This article presents the author’s main assumptions of two professors’ ethical theories – Vasil Gluchman and Grzegorz Grzybek, that is: “ethics of social consequences” and “ethics of development”. It presents the similarity of “ethics of social consequences” to “ethics of reverence for life”. It shows the definition of the act, the nature, types and its special place in the two theories. It highlights three major historical perspectives on the standard of morality: eudaimonism, deontonomism, personalism. It relates these considerations to the (...) analyzed theories. At the end, a new dimension of the act in the context of the present day is indicated. It is, of course, to help people in need, the poor and the hungry. There is a reference to Peter Singer, whose philosophy was the inspiration for V. Gluchman and G. Grzybek. The summary can be a significant remark that the pursuit of high moral standards leads one on the right track of procedure. Thinking about morality in terms of “black – white” is a mistake. Life has more shades. Therefore, we should praise people for much better deeds than these, which most people can afford, and rebuke – for a lot worse. If someone does more than he should, it is hard to scold him that he does not do much more. (shrink)

Ontological reism remains a defensible metaphysical position, and Kotarbiński’s unwillingness to propose a more robust defence of his views has some identifiable historical causes, i.e. his post-war engagement in practical philosophy (both praxeology and ethics), more relevant in the context of a war-ravaged country. There is however one more reason why it remains difficult to justify the ontological part of the doctrine. Kotarbiński assumes indeed that “the fundamental justification of concretism is both naively intuitive and ordinarily inductive” (Kotarbiński 1958, 402). (...) Does this mean that no decent philosophical discussion can be proposed in defence of intuitively grasped ideas? Certainly not, as, once again, is shown by the contemporary works on qualia. Ontological reism should be pursued as a negative theory though, not as a positive one. This question of the burden of the proof was raised by Kotarbiński in 1966, surprised by the fact that it is the reist, the one who rejects imaginary entities, who is supposed to bring new evidence in favour of his positions, whereas those who assume their existence do not feel compelled to go beyond intuitive claims. It cannot rely on analysis of language alone, but has to engage in the investigation of the world. This idea is coherent with the naturalistic tendencies of Kotarbiński’s approach, even if they did not yield any substantial results on their own. (shrink)

This volume provides a significant contribution within the emerging field of semantic typology, and will be of interest to researchers interested in the language-cognition interface, including linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, and ...

The current coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has led to essential adjustments in clinical research involving human subjects. The pandemic is substantially affecting most procedures of ongoing, as well as new clinical trials related to diseases other than COVID-19. Procedural changes and study protocol modifications may significantly impact ethically salient fundamentals, such as the risk-benefit profile and safety of clinical trial participants, which raise key ethical challenges the subject-matter experts must face. This article aims to acquaint a wide audience of clinical (...) research professionals, ethicists, as well as the general public interested in this topic with the legal, ethical and practical considerations in the field of clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic and to support the clinical researchers and study sponsors to fulfil their responsibilities in conducting clinical trials in a professional way that does not conflict with any legal or ethical obligations. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes of the usual procedures in the clinical trials conduct, as well as to modifications of the relevant study documentation, which also affected regular quality assurance activities ensuring the safety of clinical trial participants, compliance with good clinical practice, and the integrity and validity of the clinical trial data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper deals with the ethical guidelines and legal regulations that govern the conduct of clinical trials and discusses the ethical (...) implications that arose from the forced adjustments of routine processes and procedures in the clinical trial conduct during the COVID-19 public health emergency. The paper also reflects on the ethical consequences of conducting clinical trials during the public health emergency, as well as on means of performing quality assurance activities and a regular oversight of clinical research. (shrink)

1 Context The idea for the current issue of _Philosophia Scientiæ_ emerged from discussions which took place in the Manchester Ethnomethodology Reading Group. This reading group has its origins in Wes Sharrock’s weekly discussion groups, which have taken place in Manchester (UK) since the early 1970s. As the global Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the reading group moved online, facilitated by Phil Hutchinson and Alex Holder. Being an online reading group opened up participation to people beyond Northwest UK and (...) within weeks the group became global, with the membership including participants logging on from Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and the USA. While the name of the group might indicate an exclusive focus on ethnomethodology, following the naming conventions for academic discussion groups, the name really fails to indicate both the heterogeneity of the group’s reading materials, the interests of t... (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is influencing our lives in an enormous and unprecedented way. Here, we explore COVID-19-lockdown's consequences for creative activity. To this end, we relied on two extensive diary studies. The first, held on March 2019, involved 78 students who reported their emotions and creativity over 2 weeks. The second, conducted on March 2020, involved 235 students who reported on their emotions, creativity, and the intensity of thinking and talking about COVID-19 over a month. We found that (...) compared with 2019, during the lockdown, students engaged slightly yet statistically significantly more in creative activities. An analysis of diaries collected during the pandemic also showed that the days when students spent more time discussing or searching for information about COVID-19 were characterized by a higher creative activity yet also mixed emotions. We discuss potential explanations of these unexpected results along with future study directions. (shrink)

