From the initiative of the Institute of Philosophy of the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow there was a debate last May that centred on a book by young author Filip Borek from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, who is also a member of the board of the Polish Phenomenological Association. His book consists of a phenomenological interpretation of Vom Wesen der Wahrheit [On the Essence of Truth], an important work in which Heidegger explores (...) the essential connection between truth as correctness and freedom. In attendance were the following guests: Maria Gołębiewska (Polish Academy of Sciences), Paweł Korobczak (University of Wrocław), Daniel R. Sobota (Polish Academy of Sciences) and Jacek Surzyn (Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow), as well as the author himself. The debate was led by Magdalena Kozak (Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow). (shrink)

BackgroundThe areas of Research Ethics (RE) and Research Integrity (RI) are rapidly evolving. Cases of research misconduct, other transgressions related to RE and RI, and forms of ethically questionable behaviors have been frequently published. The objective of this scoping review was to collect RE and RI cases, analyze their main characteristics, and discuss how these cases are represented in the scientific literature.MethodsThe search included cases involving a violation of, or misbehavior, poor judgment, or detrimental research practice in relation to a (...) normative framework. A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, JSTOR, Ovid, and Science Direct in March 2018, without language or date restriction. Data relating to the articles and the cases were extracted from case descriptions.ResultsA total of 14,719 records were identified, and 388 items were included in the qualitative synthesis. The papers contained 500 case descriptions. After applying the eligibility criteria, 238 cases were included in the analysis. In the case analysis, fabrication and falsification were the most frequently tagged violations (44.9%). The non-adherence to pertinent laws and regulations, such as lack of informed consent and REC approval, was the second most frequently tagged violation (15.7%), followed by patient safety issues (11.1%) and plagiarism (6.9%). 80.8% of cases were from the Medical and Health Sciences, 11.5% from the Natural Sciences, 4.3% from Social Sciences, 2.1% from Engineering and Technology, and 1.3% from Humanities. Paper retraction was the most prevalent sanction (45.4%), followed by exclusion from funding applications (35.5%).ConclusionsCase descriptions found in academic journals are dominated by discussions regarding prominent cases and are mainly published in the news section of journals. Our results show that there is an overrepresentation of biomedical research cases over other scientific fields compared to its proportion in scientific publications. The cases mostly involve fabrication, falsification, and patient safety issues. This finding could have a significant impact on the academic representation of misbehaviors. The predominance of fabrication and falsification cases might diverge the attention of the academic community from relevant but less visible violations, and from recently emerging forms of misbehaviors. (shrink)

The organisation of health care is rapidly changing. There is a trend to move away from individual health care institutions towards transmural integrated care and interorganizational collaboration in networks. However, within such collaboration and network there is often likely to be a pluralism of values as different health care institutions often have very different values. For this paper, we examine three different models of how we believe institutions can come to collaborate in networks, and thus reap the potential benefits of (...) such collaboration, despite having different moral beliefs or values. A first way is the pragmatic way in which the different health care institutions avoid ethical reflection and focus on solutions. A second possible route is that of consensus where health care institutions base their collaboration on values that they all share. The third, and final, approach is that of compromise. Although moral compromise is often seen in a negative light, we argue that in many cases compromise might be necessary and ethically justified. In a final section, we will shift our focus from discussing various theoretical methods to allow collaboration to the potential content of consensus or compromise. (shrink)

Health care organization is entering a new age. Focus is increasingly shifting from individual health care institutions to interorganizational collaboration and health care networks. Much hope is set on such networks which have been argued to improve economic efficiency and quality of care. However, this does not automatically mean they are always ethically justified. A relevant question that remains is what ethical obligations or duties one can ascribe to these networks especially because networks involve many risks. Due to their often (...) amorphous and complex structure, collective responsibility and accountability may increase while individual responsibility goes down. We argue that a business ethics approach to ethical obligations for health care networks, is problematic and we propose to opt for a patient perspective. Using the classic four principles of biomedical ethics it is possible to identify specific ethical duties. Based on the principle of justice, health care networks have an ethical duty to provide just and fair access for all patients and to be transparent to patients about how access is regulated. The principle of nonmaleficence implies an obligation to guarantee patient safety, whereas the principle of beneficence implies an obligation for health care networks to guarantee continuity of care in all its dimensions. Finally, the principle of autonomy is translated into a specific obligation to promote and respect patient choice. Networks that fail to meet any of these conditions are suspect and cannot be justified ethically. Faced with daunting challenges, the health care system is changing rapidly. Currently many hopes ride on integrated care and broad health care networks. Such networks are the topic of empirical debate, but more attention should be given to the ethical aspects. Health care networks raise new and pressing ethical issues and we are in need of a framework for assessing how and when such networks are justified. (shrink)

