(Extra)Ordinary? edited by Jade Alexander and Katarzyna Bronk engages in research on the ways and means in which celebrity status has been created, controlled, dispersed and received in the past as well as the present.

All the authors who have contributed to Looking Back to See the Future have taken up the challenge to inter-disciplinarily investigate the ambiguous concepts of sins, vices and virtues. Their illuminating chapters test the definitions and applications of these religio-cultural categories in the contexts of the distant past as well as our contemporary, globalised, consumerist present; but they all do it for the sake of catching a glimpse of their and our future. By looking into religious and philosophical treatises, paraliterary (...) and literary texts as well as everyday practices, the authors prove that the interpretations of what constitutes sin, vice and virtue are becoming more and more difficult in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Metodologia nauk [Methodology of the Sciences], by Adam Grobler.

According to explanatory individualism, every action must be explained in terms of an agent's desire. According to explanatory nonindividualism, we sometimes act on our desires, but it is also possible for us to act on others' desires without acting on desires of our own. While explanatory nonindividualism has guided the thinking of many social scientists, it is considered to be incoherent by most philosophers of mind who insist that actions must be explained ultimately in terms of some desire of the (...) agent. In the first part of the paper, I show that some powerful arguments designed to demonstrate the incoherence of explanatory nonindividualism fail. In the second part of the paper, I offer a nonindividualist explanation of the apparent obviousness of belief-desire psychology. I argue that there are two levels of the intelligibility of our actions. On the more fundamental (explanatory) level, the question "Why did the agent do something?" admits a variety of folk-psychological categories. But there is another (formation-of-self) level, at which the same question admits only of answers that ultimately appeal only to the agent's own desires. Explanatory individualism results from the confusion of the two levels. (shrink)

Since economies are dynamic processes driven by creativity, social norms, and emotions as well as rational calculation, why do economists largely study them using static equilibrium models and narrow rationalistic assumptions? Economic activity is as much a function of imagination and social sentiments as of the rational optimisation of given preferences and goods. Richard Bronk argues that economists can best model and explain these creative and social aspects of markets by using new structuring assumptions and metaphors derived from the (...) poetry and philosophy of the Romantics. By bridging the divide between literature and science, and between Romanticism and narrow forms of Rationalism, economists can access grounding assumptions, models, and research methods suitable for comprehending the creativity and social dimensions of economic activity. This is a guide to how economists and other social scientists can broaden their analytical repertoire to encompass the vital role of sentiments, language, and imagination. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to explore the interrelation between persuasion tactics and properties of speech acts. We investigate two types of arguments ad: ad hominem and ad baculum. We show that with both of these tactics, the structures that play a key role are not inferential, but rather ethotic, i.e., related to the speaker’s character and trust. We use the concepts of illocutionary force and constitutive conditions related to the character or status of the speaker in order to (...) explain the dynamics of these two techniques. In keeping with the research focus of the Polish School of Argumentation, we examine how the pragmatic and rhetorical aspects of the force of ad hominem and ad baculum arguments exploit trust in the speaker’s status to influence the audience’s cognition. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest wykazanie, że filozofia może sięgać po ustalenia neuronauki, w tym psychologii, w zakresie poczucia winy i wstydu, w czym mają pomóc postawione w artykule pytania i poruszane zagadnienia. Autorka przywołała dane na temat neuronalnych korelatów poczucia winy i wstydu i neuropsychologiczne interpretacje niektórych z nich. Szczególną uwagę zwróciła na kwestie związane z oceną moralną i moralnymi sankcjami.

This book is about beliefs, language, communication and cognition. It deals with the fundamental issue of the interpretation of the speaker's utterance expressing a belief and reporting on beliefs of other people in the form of oratio obliqua. The main aim of the book is to present a new account of the problem of interpreting utterances expressing beliefs and belief reports in terms of an approach called Default Semantics.

Objectives Study participants are 46 women with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome. Occurrence of the M-R-K-H syndrome is one in 4000-5000 female children. It was investigated whether coping styles mediate the effect of neuroticism on positive and negative affect, and whether this mediation is moderated by the level of N as well as whether this moderated mediation is moderated by length of awareness of illness. Methods: Neuroticism, coping style as well as positive and negative emotions were assessed using the Polish version of NOE-FFI, (...) CISS and Scale of Emotional State. Results: Emotion coping style fully or partly mediated the relationship between neuroticism and emotions and these mediations were moderated by the level of N. Additionally, direct effect of neuroticism on NA was moderated by the time for which a patient has been aware of the disease. Conclusions: The level of neuroticism and the length of illness are important factors for the psychological functioning of women with M-R-K-H Syndrome. In women with medium and high neuroticism, effect of N on NA was indirect and also direct - but only in those who have been aware of the diagnosis for 6 years or more. Relations with positive emotions were different: the indirect effect was observed only in women with a moderate and low neuroticism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a model that allows the representation and analysis of circularity in ethotic structures, i.e. in communication structures related to the speaker’s character and in particular, his credibility. The paper studies three types of cycles: in self-referential sentences, embedded testimony and ethotic begging the question. It is shown that standard models allow the reconstruction of the circularities only if those circular utterances are interpreted as ethotic arguments. Their alternative, assertive interpretation requires enriching the (...) existing models with a purely ethotic component related to the credibility of the performer of any (not necessarily argumentative) speech act. (shrink)

