Sport plays today an eminent role in man's life and in societies. Various sciences have made it the subject-matter of their reflection, i.e. psychology, sociology, the natural and humanistic sciences, art, philosophy, and theology. The present work seeks to answer some fundamental questions connected with the phenomenon of sport: what is it for man? whether and when does it serve the social integration of a community? what are the premises and principles of the ethics of sportive activity? what is the (...) aesthetic dimension of sport? what are the relations between sport and religious faith? The philosophical profile is dominant in the book, taking into consideration various aspects of sport: anthropological, social, axiological, and theological. (shrink)

Philosophy at KUL seems to be omnipresent, for - similarly as at the medieval university - it fulfilled and still fulfils the propaedeutic functions. Students from all the faculties must gain philosophical culture much more thoroughly than at other Polish universities. Thereby we refer to the ancient ideal of philosophy as an alma mater of all other scientific disciplines, and express the fact that the university cares that the students of all the departments could better perceive the specific character of (...) their own discipline against a historical and methodological background. Now the most important thing is that at KUL one sees in philosophy an inspiring, ordering and integrating foundation of an outlook shaped by young people. They take up various studies and at the same time undertake the most beautiful effort to form themselves. In like manner, „unfortunately", the students of all the faculties from the very beginning had to and have to take an exam in the basic philosophical issues, including especially history of philosophy and ethics, and also the disciplines developing formal skills, like logic or methodology. (shrink)

The year 2001 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Jan Karol Dorda, a Jesuit who devoted a substantial part of his life in the priesthood to literary work, and scientific, especially philosophical enquiry - alongside his pastoral and administrative duties in the Society of Jesus. Father Dorda held a degree in mathematics and physics, but had a special interest in philosophy. In this paper I shall be concerned with his philosophical opinions, only some of which have been published, (...) while the majority of his unpublished manuscripts are preserved in the archives of the Southern Polish Province of the Society of Jesus in Cracow. The reason why his work has never been published is not because of low quality, but due to the difficult conditions prevalent in the post-war Communist period in Poland, and also because of the cautious attitude adopted by the censors and reviewers to whom Dorda submitted his work for assessment. (shrink)

The year 2001 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Jan Karol Dorda, a Jesuit who devoted a substantial part of his life in the priesthood to literary work, and scientific, especially philosophical enquiry - alongside his pastoral and administrative duties in the Society of Jesus. Father Dorda held a degree in mathematics and physics, but had a special interest in philosophy. In this paper I shall be concerned with his philosophical opinions, only some of which have been published, (...) while the majority of his unpublished manuscripts are preserved in the archives of the Southern Polish Province of the Society of Jesus in Cracow. The reason why his work has never been published is not because of low quality, but due to the difficult conditions prevalent in the post-war Communist period in Poland, and also because of the cautious attitude adopted by the censors and reviewers to whom Dorda submitted his work for assessment. (shrink)

“Przeglad Powszechny” first appeared in 1884, when the Jesuits in Krakow agreed to take over “Przeglad Lwowski” from Fr. Edward Podolski, who had been its editor. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the editors-in-chief of the “Przeglad” were Marian Ignacy Morawski SJ, Jan Pawelski SJ, Jan Urban SJ and Jan Rostworowski SJ. Thanks to their efforts and extensive prior editorial experience, “Przeglad” stood for a high level of quality, and was one of the most highly valued social (...) and cultural journals devoted to religious, philosophical, ethical, cultural, historical and political issues. The overriding aims set out by the editors of the review were the dissemination of properly Catholic principles of conduct and obedience to the Church. The article will present the social thought of the Jesuits as they appeared in “Przeglad Powszechny” from the time of its inception until the recovery of Poland’s independence. (shrink)

