This paper is the first part of an exploration into the logical properties of relative identity. After providing the semantic grounds for various monadic logics of relative identity, I define the minimal system and its nine extensions. It is suggested that despite their purely formal origin at least some of them may contain nontrivial philosophical insights. All logics are axiomatized by means of sound and complete sequent calculi. I show their affinities with existing formalizations.

Humans are always interested in distinguishing natural and artificial entities although there is no sharp demarcation between the two categories. Surprisingly, things do not improve when the second type of entities is restricted to the arguably more constrained realm of physical technical artifacts. This paper helps to clarify the relationship between natural entities and technical artifacts by developing a conceptual landscape within which to analyze these notions. The framework is developed by studying three definitions of technical artifact which arise from (...) different perspectives. All these perspectives share two intuitions: that technical artifacts are physical objects that exist by human intervention; and that technical artifacts are entities to be contrasted to natural entities. Yet the perspectives are different in the way they spell out these intuitions: the relevant human intervention may range from intentional selection to intentional production; and the contrast between technical artifacts and natural entities may be introduced by a constitution relation or by defining properties that set technical artifacts apart. The three perspectives are compared and their similarities and dissimilarities are explored with the help of ontological analysis. (shrink)

This note discusses P. Oppenheimer and E. Zalta's ?A Computationally-Discovered Simplification of the Ontological Argument? [this journal, 2011]. I try to explain why the simplification presented there was successful and comment on the technical aspects of the method they applied.

Within the context of the debate between ontological monists and pluralists the paper discusses a number of argumentative strategies that the latter can apply to answer the “there can be only one” argument. I show here that the reply to this argument suggested by J. Turner has its disadvantages and suggest a number of adjustments thereof. In particular, I develop a concept of domain-specific quantifiers that allow the pluralist to elaborate his or her ontological position.

The paper discusses the problem of diachronic criteria of identity for historic localities. We argue that such criteria are needed not just for the sake of ontological clarity but also are indispensable for database management and maintenance. Our survey of the current research in database management and engineering ontology literature found no satisfactory candidates thereof. Therefore we attempt to search for such criteria in the historic-geographical scholarship by exposing the ontological assumptions the researchers made there and by stating them explicitly. (...) This attempt consisted of us presenting a number of brief scenarios taken from the historical studies whereby localities are claimed to maintain their identity through certain types of change or to be destroyed due to other types of change. Generalising these cases we provide a tentative formulation of the criterion and discuss its limitations. (shrink)

The paper suggests two revisions of K. Bennett's system of slot mereology. The revisions do not touch on the philosophical rationale for this system, but are focused on certain logical deficiencies in her formalisation.

I develop in this paper a conception of artefacts based on L. Wittgenstein’s idea of family resemblance. My approach peruses the notion of frame, which was invented in cognitive psychology as an operationisable extension of this philosophical idea. Following the metaphor of life-cycle I show how this schematic notion of frame may be filled with the content relevant for artefacts if we consider them from the point of view of their histories. The resulting conception of artefacts provides a new insight (...) into the current debate on artefact categorisation. (shrink)

The paper contains a first order formal theory pertaining to artefact designs, designs which are construed as the results of designing activities. The theory is based on a minimal ontology of states of affairs and it is inspired by the ideas of the Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden. After differentiating the philosophical notion of design from the engineering notion of design specifications, I then go on to argue that the philosophical category of artefact designs may be compared with Ingarden’s category of (...) intentional states of affairs. At least some artefacts are found to be determined by more than one design. I also show how this ontological framework allows for the distinction between artefact tokens and artefact types. That leads to a proposal on how to define a criterion of identity for artefact types. The proposed theory serves as a basis both for a better understanding of what artefacts are and for the construction of computer-readable models of design specifications. (shrink)

The paper contains a first order formal theory pertaining to artefact designs, designs which are construed as the results of designing activities. The theory is based on a minimal ontology of states of affairs and it is inspired by the ideas of the Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden. After differentiating the philosophical notion of design from the engineering notion of design specifications, I then go on to argue that the philosophical category of artefact designs may be compared with Ingarden’s category of (...) intentional states of affairs. At least some artefacts are found to be determined by more than one design. I also show how this ontological framework allows for the distinction between artefact tokens and artefact types. That leads to a proposal on how to define a criterion of identity for artefact types. The proposed theory serves as a basis both for a better understanding of what artefacts are and for the construction of computer-readable models of design specifications. (shrink)

This paper contains a formal theory of functional parthood. Since the relation of functional parthood is defined here by means of the notion of design, the theory of functional parthood turns out to be a theory of design. The formal theory of design I defend here is a result of introducing a number of constraints that are to express the rational aspects of designing practice. The ontological background for the theory is provided by a conception of states of affairs. The (...) theory is accompanied with a formal model. I prove that the theory is sound and complete with respect to this model. (shrink)

The paper presents a logical framework formalising the main insights of the psychological theory of concepts developed by Lawrence Barsalou. The framework is established within the context of Common Logic as a logical theory in the axiomatic manner. Its semantic characterisation is provided and shown to be sound and incomplete with respect to the class of its models.

