Most discussions of the reproducibility crisis focus on its epistemic aspect: the fact that the scientific community fails to follow some norms of scientific investigation, which leads to high rates of irreproducibility via a high rate of false positive findings. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there is a heretofore underappreciated and understudied dimension to the reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience that may prove to be at least as important as the epistemic dimension. This is (...) the communication dimension. The link between communication and reproducibility is immediate: independent investigators would not be able to recreate an experiment whose design or implementation were inadequately described. I exploit evidence of a replicability and reproducibility crisis in computational science, as well as research into quality of reporting to support the claim that a widespread failure to adhere to reporting standards, especially the norm of descriptive completeness, is an important contributing factor in the current reproducibility crisis in experimental psychology and neuroscience. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE On the Rhetorical Point of View. Why rhetoric declined, and what remained of it. Once upon a time rhetoric was a vast and influential branch of ...

We argue that Yarkoni's proposed solutions to the generalizability crisis are half-measures because he does not recognize that the crisis arises from investigators' underappreciation of the roles of theory in experimental research. Rather than embracing qualitative analysis, the research community should make an effort to develop better theories and work toward consistently incorporating theoretical results into experimental practice.

Inequality of incomes is one of the significant factors forming the social capital. Two views dominate among economists dealing with the influence of inequality of income on economic growth. On the one hand, a too low inequality of income does not motivate people to increase the labour productivity. A low inequality of income might result from an extended social care system and overloading GDP with social transfers. A good example of it may be a situation when the unemployed refuses to (...) accept a job offer and prefers the unemployment benefit rather to a slightly higher salary. Moreover, a lack of incentives for the employee who fails to acknowledge the economic sense of increasing the productivity of his work might lead to the slower growth of economy. On the other hand, a contrary view suggests that an increase of the inequality of income has a negative impact on the economy. The accumulation of wealth by a small number of citizens raises doubts about good use of that wealth for investments necessary for the growth of the economy. An excessive inequality of income is confronted with disapproval of the significant part of society and regarded as unfair and unjustified. It may also increase the crime level and decrease the trust and, more generally, lead to the weakening of social capital. The arguments above lead to a hypothesis that the influence of the inequality of income on the growth of the economy has a non-linear character. We confirmed this hypothesis in growth models of the US and Swedish economies. We assess the historically optimal inequality of income measured by the Gini coefficient at 46% and 24% for the US and Sweden respectively. The optimal inequality of income in Poland was assessed previously at 29%. The dissimilarities may result from the cultural differences, educational level differences, ethnic differences and differences in diligence. (shrink)

The paper presents two objections against Putnam’s Twin Earth argument, which was intended to secure semantic externalism. I first claim that Putnam’s reasoning rests on two assumptions and then try to show why these assumptions are contentious. The first objection is that, given what we know about science, it is unlikely that there are any natural-kind terms whose extension is codetermined by a small set of microstructures required by Putnam’s indexical account of extension determination. The second objection is that there (...) may not be a plausible concept of a speech community whose adoption would classify Oscar and Twin Oscar as members of different speech communities and, at the same time, render Oscar and Twin Oscar as being in the same psychological state. I contend that Putnam’s argument fails because both objections are justified. (shrink)

The essay presents some gnoseological themes with reference to the intellect of the separated soul according to John Duns Scotus. Four questions of the Ordinatio IV, d. 45 deal with these themes. In this concret cognitive situation is possible, according to Doctor Subtilis, to get to know the new quiddities of things, in spite of a lack of the empiric cognition. It means leaving behind the conception of generic empiricism and moving to the recognition of more cognitive abilities, as in (...) Aristoteles’s conception. In a post death state intellect continues to have the memory of the quiddities of things known while still connected with the body and can remember concret things and events known by the senses during earthly life. Such a gnoseological notion evidences the cognitive continuity of the human intellect after death, its incorruptibility and cognitive ability at least as such as one had during earthly life. We can see here the connection of philosophic and theological questions, which mutually condition and penetrate each other. According to Scotus it is possible for the intellect of the separated soul to remember the past and to acquire new cognition. Moreover, it is also possible for such an intellect to know the prayers we refer to the blessed in heaven. Such an intellectual approach evidences a strong Augustinian influence on John Duns Scotus’ epistemic conception. (shrink)

