The paper concerns the problem of the legal responsibility of autonomous machines. In our opinion it boils down to the question of whether such machines can be seen as real agents through the prism of folk-psychology. We argue that autonomous machines cannot be granted the status of legal agents. Although this is quite possible from purely technical point of view, since the law is a conventional tool of regulating social interactions and as such can accommodate various legislative constructs, including legal (...) responsibility of autonomous artificial agents, we believe that it would remain a mere ‘law in books’, never materializing as ‘law in action’. It is not impossible to imagine that the evolution of our conceptual apparatus will reach a stage, when autonomous robots become full-blooded moral and legal agents. However, today at least, we seem to be far from this point. (shrink)

The operators of first-order logic, including negation, operate on whole formulae. This makes it unsuitable as a tool for the formal analysis of reasoning with non-sentential forms of negation such as predicate term negation. We extend its language with negation operators whose scope is more narrow than an atomic formula. Exploiting the usefulness of subatomic proof-theoretic considerations for the study of subatomic inferential structure, we define intuitionistic subatomic natural deduction systems which have several subatomic operators and an additional operator for (...) formula negation at their disposal. We establish normalization and subexpression property results for the systems. The normalization results allow us to formulate a proof-theoretic semantics for formulae composed of the subatomic operators. We illustrate the systems with applications to reasoning with combinations of sentential negation, predicate term negation, subject term negation, and antonymy. (shrink)

The history of the research on peptic ulcer disease is characterized by a premature abandonment of the bacterial hypothesis, which subsequently had its comeback, leading to the discovery of Helicobacter pylori – the major cause of the disease. In this paper we examine the received view on this case, according to which the primary reason for the abandonment of the bacterial hypothesis in the mid-twentieth century was a large-scale study by a prominent gastroenterologist Palmer, which suggested no bacteria could be (...) found in the human stomach. To this end, we employ the methodof digital textual analysis and study the literature on the etiology of PUD published in the decade prior to Palmer’s article. Our findings suggest that the bacterial hypothesis had already been abandoned before the publication of Palmer’s paper, which challenges the widely held view that his study played a crucial role in the development of this episode. In view of this result, we argue that the PUD case does not illustrate harmful effects of a high degree of information flow, as it has frequently been claimed in the literature on network epistemology. Moreover, we argue that alternative examples of harmful effects of a high degree of information flow may be hard to find in the history of science. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to examine Mattias Kiesselbach’s account of the thesis that meaning is normative that was presented in his recently published article titled “The normativity of meaning: from constitutive norms to prescriptions.” Kiesselbach’s account has three crucial points: the applicability of norms, the transtemporal character of the constitutive norms and commitments incurred by or attributed to the speaker within the scorekeeping practice. I will discuss all these crucial points, and I will argue that his account raises many (...) questions and the anti-prescriptivist about meaning can have reasonable doubts about all of them. (shrink)

In this article I am going to argue that despite the fact that (1) there is nothing specific to the form of constitutive rules and (2) that in some broad sense every rule has a constitutive aspect, there is a substantial difference between what might be called trivially and genuinely constitutive rules, and the difference can be spotted by looking at practices that rules are supposed to constitute, not at these rules.

The goal in this short paper is to argue that so-called intermediary concepts play an essential role in organizing and generating legal knowledge. The point of departure is a reconstruction and a critique of Alf Ross’s analysis of such concepts. His goal was to argue that there exist concepts in the law which have no semantic reference, yet it is reasonable to use them as they perform some useful function regarding the presentation of legal rules. The author believes that Ross (...) is wrong on both counts: his argument to the effect that intermediary concepts have no reference is flawed, and his characterization of the functions such concepts play in the law is too limiting. (shrink)

How does a lawyer think? Does legal intuition exist? Do lawyers need imagination? Why is legal language so abstract? It is no longer possible to answer these questions by applying philosophical analysis alone. Recent advances in the cognitive sciences have reshaped our conceptions of the human mental faculties and the tools we use to solve problems. A new picture of the functioning of the legal mind is emerging. In The Legal Mind, Bartosz Brożek uses philosophical arguments and insight from (...) the cognitive sciences to depict legal thinking as a close cooperation between three cognitive mechanisms - intuition, imagination, and language - and addresses the question of how to efficiently use these mental tools. This novel and provocative approach provides a fresh perspective on legal thinking and gives rise to important questions pertaining to the limits of legal interpretation and rationality in the law. (shrink)

Cilj članka je odgovoriti na kritiko, ki jo je David Duarte usmeril zoper tezo o delni zvedljivosti, tj. trditev, ki jo Brożek zagovarja v eni izmed svojih knjig in pravi, da je analogno sklepanje deloma zvedljivo na tehtanje pravnih načel. Prvi del članka oriše okvir, ki je avtorju služil pri oblikovanju teze o zvedljivosti, tj. Alexyjevo teorijo pravnega sklepanja. Drugi del je namenjen ovrženju Duartejevih ugovorov. Ti naj namreč ne bi upoštevali prej omenjenega okvira. V zadnjem delu avtor še zatrdi, (...) da so nekateri vidiki njegove teorije analognega sklepanja neodvisni od omenjenega teoretskega okvira in zato uporabni za katerokoli pojmovanje analogije v pravu. (shrink)

Recenzja książki: _Panorama współczesnej filozofii_, Jacek Hołówka, Bogdan Dziobkowski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2016, ss. 559.