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

We effectively construct the finitely generated free equivalential algebras corresponding to the equivalential fragment of intuitionistic propositional logic.

In the twentieth century, due to the development of mechanical reproduction and press, photomontage became a popular means of communication – popular and diverse in its nature and methods of exploitation. It is one of the cultural phenomena related to the change of rhythm of life and a sense of its increased pace, and an impression of fragmentation of reality. This article questions the role of photomontage in such an experience. The said role is complex: sometimes photomontage allows for expression (...) of that experience, and sometimes it is meant to evoke it, in the spirit of modernity; it is both a tool of agitation and critique. In order to answer this question I shall assume the approach of Walter Benjamin, who diagnoses the crisis of experience and the loss of storytelling skills – and describes the potential of photography. This potential is differently approached by artists and scholars who point out contradictory purposes and results of using photomontage. Referring to various works of art shall make it possible to define the tensions characteristic of photomontage. Due to its plasticity and the ambiguity of a photograph, and the potential for contextualization and construction, photomontage can function in a hard to understand, rapidly changing world and address the fragmentation of experience. (shrink)

This article assesses cultural studies and the concept of organizational culture. Cultural studies, created at the University of Birmingham, focused mostly on the analysis of culture and its connections to authority. The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies created its own approach to hegemony, describing it as an interaction between elites and the power-deprived rest of the society. However, this situation is widely accepted and based on common agreement. CCCS used the theory of structuralism in order to obtain further insights to (...) the origins of culture. The author also describes the theory of organizational culture in order to present the culture of an enterprise as a way for national culture to manifest itself. In addition to this, an attempt is made to look at the organizational culture from the point of view of hegemony. (shrink)

People differ in the extent to which they express a need for sense-making, and these individual differences are important to understand in light of meaning-making processes. To quantify this important variable, we originally proposed a need for sense-making scale. We now propose a refined, similarly reliable short version of the scale. The 7-item NSM-SF was validated across a series of four studies. NSM-SF showed psychometric properties and correlations consistent with its longer forerunner. Additionally, results indicated that the need for sense-making (...) was moderately positively related to the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and it related negatively to the frustration of these needs. The research offers a useful, brief tool for assessing the NSM construct and broadens our understanding of basic psychological motivations. (shrink)

Personality Dimensions and Nicotine Dependence and Withdrawal Symptoms: the Mediating Role of Self-Directness We analyzed the relationship between personality traits and smoking status and nicotine withdrawal symptoms using two comprehensive models of personality: the Five-Factor Model and the Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. In total 295 people were examined, 149 smokers and 146 who have never smoked. To measure the severity of the nicotine dependence we used the Fagerstroem Tolerance Questionnaire and the DSM-IV criteria of nicotine dependence and to measure (...) the nicotine withdrawal symptoms the Nicotine Dependence History. The results showed significant differences between the groups in particular dimensions: Neuroticism, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The analyse of the TCI demonstrate, that smokers are higher in Novelty Seeking and lower in Reward Dependence than never smokers and show less Self-Directness and Cooperativeness. The mediation analyses showed that Self-Directness is the significant mediator between Extra-Introversion and nicotine withdrawal symptoms measured by NDHIS and between Neuroticism and DSM-IV criteria of nicotine dependence. (shrink)

This paper analyses Soros' theory of reflexivity by breaking it down into several component concepts that are individually well analysed in existing literature – including performativity, self-reinforcing feedback loops and uncertainty. By focusing on the cognitive myopia implied by analytical monocultures and on the indeterminacy implied by innovation, it helps establish boundaries of applicability for reflexivity models. It argues that Soros largely ignores a key element in the formation of self-reinforcing delusions or market bubbles – the role played in conditions (...) of uncertainty by homogeneous social narratives and shared mental models. This paper also examines how social learning, rhetoric, power, emotional contagion, the discourse of ‘best practice’, ‘and Keynes' beauty contest may lead to such shared narratives and analytical homogeneity in markets. It concludes that market instability results when there is insufficient cognitive diversity or heterogeneity of beliefs among actors to enable them to spot anomalies and novelties. (shrink)

