Debunking arguments aim to undermine common sense beliefs by showing that they are not explanatorily or causally linked to the entities they are purportedly about. Rarely are facts about the aetiology of common sense beliefs invoked for the opposite aim, that is, to support the reality of entities that furnish our manifest image of the world. Here I undertake this sort of un-debunking project. My focus is on the metaphysics of ordinary physical objects. I use the view of perception as (...) approximate Bayesian inference to show how representations of ordinary objects can be extracted from sensory input in a rational and truth-tracking manner. Drawing an analogy between perception construed as Bayesian hypothesis testing and scientific inquiry, I sketch out how some of the intuitions that traditionally inspired arguments for scientific realism also find application with regards to proverbial tables and chairs. (shrink)

Recent developments in virtual reality technology raise a question about the experience of presence and immersion in virtual environments. What is immersion and what are the conditions for inducing the experience of virtual presence? In this paper, we argue that crucial determinants of presence are perception of affordances and sense of embodiment. In the first section of this paper, we define key concepts and introduce important distinctions such as immersion and presence. In the second and third sections, we respectively discuss (...) presence, immersion and their determinants in detail. In the fourth and fifth sections, we argue for the importance of perception of affordances and sense of embodiment in increasing the degree of presence. Finally, we show the consequences of our view and discuss possible future implications. (shrink)

Die Beiträge dieses Buches untersuchen die Vielfalt der Herangehensweisen an die diversen Erscheinungsformen von Sprache, an das Wort und die Wortsemantik sowie an den Gebrauch von Sprache. Der Band enthält Arbeiten, die linguistische Fragestellungen zu sprachsystematischen Aspekten der Wort-, Satz-, Text- und Diskursebene behandeln sowie Perspektiven eröffnen, um diverse Aspekte von Sprache in einem über diese Domänen hinausgehenden Rahmen zu betrachten. Die Beiträger diskutieren Fragen der lexikalischen Semantik, Pragmalinguistik, Morphologie und der Lexikographie. Das Buch setzt seine Schwerpunkte neben der Wortsemantik (...) auf die Eingebundenheit lexikalischer Bedeutungen in registerspezifische Diskursmuster, öffentliche, interpersonelle und geschäftlich-beruflich orientierte Diskurse. (shrink)

Józef Tischner, a Polish twentieth century priest and philosopher, is mostly known for his ideas relating to the theme of solidarity, as well as for his original ‘philosophy of drama’. This article examines selected aspects of his early philosophy, without which those two major contributions cannot be properly understood. I begin by a brief synopsis of three thinkers which have exerted major influence on Tischner – Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Roman Ingarden. I then proceed to recount Tischner’s own early (...) philosophy as an investigation of human self-awareness, showing how several ideas (such as ‘solidarization’) contribute to Tischner’s later thought. Finally, I offer a brief critical remark to Tischner’s work – namely, whether it is possible to argue for an ultimately axiological constitution of self-awareness, without taking a stance on the question related to the nature and existence of values. (shrink)

Maria Ossowska, an outstanding Polish theorist of morality conceived of ethics as a science of morals. The author underscores the characteristic traits of her style of work and surveys her findings in sociology of morals. Maria Ossowska is depicted as a scholar who cautiously formulates and verifies her hypotheses, critically examines her findings and displays indefatigable inquisitiveness, never benefiting from an occasion to explain the facts away with the help of a single kind of factors solely.

The paper discusses the unique relationship that exists between the ego and one’s own body. There are two fundamental possibilities to grasp it – using the verb “to be” or “to have,” which results in two known formulas: “to be the body” or “to have the body.” However, after careful examination, it turns out that they are one-sided and entangle us in numerous aporias. A more complete picture of the relationships with one’s own body is made possible by a phenomenological (...) description, which is a first-person and direct approach. The body, given in numerous experiences, turns out to be paradoxical and ambiguous. This is also my relation with it – it is feeling myself and others, getting to know myself and the world; an internal and at the same time external bond, at most my own experience along with the need to transcend the body. Finally, we consider whether the category of “relationship” resp. “relation” matches the experience of one’s own body. Perhaps a better solution is to give up this term and describe the body as a character of human being. (shrink)