We define and investigate from a logical point of view a family of consequence relations defined in probabilistic terms. We call them relations of supporting, and write: |≈w where w is a probability function on a Boolean language. A |≈w B iff the fact that A is the case does not decrease a probability of being B the case. Finally, we examine the intersection of |≈w, for all w, and give some formal properties of it.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has had an immense and worldwide impact. In light of future pandemics or subsequent waves of COVID‐19 it is crucial to focus on the ethical issues that were and still are raised in this COVID‐19 crisis. In this paper, we look at issues that are raised in the testing and tracing of patients with COVID‐19. We do this by highlighting and expanding on an approach suggested by Fineberg that could serve as a public health approach. In this (...) way, we highlight several ethical issues. As regards testing, questions are raised such as whether it is ethical to use less reliable tests in order to increase testing capacity or minimize harm for patients. Another issue is how wide testing should be and whether selective testing is in accordance with principles of social justice. Patients who have recovered from COVID‐19 might have some degree of immunity but attributing certain ‘immunopriviliges’ raises ethical questions. The use of various tracing methodologies (mobile apps or databases and trained tracers) raised evident questions of social justice and privacy. We argue why it is key to always uphold a test of proportionality where a fair balance must be sought. (shrink)

Jacek Urbaniec: Platonism in the philosophy of mathematics does not necessarily imply that there are links between the temporal physical world and the eternal world of mathematics..

Mental imagery, a fascinating yet contentious phenomenon, has a rich research history. Kant, for instance, believed mental imagery was necessary for perception. However, since the early 20th centur...

The study focuses on the ethical aspects of decision-making by national elites in the context of the thinking of Ján Kollár (1793–1852) and Ľudovít Štúr (1815–1856) on the issue of Slavism. Attention is paid to the issue of responsibility for preserving the greatness and unity of the nation in the context of the formation of national identity and individuality. The concepts of the mentioned authors had an impact on the cultural-civilizational orientation of Slovak elites with an emphasis on the role (...) of moral obligations in shaping the value orientation of the nation. In this context, the analysis focuses on the works Reciprocity between the various tribes and dialects of the Slavic nation and Slavdom and the world of the future, which, at the same time, represent alternative concepts of the cultural and political orientation of the Slavs. The study simultaneously analyses these concepts as alternative programs of cultural and political development of national identity, as well as concepts aimed at humanist and political goals. (shrink)

This article adopts an issues management approach to corporate social responsibility implementation. Issues evaluation, which is an integral component of issues management, can be conducted by using the concept of three expectational gaps. However, the concept of expectational gaps suffers from an ambiguity that limits its application to issues evaluation. The legitimacy gap concept is used in this article to clarify the ambiguity surrounding expectational gaps. The study thus develops a four-gap framework for conducting a quantitative issues evaluation. This framework (...) is applied to six social and six environmental issues in the context of the forest products industry in the Northwest United States by means of a survey of 278 society and 94 industry respondents. Results empirically demonstrate the existence of expectational gaps and also provide insights into the nature of misalignment between societal and business perceptions along these social and environmental issues. Appropriate managerial responses are suggested to narrow or bridge different types of gaps. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the interpretation of the method of deconstruction in David J. Gunkel’s Deconstruction (MIT Press 2021). I focus on the relationship between deconstruction and truth. I hold that the concept of truth is indispensable for deconstruction since truth introduces correctness conditions for the deconstructive method. However, I claim that truth, being essential and primitive for deconstruction, is fundamentally inaccessible for being analyzed by the latter. ------------------------- Received: 19/10/2022. Reviewed: 13/12/2022. Accepted: 20/12/2022.

