The present study addressed two related problems: The status of the concept of the soul in folk psychological conceptualizations across cultures, and the nature of mind-body dualism within Chinese folk psychology. We compared folk intuitions about three concepts – mind, body, and soul – among adults from China and Poland. The questionnaire study comprised of questions about the functional and ontological nature of the three entities. The results show that the mind and soul are conceptualized differently in the two countries: (...) The Chinese appear to think of the soul similarly to how they view the mind, while Poles differentiate it both in ontological and functional respects. The study provides important insights into cross-cultural differences in conceptualizing the soul as well as into the nature of Chinese mind-body dualism. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a battery of empirical findings on the relationship between cultural context and theory of mind that show great variance in the onset and character of mindreading in different cultures; discuss problems that those findings cause for the largely-nativistic outlook on mindreading dominating in the literature; and point to an alternative framework that appears to better accommodate the evident cross-cultural variance in mindreading. We first outline the theoretical frameworks that dominate in mindreading research, then present the (...) relevant empirical findings, and finally we come back to the theoretical approaches in a discussion of their explanatory potential in the face of the data presented. The theoretical frameworks discussed are the two-systems approach; performance-based approach also known as modularity-nativist approach; and the social-communicative theory also known as the systems, relational-systems, dynamic systems and developmental systems theory. The former two, which both fall within the wider modular-computational paradigm, run into a challenge with the cross-cultural data presented, and the latter - the systemic framework - seems to offer an explanatorily potent alternative. The empirical data cited in this paper comes from research on cross-cultural differences in folk psychology and theory-of-mind development; the influence of parenting practices on the development of theory of mind; the development and character of theory of mind in deaf populations; and neuroimaging research of cultural differences in mindreading. (shrink)

In this paper, we deal with the issue of how it is possible for pretending children to engage in exploratory performances and entertain alternative states of affairs. We question the approach according to which pretenders must be capable of counterfactual reasoning. Instead, we follow an alternative action-based framework on cognition and thus pretense, which argues for a much more profound role of the context of play than the questioned Counterfactual Thinking Approach to Pretense (CTAP). First, we motivate this shift in (...) theoretical perspective by critiquing CTAP and providing arguments in favor of the action-based alternative we endorse. Then, we demonstrate that the action-based framework allows for a fruitful analysis of pretense in terms of its context rather than (solely) mind-internal processes. This paper proposes that (1) thematic play-frames enable unusual manipulations with objects and words, and invite dynamic interactions between players who can discover new possibilities for action and communication, as well as that (2) pretense contexts understood generally as opposed to non-pretense contexts have selected features—specifically the adults’ approval of playing with cultural norms, the looseness of constraints, and the lack of particular goals leading to children’s positive feelings—that are genuinely conducive to play explorations. Finally, we discuss other contexts of possibilities, as well as the educational prospects of particular context-to-context transmissions. (shrink)

The central and probably most controversial point concerning the psychologism — anti-psychologism debate is the problem of Frege’s alleged influence on the change in Husserl’s views. Contemporary thinkers investigating the early period of Husserl’s philosophy have attempted to show that the opinion that Frege’s doctrine had a traumatic influence on Husserl’s views is not justified. This paper, which tries to maintain a balance between strictly philosophical argumentation and narrowly understood historical argumentation, suggests an alternative solution. By appealing to Frege’s works (...) published before 1894, the locus of psychologism will be determined. Afterwards, I will present Husserl’s and Frege’s views on the elucidation procedure and the distinction between calculus and ‘lingua characteristica’. By discussing Husserl’s works from 1894-1897, I will show that his standpoint changed dramatically as he entered into the anti-psychological program, involving a new theory of concepts, judgment, and the so-called ‘pure Fregean flavour’ — a new account of logical content. (shrink)

