This study investigated the relationships between selected emotional aspects of mental ill-health and mental well-health experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical model of the study was based on Martin Seligman’s positive psychology and PERMA theory and Paul Wong’s Existential Positive Psychology 2.0 Theory, which postulates that negative experiences contribute to well-being and personal growth. The static approach was complemented by exploring the mediating role of psychological flexibility in the relationship between negative emotions and well-being. The data were collected during (...) the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic from 277 participants, aged M = 33.83, SD = 12.77. The results confirmed that negative emotions correlated negatively with various domains of well-being, except for accomplishment. Moreover, negative emotions were related to the general well-being through psychological flexibility in that higher depression, anxiety, and stress were associated with lower psychological flexibility, which decreased general well-being. Finally, negative emotions were shown to be beneficial, having an adaptive effect that allows individuals to maintain their ability to cope with the situation, reach goals, and fulfill daily duties and responsibilities despite critical, stressful situation that limit their psychological flexibility. This observation confirmed the positive potential of negative aspects of life postulated within Existential Positive Psychology. (shrink)

The endorsement of epistemically suspect (i.e., paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscientific) beliefs is widespread and has negative consequences. Therefore, it is important to understand the reasoning processes – such as lower analytic thinking and susceptibility to cognitive biases – that might lead to the adoption of such beliefs. In two studies, I constructed and tested a novel questionnaire on epistemically suspect beliefs (Study 1, N = 263), and used it to examine probabilistic reasoning biases and belief bias in syllogistic reasoning as (...) predictors of the endorsement of those beliefs, while accounting for analytic thinking and worldview variables (Study 2, N = 397). Probabilistic reasoning biases, analytic thinking, religious faith, and political liberalism consistently predicted various epistemically suspect beliefs, whereas the effect of syllogistic belief bias was largely restricted to pseudoscientific beliefs. Further research will be needed to examine the role the biased evaluation of evidence plays in the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs. (shrink)

Cognitive architectures have often been applied to data from individual experiments. In this paper, I develop an ACT-R reader that can model a much larger set of data, eye-tracking corpus data. It is shown that the resulting model has a good fit to the data for the considered low-level processes. Unlike previous related works, the model achieves the fit by estimating free parameters of ACT-R using Bayesian estimation and Markov-Chain Monte Carlo techniques, rather than by relying on the mix of (...) manual selection + default values. The method used in the paper is generalizable beyond this particular model and data set and could be used on other ACT-R models. (shrink)

While there is a general consensus around the role of religion in the abolition of the Slave Trade, historians continue to give little to no detail on exactly how Christian theology influenced the abolitionist movement. This article seeks to interrogate one major theological factor inherent in the spirituality that underpinned the activism of the British abolitionists, namely their notion of Divine Providence, and particularly its moral-emotive correlate: the fear of God’s wrath. These theological notions are discussed based mainly on the (...) analysis of the primary sources and within the theoretical framework of judicial providentialism, aptly captured by John Coffey among others. (shrink)

A key component of the susceptibility to cognitive biases is the ability to monitor for conflict between intuitively cued “heuristic” answers and logical principles. While there is evidence that pe...

Anthropomorphism is a phenomenon that describes the human tendency to see human-like shapes in the environment. It has considerable consequences for people’s choices and beliefs. With the increased presence of robots, it is important to investigate the optimal design for this tech- nology. In this paper we discuss the potential benefits and challenges of building anthropomorphic robots, from both a philosophical perspective and from the viewpoint of empir- ical research in the fields of human–robot interaction and social psychology. We believe (...) that this broad investigation of anthropomorphism will not only help us to understand the phenomenon better, but can also indicate solutions for facil- itating the integration of human-like machines in the real world. (shrink)

This article seeks to illustrate egg donation's incompletely commodified status through an analysis of two cases of first impression, highlighting the tensions that arise from attempts to reconcile egg donation's reality as a robust commercial industry with the nonmarket norms that traditionally underlie reproduction. Antitrust and taxation litigation may seem unlikely sources for guidance in navigating the tensions in egg donation's uncertain place between the worlds of gift and market exchange. Nonetheless, this litigation forces an explicit consideration of how egg (...) donation is perceived, talked about, and operationalized, and where along the gift-market spectrum it fits. These cases also engage familiar questions of commodification, coercion, and exploitation, which are surprisingly central litigation issues. (shrink)