Ancien etudiant de Brentano et de Zimmerman, Kazimierz Twardowski, apres son election a la chaire de philosophie a Lvov en 1895, crea autour de lui un cercle d'etudiants et de collaborateurs exceptionnel, connu aujourd'hui sous le nom d'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. A mi-chemin entre Vienne et Cambridge, c'est a Lvov, et puis partiellement a Varsovie, que Jan Lukasiewicz, Stanislaw Lesniewski, Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbinski et bien d'autres encore, repenserent dans un esprit d'analyse les questions fondamentales de la philosophie du (...) langage, de la logique, de la philosophie des sciences et des mathematiques. Plus qu'une simple traduction, ce livre est une version revisee de la monographie desormais classique que Jan Wolenski, connu pour ses travaux non seulement en histoire de la philosophie analytique, mais aussi en epistemologie et en theorie de la verite, a consacree a l'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. (shrink)

This paper traces the intellectual trajectories of the first stand-alone theories of action, understood as both axiologically neutral and quasi-scientific from a methodological point of view. I argue that the rise of action theory of this kind corresponds to a particular moment of dissatisfaction within Western thought, and as such, it tells us far more about the history of philosophy than the subject itself. I conclude by explaining why subsequent failures to provide an acceptable theory of action are not accidental. (...) On the contrary, such failures owe themselves probably to the fact that formulating a theory of action is neither propitious nor useful. Thus, the most valuable lesson we can learn from philosophical desires for a theory of action is that we should take co-action as the starting point in our normative investigations, rather than positing action simpliciter as a problem to solve. That is, we should move away from propounding a theory of action, and instead focus on a paradigm shift, whereby we move away from a representational, towards a co-actional, model of action. (shrink)

In this study, we investigate the expression of speed—one of the principal dimensions of manner—in relation to the expression of space in Estonian, a satellite-framed and morphology-rich language. Our multivariate and extensive corpus analysis is informed by asymmetries attested in languages with regard to expressing space (thegoal-over-sourcebias) and speed (thefast-over-slowbias) where we attempt to explicitly link the two. We demonstrate moderate speed effects in the data in that fast motion verbs tend to combine with Goal, and slow motion verbs with (...) Location and Trajectory expressions, making verbs of fast motion similar to goal verbs in their clausal behaviour. We also show that semantic congruency (i.e., expressing semantic information repeatedly in motion clauses) overrides thegoal-over-sourcebias. That is, although verbs also occur in diverse patterns, they often combine with semantic units that mirror their meaning: goal verbs tend to combine with Goal, source verbs with Source, and manner verbs with Manner expressions. Such semantic congruency might serve as a tool for construal and, thus, is an important issue for future research. (shrink)

This paper argues that the function of moral education in the biomedical context should be exactly the same as in a general, philosophical framework: it should not provide ready-to-use kits of moral principles; rather, it must show the history, epistemology and conceptual structure of moral theories that would enable those who have to make decisions to be as informed and as responsible as possible. If this complexity cannot be attained, an incomplete product—i.e. bioethics or bioethical principles—should not be seen as (...) a viable substitute. This theoretical position is subsequently illustrated by a case study involving research ethics committees. It is argued that within these committees, that are carefully formed multidisciplinary bodies, what makes competent decision-making possible is not a bioethical theory, nor even a sound philosophical ethics, but the dynamics of the discussion of a number of experts coming from different disciplines. This multidisciplinary expertise is necessary and sufficient to undertake the challenges of complex decisions in the biomedical context. (shrink)

Politics, and in particular the question of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is currently dealt with rather through fiction and art, and much less through genuine political actions, is a strong sign of the failure of politics as a positive, voluntaristic political project. Rap /hip hop music, the most naturally political art, does not have the political agenda anymore. The particular history or Israeli rap illustrates this process in a striking way, embodying the recent evolution of the Israeli society. The country was (...) established on a political project and previously unknown social generosity. Yet, the economical and geopolitical context of Israel, as well as increasingly difficult relationship with Palestinians, made its citizens surprisingly uninterested in rethinking the political project of the country. Individual preoccupations, also economical, family and friends’ problems, started to occupy the central place in art and in daily life in Israel, and politics has been definitively associated to corruption and self-interest of an elite. Rap reflects this evolution, is its condensed version. (shrink)

1 Context The idea for the current issue of Philosophia Scientiæ emerged from discussions which took place in the Manchester Ethnomethodology Reading Group. This reading group has its origins in Wes Sharrock’s weekly discussion groups, which have taken place in Manchester (UK) since the early 1970s. As the global Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the reading group moved online, facilitated by Phil Hutchinson and Alex Holder. Being an online reading group opened up participation to people b...

