difference of opinion due to the adopted theoretical (...) perspective regarding Trump’s role in the destruction of the liberal international order among the American power elites, even though they agree that the ideological conflict between democratic and authoritarian countries around the world is escalating. (shrink)

Advances in analytical understanding of the biosphere’s biogeochemical cycles have spawned concepts of Gaia and noosphere. Earlier in this century, in concert with the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the natural scientist Vladimir Vernadsky developed the notion of noosphere-an evolving collective human consciousness on Earth exerting an ever increasing intluence on biogeochemical processes. More recently, the chemist James Lovelock postulated the Earth to be a self-regulating system made up of biota and their environment with the capacity to maintain a (...) planetary steady state favorable to life. This is the Gaia hypothesis. To many, Gaia and noosphere represent contradictory interpretations of humanity’s relation to planetary ecology. Noosphere emphasizes a free will and obligation to shape the destiny of humanity on Earth through technology and new kinds of social relations. In contrast, Gaia invokes mysterious mechanisms of planetary evolution that lie beyond human control and understanding. I argue that if brought together, noosphere and Gaia can provide a useful symbol for guiding human interventions in global ecology because the contradictions of a nature-centered view of Gaia and a human-centered view of noosphere are coming to be irrelevant with the emergence of an analytical science of the biosphere. (shrink)

In the article "Podstawy analizy metodologicznej kanonów Milla" [2] Jerzy Łoś proposed an operator that refered sentences to temporal moments. Let us look, for example, at a sentence ‘It is raining in Toruń’. From a logical point of view it is a propositional function, which does not have any logical value, unless we point at a temporal context from a fixed set of such contexts. If the sentence was considered today as a description of a state of affairs, it could (...) be true. If it was considered yesterday, it could be false. 1 The operator enables us to connect any sentence p with any temporal context t. Such a complex sentence we read as: a sentence p is realized at a temporal context t (a point of time, an interval of some kind, etc). (shrink)

Author: Kupś Tomasz Title: ELEMENTS OF TRANSCENDENTAL THEOLOGY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION OF IMMANUEL KANT (Elementy teologii transcendentalnej w filozofii religii Immanuela Kanta) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2005, vol:.5, number: 2005/1, pages: 91-103 Keywords: TRANSCENDENTAL THEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, KANT Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:In Kantian philosophical system transcendental theology is a part of cognition of pre-being educed only from transcendental notions. Nevertheless any attempts of speculative cognition of (...) pre-being are futile. The value of the transcendental theology is thus merely negative as it shows the bounds of theoretical use of the reason. The idea of the pre-being gains its reality only in the practical use of the reason. In this way transcendental theology becomes the first premise of religion. (shrink)

Warsaw Wild Captive Pisula Stryjek rats - Establishing a breeding colony of Norway Rat in captivity It is believed that the history of laboratory rat dates back to 1820-ies, which is about 300 generations. This relatively short evolutionary distance, drastically different environment and selective breeding could have caused differences in behaviour between the laboratory rat and his wild counterpart - Norway rat. The vast majority of research concerning differences between wild and laboratory rats was conducted over 30 years ago. The (...) knowledge acquired as a result of that research seems far from being complete. Over a quarter of a century could have deepened the described differences. Nowadays the change in experimental approach, in favour of low stress conditions, can give a new insight into this problem. This article describes process of establishing a laboratory line of wild Norway rat, which will take part in a broad series of comparative studies. 16 wild rats were trapped in 5 distant parts of Warsaw. Most of wild rats successfully adapted to captive conditions, mating successfully and producing litters, which have survived to adolescence. (shrink)

In the article I discuss possible amendments and corrections to Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals that are necessary in order to account for the indeterministic and non-local character of the quantum world. I argue that Lewis’s criteria of similarity between possible worlds produce incorrect valuations for alternate-outcome counterfactuals in the EPR case. Later I discuss an alternative semantics which rejects the notion of miraculous events and relies entirely on the comparison of the agreement with respect to individual facts. However, a controversy (...) exists whether to include future indeterministic events in the criteria of similarity. J. Bennett has suggested that an indeterministic event count toward similarity only if it is a result of the same causal chain as in the actual world. I claim that a much better agreement with the demands of the quantum-mechanical indeterminism can be achieved when we stipulate that possible worlds which differ only with respect to indeterministic facts that take place after the antecedent-event should always be treated as equally similar to the actual world. In the article I analyze and dismiss some common-sense counterexamples to this claim. Finally, I critically evaluate Bennett’s proposal regarding the truth-conditions for true-antecedent counterfactuals. (shrink)