Stanisław Kamiński (1919-1986) was a philosopher, philosopher of science and historian of science. He defended in 1949 at the Catholic University in Lublin (KUL) his PhD thesis on Frege's axiomatic system of the sentence logic in the light of the contemporary methodology of deductive science. Since 1957 he was the head of the Chair of Methodology (the first one in Poland, founded in 1952 by J. Iwanicki) at the KUL, since 1965 the associate and since 1970 the full professor (...) of KUL. He was for many years the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy KUL where he developed the methodological foundations of the »Lublin-school of philosophy«. The main interests of S. Kamiński (1919-1986) was history of science and logic, general and special methodology, methodology of philosophy and (medieval) semiotics. Himself he saw his main achievements in the domain of the theory of science and the methodology of classical philosophy, especially in the studies of the method and language of metaphysics; he gave a methodological description of general metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history and studies on religion (religiology); he investigated the beginnings of the mathematical induction in the Middle Ages and in modern times, modern history of the theory of definition (Th. Hobbes, B. Pascal, J. Locke, E. B. de Condillac, J. D. Gergonne), the theory of argumentation (reasoning), the structure and the evolution of scientific theory, the deductive method (B. Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, G. Frege), the achievements of logic and philosophy in Poland. A characteristic feature of S. Kamiński's philosophical and methodological approach was a specific historicism, consisting of referring to the heritage of the past and at the same time to the latest achievements in logic and philosophy of science. He looked to history for inspiration, for how to solve his own problems and for a partial confirmation of legitimacy of his answers. He also used history to better understand the context of the discussed problems. His methodological interests are characterized by a philosophical and historical approach. He had a broad concept of knowledge and was maximalist both in raising questions and in giving answers. He cultivated the ideal of rational knowledge. In accordance with classical philosophy he saw the substance of person as ens rationale, a being realizing himself in a disinterested search for a theoretical truth, whose highest expression is philosophy. He stressed the epistemological and methodological plurality of knowledge and distinguished (with Kant) a material and formal part of knowledge, assuming that the formal element manifests itself as the logical form in the formal procedures of the (scientific) cognitive processes, that is in the (scientific) method and the (scientific) language. Making many attempts at a methodological characterization of different types of cognition and knowledge he distinguished – besides commonsense knowledge that lies at the bottom of any other type of knowledge – the scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge. None of them can be reduced to other type of knowledge, because each of them has its own problems, goals and methods. At the top there is a kind of sapiential knowledge which is much more than a simple generalization of all particular kinds of knowledge. S. Kamiński indebted his understanding of science to contemporary philosophy and to the classical philosophy. The nature of science was determined by him from the point view of its subject matter, aims, methods, logical structure and genesis. The question of what science is concerned with, i.e. what is its subject matter, is a philosophical question, it presupposes an appropriate understanding of the nature of the world. S. Kamiński opted for a pluralistic approach to the world: the principal object of science is the objective world but so are subjective states of man and products of his mind and his language. The best diagnostic test of the scientific character of science is the scientific method. Also here – rejecting the scientism (i.e. the view, that the scientific method and knowledge is the pattern and the measure of each knowledge) – S. Kamiński takes a pluralistic attitude. Accepting that the scientific method is not simple, that there is not one uncomplicated ideal way of doing science, and that because of the multiplicity of questions and scientific aims it would be difficult to construct one universal scientific method as a uniform set of rules for every kind of science, S. Kamiński assumes that different subject matter and different goals of scientific cognition require different research strategies and types of cognitive procedures. One manifestation of S. Kamiński's methodological pluralism is his antinaturalistic position in the theory of the humanities where he supported the thesis of their methodological autonomy with regard to natural sciences. Closer to the philosophical cognition and knowledge, the humanities do not meet and can not meet the conditions imposed upon the natural sciences, as they differ from them in subject matter (the world of culture) and hence in method (understanding, interpretation) used. The publications of S. Kamiński include over 350 positions. During his life he published three books: Georgonne'a teoria definicji [Georgonne's Theory of Definition], Lublin 1958; Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], Lublin 1961, 19813; and [together with M. A. Krąpiec] Z teorii i metodologii metafizyki [On the Theory and Methodology of Metaphysics], Lublin 1962. After his death five volumes of Collected Papers have been published: vol. I: Jak filozofować? [How to Philosophize? Studies in Methodology of Classical Philosophy], edited by Tadeusz Szubka, Lublin 1989; vol. II: Filozofia i metoda. Studia z dziejów metod filozofowania [Philosophy and Method. Studies from the History of the Method of Philosophizing], edited by Józef Herbut, Lublin 1993; vol. III: Metoda i język. Studia z semiotyki i metodologii nauk [Method and Language. Studies in Semiotics and Philosophy of Science], edited by Urszula Żegleń, Lublin 1994; vol. IV: Nauka i metoda. Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Science and Method. Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], edited by Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1992); vol. V: Światopogląd - Religia - Teologia [Worldview - Religion - Theology], edited by Monika Walczak and Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1998. (shrink)

Argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.

The article presents two concepts of indexicality. The first, more standard and narrow, identifies indexicality with systematic (meaning controlled) context-sensitivity. The second, broader (derived from the work of Jerzy Pelc), conceives indexicality in terms of the potential variability of the general semiotic characteristics expressions (with respect to the context of use). The text introduces the concept of a pragmatic matrix that serves for a schematic representation of contextual variation. I also recapitulate briefly the views of Jerzy Pelc on the meaning (...) (manner of use) and use of expressions, and briefly indicate its relationship approaches with contemporary debates around contextualism and status of non-sentential speech acts. Finally, the relationship between the broader notion of indexicality and the directival theory of meaning is analyzed. (shrink)

In some presentations of classical and intuitionistic logics, the objectlanguage is assumed to contain (two) truth-value constants: ⊤ (verum) and ⊥ (falsum), that are, respectively, true and false under every bivalent valuation. We are interested to define and study analogical constants ‡, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, that in an arbitrary multi-valued logic over truth-values V = {v1,..., vn} have the truth-value vi under every (multi-valued) valuation. As is well known, the absence or presence of such constants has a significant (...) deductive impact on the logics studied. We define such constants proof-theoretically via their associated I/E-rules in a natural-deduction proof system. In particular, we propose a generalization of the notions of contradiction and explosiveness of a logic to the context of multi-valued logics. (shrink)

Maximilian de Gaynesford has argued against the standard view that the reference of the first-person pronoun ‘I’ is determined by a rule linking the referent to some feature of the context of use. In this paper, we argue that de Gaynesford's arguments are inconclusive. Our main aim, however, is to formulate a novel version of the reference rule for ‘I’. We argue that this version can deal with several problematic cases. Our strategy involves analysing the so-called agent of the context (...) as the person responsible for a particular speech act. From this analysis, we exclude a particular class of uses of ‘I’, uses that we believe are best understood as demonstrative. (shrink)

Scientificity is essentially methodology. The use of information technology as methodological instruments in science has been increasing for decades, this raises the question: Does this transform science? This question is the subject of the Special Issue in Minds and Machines “The epistemological significance of methods in computer simulation and machine learning”. We show that there is a technological change in this area that has three methodological and epistemic consequences: methodological opacity, reproducibility issues, and altered forms of justification.

Infants can see someone pointing to one of two buckets and infer that the toy they are seeking is hidden inside. Great apes do not succeed in this task, but, surprisingly, domestic dogs do. However, whether children and dogs understand these communicative acts in the same way is not yet known. To test this possibility, an experimenter did not point, look, or extend any part of her body towards either bucket, but instead lifted and shook one via a centrally pulled (...) rope. She did this either intentionally or accidentally, and did or did not address her act to the subject using ostensive cues. Young 2-year-old children but not dogs understood the experimenter’s act in intentional conditions. While ostensive pulling of the rope made no difference to children’s success, it actually hindered dogs’ performance. We conclude that while human children may be capable of inferring communicative intent from a wide variety actions, so long as these actions are performed intentionally, dogs are likely to be less flexible in this respect. Their understanding of communicative intention may be more dependent upon bodily markers of communicative intent, including gaze, orientation, extended limbs, and vocalisations. This may be because humans have come under selective pressure to develop skills for communicating with absent interlocutors – where bodily co-presence is not possible. (shrink)