W Encyklice Fides et ratio Jan Paweł II nawołuje do współpracy teologii z filozofią. Podkreślając inspirującą rolę teologii dla filozofii, większy nacisk kładzie jednak na potrzeby dowartościowania filozofii, zwłaszcza metafizyki, która w wielu środowiskach, nawet w uczelniach kościelnych, została zaniedbana. Wśród licznych antymetafizycznych nurtów współczesnych, Papież wymienia pozytywizm, materializm, scjentyzm i relatywizm. Różniąc się od siebie nurty te maja jednak z sobą coś wspólnego. Pozytywizm za źródło i kryterium prawdy uznaje doświadczenie zmysłowe. Zdania o zjawiskach danych w doświadczeniu maja wartość (...) prawdopodobną. Zawsze istnieje możliwość ich zakwestionowania. Stąd relatywizm prawdy. Prócz tego ograniczenie poznania de empirii implikuje zamkniecie się na rzeczywistość pozazmysłową, duchową. Z nieuprawnionego metodologicznie przekonania, ze to co niepoznawalne zmysłami nie istnieje, rodzi się materializm. Konieczność dotyczy systemów formalnych, one jednak nie mają charakteru ontologicznego, nie mówią same z siebie niczego o rzeczywistości. Opierają się na konwencjach. To stanowi inne źródło relatywizmu. (shrink)

Summary In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Polish geoscientist, philosopher, and statesman Stanisław Staszic (1755–1826) conducted an extensive geological survey of Poland and adjacent areas. In 1815, he completed a book (in Polish), On the geology of the Carpathians and other mountains and lowlands of Poland, complemented by a well-made geological map of Central and Eastern Europe. Early in the nineteenth century, Staszic refined the idea of ‘geological mapping’, though initially he was interested in the exploration of (...) mineral deposits, rock salt, copper and iron ores, and coal. Unlike his predecessors, his book adopted a temporal subdivision of rocks, using a somewhat modified version of Abraham Gottlob Werner's system. He delineated the surface distribution of five rock units and coloured them onto his map. His work gave expression to his view of geological history, and brought the ‘Enlightenment Period’ of geology in Central and Eastern Europe to a close. (shrink)

Ancien etudiant de Brentano et de Zimmerman, Kazimierz Twardowski, apres son election a la chaire de philosophie a Lvov en 1895, crea autour de lui un cercle d'etudiants et de collaborateurs exceptionnel, connu aujourd'hui sous le nom d'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. A mi-chemin entre Vienne et Cambridge, c'est a Lvov, et puis partiellement a Varsovie, que Jan Lukasiewicz, Stanislaw Lesniewski, Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbinski et bien d'autres encore, repenserent dans un esprit d'analyse les questions fondamentales de la philosophie (...) du langage, de la logique, de la philosophie des sciences et des mathematiques. Plus qu'une simple traduction, ce livre est une version revisee de la monographie desormais classique que Jan Wolenski, connu pour ses travaux non seulement en histoire de la philosophie analytique, mais aussi en epistemologie et en theorie de la verite, a consacree a l'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. (shrink)

The paper examines the interplays between logic and politics in the Polish School of Logic starting from 1914. The Polish School of Logic flourished between 1920 and 1939. Philosophically, it was influenced by Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938). For Twardowski logic is fundamental for every kind of human activity, professional and private and this means that every argument should be formulated and proceed by correct inferential rules. These rules involve semiotics, formal logic and methodology of science. The paper shows how this position (...) was shared by Twardowski’s students, including Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and Tadeusz Kotrabiński, as well as by the next generation of logicians and philosophers and especially by Alfred Tarski. These authors considered logic, philosophy and science as completely neutral with respect to politics and ideology but they also considered logical skills as indispensable in political activities. (shrink)

The Polish School of Logic flourished in the period 1920-1939. Philosophically, it was influenced by Kazimierz Twardowski, professor at the University of Lwow (now Lviv in Ukraine), who established the Lwow-Warsaw School, to which the mentioned logical group belonged. Twardowski claimed that logic is very important in every kind of human activity, professional as well as private. Hence, every argument should be clearly formulated and proceed by correct inferential rules. These postulates involved semiotics, formal logic, and methodology of science — (...) that is, logica sensu largo. This position was accepted by Twardowski’s most distinguished students, such as Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, who graduated before 1914, as well as the next generation of logicians and philosophers, particularly by Alfred Tarski. Although all these people considered logic, philosophy, and science as completely neutral with respect to politics and ideology, they treated logical skills as indispensable in political activities. In philosophical specialized terminology, Polish logicians regarded logic as a weapon against irrationalism. This position was also represented by Polish logicians who did not belong to the group of Twardowski’s students. (shrink)