The present online volume contains the papers prepared for the 11th Budapest Visual Learning Conference – ENVISIONING AN ELECTRIFYING FUTURE – held in a physical-online blended form on Nov. 13, 2024, organized by the University of Pécs (represented by Prof. Gábor Szécsi, Dean, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Education and Regional Development), and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (represented by Prof. Kristóf Nyíri, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). Nyíri and Szécsi were responsible for sending out the call for abstracts (...) and inviting plenary speakers, Szécsi organized the physical surroundings. Nyíri’s task was to build up and continuosly update the conference website, as well as to edit the accepted submissions. As we indicated in the call for submissions, the conference was planned as an interdisciplinary encounter of communication and media theory, cultural sciences, sociology, psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, history, political science, picture theory, and other disciplines. We insisted on achieving new scholarly results. Especially with AI now complementing, or intruding into, the world of the internet, what image of the future can we conceive of, what new patterns of life and in particular forms of education should we strive to create? (shrink)

A compelling approach among works on temporality, phenomenology, and the ecologies of the new sound worlds, Enacting Musical Time argues that musical time is itself the site of the interaction between musical sounds and a situated, embodied listener, created by the moving bodies of participants engaged in musical activities.

We prove that no logic (i.e. consequence operation) determined by any class of orthomodular lattices admits the deduction theorem (Theorem 2.7). We extend those results to some broader class of logics determined by ortholattices (Corollary 2.6).

We prove the Finite Model Property (FMP) for Distributive Full Lambek Calculus ( DFL ) whose algebraic semantics is the class of distributive residuated lattices ( DRL ). The problem was left open in [8, 5]. We use the method of nuclei and quasi–embedding in the style of [10, 1].

Let J be any proper ideal of subsets of the real line R which contains all finite subsets of R. We define an ideal J * ∣B as follows: X ∈ J * ∣B if there exists a Borel set $B \subset R \times R$ such that $X \subset B$ and for any x ∈ R we have $\{y \in R: \langle x,y\rangle \in B\} \in \mathscr{J}$ . We show that there exists a family $\mathscr{A} \subset \mathscr{J}^\ast\mid\mathscr{B}$ of power ω (...) 1 such that $\bigcup\mathscr{A} \not\in \mathscr{J}^\ast\mid\mathscr{B}$ . In the last section we investigate properties of ideals of Lebesgue measure zero sets and meager sets in Cohen extensions of models of set theory. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to rethink the role of actuality in the branching model of possibilities. We investigate the idea that the model should be enriched with an additional factor—the so-called Thin Red Line—which is supposed to represent the single possible course of events that gets actualized in time. We believe that this idea was often misconceived which prompted some unfortunate reactions. On the one hand, it suggested problematic semantic models of future tense and and on the other, (...) it provoked questionable lines of criticism. We reassess the debate and point to potential pitfalls, focusing on the semantic dimension of the Thin Red Line theory. Our agenda transcends the semantics, however. We conclude that semantic considerations do not threaten the Thin Red Line theory and that the proper debate should be carried in the domain of metaphysics. (shrink)

This research examined the role of thought suppression in the formation of mental blocks. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to generate a series of creative associates for two target words after initially suppressing a word that was semantically related to one of the two target words. Participants produced fewer responses, and experienced a greater sensation of being mentally blocked, when attempting to produce associates for the target word that was semantically related to the suppressed word. In Experiment 2, participants (...) either thought about or suppressed a series of words prior to completing a word fragment completion task. Each word either corresponded exactly to one of the word fragment solutions or resembled one of the solutions but was slightly different in its orthographic properties . Participants performed most poorly on the items for which they had initially suppressed negative primes. (shrink)

The purpose of the following article is to juxtapose and compare the concept of shame as seen by two contemporary French philosophers, Jean Paul Sartre and Emmanuel Levinas. The fundamental problem that is posed in this article concerns the role and significance of the impact of shame on the formation of human subjectivity. For both J.P. Sartre and E. Levinas, the subject attempts to bear the burden of being in a heroic way and the experience of shame proves to be (...) an important experience in this process. Is it an ontological or ethical experience? Or perhaps metaphysical? For both J.P. Sartre and E. Levinas, shame is a relational experience, i.e., it occurs in relation to You. But does this Other have to come to me from outside? In Sartre’s case, shame appears in the experience of the gaze of the Other, and it is a traumatic experience. The Other interferes with my freedom and challenges me as a subject. The experience of shame makes me aware of my subjugation by the Other. In Levinas, the experience of shame comes originally from within myself. The shame of my own existence demands justification. I can be ashamed in relation to myself. I can be a menace of myself. I don’t need the presence of another human being for this. What unites and what separates the two philosophers in interpreting the experience of shame for human subjectivity? (shrink)

