Stanisław Kamiński (1919-1986) was a philosopher, philosopher of science and historian of science. He defended in 1949 at the Catholic University in Lublin (KUL) his PhD thesis on Frege's axiomatic system of the sentence logic in the light of the contemporary methodology of deductive science. Since 1957 he was the head of the Chair of Methodology (the first one in Poland, founded in 1952 by J. Iwanicki) at the KUL, since 1965 the associate and since 1970 the full professor (...) of KUL. He was for many years the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy KUL where he developed the methodological foundations of the »Lublin-school of philosophy«. The main interests of S. Kamiński (1919-1986) was history of science and logic, general and special methodology, methodology of philosophy and (medieval) semiotics. Himself he saw his main achievements in the domain of the theory of science and the methodology of classical philosophy, especially in the studies of the method and language of metaphysics; he gave a methodological description of general metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history and studies on religion (religiology); he investigated the beginnings of the mathematical induction in the Middle Ages and in modern times, modern history of the theory of definition (Th. Hobbes, B. Pascal, J. Locke, E. B. de Condillac, J. D. Gergonne), the theory of argumentation (reasoning), the structure and the evolution of scientific theory, the deductive method (B. Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, G. Frege), the achievements of logic and philosophy in Poland. A characteristic feature of S. Kamiński's philosophical and methodological approach was a specific historicism, consisting of referring to the heritage of the past and at the same time to the latest achievements in logic and philosophy of science. He looked to history for inspiration, for how to solve his own problems and for a partial confirmation of legitimacy of his answers. He also used history to better understand the context of the discussed problems. His methodological interests are characterized by a philosophical and historical approach. He had a broad concept of knowledge and was maximalist both in raising questions and in giving answers. He cultivated the ideal of rational knowledge. In accordance with classical philosophy he saw the substance of person as ens rationale, a being realizing himself in a disinterested search for a theoretical truth, whose highest expression is philosophy. He stressed the epistemological and methodological plurality of knowledge and distinguished (with Kant) a material and formal part of knowledge, assuming that the formal element manifests itself as the logical form in the formal procedures of the (scientific) cognitive processes, that is in the (scientific) method and the (scientific) language. Making many attempts at a methodological characterization of different types of cognition and knowledge he distinguished – besides commonsense knowledge that lies at the bottom of any other type of knowledge – the scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge. None of them can be reduced to other type of knowledge, because each of them has its own problems, goals and methods. At the top there is a kind of sapiential knowledge which is much more than a simple generalization of all particular kinds of knowledge. S. Kamiński indebted his understanding of science to contemporary philosophy and to the classical philosophy. The nature of science was determined by him from the point view of its subject matter, aims, methods, logical structure and genesis. The question of what science is concerned with, i.e. what is its subject matter, is a philosophical question, it presupposes an appropriate understanding of the nature of the world. S. Kamiński opted for a pluralistic approach to the world: the principal object of science is the objective world but so are subjective states of man and products of his mind and his language. The best diagnostic test of the scientific character of science is the scientific method. Also here – rejecting the scientism (i.e. the view, that the scientific method and knowledge is the pattern and the measure of each knowledge) – S. Kamiński takes a pluralistic attitude. Accepting that the scientific method is not simple, that there is not one uncomplicated ideal way of doing science, and that because of the multiplicity of questions and scientific aims it would be difficult to construct one universal scientific method as a uniform set of rules for every kind of science, S. Kamiński assumes that different subject matter and different goals of scientific cognition require different research strategies and types of cognitive procedures. One manifestation of S. Kamiński's methodological pluralism is his antinaturalistic position in the theory of the humanities where he supported the thesis of their methodological autonomy with regard to natural sciences. Closer to the philosophical cognition and knowledge, the humanities do not meet and can not meet the conditions imposed upon the natural sciences, as they differ from them in subject matter (the world of culture) and hence in method (understanding, interpretation) used. The publications of S. Kamiński include over 350 positions. During his life he published three books: Georgonne'a teoria definicji [Georgonne's Theory of Definition], Lublin 1958; Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], Lublin 1961, 19813; and [together with M. A. Krąpiec] Z teorii i metodologii metafizyki [On the Theory and Methodology of Metaphysics], Lublin 1962. After his death five volumes of Collected Papers have been published: vol. I: Jak filozofować? [How to Philosophize? Studies in Methodology of Classical Philosophy], edited by Tadeusz Szubka, Lublin 1989; vol. II: Filozofia i metoda. Studia z dziejów metod filozofowania [Philosophy and Method. Studies from the History of the Method of Philosophizing], edited by Józef Herbut, Lublin 1993; vol. III: Metoda i język. Studia z semiotyki i metodologii nauk [Method and Language. Studies in Semiotics and Philosophy of Science], edited by Urszula Żegleń, Lublin 1994; vol. IV: Nauka i metoda. Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Science and Method. Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], edited by Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1992); vol. V: Światopogląd - Religia - Teologia [Worldview - Religion - Theology], edited by Monika Walczak and Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1998. (shrink)

