This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

The main topic of the article is the issue of pre-reflective consciousness, which was Sartre’s subject matter is an early phase of his work, when he was inspired by Husserl’s fenomenology. Sartre distinguished three types of pre-reflective consciousness: perception, imagination and emotion. In my article I try to explain essence of abovementioned types of consciousness, point their features and define relations between them.

Artykuł jest analizą Obrzędów intymnych Zbigniewa Libery jako reprezentacji sytuacji opieki. Koncentrując się na geście upubliczniania cudzej intymności, tekst stawia pytania o sposób regulowania sfery publicznej i polityczne uwarunkowania klasyfikowania sytuacji opieki jako tego, co prywatne. Proponuje dostrzeżenie w pracy przejawu troski, rozumianej jako bezwarunkowe otwarcie na konfrontację z obecnością radykalnie niemego cierpiącego innego.

Problem relacji między jednym a drugim podmiotem jest w myśli Sartre’a zagadnieniem kluczowym. Trzon koncepcji francuskiego myśliciela opiera się na bardzo ważnym stwierdzeniu, że owa relacja nie ma charakteru poznawczego lecz egzystencjalny. Istota spotkania polega tu na doświadczeniu samej inności drugiego człowieka, zachodzącym poprzez wpływ, jaki wywiera on na moje własne istnienie. Inny postrzega mnie, więc ja jestem dla niego przedmiotem, który odkrywa granice swojej wolności. Sytuacja ta analogicznie wygląda w relacji odwrotnej, stąd wszelkie relacji ja-ty są według Sartre’a naznaczone (...) konfliktem. (shrink)

Traktaty Niccolò Machiavellego to lektura obowiązkowa dla wszystkich pragnących merytorycznie debatować o państwie i prawie oraz mechanizmach funkcjonowania polityki, jak również dla tych, którzy chcą podjąć się działalności politycznej i odnieść sukces. To właśnie Florentyńczyk znany jest przede wszystkim z rad, jak zdobyć i utrzymać władzę. Wprawdzie zostały one sformułowane przed wiekami, jednak wiele z nich okazuje się zaskakująco aktualnych. Nie cofał się on też przed formułowaniem kontrowersyjnych wniosków, co do dziś dnia wywołuje w czytelnikach wiele emocji. Pomimo bogatej literatury (...) naukowej dotyczącej tego myśliciela, do tej pory brak było monografii, która przybliżałaby kluczowe dla jego rozważań pojęcie władzy, biorąc pod uwagę jej cele i środki. To Machiavelli spopularyzował zasadę „cel uświęca środki” i zalecał jej stosowanie w świecie politycznym. Postulując postrzeganie rzeczywistości taką, jaka ona jest, także władzę należy rozpatrywać pod kątem jej realnych celów oraz środków, które zapewniają jej istnienie. Niniejsza książka uzupełnia tę lukę w dyskursie naukowym. Jej celem nie jest tylko przedstawienie projektów ustrojowych Florentyńczyka, ale przede wszystkim uchwycenie samej istoty i przejawów władzy. „Cel uświęca środki, czyli Niccolò Machiavellego rozważania o władzy” pokazuje w nowym świetle rozważania autora Księcia i mam nadzieję sprowokuje ona każdego czytelnika do własnych przemyśleń na temat państwa, prawa oraz zasad rządzących światem politycznym. (shrink)

The involvement of the pharmaceutical industry in medical education can be seen as something completely natural. Who better than the producer of the med-icine would know how the drug was developed, how the process of it being au-thorized for sale proceeded, and what the side effects of it are? Today in the United States, more and more colleges are implementing strong pharmaceutical conflict-of-interest policies. Interaction between students and medical school staff with these companies is undesirable, because they share marketing materi-als (...) more often than honest data, and their representatives use various ways to influence these current and future physicians during their meetings. This article will describe research which shows what pharmaceutical mar-keting directed at students looks like in the USA – its character, frequency, and potential impact on future medical decisions. Also, ways of regulating interac-tion between medical schools, their staff and students and the pharmaceutical industry will be expressed. Guidelines of the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Institute of Medicine and the American Medical Student Associa-tion will be described. At the end, questions about their influence on reality and whether medical schools’ policies can be an effective barrier for pharmaceutical marketing on medical schools will be asked. (shrink)

