This article presents the results of lead isotope analysis of ten Byzantine seals from the sigillographic collection of Robert Feind. The report is preceded by an overview of pre-existing studies on lead use in the Byzantine Empire and a presentation of the investigated seals datable to the Early Byzantine, Middle Byzantine and Late Byzantine period. Three seals are of imperial issue. The results of the analysis of lead are compared against the results of isotope analysis of other silver and lead (...) artefacts from Late Antiquity and the Late Byzantine period. The isotop analysis leads to the following conclusions: Many of the seals have isotope ratios consistent with Aegean-Bulgaria-Western Turkey sources; Reused lead was also employed in the manufacture of seals; There appear to be significant chronological and regional differences in the lead used for casting blanks in the eastern Mediterranean. The number of lead seals subjected here to analysis is admittedly too small for the results to be fully representative; still, they provide a starting point for more similar studies which will preferably include excavation finds with known and secure provenance. (shrink)

The paper presents fragments of a Byzantine icon discovered in 2015 during regular archaeological excavations carried out in Chełm, eastern Poland. Iconographic analyses allow the nine surviving fragments to be interpreted as belonging to a diptych wing with the Great Feasts cycle. The icon represents archaic iconography of the subject, with the scene of Transfiguration placed after Entry into Jerusalem and before the Crucifixion. The artefact was created in the second half or at the close of the 12th century, and (...) it was made from steatite, which has been confirmed by petrographic analyses. The icon was discovered in the remains of a palace complex of King Daniel Romanovich, the greatest ruler of the Galicia-Volhynia Lands. The results of the archaeological research allow the terminus ante quem for the icon’s arrival in Chełm to be determined as before the middle of the 13th century. Various possible explanations as to how the icon found its way to Chełm are also explored in the paper. (shrink)

Celem niniejszego artykułu jest przedstawienie estetycznej wrażliwości karolińskiego mnicha i erudyty Walahfrida Strabona. Podstawą analiz stał się spisany przez Strabona botaniczny poemat De cultura hortorum. Kontemplacyjne rozważania wczesnośredniowiecznego poety dowodzą, w jak ścisłym zespoleniu trwały dwa odległe, a jednocześnie jednak tak bardzo bliźniacze światy - antyczny i chrześcijański. Wyznacznikiem tej koincydencji był nie tylko uniwersalizm języka łacińskiego, ale także stopniowo przyswajana, uświadamiana i konwertowana sztuka i filozofia. Walahfrid zajmuje bardzo ważne miejsce w procesie kształtowania myśli estetycznej. Jest ogniwem łączącym Alkuina, (...) przepowiadającego ideę ładu, z Janem Szkotem Eriugeną, który wspomniany ład odważył się spektakularnie zdefiniować jako chrześcijańską estetykę opartą na myśli Greków i Rzymian. (shrink)

Since 1989, clinical ethics consultation in form of hospital ethics committees was established in most of the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Up to now, the similarities and differences between HECs in Central and Eastern Europe and their counterparts in the U.S. and Western Europe have not been determined. Through search in literature databases, we have identified studies that document the implementation of clinical ethics consultation in Central and Eastern Europe. These studies have been analyzed under the following (...) aspects: mode of establishment of HECs, character of consultation they provide, and their composition. The results show that HECs in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe differ from their western-European or U.S. counterparts with regard to these three aspects. HECs were established because of centrally imposed legal regulations. Little initiatives in this area were taken by medical professionals interested in resolving emerging ethical issues. HECs in the transition countries concentrate mostly on review of research protocols or resolution of administrative conflicts in healthcare institutions. Moreover, integration of non-professional third parties in the workings of HECs is often neglected. We argue that these differences can be attributed to the historical background and the role of medicine in these countries under the communist regime. Political and organizational structures of healthcare as well as education of healthcare staff during this period influenced current functioning of clinical ethics consultation in the transition countries. (shrink)

This is a short presentation by the Guest Editors of the series of Special Issues of the journal _Philosophies_ under the common title “Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies” in which we present Part 2. The series will continue, and the call for contributions to the next Special Issue will appear shortly.

