5/2017

Ewa Nowak, Roberto Franzini Tibaldeo

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: ewanowak@amu.edu.pl

Université Catholique de Louvain, Place de l’Université 1, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgia

E-mail: roberto.franzini@uclouvain.be  

ORGANISM AND FREEDOM. PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE AND ETHICS OF LIFE SCIENCES

ABSTRACT

The authors revisit the claims of Hans Jonas’s postdualistic ontology of a living being. Life’s immanent potentialities evolve, until the human being develops her technologies, freedom, reason, and, finally, the responsibility to restrain own excessive usage of technologies and protect her open-ended potentialities. The paper relies on the ideas described in Organism and Freedom, Jonas’s magnum opus in his own eyes.

Keywords: Hans Jonas, living being, organism, postdualistic ontology, teleology, evolution, freedom, responsibility, technology, risk, ethics, philosophy, science.  

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Małgorzata Leśniewska, Piotr Leśniewski  

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Umultowska 89, 61-614 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: malgorzata.lesniewska@amu.edu.pl

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: grus@amu.edu.pl  

“NON-NORMAL BODY.” ON THE ROLE OF ANOMALY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

ABSTRACT

In recent years a number of anomalies in specimens of the species Haplophilus subterraneus (Shaw, 1789) in the class Chilopoda were discovered. This particular case of the deformed body provokes to reinterpretation of the history and evolution of cultural attitudes towards the body affected by malformations. In this paper we present changes of perceptions, attitudes and interpretations of anomalous forms— from surprise or horror to an interpretation which results in a great progress in science and in explanations of many elements of developmental processes and evolution of organisms.

Keywords: anomaly, evolution, development, evo-devo.   

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Ewa Nowak

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: ewanowak@amu.edu.pl   

“BODILY CONSTITUTION” IN SUBJECTIVE AND INTERSUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE: APPROACHING THE PHENOMENON OF ALLOTRANSPLANTATION

ABSTRACT

The paper examines phenomenological concepts of body and psychosomatic identity to explain the facial allotransplant experience. The first three sections show how did the concept of own body/embodiment evolve in philosophy, the last three – how body had been re–opened to the transcorporeality. The author undertakes efforts to balance an ontological, nonreductionistic and postdualistic account which could be shared across the boundaries between life sciences and humanities. Facial allograft phenomenon and the redefinition of personal somatic identity are considered in both disciplines.

Keywords: organism, body, somatic identity, intercorporeality, allotransplant, faciality, phenomenology, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Schmitz, Jonas, postdualism.

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Filip Bardziński  

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: fmbardzinski@gmail.com  

ON MAINE DE BIRAN’S AND MICHEL HENRY’S HOLISTIC MODEL OF HUMAN NATURE

ABSTRACT

The article proposes a holistic model of human nature, based on philosophy and anthropology of Maine de Biran, and on Michel Henry’s phenomenology of body.

Keywords: Maine de Biran, Michel Henry, systemic theory of health, biological recductionism, holism.  

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Paweł Ciniewski

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: lorayanz@gmail.com  

TRANSHUMANISM’S AMBIVALENT VIEW TOWARDS CORPOREITY

ABSTRACT

The article examines the relation between transhumanism and the notion of corporeity. The author presents six approaches to corporeity according to Tom Ziemke, including those which are favorable to the transhumanist vision of the future. Then the author examines the role of the human body in the transhumanist project of the posthuman. In the last, central section it is argued that transhumanism displays an ambivalent view towards corporeity.

Keywords: transhumanism, ambivalence, corporeity, organismoid embodiment, organismic embodiment.

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Jonasz Pawlaczyk

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: jonaszpawlaczyk@wp.pl  

WHAT FUTURE FOR CORPOREALITY?

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the potentialities of body’s technological enhancement. It refers to Juan Enriquez who advocated a need for human body transformations and benefits resulting from them for individuals and the whole humanity. Should the “standard” biological embodiment be enhanced if a favorable opportunity is at our disposal? The importance of that question increases when facing a colonization of another planets in case of a planetary disaster. According to Enriquez, it would be unethical not to modify the human body. The article examines some lacks in Enriquez’ reasoning, including the lack of reflection towards the subjectivity of radically modified human body.

Keywords: evolving body, technology, future, bionics, Juan Enriquez.  