There is the tension between, on the one hand, Wittgenstein’s not giving theoretical weight to metaphor, and on the other, his exuberant use of it. On a more fundamental level, there is a straightforward contradiction between Wittgenstein’s claim of the primordial literalness of everyday language, and his stress on the multiplicity and flexibility of language-games. Wittgenstein’s problem was that he did not succeed in making his ideas on metaphor, and indeed his ideas on metaphor and images, converge with the main (...) drift of TS 227 (the so-called ‘Part I’ of the so-called ‘Philosophical Investigations’). It was this divergence, I believe, that prevented him from rounding out his later philosophy. (shrink)

As narrative conceptions of selfhood have gained more acceptance within various disciplines including philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences, so too have these conceptions been critically appraised. Chief among those who are suspicious of the overall viability of ‘narrative identity’ is the philosopher, Galen Strawson. In this paper, I develop five arguments underlying Strawson’s critique of narrative identity, and respond to each argument from the perspective of the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricœur. Though intuitive, I demonstrate that none of Strawson’s (...) arguments are cogent. The confrontation between these two figures highlights a deep conceptual disagreement about our epistemic access to the self, which has thus far gone unrecognized in the Anglo-American discussion, so that it raises a new problem for the metaphysics of personal identity. (shrink)

In this paper our aim is to examine whether research conducted on human participants with LSD-25 raises unique research ethical questions or demands particular concerns with regard to the design, conduct and follow-up of these studies, and should this be the case, explore and describe those issues. Our analysis is based on reviewing publications up to date which examine the clinical, research and other uses of LSD and those addressing ethical and methodological concerns of these applications, just as some historical (...) examinations of this subject. The first chapters of the paper give an overview regarding the history of LSD-research with human participants, healthy volunteers and patients alike. The remaining chapters have a focus on questions regarding the potential ethical issues of such human trials in the contemporary research ethics framework. We also consider briefly political and regulatory issues regarding this substance that possibly affect its clinical and research applications. (shrink)

This paper refers to the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri in commemoration of which Pope Francis released a special apostolic letter highlighting the genius and significance of the Italian poet. We should praise his genius, the Pope writes, because it is he who was able to express, much better than most of the others, the depth of the mystery of God and His love. The Commedia is the fruit of deep religious inspiration. This is why Francis repeats (...) after Benedict XV – „Dante is our own!” Why is it so? Because there breathes in Alighieri the devotion that we too feel and his faith resonates with ours. Dante’s work continues to be a meaningful and valid exemplar for Christ’s followers. However, in today’s pop culture Dante is mainly seen through his depiction of hell – the artistically described eternal punishment. The truth about hell which Dante made the subject of his narrative does not find acceptance even between Christians. Many people are really outraged and scandalized because hell is for them the symbol of sadism and distorted image of God – a vengeful tyrant who condemns human souls to eternal perdition. But hell is present in the biblical message. The early Church Fathers spoke of hell in their sermons, wrote about it in treatises, disputed the dwelling place of the condemned souls, the position of Satan and other demons, and the imminence of God’s judgement. In this way in the Catholic dogmatic theology consolidated the truth of the reality of hell and eternal punishment. This was also in accord with the views of the prominent medieval theologians. Therefore, why the ancient and well-known truth about hell is rejected today as outrageous and Dante’s vision does not gain recognition? The heart of the matter is the understanding of the idea of justice and atonement. In their denial expressed through the notion of the empty hell and rejection of eternal punishment for angels’ and people’s sins, we have to do with misunderstanding of the significance of human intellect and will. The refusal to accept responsibility for our free choices entails the uninhibited rejection of seriousness of our earthly life. If we believe that our fate, and what is more, out eternal fate – the salvation or damnation – depends on what we were able to do in our lifetime, Dante’s poetic vision strongly illustrates this standpoint. The power of free will is deeply and inalienably present in The Comedy’s stanzas. In the Dante’s poem the essence of hell lies in the ultimate rejection of the goal that man longs to achieve from his very nature – the happiness which is the union with the infinite Good – God, the Creator and the Redeemer of the world. How is it possible? It happens due to the existence of free will which is innate to all people and no one can deprive them of it or minimise it. This rejection of the sublime happiness is the result of human free decision – the condemned did not say to God: “Thy will be done!” but “my will be done!”. The existence of hell becomes the guarantee of human dignity, the evidence that a perfectly Good and Omnipotent God treats the man whom He had created seriously and preserves him for the eternity in the same state in which he wanted to remain in his earthly life. (shrink)

