Planning organizes our actions and conditions our effective-ness. To understand this philosophical hint better, the author investigates and juxtaposes two important accounts in action theory. He discusses the concept of a plan proposed by Tadeusz Kotarbiński in his praxiology (theory of efcient action), and the so called “planning theory of intention” by Michael E. Bratman. The conceptual meeting of these two proposals helps to remove aws in Kotarbiński’s action theory, it also shows the way, in which we can enrich the (...) idea of plans in the frame-work of intentions. Generally, praxiology occurs to be still an important perspective in action theory, which particularly shows how we can improve our understanding of planning when confronted with infuentialcontemporary accounts. (shrink)

The structure of this paper is as follows. My starting point is psychological flexibility (henceforth, PF) as it has been presented in psychology. Here I offer a synthetic view which embraces the most crucial aspects of flexibility, and describes its functional roles and underlying mechanisms. Secondly, I move my attention onto the field of current action theory and discuss two elementary concepts we commonly use when describing our actions: intention and desire. Of course, there are many “theories of desire” and (...) there is no point in trying (nor even the option) to discuss all of them under one heading. To show where the question of PF sneaks into the scene of action theory, I explore the idea of the resistance of desire, as proposed by Timo Airaksinen. The second concept to investigate at this stage is intention. As in the previous case, it is plain that there are plenty of accounts of intentions and there are many roles they play in the phenomenology of action. For the purposes of this paper, we need only something that can be interpreted as an approach to PF. Such an approach can be found in the idea of stability of intention or a plan, discussed famously by Michael Bratman. According to my interpretation, these two ideas, resistance of desire and stability of intention, allow to initially understand some important aspects of PF in action theory. To get a slightly more comprehensive view – and to supplement the outcomes gained on the grounds of the analyses of these two accounts – I introduce, in the third step, the concept of plasticity which comes from the so-called praxiology proposed by Tadeusz Kotarbiński (Lvov-Warsaw School). I try to show how this concept is still feasible and how it may enrich current philosophical accounts of agential flexibility. The strategy behind this stage of the paper is to enrich the Bratmanian approach to psychological stability. The last part of the paper contains some remarks on the philosophical outcome of the interdisciplinary approach to PF. (shrink)

"This is a full original version of Makowski's work on Aristotelian dunamis (shortened & revised version has been previously published as "Metaphysics of Practical Philosophy" paper). The author presents the Aristotelian conception of capacity/potentiality (dunamis) – one of the most important in Aristotle’s metaphysics. A closer inspection allows to draw conclusion, that the concept of capacity is an important link between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ (metaphysics on the one side, and practical – ethical, rhetorical, political – skills, on the other). (...) A picture of the connection between theory and practice is based on the most important parts of Metaphysics (books delta and theta), it relates metaphysical definitions to an essential element of Aristotelian practical philosophy – the concept of virtue (aretê). In the practical works of Aristotle, we can find different definitions of aretê: in Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines aretê using the notion of disposition (hexis), but in Rhetoric he formulates a definition based on the concept of capacity. Distinctive analysis of this inconsistency shows the significance of capacity in The Stagirite’s philosophy.". (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the interpretation of one of the most important passages in modern Anglophon philosophy: III.1.3 of Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume. The author considers the problem of its meaning at an angle of the standard interpretation, which can be summed up in a dictum: ‘no ought from is’ (so called “Hume’s Guillotine”). The author outlines four possible approaches to this putative meaning of the Treatise passage and weighs arguments for them. The investigation, based mainly (...) on the strategies by Arthur Prior, Charles Pigden and John Searle, allows to defend two approaches regarding Hume’s putative proposal of is/ought gap: /1/ the idea of logical autonomy of moral discourse, making strong rationality of deduction from is to (non-trivial) ought invalid, together with /2/ the possibility of weak rational (justified) inference from is to ought. However, the comparison of these two accounts with the guts of Humean philosophy as such (critical skepticism, fallibilism, ethical noncognitivism) makes the author prone to give a priority to the latter. (shrink)

Philippa Foot once said: I'm not clever at all. I have a certain insight into philosophy, cost I think. But I'm not clever, I don't find complicated arguments easy to follow. Foot's cleverness enticed many thinkers to take these Gombrowiczian lines seriously.