Główną tezą artykułu jest próba udowodnienia istnienia zapomnianego ogniwa kryminału retro w dobie PRL na przykładzie opowiadań Sławomira Siereckiego. W tym kontekście autorka interpretuje utwory, które ukazały się pod wspólnym tytułem Jutro przed północą. Znajdujemy w nich intertekstualny dyskurs z twórczością Conan Doyle’a, Arsena Lupina i kryminału amerykańskiego. Sierecki nawiązuje w ich obrębie do trzech odmian powieści detektywistycznej, prezentując kryminalne historie od końca XIX wieku aż po rok 1929. Analizowane opowiadania łączy formuła pastiszowych odniesień do wspomnianych twórców oraz towarzysząca im (...) sceneria Trójmiasta (Gdańska, Sopotu i Gdyni). Historia nie tylko jest tu dekoracją, ale poddana zostaje ideologizacji w ramach prezentacji polityki historycznej, najbardziej widocznej w Szkatułce z Hongkongu. Autorka w swojej interpretacji opowiadań skupia się przede wszystkim na odczytaniu charakteru kryminalnego dyskursu, gdyż jest on głównym wyznacznikiem tej retropowieści i to dzięki niemu można uznać opowiadania Siereckiego za początkowe ogniwo kryminału retro w polskiej literaturze. Nieprzypadkowo ta ucieczka w przeszłość wiąże się z kryzysem powieści milicyjnej w schyłkowym okresie PRL. (shrink)

Artykuł omawia G. Simmla pojęcie obcości z punktu widzenia jego implikacji etycznych. Po zbadaniu pojęcia obcości, omówione zostają rozmaite aspekty obiektywnego i generycznego postrzegania obcego przez zintegrowane grupy społeczne, z naciskiem na podatność obcego na wykorzystanie. Po krótkim omówieniu etycznego wymiaru relacji „my–obcy”, analizie zostaje poddana Simmla socjologia metropolii; celem tej analizy jest przedstawienie sytuacji, w której obcości jako formie brakuje pośrednictwa osiadłości.

Political correctness as a norm of behaviour in liberal political culture is criticized as a sophisticated type of modern censorship, or stronger, as an ideological tool in the hands of part of Western political and cultural elites. Nonetheless, it appears to play important and necessary functions in a democratic system. Even if we agree that political correctness is cynical and hypocritical by nature, it does not lose its value. Its ambiguous potential can be creatively used, particularly in the areas of (...) public discourse, deliberation and public debate, but also in other important spheres of liberal political culture and, more broadly, the democratic political system. (shrink)

What design for a society emerges from the text of the Charter of Fundamental Rights? The Charter articulates values, expresses their connection to practices and derives from these values standards for action. Who articulates and acknowledges these values? Is the entity which designates them values the same as the one which acknowledges them? If not, what is the relation between the two? The article contains a socio-philosophical analysis of the values expressed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, such as social (...) solidarity, neutrality of world-view or social consensus. (shrink)

Współczesna nauka wymaga międzynarodowej kooperacji, której wynikiem jest synergia, jej efekty są łatwiej komercjalizowane, wspólne publikacje stają się lepiej rozpoznawalne przez społeczność naukową i częściej cytowane. Autorki artykułu omawiają wsparcie Fundacji na rzecz Nauki Polskiej w umiędzynarodowieniu polskiej nauki. Prezentują ufundowane przez nią międzynarodowe stypendia i nagrody oraz, z uwagi na tematykę tego numeru, szczegółowo omawiają współpracę polskich i francuskich naukowców w ostatnich latach.

