In my paper I present David Hume's philosophy from the perspective of Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of signs. I argue that by interpreting impressions and ideas as iconic signs it is possible to avoid many inconsistencies in Hume's philosophy. Apart from that it makes possible to avoid Hume's scepticism about the existence of the external world by introducing Peirce's concept of the dynamic and immediate object. What is more, the generative structure of signs helps us to deal with the "gmissing (...) shade of blue" problem. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is a presentation of the H. Elzenberg's philosophical theory of the ethical ideal. I pay special attention to the most interesting, from the ethical point of view, parts of his concept. Elzen-berg proposed the ethical ideal, the so called ‘homo ethicus’. I present two ways of its realisation: melioristic and soteristic. My aim is also to prove that Elzenberg’s theory demonstrates that some features of ethical activity distinguish a human being from the background of (...) the natural world and make them exceptional. These attributes include: the realisation of the perfect values such as the good and the beauty, having an ethical will, self-sacrifice, aspiring to perfection and moral salvation. (shrink)

Archive Materials of Mieczysław Wallis are in the collection of Combined Libraries of Philosophy and Sociology Faculties of the University of Warsaw, the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Science and the Polish Philosophical Society. There are two files devoted to Henryk Elzenberg. They contain a rich historical material, not published before and not known to many people. It is a valuable source of knowledge in the field of the history of Polish philosophy. Wallis’s notes provide (...) a lot of unique informations both on Elzenberg’s private life and also his activity in the scientific community. Furthermore, they present his philosophical concepts, as well as his motions of life and adversities he had to cope with. M. Wallis’s memoirs are an unusual record of the friendship and scientific co-operation of the two scholars that lasted for a few decades. Wallis’s work creates also an intellectual testimony of the epoch, in which they both lived and worked. (shrink)

This article discusses the meanings that motherhood has in the everyday life of women in Sweden and how they practice their mothering. The empirical foundation is qualitative interviews conducted with mothers who live in Sweden. Social constructionist and discursive psychology inspired the article, and according to the analysis three discursive positions were identified. The first position deals with the child-mother relationship and indicates that the child's psychological well-being is dependent on the mother's accessibility. The second discursive position deals with the (...) child-mother-woman relationship. Within this framework, motherhood involves finding contentment in life beyond the child, to be able to convey that well-being to the child. The third discursive position focuses on the mother as a working woman rather than a mother. These three discursive positions are discussed in relation to a pronounced discourse within Swedish society, which centers on an intense politically induced struggle for gender equality. (shrink)

The debates about qualia are common in contemporary analytical philosophy, especially in the area of philosophy of mind or epistemology. Notwithstanding the significance of this notion in present-day investigations, there still appears to be a lack of agreement over how to understand the term “quale”. Due to this fact, our goal is to shed light on the concept of quale as it entered the modern history of philosophy. Strictly speaking, our concern shall be devoted to the American pragmatist philosophy of (...) C. S. Peirce and C. I. Lewis. Therefore, we intend to outline the understanding of quale within Peirce's theory of categories at the beginning, and afterwards we shall present Lewis' remarks on quale in the context of his theory of the given. This approach will not only provide the grounds for relating Peirce's and Lewis' views with each other, but also it will let us interpret Lewis' notion of quale within the pragmatic framework. (shrink)

This paper applies a new theory of explanatory coherence to the early history of the idea of continental drift. The new theory consists of seven principles that establish coherence and incoherence relations among propositions. It has been implemented in a connectionist computer program called ECHO. Analysis of the arguments of Alfred Wegener, the first major proponent of continental drift, provided input to ECHO which evaluated the explanatory coherence of his hypotheses. ECHO has also been used to analyze the coherence of (...) the views of Wegener 's critics. The paper concludes by contrasting our explanatory coherence account of Wegener and his opposition with a decision-theoretic account recently offered by Ron Giere. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new questionnaire for the assessment of self-control as an individual trait. We describe the process of construction of this assessment tool. We also report the results of relevant validation studies. The questionnaire has two independent versions, one based on self-reports and another one based on other-reports. The first version consists of five subscales, called Initiative and Persistence, Proactive Control, Switching and Flexibility, Inhibition and Adjournment, and Goal Maintenance. Seven samples of participants took part in (...) the validation study. The second version has not been split into subscales. Both versions obtained satisfactory indices of internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach’s alpha. The NAS-50 and NAS-40 scores were highly correlated with other measures of self-control, including Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone’s self-control scale. They also proved to be entirely independent of general intelligence. In conclusion, both versions can be regarded reliable and valid enough, and therefore suitable for the assessment of trait self-control for research purposes. (shrink)