Finitary sketches, i.e., sketches with finite-limit and finite-colimit specifications, are proved to be as strong as geometric sketches, i.e., sketches with finite-limit and arbitrary colimit specifications. Categories sketchable by such sketches are fully characterized in the infinitary first-order logic: they are axiomatizable by σ-coherent theories, i.e., basic theories using finite conjunctions, countable disjunctions, and finite quantifications. The latter result is absolute; the equivalence of geometric and finitary sketches requires (in fact, is equivalent to) the non-existence of measurable cardinals.

This paper presents a dual intention model (DIM) of demonstrations as actions to show the agentive nature of demonstrations. According to the DIM, demonstrations are complex actions that contain as components at least three elements: an abductive intention, a deictic intention, and a basic ostensive act of indication. This paper unpacks these three components and discusses their roles from the viewpoint of the philosophy of action and the philosophy of language. It also shows how the DIM applies in selected practical (...) examples and explains the merits of the model in the context of other views on demonstrations and demonstratives. (shrink)

In this article, I examine Michael Bratman’s account of stability in his planning theory of intention. Future-directed intentions should be stable, or appropriately resistant to change, over time. Bratman claims that the norm of stability governs both intentions and plans. The aim of this article is to critically enrich Bratman’s account of stability by introducing plasticity as an additional norm of planning. I construct plasticity as a kind of stability of intentions which supplements Bratman’s notion of “reasonable stability.” Unlike the (...) latter, plasticity applies mainly to cases in which plan states are abandoned without reconsideration. I focus on the intra-theoretical problems of PTI and elucidate: the distinction between future-directed intentions and plans, the conceptual difference between stability and inertia, which is only implicit in PTI, and the role of the environment of the planner, which has a vestigial role in Bratman’s work. I also defend my incorporation of pl... (shrink)

The book introduces Tadeusz Kotarbiński’s philosophy of action into the mainstream of contemporary action-theoretical debates. Piotr Makowski shows that Kotarbiński–Alfred Tarski’s teacher and one of the most important philosophers of the renowned Lvov-Warsaw school—proposed a groundbreaking, original, and (in at least a few respects) still fresh perspective in action theorizing. The book examines and develops Kotarbiński’s ideas in the context of the most recent discussions in the philosophy of action. The main idea behind Kotarbiński’s action theory—and thus, behind (...) this book—is the significance of the philosophical investigations of the general conditions of effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of intentional actions. Makowski presents and reinterprets Kotarbiński’s views on these dimensions of our activities and sheds new light on the most important areas of action theory. (shrink)

"Traditional interpretations of Kantian idea of autonomy – based on the classical texts such as Kritik der praktischen Vernunft and Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten – stress basically one point: action is autonomous only when an agent obeys the law. In this paper, the author tries to introduce an interpretation of Kant’s practical philosophy, which covers a wider perspective, resulting in the idea of “radical autonomy”. Re-reading classical texts of Kant in connection with Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (...) and Tugendlehre I try to show, that Kant’s conception of autonomy also allows for acting, that is not determined by the law (i.e. categorical imperative). Roughly, to be radically autonomous you do not have to be necessarily moral (there are other conditions that make your autonomy valid). This paper adopts reasons of „historicistic enlightment” (Schnädelbach), which is rather contrary to the general anti-historicistic context of Kant’s philosophy. Although this approach seems to be against the Kantian „metaphysical hipotheque” (e.g.: pure Faktum der Vernunft, absolute justification/Grundlegung of morality), it provides a (re)interpretation that allows to defend the broadened idea of autonomy. And this ‘radical autonomy’ shows some explanatory attractiveness of Kant’s ethical theory in the contemporary critical horizon of historicism. ". (shrink)

