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.  

Paweł Bytniewski

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

Email: pbytniewski@tlen.pl

 

ALTHUSSER AND FOUCAULT—TWO EPISTEMOLOGIES OF READING

 

ABSTRACT

The philosophical reconstruction of texts, utterances, discourses, sciences—in this way we can formulate the task set in Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault’s works. Both the philosophers determine this task non-identically, although their paths often intersect with each other. Anyway, this kind of work includes a condition essential to meet the requirement of the purity of epistemological intentions. In the task of this kind a way of readings texts must be set it, namely the way which would allow to epistemologically criticize the matter of discourse-subject. The satisfaction of this condition would give the whole enterprise a character of a productive conception, enriching our knowledge on the way of speaking about the truths known in the history of thought. What is the “culture of the word” in which Althusser and Foucault have developed proposals for the epistemologically valid theory of reading? What is the richness of research programmes which have become the matrix of these reconstructions, and what is its concern to this culture? Critics, refutations or another way of special treatment? What the reform of the relation between significant and signifié they offer? These problems are considered in the paper.

Keywords: Althusser, Foucault, the culture of word, simptomal lecture, discourse.

 

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Małgorzata Czarnocka

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

Email: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw

SCIENCE CONSTITUTED BY INTERESTS. ON JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ CONCEPTION

 

ABSTRACT

I reconstruct and analyse Jürgen Habermas’ conception of three interests and subordinated to them three types of sciences; this conception has been presented mainly in his Knowledge and Interests (1968) and in the New Introduction to the fourth German edition of the Theory and Practice (1971). The present validity of the conception is due to its two properties. First, it includes a non-standard, alternative to today’s dominated view on the nature and role of science. Second, it is a currently rare theory of science founded anthropologically, with evolutionary theories threads, however, weakened in comparison with the consistent Darwinism by introducing the spiritual sphere, transcending biologicality.

Keywords: Jürgen Habermas, cognitive interest, the role of science.

 

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Konrad Waloszczyk

Affiliation: Higher School of Firefighting, ul. Słowackiego 52/54, 01–629 Warsaw, Poland.

Email: konradw@upcpoczta.pl

RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN THE PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN WORKS (1881–1955)

 

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is a concise presentation of the main traits of the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin thought with special attention to the relationship between religion and science. There is a widely accepted opinion in commentaries to Teilhard that he has done with a far going reconciliation of these domains of culture. He has shown them up as two meridians which do not merge but are bound to converge as they approach the pole. The article also contains a reply to the critique of the Teilhardian thought put forward by some philosophers and biologists: Bertrand Russell, Peter Medawar, Richard Dawkins, Władysław Kunicki–Golfinger and Zdzisława Piątek. Their contention is that a higher consciousness is not superior to the lower, and that evolution has no direction. But how can they explain that people often love to know for its own sake? And why more cerebrated and more conscious creatures appeared in evolution not randomly and not before but always after less conscious ones? Furthermore a question has been raised whether the Teilhard’s system is in some way falsifiable. The answer has been suggested that the remarkable scientific and technological progress and the greatest in the human history wave of globalization, which all took place after his death (1955), seem to confirm his ideas.

Keywords: cosmogenesis, evolution, consciousness, noosphere, religion, science, technology.

 

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Rafał Michalski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Nicholas Copernicus University, Fosa Staromiejska 1 a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

E-mail: metasis@umk.pl

THE CONCEPT OF THE SPATIALIZED SUBJECT IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARNOLD GEHLEN

 

ABSTRACT

The article considers the problem of subjectivity in the light of Arnold Gehlen’s philosophical anthropology and theory of institutions. The main objective of the prsened analysis is a constructive reconstruction of the theory of subjectification, present in the work of the German anthropologist in the form of a heterogeneous, often directly unrelated motifs. Describing the successive stages of subjectification, we will show that this process occurs in a “phenomenal space” of human embodiment subordinated to the requirements of action (1), and requires a support from external institutional devices. Other discussed development stages are: the sensorimotor control and regulation of drives (2), habitualization and ritualisation of human behavior (3) and institutionalization (4). The result of these processes is, according to Gehlen, the formation of character (hexis) (5) and awareness (6).

Keywords: Arnold Gehlen, philosophical anthropology, spatialized subject, imagination, language, institution, discipline, habitualization, ritualisation, consciousness.

 

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Jakub Gomułka

Affiliation: Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Crocow, ul. Kanonicza 9, 31-002 Crocow, Poland.

Email: jakub.gomulka@upjp2.edu.pl

COUNTERINTUITIVE OR INCONSISTENT THEORY OF INTENTIONALITY?
A DISPUTE BETWEEN DENNETT AND SEARLE

 

ABSTRACT

The paper compares the conceptions of intentionality held by the two leading figures in the contemporary philosophy of mind: John Searle and Daniel Dennett. I explain the relation between Searle’s theories in philosophy of language and his theory of intentionality and his idea of three kinds of intentionality. Then I present Dennett’s theory of intentionality as an adaptive feature and his idea of intentional stances. I underline the fact that, using Searle’s vocabulary, according to Dennett no creature or artifact possesses intrinsic intentionality — all we deal with is just derived intentionality: the intentionality the observer attributes to a being in order to form a better prediction of the being’s behavior. The consequence of this standpoint is highly counterintuitive: Dennett must (and in fact does) accept a claim that the observer’s own intentionality is also only attributed to one by some other observers in order to form better prediction of one’s behavior. This claim is rejected by Searle as an obvious absurd. I argue that Searle’s standpoint is founded on the Cartesian grounds and point to the similarity between his critique of Dennett and Husserl’s critique of naturalism. Since Searle claims his conception to be naturalistic, his theory is inconsistent.

Keywords: intentionality, naturalism, artificial intelligence, syntactic machine, John R. Searle, Daniel C. Dennett.

 

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Barbara Trybulec

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

Email: barbara.trybulec@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl

WHAT DOES MICROSOFT THINK ABOUT? SOME CONTROVERSIES OVER THE GROUP AGENCY

 

ABSTRACT

The extended mind thesis is sometimes used in the argumentation for the group agency. Those who are ready to explain the behavior of some groups in terms of their intentional states argue that the system composed of many individuals can constitute an agent which is in many respects analogous to the individual cognitive subject. In the paper I argue that the choice between the individualistic and holistic perspectives with regard to the explanation of group behavior is determined by the chosen research problems. By indicating selected positions towards group intentional states I evaluate how far we can draw an analogy between individual and group agency.

Keywords: group agency, mental state, emergence, reductionism

 

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Jarosław Mrozek

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism, University of Gdansk, ul. Bażyńskiego 4, 80-952 Gdansk, Poland.

Email: filjam@ug.edu.pl

IS THERE A RETREAT FROM NATURALISM IN PHYSICS?

 

ABSTRACT

Naturalism claims that everything that exists is Nature. There does not exist any other reality, apart from the natural one. Naturalists require that all phenomena have to be explained only by their natural causes. Natural causes are the ones that are accessible for scientific cognition. Science (physics) tries to describe this reality basing on observation and experiment as the foundation of creating theoretical constructs (theories) pertaining to natural phenomena. Mark Steiner, in his book entitled The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem, puts forward a surprising thesis that contemporary physicists in their work retreat from the naturalist vision of science because—as the author states—the real scientific activity does not comply with their basic methodological and philosophical convictions (with naturalism). To support his thesis he points to numerous cases of significant discoveries in the newest history of physics in which the decisive role was played by human imagination and not experimental facts. This way of discovering laws in contemporary physics is—in his view—antinaturalist in the sense that it relies more on human invention, on manipulating formal structures by the use of mathematical analogies than on the methods of classical empiricism. Such an approach—in his opinion—privileges a human and not naturalist (empirical) point of view. Steiner regards that it indicates a turn towards an anthropocentric viewpoint in the methodology of physics. In my view it is an over-interpretation of “natural” cognitive procedures existing in contemporary science and relying on the use of a well-known scheme: problem—hypothesis—criticism—problem modification. Moreover, Steiner’s suggestions do not match facts concerning the development of the newest cosmology in which scientific development is stimulated by using sophisticated observations.

