Chciałem Go pożegnać. Kilkakrotnie próbowałem napisać choć parę słów. O Nim samym. Okazało się, że nie potrafię. Udało mi się tylko przedstawić Jego poglądy na reizm Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, ale uczyniłem to gdzie indziej. Muszę tu poprzestać na ofiarowaniu Mu tego, co napisałem na Jego dziewięćdziesiąte urodziny, w osiemdziesięciolecie naszej przyjaźni.

As it is well known, Lakatos divided Popper's philosophy into three stages; he also identified successive stages of falsificationism. A lesser-known fact is that the Hungarian philosopher systematized Feyerabend's philosophy, too. This tripartite division might have been a joke; Lakatos was perhaps trying to lighten Feyerabend's mood when his colleague was struggling wit h publishers in Minnesota and in New Left. Not quite successfully the publishers had tried to adjust Feyerabend's style to the standards of scientific literature. No matter what (...) motivated Lakatos when he analysed Feyerabend's philosophy, he appropriately captured differences between the 1970 and the 1975 edition of Against Method. Discussions of both philosophers concerning the division also reflect convolutions of their intellectual encounters. The presented paper takes up these issues. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics (QM) predicts probabilities on the fundamental level which are, via Born probability law, connected to the formal randomness of infinite sequences of QM outcomes. Recently it has been shown that QM is algorithmic 1-random in the sense of Martin–Löf. We extend this result and demonstrate that QM is algorithmic $$\omega$$ -random and generic, precisely as described by the ’miniaturisation’ of the Solovay forcing to arithmetic. This is extended further to the result that QM becomes Zermelo–Fraenkel Solovay random on (...) infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Moreover, it is more likely that there exists a standard transitive ZFC model M, where QM is expressed in reality, than in the universe V of sets. Then every generic quantum measurement adds to M the infinite sequence, i.e. random real $$r\in 2^{\omega }$$, and the model undergoes random forcing extensions M[r]. The entire process of forcing becomes the structural ingredient of QM and parallels similar constructions applied to spacetime in the quantum limit, therefore showing the structural resemblance of both in this limit. We discuss several questions regarding measurability and possible practical applications of the extended Solovay randomness of QM. The method applied is the formalization based on models of ZFC; however, this is particularly well-suited technique to recognising randomness questions of QM. When one works in a constant model of ZFC or in axiomatic ZFC itself, the issues considered here remain hidden to a great extent. (shrink)

Table of ContentsAndrzej KLAWITER, Krzystof #ASTOWSKI: Introduction: Originality, Courage and Responsibility List of Books by Leszek NowakSelected Bibliography of Leszek Nowak's WritingsScience and Idealization Theo A.F. KUIPERS: On Two ...

We build a topological model, based on intuitionistic logic, for multi-agent biological systems (such as _Physarum polycephalum_, bacterial colonies or any other swarm), reacting to external nourishment stimuli. Our construction follows the topological description of brain activity, where particles (neurons) are activated by an external environment, represented by a topological space _X_ with an open cover \(\{U_i:i\in I\}\). The brain builds the model of this external space via the nerve (trace) of a topological space _X_. Here the body of _Physarum (...) polycephalum_ or a swarm made of networks of tubular structures represents a nerve (trace) of _X_ also which means that _Physarum polycephalum_ or a swarm gains orientation in the space of external stimuli even in the absence of any neural system. The logic of living organisms is based on open subsets of _X_ and thus can be represented by Heyting algebra (i.e. intuitionistically). We also consider the generalisation of the nerve construction to a categorical context, where the category is determined by the network structures of multi-agent biological system. This model can be generalised up to simulating the behaviour of any swarm by means of intuitionistic logic. (shrink)

An increasing number of drugs removed from the market because of unacceptable toxicity raises concerns regarding preapproval testing of drug safety. In the present paper it is postulated that the non-inferiority type of trial should be abandoned in favor of the superiority trial with active controls and less stringent (p<0.1, both for efficacy and toxicity) statistics. This approach will increase sensitivity of detection of drug-induced adverse effects at the expense of increasing false positive results regarding the difference in efficacy between (...) the tested and reference drug. Such a move will increase the protection of future patients. In addition, the proposed design is far more acceptable from the clinical (e.g. no need to specify the statistically expected “unimportant” number of deaths) and ethical points of view, as well as being favored by the strong incentive of involved parties. In the second part of this paper arguments are presented in favor of the hypothesis that placebo (still used in some superiority trials) does not induce adverse effects. The assertion that placebo may induce adverse effects is probably biased by the nature of the clinical experiment. Such a conclusion is supported by studies indicating that placebo-induced adverse effects are disease — and treatment — specific. The modification of clinical trials according to the proposed changes may increase the trials’ sensitivity at detecting adverse effects of drugs. (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)

