Just War Theory debates discussing the principle of the Moral Equality of Combatants involve the notion of Invincible Ignorance; the claim that warfi ghters are morally excused for participating in an unjust war because of their epistemic limitations. Conditions of military deployment may indeed lead to genuinely insurmountable epistemic limitations. In other cases, these may be overcome. This paper provides a preliminary sketch of heuristics designed to allow a combatant to judge whether or not his war is just. It delineates (...) the sets of relevant facts uncontroversially accessible and inaccessible to contemporary professional soldiers. Relevant facts outside these two sets should by default be treated as inaccessible until proven otherwise. Even such a rudimentary heuristic created in this way demonstrates that practical recommendations of MEC-renouncing Just War Theory are not too challenging to follow and still signifi cantly impact a compliant combatant’s behavior. (shrink)

Efforts to ban Autonomous Weapon Systems were both unsuccessful and controversial. Simultaneously the need to address the detrimental aspects of AWS development and proliferation continues to grow in scope and urgency. The article presents several regulatory solutions capable of addressing the issue while simultaneously respecting the requirements of military necessity and so attracting a broad consensus. Two much stricter solutions – regional AWS bans and adoption of a no first use policy – are also presented as fallback strategies in case (...) achieving AWS’ compliance with the Laws of Armed Conflict proved elusive. Together, the solutions presented form an outline of a flexible regulatory strategy able to adjust to different technological outcomes and providing a sensible compromise to solve the current deadlock on the AWS issue. (shrink)

The aim of this paper was to analyze the relationship between attitudes toward physical activity and participation in water sports events and to recognize the main motives for involvement in these kinds of events. A written paper–pencil diagnostic survey was conducted among 394 participants in two traditional and two modern sports events on water held in Poland to ascertain whether innovative events are needed in society, and whether they cause an increase in interest in physical activity. The research results showed (...) that modern sports events on water did not have any more power to attract physically inactive people than traditional water events, did not produce a greater desire to lead an active lifestyle, and did not encourage people to more regularly practice water sports. Moreover, modern events, compared to traditional events, were only a one-time experience and the people who completed survey often wanted to return to traditional sports events which provided participants with greater positive emotions than a modern event. In the case of socio-demographical variables, there was no statistically significant relationship between gender and choice of modern or traditional event, but older people were more likely to choose a traditional event than younger people; modern water events were an attractive option primarily for young people under 30 years of age, furthermore, modern events more often attracted people who had completed higher education. However, it turned out that a modern event on water often attracted more people who had had no experience in this sport discipline rather than people who chose traditional water events. In a sense, modern events are therefore effective in promoting water sports in Polish society. We also distinguished five main groups of participants: healthy lifestyle managers, lovers of sports emotions, water sports malcontents, water sports enthusiasts, and neutrals to water sports. Additionally, we looked into gender-related motives for participation in modern and traditional water events: social and health-related motives proved to be more important for women and men who participated in modern water events. The research results presented in the article expand on the current state of knowledge about mass participation in sport, the impact of sporting events on the promotion of physical activity, and show the motivation behind participation in modern and traditional water sporting events. (shrink)

Arguments from human dignity feature prominently in the Lethal Autonomous Weapons moral feasibility debate, even though their exists considerable controversy over their role and soundness and the notion of dignity remains under-defined. Drawing on the work of Dieter Birnbacher, I fix the sub-discourse as referring to the essential value of human persons in general, and to postulated moral rights of combatants not covered within the existing paradigm of the International Humanitarian Law in particular. I then review and critique dignity-based arguments (...) against LAWS: argument from faulty targeting process, argument from objectification, argument from underappreciation of the value of human life and the argument from the absence of mercy. I conclude that the argument from the absence of mercy is the only dignity-based argument that is both valid and irreducible to another class of arguments within the debate, and that it offers insufficient justification for a global ban on LAWS. (shrink)

