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)

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)

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)

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.

I have chosen to approach the Marxian alienation theory from a historical angle and recount its evolution in Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Grundrisse, wherein it develops into a theory regulating the co-creation of conditions for “freedom” in the choice of processes that lead to de-alienation. I will attempt to present the alienation theory as an aspect of a broader anti-metaphysical critique of all substantialism, According to Marx, the substantialist approach to history could at most only (...) pretend to be dynamic and ignored the structural complexity of being, whereas the true idea was to notice and keep track of the structural and qualitative changes brought to being by the genetic, structural, social, economic, class and institutional conditionings of human history. (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)

Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732–1798) was the last king of Poland. He reigned from 1764 to 1795 and, during this time the first Polish constitution, the first in Europe, was established. These excerpts come from Hen’s book My Friend the King (Mój Przyjaciel Król). The book is narrated by the fictional Gaston Fabre, who is a close confidant of the King and is privy to all the turmoil and machinations at Court in months and years preceding the signing of the constitution.

The great vision of logical empiricism brought up a hope for ultimate solving the problem of understanding our knowledge. Starting, for the first time in the history of empiricism, from a point of view typical for mathematicians not empiricists, i.e. from the program of logicism, the philosophers of Vienna Circle aimed at creating a consistent philosophy which makes possible both mathematics and empirical knowledge. Today, after more than a half century, their efforts seem to be completely futile. The topic of (...) the paper is to find out the reasons why the program failed. It seems that the deepest reason for the failure lies in the philosophy of mathematics adopted by logical empiricists - namely logicism. The main problem of the contemporary methodology is to find a remedy for this ilness. the paper suggests some ideas in this direction. One of them is more serious approach to the philosophy of mathematics. Another is the recognition of the crucial role epistemic and other values play in scientific research. (shrink)

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.

Stephen Clark’s article The Rights of Wild Things from 1979 was the starting point for the consideration in the animal ethics literature of the so-called ‘predation problem’. Clark examines the response of David George Ritchie to Henry Stephens Salt, the first writer who has argued explicitly in favor of animal rights. Ritchie attempts to demonstrate—via reductio ad absurdum—that animals cannot have rights, because granting them rights would oblige us to protect prey animals against predators that wrongly violate their rights. This (...) article navigates the reader through the debate sparked off by Clarke’s article, with as final destination what I consider to be the best way to deal with the predation problem. I will successively discuss arguments against the predation reductio from Singer’s utilitarian approach, Regan’s deontological approach, Nussbaum’s capability approach, and Donadson and Kymlicka’s political theory of animal rights. (shrink)

W liście do B. Russella z 19 VIII 1919 r. L. Wittgenstein pisze: „Zasadniczy sprawy jest teoria o tym, co można wypowiedzieć w zdaniach - to znaczy za pomocy języka -, a czego nie można wyrazić w zdaniach lecz tylko pokazać. Jest to, moim zdaniem, główny problem filozofii." Tym właśnie problemem zajmuje się w swojej pracy H. Watzka, wykładowcy historii filozofii w Wyższej Szkole Filozoficzno-Teologicznej Sankt Georgen we Frankfurcie nad Menem. Omawiana książka jest skróconą wersją rozprawy doktorskiej: Logik und Metaphysik. (...) Zur Statusbestimmung der Philosophie bei Wittgensein, obronionej przez Autora w 1997 roku w Uniwersytecie Humboldta w Berlinie. (shrink)

The paper concerns basic restrictions (and also simplifications and misinterpretations) which happens when one tries to explain mind processes (especially cognitive ones) by an analogy to formal, algorithmical and anticipated computation processes. The paper puts together the most important reasons why these attempts come to grief. The essence of computative reduction is shown among other things on the basic theorems of modern metamathematics. Especially it gives prominence epistemological consequences Gödel's theorems and recent discovers in metamathematics made by Gregory J. Chaitin. (...) But simplifications of computationisme (and partly of whole cognitivisme) don't mean that the other way is only postmodernism. (shrink)

Tytuł tego artykułu jest podwójną parafrazą. Jest parafrazą tytułu głośnej monografii Alfreda Tarskiego Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych, a jednocześnie jest też parafrazą tytułu artykułu Adama Groblera Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk empirycznych. Sygnalizuje też pewien istotny związek rzeczowy z przedsięwzięciami obydwu panów. Podobnie jak Tarski w odniesieniu do nauk formalnych i Grobler w odniesieniu do nauk empirycznych, próbuję zbadać, czy klasyczna koncepcja prawdy może być efektywnie stosowalna również w naukach humanistycznych. Po rekonstrukcji i krytycznej analizie propozycji Tarskiego stwierdzam, (...) że o ile w naukach logiczno-matematycznych pojęcie prawdy jako prawdziwości w modelu zdaje się wystarczać, to w naukach empirycznych i humanistyce trudno jest uznać za zadowalające, ponieważ „nie sprowadza nas z drzewa języka”. Poszukiwanie trafnego modelu rzeczywistości za pomocą reguł inferencji i reguł empirycznej weryfikacji wiedzy także wydaje się mało skuteczne. W humanistyce bowiem dla konfrontacji modelu z rzeczywistością niezbędne wydaje się jeszcze uwzględnienie pewnych reguł rozumienia. Inaczej świat artefaktów i wartości będzie pozostawał dla nas całkowicie zakryty/niedostępny. A przeto i nasza konfrontacja z nim za pośrednictwem rozmaitych modeli - jeśli istotnie ma nas skutecznie chronić przed „ślepą” wędrówką po konstelacjach światów możliwych lub widmem bezdusznej naturalizacji - musi być oparta na takich regułach rozumienia i regułach sensu, które umożliwią nam źródłowe odsłonięcie specyficznych dla poszczególnych dziedzin przedmiotowych jakości oraz nadbudowanych nad nimi jednostek sensu i wartości. (shrink)