IntroductionSimilarities in morphology, physiological function, and neurophysiological findings between median and ulnar nerves are not unequivocal. Our previous study confirmed differences in motor fiber parameters between these nerves in healthy persons. We made an attempt to assess and compare the physiological parameters of different sensation modalities in median and ulnar nerves.MethodsThe study was performed in 31 healthy, right-handed volunteers: 17 women, 14 men, mean age 44.8 ± 15.5 years. Standard sensory conduction tests in the median and ulnar nerves were performed (...) together with the estimation of vibratory, temperature, and warm- and cold-induced pain thresholds in the C7 and C8 dermatomes on the palm, using quantitative sensory testing.ResultsThere were no statistically significant differences in the standard sensory conduction test in the median and ulnar nerves across the whole group: between right and left hands, and between women and men. We revealed differences in the temperature and pain thresholds between these nerves, mainly in low temperature perception. There were no differences in estimated thresholds between sides or in female and male groups. The vibratory limits did not differ significantly between nerves, and subgroups.ConclusionThe study confirmed the differences in the physiological sensory perception between the median and ulnar nerves. The median nerve is more sensitive to temperature stimulation than the ulnar nerve, but simultaneously less sensitive to pain-inducing temperature stimuli. These findings should be considered during the examination of hand nerve pathology. (shrink)

Author: Moraczewski Krzysztof Title: REFLECTIONS ON THEORETICAL GROUND OF THE HISTORY OF THE CULTURE (Refleksje o teoretycznych podstawach historii kultury) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.12, number: 2011/1, pages: 239-262 Keywords: HISTORY OF THE CULTURE, HISTORY OF MENTALITY, MENTAL REALITY, FERNAND BRAUDEL, JERZY KMITA Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:During last 60 years, there was a lot of discussion on the profits that history may gain by applying certain results (...) and theoretical approaches of cultural anthropology and philosophy of culture. Polemists involved were significantly less concerned with the opposite way: the consequences of new models of history for theory of culture. Trying to follow this way I start with classic propositions by Fernand Braudel and his ‘unfaithful’ followers in France, usually connected with the idea of ‘history of mentality’. My main concern is – minding all the theoretical and methodological problems that the term ‘mentality’ have caused and continues to cause – to confront their ideas with concept of culture as a ‘mental reality’, represented by Jerzy Kmita’s social-regulatory conception. The conclusions are not only to substitute the term ‘mentality’ with the theoretical concept of culture (the idea already formulated by Robert Darnton) but firstly to broaden and reformulate some Kmita’s ideas, allowing them to cover the field of research typical for the traditional history of mentality. (shrink)

Die Musikresonanz, die eine in der dichterischen Welt funktionierende Variante der Regel der Wiederspiegelung in der dichterischen Welt von Krzysztof K. Baczyński wird, wird im Weltraum verwirklicht - zwischen dem Himmel und der Erde und in den Personenbeziehungen - zwischen Gott und dem Menschen und auch zwischen den Leuten. Die Musik in der Darstellung nimmt verscheidene symbolische Bedeutungen ein. Der Klang der Urharmonie in der Himmelsphäre wird infolge des Bösen auf der Erde deformiert. Die Symptome der Zerstörung auf der (...) Erde werden auch negative Gefühle, sowohl die motivierten von subjektiven, persönlichen Erfahrungen des Helden als auch die, die aus inneren Umständen erfolgen. Der unveränderte Klang des Himmels zieht in Wirklichkeit der Erde durch die den Menschen erreichende Gottessendung ein und bedeutet eine Welt erretende Liebe. (shrink)