Lesniewski’s ontology was one of the most inspiring aspects of Polish philosophy in the 20th century. I would like to reveal two original ways of thinking about names present in Polish pre-war philosophy and inspired by Lesniewski’s ideas, i.e. Kotarbinski’s reism and Ajdukiewicz’s criticism of the latter. It seems obvious, at least in texts of the philosophers quoted above, that the question of names was hiding much deeper quarrels. Although Kotarbinski’s and Ajdukiewicz’s positions were not in radical opposition, several disagreements (...) between them were very fruitful regarding their respective works. This paper gives an overview of their respective contributions to logic presented against the background of their philosophical positions. (shrink)

The French Convention on Bioethics (États généraux de la bioéthique, 2009) were a perfect spot to observe new methods of organizing the participants of public debates into a hierarchy. Indeed, a privileged place was given to the citizen, and quite often the expert and the politician were devoid of their usual roles. This article will focus on the analysis of the very role given to the expert and to the expertise, both in the definition of the general framework of the (...) series of meetings and in public debates that took place in (among others) Marseille and Paris. This analysis makes obvious the idea that the major result of those Conventions does not consist in putting forward some original thoughts on biomedicine and its problems, but rather in promoting a new model of governance. In consequence, and if I am right, this promotion is being made precisely by diminishing the role of the expert (the intellectual). (shrink)

The article aims at challenging the very idea of bioethics. Starting with a thought experiment which puts into perspective relations between law and ethics, a reflexion on founding moments of bioethics as a distinctive discipline will be proposed in order to contest some of its assumptions. Less traditional ways of seeing the field will be subsequently analyzed, yet the conclusion of this exploration will remain critical: we should rather think of an alternative way of seeing moral expertise in the biomedical (...) sphere, founded on plural knowledge of diverse agents who leave their moral presuppositions aside as much as this is possible. (shrink)

In this article the author will present various links between business and ethics. The idea of responsibility, used to describe legal, economic and ethical aspects, forms the main, unifying thread. The author uses it to analyze three aspects of human activity. The first, subjective, concerns self-responsibility, where individuals are striving to satisfy their needs and to achieve happiness. The second, the encounter with the Other, embraces two meanings: responsibility for and towards the Other. The third, social, extends the idea of (...) responsibility onto the historical community we belong to. The idea of co-responsibility is not confined to our life span but it embraces future generations as well. The author will pinpoint an important element in creating the foundations of a given community, i.e. regulations that form its basis, especially the principle of justice, encompassing the distribution of goods. Many contemporary authors underline this ethical, political and economic aspect (Rawls, communitarians, Ricoeur, Habermas). The main thesis the author would like to substantiate is as follows: in business activities the ethical conduct of the individual is not sufficient. It needs to be broadened to encompass other perspectives because contemporary societies are based on the idea of co-responsibility inhabiting many dimensions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Preliminaries: Thinking about Language Oneself as Agent Mistaken Dichotomies Intention Action as a Story about the Agent References.

Authors of chapters: J. Blanc, D. Blitman, F. Couturier, P. Fasula, R. Lamarche-Perrin, D. Ross, R. Sandoz, S. Troubé .

The paper deals with a comparative analysis of several contemporary conceptions of biological evolutions and the problem of the origins of life. These conceptions are philosophically oriented in respect to establishing the relation between life and the rest of material reality, and also regarding the status of biology towards other domains of science. The approaches of I. Prigogine, M. Eigen, F. Dyson and B.O. Küppers are inclined to such an understanding of the genesis of biological information, in which it is (...) perceived as an inevitable consequence of a uniform sequence of transformations taking place in the Universe. At the same time it also implies a reductionist point of view on the question of how biology is situated in relation to other natural sciences. The conception of M. Kimura stands in opposition to the opinion that life phenomena ensue necessarily from the functioning physico-chemical regularities. It refers, however, to the theoretical possibilities from within the scope of chemistry and mathematical statistics. The only conception that advocates autonomy and a distinct identity of biology as a scientific domain, independent theoeretically of the other natural sciences, is the conception of evolution proposed by W. Kunicki-Goldfinger. Because his approach cares for the identity of biology as an independent scientific discipline, it deserves particular distinction. (shrink)

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions) Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, and rational agency in evolutionary perspective Individual chapters also cover prominent (...) historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks. (shrink)

