In his literary works, Witold Gombrowicz has developed an interesting concept of a person entangled in a social sphere. A human being, according to the author of Ferdydurke, is an intrinsic being autonomically shaping his or her attitude in relations with other people. It is rather other people's circle, a social form, that fundamentally conditions the way a particular person thinks and acts. The depiction of an individual, portrayed by Gombrowicz, is a scale of attitudes ranging from the attitude of (...) total submission to a social form to the attitude of peculiar freedom from the form. In my article I raise the questions of broadly understood “province-center” relations in the context of Gombrowicz's anthropological theses. Is the attitude of conformity and imitative adopting of thinking and behavior patterns characteristic of the “province” or of the “center” does? Is the “province” doomed to imitative nature of thinking and copying of what the “center” does? Where is it easier to free oneself from the social influence and reach intellectual and cultural autonomy? (shrink)

The health of newborns has always been subject to the natural lottery. When in the past a severely disabled baby was born, nature provided the “solution,” and the child did not survive. Medical technology has brought about a change; fetuses who would have died during pregnancy or newborns who once would have had little chance to survive are now kept alive. Although these technological advances do benefit many children, the dark side is that more severely handicapped babies are surviving.When a (...) severely disabled baby is born, all persons concerned are faced with emotional difficulties as well as moral and legal dilemmas. Questions that arise include whether it is acceptable, morally and legally, to allow the severely handicapped newborn to die by forgoing treatment or by direct intervention. (shrink)

Many recent events have contributed to the resurgence of the historically cyclical debate over euthanasia. Now, the focus rests on physician-assisted suicide. Many landmark events regarding physician-assisted suicide have occurred within the last year alone. For example, Derek Humphry's Final Exit recently became a best seller, giving people the detailed knowledge of how to “self-deliver” In The New England Journalbf Medicine, Dr. Timothy Quill shared his touching experience of assisting his patient “Diane” after she chose to decline treatment options for (...) leu- kemia. Dr. Jack Kevorkian made use of his highly publicized “death machine” to help Janet Adkins and subsequently, several other women, end their lives. (shrink)

Leading authors in their fields present an interdisciplinary panorama of vital themes of the philosophy of language and track their historical origins. This book gives new life to historical ideas and additional depth to current debates.

In this paper we show that if the real line \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} ${\Bbb R}$\end{document} is not a union of less than continuum many of its meager subsets then there exists an almost continuous Sierpiński–Zygmund function having a perfect road at each point. We also prove that it is consistent with ZFC that every Darboux function \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $f\colon{\Bbb R}\to{\Bbb R}$\end{document} is continuous on some set (...) of cardinality continuum. In particular, both these results imply that the existence of a Sierpiński–Zygmund function which is either Darboux or almost continuous is independent of ZFC axioms. This gives a complete solution of a problem of Darji [4]. The paper contains also a construction (in ZFC) of an additive Sierpiński–Zygmund function with a perfect road at each point. (shrink)

In the paper we discuss criticisms against David Armstrong’s general theory of truthmaking by Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Peter Schulte and Benjamin Schnieder, and conclude that Armstrong’s theory survives these criticisms. Special attention is given to the problems concerning Entailment Principle, Conjunction Thesis, Disjunction Thesis and to the notion of explanation.

Contemporary development of research methods and tools is often conducive to ambitious art studies, in which the research methodology and study protocol are the result of negotiations between creative and research strategies. The article discusses the key sources, possibilities, and threats of interdisciplinary projects often referred to as practice-as-research. The following comparison of the orders of the scientific methodology and the artistic convention allows one to show the similarities and potential points of contact between science and art, which are independent (...) of the different values and methods of evaluation in both of these areas. The research-based practice model by Pil Hansen and Bruce Barton is also presented as a solution that takes these issues into account. It is also used to present the project of Interdisciplinary Center for New Technologies of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the Art & Science Research Foundation om—organisms and machines in culture (FUNom) the project "Neurophysiology of the Artist in Performance", which is a bold example of the transdisciplinary activities of scientists and researchers. Its content is analyzed through the reports of artists, researchers, and participants taking part in public presentations of the project. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In 1991 the Dutch government released the results of the first national investigation into the nature and extent of decisions concerning end of life including euthanasia. A significant finding was that most cases of euthanasia were not reported. This prompted us to ask what effect, if any, not reporting caused. More specifically, we asked whether reporting has a positive or negative impact on the experiences of friends or relatives of patients who have received euthanasia. In cases of euthanasia, complications (...) of both process and experience can deter from a minimally complicated death. These difficulties arise when either the family or physician does not perceive the freedom to disclose euthanasia openly. On the basis of interviews with family members and patients, we illustrate that they generally benefit from reporting. Our premise is that reporting fosters open discussion of euthanasia. We further suggest physicians and society benefit from a milieu of openness initiated by reporting cases of euthanasia. (shrink)

