Philosophers and scientists refer to the special character of phenomenal consciousness, something supposedly obvious to all conscious persons. However, we had no empirical evidence about the folk view of consciousness until the first studies were carried out in the experimental philosophy of consciousness. According to the leading interpretation of these results, laypersons—people without academic knowledge about consciousness—do not notice the phenomenal aspect of consciousness. The aim of the article is to answer the question of whether we can trust these results. (...) I show that there are serious doubts about the validity of the experimental philosophy of consciousness research. As a result, the leading interpretation should be rejected, and the question about the folk nature of the concept of consciousness must be regarded as open. (shrink)

The issue of the relationship between predictive processing (PP) and the free energy principle (FEP) remains a subject of debate and controversy within the research community. Many researchers have expressed doubts regarding the actual integration of PP with the FEP, questioning whether the FEP can truly contribute significantly to the mechanistic understanding of PP or even undermine such integration altogether. In this paper, I present an alternative perspective. I argue that, from the viewpoint of the constraint-based mechanisms approach, the FEP (...) imposes an important constraint, namely variational free energy, on the mechanistic architecture proposed by PP. According to the constraint-based mechanisms approach, high-level cognitive mechanisms are integral parts of extensive heterarchical networks that govern the physiology and behavior of agents. Consequently, mechanistic explanations of cognitive phenomena should incorporate constraints and flows of free energy as relevant components, given that the implemented constraints operate as long as free energy is available. Within this framework, I contend that the FEP provides a relevant constraint for explaining at least some biological cognitive mechanisms described in terms of Bayesian generative models that minimize prediction errors. (shrink)

Neonatal professionals encounter many ethical challenges especially when it comes to interventions at the limit of viability (weeks 22–25 of gestation). At times, these challenges make the moral dilemmas in neonatology tragic and they require a particular set of intellectual and moral virtues. Intellectual virtues of episteme and phronesis, together with moral virtues of courage, compassion, keeping fidelity to trust, and integrity were highlighted as key virtues of the neonatal professional. Recognition of the role of ethics requires a recognition that (...) answering the obvious question (what shall we do?) does not always suffice. Acknowledging the tragic question (is any of the alternatives open to us free from serious moral wrongdoing) and recognizing the ethical dilemmas, where the lines between right and wrong are blurred, leads to actions taken towards establishing ethics frameworks to support decision-making. In neonatology units, such organizational support can help in allowing the team members to recognize the ethical dilemmas, avoid moral distress, and improve team cohesion and the quality of care provided. Only when the organizational structure allows ethical dilemmas to be recognized, adequate decisions can be made. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an account of the dependence relation between perception of change and the subjective flow of time that is consistent with some extant empirical evidence from priming by unconscious change. This view is inspired by the one offered by William James, but it is articulated in the framework of contemporary functionalist accounts of mental qualities and higher-order theories of consciousness. An additional advantage of this account of the relationship between perception of change and subjective time is (...) that is makes sense of instances where we are not consciously aware of changes but still experience the flow of time. (shrink)

This text is a kind of sketch and presents some simple ideas. The aim of this article is to carry out a critical and reflexive analysis of Roman Ingarden's philosophy of responsibility. Being a member of the phenomenological current, Ingarden mainly studied the ontological bases or conditions of responsibility by identifying different situations of responsibility. In this paper situations of responsibility have been analysed in the semantic contexts in which the word "responsibility" appears. Legally, the prescriptive contexts of using the (...) word "responsibility" are particularly important since they are usually either ignored or inadequately separated from descriptive contexts. Roman Ingarden's views were supplemented by Alf Ross's aspects of responsibility. As a result, the elementary ways of understanding responsibility have been reconstructed; they are the basis for reflections on moral responsibility as well as legal responsibility. (shrink)

Neuroscience is a fascinating discipline – its dynamic progress has led to the emergence of new interdisciplinary research programmes with great potential. One of these research areas is neuroeconomics. As will be shown in this article, this discipline, which is difficult to clearly characterize and define, is faced with many problems. This paper argues that social scientists should be interested in the problems and tendencies in social neuroscience for several reasons. Neuroeconomics, and other disciplines inspired by neuroscience, will compete with (...) their parent disciplines in many fields of interest. On one hand it will be necessary for scientists to define and defend the irreplaceable roles of their disciplines, but also critically evaluate the potential of new approaches on the other. In the context of this discussion, which reopens questions about the scientific status of economics and its roles, this paper introduces the main problems related to neuroeconomics. This paper concludes that these problems represent a wide domain for social scientists and methodologists of science. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of Martin Buber’s not very well-known essay “Distance and Relation”, which is his most relevant contribution to philosophical anthropology. In the essay, which was published almost thirty years after the publication of his most famous book, I and Thou, Buber elaborated on the anthropological foundations of his cosmic vision of dialogical life. The central question is “How is man possible?” Buber’s answer is very important to the further development of his principle of dialogue in psychology (...) (primarily his notion of confirmation) and philosophy of art, but it is not quite clear how compatible it is with some of his earlier theses from I and Thou. In particular, the relation between “distance” and the I-It relation is unclear. There are two seemingly contradictory statements: “In the beginning is the relation” and “The primal distance is a presupposition of the relation”. The aim of this paper is to examine these anthropological foundations and to elucidate this apparent contradiction. (shrink)

