In a paper entitled A Semantical Version of the Problem of Transcendental Idealism, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz gives a very impressive analysis of transcendental idealism. He approaches the matter using the tools of formal semantics developed by Alfred Tarski and draws a rather surprising conclusion. According to Ajdukiewicz, the idealist position, claiming that the world around us is ontologically dependent on our cognitive activity can be shown to be implausible on purely logical grounds. It is worth taking a closer look at this (...) insightful argument, since Ajdukiewicz’s analysis, if sound, has a relevance reaching far beyond purely historical questions concerning the right interpretation and proper assessment of past idealist doctrines. These days various species of idealism are thriving under such labels as ‘anti realism’ or ‘pragmatism’. Ajdukiewicz’s venerable paper goes to the very core of many contemporary metaphysical discussions. (shrink)

The most striking feature of Meinong's theory of intentionality is his thesis that every mental act has its reference‐object “beyond being and non being”. This theory seems, at first, to be a clear example of the so called object‐theory of intentionality, as it introduces special “postulated” entities in the target‐position of the mental act. Closer examination, however, reveals in Meinong's works important elements of the mediator‐theory. Meinong speaks of auxiliary incomplete objects situated “between” the subject and the object of reference (...) and “mediating” the intentional access to the reference‐object. Moreover, even if the object of reference is of the simple nominal form, the mediating structure involves essentially propositional entities . In the paper we attempt to give a set‐theoretical interpretation of Meinong's theory in the frame of which we could eventually do without the incomplete mediating objects. Yet, some general epistemological considerations suggest the indispensability of such incomplete mediating structures. (shrink)

The concept of a trope (understood as an individual property and not as a figure of speech) plays an important role in contemporary analytical metaphysics. It is, however, often far from clear what the logic of this concept really is. Indeed, there are two equally important intuitions underlying the concept of trope, two intuitions that generate two quite different conceptual frameworks. According to the first intuition, a trope is a particularised property – a property taken as an individual aspect of (...) a particular object. A trope is thus the colour of this table or the shape of this sculpture. In the light of this conception tropes are, as it were, direct abstractions from concrete individuals. According to the second intuition a trope is still such an individual (and abstract) colour or such an individual (and abstract) shape, but now it is not only abstracted from the concrete individual of which it is a trope but also taken in abstraction from the very fact that it has been abstracted this way. We can imagine that the cognitive access to these tropes is obtained by a kind of a double abstraction. All this can sound puzzling at first blush, but in what follows I hope to make the matter a little clearer. Let us anticipate briefly. On the second view, tropes are construed not so much as abstractions from concrete individuals, but rather as primitive items of which the concrete individuals are composed. Tropes so construed are, as it were, metaphysically prior to concrete individuals. We will call tropes of this kind unstructured tropes, whereas tropes conceived as aspects of individual things will be called propositional tropes. This terminology is justified because tropes understood as aspects of things seem to involve something like propositional structure, a structure that tropes conceived as primitive “building blocks” of reality definitely lack. It is sometimes believed that these two concepts of trope are nearly equivalent, that the difference between them is for the most part verbal. Yet it will turn out that there is an important ontological difference here. Propositional tropes are non-trivially propositional and unstructured tropes are non-trivially deprived of such a structure (althought not necessarily deprived of any dependence-links with respect to other tropes). It will be argued that tropes are metaphysically interesting only on the second conception (i.e., as primitive, unstructured items), whereas only on the first conception (tropes as propositionally structured entities) can they function as semantically efficient truthmakers. The moral of the paper will be that our trust in tropes must be mitigated. A trope ontology could plausibly be viewed as a serious metaphysical alternative, but its semantical possibilities should not be exaggerated. (shrink)