Keywords: Mathematics, physics, structure, analogy, naturalism, anthropocentrism.

 

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Rafał Antoni Kupczak

PhD, a graduate of the University of Silesia in Katowice and the Academy Ignatianum in Cracow, currently an independent researcher.

Email: rafalkupczak@wp.pl

A VIEW ON THE PROBLEM OF ANTHROPOGENESIS IN THE LIGHT OF THE DISCUSSION ON THE RESULTS OF THE COMPARATIVE RESEARCH OF APES TOOL ABILITIES

 

ABSTRACT

The question of the origin of human tool competence is one of the key mysteries of anthropogenesis. In recent years experiments have been carried out to verify the competence in the production of stone tools by apes. Interpretations of the results of the experiments are the source of a serious controversy both in the assessment of the tool competence of apes as well as in their extrapolation of these skills to determine the sources utilities competence of our ancestors.

Keywords: anthropogenesis, hominids tool making, primates tool making, experiments with the production of stone tools.

 

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Krzysztof Abriszewski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Nicholas Copernicus University, Fosa Staromiejska 1 a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

Email: krzabr@umk.pl

US – SUBJECTS OF SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED KNOWLEDGE. REINTERPRETATIONS AND EXPANSIONS OF PETER BERGER AND THOMAS LUCKMANN’S SOCIAL PHENOMENOLOGY

 

ABSTRACT

In the article I attempt to realize three tasks. First, I elaborate Peter Berger’s and Thomas Luckmann’s social ontology of knowledge, mainly by referring to the concepts of everyday lifeworld, knowledge, objectification, justification, and symbolic universe. Second, I offer two interpretations of the notion of everyday lifeworld: the first using the metaphor of a cocoon or a room, and the second using the notion of a rhizome or a metaphor of a network. Third, I argue for the extending of Berger—Luckmnann’s position with Anthony Giddens’ theory of modernity and Slavoj Žižek’s theory of ideology. Such an expanded perspective derived from phenomenological social theory would enable us—I argue—to undertake the problem-posed by Michel Foucault in his What Is Enlightenment? — of analysing ourselves as subjects of knowledge.

Keywords: knowledge, social ontology of knowledge, everyday lifeworld, justification, symbolic universe, modernity, abstract systems, rhizome, ideology, desire.

 

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Andrzej W. Nowak

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

Email: andrzej.w.nowak@gmail.com

DOES RWANDA EXIST? AXIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE ONTOLOGICAL TURN IN SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY STUDIES

 

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to show consequences of the ontological turn in studies on science and technology. In article the author uses as a conceptual tool the concept of ontological imagination, which is a radicalization of the sociological imagination (C. W. Mills). Author analyzes three ways of interpreting the genocide in Rwanda. To avoid the relativistic deadlock he proposes a shift from the epistemocentric to ontological approach method. This shift may be defined as “ontological policies” and “ontonorms” (A. Mol). In result, ontological dimensions of axiological choices are revealed.

Keywords: ontological turn, ontological policies, social imagination, ontological imagination.

 

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Mirosław Chałubiński

Affiliation: Institute of Sociology, The University of Zielona Góra, Al. Wojska Polskiego 69, 65-762 Zielona Góra, Poland.

E-mail: mirek_chalubinski@onet.pl

LESZEK KOŁAKOWSKI – AN UNKNOWN CONSTRUCTIVIST

 

ABSTRACT

The paper presents Leszek Kołakowski’s philosophy by comparing it not only with different constructivist threads in epistemology (among others, Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism and methodological anarchism), but also with Marxist revisionism (Stanisław Brzozowski, Antonio Gramsci, György Lukács). The epistemologies emphasizing an active role of the subject in cognition are here taken into account. Their common attribute is frequently scepticism and agnosticism. The paper also shows some ideological-political implications of Kołakowski’s research in the period of the Warsaw School of History of Ideas in 1955–1968.

Keywords: Leszek Kołakowski, Richard Rorty, constructivism, active role of the cognitive subject, The Warsaw School of History of Ideas, anti-fundamentalist philosophy of science, sociology of knowledge, revisionism.

 

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Krzysztof Chodasewicz

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

Email: kchodasewicz@o2.pl

NATURAL SELECTION, EVOLUTION OF CULTURE, DAWKINS’S PARADOX

 

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the concept of memetic evolution of culture, especially the concept of natural selection assumed by it. The article shows that the replicatorinteractor conception of natural selection created by Richard Dawkins requires that the memetic hypothesis includes conditions that are extremely difficult (if not impossible) to meet. This leads to a paradox: from one hand, Dawkins is the father of the concept of Darwinian evolution of culture, from the other hand, he assumes the concept of selection impeding research on this (hypothetical) phenomenon. It is more proper to think about the Darwinian evolution of culture taking as a starting point of the standard approach of natural selection (by Lewontin, Maynard Smith and Endler). I do not state if the Darwinian evolution of culture actually takes place. I examine instead the conceptual framework of reflecting on this subject. Moreover, I consider the related issue: can culture—if it indeed evolves in a Darwinian way—be considered a form of life? I do not state if culture is alive, but analyse the preliminary problems founding a reflection on this subject.

Keywords: natural selection, Dawkins, replicator-interactor approach to natural selection, memetics, definition of life.

 

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Marcin Urbaniak

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

Email: murbaniak78@gmail.com

PHYLOGENETIC JUSTIFICATION OF COMPREHENSION PHENOMENON AND PROCEDURAL AND DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE

 

ABSTRACT

The article attempts to justify the phenomenon of comprehension—functioning generally in Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s hermeneutics—from the perspective of naturalistically oriented philosophy. As a consequence, a naturalistic perspective is proposed — presented by Dennett, Lorenz, Wuketits, Vollmer—on the phenomenon of knowledge and the notion of knowledge functioning in the analytic tradition. More precisely, the basic aim of this article is a critical analysis of the thesis saying that even though the way of being called “comprehension” is the source of explanation by theoretical and practical knowledge, the explanation and understanding capacities are onto-cognitive structures with a phylogenetic basis. These structures emerged in the process of evolution. As a result of above reflection there is thesis: declarative knowing-that and procedural knowing-how have also their sources in the phylogenetic process. This work also attempts to clarify the notion of knowledge from a naturalistic point of view, as an alternative to the conception of knowledge presented in Plato’s Theaetetus.

Keywords: comprehension, explanation, know-how, know-that, phylogenetics, evolution, adaptation.

 

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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

LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE IN EVOLUTIONARY TERMS ACCORDING TO TADEUSZ GARBOWSKI

 

ABSTRACT

The work presents a reconstruction of Tadeusz Garbowski’s evolutionary theory of knowledge and conception of knowledge as a form of life. This Cracow philosopher introduced them in two works: The Life and Knowledge (1903), and Cognition as a biological agent (1910). According to him, human knowledge, unlike animal knowledge, is conscious. Its functioning is based on a subconscious predisposition to its acquisition, which expresses man’s “cognitive instinct”. Knowledge as a result of continuous learning is primarily an adaptive value to the natural, social and cultural conditions of life. The truth of knowledge lies in the fact that it can properly and creatively adapt to the environmental conditions. The criterion of its truth expresses the degree of experiencing successful specimens of species of living beings. On a human level criterion of its truth is a “practical utility” which gives every individual and society as a whole a decent life.

