This paper offers an analysis of metalinguistic comparatives such as more dumb than crazy in which they differ from ordinary comparatives in the scale on which they compare: ordinary comparatives use scales lexically determined by particular adjectives, but metalinguistic ones use a generally-available scale of imprecision or ‘pragmatic slack’. To implement this idea, I propose a novel compositional implementation of the Lasersohnian pragmatic-halos account of imprecision—one that represents clusters of similar meanings as Hamblin alternatives. In the theory that results, existential (...) closure over alternatives mediates between alternative-sets and meanings in which imprecision has been resolved. I then articulate a version of this theory in which the alternatives are not related meanings but rather related utterances, departing significantly from Lasersohn’s original conception. Although such a theory of imprecision is more clearly ‘metalinguistic’, the evidence for it from metalinguistic comparatives in English is surprisingly limited. The overall picture that emerges is one in which the grammatical distinction between ordinary and metalinguistic comparatives tracks the independently motivated distinction between vagueness and imprecision. (shrink)

On any speedometer, there are two kinds of what might very loosely be called ‘zones of indifference’. The first kind is found between any two marked speeds. If your speed is in fact 61 mph, it probably falls in one kind of zone of indifference. A normal speedometer is simply not designed to distinguish speeds between 60 and 65 mph, and if asked, we would probably report such a speed as ‘about 60’. There is, however, another kind of zone of (...) indifference. It is the one that extends beyond the highest marked speed, and includes all speeds that are too fast for the speedometer to register them—all the speeds that are literally off the scale. The big-picture theoretical aim of this paper is to explore the possibility that natural languages work in more or less the same way, with both kinds of zones of indifference. (shrink)

Degree readings of size adjectives, as in big stamp-collector, cannot be explained away as merely the consequence of some extragrammatical phenomenon. Rather, this paper proposes that they actually reflect the grammatical architecture of nominal gradability. Such readings are available only for size adjectives in attributive positions, and systematically only for adjectives that predicate bigness. These restrictions can be understood as part of a broader picture of gradable NPs in which adnominal degree morphemes—often overt—play a key role, analogous to their role (...) in the extended AP. Size adjectives acquire degree readings through a degree morpheme similar to the one that licenses AP-modifying measure phrases. Its syntax gives rise to positional restrictions on the availability of these readings, and the semantics of degree measurement interacts with the scale structure of size adjectives to give rise to restrictions on the adjective itself. (shrink)

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

This paper offers a new way to make sense of disagreement expansion from a polylogical perspective by incorporating various places in addition to players and positions into the analysis. The concepts build on prior implicit ideas about disagreement space by suggesting how to more fully account for argumentative context, and its construction, in large-scale complex controversies. As a basis for our polylogical analysis, we use a New York Times news story reporting on an oil train explosion—a significant point in the (...) broader controversy over producing oil and gas via hydraulic fracturing. (shrink)

Analogy belongs to the class of concepts notorious for a variety of definitions generating continuing disputes about their preferred understanding. Analogy is typically defined by or at least associated with similarity, but as long as similarity remains undefined this association does not eliminate ambiguity. In this paper, analogy is considered synonymous with a slightly generalized mathematical concept of similarity which under the name of tolerance relation has been the subject of extensive studies over several decades. In this approach, analogy can (...) be mathematically formalized in terms of the sequence of binary relations of increased generality, from the identity, equivalence, tolerance, to weak tolerance relations. Each of these relations has cryptomorphic presentations relevant to the study of analogy. The formalism requires only two assumptions which are satisfied in all of the earlier attempts to formulate adequate definitions which met expectations of the intuitive use of the word analogy in general contexts. The mathematical formalism presented here permits theoretical analysis of analogy in the contrasting comparison with abstraction, showing its higher level of complexity, providing a precise methodology for its study and informing philosophical reflection. Also, arguments are presented for the legitimate expectation that better understanding of analogy can help mathematics in establishing a unified and universal concept of a structure. (shrink)

I argue that the Stoic logic is explosive. The claim applies to the Stoics' syllogistic in the strictest sense, because there is a provable syllogism which qualifies as a principle of explosion. It applies also to the general consequence operation, in the sense that every sentence is derivable from any pair containing both a sentence and the negation of the sentence. Finally, it applies to the connective of implication (conditional), in the sense that any conditional is derivable, providing its antecedent (...) is a conjunction of a sentence and the negation of the sentence. All three claims allow weakening, i.e., additions of extra premises to an inference or extra conjuncts to the antecedent of an implication, respectively. Consequently, no concept of relevance, let alone paraconsistency or connexivity is applicable to the Stoic logic; in particular, the Stoics' connective of implication is either material (Boolean) or formal (strict). (shrink)