The paper discusses the impact of the thought of Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) on several Polish emigré writers, including Józef Czapski and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, but first of all Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) and Aleksander Wat (1900–1967). Miłosz’ approach oscillated between early fascination through an unjust rejection during the war, due to the “appropriation” of Brzozowski’s thought by the right wing publicists, to the new phase of fascination after the war, culminating in the publication of a book on Brzozowski ( A Man Among (...) Scorpions , 1962) and prolonged in several important articles till the very end of his life. Wat’s approach shifted from the communist practice of “overcoming” Brzozowski through the affirmation of his criticism and rejection of catholic obscurantism to the process of the internalization of the catholic faith. (shrink)

Stanislaw Lesniewski’s interests were, for the most part, more philosophical than mathematical. Prior to taking his doctorate at Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov, Lesniewski had spent time at several continental universities, apparently becoming relatively attached to the philosophy of one of his teachers, Hans Comelius, to the chapters of John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic that dealt specifically with semantics, and, in general, to studies of general grammar and philosophy of language. In these several early interests are already to (...) be found the roots of the work that was to occupy Lesniewski’s life: a search for a definitive doctrine of what sorts of things there are in the world, or better, of what language must be like if it is adequately and efficiently to represent the world. (shrink)

Jubilees induce one to reflect, to look back. It is a good opportunity to make some summaries, one ponders over the achievements of the past. It is also a good moment to express one's appreciation and gratitude. Such an expression of appreciation and a form of gratitude is the book Philosophy Leaning Towards Man, dedicated to Rev. Stanisław Kowalczyk, a professor of philosophy on the occasion of forty years of his scientific work at the Catholic University of Lublin and the (...) fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. This joint publication, dedicated to Prof. Kowalczyk and edited by Edward Balawajder, Arkadiusz Jabłoński and Jan Szymczyk, comprises numerous studies by his associates, colleagues and students. The whole work is thematically organized into three parts. The first part contains texts that raise anthropological issues, the second - social issues, and the third - issues concentrated around the relation between God and religion. This organization perfectly reflects the spectrum of the interests of Prof. Kowalczyk. (shrink)

English summary: Jan Lukasiewicz (1878-1956) was one of the most important members of the Lwow-Warsaw school of logic. The thirteen translated articles in this volume demonstrate the protean form of Lukasiewiczs work, from his texts on Aristotle and the principle of non-contradiction and syllogistics to modal logic, intuitionism, and multivalent logics. The articles show in particular his preoccupations with logical precision and the problem of human liberty. French description: Avec Kazimierz Twardowski, Stanislaw Lesniewski et Alfred Tarski, le logicien et (...) philosophe polonais Jan Lukasiewicz (1878-1956) est l'un des membres les plus importants de l'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. Celebre pour ses ouvrages consacres a Aristote, notamment sur le principe de non-contradiction et sur la syllogistique, il a egalement publie des articles majeurs sur la logique propositionnelle, la logique modale, l'intuitionnisme et les logiques multivalentes, dont il fut l'un des fondateurs. Enfin, il a contribue a faire reconnaitre l'importance des travaux en logique de l'ecole megarico-stoicienne, trop longtemps eclipses par ceux d'Aristote sur la syllogistique. Mais Lukasiewicz ne fut pas seulement un logicien et un historien brillant, il s'engagea aussi dans les polemiques philosophiques de son temps. Il defendit ainsi la methode logique en philosophie. Proche sur ce point des membres du Cercle de Vienne, il ne rejetait pas pour autant les questions metaphysiques, commecelle du determinisme qui l'occupa toute sa vie. Les treize articles de ce recueil, fruit d'un travail collectif de traduction, ont pour ambition de montrer le caractere proteiforme de l'oeuvre de Lukasiewicz, preoccupe autant par la precision logique que par le probleme de la liberte humaine. (shrink)