The patterns of physical growth (stature, BMI, subscapular and arm fat-fold thickness, upper and lower extremity length, chest circumference, arm, and hip breadth, and age at menarche) were studied in 857 of Maya and Mestizo girls and 1314 of Creole girls aged 6-18 years. Data were collected between 1998-2001 in primary, secondary, and high schools of Merida, Capital City of the Yucatan State, Mexico. The ethnicity of girls was defined using their two surnames (from the father and mother side). The (...) results show that Creoles are taller, have more abundant fat tissue, and greater BMI, especially at the age of 11 years, which means that they are better prepared to start pubertal spurt. Maya girls have relatively longer upper extremities to lower ones, greater biacromial breadth, and chest circumference to stature than Creoles, which shows their more stocky body build. The adolescent (pubertal) spurt in height starts earlier in Creoles (9-10 years) and its rate is greater (max. = 7.48 cm/ year) than in Maya and Mestizos girls (10-11 years; max. = 6.25 cm/year). In Mayas and Mestizos, there is only a slight difference between the rate of changes before and during the pubertal spurt. There are no significant differences in age at menarche between girls from both ethnic groups (11.96 in Mayas and Mestizos and 12.04 in Creoles), but there are statistically significant differences between age at menarche of studied girls and their mothers (12.4 for both groups) in each ethnic group. There is evidence that the onset of pubertal spurt in height and its rate may depend on ethnicity. Creoles may lead to a more “westernized” style of life than the Maya and Mestizos girls. (shrink)

"Grande fut au XIXe siècle la confusion des termes et l'incertitude des objectifs dans les théories morales concurrentes. En réaction, naquit une discipline nouvelle, la métaéthique, requérant qu'on commençât par soumettre la réflexion morale à des contraintes épistémologiquement plus rigoureuses. Ainsi émergèrent des travaux portant sur la signification des énoncés moraux et sur leurs conditions de vérité, sur les éléments constitutifs de l'éthique, sur la tension entre ce qu'on peut connaître et décrire et ce qu'on peut plutôt sentir et exprimer (...) dans la sphère morale. Le présent volume réunit des textes qui ont marqué leur époque et qui sont devenus des références essentielles dans le paysage métaéthique contemporain. La première partie du volume présente l'effort qui fut fait de saisir dans un cadre réaliste les notions fondamentales de l'éthique, la deuxième oppose à cette entreprise qui se veut scientifique la critique parfois sceptique, la troisième met en cause certains présupposés actifs dans les deux partis, et propose de nouvelles lectures du réalisme moral."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

Si la praxéologie mérite aujourd’hui notre attention, c’est parce qu’elle permet de remonter aux origines des « théories de l’action », des sociologies de l’action ou des philosophies de l’action qui ont marqué le xxe siècle. Que veut dire, au fond, étudier l’action, en proposer ensuite une théorie, à visée soit descriptive soit normative? Dans ce qui suit, on va étudier la question en compagnie de Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886-1981), philosophe analytique, et de Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011), sociologue hétérodoxe. Ce texte défend (...) l’idée selon laquelle parmi les conséquences les plus marquantes du travail de Garfinkel se trouve la démystification de la « théorie de l’action », et que certaines intuitions similaires sont déjà très présentes chez Kotarbiński (dont les travaux sur l’action constituent, selon Garfinkel, un « échec extrêmement important »). La praxéologie chez les deux auteurs n’est pas une discipline, mais une façon de voir la pratique étudiée comme un tout, à l’instar des recherches menées par les théoriciens de la Gestalt. La dimension athéorique de l’étude de l’action humaine proposée ici permet d’espérer qu’un jour, les phénomènes qui nous entourent vont pouvoir être étudiés pour ce qu’ils sont, et non pas pour ce qu’une théorie élégante permet d’en dire. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 4 Seiten: 701-741.

The COVID-19 pandemic brings up unprecedented challenges. Healthcare practitioners find themselves in an extraordinary, wartime-like situation and are obliged to apply triage on a daily basis. In this context, routine procedures prove insufficient and the redefinition of ethical practice guidelines becomes a necessity – leading not only to a shift in procedures, but also reshaping the very value of human life. This, in turn, triggers an axiological crisis, which exacerbates the tension between paradigms of sanctity and quality of life and (...) the conflicting principles of egalitarianism and utilitarianism. Triage should not be limited to healthcare practice only: the concept can be extended to a macro-level where policymakers decide whether to prioritize human lives over livelihoods and economic health, impacting healthcare system capacity. The complexity of the challenges arising from the pandemic uncovers the urgent need to seek solutions from an integrated approach. In this paper, we offer a transdisciplinary view: we first define technical aspects of triage from the perspective of a healthcare professional. In the second part, we further analyze the problem of medical prioritization in the light of doctrinal findings related to the value of human life, and we show how and to what extent this philosophical debate is reflected in the emerging ethical guidelines in France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Finally, we broaden the concept of triage, adding the “macro-economic” ingredient in our analysis and we present the results for selected European countries with special emphasis on the case of Poland. (shrink)