In this study of Robert Boyle's epistemology, Jan W. Wojcik reveals the theological context within which Boyle developed his views on reason's limits. After arguing that a correct interpretation of his views on 'things above reason' depends upon reading his works in the context of theological controversies in seventeenth-century England, Professor Wojcik details exactly how Boyle's three specific categories of things which transcend reason - the incomprehensible, the inexplicable, and the unsociable - affected his conception of what a natural philosopher (...) could hope to know. Also covered in detail is Boyle's belief that God had deliberately limited the human intellect in order to reserve a full knowledge of both theology and natural philosophy for the afterlife. (shrink)

Interpretation in science has gained little attention in the past because philosophers of science believed that interpretation belongs to the context of discovery or must be associated with meaning. But scientists often speak about interpretation when they report their findings. Elsewhere I have argue in favour of a pragmatic-rhetorical theory of explanation, and it is in light of this theory that I suggest we can understand interpretation in the natural sciences.

Non-invasive brain stimulation promises innovative experimental possibilities for psychology and neurosci- ence as well as new therapeutic and palliative measures in medicine. Because of its good risk–benefit ratio, non-invasiveness and reversibility as well as its low effort and cost it has good chances of becoming a wide- spread tool in science, medicine and even in lay use. While most issues in medical and research ethics such as informed consent, safety, and potential for misuse can be handled with manageable effort, the (...) real promise of brain stimulation does raise one prominent moral worry: it may lay the foundation of reliable, precise and stable manipulations of the mind. This article addresses this worry and concludes that it is not the possibility of manipulation, but the shift in our understanding of our mind which stands in need of careful consideration. (shrink)

The essays both represent a variety of epistemological approaches, including those of the humanities, social studies, natural science, sociology, psychology, and engineering sciences and reflect a diversity of philosophical traditions such ...

The volume advances research in the philosophy of technology by introducing contributors who have an acute sense of how to get beyond or reframe the epistemic, ontological and normative limitations that currently limit the fields of philosophy of technology and science and technology studies.

The term ontology of cognition is introduced to promote a neo-Kantian approach to epistemological questions. Following the discussion of some aspects of philosophy of cognitive subject authors claim that the most appropriate approach requires turning attention to a whole human species as a governed by the evolution rules collective, cognitive subject rather than individual one.

The paper consists of two parts. The first contains the paradox of Truth-teller, i.e. a sentence which asserts own truth. The paradox appears when we apply logic of rejection to the Truth-teller sentence. The Truth-teller paradox is symmetric with respect to the Liar paradox. The second part considers a sentence which asserts own provability. This sentence is unprovable on the base of rejection logic. This leads to counterparts of the Gödel incompleteness theorems and other metamathematical results.

Bernard Bolzano was born in Prague in 1781 and died in 1848 in the same city1. His major work Wissenschaftslehre was published in 1837 in Sulzbach, Germany.Since the publication of Jan Berg’s Bolza...

L’inquiétude de la totalité de la vie, qui s’éveille chez certains esprits, les amène à créer des représentations canoniques, types de vie stylisée et unifiée. Les philosophes sont des créateurs de « canons » de vie philosophique ; mais on peut se demander s’il est possible de dresser un tableau idéal du philosophe qui pourrait lui servir en même temps de norme et de critère. Non, car la vie philosophique est un mouvement, un « acte imparfait » dont la fin (...) nous échappe ; nous la poursuivons par des voies profondément personnelles ; c’est pourquoi on ne saurait « canoniser » un philosophe. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it explores the extent to which diversity of connectivity or the connection through multiple internet access points may facilitate online privacy behavior. Second, it explains the diversity of connectivity-online privacy behavior link in terms of information literacy. Design/methodology/approach Situated in the context of urban poor youth in the Philippines, this paper used a quantitative approach, specifically an interview-administered survey technique. Respondents were from three cities in Metro Manila. To test for indirect (...) relationship, survey data were analyzed using bootstrapping technique via SPSS macro PROCESS. Findings Urban poor youth with diversified connection to the internet engaged in online privacy behavior. The more the youth are connected to the internet through diverse modalities, the more this fosters cautious online privacy behavior. In addition, information literacy explained how diversity of connectivity facilitated online privacy behavior. It suggests that differences in online privacy behavior may result from the extent of basic know-how of navigating online information. In the context of the urban poor in the Global South, the youth are constantly negotiating ways to not only connect to the internet but also acquire digital skills necessary for protective online behaviors. Originality/value To date, this is one of the few papers to contribute to conversations about online privacy among youth in the Global South. It broadens the literature on social determinants of online privacy behavior that is crucial for designing policy interventions for those in the margins. (shrink)

Rassemblant douze textes rédigés entre 1934 et 1976, ce recueil remet les Essais hérétiques en perspective en permettant de saisir quelques-unes des principales lignes de force qui font l'unité intime de l'œuvre de Patocka et communiquent à sa pensée la tonalité et la tension éthiques qui lui donnent son éclat particulier à l'intérieur du mouvement phénoménologique. Ligne de force de la liberté en tant qu'expérience fondamentale de l'être historique qu'est l'homme, transcendance qui, dans sa négativité, rejoint le " pas en (...) arrière " des analyses phénoménologiques. Ligne, négative là encore, de la problématisation socratique. Ligne du destin qui s'ensuit et qui, incarnation exemplaire du conflit de la philosophie avec le monde comme il va, renvoie en direction du " sacrifice radical " à travers lequel la liberté, reniée à force de trop se revendiquer, refait signe à l'époque moderne, poussant Patocka, dans un regard qui embrasse toute l'étendue de l'histoire spirituelle de l'Europe, à considérer le Gestell heideggérien à travers le prisme du polemos dont parlait Héraclite. Écrits " polémiques " donc et " pathétiques ", autant que " politiques ", qui nous parlent de l'humanisme, de la modernité et de ce qui ne prétend pas " sauver ", mais qui résiste dans l'expérience philosophique vécue en tant que " soin de l'âme " - à la fois ébranlement radical et mode fondamental de la responsabilité vis-à-vis d'un sens à jamais problématique. (shrink)