Das Buch ist eine analytische Darstellung der Hauptideen der Erkenntnistheorie Ingardens. Es basiert zum größten Teil auf dem bis vor kurzem noch unpublizierten bzw. ausschließlich in polnischer Sprache verfaßten Material und wendet sich vor allem an die Phänomenologen aber auch an die analytischen Philosophen, die sich für die Erkenntnistheorie und Ontologie der Intentionalität interessieren. Die Ingardensche Erkenntnistheorie, seine Theorie der Intentionalität und die Hauptzüge seiner Ontologie werden auf dem Hintergrund der Brentanoschen und Husserlschen Tradition präsentiert und mit den begrifflichen Werkzeugen (...) der zeitgenössischen analytischen Philosophie analysiert. Die Erkenntnistheorie Ingardens bildet das Ergebnis einer Synthese der Husserlschen phänomenologischen Methode mit der ontologischen Präzision, die für die Schriften Ingardens so charakteristisch ist. Sie besteht aus zwei Disziplinen: der reinen und der angewandten Erkenntnistheorie. Die reine Erkenntnistheorie ist eine absolutistische, Cartesianische Disziplin. Sie formuliert die Definition der Erkenntnis und beruht auf einem besonderen, selbstreferierenden Bewußtseinszustand, den Ingarden Intuition des Durchlebens nennt. Die angewandte Erkenntnistheorie untersucht dagegen die konkreten Fälle der Erkenntnis und ist eine empirische, hypothetische und fehlbare Wissenschaft. (shrink)

The present study addressed two related problems: The status of the concept of the soul in folk psychological conceptualizations across cultures, and the nature of mind-body dualism within Chinese folk psychology. We compared folk intuitions about three concepts – mind, body, and soul – among adults from China and Poland. The questionnaire study comprised of questions about the functional and ontological nature of the three entities. The results show that the mind and soul are conceptualized differently in the two countries: (...) The Chinese appear to think of the soul similarly to how they view the mind, while Poles differentiate it both in ontological and functional respects. The study provides important insights into cross-cultural differences in conceptualizing the soul as well as into the nature of Chinese mind-body dualism. (shrink)

The book is an analytic exposition of Brentano's early theory of intentionality. In spite of the immense influence of this theory it is the first separate monograph on this topic. The book is based in great part on the unpublished manuscripts where one can find substantially better articulated formulations then those expressed in the already published `standard' works. Our analysis concentrates mainly on the ontological and epistemological problems of Brentano's immanent object. We highlight an interesting ambiguity of this concept and (...) try to outline the inner logic of its evolution. It turns out that Brentano's early philosophy of intentionality should be conceived not as a single, well defined theory but rather as a bundle of kindred but not always fully consistent and sometimes even competing ideas. Primary audience for the work are philosophers interested in Brentano's philosophy, theory of intentionality and its epistemology and ontology, phenomenologists and cognitive scientists. Das Buch bietet eine analytische Darstellung von Brentanos früher Theorie der Intentionalität. Trotz der großen historischen Bedeutung dieser Theorie bildet es die erste Monographie zu diesem Thema. Das Buch basiert zum größten Teil auf den unveröffentlichten Manuskripten, in denen man die Formulierungen findet, die viel besser artikuliert sind als jene, die in den publizierten Standard-Werken Brentanos zu finden sind. Unsere Analyse konzentriert sich in erster Linie auf die ontologischen und epistemischen Probleme des Brentanoschen immanenten Objekts. Wir besprechen eine interessante Mehrdeutigkeit dieses Begriffs und skizzieren die innere Logik seiner Entwicklung. Es stellt sich heraus, daß die frühe Philosophie der Intentionalität Brentanos nicht als eine einheitliche, eindeutig bestimmte Theorie, sondern eher als ein Bündel von verwandten, jedoch nicht immer völlig koherenten und manchmal sogar konkurrierenden Ideen interpretiert werden soll. Das Buch wendet sich in erster Linie an die Philosophen, die sich für die Philosophie Brentanos, für die österreichische Philosophie, für die Theorie der Intentionalität und ihre Epistemologie und Ontologie interessieren. Es wird ferner auch für die Phänomenologen und die Forscher im Bereich der cognitive science interessant sein. (shrink)

The thought of Alexius Meinong (1853–1920) has a distinguished position within the conceptual space of ontology. He was the first philosopher who tried systematically to develop a quasi-ontological discipline which was intended to be much more general than the metaphysics in the traditional sense. Metaphysics investigates being qua being; and this constitutes only a small part of the domain of the theory of objects (Gegenstandstheorie) as Meinong conceived of it. For – so reads one of Meinong’s most frequently cited theses (...) – the objects considered purely qua objects are neutral concerning their being or non-being. In this book Meinong’s theory of objects is presented in its historical development and investigated within the context of his theory of intentionality. This connection is justified because the real motivation behind Meinong’s introduction of entities "beyond being and non being" lies in the philosophical puzzles of the theory of intentionality. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to Brentano's influence on the Polish Analytic Philosophy better known under the name of: Lvov-Warsaw School.

