I argue that on Aristotle’s account practical thinking is thinking whose origin (archē) is a desire that has as its object the very thing that one reasons about how to promote. This feature distinguishes practical from productive reasoning since in the latter the desire that initiates it is not (unless incidentally) a desire for the object that one productively reasons about. The feature has several interesting consequences: (a) there is only a contingent relationship between the desire that one practically reasons (...) about how to satisfy and the action one decides on; (b) practical thinking and action cannot be separated from the agent, whereas productive thinking and production can be outsourced to someone else. The view has consequences also for the distinction between action and production. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness and correctness of my account of practical thinking by using it to shed new light on Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous agent must decide on her virtuous actions ‘for themselves’. (shrink)

After the unexpected death of Professor Józef Kałuża at the age of 74 on the 26th of July 2003, not only Polish neuropathology but also Polish philosophy of medical investigations lost one of its most renowned minds. Beginning in 1949, Professor Kałuża studied medical sciences for five years at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. He did his Ph.D. thesis in neuropathology in the Department of Neuropathology of the Polish Academy of Science. In 1962 he received (...) a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent one year at the National Institutes of Health. In 1981 Professor Kaluza was promoted to a tenured professorship in neuropathology. He is the author of more than 110 articles published in medical periodicals and coauthor of many chapters in medical handbooks. (shrink)

Where you have freedom, the meaning of the word increases, where the word is meaningful, you presuppose freedom." Józef Tischner.

The presented paper focuses on the analysis of strategic documents at the level of the European Union concerning the regulation of artificial intelligence as one of the so-called disruptive technologies. In the first part of the article, we outline the basic terminology. Subsequently, we focus on the summarizing and systemizing of the key documents adopted at the EU level in terms of artificial intelligence regulation. The focus of the paper is devoted to issues of personal data protection and cyber security (...) included in these strategic documents. The final part contains recommendations for future research and evaluation of its key features. (shrink)

After the unexpected death of Professor Józef Kałuża at the age of 74 on the 26th of July 2003, not only Polish neuropathology but also Polish philosophy of medical investigations lost one of its most renowned minds. Beginning in 1949, Professor Kałuża studied medical sciences for five years at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. He did his Ph.D. thesis in neuropathology in the Department of Neuropathology of the Polish Academy of Science. In 1962 he received (...) a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent one year at the National Institutes of Health. In 1981 Professor Kaluza was promoted to a tenured professorship in neuropathology. He is the author of more than 110 articles published in medical periodicals and coauthor of many chapters in medical handbooks. (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtue of character is a state of the non-rational part of the soul that makes one prone to making and acting on decisions in virtue of that part’s standing in the right relation to (correct) reason, namely, a relation that qualifies the agent as a true self-lover. In effect, this central feature of virtue of character is nothing else than love of practical wisdom. As I argue, it not only explains how reason can hold direct (...) authority over non-rational desires but also why Aristotle defines virtue of character as hexis prohairetikē. (shrink)

The paper addresses the following question: why do human beings, on Aristotle’s view, have an innate tendency to badness, that is, to developing desires that go beyond, and often against, their natural needs? Given Aristotle’s teleological assumptions (including the thesis that nature does nothing in vain), such tendency should not be present. I argue that the culprit is to be found in the workings of rationality. In particular, it is the presence of theoretical reason that necessitates the limitless nature of (...) human non-rational desires. (shrink)

In the article author analyses the extent to which it is possible to regard the Aristotelian conception of the soul as actually necessary and applicable for modern neuroscience. The framework in which this objective is going to be accomplished is provided by the idea of the coexistence of the “manifest” and “scientific” images of the world and persons, as introduced by Wilfrid Sellars. In subsequent sections, author initially formulates an answer to the questions of what it is that Aristotle sought (...) to explain with his conception of soul as formal cause, and how this notion could be portrayed in terms drawn from contemporary neurological science. It is author’s intention to show that no other concepts—be they the Cartesian “mind” or a Chalmers-style “self”—come anywhere close to matching the breadth of scope of Aristotelian “soul”. At the same time, though, analysis carried out here do not intend to undertake any kind of defence of the soul as a spiritual entity of the sort popular where religious faith is concerned, namely as an entity separable from the body, immortal, and inimitably tied to God. Then, in the second major part of the article, author analyses the extent to which the Aristotelian conception of the soul can be thought of as involving criteria of the sort that we encounter in the contemporary theory of strong emergence. According to the author the theory of strong emergence has, as a heuristic theory, quite general predictive and explanatory power as regards the field of human thought and behaviour. (shrink)

Karin Peter and Nikolaus Wandinger, James G. Williams, and Mathias Moosbrugger give in their essays in this volume of Contagion some basic information about the correspondence between these two “beautiful minds”: René Girard and Raymund Schwager. I would now like to go “step-by-step” along the way of some selected letters, and this only insofar as they discussed the question of sacrifice.1 Going this way the reader can get an idea how these two men were dealing with each other. These excerpts (...) show on the one hand the dynamic of their correspondence, on the other hand the different positions of the partners. Girard is not a theologian, so he shows uncertainty with regard to theological questions. Schwager is firmly .. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Śmierć, nieśmiertelność, sens życia. Egzystencjalny wymiar filozofii Ludwiga Wittgensteina [Death, Immortality, the Meaning of Life: The Existential Dimension of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophy], by Ireneusz Ziemiński.