The popular interpretation of token‐reflexivism states that at the level of logical form, indexicals and demonstratives are disguised descriptions that employ complex demonstratives or special quotation‐mark names involving particular tokens of the appropriate expression‐types. In this article I first demonstrate that this interpretation of token‐reflexivism is only one of many, and that it is better to think of token‐reflexivism as denoting a family of distinct theoretical frameworks. Second, I contrast two interpretations of the idea of the token‐reflexive paraphrase of an (...) indexical sentence. The utterance approach claims that token‐reflexive paraphrases involve tokens of entire utterances. The sub‐utterance approach maintains that token‐reflexive paraphrases involve tokens of the particular indexical words used in the utterance. Next, I pose a problem that shows that neither of the two approaches is correct. The problem shows that the only viable version of the token‐reflexive proposition must somehow take into account the referential intentions of the speaker of the context. Therefore I conclude the article by sketching the framework of restricted intentional token‐reflexivism. I argue that it is an attractive semantic theory of distributed utterances that, among other things, enables automatic and intentional indexicals to be distinguished. (shrink)

This paper criticizes non-constructive uses of set theory in formal economics. The main focus is on results on preference aggregation and Arrow’s theorem for infinite electorates, but the present analysis would apply as well, e.g., to analogous results in intergenerational social choice. To separate justified and unjustified uses of infinite populations in social choice, I suggest a principle which may be called the Hildenbrand criterion and argue that results based on unrestricted axiom of choice do not meet this criterion. The (...) technically novel part of this paper is a proposal to use a set-theoretic principle known as the axiom of determinacy ), not as a replacement for Choice, but simply to eliminate applications of set theory violating the Hildenbrand criterion. A particularly appealing aspect of \ from the point of view of the research area in question is its game-theoretic character. (shrink)

The paper presents a generalization of pregroup, by which a freely-generated pregroup is augmented with a finite set of commuting inequations, allowing limited commutativity and cancelability. It is shown that grammars based on the commutation-augmented pregroups generate mildly context-sensitive languages. A version of Lambek’s switching lemma is established for these pregroups. Polynomial parsability and semilinearity are shown for languages generated by these grammars.

We motivate and formalize the idea of sameness by default: two objects are considered the same if they cannot be proved to be different. This idea turns out to be useful for a number of widely different applications, including natural language processing, reasoning with incomplete information, and even philosophical paradoxes. We consider two formalizations of this notion, both of which are based on Reiter’s Default Logic. The first formalization is a new relation of indistinguishability that is introduced by default. We (...) prove that the corresponding default theory has a unique extension, in which every two objects are indistinguishable if and only if their non-equality cannot be proved from the known facts. We show that the indistinguishability relation has some desirable properties: it is reflexive, symmetric, and, while not transitive, it has a transitive “flavor.” The second formalization is an extension (modification) of the ordinary language equality by a similar default: two objects are equal if and only if their non-equality cannot be proved from the known facts. It appears to be less elegant from a formal point of view. In particular, it gives rise to multiple extensions. However, this extended equality is better suited for most of the applications discussed in this paper. (shrink)

Die Verlässlichkeit von Computersimulationen ist ein vieldiskutiertes Thema, das immer wieder auch für Schlagzeilen hinsichtlich des Umgangs mit wissenschaftlichen Ergebnissen sorgt. Computersimulationen werden häufig dort unternommen, wo Erfahrungen bezüglich des Verhaltens von Systemen fehlen und physische Tests aufgrund der Größe, Komplexität oder Einmaligkeit des Systems nicht in Frage kommen. Dennoch sollen mit ihrer Unterstützung Entscheidungen mit weitreichenden möglichen Folgen getroffen werden, die zu hohen monetären und moralischen Kosten führen können.

