In this paper I present four interpretations of so-called negative theology and provide a number of attempts to model this theory within a formal system. Unfortunately, all of them fail in some manner. Most of them are simply inconsistent, some contradict the usual religious praxis and discourse, and some do not correspond to the key theses of negative theology. I believe that this paper shows how challenging this theory is from a logical perspective.

This paper provides moderate criticism of so-called normative theories of thinking and reasoning. The discussion focuses on the problems of idealization, adequacy, inconsistent yet non-trivial logics, logical omniscience etc. I called them “internal” to the normative approach, because they stem from the very properties of formal systems used to model these two human activities. Some arguments, however, refer to the current theories in cognitive science, including those which are developed within “descriptive” framework.

The aim of this article is to indicate that the ideas of Leonardo Torres y Que­vedo presented in his short Essays on Automatics constitute essential link between early Babbage’s concepts of analytical engine and modern computer science. These ideas include definition of automatics, classification of automata, theoretical basis for robotics, electromechanical engineering, modern concept of chatbot, the importance of algorithm and last but not least floating point arithmetic.

An interview with Charles McCarty by Piotr Urbańczyk concerning mathematical explanation.

The aim of this article is to indicate that the ideas of Leonardo Torres y Que­vedo presented in his short Essays on Automatics constitute essential link between early Babbage’s concepts of analytical engine and modern computer science. These ideas include definition of automatics, classification of automata, theoretical basis for robotics, electromechanical engineering, modern concept of chatbot, the importance of algorithm and last but not least floating point arithmetic.

Copernicus Festival, held annually, aims to demonstrate various dimensions of the relationship between science and culture. The third edition of the festival was devoted to the concept of beauty. During the six days of the festival about 7 thousand people took part in lectures, debates, discussions, workshops, concerts and other events.

The 20 th Cracow Methodological Conference took place on May 30-31, 2016, at the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków. The meeting brought together physicists, cosmologists, mathematicians and philosophers interested in research program called philosophy in science started and popularized by Michał Heller. It is worth noting that the 20 th Cracow Methodological Conference was dedicated to Professor Heller and can be considered as a contribution to the celebration of the 80 th anniversary of his birthday.

In this paper, I discuss the interpretation of the method of deconstruction in David J. Gunkel’s Deconstruction (MIT Press 2021). I focus on the relationship between deconstruction and truth. I hold that the concept of truth is indispensable for deconstruction since truth introduces correctness conditions for the deconstructive method. However, I claim that truth, being essential and primitive for deconstruction, is fundamentally inaccessible for being analyzed by the latter. ------------------------- Received: 19/10/2022. Reviewed: 13/12/2022. Accepted: 20/12/2022.

A calculus of names is a logical theory describing relations between names. By a pure calculus of names we mean a quantifier-free formulation of such a theory, based on classical propositional calculus. An axiomatisation of a pure calculus of names is presented and its completeness is discussed. It is shown that the axiomatisation is complete in three different ways: with respect to a set theoretical model, with respect to Leśniewski's Ontology and in a sense defined with the use of axiomatic (...) rejection. The independence of axioms is proved. A decision procedure based on syntactic transformations and models defined in the domain of only two members is defined. (shrink)

Some subfamilies of κ, for κ regular, κ λ, called -semimorasses are investigated. For λ = κ+, they constitute weak versions of Velleman's simplified -morasses, and for λ > κ+, they provide a combinatorial framework which in some cases has similar applications to the application of -morasses with this difference that the obtained objects are of size λ κ+, and not only of size κ+ as in the case of morasses. New consistency results involve existence of nonreflecting objects of singular (...) sizes of uncountable cofinality such as a nonreflecting stationary set in κ, a nonreflecting nonmetrizable space of size λ, a nonreflecting nonspecial tree of size λ. We also characterize possible minimal sizes of nonspecial trees without uncountable branches. (shrink)

The process of continuing education of paramedics is based on gaining educational credits during five-year educational periods. One of the forms of self-improvement are Internet-based educational programs. The lack of regulations concerning the organizational and technical aspects of e-learning made the authors attempt to analyze the phenomenon. The aim of the article is to present an initial analysis of the role of online educational programs in comparison with other forms of professional training of paramedics. One in three respondents has recently (...) used one of the methods of distance learning. Despite the low awareness of the effectiveness of e-learning, almost 70% of the interviewees expressed a positive opinion about it and over 50% were willing to use such forms in the future. The respondents preferred online trainings in the asynchronous version, containing audio-visual materials and providing the possibility to obtain a certificate issued to the participant after completing the course. The demand for topics in the area of professional training included mainly the fields of Drug Therapy, electrotherapy, electrocardiogram evaluation, medical segregation, and help in delivery in pre-hospital conditions. Modern forms of distance learning do not make it possible to acquire practical skills, yet their role in professional training of paramedics is still significant. According to the authors, online educational programs constitute an effective complement to traditional training through the performance of tasks in a mixed form, known as blended-learning. (shrink)

