The development of innovative biomedical technologies that use gene editing tools opens up new possibilities in the treatment of rare diseases, as well as diseases that were not previously treated...

The paper will compare two methods used in the design of diagnostic strategies. The first one is a method that precises predictive value of diagnostic tests. The second one is based on the use of Bayes’ theorem. The main aim of this article is to identify the epistemological assumptions underlying both of these methods. For the purpose of this objective, example projects of one and multi-stage diagnostic strategy developed using both methods will be considered.

Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMP) offer hope for health benefits in all situations where traditional methods of therapy fail or cannot be used for various reasons. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the concept of innovation as applied to the biotechnologies employed in ATMP. In the analysis of the concept, five main contexts of meaning that contribute to its understanding will be distinguished: a change in the way of thinking about the available spectrum of medical procedures, the (...) short time of recognition of technologies in the experimental and theoretical models, lack of clinical data in advance of used technologies, increase of technologies’ complexity and diversity of substrates used in them. The conducted analysis indicates the need to adopt an attitude of far-reaching caution in the evaluation of the safety of ATMP therapies in which innovative biotechnologies are used. (shrink)

The present paper deals with the problem of evaluating empirical evidence for therapeutic decisions in medicine. The article discusses the views of Nancy Cartwright and John Worrall on the function that randomization plays in ascertaining causal relations with reference to the therapies applied. The main purpose of the paper is to present a general idea of alternative method of evaluating empirical evidence. The method builds on data analysis that makes use of rough set theory. The first attempts to apply the (...) method show that it is an interesting alternative to randomized controlled trials. (shrink)

The subject of this article is to discuss epistemological issues related to the pro-cess of obtaining empirical evidence in medicine. This paper will present how N. Cartwright, J. Worrall and P. Urbach describe the function of the randomisation pro-cedure in this process. Based on these findings, it will be possible to define an alter-native method of obtaining empirical evidence for the purpose of making clinical decisions. This method involves data analysis using the Rough Set Theory proposed by Z. Pawlak. By (...) applying this method, a deterministic algorithm for making clinical decisions can be formulated. Being an interesting alternative to statistical approaches that dominate in medicine, the RST method generates specific epistemological problems. Therefore, it seems to constitute an interesting subject of analysis for philosophers of science. (shrink)

The purpose of the present article is to propose a research project which will analyse the issue of theoretization of empirical data which takes place in the process of formulating scientific problems. J. Hintikka’s interrogative model of inquiry will serve us as a starting point for our considerations. First, his proposal of viewing the theory-dependence of facts will be characterized. Then, with reference to the results of K. Jodkowski, three interpretations of theory-laden thesis will be given: a radical, a modest (...) and a weak one. This will render it possible to further develop a critique of certain aspects of Hintikka’s conception. Subsequently, the critique will provide a basis for presenting a new way of viewing theory-dependence of empirical data. Some considerations regarding a possible use of the received conceptual scheme for analyzing certain problems of philosophy of science will close the article. A possibility of analyzing such classical problems as falsification and the use of the principle of auto-determinacy in science will also be offered. Lastly, with reference to A. Grobler’s analyses, a possibility of representing a process of rejecting metaphysical presuppositions in science will be considered. (shrink)

The primary objective of this article is to analyse functions that experimental models have in the process of creating medical knowledge. When fulfilling this objective, we will refer to findings proposed by R. Harre and like this author; we will distinguish a special type of experimental models do called domesticated models. We will claim that constructing such models initiates three independent cognition activities undertaken in the process of establishing medical knowledge that is applied in clinical practice. Stabilisation of the model (...) process is the first activity. Recognising this process is the second one and its extrapolation is the third one. Findings that we will make, will enable us to bring the process of establishing medical knowledge closer and point out at a category of problems that hinder the development of this process. (shrink)

This article discusses the use of Bayes’ Theorem in medical diagnosis with a view to examining the epistemological problems of interpreting the concept of pre-test probability value. It is generally maintained that pre-test probability values are determined subjectively. Accordingly, this paper investigates three main philosophical interpretations of probability (the “classic” one, based on the principle of non-sufficient reason, the frequentist one, and the personalistic one). This study argues that using Bayes’ Theorem in medical diagnosis does not require accepting the radical (...) personalistic interpretation. It will be shown that what distinguishes radical and moderate personalist interpretations is the criterion of conditional inter-subjectivity which applies only to the moderate account of personalist interpretation. (shrink)

Przedmiotem analizy podjętej w artykule jest procedura wyjaśniania statystycznego. Dla potrzeb prowadzonych rozważań omówiony został szczególny typ badań biomedycznych, jakim jest analiza podgrup randomizowanych badań klinicznych. Pokazane zostało, że poprawności wyjaśnień statystycznych nie można ustalić, analizując wyłącznie strukturę eksplanansu, jak jest to przyjmowane w modelu istotności statystycznej (R-S), zaproponowanym przez W. Salmona. Procedura wyjaśniania statystycznego jest zatem, w przeciwieństwie do pozostałych form wyjaśniania, zależna od procedur badawczych stanowiących podstawę formułowania twierdzeń statystycznych.