Keywords: Tadeusz Garbowski, the evolution of knowledge, biological basis of cognition, adaptive concept of truth.

 

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Silvia Bonacchi

Affiliation: University of Warsaw, Department of Applied Linguistics, ul. Szturmowa 4, 02-678 Warsaw, Poland.

Email: s.bonacchi@uw.edu.pl

GESTALT AS A SPECIALIZED TERM: ITS CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION IN PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

 

ABSTRACT

In the present paper the author attempts to reconstruct the process of terminologization of the expression Gestalt in the philosophical and psychological debates which laid the way for the emergence of the Berlin School of Gestalt Theory. Gestalt (English translations are: “form,” “shape,” “configuration,” “aspect”) is a German word, which is already documented in Old High German (gistalt) as meaning “appearance, way of appearing.” From the end of the 18th century onward, the word had a very interesting semantic enrichment and found uses in the arts and sciences, since it started to be used in specific domains (literature, philosophy, psychology) to designate an organic whole. In the first few decades of the 20th century,  it became a specialized term − a terminus technicus in philosophical and psychological thought − as Gestalt psychology and Gestalt theory emerged as a new scientific and philosophical orientation. The exact conceptual definitions of Gestalt, Gestalt qualities and Gestalt perception were heatedly discussed in the philosophical and psychological debates that raged in the first two decades of the 20th Century after the publication of the famous paper by Christian von Ehrenfels — On Gestalt Qualities (1890) — and it was developed in various psychological schools (the Berlin School, the Graz School) and philosophical orientations (phenomenology, neokantism), till the formulation in 1923 of the Gestalt laws by Max Wertheimer. In the concluding part of the paper, the author attempts to trace the development of  the Gestalt approach after the Second World War.

Keywords: Gestalt theory, terminologization, crisis of science, holism.

 

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Danilo Facca

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

Email: dfacca@ifispan.waw.pl

THE ARISTOTELIAN NOTION OF FORM AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY

 

ABSTRACT

The papers analyses the Aristotelian concept of form (eidos, morphe) which is a basis of Aristotle’s philosophy. Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s conception of forms was for Aristotle a starting point for elaborating his own theory of forms. This theory provided Aristotle with a theoretical equipment applied in all the fields of scientific inquiry. So his concept of form proved to be all-pervasive. The article also deals with some recent debates, concerning the questions of sense and intellectual cognition, the problem of identity, the mind-body problem.

Keywords: Aristotle, form, correspondence theory of truth, idealism, realism

 

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Stanisław Czerniak

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

E-mail: stanislaw.l.czerniak@wp.pl

CATEGORIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN GESTALT THEORY AND CLASSICAL 20TH—CENTURY PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

 

ABSTRACT

In his paper the author reconstructs the categorial relations between Gestalt psychology and theory and classical 20th-century philosophical anthropology (Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner). In the first part, entitled Inspirations, it is analysed how the views of a key 20th–century Gestalt theorist Wolfgang Köhler influenced Scheler, the author of The Human Place in the Cosmos. In part two, Parallels, the author investigates the categorial similarities between Plessner’s philosophical anthropology with its category of “eccentric position” and Gestalt theory.

Keywords: Gestalt theory, philosophical anthropology, intelligence, spirit, the whole, field, form, sensation, perception, eccentric position

 

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Anna Michalska

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

Email: michalskanna@gmail.com

GESTALT AND SCIENCE. KUHN’S MODEL OF SCIENTIFIC CHANGE IN THE LIGHT OF GESTALT THEORY

 

ABSTRACT

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn advances a controversial claim that the scientific change is a form of Gestalt switch. As I point out, he did it apparently without having a full understanding of what Gestalt theory was, and used the concept of Gestalt rather metaphorically. Interestingly, however, Kuhn’s model of scientific change as sketched in The Copernican Revolution and developed in his subsequent works satisfies the desiderata of Gestalt theory. In the paper, I demonstrate that considering the Kuhnian model through the lens of Gestalt theory helps uncover its full potential and overcome certain difficulties connected to it.

Keywords: Gestalt theory, Thomas Kuhn, scientific revolution, scientific change.

 

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Jagna Brudzińska

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland;  University of Cologne, Germany.

Email: jagna.brudzinska@uni-koeln.de

TYPE AS THE DYNAMIC STRUCTURE OF EXPERIENCE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GENETIC PHENOMENOLOGY

 

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy as an intentionalgenetic theory of experience. I inquire into the elementary forms and principle of the organisation of subjective experiences and investigate the concepts of type and typizing apperception in the context of pre-predicative constitution. I attempt to show how far type, conceived as a concrete and acquired coherence of homogenous experiences, determines the process of interest-awakening even before higher predicative procedures, such as discursive and reflexive thinking, take place. Following such a path, phenomenology comes closer to the philosophy of life, as well as to the Gestalt theory.

Keywords: genetic phenomenology, intentionality, type, typizing apperception.

 

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Przemysław Parszutowicz

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland; Gdańsk University of Technology, ul. Traugutta 79, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland.

Email: pparszutowicz@ifispan.waw.pl

ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC FORMS AND GESTALT THEORY

 

ABSTRACT

The concept of “symbolic pregnancy” is in the opinion of many scholars one of the key concepts in Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. Without a proper understanding of its conceptual frame Cassirer’s philosophy lacks a consistent foundation. The concept “symbolic pregnancy” offers a mechanism of the distinction of symbolic forms. The newest investigations (also on unpublished or less known, neglected writings of the philosopher) has shown that the key-notion of “symbolic pregnancy” has its roots in Gestalt Theory (Gestalt Psychology). In this school Cassirer saw the most important example of a general tendency in scientific thought, according to which the primacy of the notion of “function” had to override the primacy of the notion of “substance”, the idea of “integrated whole” the notion of “primary elements”.

Keywords: Cassirer, symbolic pregnancy, symbolic form, Gestalt Theory.

 

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Stanisław Czerniak

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

E-mail: stanislaw.l.czerniak@wp.pl

HANS-JÖRG RHEINBERGER ON NATURE AND CULTURE

 

ABSTRACT

The author focuses on the leading themes of H-J. Rheinberger’s 2015 published book Natur und Kultur im Spiegel des Wissens (Nature and Culture in the Mirror of Knowledge). He mainly concentrates on the German science philosopher’s views regarding the status of contemporary natural sciences and the humanities, the fading of to-date boundaries between both fields, and especially the role the culture concept is beginning to play in today`s experimental biology.

Keywords: historical epistemology, nature, culture, natural sciences, humanities, hybrid disciplines, experimental systems, experimentation cultures.

 

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Sławomir Leciejewski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89c, 60-568 Poznan, Poland

Email: slaaw@amu.edu.pl

VISUALIZATION AND RECORDING TECHNIQUES IN NATURAL SCIENCES IN HANS-JÖRG RHEINBERGER VIEW

 

ABSTRACT

In my comment to fragments of Historical Epistemology, devoted to the problem of visualization and recording techniques in natural sciences, I refer to Peter Galison’s theses presented in his book Image and Logic: a Material Culture of Microphysics in order to analyse critically Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s claims in the context of modern experimental practice engaging computers. I answer for the question whether the theses included in the Historical Epistemology concerning visualization and recording are acceptable when they are confronted with the computer style of scientific research prevailing in experimental research since the 80-ties of the 20th century.

Keywords: historical epistemology, visualization, style of scientific research.

