Stanisław Witkiewicz himself taught his son Stanisław Ignacy, known later as Witkacy, helped by his wife and friends, among whom there were scientists, artists and professional teachers. The results of such education were amazing. At the age of eight, the boy could paint using different techniques, play the piano and compose music. His father desired for him to become a naturalist painter like himself. At a young age Witkacy became an outstanding artist, not only a painter, but also a (...) writer. However, in opposition to his father’s teaching, when he matured artistically, he rejected naturalism and joined the artistic avant-garde. Just after the first world war he published a long philosophical essay inspired probably by the work of his father’s great intellectual enemy – the Neo-Hegelian Polish philosopher Henryk Struve. Thus, Witkacy shaped himself, both in the respect of art and philosophy, in the opposition to his father, Stanisław Witkiewicz. (shrink)

La producción de alternativas en el plano político y social implica además, la producción de alternativas en el plano simbólico, ya que estas dimensiones están íntimamente desarrolladas entre sí. En el caso de los piqueteros, esta preocupación está presente desde un principio, en el uso de los medios como mecanismo de visibilidad. Este trabajo representa una introducción al estudio del rol de los medios dentro de esta dinámica.

The paper analyses the meaning and implementation of the notion of sustainable development from the viewpoint of Henryk Skolimowski’s eco-philosophy. Skolimowski formulates a radical criticism of the Western civilisation with its dominating forms of rationality and the resulting technological implementations. In his opinion, this system is a source of imbalance both in the nature and social life of people in the global scale, which results in various types of civilizational crises. We will particularly pay attention to the theoretical proposals formulated (...) by Skolimowski in his The Genius of Light and Sacredness of Life. In this work he refers to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of evolutionary philosophy, enriched with his own original philosophical ideas. Skolimowski particularly emphasises the emergence of the photosynthesis phenomenon, and subsequently logo- and theo-synthesis in evolution process. He claims that these are the forms of light condensation whose laws of development control our planet as well as the whole cosmos. The human species participates in this process taking part in the evolutionarily developing possibilities of transcendence and self-realisation. As Skolimowski suggests, the process of self-realisation and transcending should manifest the character of the conscious self-limitation of man in his relations and interactions with nature and society. The idea of cosmic ethics, of imperative character, developed by him is to serve this purpose. (shrink)

Political relations in today’s world are in a deep, perhaps even radically threatening disequilibrium; similarly, humanity’s home—the Earth—is treated with disdain and contempt despite its increasingly angry protests. Moreover, the rules and principles by which most of the world runs its economic affairs and strives to “modernize” its life are founded on a set of market laws devoid of all social context and only serve to deepen the dangerous contrasts between small islands of wealth and a sea of humanity doomed (...) to poverty and alienation. (shrink)

The existence of differences in time, meant to be structure ‹T,<›, where the earlier-later relation < is a linear ordering, dense and without the first and the last element, is a sine qua non condition of changes taking place at any temporal instant. Therefore it is impossible to give a definition of the operator of change ↑ (the intended meaning of the phrase „↑α” is „it is changing now what a states”) in the language Lͭ of Tense Logic calculi containing, (...) besides classical sentential connectives, temporal categories: G, H, F, P. The paper contains the proof of this statement. (shrink)

The Belgian conflict can be compared with a game theoretical model with two groups and a negative sum-game. Within each of the groups there is hierarchisation, role playing and formation ofcoalitions. On the Flemish side the main actor is the CVP, on the Walloon side it is the PS.The main objectives of the communities in the economie field are: temporary boarding employment in depressed industries and, simultaneously, the creation of high tech industries. Policy instruments to attain those goals are : (...) general economie measures ; selective-protective measures ; selective-innovative measures.Why is the sum-game negative or at least suboptimal?1. Mentioned policy instruments are spread over an incoherent set of institutions on the national and regional level, with rules that are partly centralist, partly federalist, partly confederalist. This leads to a complicated, unstable set of game rules in which the financial implications of decisions are shifted from the regional to the national level and vice versa.2. Selective-protective measures are of such large size that they offset and erode the beneficial effects of general policy measures regarding wages, taxes and exchange rate.Federalism or confederalism would and should establish a new set of rules between the two regions and between regional and federal state. Since a return to the ancien régime is politically unfeasible, this is the only logical way out of the present chaotic decision making process. Federalism would, inter alia, shift the financial responsibility of decisions in the field of industrial policy, education, health and public works towards the regions.This political reform requires a new constitution and therefore an agreement between the two communities. The chances for a new «talk» are presently not very high. Among the many reasons, one in particular strikes the eye : the major partner on the Flemish side, namely the Christian Democrats, have a multi-dimensional utility function, which not only is «concealed» for the others, but also undefined and unclear for the party itself. (shrink)

This book consists of the edited proceedings of a debate among Jurgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and Leszek Kolakowski that was held in Warsaw in May of 1995. It includes also commentary from those in attendance, including extensive remarks by Ernest Gellner. The debate marked the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and focussed primarily on topics related to historicism and cultural relativism.