The main purpose of this article is to present the methodological characteristics of a diagnostic process. A proposal is put forward to treat that process as a specific type of a research investigation. The research investigation can be represented in the notional systems of various concepts of the question logic. In this article I attempt to formulate a preliminary notional description of the diagnostic process with the use of terms being questions. Adopting this perspective of deliberations, I maintain that during (...) a diagnostic process a doctor employs a specific type of reasoning, where questions constitute lingual formulations of diagnostic problems. The article describes the structure of a diagnostic question which is used to incorporate diagnostic problems. I provide arguments for a thesis that such questions are meant to correlate information obtained on a patient’s condition. Pointing at various aspects of temporality of a diagnostic process, I intend to present its preliminary characteristics in terms of a research investigation. My deliberations are based on exemplifications in the area of medical diagnostics, mainly in cardiology. (shrink)

The paper deals with the procedure of explaining the secondary immune response. First, the basic concepts of the mechanistic account of explanation developed by Machamer, Darden and Craver will be considered. Subsequently, I will focus on the concepts describing the activation of the elements of the immunological system viewed as a signal decoding process. The analysis will make it possible to argue for the thesis that the explanations of the secondary immune response, formulated in immunology, aim to describe the possible (...) procedures of simplifying the signal decoding process. The following considerations will make it possible to show the specificity of the mechanistic explanations formulated in immunology, and to demonstrate their significance for medical sciences. (shrink)

Decision-making procedures in medical practice are often analysed by both philosophers of science and ethicists, as well as statisticians, clinicians and methodologists. The paper focuses on decisions made by patients in situations of moral dilemma. The main purpose is to analyse the strategies used in resolving such dilemmas. First, the concept of a ‘situation of moral dilemma’ is clarified. Then, two types of strategies for resolving such situations are distinguished. The first strategy requires revising the patient’s belief system or moral (...) orientation. The second one includes a group of non-revision beliefs strategies (NRB). The authors argue in support of the thesis that NRB strategies are, in fact, the patient’s first choice when it comes to resolving moral dilemmas. The paper analyses situations where the NRB strategies may prove effective, as well as situations where they fail and where the solution of the moral dilemma must be addressed by revising the accepted belief system. The findings will help to better understand patients’ decision-making processes. (shrink)

In the late 2010s, various international committees, expert groups, and national strategy boards have voiced the demand to ‘open’ the algorithmic black box, to audit, expound, and demystify artificial intelligence. The opening of the algorithmic black box, however, cannot be seen only as an engineering challenge. In this article, I argue that only the sort of transparency that arises from critique—a method of theoretical examination that, by revealing pre-existing power structures, aims to challenge them—can help us produce technological systems that (...) are less deceptive and more just. I relate the question of AI transparency to the broader challenge of responsible making, contending that future action must aim to systematically reconcile design—as a way of concealing—with critique—as a manner of revealing. (shrink)

Palliative care and euthanasia have become the subject of ethical and political debate in Poland. However, the voice of nurses is rarely heard. The aim of this study is to explore the perception of palliative care and euthanasia among recent university bachelor degree graduates and experienced nurses in Poland. Specific objectives include: self-assessment of the understanding of these terms, recognition of clinical cases, potential acceptability of euthanasia, and an evaluation of attitudes towards palliative care and euthanasia. This is an exploratory (...) study. A convenience sample of 206 recent graduates and 252 experienced nurse practitioners were interviewed. A structured questionnaire was used for collecting and interpreting data. Subjective perception of the terms `palliative care' and `euthanasia' was high and consistent with the recognition of clinical cases. The majority of the nurses excluded euthanasia from palliative care. They recognized personal philosophy of life as the most influential factor affecting attitudes towards euthanasia. The importance of the law was valued more highly by the experienced nurses. (shrink)

It is part of the phenomenology of perceptual experiences that objects seem to be presented to us. The first guide to objects is their perceptual presence. Further reflection shows that we take the objects of our perceptual experiences to be among the causes of our experiences. However, not all causes of the experience are also objects of the experience. This raises the question indicated in the title of this paper. We argue that taking phenomenal presence as the guide to the (...) objects of perception, we can see that at least in two sensory modalities, smell and touch, there is no uniform answer to this question. The objects of olfactory and tactile experiences can move along the causal chain. Accordingly, the content of olfactory and tactile experience may vary. (shrink)

