In a small literary gem full of sardonic wit, brilliant insights, and provocative criticism Witold Gombrowicz discusses Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Heidegger in six "one-hour" essays—and addresses Marxism in a "fifteen-minute" piece. "Who hasn't wished for a painless way to find out what the big shots of philosophy—Hegel and Kant, Nietzsche and Sartre—thought of the human condition? It has never been easy reading such formidable thinkers, and most explainers and textbooks either get it wrong or massacre the (...) language. So imagine my pleasure in opening Witold Gombrowicz's _Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes_, an exceptional effort at summarizing concepts in bold, declarative sentences.... [This book] is like the course in philosophy you wish you had taken."—David Lehman, _Bloomberg News_ "A must for every reader of Gombrowicz."—Denis Hollier, New York University. (shrink)

This volume is written jointly by Witold Marciszewski, who contributed the introductory and the three subsequent chapters, and Roman Murawski who is the author of the next ones - those concerned with the 19th century and the modern inquiries into formalization, algebraization and mechanization of reasonings. Besides the authors there are other persons, as well as institutions, to whom the book owes its coming into being. The study which resulted in this volume was carried out in the Historical Section (...) of the research project _Logical Systems and Algorithms for Automatic Testing of Reasoning,_ 1986-1990, in which participated nine Polish universities; the project was coordinated by the Department of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science of the Bia??l??ystok Branch of the University of Warsaw, and supported by the Ministry of Education 1987). The major part of the project was focussed on the software for computer-aided theorem proving called Mizar MSE ) due to Dr. Andrzej Trybulec. He and other colleagues deserve a grateful mention for a hands-on experience and theoretical stimulants owed to their collaboration. (shrink)

Without an exaggeration we can adapt an expression “from a manifesto to progress” as a motto for neurophenomenology. As the manifesto can serve an article: “Neurophenomenology – a methodological remedy for the hard problem”. The aim of the research program initiated by the late Francisco Varela was to naturalize phenomenology in the frame of neurobiology, and to apply it to the different areas of theory and practice in science and philosophy. It meets certain challenges like the explanatory gap or the (...) problem of clarity and credibility of the subjective reports. (shrink)

In 2006 Tomasz F. Bigaj published in English a book "Non-locality and the Possible Worlds. A Counterfactual Perspective on Quantum Entanglement". He considered the question whether a satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics in the standard form should include the assumption of a non-local, immediate influence of one part of a specific quantum system (like two electrons in the singlet state) on the other, spatially separated part of that system. Bigaj - following H. Stapp - chooses as conceptual instruments of his (...) analysis counterfactual conditional statements and possible-worlds semantics of such statements. After thorough examination of different Stapp's arguments, he reaches the conclusion "that no matter what available interpretation of counterfactuals we decide to follow, there is no need in standard quantum mechanics for measurement-included non-locality". My critique concerns mainly Bigaj's selection of conceptual tools: the counterfactuals and possible-worlds semantics. I point to the fact that such selection assumes the "necessitarian" interpretation of laws of nature in the domain of micro-objects (e.g. for systems like two electrons in the singlet state). The different, "regularist" interpretation of physical laws in that domain is possible as well, and counterfactual arguments are not valid for such interpretation. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the evolution of Hilary Putnam’s early, i.e. functionalist, views in the philosophy of mind. It distinguishes between the following two alternatives: weak functionalism, which asserts that traditional ontological questions about the mind are, in fact, pseudo-problems; and strong functionalism, the claim that the nature of mind can be discovered empirically if one acknowledges that mental states are defined relationally, without direct recourse to the properties of the brain. By analyzing Putnam’s reasons for rejecting weak functionalism and type (...) physicalism the author arrives at the conclusion that Putnam was wrong on both counts: weak functionalism was not an unstable position, and if one is willing to make some reasonable assumptions, strong functionalism is reducible to type physicalism. Finally, an attempt is made to isolate the causes of the premature success of strong functionalism. (shrink)

The considerations presented in the paper are an attempt to prove that free access to all scientific publications is evaluated on some world scientific forum. Scientists have to make selections among scientific publications again and again. In order to economise the scientist' time it is proposed to execute selections in three phases: the first phase - preliminary - even without seeing the relevant publications, and only on the basis of the title, author's name, names of publishers and journals, list of (...) references, blurbs etc.; the second phase (with the relevant publications at hand) - the verification of results of the first preliminary phase on the basis of rough reviewes of the publications; the third phase - selective - the verification of results of the second phase by attentive studies of selected publications. (shrink)

La compréhension de la raison humaine a été déterminante pour la phénoménologie de Husserl. Des Recherches logiques à la Krisis , le problème de la raison semble l'un de ses principaux thèmes de réflexion. Husserl aborde la question sous plusieurs angles distincts, évoquant les concepts de monde, de temps et de responsabilité. Ses découvertes l'ont conduit à identifier la crise de la culture. Les commentateurs doivent aujourd'hui mettre en question le concept husserlien de raison, s'ils veulent comprendre pleinement cette thèse. (...) Cet article fait valoir que le concept de raison de Husserl est élaboré en corrélation avec celui de non-raison, conduisant les phénoménologues à adopter une division binaire entre rationalité et irrationalité. Par contraste avec les commentateurs qui accentuent le caractère rationnel de la phénoménologie husserlienne, cet article affirme que l'introduction du concept d'irrationalité dans l'investigation phénoménologique élargit significativement la compréhension initiale de la phénoménologie telle qu'elle est définie dans les Recherches . Husserl fut confronté à cette question par ses propres recherches. En conséquence, on affirme ici que la phénoménologie a connu un développement immanent menant de la thèse de la raison objective à celle de la corrélation entre raison et non-raison. (shrink)