$(X_\alpha: \alpha is a strong chain in ℘(ω 1 )/Fin if and only if X β - X α is finite and X α - X β is uncountable for each $\beta . We show that it is consistent that a strong chain in ℘(ω 1 ) exists. On the other hand we show that it is consistent that there is a strongly almost-disjoint family in ℘(ω 1 ) but no strong chain exists: □ ω 1 is used to construct (...) a c.c.c forcing that adds a strong chain and Chang's Conjecture to prove that there is no strong chain. (shrink)

It is our intention to re-investigate only a few of the innumerable epistemological problems concerning Paley's argumentation for the existence of God. Nowadays this argumentation is commonly considered as invalid. Modern philosophers believe that the Humean Dialogs on Natural Religion and the Darwinian theory of evolution deprived Paley's reasoning of any cognitive validity. This judgment seems to us unjustified. We shall try to demonstrate that the very meaning and the logical structure of Paley's argumentation are continuously misunderstood, and that critics (...) have attacked rather a false image of Paley's cognitive pathway. Furthermore, we will show that Paley actually argues for the existence of a single agent producing biological organs. Indeed Paley demonstrates, that a biological organ is a kind of objective whole, and by necessity one produced by a single agent. However, Paley's form of argumentation is not sufficient to indicate whether this agent might be identified with a divine Creator, or Aristotelian "soul" building and commanding biological organs, or the recently discovered, described and deciphered deoxynucleotide polymer present in the reproductive biological cell. (shrink)

The sciences, from their ancient beginnings, use a double way of investigation. One was applied to mineral and astronomical bodies, another to living ones. A ruling, tacit, common sense methodological or epistemological principle was this: The method of description should respect the inner essential properties of the object. For instance, neither the movements of the astronomical bodies, nor the behavior of the living bodies should be described in the scale of subatomic interactions. In modern times quite another methodological principle has (...) been enthroned. The cosmos, astronomical, mineral and alive bodies altogether, have, allegedly, to be considered as a single natural whole, ruled by essentially the same set of principles. The properties of the mineral world are accepted as a universal model of descriptive concepts, and the explanatory concepts proper to the mineral world are accepted as a universal model of explanation in biology. So, up to now, the academic sciences have been dominated by the philosophical option of materialist monism, or panmaterialism. This option—we may call it antiteleologism and fragmentarism—has a profound impact on empirical research and the way biological phenomena are described. This strange, unnatural, arbitrarily imposed conceptual framework ignores the most fundamental biological dynamisms, and precludes our intellect from seeing the right questions and striving towards the right answers. Consequently it arbitrarily reduces the range of “scientifically acceptable” explanations. This antiteleological methodology of sciences, imposed on biological mind by philosophers, led to major change in the ideas of philosophers of nature. The physiology and anatomy of the fully developed living bodies has become their central object of study. Much less attention is paid to developmental processes such as biosynthesis, morphogenesis, embryogenesis, phenotypic adaptation and regeneration. The fully shaped structures and their functional properties are considered a hopeful basis of all the necessary explanations. For instance the structure of tile DNA molecule has become more important than the problem of its origin, and the structure of the brain more important than the developmental processes which lead to its construction. However, the enormous progress of biological sciences in spite of the widespread, dominating antiteleological and fragmentarist approach corroborates the very ancient, Aristotelian insight, which put the principal stress on the developmental aspect of life. Aristotle, and his more modern followers, was fascinated by the integrated and intrinsically heterogenous tendencies visible in the course of life. Today, we can say that at least eight such tendencies are universal, i.e. appear in every single form of life : The tendency to select the proper kind of raw material and the proper kind of raw energy present in the environment. The tendency to synthesize new, highly selective forms of chemical structures. The tendency to utilize biological material in the process of building the nano-, micro-, and macro-machines. The tendency for a relatively rapid, continuous production and replacement of all the elements of the functional structures of the body. The tendency for a relatively rapid, continuous modification of the functional structures in a way which makes them more efficient within a changing environment. The tendency to repair and to regenerate the damaged elements of the functional structures of the body. The tendency for multiplication, which means the production of such structures and the depots of the biological material as seeds, eggs, spores or buds. These structures, providing the environmental conditions are favorable, are starting points of new instances of the above described tendencies. The tendency—possibly universal—to provide all the structures of the body with the “recognition marks” which help to eliminate all the, “alien” bodies and to recognize members of the own kind. These tendencies are not homogeneous. Homogeneous tendencies can be illustrated by the tendency of bodies to attract one another. This kind of tendency was the empirical source of such abstract concepts as gravitation, electrostatic force or magnetic force. Biological tendencies are heterogeneous and, at the same time, integrated. Human intellect is capable of recognizing the fundamental indivisibility of the set. A great number of observations and experiments have revealed and verified the fundamental indivisibility of the whole set of these tendencies. The concrete, bodily outcomes of these tendencies, however, are quite different in different families and orders of living things. Because of these differences the existence of different kinds of integrative principles was postulated. In this way a plurality of living substances was assumed. (shrink)