Are identity criteria grounding principles? The recent debate over this issue seems to indicate a definitively negative answer. Recognising various objections to identity criteria as grounds for identity facts, one may wonder whether the former are capable of playing any salient role in ontology. I argue in this paper that they are, provided that one interprets them not as ontological explanations of identity facts but as ontological specifications thereof. I attempt to elaborate this view in terms of the well-establish distinction (...) between determinables and their determinates, where identity criteria are to play the role of the determinates and the relation of identity is to be their determinable. (shrink)

The paper relates the basic ontological categories defined by Roman Ingarden to an engineering model of function known by the name of Functional Basis. The intended aim of this exercise in applied philosophy is to make this model more consistent and outline some possible extensions thereof.

In this paper we are focused on the relation between an Ontology (with the capital "O") qua philosophical discipline and an ontology (with the lowercase "o") qua branch of Computer Science. In our view "Ontology" refers to all philosophical groups or schools which take some position on the reality. The meaning of 'ontology' in the second case is not that easy to grasp because of the variety of artefacts which are called 'ontologies' and many activities - aiming at creating the (...) ontologies - called ontological engineering . In general we could state that an ontology is something what is called "ontology" beyond Philosophy, mostly in the Knowledge Management, Artificial Intelligence, Conceptual Modelling or Ontological Engineering and what refers to an engineering artefact describing certain aspect of reality. So understood ontology is always tied to certain language (preferably a logical one) or more precisely to the set of the sentences of this language. It is said that these sentences constitute an ontology and specify the intended meaning of the terms used in these sentences. The ontologists usually focus on describing their conceptualization of the relevant for them aspects of reality. In their ontologies only these properties of reality are taken into account, which are considered as important for the sake of the application. In this sense ontological engineering may ignore Ontologically essential properties, i.e. the ones important from the purely philosophical perspective. The simplest ontologies are catalogues - the list of terms or numbers denoting certain object, glossaries - containing additionally the definitions of the terms, thesauri - the glossaries in which the hierarchy of the terms appear and taxonomies - in which the primitives are hierarchically structured in order to enabling the properties' inheritance. The most sophisticated ontologies are called formal ontologies and they are logical theories fully axiomatized. Ontologies are also divided on the top-level ontologies concerning very general and mostly abstract entities (e.g. property, agent, time) and the domain ontologies dealing with some small domains (e.g. car's parts). For a better understanding of the wide variety of ontologies we give an example of three ontologies: WordNet (thesaurus-like ontology), Cyc (top-level, formal ontology) and Enterprise Ontology (domain ontology). The Ontology plays an important role in ontological engineering. We notice that the ontological engineers more and more often rely on the philosophical literature looking for the solutions of the ontological problems. It is especially visible in the top-ontologies where many Ontological distinctions have been directly adopted. On the other hand we must sadly stress that philosophers seem to be not interested in the ontological engineering at all. We'd like to introduce ontology to t. (shrink)

Formal Ontology in Information Systems is the flagship conference of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications. Its interdisciplinary research focus lies at the intersection of philosophical ontology, linguistics, logic, cognitive science, and computer science, as well as in the applications of ontological analysis to conceptual modeling, knowledge engineering, knowledge management, information-systems development, library and information science, scientific research, and semantic technologies in general.As in previous years, FOIS 2014 was a nexus of interdisciplinary research and communication. The current proceedings (...) is divided into four main sections, dealing with: foundations; processes, agency and dispositions; methods and tools; and applications. The last of these covers a broad spectrum of areas, including in particular biology and medicine, engineering, and economy. For the first time in its history, the conference hosted a special track: an ontology competition, the aim of which was to encourage authors to make their ontologies publicly available and to allow them to be evaluated according to a set of predetermined criteria. Papers discussing these ontologies can also be found in this volume.The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the application of ontologies, and who are looking for a current overview of developments in formal ontology. (shrink)

The paper is a comment on the formalization of the antinomy of futura contigentia in the form of a (inconsistent) theory formulated by Marcin Tkaczyk in the language of classical predicate calculus. I argue that some features of the formalization in question are controversial from the viewpoint of formal semantics and ontology, and suggest two ways of removing some of those controversies.