I argue that on Aristotle’s account practical thinking is thinking whose origin (archē) is a desire that has as its object the very thing that one reasons about how to promote. This feature distinguishes practical from productive reasoning since in the latter the desire that initiates it is not (unless incidentally) a desire for the object that one productively reasons about. The feature has several interesting consequences: (a) there is only a contingent relationship between the desire that one practically reasons (...) about how to satisfy and the action one decides on; (b) practical thinking and action cannot be separated from the agent, whereas productive thinking and production can be outsourced to someone else. The view has consequences also for the distinction between action and production. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness and correctness of my account of practical thinking by using it to shed new light on Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous agent must decide on her virtuous actions ‘for themselves’. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present some philosophical considerations about the supposed AI emergence in the future. However, the predicted timeline of this process is uncertain. To avoid any kind of speculations on the proposed analysis from a scientific point of view, a metaphysical approach is undertaken as a modal context of the discussion. I argue that modal claim about possible AI emergence at a certain point of time in the future is justified from a temporal perspective. Therefore, (...) worldwide society must be prepared for possible AI emergence and the expected profound impact of such an event on the existential status of humanity. (shrink)

The presented paper focuses on the analysis of strategic documents at the level of the European Union concerning the regulation of artificial intelligence as one of the so-called disruptive technologies. In the first part of the article, we outline the basic terminology. Subsequently, we focus on the summarizing and systemizing of the key documents adopted at the EU level in terms of artificial intelligence regulation. The focus of the paper is devoted to issues of personal data protection and cyber security (...) included in these strategic documents. The final part contains recommendations for future research and evaluation of its key features. (shrink)

We define a class of productive σ-ideals of subsets of the Cantor space 2 ω and observe that both σ-ideals of meagre sets and of null sets are in this class. From every productive σ-ideal I we produce a σ-ideal I κ , of subsets of the generalized Cantor space 2 κ . In particular, starting from meagre sets and null sets in 2 ω we obtain meagre sets and null sets in 2 κ , respectively. Then we investigate additivity, (...) covering number, uniformity and cofinality of I κ . For example, we show that non(I = non(I ω 1 ) = non(I ω 2 ). Our results generalizes those from [5]. (shrink)

After the unexpected death of Professor Józef Kałuża at the age of 74 on the 26th of July 2003, not only Polish neuropathology but also Polish philosophy of medical investigations lost one of its most renowned minds. Beginning in 1949, Professor Kałuża studied medical sciences for five years at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. He did his Ph.D. thesis in neuropathology in the Department of Neuropathology of the Polish Academy of Science. In 1962 he received (...) a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent one year at the National Institutes of Health. In 1981 Professor Kaluza was promoted to a tenured professorship in neuropathology. He is the author of more than 110 articles published in medical periodicals and coauthor of many chapters in medical handbooks. (shrink)

After the unexpected death of Professor Józef Kałuża at the age of 74 on the 26th of July 2003, not only Polish neuropathology but also Polish philosophy of medical investigations lost one of its most renowned minds. Beginning in 1949, Professor Kałuża studied medical sciences for five years at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. He did his Ph.D. thesis in neuropathology in the Department of Neuropathology of the Polish Academy of Science. In 1962 he received (...) a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent one year at the National Institutes of Health. In 1981 Professor Kaluza was promoted to a tenured professorship in neuropathology. He is the author of more than 110 articles published in medical periodicals and coauthor of many chapters in medical handbooks. (shrink)

Where you have freedom, the meaning of the word increases, where the word is meaningful, you presuppose freedom." Józef Tischner.