The paper presents a cognitive semiotic perspective on spontaneous gesturing (or singular gestures), understood as spontaneous co-speech embodied activity, devoid of linguistic properties, and not conforming to social conventions. In line with the cognitive-semiotic attitude, the paper addresses the so far underexplored methodological issue of complementing third-person methods of gesture studies with first- and second-person perspectives on speech and gesturing in line with phenomenological triangulation. Merleau-Ponty’s ideas presented in Phenomenology of Perception are the starting point for the exploration of aspects (...) of a phenomenological view of gestural meaning-making. Gesturing, as a meaning-making activity, is analyzed in terms of embodied accomplishment of meaning. Gestural bodily activity is subsequently analyzed in terms of pre-reflective self-consciousness and reflective self-consciousness. The paper is intended as a contribution to studies on the phenomenology of gesturing, with perspectives for further research sketched in the concluding section. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Życie a orientacja w rzeczywistości przyrodniczej [Life and Orientation in Natural Reality], by Jolanta Koszteyn.

Artykuł prezentuje i charakteryzuje sto-icką koncepcję wolności. Uważa się, że stoicki determinizm nie wyklucza koherentnej teorii wolności ludzkiej woli. Autor twierdzi, że stoi¬cy pozostawili wyjątek w teorii przeznaczenia, aby człowiek mógł być twórcą własnych myśli. Tylko w takiej sytuacji ludzie mogą być odpo-wiedzialni za efekty swych rozważań i ma sens uprawianie etyki normatywnej. Stoicy uważali, że aktów psychicznych nie dotyczy determinizm. Jest to założenie me-todologiczne, którego podstawą jest niemożliwość pełnego poznania przez człowieka tej sfery rzeczywistości. W rezultacie takiego rozumienia człowiek (...) może się ciągle zgadzać lub nie zgadzać z wydarzeniami występującymi na świecie i zależy to wyłącznie od niego samego. (shrink)

This article consisting of four points, shows the subject of multiple relationships between the realities of politics, ethics and the Catholic Church. The issue was presented on the basis of the writings and speeches of Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope Benedict XVI. Article begins with a presentation of the relationship between politics and ethics as seen in historical perspective. The second section presents the so-called „political ethics” of the first Christian communities in the light of the indications contained in some (...) of the New Testament writings (cf. 1 Thess; 1 Peter) being the basis for the Christian way of acting in the area of policy. The third section indicates some realities like: progress, science and freedom – considered sometimes as an unquestioned idols and that`s why named once by Ratzinger „myth of modernity” – as a threat to connectivity between politics and ethics. The fourth section discusses the teaching of the Catholic Church on politics and the need for its ethical practice. In addition it contains some concrete proposals of Ratzinger that can be used in contemporary debates on the fundamental values of a democratic state in contemporary pluralistic societies. It also refers to Pope Benedict XVI appeals for more ethics of politics. (shrink)

In view of current political and social challenges, the border between church and state, which was defined in the 19th century, should be reflected in a critical way. As a proposal, one could attempt to re–define this relationship by using the concept of civil society. The political sciences see the church as a part of civil society. The magisterium of the Catholic church and big parts of theology, however, never use this term. In order to better serve its mission, the (...) church with its material and immaterial resources should begin to understand itself as a part of civil society. This requires the church to be transformed into a «public church” and theology into «public theology”, a transformation which will not only help to build a more just society, but will also help the church to fulfil its own mission. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The main aim of this article is to investigate the reception of Owen’s ideas in the nineteenth-century Polish context. I argue that Owen’s ideas did not attract as much attention as those of, amongst others, Charles Fourier, Félicité de Lamennais, or – in the second half of the century – Karl Marx. Despite being overshadowed by other Romantic socialists, Owen’s reception in Poland can be described as having been marked by three phases. Though we can determine the general direction (...) of this reception, we can only demarcate the rough time frames of it. The first phase may be traced from 1830 until around 1860. It was marked by Polish radicals’ rejection of Owen’s ideas. The phase, which may be dated from roughly 1848, saw the reception of and critical engagement with Owen’s ideas by Polish conservatives. Ironically, conservatives represented the first political current in the Polish context, which made a real effort to analyse and engage with his ideas seriously. Finally, the third phase of reception was constituted by Marxist and modern socialists, who, in seeing themselves at the end of an historical teleology, read Owen, and other early socialists, as their ideological forefathers. (shrink)