The paper is an introductory essay to the Polish translation of M.E. Bratman's paper The Fecundity of Planning Agency. Instead of summarizing the main drifts of Bratman's work, the author tries to show a few important parallels between his approach to action theory and the so-called praxiology proposed by Tadeusz Kotarbinski. It occurs that there are important similarities between their approaches both to specific problems in action theory and to the general question how to understood agency. A brief presentation of (...) these similarities gives two central results. Firstly, it allows to interpret Bratman as a kind of praxiologist, and, secondly, it shows that praxiological thinking proposed by Kotarbinski is still a vital perspective in contemporary action theory. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the interpretation of one of the most important passages in modern Anglophon philosophy: III.1.3 of Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume. The author considers the problem of its meaning at an angle of the standard interpretation, which can be summed up in a dictum: 'no ought from is'. The author outlines four possible approaches to this putative meaning of the Treatise passage and weighs arguments for them. The investigation, based mainly on the strategies by (...) Arthur Prior, Charles Pigden and John Searle, allows to defend two approaches regarding Hume's putative proposal of is/ought gap: /1/ the idea of logical autonomy of moral discourse, making strong rationality of deduction from is to ought invalid, together with /2/ the possibility of weak rational inference from is to ought. However, the comparison of these two accounts with the guts of Humean philosophy as such makes the author prone to give a priority to the latter. (shrink)

An attempt at moral interpretation of Hegelian ‘struggle for recognition’. The Author shows how the Hegelian figures of ‘Lord’ and ‘Bondsman’ (from The Phenomenology of Spirit) can be used to explain social role and importance of the idea of tolerance in the context of (intolerant) group moralities and the universal morality. The text is built of three parts: (1) the author sketches the connection of the traditional idea of tolerance and sociological understanding of morality on the basis of Hegel’s understanding (...) of recognition (Anerkennung). In the second step (2), he gives an outline of Hegelian two accounts of mutual recognition, finally (3) the author shows the moral dimension of recognition, as referred to the idea of tolerance and universalistic morality. (shrink)

An attempt at moral interpretation of Hegelian 'struggle for recognition'. The Author shows how the Hegelian figures of 'Lord' and 'Bondsman' can be used to explain social role and importance of the idea of tolerance in the context of group moralities and the universal morality. The text is built of three parts: the author sketches the connection of the traditional idea of tolerance and sociological understanding of morality on the basis of Hegel's understanding of recognition. In the second step, he (...) gives an outline of Hegelian two accounts of mutual recognition, finally the author shows the moral dimension of recognition, as referred to the idea of tolerance and universalistic morality. (shrink)

Among different types of autonomy of ethics, semantic autonomy seems to be the most interesting. It is a thesis about irreducibility of meaning of ethical terms to some other types of discourse. The paper proposes an argument for the semantic autonomy of ethics, based on a detailed interpretation of the Open Question Argument by G.E. Moore, and followed up by the reading of Philippa Foot's argument about weak objectivity of evaluative meaning of ethical terms. The result of investigation gives the (...) two-fold picture of modern understanding of morality: irrevisability of moral demands as attempted by any theoretical armchair endeavors, which are external to the moral practice, and democratic intersubjectivity of moral discourse. (shrink)

The author presents the Aristotelian conception of capacity/potentiality (dunamis) – one of the most important in Aristotle’s metaphysics. A closer inspection allows to draw conclusion, that the concept of capacity is an important link between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ (metaphysics on the one side, and practical – ethical, rhetorical, political – skills, on the other). A picture of the connection between theory and practice is based on the most important parts of Metaphysics (books delta and theta), it relates metaphysical definitions to (...) an essential element of Aristotelian practical philosophy – the concept of virtue (aretê). In the practical works of Aristotle, we can find different definitions of aretê: in Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines aretê using the notion of disposition (hexis), but in Rhetoric he formulates a definition based on the concept of capacity. Distinctive analysis of this inconsistency shows the significance of capacity in The Stagirite’s philosophy. (shrink)

