When asked in 1962 on what he was working Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz replied: Several years ago Polish Scientific Publishers suggested that I pre pare a new edition of The Logical Foundations of Teaching, which I wrote 1 before 1939 as a contribution to The Encyclopaedia of Education. It was a small booklet covering elementary information about logical semantics and scientific methodology, information which in my opinion was necessary as a foundation of teaching and as an element of the education of (...) any teacher. When I recently set to preparing the new edition, I rewrote practically everything, and a booklet of some 100 pages swelled into a bulky volume almost five times bigger. The issues have remained practically the same, but they are now analysed much more thoroughly and the threshold of difficulty is much higher now. The main stress has been laid on the methods used in the empirical sciences, and within that field, on the theory of measurement and the methods of statistical inference. I am now working on the last chapter of the book, concerned with explanation procedures and theory construction in the empirical sciences. When that book, which I intend to entitle Pragmatic Logic, is com pleted I intend to prepare for the press Vol. 2 of my minor writings, 2 Language and Cognition, which will cover some of my post-war pa pers. (shrink)

. ACT, CONTENT, AND OBJECT OF THE PRESENTATION It is one of the best known positions of psychology, hardly contested by anyone, that every mental phenomenon ...

A simple, journalist scheme indicates that knowledge qualif‌ied to be scientif‌ic directly and fundamentally changes – thanks to its technological applications – the social world. The author presents arguments indicating that things are not that simple for several reasons.Firstly, historians of science argue that many fundamental technologies were created without a clear reference to scientif‌ic knowledge, and the knowledge accumulated by technologists often arises outside the areas of scientific theory. Secondly, we also know that what is technically possible is not (...) necessarily socially possible – not least because of costs, cultural constraints or social practices that we are not willing to give up. Thirdly, it is increasingly clear that the increase in scientif‌ic knowledge is primarily the result of the decision to allocate more and more resources to applied research. This means, however, that the pursuit of knowledge results not so much from the pressure to seek scientif‌ic truth, but from the values that we consider important. Fourthly, this leads to a reorientation in science, which allows contesting the thesis about the objectivity of scientif‌ic cognition in various ways: due to methodological disputes conducted by philosophers of science, the so‑called ‘scientif‌ic method’ does not guarantee the objectivity of scientif‌ic cognition. Consequently, the Enlightenment vision of science, which collapsed under the pressure of post-modernism, ceases to be the basic frame of reference on which we try to improve our collective life. We need this frame only when we cannot imagine this life without appealing to authorities that allow the resolution of essentially undecidable disputes. (shrink)

Ziel des vorliegenden Aufsatzes ist es, die Existenz von eventuellen Berührungspunkten zwischen Wittgenstein und Ingarden nachzuweisen. Nach einer kurzen Einführung wird anfangs der Hintergrund der Analyse des Problems formuliert. Darauf hin werden die Positionen Wittgensteins Ontologie mit wenigen Begriffen und Ingardens dreistufige Ontologie jeweils skizzenhaft dargestellt und kritisch auf das Vorhandensein von gemeinsamen Grundlinien geprüft. Als Gesichtspunkte gelten dabei folgende Begriffe: Ontologie, Welt und Mensch, Sprache und Ästhetik. Abschließend werden die charakteristischen Merkmale von Berührungspunkten genannt.

This paper is an English translation of "Contemporary Philosophy on Immortality of the Soul" by Kazimierz Twardowski.

During the first semester of the academic year 1930/31 in the John Casimir University in Lvov Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz delivered a series of lectures on logical semantics. In eight of them, now published for the first time, he presents - in the very clear manner - his fractional method of identifying syntactic categories, and he shows how to use this method to eliminate the antynomies of classes, relations and properties. The Ajdukiewiczian method had been appreciated among logicians and it is (...) considered widely one of the starting points of so-called categorial grammars. (shrink)

OPER ACCESS. The correspondence between Meinong and Kazimierz Twardowski highlights the relationship between two philosophers who influenced the history of philosophy and psychology in Austria and Poland. The two correspondents discuss, among other things, their epistemological approach and the university politics of their times. In addition, there is an extensive introduction that places the correspondence in its proper historical and philosophical context.

Intelligent design theory is accused of being a hidden form of creationism. Evolutionism and creationism are formulated in different epistemic frameworks. The author wants to answer the question whether the accusation mentioned above is right. The theory does not indicate the source of design. It only postulates the possibility of detecting the design in nature. The identification of the designer is not possible with the help of scientific methods. Therefore, intelligent design theory is compatible both with naturalistic and creationist epistemic (...) frameworks. (shrink)

The story of Abraham and Isaac belongs to the plots frequently recurring in the school drama of sixteenth century Europe. Two related texts are related in the article: Theodore de Bčze’s drama with the title Abraham sacrificanl (staged in Lausanne in 1550) and an anonymous Polish text dating from the end of the sixteenth century Ofiarowanie Izaaka [The Sacrifice of Isaac]. Both the dramas begin with the Prologue, heralding the main events of the story. The works share a three-part, biblical (...) structure (Ofiarowanie Izaaka is composed of three acts), the motif of a father’s love for his son, Abraham’s and Sarah’s care for their son, Abraham’s perplexity and finally the ending, where an angel, a pre-figuration of Christ, appears. The main differences lie in the way in which the protagonists have been grouped - the amusing characters of, among others, Achne, the servant, enrich the play with comical, realistic elements. The similarities between the two texts result not only from their chronology, the common repertoire of school theatres, and the cosmopolitan character of school education. The congruence (despite some apparent differences between the staging possibilities of Lausanne and Cracow) confirms a close relationship between Polish Renaissance drama and the culture of Western Europe and emphasizes its creative character in the presentation of Biblical plots, extending beyond the Bible. (shrink)

The contemporary development of socialist economy is featured not only by high dynamics, but also by essential structural and qualitative changes. The economic policy and the socialist planning in particular tendtowards optimalization of economic growth, then to engage for its proper directions, structure and rythmicality. The every year growing national product ought to be, as it is possible, most suitable and useful for implementation of threefold objective: 1° the better satisfaction with the necessities of population, 2° the quicker modernization of (...) the national economy, and 3° the effective development of the foreign trade as well as the international cooperation.The superiority of a set of social criteria is becoming the general assumption of economic policy. A vision of the future human being and the mature society is determining prospective objectives and aims of the development as well is indicating ways and means for their realization by economic policy.The economic growth is not objective by itself, but has to serve for a comprehensive social advancement. At the same time the factors of social advancement advantageously impact the labour productivity and otherwisethey perform a role of additional stimulatives of the economic growth.The objectives of social advancement should be realized gradually basing on staging patterns of systematic raise of the living standards of the population. A hierarchy and a sequence of satisfaction with the both individual and collective necessities demand a skillful application of the criteria of the economic and social choice. We are using here the principle of social and economic rationality.Hence the factors of social advancement, involving the scientific and technical progress, belang to the fundumatel elements of the present economic and social policy. At the same time objectives and means of modern economic and social advancement are here strictly interlaced. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence, both as a hope of making substantial progress, and a fear of the unknown and unimaginable, has its roots in human dreams. These dreams are materialized by means of rational intellectual efforts. We see the beginnings of such a process in Lullus’s fancies. Many scholars and enthusiasts participated in the development of Lullus’s art, ars combinatoria. Amongst them, Athanasius Kircher distinguished himself. Gottfried Leibniz ended the period in which the idea of artificial intelligence was shaped, and started the (...) new period, in which artificial intelligence could be considered part of science, by today’s standards. (shrink)