Although the literature on the issue of pluralism within the philosophy of science is very extensive, this paper focuses on the metaphysical causal pluralism that emerges from the new mechanistic discussion on causality. The main aim is to situate the new mechanistic views on causation within the account of varieties of causal pluralism framed by Psillos ( 2009 ). Paying attention to his taxonomy of metaphysical views on causation (i.e., the straightjacket view, the functional view, the two-concept view, the agnostic (...) view and the atheist view) will help clarify differences in opinion and, at the same time, make it possible to elucidate the main metaphysical theses present within the new mechanistic debate. Special attention is given to S. Glennan’s theory of causation, since it is unique in offering an overall metaphysical view of the issue. It is also argued that mechanists are not “atheists” on causation: while all of them are causal realists, most mechanists are “agnostic” on causation, with a few exceptions such as S. Glennan, P. Machamer and J. Bogen. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the differences between ontic and epistemic conceptions of scientific explanation, mainly in relation to the so-called new mechanical philosophy. I emphasize that the debate on conceptions of scientific explanation owes much to Salmon’s ontic/epistemic distinction, although much has changed since his formulations. I focus on the interplay between ontic and epistemic norms and constraints in providing mechanistic explanations. My conceptual analysis serves two aims. Firstly, I formulate some suggestions for recognising that both sets of norms (...) and constraints, ontic and epistemic, are necessary for scientific theorising. Secondly, I emphasize that there are multiple dimensions involved in scientific explanation, rather than clear-cut alternatives between ontic and epistemic aspects. I conclude with a general observation that although contextual aspects of explanations are unavoidable, the epistemic-relativity of our categories, explanations and models can in fact be compatible with their objectivity. Instead of making hastily drawn ontological implications from our theories or models, we should carefully scrutinize them from the ontic-epistemic perspective. (shrink)

Ajtai’s completeness theorem roughly states that a countable structure A coded in a model of arithmetic can be end-extended and expanded to a model of a given theory G if and only if a contradiction cannot be derived by a proof from G plus the diagram of A, provided that the proof is definable in A and contains only formulas of a standard length. The existence of such model extensions is closely related to questions in complexity theory. In this paper (...) we give a new proof of Ajtai’s theorem using basic techniques of model theory. (shrink)

Hlavným cieľom práce je identifikovať antinaturalistické črty etiky Dunsa Scota. Predpokladom je objasnenie pojmu naturalizmu. V teoretickej filozofii je možné rozlíšiť metafyzický, vedecko-metodologický a sémanticko-analytický naturalizmus. V praktickej filozofii je naturalizmus prítomný v etike cnosti, v ktorej sa pri dosahovaní dobrého života pracuje s pojmom ľudskej prirodzenosti a emočno-afektívna stránka človeka je relevantným prvkom etického uvažovania. Voči nej stojí etika pravidiel, podľa ktorej je zdrojom morálne dobrého ľudská racionalita, prax má byť formovaná podľa poznania rozumu a emocionalita je v tomto (...) etickom uvažovaní irelevantná. Na základe rozboru niektorých diel Dunsa Scota je jeho etika antinaturalistická v týchto bodoch: vôľa ako protiklad prirodzenosti; oddelenie morálky a blaženosti; sekundárny význam emócií v etickom uvažovaní; univerzálne záväzný imperatív lásky k Bohu; vôľa ako sídlo morálnych cností. Spojenie blaženosti, cnosti a prirodzenosti u Scota stráca vnútornú súdržnosť, prirodzené a morálne dobro nekonvergujú, čo sa odráža v „denaturalizácii“ morálky. Na základe identifikácie antinaturalistických čŕt Scotovej etiky prichádzame k záveru, že jeho etika má bližšie k etike pravidiel. (shrink)

We discuss the role of the notion of information in the description of physical reality. We consider theories for which dynamics is linear with respect to stochastic mixing. We point out that the no-cloning and no-deleting principles emerge in any such theory, if law of conservation of information is valid, and two copies contain more information than one copy. We then describe the quantum case from this point of view.

The submitted contribution is devoted to the controversy in Martin Buber’s conception of responsibility and especially to the question whether its nature is reciprocal or asymmetrical. This controversy arises from a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of his concept of mutuality as a constituent of I-Thou relation. Several refuting arguments are offered against the claim that the mutuality of the I-Thou relationship means equality of responsibility which enables ethical calculus.

The Presocratics in the Thought of Martin Heidegger. By Korab-Karpowicz W. Julian..).