 

Giorgio Derossi

Affiliation: Universita degli Studi di Trieste, Piazzale Europa, 1, 34128 Trieste TS,  Italy

E-mail: serenacattaruzza@alice.it

THE PERCEPTUAL DIMENSION IN EXPERIMENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY AND IN SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

The author presents a possible important contribution of experimental phenomenology to the methodology of scientific research. Experimental phenomenology is a phenomenological approach developed recently from some epistemological implications of the inspired by the Gestalt theory investigations concerning perception. The paper is especially concentrated on investigations performed by the group which was being active at the Trieste University in the second half of the 20th century; the group was leading by Gaetano Kanizsa, a perception specialist. The here mentioned implications refer to the possibility of forming spatiotemporal conditions, which reveal reality beyond phenomena and which in the classical Husserl  phenomenology approach are recognized to be knowable only ideally. The author contests the idealistic mortgage of the classical phenomenology, and emphasizes the essentiality of some arguments which seems to legitimize the mentioned possibility of a new realism. The author quotes creative visualizations applying relevant Gedankenexperimenten, elaborated by Ernst Mach in his historical-critical researches of the evolution of modern mechanics. However, the author first of all presents the essential features of the visualization of the absolute reality of the space perceived in the phenomenon of incongruent correspondents, stated in last pre-critical Kant’s essay. Thus the theoretical-historical perspective is outlined in which a more essential role can be played by—together with the vision of ideal essences— the very vision of reality.

Keywords: perception, idealization, visualization, mental experiment, continuity-non-continuity, incongruent correspondents, reality. 

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Stanisław Czerniak

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

E-mail: stanislaw.czerniak@outlook.com

ARNOLD GEHLEN’S PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AS A MODEL OF SOCIETY CRITIQUE

ABSTRACT

The author distinguishes three notions of philosophical anthropology and at the same time three developmental streams of this domain. He considers the relations linking philosophical anthropology with critical social philosophy. Next, he explicates the main assumptions of Arnold Gehlen’s philosophical anthropology, and searches for an answer to the following question: how those assumptions influence the categorical specificity of Gehlen’s critique of the postmodern society embraced in the notion of contemporary institutions crisis.  The author elaborates those analyses by referring to Gehlen’s work Die Seele im technischen Zeitalter and to the carried out there analyses of the so called new subjectivism. The article is concluded by critical investigations on some ideational inconsistencies of Gehlen’s philosophical position.

Keywords: philosophy of man, philosophical anthropology, flood of stimuli, instinct overcapacity, language, social institutions, action, new subjectivism.

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Rafał Michalski
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Nicholas Copernicus University, Fosa Staromiejska 1 a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

E-mail: metasis@umk.pl

THE GENESIS OF LANGUAGE IN AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE.

THE POSITION OF ARNOLD GEHLEN AND GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

ABSTRACT

The article reconstructs the main assumptions of Arnold Gehlen’s conception of the origin of language, supplementing its shortcomings with some conclusions drawn from George Herbert Mead’s social behaviorism. The first two sections contain the description of the ontogeny of linguistic competence, with special reference to “embodied meaning,” the notion describing the fact that human language is deeply rooted in motor imagination. Employing the term, Gehlen tries to prove that any notions, even the most abstract ones, are crystallized through sensorimotor schemas, i.e. through bodily characteristics that enable the man to interact with his environment. The language has therefore a relieving function, because it compensates the inherent lack of adaptation to specific environmental conditions and chronic surplus of drives that are not channeled. The third section analyses the philosopher’s arguments for the thesis that language and discursive thinking create an inseparable unity. The reconstruction of Gehlen’s theory is summarized by a critical commentary to some of its elements together with an overview of several topics of Mead’s social behaviorism which can be seen as its corroboration and development.

Keywords: origin of language, social behaviorism, ontogeny, motor imagination, relief, communication.

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Zdzisława Piątek

Affiliation: Jagiellonian University, ul. Gołębia 24, 31–007 Kraków, Poland 

E-mail: zdzislawa.piatek33@gmail.com

ON THE BANALITY OF GOOD UNDERSTOOD AS THE GOOD OF LIVING BEINGS

ABSTRACT

This paper is about the good of living beings. The concept is analogous to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil in that it is unconscious (unknowing) since the non-human living beings are not driven in their actions by conscious motivation. The “motivation” of realization of the good of its own is genetic information. The good of their own of living beings i.e., the ability to live within the measure of one’s own species is related to the drive of self–preservation and is a fundamental value since it is the basis of all the other goods. Its realization requires the subjects of life, just like the realization of moral good requires moral subjects. The thesis of this paper is that moral subjects and moral goods derive from the subjects of life.

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Małgorzata Czarnocka

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

E-mail: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw.pl

SUBJECTIVITY IN NEO-KANTIANISM

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses Neo-Kantianism views on cognitive subjectivity: constructions by Heinrich Rickert (valuing subject and epistemological subject), by Bruno Bauch (proper subject – principium), by Hermann Cohen (a logical substitution linking rules of thinking, methods and cognitive procedures) and Paul Natorp’s exclusion of subjectivity. The Neo-Kantianism conceptions of subjectivity are determined by the Neo-Kantianism metatheses: anti-psychologism, objectivism, and epistemological fundamentalism. It is demonstrated that Neo-Kantianism elaborated a foundation to philosophize without the category of subject, and initiated the metaphilosophical transformation to the linguistic paradigm. The basis of this change holds that only the objective subject is able to acquire objective knowledge.

Keywords: Neo-Kantianism, cognitive subject, the paradigm of consciousness, linguistic paradigm.

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Mariusz Mazurek
Affiliation: Lublin University of Technology Nadbystrzycka 38 D, 20-618 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: mariusz.mazurek@pollub.pl

SCIENTIFIC THEORETICAL MODELS

ABSTRACT

I analysed three most interesting and extensive approaches to theoretical models: classical ones—proposed by Peter Achinstein and Michael Redhead, and the relatively rare analysed approach of Ryszard Wójcicki, belonging to a later phase of his research where he gave up applying the conceptual apparatus of logical semantics. I took into consideration the approaches to theoretical models in which they are qualified as models representing the reality. That is why I omitted Max Black’s and Mary Hesse’s concepts of such models, as those two concepts belong to the analogue model group if we consider the main function of the model of a given class as its classification criterion. My main focus was on theoretical models with representative functions as these very models and, in a broader context, the question of representation. To consider these problems philosophy of science concentrates its main attention.

Keywords: representation, theory, models, Peter Achinstein, Michael Redhead, Ryszard Wójcicki

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Mariusz Mazurek
Affiliation: Lublin University of Technology Nadbystrzycka 38 D, 20-618 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: mariusz.mazurek@pollub.pl

THE DEFLATIONARY CONCEPTION OF REPRESENTATION IN MAURIZIO SUÁREZ’S CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

I analysed Maurizio Suárez’s concept of representation due to the following reasons. Firstly the aforementioned concept declaratively (yet, as it turns out, only seemingly) breaks out of the mainstream, standard ways of approaching the relation of representation; those identify the representation with similarities of properties or with isomorphism. Secondly Suárez’s investigations show how difficult is to disregard the standard presentation of the relation of representation based on commonsense intuitions, related to the naive epistemological realism and even being a version of such realism. Suárez’s attempt indicates that the problem of representation, so broadly discussed nowadays, probably requires (in order to achieve new solutions) the introduction of an entirely new conceptual apparatus and thus approaching the problem of representation from an entirely new perspective.
Keywords: representation, deflationary conception, Maurizio Suárez.

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

E-mail: gecow@op.pl

A WAY TO THE MODEL OF STRUCTURE EVOLUTION

ABSTRACT

Three simple models are presented which describe preliminarily basic observations of living objects. The first one is a model of the improving process of object without structure. It prepares intuition on evolution from the perspective of information and purposeful information, entropy and probability. The evolving object is described as a vector of properties of several equally probable variants. This model gives a formal foundation of small change tendency, and the quantitative basis for a natural identity criterion which has a deep philosophical meaning. Further it becomes a part of a model with a structure which indicates target structural tendencies. The second model describes the record length of purposeful information by use of which we intuitively distinguish living objects from the inanimate world. Here the model without structure is applied to the same object again but to its other aspect. The third model develops the notion “degeneration” defined in the model without structure. The paper discusses the reservation and scope of permitted degeneration during the quantitative explosion of adaptive radiation and during competition.
Keywords: biological information, purposeful information, degeneration, competition, quantitative explosion, adaptive radiation.

