Jednym z elementów współczesnej kultury są seriale telewizyjne, w przeważającej mierze charakteryzujące się brakiem jakichkolwiek wartości artystycznych oraz intelektualnych. Do nielicznych pod tym względem należy serial pt. Dr House. Centralną kwestią w tym serialu jest postawa moralna głównego bohatera. Krytycy dostrzegli w niej wiele analogii do moralności Nietzscheańskiego nadczłowieka. W artykule podjęto próbę ukazania, że w moralności dr House'a odzwierciedla się Nietzscheański model estetyzacji moralności, polegający na tym, że kryterium etycznej słuszności czynów jest wolność jednostki i jej autonomiczność w kształtowaniu (...) swego życia jako dzieła sztuki. (shrink)

This paper challenges Daniel Dennett’s attempt to reconcile the performance of mind and brain within a physicalist framework with Jaegwon Kim’s argument that a coherent physicalist framework entails the epiphenomenalism of mental events. Dennett offers a materialist explanation of consciousness and argues that his model of mind does not imply reductive physicalism. I argue that Dennett’s explanation of mind clashes with Jaegwon Kim’s mind-body supervenience argument. Kim contends that non-reductive physicalism either voids the causal powers of mental properties, or it (...) violates physicalist framework. I conclude that Dennett’s account of mind does not escape or overcome Kim’s mind/body supervenience problem. If Kim’s argument does not prove Dennett’s explanation of mind to be either a form of reductive materialism, or a logically inconsistent view, it is due to the ambiguity of concepts involved in Dennett’s theory. (shrink)

Jest to tłumaczenie Zarysów Pyrrońskich Sekstusa Empiryka. W pliku znajduje się początek wstępu oraz I sposób powściągnięcia sądu. This is a complete Polish translation of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism. In the file you may find the beginning of the Preface and the translation of the I mode of suspension of judgment.

This article reminds the reader of the views of Voltaire, one of the most prominent and influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. Voltaire’s radicalism manifested itself mainly in anticlericalism which was consistent, uncompromising and voiced without mincing words. A general aim of this article is to demonstrate to his contemporary imitators, who can be found in different countries including Poland, that they are in fact more or less accurate copies of him and they are not always aware of whom (...) they imitate and what value this imitation has. Perhaps this article can make them, if not more restrained in their statements and practical actions, at least more self-critical and taking into account what is expressed in public discourse. (shrink)

Classical Political Philosophy in Popular Discourse combines two scientific paradigms-classical political philosophy and contemporary, empirical sociology. The chief aim of this unique scientific project is to explore, operationalize, and reconstruct a political doctrine appearing in social discourse, exemplified by Polish society.

Philosophical interests of Joseph Życiński in the domain of the philosophy of science were focused on the debate concerning the nature of science and philosophy of science that followed the Einstein-Planck revolution in science. The unexpected discovery of the philosophical, extra-scientific presuppositions in science, as well as of the extra-rational factors determining the way these presuppositions are accepted in science were to be explained within the meta-scientific framework. It is the aim of this paper to present ˙ Życiński’s diagnosis of (...) this post-revolutionary situation in the philosophy of science as well as his critique of the metascientific answers to this challenge. The reasons will be given why all those answers are put under two dichotomous rubrics of _internalism_ and _externalism_. It will be also explained how Życiński intends to supersede this false in his opinion opposition with a new concept of the doxatic rationality. However, the details of the metascientific proposal of Życiński will be given only in the subsequent paper. In order to perform the aim of the paper the metatheoretic tools set out by Popper will be used. (shrink)

Jest to początek Zarysów Pyrrońskich Sekstusa Empiryka, ks. I (1-30) w nowym przekładzie. Całość tekstu ukaże się w Wydawnictwie UMK w połowie roku 2019. -/- This is the opening part of Sextus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism (I 1-30). The translation of the treatise will be published by Wydawnictwo UMK in the 2019.

One of the main problems of modern rationalistic theories of science is the non-eliminability of the subjective factor in the development of science. Temperate rationalism of Newton-Smith was an attempt to solve this problem. J. Życiński developed his own version of temperate rationalism in which the subjective factor played much more substantial role. In the article I am presenting his specific idea of the personal _commitment_ as a necessary condition for rationalism and science. In the first section I proceed to (...) reconstruct ˙ Życiński’s argument leading him to the conclusion of this epistemological necessity. Next in the section 2 I present his idea of the epistemological uncertainty principle as a consequence of the subjective _commitment_. In sections 3 and 4 I explore axiological and pragmatic aspects of the Życiński solution. Finally, in the section 5 I do compare his temperate rationalism with Newton-Smith’s proposal in the context of the Polanyi’s idea of personal knowledge showing differences in their respective approach to the role of the subjective factor in science and rationalism. (shrink)