It is increasingly common for philosophers to rely on the notion of an idealised listener when explaining how the semantic values of context-sensitive expressions are determined. Some have identified the semantic values of such expressions, as used on particular occasions, with whatever an appropriately idealised listener would take them to be. Others have argued that, for something to count as the semantic value, an appropriately idealised listener should be able to recover it. Our aim here is to explore the range (...) of ways that such idealisation might be worked out, and then to argue that none of these results in a very plausible theory. We conclude by reflecting on what this negative result reveals about the nature of meaning and responsibility. (shrink)

In the nineteen-sixties, plate tectonics became the accepted theoretical framework in the earth sciences. This framework revived the idea of continental drift that had been first proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener (1966). This paper offers an analysis of the arguments of Wegener and his opponents. We shall show that from Wegener’s perspective his hypotheses possessed a high degree of explanatory coherence, while from the opponents’ perspective his theory was incoherent with much that was generally known.Our analysis uses a new (...) theory of explanatory coherence that has already been applied to several important cases in the history of science: Lavoisier’s argument for his oxygen theory against the phlogiston theory, Darwin’s argument for the theory of evolution by natural selection, and current disputes about why dinosaurs became extinct (Thagard 1988b). This theory is implemented in a connectionist computer program called ECHO that takes statements of explanatory relations as input and creates a network of units, crudely analogous to neurons, with excitatory and inhibitory links among them. (shrink)

The text introduces a translation of Ilyenkov’s famous text “On the State of Philosophy,” which was meant as a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU and expressed his exasperation with the development of Soviet philosophy. In our introduction, we describe the historical context of the emergence of the letter, including the main changes in Soviet philosophy in the 1960s (esp. rise in popularity of cybernetics), and the institutional details of Ilyenkov’s biography. We point to the contemporary relevance of (...) the letter by emphasizing how Ilyenkov’s dialectical account of science can enrich contemporary discussions in the sociology of science and STS. (shrink)

The twenty-first century will witness an unprecedented decline in the diversity of the world’s languages. While most philosophers will likely agree that this decline is lamentable, the question of what exactly is lost with a language has not been systematically explored in the philosophical literature. In this paper, I address this lacuna by arguing that language loss constitutes a problematic form of illocutionary silencing. When a language disappears, past and present speakers lose the ability to realize a range of speech (...) acts that can only be realized in that language. With that ability, speakers lose something in which they have a fundamental interest: their standing as fully empowered members of a linguistic community. (shrink)

The problem of idealization in empirical sciences is very rarely taken up in works concerned with the methodology of those sciences. It seems to be common knowledge that in advanced natural sciences references are made to concepts such as “perfectly rigid body,” “material point,” “perfect gas,” etc., but it remains a fact that the most important methodological concepts, concepts which have determined the present-day form of the philosophy of science, have been advanced without regard to the peculiarities of the procedure (...) mentioned above. And yet a moment's consideration suffices to raise doubts as to Carnap's physicalism and/or Popper's falsificationism if we just realize the trivial and commonly known truth that empirical sciences resort to idealizationism. For how are we to imagine a reduction of idealizational concepts to observation terms? And how are we to imagine that theorems which include idealizational concepts imply observation statements which refute, or at least are at variance with, those theorems? But it is a fact that such doubts have neither been raised by the authors of the conceptions mentioned above, nor have they been raised against them. (shrink)

Standard semantic theories predict that non-deictic readings for complex demonstratives should be much more widely available than they in fact are. If such readings are the result of a lexical ambiguity, as Kaplan (1977) and others suggest, we should expect them to be available wherever a definite description can be used. The same prediction follows from ‘hidden argument’ theories like the ones described by King (2001) and Elbourne (2005). Wolter (2006), however, has shown that complex demonstratives admit non-deictic interpretations only (...) when a precise set of structural constrains are met. In this paper, I argue that Wolter’s results, properly understood, upend the philosophical status quo. They fatally undermine the ambiguity theory and demand a fundamental rethinking of the hidden argument approach. (shrink)