According Aristotle's On the Soul, the first and most important form of sensation which we human beings share with other animals is a sense of touch. Without touch animals cannot exist. The first part of my article presents Aristotle's teaching about the internal connection between the soul and the sensory powers, especially as regards the sense of touch. The second part consists of a collection of the classical considerations about this subject. The third part then deals with the actuality of (...) some Aristotle's thesis about touch with reference to current research in neurophysiology on kinesthesia and haptic perception. (shrink)

deel 1. De zedelijkheid als menselijk fenomeen.

The subject matter of the paper is an analysis of the semantic relations between sentence negation, performative negation, and declarations in reference to utterances which speech acts theory gives the label of representatives. Apart from linguistic-semantic analyses, empirical studies have been conducted on the manner in which sentence negation and performative negation are processed. The results of Study I demonstrate that the semantic relation between sentence negation and performative negation changes depend on the type of comment (positive vs. negative), and (...) contextual factors (type of expectations towards events being commented on). As it turned out, when the situational context suggests a negative comment by the sender, participants offer similar interpretations of utterances with sentence negation and performative negation. In Study II the participants assessed the likelihood of the occurrence of the facts spoken of by a sender who uses sentence negation or performative negation. In a context suggesting positive utterances by the sender, a clear difference emerged between sentence negation and performative negation. This difference was not present in respect of negative expectations. The results achieved confirm the assumptions of the model of conversational inference regarding the influence of context on interpretation of a message. The recorded results indicate the semantic relations between declarations, sentence negation, and performative negation, which change depending on the affective significance of the message and contextual factors. (shrink)

This essay discusses the universal aspects of our present civilization created largely by the progress of science and technology. It has brought many unprecedented, direct and indirect, definitely positive achievements in the material and cultural, economic and political spheres. Unfortunately, this has been accompanied by the emergence of equally unprecedented dangers: of nuclear or chemical war, global pollution of the environment, squandering of natural resources, spreading of egoistic, hedonistic attitudes and other social and moral maladies. Concerning the ecological problems the (...) author is moderately optimistic, as he points out that the negative trends can be reversed by applying strong control and successive introduction of new pro-ecological technologies. This, however, requires not only a better understanding of these problems, but also good will and accord on behalf of the decision makers and common citizens. It is also necessary to find satisfactory models of moral and social order that would be suitable also for poor countries. (shrink)

Aristotle tells us that in order to develop virtue, one needs to come to love and hate the right sorts of things. However, his description of the virtuous person clearly privileges love to hate. It is love rather than hate that is the main driving force of a good life. It is because of her love of knowledge, truth and beauty that the virtuous person organizes her life in a certain way and pursues these rather than other things (such as (...) pleasure). When hate comes into the picture, it is merely an unavoidable consequence of loving those noble and beautiful things. The virtuous person hates things that are contrary to her values, but does not concentrate on them, much less constructs her life in the pursuit of their destruction. But why privilege love over hate in this way? Why could not a good (happy) and virtuous life be a life driven primarily by hate (in particular, one aimed at eradicating what one (correctly) considers shameful and evil)? Without appealing to any consequences or harmful effects that hate might have on other People, the paper gives two answers to this question. First, allowing hate (rather than love) to dominate one’s life would undermine the right relationship between the two parts of the soul (the rational and the non-rational one) that Aristotle recognizes. Virtue involves establishing the right kind of internal ordering of one’s soul and this cannot be done if one’s soul is dominated by hate. Second, hate has negative cognitive effects insofar as it renders one insensitive to the beauty of human nature and behavior and actively precludes one from acquiring knowledge and understanding. Accordingly, if a good life is a life that involves virtue and knowledge, a life fueled by hate cannot but fall short of that ideal. (shrink)

The paper is aimed at rationalizing relationships between the structure of inorganic compounds in condensed phases and their melting and boiling points. It is documented that the main factor governing both points is their molecular or polymeric nature. In case of polymeric ionic compounds, the higher actual charge bearing by the ions involved, the higher their melting/boiling points. In case of covalent polymers, the value of both points increases with polymer dimensionality and with the number and energy of the respective (...) covalent bonds. In case of molecular compounds, both points depend on the weight and shape of molecules, the presence of hydrogen bonds, and electric quadrupole moment. (shrink)