Where you have freedom, the meaning of the word increases, where the word is meaningful, you presuppose freedom." Józef Tischner.

Excerpt from A History of Formal Logic In this edition of the most considerable history Of formal logic yet published, the Opportunity has Of course been taken to make some adjustments seen to be necessary in the original, with the author's full concurrence. Only in 36, however, has the numeration of cited passages been altered owing to the introduction of new matter. Those changes are as follows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. (...) Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

After the unexpected death of Professor Józef Kałuża at the age of 74 on the 26th of July 2003, not only Polish neuropathology but also Polish philosophy of medical investigations lost one of its most renowned minds. Beginning in 1949, Professor Kałuża studied medical sciences for five years at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. He did his Ph.D. thesis in neuropathology in the Department of Neuropathology of the Polish Academy of Science. In 1962 he received a (...) Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent one year at the National Institutes of Health. In 1981 Professor Kaluza was promoted to a tenured professorship in neuropathology. He is the author of more than 110 articles published in medical periodicals and coauthor of many chapters in medical handbooks. (shrink)

Professor Bochenski, as he himself points out in the prologue, is a logician; he is best known in England and the United States for his work in the history of logic, and more recently in Soviet and East European philosophy. But he has taught philosophy for many years - in Rome, in Switzerland, and on a number of visits to the United States - and in this book provides an elementary introduction to contemporary work in the field. As a means (...) to this end he has chosen to deal with four alternative methods employed by philosophers in the twentieth century. Philosophical methodology has not attracted much attention, in English speaking circles, as a distinct branch of the discipline of philosophy; the term "methodologist", if used at all, would ordinarily be taken to refer to somebody concerned with scientific rather than philosophical method. When, therefore, Professor Bochenski refers, as he frequently does, to "contemporary methodologists", meaning people who debate the re spective merits of phenomenology and mathematical logic as ways of approaching the world, the phrase has an odd ring. But philosophical methodology really makes a great deal more sense than scientific method ology. In science methodology is almost superfluous; given all the avail able information and a reasonably clear idea of what is wanted, there is usually not much ambiguity as to the means of getting it, or not much that could be resolved by mere argument. (shrink)

The author argues that the moral of the Frankfurt stories is this: if causal determinism rules out moral responsibility, it is not in virtue of eliminating alternative possibilities, and replies the most important challenge to this claim, namely an argument called “The Dilemma Defense.”.

The author presents a model of moral responsibility based on the actual sequence and the notion of reason-responsiveness, and draws an analogy between this model and Robert Nozick’s model of knowledge based on the actual sequence. In addition, the concept of semicompatibilism is introduced and explained.

The essay critically examines the main claim of the book Religia jako idolatria [Religion as Idolatry] by Ireneusz Ziemiński, according to which religion is necessarily idolatry. The author argues that the thesis is insufficiently justified and points out several topic that require further discussion.

The Struggle for Nature outlines and examines the main aspects of current environmental philosophy including deep ecology, social and political ecology, eco-feminism and eco-anarchism. It criticizes the dependency on science of these philosophies and the social problems engendered by them. Jozef Keulartz argues for a post-naturalistic turn in environmental philosophy. The Struggle for Nature presents the most up-to-date arguments in environmental philosophy, which will be valuable reading for anyone interested in applied philosophy, environmental studies or geography.

