In the Introduction to the Polish-language version of the present book I expressed the hope that Polish studies in semiotics would before long be numerous enough to make possible another anthology on semiotics in Poland containing material published since 1970. That hope has in fact come true. The fact that semiotic research has been gaining momentum in this country is reflected in the growing interest in the discipline, in expanding international contacts, and in the steady increase in the number of (...) publications. Thus, 1972 saw the setting up of the Department of Logical Semiotics, headed by the present writer, at Warsaw University Institute of Phi losophy. The seminar on semiotics, which I started in 1961, had met more than two hundred times by the end of 1976; since 1968, meetings have been held jointly with the Polish Semiotic Society. Another semi nar, confined to university staff and concerned with logical semiotics, which was inithted in 1970, had met more than fifty times by the end of 1976. The former seminar often plays host to foreign visiting pro fessors; so far scholars from Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, the German Democratic Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, and the United States have attended. (shrink)

The article presents so-called “derivational” theory of legal interpretation and analyzes its basic assumptions. The derivational theory of legal interpretation is still little known outside of Poland. The article is divided into two parts. The first part is presenting the normative model of legal interpretation according to the derivational theory. In the second part, the basic assumptions and features of the theory are analysed in context of some other approaches to legal interpretation. The author argues that there are two levels (...) of the derivational theory: local and universal. The local level of theory is related to the fact that it was designed for Polish legal system and legal culture. However, beyond its local features, the derivational theory is presenting strong theoretical framework and some significant universal ideas about legal interpretation. This creates universal level that can be called the “hard core” of the theory. The author characterizes the elements of this hard core, and in particular the most important element: the idea that the legal interpretation consists in the reconstruction of legal norms from legal provisions. (shrink)

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that folk knowledge attribution practices regarding some epistemological thought experiments differ significantly from the consensus found in the philosophical literature. More specifically, laypersons are likely to ascribe knowledge in the so-called Authentic Evidence Gettier-style cases, while most philosophers deny knowledge in these cases. The intuitions shared by philosophers are often used as evidence in favor (or against) certain philosophical analyses of the notion of knowledge. However, the fact that these intuitions are not universal, (...) as non-philosophers do not sympathize with verdicts made by philosophers, is problematic and requires some explanation. Recently, a promising theoretical approach emerged that could be used to explain away unexpected folk knowledge attributions. According to the protagonist projection hypothesis, when subjects answer questions about some hypothetical scenario, their judgments might result from adopting the cognitive perspective of the protagonist in the given scenario. Previous experimental findings suggest protagonist projection might be responsible for problematic knowledge attributions in Gettier-style cases. This paper reports data collected in an experiment which focused on five different Authentic Evidence Gettier-style scenarios and investigated the impact of protagonist projection on folk knowledge ascriptions in such cases. The results bring some support to the protagonist projection hypothesis, but do not allow to explain away a substantial number of problematic folk knowledge attributions. (shrink)

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth’s unduly neglected monograph New and Old Methods of Ethics (1877) advances a highly sophisticated and mathematized account of social well-being in the utilitarian tradition of his 19th-century contemporaries. This article illustrates how his usage of the ‘calculus of variations’ was combined with findings from empirical psychology and economic theory to construct a consequentialist axiological framework. A conclusion is drawn that Edgeworth is a methodological predecessor to several important methods, ideas, and issues that continue to be discussed in (...) contemporary social well-being studies. (shrink)

Herbert Spencer is one of the most distinguished representatives of Nineteenth-Century liberalism. Originality of his doctrine is based on combined concepts of social evolutionism with postulates of conservative liberalism. Ethics of an individual were the conceptual point of his philosophical reflection. Thus he believed that a free market economy is the economic foundation of ethical and material development of every individual. Material development may be summarized as achieving ever improving results of performed actions. According to Spencer, the free market critically (...) assesses the quality of goods through increasing demand for goods of better quality. In this manner effective producers develop, because they achieve greater gain from their work. Moral development of an individual is in turn focused on continuous self-improvement. Through developing his skills a man increases the quality of actions carried out by him or of objects that he creates. The “law of equal freedom” – also described by Spencer – is in direct connection with the aforementioned issues. This rule states that every man has the right to do anything, as long as his actions do not infringe upon the freedom of another man which is defined in exactly the same manner. Thus the law of equal freedom can be characterized as a negative freedom if juxtaposed with relations that occur between individuals themselves or between individuals and the state. Combining of ethical and economic topics leads to the presentation of inhibitions that, according to Spencer, should be placed upon the activity of the State in the field of economy. Spencer believed that the State should not interfere with the economy, since all individuals should be granted full freedom of participating in comply with their own interests. (shrink)