Many psychological studies have shown that human‐generated sequences are hardly ever random in the strict mathematical sense. However, what remains an open question is the degree to which this (in)ability varies between people and is affected by contextual factors. Herein, we investigated this problem. In two studies, we used a modern, robust measure of randomness based on algorithmic information theory to assess human‐generated series. In Study 1 (), in a factorial design with task description as a between‐subjects variable, we tested (...) the effects of context and mental fatigue on human‐generated randomness. In Study 2 (), in online research, in experimental design, we further investigated the effect of mental fatigue on the randomness of human‐generated series and the relationship between the need for cognition (NFC) and the ability to produce random‐like series. Results of Study 1 show that the activation of the ability to produce random‐like series depends on the relevance of the contextual cues (), whether they activate known representations of a random series generator and consequently help to avoid the production of trivial sequences. Our findings from both studies on the effect of mental fatigue (Study 1 – ; Study 2 – ) and cognitive motivation () demonstrate that regardless of the context or task's novelty people quickly lose interest in the random series generation. Therefore, their performance decreases over time. However, people high in the NFC can maintain the cognitive motivation for a longer period and consequently on average generate more random series. In general, our results suggest that when contextual cues and intrinsic constraints are in optimal interaction people can temporarily escape the structured and trivial patterns and produce more random‐like sequences. (shrink)

Stojnić et al. (2013, 2017) argue that the reference of demonstratives is fixed without any contribution from the extra-linguistic context. On their `prominence/coherence' theory, the reference of a demonstrative expression depends only on its context-independent linguistic meaning. Here, we argue that Stojnić et al.’s striking claims can be maintained in only the thinnest technical sense. Instead of eliminating appeals to the extra-linguistic context, we show how the prominence/coherence theory merely suppresses them. Then we ask why one might be tempted to (...) try and offer such a view. Since we are rather sympathetic to the motivations we find, we close by sketching a more plausible alternative. (shrink)

Singer claims that there are two ways of challenging the fact that brain-dead patients, from whom organs are usually retrieved, are in fact biologically alive. By means of the first, the so called dead donor rule may be abandoned, opening the way to lethal organ donation. In the second, it might be posited that terms such as “life” and “death” do not have any primary biological meaning and are applicable to persons instead of organisms. This second possibility permits one to (...) acknowledge that brain-dead patients are deceased because they are irreversibly unconscious. In the commentary which follows, I will argue that Singer’s second option is preferable since it provides a higher amount of organs available for transplant, and is better suited to the meaning of “death” which occurs in ordinary language. I will also defend such a concept of death against the objections raised by Michael Nair-Collins in the article Can the brain-dead be harmed or wronged? On the moral status of brain death and its implications for organ transplantation. (shrink)

Reintroduction programs in which captive-bred or reared animals are released into natural habitats are considered a key approach for conservation; however, success rates have generally been low. Accounting for factors that enable individual animals to have a greater chance of survival can not only improve overall conservation outcomes but can also impact the welfare of the individual animals involved. One such factor may be individual personality, and personality research is a growing field. This type of research presents animal welfare scientists (...) with the opportunity to develop behavior profiles that may predict how particular individuals cope with challenges. This has direct implications for both in situ and ex situ populations and can bridge the gap between animal welfare and conservation. We designed a project to ascertain the presence of personality traits in Blanding’s turtles (Emydoidea blandingii), a species of special concern in the state of Michigan, and assess potential links between traits and post-release success. As hypothesized, the Blanding’s turtles in this study displayed behavioral responses to modified open field tests indicative of distinct personality traits: exploration, boldness and aggression. Additionally, the personality traits were correlated differently with survival and behavior patterns when the turtles were released into the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. More exploratory turtles had higher survival rates, while neither boldness nor aggression were related to survival. Exploratory turtles were also more likely to travel longer distances after release. The use of muskrat dens was related to increased survival, and both bolder and more exploratory turtles made higher use of this feature. Exploratory and aggressive turtles were found basking outside of water more often, while bold turtles were more likely to be found at the water surface. Both of these basking behaviors may increase the risk of predation and may be reflective of a trade-off between risk and behaviors related to physiological health. Understanding how personality affects behavior and survival post-release can be a critical tool for improving reintroduction success. Zoo animal welfare scientists and practitioners can implement approaches that improve the welfare of individuals within the context of conservation initiatives. (shrink)