The purpose of the article is to examine the post-pandemic business cycle in Poland and in the United States in the light of the Austrian business cycle theory. The study shows that this theory satisfactorily explains the post-pandemic business cycle. Moreover, it seems that the Austrian business cycle theory explains some important facts better than competing theories of business cycle. The analysis also indicates that the post-pandemic business cycle differs significantly in many respects from previous business cycles – and that (...) these differences could be explained within the framework of the Austrian business cycle theory. (shrink)

The problem of how a concrete individual survives changes of its properties has long divided the philosophical community into ‘enduratists’ and ‘perduratists’. Enduratists take the idea of a surviving individual ontologi-cally seriously. They claim that many objects we encounter in our every-day (and for that matter also scientific) life endure in time, which means that these entities are wholly present at any time at which they exist. For those who are in principle happy with the conceptual framework of our ‘everyday’ (...) or ‘folk’ ontology it is common to assume that such things as human beings, animals, and plants are endurants in this sense, and the most famous articulation of this view is to be found in Aristotle’s concept of substance. Enduring entities are to be contrasted with perdurants, such as a life of a human being or a process of growing of a plant. Think of the process of writing this very paper. The beginning of the writing, the actual phase of it and the final completion of the paper are not points at which the process of writing could be wholly present. Rather they constitute phases or parts of the process in question. This means that perduring entities have a temporal dimension whereas enduring ones do not. Most of us are prepared to accept that in the world around us there are many entities of this kind, but perdu-ratists try to defend a far stronger thesis. They claim that in fact there are only perdurants. In our everyday language it is equally common to speak of enduring objects and enduring states. But it was the first idiom which mainly attracted philosophers’ attention. Yet in this paper I want to concentrate on the sec-ond figure of speech. I will investigate, whether it is ontologically legiti-mate to distinguish between enduratist and perduratist perspectives with respect to states. (shrink)

This is a general introduction to the metaphysics o universals.

This paper argues that the writings of Hans Kelsen deserve more attention from those engaged in the debate on secularization and political theology. His lifelong struggle with various forms of legal‐political metaphysics is an identifiable thread in many of his writings. Kelsen’s concern with the theological‐political issues found in the theory of the state (Staatslehre) is far from being marginal. Kelsen claims that his theory aims at resolving the traditional dualism of law and state prevailing in the Staatslehre and contributes (...) to an “uncompromising destruction of one of the most effective ideologies of legitimacy.” Kelsen maintains that the contents of this “ideology of legitimacy” derive from both political metaphysics and the deep‐seated ancient ways of thinking on nature and society. In order to illustrate this thesis, I propose calling this phenomenon “totemism of the modern state.”. (shrink)

Intensionality (or opacity) is a core property of mental representations and sometimes understanding opacity is claimed to be a part of children's theory of mind (evidenced with the false belief task). Children, however, pass the false belief task and the intensionality tasks at different ages (typically 4 vs. 5;1-6;11 years). According to two dominant interpretations, the two tests either require different conceptual resources or vary only in their executive or linguistic load. In two experiments, involving 120 children aged 3-6 (Experiment (...) 1) and 75 children aged 4-6 (Experiment 2), we tested two variants of the executive load hypothesis: The differential linguistic complexity of the two tests, and the dual-name problem of the intensionality task. The former was addressed by standardizing and minimizing the linguistic demands of both tasks (contrasted with the typical narrative intensionality task), and the latter by introducing the dual-name problem into the false belief task as well, so that it was present in both tasks. We found that (1) two structurally different intensionality tasks shared more variance with each other than with the structurally similar false belief task, and that (2) introducing a dual label problem into the false belief task did not reduce the developmental gap. Our results speak against interpreting the difference between the time children pass the two tests entirely in terms of performative issues, and support the conceptual enrichment hypothesis. We discuss the theoretical relevance of these results, suggesting that they are best explained by fine-grained increments within the concept of belief, rather than a radical conceptual change. We conclude that understanding opacity of minds – which emerges between age 5 and 6 – is an important step towards a more advanced form of ToM. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is a comparative analysis of the Lvov-Warsaw School and Frege-Russell's tradition. The Comparison of these is made on the grounds of the analysis of existence. Choosing "existence" as the object of the analysis is very essential. It is so because understanding of the category of existence is strongly connected with the whole system. Thus, while analyzing the category, one can make a reconstruction of the concept scheme ; show their functioning; and compare them to each (...) other. It is easy to notice that in both these systems: a) analyzing is strongly connected with the way of expressing existence in a language, b) the essential problem is to which category existence belongs, c) the main question is whether existence is a predicate. Since the problem of analyzing—especially the problem of applying logic in philosophy—played an essential role both in Frege-Russell's system and Twardowski's school, the author of this paper wants to show how this was understood there. (shrink)