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Radosław Sojak
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Nicholas Copernicus University, Fosa Staromiejska 1 a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

E-mail: kedar@umk.pl

LET HER FLY HIGH. ON A DIVIDE BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

Sociology has not dominated social studies of science (SSN). The latter develops itself largely autonomously and independently of sociology. The article sketches possible reasons of that situation. Apart from historical and institutional causes it points out three main reasons of a theoretical nature. (1) The relative absence of the Mertonian tradition within SSN; (2) a general distrust within SSN towards the explanation based on interests, and (3) actor-network theory’s critique of sociological tradition. It is claimed that the critique is misguided and underestimates both the cognitive and practical potential of sociology.
Keywords: sociology; sociology of scientific knowledge; social studies of science; actor-network theory

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

E-mail: michalskanna@gmail.com

SCIENCE AND RATIONALITY IN THE THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION

ABSTRACT

The “classical” philosophy of science, basic tenets of which have been subjected to severe criticism over the years, conceives of science as the medium and the touchstone of rationality. Based on this assumption, the theory of science is the theory of rationality. Habermas’ theory of communicative action offers an interesting switch to this classical perspective. In his account, the notion of rationality is wider than that of science: rationality is irreducible to science constituting only one of three pillars of rationality. It also means that science cannot be reduced to an instrumental form of rationality.

This account of the relationship between science and rationality sheds a light on the most frequently formulated critical argument against Habermas’ theory, according to which the idea of communicative action is unrealistic. In my reply to that I argue that the theory of communicative action determine a set of empirical conditions that must be met for a communicative action to be possible. These conditions are demanding, but hardly unrealistic.
Keywords: science, rationality, theory of communicative action, empirical conditions of communicative action, transcendental conditions of communicative action.

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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

THREE MODELS OF THE DISCONTINUOUS PROCESS OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCES—BACHELARD, CANGUILHEM, FOUCAULT

ABSTRACT

The paper presents three models of the history of sciences, in which three different kinds of discontinuity of knowledge (epistemological, interdisciplinary, temporal) play the role of ordering the ways of understanding the historical process of sciences. Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault—the authors of these models—disposing of a historical material concerning natural sciences (Bachelard, Canguilhem) and the humanities (Foucault) attempt to settle the matter of the connection between the specificity of the historical process, in which those sciences are involved, and the epistemological qualifications of the knowledge being a product of this process. Each author, sharing with two others some initial, common assumptions, emphasizes differently, though, the role of the listed kinds of discontinuity in this process.

Keywords: history of sciences, discontinuity of knowledge, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault.

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Zbysław Muszyński

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

E-mail: zmuszyn@bacon.umcs.lublin.pl

EXTENDED MIND, EXTENDED COGNITION, “EXTENDED SCIENCE”

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses three categories mentioned in the title: extended mind, extended cognition, extended science, and to reveal their interconnections. All the categories refer to the conception of extended mind, whereas the notion of extended science is a proposal of applying the conception of extended mind to analysing the subject of scientific research, results of the research and the very process of establishing scientific knowledge, as well as understanding science and its functioning.

Keywords: extended mind, extended cognition, the principle of quotas, scientific knowledge, Andy Clark, David Chalmers, Ronald N. Giere, Richard Menary. 

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Barbara Trybulec
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: barbara.trybulec@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl

PHEOMENOLOGY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE – TWO METHODS OF ANALYSIS OF THE COGNITIVE SUBJECT.

A PERSPECTIVE OF COLLABORATION AND ITS PROBLEMS

ABSTRACT

The paper presents benefits and difficulties carried by the project of incorporating the method of phenomenology into cognitive science. I explain the consequences of naturalizing phenomenology and analyse relations between the two lines of reflection on cognition – phenomenology and cognitive science. I also present some difficulties associated with neurophenomenology introduced by Francisco Varela. Neurophenomenology grows out from four philosophical traditions founded on different or even incompatible assumptions on  the cognitive subject. The main task for this discipline is to determine a consistent set of assumptions and methods which could constitute a theoretical ground composed of ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. In the paper I argue that naturalizing phenomenology is an illusion. The only hope for a joined reflection on cognition lies in researches which combine the method of phenomenological reduction with the neuroscientific method of picturing the activity of the brain. Revealing neural correlates of the first-person experiences awakens hope for development of science about first-person perspective which is based neither on introspection nor on folk psychology, but on phenomenological reduction, and which together with cognitive science constitute the new value in the reflection on cognition.
Keywords: epistemic subject, phenomenological reduction, cognitive science, neurophenomenology, consciousness, phenomenology.

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Aleksandra Kołtun
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: aleksandra.koltun@gmail.com

“EXTENDED SCIENCE” – AGORAS, LABORATORIES, SOCIAL MACHINES

ABSTRACT

The transformations in the functioning of contemporary science are recognised more and more often in the categories of extension of its areas of inquiry, heterogeneity of the engaged actors, and crossing the disciplinary boundaries. Along with these changes there arise questions concerning where and how exactly scientific knowledge emerges as well as the problem of defining the criteria of sciencehood. The article aims to present selected conceptions from the area of Science and Technology Studies; such ones which focus their attention to diverse spaces (of material, organisational and/or cultural kinds) in which supposedly scientific knowledge emerges. Altogether, it seems that these are both the organisational mode and the specific spaces that can currently serve as a basis for discerning science from non-science.
Keywords: “extended science”, Mode 2 knowledge production, agora, anthropology of science, laboratories, actor-network theory, social machines.

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Małgorzata Koronkiewicz
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00-047 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: malgorzata.koronkiewicz@gmail.com

CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE’S REALISM AND RICHARD RORTY’S ANTIREALISM

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses some elements of realism in Charles Sanders Peirce’s traditional pragmatism and of antirealism in Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism. Realism and antirealism are discussed here mainly in their relations to the problems of meaning, objectivity and truth.
Keywords: Charles Sanders Peirce, Richard Rorty, realism, antirealism, pragmatism, neopragmatism.

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Marek Łagosz
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Wroclaw, Koszarowa 3/20, 51-149 Wrocław, Poland

E-mail: lagosz@o2.pl

NATURAL HISTORY AND SOCIAL HISTORY. A COMPARATIVE ESSAY

ABSTRACT

In this paper I undertake the question of differences between natural and social history. I consider five detailed issues: the pace of qualitative changes and homogeneity of time, the arrow of time, the end of history, the totality of history, and the difference between historic nature and temporality.  I emphasize that the differences between natural and social history are not ontologically essential.
Keywords: natural history, social history, qualitative change, time, arrow of time, end of history, totality of history, historic nature, temporality.

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Janusz Uchmański
Affiliation: Institute of Ecology and Bioethics, Department of Christian Philosophy, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Wóycickiego 1/3, 01–938 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: j.uchmanski@uksw.edu.pl

MATHEMATICAL NATURE OF BIOLOGY

ABSTRACT

In natural sciences mathematics is used as a very useful language. Great achievements of physics are related to the application of mathematical methods. Physics has also great influence on the development of mathematics. The degree of the application of mathematics in biology is very small. Biology has no influence on mathematics. Mathematical methods used to describe physical systems are also used to describe biological systems. It can be a mistake. May be biology needs entirely new mathematical methods appropriate for describing the complexity of biological systems?
Keywords: mathematics, biology, mathematical nature of biology.