These considerations seek to show whether it is possible to build a formal theory of the state of affairs, which would be sufficiently well founded in philosophy. Our analysis focuses on a case study in the form of the ontology of the state of affairs proposed by Roman Ingarden. The principal part of this analysis is devoted to Ingarden’s exposition. As its result, the author formulates a list of conditions that should be fulfilled by a formal theory, so that it (...) could aspire to be called “Ingarden’s ontology of the state of affairs.”. (shrink)

The paper contains an attempt at formulating the project of logic comprised in Jan Łukasiewicz's article „On determinism” and a construction of a logic which would realise this project. Such a logic consists of three consequence-operations build upon a four-element algebra. The values of the algebra have been defined by means of the following set of sentences: true and true today, true but not true today, false but not false today and false and false today. It turns out that only (...) one of the consequences is different from the classical consequence and all of them are logically two-valued. It is proved moreover, that the assumption that tautologies consists of sentences-forms which are „always” true today, results in the non-existence of such tautologies. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the arguments against the existence of artefacts, which were propounded by Mariusz Grygianiec in his book Identyczność i trwanie. I show that all of these arguments are inconclusive or are in the need of further elaboration. Therefore, I conclude that the the metaphysical thesis to the effect that artefacts do not exist remains unsupported.

We investigate a speci c model of knowledge and beliefs and their dynamics. The model is inspired by public announcement logic and the approach to puzzles concerning knowledge using that logic. In the model epistemic considerations are based on ontology. The main notion that constitutes a bridge between these two disciplines is the notion of epistemic capacities. Within the model we study scenarios in which agents can receive false announcements and can have incomplete or improper views about other agent's epistemic (...) capacities. Moreover, we try to express the description of problem speci cation using the tools from applied ontology { RDF format for information and the Protege editor. (shrink)

In this paper we disambiguate the design stance as proposed by Daniel C. Dennett, focusing on its application to technical artefacts. Analysing Dennett’s work and developing his approach towards interpreting entities, we show that there are two ways of spelling out the design stance, one that presuppose also adopting Dennett’s intentional stance for describing a designing agent, and a second that does not. We argue against taking one of these ways as giving the correct formulation of the design stance in (...) Dennett’s approach, but propose to replace Dennett’s original design stance by two design stances: an intentional designer stance that incorporates the intentional stance, and a teleological design stance that does not. Our arguments focus on descriptions of technical artefacts: drawing on research in engineering, cognitive psychology and archaeology we show that both design stances are used for describing technical artefacts. A first consequence of this disambiguation is that a design stance, in terms of interpretative assumptions and in terms of the pragmatic considerations for adopting it, stops to be a stance that comes hierarchically between the physical stance and the intentional stance. A second consequence is that a new distinction can be made between types of entities in Dennett’s approach. We call entities to which the intentional designer stance is applied tools and entities to which the teleological design stance is applied instruments, leading to a differentiated understanding of, in particular, technical artefacts. (shrink)

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

I borrow part of the title of my paper from Susan Sontag. In 2003, a year before her death, Susan Sontag published an essay entitled Regarding the Pain of Others. There she takes up the subject of the moral significance of presenting the views of war, violent human death exposed to the lenses of cameras. Her approach to the contemporary issue of mediatisation through the image of the sight of human suffering provokes a question: Do we need teleethics today, the (...) ethics of remote moral relations? Using the method of comparative analysis in the area of cultural determinants of ethics, I draw attention to the contemporary challenges that the culture of late modernity imposes on the morality of everyday life. My thesis is this: The images of human suffering provided by the media reveal the imperfection of our morality. As moral subjects, we are not prepared to respond to the suffering of human beings absent from face-to-face relationships. So, we need teleethics. The paper is devoted to this issue. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to assess the situation in terms of wage inequality and identify factors influencing changes in the levels, dynamics and relations of wages in voivodeships in Poland in 2012–2021. In Poland, during the analyzed period, an economic crisis occurred in 2012 as a consequence of the crisis of 2008–2009 and since 2020. Average monthly gross wages in Poland will be used for this purpose. Based on this data, deviations, relationships, and rates of change will be (...) calculated. To carry out the analysis and evaluation, I will use statistical data published in the Statistical Yearbooks of the Central Statistical Office in Warsaw for the years 2012–2021. In this article, the region will be identified with the voivodeship, according to the administrative division. (shrink)