In several recent publications, John Martin Fischer proposed a new solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge, which he dubbed the bootstrapping view. On this view, God can have limited knowledge of contingent future based on a combination of (a) God's knowledge of inconclusive evidence about the contingent world available to humans and (b) divine self‐knowledge and more specifically God's knowledge of His essential infallibility. On the basis of the former, God obtains knowledge about contingent future, and by virtue of (...) the latter, God bootstraps this knowledge to certainty. Fischer acknowledges that the mechanism of bootstrapping remains opaque to us, but maintains that his view offers a consistent model of God's limited foreknowledge of contingent future in an indeterministic world. The essay examines the bootstrapping view and some problems it gives rise to, as well as presents a related model of divine foreknowledge that is consistent and simpler and gives God comprehensive foreknowledge. (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtue of character is a state of the non-rational part of the soul that makes one prone to making and acting on decisions in virtue of that part’s standing in the right relation to (correct) reason, namely, a relation that qualifies the agent as a true self-lover. In effect, this central feature of virtue of character is nothing else than love of practical wisdom. As I argue, it not only explains how reason can hold direct (...) authority over non-rational desires but also why Aristotle defines virtue of character as hexis prohairetikē. (shrink)

Relatywizm we współczesnej filozofii analitycznej, rozwijany intensywnie w ostatnich dwóch dekadach, ma ostrożny i techniczny charakter. Jest próbą pokazania, że w odpowiednio ograniczonej i skromnej postaci będzie można za jego pomocą opisać i wyjaśnić zagadkowe cechy naszego dyskursu w pewnych dziedzinach, dotyczących na przykład smaków, epistemicznych możliwości oraz sądów o przygodnej przyszłości. W artykule szczegółowo przedstawiamy kluczowe idee jednej z takich prób, której autorem jest amerykański filozof John MacFarlane i staramy się pokazać jej zalety, zwłaszcza w zestawieniu z kontekstualizmem. W (...) końcowej części zwracamy uwagę, inspirując się analizami Crispina Wrighta, na ogólne trudności tego stanowiska. Polegają one na problematyczności przejścia od opisowych ustaleń semantycznych do normatywnych koncepcji metafizycznych dotyczących realizmu i obiektywności, co jest częściowo konsekwencją znanego znanej z filozofii nauki idei, że zebrane dane nie determinują jednoznacznie wyboru teorii wyjaśniającej, a w związku z tym nigdy nie mamy do czynienia z jednym najlepszym wyjaśnieniem, lecz z co najmniej kilkoma dobrymi wyjaśnieniami. Jest to doskonale widoczne w wypadku zdań o przygodnej przyszłości, które nie muszą być interpretowane w duchu prawdy zależnej od kontekstu szacowania, lecz równie dobrze mogą być potraktowane jako przejaw dynamicznej metafizyki stawania się. (shrink)

The essay discusses the defense of religious tolerance presented in Johann Crell’s treatise On Freedom of Conscience, pointing to the tension between Christian exclusivism on the one hand and religious practicalism and rationalism on the other inherent in Crell’s views. This tension can be resolved by adopting theistic minimalism or extreme practicalism.

I argue that on Aristotle’s account practical thinking is thinking whose origin (archē) is a desire that has as its object the very thing that one reasons about how to promote. This feature distinguishes practical from productive reasoning since in the latter the desire that initiates it is not (unless incidentally) a desire for the object that one productively reasons about. The feature has several interesting consequences: (a) there is only a contingent relationship between the desire that one practically reasons (...) about how to satisfy and the action one decides on; (b) practical thinking and action cannot be separated from the agent, whereas productive thinking and production can be outsourced to someone else. The view has consequences also for the distinction between action and production. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness and correctness of my account of practical thinking by using it to shed new light on Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous agent must decide on her virtuous actions ‘for themselves’. (shrink)