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Anna Lemańska
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Wóycickiego 1/3, 01–938 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: a.lemanska@uksw.edu.pl

EVOLUTION AS THE REALIZATION OF A PROJECT?

ABSTRACT

In scientific theories of biological evolution, evolution is presented as an undirected process in which chance plays an important role because the methods of the sciences are not able to detect any externally imposed order or project. This does not mean, however, that such a project does not exist. In this article I try to show that the philosophical interpretations of evolution allow for the possibility that evolution was the implementation of the project.
Keywords: evolution, purpose, chance, project.

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Krzysztof Chodasewicz
Affiliation: Academy of Physiotherapy, Tadeusza Kościuszki 4, 50-038 Wrocław, Poland

E-mail: kchodasewicz@o2.pl

J.B.S. HALDANE AND FORMULATIONS OF CONDITIONS OF SELECTION

ABSTRACT

I analyze J.B.S. Haldane’s view on defining necessary conditions for (evolution by) natural selection. This issue has been recently broadly discussed on the borderline between philosophy of biology and theoretical biology. I put forward a hypothesis that Haldane (like many population geneticists) did not try to formulate a summary of conditions of natural selection applicable to all cases of selection, but he built instead relevant differential mathematical models of natural selection.
Keywords: J.B.S. Haldane, natural selection, conditions for natural selection, philosophy and history of biology.

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Andrzej Gecow
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warszawa

E-mail: gecow@op.pl

FROM HALDANE’S 20TH CENTURY POPULATION GENETICS TO THE TODAY JABLONKA BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION AND HEREDITY CONCEPTION

ABSTRACT

Revolution is just going on. Only correct population genetics stops to be the “only correct”. The information just takes the place of genes. Less serious psychological aspects play here role of main factors. Haldane and Jablonka are symbols of consecutive revolution in the biology.
Keywords: recapitulation, epigenetics, biological information, memetics, complex networks.

Zdzisława Piątek  

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Grodzka 52, 31-044 Kraków, Poland

E-mail: zdzislawa.piatek33@gmail.com

PECULIARITY OF CULTURAL ADAPTATION. THE INSTANCE OF FUNCTIONING OF GENDER STEREOTYPES

ABSTRACT

The peculiar character of cultural adaptation in relation to biological adaptation consists in the fact that when the former adaptation has arisen the survival of the human species depends not only on the transmission of genes, but also on memes, i.e. the cultural replicators and their success in the anthroposphere. This paper claims that the adaptative value of cultural reality is ambivalent, because culture contains both true and false beliefs (memes) about both the dimensions of human environment. This is caused by the fact that the mechanisms of cultural adaptation on the level of memes are to some extent independent from the adaptation on the level of genes and may have a negative effect on that level. The way in which memes may influence genes has been presented through the relationship between metaphysics and gender stereotypes.

Keywords: cultural adaptation, biological adaptation, anthroposphere, cultural replicators (mem).

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Robert Piłat

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Wóycickiego 1/2, 01–938 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: r.pilat@uksw.edu.pl

PHILOSOPHY AND THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT

In this report, devoted to the relation between the humanities (especially philosophy) and technical high schools, I analyse the paradox emerging when four claims are accepted: (1) technical high schools demonstrate more and more clearly university aspirations and get properties of the university; (2) the humanities and social sciences are an inherent part of the classical university; (3) in all the world a deep crisis of the classical university occurs; also the social legitimization of the life disinterestingly concentrated on knowledge disappears; (4) the technical mentality and the technical civilization are responsible for this crisis. It is easily seen that the last claim is contradictory to the first one. I try to indicate the sources of this paradox by demonstrating the falsity of claim (4). In conclusion, I maintain a real nihilistic tendency present in the attitude of modern societies toward knowledge.

Keywords: technical high school, university, philosophy, technical civilization.

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Maciej Soin

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

E-mail: msoin@poczta.onet.pl

ON POSIBLE WAYS OF TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY

ABSTRACT

The paper attempts to respond to the postulates included in the National Frameworks of Qualifications. Those require syllabuses in higher education be shaped  by  “abilities of autonomous and responsible actions”. The Author considers the usefulness of various fields of teaching of philosophy for this goal, and he concludes that the greatest prospects for its attaining lie in the teaching of critical thinking in the version based on Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations. The syllabuses of such teaching are not being reduced to the logical analysis of argumentation, but embrace among others problems of polysemousness of concepts and the verbal disputes emerging when differences between various ways of language use are neglected.  The teaching of critical thinking at an advanced level can be engaged in the problem of truth:  the diversification of criteria of truthfulness, abilities of differentiating empirical and grammatical statements, and the comparative role of samples in research practices in various domains of science.

Keywords: teaching of philosophy, critical thinking, Wittgenstein.

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Zbigniew Król

Affiliation: Warsaw University of Technology, Pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: zbigkrol@wp.pl

PHILOSOPHY AND EXACT SCIENCES

ABSTRACT

In the paper the non-separable union of philosophy and science is demonstrated; it is argued that philosophy is a necessary element of scientific practice. The author presents some arguments for the inalienable presence and need of philosophy in science whose aspirations – as he maintains – are not being reduced to the realization of utilitarian needs. The necessity of philosophy originates from the human pursuit of the understanding of reality; this understanding also is the main task of science.

Keywords: science, philosophy, utilitarian needs, the understanding of reality.

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Grzegorz Pyszczek

The Maria Grzegorzewska Academy of Special Education, Szczęśliwicka 40, 02-353 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: pyszczek@poczta.onet.pl

THE PHILOSOPHER IN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES

ABSTRACT

The paper concerns the problems of the teaching of philosophy in technical universities. Stereotypes and prejudices concerning technology (technophilia, technophobia) is the first barrier in this enterprise. The second barrier is caused by the lack of philosophy of technology in philosophical courses, and the third one is brought on by the absence of meta-technical reflection in technical subjects.

Keywords: technical university, teaching of philosophy, technophilia, technophobia, philosophy of technology.

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Marek Maciejczak

Affiliation: Warsaw University of Technology, Plac Politechniki 1, 00-661 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: marmaciejczak@poczta.onet.pl

KNOWING HIMSELF AS A CONDITION OF SUBJECT’S IDENTITY

ABSTRACT

Sociological investigations show the ever changing meaning of concepts of individual, identity, obligation towards self and others, and also culture, university, religion.   In consumerist societies these concepts become fluid. Not only the project of a life style becomes market-oriented, but also that of self-fulfilment. The personal identity requires attention, goals, values, a language. Personal identity requires reflection. Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Wojtyła and Taylor provide guidelines as how to examine this kind of reflection.  

Keywords: reflection, self-determination, a personal identity, consumerist society, conscious, art, university, religion. 

***

Paweł Bytniewski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: pbytniewski@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCES, THAT IS, EPISTEMOLOGICAL ADVANTAGES OF HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC COGNITION

ABSTRACT

The paper takes as the basis of the considerations the phenomenon of the self-isolation of intellectual cultures of philosophy of science; those cultures are closed in individual traditions, consider pre-restricted issues, ignore achievements of other cultures and research environments. This fact cannot be satisfactorily explained by linguistic differences and separate communicative channels used by social groups of scientists. The paper presents and confronts with each other, in a synoptic system, two traditions: Anglo-Saxon philosophy of science and French philosophy of sciences. Two essential differences between them are emphasized. The first one is the difference between the pluralistic and disciplinary grasps of science in philosophy of sciences and the monism of philosophy of science in treating such problems as rationality of science(s), roles of particular scientific fields in forming philosophical models of the science(s) change; the significance of history of science(s) for epistemological solutions, the grasp of the hierarchy of cognitive values, conceiving the object of history of science(s). The second difference lies in the distinctness of the relation between philosophy and history of science(s) assumed by philosophy of science and philosophy of sciences. 