On 17 July 2012, the European Commission formally adopted a proposal for a new European Union (EU) Directive regarding clinical trials, which will repeal and replace the existing Directive 2001/20/EC. The main reasons for the revision were: (1) the decreasing number of clinical trials in the region and (2) harsh criticism of the present version of the Directive. The proposed regulation could simplify the rules for conducting clinical trials and also rebuild the entire system of clinical trial assessment. However, it (...) seems that we probably have already lost our chance regarding the consistency and quality of functioning of research ethics committees in the EU. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that several recent ‘wide’ perspectives on cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive, and distributed) are only partially relevant to the study of cognition. While these wide accounts override traditional methodological individualism, the study of cognition has already progressed beyond these proposed perspectives towards building integrated explanations of the mechanisms involved, including not only internal submechanisms but also interactions with others, groups, cognitive artifacts, and their environment. The claim is substantiated with reference to recent developments in the (...) study of “mindreading” and debates on emotions. We claim that the current practice in cognitive (neuro)science has undergone, in effect, a silent mechanistic revolution, and has turned from initial binary oppositions and abstract proposals towards the integration of wide perspectives with the rest of the cognitive (neuro)sciences. (shrink)

Magdalena Jaworska-Wołoszyn On the Pantheon of Plethon’s LawsOf all the surviving fragments of Plethon’s Laws there emerges a holistic vision – that of a truly original philosophy. The last of Plethon’s works consists of many issues analyzed from different perspectives. The main purpose of this article is the presentation of Plethon’s hierarchy of gods. In the light of Plethon’s philosophy, the pantheon itself is the foundation of an original and controversial metaphysics. Indeed, knowing the divine order determines the cognition (...) of the structural elements of the whole reality. Keywords: the pantheon of Plethon’s Laws, metaphysical nature of gods. (shrink)

Contemporary Natural Philosophy is understood here as a project of the pursuit of the integrated description of reality distinguished by the precisely formulated criteria of objectivity, and by the assumption that the statements of this description can be assessed only as true or false according to clearly specified verification procedures established with the exclusive goal of the discrimination between these two logical values, but not with respect to any other norms or values established by the preferences of human collectives or (...) by the individual choices. This distinction assumes only logical consistency, but not completeness. Completeness (i.e., the feasibility to assign true or false value to all possible statements) is desirable, but may be impossible. This paper is not intended as a comprehensive program for the development of the Contemporary Natural Philosophy but rather as a preparation for such program advocating some necessary revisions and extensions of the methodology currently considered as the scientific method. This is the actual focus of the paper and the reason for the reference to Baconian _idola mentis_. Francis Bacon wrote in _Novum Organum_ about the fallacies obstructing progress of science. The present paper is an attempt to remove obstacles for the Contemporary Natural Philosophy project to which we have assigned the names of the Idols of the Number, the Idols of the Common Sense, and the Idols of the Elephant. (shrink)

The article describes Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec's perspective on four classic philosophical images of man and the resulting theoretical and practical implications for the nursing profession. The first three images, namely man as a set of elements, man as a soul imprisoned in the body and man as a rational animal, are regarded by Krąpiec as reductionist anthropologies and are thus inadequate for nursing. The first image reduces man to a biological element. The second one reduces man to a soul and (...) treats a body as something an obstacle in personal development. The third image absolutizes reason in man. While the body is not rejected in this image, it is viewed as an indifferent mass. The last image, which regards man as a person, is an adequate image for nursing. The exceptional character of man emphasized in this image is determined by the following personal qualities: the ability for cognition, freedom, love, religiousness, dignity, subjectivity to law and completeness. These characteristics reveal the specificity of personal being in both the body and the spirit. By viewing man as a person, a nurse discovers a wide range of possibilities of providing effective help to the patient. (shrink)

When discussing the safety of research subjects, including their exploitation and vulnerability as well as failures in clinical research, recent commentators have focused mostly on countries with low or middle-income economies. High-income countries are seen as relatively safe and well-regulated. This article presents irregularities in clinical trials in an EU member state, Poland, which were revealed by the Supreme Audit Office of Poland (the NIK). Despite adopting many European Union regulations, including European Commission directives concerning Good Clinical Practice, these irregularities (...) occurred. Causes as well as potential solutions to make clinical trials more ethical and safer are discussed. (shrink)

The discussion around dignity in nursing philosophy has been underway for many years. The literature still lacks philosophical arguments that would justify the thesis that all people have dignity. Scholars who defend dignity as an intrinsic value most often refer to Kant. However, Kant does not seem to be the most suitable candidate to defend the thesis that all human beings possess dignity. In this paper, I attempt to show that Aristotle's and Aquinas's views can help justify this thesis. To (...) this end, I distinguish between actual dignity, potential dignity, and existential dignity. I state that all human beings have existential dignity or potential dignity. (shrink)

In the book, I argue that the mind can be explained computationally because it is itself computational—whether it engages in mental arithmetic, parses natural language, or processes the auditory signals that allow us to experience music. All these capacities arise from complex information-processing operations of the mind. By analyzing the state of the art in cognitive science, I develop an account of computational explanation used to explain the capacities in question.

