Podíváme-li se na rané Platónovy dialogy, vidíme, že o co v nich jde především, je předvedení toho, že pojmy mají relativně jasné hranice, že zdánlivému chaosu užívání slov vládne jistý pevný řád, který si člověk dokáže i explicitně uvědomit, je-li k tomu vhodným způsobem veden. Snaha o zdůraznění a znázornění tohoto na první pohled neviditelného 'řádu v chaosu' pak podle mého názoru postupně vedla i ke konstituci Platónovy mytologie říše idejí, které, ač neviděny, hrají z hlediska viditelného světa klíčovou roli. (...) Skrytý řád přítomný ve zjevném chaosu je vykreslen jako participace (methexis) věcí zjevného světa na idejích světa neviditelného. A již Aristotelés poukázal na to, že tato mytologie, jakkoli může být její spektakulárnost užitečná v kontextu nedoceňování existence řádu, může být naopak velice zavádějící, jestliže ji začneme brát jako více než právě mytologii; konkrétně jestliže začneme zapomínat, že 'platónský svět idejí' dává smysl pouze jako nástroj porozumění či výkladu toho světa, ve kterém žijeme, a začneme ho vidět jako něco skutečnějšího, než je svět zjevný. Zdá se mi tedy, že platonismus se ve filosofii dostává ke slovu jako antidotum vždy tehdy, když dochází k absolutizaci 'chaotického aspektu' světa (to jest když je svět vykládán jako něco, co jakýkoli řád postrádá - ať už to má podobu herakleitovského absolutizace pomíjivosti, romantického zdůraznění nevázanosti a iracionality, či postmoderní akcentuace různorodosti a nesouměřitelnosti). Na druhé straně platonismus sám svádí k absolutizaci 'řádu' (před Platónem zosobňovaným zejména parmeninovským popřením jakékoli proměnlivosti, a později pak nabývají podob třeba racionalistického výkladu světa jako vtěleného rozumu nebo moderního scientistichého názoru, podle kterého je mírou všech věcí věda). Existují ideje ve své 'platónské říši' doopravdy? Odpověď na tuto otázku je ovšem podstatným způsobem ovlivněna tím, jak rozumíme termínu "existovat" (nemluvě o slově "doopravdy").. (shrink)

ONTOLOGIE (aneb Z čeho všeho se skládá svět) RELATIVISMUS A POSTMODERNA (aneb Má každý svou pravdu?) EPISTEMOLOGIE (aneb Jak můžeme o světě něco vědět?) FILOSOFIE JAZYKA (aneb Co je to jazyk a co je to význam?) STRUKTURALISMUS (aneb Co je to jazyk a co je to význam? podruhé) FILOSOFIE MYSLI (aneb Co to je mysl a kdo všechno jí může disponovat?) FILOSOFIE JAKO ANALÝZA MYSLI (aneb Jak nám naše mysl dává žít v našem světě?) FILOSOFIE VĚDY (aneb Jak svět poznávat (...) spolehlivě a systematicky?). (shrink)

Ve své knížce Fenomenologie a kultura slepé skvrny předkládá Ivan Blecha tři eseje, jejichž společným jmenovatelem je konfrontace různých aspektů postmodernistické filosofie s filosofií fenomenologickou. Proti obratu k jazyku a z něj často vyvozovaného pluralismu nebo dokonce relativismu staví Blecha tezi, že svět, ve kterém člověk žije, je determinován způsobem, kterým v kadlubu své intencionální mysli konstituuje věci ze svého bezprostředního prožívání, a že tudíž tento svět není v žádném podstatném slova smyslu ani tvarován jazykem, ani otevřen žádným velkým pluralistickým (...) variacím. V prvním textu, ‘Znak, stopa, fenomén’ se Blecha zamýšlí především nad tím, co nazývá lingvistickou klauzurou (a co je podle něj přesvědčením společným francouzským poststrukturalistům kolem Derridy i americkým postanalytickým filosofům kolem Rortyho), totiž že člověk nemá bezprostřední přístup ke světu, ale jedině k jazyku, takže veškeré poznávání je jenom interpretace. Ve druhém, ‘Kant, pragmatický anti-realismus a Husserlova fenomenologie’ se zabývá tím, do jaké míry je opodstatněné relativistické domýšlení Kanta. V posledním, který je nazván tak jako celá knížka, pak polemizuje především s názory Wolfganga Welsche, které ústí do cílevědomého epistemického pluralismu. Myslím, že ty nejzákladnější otázky, které Blecha ve své knize klade, totiž otázka po nutnosti a mezích plurality a po tom, do jaké míry je nám chápání světa zprostředkováváno jazykem, jsou velice důležité a také velice zajímavé. Blecha se s nimi navíc snaží vypořádat, aniž by se obrnil hantýrkou, která by jeho obranu fenomenologie učinila srozumitelnou zase jenom pro fenomenology; a jeho kniha tím představuje výzvu k zajímavé diskusi. Do filosofů na druhé straně barikády se pouští s odkrytým hledím, a i když je, jak se budu snažit ukázat, sem tam v něčem dezinterpretuje, je jeho kniha ukázku toho, jak by se podle mne s konkurenčními filosofickými směry polemizovat mělo. Co se mi jeví jako dezinterpretace, se objevuje hned na počátku prvního eseje.. (shrink)