Artykuł jest efektem krytycznej analizy rozważań Francisco Suareza nt. aktów ludzkich i ich współdziałania w procesie stanowienia prawa. Celem jest uporządkowanie, rozproszonych w różnych dziełach, rozważań jezuity. Tekst inspirowany był brakiem opracowań specjalistycznych w polskojęzycznej literaturze naukowej. Badania prowadzone były na tekstach źródłowych Hiszpana: De legibus ac Deo legislatore, De anima oraz De voluntario et involuntario in genere, deque actibus voluntariis in speciali. Suarez, jako jeden z najwybitniejszych filozofów renesansowych, wywarł olbrzymi wpływ na rozwój etyki i jurysprudencji. Sam temat jest (...) ciekawy i wymagający. Wymaga m.in. zrozumienia zasad i form działania głównych władz człowieka — intelektu i woli. Na kartach De Legibus jezuita rozpatruje czynność stanowienia prawa jako złożony akt ludzki prawodawcy. Hiszpan wyróżnia łącznie 6 aktów intelektu i woli, w następstwie których może powstać prawo oraz wiele aktów pośrednich, które mają wpływ na proces. Zdaniem filozofa tworzenie prawa dokonuje się poprzez wzajemne oddziaływanie na siebie aktów intelektu, który kieruje środki do celu, oraz woli, dążącej ku temu celowi zgodnie z kierownictwem intelektu. (shrink)

This contribution deals with the consequences of European integration for the relation between civil servants and policians. Data of Belgian senior servants who are not involved in European policy networks are compared with data of Belgian officals who are in charge of European negotiations.This comparison shows firstly that officials are more central in European policy networks than in national policy networks. Politicians have only a limited and indirect access to these European networks. Secondly, the more civil servants are involved in (...) these European policy networks, the less their political alienation. Furthermore, the organisational self-esteem do not affect the communication networks among civil servants and politicians. Finally, alienation and self-esteem do not affect the communication networks among civil servants and politicians. The exposure to politics and anciennity seem to be more important predictors. (shrink)

The first order modal logic of closure spaces belongs to the class of equationally definable standard modal logics . One can say, it satisfies no version of the deduction lemma. Nevertheless the Robinson and Beth theorems can be proved by means of an interpretation of modal theories in classical ones. LCS is described in [1], [2], [3], [4]. The logics obtained by adjoining axioms of quasi-equality or of equality to LCS are denoted by LCSQE and LCSE.

The topic of the article is the distinction between descriptions of facts and their evaluation. This distinction is of interest to both in philosophy and in the theory of journalism. The article considers one of the assumptions supporting the view that journalists should clearly separate descriptions of facts from their assessment - the assumption that descriptions of facts can be separated from their evaluation. I present various interpretations of this assumption. I point out the existence of a relationship between the (...) thesis of the possibility of separating descriptions from assessments and the belief that descriptions of facts are by their very nature objective, while assessments or valuations are subjective, and then I proceed to criticize the latter conviction. These arguments are not intended to undermine the distinction between descriptions of facts and their evaluation. What I am trying to undermine are the metaphysical justifications and interpretations of this distinction. (shrink)

When Robert Boyle returned from his studies abroad in 1644, he found an England splintered into religious sects, each claiming to have attained a uniquely true understanding of the Christian religion. While trying to formulate an appropriate response to these various claims to truth, Boyle first expressed his views on the limits of human understanding. ;The members of one of these sects, the Socinians, claimed, specifically, that human reason is the criterion against which alternative and conflicting interpretations of disputed scriptural (...) passages should be judged. During the 1650s, 1660s, and 1670s, arguments for the limits of human understanding evolved from being used to oppose Socinianism to being used to protect the mysteries of strict Calvinism from the rational scrutiny of its Anglican opponents. ;In 1681 Boyle developed and published his own arguments for the limits of human understanding, not in order to protect the mysteries of strict Calvinism from rational scrutiny, but instead to show that one cannot legitimately claim both that the mysteries of Christianity are "above reason" and that one has reached a uniquely correct understanding of those views. ;In "Robert Boyle and the Limits of Reason: A Study in the Relationship between Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England," I show that there is a close parallel between Boyle's views on the limits of human understanding in the context of theology and his views on the limits of understanding in the context of natural philosophy, and argue that Boyle's views on reason's limits affected his conception of the proper goals and methodology of the new natural philosophy. Further, I argue that Boyle's views on the limits of human understanding in the context of theology were logically prior to his views on reason's limits in the context of natural philosophy. Boyle believed that God, in creating human beings, deliberately limited reason's power and extent; it is this starting-point from which Boyle's arguments concerning the limits of reason's competence flow. (shrink)

In recent years, it has become clear that Proclus has an elaborate metaphysics, not only of the higher realm, but also of the natural world. This chapter first delimits its topic by explaining what physics or philosophy of nature is in Proclus’ view: the hypothetical study of all causes, but especially the transcendent causes of the natural world. After briefly addressing the question whether the world is eternal, the author moves on to presenting these causes in due order: first the (...) many demiurges and other productive causes, the different products of the different demiurgies, the plurality of paradigmatic causes, nature as the proximate cause of bodies, and finally the ontology of bodies, as hylomorphic entities, analysable into immanent forms and different levels of substrate or matter. (shrink)