In this paper, I argue that even if the Hard Problem of Content, as identified by Hutto and Myin, is important, it was already solved in natu- ralized semantics, and satisfactory solutions to the problem do not rely merely on the notion of information as covariance. I point out that Hutto and Myin have double standards for linguistic and mental representation, which leads to a peculiar inconsistency. Were they to apply the same standards to basic and linguistic minds, they would (...) either have to embrace representationalism or turn to semantic nihilism, which is, as I argue, an unstable and unattractive position. Hence, I conclude, their book does not offer an alternative to representation- alism. At the same time, it reminds us that representational talk in cognitive science cannot be taken for granted and that information is different from men- tal representation. Although this claim is not new, Hutto and Myin defend it forcefully and elegantly. (shrink)

The development of new methods in the field of prenatal testing leads to an expansion of information that needs to be provided to expectant mothers. The aim of this research is to explore opinions and attitudes of gynecologists in Germany, Poland and Russia towards access to prenatal testing and diagnostics in these countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with n = 18 gynecologists in Germany, Poland and Russia. The interviews were analyzed using the methods of content analysis and thematic analysis. Visible (...) in all three countries is a connection of prenatal medicine with the politically and socially contentious issue of pregnancy termination. Respondents in Poland and Russia concentrated on the topic of inadequate resources. Quality of information for expectant mothers is an important point in all three countries. Only in Germany was the issue of language barriers in communication raised. With regard to non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) respondents in Germany focused on the ethical issues of routinization of testing; in Poland and Russia they concentrated on fair access to NIPT. Challenges in all three countries arise from structural factors such as imprecise and prohibitive regulations, lack of resources or organization of healthcare services. These should be addressed on a political and medico-ethical level. (shrink)

W 1983 roku Benjamin Libet wraz ze współpracownikami po raz pierwszy wykazał, że w prostym działaniu dobrowolnym świadoma intencja nie pełni funkcji inicjującej. Czasowy przebieg tego typu działania wskazuje również, że intencja oraz samo działanie to produkty procesów nieświadomych. Na podstawie wyniku Libeta oraz wybranych koncepcji psychologicznych Daniel Wegner zaproponował teorię pozornej mentalnej przyczynowości, w ramach której intencja to rodzaj konstruktu umożliwiającego agentowi zrozumienie własnego zachowania w kategoriach przyczynowych, gdzie jego stan mentalny (intencja) jawi mu się jako przyczyna, a działanie (...) jako skutek. Ujęcie Wegnera rodzi jednak pytanie, jaka jest faktyczna relacja pomiędzy intencjami, a celami kształtującymi nasze decyzje. Biorąc pod uwagę wyjaśnienie amerykańskiego psychologa, nie możemy być pewni, że te dwa elementy mają ze sobą jakiś związek. Może to prowadzić do zaskakującego wniosku, że nasza świadoma wola jest w gruncie rzeczy iluzją. Korzystając z wyników badań Read’a Montague nad mechanizmami ustanawiania i osiągania celów wskazuję na alternatywną możliwość rozumienia roli intencji. Zgodnie z analizą Montague, możemy postulować, że przynajmniej w wybranych przypadkach treść intencji działania oraz przebieg zachowań celowych oparte są na tej samej abstrakcyjnej reprezentacji. Znaczy to, że interpretacja świadomej woli, jako przydatnej iluzji jest za szeroka, gdyż znamy (wskazane w tekście) przypadki, kiedy treść intencji jest tożsama z reprezentacją pełniącą rolę nagrody w systemie ustanawiania i osiągania celów. (shrink)

Résumé L’article presente les changements qui se sont manifestes dans la recherche polonaise, essentiellement en litterature et histoire des Lumieres, entre 1945 et 1990. L’accent est mis sur l’impact du contexte politique sur la recherche. Les annees 1945-1956 ont ete marquees par de fortes contraintes ideologiques car le regime communiste imposait aux chercheurs une vision simplifiee des Lumieres censee repondre aux besoins de ses plans. Apres l’epoque stalinienne, la pression ideologique et institutionnelle s’est progressivement reduite, ouvrant la voie a davantage (...) de liberte de recherche et d’interpretation des Lumieres. Si certains episodes historiques continuaient a faire l’objet de debats publics, la vision des Lumieres produite par les travaux s’effectuait desormais sans ingerence directe du pouvoir. (shrink)