The Belgian conflict can be compared with a game theoretical model with two groups and a negative sum-game. Within each of the groups there is hierarchisation, role playing and formation ofcoalitions. On the Flemish side the main actor is the CVP, on the Walloon side it is the PS.The main objectives of the communities in the economie field are: temporary boarding employment in depressed industries and, simultaneously, the creation of high tech industries. Policy instruments to attain those goals are : (...) general economie measures ; selective-protective measures ; selective-innovative measures.Why is the sum-game negative or at least suboptimal?1. Mentioned policy instruments are spread over an incoherent set of institutions on the national and regional level, with rules that are partly centralist, partly federalist, partly confederalist. This leads to a complicated, unstable set of game rules in which the financial implications of decisions are shifted from the regional to the national level and vice versa.2. Selective-protective measures are of such large size that they offset and erode the beneficial effects of general policy measures regarding wages, taxes and exchange rate.Federalism or confederalism would and should establish a new set of rules between the two regions and between regional and federal state. Since a return to the ancien régime is politically unfeasible, this is the only logical way out of the present chaotic decision making process. Federalism would, inter alia, shift the financial responsibility of decisions in the field of industrial policy, education, health and public works towards the regions.This political reform requires a new constitution and therefore an agreement between the two communities. The chances for a new «talk» are presently not very high. Among the many reasons, one in particular strikes the eye : the major partner on the Flemish side, namely the Christian Democrats, have a multi-dimensional utility function, which not only is «concealed» for the others, but also undefined and unclear for the party itself. (shrink)

The unique value of Mickiewicz’s “Vision” is its included image of the structure of the supernatural order. The poet described is as an infinite, continually spreading space, spherical in shape and filled with a luminous divine element penetrating everything most easily, in the middle of which there is an eternally sinking well that emits out that element. The well emitting the luminous transparent matter is God Himself. Contrary to Christian dogmas He is obviously de-anthropomorphised but not de-animated, as also in (...) that form He means the source of life and love. In ecstasy, the experiencing individual adopted godly attributes: he united with the material-spiritual being that continually came out of God, and he found himself in the centre of the universe where he was given the ability of receiving all its movements and signals, and at the same time — the privilege of being everywhere. According to Mickiewicz’s “Vision”, eternal life has an active and creative nature - it is characterised by supply of the animating love element, endless development and growth, the grace of eternal watching the transcendental reality, excellent contact with Creator, and the gift of creation. The second fragment of the “Vision” reveals valuable information on the nature of extrasensory perception. It is absolute, free from any difficulties, prompt and insensible; it is perfect perception. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than (...) the soul of the uncontrolled agent. (shrink)

Codes of governance have mushroomed in contexts operating under a single, dominant institutional logic, such as publicly listed corporations. These codes act as institutional prescriptions that help spread best practices throughout industries. More recently, in some countries, specific codes have been developed for hybrid organizations that integrate multiple, conflicting institutional logics simultaneously, such as cooperative enterprises. Drawing on an extensive set of qualitative data, we ask how such institutional prescriptions may (fail to) address governance challenges in organizations with multiple, conflicting (...) institutional demands. In doing so, we extend current literature on governance of hybrid organizations, which has so far focused on individual and organizational levels, to include institutional-level strategies. While governance codes are often inspired by deontological ethics to solve issues in a single institutional logic, we find that governance codes for hybrid organizations should not prioritize a single institutional logic, nor follow a deontological approach to improving governance, but should, on a more pragmatist take, remain open to continuous learning. (shrink)

Christentum ist primär ein innerer Zustand des Einzelnen. Des Galuben, die Frömmigkeit, die Gerechtigkeit trägt der Mensch in sich. Allerdings, um ein wahrhaft Gläubiger zu sein, muß einer Handlungen unternehmen, er muß in der harten Schule des Lebens exerzieren. Interessenlosigkeit ist ein Grundzug der Frömmigkeit. Der Gerechte unternimmt Handlungen nicht in der Absicht, etwas dadurch zu erreichen; er läßt sich von keinem Interesse leiten, er handelt ohne "warum". Der Mensch reines Herzenz vermocht, das Gute zu lieben und es in der (...) Welt zu äußern. (shrink)

In relation to material reality only direct perception as sensual perception gives unbiased, reliable cognisance. Therefore, this cognisance is irremovably receptive. A subject does not add anything of himself to the object. Thinking does not play any role in such a cognisance, because object is before any thinking. According to Jacobi sensual cognisance consists of this what is given, a certain perceived content, and of a feeling assuring the existence of what is given, e.g. a belief. These two elements are (...) inseparable. A foundation of this approach has been prepared for Jacobi by Thomas Reid, however, it was finalised thanks to critical reference to David Hume concerning that second, not perceptive element of cognisance. (shrink)

Many philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists argue for the thesis that both the self and free will - as commonly understood by us - are illusions created by our nervous system. An example of such a line of argument can be found in Bruce Hood’s book `The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity'. I first consider the main ideas put forward by Hood in support of the view that the self and free will are illusions. Then I turn to (...) criticisms of his arguments regarding the illusoriness of the self, citing arguments from philosophy and neuroscience. In criticizing his arguments for the illusoriness of free will, I advocate compatibilism and seek to focus on the elucidation of research into our everyday intuitions relating to free will. (shrink)