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection finds application far outside biology, for which it was originally invented. Its consequences for science proved far-going, influencing practically every field from thermodynamics to the humanities. While acting on biological systems, the Darwinian mechanism is a source of progress and the local-scale abandonment of the universe’s general tendency towards chaos. However, observations of changes taking place in selection-exposed organisms show that evolutionary success requires some essential limitations. The application of this (...) reasoning to social evolution may appear thought-provoking: stable evolution requires not only intense selection but also a conservative approach to ideas. (shrink)

In his life and work, Leszek Kołakowski traversed many paths, some more and some less well-known. The main focus here is on Kołakowski’s involvement in what one may call an anthropological variant of philosophy of culture. Anthropological philosophy of culture bases on the following assumptions:1. Human conduct is determined by culture. There is neither humanity without culture nor culture without humans.2. Human conduct is by nature referential, in other words, the factual alone is not enough for humans who tend to (...) reach beyond it in their search for the most elemental and ultimate truths.3. Culture is a dynamic phenomenon and a challenge on the path to self-awareness.4. Axiological sensitivity.5. The culture philosopher is immersed in the culture he studies and, by revealing that which it conceals, is a source of reflection on this culture. All these assumptions lie at the core of the philosophy of Leszek Kołakowski. (shrink)

Building on our diverse research traditions in the study of reasoning, language and communication, the Polish School of Argumentation integrates various disciplines and institutions across Poland in which scholars are dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of the force of argument. Our primary goal is to craft a methodological programme and establish organisational infrastructure: this is the first key step in facilitating and fostering our research movement, which joins people with a common research focus, complementary skills and an enthusiasm to work (...) together. This statement—the Manifesto—lays the foundations for the research programme of the Polish School of Argumentation. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the concept of an illocutionary rule - i.e., the rule of the form "X counts as 7 in context C" - and examine the role it plays in explaining the nature of verbal communication and the conventionality of natural languages. My aim is to find a middle ground between John R. Searle's view, according to which every conventional speech act has to be explained in terms of illocutionary rules that underlie its performance, and the view (...) held by Ruth G Millikan, who seems to suggest that the formula "X counts as Y in context C" has no application in our theorizing about human linguistic practice. I claim, namely, that the concept of an illocutionary rule is theoretically useful, though not explanatorily basic. I argue that using the formula "X counts as Y in context C" we can classify illocutionary acts by what Millikan calls their conventional outcomes, and thereby make them susceptible to naturalistic explanation. (shrink)

Reputation is often seen as central to the coordination of transactions in sharing economy platforms. Participants perform a double role regarding reputation management: while engaging in exchanges with other peers, they build their individual ‘reputation capital’ and simultaneously execute community oversight. In Couchsurfing (CS), a network often cited as paradigmatic of the sharing economy, there is, however, a clear bias for positive references. In the digital economy literature, participants’ friendly behaviour is understood as motivated by self-interest and an incentive to (...) maintain a positive reputation. Social research on reputation in CS attributes the bias to fear of retaliation, but also hints at norms of reciprocity leading travellers to require positive feedback for hospitality. This article analyses the lived experience of reputation management in CS and argues that participants seek to reconcile direct and general reciprocity. It proposes breaking these practices down into boundary-work and creative avoidance and argues these result in insufficient protection of inexperienced participants against problematic members. (shrink)

This book is about time and its powerful influence on our personal and collective daily life. It presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of contemporary knowledge on temporal psychology inspired by Zimbardo's work on Time Perspective (TP). With contributions from renowned and promising researchers from all over the globe, and at the interface of social, personality, cognitive and clinical psychology, the handbook captures the breadth and depth of the field of psychological time. Time perspective, as the way people construe (...) the past, the present and the future, is conceived and presented not only as one of the most influential dimensions in our psychological life leading to self-impairing behaviors, but also as a facet of our person that can be de-biased and supportive for well-being and happiness. Written in honor of Philip G. Zimbardo on his 80th birthday and in acknowledgement of his leading role in the field, the book contains illustrations of the countless studies and applications that his theory has stimulated, and captures the theoretical, methodological and practical pathways he opened by his prolific research. (shrink)