The mainstream concept of death—the biological one—identifies death with the cessation of an organism. In this article, I challenge the mainstream position, showing that there is no single well-established concept of an organism and no universal concept of death in biological terms. Moreover, some of the biological views on death, if applied in the context of bedside decisions, might imply unacceptable consequences. I argue the moral concept of death—one similar to that of Robert Veatch—overcomes such difficulties. The moral view identifies (...) death with the irreversible cessation of a patient’s moral status, that is, a state when she can no longer be harmed or wronged. The death of a patient takes place when she is no longer capable of regaining her consciousness. In this regard, the proposal elaborated herein resembles that of Veatch yet differs from Veatch’s original project since it is universal. In essence, it is applicable in the case of other living beings such as animals and plants, provided that they have some moral status. (shrink)

Standard semantic theories predict that non-deictic readings for complex demonstratives should be much more widely available than they in fact are. If such readings are the result of a lexical ambiguity, as Kaplan (in: Almog, Perry, Wettstein (eds) Themes from Kaplan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977) and others suggest, we should expect them to be available wherever a definite description can be used. The same prediction follows from ‘hidden argument’ theories like the ones described by King (Complex Demonstratives: a Quantificational (...) Account, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001) and Elbourne (Situations and Individuals, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005). Wolter (That’s That; the Semantics and Pragmatics of Demonstrative Noun Phrases. Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2006), however, has shown that complex demonstratives admit non-deictic interpretations only when a precise set of structural constrains are met. In this paper, I argue that Wolter’s results, properly understood, upend the philosophical status quo. They fatally undermine the ambiguity theory and demand a fundamental rethinking of the hidden argument approach. (shrink)

Two examples of Galois connections and their dual forms are considered. One of them is applied to formulate a criterion when a given subset of a complete lattice forms a complete lattice. The second, closely related to the first, is used to prove in a short way the Knaster-Tarski’s fixed point theorem.

In following paper an attempt will be made to analyse the statistical relationships between variables as the functions of causal relations existing between them. Our basic assumption here is that statistical relationships between traits, events, or characteristics of objects, may be logically derived from the pattern of their mutual causal connections, if this pattern is described by appropriate concepts and with sufficient precision. The first part of the paper presents basic concepts, which according to author's view may serve for the (...) description of different patterns of causal relations in such a way, that statistical relationships corresponding to each pattern may be derived. It gives also examples of such a derivation for some less complicated cases. The second part of the paper is an attempt of application of proposed method to the understanding and critical consideration of some standard techniques of statistical analysis, especially those mostly used in social sciences. (shrink)

In the article I justify the acceptability of ex vivo transplantation and I provide the ethical evaluation of trafficking in human organs from the Kantian perspective. Firstly, I refer to passages of Kant's works, where he explicitly states that depriving oneself of one’s body parts for other purposes than self-preservation is not permitted. I explain that the negative ethical evaluation of the disposal of the body parts was given various justifications by Kant. Subsequently, I provide partial criticism of this justification, (...) resulting in the recognition of the admissibility of ex vivo transplantation. Secondly, I analyse the Kantian slippery-slope argument which, as some philosophers believe, supports banning trade in human organs. It turns out, however, that this argument has wider application, namely it applies to all forms of the instrumental treatment of the human body. Using a previously introduced distinction between organs of the first and the second order, I show that the slippery-slope argument is inconclusive. However, I propose a reinterpretation of this reasoning, which results in using this argument as an additional reason to support prohibiting trade in human organs. (shrink)

The paper examines the evolution of Marek Siemek’s “dialogical principle.” The early version of this principle, sketched in the essay “Dialogue and Its Myth”, meets several criteria of the phenomenology of dialogue and even hermeneutics. However, Siemek has continued to change his concept of dialogue over the decades. In his recent book, Freedom, Reason, Intersubjectivity, he explores transcendental preconditions of free and reasonable activism, i.e., the Fichtean “limitative synthesis” of I and Non-I and its applications in social interrelations. He no (...) longer considers the empirical, anthropological, and phenomenological aspects of dialogics and mutual recognition. He also replaces mutuality with reciprocity, asymmetry with symmetry, and phenomenology with transcendentalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:According to the mainstream bioethical stance, death constitutes the termination of an organism. This essay argues that such an understanding of death is inappropriate in the usual context of determining death, since it also has a social bearing. There are two reasons to justify this argument. First, the mainstream bioethical definition generates an organismal superposition challenge, according to which a given patient in a single physiological state might be both alive and dead, like Schrödinger's cat. Therefore, there is no clear (...) answer as to whether organ retrieval from a brain-dead patient is an act of killing or not. Second, when combined with the dead donor rule, the mainstream position in the definition of death might lead to ethically unacceptable verdicts, since there is a discrepancy between terminating an organism and depriving someone of moral status. (shrink)