The article attempts to show the activity of Stanisław Fogelweder in the service of Queen Anne of Austria, the first wife of Sigismund III Vasa. The aim was to reconstruct the scope of his courtly duties and to present an assessments of his activities, which appear in the letters by the monarch herself, her mother Archduchess Maria Anna of Bavaria, and the courtiers of the queen, as well as in the accounts of foreign diplomats. The period of Fogelweder’s life in (...) which he fulfilled his duties as chancellor and secretary to the Habsburgs is among the least discussed phases of his court and diplomatic career in the literature. The scant interest in this period of Fogelweder’s life may be surprising given the surviving source material. His position at the courts of Sigismund III and Anne of Austria can be reconstructed on the basis of his correspondence – especially his letters to Maria Anna of Bavaria and Jan Zamoyski. In the light of these sources, Fogelweder’s duties, apart from typical chancellery work, included attending audiences and delivering speeches on behalf of the queen, accompanying the monarch on her travels, obtaining and transmitting information, on top of acting as an intermediary in establishing the young monarch’s relations with members of the ruling elite, especially Jan Zamoyski. The commencement of his service at the court of Anne of Austria did not end his activities as a royal secretary or interrupt his relationship with Anne Jagiellon and the court of the queen dowager. This is evidenced by entries in the Crown Metric and information contained in royal accounts. Lasting uninterruptedly for four decades, Fogelweder’s court service was based on loyalty and total devotion to the ruling dynasty. He was usually assessed positively. The queen’s confessor Sigismund Ernhofer characterized him as a good man and an extremely hardworking courtier. Archduchess Maria called him a faithful old servant. Georg Schiechel, the queen’s valet, jealous of Fogelweder’s influence, emphasized the importance of his friendship with Zamoyski. Sometimes, however, his close relationship with the monarchical couple had to be the subject of criticism, painful and incomprehensible to Fogelweder. (shrink)

This is a companion article to the translation of ‘Zasada sprzeczności a logika symboliczna’, the appendix on symbolic logic of Jan Łukasiewicz's 1910 book O zasadzie sprzeczności u Arytotelesa (On the Principle of Contradiction in Aristotle). While the appendix closely follows Couturat's 1905 book L'algebra de la logique (The Algebra of Logic), footnotes show that Łukasiewicz was aware of the work of Peirce, Huntington and Russell (before Principia Mathematica). This appendix was influential in the development of the Polish school of (...) logic, directly inspiring Stanisław Leśniewski and Leon Chwistek and more widely by serving as a text of the new symbolic logic. This appendix was an important source of the dominant algebraic logic in Poland, but also indicates that Łukasiewicz appreciated Russell's axiomatic approach to logic. (shrink)

Since Kazimierz Twardowski introduced the notions of “symbolomania” and “pragmatophobia,” the relationship between logic and reality was the focus of the philosophers from the Lvov-Warsaw School — inter alia two prominent logicians of the group, Stanisław Leśniewski and Jan Łukasiewicz. Bolesław Sobociński has pointed out, however, that there was a contrast between their approach to logic and reality. Despite being members of the same philosophical group and even colleagues from the same department, their philosophical views on the position of logic (...) in reality differed considerably. Yet they both agreed that reality has a certain importance for logic and that logic could be valuable for reality. The aim of this paper is to introduce their divergent positions and describe in more detail how Leśniewski and Łukasiewicz understood the relationship between logic and the real world. (shrink)