Due to the rapid advances in medical technology, medical students are now being faced with increasingly complex and unparalleled ethical and practical dilemmas during their training. The new and future challenges of high-tech medicine demand improvements in current medical education, not only by meeting the needs of students through humanized training programs, but also by involving them in finding solutions to the ethical and legal quandaries they encounter. Today’s students of medical universities must acquire knowledge and understanding of the ethical (...) and legal issues relevant to the practice of medicine, and we have to do everything possible to introduce these students to the current discussions on more or less controversial ethical and legal topics. Although final answers may not be found, the very discussion, argumentation, and awakening of students’ interest should become an essential part of the core curriculum of every doctor. (shrink)

This paper is the first part of an exploration into the logical properties of relative identity. After providing the semantic grounds for various monadic logics of relative identity, I define the minimal system and its nine extensions. It is suggested that despite their purely formal origin at least some of them may contain nontrivial philosophical insights. All logics are axiomatized by means of sound and complete sequent calculi. I show their affinities with existing formalizations.

According to the predictive coding theory of cognition , brains are predictive machines that use perception and action to minimize prediction error, i.e. the discrepancy between bottom–up, externally-generated sensory signals and top–down, internally-generated sensory predictions. Many consider PCT to have an explanatory scope that is unparalleled in contemporary cognitive science and see in it a framework that could potentially provide us with a unified account of cognition. It is also commonly assumed that PCT is a representational theory of sorts, in (...) the sense that it postulates that our cognitive contact with the world is mediated by internal representations. However, the exact sense in which PCT is representational remains unclear; neither is it clear that it deserves such status—that is, whether it really invokes structures that are truly and nontrivially representational in nature. In the present article, I argue that the representational pretensions of PCT are completely justified. This is because the theory postulates cognitive structures—namely action-guiding, detachable, structural models that afford representational error detection—that play genuinely representational functions within the cognitive system. (shrink)

In this paper, I use the predictive processing theory of perception to tackle the question of how perceptual states can be rationally involved in cognition by justifying other mental states. I put forward two claims regarding the epistemological implications of PP. First, perceptual states can confer justification on other mental states because the perceptual states are themselves rationally acquired. Second, despite being inferentially justified rather than epistemically basic, perceptual states can still be epistemically responsive to the mind-independent world. My main (...) goal is to elucidate the epistemology of perception already implicit in PP. But I also hope to show how it is possible to peacefully combine central tenets of foundationalist and coherentist accounts of the rational powers of perception while avoiding the well-recognized pitfalls of either. (shrink)

This paper centers around the notion that internal, mental representations are grounded in structural similarity, i.e., that they are so-called S-representations. We show how S-representations may be causally relevant and argue that they are distinct from mere detectors. First, using the neomechanist theory of explanation and the interventionist account of causal relevance, we provide a precise interpretation of the claim that in S-representations, structural similarity serves as a “fuel of success”, i.e., a relation that is exploitable for the representation using (...) system. Then, we discuss crucial differences between S-representations and indicators or detectors, showing that—contrary to claims made in the literature—there is an important theoretical distinction to be drawn between the two. (shrink)

Author: Bytniewski Paweł Title: “WHAT IS AN AUTHOR?” ON FOUCAULT’S CONSCIOUSNESS OF AN AUTHORSHIP („Kim jest Autor?” O krytycznej świadomości autorstwa) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2010, vol:.10, number: 2010/1, pages: 73-106 Keywords: FOUCAULT, AUTHOR, LITERATURE, LANGUAGE, EXPERIENCE Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:One of the major obstacles to reconstructing Foucault’s attitude towards an authorship issue is multiplicity of his own roles which as an author he fulfilled. An Authorship as a (...) theme of his texts, as a prefiguration of nonexistent “Man” and his own authorship as a problem, as a way of “detaching myself from myself” – all these are the forms of Foucauldian ideas about an authorship and, at the same time, forms of his consciousness of his own authorship. Foucault historicizes and dissipates an authorship: an author is a function rather than the originator of texts. Writing, in this perspective, is a kind of conversion, decomposition of subjectivity into something else and even explosion. To say “I” doesn’t prove to be an ego. Additionally, Foucault notoriously suggests that his books are fiction. To be an author in this way is a way of being within the discourse and, as a consequence of it, to be trapped in its power. Foucault’s own rewriting of his theoretical biography includes turns and returns: as he repeatedly claims, he wrote in order to transform himself. He uses the processes of writing to simulate production of his subjective identity and, at the same time, to summarize, recapitulate his own oeuvre from current position. To cope with this suggestive and bizarre claims one should employ Roland Barthes distinction: écrivains (authors) et écrivants (writers). When Foucault-écrivain decomposes his ego, his own mode of existence by the use of writing, Foucault-écrivant, in an act of writing, writes himself, as an author. When Foucault-écrivain “writes fictions”, Foucault écrivant, in an act of “self-writing” (l’écriture de soi), establishes the object of a critique – Foucault. (shrink)

