The article reviews the book Konstytucja wolności [The Constitution of Liberty], by Friedrich August von Hayek.

According to the predictive coding theory of cognition , brains are predictive machines that use perception and action to minimize prediction error, i.e. the discrepancy between bottom–up, externally-generated sensory signals and top–down, internally-generated sensory predictions. Many consider PCT to have an explanatory scope that is unparalleled in contemporary cognitive science and see in it a framework that could potentially provide us with a unified account of cognition. It is also commonly assumed that PCT is a representational theory of sorts, in (...) the sense that it postulates that our cognitive contact with the world is mediated by internal representations. However, the exact sense in which PCT is representational remains unclear; neither is it clear that it deserves such status—that is, whether it really invokes structures that are truly and nontrivially representational in nature. In the present article, I argue that the representational pretensions of PCT are completely justified. This is because the theory postulates cognitive structures—namely action-guiding, detachable, structural models that afford representational error detection—that play genuinely representational functions within the cognitive system. (shrink)

This book presents a new approach to semantics based on Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s Directival Theory of Meaning, which in effect reduces semantics of the analysed language to the combination of its syntax and pragmatics. The author argues that the DTM was forgotten because for many years philosophers didn’t have conceptual tools to appreciate its innovative nature, and that the theory was far ahead of its time. The book shows how a redesigned and modernised version of the DTM can deliver a new (...) solution to the problem of defining linguistic meaning and that the theory can be understood as a new type of functional role semantics. The defining feature of the DTM is that it presents meaning as a product of constraints on the usage of words. According to the DTM meaning is not use, but the avoidance of misuse. Readers will see how the DTM was shelved for reasons that we don’t find so dramatic anymore, and how it contains enough original ideas and solutions to warrant developing it into a full-blown contemporary account. It is shown how many of the underlying ideas of the theory have been embraced later by philosophers and treated simply as brute facts about natural languages or even as new philosophical discoveries. Philosophers of language and researchers with an interest in how languages and the mind work will find this book a fascinating read. (shrink)

The author recounts his part in the Warsaw Uprising through the prism of general human concepts like brotherhood, death, faith, freedom, memory, etc. in an attempt to show what such ideals meant for his comrades in battle and himself, how they functioned in later years—and how they influenced his generation's world outlook and life. For Strzelecki the Warsaw Uprising stood in defense of supreme human values, was a necessity without which there would have been no hope of survival either (...) for human values or the Polish nation. (shrink)

This paper presents Michael Heller’s notion of “philosophy in science” and re-introduces Michael Heller’s classical text that first presented this concept of philosophy entitled How is “philosophy in science” possible?. The paper discusses the historical context of Heller’s idea as it emerged from the discussions and works of the Krakow philosophical scene and discusses the basic tenants of this philosophy, its analytic character, the role of intellectual tradition in the development of this philosophy, and the critical role played by an (...) interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, science, and theology. Despite the idea of philosophy in science having emerged about 40 years ago, this concept still inspires and fuels innovative research. The notion of “philosophy in science” lies at the foundations of the philosophy published in two journals: Philosophical Problems in Science and Philosophy in Science. (shrink)

W artykule przedstawiam i wyjaśniam graficzną metodę przeprowadzania logicznych dowodów - prawdokrzew. Swoją prezentację ograniczyłem do klasycznego rachunku zdań. Artykuł jest również propozycją polskiego tłumaczenia pojęć występujących w tej metodzie. Tak dobrałem polską terminologię, aby przez wywoływanie emocjonalnych obrazów omawiana metoda stała się bardziej zrozumiała i łatwiejsza do zapamiętania.