Explanations in cognitive science and computational neuroscience rely predominantly on computational modeling. Although the scientific practice is systematic, and there is little doubt about the empirical value of numerous models, the methodological account of computational explanation is not up-to-date. The current chapter offers a systematic account of computational explanation in cognitive science and computational neuroscience within a mechanistic framework. The account is illustrated with a short case study of modeling of the mirror neuron system in terms of predictive coding.

Aristocracy -- Body and family -- Gender and memory -- Wisdom and heresy -- In the holy places -- Modernities.

In the spirit of the pragmatic account of quotation and reporting offered by Macagno and Walton (2017), we outline a systematic pragmatic account of rephrasing. For this purpose, we combine two interrelated methods of inquiry into the variety of uses of rephrase as a persuasive device: (i) the annotation of rephrase types to identify locutionary and illocutionary aspects of rephrase, (ii) the crowd–sourced examination of rephrase types to investigate their perlocutionary effects. As it draws on Waltonian insights and on empirical (...) and experimental research on the (mis)use of rephrase, our approach allows us to ground a novel theoretically–informed and data–driven pragmatic account of rephrase. (shrink)

This article is devoted to the secrecy of politics in the context of sources and mechanisms of the legitimization of state power. The author formulates a thesis according to which the category of secrecy is inapplicable and inadequate beyond the form of power that is based on broad, purposive and rational legitimacy. Secret politics – which is in principle heteronomous and unjustifiable on the basis of the broadly understood idea of representation – is a technique that allows the power to (...) mediate between the subjective motivations of individuals and social groups and the objective good of a political community. This, in turn, exposes the multifaceted contradiction between real political subjectivity and autonomy and the ‘objective’ metaphysical horizon that lies at the foundations of this subjectivity. (shrink)

Optimization is about finding the best available object with respect to an objective function. Mathematics and quantitative sciences have been highly successful in formulating problems as optimization problems, and constructing clever processes that find optimal objects from sets of objects. As computers have become readily available to most people, optimization and optimized processes play a very broad role in societies. It is not obvious, however, that the optimization processes that work for mathematics and abstract objects should be readily applied to (...) complex and open social systems. In this paper we set forth a framework to understand when optimization is limited, particularly for complex and open social systems. (shrink)

We consider an example of a sentence which according to Hintikka's claim essentially requires for its logical form a Henkin quantifier. We show that if Hintikka is right then recognizing the truth value of the sentence in finite models is an NP-complete problem. We discuss also possible conclusions from this observation.

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

Lipski's book on KOR can be read from one main perspective: how does opposition come about? This does not refer to opposition in general, but to opposition within totalitarian or nearly totalitarian conditions. Such conditions are interesting because they rule out social action by autonomous self-motivated subjects. Lipski answers the question directly in the chapter on “The Prehistory of KOR.” Birth is preceeded by a long process of formation of intellectuals' circles and the strengthening of social, occupational, and experiencial links, (...) e.g., the role of post-AK circles. In the footnotes one learns all about the “Neo-Pickwickists Club” founded after the war by Lipski and Manturzewski. Elsewhere in the text Lipski emphasizes “friendship.”. (shrink)

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

Despite the continuous emphasis on globalization, we witness increasing divisions and divisiveness in all domains of human activities. One of the reasons, if not the main one, is the intellectual fragmentation of humanity, compared in the title to the failed attempt at building the Biblical Tower of Babel. The attempts to reintegrate worldview, fragmented by the specialization of education and expected to be achieved through reforms in curricula at all levels of education, were based on the assumption that the design (...) of a curriculum should focus on the wide distribution of subjects of study, as if the distribution was the goal. The key point is not the distribution of themes, but the development of skills in the integration of knowledge. The quantitative assessment of the width of knowledge by the number of disciplines is of secondary importance. We cannot expect the miracle that students without any intellectual tools developed for this purpose would perform the job of integration, which their teachers do not promote or demonstrate, and which they cannot achieve for themselves. There are many other reasons for the increasing interest in making inquiries interdisciplinary, but there is little progress in the methodology of the integration of knowledge. This paper is a study of the transition from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity, and further, to transdisciplinarity, with some suggestions regarding the use of methodological tools of structuralism and the choice of a conceptual framework. (shrink)

