In this paper, I focus on a problem related to teleological theories of content namely, which notion of function makes content causally relevant? It has been claimed that some functional accounts of content make it causally irrelevant, or epiphenomenal; in which case, such notions of function could no longer act as the pillar of naturalized semantics. By looking closer at biological questions about behavior, I argue that past discussion has been oriented towards an ill-posed question. What I defend is a (...) Very Boring Hypothesis: depending on the representational phenomenon and the explanatory question, different aspects might be important, and it is difficult to say a priori which ones these might be. There are multiple facets to biological functionality and causality relevant for explaining representational phenomena, and ignoring them will lead to unmotivated simplifications. In addition, accounting for different facets of functionality helps dispense with intuition-based specifications of cognitive phenomena. (shrink)

Publication date: 30 November 2016 Source: Author: Marcin Böhm The Empire of Nicaea was a successor of the Byzantium shattered in 1204. In the newly established state marine traditions of Byzantines, remain alive. The best testimony to this, are the evidence contained in the chronicle of Georgios Akropolites, devoted to activities of the rulers of Nicaea, aimed to build their own naval forces. In this paper I'll also try to answer, where was beating the heart of the Nicean shipbuilding (...) industry and how large was the navy of this state. This is important from point of view of the maritime history, because of the fleet of the Empire of Nicaea, filled the gap created after the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, which was the local naval power in previous centuries. Akropolites give us a clear and direct answer to a question, where we should search for a center of Nicaean shipbuilding industry. Georgios Akropolites suggest us, that was in two towns, Holkos and Smyrna. The above-mentioned fleet consisted of the few squadrons, each counting 5-6 ships. We can only guess that a fleet of the John III, could count about 50 warships, whose quality was worse to that belonging to the Venetians. We must say that the fleet of the Empire of Nicaea, which we see in the chronicle of Akropolites, was the force, that lent itself to the support of ground forces. And in this role worked well. The situation was different when it comes to clashing with the Venetians, with the experienced crews of their ships, who surpassed Nicaean in this matter. Even with the advantage of numbers, Nicaean was unable to overcome at the sea, the citizens of the Republic of St. Mark. The plan to build their own naval forces, which was taken by the emperors of Nicaea, was a good direction. (shrink)

The paper gives a survey of known results related to computational devices (finite and push–down automata) recognizing monadic generalized quantifiers in finite models. Some of these results are simple reinterpretations of descriptive—feasible correspondence theorems from finite–model theory. Additionally a new result characterizing monadic quantifiers recognized by push down automata is proven.

Assent is an important ethical and legal requirement of paediatric research. Unfortunately, there are significant differences between the guidelines on the details of assent.

The problem of computational complexity of semantics for some natural language constructions – considered in [M. Mostowski, D. Wojtyniak 2004] – motivates an interest in complexity of Ramsey quantifiers in finite models. In general a sentence with a Ramsey quantifier R of the following form Rx, yH(x, y) is interpreted as ∃A(A is big relatively to the universe ∧A2 ⊆ H). In the paper cited the problem of the complexity of the Hintikka sentence is reduced to the problem of computational (...) complexity of the Ramsey quantifier for which the phrase “A is big relatively to the universe” is interpreted as containing at least one representative of each equivalence class, for some given equvalence relation. In this work we consider quantifiers Rf, for which “A is big relatively to the universe” means “card(A) > f (n), where n is the size of the universe”. Following [Blass, Gurevich 1986] we call R mighty if Rx, yH(x, y) defines N P – complete class of finite models. Similarly we say that Rf is N P –hard if the corresponding class is N P –hard. We prove the following theorems. (shrink)

Dialectical approaches traditionally conceptualize argumentation as a discussion in which two parties debate on “two sides of an issue”. However, many political issues engender multiple positions. This is clear in multi-party online deliberations in which often an array of competing positions is debated in one and the same discussion. A proponent of a given position thus addresses a number of possible opponents, who in turn may hold incompatible opinions. The goal of this paper is to shed extra light on such (...) “polylogical” clash of opinions in online deliberation, by examining the multi-layered participation in actual online debates. The examples are drawn from the readers’ discussions on Osama bin Laden’s killing in online versions of two British newspapers: The Guardian and The Telegraph. As a result of the analysis, a distinction between sides, positions, and cases in argumentative deliberation is proposed. (shrink)