The paper is focused on the relationship between thought and language. One of the current hypotheses claims that public language is responsible for our ability to display second order cognitive dynamics. In order to investigate the alleged role of language in our ability to think about thoughts philosophers and psychologists have concentrated on the attribution of thought to another people i.e. on "mind reading" abilities. Evaluating series of experimental results (for example: The false belief task ) some of them have (...) put forward a strong hypothesis that capacity to attribute a thought to another people deploys a symbolic representations made available by the language faculty. Making this claim they have attempted to support the general idea that language is regarded as a necessary precursor for second order cognitive dynamics, i.e. the acquisition of specific language constructions fosters our ability to think consciously of our thoughts. In the paper (in opposition to this strong hypothesis) the moderate view is developed. According to the moderate view language is not considered as a devise that re-program our cognitive abilities and creates a new kind of cognition (second order thinking) but is rater an external resource that may scaffold our higher order cognitive abilities. (shrink)

The paper introduces the reader to the contemporary trends in the interpretation of Frege\'s thought. The point of departure in this description points out that the way of looking at Frege\'s accomplishment depends on the manner of characterising contemporary philosophy, in particular analytical philosophy. In order to have a closer look at the above relationship we have outlined the style of historical-systematic studies as proposed by Dummett. A series of historical facts are given with a view to explain the sources (...) of the renaissance of Frege\'s thought in contemporary philosophy. A description of various interpretations of the thoughts of Frege is given in line with four oppositions which appeared in contemporary literature: 1) genius - continuator; 2) epistemologist - philosopher of language; 3) theorist of meaning - theorist of thought; 4) anti-naturalist - realist. Noticing the drawbacks of the above characterisation, an alternative historical reconstruction is proposed. This proposal consists in distinguishing a basic category or object whose inquiries have become important and dominated various kinds of philosophical enterprise in a certain philosophical period. The category of proposition have been chosen to be such an object. At the same time, it is pinpointed that owing to this choice one may characterise Frege\'s accomplishment and explain from many points of view the sources of the relationship between Frege\'s thought and analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Intensionality (or opacity) is a core property of mental representations and sometimes understanding opacity is claimed to be a part of children's theory of mind (evidenced with the false belief task). Children, however, pass the false belief task and the intensionality tasks at different ages (typically 4 vs. 5;1-6;11 years). According to two dominant interpretations, the two tests either require different conceptual resources or vary only in their executive or linguistic load. In two experiments, involving 120 children aged 3-6 (Experiment (...) 1) and 75 children aged 4-6 (Experiment 2), we tested two variants of the executive load hypothesis: The differential linguistic complexity of the two tests, and the dual-name problem of the intensionality task. The former was addressed by standardizing and minimizing the linguistic demands of both tasks (contrasted with the typical narrative intensionality task), and the latter by introducing the dual-name problem into the false belief task as well, so that it was present in both tasks. We found that (1) two structurally different intensionality tasks shared more variance with each other than with the structurally similar false belief task, and that (2) introducing a dual label problem into the false belief task did not reduce the developmental gap. Our results speak against interpreting the difference between the time children pass the two tests entirely in terms of performative issues, and support the conceptual enrichment hypothesis. We discuss the theoretical relevance of these results, suggesting that they are best explained by fine-grained increments within the concept of belief, rather than a radical conceptual change. We conclude that understanding opacity of minds – which emerges between age 5 and 6 – is an important step towards a more advanced form of ToM. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is a comparative analysis of the Lvov-Warsaw School and Frege-Russell's tradition. The Comparison of these is made on the grounds of the analysis of existence. Choosing "existence" as the object of the analysis is very essential. It is so because understanding of the category of existence is strongly connected with the whole system. Thus, while analyzing the category, one can make a reconstruction of the concept scheme ; show their functioning; and compare them to each (...) other. It is easy to notice that in both these systems: a) analyzing is strongly connected with the way of expressing existence in a language, b) the essential problem is to which category existence belongs, c) the main question is whether existence is a predicate. Since the problem of analyzing—especially the problem of applying logic in philosophy—played an essential role both in Frege-Russell's system and Twardowski's school, the author of this paper wants to show how this was understood there. (shrink)