Autor przedstawia krytyczną analizę pewnych idei nominalistycznej teorii N. Goodmana w interpretacji R. Eberlego. Teoria ta, czyli „rachunek indywiduów", oparta jest na trzech podstawowych pojęciach, zasadzie sumowania, relacji „część-całość" i zasadzie indywidualizacji. Owe pojęcia wzięte razem charakteryzują przedmioty, które chcemy zaliczyć do indywiduów, przy czym charakterystyka ta określa raczej czym jest pewien zespół indywiduów, niż to czym jest pojedyncze indywiduum. Według Eberlego na specjalną uwagę zasługują tzw. atomistyczne uniwersa indywiduów. Definicja takich uniwersów ma stanowić właśnie określenie tego, czym są indywidua. (...) W ogólności „atomistyczne uniwersum indywiduów" to podzbiór pola relacji „część-całość", w którym są spełnione odpowiednie warunki dotyczące sumowania i indywidualizacji przedmiotów. Pojęcie to autor wiąże z atomizmem logicznym B. Russella oraz rozważa jego możliwe zastosowania. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the concept of distributed cognition in the context of classic questions posed by mainstream cognitive science. We support our remarks by appealing to empirical evidence from the fields of cognitive science and ethnography. Particular attention is paid to the structure and functioning of a cognitive system, as well as its external representations. We analyze the problem of how far we can push the study of human cognition without taking into account what is (...) underneath an individual’s skin. In light of our discussion, a distinction between DCog and the extended mind becomes important. (shrink)

There are three intentions (aims) of this paper. First, to focus the attention of readers to three not so well known and least frequently quoted by economists of Mises’s books, namely his 1957 Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution, and two closely related The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method (1962), and Epistemological Problems of Economics (1933/1960). The second aim is to outline Mises’s legacy, presented in the form of eleven dimensions of Mises’s (...) Intellectual Universe. The eleven dimensions of Mises’s system are: Economics as science, praxeology, and human action; Methodological dualism; Judgments of value and subjectivism; Individualism; Rationalism and human action; Consumer; Cooperation and competition; Thymology; Mathematics in economics; Predictions; and Historical analysis. Third, to present the main issues related to Mises’s concept of rationalism. There is no mention of Ludwig von Mises’s concept of rationality in a great number of books and papers dealing with the understanding of the rationality of human beings. The concept of rationality proposed by Ludwig von Mises is neglected by modern researchers and economists of different schools, but especially by mainstream economists. A good example of neglecting Mises’s ideas on rationality is the latest book by Nassim Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. Although Taleb’s proposition of understanding rationality and irrationality is very close to the concept of Mises, he does not refer to Mises’s work at all. No single word on Mises in that book! (shrink)

The aim of the article is to draw attention to an important, though frequently left out, aspect of Miron Białoszewski’s works, namely their spiritual quality. The expression duch (the spirit), dech – tchu (the spirit of breath) and oddech – oddychać (a breath - breathe) frequently or, at least, sporadically appear in the works by the Warsaw poet. After checking the contexts of those words, it turned out that they could be associated with the term spirit found in the Old (...) Testament. A more detailed analysis consists of the following components: 1) the gale, which “lata nad mostami / nad wodami z odnogami (“ blows / over bridges / waters with arms”), like in the first words of the Book of Genesis, 2) breath - being the essence of existence, 3) the spirit of a man - God’s breath; Białoszewski is faithful to Hebraic tradition, which using the word basar, does not differentiate between the body and the soul but considers them a whole (Christian tradition, by contrast, does not know this sort of unity); 4) the spirits in a man. In Miron Bialoszewski’s works air is often the centre of space vibrations, the breath of the universe. Besides, the poet himself stands on the borderland between this and that worlds. The fact that the author of Obroty rzeczy (The Motions of Things) refers to the revelations of Erich von Däniken in this context may be considered a joke or an attempt to mislead the reader. (shrink)