Keywords: the Anglo-Saxon philosophy of science, French philosophy of science, history of sciences, Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault, rationality of science, epistemological non-continuity, archeology of knowledge.

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Stanisław Czerniak

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

E-mail: czerniak.stanislaw@wp.pl

GERNOT BÖHME’S PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNICS

ABSTRACT

The article reconstructs the main threads of Gernot Böhme’s philosophy of technology. In his writings on the subject in the volume Invasive Technification: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Technology (2008) Böhme abandons his earlier “finalisation of science” theory (which the author expounds in detail in the first part of the article) and situates philosophy of technology between philosophical anthropology and social philosophy. In this context, he reflects on the effects of technification for the identity of contemporary humans and changing social integration models (the social role of IT networks and technostructures). Böhme’s position is par excellence critical. Referring to the philosophical traditions of the Frankfurt School, he argues against the social philosophy of Jürgen Habermas and asks about the criteria which determine the “rationality” of technology. Böhme also reviews the cultural sources of resistance to “invasive technification”, not only in Western, but also in Far Eastern cultures. Finally, he discusses those anthropological horizons of technological progress which he considers to be ethically neutral and capable of opening new areas of self-knowledge and expression to humankind. The author closes his paper with a set of questions which in his opinion point to some still open issues in Böhme’s philosophy of technology.

Keywords: philosophy of science models, philosophy of technology, technification, philosophical anthropology, critical theory, rationality of technology, cultural brakes on technification, dialectic of technification.

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Małgorzata Czarnocka

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

E-mail: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw.pl

SUBJECTIVITY BY KANT

ABSTRACT

The paper reconstructs Kant’s cognitive subjectivity (transcendental as well as empirical one) by tracing both the text of the Critique of Pure Reason and some important relevant analyses conducted by Kantians within recent thirty years. The aim of the reconstruction is to consider how and if at all the concept of Kant’s subject may be used in today’s investigations on cognition. The non-eliminable multiplicity of interpretations of each important aspect of this subjectivity is demonstrated. Some doubtful properties of Kant’s construction of subjectivity are revealed; they call into question the applicability of this construction to now formed apprehensions of cognition.

Keywords: Kant’s subjectivity, cognition, John Niemeyer Findlay, David Carr, Siyaves Azeri, Andrew Brook.

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Barbara Trybulec

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: barbara.trybulec@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl

MIND: EMBEDDED OR EXTENDED? THE TENSION IN THE THEORY OF THE SITUATED MIND

ABSTRACT

The situated mind is a new stream in the philosophy of mind. By some, it is perceived as a revolution in the field, or even as a paradigm change. Philosophers working on this new perspective try to create a unified and fruitful interdisciplinary project, aimed to shed a new light on problems of cognition. This task, if possible, is not easy. The Situated Mind is composed of at least three notions that could hardly be thought to present a unified picture of the mind: Embodied Mind, Extended Mind and Embedded Mind. These notions indicate a tension within the project that weakens its integrity. In the paper, I will investigate how strong this tension is, and, specifically, whether the various approaches to Situated Mind are really competitive, or maybe there is a hope for a unified new picture of the mind. I will argue that such a picture cannot be created by combining this three ideas, and will show that one of them is the most useful and fruitful description of the mind.

Keywords: situated mind, embedded mind, embodied mind, cognitive processes.

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Ignacy Szczeniowski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00-047 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: ignacy.szczeniowski@gmail.com

NONCONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE AND KAZIMIERZ TWARDOWSKI’S POSTULATE OF THE CLARITY OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL STYLE

ABSTRACT

The article offers a few remarks on Kazimierz Twardowski’s thesis about the clarity of the philosophical style. The issue is discussed in the context of the problem of nonconceptual thinking and non-propositional knowledge. A short history of the polemic in the Lvov-Warsaw School serves as an introduction to further methodological and epistemological considerations.

The main subject of the comment is the work entitled About the Clear and Unclear Philosophical Style by the Polish philosopher. Twardowski’s article remains pertinent to the metaphilosophical discussion concerning the status of philosophical language and—which is overlooked in most studies—to the debate concerning conceptualization and communication at the intersection of epistemology and philosophy of mind and language. The polemic with Twardowski’s thesis that unclear style of philosophical works is indicative of the ambiguity of philosophical thinking, is presented in the three stages. I discuss Twardowski’s thesis that we think with words, and two theses by David Einhorn: that an object which cannot be grasped by concepts, cannot be known at all, and that the only access to thought we have is by means of words.

Keywords: knowledge, concepts, Kazimierz Twardowski, clarity, know how.

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Anna Michalska

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

E-mail: michalskanna@gmail.com

PRAGMATISM AND THE PROBLEM OF CHANGE IN THE CONCEPTUAL SCHEME IN THE LIGHT OF THE SENSORIMOTOR CONCEPTION OF EXPERIENCE

ABSTRACT

In the article, I propose a thesis that pragmatism offers a way out of the performative conflict inherent in the quest for the laws of change in conceptual frameworks, i.e. the conflict between the explicit notion of change and the implicit notion of continuity.

To this end, I interpret two main theses of pragmatism—the strict relationship between theory and action and between language and conditions of its use—in the light of the sensorimotor conception of experience. This conception—introduced by Jean Piaget and now advanced within cognitive neuroscience—imposes certain constraints on the way in which both theses might be construed, thus eliminating all one-sided versions of pragmatism. The conflict between continuity and change might be overcome in that it is not an object construed as an item of a certain kind, but a pattern of action is what constitutes the proper reference of thoughts and concepts. The change in the pattern or scheme of action is a resultant upon a series of adaptations subordinated to the mechanism of executive control, which encompasses the ability of planning and reflecting upon the incomes of one’s own and others’ actions.

Keywords: conceptual framework, pragmatism, sensorimotor conception of experience, rational development.

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Paweł Zeidler

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

E-mail: zeidlerp@amu.edu.pl

ABOUT THE ROLE OF EMPIRICALLY-GROUNDED METAPHORS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROGRAMMES

ABSTRACT

Along with the formulation by Max Black the interactive theory of metaphor, the philosophers of science began to analyze the role of metaphors in scientific cognition. It has been shown that metaphors can play different functions in all stages of the creation of scientific knowledge. In this paper I focus on the analysis of the role of metaphors in the account of empirical data and their impact on the constitution of scientific research programmes. I present views on this issue formulated ​​by Max Black, Mary Hesse, Richard Boyd, Thomas Kuhn, Daniela Bailer-Jones, and especially by John Styles, who analyzed in detail the role that empirically-grounded metaphors play in science. In the last paragraph of the paper, I consider the impact of metaphors on the constitution of the research programme of Bohr’s atomic structure in the context of the Imre Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes.

Keywords: interactive theory of metaphor, empirically-grounded metaphor, scientific research programme.

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Mariusz Mazurek

Affiliation: Lublin University of Technology Nadbystrzycka 38 D, 20-618 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: mariusz.mazurek@pollub.pl

SCIENTIFIC MODELS IN RONALD GIERE’S CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

The paper reconstructs and analyzed critically Ronald N. Giere’s view on scientific models situated within his model conception of science. It is demonstrated that Giere’s conception of science is too poor: it is not capable of determining certain properties of models postulated in it. First of all, it does not present clearly their status of non-linguistic, abstract entities, nor the 4-ary relation of representation. 

Keywords: representation, theory, models, relation of similarity, Ronald Giere’s account of scientific models.

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Marek Szydłowski

Affiliation: Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University, Orla 171, 30-244 Kraków, Poland

E-mail: marek.szydlowski@uj.edu.pl

ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE COSMOLOGICAL MODEL

ABSTRACT

The standard cosmological model plays a crucial role in the research practice of modern cosmology. We examine ontological and epistemological aspects of this model, and its roles in the research practice of cosmology. We have found that there is not one distinguished ontology of the cosmological model. We point out different ontologies fitting it. The epistemological significance of the notion of cosmological model is also investigated, and complex epistemological roles of this notion are determined. We suggest that that the model is not an object belonging to one ontology, but it is a mixture of elements belonging to different ontological categories.