The goal of this chapter is to catalogue ways in which practical argumentation —argumentation aimed at deciding on a course of action—is produced discursively in deliberative discussions. This is a topic largely neglected in the literature on PA focused primarily on the abstract features of practical inference. I connect to this literature by arguing that the complex scheme of PA inferentially hinges on three different principles for rationally selecting means to achieve the desired goal: the means have to be either (...) the best, satisfactory or necessary in order to ground the practical inference and thus be adopted. Based on these theoretically-derived distinctions, I scrutinise the linguistic indicators of the three types of means-goal inferences of PA. As a corpus, I use a set of official European Union policy documents called Transforming Europe’s energy system released in Brussels in July 2015. (shrink)

Dialectical fallacies are typically defined as breaches of the rules of a regulated discussion between two participants. What if discussions become more complex and involve multiple parties with distinct positions to argue for? Are there distinct argumentation norms of polylogues? If so, can their violations be conceptualized as polylogical fallacies? I will argue for such an approach and analyze two candidates for argumentative breaches of multi-party rationality: false dilemma and collateral straw man.

We present the logic$${\mathsf {LCB}}$$LCBwhich is expressed in a propositional language constantly enriched by new atomic expressions. Our formal framework is the propositional doxastic logic$${\mathsf {KD45}}$$KD45with the belief operator$${\mathcal {B}}$$B, extended by the$${\mathcal {C}}$$Coperator, to be readit changes that.... We describe the changing beliefs of an agent who uses progressively expanding language. The approach presented here allows us to weaken pragmatic objections to the so-called principle ofnegative retrospectionaccepted in$${\mathsf {KD45}}$$KD45and the problem oflogical omniscience. In what follows, we present the expanding (...) propositional language used in our formalism, interpreted using an epistemic version of Kripke semantics. Next, we give a syntactic characterization of logic$${\mathsf {LCB}}$$LCBand prove the soundness and completeness of$${\mathsf {LCB}}$$LCBin respect to our semantics. Finally, we compare the idea of expanding language with the notion ofagent awarenessand we relate our formalism to two epistemic temporal logics. (shrink)

I argue that influential purely syntactic views of computation, shared by such philosophers as John Searle and Hilary Putnam, are mistaken. First, I discuss common objections, and during the discussion I mention additional necessary conditions of implementation of computations in physical processes that are neglected in classical philosophical accounts of computation. Then I try to show why realism in regards of physical computations is more plausible, and more coherent with any realistic attitude towards natural science than the received view, and (...) distinguish computational simulation, implementation, and re-engineering. I also point out the sources of confusion about what computation is that seem to stem from disregarding the use/mention distinction. (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.”.

Some interesting cases of non-monotonic reasoning have already been identified in medieval theological texts. Jacob Archambault proved in 2015 that the argumentation presented by St Anselm of Canterbury in his Proslogion has non-monotonic “embeddings”. My own contribution from 2011 indicated that we can argue that a non-monotonic logic underlies some discussions provided by St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae, and showed that Boethius of Dacia used non-monotonic reasoning in his De aeternitate mundi. In this article, I would like to (...) briefly present these examples and verify whether we can speak about similar cases in medieval Biblical exegesis. My aim is to outline particular problems connected with the identification of non- monotonicity which are specific to theology, as well as assumptions that should be adopted to successfully discuss this issue. (shrink)

Even if a lattice L is not distributive, it is still possible that for particular elements x, y, z ∈ L it holds ∧z = ∨. If this is the case, we say that the triple is distributive. In this note we provide some sufficient conditions for the distributivity of a given triple.