Jan Franciszek Drewnowski był filozofem zaliczanym do środowiska szkoły lwowsko-warszawskiej, współtwórcą koła krakowskiego, oficerem wojska polskiego, pracownikiem wydawnictw technicznych. Drewnowski doktoryzował się u T. Kotarbińskiego, jego niedoścignionym mistrzem był Stanisław Leśniewski. Był jednym z pierwszych słuchaczy akademickich wykładów Leśniewskiego. Studiował na Wydziale Filozoficznym Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: matematykę, logikę matematyczną i – jak to wtedy nazywano – filozofię naukową. Tam właśnie spotkał ks. Jana Salamuchę, który zaimponował Drewnowskiemu naukową erudycją, a intelektualną uczciwością skierował go od ateizmu ku katolickiej mistyce. W ten sposób (...) Drewnowski wpisał się w grono intelektualnych konwertytów XX wieku, co ma znaczenie także dla jego dorobku. (shrink)

stanislaw lesniewski, Collected Works, Edited by Stanislaw J. Surma, Jan T. Srzednicki and D. I. Barnett, with an annotated bibliography by V. Frederick Rickey. Warsaw:PWN?Polish Scientific Publishers; and Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer. 2 vols., xvi + 794 pp. $274/£163/Dfl. 480.

Leśniewski: Logic Stanisław Leśniewski (1886-1939) was a Polish logician and philosopher, co-founder with his colleague Jan Łukasiewicz of one of the most active logic centers of the twentieth century: the Warsaw School of Logic. As an alternative to Whitehead’s and Russell’s Principia Mathematica, he developed his own program for the foundations of mathematics on the … Continue reading Lesniewski: Logic →.

Leśniewski: Logic Stanisław Leśniewski (1886-1939) was a Polish logician and philosopher, co-founder with his colleague Jan Łukasiewicz of one of the most active logic centers of the twentieth century: the Warsaw School of Logic. As an alternative to Whitehead’s and Russell’s Principia Mathematica, he developed his own program for the foundations of mathematics on the … Continue reading Lesniewski: Logic →.

Sixty years that have passed since the Warsaw Uprising are meaningful on the life scale of human generations. The Uprising, planned for 2 or 3 days, lasted in fact for 63 days. That fact astounded the military experts and was even noticed by the German high command, which has to be mainly ascribed to the exceptional tension of patriotism of the soldiers and the population.The Germans suffered especially great losses on the average around 1,900 weekly, almost twice as many as (...) during the highest intensity of fighting in 1944/45. On our side the losses were estimated at 18,000 dead and about 6,500–7,000 wounded insurgents. However, the Warsaw Uprising and the whole nation counted around 150,000 dead among the civilians.During the two months of the uprising 25% of the pre-war buildings in Warsaw were destroyed, mainly due to the barbarian practice of burning the whole streets. Against the conditions of the capitulation agreement just signed, the majority of historical monuments were burned down.In Warsaw, the tradition of sacrifices and solidarity in action, bravery and the deep attachment to liberty, manifested in September 1939, was alive and brought results all the time of war through the acts of the patriotic resistance organizations. The leaders of the Warsaw Uprising belonged to the resistance fighters before World War I and during it. The battle for independence was their curriculum vitae, and the majority of the uprising participants, the youth, was educated in the independent Polish Republic, in respect for patriotic traditions of independence fights and insurrections.Jerzy Kirchmajer believes that the Warsaw Uprising was an error, as it did not suit the Soviets; Jan Ciechanowski from London—that it was against the plans of the British ally. It is said sometimes that the Uprising started without calculating the possibility of a helping hand.Faith played a major role during the Uprising. The clergy helped the community every way they could. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es refutar las objeciones de Marc Ramsey a los principios de educación cívica del liberalismo político. Argumento que Ramsey malinterpreta la distinción entre la esfera pública y la esfera privada que emana del liberalismo político, y que su opinión de que, cuando es escrutado, el liberalismo político deriva en un liberalismo comprehensivo o de la «autonomía» carece de fundamento. La relevancia del tema es que la educación de acuerdo con el liberalismo político es más tolerante (...) que la educación conforme al liberalismo comprehensivo. Aquellos padres razonablemente religiosos que no son liberales podrán aceptar un liberalismo político, pero no uno comprehensivo. (shrink)