The first part of this essay is basically historical. It introduces the explanation–understanding divide, focusing in particular on the general–unique distinction. The second part is more philosophical and it presents two different claims on action. In the first place, I will try to say what it means to understand an action. Secondly, we will focus on the explanation of action as it is seen in some explanatory sciences. I will try to argue that in some cases these sciences commit what (...) I call an “external contradiction”. (shrink)

Alongside with ethics and religion, art occupies a prominent place in Michel Henry’s phenomenology of life. His opposition to Husserl and Heidegger, and his analyses of Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings and theoretical works, led Henry to the conclusion that the content of art is the ‘invisible life’. As a consequence, art – itself invisible though at the same time revealing the Life – becomes a means of achieving a non-intentional experience (pathos) of Life in its transcendental affectivity. The radical immanence of (...) experiencing art stands in sharp contrast to the visible external world, thus opening new directions in phenomenological study of both aesthetic and religious experience. In this article, I point out the ontological, epistemological and axiological limitations of Henry’s and Kandinsky’s art theory. (shrink)

We compare time needed for understanding different types of quantifiers. We show that the computational distinction between quantifiers recognized by finite-automata and pushdown automata is psychologically relevant. Our research improves upon hypothesis and explanatory power of recent neuroimaging studies as well as provides evidence for the claim that human linguistic abilities are constrained by computational complexity.

We introduce and study model-theoretic connected components of rings as an analogue of model-theoretic connected components of definable groups. We develop their basic theory and use them to describe both the definable and classical Bohr compactifications of rings. We then use model-theoretic connected components to explicitly calculate Bohr compactifications of some classical matrix groups, such as the discrete Heisenberg group ${\mathrm {UT}}_3({\mathbb {Z}})$, the continuous Heisenberg group ${\mathrm {UT}}_3({\mathbb {R}})$, and, more generally, groups of upper unitriangular and invertible upper triangular (...) matrices over unital rings. (shrink)

This volume on the semantic complexity of natural language explores the question why some sentences are more difficult than others. While doing so, it lays the groundwork for extending semantic theory with computational and cognitive aspects by combining linguistics and logic with computations and cognition. -/- Quantifier expressions occur whenever we describe the world and communicate about it. Generalized quantifier theory is therefore one of the basic tools of linguistics today, studying the possible meanings and the inferential power of quantifier (...) expressions by logical means. The classic version was developed in the 1980s, at the interface of linguistics, mathematics and philosophy. Before this volume, advances in "classic" generalized quantifier theory mainly focused on logical questions and their applications to linguistics, this volume adds a computational component, the third pillar of language use and logical activity. This book is essential reading for researchers in linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, logic, AI, and computer science. (shrink)

The article discusses the ecological aspects of John Milbank’s thought in the context of the growing climate crisis. For this purpose, the concept of integral ecology is interpreted in the spirit of Milbank’s integralism, which rejects the notion of “pure nature” as a manifestation of secularism and calls for theological grounding of the environmental discourse. This perspective allows us to see the limitations of the modern way of thinking, caught up in the metaphors of “conquest of nature” and “return to (...) nature.” As an alternative, the concept of “kenotic anthropocentrism” is proposed, which sees man as a rational, social, creative and religious animal, that somehow transcends his own nature, being called to union with God. On the one hand, such an approach proclaims the ontological superiority of man over other creatures, and on the other, it reminds us of his role as the guardian—and not the owner—of the Earth. Thus, it differs significantly from Clive Hamilton’s “modest anthropocentrism,” whose call to care for the environment is ultimately based on arbitrary freedom and the imperative of self-preservation. Milbank’s position is closer to Bruno Latour’s anthropocentrism emphasizing the role of man as a political representative of silent earthlings—rivers, mountains and animals. However, Milbank advocates a strong ontological hierarchy rejected by Latour, which makes him less sensitive to the material dimension of climate change. Moreover, Milbank’s militant anti-secularism may be an obstacle to a much needed broader discussion of the ecological crisis, even if his critique of modernity is hard to ignore. (shrink)