In the paper we investigate Birkhoff’s conditions and. We prove that a discrete lattice L satisfies the condition ) if and only if L is a 4-cell lattice not containing a cover-preserving sublattice isomorphic to the lattice S*7. As a corollary we obtain a well known result of J. Jakub´ık from [6]. Furthermore, lattices S7 and S*7 are considered as so-called partially cover-preserving sublattices of a given lattice L, S7 ≪ L and S7 ≪ L, in symbols. It is shown (...) that an upper continuous lattice L satisfies if and only if L is a 4-cell lattice such that S7 ≪/ L. The final corollary is a generalization of Jakubík’s theorem for upper continuous and strongly atomic lattices. Keywords: Birkhoff’s conditions, semimodularity conditions, modular lattice, discrete lattices, upper continuous lattice, strongly atomic lattice, cover-preserving sublattice, cell, 4-cell lattice. (shrink)

: Research done in recent years shows that Virtual Reality can be an effective tool for distracting attention from pain. The purpose of this study was to test how the complexity of Virtual Environment influences the experienced intensity of thermal pain stimuli. A within-subjects design experiment was conducted, using cold pressor test for pain stimulation. Research was done on 31 students of Wroclaw Universities. Participants played games created for the purpose of the study, using head mounted displays and movement sensors. (...) Two Virtual Environments differing in the level of complexity and non-VR control condition were used. The order of all conditions was counterbalanced. Participants reported significantly lower pain intensity after playing the high complexity game, compared to the low complexity game. There were also significant differences between non-VR control condition and high complexity game, but not between non-VR and low complexity game. The pain tolerance was significantly higher in both VR conditions comparing to non-VR conditions. However, no significant differences between VE’s were found in pain tolerance ratings. Results of this study provide preliminary evidence that game complexity can be related to pain experience during VR interventions. (shrink)

Moral Dilemmas and Deontic Logic In the paper I discuss an argument of deontic logic concerning the problem of the existence of moral dilemmas. First, I draw attention to the philosophical context of this argument and present three proofs which reveal an inconsistency in the nature of moral dilemmas. These proofs, however, are philosophically and logically controversial. Accordingly, I provide an alternative proof, based on the LP-system of deontic logic. The system is described from syntactic and semantic point of view. (...) Assuming only the noncontroversial axiom K and a certain formulation of Elzenberg’s principle, I argue that, from the point of view of the LP-system, there is an inconsistency in the definition of moral dilemmas. (shrink)

In my work I present a version of the semantics of relative preference for the logic of ought-to-be and for the logic of ought-to-do. I draw the philosophical inspirations for this semantics from Elzenberg’s axiological papers. In the semantics of relative preference I check which deontic principles are valid—especially those which Wolniewicz extracted from Elzenberg’s papers. I also check if it is possible in this semantics to fulfil the condition of the moral dilemma.

The paper describes the state and local parliamentary activity of Marcjan Ścibor Chełmski, one of the most interesting parliamentarians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 17th century. The text is based on archival research including the Parliament manuscript diaries, private correspondence describing the debates; published sources: instructions, parliamentary resolutions, memoirs; and studies of the history of parliamentarism, on top of the functioning of the political elite and the circulation of information. M.S. Chełmski came from a family with a strong tradition (...) of public service settled in the Krakow province. He began his career as a parliamentarian by being elected to the Sejm in 1613, and later sat in the Parliaments of: 1616, 1618, 1619, 1620, 1621, 1625, 1626/I, 1626/II, 1629/I, 1629/II, 1631, 1632, 1633, 1634, 1635, 1637/I, 1637/II and 1638. He was one of the MPs who usually had a strong presence in the Chamber of Deputies. During the debates he addressed the issues of noble freedom in the spirit hostile to absolutum dominium, economic issues, procedural issues, and religious freedom. The collected source material confirms Chełmski’s great public activity in Lesser Poland and the evolution of his political stance at the Sejm from an oppositionist during the reign of Sigismund III Vasa to a moderate supporter of the royal court. Sources indicate that Chełmski had a reputation as an esteemed legal expert. He held the dignity of Marshal of the Crown Tribunal. For over 30 years he was one of the most active participants of the local parliament life in the Krakow province. The evolution of Chełmski’s political stance during the reign of Władysław IV Vasa resulted in his nomination for a prestigious office of the Chamberlain of Krakow. (shrink)