Ameriški bogovi (Starz 2017–2021) in Peščeni mož (Netflix 2022– ), dve izrazito gledljivi avdiovizualni seriji, sta priredbi priljubljenega romana Neila Gaimana (2001) in njegove predhodne serije stripov (1989–1996). Obe sta navdihnjeni s klasično in nordijsko mitologijo ter odražata razvoj kulturno in družbeno pomembnih tem, do katerega je prišlo med objavo njunih literarnih predlog in predvajanjem televizijskih serij. Zanimivo je, da priredba romana vključuje več olimpskih bogov, vendar zamolči vpliv Herodota. Po drugi strani je Peščeni mož v svoji televizijski različici, natančneje (...) v tu obravnavani zadnji epizodi prve sezone z naslovom Kaliopa, v prizorih spolne zlorabe precej manj grafičen; drastičnejše podobe prepušča gledalčevi domišljiji, a hkrati doseže še bolj izrazito empatijo do trpeče žrtve in ostro obsodbo storjene nezaslišanosti. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest analiza kategorii mundus imaginalis sformułowanej przez Henry’ego Corbina na podstawie filozofii muzułmańskiej (alam al-misal). Corbina inspirowali muzułmańscy mistycy uznający istnienie granicznej sfery wyobrażeniowej, pośredniczącej między światem zmysłowym i światem inteligibilnym. Dla Corbina, u którego można także dostrzec wpływy CG. Junga i A. Koyré, mundus imaginalis staje się narzędziem przydatnym do analizy wyobraźni (rozumianej jako aktywna władza poznawcza), ale także kondycji współczesnego człowieka. Kontrapunktem poszerzającym refleksję nad mundus imaginalis są badania Jeana-Jacquesa Wunenburgera, który – sięgając między innymi do (...) analiz Corbina – kładzie nacisk na wielopoziomowość i strukturalny charakter zarówno władzy wyobraźni, jak i jej wytworów. W obydwu interpretacjach tej kategorii kluczowe zdają się być następujące pytania: co mundus imaginalis wnosi do rozumienia istoty wyobraźni oraz ludzkiego świata wyobrażeń? Z jakim ujęciem wyobraźni wiąże się uznanie tej kategorii? Na te pytania próbuję odpowiedzieć w artykule. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to reconstruct Berkeley’s views on the nature of God and his Providence, as well as the way he refers to the problem of evil and justice in the world. My analysis is based on one of the early works by Berkeley, i.e. Principles of Human Knowledge. Its aim is to present Berkeley’s understanding of theodicy as different from the one suggested by Leibniz in Theodicy.

Bentley et al.--O’Brien bypass the relevance of emotions in decision-making, resulting in a possible over-simplification of behavioral types. We propose integrating emotions, both in the north-south axis (in relation to cognition) as well as in the west-east axis (in relation to social influence), by suggesting a Z axis, in charge of registering emotional depth and involvement.

In this provocative and original work, Slavoj Zizek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock's Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish Joke, the author's acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society. Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political (...) significance of these fantasies of control. In so doing, The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology, as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations. -- Back cover. (shrink)

Two arguments are offered here for postulating individual essences of concrete individuals on top of their sortal essences. One is the explanatory gap argument, the other draws on the analogy with the individual essences of events presupposed in single causal explanations. These arguments support qualitative individual essences with explanatory goals as opposed to hybrid impure relational essences accounting for origin and numerical identity. It is highlighted why origin properties as parts of impure relational essences do not yield genuine de re (...) constructions. The distinction between the two types of individual essences is traced back to the ambiguity of the very notion of individuation. (shrink)

A complete, illustrated survey of Etienne-Jules Marey's work that investigates the far reaching effects of her inventions on stream-of-consciousness literature, psychoanalysis, Bergsonian philosophy, and the art of cubists and futurists.

This paper examines a little studied type of perspective shift that I call protagonist projection, following Holton :625–628, 1997). PP is a way of describing the mental state of a protagonist that conveys, to some extent, her perspective. Similarly to its better known cousin free indirect discourse, the shift in perspective is achieved without an overt operator. Unlike FID, PP is not based on a presumed speech-act of a protagonist. Rather, it gives a linguistic form to pre-verbal perceptual content, sensations, (...) feelings or implicit beliefs. I propose to analyse PP in a bi-contextual framework, extending Eckardt’s approach to FID. Under the resulting analysis, FID and PP are two instances of a more general category of perspective shift. (shrink)

The central idea behind this paper is that presuppositions of soft triggers arise from the way our attention structures the informational content of a sentence. Some aspects of the information conveyed are such that we pay attention to them by default, even in the absence of contextual information. On the other hand, contextual cues or conversational goals can divert attention to types of information that we would not pay attention to by default. Either way, whatever we do not pay attention (...) to, be it by default, or in context, is what ends up presupposed by soft triggers. This paper attempts to predict what information in the sentence is likely to end up being the main point (i.e. what we pay attention to) and what information is independent from this, and therefore likely presupposed. It is proposed that this can be calculated by making reference to event times. The notion of aboutness used to calculate independence is based on that of Demolombe and Fariñas del Cerro (In: Holdobler S (ed) Intellectics and computational logic: papers in honor of Wolfgang Bibel, 2000). (shrink)

The Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) literature tends to focus on bias as a problem that requires ex post solutions (e.g. fairness metrics), rather than addressing the underlying social and technical conditions that (re)produce it. In this article, we propose a complementary strategy that uses genealogy as a constructive, epistemic critique to explain algorithmic bias in terms of the conditions that enable it. We focus on XAI feature attributions (Shapley values) and counterfactual approaches as potential tools to gauge these conditions (...) and offer two main contributions. One is constructive: we develop a theoretical framework to classify these approaches according to their relevance for bias as evidence of social disparities. We draw on Pearl’s ladder of causation (Causality: models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, Causality, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803161) to order these XAI approaches concerning their ability to answer fairness-relevant questions and identify fairness-relevant solutions. The other contribution is critical: we evaluate these approaches in terms of their assumptions about the role of protected characteristics in discriminatory outcomes. We achieve this by building on Kohler-Hausmann’s (Northwest Univ Law Rev 113(5):1163–1227, 2019) constructivist theory of discrimination. We derive three recommendations for XAI practitioners to develop and AI policymakers to regulate tools that address algorithmic bias in its conditions and hence mitigate its future occurrence. (shrink)

Some presuppositions are easier to cancel than others in embedded contexts. This contrast has been used as evidence for distinguishing two fundamentally different kinds of presuppositions, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. ‘Soft’ presuppositions are usually assumed to arise in a pragmatic way, while ‘hard’ presuppositions are thought to be genuine semantic presuppositions. This paper argues against such a distinction and proposes to derive the difference in cancellation from inherent differences in how presupposition triggers interact with the context: their focus sensitivity, anaphoricity, and (...) question–answer congruence properties. The paper also aims to derive the presuppositions of additive particles such as too, also, again, and of it-clefts. (shrink)

In this paper I show that a novel ontic reading of explanation, intending to capture the de re essential features of individuals, can support the qualitative view of individual essences. It is argued further that the putative harmful consequences of the Leibniz Principle and its converse for the qualitative view can be avoided, provided that individual essences are not construed in the style of the naïve bundle theory with set-theoretical identity- conditions. Adopting either the more sophisticated two-tier BT or, alternatively, (...) the neo-Aristotelian position of taking essences as natures in the Aristotelian sense, can help to evade these main charges against the qualitative view. The functional parallels with the alternative haecceitistic view of individuation and individual essence will also be considered. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the (...) problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. (shrink)

In Less Than Nothing, the pinnacle publication of a distinguished career, Slavoj i ek argues that it is imperative that we not simply return to Hegel but that we repeat and exceed his triumphs, overcoming his limitations by being even more ...

Cancer research is experiencing ‘paradigm instability’, since there are two rival theories of carcinogenesis which confront themselves, namely the somatic mutation theory and the tissue organization field theory. Despite this theoretical uncertainty, a huge quantity of data is available thanks to the improvement of genome sequencing techniques. Some authors think that the development of new statistical tools will be able to overcome the lack of a shared theoretical perspective on cancer by amalgamating as many data as possible. We think instead (...) that a deeper understanding of cancer can be achieved by means of more theoretical work, rather than by merely accumulating more data. To support our thesis, we introduce the analytic view of theory development, which rests on the concept of plausibility, and make clear in what sense plausibility and probability are distinct concepts. Then, the concept of plausibility is used to point out the ineliminable role played by the epistemic subject in the development of statistical tools and in the process of theory assessment. We then move to address a central issue in cancer research, namely the relevance of computational tools developed by bioinformaticists to detect driver mutations in the debate between the two main rival theories of carcinogenesis. Finally, we briefly extend our considerations on the role that plausibility plays in evidence amalgamation from cancer research to the more general issue of the divergences between frequentists and Bayesians in the philosophy of medicine and statistics. We argue that taking into account plausibility-based considerations can lead to clarify some epistemological shortcomings that afflict both these perspectives. (shrink)

Cases—be they real or fictional—are commonplace both in the medical ethics literature and in the public media. Cases take on a variety of forms: from streamlined to book length narratives. They also serve a variety of different purposes, from illustration, to decision making, and from debunking to heuristics. Drawing on the rhetorical analysis of « exemplum », I shall describe what cases are, and what their role is in the practice of clinical ethics. I identify two basic ways in which (...) cases can be brought to bear on ethical thinking and practice: a « tamed » and a « wild » way, and show how « wild cases » can serve a useful heuristic function despite their appeal to emotions and their unusual and striking character. In conclusion, I will argue that cases, both in their wild and their tamed form, are not only useful pedagogical tools, but can serve as a legitimate empirical basis for medical ethics. (shrink)