It appears that we know surprisingly little about how judges frame linguistically the rationale behind their decisions and how such texts are structured. Using the concept of rhetorical moves, this paper adopts a genre-based approach to examine the rhetorical structure of legal justifications provided in the decisions of the Polish Constitutional Court. The goal of the study is to verify the claim that the way justifications are drafted is becoming more and more uniform and conventional. The results show that there (...) is a common core of rhetorical structure realized by means of recurrent functional segments of text. This paper proposes a prototypical move structure of a Constitutional Tribunal justification and it argues that that the way justifications are drafted are subject to very concrete, even if not explicitly stated constraints. (shrink)

There are many different ways in which modern Corpus Linguistics can be used to enrich and broaden our understanding of legal discourse. Based on the central principle of co-occurrence and co-selection in language construction, this paper reviews current applications of Corpus Linguistics in the area of legal discourse focusing on issues ranging from phraseology, variation in legal discourse, legal translation, register and genre perspectives on legal discourse, legal discourse in forensic contexts to evaluative language in judicial settings. It revisits the (...) notion of ‘corpus’ and it highlights the relevance of various types of legal corpora and computer tools in legal linguistic research. (shrink)

Traditional martial arts continue to be interesting and inspiring to many people around the globe. Some of their contemporary adaptations attract enthusiasts for whom they are especially important. In this article, the author bases his observations on his own long-term participation. The analysis takes into account the influence of the perspectives of Jigoro Kano and several other creators of modern varieties of Japanese budo. It can be concluded that regular, even daily, practice—cultivating martial arts and internalizing its values—co-creates the lifestyle (...) of instructors and advanced students. (shrink)

Kazimierz Twardowski attributed high cognitive value to introspection because he believed it plays a fundamental role in psychology, the primary philosophical discipline. He believed that basing philosophy on inner experience would allow it to obtain universal and justified results. Internal experience consists of perceiving one’s own mental facts; it is non-sensual and selfevident. Twardowski referred to introspection in his investigations in various ways, which is presented in the article.

Name der Zeitschrift: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 51-67.

The Limits of Cognition and the Shape of Being Based on the Thought of Karl Jaspers The article points out the elements of Karl Jaspers’ epistemological conception that cross out the possibility of a comprehensive account of being. The key issue here is the limits of cognition, which take the form of object cognition. The theme of limits points to the inadequacies of human thinking in the context of quantifiable and absolutist representations of reality. The impossibility of adequately grasping the (...) totality of reality will be illustrated here by means of the criticism Jaspers levelled at absolutising metaphysics. In connection with the description of the structure of cognition proposed by Jaspers, the article points out the conceptual proximity of the issue of worldview and metaphysics in the light of the thought of the cited author. (shrink)

This paper investigates the role of (DIS)RESPECT a value premise in two landmark civil rights cases given by the United States Supreme Court. It adopts a corpus-assisted approach whereby a keyword analysis and the analysis of key semantic domains are used to identify potential values relied upon by judges in their justifications. The two categories of NO RESPECT and RESPECTED have been selected and examined as one domain of (DIS)RESPECT. (DIS)RESPECT turns out to be the only value marked by strong (...) evaluative polarity and it is found in the majority, as well as in dissenting opinions. The analysis shows how the notion of (DIS)RESPECT has been integrated into the arguments of judges and it highlights the central importance of values and the related evaluative language for legal argumentation. (shrink)

Expression of physical motion (e.g., man runs by) shows systematic variability not only between language types (i.e., inter-typological) but also within a language type (i.e., intra-typological). In this study, we asked whether the patterns of variability extend to metaphorical motion events (e.g., time runs by). Our analysis of randomly selected 450 physical motion (150/language) and 450 metaphorical motion (150/language) event descriptions from written texts originally produced by German, Polish, and Spanish authors showed strong inter-typological differences in the expression of both (...) event types. German and Polish speakers differed from Spanish speakers in how they packaged manner and path components of a motion event; they also differed in how extensively they expressed each component in their lexicalization of motion. The strong inter-typological differences were accompanied by more modest intra-typological variability: Polish and German writers differed in their packaging and lexicalization of manner and path components of metaphorical—but not physical—motion events. Our results provide evidence for robust inter-typological differences evident in the expression of both physical and metaphorical motion, along with less robust intra-typological differences, largely evident in the expression of metaphorical motion. Our study thus highlights event type as an important factor in determining crosslinguistic variation in motion expression. (shrink)