For my part I seek the metaphilosophical in universalism in the interdisciplinariness concept typical for ecology and system and information theory. I reject monologue as a form of hegemony and propose dialogue as an interpersonal path for seekers and cocreators of truth. I accept relational and reject substantialistic ontologies and all absolutism, including virtues, in an attempt to make room for the quest for common values attainable by those who identify with them on multiple levels (the universalism of Paul of (...) Tarsis). Hence, basing on humanity’s cultural and civilizational multiplicity, I analyze the Europeanism idea through the prism of centripetal and centrifugal forces, locating “Polish” elements on this path. On one hand I approach Europeanism as the most immediate of the environments which reflect and make understandable the spiritual aspects of Polishness, on the other hand I suggest that many of its aspects should be avoided.Nonetheless I commend the disclosure and sustainance of the separateness of ethical norms developed by the ancient Greek from the legal norms instituted by Rome and the religious norms imposed on our western civilization by Christianity. This is something other civilizations lack and what bars them from more intensive participation in humanity’s advancement towards universal civilization—no longer seen as monopolistic, as in the ecological perspective this would only enhance mankind’s destruction. From the Polish perspective the most valuable Europeanism aspects are diversity, methodology in the quest for truth in philosophy, religion and science, openness to the objective products of the human spirit (which Islamic civilization opposed), and a strong accent on praxis.To close I will allow myself reference to Janusz Kuczyński’s Polishness Decalogue, an attempt to analyze the Polish “national spirit” and pinpoint those universal aspects of “Polishness” which—as clusters of empirical, social, theoretical and cultural facts—still fill Polish hearts with pride. Here, as we can see, the initially concretized universality criterion ultimately becomes an applied valuation category. Hence, universalism as a meta-philosophy appears to be a philosophy of essence, not fact, and therefore not subject to valuation. (shrink)

I argue for a standpoint that—against various kinds of naturalism—epistemology is a complete philosophical science. Epistemology is theoretically and methodologically self-sufficient. It has its good described subject, its characteristic research methods and its exactly described goal. The subject of epistemology is broadly comprehended cognition (knowledge)—cognition (knowledge) is comprehended as action as well as result. Among various methods peculiar to philosophy it is necessary to distinguish first of all phenomenological, transcendental and analytical methods. However, the main goal of epistemology has been (...) and still is a solution of the objective cognition issue—the problem of cognition adequacy and of its transcendence. Epistemology can achieve this goal only when: (1) it resists the temptation of its subject naturalization; (2) against the propositional theory of truth it operates a broad concept of cognition; (3) against manykinds of representationism (mediatism) it does not resign from the concept of direct cognition, i.e. view of presentationism. Thanks to reference to source cognitions and direct knowledge the realistic world view is also defendable. (shrink)

Existing literature on equity considerations for climate change mitigation and adaptation has almost exclusively focused on fair burden sharing between nations. However, disparities among regions a...

The use of target baselines or reference states for conservation and restoration has become increasingly problematic and impractical, due to rapid environmental change, the paradigm shift in ecology from a static to a dynamic view of nature, and growing awareness of the role of cultural traditions in the reconstruction of baselines. The various responses to this crisis of baselines will to a significant extent determine the future direction of nature conservation. Although some hold onto traditional baselines and others try to (...) refine or re-define the reference concept, the debate is currently dominated by two widely diverging reactions to the crisis: while the so-called ‘new environmentalists’ or ‘new conservationists’ declare the whole baseline notion obsolete, replacing a backward-looking approach with a forward-looking one, the ‘re-wilders’ push the baseline back to a deeper, more distant past. This article provides a critical assessment of the debate on these conversation options, with a special focus on the differences between Old World and New World perspectives. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than (...) the soul of the uncontrolled agent. (shrink)

Józef Lipiec proposes his typology of axiological subjectivities according to levels of their commitment to values. He distinguishes 6 types of them in the order from complete passivity to full creativity. He also discusses ontological conditions of the axiological creativity. As for the problem of the origins of this kind of creativeness, the author opts for moderate determinism: the outer world provokes man to create values, but itself it is only a reservoir with raw material of which values can be (...) made out. (shrink)

In Belgium the multiple preferential voting system was for the first time applied to parliamentary elections in 1995. Since then the electorate has the possibility to cast a vote for several candidates figuring on the same party list.As a result of this voting system change, more voters used the possibilities offered by the preferential voting system than during the 1991 elections: almost 57% of the electorate of 1995 cast a multiple vote on candidates for the House of Representatives - this (...) was an increase of 8,6% compared to the 1991 results. For the Senate, the trend is even clearer: 59% of the electorate expressed their preference for one or more candidates of the Senate, resulting in an increase of 18,3% compared to 1991. Though one has to add that the above mentioned increases are only partly due to the election system change. Part of the increase is actually also due to a more accurate handling by the Ministery of Internal Affairs of the multiple preferential voting data figuring on the ballot-papers.Compared to previous elections the use of preferential voting was for the first time higher for the Senate than for the House of Representatives. Furthermore, the analysis showed that the use of the multiple preferential vote is varying from one constituency to another, from Flemings to Walloons and from one political party to another. (shrink)

This book consists of the edited proceedings of a debate among Jurgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and Leszek Kolakowski that was held in Warsaw in May of 1995. It includes also commentary from those in attendance, including extensive remarks by Ernest Gellner. The debate marked the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and focussed primarily on topics related to historicism and cultural relativism.