V kontextu české filosofie, kde není nouze o vzdělané a chytré lidi, ale kde se to nijak nehemží skutečnými individualitami, představuje Petr Vopěnka zcela zvláštní případ. Je matematik nejenom vzděláním, ale v matematice i leccos dokázal. Jeho knihy o filosofii matematiky, zejména jeho tetralogie Rozprav s geometrií1, jsou velice vyhraněné: Vopěnka v nich předkládá svůj originální obraz a příliš se nestará o to, aby ho konfrontoval s tím, co si o tom myslí jiní. Jak sám připouští, i historické osoby, o (...) kterých ve svých knihách píše, mu slouží spíše jako kompars, na jehož pozadí rozehrává svá barvitá líčení ‚dobrodružství poznání‘. Vopěnka ve svých knihách protestuje proti tomu, že moderní věda do obrazu světa, který buduje, vůbec nevpustila tak zásadní determinanty našeho přirozeného světa, jakými jsou neostrost či existence horizontu, který činní náš obraz světa v jistém smyslu ‘nehomogenní‘. Proti tomu se samozřejmě nabízí námitka, že to je v podstatě věci, že vědecký obraz světa je svou podstatou ostrý a homogenní. Že chtít po něm, aby byl jiný, pramení pouze z nepochopení jeho povahy a hlavně jeho role: neboť svět vykreslovaný vědou má být světem pouze v metaforickém slova smyslu, je jenom jakýmsi ‚orientačním plánkem‘, který nám má pomoci orientovat se ve světě ‚přirozeném‘. (Tím ovšem nechci říci, že by tohle nepochopení nebylo fakticky dosti rozšířené.) Vopěnka však ukazuje, že vědu, zejména matematiku, by bylo možné dělat i jinak, než jak se to považuje za víceméně samozřejmé: že je možné vytvořit matematizovaný obraz světa, ze kterého nejsou neostrost či horizont vymeteny. (I tento obraz si samozřejmě zachovává jistý druh ostrosti a homogenity, která z něj činí něco kvalitativně odlišného od přirozeného světa, avšak k přirozenému světu má blíže než ten standardní.) Tento jeho návrh je velice originální a pozoruhodný a je škoda, že mu není věnována větší pozornost a není předmětem soustavnější diskuse, ve které by se ověřila jeho nosnost. Originalita.. (shrink)

Doing Worlds with Words throws light on the problem of meaning as the meeting point of linguistics, logic and philosophy, and critically assesses the possibilities and limitations of elucidating the nature of meaning by means of formal logic, model theory and model-theoretical semantics. The main thrust of the book is to show that it is misguided to understand model theory metaphysically and so to try to base formal semantics on something like formal metaphysics; rather, the book states that model theory (...) and similar tools of the analysis of language should be understood as capturing the semantically relevant, especially inferential, structure of language. From this vantage point, the reader gains a new light on many of the traditional concepts and problems of logic and philosophy of language, such as meaning, reference, truth and the nature of formal logic. (shrink)

While according to the inferentialists, meaning is always a kind of inferential role, proponents of other approaches to semantics often doubt that actual meanings, as they see them, can be generally reduced to inferential roles. In this paper we propose a formal framework for considering the hypothesis of the.