Contemporary development of research methods and tools is often conducive to ambitious art studies, in which the research methodology and study protocol are the result of negotiations between creative and research strategies. The article discusses the key sources, possibilities, and threats of interdisciplinary projects often referred to as practice-as-research. The following comparison of the orders of the scientific methodology and the artistic convention allows one to show the similarities and potential points of contact between science and art, which are independent (...) of the different values and methods of evaluation in both of these areas. The research-based practice model by Pil Hansen and Bruce Barton is also presented as a solution that takes these issues into account. It is also used to present the project of Interdisciplinary Center for New Technologies of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the Art & Science Research Foundation om—organisms and machines in culture (FUNom) the project "Neurophysiology of the Artist in Performance", which is a bold example of the transdisciplinary activities of scientists and researchers. Its content is analyzed through the reports of artists, researchers, and participants taking part in public presentations of the project. (shrink)

The paper presents a draft model of the relationship between shame, treated as one of the self-conscious emotions, and the identity formation process. Two main concepts of shame have been discussed here: shame as an adaptive emotion, in line with the evolutionary approach, and as a maladaptive emotion, according to cognitive attribution theory. The main thesis of this paper states that shame has an essential, both constructive and maladaptive, importance for identity development and that its effect is indirect as it (...) works through the mechanisms of emotion regulation. The destructive and disrupting influence of shame is not an immanent feature of this emotion, but it is a consequence of malfunctioning mechanisms of shame regulation. The association of shame with identity formation relates to the exploration dimensions - exploration in breadth, exploration in depth and ruminative exploration, as well as to commitment making and identification with commitment. (shrink)

The mathematical notion of a permutation of indices in the state description admits different physical interpretations. Two main interpretations analyzed in this paper are: exchange of essences and exchange of haecceities. It is argued that adopting the essentialist approach leads to the conclusion, contrary to the conventional wisdom, that quantum particles of the same type are sometimes discernible by their properties. The indiscernibility thesis can be supported only by the alternative interpretation in terms of primitive thisness.

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct and correct one argument in support of the symmetrization postulate in quantum mechanics. I identify the central premise of the argument as a thesis specifying a particular ontic property of quantum superpositions. The precise form of this thesis depends on some underlying assumptions of a metaphysical character. I compare the exchange degeneracy argument with alternative formal arguments for the symmetrization postulate, and I discuss the role and meaning of labels in the symmetric/antisymmetric (...) representations of the states of many particles. (shrink)

One can often hear that intuitions are standardly “appealed to”, “relied on”, “accounted for”, or “used as evidence” in ethics. How should we interpret these claims? I argue that the typical understanding is what Bernard Molyneux calls “descriptive evidentialism”: the idea that intuition-states are treated as evidence of their propositional contents in the context of justification. I then argue that descriptive evidentialism is false- on any account of what intuitions are. That said, I admit that ethicists frequently rely on intuitions (...) to clarify, persuade, discover, or to support things other than the intuitions’ contents. The contents of intuitions are also commonly used as starting premises of philosophical arguments. However claims about these practices need to be sharply distinguished from the prevalent dogma. (shrink)

Since our visual perception of physical things essentially involves our identifying objects by their colours, any theory of visual perception must contain some account of the colours of things. The central problem with colour has to do with relating our normal, everyday colour perceptions to what science, i.e. physics, teaches us about physical objects and their qualities. Although we perceive colours as categorical surface properties of things, colour perceptions are explained by introducing physical properties like reflectance profiles or dispositions to (...) cause certain experiences in normal human perceivers. Hence, it seems as if colours as they are experienced by us have no place in the physical world, because they are fundamentally different from the properties which we ascribe to physical objects in scientific accounts of colour perceptions. This special issue on perspectives on colour perception presents new suggestions to solve to this major problem. (shrink)

This article proposes to look at the concept of freedom formulated by Nicholas Berdyaev in his early work, Philosophy of Freedom, through the prism of kenotic Christology. The kenotic nature of the Incarnation of the Son of God, as it was described in the St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians and developed later by the Christian tradition, was connected with His renunciation of his own infinitude—adopting the “form of a servant” and embracing the limits of the human body. It was (...) an absolutely free act of the divine Person, who revealed to man his own divine model and opened up for him the possibility of its implementation, i.e., the way to becoming a person. For Berdyaev, this possibility is conditioned by the ability to engage in a free act of kenosis, involving the renunciation of the compulsions of reason that have entangled us in natural forms of necessity and that reduce us to mere cogs in the machinery of nature. According to Berdyaev, this way of human kenosis is faith. The act of faith, understood as a rejection of the tendency to seek security through compelling evidence, constitutes a person in his/her uniqueness, and performatively realizes the similarity to God potentially present in every human. (shrink)