In the article I discuss functionalist interpretations of Husserlian phenomenology. The first one was coined in the discussion between Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre. They argue that Husserl’s phenomenology shares similarities with computational functionalism, and the key similarity is between the concept of noema and the concept of mental representation. I show the weaknesses of that reading and argue that there is another available functionalist reading of Husserlian phenomenology. I propose to shift perspective and approach the relation between phenomenology and (...) functionalism from a methodological perspective, specifically taking into account the functionalist explanatory strategy called functional analysis. I discuss the notion of function in Husserl’s works and Husserl’s idea of functional phenomenology. The key argument I develop is that in functional phenomenology we can find an explanatory strategy which is analogous to the strategy of functional decomposition used in functional analysis. I conclude that the proposed functionalist reading of phenomenology opens a new approach to the integration of phenomenology with cognitive sciences. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to use Marina Sbisà’s idea of interactional negotiation to consider what it is for conversing agents to follow illocutionary conventions or, as John L. Austin would put it, what it is for an illocutionary act to be done as conforming to a convention. The chapter is organized into two parts. In the first one, I use the Austinian notions of uptake and response as well as the Lewisian concept of accommodation to discuss a few (...) examples of force negotiation and develop a model of its underlying mechanisms. In the second part, I suggest that interactional negotiation plays a key role in the functioning of all language conventions—phatic, rhetic, illocutionary, etc.—construed along the Millikanian lines, i.e., as families or lineages of linguistic precedents. My contention is that the ideas I propose in this chapter are compatible with Sbisà’s theory of speech acts and can be regarded as its possible extension. (shrink)

The paper is a contribution to the debate on the epistemological status of thought experiments. I deal with the epistemological uniqueness of experiments in the sense of their irreducibility to other sources of justification. In particular, I criticize an influential argument for the irreducibility of thought experiments to general arguments. First, I introduce the radical empiricist theory of eliminativism, which considers thought experiments to be rhetorically modified arguments, uninteresting from the epistemological point of view. Second, I present objections to the (...) theory, focusing on the critique of eliminativism by Tamar Szabó Gendler based on the reconstruction of famous Galileo's Pisa experiment. I show that her reconstruction is simplistic and that more elaborate reconstruction is needed for an appropriate assessment of the epistemic power of general argument. I propose such a reconstruction and demonstrate that general version of Pisa experiment is epistemically equal to the particular one. Thus, from an epistemological perspective, Galileo's thought experiment is reducible to a straightforward argument without particular premises. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to introduce the work of Leopold Blaustein — philosopher and psychologist, who studied under Kazimierz Twardowski in Lvov and under Husserl in Freiburg im Breisgau. In his short academic career Blaustein developed an original philosophy that drew upon both phenomenology and Twardowski’s analytical approach. One of his main publications concerns Husserl’s early theory of intentional act and object, introduced in Logische Untersuchungen. In the first part of the article I briefly present Blaustein’s biography and (...) some general features of his philosophy. The second part provides an overview of Blaustein’s dissertation concerning Husserl’s early phenomenology. In the third and final part I summarize Blaustein’s research, including the critical remarks of Roman Ingarden. (shrink)

If a firm provides incentives by promoting those who have performed well in a job, it may transfer them to a job to which they are not well suited and agents are promoted to their levels of incompetence. Tournaments are an alternative to reputation as a means of ensuring that firms reward good performance when performance is unverifiable.

This paper differentiates between two readings of Aristotle’s argument that unity and being are not “genē” (UBANG for short). On the first reading – proposed by commentators such as Ackrill, Shields, Loux, and McDaniel – UBANG entails the proposition that there are no features that characterise all beings insofar as they are, referred to by its contemporary proponents, including McDaniel, as ‘ontological pluralism’. On the second reading – proposed here – UBANG does not entail this proposition. The paper argues that (...) only on the second reading does Aristotle’s argument secure its conclusion, that the second reading is, in fact, the correct reading of UBANG, and that anyone who thinks that UBANG succeeds and entails ontological pluralism probably equivocates between two different senses of ‘genos’. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 132-160, April 2022. Autonomic nervous system activity is a fundamental component of emotional responding. It is not clear, however, whether positive emotional states are associated with differential ANS reactivity. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analytic review of 120 articles, measuring ANS activity during 11 elicited positive emotions, namely amusement, attachment love, awe, contentment, craving, excitement, gratitude, joy, nurturant love, pride, and sexual desire. We identified a widely dispersed collection of studies. Univariate (...) results indicated that positive emotions produce no or weak and highly variable increases in ANS reactivity. However, the limitations of work to date – which we discuss – mean that our conclusions should be treated as empirically grounded hypotheses that future research should validate. (shrink)