The article presents the results of a study investigating the links between emotion regulation and identity. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between the two variables. On the basis of neo-eriksonian theories, an attempt to specify the role of emotion regulation in the process of identity formation was made. The study involved 849 people aged 14-25. The participants attended six types of schools: lower secondary school, basic vocational school, technical upper secondary school, general upper secondary school, (...) post-secondary school, and university. The research was conducted with the use of two questionnaires: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and Dimensions of Identity Development Scale. The analysis of the results points to a partial confirmation of the assumed hypotheses about the differences between people with different identity statuses in respect of the six investigated dimensions of emotion regulation. Also, the hypotheses about the links between the dimensions of emotion regulation and dimensions of identity in the subgroups with different identity statuses were partially confirmed. (shrink)

Paweł Gładziejewski, Is empathy is mental simulation? Remarks on the representative approach based on the concept of mirror neurons., Diametros 27 This paper draws on the theoretical achievements of analytic philosophy of mind and the empirical results of psychology and cognitive neuroscience in order to understand the nature of empathy and the sub-personal mechanisms upon which it is based. The paper distinguishes two types of empathy, which are often not sufficiently clearly distinguished in the literature, empathy as a kind (...) of social perception and empathy as compassion. The argument attempts show to that neither of these can be identified with a mental simulation process understood as a sub-personal process. Nevertheless mental simulation may play a limited explanatory role with respect to these two types of empathy. (shrink)

This paper presents Michael Heller’s notion of “philosophy in science” and re-introduces Michael Heller’s classical text that first presented this concept of philosophy entitled How is “philosophy in science” possible?. The paper discusses the historical context of Heller’s idea as it emerged from the discussions and works of the Krakow philosophical scene and discusses the basic tenants of this philosophy, its analytic character, the role of intellectual tradition in the development of this philosophy, and the critical role played by an (...) interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy, science, and theology. Despite the idea of philosophy in science having emerged about 40 years ago, this concept still inspires and fuels innovative research. The notion of “philosophy in science” lies at the foundations of the philosophy published in two journals: Philosophical Problems in Science and Philosophy in Science. (shrink)

The paper discusses the problem of diachronic criteria of identity for historic localities. We argue that such criteria are needed not just for the sake of ontological clarity but also are indispensable for database management and maintenance. Our survey of the current research in database management and engineering ontology literature found no satisfactory candidates thereof. Therefore we attempt to search for such criteria in the historic-geographical scholarship by exposing the ontological assumptions the researchers made there and by stating them explicitly. (...) This attempt consisted of us presenting a number of brief scenarios taken from the historical studies whereby localities are claimed to maintain their identity through certain types of change or to be destroyed due to other types of change. Generalising these cases we provide a tentative formulation of the criterion and discuss its limitations. (shrink)

Empathy of pain as a multi-dimensional process includes sharing and understanding the pain of others in relation to oneself. Subjects in such studies are typically members of western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies. In the literature review that we conducted, we observed that little is known about the empathy for pain in people who are not members of societies with these cultural characteristics. We often understand those who are “similar” to us more easily - ones who belong to “our” (...) cultural circle. However, contact with another culture could help prevent such bias. Group characteristics, such as focus on others, hierarchy preference, or cultural differences in self-constructs, can change the activity of brain regions associated with empathy and compassion. Increasing the diversity of the research participants connected with education level, poverty, industrialization, and respect for basic citizen freedoms seem to be necessary to fully understand the mechanisms that influence the development and operation of empathy. (shrink)