The paper presents some ethical aspects of the credit rating agencies (CRAs) market in the light of the latest economic crisis of 2008. A historical background is also shown and how the CRA market emerged. It is emphasised how the functioning of CRAs contributed to the outbreak of the crisis and what were the consequences of over- or underestimated rating grades. The downgrading of a country has a significant influence on the deterioration of the economic condition. Simultaneously, it afflicts the (...) citizens, who have to pay for it e.g. with higher tax rates. It is believed that overestimated ratings lead to a speculative bubble, which ends up with the crisis. The paper indicates the problems connected with the way that CRAs operate and how they relate to business ethics. The fact that those institutions are profitprofile entities, which earn their income from clients, whose financial instruments are assessed, may bring about a conflict of interests. Moreover, it is outlined how the governmental policies of countries left CRAs without any particular control, which in the end was a significant factor, too. Finally, some potential solutions are discussed, and how the approach of CRA managers should change in order to prevent the market from similar situations in the future. (shrink)

The article is a brief attempt to reconstruct the views of Marian Zdziechowski, one of the most widely known Polish philosophers. It focuses on those elements of his conception, whose origins should be sought in his fascination and thorough reading of the doctrines of German pessimism, especially of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, in which this standpoint found its most representative expression.

The article is devoted to the earliest reception and the first interpretative attempts of Kant’s philosophy on Polish lands; it also gives an outline of the first Polish Kantians, who had the opportunity to meet the Königsberg philosopher. Two of them deserve particular attention: Józef Bychowiec and Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongowiusz. Who both attended Kant’s lectures and were the first Polish experts at his philosophy and translators of his works. Other Polish thinkers, such as Jan Śniadecki or Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski, whose (...) knowledge of Kant was narrowed to his works, are also mentioned in the article. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to examine the legacy of Menger’s theory of social institutions. We argue that Menger’s insights about the origin of social structures inspired later contributions in three main areas: theory of spontaneous order, theory of money, and theory of law.

In this paper we undertake an analysis of the knowability paradox in the light of modal epistemic logics and of the phenomena of unsuccessful updates. The knowability paradox stems from the Church-Fitch observation that the plausible knowability principle, according to which all truths are knowable, yields the unacceptable conclusion that all truths are known. We show that the phenomenon of an unsuccessful update is the reason for the paradox arising. Based on this diagnosis, we propose a restriction on the knowability (...) principle which resolves the paradox. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a battery of empirical findings on the relationship between cultural context and theory of mind that show great variance in the onset and character of mindreading in different cultures; discuss problems that those findings cause for the largely-nativistic outlook on mindreading dominating in the literature; and point to an alternative framework that appears to better accommodate the evident cross-cultural variance in mindreading. We first outline the theoretical frameworks that dominate in mindreading research, then present the (...) relevant empirical findings, and finally we come back to the theoretical approaches in a discussion of their explanatory potential in the face of the data presented. The theoretical frameworks discussed are the two-systems approach; performance-based approach also known as modularity-nativist approach; and the social-communicative theory also known as the systems, relational-systems, dynamic systems and developmental systems theory. The former two, which both fall within the wider modular-computational paradigm, run into a challenge with the cross-cultural data presented, and the latter - the systemic framework - seems to offer an explanatorily potent alternative. The empirical data cited in this paper comes from research on cross-cultural differences in folk psychology and theory-of-mind development; the influence of parenting practices on the development of theory of mind; the development and character of theory of mind in deaf populations; and neuroimaging research of cultural differences in mindreading. (shrink)