We propose a non-standard interpretation of Alternating-time Temporal Logic with imperfect information, for which no commonly accepted semantics has been proposed yet. Rather than changing the semantic structures, we generalize the usual interpretation of formulae in single states to sets of states. We also propose a new epistemic operator for ?practical? or ?constructive? knowledge, and we show that the new logic (which we call Constructive Strategic Logic) is strictly more expressive than most existing solutions, while it retains the same model (...) checking complexity. Finally, we study properties of constructive knowledge and other operators in this non-standard semantics. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates the prominence of imitation in Kierkegaard’s ethics. I move beyond his idea of authentic existence modeled on Christ and explore the secular dimension of Kierkegaard’s insights about human nature and imitation. I start with presenting imitation as key to understanding the ethical dimension of the relationship between the universal and individual aspects of the human self in Kierkegaard. I then show that Kierkegaard’s moral concepts of “primitivity” and “comparison” are a response to his sociological and psychological observations (...) about imitation from an ethical point of view. In the final section of this paper, I briefly engage Friedrich Schleiermacher’s “ethics of individuality” and Gabriel Tarde’s “laws of imitation” to explore Kierkegaard’s consideration of ethics and imitation as situated within the context of a broader conversation on imitation. (shrink)

SummaryThe Bohr‐Einstein debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics may be viewed as a discussion on the epistemological status of knowledge gained by physics. It is shown that in fact the advent of quantum theory has led, in a new context, to an old philosophical controversy between epistemological realism and phenomenalism . An inquiry into this controversy, taking into account the contemporary understanding of quantum mechanics based on the axiomatic study of its foundations, leads to the conclusion that contrary to (...) widespread opinion, it is perfectly possible to formulate quantum mechanics in an entirely realistic manner according to the postulate of Einstein. We demonstrate that Bohr's episteme‐logy, in which the role of experimental arrangements in the physical description is taken as a starting point, does not necessarily imply phenomenlism, but may be justifiably considered as a complementary standpoint to the realistic epistemology of Einstein, which is based on the notion of a mental construction which pictures reality. (shrink)

While the question of whether selected-effects accounts of function or causal-role accounts of function provide the ‘true' functional analysis has given way to a general pluralistic consensus, Philip Kitcher has suggested that different functional accounts allow for unification. I argue that Kitcher's attempt to unify the two functional analyses fails because he adopts the environment-centered perspective on selection as a premise. The premise is undermined by the role niche construction is likely to play in the context of evolution. Moreover, I (...) raise the tentative suggestion that niche construction may threaten the applicability, or at least the relevance, of selected-effects ascriptions. *Received October 2009; revised May 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Institut für Philosophie Fakultät für Philosophie und Bildungswissenschaft, Universität Wien, Universitätsstraße 7 1010 Wien, Austria; e-mail: Adela.Roszkowski@univie.ac.at. (shrink)

This is an account of the Uprising fights of a young machinegunner of the “Baszta” Unit from the “W” hour to the honorable surrender at the end of September.

Artykuł przedstawia stosunek Archimedesa z Syrakuz do problemu wielkości przekraczających możliwości wyrażania ich za pomocą danego systemu liczbowego. Analiza proponowanych przez matematyka z Syrakuz rozstrzygnięć poprzedzona została uwagami na temat problemów związanych z greckimi systemami notacji poprzedzającymi prace Archimedesa.