A review of deVries' and O'Shea's books, both titled "Wilfrid Sellars". By Jaroslav Peregrin.

We investigate several ideal versions of the pseudointersection number \(\mathfrak {p}\), ideal slalom numbers, and associated topological spaces with the focus on selection principles. However, it turns out that well-known pseudointersection invariant \(\mathtt {cov}^*({\mathcal I})\) has a crucial influence on the studied notions. For an invariant \(\mathfrak {p}_\mathrm {K}({\mathcal J})\) introduced by Borodulin-Nadzieja and Farkas (Arch. Math. Logic 51:187–202, 2012), and an invariant \(\mathfrak {p}_\mathrm {K}({\mathcal I},{\mathcal J})\) introduced by Repický (Real Anal. Exchange 46:367–394, 2021), we have $$\begin{aligned} \min \{\mathfrak (...) {p}_\mathrm {K}({\mathcal I}),\mathtt {cov}^*({\mathcal I})\}=\mathfrak {p},\qquad \min \{\mathfrak {p}_\mathrm {K}({\mathcal I},{\mathcal J}),\mathtt {cov}^*({\mathcal J})\}\le \mathtt {cov}^*({\mathcal I}), \end{aligned}$$ respectively. In addition to the first inequality, for a slalom invariant \(\mathfrak {sl_e}({\mathcal I},{\mathcal J})\) introduced in Šupina (J. Math. Anal. Appl. 434:477–491, 2016), we show that $$\begin{aligned} \min \{\mathfrak {p}_\mathrm {K}({\mathcal I}),\mathfrak {sl_e}({\mathcal I},{\mathcal J}),\mathtt {cov}^*({\mathcal J})\}=\mathfrak {p}. \end{aligned}$$ Finally, we obtain a consistency that ideal versions of the Fréchet–Urysohn property and the strictly Fréchet–Urysohn property are distinguished. (shrink)

Tomáš Marvan Otázka významu: Cesty analytické filosofie jazyka. 1. vyd. Praha: Togga, 2010, ISBN 978-80-87258-33-0, 150 stran.

There may be various reasons for claiming that meaning is normative, and additionally, very different senses attached to the claim. However, all such claims have faced fierce resistance from those philosophers who insist that meaning is not normative in any nontrivial sense of the word. In this paper I sketch one particular approach to meaning claiming its normativity and defend it against the anti-normativist critique: namely the approach of Brandomian inferentialism. However, my defense is not restricted to inferentialism in any (...) narrow sense for it encompasses a much broader spectrum of approaches to meaning, connected with the Wittgensteinian and especially Sellarsian view of language as an essentially rule-governed enterprise; and indeed I refrain from claiming that the version of inferentialism I present here is in every detail the version developed by Brandom. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive account of logic that addresses fundamental issues concerning the nature and foundations of the discipline. The authors claim that these foundations can not only be established without the need for strong metaphysical assumptions, but also without hypostasizing logical forms as specific entities. They present a systematic argument that the primary subject matter of logic is our linguistic interaction rather than our private reasoning and it is thus misleading to see logic as revealing "the laws of (...) thought". In this sense, fundamental logical laws are implicit to our "language games" and are thus more similar to social norms than to the laws of nature. Peregrin and Svoboda also show that logical theories, despite the fact that they rely on rules implicit to our actual linguistic practice, firm up these rules and make them explicit. By carefully scrutinizing the project of logical analysis, the authors demonstrate that logical rules can be best seen as products of the so called reflective equilibrium. They suggest that we can profit from viewing languages as "inferential landscapes" and logicians as "geographers" who map them and try to pave safe routes through them. This book is an essential resource for scholars and researchers engaged with the foundations of logical theories and the philosophy of language. (shrink)