By action model, we understand any logic-based representation of effects and executability preconditions of individual actions within a certain domain. In the context of artificial intelligence, such models are necessary for planning and goal-oriented automated behaviour. Currently, action models are commonly hand-written by domain experts in advance. However, since this process is often difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone, it makes sense to let agents learn the effects and conditions of actions from their own observations. Even though the research in the area (...) of action learning, as a certain kind of inductive reasoning, is relatively young, there already exist several distinctive action learning methods. We will try to identify the collection of the most important properties of these methods, or challenges that they are trying to overcome, and briefly outline their impact on practical applications. (shrink)

Wonderful Knowledge. Aquinas on the Immutability and Eternity of God’s Knowledge The general concept of knowledge is a kind of concept closely akin to transcententals: its use is not restricted to a certain kind of being, and it does not itself designate a kind of entity. Such concepts may be applied to God not as metaphors: when we grasp (through the analysis of cases of finite knowledge) some general traits of knowledge as such, we can show that God has knowledge, (...) and his knowledge, as opposed to ours, is infinitely perfect. We have no insight into this realization of knowledge as opposed to ours, but as far as we know what general traits of knowledge are, it is important to know that God has infinitely perfect knowledge. To grasp the general traits of knowledge, I focus on the topic of mutability and immutability of knowledge analyzed systematically by Aquinas, and thus on the topic of identity criteria specific for knowledge in general: the question of when knowledge that p and knowledge that q are (in a certain knower) one and the same knowledge; the criteria of identity of knowledge vary according to natures of knowers. I think that the problem of the criteria of identity of knowledge is rather neglected in omniscience-immutability discussions. I analyze Aquinas’ arguments for the thesis that human knowledge is mutable, and God’s knowledge is absolutely immutable (they concern the role of tense). The analysis sheds light on some general traits of knowledge: it is always something formulated by the knower which manifests some truth to him, and in general the way it is formulated corresponds to (i) the way it manifests some truth, (ii) its identity criteria, (iii) the way it is propositional, (iv) the way it is related to tense, and finally (v) the nature of the knower. Focusing on the criteria of the identity of knowledge shows that God’s knowledge is absolutely immutable, and that time and change in its objects are nevertheless undoubtedly real. Keywords: God’s knowledge, knowledge, criteria of identity of knowledge, immutability; tense; transcendentals; omniscience-immutability arguments. (shrink)

This ground-breaking collection of essays tackles the philosophical issues at play in cosmology, physics, mathematics, and neuroscience. The book considers topics such as the presence of ontology in cosmological theory and physics. It also weighs the philosophical issues connected with mathematical method, the neuroscience of emotions, and evolutionary anthropology. The contributions look at structuralism in the Platonic philosophy of science and the issue of knowledge and faith. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the philosophy of science (...) and the increasingly blurred borders between the two. (shrink)

Zaproponowano, by Quine’a kryterium istnienia (teoria zakłada istnienie zmiennych związanych) rozszerzyć na matematyczne struktury. W duchu tego kryterium każdą matematyczną strukturę można uważać za oddzielny świat, w którym istnieją tylko te byty, bez zakładania których struktura straciłaby sens. Niektóre matematyczne światy są używane przez fizyków do modelowania rzeczywistego świata. W takiej sytuacji ontologia danej struktury matematycznej przenosi się na fizyczny świat. Mówiąc bardziej prozaicznie, niektóre matematyczne struktury interpretuje się jako struktury fizycznego świata. Cud rozumienia świata sprowadza się do cudu tej (...) interpretacji. (shrink)

Noncommutative geometry is quickly developing branch of mathematics finding important application in physics, especially in the domain of the search for the fundamental physical theory. It comes as a surprise that noncommutative generalizations of probabilistic measure and dynamics are unified into the same mathematical structure, i.e., noncommutative von Neumann algebra with a distinguished linear form on it. The so-called free probability calculus and the Tomita-Takesaki theorem, on which this unification is based, are briefly presented. It is argued that the unitary (...) evolution, known from quantum mechanics, could be a trace of noncommutativity on a deeper level. Philosophical significance of these results is also discussed. (shrink)

How to define space-time singularities is a serious problem in general relativity. Schmidt's b-boundary construction was commonly regarded as leading to the best (and very elegant) definition of singularities: space-time is said to be singular if it contains at least one b-incomplete curve. Unfortunately, Bosshard (1976) and Johnson (1977) demonstrated that the b-boundary of the closed Friedman universe consists of the single point. This means that the initial and final singularieties (i.e., the beginning and the end of the Friedman world) (...) coincide. So far no remedy to cure this disaster was known. In the present paper, the author reviews the results obtained by himself and W. Sasin (1994) which clarify the problem. The closed Friedman space-time together with its singularities is not smooth manifold but it turns out to be a structured space which is a strong generalization of the manifold concept. Consequently, if the problem is considered within the correct category, i.e. the category of structured spaces, the patologies dissapear. If one remains within the space-time everything is all right. It is only if one attempts to „touch” the singularity (to extend the differential structure from the inside of space-time to the singularity) when the beginning and the end of the universe coalesce. From the perspective of the Demiurg creating the closed Friedman universe the cosmic history is but a single point. The methodological significance of this result is briefly discussed. (shrink)