No more than a few years ago could open an article concerning neurophenomenology with a statement describing recent rediscovery of the problem of consciousness by the cognitive sciences and pointing to the fact that right now, explaining conscious experience in neuroscientific or computational terms poses the greatest challenge for those sciences. Today however, constatations of this sort start to sound like trivial descriptions of a universally recognized state of affairs. The question of “how the water of the physical brain is (...) turned into a wine of consciousness” is now among the mainstream problems of cognitive science. (shrink)

Tekst stanowi próbę rozwiązania dwóch problemów. Po pierwsze, jak istota przejawia się w indywiduum, w rzeczy konkretnej, nie dającej się zdefiniować? I po drugie, jak zweryfikować definicję? Jest to problem prawdy, wobec którego można zastosować metodę przyswajania abstrakcji - wznoszenia się od abstrakcji do konkretu. Metodę tę wykorzystywał K. Marks. W artykule dowodzi się, że metoda ta nie traci na swojej heurystycznej sile nawet wówczas, gdy zastosuje się ją do analizy współczesnego kapitalizmu symbolicznego. Nie stosując tej wyjaśniającej mocy abstrakcji, intelektualiści (...) stają się ideologami rozrywającymi jedność tego, co realne i tego, co idealne, waloryzującymi drugi element wspomnianej jedności. Swiat ich idei nijak się ma do aktualnej praktyki społecznej, dlatego dominuje w niej niezrozumiany symbol - fetysz. W społeczeństwie jest on tajemniczą podstawą problemów człowieka z samym sobą. Stąd jego zrozumienie i realne przywrócenie należnego mu w społeczeństwie miejsca umożliwi człowiekowi drogę powrotną do samego siebie. (shrink)

The article argues that altruistic giving based on anonymity, which is expected to promote social solidarity and block trade in human body parts, is conceptually defective and practically unproductive. It needs to be replaced by a more adequate notion which responds to the human practices of giving and receiving. The argument starts with identification of the main characteristics of the anonymous altruistic donation: social separation of the organ donor from the recipient, their mutual replaceability, non-obligatoriness of donation, and non-obligatoriness of (...) reciprocation on the recipient’s part. Since these characteristics are also central to typical market relations, anonymous altruistic donation not only cannot promote solidarity but may encourage proposals for markets of transplantable organs. Thus, transplant ethics needs to be reframed. It needs to be rooted in, rather than promote, the practices of giving and receiving known to human societies. As the basis for such reframing, the idea of sharing in another’s misfortune is proposed. It relies on the human practices of giving and receiving and, with appropriate regulatory safeguards, can provide a better conceptual basis for blocking commercial exchanges of human body parts. (shrink)

Any serious attempt to give an account of the cognitive aspect of science – as contrasted with e.g. its social or cultural aspects – cannot ignore the automation revolution. In the conception presented in this paper the results of computer science are taken seriously and integrated with many of the ideas concerning what constitutes scientific inquiry that have been proposed at least since the early Middle Ages. The central idea is that of reliable inquiry. Science makes explicit and elaborates on (...) the methods of acquiring beliefs in our daily life. The central question a scientific method applied to inquiry needs to face is if it is reliable in getting to the truth. On the reliabilist criteria presented here, if a method is logically warranted to get to the right answer – given data and background knowledge available – and to stick to it afterwards, then it is reliable. This is a normative theory, but the standard of reliability is adjusted to the domain of the inquiry at hand. This paper presents the central tenets of the reliabilist conception of science and briefly outlines the main results underlying it. Roughly, the aim of science is interesting truth about the world around us (scientific realism) and reliabilist epistemology affords us precise answers as to how far science can succeed in this task – given the methods, goals and background assumptions available. The philosophical task to deliver an adequate understanding of science is taken to be continuous with scientific research itself (naturalism), a major part of which is concerned with delivering causal explanations (causality) and can only be carried out with limited resources (computability). Many of the ideas integrated into the reliabilist conception of science and precisely articulated therewith have appeared earlier in both philosophy and science (history of ideas). I conclude the exposition of the ideas integrated into the reliabilist conception of science with discussions of sample case studies where the reliabilist conception of science has been applied to actual scientific research. For obvious reasons none of the grand conceptions of science from the distant past is adequate. Towards the end of this paper I give some substance to the claim that among the few contemporary conceptions of science reliabilist epistemology is the the most comprehensive account. For only it systematically elaborates the ideas of reliability and computability accompanying science from its inception. None of the past or contemporary alternatives to a thoroughly revised understanding of science offered by the reliabilist approach can embrace the recent outburst of new sciences such as computer science, Bayesian statistics and cognitive science. An outline of open problems and directions for future research concludes the paper. (shrink)