In the renewed Russian Fundamental Law, in addition to a number of provisions introducing changes to the political system, there are also statements of programmatic importance, as well as several provisions with symbolic and identity function. In this article these provisions are subject to functional and semiotic-cultural analysis. Particular emphasis has been placed on legally irrelevant content transmitted by the new regulations, on their semantic connections with the content of the preamble and on their cultural context. The research procedure carried (...) out allows us to state that, compared with the 1993 text, the Russian Constitution in its current version participates to a much greater extent in the complex system of transmission of symbolic content, as well as the narratives that contribute to social memory, cultural and historical identity. In doing so, it goes beyond its genre limitations, opening the basic text to the functions assigned to the preamble. In the fragments I have analysed in the paper there are undoubtedly functional and genre disturbances, and with them changes the mode of semiosis of the legal text, both in its normative and programmatic form. Renewed Constitution is the case in which a legal text, by its very nature designing the possible future world, does so through ideas about the past. (shrink)

Should holiness be conceived as a predicate (an attribute), a state (a mode of being) or an event (a process)? It can certainly be understood as God‘s primary attribute. This is how much of classical Christian theology sees it. It can also be thought of as a particular modus of existence shared by God and the holy ones (the saints and the angels), as attested by much of Christian tradition and popular imagination. A more dynamic view of holiness can be (...) found in Scripture and throughout Christian theological tradition; and yet, in the modern era, it has been overshadowed by the first two tendencies. This article offers a tentative enquiry into an ‘evental’ account of holiness by drawing from (1) Niels Gregersen’s and Elizabeth Johnson’s reflection on ‘deep incarnation’ and ‘deep resurrection’ as well as (2) John B. Cobb’s and Marjorie Suchocki’s process theology of the Spirit. Firstly, the ‘from above’ approach to holiness, prevailing in modern Christian theology, is briefly discussed based on John Webster’s understanding of holiness as God’s personal moral relation to humanity. Secondly, I suggest an alternative ‘from below’ approach to holiness based on Gregersen’s and Johnson’s deep Christology. Thirdly, Cobb’s and Suchocki’s take on ‘creative transformation’ and Suchocki’s original appropriation of Cobb’s insights on process pneumatology are used as a hermeneutic key to reinterpret holiness as an ‘evental’ category. Finally, the notion of the holiness of life is reconsidered in light of my proposal. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop the criteria for assessing semantic arguments. However, while this notion constituted the core of ancient dialectics and is addressed in several approaches to argument analysis, the criteria for evaluating such arguments are insufficient. This paper intends to address this problem by combining the insights of classical and contemporary logic and testing them against some controversies involving controversial definitions or classifications. Through detailed case studies of the argumentative uses involving the (re)definitions of racism, war, peace, and (...) feminism, we formulated and tested eight evaluation criteria that may be expressed as critical questions. Résumé: Cet article vise à développer les critères d’évaluation des arguments sémantiques. Cependant, bien que cette notion constitue le coeur de la dialectique ancienne et soit abordée dans plusieurs approches de l’analyse des arguments, les critères d’évaluation de ces arguments sont insuffisants. Cet article vise à résoudre ce problème en combinant les idées de la logique classique et contemporaine et en les testant par rapport à certaines controverses impliquant des définitions ou des classifications controversées. À travers des études de cas détaillées sur les usages argumentatifs impliquant les (re)définitions du racisme, de la guerre, de la paix et du féminisme, nous avons formulé et mis à l’épreuve huit critères d'évaluation qui peuvent être exprimés sous forme de questions critiques. (shrink)

This paper investigates the issue whether metaphors have a metaphorical or secondary meaning and how this question is related to the borderline between philosophy and linguistics. On examples by V. Woolf and H. W. Auden, it will be shown that metaphor accomplishes something more than its literal meaning expresses and this “more” cannot be captured by any secondary meaning. What is essential in the metaphor is not a secondary meaning but an internal relation between a metaphorical proposition and a description (...) of its effects. In order to understand metaphors, we have to share an ability to construe metaphorical meanings at once. The aim of this ability is to uncover an internal relation, which lies behind a particular metaphor. (shrink)