Appeals to scrutinize the use of race and ethnicity as variables in genetics research notwithstanding, these variables continue to be inadequately explained and inconsistently used in research publications. In previous research, we found that published genetic research fails to follow suggestions offered for addressing this problem, such as explaining the basis on which these labels are assigned to populations. This study, an analysis of genetic research articles using race or ethnicity terms, explores possible features of journals that are associated with (...) improved reporting of race and ethnicity in genetic research. A journal’s expressed commitment to improving how race and ethnicity are used in genetic research, demonstrated by an editorial or in its instructions to authors, was the strongest predictor of following recommendations about reporting race and ethnicity. Journal impact factor had only a limited positive effect on attention to these issues, suggesting that editorial resources associated with higher impact factor journals are not sufficient to improve practices. Our findings reiterate that race and ethnicity variables are used inconsistently in genetic research, but also shed light on how journals might improve practices by highlighting the need for scientists to carefully scrutinize the use of these variables in their work. (shrink)

The article analyses the history of the Einfühlung concept. Theories of ‘feeling into’ Nature, works of art or feelings and behaviours of other persons by German philosophers of the second half of the nineteenth century Robert and Friedrich Vischer and Theodor Lipps are evoked, as well as similar theory of understanding (Verstehen) by Wilhelm Dilthey and Friedrich Schleiermacher, to which Dilthey refers. The meaning of the term Einfühlung within Edith Stein’s thought is also analysed. Both Einfühlung and Verstehen were criticized (...) as non-objective and naive methods consisting only in the identification of the subject with the object or the projection of feelings onto the object. The article refers to criticism by Georg Gadamer and Bertolt Brecht and proposes ways to restitute the concept of Einfühlung after this criticism, recalling the theory of empathy by Dominick Lacapra, in terms of its advantages for the historical enquiry, or the myth of Narcissus analyzed in the spirit of psychoanalysis by Julia Kristeva. The article proposes a reformulation of the concept of mimesis, connected to the Einfühlung, understood as the identification, analogy, imitation of feelings (as it was described by Lipss and Vischer). Mimesis does not necessarily mean a passive repetition and reconstruction of the feelings of the object, but serves only as a starting point for the interest of the subject for the outside world or for experiences of historical protagonists. Then there is no identification or projection of feelings, but the creative, active and critical reformulation of knowledge. It is stated that empathy is not a passive, uncritical process, but that it deals with the critical choice of the object of empathy and with an active approach to the perceived feelings and appearances. In addition to this cognitive aspect, empathy may also contribute to the analytical and valuable introspection. Furthermore empathy allows us to connect the analysis of the facts with a personal narrative and understanding of individual identity in historical knowledge. (shrink)

When J.R. Cash (Johnny Cash) sings that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, audiences impressed by the singer's skillful creation and depiction of a nihilistic lyrical subject clap and cheer. When Terrell Doyley (Skengdo) and Joshua Malinga (A.M.) sang broadly similar lyrics at a concert in 2018, London's Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service took them to be describing violent acts they had participated in and violent intentions they harbored, and the lyrics were used (...) as the basis for legal proceedings against the singers that resulted in convictions. In this paper, I will argue that Doyley and Malinga's case illustrates a distinctive and important form that epistemic injustice can take. By failing to see their lyrics as speech that involves the exercise of their capacity for imagination, the police and prosecutors treat them as an impoverished sort of epistemic agent. I will call the wrong involved in cases like this onepoetic injustice. (shrink)