This article presents the works of great Polish philosopher, Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, whose creative output can be applied to professional nursing practice. Krąpiec's philosophical heritage is extensive and encompasses many philosophical fields: metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of law, philosophy of culture, philosophy of politics and philosophy of language. Krąpiec created an original philosophical synthesis characterized by a realistic approach. In this paper, I present only one of several original philosophical concepts developed by Krąpiec: the theory of the person based on (...) seven essential characteristics, that is the ability for cognition, love, freedom, religion, legal subjectivity, completeness and dignity. I attempt to show how these personal characteristics correspond to various patient needs. I argue that the qualitative deficit of any personal characteristics indicated by Krąpiec corresponds to a patient's real need that must be satisfied. I also stress that the skilful diagnosing of all—not only selected—qualitative deficits of characteristics can be defined as holistic care in the nursing profession. (shrink)

Since 1989, clinical ethics consultation in form of hospital ethics committees was established in most of the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Up to now, the similarities and differences between HECs in Central and Eastern Europe and their counterparts in the U.S. and Western Europe have not been determined. Through search in literature databases, we have identified studies that document the implementation of clinical ethics consultation in Central and Eastern Europe. These studies have been analyzed under the following (...) aspects: mode of establishment of HECs, character of consultation they provide, and their composition. The results show that HECs in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe differ from their western-European or U.S. counterparts with regard to these three aspects. HECs were established because of centrally imposed legal regulations. Little initiatives in this area were taken by medical professionals interested in resolving emerging ethical issues. HECs in the transition countries concentrate mostly on review of research protocols or resolution of administrative conflicts in healthcare institutions. Moreover, integration of non-professional third parties in the workings of HECs is often neglected. We argue that these differences can be attributed to the historical background and the role of medicine in these countries under the communist regime. Political and organizational structures of healthcare as well as education of healthcare staff during this period influenced current functioning of clinical ethics consultation in the transition countries. (shrink)

This paper addresses the following question: Can one and the same utterance token, in one unique speech situation, intentionally and conventionally perform a plurality of illocutionary acts? While some of the recent literature has considered such a possibility Perspectives on pragmatics and philosophy. Springer, Cham, pp 227–244, 2013; Johnson in Synthese 196:1151–1165, 2019), I build a case for it by drawing attention to common conversational complexities unrecognized in speech acts analysis. Traditional speech act theory treats communication as: a dyadic exchange (...) between a Speaker and a Hearer who trade illocutionary acts endowed with one and only one primary force. I first challenge assumption by discussing two contexts where plural illocutionary forces are performed in dyadic discussions: dilemmatic deliberations and strategic ambiguity. Further, I challenge assumption by analyzing poly-adic discussions, where a speaker can target various participants with different illocutionary acts performed via the same utterance. Together, these analyses defend illocutionary pluralism as a significant but overlooked fact about communication. I conclude by showing how some phenomena recently analyzed in speech act theory—back-door speech acts New work on speech acts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 144–164, 2018) and dog-whistles New work on speech acts. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 360–383, 2018)—implicitly presuppose illocutionary pluralism without recognizing it. (shrink)

The Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) holds that the mind is a computer and that cognition is the manipulation of representations. CTM is commonly viewed as the main hypothesis in cognitive science, with classical CTM (related to the Language of Thought Hypothesis) being the most popular variant. However, other computational accounts of the mind either reject LOTH or do not subscribe to RTM. CTM proponents argue that it clarifies how thought and content are causally relevant in the physical world, and (...) they frame this argument in terms of the physical symbol hypothesis, formalism, or syntactic engines. This article focuses on specific problems with CTM, with four main sections covering the introduction of the three main variants of CTM, the most important conceptions of computational explanation in cognitive science, skeptical arguments against CTM raised by Hilary Putnam, and common objections to CTM. (shrink)

In this article, I illustrate the universalism of logic using the example of Stephen Langton’s ($$\dagger $$ † 1228) exegesis presented in his theological question 103. This text refers to the biblical story of Isaac blessing his son Jacob, who pretended to be his brother, Esau. I present the universalism of logic understood as its broad applicability and effectiveness. I argue that logic is very useful even in analyzing biblical exegesis. Langton’s exegesis benefits from logical knowledge on different levels. One (...) of them is the application of a semiotic theory to formulate a solution to the problem of the validity of Isaac’s blessing. Above all, Langton distinguishes between a discrete and a vague (or simple) use of the pronoun “you.” Notably, Langton’s analysis of various speech acts in terms of his semiotic (or pragmatic) theory is also a basis to formulate the conditions of felicity of the act of blessing (understood in the theological context), which shows that logic can be not only broadly applicable, but also effective. Finally, question 103 proves that logic is universal also in a different way, namely: it can provide solutions which are acceptable for representatives of different traditions. (shrink)

In the book, I argue that the mind can be explained computationally because it is itself computational—whether it engages in mental arithmetic, parses natural language, or processes the auditory signals that allow us to experience music. All these capacities arise from complex information-processing operations of the mind. By analyzing the state of the art in cognitive science, I develop an account of computational explanation used to explain the capacities in question.