CAN VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY SOLVE THE GETTIER PROBLEM? The aim of this paper is to investigate if ideas developed by philosophers representing the current called Virtue Epistemology are able to resolve the Gettier problem. First of all, I am going to remind what classical concept of knowledge as justified true belief consists in, then I present co-called Gettier cases that are counterexamples to the classical idea of knowledge. Then I investigate how the idea of evaluating beliefs formulated by Ernest Sosa is (...) able to deal with hard cases made by Gettier, but also Chisholm and Goldman. I argue that Sosa’s conception could be viewed as satisfactory analysis of knowledge, if we slightly modify it to accommodate Goldman’s case. (shrink)

PRESCRIPTIVE EXPLICATION OF THE NORMATIVITY OF MEANING THESIS The aim of this paper is to analyse prescriptive interpretations of the thesis that meaning is normative, which was introduced by Saul Kripke and later developed by Paul Boghossian. We are going to show that meaning prescriptivism is counter-intuitive and has implausible consequences. Attempts to save prescriptive interpretations by appealing to prima facie obligations or „normativity of judgment” are unsuccessful.

Despite the great expansion and many benefits of information and communication technologies in healthcare, the attitudes of Polish general practitioners to e-health have not been explored. The aim of this study was to determine the GPs’ perception of ICT use in healthcare and to identify barriers to the adoption of EMR in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Online and telephone surveys were conducted between April and May 2013. Responses from 103 GP practices, 43% of all practices in the region, were analysed. The (...) results showed that 67% of the respondents agreed that IT systems improve quality of healthcare services. In the GP group who declared at least partial EMR implementation, 71.4% see the positive impact of IT on practice staff processes and 66.1% on personal working processes. In this group, more than three-quarters of GPs did not see any positive impact of ICT on the average number of patients treated per day, number of patients within the practice or scope of services. The four most common barriers to EMR implementation were: lack of funds, risk of a malfunction in the system, resistance to change, and lack of training and proper information. Although the use of ICT by Polish GPs is limited, their attitude to e-health is generally positive or neutral and resembles the overall pattern in Europe. Barriers identified by GPs need to be taken into account to ensure the effective implementation of e-health across the country. (shrink)

This massive book is an intensive inquest into the fate of the human subject as it passes through the primitive, despotic, passional and capitalist regimes found in Deleuze and Guattari. Emphatic, acerbic, loquacious, impassioned, and marshaling a considerable array of theoretical and literary frameworks--from Schelling, Kantorowicz, Agamben, Hegel, Nietzsche, Badiou, Rosenzweig, Lévinas, Derrida, Blanchot, Kierkegaard, Marx, Lazzarato, Berardi, Zizek and Plotinus to Solzhenitsyn, Pessoa, Fuentes, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Beckett, Mann, Schreber, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Sade, the Midrash and Kabbalah--and cavorting through vast (...) expanses of world history, Bartosz Łubczonok scrutinizes the maladies of pain, resentment, bad conscience, ideology, immiseration, torture, death, depression and suicide that have and continue to afflict humanity, and the possibilities of its vertiginous liberation. All is here: the auto-genesis of God, the Crucifixion, the Holocaust, September 11. The Apotheosis of Nullity is a searing indictment of all forms of oppression and despotism, inclusive of neoliberal capitalism, and far surpasses any usage of Deleuze and Guattari to date. It is relentless. (shrink)

This paper addresses the black-box problem in artificial intelligence (AI), and the related problem of explainability of AI in the legal context. We argue, first, that the black box problem is, in fact, a superficial one as it results from an overlap of four different – albeit interconnected – issues: the opacity problem, the strangeness problem, the unpredictability problem, and the justification problem. Thus, we propose a framework for discussing both the black box problem and the explainability of AI. We (...) argue further that contrary to often defended claims the opacity issue is not a genuine problem. We also dismiss the justification problem. Further, we describe the tensions involved in the strangeness and unpredictability problems and suggest some ways to alleviate them. (shrink)

The Logic of Legal Requirements. Essays on Defeasibility, edited by Jordi Ferrer Beltrán and Giovanni Battista Ratti, and published by Oxford University Press in 2012, is a very much welcome contribution to one of the most discussed topics in the contemporary legal theory and philosophy. Defeasibility is connected to many essential issues such as the nature of legal reasoning, the structure of legal norms and legal system, the concept of legal validity, as well as the mechanisms and limits of..