Ancient catalogues of Aristotle’s writings mention Symposium in one book, but this does not seem to be a dialogue analogical to that of Plato. Aristotle raised the sympotical and wine-drinking issues differently, as Plutarchus, Macrobius, Philo of Alexandria, Ps. Julian, and first and foremost, Atheaneus relate in their works. In his The Sophists at Dinner, Atheaneus quotes Aristotle’s title Συμπόσιον only once, while the title Περὶ μέθης is cited six times. Some scholars and editors of Aristotle’s fragments combine both titles (...) as belonging to one writing, while others separate them as their identity is not confirmed by the sources. Irrespective of whether it was a dialogue, just one or two related works, the few extant testimonies and citations from Aristotle provide an interesting source of information concerning the then customs and drinking effects in Greek culture, which, however, should not be directly associated with contemporary drunkenness and alcoholism. Aristotle’s approach to wine-drinking and feasting was in fact investigative, natural, medical, and analogical to the arguments presented in the third book of Problemata, where the matters On the drinking of wine and drunkenness are touched upon. (shrink)

The historical work of Anna Komnene is one of the main sources which provides crucial information about John Italos. It is worth noting though that princess Komnene sketches in the Alexiad a portrait of this eminent Byzantine thinker that is anything but flattering. Despite the wide range of perspectives and diverse representations of the philosopher, it is actually quite difficult to find in her opus any comments or opinions of decisively positive nature. As a matter of fact, the final opinion (...) regarding the famous “Consul Philosophorum” is formed solely on the basis of downright hostile statements. John Italos is not regarded as an outstanding figure, but rather as a controversial thinker that hardly deserves any recognition. While the present paper investigates the figure of Italos as shown in the Alexiad by Anna Komnene, its aim is to unravel those elements in the work that caused Komnene to express such an opinion about the philosopher. (shrink)

Marian Wesoły devoted a considerable part of his life and research to studying the philosophical thought of antiquity. He is, therefore, widely known to scientific community as an admirer of Hellas, outstanding scholar and expert on ancient philosophy, which is reflected in his many publications in the field. Importantly, however, Marian Wesoły, has also been a pioneer of research into a much lesser known field of research, namely Greek philosophy in Byzantium. While this neglected and often disdained area of research (...) has been the subject of Marian Wesoły’s numerous publications, this article presents an over view of his most important findings. (shrink)

The main goal of the paper is to indicate some misunderstandings in Ingarden's criticism of vob Bertalanffy's conception of open system.

The term “personhood” has a long history and is deeply rooted in the bioethical debate. Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby argues that bioethicists should abandon the concept of personhood, because “‘person...

Application of either the harm principle or the best interest standard to medical decision making conflicts with some types of pediatric research that pose elevated risk without the reasonable prob...

This paper addresses the following question: Can one and the same utterance token, in one unique speech situation, intentionally and conventionally perform a plurality of illocutionary acts? While some of the recent literature has considered such a possibility Perspectives on pragmatics and philosophy. Springer, Cham, pp 227–244, 2013; Johnson in Synthese 196:1151–1165, 2019), I build a case for it by drawing attention to common conversational complexities unrecognized in speech acts analysis. Traditional speech act theory treats communication as: a dyadic exchange (...) between a Speaker and a Hearer who trade illocutionary acts endowed with one and only one primary force. I first challenge assumption by discussing two contexts where plural illocutionary forces are performed in dyadic discussions: dilemmatic deliberations and strategic ambiguity. Further, I challenge assumption by analyzing poly-adic discussions, where a speaker can target various participants with different illocutionary acts performed via the same utterance. Together, these analyses defend illocutionary pluralism as a significant but overlooked fact about communication. I conclude by showing how some phenomena recently analyzed in speech act theory—back-door speech acts New work on speech acts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 144–164, 2018) and dog-whistles New work on speech acts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 360–383, 2018)—implicitly presuppose illocutionary pluralism without recognizing it. (shrink)