This paper centers around the notion that internal, mental representations are grounded in structural similarity, i.e., that they are so-called S-representations. We show how S-representations may be causally relevant and argue that they are distinct from mere detectors. First, using the neomechanist theory of explanation and the interventionist account of causal relevance, we provide a precise interpretation of the claim that in S-representations, structural similarity serves as a “fuel of success”, i.e., a relation that is exploitable for the representation using (...) system. Then, we discuss crucial differences between S-representations and indicators or detectors, showing that—contrary to claims made in the literature—there is an important theoretical distinction to be drawn between the two. (shrink)

Universals are usually considered to be universal properties. Since tropes are particular properties, if there are only tropes, there are no universals. However, universals might be thought of not only as common properties, but also as common aspects (“determinable universals”) and common wholes (“concrete universals”). The existence of these two latter concepts of universals is fully compatible with the assumption that all properties are particular. This observation makes possible three different trope theories, which accept tropes and no universals, tropes and (...) determinable universals and tropes and concrete universals. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to define the perspective from which a coach should analyze and evaluate personality traits that influence sports performance in team sports. The subjects of the research are Polish players in senior age from 10 team sports. A sample of champions was selected from the study population, and the Big Five model was applied to examine their personality with the use of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory questionnaire. Statistical analyses were performed with the IBM SPSS Statistics (...) software, version 25. The study revealed statistically significant differences between team sports in four personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Champions of team sports were characterized by a lower level of neuroticism, a higher level of extraversion, and openness to experiences in relation to other sportsmen. It was also confirmed that the personality traits distribution levels depend on the sport discipline. Therefore, an important role must be assigned to those mental training techniques that favor emotional balance, team communication, and tactical thinking skills and are manifested in triggering start-up readiness. (shrink)

Recent developments in virtual reality technology raise a question about the experience of presence and immersion in virtual environments. What is immersion and what are the conditions for inducing the experience of virtual presence? In this paper, we argue that crucial determinants of presence are perception of affordances and sense of embodiment. In the first section of this paper, we define key concepts and introduce important distinctions such as immersion and presence. In the second and third sections, we respectively discuss (...) presence, immersion and their determinants in detail. In the fourth and fifth sections, we argue for the importance of perception of affordances and sense of embodiment in increasing the degree of presence. Finally, we show the consequences of our view and discuss possible future implications. (shrink)

In the paper entitled “Scientific Explanation and Metaphor” Jerzy Kmita divided all metaphors on reporting and explicative ones. He assumed that the explicative metaphors could play a cognitive function in science, and also characterized them according to Max Black’s interactive theory of metaphor. The main purpose of my paper is to analyse Kmita’s explicative conception of metaphor in the view of Lakoff & Johnson’s cognitive theory of metaphor. I attempt to show that metaphors play an important role in a process (...) of making knowledge, especially in a conceptualization of domain being studied. In spite of an interactive account of metaphor I claim that making use of a metaphor is a process, which proceeds only in the one direction. In the last section of the paper I briefly analyse a few examples of metaphors used in natural sciences. (shrink)

This article presents the evolution of philosophical and methodological considerations concerning empiricism in computer/computing science. In this study, we trace the most important current events in the history of reflection on computing. The forerunners of Artificial Intelligence H.A. Simon and A. Newell in their paper Computer Science As Empirical Inquiry started these considerations. Later the concept of empirical computer science was developed by S.S. Shapiro, P. Wegner, A.H. Eden and P.J. Denning. They showed various empirical aspects of computing. This led (...) to a view of the science of computing - the science of general scope. Some interesting contemporary ways towards a generalized perspective on computations were also shown. (shrink)

Psychedelic substances elicit powerful, uncanny conscious experiences that are thought to possess therapeutic value. In those who undergo them, these altered states of consciousness often induce shifts in metaphysical beliefs about the fundamental structure of reality. The contents of those beliefs range from contentious to bizarre, especially when considered from the point of view of naturalism. Can chemically induced, radically altered states of consciousness provide reasons for or play some positive epistemic role with respect to metaphysical beliefs? In this paper, (...) I discuss a view that has been underexplored in recent literature. I argue that psychedelic states can be rationally integrated into one’s epistemic life. Consequently, updating one’s metaphysical beliefs based on altered states of consciousness does not have to constitute an instance of epistemic irrationality. (shrink)

Perceptual experience usually comes with “phenomenal force”, a strong sense that it reflects reality as it is. Some philosophers have argued that it is in virtue of possessing phenomenal force that perceptual experiences are able to non‐inferentially justify beliefs. In this article, I introduce an alternative, inferentialist take on the epistemic role of phenomenal force. Drawing on Bayesian modeling in cognitive science, I argue that the sense of reality that accompanies conscious vision can be viewed as epistemically appraisable in light (...) of its rational etiology. (shrink)

