Marian Przełęcki defends the semantical conception of truth against involving it in difficulties of the said controversy.

The thesis of the inexpressibility of certain kinds of philosophical knowledge, as ascribed to plato, is subjected to an analysis and, in consequence, interpreted in such a way which does not charge plato's position with any kind of mysticism or irrationalism. The interpretation propounded assumes that it is only some vague philosophical ideas that are said to be not expressible in a definite way.

The following remarks should be treated as a discussion of a semiotic claim posed in the quotation above. Kołakowski opted for this rather radical perspective to challenge semiotic views prevailing in the analytical philosophy of that day. No wonder that his intellectual opponents felt obliged to take a stand. I once tended to side with his opponents, which is one of the reasons why I would like to take the emerging opportunity and revisit Kołakowski’s argument. I won’t be discussing the (...) meaning of expressions in general, my purpose here is rather to, as the title suggests, bring into focus the meaning of non-literal expressions, particularly where they are supplied with inverted commas to imply their non-literal, metaphorical character. I chose to pursue this particular topic because there is little agreement as to what they actually mean. (shrink)

Ethical intuitionism is the theory of cognition of moral facts and, what’s closely related, a theory that explores the meaning of moral judgments. I’ve been a proponent of this theory discussing it in some of my writing, most notably in Sens i prawda w etyce [Sense and Truth in Ethics], published as a 49th volume in the ”Biblioteka Myśli Semiotycznej” series. Part I of this paper addresses criticisms that Anna Jedynak raised in her review of my book. In part II, (...) I will discuss a theory of moral behaviour proposed by Bogusław Wolniewicz in two of his articles. I consider the idea of moral cognition following from his conception and contrast it with the notion of moral cognition and moral meaning that follow from ethical intuitionism. I hope that the following discussion will help clarify and explain the main ideas behind ethical intuitionism considered as an epistemological and semiotic theory, however problematic it may appear to be. (shrink)

The law of excluded middle is usually considered as intrinsically connected with the realistic standpoint and incompatible with the idealistic position. This is just what Ajdukiewicz claims in his critique of transcendental idealism. The analysis of Ajdukiewicz's argumentation raises the problem of validity of the law of excluded middle for vague (or incomplete) languages. The problem is being solved by differentiating between the logical (or ontological) and the metalogical (or semantical) law of excluded middle: in contrast to the former, the (...) latter is claimed to be invalid for the languages in question, without thereby embracing the idealist position. (shrink)

The model theoretic concept of truth has thus far been applied mainly to mathematical languages and theories. The paper presents an attempt to apply it to languages of empirical theories. Such an application must do justice to some characteristic features of empirical discourse. The paper outlines the main problems which a model theoretic theory of truth for empirical languages is bound to face and suggests some solutions to those problems.

The anthology presents a selection of methodological writings pub lished by Polish logicians after World War 11. All the papers belong to what may be called Logical Methodology or Logical Theory of Science. The epithet 'logical' characterizes rather the general point of view than the particular methods employed by the authors. Apart from articles which make an essential use of different formal methods, there are many which do not involve any formal apparatus whatsoever. The problems the papers deal with may (...) be characterized as problems of the general methodology of empirical science. The papers do not consider the methodological problems of formal knowledge, and, as a rule, they are concerned with empirical science as a whole and not with some of its specific branches. The topics covered by the selected writings include the main issues and controversies discussed within the contemporary methodology of science. A considerable part of the anthology is con cerned with the semantics of empirica1languages and considers problems such as interpretation of observational and theoretical terms, analyticity, empirical meaningfulness, etc. Another group of papers deals with the problem of induction and examines various ways of its justification. Some articles discuss the nature and the status of methodology itself. The materials have been selected so as to make up a whole representative of what has been done in this field in Poland since 1945. The book comprises 33 articles by 20 authors. (shrink)

The approach to the meaning of indexicals adopted in this paper is based on the theory known as Montague grammar. Accepting, in general, that kind of theory { especially in its modied version, which is due to Thomason and Kaplan 1 { I point out certain inadequacy in its treatment of the meaning of some indexical expressions and suggest some modication of its theoretical framework in order to avoid that shortcoming.

This is an attempt to meet the objections made by Anna and Andrzej Jerzy Jedynak in their article criticizing the views of this author concerning truth value of evaluative propositions. Replying to this criticism the author tries to show that his views do not lead to the elimination of the evaluative predicates like “morally good” by descriptive predicates like “considered to be morally good”, as the critics have claimed.

Realizm praktyczny jest koncepcją etyczną Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, która spotkała się z poważną krytyką — głównie ze strony Henryka Elzenberga. Autor artykułu, uznając słuszność niektórych zarzutów Elzenberga, stara się ich uniknąć dzięki interpretacji postulatu realizmu praktycznego, sugerowanej przez pewne wcześniejsze teksty Kotarbińskiego. Postulat ten, tak rozumiany, nie wyznacza naczelnego ideału naszego postępowania, tylko podaje warunek moralnej dopuszczalności dążenia do przyjętego przez nas ideału. Warunkiem tym ma być nasza troska o dobro innych ludzi, w szczególności — „obrona ich przed nieszczęściem”.

The model theoretic concept of truth has thus far been applied mainly to mathematical languages and theories. The paper presents an attempt to apply it to languages of empirical theories. Such an application must do justice to some characteristic features of empirical discourse. The paper outlines the main problems which a model theoretic theory of truth for empirical languages is bound to face and suggests some solutions to those problems.

Referring to the session "Science and religion" (Filozofia Nauki 1/2006) - esp. to Jan Wolenski's contribution article "Return to the theory of double truth" - the author presents two ways of interpreting the meaning of religion statements. According to one of them, the statements may be shown to possess some kind of empirical content, due to their definitional connection with empirical terms of everyday language, and, in consequence, may bear logical relations to empirical statements. According to the other way of (...) interpreting religion statements, they appear to be devoid of any empirical content and - s Wolenski claims - cannot be supported or threatened by any empirical data. (shrink)

An answer to the question whether belief is a proper object of moral appraisal is shown to depend on some assumptions concerning the notion of moral judgement and belief. Different categories of morally appraisable objects are discussed and two concepts of belief are distinguished: a feeling of confidence and an act of assertion. It is claimed that an appraisal of beliefs with regard to their rationality has a moral aspect and that moral beliefs are liable to a moral valuation with (...) respect to their moral content. Both kinds of moral valuation are illustrated by the case of the racist view. (shrink)