The claim defended in the paper is that the mechanistic account of explanation can easily embrace idealization in big-scale brain simulations, and that only causally relevant detail should be present in explanatory models. The claim is illustrated with two methodologically different models: Blue Brain, used for particular simulations of the cortical column in hybrid models, and Eliasmith’s SPAUN model that is both biologically realistic and able to explain eight different tasks. By drawing on the mechanistic theory of computational explanation, I (...) argue that large-scale simulations require that the explanandum phenomenon is identified; otherwise, the explanatory value of such explanations is difficult to establish, and testing the model empirically by comparing its behavior with the explanandum remains practically impossible. The completeness of the explanation, and hence of the explanatory value of the explanatory model, is to be assessed vis-à-vis the explanandum phenomenon, which is not to be conflated with raw observational data and may be idealized. I argue that idealizations, which include building models of a single phenomenon displayed by multi-functional mechanisms, lumping together multiple factors in a single causal variable, simplifying the causal structure of the mechanisms, and multi-model integration, are indispensable for complex systems such as brains; otherwise, the model may be as complex as the explanandum phenomenon, which would make it prone to so-called Bonini paradox. I conclude by enumerating dimensions of empirical validation of explanatory models according to new mechanism, which are given in a form of a “checklist” for a modeler. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that computationalism is a progressive research tradition. Its metaphysical assumptions are that nervous systems are computational, and that information processing is necessary for cognition to occur. First, the primary reasons why information processing should explain cognition are reviewed. Then I argue that early formulations of these reasons are outdated. However, by relying on the mechanistic account of physical computation, they can be recast in a compelling way. Next, I contrast two computational models of working memory (...) to show how modeling has progressed over the years. The methodological assumptions of new modeling work are best understood in the mechanistic framework, which is evidenced by the way in which models are empirically validated. Moreover, the methodological and theoretical progress in computational neuroscience vindicates the new mechanistic approach to explanation, which, at the same time, justifies the best practices of computational modeling. Overall, computational modeling is deservedly successful in cognitive science. Its successes are related to deep conceptual connections between cognition and computation. Computationalism is not only here to stay, it becomes stronger every year. (shrink)

In this paper, we closely examine the various ways in which a multi-party argumentative discussion—argumentative polylogue—can be analyzed in a dialectical framework. Our chief concern is that while multi-party and multi-position discussions are characteristic of a large class of argumentative activities, dialectical approaches would analyze and evaluate them in terms of dyadic exchanges between two parties: pro and con. Using as an example an academic committee arguing about the researcher of the year as well as other cases from argumentation literature, (...) we scrutinize the advantages and pitfalls of applying a dialectical framework to polylogue analysis and evaluation. We recognize two basic dialectical methods: interpreting polylogues as exchanges between two main camps and splitting polylogues into a multitude of dual encounters. On the basis of this critical inquiry, we lay out an argument expressing the need for an improved polylogical model and propose its basic elements. (shrink)

Our new journal Philosophies is devoted to the search for a synthesis of philosophical and scientific inquiry. It promotes philosophical work derived from the experience of diverse scientific disciplines. [...].

The aim of this paper is to propose foundations for a formal model of representation and numerical evaluation of a possibly broad class of arguments, including those that occur in natural discourse. Since one of the most characteristic features of everyday argumentation is the occurrence of convergent reasoning, special attention should be paid to the operation ⊕, which allows us to calculate the logical force of convergent arguments with an accuracy not offered by other approaches.

The study of information based on the approach of Shannon was detached from problems of meaning. Also, it did not allow analysis of the structural characteristics of information, nor describe the way structures carry information. An outline of a different theory of information, including its semantics, was earlier proposed by the author. This theory was using closure spaces to model information. In the present paper, structures (called syllogistics) underlying syllogistic reasoning as well as ethnoscientific classifications are identified together with the (...) conditions for the lattice of closed subsets describing information to allow its existence. The structures can be used for logical analysis outside of language at the more general level of information, which in turn can be applied to the description of semantic relations in the context of information. (shrink)