The common view has it that there are two families of approaches towards the logical structure of impossible worlds – Australasian and North American. According to the first, impossible worlds are closed under the relation of logical consequence of one of the non-classical logics. The North American approach is more liberal, allowing for impossible worlds where no logic holds. After pointing out the questionable consequences of each view, I propose a third one. While this new perspective allows for worlds where (...) no logical consequence holds, it also imposes some constraints on what worlds are built upon. This renders the proposed view not as restrictive as the Australasian approach and not as liberal as the North American approach. Due to its intermediary nature, I have named this perspective ‘the Pacific’ approach. (shrink)

Clinical Ethics Consultations are an important tool for physicians in solving difficult cases. They are extremely common in North America and to a lesser extent also present in Europe. However, there is little data on this practice in Poland. We present results of a survey of 521 physicians practising in Poland concerning their opinion on CECs and related practices. We analysed the data looking at such issues as CECs’ perceived availability, use of CECs, and perceived usefulness of such support. Physicians (...) in our study generally encounter hard ethics cases, even—surprisingly—those who do not work in hospitals. Most physicians have no CEC access, and those that do still do not employ CECs. However, physicians perceive this form of support as useful—even more so among actual users of CECs. We compared these findings with similar studies from other European countries and the North America. We point out peculiarities of our results as compared to those in other countries, with some possible explanations. We hope the results may encourage regulatory debate on the need to formally introduce CECs into the Polish healthcare system. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the phenomenon of faultless disagreement for predicates of taste may be fruitfully explained by appealing to the vagueness of predicates of taste and the epistemicist reading of vagueness as defended by Timothy Williamson (1994). I begin by arguing that this position is better suited to explain both the “faultless” and “disagreement” intuition. The first is explained here by appealing to the necessary ignorance of the predicate’s boundaries and a plausible account of constitutive norms of (...) taste assertions, while the second by insisting on classical, absolutist semantics for judgments containing predicates of taste. Furthermore, I analyze the arguments against the reading of taste predicates as vague based on the alleged epistemic privilege concerning one’s taste and on the lack of definite cases. Responding to these objections, I develop a plausible account of constitutive norms of taste assertions, comment on the assumed epistemic privilege concerning taste ascriptions and provide a more detailed account of sources of the vagueness of predicates of personal taste, which I dub “super-vagueness.”. (shrink)

This paper discusses three different contemporary uses of philosophy and literature in non-philosophical and non-literary texts. Most often, both discourses are used as tools, and they are invoked instrumentally in popularizing literature or in teaching. Philosophy and literature can also be treated as a source or starting point for reflection outside its mother field, or even as a cause of various social and political processes. The most interesting usage of both discourses is to refer to them as the symptoms or (...) signs of the times allowing us to make diagnoses about the present. These uses of the two discourses show the similarities between literature and philosophy on a purely pragmatic level that is relevant to their contemporary functioning in a non-specialist sphere. The convergence in this regard is a testimony to the transformation of the position of both discourses in the contemporary humanities involving the loss of their privileged position. At the same time, literature and philosophy in this crisis situation are gaining new areas of influence in public discourse, realizing their cognitive and reflexive potential through their utilitarian use. (shrink)

Artykuł podejmuje polemikę z obiegowym rozumieniem tolerancji. Autor podkreśla znaczenie podziału na tolerancję jako postawę i na dyskursy o tolerancji. Następnie, w nawiązaniu i częściowo w dyskusji z koncepcją tolerancji zaproponowaną przez Iję Lazari Pawłowską, przedstawione jest rozróżnienie trzech odmian tolerancji, a także rozróżnienie odpowiednich trzech odmian nietolerancji. Rozważane są również niektóre paradoksy związane z tolerancją oraz ze zwalczaniem nietolerancji.