Contemporary research on mindreading or theory of mind has resulted in three major findings: There is a difference in the age of passing of the elicited-response false belief task and its spontaneous–response version; 15-month-olds pass the latter while the former is passed only by 4-year-olds. Linguistic and social factors influence the development of the ability to mindread in many ways. There are cultures with folk psychologies significantly different from the Western one, and children from such cultures tend to show different (...) timetables of mindreading development. The traditional accounts of the data are nativism, rational constructivism, and two-systems theory. In this paper, we offer criticism of these traditional cognitivist accounts and explore an alternative, action-based framework. We argue that even though they all seem to explain the above empirical data, there are other, theoretical reasons why their explanations are untenable. Specifically, we discuss the problem of foundationalism and the related problem of innateness. Finally, we explore an alternative, action-based framework that avoids these theoretical limitations and offer an interpretation of the empirical data from that perspective. (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł podejmuje kwestię roli Filozofii dla Dzieci (P4C) w kontekście rozumienia emocji. Najpierw przedstawiamy początek koncepcji Filozofii dla Dzieci, jako metody pedagogicznej wspierającej umiejętność krytycznego myślenia oraz proces, w jakim przekształciła się w narzędzie badawcze rozwijane w postaci interwencji psychologicznych. Następnie pokazujemy, w jaki sposób narzędzie P4C można zastosować w badaniach rozwojowych dotyczących rozumienia emocji przez dzieci. Argumentujemy, że projekt P4C służy nie tylko budowaniu wiedzy i poprawie zdolności poznawczych, ale sprzyja również kształtowaniu rozumienia sfery emocjonalnej. Pokazujemy, że korzyści (...) z filozofowania w domenie emocji są obserwowane u coraz młodszych dzieci. Zaznaczamy przy tym, że P4C dopiero od niedawna jest wykorzystywana w kontekście wspierania rozwoju emocji, a także w ramach interwencji z udziałem dzieci poniżej wieku szkolnego. Pokazujemy, że jest wynikiem zmian w sposobie pojmowania umysłowości dziecka, które nastąpiły w psychologii rozwojowej w ciągu ostatnich kilkudziesięciu lat. (shrink)

In this article we review the discussion over the thesis that language serves as an integrator of contents coming from different cognitive modules. After presenting the theoretical considerations, we examine two strands of empirical research that tested the hypothesis — spatial cognition and mathematical cognition. The idea shared by both of them is that each is composed of two separate modules processing information of a specific kind. For spatial thinking these are geometric information about the location of the object and (...) the information about the object’s properties such as color or size. For mathematical thinking, they are the absolute representation of small numbers and the approximate representation of numerosities. Language is said to integrate the two kinds of information within each of these domains, which the reviewed data demonstrates. In the final part of the paper, we offer some comments on the theoretical side of the discussion. (shrink)

There are serious theoretical problems with the free-energy principle model, which are shown in the current article. We discuss the proposed model's inability to account for culturally emergent normativities, and point out the foundational issues that we claim this inability stems from.

It is often claimed that Brentano’s rediscovery of intentionality has been strongly influenced by Aristotle. Brentano himself stressed repeatedly his affinity to Aristotle and this self-interpretation was by no means restricted to the theory of intentionality. In fact, Brentano seemed to believe that almost all of what he had discovered during his most influential years (1874–1895) has its more or less remote roots in the philosophy of Aristotle. Yet if we carefully compare the picture of intentionality that is to be (...) found in Aristotle’s De Anima with Brentano’s theory of immanent objects, we find more differences than similarities. The truth is that Brentano developed a quite different ontology of intentionality, and his references to Aristotle should be seen as a conventional homage to his master rather than as something of substance that could help us to understand better Brentano’s own theory. What Brentano in fact took from Aristotle was rather his way of doing philosophy and certain isolated ideas, but certainly not theories in their entirety. (shrink)