Since the early seventeenth century of Bacon, Gallileo and Descartes, the relations between science and religion as well as mind and body have remained volatile fault lines of conflict. The controversies surrounding these relations are as alive and pressing now as at any point over the course of the past four centuries. Adrian Johnston's transcendental materialism offers a new theoretical approach to these issues. Arming himself with resources provided by German idealism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, the life sciences and contemporary philosophical (...) developments, Johnston formulates an account of subjectivity that, although being both materialist and naturalist, does full justice to human beings as irreducible to natural matter alone. At the same time he argues against relapses into idealisms, dualisms and spiritualisms. Adventures in Transcendental Materialism elaborates Johnston's position through critical engagements with some of today's most important thinkers including Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Catherine Malabou, Jean-Claude Milner, Martin Hägglund, William Connolly, and Jane Bennett"--Back cover. (shrink)

The connections between forms of code and coding and the many crises that currently afflict the contemporary world run deep. Code and crisis in our time mutually define, and seemingly prolong, each other in ‘infinite branching graphs’ of decision problems. There is a growing academic literature that investigates digital code and software from a wide range of perspectives –power, subjectivity, governmentality, urban life, surveillance and control, biopolitics or neoliberal capitalism. The various strands in this literature are reflected in the papers (...) that comprise this special issue. They address topics ranging from social networks, mass media, financial markets and academic plagiarism to highway engineering in relation to the dynamics and diversity of crises. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this essay is to highlight and explore some of the underlying themes connecting codes and codings and the production and apprehension of ‘crisis’. We analyse how the ever-increasing intermediation of contemporary life by codes of various kinds has been closely shadowed by a proliferation of crises. We discuss three related aspects of the coupling of code and crisis (signification, performativity and excess) running across these seemingly diverse topics. We and the other contributors in this special issue seek to go beyond the restricted (and often restricting) understanding of code as the language of machines. Rather, we view code qua programs and algorithms as epitomizing a much broader phenomenon. The codes that we live, and that we live by, also tell us about the ways in which the ‘will to power’ and the 'will to knowledge' tend to be enacted in the contemporary world. (shrink)

For a little more than a decade, professional organizations and healthcare institutions have attempted to develop guidelines and policies to deal with seemingly intractable conflicts that arise between clinicians and patients (or their proxies) over appropriate use of aggressive life-sustaining therapies in the face of low expectations of medical benefit. This article suggests that, although such efforts at conflict resolution are commendable on many levels, inadequate attention has been given to their potential negative effects upon particular groups of patients/proxies. Based (...) on the well-documented tendency among many African Americans to prefer more aggressive end-of-life medical interventions, it is proposed that the use of institutional policy to break decision making impasse in cases for which aggressive treatment is deemed "medically inappropriate" will fall disproportionately on that group. Finally, it is suggested that the development and application of institutional conflict-resolution policies should be evaluated in the context of historical and current experiences of marginalization and disempowerment, lest such policies exacerbate that experience. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

John Scottus Eriugena (d. ca. 877) is regarded as the most important philosopher and theologian in the Latin West from the death of Boethius until the thirteenth century. He incorporated his understanding of Latin sources, Ambrose, Augustine, Boethius and Greek sources, including the Cappadocian Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Maximus Confessor, into a metaphysics structured on Aristotle's Categories, from which he developed Christian Neoplatonist theology that continues to stimulate 21st-century theologians. This collection of essays provides an overview of the latest scholarship on (...) various aspects of Eriugena's thought and writings, including his Irish background, his use of Greek theologians, his Scripture hermeneutics, his understanding of Aristotelian logic, Christology, and the impact he had on contemporary and later theological traditions. Contributors: David Albertson, Joel Barstad, John Contreni, Christophe Erismann, John Gavin, Adrian Guiu, Michael Harrington, Catherine Kavanagh, A. Kijewska, Stephen Lahey, Elena Lloyd-Sidle, Bernard McGinn, Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi, Dermot Moran, Giulio D'Onofrio, Willemien Otten, and Alfred Siewers. (shrink)