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Tomasz Burdzik

Affiliation: Pontifical University of John Paul II in Cracow, Kanoniczna 9/203, 31–069 Cracow

E-mail: tomasz.burdzik@gmail.com  

PREDATORY JOURNALS AS AN EXAMPLE OF UNETHICAL PUBLISHING

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the phenomenon of predatory journals, the characteristics of predatory journals, including spamming and using fake metrics, and the problems they cause for science. Predatory journals often fail to properly manage peer review, allowing pseudo-science to be published dressed up as authentic science. Predatory journals frequently have imaginary editorial boards, do not operate any quality control, are unclear about payment requirements and about ownership or location, include plagiarised content. Predatory publishers generally behave unethically. Towards the end of the paper it is discussed what can and should be done to eliminate or reduce the effects of this development and how researchers can avoid becoming victimized by them.

Keywords: predatory journals; publication ethics; predatory publishers.  

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Mateusz Szymczycha  

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: mszymczycha@poczta.onet.pl

BEYOND TEXT—ON CHRISTOPH WULF’S HISTORICAL-CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

ABSTRACT

The article is a summary of the key theoretical inspirations and theses of historical- cultural anthropology as presented in Christoph Wulf’s book Anthropology. History – Culture – Philosophy and an attempt to place the views on the analogy between culture and text—as well as on the relationship between thought, language and image—advocated therein in a broader theoretical context.

Keywords: historical-cultural anthropology, the body in culture, semiotics.

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Paweł Bytniewski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Pl. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, Poland

E-mail: pbytniewski@tlen.pl

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

ABSTRACT

We recognize cultures in differences, while we perceive human beings through the similarities between them. It is a paradox that makes cultural anthropology difficult for us, because its ethos and methods make pressure for us to change the way of perception our own social environment. Thus, as a result, cultural anthropology produces and develops quite peculiar experience of itself, which J. J. Rousseau named sentiment d’existence. According to C. Lévi-Strauss, Rousseau is the father of ethnology, because he was the first European intellectual who understood that alienation in relation to the Same is the price at we have to pay for getting to know the Other. What, for the understanding of the West, is the meaning of the disappearance of ethno-worlds? How blurring of ethno-diversity of the world shaped not only the past and the future of cultural anthropology, but an understanding of the past and the future of culture, from which it is derived? Cultural anthropology, or as it is called in Britain, social anthropology, pervades a kind of anxiety about its cognitive status. Cultural anthropology is not sure whether its interest in exotic cultures is not already late, still suspects that its research is not on time. Well reflects this contemporary condition of cultural anthropology the book by Alan Barnard entitled History and Theory in Anthropology. In fact, the book is a combination of an academic discussion of the history of the discipline with the excursus towards new areas of exploration of anthropological instigated by perception of differences, still active. This means the return in the practices of research and writing practices of anthropologists to looking from a distance on the social worlds that are pretty close. The paper discusses problems and opinion entered upon in mentioned book.

Keywords: culture, history of cultural anthropology, J.J. Rousseau, C. Lévi- Strauss, A. Barnard.

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Paweł Urbański

Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Szamarzewskiego 89 c, 60-568 Poznań, Poland

E-mail: paziu1984@wp.pl  

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU: ENLIGHTENMENT AND WRITING BY HIMSELF

ABSTRACT

The present paper aims at presenting Jean Jacques Rousseau as an anthropologist of modernity. I argue that between his Confessions and other works concerning origins of the social order there is an inner connection which determined his mode of the social world knowing. I propose to define this mode by use of the contemporary concept of socially situated cognition. The epistemological restriction of situated cognition is an ontological opportunity to grasp the complexity of the social world without reducing it to the object as a result of synthetic capabilities of enlightened reason. Thus the main problem of Confessions can be read as the question: What kind of inner work researcher should perform to achieve the self-ruling position which enables him to look at the social world from an uninvolved point of view? I claim that Rousseau in Confessions as well as in other his works makes the same work. On the one hand, he reconstructs his own social situation as a scholar what makes him a contemporary anthropologist who penetrates mentally numerous social worlds. On the other hand, he also writes as an enlightened lawmaker, who proposes a new social participation as the universal form of political community. Therefore the craft of writing of confessions, memories, etc. becomes a simple tool which enables the relentless process of self-reference on practical and theoretical levels of science, especially social science.

Keywords: Enlightenment, social science, writing, situated cognition.  

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Mariola Kuszyk-Bytniewska

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Pl. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, Poland

E-mail: mkuszykbyt@gmail.com  

OBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIFICATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

ABSTRACT

Objectivity is a category which has double reference: to cognition, as its valuable trait, and to being, as a very existence of what is assumed as real. Nonetheless, modern concept of objectivity lean toward epistemological interpretation and is accommodate to requirements of modern natural science, but not to needs of social sciences. Thus, in a ground of natural sciences, objectivity is equating with methodologically carrying neutralization of subjectivity. This received view becomes more complicated as social sciences allowed to speak. An exposure of socially determined traits of objectivity is a point of complication in a history of its interpretation, because social sciences are entangled with a double reference mentioned above. As a result, essential question emerged: a problem of relation between objectivity and objectification as a practical process of realisation. Interdependence of objectivity and objectification puts into social theory an onto-epistemological characterisation of both qualification. They participate in the problematisation of a concept of social reality to the same extent. The main purpose of paper is to show and discuss the problem. The conclusion is intended to indicate special status of objectivity in social sciences.