In his proof of the first incompleteness theorem, Kurt Gödel provided a method of showing the truth of specific arithmetical statements on the condition that all the axioms of a certain formal theory of arithmetic are true. Furthermore, the statement whose truth is shown in this way cannot be proved in the theory in question. Thus it may seem that the relation of logical consequence is wider than the relation of derivability by a pre-defined set of rules. The aim of (...) this paper is to explore under which assumptions the Gödelian statement can rightly be considered a logical consequence of the axioms of the theory in question. It is argued that this is the case only when the all the theorems of the theory in question are understood as statements of the same kind as statements of arithmetic and statements about provability in the theory, and only if the language of the theory contains logical expressions allowing to include certain predicates of meta-language in the language of the theory. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward a thesis regarding the anatomy of “cultural evolution”, in particular the way the “cultural” transmission of behavioral patterns came to piggyback, through us humans, on the transmission effected by genetic evolution. I claim that what grounds and supports this new kind of transmission is a complex behavioral “meta-pattern” that makes it possible to grasp a pattern as something that “ought to be”, i.e. that transforms the pattern into what we can call a rule. (Here (...) I draw especially on the philosophical insights of Wilfrid Sellars.) In this way I interlink empirical research done in evolution theory with some more speculative philosophical theories, thus shedding new light on the former and adding an empirical footing to the latter. (shrink)

Business ethics represents an important aspect that influences each country’s socio-economic system, and is important to society, environment, and economy. The present article aims to define significant attributes of business ethics in the sector of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and compares their attitudes within the three most significant business sectors in the Visegrad Group countries (V4 countries: Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland, and Hungary). An empirical study, focusing on the attitudes of small and medium-sized firms, was conducted in June (...) 2022 in Visegrad Group countries through the reputable hired company MNFORCE, using the Computer Assisted Web Interviewing research method. The total number of respondents in the Visegrad Group countries was 1,398. Statistical hypotheses were tested using descriptive statistics, chi-square, and Z-score at a significance level of α = 5%. The most important conclusion of this research is that there are no significant differences in the approach of SMEs to business ethics based on the sector in which the companies operate. Some notable differences in attitudes among SMEs in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were identified, but these were marginal. Therefore, differences in the transformation process within selected economic sectors do not impact the formation of attitudes of small and medium-sized companies in business ethics. It is evident that business ethics is significantly determined primarily by the personal characteristics of the owner/manager of the company, and the specificities of individual sectors do not influence this field. (shrink)

The article addresses two closely related questions: What are the criteria of adequacy of logical formalization of natural language arguments, and what gives logic the authority to decide which arguments are good and which are bad? Our point of departure is the criticism of the conception of logical formalization put forth, in a recent paper, by M. Baumgartner and T. Lampert. We argue that their account of formalization as a kind of semantic analysis brings about more problems than it solves. (...) We also argue that the criteria of adequate formalization need not be based on truth conditions associated with logical formulas; in our view, they are better based on structural (inferential) grounds. We then put forward our own version of the criteria. The upshot of the discussion that follows is that the quest for an adequate formalization in a suitable logical language is best conceived of as the search for a Goodmanian reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

Inferentialism is the conviction that to be meaningful in the distinctively human way, or to have a 'conceptual content', is to be governed by a certain kind of inferential rules. The term was coined by Robert Brandom as a label for his theory of language; however, it is also naturally applicable (and is growing increasingly common) within the philosophy of logic.

The topic of this paper is the question whether there is a logic which could be justly called the logic of inference. It may seem that at least since Prawitz, Dummett and others demonstrated the proof-theoretical prominency of intuitionistic logic, the forthcoming answer is that it is this logic that is the obvious choice for the accolade. Though there is little doubt that this choice is correct (provided that inference is construed as inherently single-conclusion and complying with the Gentzenian structural (...) rules), I do not think that the usual justification of it is satisfactory. Therefore, I will first try to clarify what exactly is meant by the question, and then sketch a conceptual framework in which it can be reasonably handled. I will introduce the concept of 'inferentially native' logical operators (those which explicate inferential properties) and I will show that the axiomatization of these operators leads to the axiomatic system of intuitionistic logic. Finally, I will discuss what modifications of this answer enter the picture when more general notions of inference are considered. (shrink)