In this the second volume of his trilogy, Adrian Johnston delineates the philosophy of nature requisite for a properly materialist theory of irreducible autonomous subjectivity. Bringing to light a hitherto invisible undercurrent linking together Hegelian "Naturphilosophie," Marxian-Engelsian-Leninist dialectical materialism, Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalytic metapsychology, and today's approaches to metaphysics and the philosophy of science on both sides of the analytic-continental divide, he assembles an ontology that dramatically transfors our understandings of figures like Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Lukács, Freud, Lacan, Althusser, and (...) McDowell. In turn, this work looks to provide answer to the fundamental question: How must nature be conceptualized insofar as it happens to have eventuated in, and continues to contain the structures and dynamics peculiar to, full-fledged subjectivity? According to "A Weak Nature Alone," images of nature as akin to either a machine or organism in which each and every entity and event is governed by unbreakable causal laws preclude satisfying explanations of the emergence of human subjects with their spontaneous and self-determining capacities. Such explanations instead demand what Johnston as a "dialectical naturalism," namely, a materialism of a selfdenaturalizing nature radically altering itself in and through its human offspring. The transcendental materialism on display in "A Weak Nature Alone" is a systematic intervention that changes our senses of the philosophical past as well as the future while moving effortlessly within and between traditions and positions (Western and Soviet Marxisms, continental and analytic philosophy, etc.)"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

There remains no consensus among social scientists as to how to measure and understand forms of information deprivation such as misinformation. Machine learning and statistical analyses of information deprivation typically contain problematic operationalizations which are too often biased towards epistemic elites' conceptions that can undermine their empirical adequacy. A mature science of information deprivation should include considerable citizen involvement that is sensitive to the value-ladenness of information quality and that doing so may improve the predictive and explanatory power of extant (...) models. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

Standing institutions have a continuous existence: examples include the United Nations, the British Parliament, the US presidency, the standing committees of the US Congress, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Intermittent institutions have a discontinuous existence: examples include the Roman dictatorship, the Estates-General of France, constitutional conventions, citizens' assemblies, the Electoral College, grand and petit juries, special prosecutors, various types of temporary courts and military tribunals, ad hoc congressional committees, and ad hoc panels such as the 9/11 Commission and base-closing commissions. (...) Within the class of intermittent institutions, one may distinguish periodic from episodic institutions. The former come into being on a schedule set down in advance, while the latter come into being at unpredictable intervals. The Electoral College is a periodic institution, while the Roman dictatorship is an episodic one. This article attempts to identify the benefits and costs of intermittent institutions, both as a class and in their periodic and episodic varieties. The largest goals are to state some general conditions under which intermittent institutions prove superior or inferior to standing institutions, and to illuminate the temporal dimension of institutional design. (shrink)

In this article I examine the contemporary discourses and debates that surround the sociology of spirituality, with especial attention to the term “spirituality”. To counter the widespread belief that this term lacks clarity and utility, I suggest reconsidering Max Weber’s use of the term “spirit,” as it refers to a recognisable ethic that results in specific behaviour, while still retaining its religious and spiritual connotations. Through focusing on two influential English figures in the post 9/11 God debate in the West, (...) Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong, I provide a brief case study of how Weber’s understanding of “spirit” serves great utility in illuminating what drives the ideas, identity-making and behaviour of contemporary atheists and those defending religion. By utilising Weber’s “spirit,” rather than the term spirituality, I demonstrate that this enables us to dig deep into the social context and backgrounds of these two individuals, and to avoid taking their statements at face value – a common criticism of sociology of spirituality studies. I argue that the use of “spirit,” in terms of a recognisable ethic that results in specific behaviour, would benefit the sociology of spirituality. This is because it grounds the God debaters’ ideas and beliefs in a recognisable human experience that eludes reductive distinctions and disembodied abstractions. (shrink)