The general ideas of this book are of double origin. One source is akin to the relatively recent current of biological thought named Evo-Devo. Second source belongs to a more ancient French philosophical tradition represented, among others, by Bergson and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Few words about the Evo-Devo research program. Its creation was prompted by the analysis of the developmental processes in the embryos of different species. About fifteen years ago some discoveries related to the dynamics of the embryological (...) development demonstrated a striking structural identity/stability of homeoboxes in different living forms. Homeoboxes are just small genes determining a strictly specific aminoacid sequence of short polypeptides which „act" like hormones, „regulating" the dynamism of the gradually developing body. The parentheses were used deliberately, to stress the arbitrary character of the „signalling". (shrink)

Biologists are not used to the term „substance". They prefer to say „a living being", „an organism", a „specimen of species Homo sapiens'' - for instance. Chemists, on the other hand, when they say „this is a new substance" they usually mean the same Aristotle would mean - I think. The chemical meaning of the term „substance" is closest to the one I am going to discuss in this paper. To know a substance, one has to accumulate and store a (...) multitude of different forms of evidence concerning this „natural behavior". So that concept of the „nature" of a given chemical substance is necessarily very complex and it cannot result from a single sensation, or a momentary observation. (shrink)

In the paper, several data reduction techniques for machine learning from big datasets are discussed and evaluated. The discussed approach focuses on combining several techniques including stacking, rotation, and data reduction aimed at improving the performance of the machine classification. Stacking is seen as the technique allowing to take advantage of the multiple classification models. The rotation-based techniques are used to increase the heterogeneity of the stacking ensembles. Data reduction makes it possible to classify instances belonging to big datasets. We (...) propose to use an agent-based population learning algorithm for data reduction in the feature and instance dimensions. For diversification of the classifier ensembles within the rotation also, alternatively, principal component analysis and independent component analysis are used. The research question addressed in the paper is formulated as follows: does the performance of a classifier using the reduced dataset be improved by integrating the data reduction mechanism with the rotation-based technique and the stacking? (shrink)

Polish intellectual historian Leszek Kołakowski proposed in the 1960s an innovative, now virtually forgotten, reimagining of a crucial concept in the history of Roman Catholicism: the idea of "Counter-Reformation." Kołakowski's lifelong affinity for early modern Europe's Catholic dissidents led him into dialogue in the era of Vatican II with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the leader of a movement of young Polish reformers who styled themselves "Catholic socialists." Seeing them as the bedrock of a new Catholic Counter-Reformation, Kołakowski sketched the role he hoped (...) Poland might play in reinventing not only Catholicism, but religious life in the modern world. (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)

Individual differences in police dog handlers The Polish adaptation of the NEO-FFI inventory was used in the present study to assess the personality of dog handlers. For diagnosis of the emotional intelligence, the Polish scale Popular Questionnaire of Emotional Intelligence was used. There were 601 participants out of the total estimated number of 1408 police dog handlers in Poland. The results were compared with normalization tests for the measures used. The personality profile and emotional intelligence of dog handlers differ significantly (...) from general population. Described in the NEO-FFI terms, police dog handlers are characterized by very low neuroticism, slightly above average extraversion, slightly below average openness to experience, a little above average agreeableness, and very high conscientiousness. In terms of emotional intelligence, they demonstrate higher control and understanding of emotions. It seems that the results obtained in the study may become relevant for the recruitment and training of police officers. (shrink)

The notion of meritocracy is among the keywords used in order to describe the contemporary world. It has become more and more an inherent concept of an order whose main factors are said to be globalization as well as the impact of free market philosophy on society and culture. The concept of meritocracy considers the nature of elites. On the one hand, meritocratic elites are taken from groups selected for their merits and competences, but on the other hand they avoid (...) their responsibility towards society and culture. Amongst many counterproposals it seems worthwhile to present the evangelical concept of elites which is deeply embedded in evangelical social teaching. Evangelical theology introduces in its social discourse the notion of the responsibility elites. According to evangelical theologians, the key task to overcome the growing social, economic and cultural crisis of today may be found in the rehabilitation of the notion of common good. Interpreted from a sociological as well as theological standpoint, responsibility elites play an important role when spreading the concept of the common good. The article presents theological guidelines of evangelical teaching on elites as well as evangelical proposals concerning the issue collating them with the broad diagnosis of the meritocratic elites. (shrink)