BackgroundRich in different kind of potent cells, embryos are used in modern regenerative medicine and research. Neurobiologists today are pushing the boundaries for what can be done with embryos existing in the transitory margins of medicine. Therefore, there is a growing need to develop conceptual frameworks for interpreting the transformative cultural, biological and technical processes involving these aborted, donated and marginal embryos. This article is a contribution to this development of frameworks.MethodsThis article examines different emotional, cognitive and discursive strategies used (...) by neurobiologists in a foetal cell transplantation trial in Parkinson’s disease research, using cells harvested from aborted embryos. Two interviews were analysed in the light of former observations in the processing laboratories, using the anthropologist Mary Douglas’s concept of pollution behaviour and the linguist, philosopher, psychoanalyst and feminist Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abjective to explain and make sense of the findings.ResultsThe findings indicate that the labour performed by the researchers in the trial work involves transforming the foetal material practically, as well as culturally, from trash to treasure. The transformation process contains different phases, and in the interview material we observed that the foetal material or cells were considered objects, subjects or rejected as abject by the researchers handling them, depending on what phase of process or practice they referred to or had experience of. As demonstrated in the analysis, it is the human origin of the cell that makes it abjective and activates pollution discourse, when the researchers talk of their practice.ConclusionsThe marginal and ambiguous status of the embryo that emerges in the accounts turns the scientists handling foetal cells into liminal characters in modern medicine. Focusing on how practical as well as emotional and cultural strategies and rationalizations of the researchers emerge in interview accounts, this study adds insights on the rationale of practically procuring, transforming and utilizing the foetal material to the already existing studies focused on the donations. We also discuss why the use and refinement of a tissue, around which there is practical consensus but cultural ambiguity, deserves further investigation. (shrink)

The aim of my article is to juxtapose and compare the concept of man immersed in the finite and on the other hand transcending towards the infinite. My task is to extract and analyse the fabulously contrasting moments in the thought of Heidegger and Levinas on the question of the connec-tion and interpenetration of time and death. Both philosophers grow out of the phenomenological tradition, but their analyses of the problem of the connection between time and death go in different (...) directions. The experiences of time and death are inextricably linked, but for Heidegger time is the ontological horizon of being, and for Levinas time is a way of being beyond being. For Heidegger, dying is about coming to the fullness of being. For Levinas, facing death is a struggle and even a war, a transcendence towards the infinite. While for Heidegger death is the completion of the end, for Levinas death means an encounter with radical otherness, it is an opening and not a closing. (shrink)

The aim of the text is an elaboration of the Moses Mendelssohn’s aesthetics and its connections to the German philosophical thought of Enlightenment. I analyze the issue of sensations and so-called mixed sensations and I argue that they are the necessary condition of cognition. I present the relations between aesthetics and ethics and I elaborate so-called theory of three faculties. I argue that sense is an element conjoining action and cognition.

Review of Anna Tomaszewska's _The Contents of Perceptual Experience: A Kantian Perspective_, De Gruyter Open, Warsaw/Berlin 2014.

Autor článku se snaží dokázat, že při formulaci vhodných kritérií je možné (a užitečné) provést komparaci a hierarchizaci kultur. Práce se opírá o teoreticko-historickou metodu (Smith, Hume) i o metodologické přínosy Hayeka (kompozitivní metoda). V souladu s konceptem svobody, který je rozvíjen u Kanta, Hegela, Černého, Patočky, je v návaznosti na Fukuyamu koncipován "ideální typ" konce-vrcholu dějin. Je jím kombinace klasické liberální demokracie a kapitalismu volné tržní soutěže. Jak ukazuje historická evidence, směřování k tomuto vrcholu je inherentní tendencí samotného dějinného (...) pohybu. Pouze klasická liberální demokracie spojená s kapitalismem laissez-faire umožňuje v nejvyšší možné míře uspokojovat lidské potřeby a rozvíjet lidskou přirozenost; tento systém poskytuje prostor pro vrcholný stupeň individuální svobody, totožné se zákonem a zahrnující odpovědnost za právní a politický řád, který umožňuje spontánní fungování volné tržní soutěže. Takto formulovanou svobodu nalézáme pouze v západní kultuře. Na závěr práce je argumentována problematičnost integrace příslušníků kultury s nižší mírou svobody. (shrink)

A Review of Paweł Sikora’s Pojęciowa treść percepcji w filozofii nowożytnej, Wyd. UMCS, Lublin 2016.