Stanisław Kamiński (1919-1986) was a philosopher, philosopher of science and historian of science. He defended in 1949 at the Catholic University in Lublin (KUL) his PhD thesis on Frege's axiomatic system of the sentence logic in the light of the contemporary methodology of deductive science. Since 1957 he was the head of the Chair of Methodology (the first one in Poland, founded in 1952 by J. Iwanicki) at the KUL, since 1965 the associate and since 1970 the full professor of (...) KUL. He was for many years the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy KUL where he developed the methodological foundations of the »Lublin-school of philosophy«. The main interests of S. Kamiński (1919-1986) was history of science and logic, general and special methodology, methodology of philosophy and (medieval) semiotics. Himself he saw his main achievements in the domain of the theory of science and the methodology of classical philosophy, especially in the studies of the method and language of metaphysics; he gave a methodological description of general metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history and studies on religion (religiology); he investigated the beginnings of the mathematical induction in the Middle Ages and in modern times, modern history of the theory of definition (Th. Hobbes, B. Pascal, J. Locke, E. B. de Condillac, J. D. Gergonne), the theory of argumentation (reasoning), the structure and the evolution of scientific theory, the deductive method (B. Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, G. Frege), the achievements of logic and philosophy in Poland. A characteristic feature of S. Kamiński's philosophical and methodological approach was a specific historicism, consisting of referring to the heritage of the past and at the same time to the latest achievements in logic and philosophy of science. He looked to history for inspiration, for how to solve his own problems and for a partial confirmation of legitimacy of his answers. He also used history to better understand the context of the discussed problems. His methodological interests are characterized by a philosophical and historical approach. He had a broad concept of knowledge and was maximalist both in raising questions and in giving answers. He cultivated the ideal of rational knowledge. In accordance with classical philosophy he saw the substance of person as ens rationale, a being realizing himself in a disinterested search for a theoretical truth, whose highest expression is philosophy. He stressed the epistemological and methodological plurality of knowledge and distinguished (with Kant) a material and formal part of knowledge, assuming that the formal element manifests itself as the logical form in the formal procedures of the (scientific) cognitive processes, that is in the (scientific) method and the (scientific) language. Making many attempts at a methodological characterization of different types of cognition and knowledge he distinguished – besides commonsense knowledge that lies at the bottom of any other type of knowledge – the scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge. None of them can be reduced to other type of knowledge, because each of them has its own problems, goals and methods. At the top there is a kind of sapiential knowledge which is much more than a simple generalization of all particular kinds of knowledge. S. Kamiński indebted his understanding of science to contemporary philosophy and to the classical philosophy. The nature of science was determined by him from the point view of its subject matter, aims, methods, logical structure and genesis. The question of what science is concerned with, i.e. what is its subject matter, is a philosophical question, it presupposes an appropriate understanding of the nature of the world. S. Kamiński opted for a pluralistic approach to the world: the principal object of science is the objective world but so are subjective states of man and products of his mind and his language. The best diagnostic test of the scientific character of science is the scientific method. Also here – rejecting the scientism (i.e. the view, that the scientific method and knowledge is the pattern and the measure of each knowledge) – S. Kamiński takes a pluralistic attitude. Accepting that the scientific method is not simple, that there is not one uncomplicated ideal way of doing science, and that because of the multiplicity of questions and scientific aims it would be difficult to construct one universal scientific method as a uniform set of rules for every kind of science, S. Kamiński assumes that different subject matter and different goals of scientific cognition require different research strategies and types of cognitive procedures. One manifestation of S. Kamiński's methodological pluralism is his antinaturalistic position in the theory of the humanities where he supported the thesis of their methodological autonomy with regard to natural sciences. Closer to the philosophical cognition and knowledge, the humanities do not meet and can not meet the conditions imposed upon the natural sciences, as they differ from them in subject matter (the world of culture) and hence in method (understanding, interpretation) used. The publications of S. Kamiński include over 350 positions. During his life he published three books: Georgonne'a teoria definicji [Georgonne's Theory of Definition], Lublin 1958; Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], Lublin 1961, 19813; and [together with M. A. Krąpiec] Z teorii i metodologii metafizyki [On the Theory and Methodology of Metaphysics], Lublin 1962. After his death five volumes of Collected Papers have been published: vol. I: Jak filozofować? [How to Philosophize? Studies in Methodology of Classical Philosophy], edited by Tadeusz Szubka, Lublin 1989; vol. II: Filozofia i metoda. Studia z dziejów metod filozofowania [Philosophy and Method. Studies from the History of the Method of Philosophizing], edited by Józef Herbut, Lublin 1993; vol. III: Metoda i język. Studia z semiotyki i metodologii nauk [Method and Language. Studies in Semiotics and Philosophy of Science], edited by Urszula Żegleń, Lublin 1994; vol. IV: Nauka i metoda. Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Science and Method. Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], edited by Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1992); vol. V: Światopogląd - Religia - Teologia [Worldview - Religion - Theology], edited by Monika Walczak and Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1998. (shrink)