Carl Jung paid a short visit to Taos, New Mexico, in January 1925. A brief account of his stay at the Pueblo appeared in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, edited by Aniela Jaffe in 1963. Remembering his conversations with Mountain Lake, Jung wrote of the confrontation between the “European consciousness,” or the “European thought,” with the Indian “unconscious.” My article provides a reading of Jung’s text as a meeting ground of the aesthetic, emotional, visionary and of the analytical, rational, explanatory. Like many (...) other European and Anglo-American visitors to Taos Pueblo, Jung rediscovers its capacity to mirror the inner needs of the visitor; he examines the significance of the encounter with the Southwestern landscape and with the Pueblo Indians’ religious views in terms of self-reflection and of the return to the mythical. As Carl Jung’s “inner comprehension” of the Pueblo Indian’s philosophy is mediated through language, aware both of its desire and its inability to become liberated from the European perspectives, Mountain Lake’s attitude towards his visitor from Switzerland remains ultimately unknown; Mountain Lake does, however, communicate his readiness to assume the archetypal role of a teacher and a spiritual guide whose insights reach beyond the confines and mystifications of language. According to Jung’s account, during this brief encounter of the two cultures, he and his Indian host experienced a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, the sources of which, as they both understood them in their own individual ways, resided in the comprehension of universal sharing. (shrink)

Published in 1542, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s La relación is a chronicle of the Pánfilo de Narváez’s 1527 expedition to the New World in which Cabeza de Vaca was one of the four survivors. His account has received considerable attention. It has been appreciated and critically examined as a narrative of conquest and colonization, a work of ethnographic interest, and a text of some literary value. Documenting and fictionalizing for the first time in European history the experience of travelling/trekking (...) in the region which now constitutes the Southwest in the United States, Cabeza de Vaca’s story testifies to the sense of disorientation, as well as to the importance of psychological and cultural mechanisms of responsiveness and adaptability to a different environment. What allows the Moroccan-American contemporary writer Laila Lalami to follow that perspective in her book The Moor’s Account is an imaginative transfer of the burden and satisfaction of narrating the story of the journey to the black Moroccan slave whose presence in the narratives of conquest and exploration was marginal. In Lalami’s book, Estebanico becomes the central character and his role is ultimately identified with that of a writer celebrating the freedom of diversity, one who survives to use the transcultural experience of the past creatively in ways well suited to the needs of the current moment. (shrink)

In the paper we discuss the problem of limitations of freedom in mathematics and search for criteria which would differentiate the new concepts stemming from the historical ones from the new concepts that have opened unexpected ways of thinking and reasoning. We also investigate the emergence of category theory and its origins. In particular we explore the origins of the term functor and present the strong evidence that Eilenberg and Carnap could have learned the term from Kotarbiński and Tarski.

Though it is evident that seriously and irreversibly defective infants are born in Poland, as well as in other socialist countries we do not know really what is the existing medical practice concerning their treatment or non-treatment. No representative empirical investigations were conducted with respect to it. We believe, however, that for the majority of doctors this is not a genuine moral problem at all. They feel simply morally, legally, and professionally obliged to treat those unhappy creatures without any regard (...) to economic and moral cost of treatment. It is highly plausible that this attitude is common to all socialist countries. All the factors mentioned in this paper (religion, ideology, medical education, paternalism, remembrance of Nazi doctors’ criminal practice, the legal situation, and the health care system) have a direct influence on the moral beliefs and attitudes of doctors in socialist countries. And even in those countries in which there are different religious traditions (like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, or the German Democratic Republic) there is a deeply-entrenched belief that preserving any human life is the principal and absolute duty of a doctor, one which must be fulfilled at any cost. We should also keep in mind that in this part of the world hardly any distinction at all is made between euthanasia and ordinary murder. (shrink)

Jest to wybór z pracy Gadamera "Idea dobra..." Zawiera Przedmowę, Zakres problemu, Rozdział I (Sokratejska wiedza i niewiedza) oraz Posłowie tłumacza. This is the opening part of the Polish translation of Gadamers' The idea of the good... with the Translator's afterword.

This is the interview with Prof. Stefan Swieżawski, an eminent medievist and enthusiast of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy.

This paper explores some variants and aspects of multi-quantificational criteria of existence, examining these in the context of the debate between monism and pluralism in analytical philosophy. Assuming familiarity with the findings to date, we seek to apply to these the newly introduced concepts of “substitution” and “substitutional model”. Possible applications of formal theories involving multiple types of existential quantifier are highlighted, together with their methods of construction. These considerations then lead to a thesis asserting the irrelevance of both multi-quantificational (...) criteria and assumptions involving quantificational ontology to the debate between monism and pluralism in ontology. Many quantifiers cannot properly distinguish different modes of existence–as we aim to show by furnishing a general method for constructing counter-examples to any theory that assumes that different types of existential quantifier correspond to different modes of existence. (shrink)

Brzezinski predicts that the interface between ethics and science will be the new frontier of politics, and it will place on the shoulders of democratic leaders and those concerned with human rights, the obligation to be at least part-time scientists and philosophers.