Assuming, according to Jaspers, that the measure of truth of a philosophical system is the lifestyle of its creator as well as his ability at drawing conclusions resulting from philosophical speculation to the requirements of practical action, the question must be asked, to what extent, if at all Wojciech Słomski's book tries to recognise and name the philosophically characteristic merging of theory and practise. Despite this, it shouldn't be the superior aim of any biography, let alone the biography of a (...) philosopher. However in the case of Professor Antoni Kępiński, the connection between theoretical views and real life holds meaning not only for judging the truth of these views but most of all for a correct understanding of them. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest ukazanie wpływu Kantowskiej koncepcji wolności i zła na myśl Schellinga z tzw. pisma o wolności. W pierwszej części przedstawiam trudności wyjaśnienia zła jako kategorii moralnej na gruncie koncepcji wolności ujętej jako racjonalna autonomia i przedstawionej w Uzasadnieniu metafizyki moralności i Krytyce praktycznego rozumu: Kant utożsamia wolność z posłuszeństwem prawu moralnemu i tym samym nie jest w stanie ugruntować możliwości samego wyboru dobra i zła, jak również osobowego i jednostkowego charakteru wolności człowieka jako zmysłowo-rozumnej całości. Następnie pokazuję niesatysfakcjonującą (...) próbę rozwiązania tych trudności w Religii w obrębie rozumu, w której, na gruncie teorii maksym, podejmuje on problem możliwości zła jako aktu wolności: Kant nie jest w stanie określić statusu skłonności do zła jako pozaempirycznej podstawy zła, jak i tegoż powszechności. W drugiej części omawiam Schellinga oryginalną koncepcję wolności, która ukazuje jej osobowy i jednostkowy charakter na gruncie nowej ontologii ja jako bytu swobodnie się samookreślającego. Koncepcja ta pozwoliła mu podjąć próbę rozwiązania przejętego od Kanta problemu zła. (shrink)

Modernity and What Has Been Lost comes out of a conference held at the Jagiellonian University in Krakw̤, Poland, on June 4-5, 2009 that sought to identify Leo Strauss's intellectual background in re: the repudiation of a modern idea of homogenous, universal state (considered as an illegitimate synthesis of Jerusalem and Athens, i.e., the claims of Reason and Revelation). The world we live in, molded by science and historical relativism, may be described as hostile to human dignity or perfection, or (...) abhorrent to those who love the search for wisdom. Straussian teaching consisted in the steady effort to reopen "the quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns," and refers to the esoteric way of writing practiced by the most profound thinkers of the past which has been apparently forgotten in the last three centuries. Strauss binds the concept of natural right with the question of maintenance of conditions for philosophizing, and it probably seems to him that such defense of philosophy is the highest task in our times. However, one must be well aware that philosophizing always means a perilous way of life. Indeed, it may be destructive of the city (polis) itself as far as the city exists due to some crucial beliefs the philosopher might put in doubt. Reflecting on those issues, Strauss engaged in several highly important debates with his contemporaries, in an open way with, e.g., Carl Schmitt, Karl Lw̲ith and Alexandre Kojv̈e, and more tacitly with Martin Heidegger"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In their work McCulloch and Pitts describe an idea of representing all of nervous activity in terms of propositional logic. This idea was quickly challenged. One of reasons for this challenge was rising believe that logic is unable to describe most of human cognitive processes. In this paper we will analyse premises of original McCulloch and Pitts proposition. Following that, we will ask about ability of symbolic systems to represent human cognition. We will finish by analysing relation between symbolic and (...) subsymbolic computing, in hope of bridging the gap between the two. (shrink)

In den philosophischen Diskussionen, die bereits im Vorfeld der Postmoderne unter dem Titel Jenseits des Subjekts stattfinden, geht es um eine radikale Infragestellung des Subjektbegriffs, eines der wesentlichen Konzepte der Philosophie der Neuzeit und der Moderne. Die Grundlage der Problematisierung des Subjekts ist eine kritische Diagnose, die der modernen Welt gestellt wird. Postmoderne Theorien vermitteln den Eindruck, in einer Welt zu leben, in der sich der Mensch aus dem Zentrum ins Ungewisse bewegt. Die «nachkopernikanische Welt» befindet sich in der Krise: (...) Individuen sehen sich unkontrollierbaren anonoymen Prozessen ausgeliefert und als Subjekte entmachtet. Zivilisations-, Kultur- und Technikkritik prägen das Weltbild, in dessen Zentrum die Kritik der Subjektivität steht. Die Kritik richtet sich gegen die als illusionär behauptete Selbstherrschaft des Subjekts. In den Beiträgen zu diesem Band geht es um die Frage, inwiefern eine derart radikale Infragestellung des Subjekts philosophisch gerechtfertigt werden kann. (shrink)