Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus (Political-Philosophical Treatise) of W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz proposes a new idea-system. Ideas concerning different topics related to politics are introduced. The work aims to establish the principles of good governance and of a happy society, and to open up new directions for the future development of humankind. It is also in part a critique of the epistemology of early Wittgenstein as presented in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It argues that one can speak about politics and ethics with sense, and (...) that political philosophy is still a viable enterprise for us. This explanation is provided in response to the review of Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus by Katarzyna Heremska and a critical note of Pawel Kloczowski that were both published in Argument 6(1), 2016. (shrink)

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

There is a simple technique, due to Dragalin, for proving strong cut-elimination for intuitionistic sequent calculus, but the technique is constrained to certain choices of reduction rules, preventing equally natural alternatives. We consider such a natural, alternative set of reduction rules and show that the classical technique is inapplicable. Instead we develop another approach combining two of our favorite tools—Klop’s ι-translation and perpetual reductions. These tools are of independent interest and have proved useful in a variety of settings; it is (...) therefore natural to investigate, as we do here, what they have to offer the field of sequent calculus. (shrink)

We give a syntactic translation from first-order intuitionistic predicate logic into second-order intuitionistic propositional logic IPC2. The translation covers the full set of logical connectives ∧, ∨, →, ⊥, ∀, and ∃, extending our previous work, which studied the significantly simpler case of the universal-implicational fragment of predicate logic. As corollaries of our approach, we obtain simple proofs of nondefinability of ∃ from the propositional connectives and nondefinability of ∀ from ∃ in the second-order intuitionistic propositional logic. We also show (...) that the ∀-free fragment of IPC2 is undecidable. (shrink)

We study the cube of type assignment systems, as introduced in Giannini et al. 87–126), and confront it with Barendregt's typed gl-cube . The first is obtained from the latter through applying a natural type erasing function E to derivation rules, that erases type information from terms. In particular, we address the question whether a judgement, derivable in a type assignment system, is always an erasure of a derivable judgement in a corresponding typed system; we show that this property holds (...) only for systems without polymorphism. The type assignment systems we consider satisfy the properties ‘subject reduction’ and ‘strong normalization’. Moreover, we define a new type assignment cube that is isomorphic to the typed one. (shrink)

: The transplantation of adult human neural stem cells into prenatal non-humans offers an avenue for studying human neural cell development without direct use of human embryos. However, such experiments raise significant ethical concerns about mixing human and nonhuman materials in ways that could result in the development of human-nonhuman chimeras. This paper examines four arguments against such research, the moral taboo, species integrity, "unnaturalness," and human dignity arguments, and finds the last plausible. It argues that the transfer of human (...) brain or retinal stem cells to nonhuman embryos would not result in the development of human-nonhuman chimeras that denigrate human dignity, provided such stem cells are dissociated. The article provides guidelines that set ethical boundaries for conducting such research that are consonant with the requirements of human dignity. (shrink)

The History of the Peloponnesian War of Thucydides is usually seen as an archetypal statement of power politics. Thucydides is regarded as a political realist who asserts that the pursuit of moral principles does not enter the world of international affairs. The article shows that, on the contrary, we find in Thucydides' work a complex theory. He supports neither extreme realism, in which morality is denied, nor utopian idealism which overlooks the aspect of power in international relations. He is profoundly (...) interested in ethical issues in domestic and international politics. One can see in the History the first example of realist-idealist debate and its conclusions are still valid for us. (shrink)