I argue that there are no plausible non-representational explanations of episodes of hallucination. To make the discussion more specific, I focus on visual hallucinations in Charles Bonnet syndrome. I claim that the character of such hallucinatory experiences cannot be explained away non-representationally, for they cannot be taken as simple failures of cognizing or as failures of contact with external reality—such failures being the only genuinely non-representational explanations of hallucinations and cognitive errors in general. I briefly introduce a recent computational model (...) of hallucination, which relies on generative models in the brain, and argue that the model is a prime example of a representational explanation referring to representational mechanisms. The notion of the representational mechanism is elucidated, and it is argued that hallucinations—and other kinds of representations—cannot be exorcised from the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Punktem odniesienia mojego tekstu jest wystąpienie Ryszarda Panasiuka poświęcone idei świeckości państwa, którą traktuję jako składnik nowoczesności. W kontekście kryzysu wywołanego rozwojem nowoczesności stawiam pytanie o możliwość podjęcia działań prewencyjnych. Utrzymuję, że ich skuteczność zależy od tego, czy możliwe jest spojrzenie na obecną sytuację z perspektywy zewnętrzności (transgresja), do której odnoszą się światopoglądy często pozostające ze sobą w konflikcie. Twierdzę, że świeckie państwo stwarza szansę na owocny dialog tych światopoglądów stwarzając szansę na realizację działań prewencyjnych.

Preview: /Review: Graham Harman and Christopher Witmore, Objects Untimely: Object-Oriented Ontology and Archaeology, (Cambridge and Hoboken: Polity Press, 2023), 240 pages./ This is a very unusual book and it is so in several different respects. Firstly, it is co-authored and that already makes it a rare bird in contemporary philosophical output. Secondly, the author duo represent different academic disciplines. Graham Harman is a philosopher devoted to developing and promoting his own metaphysical system, which he dubbed Object Oriented Ontology (OOO), whereas (...) Christopher Witmore is an archaeologist and classicist focused on the material heritage of Ancient Greece. It is not just the fact that the book is co-authored by people with different professional backgrounds that makes it unique, but also that both authors themselves stand apart within their own fields. With his consistent focus on creating and constantly improving his own “theory of everything” while at the same time refusing to conform to either of the dominant trends in both continental and analytical philosophy, Harman is an exceptional figure in the landscape of contemporary philosophy. Also, Witmore – who displays a lot of interest in the abstract problems of methodological, philosophical and anthropological nature – is far from being a “typical” archaeologist of the day. Finally, the main topic of the book, which is on the nature and possible ways of conceptualizing time, is not often explicitly addressed in the recent literature within these fields – despite its undoubtedly fundamental significance for both philosophy and archaeology. (shrink)

In this Editorial note, Guest Editors introduce the theme of the Special Issue of the journal Philosophies, titled Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies.

We compared the processing of natural language quantifiers in a group of patients with schizophrenia and a healthy control group. In both groups, the difficulty of the quantifiers was consistent with computational predictions, and patients with schizophrenia took more time to solve the problems. However, they were significantly less accurate only with proportional quantifiers, like more than half. This can be explained by noting that, according to the complexity perspective, only proportional quantifiers require working memory engagement.

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.

We prove that the finite‐model version of arithmetic with the divisibility relation is undecidable (more precisely, it has Π01‐complete set of theorems). Additionally we prove FM‐representability theorem for this class of finite models. This means that a relation R on natural numbers can be described correctly on each input on almost all finite divisibility models if and only if R is of degree ≤0′. We obtain these results by interpreting addition and multiplication on initial segments of finite models with divisibility (...) only. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)