Research is ongoing concerning the medical risks and benefits of routine neonatal male circumcision. Interpretation of the data, however, is controversial. Circumcision presents a number of challenges in obtaining informed consent because of a variety of interesting issues. It is a nonemergent, elective procedure that allows for evaluation and discussion over time. In this respect, observation of the informed consent process for circumcision is relevant to other medical decisions, such as advance directives, discussed between primary care providers and patients. Obtaining (...) informed consent for circumcision has its constraints. The process generally occurs over a brief hospital stay. There have been recent changes in the official position regarding the procedure by professional medical societies, and it raises considerable psychologic issues for the provider and may Impact the way in which Information is provided. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn 1991 the Dutch government released the results of the first national investigation into the nature and extent of decisions concerning end of life including euthanasia. A significant finding was that most cases of euthanasia were not reported. This prompted us to ask what effect, if any, not reporting caused. More specifically, we asked whether reporting has a positive or negative impact on the experiences of friends or relatives of patients who have received euthanasia. In cases of euthanasia, complications of (...) both process and experience can deter from a minimally complicated death. These difficulties arise when either the family or physician does not perceive the freedom to disclose euthanasia openly. On the basis of interviews with family members and patients, we illustrate that they generally benefit from reporting. Our premise is that reporting fosters open discussion of euthanasia. We further suggest physicians and society benefit from a milieu of openness initiated by reporting cases of euthanasia. (shrink)

We will prove that there exists a model of ZFC+"c = ω 2 " in which every $M \subseteq \mathbb{R}$ of cardinality less than continuum c is meager, and such that for every $X \subseteq \mathbb{R}$ of cardinality c there exists a continuous function f: R → R with f[X] = [0, 1]. In particular in this model there is no magic set, i.e., a set $M \subseteq \mathbb{R}$ such that the equation f[M] = g[M] implies f = g for (...) every continuous nowhere constant functions f, g: R → R. (shrink)

Bacterial chemotaxis is often considered to be a textbook example of the rudimentary semiotic process. As such, it gives an excellent opportunity to better understand both semiosis and biology. Our study reviews this phenomenon in the light of up-to-date scientific knowledge to answer the most basic semiotic questions: what is the sign? What types of signs are there? What is the meaning understood on the molecular level, and by what means can it grow with time? As a case study, the (...) bacterial chemotaxis toward glucose in E. coli species is chosen, and the semiotic framework of Charles Sanders Peirce applied. The analyses provide us with the following results: the sign, in its ultimate nature, is a general process. Bacterial chemotaxis can be understood in terms of Peircean type, symbol, and argument. The meaning on the molecular level is entirely pragmatic and, in this case, reduced to a bacterial response to glucose. A sign can grow through sign generalization, the emergence of different sign categories, the integration of these categories in functional cycles, and the introduction of contextuality. The sign of bacterial chemotaxis extends from the cell signaling pathways up to the population level. The presented results advance our knowledge of sign processing in the context of semiotic evolution. (shrink)

This paper initially follows the final part of the debate between singularism and descriptivism to the point of convergence, and discusses the notion of acquaintanceless singular thought. Then a sketch of a mental files model is presented. Firstly, the triggering mechanisms for opening files are discussed. Two kinds of discourse situations, acquaintance-situations and decoding-situations, are identified and different triggering mechanisms are postulated for each. Secondly, a bipartite structure of a file is introduced, combining an objectual part, encompassing what traditionally has (...) been associated with the notion of a mental file, serving the purpose of storing information about the referent of the file, and a metadata part, serving the purpose of storing information about the file itself. Being capable of encoding a variety of types of mental files, this structure is then employed to illustrate how singularity/descriptivity of the files can be manipulated and how we can account for the cognitive discernibility of files containing identical objectual information and grounded with the same acquaintance relations. (shrink)