Habermas claims that although modern thought “treats revelation and religion as something alien and extraneous,” religion is still present in today’s world. The memorable events of 9/11 confirmed that modernist secular society is not the end of history, and that the theme of religions and civilizations, and of potential conflicts between them, is still alive. There is now a growing conflict between fundamentalist religion and the secular state. While challenging Habermas' view on religion, I claim that in just one generation (...) the inhabitants of the West—who made their own deconstruction by becoming a people without God, without virtue, without manners, and often without families and without children—are at risk of losing their current leading economic, political, and cultural role in the world. They have created a void that is now to be filled by other, non-Western civilizations. The greatest loss of modern humanity, however, in both the West and the East, is the loss of the human soul. By forsaking God and virtue, and the awareness of the proper order of things, human beings lose themselves in superficial desires. They are not even aware of what has been lost. The solution is obviously not the politicized and often violent religiosity of fundamentalism. That only contributes further to human degradation. To save themselves, modern individuals must learn to know themselves again. By deep philosophical reflection and authentic religion, they must fill up the void that created postreligious and postmetaphysical thought. They must in the end rediscover their deeper selves. One cannot live by power or desire alone. Human beings are not one-dimensional, as Hobbes and his followers tried to make us believe, but in fact have many dimensions and many needs. The classical tradition reveals some of those. It speaks to us of community and friendship, virtue and corruption, self-interest and self-control, justice and order, freedom and law, happiness and sorrow, the purposes of life and the dangers of war. It is only through action that can be defined as a return to origins, namely, by creatively repeating and recalling the sources of Western civilization—the ideas contained in the classical tradition—that the declining civilization can be rebuilt. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to establish a relationship between philosophy, myth, and science in reference to a historical perspective. If for methodological reasons we now disregard the above mentioned terminological difficulties and refer to a common-sense view of myth, philosophy, and science, it remains unquestionable that myth existed long before philosophy and modern science began as late as the seventeenth century.Nevertheless, this historical perspective is not introduced to affirm the positivistic view, according to which the history of humanity (...) should be described in terms of three stages: theological (mythical), metaphysical (philosophical), and positive (scientific); nor is it presented to say that the positive one represents the final achievement of the human race. On the contrary, I will attempt to show that by departing from myth and original philosophy, modern men and women have concealed from themselves an intensely rich experience of life. In order to regain the love of wisdom, we need first to look backwards in order to move forward. (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)

In the discipline of international relations there are contending general theories or theoretical perspectives. Realism, also known as political realism, is a view of international politics that stresses its competitive and conflictual side. It is usually contrasted with idealism or liberalism, which tends to emphasize cooperation. Realists consider the principal actors in the international arena to be states, which are concerned with their own security, act in pursuit of their own national interests, and struggle for power. The negative side of (...) the realists’ emphasis on power and selfinterest is often their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states. National politics is the realm of authority and law, whereas international politics, they sometimes claim, is a sphere without justice, characterized by active or potential conflict among states. Not all realists, however, deny the presence of ethics in international relations. The article presents a comprehensive picture of political realism. -/- Korab-Karpowicz, W. Julian, "Political Realism in International Relations", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). (shrink)

In this article I present the concept of human evolution by Hoene- Wroński. I believe that his ideas are still an unexplored resource which can lead us to the better understanding of the evolution of humanity and of our destiny. I follow closely his discussion of human evolution and describe its seven stages. Further, I argue that the case of human evolution is strongly supported by new scientific theories, especially by quantum theory and the novel perspectives that it opens for (...) humankind. I end my article with the conclusion that the insights on human evolution derived from the Hoene-Wroński’s writings and from new scientific theories can guide us to the new politics based on the awareness of human identity that can overcome old divisions among humankind and conflicts derived from them. Ultimately, they can initiate evolutionity – the new evolutionary epoch, which will replace modernity and postmodernity. On. (shrink)

The discussion of the possibility of world government has been revived since the end of the Cold War and particularly after the turn of the millennium. It has engaged many authors. In this article, I provide a survey of the continuing debate on world government. I explore the leading question of the debate, whether the conditions of insecurity in which states are placed and other global problems that face contemporary humanity require the creation of a global authority, and consequently, the (...) establishment of a world state. After a careful analysis I suggest that a world state is neither necessary nor inevitable nor desirable. I argue that the plurality of nation-states that form an international society has a great advantage over a world state. It supports the diversity of character and culture, and sustains the continuous progress of humankind. (shrink)

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)

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)

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)

Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus (Political-Philosophical Treatise) aims to establish the principles of good governance and of a happy society, and to open up new directions for the future development of humankind. W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz demonstrates the necessity of, and provides a guide for, the redirection of humanity. He argues that this paradigm shift must involve changing the character of social life and politics from competitive to cooperative, encouraging moral and intellectual virtues, providing foundations for happy societies, promoting peace among countries and (...) building a strong international community. (shrink)

Due to the rapid advances in medical technology, medical students are now being faced with increasingly complex and unparalleled ethical and practical dilemmas during their training. The new and future challenges of high-tech medicine demand improvements in current medical education, not only by meeting the needs of students through humanized training programs, but also by involving them in finding solutions to the ethical and legal quandaries they encounter. Today’s students of medical universities must acquire knowledge and understanding of the ethical (...) and legal issues relevant to the practice of medicine, and we have to do everything possible to introduce these students to the current discussions on more or less controversial ethical and legal topics. Although final answers may not be found, the very discussion, argumentation, and awakening of students’ interest should become an essential part of the core curriculum of every doctor. (shrink)