The first aim of this paper is to remind the reader of a very original theory of meaning which in many aspects has not been surpassed by subsequent theories. The theory in question is Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s Directival Theory of Meaning. In the first section I present a version of this theory which, I trust, retains the gist of the original but loses its outdated language. In the second section I analyze some problematic consequences of the directival theory and show how (...) they can be addressed. The second aim of this paper is exploiting some of the similarities between the directival theory and later theories of meaning. In the third section I argue that using the directival theory as an interpretative tool enables us to create explications of some of the notoriously vague notions which contemporary theories of meaning employ. (shrink)

Georges Florovsky, in 1936, called for a revival of the teaching of the Church Fathers. At the same time, Fr. Joseph Bocheński formulated the program for the renewal of Thomism by means of formal logic. In this paper, I propose to integrate these two projects. Analytic Patristics aims at expressing and developing patristic thought with the tools of analytic philosophy. The broad program of the logic of religion formulated by Bocheński included semiotics, methodology, and the formal logic of religion. I (...) present here three examples of the integration of analytic philosophy and patristics in these three areas. I discuss first Basil Lourié’s paraconsistent interpretation of Dionysius the Areopagite’s theory of the divine names, then Richard Swinburne’s efforts to revive Orthodox natural theology, and finally Beau Branson’s reconstruction of Gregory of Nyssa’s metaphysics of the Trinity. These examples perfectly illustrate how analytic philosophy can contribute to the development of patristics, and how the tradition of the Church Fathers can inspire contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Thought style and thought collective are two well-known concepts from Ludwik Fleck’s theory of science, which he originally formulated in Polish and German. This paper contends that these two concepts cannot be fully understood without a third—Stimmung/nastrój, which is one of the musical metaphors that play an important role in Fleck’s thinking. Because it is most often translated into English as “mood”, Fleck’s musical metaphors are mostly lost in translation, appearing as mere rhetoric. Only if and when we understand Stimmung/nastrój (...) in the musical meaning of attunement, we can fully understand thought collectives, for which Stimmung/nastrój is sine qua non, and thought style, which appears if and when a collective turns out to be an enduring and not a momentary one. (shrink)

Infertility is a serious social problem. Very often the only treatment possibility are IVF methods. This study explores the possibility of outcome prediction in the early stages of treatment. The data, collected from the previous treatment cycles, were divided into four subsets, which corresponded to the selected stages of treatment. On each such subset, sophisticated data mining analysis was carried out, with appropriate imputations and classification procedures. The obtained results indicate that there is a possibility of predicting the final outcome (...) at the beginning of treatment. (shrink)

W artykule przedstawiono koncepcję filozofii in silico wraz z implementacją tej idei do fragmentów Etyki Barucha Spinozy. Zbudowano model deklaratywny w języku Prolog. Sprawdzono jego zgodność z danym fragmentem metafizyki Spinozy. Zaproponowano dalszy rozwój deklaratywnego modelowania w filozofii w kierunku dydaktycznym lub teoretycznym.