Keywords: objectivity, objectification, social sciences, epistemocentrism.  

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Małgorzata Czarnocka

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw.pl  

ON THE CRITICISM OF SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

I analyse the contemporary negative attitude toward science—common both in philosophy and beyond it, in intellectual milieus—and demonstrate, by basing on the distinction ideal–praxis of science, that the objections against science in philosophy are doubtful and one-sided. Especially doubtful, deforming the image of science are two main arguments: on instrumentalising reason by science and on the oppressive role of science in the today human world. I claim that the today increasing gap between the ideal of science and its today praxis is an essential problem of the contemporary science and the human world.

Keywords: critics of science, ideal of science, praxis of science, The Frankfurt School, postmodernism, instrumental reason, social role of science.

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Ignacy S. Fiut  

Affiliation: AGH University of Science and Technology, al. Adama Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Cracow, Poland

Email: isf1949@o2.pl i isfiut@agh.edu.pl  

KNOWLEDGE IN TERMS OF EVOLUTIONARY REALISM OF BOLESLAW JÓZEF GAWECKI

ABSTRACT

The article reconstructs the views of a Polish philosopher Bolesław Józef Gawecki (1889–1984) related to his concept of evolutionary realism, which plays a key role in his evolutionary concept of knowledge. The philosopher justifies the development of the natural and social sciences in the framework of the so-called “metaphysical systemat.” He considers knowledge a form of adaptation of the evolving human subject of cognition to the evolving environment of its life and activity. These views are an explication of positivist philosophy, especially empiriocriticism in the spirit of critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Keywords: Bolesław Gawecki, evolutionary conception of knowledge, evolutionary realism, metaphysical systemat, Immanuel Kant.

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Marcin Urbaniak

Affiliation: AGH University of Science and Technology, Antoniego Gramatyka 8A, Cracow, Poland

E-mail: murbaniak78@gmail.com   

KNOWLEDGE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MEMETIC DETERMINISM

ABSTRACT

The article attempts to overcome some theoretical limitations as regards understanding and explanation of the knowledge notion. I present the memetic perspective of the issue of knowledge. The main aim is to deepen the analysis of knowledge phenomenon and to enrich previous knowledge notion with crossing, natural and semiotical points of view. The next aim is to try to answer the question about the nature of knowledge, the way of knowledge existence and the area of occurrence of knowledge. Some main attributes of memes, their hallmarks, basic functions and possible classification are examined. I also discuss the actions of memetic mechanisms of knowledge: some forms of knowledge externalisation; knowledge proliferation; cooperation and competition of information. At the end of the article there are summative reflections and author’s conclusions.

Keywords: memes, memetics, evolution, procedural knowledge, declarative knowledge.

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Marcin Urbaniak

Affiliation: AGH University of Science and Technology, Antoniego Gramatyka 8A, Cracow, Poland

E-mail: murbaniak78@gmail.com  

WHY ANIMALS KNOW ANYTHING? AN OUTLINE OF THE SOCIOBIOLOGICAL IDEA OF KNOWLEDGE

ABSTRACT

The article reconstructs the notion of knowledge in the sociobiological perspective. This perspective focuses on some selected, representative views, which grasp the phenomenon of knowledge in the context of logotaxis, neophilia and intentionality phenomena and the so-called theory of mind. One of basic aims of the so chosen context is the impeachment of the notion of knowledge subject that functions within traditional epistemology or philosophical anthropology, and the extending of the influence of sociobiological idea of cognition and knowledge in contemporary philosophy. The paper includes introductory methodological remarks, the analysis of logotaxis as a natural tendency to search and absorb some information, the analysis of neophilia as a natural predisposition to permanent exploratory behaviours; a critical discussion on the occurrence of knowledge phenomenon and metacognition among non-human animals; and a recapitulation of the considerations.

Keywords: sociobiology, logotaxis, neophilia, evolution, knowing-that, knowing- how.