In this paper we discuss the views on the Turing test of four influential thinkers who belong to the tradition of analytic philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Noam Chomsky, Hilary Putnam and John Searle. Based on various beliefs about philosophical and/or linguistic matters, they arrive at different assessments of both the significance and suitability of the imitation game for the development of cognitive science and AI models. Nevertheless, they share a rejection of the idea that one can treat Turing test as a (...) test for “machine thinking.” This seems to stem from a concern for the proper use of language —one that is a fundamental methodological commitment of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The presented paper focuses on the analysis of strategic documents at the level of the European Union concerning the regulation of artificial intelligence as one of the so-called disruptive technologies. In the first part of the article, we outline the basic terminology. Subsequently, we focus on the summarizing and systemizing of the key documents adopted at the EU level in terms of artificial intelligence regulation. The focus of the paper is devoted to issues of personal data protection and cyber security (...) included in these strategic documents. The final part contains recommendations for future research and evaluation of its key features. (shrink)

The paper defends three claims about Aristotle’s theory of uncontrolled actions (akrasia) in NE 7.3. First, I argue that the first part of NE 7.3 contains the description of the overall state of mind of the agent while she acts without control. Aristotle’s solution to the problem of uncontrolled action lies in the analogy between the uncontrolled agent and people who are drunk, mad, or asleep. This analogy is interpreted as meaning that the uncontrolled agent, while acting without control, is (...) still in possession of her knowledge but she is unable to use it as knowledge due to the temporary disablement of her reason by appetite. Due to this disablement, the uncontrolled agent is temporarily unable to be motivated to act by her knowledge and acts merely on her appetite. Second, I argue that the second part of NE 7.3 provides an analysis of the particular mental state from which the uncontrolled action issues. Its central passage is a description of the uncontrolled agent’s state of mind before the uncontrolled action and not, as it has been traditionally understood, a description of her state of mind during the uncontrolled action. Third, I argue that, on Aristotle’s view, the transition from the state before the uncontrolled action to the state in which the agent already acts without control does not involve any psychological state that would constitute the agent’s choice to abandon her decision and give in to her desires but proceeds on a purely physiological level. (shrink)

I defend two main theses. First, I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the cause of one’s actions in virtue of being (qua) the individual one is. Aristotle contrasts voluntary action not only with involuntary action but also with cases in which one acts (or does something) due to one’s nature (for example, in virtue of being a member of a certain species) rather than due to one’s own desires (i.e. qua (...) individual). An action can be attributed to one qua individual in two distinct ways depending on whether one is a rational or a non-rational animal. One is responsible for one’s action in both cases, but only in the former case is one also responsible for being the sort of individual that performs it. Aristotle also distinguishes two ways in which an action can be compelled while still being an action of the agent. In the first case, one is compelled by (physically) external forces or circumstances to act against one’s internal impulse. In the second case, one is compelled to act on (internal) impulses that are fixed by one’s nature against one’s own individual impulse. This latter kind of compelled action is only possible in the case of rational agents. Secondly, I argue that Aristotle’s conception of what it is to be a cause of an action inevitably brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame. On Aristotle’s view, any goal-directed behavior that is properly attributable to an individual is (normally) subject to standards that pertain to behavior of that sort. At the most basic level, these standards establish what counts as a successful realization of the goal that one aims at. Thus even in the case of non-rational animals (or children), one can judge the success of what they are doing and encourage (or discourage) similar behavior by praise or blame. These standards are applicable to one’s conduct simply insofar as one is the controlling origin (or efficient cause) of one’s action qua individual. In the case of rational agents the practice of praise and blame can involve a further normative layer since they can be praised or blamed not only for acting in a certain way so as to encourage or discourage them with a view to the future, but also for being – and having become – individuals of a certain sort. Nevertheless, the applicability of such evaluative judgments and of praise and blame is still warranted by one’s being the controlling origin of one’s actions qua the individual one is (in this case, qua rational individual). (shrink)