Artykuł ma na celu wskazanie filozoficznych źródeł zarówno akcesu Martina Heideggera do ruchu nazistowskiego, jak i późniejszego zerwania przez myśliciela z zaangażowaniem politycznym. Drogę Heideggera do i od narodowego socjalizmu należy uchwycić nie tylko poprzez biografię filozofa, lecz przede wszystkim na szerszym tle procesu kształtowania się jego rozumienia polityki jako obszaru bytu wydzielonego i zagospodarowanego przez zachodnią metafizykę, co stanowi przejaw wypełnienia istoty metafizyki jako zapomnienia o byciu. Filozofię Heideggera wielokrotnie diagnozowano (por. np. Löwith, Adorno) jako głęboko powiązaną ze światopoglądem (...) faszystowskim; przyjęta tutaj linia argumentacji podkreśla, przeciwnie, integralność etycznej linii argumentacji dzieła Heideggera, akcentującej w odniesieniu do polityki jej charakter eksploatacji bytu, podobnie jak uniformizacji człowieka i przemiany go w zasób. Konkluzja odsłania zatem głęboko antyfaszystowski wydźwięk pism Heideggera z lat 1936 – 1946 i podkreśla zarazem niepokojącą indyferencję w stosunku Heideggera do totalitarnych i nietotalitarnych systemów politycznych. Overcoming Metaphysics, Overcoming Politics. Martin Heidegger’s Path to and from National Socialism: This paper aims to equally pinpoint the philosophical origins of Martin Heidegger’s entry into the Nazi movement and the thinker’s subsequent break with political involvement. Heidegger’s path to and from National Socialism should be apprehended not only through the philosopher’s biography but, above all, within the broader framework of the process of the development of his understanding of politics as an area of being set apart and accommodated by Western metaphysics, which marks the fulfillment of the essence of metaphysics as a forgetting of being. Heidegger’s philosophy has been repeatedly diagnosed (cf., e.g., Löwith, Adorno) as deeply linked to the fascist worldview; the line of reasoning taken up in this paper insists, on the contrary, on the integrity of the ethical reasoning behind Heidegger’s work, which emphasizes, concerning politics, its character of exploiting being, in the same way as it uniformizes people and transforms them into a resource. The conclusion, therefore, reveals the profoundly anti-fascist overtones of Heidegger’s writings from 1936–1946 and, simultaneously, underscores a worrying indifference to Heidegger’s relationship to totalitarian and non-totalitarian political systems. (shrink)

Semen Frank (1877–1950) was one of the first and most ardent advocates of the ontological argument in the twentieth century. He proposed an original interpretation of the ontological argument based on its analogy to Descartes’ Cogito. Frank believed that it is possible to develop Cogito ergo sum into Cogito ergo est ens absolutum. In this paper, I analyze his version of the ontological argument. First, I propose a simple reconstruction of his reasoning, paying attention to its hidden premise. Second, departing (...) from the classical logical interpretations of Descartes’ argument, I show that for Frank the claim that God exists had the same logical properties as Cogito. As a result, it seems that his argument was formally correct, though based on a premise which could hardly be convincing for a non-believer. This should not be surprising, however, since Frank, as most Russian religious philosophers, was not interested in the project of philosophical theology. His main concern was rather the development of philosophy based on religious premises, which might be called “theological philosophy”. (shrink)

Despite the fact that the notion of internal representation has - at least according to some - a fundamental role to play in the sciences of the mind, not only has its explanatory utility been under attack for a while now, but it also remains unclear what criteria should an explanation of a given cognitive phenomenon meet to count as a representational explanation in the first place. The aim of this article is to propose a solution to this latter problem. (...) I will assume that representational explanations should be construed as a form of mechanistic explanations and proceed by proposing a general sketch of a functional architecture of a representational cognitive mechanism. According to the view on offer here, representational mechanisms are mechanisms that meet four conditions: the structural resemblance condition, the action-guidance condition, the decouplability condition, and the error-detection condition. (shrink)

Paweł Gładziejewski, Is empathy is mental simulation? Remarks on the representative approach based on the concept of mirror neurons., Diametros 27 This paper draws on the theoretical achievements of analytic philosophy of mind and the empirical results of psychology and cognitive neuroscience in order to understand the nature of empathy and the sub-personal mechanisms upon which it is based. The paper distinguishes two types of empathy, which are often not sufficiently clearly distinguished in the literature, empathy as a kind of (...) social perception and empathy as compassion. The argument attempts show to that neither of these can be identified with a mental simulation process understood as a sub-personal process. Nevertheless mental simulation may play a limited explanatory role with respect to these two types of empathy. (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)

In this paper, I use the predictive processing theory of perception to tackle the question of how perceptual states can be rationally involved in cognition by justifying other mental states. I put forward two claims regarding the epistemological implications of PP. First, perceptual states can confer justification on other mental states because the perceptual states are themselves rationally acquired. Second, despite being inferentially justified rather than epistemically basic, perceptual states can still be epistemically responsive to the mind-independent world. My main (...) goal is to elucidate the epistemology of perception already implicit in PP. But I also hope to show how it is possible to peacefully combine central tenets of foundationalist and coherentist accounts of the rational powers of perception while avoiding the well-recognized pitfalls of either. (shrink)