Profesor Krzysztof A. Meissner proponuje obraz transcendencji wynikającej z poznawania świata przez fizykę, która oznacza świat uniwersalnych i niezmiennych praw przyrody. Czy tego rodzaju wypowiedzi są uprawnione na gruncie fizyki, czy też należy uznać je za określony pogląd filozoficzny? Czy istnienie praw przyrody wskazuje na istnienie jakieś transcendencji? Publikacja jest zapisem dyskusji wokół książki: Krzysztof A. Meissner, Fizyk w jaskini światów (rozmawia Jerzy Sosnowski), (Biblioteka Więzi, tom 389, Warszawa 2023), która to dyskusja odbyła się 25 marca 2023 (...) w Instytucie Filozofii UKSW w Warszawie w ramach spotkania Katedry Filozofii Przyrody. ------------------------- Zgłoszono: 08/09/2023. Zrecenzowano: 03/11/2023. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 15/11/2023. (shrink)

Looking at Dickinson and Hölderlin, this essay begins by exploring the idea of the poetic dimension of existence and its relation to the image, or more precisely, to the capability to disclose into images. For Dickinson the relentless “poverty” of a non-poetic existence indicates that what is missing from such existence are not just images but the capacity for their “disclosing” - the poetic gift or aptitude. With the help of Heidegger’s essays on poetry and poverty, I invert this relation (...) between image and poverty to show that, even though the inceptive character of the poetic word and the element of poetic dwelling it allows to emerge appear poor in comparison to images or concepts, it is the poetic word that for the very first time lets humans dwell. Although it can neither boast the richness of “pictures” nor the strength and precision of conceptual comprehension, the poetic is what opens up the world for humans and simultaneously opens their being to its characteristic manner of inhabiting this world. (shrink)

The geological perspective adopted and validated by the term Anthropocene brings into view an interesting quandary, as the term in the same gesture endorses anthropocentrism and yet calls the centrality of the human into question in relation to the geological span of the planet or the cosmic time of the galaxy. Therefore, I use the Anthropocene as a prompt for a critique of the anthropological conception of the human and of technology underlying this notion. It is symptomatic that the notion (...) of the Anthropocene enters the calculus of geological time under the aegis of the threat of the irreversible tech-anthropic imprint on the planet. The geological and supra-planetary extent of this imprint, precisely by bringing into view the scope and the dangerous intensity of the changes brought about by human activity, opens the possibility of attending in a different key to reality, a new way of attending to and attaining being and living, human and non-human beings. The possibility of such a different key of relations hinges, however, on the ability to bring into question the very central position of the anthropos, underscored by the term the Anthropocene. And with it not only the central position of the human but also of life and of living beings, on which the notion of the anthropos depends. One could say that it is perhaps for the sake of living beings, that is, for the sake of their survival, that, paradoxically, the centrality of living has to be called into question. (shrink)

We define a semantics for conditionals in terms of stochastic graphs which gives a straightforward and simple method of evaluating the probabilities of conditionals. It seems to be a good and useful method in the cases already discussed in the literature, and it can easily be extended to cover more complex situations. In particular, it allows us to describe several possible interpretations of the conditional and to formalize some intuitively valid but formally incorrect considerations concerning the probabilities of conditionals under (...) these two interpretations. It also yields a powerful method of handling more complex issues. The stochastic graph semantics provides a satisfactory answer to Lewis’s arguments against the PC = CP principle, and defends important intuitions which connect the notion of probability of a conditional with the notion of conditional probability. It also illustrates the general problem of finding formal explications of philosophically important notions and applying mathematical methods in analyzing philosophical issues. (shrink)

The paper defends the view that that a significant part of metaphysics should be understood as conceptual engineering, and explores its epistemological advantages and metaphysical implications. It discusses the challenge raised by moderate modal skepticism, which points out the lack of reliable methods for verifying modal statements through thought experiments. As I argue, a normative stance on metaphysical methodology, understanding it as engaging in conceptual engineering project, justifies the use of this method. By adopting an approach where the method of (...) cases offers reasons for adopting specific normative constraints on concept usage, the method becomes justifiable. Consequently, it can be employed to justify the revision of conceptual schemes and, in turn, validate certain modal claims about entities falling under the scrutinized concepts. The paper explores how this approach can methodologically enrich conceptual engineering-focused perspectives in metaphysics and examines its metaphysical consequences. In particular, it demonstrates that despite the mind-dependency of the method of cases results, it still leaves room for a metaphysically realistic viewpoint. (shrink)