In [5] we study Nonassociative Lambek Calculus augmented with De Morgan negation, satisfying the double negation and contraposition laws. This logic, introduced by de Grooté and Lamarche [10], is called Classical Non-Associative Lambek Calculus. Here we study a weaker logic InNL, i.e. NL with two involutive negations. We present a one-sided sequent system for InNL, admitting cut elimination. We also prove that InNL is PTIME.

With the meaning of trust, good faith and respect for promises made, protection, or assistance, fides in the non-exclusively religious sense of the word comes from the demand for ethical perfection: as such, it is omnipresent in human relations and in the dynamic of societies in the Middle Ages.

Self-esteem and emotional reactivity may be important personality determinants of human functioning in situations of social exposure. In this study, we compared the levels of these personality variables in a group of professional theater actors and a group of professional illusionists with a control group of participants who were neither actors nor illusionists and had no artistic education. We also examined the correlations between emotional reactivity and self-esteem in the three groups. For emotional reactivity, we found (1) very strong evidence (...) that the level is less for magicians than for controls, (2) substantial evidence that the level is less for magicians than for actors, (3) anecdotal evidence that the level is less for actors than for controls, and (4) decisive evidence that the average score is less for males than for females. For self-esteem, we found (1) anecdotal evidence that the level is higher for magicians than for controls, (2) substantial evidence that there is no difference between actors and magicians, (3) anecdotal evidence against a difference between actors and controls, and (4) anecdotal evidence against a difference between males and females. Based on the entire sample we found a moderate correlation between self-esteem and emotional reactivity (r = -.30, p < 0.001). Our results are compatible with the notion that emotional reactivity – as part of the temperament concept – is a factor influencing the choice of an artistic profession. (shrink)

We prove the finite model property (fmp) for BCI and BCI with additive conjunction, which answers some open questions in Meyer and Ono [11]. We also obtain similar results for some restricted versions of these systems in the style of the Lambek calculus [10, 3]. The key tool is the method of barriers which was earlier introduced by the author to prove fmp for the product-free Lambek calculus [2] and the commutative product-free Lambek calculus [4].

Lawrence Nelson (2018) criticizes conscientious objection (CO) to abortion statutes as far as they permit health care providers to escape criminal liability for what would otherwise be the legally wrongful taking of a pregnant woman’s life by refusing treatment (i.e. abortion). His key argument refers to the U.S. Supreme Court judgment (Roe v. Wade 1973) that does not treat the unborn as constitutional persons under the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, Nelson claims that within the U.S. legal system any vital interests of (...) pregnant women must always take precedence over fetuses’ interests. While agreeing with the main thesis of the article, we believe that the author’s argument neither vindicates his claim, nor explains why those who believe that fetuses are equally protectable human beings do not have the right to refuse to perform an abortion in lifethreatening emergency circumstances (AE). Therefore, the main aim of our commentary is to outline, by referring to our earlier works on conscientious objection in health care (Z_ uradzki 2016) and cultural exemptions (Ciszewski 2016), a better and universalizable argumentative path that would lead to the same conclusion. (shrink)

Newly emerging professions dealing with computing attempt at formulating their own codes of ethics and professional conduct. However, there are widely-known problems with professional ethics – many authors argue that formulating codes of professional ethics causes moral confusion. In this paper, the author examines some main arguments against professional ethics and argues that there are good reasons for developing it. Then he tries to extract those features of professions dealing with computing that may justify a formulation of special codes of (...) professional conduct. He criticises the widely-used concept of the ‚computer professional’ and argues for limiting it to such professions as programmers or operators of computer systems. (shrink)

Moral thinking plays an important role in philosophy of Leszek Kołakowski. The paper examines his ethical position as it was presented in Kołakowski’s writings dealing directly with this subject, against the background of those stances that he opposed. In the scope of the author’s interest is the problem of the persistence of some elements and the development of the position in question. Both Kołakowski’s ethical and metaethical reflection is taken into account. In conclusion, Kołakowski’s position is ascribed to the anti-theoretic (...) current in ethics. (shrink)

Recenzja: Mark van Roojen, Metaethics: A Contemporary Introduction, New York and London, Routledge, 2015.