W niniejszym artykule (bardzo wybiórczo) chciałbym przedstawić poglądy Jana Jonstona (Johannes Jonstonus) 1603-1675 na dzieje przyrody i człowieka oraz pokrótce przedstawić jego sylwetkę. Rekonstruując owe filozoficzne i metodologiczne kwestie, warto także przytoczyć kilka zagadnień związanych z życiorysem tego uczonego oraz z recepcją jego dzieł. Jonston był przyrodnikiem, lekarzem i filozofem. Obecnie jest mało znany i zapomniany, a w konsekwencji jego filozofia przyrody i filozofia człowieka, jego wizja świata, a więc w pewnym sensie i Kosmologia, uległy zapomnieniu i marginalizacji. Uległa także (...) zapomnieniu jego filozofia i metodologia nauki. Jonston należał do pokolenia Kartezjusza, jednakże jego poglądy na przyrodę i na naukę były bliższe filozofii brytyjskiej niż kontynentalnej i nawiązywały do idei, które sformułował Francis Bacon, a potem kontynuował Robert Boyle. Zapewne stanowisko Jonstona zostało ukształtowane w trakcie jego studiów na uniwersytetach w Wielkiej Brytanii. Owe inspiracje metodologią nauk zasługują, by były się przedmiotem osobnych rozważań, ale ze względu na ograniczony charakter pracy zostaną tu pominięte. Jonston w pracy O stałości natury (An history of the Constancy of Nature…) formułuje swoją wizję przyrody. Owa filozofia przyrody kształtuje się w konfrontacji z poglądami chiliastów dotyczącymi natury człowieka i pośrednio całej przyrody. Poglądy chiliastów wynikały ze specyficznej interpretacji Biblii mówiącej o „starzeniu się” świata człowieka, kultury, a w konsekwencji i przyrody. W związku z tym, że idea chiliastów obejmuje zjawiska przyrodnicze i antropologiczne, a w dodatku maja historyczny charakter, Jonston w swoich kontrargumentach musiał odwoływać się i do empirii, i do historii: Biblijnej, oraz naturalnej. Tym samym, współuczestniczył nie tylko w tworzeniu nowożytnej filozofii przyrody, ale także nowożytnej „historii naturalnej” i nowożytnej metodologii, postulującej matematyzację wiedzy o przyrodzie. (shrink)

W tych rozważaniach poddam pod dyskusję zarówno miejsce eklektyzmu w tradycji filozoficznej, jak i taki jego szczególny przypadek, jakim jest oświecony eklektyzm Denisa Diderota. Znawcy tradycji filozoficznych wskazują, że eklektyzm pojawił się już w początkach filozofii starożytnej, a później łączył się z odchodzeniem od dogmatyzmu starej Akademii Platońskiej i przechodzeniem do sceptycyzmu nowych Akademii. W czasach nowożytnych te tradycje były kontynuowane m.in. przez Erazma z Rotterdamu i Michela de Montaigne’a, a w epoce Oświecenia m.in. przez Diderota. Jego deklarowany i stosowany (...) w praktyce eklektyzm łączył się jednak nie tylko ze sceptycyzmem, ale także ze specyficznymracjonalizmem oraz naturalizmem. Skłonny jestem polemizować zarówno ze stanowiskiem, że stanowił on część składową ówczesnego sceptycyzmu (moim zdaniem to sceptycyzm był częścią składową tego eklektyzmu), jak i z poglądem, że jego miejsce można określić poprzez opozycję z jednej strony wobec kartezjańskiego dualizmu, natomiast z drugiej naturalistycznego monizmu. (shrink)

This paper seeks to determine the intuitive meaning of the concept of information by indicating its essential (definitional) features and relations with other concepts, such as that of knowledge. The term “information” – as with many other concepts, such as “process”, “force”, “energy” and “matter” – has a certain established meaning in natural languages, which allows it to be used, in science as well as in everyday life, without our possessing any somewhat stricter definition of it. The basic aim here (...) is thus to explicate what it amounts to in the context of its intuitive meaning as encountered in natural languages, what the subject of cognition implicitly presumes when using the term, and to which ontological situations it can be applied. I demonstrate that the essential features of the notion of information include the presence of a material medium, its transformation, the recording and reading of information encoded in the medium, and the grasp of what is recorded, coded and transmitted as an intentional object, where the latter is construed in terms broadly in line with the ontologies of Husserl and Ingarden. Along the way, a number of issues relating to the notion of information are also pointed out: the problem of informational identity, of the existence of virtual objects, and of the choice of an adequate information carrier, as well as formal-ontological problems, including those which concern relations between information carriers and intentional objects. (shrink)

The axiology embedded in a constitution refers to a political community in its most and its developed, modern form, which we refer to as a constitutional state. The basis of such a state institutional and legal structure, recorded in the fundamental law, is comprised of fundamental values that gradually filter into the consciousness and are subsequently universally accepted during a long-lasting, historical process which has been completed in a given cultural milieu. In order to indicate the values on which a (...) constitutional state is founded and which it embodies, it is necessary to reach back to the very beginnings of not only a modern state before the epoch of a constitution, but also to those of the state as such. An axiological appraisal of a state must be based on the specific content of the ethical order at its foundations. There is a specific ‘axiology’ of exerting power as such, the basic yardstick for which is effectiveness. When we aim to appraise or draft a specific constitution, this pragmatic perspective must be taken into account. A well-organised system of the institutions of the state’s authority is, primarily, one which operates effectively.Axiologically, the most important part of a constitution, the one where the ethical foundations of the state are spelled out expressis verbis, is the catalogue of basic rights. At present, the main problem is the inflation of these rights, not only by rendering them too detailed, but also by placing political stipulations, social privileges or expectations regarded as generally right among them. All these superfluous appendages not only litter the constitution, but also contribute to the devaluation of real fundamental rights as their meaning, essential to the maintenance of an interpersonal order, is diluted in the flood of quasi rights which have been added on. (shrink)

The contemporary cultural trends that introduce regulations weakening parental rights have also come to Poland. Under the influence of utilitarian-statist ideology, which sees the state and its officials as the primary educators and guardians of children, powers naturally enjoyed by parents are being questioned under various pretexts. One of these is the use of violence against children. Due to actions taken by the state towards family, institutional violence used by the state – which is often much more severe for children (...) – often becomes a remedy for parental violence. This text attempts to solve the problem by referring to the basic Kantian distinction between justified and unjustified violence, and to the priority of family and parental rights over the powers of the state. In the same way that the state can use violence towards citizens, so parents can use violence towards their children, as long as its scope and form stems from what is most important for the parental relationship: the categorical imperative of responsible love, aimed at encouraging a child on his or her way of growing up into responsible freedom. A symbol of such parental action is the act of spanking, which – when properly understood and properly used – is sometimes a moral duty of parents. (shrink)

How can liberty be implemented through state institutions? And what kind of liberty are we thinking about in the contemporary world, since this concept is generally acknowledged as ambiguous? In order to understand the modern state as a rule of liberty, one must investigate the essence of liberty itself. It is widely known that liberty can be viewed in many ways, but what kind of liberty can govern the contemporary political order? Among the philosophers who have examined authority from the (...) point of view of liberty is Benjamin Constant, who has distinguished liberty understood as personal security from liberty recognized as participation in political life, and who has likewise stressed that these two understandings of liberty are complementary. Another widely known vision of freedom is the division of liberty into negative and positive; the latter, in Berlin’s original understanding of the term, remains unclear. Such doubts however do not apply to the negative concept of liberty, as Berlin called it, or its equivalent in Constant’s understanding of liberty understood as personal security. Both authors concur that this understanding of liberty is fundamental, and should above all find its expression in contemporary state institutions. In order to reveal the logic of liberty thus understood, we must turn to its very roots; that is, to Thomas Hobbes’s concept of liberty. For it is Hobbes who first precisely defined that understanding of liberty, and who first consciously engaged in designing a state based from start to finish on the liberty of the individual. (shrink)

The current paper studies the formal properties of the Global Reflection Principle, to wit the assertion “All theorems of$\mathrm {Th}$are true,” where$\mathrm {Th}$is a theory in the language of arithmetic and the truth predicate satisfies the usual Tarskian inductive conditions for formulae in the language of arithmetic. We fix the gap in Kotlarski’s proof from [15], showing that the Global Reflection Principle for Peano Arithmetic is provable in the theory of compositional truth with bounded induction only ($\mathrm {CT}_0$). Furthermore, we (...) extend the above result showing that$\Sigma _1$-uniform reflection over a theory of uniform Tarski biconditionals ($\mathrm {UTB}^-$) is provable in$\mathrm {CT}_0$, thus answering the question of Beklemishev and Pakhomov [2]. Finally, we introduce the notion of a prolongable satisfaction class and use it to study the structure of models of$\mathrm {CT}_0$. In particular, we provide a new model-theoretical characterization of theories of finite iterations of uniform reflection and present a new proof characterizing the arithmetical consequences of$\mathrm {CT}_0$. (shrink)