The paper is a rejoinder to a challenge against the particularist version of the mental files framework posed by the relationist approach based on the notion of content coordination [such as recent attempt by Rachel Goodman and Aidan Gray in ]. Relationists argue that important explanatory goals of MFF: could be achieved without positing files as mental particulars, as there is a relationist notion of content coordination at hand that can be aptly used for “filing without files”; and should be (...) so achieved, as there are difficulties that afflict the particularist approach to MFF and the relationist account is simply better. However, both claims should be rejected. The particularist approach to MFF, properly interpreted, would not get into the troubles it is accused of generating. Indeed, it is the relationist approach that gets in trouble. Specifically, it lacks resources for explanation of nuances, which can be easily accounted for in terms of particularist interpretation, and, furthermore, it lowers the interdisciplinary standing of the whole framework. The particularist version is therefore better. (shrink)

In the paper the author tries to show that semantico-categorial analysis in the traditional Ajdukiewiczian application as a tool of evaluating semantic completeness of complex expressions is ineffective. There is, however, another application, to which the analysis is much better fitted. Namely, it allows to precisify the actual uses of natural language - in all those cases in which on the one hand precision is a superior value, and on the other hand, the formalisation is not possible and one has (...) to stay within natural language. Obviously, in order to achieve this aim many particular problems, sometimes not at all trivial, have to be solved. Amongst the most important the author sees determining a binding canon of the rules of analysis and determining pragmatic criteria of the admissibility of paraphrases and of filling in ellipses. (shrink)

The starting point of my considerations is the idea that the criteria of rationality should be distinguished from the essence of rationality (in linguistic formulation: from a non-criterional connotative definition) and that the question of the universality of rationality arises separately for the criteria and for the essence. I notice that a similar distinction between the essence (or a definition) and the criteria applies to the notion of truth. The thesis which constitutes ny standpoint is a compromising one: the criteria (...) (the sets of criteria) of rationality change in time and in space, the essence of rationality is universal and unchangeable. Therefore, the principal challenge for the comprehensional conception of rationality, which is to back up my standpoint, is a formulation of a good, non-criterional connotative definition of the rationality of science. My definition is the following: „Science is rational” means „the consecutive stages of its development allow us to better understand (in an identificatory sense) the world”. (shrink)

The editor rounds up the discussion between Tadeusz Ciecierski and Leopold Hess by pointing out that their conclusions are not as opposed as they are trying to show. On the contrary, on some interpretation one may even suggest that both views can convergently approach to some picture of the semantics of proper names. Roughly, the interpretation is that historical form of the debate about proper names has some drawbacks (as Hess points out) that could be mended if shifted to the (...) problem of nominal use (as Ciecierski would have it). (shrink)

The paper is divided into two parts. Part one (published in Filozofia Nauki, no 1-2/1995) contains revies of main types of rationality that can be found in literature, and an attempt to point out various relations among these types. Part two is devoted to analysis of some issues concerning detailed problems of rationality (e.g.: How to define rationality? Is rationality decidable? Does it come in degrees?).

The claim of this paper is that theism and atheism as beliefs about the nature of the universe are equally distant from any sort of proper justification by reasoning, but that faith cannot be reduced to any sort of belief. This claim is illustrated by a survey of several case-studies, including the case of moral sense, the so-called “God gene” and discoveries of Benjamin Libet on “free” movement. The illustrations attempt to show that only some imagerial associations connected with these (...) cases, and respectively with religious beliefs, would make an impression of incoherence, not their actual content. The conclusion of the paper would echo the statements of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who said in his Oxford University Sermons: “Faith is an instrument of knowledge and action, unknown to the world before, a principle sui generis, distinct from those which nature supplies, and independent of what is commonly understood by Reason”. Some implications of this conclusion, such as the notion of the rationality of faith, an account of the relation between science and theology, or the problem of agnosticism, are discussed, too. (shrink)