Bilinear Logic of Lambek amounts to Noncommutative MALL of Abrusci. Lambek proves the cut–elimination theorem for a one-sided sequent system for this logic. Here we prove an analogous result for the nonassociative version of this logic. Like Lambek, we consider a left-sided system, but the result also holds for its right-sided version, by a natural symmetry. The treatment of nonassociative sequent systems involves some subtleties, not appearing in associative logics. We also prove the PTime complexity of the multiplicative fragment of (...) NBL. (shrink)

Within the context of the debate between ontological monists and pluralists the paper discusses a number of argumentative strategies that the latter can apply to answer the “there can be only one” argument. I show here that the reply to this argument suggested by J. Turner has its disadvantages and suggest a number of adjustments thereof. In particular, I develop a concept of domain-specific quantifiers that allow the pluralist to elaborate his or her ontological position.

Philosophy in technology is a research program that studies the philosophical roots of engineering and technology. Technologists, by virtue of their education, believe that the limits, goals, possibilities, and effects of technology on society and humankind are exclusively technological problems, hence their solutions must lie exclusively in technology. In contrast, philosophy in technology asserts that the resolutions to these problems need to be rooted in an understanding of their philosophical origins. This program paper defines the objectives of philosophy in technology, (...) the kinds of questions it explores, the methods it uses, and how it differs from the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Abstract The opening section outlines probabilism in the 20th century philosophy and shortly discusses the major accomplishments of Polish probabilist thinkers. A concise characterization of Bayesianism as the major recent form of probabilism follows. It builds upon the core personalist version of Bayesianism towards more objectively oriented versions thereof. The problem of a priori probability is shortly discussed. A tentative characterization of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s standpoint regarding the inductive inference is cast in Bayesian terms. His objections against it presented in Pragmatic (...) Logic are presented. His 1958 paper on justification of non-deductive inference, as amply demonstrated by K. Szaniawski and I. Niiniluoto, extends his earlier Baysian position from 1928 monograph. In the closing section Ajdukiewicz’s standpoint is presented as a characteristically pragmatist and empiricist version of Bayesianism, which remains an unexplored and stimulating position. (shrink)

This book presents a new approach to semantics based on Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s Directival Theory of Meaning, which in effect reduces semantics of the analysed language to the combination of its syntax and pragmatics. The author argues that the DTM was forgotten because for many years philosophers didn’t have conceptual tools to appreciate its innovative nature, and that the theory was far ahead of its time. The book shows how a redesigned and modernised version of the DTM can deliver a new (...) solution to the problem of defining linguistic meaning and that the theory can be understood as a new type of functional role semantics. The defining feature of the DTM is that it presents meaning as a product of constraints on the usage of words. According to the DTM meaning is not use, but the avoidance of misuse. Readers will see how the DTM was shelved for reasons that we don’t find so dramatic anymore, and how it contains enough original ideas and solutions to warrant developing it into a full-blown contemporary account. It is shown how many of the underlying ideas of the theory have been embraced later by philosophers and treated simply as brute facts about natural languages or even as new philosophical discoveries. Philosophers of language and researchers with an interest in how languages and the mind work will find this book a fascinating read. (shrink)

The paper is focused on some aspects of experimental realism of Ian Hacking, and especially on his manipulability criterion of existence. The problem is here related to chemical molecules, the objects of interest in chemical research. The authors consider whether and to what extent this criterion has been applied in experimental practice of chemistry. They argue that experimentation on is a fundamental criterion of existence of entities in chemistry rather than experimentation with. Some examples regarding studies of structures of complex (...) compounds, taken from organic chemistry, are presented to support the authors' considerations. Chemists' laboratory practice depends strongly on the way that representations of entities on (or with) the experiments are used. The authors show that this point has not been given sufficient attention by the new experimentalists. (shrink)