Multiple realizability (MR) is traditionally conceived of as the feature of computational systems, and has been used to argue for irreducibility of higher-level theories. I will show that there are several ways a computational system may be seen to display MR. These ways correspond to (at least) five ways one can conceive of the function of the physical computational system. However, they do not match common intuitions about MR. I show that MR is deeply interest-related, and for this reason, difficult (...) to pin down exactly. I claim that MR is of little importance for defending computationalism, and argue that it should rather appeal to organizational invariance or substrate neutrality of computation, which are much more intuitive but cannot support strong antireductionist arguments. (shrink)

The fall of the nineteenth century abounded in discoveries of natural laws, that is, strict and unequivocal rules of the development of life. These laws stated for example that ontogeny of individuals repeats, or recapitulates, phylogeny of the species; that big and specialized forms originate in evolution from small and unspecialized ones, while the reverse is not true; that endothermic animals are larger-sized and more compact in cool than in warm climates, and so on. Louis Dollo, a Belgian palaeontologist, proposed (...) the so-called law of irreversibility of evolution which stated that an organic structure lost in evolution cannot reappear with all the peculiarities of its design. This law seems indeed to be true but not particularly original. It was Heraclitus who first observed that one could not enter the same river twice. Dollo's law says essentially the same thing. The flow of evolutionary events combines so many processes in so many ways that past evolutionary events cannot recur exactly. “What is done, is done forever”. Time itself introduces asymmetry into the evolutionary process. (shrink)

Assent is an important ethical and legal requirement of paediatric research. Unfortunately, there are significant differences between the guidelines on the details of assent.

Refleksja etyczna, niezależnie od jej zaangażowania w rozstrzyganie zagadnień filozoficznych czy metafizycznych, nie powinna tracić zdolności identyfikacji zła w doświadczeniu. Życzyłbym sobie, aby ta książka mogła służyć pomocą w podtrzymywaniu tej zdolności. Z Wprowadzenia.

"Filozofjo po ślōnsku, czyli heft do historje filozofje Dziadka Kika" to podróż przez dzieje filozofii światowej napisane ze śląskiej perspektywy przez doktora filozofii Marcina Kika. Tyn heft niy jest tak ruby jak niywtore buchy, ale to jest heft, w kerym wjela ciykawygo i ważnygo możno znolyź… I to żech tam znoloz dlo siebje. Ale najsamprzōd musza pedzieć, że jest to heft, w kerym dziadek szukoł som siebje i chcioł sie dowjedzieć czegoś ô sobje samym i śwjecie, w kerym –szczynśliwje lub (...) niy, jak sie to wto forszteluje – prziszło mu żyć. A napisane na niym było "Filozofjo" – prawje jak heft do jakigoś przedmjotu we szkole. Wstęp dr hab. Jacek Surzyn: "Autor przeprowadza czytelnika przez historię filozofii, opowiada ją po śląsku, pewnym siebie głosem zatrzymując go tam, gdzie trzeba na chwilę przystanąć. Jest to historia nie w sensie faktograficznym, ale historia jako proces rozwoju problematyki filozoficznej, to znaczy jest to wędrówka przez odpowiedzi na najważniejsze i podstawowe filozoficzne pytania." Strony: 257 SPIS FILOZOFÓW Presokratycy 24 Sokrates 32 Sofiści, cynicy, cyrenaicy i megarejczycy 36 Platon 41 Arystoteles 45 Sceptycyzm, stoicyzm i epikureizm 49 Plotyn 56 Aureliusz Augustyn z Hippony 59 Tomasz z Akwinu 63 William z Ockham 68 Jean Buridan 70 Mikołaj z Kuzy 72 Francis Bacon 75 Kartezjusz (René Descartes) 79 Baruch Spinoza 83 Blaise Pascal 87 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 90 John Locke 94 George Berkley 98 David Hume 100 Jeremy Bentham 103 John Stuart Mill 106 Bernard de Mandeville 108 Jean Jacques Rousseau 110 Immanuel Kant 114 Arthur Schopenhauer 122 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 126 Ludwig Feuerbach 131 Max Stirner 134 Karol Marks 136 Sigmunt Freud 143 Søren Kierkegaard 149 Friedrich Nietzche 155 Henri Bergson 162 Edmund Husserl 166 Martin Heidegger 172 Max Scheler 177 Nicolai Hartmann 181 Karl Jaspers 187 Egzystencjalizm 191 William James 198 Helmuth Plessner 202 Arnold Gehlen 206 Ludwig Wittgenstein 209 Emmanuel Mounier 213 Karol Wojtyła 217 Gabriel Marcel 221 Emmanuel Lévinas 224 Jozef Tischner 228 Jean-François Lyotard 232 Zygmunt Bauman 236 Karl Raimund Popper 239 Viktor Emil Frankl 243. (shrink)

