The text describes main US missile defence efforts in the first years of D. Trump’s administration. The analysis of current aspects of BMD (Ballistic Missile Defence) deployments is enhanced by probability analysis examining missile defence reliability. Donald Trump took office in the time of increased military competition between the West and Russia and a dangerous regional crisis related to North Korean nuclear arsenal and its ballistic tests. BMD appeared to bring additional chances to US deterrence options in regional scale, allowing (...) more successful first strike or active defence posture. Notably, D. Trump’s administration managed to raise defence expenditures including BMD spending. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Elementy etyki lekarskiej [Issues in Physician Ethics], by Tadeusz Biesaga.

The aim of this article is an attempt to diagnose the current condition of the philosophy of history, as well as to show its potential in explaining contemporary phenomena and constructing a rational image of the world. Two recent works by Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress) and the methodological work of Karl Raimund Popper provide a point of reference. And although the works (...) mentioned are not classed as historiosophical (even by Pinker himself), it is the author’s opinion that they fully deserve this title by showing that philosophical reflection on history is something that is sorely needed today, in an age of multiple contradictory diagnoses and radical prophecies. (shrink)

This article attempts to investigate the potential resonances between Paul Ricoeur’s and Julia Kristeva’s theories of otherness as applied to the study of poetry by the Northern-Irish poet Sinéad Morrissey. In all of her five poetry books she explores various forms of otherness and attempts to sketch them in verse. She confronts alterity in many ways, approaching such subjects as the relationship with the body and children, encounters with foreigners, and coming to terms with what is foreign within us. This (...) article engages primarily with her experiences of China, which she recorded in the long poem “China” from her third collection, The State of Prisons. Firstly, this article tackles the question of the body, which is interpreted on the basis of Morrissey’s “post-mortem” poems. Their reading prepares the ground for further explorations of otherness, which Morrissey locates at the very heart of human subjectivity. In this way, she also manages to establish a poetic framework for an ethical consideration of otherness. By investigating the working of the human psyche, Morrissey seems to go along the lines of Kristeva and Ricoeur, who claim that otherness is inextricably linked with the formation of human subjectivity. Taking a cue from their philosophical enquiries, the article also attempts to establish where Kristeva’s and Ricoeur’s philosophies overlap. (shrink)

In-vitro fertilization is becoming a pressing issue in contemporary societies. The article considers it starting form the Polish debate but takes up its broader anthropological an ethical aspects. Dealing with the latter, it also employs some acute remarks from Dignitas Personae. Finally it considers an approach to in vitro against the background of European Convention on Bioethics. In its conclusion the paper offers a balanced pro-life stance, albeit critical of in vitro.

Proofs of two interpolation theorems for Sentential Calculus with Identity as well as some general comments on sentential interpolation are given.

It is widely believed, that the Buddha practiced the most radical forms of asceticism and self‑mortification prior to his awakening. A critical analysis of the suttas depicting that crucial period of his life shows, however, that the only text which portrays the bodhisatta as a foremost ascetic is the Māhasīhanāda Sutta. The aim of this paper is to examine the issue of the authenticity of this text and thus to answer the question as to whether there is enough ground to (...) claim that the Buddha was an ascetic at all. Through a comparative analysis, I show that the structure and content of the Māhasīhanāda Sutta cannot be reconciled with other suttas from the MajjhimaNikāya, which describe the bodhisatta’s path to awakening. I point out certain late features of the Māhasīhanāda Sutta. Then, through a comparative analysis I try to show that some parts of the Buddhist text may have been borrowed from the Jain yāraṃga Sutta. Next, I attempt to reinterpret the term attakilamathānuyogo from the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta in such a way which will not pertain to asceticism. In the final part of the paper, I try to explain how the view that the Buddha was a foremost ascetic prior to his awakening could have arisen. (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)

This book provides an incisive, basic introduction to many-valued logics and to the constructions that are "many-valued" at their origin. Using the matrix method, the author sheds light on the profound problems of many-valuedness criteria and its classical characterizations. The book also includes information concerning the main systems of many-valued logic, related axiomatic constructions, and conceptions inspired by many-valuedness. With its selective bibliography and many useful historical references, this book provides logicians, computer scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians with a valuable survey (...) of the subject. (shrink)

We define a σ-ideal J D on the set of functions ω ω with the property that a real x ∈ ω ω is a Hechler real over V if and only if x omits all Borel sets in J D . In fact we define a topology D on ω ω related to Hechler forcing such that J D is the family of first category sets in D. We study cardinal invariants of the ideal J D.