Heidegger’s main interest was ontology or the study of being. In his fundamental treatise, Being and Time, he attempted to access being (Sein) by means of phenomenological analysis of human existence (Dasein) in respect to its temporal and historical character. After the change of his thinking (“the turn”), Heidegger placed an emphasis on language as the vehicle through which the question of being can be unfolded. He turned to the exegesis of historical texts, especially of the Presocratics, but also of (...) Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Hölderlin, and to poetry, architecture, technology, and other subjects. Instead of looking for a full clarification of the meaning of being, he tried to pursue a kind of thinking which was no longer “metaphysical.” He criticized the tradition of Western philosophy, which he regarded as nihilistic, for, as he claimed, the question of being as such was obliterated in it. He also stressed the nihilism of modern technological culture. By going to the Presocratic beginning of Western thought, he wanted to repeat the early Greek experience of being, so that the West could turn away from the dead end of nihilism and begin anew. His writings are notoriously difficult. Being and Time remains his most influential work. (shrink)

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)

Thirty-first August 2001 marked the 21st anniversary of the end of prolonged strikes in Poland that resulted in the forming of the trade union Solidarity. The struggle of Solidarity remains a powerful lesson in political non-violence. In spite of the wide support it enjoyed in Polish society, Solidarity was outlawed in December 1981 and its leaders were imprisoned. If one is suppressed by force, one can answer with force. But Solidarity did not. Was it an ethical standpoint that Solidarity used (...) only peaceful means in its defence or a utilitarian or pragmatic strategy? The paper argues that it was both. The struggle of Solidarity was not only guided by pragmatic considerations on how to achieve the goals more effectively, but also by ethical principles. Also, the author discusses the nature of political system that existed in Poland from 1945 to 1989. (shrink)

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

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)

In this article I explore the question whether the condition of insecurity in which states are placed calls for the creation of a global authority. I present classical arguments for and against a world government, and inquire whether the tragedy of September 11 provides a new support for the idea of a world state. I argue that the real alternative to international anarchy, where no one is secure, is neither a powerful nation that is able to provide security for itself (...) nor a world state but an international society. (shrink)

One serious defect of the polemical writings that straightforwardly charge Heidegger with Nazism is that they mostly represent a poor knowledge of his philosophy. Heidegger’s writings are painfully difficult, even to specialists, and his concepts can be easily misinterpreted, especially by those who, instead of searching for truth, embrace a prosecutor’s zeal. For example, in his influential book, Farias completely avoids asking philosophical questions. On the internet, one can easily find hundreds of articles by authors who claim that Heidegger’s guilt (...) has already been decided. My objective is not to blame or to exonerate Heidegger before investigating the relationship between his philosophy and politics in depth. Obviously, given the limited nature of my presentation, I cannot consider Heidegger’s entire philosophical opus. I intend to concentrate chiefly on his critique of the Western metaphysical tradition and on an interpretation of his most controversial statement from An Introduction to Metaphysics about the “inner truth and greatness” of National Socialism. I investigate the essence of Heidegger's philosophy, the quest for the meaning of Being, deduce a political theory from his ontology, and arrive at his politics. (shrink)

Many scholars have argued that unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some basic or core human values. Instead of engaging in a comparative empirical research, compiling lists of core values derived from different cultures, discuss their relevance for human fellowship, I examine the simple values of life that during the 1980s united people in Poland and made them to form the powerful civic movement, which was Solidarity. Today we live in a world that is fundamentally different (...) from that before 1989. We are no longer divided by a global ideological struggle between communism and liberal democracy. The key issue today is not a bipolar division but globalization. My thesis is today we need a new Global Solidarity and that this movement can take lessons from Poland’s Solidarity. It should not be grounded in any ideology, but in inclusive values that do not divide but can potentially unite all human beings, and these can be derived from basic human needs. In short, Global Solidarity should be based on what I call the “righteousness of life.” It can be achieved if there is a growing recognition of what is right for life and a growing interest in protecting and enhancing life. (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)

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)

The article is an attempt to look at the relationship between the state and the market on the example of the prohibition of trade on Sunday through the prism of the personalistic economy. The article has a metaeconomic character. Its aim is to show that state intervention in the market mechanism in the form of the prohibition of trade on Sunday is not aimed at trade as an economic activity, but is a natural consequence of the community-forming function of the (...) state. In the first part, the author presents a personalistic approach to the state and the market as well as relations between them. In turn, in the second part, he describes the essence of the Sunday dispute in the context of a personalistic approach to the market and shows that state intervention, consisting in protecting Sunday from being limited to the seventh working day, protects it against rationalization and marketization, i.e. its derealization. (shrink)