American metaphysics of race In the 1990s, a debate about the race began in the United States, in which many philosophers are involved. In philosophy, this debate has become known as the metaphysics of race. The aim of this article is to outline positions that have formed in the area of the metaphysics of race as a separate, mainly American, current of philosophical thought - realism (naturalistic and constructivist) and anti-realism - and to indicate the most important arguments invoked by (...) their most outstanding proponents to justify their metaphysical positions, as well as the counter-arguments of their opponents. The article also discusses the normative aspect of this dispute, very important from the moral and social point of view, listing two main positions on this level: eliminativism and conservatism regarding the presence of racial terms and concepts in public discourses. In the final parts of the article, the relations between metaphysical positions and normative directives formulated by the participants of the debate are considered, and critical arguments concerning the philosophical value and social importance of this trend of thinking are presented. (shrink)

???? Wydawnictwo von Borowiecky : Jak pisze autor we wstępie do czwartego, niniejszego, wydania tej książki, „metafizyka jest dyscypliną filozoficzną, która identyfikuje to, co podstawowe i pierwsze w samej rzeczywistości”. Metafizyka jest więc nauką o rzeczywistości, o tym, co realnie istnieje. Elementarz metafizyki uczy filozoficznego rozpoznawania rzeczywistości, uczy właśnie jej identyfikowania. Dzięki niemu uzyskujemy umiejętność wskazywania na byt i jego pryncypia, uczymy się odróżniać realny byt od wytworów, w tym także od pojęć, usprawniamy się w wiedzy i mądrości. Elementarz metafizyki (...) jest nieocenioną, ale też i wciąż niedocenioną, pomocą w dziedzinie poznania i myślenia, wreszcie definiowania. Dzięki tej książce nauczymy się nie tylko postrzegać rzeczywistość, ale też rzeczowo i jasno o niej rozprawiać… © Wydawnictwo von Borowiecky. (shrink)

One can say about two sources of philosophy of nature created at the Catholic University of Lublin. One of them was the Theological Faculty at the Warsaw University in the 50s of the previous century. The scientific climate functioning in it induced Rev. Stanisław Mazierski to put through a profound examination the traditional style which then dominated in cultivating philosophy of nature. That analysis showed necessity of opening philosophy of nature to achievements of the contemporary science, especially of mathematical and (...) physical structure. The second source constitutes the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Mary Curie- Skłodowska University in Lublin and the Holy Cross Mountains. Rev. Włodzimierz Sedlak, bewitched by nature, by its mysteries and by contemporary science investigating them, and endowed with the enormous intuition, interlocked a lot of scientific domains, forming a whole and proposing a fascinating view of the world. Some people were alarmed by it, some others were even resentful of it. The both above-mentioned sources, mutatis mutandis, exist till the present day. Each of them, in spite of their dissimilarity (taking into account at least different personalities of the both protagonists of philosophy of nature created at the Catholic University of Lublin) demands philosophy of nature to be an unconventional, and made in novel fashion, form of \"philosophizing over this nature\". These both styles of \"philosophizing over nature\" have been enriching themselves and have been evolving and prospering. They are present and alive among continuators of the protagonists\' work. The contemporary philosophy of nature, being still created in Lublin, is the only one, when comparing it to that of performed at other universities of this country and of the world outside. (shrink)

We try to define the essential features of the Fregean paradigm. Then we demonstrate that Suszko's non-fregean logic, Wolniewicz's ontology of situation and Barwise-Perry's situational semantics go meaningfully beyond the fregean paradigm: what is presupposed in all of these theories is that as semantic correlates of sentences serve certain objects which are not logical values of these sentences.