The concept of a trope (understood as an individual property and not as a figure of speech) plays an important role in contemporary analytical metaphysics. It is, however, often far from clear what the logic of this concept really is. Indeed, there are two equally important intuitions underlying the concept of trope, two intuitions that generate two quite different conceptual frameworks. According to the first intuition, a trope is a particularised property – a property taken as an individual aspect of (...) a particular object. A trope is thus the colour of this table or the shape of this sculpture. In the light of this conception tropes are, as it were, direct abstractions from concrete individuals. According to the second intuition a trope is still such an individual (and abstract) colour or such an individual (and abstract) shape, but now it is not only abstracted from the concrete individual of which it is a trope but also taken in abstraction from the very fact that it has been abstracted this way. We can imagine that the cognitive access to these tropes is obtained by a kind of a double abstraction. All this can sound puzzling at first blush, but in what follows I hope to make the matter a little clearer. Let us anticipate briefly. On the second view, tropes are construed not so much as abstractions from concrete individuals, but rather as primitive items of which the concrete individuals are composed. Tropes so construed are, as it were, metaphysically prior to concrete individuals. We will call tropes of this kind unstructured tropes, whereas tropes conceived as aspects of individual things will be called propositional tropes. This terminology is justified because tropes understood as aspects of things seem to involve something like propositional structure, a structure that tropes conceived as primitive “building blocks” of reality definitely lack. It is sometimes believed that these two concepts of trope are nearly equivalent, that the difference between them is for the most part verbal. Yet it will turn out that there is an important ontological difference here. Propositional tropes are non-trivially propositional and unstructured tropes are non-trivially deprived of such a structure (althought not necessarily deprived of any dependence-links with respect to other tropes). It will be argued that tropes are metaphysically interesting only on the second conception (i.e., as primitive, unstructured items), whereas only on the first conception (tropes as propositionally structured entities) can they function as semantically efficient truthmakers. The moral of the paper will be that our trust in tropes must be mitigated. A trope ontology could plausibly be viewed as a serious metaphysical alternative, but its semantical possibilities should not be exaggerated. (shrink)

Stosunki polsko-węgierskie pozostają czymś niezwykłym na skalę europejską. Choć w świadomości społeczeństw obu narodów dominuje pozytywne postrzeganie wzajemnych relacji, nie było to zjawisko stale występujące w historii. Najintensywniej zachodziło, gdy oba kraje opierały się dominacji pierwiastka germańskiego. Węgry jako pierwsze utraciły niepodległość, ulegając naciskom ze Wschodu. Również Polska podzieliła los Węgier, ulegając presji zarówno ze Wschodu, jak i Zachodu. Doświadczenia historyczne obu krajów pokazały konieczność współdziałania wobec zagrożeń płynących z obu kierunków. Warunki po 1886 roku nie sprzyjały realizacji tego założenia, (...) choć w XIX i XX wieku Polacy i Węgrzy snuli wizje geopolityczne określające skalę możliwych przemian w Europie Środkowej. Zmiana nastąpiła po zakończeniu II wojny światowej. Niezależnie od naturalnie występujących rozbieżności w postrzeganiu własnego otoczenia, w XXI wieku trudno wskazać polską koncepcję geopolityczną, która nie uwzględnia regionalnej roli Węgier, czy też węgierską, ignorującą Rzeczpospolitą Polską. (shrink)

Artykuł dotyczy „pamiętnika z Sołówek” Mieczysława Lenardowicza, opublikowanego dwukrotnie w 1930 roku. Wersja krótsza utworu, zatytułowana Pamiętnik z Sołówek, ukazała się nakładem Towarzystwa Wydawniczego „Rój”, zaś wersja obszerniejsza, Na wyspach tortur i śmierci. Pamiętnik z Sołówek, została wydana przez Wojskowy Instytut Naukowo-Wydawniczy. Utwór Lenardowicza jest prawdopodobnie pierwszym polskim dziełem literatury łagrowej, i szerzej, literatury obozowej. Uwagi dotyczące utworu: jego genezy, wersji, formy, zawartości i pragmatyki, poprzedza próba ustalenia tożsamości autora, o którym praktycznie niczego nie wiadomo.

The purpose of the article is to examine the post-pandemic business cycle in Poland and in the United States in the light of the Austrian business cycle theory. The study shows that this theory satisfactorily explains the post-pandemic business cycle. Moreover, it seems that the Austrian business cycle theory explains some important facts better than competing theories of business cycle. The analysis also indicates that the post-pandemic business cycle differs significantly in many respects from previous business cycles – and that (...) these differences could be explained within the framework of the Austrian business cycle theory. (shrink)

The history of twentieth century philosophy is characterised by the gap between analytic and continental philosophy -- even though both have their roots in a tradition referred to as 'Austrian' or 'Central-European' philosophy. The essays in this volume show in historical and systematic studies, how a reassessment of this 'Central-European' tradition can build an interesting bridge between phenomenology and analytic philosophy and, thus, create a new foundation that allows for an original perspective on central problems of philosophy.