Roman Ingarden (1893-1970) apparteneva a quegli allievi di Husserl che si designano come “fenomenologia di Gottinga”. Si tratta della prima generazione di fenomenologi, nella quale rientravano, fra gli altri, anche Adolf Reinach, Hedwig Conrad-Martius ed Edith Stein. I ricercatori di questo gruppo erano influenzati soprattutto dalle Ricerche logiche di Husserl e reagirono un po’ stupiti alla sua successiva svolta idealistica. Per quanto riguarda lo stesso Ingarden, egli incontrò Husserl solo dopo la pubblicazione delle Idee, tuttavia filosoficamente appartiene senza dubbio al (...) periodo della prima fenomenologia “realistica”. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the beginnings of Brentano’s ontology were Aristotelian in nature; but this claim is only partially true. Certainly the young Brentano adopted many elements of Aristotle’s metaphysics, and he was deeply influenced by the Aristotelian way of doing philosophy. But he always interpreted Aristotle’s ideas in his own fashion. He accepted them selectively, and he used them in the service of ends that would not have been welcomed by Aristotle himself. The present paper is an exposition (...) of the development of Brentano’s ontology, beginning with the Lectures on Metaphysics first delivered by Brentano in Würzburg in 1867 and concluding with his late work from 1904–1917. (shrink)

Studien zur Phänomenologie von Brentano bis Ingarden Arkadiusz Chrudzimski. Husserl, Edmund 1908. Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre. Sommersemester I 908 (Husserliana XXVI, hrsg. von U. Panzer), Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster 1987 ...

Das Buch bietet die erste systematische esamtdarstellung der Ontologie Brentanos. Es zeigt, daß es in Brentanos ontologischem Denken drei Perioden gibt: die frühe "konzeptualistische" (1862-1874), die mittlere "deskriptiv-psychologische" (1874-1904) und die späte "reistische" (1904-1917). Diese drei Perioden werden in ihrer Kontinuität und komplizierten Dialektik unter Rückgriff auf unveröffentlichte Manuskripte Brentanos dargestellt. Dabei wird von dem logischen Handwerkszeug der zeitgenössischen analytischen Ontologie Gebrauch gemacht. Das Buch wendet sich nicht nur an Brentano-Forscher, sondern an alle an ontologischen Fragen Interessierten. Die Analysen zur (...) Ontologie der Intentionalität sind insbesondere für Phänomenologen und für Forscher im Bereich der cognitive science von Interesse. (shrink)

About 1904 Meinong formulated his most famous idea: there are no empty (non-referential) terms. Russell also did not accept non-referential singular terms, but in “On Denoting” he claimed that all singular terms that are apparently empty could be explained away as apparent singular terms. However, if we take a more careful look at both theories, the picture becomes more complex. It is well known that Russell’s concept of a genuine proper name is very technical; but this is also true of (...) Meinong. Also, according to Meinong we can refer “directly” only to a very special category of ontologically simple objects. However, a very important difference is that, in the domain of Meinongian objects, a _plurality_ of objects always corresponds to each description. Thus, if Meinong were right, there could be _no definite descriptions_. If we narrow the domain of reference to _existent_ objects, we can secure the uniqueness of the reference object by specifying a collection of predicates that is contingently satisfied by only one (existing) object. But if we operate in the domain of all _possible_ objects, we have to specify _all_ properties that are had by the object in question. It turns out that such a “Leibnizian” specification amounts to the complete description of a possible world. (shrink)

Mapping a public discourse with the tools of computational text analysis comes with many contingencies in the areas of corpus curation, data processing and analysis, and visualisation. However, the complexity of algorithmic assemblies and the beauty of resulting images give the impression of ‘objectivity’. Instead of concealing uncertainties and artefacts in order to tell a coherent and all-encompassing story, retaining the variety of alternative assemblies may actually strengthen the method. By utilising the mobility of digital devices, we could create mutable (...) mobiles that allow access to our laboratories and enable challenging rearrangements and interpretations. (shrink)