The paper attempts to pose a problem for theories claiming that intentional attributions are essentially normative. Firstly, I argue that the claim is ambiguous. Secondly, that three possible interpretations of the claim can be distinguished: one that appeals to normative impositions put on agents of intentional states, another that exploits the fact that one can normatively assess the states in question and a further one that locates normativity in the domain of special intentional explanations. Thirdly, it is argued that each (...) interpretation faces serious difficulties: they either fail to provide a justification for the claim they intend to make or they contradict certain justified observations about intentional attributions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to pose a problem for theories that claim that belief reports are context dependent. Firstly, I argue that the claim is committed to verbalism, a theory that derives the context sensitivity of belief reports from the context sensitivity of the psychological verbs used in such reports. Secondly, I argue that verbalism is not an attractive theoretical option because it is in conflict with the non-proto-rigidity of verbs like ‘believe’. Finally, I describe various consequences that (...) the argument has for invariantism and moderate contextualism. (shrink)

The introduction to the volume and the overview of the idea of naturalizing the mind.

The paper aims to add contextual dependence to the new directival theory of meaning, a functional role semantics based on Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s directival theory of meaning. We show that the original formulation of the theory does not have a straight answer on how the meaning of indexicals and demonstratives is established. We illustrate it in the example of some problematic axiomatic and inferential directives containing indexicals. We show that the main reason why developing the new directival theory of meaning in (...) this direction is difficult is that the theory focuses on the notion of a sentence (and not the notion of an utterance). To add the latter notion to the theory, we introduce the idea of admissible contextual distribution being an interpretation of the hybrid expression view on indexicals and demonstratives. We argue that this idea introduces a small but important modification to the concept of language matrix and gives way to define two distinct concepts of meaning: for an expression type and for a use of an expression type. (shrink)

As it is broadly accepted, typical uses of demonstratives are accompanied by demonstrations. The concept of demonstration, however, manifests the action–product ambiguity analogous to that visible in the opposition between jumping and the resulting jump, talking and the resulting talk or crying and the resulting cry. It is also a heterogeneous concept that enables demonstrations to vary significantly. The present paper discusses action–product ambiguity as applied to demonstrations as well as the heterogeneity of the latter. An account that acknowledges ambiguity (...) and heterogeneity of demonstrations is sketched in the paper. It is argued that it has a rich explanatory and descriptive potential. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume engage with issues of normativity within naturalised philosophy. The issues are critical to naturalism as most traditional notions in philosophy, such as knowledge, justification or representation, are said to involve normativity. Some of the contributors pursue the question of the correct place of normativity within a naturalised ontology, with emergentist and eliminativist answers offered on neighbouring pages. Others seek to justify particular norms within a naturalised framework, the more surprising ones including naturalist takes on the (...) a priori and intuitions. Finally, yet others examine concrete examples of the application of norms within particular epistemic endeavours, such as psychopathology and design. The overall picture is that of an intimate engagement with issues of normativity on the part of naturalist philosophers – questioning some of the fundamentals at the same time as they try to work out many of the details. (shrink)

Naturalism is currently the most vibrantly developing approach to philosophy, with naturalised methodologies being applied across all the philosophical disciplines. One of the areas naturalism has been focussing upon is the mind, traditionally viewed as a topic hard to reconcile with the naturalistic worldview. A number of questions have been pursued in this context. What is the place of the mind in the world? How should we study the mind as a natural phenomenon? What is the significance of cognitive science (...) research for philosophical debates? In this book, philosophical questions about the mind are asked in the context of recent developments in cognitive science, evolutionary theory, psychology, and the project of the naturalisation. Much of the focus is upon what we have learned by studying natural mental mechanisms as well as designing artificial ones. In the case of natural mental mechanisms, this includes consideration of such issues as the significance of deficits in these mechanisms for psychiatry. The significance of the evolutionary context for mental mechanisms as well as questions regarding rationality and wisdom is also explored. Mechanistic and functional models of the mind are used to throw new light on discussions regarding issues of explanation, reduction and the realisation of mental phenomena. Finally, naturalistic approaches are used to look anew at such traditional philosophical issues as the correspondence of mind to world and presuppositions of scientific research. (shrink)

The paper provides a proof-theory for a negative presentation of classical logic based on a single primitive of exclusion, generalizing the known presentation via the binary ‘nand. The completeness is established via deductive equivalence to Gentzens NK/LK systems.