The paper investigates to what extent the method of cases can be interpreted as either a descriptive or a normative enterprise. I demonstrate that although most instances of the method of cases in most philosophical theories could be interpreted as being intended to either discover or revise the meaning of their target concepts, within a theory of reference this method cannot be used to shift the meaning of the concept of reference. The reason for this is that intuitions of extension (...) in a theory of reference constitute a set of data that needs to be explained, while in most other philosophical theories they could either be abandoned in favor of intuitions of intension or serve as a criterion for the adequacy of the proposed definition of the target concept. This feature of a theory of reference is caused by the fact that an implicit understanding of what reference is in a theory of reference is usually assumed and is out of discussion. In effect, the claim in paradigmatic instances of the method of cases within a theory of reference does not concern whether an expression does or does not refer in particular cases, but rather what the reference of a certain expression is, and therefore it cannot be justified by intuitions of intension. (shrink)

The present paper is a response, of sorts, to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID) and lockdown that we all must face. We have an idea of what doctors, nurses, teachers, among many of the other professions, do for the general public, but one may ask whether there is something substantial that philosophers and ethicists can offer in these circumstances. The thesis of this paper is that the stoic attitude towards times of trouble and the pragmatist way of finding (...) out what is possible to elevate the quality of living against all odds, if skilfully interwoven, could be an important tool in keeping mental health in good shape and, additionally, could contribute to the cultural scene at large. If this is the case, stoic pragmatists can indeed offer an interesting example of practical philosophy for many audiences, especially during the pandemic lockdown and, perhaps, for other serious difficulties or problems. To be effective in delivering their message, stoic pragmatists, as most with philosophers today, should enrich their textual and oral modes of traditional transmission of knowledge and become digital-culture public intellectuals that can recognize and reach more general audiences by, among other things, visual modes of digital communication. (shrink)

It is a recent tendency to read certain pre- and early-modern thinkers as “anticipatory critics” of modernity; the name of Michel de Montaigne often comes up in this context. Most of the critical approaches treat Montaigne like a pre-Rousseau proto-romantic which is indeed is an important part of Montaigne’s thinking. However, as I show in this paper, his Essays also allow for a different interpretation. Namely, I demonstrate that 1) Montaigne’s appraisal of Nature is far from a romantic-idyllic one; 2) (...) his understanding of the interspecies division is more subtle than it is often thought; 3) his thought thus interpreted includes an ethics of becoming-animal that is based on a radically anti-Platonic body-mind economy. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit den zahlreichen Polonica in der bekannten Zeitschrift, die bis 1918 eine wichtige Rolle in Österreich - auch für polnische Lehrer in Galizien - gespielt hat. Einer Analyse wurden einzelne philologische Sparten wie polnsiche, klassische, germanische Philologien unterzogen.

The axiom of canonicity was introduced by the famous Polish logician Roman Suszko in 1951 as an explication of Skolem's Paradox and a precise representation of the axiom of restriction in set theory proposed much earlier by Abraham Fraenkel. We discuss the main features of Suszko's contribution and hint at its possible further applications.

This paper is a continuation of Part I under the same title. Its Chapter III contains results given in the following publications: U. Wybraniec-Skardowska, Teoria zdań odrzuconych (Theory of Rejected Sentences), (doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Jerzy Słupecki, published as a monograph), Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Opolu, Studia i Monografie, Nr 22 (1969), 5-131. G. Bryll, Związki logiczne pomiędzy zdaniami nauk empirycznych (Logical relations between sentences of empirical sciences). Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Opolu, Studia (...) i Monografie, Nr 22 (1969), 155-216. This chapter contains an attempt to formalize some questions of methodology of empirical sciences. The theory T is enriched here not only by new definitions but also by a new primitive term and new axioms. The most important notion defined in this chapter is the set IndX of all inductive conclusions obtained on the basis of sentences of the set X. The function CnI defined by the equality: CnI X = X u IndX, satisfies the axioms of the general theory of deductive systems. The set CnI X can be understood as a system of empirical sciences in a narrower sense. This paper is a development of the considerations of G. Bryll, included in the above-listed article by this author. (shrink)