Imagine a Paleolithic hunter, who has failed to hunt down anything for a couple of days and is hungry. He has an urgent desire, the desire to eat, which he is not able to fulfill – his desire is frustrated by the world. Now imagine our contemporary bank clerk, who went to work forgetting his wallet at home and is hungry too. He too is not able to fulfill his urgent desire to eat because it is frustrated by the world. (...) From the viewpoint of the two individuals the situation is very similar. However, it differs in at least one crucial respect. While the hunter cannot eat because there is no food available to him anywhere near (at least as far as he can find out), the clerk can easily find tons of food - it is enough to visit a nearest supermarket. The reason why he cannot get the food is not that it would be physically impossible, but because taking food from store's shelves without paying is forbidden. This story reminds us that many of the barriers that constrain our lives and make us find our way merely within the space delimited by them are no longer barriers in the literal sense of the word - they are no longer produced by the conspiracy of the causal laws that form our physical niche. Rather they are produced by the conspiracy of attitudes of our fellow humans - they are deliberate rules, rather than inexorable natural laws. In this way evolution is canalized not by the environment relatively independent of it, but rather by the ploy of the organisms it itself has brought into being. I think that realizing the full import of this autocatalyctic situation may lead us, on the one hand, to the appreciation of certain philosophical doctrines, pervasive especially after Kant, regarding normativity as the hallmark of the human, while, on the other hand seeing how they get enlightened by scientific doctrines regarding the development of the human race its continuities/discontinuities with its animal cousins. (shrink)

We know that lots of things are correct. (Helping people in need is correct. Moving the bishop diagonally when playing chess is correct. Adding 7 to 5 to make 12 is correct.) But where does this correctness come from? I argue that correctness is best seen as something we humans created in the process of forming our societies. This, admittedly, is speculative; but aside of this, there are facts that are more than speculations. In particular, I argue that our correctness (...) is based on normative attitudes, though these often determine only the criteria of correctness, letting the criteria to then determine what is correct independently of our will. Thus it holds both that correctness is wholly our creation and that it is independent of us in the sense that things may be correct even if we do not know that they are (or, indeed, think them incorrect). (shrink)

The followers of Wilfrid Sellars are often divided into “right” and “left” Sellarsians, according to whether they believe, in Mark Lance's words, that “linguistic roles constitutive of meaning and captured by dot quoted words are ‘normative all the way down.’” The present article anatomizes this division and argues that it is not easy to give it a nontrivial sense. In particular, the article argues that it is not really possible to construe it as a controversy related to ontology, and goes (...) on to argue that it is also not easy to construe it as one concerning the translatability of the normative idiom into the non-normative one. The conclusion is that the only coherent interpretation of this disagreement is as a disagreement about the possibility and desirability of assuming a standpoint “inside” our linguistic practices. (shrink)

There has been much controversy over the completeness and unity of Euripides᾽Heraclidaein the last two centuries. Hermann᾽s characterization of the play as a heavily mutilated piece, which was adopted by Kirchhoff, Wilamowitz, Nauck and Murray, prevailed for a long time. Wilamowitz's thesis that theHeraclidaewas revised by the ancient director found its adherents. It was Günther Zuntz who led the general offensive against this widely accepted opinion and whose critical scrutiny reversed the view of the play. According to Zuntz, the play (...) has come down to us substantially as it was written. The alleged mutilation, as well as the specific dramatic technique, shortness and swiftness of theHeraclidae, also influenced the general evaluation of the play as a minor or odd piece. It was Günter Zuntz again and also Franz Stoessl who reconstituted the reputation of theHeraclidae. Today Euripides᾽Heraclidaeis studied and recognized as a classicalHikesiedrama, a play deeply rooted in Athenian ideology and in the social and religious context of fifth-century Athens, and representing various aspects of communal life. Since the play has been interpreted and scrutinized from a very wide range of perspectives, I do not aim at a radically new general interpretation of theHeraclidae, but I would like to make a short remark on an aspect of it which has, as far as I know, been neglected or only briefly referred to: the term ἀμηχανία in crucial passages of the play, which signifies, or rather describes, a situation which is desperate, hopeless, and with no way out. I would like to show that for the characters in theHeraclidaewho follow the ideal of justice, in contrast to those who prefer profit, no situation is hopeless, even as it was not for Heracles, who managed to do things which could be evaluated as impossible. On the other hand, those who opt for the Heraclean ideal have to prepare to face the ultimate challenges. (shrink)