The point of departure for Anton Marty's theory of intentionality is Franz Brentano's ontology of intentionality as outlined in the unpublished manuscript of his logic-lectures from the second half of the 1880's. This rich ontology comprises immanent objects, immanent propositional contents and states of affairs. The late Marty rejects all immanent entities in Brentano's sense and explains intentionality in terms of counterfactualconditionals.However,contraryto the late Brentano,he insists on the indispensability of the category of states of affairs. Consequently Marty can formulate a (...) realistic theory of truth, while Brentano holds an epistemic theory of truth. (shrink)

The central and probably most controversial point concerning the psychologism — anti-psychologism debate is the problem of Frege’s alleged influence on the change in Husserl’s views. Contemporary thinkers investigating the early period of Husserl’s philosophy have attempted to show that the opinion that Frege’s doctrine had a traumatic influence on Husserl’s views is not justified. This paper, which tries to maintain a balance between strictly philosophical argumentation and narrowly understood historical argumentation, suggests an alternative solution. By appealing to Frege’s works (...) published before 1894, the locus of psychologism will be determined. Afterwards, I will present Husserl’s and Frege’s views on the elucidation procedure and the distinction between calculus and ‘lingua characteristica’. By discussing Husserl’s works from 1894-1897, I will show that his standpoint changed dramatically as he entered into the anti-psychological program, involving a new theory of concepts, judgment, and the so-called ‘pure Fregean flavour’ — a new account of logical content. (shrink)

At least since Hume we have a serious problem with explaining our moral valuations. Most of us – with notable exception of certain (in)famous esoteric thinkers like Nietzsche or De Sade – share a common intuition that our moral claims are in an important sense objective. We believe that they can be right or wrong; and we believe that if they happen to be right, then they are binding for each human being conducting a similar action in similar circumstances. Now (...) Hume drew our attention to the fact that our valuations do not follow from descriptions of the actions in question. There seems to be nothing in the “descriptive content” of the world around us that could make them true or false and in face of that it becomes very puzzling how they ever could be right, objective or committing. As we all know Hume’s solution proclaims emotions as the basis of our moral valuations. Calling something right or wrong should be in the first place understood as an expression of our emotional attitude toward it. This move explains a part of the initial puzzle, but it also leaves us with a certain unpleasant consequence. It seems that in the strict sense emotions could be neither rational nor true, and consequently we can hardly imagine any conclusive moral argument. De gustibus non disputandum est. Our feeling of objectivity vis a vis our moral valuations has to be classified as a kind of illusion and what follows is a kind of moral relativism or scepticism. Some philosophers are happy with this conclusion, but some others find it untenable. Brentano and his followers belonged to the second group. They generally accepted Hume’s claim that emotions constitute the basis of our moral valuations but developed interesting strategies to avoid his relativistic conclusions. (shrink)

Die oberflächengrammatische Form einer Beschreibung der inten-tio-nalen Beziehung suggeriert, daß wir es mit einer Relation zwischen dem Subjekt und dem Objekt zu tun haben. Angesichts der logischen Anomalien der intentionalen Kontexte postulieren jedoch viele Philosophen spezielle Entitäten, die den intentionalen Zugang zum eigentlichen Referenzobjekt vermitteln. Wir untersuchen drei Intentionalitätstheorien dieser Art: eine Meinongsche Theorie; eine Brentanosche Theorie; und eine Repräsentationstheorie sensu stricto. Alle Theorien akzeptie-ren die These, daß die vermittelnden Entitäten nur in der Weise repräsentieren können, indem sie eine Beschreibung (...) des Referenzobjektes involvieren. Die Unterschiede zwischen ihnen betreffen drei Fragen: ob zwischen den Eigenschaften, die die vermittelnden Entitäten haben, und den-jenigen, die den Referenzobjekten zukommen, das Verhältnis der Identität besteht; ob die Weise, in der die Eigenschaften „gehabt" werden, in beiden Fällen die gleiche ist; und ob die Weise, in der es die betreffenden Entitäten gibt, immer ontologisch verpflichtend ist. (shrink)