Brief educational paper. The author sketches the most important aspects of Heraclitean theory of fire as the ‘principle’, ‘beginning’ or ‘origin’ (arché) of existing things. The presentation puts his concept of arché in the background of Heraclitean famous aphoristic dicta (‘everything flows’ – panta rhei, among others) and his theory of universal logos. Although the philosophy of Heraclitus is not very distinct from other theories by archaic philosophers of nature (Anaximander, Anaximenes, Thales, Parmenides, Empedocles), its specificity makes Heraclitus one of (...) the most influential and inspiring figures of Ancient world. (shrink)

This volume explores two traditions in practical philosophy: action theory, which concerns the nature of motivation for human action, and praxiology, the study of human action. By bringing different perspectives together, the volume strives to contribute to the international debate on theories of reasons for action as a philosophy of action. The volume consists of three main parts. The first part, “Reasons for Action," bridges the gap between reasons for action theories and praxiology. The second part of the volume, titled (...) “Theories of Action," explores philosophical approaches to action. Finally, in the third part, “Applications," the contributors show several ways of applying praxiological ways of thinking and acting to the problems of reflection assessment, solving action incompleteness, and knowledge management. The ultimate goal of this volume is to broaden the scientific view of action: to establish a perspective on action that is permeated by moral theories on the one hand, and accounts focused on efficiency and economy of action on the other hand. (shrink)

The paper explores the topic of organizational routines from a philosophical vantage point to see how the philosophy of action may help improve its understanding in organizational research. The main goal is to show the distinctive complexity of the intentional picture of routines. In this respect, the paper clarifies the interrelations between psychological habits and routines and describes similarities and differences between them. It also highlights the special place of mindfulness as a psycho-cognitive mechanism of action meta-control in intentional explanations (...) of routine complexity. (shrink)

This article argues that such large-scale cases of crowd behavior as the Mexican Wave ( La Ola) constitute forms of shared intentionality which cannot be explained solely with the use of the standard intentionalistic ontology. It claims that such unique forms of collective intentionality require a hybrid explanatory lens in which an account of shared goals, intentions, and other propositional attitudes is combined with an account of the motor psychology of collective agents. The paper describes in detail the intentionalistic ontology (...) of La Ola and discusses the conditions of cooperation it meets. The discussion allows the author to defend the view that large-scale collective intentionality can be based on automaticity to a significant degree: to properly understand such phenomena like La Ola, the idea of probabilistically interpreted decisions and propensities to act should give way to the automatic aspects of behavior. This paves the way for future studies in the philosophy of action to fully recognize the role of automatic performances at the level of collective actions just as they do for individual actions. (shrink)

The chapter has three basic goals. First, it shows why the Kotarbińskian praxiology – despite its terminological connotations, which locate it close to its Misesian analogue – should be understood as an example of the analytic action theory, and not as a "science". The chapter initially gives reasons for this interpretation and outlines the virtues of the theory drawn in Kotarbiński's Treatise on A Good Job. Praxiology occurs to be an action theory that is consistently developed under the sign of (...) agential effectiveness. Second, it focuses on the problem of why praxiology has not been, so far, recognized as a serious party in the mainstream action theory. It gives two main answers which are responsible for this fact: that there were socio-cultural factors that blocked a wider reception of this book, and that the ontological background of praxiology obfuscated it to the extent that such a reception was extremely difficult. In the fourth step, it proposes a therapy that is able to revitalize praxiology and show its true potential. It occurs that praxiology needs an explicitly intentionalistic conceptual framework to show its true value. The chapter also sketches the most important domains of contemporary action-theoretical investigations in which the reinterpreted Kotarbińskian philosophy of agency can have something interesting to say. These domains are explored in the next five chapters. (shrink)