V tomto článku se zabývám konceptem SI (superinteligence) a s ní spojeným problémem kontroly. Podle určité skupiny teoretiků umělé inteligence stojíme na prahu události, která může radikálně změnit povahu technologického pokroku a lidské společnosti obecně. Touto událostí má být takzvaná technologická singularita, která je často spojována se vznikem první větší než lidské inteligence. Lidé jako Nick Bostrom varují před nebezpečím, které pro nás vznik SI znamená a upozorňují, že musíme co nejdříve najít metody kontroly této inteligence. Podle Bostroma a dalších (...) nebezpečí SI vyplývá z její povahy. Já na jedné straně posuzuji, jak SI může vzniknout, a na druhé straně soudím smysluplnost problému kontroly. Vznik SI vyplývá ze vzniku umělé inteligence. Proto soustřeďuji podstatnou část textu argumentům pro její vznik. Ukazují jak se Bostrom a další nechávají unést jedním problematickým argumentem. Dále podrobuji jejich pozici klasické kritice umělé inteligence. Prezentuji, jak stále lpí na problematických domněnkách svých předchůdců. Zejména soustřeďuji svoji kritiku na tvrzení, že SI bude mít jeden konečný cíl, který bude interpretovat. Toto tvrzení označuji jako antitetické, a to představě, že SI bude obecnou inteligencí. V závěru z mojí argumentace vyvozuji, že problém kontroly zaměňuje dva jiné různé problémy „kontroly.“. (shrink)

Growth modelling is of interest to scientists in various disciplines. In our article, we will collect 17 models designed for growth modelling, appraise these models and contribute to the discussion of their applicability. The merit of the paper lies in studying the convergence properties of nonlinear regression in selected models. Our studies will be performed mainly concerning the quality of the obtained estimates, which are closely related to the intrinsic curvature of the model according to Bates and Watts. This curvature (...) determines the size of the linearization domains. Only if the initial solution is in this domain, then the convergence of the estimate in nonlinear regression is guaranteed. The primary goal is to design a methodology for selecting a growth model. We will demonstrate fruitfulness of our methodology on the weight measurements of 10 calves under 25 months of age from cowsheds in the village Záluží in the Czech Republic. Estimated parameters of growth curves, sizes of linearization domain, calculated residues and coefficients of determination indices will be the subject of discussion. (shrink)

The problem of change has assumed great prominence in much of the current ferment in theology, and many of the issues in question can best be interpreted as relating to the validity and limits of doctrinal development. The questions cannot be faced constructively, however, until the development of doctrine has been clearly charted, a historical as well as a theological assignment. In this unique introductory survey—more modest in scope but more scholarly in method than Cardinal Newman’s great programmatic essay of (...) 1845—Mr. Pelikan presents three case histories of the particular doctrines that have crucial points of division among Christians. His cogent analyses of Cyprian on Original Sin, Athanasius on the Virgin Mary, and Hilary on the Holy Spirit demonstrate the interaction between the sacramental life of the Church and the intellectual work of the theologian that consistently marked the development of doctrine by the early Fathers. Thus they clarify some central aspects of the continuing theological and ecumenical debates. Mr. Pelikan, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale University, is the author of many books and articles, including a forthcoming full-scale history of the development of doctrine. (shrink)

Odborná práce z oboru hudební teorie. Navazuje na knihu téhož autora "Teoretické základy harmonie s hľadiska vedeckej filozofie", jež vyšla r. 1954. Soustřeďuje pozornost k oněm názorům a teoriím, které jsou z hlediska filosofického ovlivněny idealistickým postojem. V první části sleduje a hodnotí vlivy idealismu na nauku o harmonii v 19. a 20. století, v druhé se obírá předpoklady dialektického materialismu v hudební teorii.

Když Bůh stvořil Adama, pošeptal mu do ucha: Ve všech kontextech jednání budeš brát v potaz pravidla, byť by to mělo být jenom pravidlo, že se máš pídit po pravidlech, která bys mohl brát v potaz. Přestaneš-li brát v potaz pravidla, budeš chodit po čtyřech.