Artykuł ma na celu wstępne przedstawienie Jacques’a Derridy jako filozofa historii. Rozwijane przezeń pojęcia okazują się wiązać z konkretną wizją dziejów. Wizja ta ujawnia się już od pierwszych tekstów Derridy i stanowi nie tyle jeden z pomniejszych wątków, ile główny temat jego myśli. W artykule skupiono się na wybranym eseju Derridy, który doprowadził do jego sporu z Michelem Foucaultem. Zestawienie tych dwóch – skądinąd obu uznawanych za poststrukturalistów – filozofów służy uwydatnieniu kluczowej roli, jaką problem historyczności pełni w dziele Jacques’a (...) Derridy. Tekst stanowi tym samym zachętę do rewizji statusu Derridy w polskiej humanistyce. (shrink)

This article explores the role and modes of operation of metaphorical framing in ancient Greek and modern European and American political discourse. It looks at how concepts such as citizenship, ownership, family, morality, finance, sport, war, domination, human life, and animals are used to reframe political issues in ways promoted by the speaker, and how they may continue to be reshaped in the ongoing political discourse. The analysis of examples of ancient Athenian public rhetoric and of modern European and American (...) political debates reveals the differences and some striking similarities in the ways political and civic values were expressed and reframed in antiquity and how they are used today. This essay also discusses the potential effects of such framing in antiquity and in more recent times. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the institutional reading of the persuasion of the laws in Plato’s Crito. My interpretation focuses on how the clause “persuade or obey” may be read such as to allow citizens to disobey the law or its commands without such actions being unjust. I first summarize the authoritarian position of the laws and present the existing interpretations of the persuasion of the laws. I then show why I believe that none of the existing interpretations is (...) satisfactory. Finally, I present my own interpretation of the persuasion of the laws, which follows Socrates’ own rule of following reason and the strongest available argument. (shrink)

Pośród wielu teorii prawdy tę najdłużej i najbardziej eksplorowaną stanowi niewątpliwie jej klasyczne ujęcie. W jego obrębie powstały również, podobne klasycznej, teorie korespondencyjna i semantyczna. Dla wielu filozofów terminy te wydają się synonimiczne, co stanowi rację powstania niniejszego artykułu. Analiza rodzajów związku pomiędzy językiem a światem, które wprowadzają różne teorie uznawane za klasyczne, ma służyć wyeksponowaniu różnic pomiędzy tymi teoriami. Przedstawiona zostaje również propozycja ustanowienia podziału, który w sposób ścisły i prosty usystematyzuje rozumienie klasycznej, korespondencyjnej i semantycznej teorii prawdy.

My aim in this paper is to amend the Stalnakerian view of context in such a way that it can allow for an adequate treatment of a contextualist position regarding the Liar Paradox. I discuss Glanzberg’s contextualism and the reason why his position cannot be encompassed by the Stalnakerian view, as it is normally construed. Finally, I introduce the phenomenon I call “semantic dissonance”, followed by a mechanism accommodating the Stalnakerian view to the demands of Glanzberg’s contextualism.

This article explores book of poems entitled Requiem for Saddam Hussein and Other Poems for the Poor in Spirit by Konrad Góra in the light of animal studies. Looking at the poetic and beyond poetic activity of its author, this work reffers to Joanna Żylińska's question about ethical living founded on understandig of life both as zoe and bios. Think of the special opposition of village and city is trying to read this book in connection with mentioned vision of life. (...) These both areas shows presentifications and redefinings of persona in poems from Requiem and beyond poetic activity. By concentrating on poems specific for „nature” and „civilization this research will show how the mechanism of subordinating bare life (la nuda vita) works and how it concerns to both sides of the opposition of village and city. This article ask also for non-victims community, position and power of modern literature and involvment. (shrink)

Weder soll die Endlichkeit in ihrer Eigenständigkeit aufgelöst noch die Transzendenz aufgehoben werden. Das Absolute ist sowohl in seiner radikalen Transzendenz als auch in der Beziehung zum Menschen zu denken.