The aim of the paper is to show what the logical structure of reasoning by analogy in legal discourse is. Recently, two attempts - due to Brewer and Weinreb - have been made to explain analogical arguments. I criticize them both. Next, against the background of several examples, I reconstruct the general structure of analogy. The structure is taken as a starting point for developing a logical conception of analogical reasoning. It is my claim that analogy is partially reducible to (...) the process of balancing. (shrink)

Avtor zatrjuje, da imajo t. i. posredniški pojmi ključno vlogo pri urejanju in tvorbi pravnega znanja. V izhodišču povzame Rossovo razmišljanje o takšnih pojmih, ki ga nato kritizira. Ross je skušal pokazati, da v pravu obstajajo pojmi, ki nimajo nobenega pomenskega ozira, a je njihova raba kljub temu nekaj razumnega, saj imajo pri predstavitvi pravnih pravil koristno vlogo. Avtor meni, da sta obe Rossovi trditvi napačni: zmoten je njegov sklep, da posredniški pojmi nimajo nobenega pomenskega ozira, Rossova opredelitev njihove vloge (...) v pravu pa je preveč omejujoča. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyze the issue of delusions as natural kinds in the context of the problem of scientific basis of psychiatry. In the analysis the author points out that the claim that delusions are a natural kind (perceived rather classically) cannot be maintained and delusions should be analyzed rather as a homeostatic property clusters. This concept is very popular recently in philosophy of psychiatry and will be the subject of analysis of the second part of (...) the article. (shrink)

Opposing ecology to Catholicism, or vice versa, has no dogmatic, theological or philosophical foundations – it is a purely rhetorical and political maneuver. Catholicism is, and must be, deeply ecological – although this necessity has not always been properly displayed. This is clearly evidenced by both biblical testimonies confirming the value of every being and the reflection of Tradition within the theology of creation. Similarly, in this context, there are no grounds for invoking the “holy property right” to justify the (...) robbery and destruction of nature. Within the Catholic doctrine, property law is by no means holy, only conditional, and does not absolve us from treating property as a common good at the same time. Of course, this does not mean that Catholic teaching promotes in any way formal and legal restrictions on the right to property – such ideas have been repeatedly and decisively rejected by the Church. The limitation of the right of ownership is moral here – it is a postulate of justice and responsibility. At the same time, it is an expression of anthropological realism: we, all individual people, die, all families and nations expire and the earth, air and water remain. We are obliged to respect it. Opposing the good of the environment to the welfare of human communities makes no sense. Only extremely shallow and superficial reflection can build and invoke such oppositions. In general, this is not a reflection at all, but only an attempt to create ad hoc justifications for obtaining an easy income at the expense of the environment. With the current population of our planet, no one can perceive themselves or their immovable property as absolutely autonomous. We will be able to meet most of the most serious challenges related to environmental changes only when we understand our own responsibility for all living creatures along with their and our entire environment. (shrink)

Social constructivists use to say that economists cannot study objective reality, absolute truth does not exist, and economic knowledge is being constructed, not discovered and it depends on temporary culture. Realists notice and admit social conditions which may affect economic theories and unrealistic assumptions of models, but they claim that these models describe the real world, at least to some extent. The notions of truth and reality are crucial in both of these concepts. In this papar they are analysed based (...) on Hilary Putnam theory developed by Adam Grobler. (shrink)

In the late 1960s, a whole pantheon of thinkers regarding themselves as radicals stole a part of the anarchic praxis of late capitalism, turned it into philosophy, and with the resulting set of views turned against the foundations of the system in a purportedly radical gesture. Postmodernism was the name for the superficially revolutionary culture which then came into existence. The thought of the late left appears as the subsequent response to the cunning of the system.<BR> The main figures of (...) <I>Farewell to Postmodernism are Perry Anderson, David Harvey, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton and Slavoj Zižek. The book provides an encyclopaedic introduction to their work, while at the same time seeking to grasp the current trajectory of radical thought. (shrink)