The article presents Albert Einstein\'s standpoint on the issue of mutual relations between science and philosophy. First the metaphilosophical context of that standpoint is shown. It concerns the conception of science and philosophy accepted by the author of the relativity theory. Findings in that field showed that Einstein opted for close connections between science and philosophy and he treated them as both influence of philosophy on science and influence of science on philosophy. In the first case, the influence of philosophy (...) is marked, according to our author, first and foremost in science treated as a process. It manifests its presence mainly in the procedures of discovering new scientific theories, their selection and acceptance. However, it is not present in the procedures of direct justifications of those theories. Einstein also saw the presence of philosophy in science treated as a product. Then philosophy enters scientific theories in the form of general principles and assumptions placed in the so-called exterior base of the theory, whereas, according to Einstein, the presence of philosophical theses in the main body of the scientific theory as their immanent element is not permitted. As far as the influence of science on philosophy is concerned our author states that it has a twofold dimension. The very fact of existence of science and procedures that take place in it as well as changes show their influence on issues taken up by epistemology and philosophy of science. Concrete scientific achievements mark their reference to the problems considered within the confines of broadly understood philosophy of nature. Einstein\'s standpoint clearly lacks deepened logical-methodological analyses concerning the issue of mutual connections between science and philosophy presented here. (shrink)

The main purpose of the article is to consider the following problem: Is the naturalistic explanation of the cosmic coincidences proposed by the the Wheeler's version of the Many Worlds Hypothesis justified? To give the plausible answer for this question three main topics are presented. The first question concens the main issues of the Wheeler's version of the Hypothesis. They state that the Universe may have a cyclic character, oscillating ad infinitum through a sequence of expanding and contracting phases. At (...) each "bounce" where contraction is exchanged for expansion, the singularity may introduce a permutation in the values of the physical "constants" of Nature and the form of the expansion dynamics. The next point of the article presents the essence of the explanation given by the Wheeler's version. of the Hypothesis. This explanation is based on the very important statement of the probability calculus that the repetition improves the chances of getting at least one rare event in a sequence of trials. The Wheeler's version offers an ifinite sequence of oscillating universes with very differnt features so also our universe allowing life must appear at last in this sequence. The corectness of the proposed explanation is discussed at the third point of the article. It considers the problerm of the scientific and philosofical status of the Hypothesis and also some objections agaist the way of reasoning accepted in the course of explanation. In the context of the presented discussions one might say that proposed explanation of the cosmic coincidences in the frame of the Wheeler's version of the Many Worlds Hypothesis is at least dubious. Therefore, this explanation cannot be used as an argument in the controversy between naturalism and theism. (shrink)

In this article the most important theistic arguments formulated by virtue of the achievements of contemporary cosmology are presented and critically discussed. In general, these are the so-called aposterioric arguments, i.e. those that descend from commonly accepted scientific facts in cosmology. In view of these facts an attempt is made to show that a theistic explanation is the best one among all the possible ones. Taking into consideration the fundamental essence of cosmological data, two the most important genera of formulated (...) arguments are pointed out. The first one refers to the Big Bang widely affirmed in cosmology. It assumes the shape of the previous argument from the beginning of the time of the Universe. The main difficulty of this argument is the fact of its groundless attribute of the Big Bang with the character of the absolute beginning of time forewent only by nothingness. The second genera of the argumentation refers to the so-called cosmic coincidences affirmed in cosmology. Depending on philosophical interpretations of these coincidences, one may speak about the argumentation from the plan, rationality, mathematicality, teleology, subtlety or con­tingency of the Universe. The cognitive value of these arguments on the one hand depends on the legitimacy of the interpretations of cosmic coincidences and on the other hand it depends on the possibility of demonstrating that the theistic interpretation of philosophically interpreted scientific facts is the best possible explanation. Because there is no easy way to demonstrate the validity and correctness of both ways of ratiocination, therefore the evidential strength of all these arguments evokes many questions. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to present the essence and the role of anthropic explanation in cosmology. This explanation was proposed during the time when there was no further possibility of finding the explanation of cosmic coincidences on the ground of contemporary scientific theories. This explanation relies on the recognition of the fact of the existence of a carbon life in the Universe as a factor which explains the Universe’s global characteristics, which are a requisite for appearance of (...) life. The explanatory value of this explanation depends on the character of relations of the connections between the cosmic coincidences and the fact of the existence of life. In the case of the Weak Anthropic Principle this explanation has a character of simple tautology. In the case of the Strong Anthropic Principle, however, it is a philosophical explanation, whose cognitive value depends on both: the correctness of these principles and their logico-mathematical coherence with the cosmic coincidences. (shrink)