The first principle of evolution is immutability; the primary objective of a species is to perpetuate itself. A transition from one species to another has never been observed and never will be; even in paleontology the study of fossils will never bring to light a continuity in the history of life: the passage from one form to another is always abrupt, and the “missing links” are only a creation of our imagination, an answer to satisfy our expectation.

If a meteorite had not fallen on the earth sixty-five million years ago, we would not be where we are now; or more exactly we would not be here at all. If icebergs had not covered a third of the globe's surface three hundred million years ago, this collision some two hundred and thirty-five million years later would have been of no benefit to us. If drought had not swept over the Eurasian continent some ten million years ago, we would (...) still be in the trees, and nothing would encourage us to come down from them. (shrink)

The author wishes to add the following correction to his paper published in Philosophies [1]:The repeated fragment from lines 13–18 and part of 19 on page 69 should be deleted [...].

The author wishes to add the following correction to his paper published in Philosophies [1]:The repeated fragment from lines 13–18 and part of 19 on page 69 should be deleted [...].

This article presents the works of great Polish philosopher, Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, whose creative output can be applied to professional nursing practice. Krąpiec's philosophical heritage is extensive and encompasses many philosophical fields: metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of law, philosophy of culture, philosophy of politics and philosophy of language. Krąpiec created an original philosophical synthesis characterized by a realistic approach. In this paper, I present only one of several original philosophical concepts developed by Krąpiec: the theory of the person based on (...) seven essential characteristics, that is the ability for cognition, love, freedom, religion, legal subjectivity, completeness and dignity. I attempt to show how these personal characteristics correspond to various patient needs. I argue that the qualitative deficit of any personal characteristics indicated by Krąpiec corresponds to a patient's real need that must be satisfied. I also stress that the skilful diagnosing of all—not only selected—qualitative deficits of characteristics can be defined as holistic care in the nursing profession. (shrink)

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

Thanks to advances in machine learning in recent years the ability of AI agents to act independently of human oversight, respond to their environment, and interact with other machines has significantly increased, and is one step closer to human-like performance. For this reason, we can observe contemporary researchers’ efforts towards modeling agency in artificial systems. In this light, the aim of this paper is to develop a dual-process approach to the problem of AI agency perception, and to discuss possible triggers (...) of various agency perceptions. The article discusses the agency attribution phenomenon, based on which the argument for the dual-process nature of agency perception is developed. Two distinct types of thinking involved in human reasoning on AI agency are suggested: Type 1 and Type 2. The first one is fast, automatic, routine, and often unconscious; the second is a slower, controlled, more conscious one. These two distinct types of processing can yield differing and sometimes conflicting results for human cognition and interaction. The preliminary philosophical findings may contribute to further investigations in philosophy of mind or cognitive psychology and could also be empirically tested in HCI and UX studies. (shrink)

The use of an elaborate system of co-verbial constructions is the hallmark of the Hungarian language and one of the biggest challenges a translator or a learner of this language has to face. Co-verbial constructions consist of verbs, or their derivates, accompanied by a limited number of prefixes or particles that modify their meanings. They not only perform numerous syntactic and lexical functions, which is important in terms of language production, but also are able to change the meaning of the (...) verb completely. The aim of this study is to trace the cognitive motivation behind the use of Hungarian co-verbial constructions with össze/szét and to show that the meanings developed by these constructions can be organized with reference to prototypical scenes structured in the form of a radial category. (shrink)

Argues that out of the confrontation between Rorty and Habermas may be found a new way to answer the question of what kind of politics do we need today.

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

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

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