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than (...) the soul of the uncontrolled agent. (shrink)

In the article author analyses the extent to which it is possible to regard the Aristotelian conception of the soul as actually necessary and applicable for modern neuroscience. The framework in which this objective is going to be accomplished is provided by the idea of the coexistence of the “manifest” and “scientific” images of the world and persons, as introduced by Wilfrid Sellars. In subsequent sections, author initially formulates an answer to the questions of what it is that Aristotle sought (...) to explain with his conception of soul as formal cause, and how this notion could be portrayed in terms drawn from contemporary neurological science. It is author’s intention to show that no other concepts—be they the Cartesian “mind” or a Chalmers-style “self”—come anywhere close to matching the breadth of scope of Aristotelian “soul”. At the same time, though, analysis carried out here do not intend to undertake any kind of defence of the soul as a spiritual entity of the sort popular where religious faith is concerned, namely as an entity separable from the body, immortal, and inimitably tied to God. Then, in the second major part of the article, author analyses the extent to which the Aristotelian conception of the soul can be thought of as involving criteria of the sort that we encounter in the contemporary theory of strong emergence. According to the author the theory of strong emergence has, as a heuristic theory, quite general predictive and explanatory power as regards the field of human thought and behaviour. (shrink)

In economic theory it is circumstances that dictate fashion. During the last quarter of the century, years marked by an unprecedented escalation of material production, economists of all persuasions, neoclassicals or Marxists, accorded an important place to theories of growth. Economic reductionism being fundamental, development was likened to growth, which tends to take pars pro toto and to ignore the difference between a necessary condition and a sufficient one. Suddenly economic theory, to which mechanical formalization would confer the appearance of (...) an almost scientific rigour, became a powerful argument for the ideology of growth. (shrink)

The Struggle for Nature outlines and examines the main aspects of current environmental philosophy including deep ecology, social and political ecology, eco-feminism and eco-anarchism. It criticises the dependency on science of these philosophies and the social problems engendered by them. The author argues for a post-naturalistic turn in environmental philosophy. The Struggle for Nature presents the most up-to-date arguments in environmental philosophy, which will be valuable reading for students of applied philosophy, environmental studies and geography.

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian (...) decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature. (shrink)

The paper defends three claims about Aristotle’s theory of uncontrolled actions (akrasia) in NE 7.3. First, I argue that the first part of NE 7.3 contains the description of the overall state of mind of the agent while she acts without control. Aristotle’s solution to the problem of uncontrolled action lies in the analogy between the uncontrolled agent and people who are drunk, mad, or asleep. This analogy is interpreted as meaning that the uncontrolled agent, while acting without control, is (...) still in possession of her knowledge but she is unable to use it as knowledge due to the temporary disablement of her reason by appetite. Due to this disablement, the uncontrolled agent is temporarily unable to be motivated to act by her knowledge and acts merely on her appetite. Second, I argue that the second part of NE 7.3 provides an analysis of the particular mental state from which the uncontrolled action issues. Its central passage is a description of the uncontrolled agent’s state of mind before the uncontrolled action and not, as it has been traditionally understood, a description of her state of mind during the uncontrolled action. Third, I argue that, on Aristotle’s view, the transition from the state before the uncontrolled action to the state in which the agent already acts without control does not involve any psychological state that would constitute the agent’s choice to abandon her decision and give in to her desires but proceeds on a purely physiological level. (shrink)

I defend two main theses. First, I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the cause of one’s actions in virtue of being (qua) the individual one is. Aristotle contrasts voluntary action not only with involuntary action but also with cases in which one acts (or does something) due to one’s nature (for example, in virtue of being a member of a certain species) rather than due to one’s own desires (i.e. qua (...) individual). An action can be attributed to one qua individual in two distinct ways depending on whether one is a rational or a non-rational animal. One is responsible for one’s action in both cases, but only in the former case is one also responsible for being the sort of individual that performs it. Aristotle also distinguishes two ways in which an action can be compelled while still being an action of the agent. In the first case, one is compelled by (physically) external forces or circumstances to act against one’s internal impulse. In the second case, one is compelled to act on (internal) impulses that are fixed by one’s nature against one’s own individual impulse. This latter kind of compelled action is only possible in the case of rational agents. Secondly, I argue that Aristotle’s conception of what it is to be a cause of an action inevitably brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame. On Aristotle’s view, any goal-directed behavior that is properly attributable to an individual is (normally) subject to standards that pertain to behavior of that sort. At the most basic level, these standards establish what counts as a successful realization of the goal that one aims at. Thus even in the case of non-rational animals (or children), one can judge the success of what they are doing and encourage (or discourage) similar behavior by praise or blame. These standards are applicable to one’s conduct simply insofar as one is the controlling origin (or efficient cause) of one’s action qua individual. In the case of rational agents the practice of praise and blame can involve a further normative layer since they can be praised or blamed not only for acting in a certain way so as to encourage or discourage them with a view to the future, but also for being – and having become – individuals of a certain sort. Nevertheless, the applicability of such evaluative judgments and of praise and blame is still warranted by one’s being the controlling origin of one’s actions qua the individual one is (in this case, qua rational individual). (shrink)