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Mariusz Mazurek  

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: mariuszmazure@o2.pl

TWO TYPES OF MODELS IN SCIENCE AND PROBLEM OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY AND ISSUES OF REPRESENTATION

ABSTRACT

In the article the models which are reconstructed in the philosophy of science from the praxis of science are divided into two main types: 1) analogue- and metaphor- based models and 2) representational models. I examine functions of the models of both the types, and demonstrate that the models of type 1) are used in science as instruments of acquiring new knowledge on the basis of a knowledge accepted earlier; and models of type 2) are used to create cognitive “images” of reality. I demonstrate that in the philosophy of science the problem areas generated by two functions of models are entirely isolated one from another. Whereas they are nonseparably linked one to another. I postulate the necessity of linking them in one unified conception of models, and then in one conception of science. Therefore such a conception of models is needed which will explain how models play two functions simultaneously, i.e. how they function in the context of discovery and how they represent reality.

Keywords: model, analogy, metaphor, representation.

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Andrzej Wilk

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: awilk@ifispan.waw.pl  

ABSOLUTISM AND ONTOLOGY

ABSTRACT

The text considers the link between logic and ontology in the context of the problem of future truth. The main issue examined in this paper is the following one: the classical logic is strongly insensitive to the ontological determinism-indeterminism problem.

Keywords: determinism, indeterminism, future truth, Twardowski, Kotarbiński, Łukasiewicz, Leśniewski, Quine, Davidson, von Wright.

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Józef L. Krakowiak

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, WSEZiNS, Łódź Poland

E-mail: j.k.l@wp.pl

 

ANDRZEJ GRZEGORCZYK’S ENDOCENTRIC RELATIONS WITH HIMSELF AS CONNECTIONS WITH VALUES, CULTURE AND LIFE IN GENERAL

ABSTRACT

Andrzej Grzegorczyk’s imperative “to give evidence to the internally lived truth” is close to personalistic Christian existentialism which does not only tend to externalise the authentic experiences of I, but also—as the ancient philosophers of life— trains a chosen attitude toward being. In his relational and activistic conception of the person which experiences values Grzegorczyk emphasizes the cognitive and analytic roles of knowing itself on each level of many-layered relational structure which is the human person. He also emphasizes the ethical role of forming the unity of the person’s nature. Defending the autonomy of the human person, Grzegorczyk approves pressure exerting by it on itself. Grzegorczyk restores the ancient dimension of ethics viewed as a theory and practice of forming itself. He rejects—after Abraham Maslow—the perspective of the psychology of deficiency, based on behaviourism and psychoanalysis. He assigns to the man a humanistic perspective of growth and excess character of living values as a main factor of human activity.

Keywords: Andrzej Grzegorczyk, ethics, Christian existentialism, values.

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Paweł Zagożdżon

Affiliation: Medical University of Gdansk, Dębinki 7, 80-211 Gdańsk, Poland

E-mail: pzagoz@gumed.edu.pl  

THE RELATION BETWEEN TWO PARADIGMS – THE RELIGIOUS PSYCHIATRIST

ABSTRACT

The difference between psychiatry and religion is narrow. Religious and spiritual beliefs frequently are involved in the clinical picture. Despite recent changes in the attitudes of academic psychiatry towards religion the historic tensions between religion and psychiatry does not always allow to include religious spirituality in psychiatric practice. Researches show that psychiatrists are less religious than other physicians, and religious physicians are less willing than nonreligious physicians to refer patients to psychiatrists. The religious psychiatrist is in a difficult position. His own religious belief is confronted with religious beliefs of his patients and with the biomedical paradigm of mental illness in psychiatry. I analyse in this paper several questions. What are the boundaries of the scientific paradigm in psychiatry? What should be the role of evangelism in psychiatric treatment? Should psychiatrists urge their patients to become Christians? When the spiritual dilemma should be viewed from the psychopathological perspective Some epidemiologic studies showed that the involvement of religious beliefs in p psychiatric treatment leads to better outcomes in patients with depression but not schizophrenia patients. The spiritual orientation is also an important aspect of the recovery in the addiction treatment.

Keywords: psychiatry, mental illness, religious beliefs, religious psychiatrist.  

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Magdalena Łata

Affiliation: The Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, Nowy Świat 69, 00-001 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: magdalena.lata@onet.eu  

THE PAINTING MELANCHOLY BY JACEK MALCZEWSKI IN THE CONTEXT OF THE THEORY OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

ABSTRACT

In the article I analyse the painting Melancholy by Jacek Malczewski in the context of the theory of cognitive linguistics. I transfer the principles of the analysis paradigms of language – which have been studied intensively since the eighties of the twentieth century – to the field of visual art. I refer to a few key aspects of these studies, by choosing the sets which create complementary and mutually enriching content useful for the intended task. The analysis of painting is preceded by the outline of the theory of metonymy, metaphor and conceptual blends.

Keywords: metonymy, metaphor, conceptual blending theory, image schema, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner.