a This is an outline of a coherence theory of law. Its basic ideas are: reasonable support and weighing of reasons. All the rest is commentary.a (TM) These words at the beginning of the preface of this book perfectly indicate what On Law and Reason is about. It is a theory about the nature of the law which emphasises the role of reason in the law and which refuses to limit the role of reason to the application of deductive logic. (...) In 1989, when the first edition of On Law and Reason appeared, this book was ground breaking for several reasons. It provided a rationalistic theory of the law in the language of analytic philosophy and based on a thorough understanding of the results, including technical ones, of analytic philosophy. That was not an obvious combination at the time of the booka (TM)s first appearance and still is not. The result is an analytical rigor that is usually associated with positivist theories of the law, combined with a philosophical position that is not natural law in a strict sense, but which shares with it the emphasis on the role of reason in determining what the law is. If only for this rare combination, On Law and Reason still deserves careful study. On Law and Reason also foreshadowed and influenced a development in the field of Legal Logic that would take place in the nineties of the 20th century, namely the development of non-monotonic (a defeasiblea (TM)) logics for the analysis of legal reasoning. In the new Introduction to this second edition, this aspect is explored in some more detail. (shrink)

This paper critically tracks the impact of the development of the machine consciousness paradigm from the incredulity of the 1990s to the structuring of the turn of this century, and the consolidation of the present time which forms the basis for guessing what might happen in the future. The underlying question is how this development may have changed our understanding of consciousness and whether an artificial version of the concept contributes to the improvement of computational machinery and robots. The paper (...) includes some suggestions for research that might be profitable and others that may not be. (shrink)

We study expressive power of continuous logic in classes of metric groups defined by properties of their actions. We concentrate on unbounded continuous actions on metric spaces. For example, we consider the properties non‐OB, non‐FH and non‐FR.

The epistemicist theory aims to explain ignorance due to vagueness by semantic plasticity: the shiftiness of intensions across close possible worlds resulting from shiftiness in usage. This explanation is challenged by the Omniscient Speaker Puzzle (Sennet in Philos Stud 161(2):273–285, 2012). Suppose that an omniscient speaker, Barney, who knows all the facts about usage and how these facts determine the intensions of expressions, cooks up a scheme to stabilise the intension of a normally semantically plastic term like ‘rich’. It seems (...) that ‘rich’ would display all the phenomena associated with vagueness without being semantically plastic, thus making the epistemicist explanation of ignorance due to vagueness insufficient. In this paper, I present a few choice points for epistemicism that arise as a result of the puzzle. (shrink)

Epistemicism associates vagueness with ignorance produced by semantic plasticity: the shiftiness of intensions in our language resulting from small changes in usage. The recent literature (Caie 2012; Magidor 2018; Yli-Vakkuri 2016) points to a missing piece in the epistemicist theory of vagueness, namely a clear account of the semantics of the definiteness operator Δ. The fundamentals of the epistemicist theory are well understood. However, the technical work of defining the definiteness operator has proven difficult. There are several desiderata that we (...) would like Δ to satisfy. For instance, we would like the epistemicist notion of ‘definiteness’ to interact well with modal operators and validate intuitive principles like ‘necessarily, if φ is definitely true, then φ is true’. Providing an account that would meet all such desiderata has eluded the epistemicists so far. In this paper, I present a novel version of a multidimensional model inspired by the work of Robert Stalnaker and David Kaplan. Using this model, I provide an account of epistemicist definiteness that meets our desiderata. (shrink)

An analogue of Mathias forcing is studied in connection of free Boolean algebras and nowhere dense ultrafilters. Some applications to rigid Boolean algebras are given.

We assume—in contrast to many “legal realists”—that law is a part of reality. Law exists because people believe in law, but law is not identical with beliefs. Law supervenes on human beliefs, preferences, actions, dispositions and artefacts. Moreover, the morally binding personal interpretation of the law supervenes on two things together: on the individual's knowledge of legal institutions and on moral obligation. The first supervenes in its turn on mutual beliefs; the second supervenes on motivations and dispositions of the individual, (...) provided that she is morally sensitive and rational. Personal interpretation of law converts into social law, if other persons on the basis of overriding reasons do not contest it. Morally binding social law supervenes on moral motivation that is triggered by institutions that supervene on mutual beliefs. (shrink)

The debate on the Warsaw uprising has been conducted for fifty years now, showing deep differences of attitudes and judgments. To explain a defeat is always difficult. For sure—as in the case of the partitions of Poland’s territory at the end of the eighteenth century—some of the reasons for the defeat lie in the fact that the two invaders drastically outnumbered Polish forces. Other reasons may be due to those macro-political decisions which, once made, sentenced Poland to the fate of (...) a satellite within the eastern empire. What could be called the official stance on this subject proclaimed in the country, was reduced to stigmatizing the irresponsible, but tragic in its consequences—quotation from Stalin—“political adventure”. The political leaders and military commanders were unequivocally condemned. At the same time, the legend of the Warsaw Uprising first smoldered, and then started growing. At first, based on the oral tradition, later, fighting its way to publication, being revealed in exile, persevering in the country, the legend, which sought in the uprising the values worth passing to sons and latergrandsons. A complicated and different picture of the uprising’s motivations has been formulated in journalistic publications, hundreds of memoirs, scientific papers, and during meetings with the growing participation of younger historians. (shrink)

Procrastination as putting off until tomorrow what one had intended to do today is well-known tendency in everyday life. In an attempt to understand the character of procrastination in different life-domains, a large body of research has been accumulated over the last decades. This article was aimed to evaluate a specific decisional procrastination of school-to-work transition that is treated as maturity postponement. Two studies are reported examining SWT procrastination defined as career indecision among Polish students graduating universities. In Study 1, (...) attitudinal and identity statuses were analyzed as correlates of career procrastination. A path analysis conducted for the model, which was aimed to explain the influence of career self-efficacy and occupational commitment on career indecision, revealed its very good fitness. Those two independent variables explain 10% of career indecision variance. Stepwise multiple regression analyses conducted to ascertain relationship of five identity statuses to procrastination measure showed that Commitment Making and Ruminative Exploration are strongest predictor variables. In study 2, the stepwise multiple regression analyses conducted to ascertain the independent relationship of each of Big Five personality factor revealed that Neuroticism and Extraversion accounts of the most of explained variance of school-to-work transition procrastination. (shrink)

Lev Isakovic Sestov e annoverato fra gli eccezionali filosofi del XX secolo. Questo pensatore di origine giudea, e un continuatore della corrente esistenziale del pensiero religioso di Pascal e Kierkegaard. Viene, pero annoverato pure - del resto insieme ai filosofi menzionati - alla corrente del pensiero tragico. Questo non e contradditorio perche ambedue le trame sono presenti alla riflessione di Sestov, anzi esse sono Ii, cosi inseparabilmente intrecciate, che fino ad oggi la riflessione del pensatore russo essenzialmente sfugge da ogni (...) interpretazione univoca. Nel frammento seguente del teste sto dimostrando che per Sestov l'esperienza tragica non e soltanto un inizio deU'esperienza religiosa, ma anche la sua condizione indispensabile, come un'IIniziazione. Sestov cerca l'esemplificazione di questa coincidenza particolare - l'esperienza tragica come un'iniziazione religiosa - sugli esempi dei vari pensatori di cui ha scrutato non soltanto le opere ma anche le biografie, partendo dalla premessa che esse sono delle realta collegate inseparabilmente. Sestov cerca l'affermazione di questa verita studiando la vita e le opere dei pensatori non soltanto tragici come Shakespeare, Ibsen, Nietzsche o Dostoevskij, ma sopratutto dei pensatori religiosi come Pascal o Lutero e Kierkegaard. In questi ultimi quel collegamento del tragico e della reiigiosita si e fatto evidente, mentre negli altri esso era soltanto parziale e embrionale. (shrink)

Lev Isakovic Sestov e annoverato fra gli eccezionali filosofi del XX secolo. Questo pensatore di origine giudea, e un continuatore della corrente esistenziale del pensiero religioso di Pascal e Kierkegaard. Viene, pero annoverato pure - del resto insieme ai filosofi menzionati - alla corrente del pensiero tragico. Questo non e contradditorio perche ambedue le trame sono presenti alla riflessione di Sestov, anzi esse sono Ii, cosi inseparabilmente intrecciate, che fino ad oggi la riflessione del pensatore russo essenzialmente sfugge da ogni (...) interpretazione univoca. Nel frammento seguente del teste sto dimostrando che per Sestov l'esperienza tragica non e soltanto un inizio deU'esperienza religiosa, ma anche la sua condizione indispensabile, come un'IIniziazione. Sestov cerca l'esemplificazione di questa coincidenza particolare - l'esperienza tragica come un'iniziazione religiosa - sugli esempi dei vari pensatori di cui ha scrutato non soltanto le opere ma anche le biografie, partendo dalla premessa che esse sono delle realta collegate inseparabilmente. Sestov cerca l'affermazione di questa verita studiando la vita e le opere dei pensatori non soltanto tragici come Shakespeare, Ibsen, Nietzsche o Dostoevskij, ma sopratutto dei pensatori religiosi come Pascal o Lutero e Kierkegaard. In questi ultimi quel collegamento del tragico e della reiigiosita si e fatto evidente, mentre negli altri esso era soltanto parziale e embrionale. (shrink)

Wiaczesław Iwanow należy do głównych animatorów tzw. renesansu rosyjskiego. Razem z D. Mereżkowskim, W. Rozanowem i N. Bierdiajewem, a także w pewnej mierze z L. Szestowem, stworzyli oni specyficzny kult Fiodora Dostojewskiego. Ten kult nie ograniczał się do podziwu dla twórczości literackiej rosyjskiego pisarza, ale wyrażał się również w traktowaniu Dostojewskiego jako filozofa, teologa, a może nawet proroka, który dotknął wszystkich najważniejszych kwestii nie tylko rosyjskiej historii, ale także historii świata i to nawet w kontekście eschatologicznym. Jak to określił M. (...) Bierdiajew, Dostojewski „był prawdziwym filozofem, największym filozofem rosyjskim. My już od długiego czasu filozofujemy o rzeczach ostatecznych pod znakiem Dostojewskiego". W. Rozanow stwierdza natomiast, ze F. Dostojewski to „wszechświatowy publicysta o znaczeniu historycznym, którego zainteresowania wychodziły daleko poza codzienność, a w apelach swych zwracał się do wieków i narodów, będąc prorokiem zapatrzonym w wieczność". (shrink)

Christopher Arciszewski (1592–1656), Arian mercenary and man of many facets, conducted a journal in which, it is suspected, he described military campaigns, the state of the colony and other interesting phenomena he was able to observe during his time of service in Brazil. In 1641, Gerard Vossius was completing his magnum opus De theologia. In Chapter 8 of the first volume, Vossius discusses the “cult of the demon” among various peoples. As an example the Netherlander erudite provides a colorful description (...) of such a cult among the Brazilian Tapuya tribe. Since the author never traveled to Brazil, he makes use of the observations of Christopher Arciszewski. How does an Arian, brought up in an atmosphere of intense pluralism and far-reaching tolerance towards other belief systems (or at least imbued with a strong relativism), react when he encounters, first-hand, a culture utterly different, and completely alien to him? His presentation of a hierarchically constructed morality existent among various cannibalistic tribes is, in a sense, an intellectual breakthrough. Instead of treating the nativescollectively as one homogenous culture, as simply “savages”, Arciszewski distinguishes between various cultural units, and treats them individually. The nobleman attempts to convey their own views of morality not on the basis of European ethical systems, but on the local ones in place. In his day, such ideas were nearly unthinkable for most educated Europeans. Cannibalism of any kind was perceived as godless behavior, a sort of devilry, which would eventually be abolished with coming of the “light of Christianity” to the New World and the inevitable Europeanization of the natives. The reader can marvel at the extent to which Arciszewski is willing go in his relativism, to the point of sympathizing with the Tapuya. He allows them to explain to the reader the functioning of theirendo-cannibalistic culture. Arciszewski adds to the rationalization of cannibalism a detailed description of the death-rite among the Tapuya, presenting these ceremonial customs in accordance with their own beliefs, as something potentially interesting for humanistic intellectuals back in the Old World. Vossius’ book also discusses the question of the tribe’s spiritual beliefs: their conceptions of good and evil, deities, etc. The reader once again witnesses Arciszewski’s readiness to accept beliefs and deities completely unknown to European religion. The author does not prima facie discount the possibility that the “universal laws” operating in the Old World have no place in the Brazilian wilderness. His philosophical outlook, demonstrated by his rationalization of what had before been considered “magical” or “irrational”, is surely a foreshadowing of the rationalism of Enlightenment, whose modes of thinking constitute the core-foundation for alllater philosophical and scientific inquiry. Arciszewski, as an Arian brother par excellence, essentially operated with such conceptual tools as relativism, toleration and universalism, and his intellectual arsenal did not altogether differ from our own. As such, Arciszewski, and Europeans like him, helped free the Western worldview of its mediaeval philosophically limited conceptions of the cosmos, and propelled it in new directions of inquiry. This led eventually to a decided shifting of the European worldview away from superstition towards reason: the most definitively crucial moment in European intellectual history. (shrink)

Christopher Arciszewski, Arian mercenary and man of many facets, conducted a journal in which, it is suspected, he described military campaigns, the state of the colony and other interesting phenomena he was able to observe during his time of service in Brazil. In 1641, Gerard Vossius was completing his magnum opus De theologia. In Chapter 8 of the first volume, Vossius discusses the “cult of the demon” among various peoples. As an example the Netherlander erudite provides a colorful description of (...) such a cult among the Brazilian Tapuya tribe. Since the author never traveled to Brazil, he makes use of the observations of Christopher Arciszewski. How does an Arian, brought up in an atmosphere of intense pluralism and far-reaching tolerance towards other belief systems, react when he encounters, first-hand, a culture utterly different, and completely alien to him? His presentation of a hierarchically constructed morality existent among various cannibalistic tribes is, in a sense, an intellectual breakthrough. Instead of treating the nativescollectively as one homogenous culture, as simply “savages”, Arciszewski distinguishes between various cultural units, and treats them individually. The nobleman attempts to convey their own views of morality not on the basis of European ethical systems, but on the local ones in place. In his day, such ideas were nearly unthinkable for most educated Europeans. Cannibalism of any kind was perceived as godless behavior, a sort of devilry, which would eventually be abolished with coming of the “light of Christianity” to the New World and the inevitable Europeanization of the natives. The reader can marvel at the extent to which Arciszewski is willing go in his relativism, to the point of sympathizing with the Tapuya. He allows them to explain to the reader the functioning of theirendo-cannibalistic culture. Arciszewski adds to the rationalization of cannibalism a detailed description of the death-rite among the Tapuya, presenting these ceremonial customs in accordance with their own beliefs, as something potentially interesting for humanistic intellectuals back in the Old World. Vossius’ book also discusses the question of the tribe’s spiritual beliefs: their conceptions of good and evil, deities, etc. The reader once again witnesses Arciszewski’s readiness to accept beliefs and deities completely unknown to European religion. The author does not prima facie discount the possibility that the “universal laws” operating in the Old World have no place in the Brazilian wilderness. His philosophical outlook, demonstrated by his rationalization of what had before been considered “magical” or “irrational”, is surely a foreshadowing of the rationalism of Enlightenment, whose modes of thinking constitute the core-foundation for alllater philosophical and scientific inquiry. Arciszewski, as an Arian brother par excellence, essentially operated with such conceptual tools as relativism, toleration and universalism, and his intellectual arsenal did not altogether differ from our own. As such, Arciszewski, and Europeans like him, helped free the Western worldview of its mediaeval philosophically limited conceptions of the cosmos, and propelled it in new directions of inquiry. This led eventually to a decided shifting of the European worldview away from superstition towards reason: the most definitively crucial moment in European intellectual history. (shrink)

This essay explores figurations of death in Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. and Água Viva. As the other side of life, death in these novels is tied to the work of the unconscious desire that introduces generative rupture to the narrators’ experience of being, thinking, and writing. In making one wander at the limits of thought, language, and being, death also signals the encounter with femininity which leads to the disintegration of the human montage. While in Água Viva the (...) encounter with death unfolds through the instant – as the fleeting yet irreducible nowness – in The Passion it manifests through a gustatory and aural encounter with the mute cockroach and the absent maid’s mural. Along the way, the essay explores the specific savoir coming from death in Lispector’s novels alongside the clinic of psychoanalysis, primarily the recent work of the Freudian School of Quebec that has placed special focus on the links between the death drive and the aesthetic experience. I bring Lispector’s novels into conversation with psychoanalysis to propose that Clarice’s writing – just like the psychoanalytic clinic – fundamentally arises from the desire to uphold the unsayable dimension of death whose creative unfolding enables new modes of being, hearing, and thinking in – and with – the world. Indeed, in Clarice’s novels, to be on the side of writing is to be on the side of death that is both the herald of writing and the ravaging reverberation of the force of writing itself. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that instrumental rationality and utility that have been used in economics for many years does not work well. What is presented in the article is how significant the influence of utilitarianism has been on economics and why the economists get rid of humans’ goals and motivations. It is shown in the article that the human who decides in present is absolutely different from the human who decides over time. Many economists neglected this (...) problem because they wanted to have an effective and simple model. Becker’s economic method is presented as a dead end to which economics has been brought to. It is impossible to connect different selves of one human being by using the utility measure. The works of Schelling and J.S. Mill are used to explain this impossibility. The conclusion of this article is that instrumental rationality and utility have affected economics significantly. But, this simplified view on human nature is no longer valid. Hence, economics needs to think not only about the means but also about the human goals. Economics needs to rebuff relativism and show people how to achieve well-being. If we want to help people with their self-governance, we will have to choose reason over emotions. (shrink)

Die Kritische Sozialtheorie sowie die kommunistische Herrschaftsphilosophie haben in der posthegelianischen Befreiungslehre ihren Ursprung. Die Kritische Theorie versuchte diesen Denkansatz gegen seine totalitären Konsequenzen anzuwenden. Dieselben Weltdeutungschemata, die man an der Sowjetideologie anstößig fand, galten aber als akzeptabel, sobald man nur zur Kritik der westlichen Industriegesellschaft überging. Der Hauptpunkt der neomarxistischen Kritik des Sowjetsystems bestand darin, daß man die besondere institutionelle Form, in der der reale Sozialismus das Heil zu verwirklichen beanspruchte, in Frage stellte, ohne andere Lösungen der institutionellen Probleme (...) anzubieten oder das zugrundeliegende Denkprogramm aufzugeben, in dessen Kontext diese Probleme durchaus legitim gestellt werden konnten. Die relativen Leistungen der Kritischen Theorie sind in ihren sozial-politischen Folgen zu suchen, u. zw. darin, daß sie zwei Grundlagen der totalitären Ideologie, von der die Legitimierung des Gesellschaftssystems herrühte, erschütterte: (1) Verfügung über die Tradition; (2) Verfügung über die Sprache, in der über heilsrelevante Fragen gesprochen wurde. /// Both critical theory and communist philosophy arise from the posthegelian theory of salvation. Critical theory undertook the effort to preserve the hard core of this theoretical background and at the same time to criticize by its means the totalitarian consequences the communist ideology had derived from it. In effect, the very same patterns of thought which critical theory believed to denounce as instruments of totalitarian manipulation were accepted as soon as they proved useful to contest advanced industrial society and its world view. The crucial point of the new-leftist criticism of the Stalinist ideology was the rejection of a central claim of the latter according to which the salvation predicted in the leftist-revolutionary tradition has found its actual fulfilment in the institutional framework of the Soviet state. Challenging this claim, the Neomarxists neither abandoned this tradition nor offered another solution to the institutional problems which result from it. The relative achievements of critical theory lie in the damage it has caused to the two foundations of the totalitarian ideology, i.e.: (1) its authority over tradition and (2) its authority over language. (shrink)

Vom Blickpunkt der Wissenschaftslehre des Kritischen Rationalismus aus erscheint der Gedanke, es solle über die Grenzen der Disziplinen hinweg theoretisiert und geforscht werden, als keine atemberaubende Erfindung. Das Wort Interdisziplinarität ist nicht eindeutig, was man aber sinnvollerweise darunter verstehen kann, betrachtet der kritische Rationalismus als eine Konsequenz des (metaphysischen) Realismus. Deswegen weist das Thema Realismus auf den Kontext hin, in dem das Problem der Interdisziplinarität gestellt werden kann. Das kommt in den Beiträgen des ersten Teils des Sammelbandes zum Ausdruck. Die (...) im zweiten Teil versammelten Abhandlungen betreffen Fragen, die sich aus der “disziplinenübergreifenden” Anwendung der kritisch-rationalen Ansätze auf spezielle Probleme ergeben. (shrink)

Vom Blickpunkt der Wissenschaftslehre des Kritischen Rationalismus aus erscheint der Gedanke, es solle über die Grenzen der Disziplinen hinweg theoretisiert und geforscht werden, als keine atemberaubende Erfindung. Das Wort Interdisziplinarität ist nicht eindeutig, was man aber sinnvollerweise darunter verstehen kann, betrachtet der kritische Rationalismus als eine Konsequenz des Realismus. Deswegen weist das Thema Realismus auf den Kontext hin, in dem das Problem der Interdisziplinarität gestellt werden kann. Das kommt in den Beiträgen des ersten Teils des Sammelbandes zum Ausdruck. Die im (...) zweiten Teil versammelten Abhandlungen betreffen Fragen, die sich aus der “disziplinenübergreifenden” Anwendung der kritisch-rationalen Ansätze auf spezielle Probleme ergeben. (shrink)