The paper examines narrative operations involved in the temporal configuration of experience within a general framework of the phenomenological treatment of temporality. Taking as its point of departure a most basic instantiation of temporal experience, namely that of a ticking clock, it argues that the narrative dynamics which give form and charge the interval between tick and tock with significant duration are directly derived from the time-constituting operations of the embodied mind and, as such, are independent of their linguistic articulations. (...) Thus, it critically invokes Husserl’s account of time-consciousness, more specifically his model of retention-primary impression-protention, first in the context of Francisco J. Varela’s account of the neurodynamics of lived time, and then with reference to David Carr’s argument for continuity between narrative and the world of our experiences and actions. Building on these critical trajectories, the paper outlines how proto-narrative elements of lived time form a basis for the properly narrative operation of emplotment and, in its final section, discusses some of the complex relations between lived time and narrative time by contrasting Carr’s account of narrative with Paul Ricoeur’s model of triple mimesis. (shrink)

W niniejszym artykule ukazana została polemika polskiego filozofa Wojciecha Dzieduszyckiego z jednym z postępowych haseł głoszonych w XIX wieku. Hasło to sam Dzieduszycki określił jako „bezwyznaniowość”. Autor artykułu analizuje argumentację Dzieduszyckiego co do negatywnych skutków wyrugowania religii z życia publicznego, zarówno w przeszłości, jak i w czasach mu współczesnych, a także ukazuje pozytywną rolę religii w życiu jednostek, państw, narodów, a nawet całych cywilizacji. Bez religii bowiem, twierdził polski myśliciel, społeczności degradują się i obumierają. Ciekawa, a współcześnie bardzo ważna dyskusja (...) o roli religii w życiu społecznym, została w artykule zestawiona z propagowaną przez Dzieduszyckiego ideą „mesjanizmu polskiego”, jak również z obecnymi dziś w kulturze i polityce propozycjami radykalnej laicyzacji. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to examine the legacy of Menger’s theory of social institutions. We argue that Menger’s insights about the origin of social structures inspired later contributions in three main areas: theory of spontaneous order, theory of money, and theory of law.

Artykuł stanowi wprowadzenie do lektury „pamiętnika z Sołówek” Mieczysława Lenardowicza, opublikowanego dwukrotnie w 1930 roku jako Na wyspach tortur i śmierci. Pamiętnik z Sołówek (Wojskowy Instytut Naukowo-Wydawniczy) i Pamiętnik z Sołówek (Towarzystwo Wydawnicze „Rój”). Utwór ten jest prawdopodobnie pierwszym dziełem polskiej literatury łagrowej i, szerzej, obozowej. W artykule zarysowano kontekst historyczny i historycznoliteracki utworu Lenardowicza: genezę bolszewickich i sowieckich obozów koncentracyjnych, a w szczególności Sołowieckiego Obozu Specjalnego Przeznaczenia, oraz wskazano najważniejsze wczesne świadectwa dotyczące sowieckich obozów koncentracyjnych (głównie Sołowek), w tym (...) teksty opublikowane w Polsce i w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie do 1945 roku. Są wśród nich, obok utworu Lenardowicza, świadectwa obcojęzyczne (rosyjskie, ukraińskie, niemieckie) i ich przekłady, napisane po polsku wspomnienia Białorusina Franciszka Alachnowicza oraz teksty napisane po polsku przez Polaków: artykuły prasowe, reportaże, eseje – traktujące o Sołowkach w sposób mniej lub bardziej bezpośredni. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary volume of essays explores how the notion of time varies across disciplines by examining variance as a defining feature of temporalities in cultural, creative, and scholarly contexts. Featuring a President's Address by philosopher David Wood, it begins with critical reassessments of J.T. Fraser's hierarchical theory of time through the lens of Anthropocene studies, philosophy, ecological theory, and ecological literature; proceeds to variant narratives in fiction, video games, film, and graphic novels; and concludes by measuring time's variance with tools (...) as different as incense clocks and computers, and by marking variance in music, film, and performance art. (shrink)