In March 1930, Alfred Tarski visited Vienna and delivered few lectures which presented the achievements of the logical branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School. Rudolf Carnap was one of the most careful listeners of these lectures. The same year, in November, Carnap, invited by the Warsaw Philosophical Society, visited Warsaw where he gave three lectures. This was an opportunity for him to meet such members the Lvov-Warsaw School as Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, and others. Many years later, Carnap reminisced (...) that he left Warsaw “grateful for many stimulating suggestions and the fruitful exchange of ideas”.In the paper, I reconstruct the details of Carnap’s visit in Warsaw based on Carnap’s diaries, reports published in the Polish Journal Ruch Filozoficzny [Philosophical Movement] and some correspondence. I also discuss some problems presented by Carnap in Warsaw lectures and compare his views to the positons of members of the Lvov-Warsaw School. These problems are: the foundations of psychology, the status of metaphysical sentences, and the character of reasoning. (shrink)

This paper explores the distinction between perceiving an object as extended in time, and experiencing a sequence of perceptions. I argue that this distinction cannot be adequately described by any present theory of time-consciousness and that in order to solve the puzzle, we need to consider perceptual content as having three distinct constituents: Explicit content, which has a particular phenomenal character, modal content, or the kind of content that is contributed by the psychological mode, and implicit content, which lacks phenomenal (...) character. These notions are then further clarified and related to each other. (shrink)

In the debate about actions in virtual environments two interdependent types of question have been pondered: What is a person doing who acts in a virtual environment? Second, can virtual actions be evaluated morally? These questions have been discussed using examples from morally dubious computer games, which seem to revel in atrocities. The examples were introduced using the terminology of “virtual murder” “virtual rape” and “virtual pedophilia”. The terminological choice had a lasting impact on the debate, on the way action (...) types are assigned and on how moral evaluation is supposed to be conducted. However, this terminology and its theoretical consequences, while sometimes resulting in correct results, lead to absurd results when applied across the board. It will be suggested that these absurd consequences can be avoided by a different answer to the question what people in virtual worlds are doing. Alleged virtual actions are first and foremost the creation and modification of data-structures and the resulting output in computer hardware. Such modifications of data structure and imagery can be performed with different intentions, purposes and styles, which will influence the type and moral evaluation of a user’s actions. This reinterpretation allows for a more complex analysis of the moral reasons for praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of actions in virtual environments. This analysis takes not just harm and effects on character into account but the peculiar ways in which speech acts can be morally wrong: e.g. agitatory, deceptive, bullshitting. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Odysseus-Verfügung ist als besondere Form der Patientenverfügung zumindest in der Literatur hinlänglich bekannt. Die Verwendung des Begriffs und damit sein Gegenstandsbereich sind hingegen noch immer umstritten. Zudem wird oft nicht beachtet, dass es innerhalb dieses Gegenstandsbereichs Varianten von OVs zu differenzieren gilt, die sich auch in ihrer moralischen Rechtfertigung unterscheiden. Nicht zuletzt ist die Grundstrukturstruktur dieser Rechtfertigung umstritten. Vor diesem Hintergrund plädieren wir im Folgenden zunächst für eine Eingrenzung des Begriffs, mit der argumentative und klinisch-praktische Verwirrungen vermieden werden können. (...) Anschließend betrachten wir zwei Varianten von – Zwang legitimierenden – OVs, die sich in der individuellen Kompetenz des Destinatärs unterscheiden. Schließlich zeigen wir, dass deren Rechtfertigung ungeachtet des Umstandes, dass OVs auf Wiedererlangung der Urteils- und Steuerungsfähigkeit des Patienten angelegt sind, weder in einer gemutmaßten noch gar in einer faktischen retrospektiven Billigung von Zwang durch den Patienten liegt. Die primäre Legitimationsgrundlage von OVs besteht vielmehr in der ex ante erfolgenden Autorisierung durch den Betroffenen selbst. Die hier einzuräumende Autorität wiederum basiert auf dem Recht jeder Person auf lebensplanerische Selbstbestimmung. In einem kurzen abschließenden Teil skizzieren wir dann noch die besondere Bedeutung der Odysseus-Vereinbarung als einer Unterform der OV. (shrink)