This paper explores the wandering during the Night of Culture, which I consider an essential practice for the people's experience of this event. Looking at this particular form of movement of those participating in this initiative between various event locations also allows us to see the implications of the Night of Culture for urban public spaces. The empirical base of the paper is the visual documentation of the events carried out during the Night of Culture during the 2023 edition. While (...) interpreting the material, I refer to the situationist theory of drift and then reconstruct the structure of the festival's wandering, its rhythm, the type of attention bestowed on the city by the participants, and the form of this ephemeral community. In conclusion, I propose that the atmosphere of places can be used to analyse the city-forming effects of the Night of Culture, to grasp better the specificity of the event and its risks and potentials. (shrink)

In the first Critique, Kant raises two objections against Aristotle’s categories. Kant’s concern, in the first instance, is whether Aristotle generated all categories that there are and if he did not generate any spurious categories. However, for Kant, this is only a symptom of the second – deeper – flaw in Aristotle’s thinking. According to Kant, Aristotle generated his categories ‘on no common principle.’ This paper develops the two Kantian objections, offers an overview of Brentano's (1862. Von der Mannigfachen Bedeutung (...) des Seienden nach Aristoteles. Freiburg im Brisgau: Herder’sche Verlagshandlung.) reconstruction of Aristotle’s categories (which claims to have addressed them), develops three objections to this reconstruction, and recommends (Trendelenburg, A. 1846. Geschichte der Kategorienlehre. Berlin: Verlag von G. Bethge.) as a better – albeit still flawed – Aristotelian reply to Kant. (shrink)

This paper develops a new argument for ontological pluralism—the thesis that being fragments. The argument goes, roughly, as follows. It is conceivable that some beings are ontologically dissimilar. So, it is possible that some beings are ontologically dissimilar. This is sufficient for ontological pluralism. So, being fragments.

The paper offers a critical analysis of the skeptic’s conviction that his doubts about the truth of thought on existence of the world outside the mind are not equivalent to real the doubts about existence of the world alone, but they are only a theoretical and speculative problem of knowledge. The main case of this criticism is based on the Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s philosophy, precisely, on his theory of truth.

We study a class of finite models for the Lambek Calculus with additive conjunction and with and without empty antecedents. The class of models enables us to prove the finite model property for each of the above systems, and for some axiomatic extensions of them. This work strengthens the results of [3] where only product-free fragments of these systems are considered. A characteristic feature of this approach is that we do not rely on cut elimination in opposition to e.g. [5], (...) [9]. (shrink)

Introduction: A Theory of Democracy and Justice.

The Law of Peoples and Global Justice: Beyond the Liberal Nationalism of John Rawls The paper deals with the relation of a theory of international justice, specifically John Rawls's philosophy of the law of peoples, and a theory of global justice. In the first part, the paper outlines Rawls's main theses on the international conception of the law of peoples. The second part concerns a problem found in segments of Rawls's theory, specifically his concept of a social contract—contractualism. This problem (...) inadequately approaches the relationship between the individual and the community. The third part deals with the inconsistent points in Rawls's theory contained in part two, i.e. his principles of justice selected with the aid of social contract. In the fourth part, the paper concentrates on the consequences of these limitations for a socially distributive dimension of justice or as an approach for dealing with disproportionate global inequalities. The last part formulates the causes of the limitations of Rawls's theory of international justice and points out the need for a global justice which is socially and inter-culturally considerate. (shrink)

Recent research observed a sensitive window, at about 14 years of age, in the acculturation rates of Chinese immigrants to Canada. Tapping an online sample ofusimmigrants, we tested these relationships in a broader population and explored connections with new potentially causally related variables: formal education, language ability and contact with heritage-culture and mainstream United States individuals, both now and at immigration. While we found that acculturation decreased with age at immigration and increased with years in theus, we did not observe (...) a similar sensitive window. We also present an exploratory path analysis, exposing the relationships in our sample between acculturation and the variables above. The novel relationships documented here can improve theorising about this rich and complex empirical phenomenon. (shrink)