The paper presents two objections against Putnam’s Twin Earth argument, which was intended to secure semantic externalism. I first claim that Putnam’s reasoning rests on two assumptions and then try to show why these assumptions are contentious. The first objection is that, given what we know about science, it is unlikely that there are any natural-kind terms whose extension is codetermined by a small set of microstructures required by Putnam’s indexical account of extension determination. The second objection is that there (...) may not be a plausible concept of a speech community whose adoption would classify Oscar and Twin Oscar as members of different speech communities and, at the same time, render Oscar and Twin Oscar as being in the same psychological state. I contend that Putnam’s argument fails because both objections are justified. (shrink)

During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Witold Kieżun served in the Home Army’s “Harnaś” [Highlander] Special Unit. During an assault on the Polish Post he personally took 14 Germans prisoner, seizing large quantities of arms. He also singlehandedly damaged a German tank in the district Wola. A unit under his command captured the parish office of the Holy Cross Church and a heavy machinegun, and was the first to enter the city’s police headquarters, where it seized another heavy gun.During the (...) Uprising Witold Kieżun was decorated with the Cross of Valor, he also received the Virtuti Militari from the hands of the Home Army Supreme Commander. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE On the Rhetorical Point of View. Why rhetoric declined, and what remained of it. Once upon a time rhetoric was a vast and influential branch of ...

Author: Trzeciakowski Witold Title: TWO VISIONS OF THE HUMANITY – DAYBREAK OF ZYGMUNT KRASIŃSKI AND HYMNS TO NIGHT OF NOVALIS (Dwie wizje nowej ludzkości: Przedświt Zygmunta Krasińskiego i Hymny do Nocy Novalisa Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2006, vol:.6, number: 2006/1, pages: 71-90 KEYWORDS: KRASIŃSKI, NOVALIS, HEGEL, GESCHICHTSPHILOSOPHIE Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:In dem Aufsatz Zwei Vorstellungen zur Zukunft der Menschheit – „Przedświt” von Zygmunt Krasiński und „Hymnen an die Nacht” (...) von Novalis analysiert und vergleicht Wiesław Trzeciakowski zwei für die polnische und deutsche Romantik bedeutende visionäre Vorstellungen über die Zukunft der Menschheit. Den beiden Poeten erscheint sie als eine ganze und zugleich einheitliche Potenz ihrer gesamten geistigen Möglichkeiten zu sein. Auf der Erde lässt sich die Einheit der Menschheit durch Mitgefühl und gegenseitige Liebe ihrer Mitglieder erkennen. So versteht man die auf diese Weise begriffene Menschheit als Gott getreue Universalität, die nachseinen Geboten lebt. Diese Anschauung von Z. Krasiński erkennt man auch in Hegels Geschichtsphilosophie, besonders im Begriff des Gegensatzkampfes: die widerstrebenden Kräfte vernichten sich, um eine neue Qualität hervor zu bringen, wodurch sie dann am Ende im Einklang stehen. Novalis verwendet dagegen, um dieselbe Idee auszudrücken, Begriffe aus der Alchemie. Die miteinander kämpfenden Gegensätze sind aufgelöst in der Liebe und werden durch sie als Schlüssel für die Natur- und Menschenerkenntnis anerkannt. Geht Novalis’ all sein Sinnen und Trachten an den Mystizismus, an die endgültige Synthese der Alchemie (Hochzeit der Metalle), Glauben an die Gnosis, die Mysterien der Antike (besonders bei der Göttin Isis am Tempel zu Sais) sowie der Christenheit, so sieht die Quelle der Inspiration von Krasiński anders aus. Sie basiert auf seiner eigenen Geschichtsphilosophie der christlichen Märtyreridee, in der er die Geister der Opfer aus der antiken Nero-Zeit beschwört, deren Blut die Legitimation für die Existenz der Christenheit bildet. Ihr Tod war nicht fruchtlos, den tiefsten Sinn ihrer Qual stellt das Kreuz sowie die Auferstehung Christi dar. Graf Z. Krasiński lebte am liebsten in Rom, wo er sich als polnischer Poet und Denker politisch und geistig frei fühlte. Er stellte die Teilung Polens in den Kontext zur Kreuzigung Christi und der christlichen Geschichte, wobei die Geschichte keinen Selbstzweck darstellt. In der Zeit des irdischen Daseins von Menschen geht es doch nicht nur um die reine körperliche Existenz und die Weitergabe von Leben, was häufig von Z. Krasiński in seinem Werk betont wird. (shrink)

The article discusses the essence of English loan words in German with particular emphasis on the present situation, but also contains a reference to the past and literature. It is also a slightly modified version of my speech on the occasion of Professor Ryszard Lipczuk’s 65th anniversary.