Francois Recanati has recently argued that each perceptual state has two distinct kinds of content, complete and explicit content. According to Recanati, the former is a function of the latter and the psychological mode of perception. Furthermore, he has argued that explicit content is temporally neutral and that time-consciousness is a feature of psychological mode. In this paper it is argued, pace Recanati, that explicit content is not temporally neutral. Recanati’s position is initially presented. Three desiderata for a theory of (...) time-consciousness are subsequently introduced. It is then argued that a theory locating time-consciousness as a feature of psychological mode will fail to satisfy these desiderata. In the last section the intentionality of memories is discussed. Using the notion of shiftable indexical, it is argued that memories have the same explicit content as perceptions, but that they nevertheless can have different conditions of satisfaction since they are entertained in different modes. (shrink)

This paper develops elements of a phenomenological account of how interpersonal care contributes to the structure of intentionality. It does so by reflecting on a first-person account of parental grief by the poet and thinker Denise Riley. Her autobiographical notes on the aftermath of the death of her adult son revolve around a marked experience of altered temporal flow. By relating what she considers to be an almost unspeakable alteration in her experience of time, Riley unearths a level of nuanced (...) phenomenological reflection that can inform philosophical studies of lived time and intentionality. The paper will build on Riley's observations on altered temporal experience in grief to explore the entanglement of temporality and intersubjectivity in the constitution of intentionality. By doing so, the paper demonstrates that and how a phenomenological study of grief can directly speak to key concerns of the philosophy of mind and of interdisciplinary consciousness studies. (shrink)

Is the history of philosophy one of philosophical disciplines? Should not one give up pursuing the traditional history of philosophy on behalf of the history of philosophical culture as a historical discipline? Considerable divergences in defining the history of philosophy and its relation to philosophy and history show profound differences in the views on philosophy itself. The differences are an essential part of the history of philosophy. This paper does not intend to give a critical assessment of all positions that (...) concern the relationship between the history of philosophy and philosophy. We shall address the issue of consequences of historicism that bear on the history of philosophy. The main negative point of reference will R. Rorty\'s standpoint, which is representative of the radical version of historicism. The American neo-pragmatist\'s manners of pursuing philosophy and the relations between them will be submitted to criticism. In the perspective of radical historicism (historical and cultural relativism) the inquiries on the history of philosophy have no strictly philosophical importance. They may be cognitively interesting only from the historical point of view, for the history of culture, to be precise. Moderate historicism does not mean acceptance for the relativistic theory of truth. It makes us reconsider the issue of the difference between true knowledge and adequate knowledge, the difference well-known in tradition. Overcoming radical historicism prepares grounds for the pursuit of the history of philosophy as a philosophical discipline, the discipline that studies the history of philosophical problems in their variability and permanence. (shrink)

Complex vocal learning, the capacity to imitate new sounds, underpins the evolution of animal vocal cultures and song dialects and is a key prerequisite for human speech and song. Due to its relevance for the understanding of cultural evolution and the biology and evolution of language and music, the trait has gained much scholarly attention. However, while we have seen tremendous progress with respect to our understanding of its morphological, neurological and genetic aspects, its peculiar phylogenetic distribution has remained elusive. (...) Intriguingly, animals as distinct as hummingbirds and humpback whales share well-developed vocal learning capacity in common with humans, while this ability is quite limited in nonhuman primates. Yet, solving this ‘vocal learning conundrum’ may shed light on the constraints ancestral humans overcame to unleash their vocal capacities. To this end I consider major constraints and functions that have been proposed. I highlight an especially promising ecological constraint, namely the spatial dimensionality of the environment. Based on an informal comparative review, I suggest that complex vocal learning is associated with three-dimensional habitats such as air and water. I argue that this is consistent with recent theoretical advances—i.e., the coercion-avoidance and dimensionality hypotheses—and with the long-standing hypothesis that mate choice is a major driver of the evolution and origin of complex vocal learning. However, I stress that multiple functions may apply and that quantitative phylogenetic comparative methods should be employed to finally resolve the issue. (shrink)