Pragmatics and dialectics are two disciplines which have been amongst the first and most important partners for argument studies in the exploration of the complex realm of communication. Treating argumentation as a construct consisting of premises and conclusion allows for investigating some interesting properties of the phenomenon of reasoning, but does not capture a variety of aspects related to the usage of natural language and dialogical context in which real-life argumentation is typically embedded. This special issue explores some of the (...) fascinating research questions which emerge when we move beyond logic into the territory of the pragmatics and dialectics of argument. (shrink)

Na podstawie prześledzenia genezy Dzieci nędzy (1913) i historii komponowania tekstu dokonano ciekawych ustaleń z zakresu działań twórczych najgłośniejszego autora Młodej Polski – Stanisława Przybyszewskiego. Badania ujawniły m.in. niechęć pisarza do (czy może: nieumiejętność) radykalnej modyfikacji raz dokonanych zapisów tekstowych i wzrost literackiej efektywności z dala od wielkich miast. Kolacjonowanie przekazów powieści oraz lektura dokumentów osobistych pozwoliły stwierdzić, że znaczący wpływ na ostateczny kształt Dzieci nędzy miały powikłania osobiste i przykre okoliczności życiowe, które znacząco determinowały (czy raczej: destruowały) proces pisarski (...) Przybyszewskiego, oraz ingerencja domagającego się uzupełnień wydawcy, któremu pisarz skwapliwie przyznał rację, dopisując kilka rozdziałów. Te sumiennie dokonane poprawki świadczą o tym, jak ważne były dla pisarza uwagi redakcyjne w udoskonalaniu tekstu. Najważniejsze odkrycie, do jakiego prowadzą badania tekstologiczne, dotyczy jednak autorskiej rezygnacji z zamierzonego pierwotnie poematu prozą i przetransponowania jego idei w formę powieściową. Ta decyzja – będąca rodzajem kapitulacji w zmaganiach z tworzywem – świadczyła de facto o nowatorskim myśleniu Przybyszewskiego o powieści i sprawiła, że Dzieci nędzy to niezwykle ciekawy artystycznie, nowoczesny zapis stanów psychicznych. Od strony rozwiązań konstrukcyjno-narracyjnych to niewątpliwie jedna z najciekawszych powieści Przybyszewskiego. (shrink)

The Uppsala School in philosophy and the Vienna Circle are prima facie similar currents in contemporary philosophy. Both reject metaphysics, claim that reality is a spatio­‑temporal realm and adhere to noncognitivism in terms of values. However, justifications of these assumptions are quite different. In the following article we reconstruct main theses of both mentioned currents and then we indicate their impact on one of the major jurisprudential movements, namely Scandinavian Legal Realism. We focus on Alf Ross’ legal philosophy, as it (...) was an attempt to accommodate both: the philosophy of the Uppsala School and of the Vienna Circle. We trace those two sources of inspiration in Ross’ theory of legal validity and of legal concepts. (shrink)

Dynamics of perceiving oneself on femininity and masculinity dimensions in diverse contexts The article is about issues related to gender perceived as a result of social context and thus fits in the current, processual gender paradigm. Two studies have been conducted verifying hypotheses about perceiving oneself on the femininity and masculinity dimensions in various types of contexts. Expectations were that generic contexts would make perceiving oneself within the psychological gender dimensions more dynamic. Women were expected to perceive themselves as more (...) feminine and less masculine in contexts matching their gender, i.e. "feminine", comparing to "masculine", and men were expected to perceive themselves as more masculine and less feminine in "masculine" contexts comparing to "feminine" contexts. Research results do not confirm the above hypotheses and indicate dynamism in perceiving oneself on femininity and masculinity dimensions. However, the dynamism is perceived only on dimensions inconsistent with biological gender - situation affects women's perceiving of themselves on the masculinity dimension and men's - on femininity dimensions. (shrink)

What does the idea of taking 'the point of view of the universe' tell us about ethics? Lazari-Radek and Singer defend objectivism in ethics, and hedonistic utilitarianism, following Henry Sidgwick's lead. They explore how to justify an ethical theory; conflicts of self-interest and universal benevolence; and whether we should discount the future.

Liberal democracy is often considered to be unstable, consisting of two markedly different ideals that remain in tension. Yet the thesis regarding the alleged insta...