This paper offers a systematic classification and characterization of speech acts and their norms. Recently, the normative approach has been applied to various speech acts, most notably to constatives. I start by showing how the work on the norms of assertion has influenced various approaches to the norms of other speech acts. I focus on the fact that various norms of assertion have different extensions, i.e., they denote different clusters of illocutions as belonging to an assertion. I argue that this (...) has consequences for theorising about norms of other speech acts and generates certain arbitrary divisions. In the central part, I analyse two groups of speech acts. Firstly, ordinary speech acts, like predictions or retractions. Secondly, I indicate how the normative view can be extended to so-called ancillary speech acts, like presuppositions or implicatures. I end with a discussion of possible extensions of the normative approach, focusing on the debate on lying. (shrink)

I propose an analysis of lying with uninformative speech acts. The orthodox view states that lying is restricted to assertions. However, the growing case for non-assertoric lies made by presuppositions or conventional implicatures challenges this orthodoxy. So far, the only presuppositions to have been considered as lies were informative presuppositions. In fact, uninformative lies were not discussed in the philosophical literature. However, limiting the possibility of lying to informative speech acts is too restrictive. Firstly, I show that standard, uninformative presuppositions (...) can also be lies. Secondly, I extend this picture into uninformative lies made by declarative statements. To implement my proposal, I do not need a new definition of lying. Recently popular commitment-based definitions of lying are able to properly handle uninformative lies. (shrink)

The speech act of inquiry is generally treated as a default kind of asking questions. The widespread norm states that one inquires whether p only if one does not know that p. However, the fact that inquiring is just one kind of asking questions has received little to no attention. Just as in the declarative mood we can perform not only assertions, but various other speech acts, like guesses or predictions, so in the interrogative mood we can also make various (...) speech act types. I propose a speech-act-theoretic account of a distinct kind of question that I label exam questions. According to the proposed account, one performs an exam question p only if (i) one has access to the answer to p, and (ii) one does not officially know whether the hearer knows the answer to p. Exam questions satisfy all the necessary requirements of being a distinct kind of speech act. Additionally, my proposal contributes to the recent expansion of the normative approach to a variety of speech acts. (shrink)

Emotion understanding (EU) is the capacity to understand the nature, causes, and consequences of the emotional experience of the self and others. The cultural differences and similarities in the development of EU are still not well recognized, especially within Slavic culture and language. We tested 180 Polish children aged 5–11 years using the Test of Emotion Comprehension and compared their results with data from British and Italian children. We revealed a similar pattern of EU development between the three groups, showing (...) a growing number of the core EU components with age. In all samples, the three difficulty-differentiated clusters of EU components were distinguishable. Some cultural differences were observed only in a few EU components – especially, British and Italian children recognized the cognitively-based individualistic aspect of emotions to a higher degree than Polish children. These results supplement the current knowledge about EU development in children within European cultures. (shrink)

This article is about the philosopher as a potential therapist. It starts from tendencies exhibited by a group of contemporary philosophers involved in a so-called human enhancement. Drawing on the newest discoveries of genetics, genetic engineering and pharmacology, they offer a set of therapies aimed at the extensive ‘improvement’ of the human condition. In the second part of the paper, selected ideas concerning philosophical therapy by the Ancient philosophers are presented. They basically employed personal contact, conversation, and wise counselling. Then (...) these two approaches to this kind of therapy are compared and contrasted. The contemporary approaches offer novel, technical ways of intervention but are blind as far as far-reaching goals and the essential goods of human life are concerned. Despite serious cultural differences, the contemporary therapy can learn a lot from the ancients. If the human being is to be treated by philosophers, an integral picture of who the former is must be taken into account. This means that both his interiority and exteriority should be subjects to the therapy. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to draw comparisons between the major normative rules of distributive justice. This comparison is based on a kind of distribution of goods which is sometimes called the problem of pure distribution, i.e. the distribution of a homogeneous, infinitely distributable good in a situation when claims of different persons on the distributed good were in no way differentiated. This problem is defined against the background of typology of problems of goods distribution. Normative rules of distributive (...) Justice are defined formally as social welfare functionals. Eight rules of justice are distinguished: the rule of the utilitarian, Rawls’s maximin rule, Rawls’s lexicographical maximin rule, the maximax rule of the conservatives, the rule of lexicographical maximax of the conservatives, Nash’s rule, and two rules advanced by egalitarianists which differ by the meaning attributed to equality of distribution. Premises underlying the construction of these rules of justice and which indicate the measurement of preferences and possibilities of interpersonal comparisons are discussed. The same justice rules are also presented graphically. The method of the comparison amounts to examining if a certain set of ethical postulates is fulfilled by the rules under consideration. Several ethical postulates concerning the distribution of goods are formulated. Some of them define conditions any method of evaluating inequality of distribution of goods should fulfil. The remaining postulates involve more general requirements put to methods of making social decisions. Theorems about the fulfilment or nonfulfilment by individual rules of distributive justice of the considered ethical postulates are presented in a recapitulating table. The author demonstrates that almost a1l justice rules fulfil general postulates put to methods of social decision making. Nash’s rule and the two rules of the egalitarians are the exceptions, as they do not fulfil the postulate of separability with respect to unconcerned individuals. Besides, the two rules of the egalitarians do not fulfil the Pareto optimality principle. Significant differences between rules of distributive justice become manifest only when you compare way they fulfil ethical postulates concerning the manner of evaluating the inequality of the distribution. With regard to this set of postulates, they can be arranged along a definite continuum, with Rawls’s lexicographical maximin — the radical egalitarian rule, and the lexicographical maximax of the conservatives – the radical conservative rule as the extreme points of this continuum. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply a general methodology for constructing statistical methods, which is based on decision theory, to give a statistical description of preferential rankings, with a focus on the rankings’ dependence on categorical variables. In the paper, I use functions of description errors that are based on the Kemeny and Hamming distances between preferential orderings, but the proposed methodology can also be applied to other methods of estimating description errors.