Graph polynomials are graph parameters invariant under graph isomorphisms which take values in a polynomial ring with a fixed finite number of indeterminates. We study graph polynomials from a model theoretic point of view. In this paper we distinguish between the graph theoretic (semantic) and the algebraic (syntactic) meaning of graph polynomials. Graph polynomials appear in the literature either as generating functions, as generalized chromatic polynomials, or as polynomials derived via determinants of adjacency or Laplacian matrices. We show that these (...) forms are mutually incomparable, and propose a unified framework based on definability in Second Order Logic. We show that this comprises virtually all examples of graph polynomials with a fixed finite set of indeterminates. Finally we show that the location of zeros and stability of graph polynomials is not a semantic property. The paper emphasizes a model theoretic view. It gives a unified exposition of classical results in algebraic combinatorics together with new and some of our previously obtained results scattered in the graph theoretic literature. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a measure of complete well-being. The framework is derived from the theoretical model of human flourishing understood as a state in which all aspects of a human life are favorable. The approach extends beyond psychological well-being and reflects the World Health Organization definition of health that not only considers the health of body and mind but also embraces the wholeness of the person. The Well-Being Assessment is a comprehensive instrument designed to assess holistic well-being in (...) six domains: emotional health, physical health, meaning and purpose, character strengths, social connectedness, and financial security. Although each of these domains is distinct, all of them are nearly universally desired, and all but financial security constitute ends in themselves. Data were collected from a representative sample of working adults. A sample of 276 employees participated in the pilot, 2,370 participated in the first wave and 1,209 in the second wave of the survey. The WBA showed a good fitting, satisfactory reliability, test–retest correlation, and convergent/discriminant validity in relation to stability over time and relevant health measures, as well as a good fit to the data that were invariant over time, gender, age, education, and marital status. The instrument can be of use for scientists, practitioners, clinicians, public health officials, and patients. Adoption of more holistic measures of well-being that go beyond psychological well-being may help to shift the focus from health deficiencies to health and well-being promotion. (shrink)

Blumenthal-Barby and her colleagues (2022) situate their discussion of philosophy and bioethics in the context of (reportedly) widely held assumption that, when compared to the early days of bioethics, the role of philosophy is now diminished across the field – the assumption we call the Disconnection Thesis. This assumption can be summarized, to use the authors’ own words, by the phrase “philosophy’s glory days in bioethics are over“. While in no place of the article they explicitly endorse the Disconnection Thesis, (...) at least some of the authors had previously endorsed it in print (Savulescu 2015). Such expressions of collective expert wisdom might be a valuable source of information on the discipline's history, but they should not be accepted uncritically. Given the explosion in the size and scope of bioethical research in recent decades, any scholar’s familiarity with the area is necessarily based on selective reading and might be biased. Hence, in this commentary, we examine what kind of more rigorous evidence could corroborate the Disconnection Thesis. In other words, if the role of philosophy in bioethics has been indeed diminishing, what kind of observable patterns should we expect to see? Drawing on our previous research (Bystranowski, Dranseika, Żuradzki 2022), here we focus on two useful perspectives: citation analysis and topic modeling. While the first approach allows us to indirectly measure the level of engagement of bioethicists with philosophical literature (by measuring the proportion of references from articles published in journals in bioethics that cite philosophy journals), the latter provides a window into the content and argumentative style of bioethical texts. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the work is rather secondary in the sense that it relies, for the most part, on the Buddhist logical legacy. The first extant commentary is the Nyayavatara-vivrti of Siddharsigani.

