This is a new edition of the manual published in 1974 and 1984. Compared with those earlier editions it is revised, enlarged and more precise in its argumentation. In its beginnings the manual aimed at meeting the didactic needs to present students of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy at the ATK a complete handling of Christian ethics. The author, who wrote his manual in difficult times of communist ideology, decided to include in one work, besides a positive exposition of Christian (...) ethics, a critical discussion with other ethical systems as well as his own explicit theory on Augustinian and Thomistic ethics, which he endeavoured to develop. Thus the work interlocked the didactic objectives and the process of growth and justification of the Author's views, Krakow 2001, p. 308). (shrink)

Argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.

Argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.

I argue for two claims. First I argue against the consensus view that accurate behavioral prediction based on accurate representation of cognitive states, i.e. mind reading , is the sustaining function of propositional attitude ascription. This practice cannot have been selected in evolution and cannot persist, in virtue of its predictive utility, because there are principled reasons why it is inadequate as a tool for behavioral prediction. Second I give reasons that favor an alternative account of the sustaining function of (...) propositional attitude ascription. I argue that it serves a mind-shaping function. Roughly, propositional attitude ascription enables human beings to set up regulative ideals that function to mold behavior so as to make it easier to coordinate with. (shrink)

I review recent evidence that very young, pre-verbal infants attribute belief-like states when anticipating the behavior of others. This evidence is drawn from infant performance on non-verbal false belief tasks. I argue that, contrary to typical interpretations, such evidence does not show that infants attribute belief-like states. Rather, it shows that infants apply an enhanced version of what Gergely ( 2011 ) calls the “teleological stance” to brief bouts of behavior. This requires them to parse behavioral sequences into goals and (...) rationally/informationally-constrained means of achieving them; however, it does not require the attribution of unobservable mental states, like beliefs, that are causally responsible for behavior. (shrink)

I defend an alternative to the two traditional accounts of the relationship between metacognition and social cognition: metacognition as primary versus social cognition as primary. These accounts have complementary explanatory vices and virtues. They also share a natural assumption: that interpretation in terms of mental states is “spectatorial”, aiming exclusively for an objective description of the mental facts about self and others. I argue that if one rejects this assumption in favor of the view that interpretation in terms of mental (...) states also plays important regulative roles with respect to minds and behavior, a new and superior conception of the relationship between metacognition and social cognition comes into view. On this conception, person-level metacognitive concepts are socio-cognitive tools that shape us into better cognitive agents and more predictable cognitive objects, thereby enhancing our abilities at social coordination. Mastery of these metacognitive concepts relies on subpersonal, non-conceptual, procedural metacognition. This reconceptualization of the relationship between metacognition and social cognition combines the complementary explanatory virtues of the two traditional conceptions, while avoiding their complementary explanatory vices. (shrink)

There are three working theses formulated and proved in the paper. First, business ethics as a science not wishful thinking, encounters the following, impossible to overcome, difficulties: Lack of a precise definition of business ethics, Ethical relativism, Strong competition on national, international, and global market, Shareholders’ interests vs. social responsibility of a company, Objective (based on scientific laws) limitations of business ethics, Ethical codes vs. the rules of a company, labour and employment legislation. Second, the author claims that a company (...) cannot be treated as an ethical education institution. This kind of education should begin in a family, kindergartens, and schools. The issues of business ethics should be included into ethical education in above mentioned places. (e.g. negotiation, to keep one’s promise, to keep on schedule etc.) Third, the issue of business ethics (ethical codes) should not be restricted to a company only. It should be put into the context of sector, national, multinational, and global market. (shrink)

One of the most important and the most valuable theme that can be found in the philosophical writings of Joseph Życiński is the idea of the field of rationality, which is a kind of a formal field constituted by a net of mathematical structures and abstract relations. This hypothesis explains the so called mathematicity and rationality of nature by assuming that formal structures are ontologically prior to the physical phenomena. In the present paper the idea of the field of rationality (...) will be discussed. The article consists of three parts. The first deals with the problem of mathematicity which is a starting point of Życiński’s analyses, the second presents the most important features of the field he talks about, the third compares his idea with some concepts of Whitehead whose philosophy was his main source of inspiration. (shrink)

L’autodeterminazione è una categoria fondamentale nella visione personalistica di K. Wojtyła. Essa è una relazione entro la volontà. Una relazione di cui si potrebbe dire: la volontà si rivela come proprietà della persona e la persona come realtà che, riguardo al suo dinamismo, è constituita propriamente dalla volontà. L’autodeterminazione non è un atto chiuso entro se stesso, preché essenziale è il momento della verità e nella verità.

The paper considers certain properties of intermediate and moda propositional logics.The first part contains a proof of the theorem stating that each intermediate logic is closed under the Kreisel-Putnam rule xyz/(xy)(xz).

The article presents two concepts of indexicality. The first, more standard and narrow, identifies indexicality with systematic (meaning controlled) context-sensitivity. The second, broader (derived from the work of Jerzy Pelc), conceives indexicality in terms of the potential variability of the general semiotic characteristics expressions (with respect to the context of use). The text introduces the concept of a pragmatic matrix that serves for a schematic representation of contextual variation. I also recapitulate briefly the views of Jerzy Pelc on the meaning (...) (manner of use) and use of expressions, and briefly indicate its relationship approaches with contemporary debates around contextualism and status of non-sentential speech acts. Finally, the relationship between the broader notion of indexicality and the directival theory of meaning is analyzed. (shrink)