Let Γn be a formula of LPA meaning “there is a proof of φ from PA-axioms, in which ω-rule is iterated no more than n times”. We examine relations over pairs of natural numbers of the kind. ≦H iff PA + RFNn' ⊩ RFNn .Where H denotes one of the hierarchies ∑ or Π and RFNn is the scheme of the reflection principle for Γn restricted to formulas from the class C implies “φ is true”, for every φ ∈ C). (...) Our main result is that. ≦H if n ≦ n' and k ≦ max. (shrink)

We show that that every countable model of PA has a conservative extension M with a subset Y such that a certain Σ1(Y)-formula defines in M a subset which is not r. e. relative to Y.

Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie sylwetki wielkiego uczonego czeskiego doby pobiałogórskiej – jego życia oraz działalności naukowej i pisarskiej. Bohuslav Balbín jest najwybitniejszym czeskim humanistą XVII w., którego twórczość odegrała wielką rolę zarówno w swojej epoce, jako inspiracja dla innych twórców, jak również w następnej. Dzieła jezuity, z których najważniejsze opublikowano dopiero w sto lat po jego śmierci, wpisywały się w nurt czeskiego odrodzenia narodowego, którego celem było utrzymanie językowej i kulturalnej odrębności Czechów. Twórczość Balbína rozwijała się dwóch zasadniczych nurtach – (...) religijnym i świeckim, które spajały ideały narodowe. Cechował tę twórczość głęboki patriotyzm i świadomość słowiańska, a głównym celem pisarza i uczonego było zachowanie tożsamości narodu, jego kultury i języka oraz podkreślenie i utrwalenie odrębności Królestwa Czeskiego – historycznej, geograficznej i prawnej. W sposób znaczący zasłużył się dla rozwoju historiografii, krajoznawstwa, literaturoznawstwa i bibliografii. Choć był gorliwym katolikiem, nie odrzucał dorobku czeskich innowierców. Jego najbardziej ambitnym i – niestety – nieukończonym dziełem są _Miscellanea historica regni Bohemiae_, które miały stanowić summę wiedzy o kraju i narodzie, najsławniejszym zaś _Dissertatio apologetica pro lingua Slavonica, praecipue Bohemica_. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss some philosophical problems connected with the notion of regarding the aggregates (_khandha_) as self in the Nikāyas. In particular, I focus on the attitude represented by the formula “I am this” (_esohamasmi_) which may be labeled as that of identifying with the aggregates. In the first part of the paper, I point out and analyze certain similes contained in the Nikāyas which may be read as implying the existence of a distinction between the aggregates and (...) the individual who regards them as self. Then, I consider a hypothesis that the aggregates are not objective constituents of a human being but subjectively experienced representational phenomena. I argue that several Nikāya texts imply the existence of important aspects of a human being, in particular cognitive ones, which are not conceptualized in the terms of the five aggregates. I also discuss the possibility of interpreting _khandha_s as not active in character but as resultant of other cognitive processes. In the last part of the paper I offer a hypothesis that one of the key aspects of regarding the aggregates as self lies in the identification of a human individual with one’s own phenomenal self-representation which results in a mistaken projection of the notions of agency, identity and subjectivity onto something that is inherently devoid of it. I also consider certain parallels between the ideas present in the Nikāyas and the concepts of the modern philosophy of mind. (shrink)