Debunking arguments aim to undermine common sense beliefs by showing that they are not explanatorily or causally linked to the entities they are purportedly about. Rarely are facts about the aetiology of common sense beliefs invoked for the opposite aim, that is, to support the reality of entities that furnish our manifest image of the world. Here I undertake this sort of un-debunking project. My focus is on the metaphysics of ordinary physical objects. I use the view of perception as (...) approximate Bayesian inference to show how representations of ordinary objects can be extracted from sensory input in a rational and truth-tracking manner. Drawing an analogy between perception construed as Bayesian hypothesis testing and scientific inquiry, I sketch out how some of the intuitions that traditionally inspired arguments for scientific realism also find application with regards to proverbial tables and chairs. (shrink)

Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), a Russian theologian, philosopher, and mathematician, argued that the religious discourse is essentially contradictory and put forward the idea of the logical theory of antinomies. Recently his views raised interesting discussions among logicians who consider him a forerunner of many non-classical logics. In this paper I discuss four interpretations of Florensky’s views: paraconsistent, L-contradictory, non-monotonic and rhetorical. In conclusion I argue for the integral interpretation which unites these four approaches.

Any serious attempt to give an account of the cognitive aspect of science – as contrasted with e.g. its social or cultural aspects – cannot ignore the automation revolution. In the conception presented in this paper the results of computer science are taken seriously and integrated with many of the ideas concerning what constitutes scientific inquiry that have been proposed at least since the early Middle Ages. The central idea is that of reliable inquiry. Science makes explicit and elaborates on (...) the methods of acquiring beliefs in our daily life. The central question a scientific method applied to inquiry needs to face is if it is reliable in getting to the truth. On the reliabilist criteria presented here, if a method is logically warranted to get to the right answer – given data and background knowledge available – and to stick to it afterwards, then it is reliable. This is a normative theory, but the standard of reliability is adjusted to the domain of the inquiry at hand. This paper presents the central tenets of the reliabilist conception of science and briefly outlines the main results underlying it. Roughly, the aim of science is interesting truth about the world around us (scientific realism) and reliabilist epistemology affords us precise answers as to how far science can succeed in this task – given the methods, goals and background assumptions available. The philosophical task to deliver an adequate understanding of science is taken to be continuous with scientific research itself (naturalism), a major part of which is concerned with delivering causal explanations (causality) and can only be carried out with limited resources (computability). Many of the ideas integrated into the reliabilist conception of science and precisely articulated therewith have appeared earlier in both philosophy and science (history of ideas). I conclude the exposition of the ideas integrated into the reliabilist conception of science with discussions of sample case studies where the reliabilist conception of science has been applied to actual scientific research. For obvious reasons none of the grand conceptions of science from the distant past is adequate. Towards the end of this paper I give some substance to the claim that among the few contemporary conceptions of science reliabilist epistemology is the the most comprehensive account. For only it systematically elaborates the ideas of reliability and computability accompanying science from its inception. None of the past or contemporary alternatives to a thoroughly revised understanding of science offered by the reliabilist approach can embrace the recent outburst of new sciences such as computer science, Bayesian statistics and cognitive science. An outline of open problems and directions for future research concludes the paper. (shrink)

In this paper I take a closer look at Fr. Georges Florovsky’s original view on the relation between philosophy and theology. I argue that he tried to formulate an approach based on patristic experience and opposed to the dominating secular paradigm of philosophy. In some sense he wanted to reverse the traditional account. As Teresa Obolevitch aptly suggested, he wanted to replace the principle fides quaerens intellectum by the rule intellectus quaerens fidem. In that first default case the faith needs (...) to be justified or proved by the reason, in the second, unobvious one, the faith has an absolute priority and illuminates itself the natural thought. According to Florovsky, philosophy should not attempt to ground the theology, formulating arguments for the existence of God or proving the coherence of theism, but rather should accept theology as a fundamental premise and then develop a new, non-secular account for the old philosophical topics. (shrink)