In the article I refer to the philosophy of William Hasker and his proposal to reconcile respect for the basic dogmas of Christianity with the contemporary standards of knowledge and the needs of people today. In the first part I analyse Hasker’s view on the idea of Christian philosophy. Since he assumes the truthfulness of the main doctrines of Christianity, he is not opposed to being referred to as a Christian philosopher, but neither is he enthusiastic about this name. This (...) attitude is the result of his conviction that the state of absolute neutrality is not possible in philosophy and that regardless of the views accepted as true by a given thinker the requirement for good philosophy is fairness and evaluating all perspectives and beliefs for their internal coherence and their correspondence with the evidence. Therefore, Hasker first tries very carefully to reconstruct positions different from his own and to track down various difficulties in them, especially contradictions. In my opinion, however, the objection of self-contradiction is ineffective when applied to philosophical positions which, as a rule, use vague concepts. The same applies to the claim that these positions are contradictory to evidence, because one of such vague notions is also the notion of evidence. That is why philosophical claims have the extraordinary ability to persist in life or unexpectedly revive after being considered definitively dead. It does not follow from this that one cannot convincingly justify one’s position using less formal criteria. In the second part I focus on the rhetorical device used by Hasker to make his concept of God more attractive. He suggests that we should shape our concept of God based on our idea of a great man, i.e. one who educates children to live independently and is able to effectively and fairly manage large groups of people. Leaving aside the accusation of anthropomorphism, the question arises about the epistemic value of this image, which is not universal, changes over time and depends on the conditions in which people live. The content of this image proposed by Hasker isn’t also consistent with the idea of the God of Christian orthodoxy, which is dominated by traditional rather than open theism. This is where the problem of linking creative thinking and respect for Christian identity arises. Regardless of the opinion that open theism has among traditional theists, Hasker supports the concept of a strong Christian identity determined by a universally recognized creed. I propose to treat this identity a little more flexibly. (shrink)

Panentheism and classical theism. Comments on the basis of Jacek Wojtysiak’s criticism of Józef Życiński’s position The article was inspired by the tenth anniversary of the death of Archbishop Życiński and the article containing polemic with his panentheism published by Wojtysiak. Wojtysiak claims that the essence of theism is the thesis about the existential selfsufficiency of God and the resulting asymmetry of his causal relationship with the world, which consists in the fact that God can exert causal influence on the (...) world, but the world cannot influence God in this way. Since Życiński contradicts this thesis, according to Wojtysiak, his panentheism is not theism at all. I do not agree with this judgment, and what Wojtysiak calls ‘theism’ I call ‘classical theism’. Both panentheism and classical theism constitute legitimate versions of theism. Ishow that the classical theism in the version proposed by Wojtysiak is entangled in serious difficulties. One of them is that on cosmological level it harmonizes best with occasionalism, that is, with full theological determinism. Another one is connected with the thesis t that God is impassible, which deprives him of the possibility of fulfilling these pro-religious functions, which are crucial for Christianity, such as God’s experiential involvement in the history of the world. I propose that the recognition of divine passibility be the minimum condition for any panentheism or position similar to it. Meeting this condition does not require the rejection of the thesis about the classically understood divine immutability, omnipotence or the creation of the world ex nihilo, but it is conducive to the revision of these notions. I point out that revisions proposed by Życiński in his version of panentheism were incomparably smaller than those proposed by Whitehead or especially Hartshorne, but still they cannot be treated as a minor supplement to classical theism. They constitute version of panentheism or neoclassical theism, which is a much better philosophical basis for Christianity. (shrink)

In the paper I consider the prospects of interpreting late Carnap view on ontology as being in part a sort of fictionalism. More precisely, I argue that the theses he maintained in the volume of The Library of Living Philosophers devoted to his philosophy , in which he concerned with semantics in general and the confirmation of existential claims, make his account of an ontologically uncommittal acceptance of existential claims, as presented in his Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology , unsatisfying. In (...) this work, he claimed that – to put it roughly – one can accept existential claims as true relatively to rules that constitue the linguistic framework in which these claims are formulated and that from the truth relative to these rules one can’t derive any conclusion about the objective truth of these existential claims. But in the volume of The Library of Living Philosophers he adopted a new view on the nature of semantic values and took them to be extralinguistic entities. This change forced him to redefine the notion of being true relative to rules of the liguistic framework in terms of being true in admissible models of this language, where a model is an ad-missible model of a given language, if all meaning postulates of this language are satisfied in that model. This change of the view calls for an explanation of how it is possible to take some existential claims to be true in a model without accepting the existence of entities in the domain of that model. Following S. Yablo’s view ex-pressed in his Does Ontology Rest on Mistake , I suggest that one can accept the thesis that existential claims are satisfied by some extralinguistic entities in some model in a spirit of make-believe in which one makes supposition that there are such enti-ties and that they satisfy these existential claims. I also argue against propositions of interpreting Carnap as a quasi-realist on the ground that this kind of interpretation doesn’t give a justice to the distinction between internal existential claims and prag-matic external existential claims, i.e. those claims that should be treated as claims about pragmatic values of a given linguistic framework. (shrink)