In the Jewish tradition dybbuk is the soul of deceased, which takes control on the body of a living person. Its presence revals everlastingly interweaving of life and death. This article shows the connection between phenomenon of dybbuk and Sartre’s love conception; its focusing mainly on issues of the gaze and its relation with imagination. This text also register, that drama The Dybbuk continues romantic tradition, based on category of distance and status of the relation between love and death. Moreover, (...) article takes the problem of Jewish mysticism, in the context of Anski’s drama. What you are, dybbuk? Perhaps you live in each of us. (shrink)

Author: Nowak Krzysztof Title: THE STATUS OF THE CATEGORY OF WORK IN THE CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION. THE CONTROVERSY OVER JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ INTERACTIVE CONCEPT OF WORK (Status kategorii pracy w krytycznej teorii działania komunikacyjnego. Kontrowersje wokół Jürgena Habermasa interakcyjnego pojęcia pracy) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2005, vol:.5, number: 2005/1, pages: 221-242 Keywords: HABERMAS, CATEGORY OF WORK, CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:In this article I (...) investigate the question of normative devaluation of the category of work, which took place in Jürgen Habermas’ critical theory of communicative action. As it turned out, his redefinition of the concept of work was only a part of a broader shift in the area of Critical Theory, that is, a shift from production paradigm (but not work paradigm) to the communication paradigm. In this context I want to show, that the reconceptualization of work was based on the thesis about the end of the work-based society. Next, I am going to present a new critical framework which enabled Jürgen Habermas to make a diagnosis of contemporary condition of the social category of work. Finally, I will argue that the category of work proposed by Jürgen Habermas – despite an opinion of the author of the Theory of communicative action – still possesses – unrealized emancipatory potential. (shrink)

The peculiarity of Marx's investigation method is the use of idealization, i. e. idealizing assumptions are introduced, the laws, being in force under these assumptions, are being established, and then these assumptions are being removed with the simultaneous modification of the law. This method has not been recognized in the contemporary methodology because it assumes the essentialist vision of reality while contemporary methodology developed from the phenomenalism which negates the differentiation between essence and experience.

Contents: Leszek NOWAK, Marcin PAPRZYCKI: Introduction. ON THE NATURE OF SOCIAL SYSTEM. Ulrich K. PREUSS: Political Order and Democracy. Carl Schmitt and his Influence. Katarzyna PAPRZYCKA: A Paradox in Hobbes' Philosophy of Law. Stephen L. ESQUITH: Democratic Political Dialogue. Edward JELINSKI: Democracy in Polish Reformist Socialist Thought. Katarzyna PAPRZYCKA: The Master and Slave Configuration in Hegel's System. Maurice GODELIER: Lévi-Strauss, Marx and After. A reappraisal of structuralist and Marxist tools for analyzing social logics. Krzysztof NIEDZWIADEK: On the Structure of (...) Social System. Waldemar CZAJKOWSKI: Social Being and Its Reproduction. ON RATIONALITY AND CAPTIVITY. Marek ZIO??L??KOWSKI: Power and Knowledge. Leszek NOWAK: Two Inter-Human Limits to the Rationality of Man. Marcin PAPRZYCKI: The non-Christian Model of Man. An Attempt at a Psychoanalytic Explanation. Robert EGIERT: Toward the Sophisticated Rationalistic Model of Man. ON SOCIAL REVOLUTION. Leszek NOWAK: Revolution is an Opaque Progress but a Progress Nonetheless. Katarzyna PAPRZYCKA, Marcin PAPRZYCKI: How Do Enslaved People Make Revolutions? Grzegorz TOMCZAK: Is It Worth Winning a Revolution? Krzysztof BRZECHCZYN: Civil Loop and the Absorption of Elites. Richard C. MCCLEARY: What Makes Marxist Historical Materialism Objective? Grzegorz KOTLARSKI: Classes and Masses in Social Philosophy of Rosa Luxemburg. ON REAL SOCIALISM. Ernest GELLNER: The Civil and the Sacred. Witold MARCISZEWSKI: Economics and the Idea of Information. Why socialism must have collapsed? Leszek NOWAK, Katarzyna PAPRZYCKA, Marcin PAPRZYCKI: On Multilinearity of Socialism. Achim SIEGEL: The Overrepression Cycle in the Soviet Union. An Operationalization of a Theoretical Model. Krzysztof BRZECHCZYN: The State of the Teutonic Order as a Socialist Society. DISCUSSIONS. Richard MCCLEARLY: Socioanalysis and Philosophy. W??l??odzimierz HELLER: The Public and the Private in Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy. Methodological Remarks. Krzysztof BRZECHCZYN: Unsuccessful Conquest and Successful Subordination. A contribution to the theory of intersocial relations. (shrink)