Despite Karol Wojtyła later to become Pope John Paul II was firstly a moral and anthropological philosopher, his reflection also concerns in historiosophical and civilizational issues. This part of his intellectual activity is rather less known. But Wojtyła was an author of original conception of history and civilization. Among different ways of historiosophical and civilizational interpretations we can find him as a representative of moderate universalism. He joined the belief in existence of universal history as well as the common values (...) with a need of clear definition of human “ego” that could be realized thanks to concrete communities. He saw history in theological and philosophical aspects. Firstly, for him it was a universal history of salvation that is a participation of all nations and cultures as well as every real man. In a philosophical sense he emphasized the universal desire of getting to know the ultimate truth and gaining absolute good. His ethical model of universal civilization is based on the acceptation of cultural diversities. That is why it could be named as “ecumenical civilization”. Its main method is a dialogue that leads to truth and peace. We can find the source of Wojtyła’s universalism in a personalistic philosophy, which sees a proper subject of history and culture aswell as civilization in a person. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to a problem of power of European nation state during the process of shaping the postindustrial civilization. The author points that the nation state is a relic of an industrial era. Globalization is a real fear for relatively small European states. So, integration is a necessity. But the integration does not mean the centralization of rules. Today we can see a comeback to preindustrial political paradigmatics: decentralization and deconcentration of authorities. The future of Europe is in (...) three-level system that has been built by supranational institutions, e.g. EU, decentralized states (federations and regionalized states) and regional (quasi-states) and local community. But the European Union will not become a federation. It would be a conservation of industrial models. The Europeans must rather think of a new formula of integration. Neo-medieval empire is an adequate to changes’ direction proposal. The author also notices that we are the observers of essential change of identity. The national identity has been relativized by globalization and uniformitarian character of American cultureas well as by aspiration of regional and ethnic groups. European national identity and consensuses could be rather a supplement than an alternative for today’s national identification. (shrink)

Although it is a welcome and timely idea, the behavioural constellation of deprivation needs to explain how the development of personal control, trust, and perception of future risk is mediated through relationships with parents. Further, prioritising the present over the future may not be the essence of this constellation; perhapsnotquite being, either in the presentorin the future, is a better depiction.

The development of self-regulation in early childhood is related to development of emotional regulation and attention, in particular executive attention. As the ability to self-regulate is crucial in life, it is important to reveal early predictors of self-regulation. The aim of the paper is to present the results of longitudinal studies on the relationships between the functioning of attention, regulation of emotion and later self-regulatory abilities. 310 children were assessed at three time points. At 12 months of age emotional regulation (...) in situation of frustration and attention regulation were assessed. At 18 and 24 months behavioral-emotional regulation in the Snack Delay Task was measured. Additionally parents assessed executive attention using The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire when children were 26 months old. Structural equation modelling revealed two different paths to development of self-regulatory abilities at 18 months: emotional and emotionalattentional and only one emotional-attentional path at 24 months. The early ability to focus attention and later executive attention functioning revealed to be important predictors of self-regulatory abilities both at 18 and 24 months of age. (shrink)

The dynamic epistemic logic for actual knowledge models the phenomenon of actual knowledge change when new information is received. In contrast to the systems of dynamic epistemic logic which have been discussed in the past literature, our system is not burdened with the problem of logical omniscience, that is, an idealized assumption that the agent explicitly knows all classical tautologies and all logical consequences of his or her knowledge. We provide a sound and complete axiomatization for this logic.

In this paper we undertake an analysis of the knowability paradox in the light of modal epistemic logics and of the phenomena of unsuccessful updates. The knowability paradox stems from the Church-Fitch observation that the plausible knowability principle, according to which all truths are knowable, yields the unacceptable conclusion that all truths are known. We show that the phenomenon of an unsuccessful update is the reason for the paradox arising. Based on this diagnosis, we propose a restriction on the knowability (...) principle which resolves the paradox. (shrink)