Preview: A relation is what connects two separated beings or what a being joins with itself; what is, in other words, in-between two beings or inside two parts of one being. Relations may be conceived as external or internal to those beings, as an essential part, or as separate beings of another nature. One usually cannot easily perceive or experience relations themselves. But the case is that relations must be something rather than nothing. They must be something since we use (...) relations and go around them all the time, in natural, casual, day-to-day life, as well as in philosophical, careful, and reflexive attitude. And, if they are something, one can think them. Some may say, that philosophers should think about what can only be thought. Who else could do this? So, here it is, a new Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture issue devoted to relations. (shrink)

Narrative identity theory in some of its influential variants makes three fundamental assumptions. First, it focuses on personal identity primarily in terms of selfhood. Second, it argues that personal identity is to be understood as the unity of one’s life as it develops over time. And finally, it states that the unity of a life is articulated, by the very person itself, in the form of a story, be it explicit or implicit. The article focuses on different contemporary phenomenological appraisals (...) of the narrative account. The survey of this partly critical debate is followed by concluding observations concerning a possible phenomenological theory of personal identity. (shrink)

We prove some results about the model theory of fields with a derivation of the Frobenius map, especially that the model companion of this theory is axiomatizable by axioms used by Wood in the case of the theory $\operatorname {DCF}_p$ and that it eliminates quantifiers after adding the inverse of the Frobenius map to the language. This strengthens the results from [4]. As a by-product, we get a new geometric axiomatization of this model companion. Along the way we also prove (...) a quantifier elimination result, which holds in a much more general context and we suggest a way of giving “one-dimensional” axiomatizations for model companions of some theories of fields with operators. (shrink)

The paper offers a parallel exposition of Ricœur and Patočka in the narrow context of their respective reading of Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation. At the same time, it follows a broader goal, namely to confront a hermeneutics of the self with a phenomenology freed of subjectivism. Ricœur claims that phenomenology presupposes interpretation. Under this assumption, even the paradox of intersubjectivity in the 5th CM can be restated as an interpretation of the self/other difference. Patočka in his interpretations of the 5th (...) CM drew on his own observations regarding embodiment and a possible self-awareness of the bodily subject. He claims that the first form of explicit self-reflection is made possible through the other. It is against the background of this claim that he gives his original reading of the “appresentation” of the other as leading to the appresentation of myself in the other. At the end, the paper localizes the point in which Ricœur’s hermeneutics of the self and Patočka’s non-subjectivist phenomenology part ways: it is the possibility of the self to be oneself. While the emphasis in Ricœur and his hermeneutics of the multiplied forms of alterity is put on being oneself as another, in Patočka it is through another that being oneself is possible. (shrink)

We analyze model-theoretic connected components in extensions of a given group by abelian groups which are defined by means of 2-cocycles with finite image. We characterize, in terms of these 2-cocycles, when the smallest type-definable subgroup of the corresponding extension differs from the smallest invariant subgroup. In some situations, we also describe the quotient of these two connected components. Using our general results about extensions of groups together with Matsumoto–Moore theory or various quasi-characters considered in bounded cohomology, we obtain new (...) classes of examples of groups whose smallest type-definable subgroup of bounded index differs from the smallest invariant subgroup of bounded index. This includes the first known example of a group with this property found by Conversano and Pillay, namely the universal cover of [Formula: see text], as well as various examples of different nature, e.g. some central extensions of free groups or of fundamental groups of closed orientable surfaces. As a corollary, we get that both non-abelian free groups and fundamental groups of closed orientable surfaces of genus [Formula: see text], expanded by predicates for all subsets, have this property, too. We also obtain a variant of the example of Conversano and Pillay for [Formula: see text] instead of [Formula: see text], which was not accessible by the previously known methods. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the motive of inner truthfulness in the moral philosophy of Kant, which came to the fore in his work in the 1790s. Truthfulness and sincerity are interpreted as the roots of all morality. In the first chapter, I present two interpretations of inner honesty from two different perspectives: in relation to a duty to oneself and to the issue of conscience. The second chapter (the core of the essay) works out the main demand of truthfulness, (...) especially in the context of the theory of radical evil from Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. As a last step, I show that with the motive of truthfulness, Kant’s philosophy meets the thinking of F. Nietzsche, with its emphasis on sincerity. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel psycholinguistic parser and tests it against experimental and corpus reading data. The parser builds on the recent research into memory structures, which argues that memory retrieval is content‐addressable and cue‐based. It is shown that the theory of cue‐based memory systems can be combined with transition‐based parsing to produce a parser that, when combined with the cognitive architecture ACT‐R, can model reading and predict online behavioral measures (reading times and regressions). The parser's modeling capacities are tested (...) against self‐paced reading experimental data (Grodner & Gibson, 2005), eye‐tracking experimental data (Staub, 2011), and a self‐paced reading corpus (Futrell et al., 2018). (shrink)