In the paper I consider the prospects of interpreting late Carnap views on ontology as being in part a sort of epistemism. More precisely, I argue that the theses that he maintained in the Empirism, Semantics, and Onotology and the volume of The Library of Living Philosophers devoted to his philosophy put him close to proponents of epistemicism, according to which ontological debates over truth-values of metaphysical theses need not to be verbal disputes, but the prospects of resolving them are (...) meager, since there are no evidences that could support either given metaphysical thesis or its negation. Most likely, Carnap should be read as a proponent of a more radical version of this view, since he maintained that in principle there are no such evidences. I find this view fit well with Carnap’s argumentative strategy against substantial character of metaphysical debates, since he stresses the lack of evidences in favour of or against metaphysical claims as the main reason for his deflationism in ontology. However, what is the most worrisome in taking this route of interpreting late Carnap views on ontology is that among the presuppositions of epistemicism is the thesis that one can make sense of the talk about truth-values of metaphysical claims, whereas Carnap maintained they lack truth-values due to lack of cognitive contents. But taking the change of his view on the nature of semantic values in the volume of The Library of Living Philosophers devoted to his philosophy, where he claimed that extralinguistic entities should serve a role of semantic values and the notion of truth should be defined relatively to a given interpretation in a given model, I find his opinion on metaphysical claims unjustified, since one can define the the notion of truth for these claims relatively to models and hence make a talk about their truth values (relatively to models) sensible. It doesn’t follow from that that one can also make a sense of a claim being absolutely true, since it would require to take one model to be special one in the sense that it fits the way reality is, which is something that the proponent of epistemicism deny on the ground that there are no evidences that could be taken to show that one of the models of a given language is special in this respect. I also discuss applications of the inference to the best explanation in argumentation in favour of various sorts of realism and argue that this kind of argumentation always leaves room for some ontological dispute between parties from which one deny the existence of entities that the other argued for through application of the inference to the best explanation and hence that no metaphysical debate can be resolved by application of the inference to the best explanation under the threat of circularity. The paper is the continuation of considerations made in my paper The Later Carnap and Contemporary Metaphysical Debates. Part I, in which I’ve argued that one can treat Carnap to be also a proponent of fictionalism. In effect, Carnap’s deflationism in ontology seems to be a combination of fictionalism and epistemicism. (shrink)

The paper seeks to give an ontological account of idea as mental content in the philosophy of John Locke. The foundation on which to place and polarise philosophical standpoints with regard to this issue is the 17th- century controversy between J. Locke and N. Malebranche with respect to the genesis of human knowledge. Showing the foundation of this controversy, as expressed in the polemic work of Locke entitled An Examination of P. Malebranche\'s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God, I (...) shall outline two possible approaches to our mental contents, namely the psychologistic and anti-psychologistic ones. In this perspective Locke is a representative of the first standpoint, whereas Malebranche of the second. In the psychologistic approach, the content of our conscious acts (or according to 17th-century Cartesian philosophy ideas) is exclusively an internalelement of this consciousness. On the contrary – in the case of the anti- psychologistic characteristation, the content of our consciousness is described as ontologically antonomous, i.e. as independent from thr knowing subject. Following the analyses of An Examination, I obtain additional arguments on behalf of the psychologistic interpretation of Locke\'s conception of idea (expressed, among others, by J. Yolton and M. Ayers), contrary to the anti-psychologistic approaches (claimed by, among others, T. Reid, R. McRae, and N. Jolley). (shrink)