The future of labour appears as one of the crucial themes of the sociological and economic reflections. Sociologists and economists proclaim a shrinking scope of labour and, consequently, a certain elitism of jobs. In their opinion, professional work will be a privilege for those who are more skilled and better educated, and those who are able to face the challenges of the rapid technological progress. This will be causing an unknown future of the reality of both common unemployment and enforced (...) idleness, and, consequently, a deep social transformation. Questions related to human labour from the very beginning are an important field of involvement for the ecumenical movement. Theologians and churchmen of different Christian confessions, while striving for unity, put the stress on the common reflection and activity in order to counteract poverty and unemployment. An example is a biblical economics developed in the ecumenical movement, an attempt to apply both some specific biblical economic ideas and biblical general model of economic relations to the contemporary economic systems, to make them more just and more ecological. This article presents the most important elements of the biblical economics and considers their relevance for the sphere of human labour in the perspective of the oncoming crisis. Research methods encompass analysis of the presentations developed within the World Council of Churches as well as some sociological diagnosis concerning professional and wage work. (shrink)

One of the most interesting aspects of Józef Bocheński’s philosophy was its relation to Henri Bergson’s thought, particularly to his philosophy of religion. Unlike the majority of the Catholic philosophers at that time, Bocheński did not stress the significance of dynamic religion, but rather focused on the role of static religion in human life. In his view, what was of particular interest within this religion was its fabulation function. This direction of the philosopher’s research stemmed from the realism and empiricism (...) proper to the analytic philosophy developed by Bocheński and became increasingly visible as the years passed. In this text the author shows how Bocheński’s analyses of religion, referring to both daily human experiences and logic, moved towards Bergsonian static religion, while diverging from dynamic religion and its key notion of mysticism. (shrink)

In his texts, Józef Tischner referred to significant problems characteristic of the end of the communist regime and the first years of the liberal-democratic system in Poland. He tried to understand, among other things, the sources of Polish society’s disappointment with their regained political and economic freedom. This article discusses the late period of Tischner’s life and work, when his philosophy was heavily influenced by the ideas of Charles Taylor. On the one hand, the author analyzes Tischner’s attitude toward the (...) concept of ordinary life, while on the other, Tischner’s understanding of solidarity combined with the concept of the spirit of capitalism. The article shows numerous similarities and significant differences between the way of thinking of both philosophers. The former concern above all the consentaneous assessment of the disappearance of heroism in liberal-democratic societies, while the latter concern the discrepancies in the assessment of the possibility of fully implementing the idea of solidarity in these societies. (shrink)

Globalization is a cultural phenomenon. The authors present the thematically multi-dimensional and theoretically complex contribution of Polish research on globalization. They do not approach globalization as an abstract process, instead exploring it through the lens of clearly defined factors.

The so-called Common Sense Morality (C) is any moral theory that allows, or requires, an agent to accept special, non-instrumental reasons to give advantage to certain other persons, usually the agent’s friends or kin, over the interests of others. Opponents charge C with violating the requirement of impartiality defined as independence on positional characteristics of moral agents and moral patients. Advocates of C claim that C is impartial, but only in a positional manner in which every moral agent would acquire (...) the same relational characteristics if that agent was in a certain relationship to the given moral patient. The opponents of C reply that a theory that allows for positional characteristics is self-defeating; it violates the requirement of prescriptivity due to its inability to provide moral recommendations what should happen all things considered. Advocates of C retort that a moral theory should be prescriptive by telling every agent what to do, not what should the joint outcome of those activities be. In this paper I analyze the last two moves of this debate: the objection that C is self-defeating and the reply that there is a plausible moral theory (C) that accommodates positional characteristics of special moral reasons. I argue that the last move wins. In the process I sketch out a theory able to accommodate agent-relative moral reason. (shrink)

The paper explores possible influences that recent developments in the field of a branch of AI called Automated Discovery Systems might have upon some aspects of the old debate between Francis Bacon’s inductivism and Karl Popper’s falsificationism. Francis Bacon advocates mechanical induction as the legitimate, infallible method of science, and Karl Popper proposes his famous falsificationist view, according to which science proceeds by subsequent conjectures and refutations, and the question about where scientific hypotheses come from neither needs, nor is capable (...) of, logical analysis. The traditional method of discussing such methodological debates relies on the analysis of various historical examples of discoveries in order to see how well the two models of scientific method account for them. (shrink)