In my article I present the conception of soul of Cornelius Agrippa based on his greatest work "De occulta philosophia" which is a kid of summa of natural and occult philosophy, hermeticism, cabbala, astrology, humanistic theology, medicine, and alchemy. Henricus Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535) was a famous renaissance philosopher, cabalist, astrologer and theologian whose contribution in renaissance philosophical deliberations is significant but still unknown in Poland. Agrippa's notion of soul is very important for his own project of new pure (...) magic which is described in his opus magnum. Therefore agrippian magic contains and perfects three kinds of knowledge: phisics, mathematics and theology. In the similary way Agrippa divided whole Cosmos in to three worlds. First and the most inferior world of the threefold Cosmos is the world of four elements of substance in Aristotle's meaning. The second one is the world of celestial bodies which comprises planets, stars and laws that rule them, and which is above the first world. The third one is the divine world of angels, soul of the world with platonic ideas and other intelligibilities. The three kinds of knowledge which Agrippa also called "regulative philosophy" are very useful for human in studying of each of three agrippian worlds. From this point of view also notion of humanity is very important for Agrippa. By the similarity between the macro- and microcosmos which appear in Agrippa's thought also human soul is threefold. Thus human soul contains in hierarchical order three parts viz.: idolum (which is the most inferior), ratio (being the middle part) and mens (which is on highest position in human soul). Each part has its own function which can be fully activated by God's light received by mens. In describing of functions of threefold soul Agrippa receives inspirations from prior philosophers like Aristotle, Awicenna or Awerroes. Another cause which emphases a great role of the agrippian conception of the soul is its connection with oryginal concepts of phantasy and threefold melancholy which is similar to the treepartite soul. Those two concepts are the examples of the influences of celestial powers which source is in stars and planets. (shrink)

The principles that govern the functioning of science and visions of the ethics of scientific research are changing. Many researchers who are examining these changes observe a shift from the academic ethos to the industrial — or “corporate” — ethos. Under the new law on higher education and science, which was passed by the Polish Parliament in 2018, new regulations to the Polish state university system have come into effect. The basic aim of my article has been to examine the (...) scientific ethos in Poland. I based my research on the new statutes adopted by university senates, in which I focused on the value statements and declarations that express the beliefs of university authorities about the most important and desirable model of science. I compared two groups of universities, those which have obtained the status of research universities and colleges from the Upper Silesian Metropolis. My goal was to answer the following questions: 1. What values create the declared ethos of science? 2. What is their hierarchy? 3. To what extent is the ethos of both groups of universities similar? 4. Has the scientific ethos present in the new statutes changed in relation to what was declared earlier? In order to answer these questions, I have applied the technique of document content analysis. My research shows that 1. The ethos of science is changing; 2. The set of declared values in the material under scrutiny is rich and varied. (shrink)

General metaphysical arguments have been proposed in favour of the thesis that all dispositions have categorical bases (Armstrong; Prior, Pargetter, Jackson). These arguments have been countered by equally general arguments in support of ungrounded dispositions (Molnar, Mumford). I believe that this controversy cannot be settled purely on the level of abstract metaphysical considerations. Instead, I propose to look for ungrounded dispositions in specific physical theories, such as quantum mechanics. I explain why non-classical properties such as spin are best interpreted as (...) irreducible dispositional properties, and I give reasons why even seemingly classical properties, for instance position or momentum, should receive a similar treatment when interpreted in the quantum realm. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I argue that quantum dispositions should not be limited to probabilistic dispositions (propensities) by showing reasons why even possession of well-defined values of parameters should qualify as a dispositional property. I finally discuss the issue of the actuality of quantum dispositions, arguing that it may be justified to treat them as potentialities whose being has a lesser degree of reality than that of classical categorical properties, due to the incompatibility relations between non-commuting observables. (shrink)

This book uses the formal semantics of counterfactual conditionals to analyze the problem of non-locality in quantum mechanics. Counterfactual conditionals enter the analysis of quantum entangled systems in that they enable us to precisely formulate the locality condition that purports to exclude the existence of causal interactions between spatially separated parts of a system. They also make it possible to speak consistently about alternative measuring settings, and to explicate what is meant by quantum property attributions. The book develops the possible-world (...) semantics of quantum counterfactuals using David Lewis's famous approach as a starting point but modifying it significantly in order to achieve compatibility with the demands of the special theory of relativity as well as quantum mechanics. There have been several attempts to use counterfactuals semantics to strengthen Bell's theorem and its cognates such as the GHZ and Hardy theorems. These are critically evaluated in the book. Finally, a counterfactual reconstruction of the EPR argument and Bell's theorem is proposed that sheds a new light on their philosophical consequences regarding the relations between realism and local causation. (shrink)