Mentalism preserves the triad: brain's state — thought — state of affairs whereas phy‐sicalism identifies the former two elements of it. Both stands meet the famous difficulties. But these presuppose ontological actualism. On the ground of ontological possibilism, claiming the existence of all possible worlds, one may identify a thought with the corresponding state of affairs in a possible world. Yet, possibilism turns out to be too narrow to carry such an identification and requires a significant generalization.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Girardian Theory and Feminism: Critique and Appropriation Susan Nowak Syracuse University The construction of theories of relationality, society, and religion supportive of women and women's experience is one of the major concerns of feminist scholarship today.1 This study examines the arguments put forth by feminist scholars who contend that the Girardian theory offers important contributions to their work.2 These scholars use the insights of the Girardian theory (...) into the intrinsic connection between ritual and violence, religion and modes ofrelationality, myth and societal formation, and victimage and social cohesion to critique the androcentric-patriarchal worldview that has shaped western civilization.3 Part One of this study will identify the elements of the 1 It is important to state the well known fact that there is no such thing as the feminist position, theory, or scholarship. It is of the very nature of feminist projects to be diverse, to acknowledge and honor the existence of difference and particularity. In the realms of religion and literature, projects by white Christian and Neo-pagan feminists have been criticized by both womanist and Jewish feminist scholars for their failure to uphold, in practice, this commitment to difference and particularity. 2 1 confine my attention to the ways in which the Girardian understanding of religion, societal formation, and modes of relationality informs the relation of violence and victimage to women. In order to explore the basic issues involved, I examine various writings of Martha Reineke, Luce Irigaray, Sarah Halford, Rebecca Adams, Carole Deering Paul, Cynthia Chase, Ann Demaitre, and Linda Alcoff. 3 It is important to clarify for this study the terms "androcentrism" and "patriarchy." "Androcentrism" refers to patterns of thinking that posit the humanity of dominant male human beings as normative for all human beings; all non-normative human beings are viewed, accordingly, as derivative of, and dependent upon, the normative male. "Patriarchy" is the structural expression of an androcentric worldview. "Patriarchy" as one identified reality does not exist; rather it is a diversified reality whose expressions are influenced by the sociopolitical, historico-religious context. Its structure is so shaped that the multiple forms ofpower within a society are possessed by the dominant males. Women and non-normative men do not 20Susan Nowak Girardian theory that feminist scholars judge to be most useful to their projects, elements that serve as vital theoretical underpinnings for feminist critiques of conceptual frameworks, modes of relationality, and social structures which perpetuate the victimage of women. Part Two examines elements within the Girardian theory which feminist scholars judge to be informed by an androcentric-patriarchal worldview. According to feminist theoreticians, those elements reinforce the oppressive dimensions of human relationships, of social institutions, and of religion. Because of this influence it is claimed that aspects of the Girardian theory cannot promote an authentic sense of selfhood and agency for women. It is, however, also the position of feminist scholars that a revisionary process could strip the theory of its androcentric elements and retool it in a manner supportive of women and women's experiences.4 In this section I will highlight their recommendations for such a revision. Part Three is my critique of the feminist critique. I will indicate what I find to be the major weakness in feminist projects to-date and discuss the ways in which the Girardian concept of difference may offer a possible corrective. Part One Methodologically, a hermeneutic of suspicion is central to feminist projects. Its usage supports two main tasks of feminist scholarship: the retrieval of women's experiences and history from the oppression of silence, as Martha Reineke observes ("Body" 246), and the exposure of androcentric thought frames and patriarchal structures which have relegated women's history and experiences to the crippling domain of silence. René Girard's employment of a hermeneutic of suspicion for the analysis of the myths and have access to power by their own right. Women have access to power only through the men to whom they belong. The "androcentric-patriarchal worldview" can be summarized, then, in terms of an ethos which functions to exclude, to marginalize, and to render invisible in language and public life all who are defined as non-normative human beings. The... (shrink)

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION The present volume belongs to the theory of historical process. That domain of science seems to be as made as all the theoretical ...