We study structural rules in the context of multi-valued logics with finitely-many truth-values. We first extend Gentzen’s traditional structural rules to a multi-valued logic context; in addition, we propos some novel structural rules, fitting only multi-valued logics. Then, we propose a novel definition, namely, structural rules completeness of a collection of structural rules, requiring derivability of the restriction of consequence to atomic formulas by structural rules only. The restriction to atomic formulas relieves the need to concern logical rules in the (...) derivation. (shrink)

This paper reports a research project developed in partnership with the Principal and Leadership Team of an Australian secondary school. It monitored a school-based initiative designed to address the underachievement of male students. Students in Year 9 selected single-gender or coeducational classes in mathematics and English during the second half of a school year. Student scores in standardized tests and school-based assessment in these subjects were obtained before and after the establishment of the initiative. Results indicate no significant difference in (...) mathematics achievement that can be attributed to gender or class composition. However, scores in school-based English improved for students in single-gender classes. Improvement for girls in single-gender classes was greater than that for boys in single-gender classes. (shrink)

The uniqueness of Poland’s experience with the 2020 coronavirus lays in the interplay of two factors: the decisive governmental response to the pandemic, and the overlap of the pandemic with the country’s presidential election scheduled on May 10, 2020. The government’s fast reaction, combined with the citizens’ discipline, resulted in the suppression of the virus’s spread. The ratings of the current President Duda skyrocketed well above 50% needed for re-election in the first round. However, the expectation was that they would (...) be going down with the pandemic and lockdown fatigue. For almost two months, the government tried to organize the elections under the normal schedule while the opposition tried to block them. Finally, the opposition won, and the elections were rescheduled on June 28, with the President Duda’s ratings substantially lower. Nevertheless, in the runoff on July 11, Duda won. Our conclusion goes against the common opinion that electoral engineering is always one-sided. The reconstruction of the pre-electoral political maneuvers shows that many independent players were simultaneously involved in complex engineering, and that the final outcome was hard to predict until almost the very end. (shrink)

On June 17, 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof marched into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and massacred nine black people in prayer. He credited his radicalization to the Council for Conservative Citizens, which was, in his words, "his gateway into the world of white nationalism."1 When Roof's selfies began to circulate—brandishing Confederate battle flags and standing in front of Greenville, South Carolina's own Museum and Library of Confederate History—the Southern civic sphere stammered in response. Governor (...) Nikki Haley had promised in 2014 never to remove the Confederate flag at the South Carolina State House, but after Roof's massacre and his flag-waving pride... (shrink)

We deal with the modal logic of cluster-decomposable Kripke interpretations, present an axiomatization, and prove some additional results regarding this logic.

These proceedings collect the selected contributions of participants of the First Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics, held in Frankfurt, Germany to celebrate the 140th anniversary of Schwarzschild's birth. They are grouped into 4 main themes: I. The Life and Work of Karl Schwarzschild; II. Black Holes in Classical General Relativity, Numerical Relativity, Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Alternative Theories of Gravity; III. Black Holes in Quantum Gravity and String Theory; IV. Other Topics in Contemporary Gravitation. Inspired by the foundational principle ``By (...) acknowledging the past, we open a route to the future", the week-long meeting, envisioned as a forum for exchange between scientists from all locations and levels of education, drew participants from 15 countries across 4 continents. In addition to plenary talks from leading researchers, a special focus on young talent was provided, a feature underlined by the Springer Prize for the best student and junior presentations. (shrink)