Artykuł omawia analizę fenomenu życia religijnego w filozofii Williama Jamesa (1842-1910). Wskazano na kalwińskie korzenie twórcy pragmatyzmu a zwłaszcza na prezbiteriański schemat zwany sylogizmem praktycznym, który w powodzeniu życiowym szukał potwierdzenia posiadania łaski religijnej. Twórca pragmatyzmu, rozpoczął swoje badania od analizy przeżyć ludzkich z perspektywy psychologicznej. Pod koniec życia coraz więcej uwagi poświęcił analizie fenomenu życia religijnego. Poglądy swoje wyłożył w wykładach edynburskich w roku 1901, które zostały wydane w książce Doświadczenia religijne. Analizie przeżyć religijnych poświęcone są też końcowe partie (...) Pragmatyzmu (1907). James wskazuje na znaczenie przeżyć religijnych w życiu człowieka. Uważa, że istotę religii stanowi poczucie zależności, odczucie obecności tego, co nadprzyrodzone. W religii nie chodzi o dogmaty, instytucje czy rytuały, lecz o pożytek, jaki przynosi ona jednostce, porządkując jej życie. Głównym celem religii pozytywnych jest wyzwolenie człowieka od zła. Tak opisana religijność jawi się jako swoista sapientia, życiowa mądrość, która porządkuje ludzkie życie i wnosi w nie wartość dodatnią. Stąd takie rozumienie religii zostaje określone w artykule mianem sapientia pragmatica. (shrink)

The paper offers a critical analysis of the research program for formalizing informal logic proposed by Douglas Walton and Thomas Gordon. Since their proposal is based on employing the Carneades Argumentation System, this paper aims at answering two questions: what are main benefits of applying CAS as means for formalizing informal logic, and what are possible extensions of Walton and Gordon’s research program and modifications in employing CAS?

Problem rozważany w tym artykule dotyczy relacji między zdroworozsądkowym a filozoficznym poznaniem atrybutów Boga. Na przykładzie wszechmocy, wszechwiedzy i wszechobecności Boga dochodzi się do wniosku, że w oparciu o bezpośrednio daną rzeczywistość i przy zastosowaniu tylko poznania zdroworozsądkowego człowiek nie doświadcza tego rodzaju własności w świecie, lecz przypisuje je Bogu. Natomiast sam z siebie nie potrafi ich uzasadnić. Kwestią uzasadnienia problemów, powstających na gruncie poznania potocznego, zajmuje się m.in. filozofia. Dlatego przyjmuje się, że filozofia koryguje i uzupełnia poznanie przednaukowe. Jednakże (...) dla samego orientowania się i uznania wspomnianych przymiotów Boga poznanie zdroworozsądkowe jest wystarczające. --------------- Zgłoszono: 16/01/2021. Zrecenzowano: 09/03/2021. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 11/05/2021. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a general mechanistic framework for analyzing causal representational claims, and offer a way to distinguish genuinely representational explanations from those that invoke representations for honorific purposes. It is usually agreed that rats are capable of navigation because they maintain a cognitive map of their environment. Exactly how and why their neural states give rise to mental representations is a matter of an ongoing debate. I will show that anticipatory mechanisms involved in rats’ (...) evaluation of possible routes give rise to satisfaction conditions of contents, and this is why they are representationally relevant for explaining and predicting rats’ behavior. I argue that a naturalistic account of satisfaction conditions of contents answers the most important objections of antirepresentationalists. (shrink)

The predictive processing account of action, cognition, and perception is one of the most influential approaches to unifying research in cognitive science. However, its promises of grand unification will remain unfulfilled unless the account becomes theoretically robust. In this paper, we focus on empirical commitments of PP, since they are necessary both for its theoretical status to be established and for explanations of individual phenomena to be falsifiable. First, we argue that PP is a varied research tradition, which may employ (...) various kinds of scientific representations, differing in the scope of empirical commitments they entail. Two major perspectives on PP qua cognitive theory may then be distinguished: generalized vs. hierarchical. The first one fails to provide empirical detail, and the latter constrains possible physical implementations. However, we show that even hierarchical PP is insufficiently restrictive to disallow incorrect models and may be adjusted to explain any neurocognitive phenomenon–including non-existent or impossible ones–through flexible adjustments. This renders PP a universal modeling tool with an unrestricted number of degrees of freedom. Therefore, in contrast with declarations of its proponents, it should not be understood as a unifying theoretical perspective, but as a computational framework, possibly informing further theory development in cognitive science. (shrink)

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary conglomerate of various research fields and disciplines, which increases the risk of fragmentation of cognitive theories. However, while most previous work has focused on theoretical integration, some kinds of integration may turn out to be monstrous, or result in superficially lumped and unrelated bodies of knowledge. In this paper, I distinguish theoretical integration from theoretical unification, and propose some analyses of theoretical unification dimensions. Moreover, two research strategies that are supposed to lead to unification are (...) analyzed in terms of the mechanistic account of explanation. Finally, I argue that theoretical unification is not an absolute requirement from the mechanistic perspective, and that strategies aiming at unification may be premature in fields where there are multiple conflicting explanatory models. (shrink)