W latach 80. i 90. ubiegłego stulecia pojęcie postmodernizmu budziło skrajne emocje. Po jednej stronie lokowali się kpiarze i skrajni sceptycy, którzy uznali pisarstwo postmodernistyczne za humbug i wytwór intelektualnej mody. Po drugiej stronie znajdowali się ci, którzy w postmodernizm uwierzyli aż za bardzo, widząc w nim festiwal wszelkich różnic, a zarazem nadejście długo wyczekiwanego królestwa wolności. Czym był jednak w swej istocie ów straszny bądź ekscytujący postmodernizm? I czy nie nadszedł już czas, by spojrzeć na tę sprawę odrobinę chłodniejszym (...) okiem? W Polsce wydaje się to tym bardziej wskazane, że tematykę postmodernizmu i ponowoczesności rozwijali w swych pracach głównie anglosascy marksiści, których twórczość została w naszym kraju po 1989 roku niesłusznie, choć ze zrozumiałych względów zaniedbana. Bohaterowie Goodbye Mr. Postmodernism to Perry Anderson, David Harvey, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton oraz Slavoj Žižek, których autor umieszcza pod wspólnym szyldem „późnej lewicy". Książka stanowi zarazem encyklopedyczne wprowadzenie do ich teorii, jak i próbę uchwycenia nowego klimatu lewicowej myśli, która manierze wiecznej emancypacji oraz upodobaniu do kolorowych marginesów (wspólnym postmodernizmowi i "nowej", zrodzonej pod koniec lat sześćdziesiątych lewicy) coraz częściej przeciwstawia skłonność do odpowiedzialnej etycznie refleksji. (shrink)

One of the major objectives in a democratic state is ensuring health security of the citizens including combating epidemic diseases. The subject matter of this article is the presentation and analysis of legal regulations regarding preventive vaccination in Poland, in particular the aspect of imposing a legal obligation and restricting parents’ right to express consent for medical intervention. The reflections made herein are aimed at finding an answer to the question whether the adopted legal solutions are admissible in a democratic (...) state with regard to ensuring health security. The purpose of the analysis is also to assess whether the abovementioned legal regulations have been formulated in a clear way and do not raise interpretation doubts and, consequently, whether they are comprehensible to the parents obliged to comply with them. As it follows from analysis of the legal provisions, parents must not refuse to subject a child to obligatory preventive vaccination and their consent is not required by law, both as regards the medical qualifying examination to exclude contraindications to performing vaccination and the vaccination itself. It is a legal obligation, from which exemption is only possible on grounds of certain medical conditions that would render vaccination inadvisable. The legal provisions that concern obligatory preventive vaccination in Poland, including in particular those referring to its enforceability, have not been formulated in a way that is sufficiently comprehensible to parents who are under the obligation of complying with them, irrespective of the fact that the language of the provisions of law should be clear and raise no interpretative doubts. In a democratic state the protection of public health against epidemic hazards justifies the implementation of legal solutions that restrict an individual’s freedom of self-determination, thus limiting the right of patients or their statutory representatives to grant or refuse consent for a medical intervention in the form of preventive vaccination – the purpose of this legal solution being to prioritize the safeguarding of state health security. It is vitally important to engage in a social dialogue with the purpose of convincing the public of the need for vaccination, its significance and its implementation for the better good. (shrink)

In this paper I present how the normative inferentialist can make the distinction between sentence meaning and content of the utterance. The inferentialist can understand sentence meaning as a role conferred to that sentence by the rules governing inferential transitions and content of the utterance as just a part of sentence meaning. I attempt to show how such a framework can account for prominent scenarios presented by contextualists as a challenge to semantic minimalism/literalism. I argue that inferentialism can address contextualist (...) challenges in a simple and effective manner by understanding sentence meaning as broad, but invariant. (shrink)

'Culture’. The Work for Choir and Orchestra. Music as an Organon for the Structural Analysis of Myth.

The history of the research on peptic ulcer disease is characterized by a premature abandonment of the bacterial hypothesis, which subsequently had its comeback, leading to the discovery of Helicobacter pylori—the major cause of the disease. In this paper we examine the received view on this case, according to which the primary reason for the abandonment of the bacterial hypothesis in the mid-twentieth century was a large-scale study by a prominent gastroenterologist Palmer, which suggested no bacteria could be found in (...) the human stomach. To this end, we employ the method of digital textual analysis and study the literature on the etiology of PUD published in the decade prior to Palmer’s article. Our findings suggest that the bacterial hypothesis had already been abandoned before the publication of Palmer’s paper, which challenges the widely held view that his study played a crucial role in the development of this episode. In view of this result, we argue that the PUD case does not illustrate harmful effects of a high degree of information flow, as it has frequently been claimed in the literature on network epistemology. Moreover, we argue that alternative examples of harmful effects of a high degree of information flow may be hard to find in the history of science. (shrink)

This article outlines the contributions of the Kraków School to the field of science and religion. The Kraków School is a group of philosophers, scientists, and theologians who belong to the milieu of the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. The members of the group are engaged in inquiries pertaining to the relationship between theology and various sciences, in particular cosmology, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience. The article includes a presentation of the historical background of the School, as well as its main (...) original contributions pertaining to the history of the interactions between science and religion, the rationality and mathematicity of the universe, theology of science, and the role of logic in theology. (shrink)