THE GRAMMAR OF RELIGIOUS “TO BELIEVE” IN THE CONTEXT OF LANGUAGES GAMES Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion is not very well known in polish philosophical literature. His conception of language-games is sometimes vague. The article presents the problem of faith and religion in the context of Wittgenstein's language-games. The trouble with it is lack of precise definition of language-game. Still, under certain conditions, we can discuss faith and religion from the perspective of languagegames. It becomes possible to indicate a specific religious (...) language which could be treated as a language-game. Three components characteristic for language-games - some set of words (vocabulary), grammar, and form of life (which is inseparably related to language-game) - could be separated also for religious language. In the face of studies, faith appears as inseparably related to activity. That means that the believer is pushed to specified activities, and we can't talk about faith without these activities. Faith is a "picture" which affects the lives of believers and forms them. (shrink)

The paper is a continuation of A deductive-reductive form oflogic: general theory and intuitionistic case and considers the problem of definability of modal operators on the intuitionistic base. Contrary tothe classical case, it seems that the fact whether the connective is Heyting’sor Brouwerian is essential for the intuitionistic logic. The connective of possibility has the classical interpretation, i.e. w |= ✸α iff ∃t, if it is defined on the base of the logicwith Brouwerian connective of coimplication.

This article focuses on Bob Zajonc’s views on unconscious emotion, especially in the context of the debates about the independence of affect and cognition. Historically, Bob was always interested in the “mere”—basic, fundamental processes. His empirical demonstrations of precognitive and preconscious emotional processes, combined with his elegant expositions of them, sharply contrasted with cold and complex cognitive models. Interestingly, Bob tended to believe that whereas the causes of emotion can be unconscious, the emotional state itself tends to be conscious. However, (...) he reconsidered this assumption and in his later work showed that subjects in affective priming experiments do not experience conscious affect, but instead act on basic preferences. Today, Bob’s insights continue to inspire research on “unconscious emotion.”. (shrink)

Predictive processing (PP) has been repeatedly presented as a unificatory account of perception, action, and cognition. In this paper, we argue that this is premature: As a unifying theory, PP fails to deliver general, simple, homogeneous, and systematic explanations. By examining its current trajectory of development, we conclude that PP remains only loosely connected both to its computational framework and to its hypothetical biological underpinnings, which makes its fundamentals unclear. Instead of offering explanations that refer to the same set of (...) principles, we observe systematic equivocations in PP‐based models, or outright contradictions with its avowed principles. To make matters worse, PP‐based models are seldom empirically validated, and they are frequently offered as mere just‐so stories. The large number of PP‐based models is thus not evidence of theoretical progress in unifying perception, action, and cognition. On the contrary, we maintain that the gap between theory and its biological and computational bases contributes to the arrested development of PP as a unificatory theory. Thus, we urge the defenders of PP to focus on its critical problems instead of offering mere re‐descriptions of known phenomena, and to validate their models against possible alternative explanations that stem from different theoretical assumptions. Otherwise, PP will ultimately fail as a unified theory of cognition. (shrink)

This two-volume collection showcases a wide range of modern approaches to the philosophical study of language. Contributions illustrate how these strands of research are interconnected and show the importance of such a broad outlook. The aim is to throw light upon some of the key questions in language and communication and also to inspire, inform, and integrate a community of researchers in philosophical linguistics. Volume one concentrates on fundamental theoretical topics. This means considering vital questions about what languages are and (...) how they relate to reality, and describing some of the key areas of thought in linguistics and the philosophy of language. Contributors also discuss how philosophy influences related fields such as translation, pragmatics, and argumentation. (shrink)