Keywords: ontology and epistemology of cosmological model, methodology of cosmology.

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Marek Łagosz

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Wroclaw, Koszarowa 3/20, 51-149 Wrocław, Poland

E-mail: lagosz@o2.pl

THE UNIVERSE: INFINITY AND TIME

ABSTRACT

The considerations presented in this paper elaborate and complete some threads examined in my published book Realność czasu [The Reality of Time]. I extend here the earlier sketched inifinistic (multi-world) and dynamic image of real being. I propose a model “of circular causality”, I argue for an asymmetric version of causal theory of time, and I present an ontological interpretation of Bolzano-Dedekind definition of infinite set.

Keywords: time, real being, circular causality, causal theory of time, Bolzano-Dedekind’s definition of finite set, infinity of the universe.

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Jarosław Mrozek

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism, University of Gdańsk, Bażynskiego 4, 80-952 Gdańsk, Poland

E-mail: filjam@univ.gda.pl

MATHEMATICS IN THE LIGHT OF THE STRONG PROGRAMME OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

ABSTRACT

The sociology of science propagates the thesis about the social nature of all knowledge, however, Karl Mannheim, the most eminent representative of this way of thinking, tends to treat mathematics and logic differently. Mannheim considered mathematics and logic as disciplines of knowledge which are not amenable to social determination. The representatives of the Strong Programme of the sociology of knowledge raise once again the problem of the status of mathematics and logic. They aim to show that these sciences can be also reasonably analysed by means of sociological tools. In their considerations they refer to the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Imre Lakatos. They are convinced that Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics and Lakatos’s Proofs and Refutations opened a way to a sociological approach to mathematics.

Keywords: mathematics, sociology, Strong Programme, status of mathematics.

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Andrzej Wilk

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

E-mail: awilk@ifispan.waw.pl

CHAOS AND INCOMPUTABILITY

ABSTRACT

The paper is devoted to the problem of the implementation of incomputability in the real world. It considers the following basic question: has logical noneffectiveness its realization in the physical world or, has non-algorithmicity a physical/material medium? The conclusion is: the algorithmically interpreted theory of deterministic chaos corresponds with the non-random/decidable part of mathematics. It should be, however, taken into account that it is always the nonalgorithmicity, randomness of models in which a description is formed.

Keywords: theory of computability, theory of chaos, Church’s thesis.

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Maciej Sopek

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00-047 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: riven213@gmail.com

THE SEMANTIC WEB—INTRODUCING MEANING TO THE INTERNET

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present article is to explore selected philosophical aspects of the World Wide Web, with particular emphasis on the Semantic Web technologies. This is motivated by the conviction that the Web as such provides grounds for philosophical investigation, and at the same time remains a subject that is rarely approached from philosophical perspective. The article contains a brief sketch of the development of the World Wide Web and emphasizes the conceptual novelty that the Semantic technologies introduce to the area; as well as examples of their practical application. Some of the notions approached in the article include meaning, reference and the question of the ontological status of objects being part of the Web.

Keywords: internet, web, semantics, designators, meaning, reference

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Andrzej Gecow

Affiliation: Centre for Ecological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Dziekanow Lesny, 05-092 Łomianki, Poland

E-mail: gecow@op.pl

HEREDITARY INFORMATION AND THEIR CHANNELS

ABSTRACT

The presented second part of the Draft of the Deductive Theory of Life cannot be understood without studying the first one, where the basic notions used here are defined. Inheritance is a transfer of collected purposeful information to descendant. The description of propagation of purposeful information is here broadened by the cycle of the object and environment, also the spatial and functional heterogeneity of environment. The description of hereditary channels needs to call the model of covering as structural tendency. The description of the theoretical base of this model will be a theme of next parts of the Draft; here only intuitive base is shown. Inheritance concerns a part of changeability controlled by purposeful information, but covering concern random part of changeability. The place in the Draft and mutual references of both these models are discussed. The model of inheritance proposed here is closely connected to works of Eva Jablonka. It offers more clear and formal theoretical bases for her results.

Keywords: deductive theory of life, inheritance, environment, object, hereditary channels.

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Krzysztof Chodasewicz

Affiliation: Academy of Physiotherapy, Tadeusza Kościuszki 4, 50-038 Wrocław, Poland

E-mail: kchodasewicz@o2.pl

EMERGENCE IN BIOLOGY – REDUCTIONISM VERSUS ORGANICISM

ABSTRACT

The article offers a comparative analysis of the views on biological emergence by two philosophizing scientists – Bernd-Olaf Küppers and Pier Luigi Luisi. Both authors declare different philosophical positions: the former claims to be a reductionist, while the latter considers himself an organicist. Both scientists differ also in their opinions about whether it is possible to define life. Küppers is convinced that life cannot be defined, unless it possesses some emergent properties, while Luisi claims that life exhibits emergent features and can be satisfactorily defined. The confrontation of opinions of both authors leads to unexpected conclusions.

Keywords: emergence in biology, organicism, mechanicism, downward causation, defining life.

Adam Romaniuk

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00-047 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: a.romaniuk@uw.edu.pl

REMARKS ON JÜRGEN HABERMAS’ EPISTEMOLOGY

ABSTRACT

In the paper Habermas’ epistemology is viewed in two dimensions. In the dimension of the history of philosophy Habermas represents the widespread view claiming that epistemology has superseded the general ontology or metaphysics, and the more peculiar view that epistemology has been superseded by the linguistic philosophy, or rather transformed in it as the result of linguistic turn. In the dimension of the evolution of Habermas’ epistemological views, and his attitude towards epistemological questions in general, several phases are to be distinguished. In the first one, theory of knowledge appears as a favoured aspect of the social theory practiced in the “interest of social emancipation”, and it consists in the slashing criticism of empiricism, especially as a standpoint that determines the research perspectives of social sciences; and not the so slashing criticism of hermeneutics on account of its conservative orientation. In the second phase, Habermas gives up the epistemological perspective of critical social theory on behalf of a social ontology where he performs the rational reconstruction of the whole spectrum of “cultural knowledge”, that is, composed of the three “validity dimensions” of communicative action and three types of communicative rationality: cognitive-instrumental, normative and expressive rationality, each of them being characterized by “co-originality” (Gleichursprünglichkeit) (the first type of rationality is only partially communicative). In the third phase, standing on this new ontological ground, he returns to the classical epistemological problems, to elaborate an attitude toward empiricism and hermeneutics, and to define anew his own position in the field. His criticism toward empiricism is now markedly toned down; Habermas’ own pragmaticist position (referring to natural sciences) is corrected in the spirit of “weak transcendentalism” (which seems to bring Habermas’ position closer to the correspondence theory of the truth). As for social sciences and social philosophy, an opening toward hermeneutics under the banner of “hermeneutical reconstructionism” occurs, in connection with “interpretative turn” in sociology.

Keywords: Habermas, epistemology, general ontology, philosophy of language, the critical theory, rational reconstruction, hermeneutical reconstructionism, social ontology, communicative action, communicative rationality, weak transcendental­ism.

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Stanisław Czerniak

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

E-mail: czerniak.stanislaw@wp.pl

GERNOT BÖHME’S VISION OF THE END OF THE BACONIAN ERA

ABSTRACT

The essay aims to reconstruct Gernot Böhme’s “end of the Baconian age” concept in the context of the main theses of the “finalization in science” idea which he developed in the 1970s and 80s. Böhme has since retreated from some parts of his theorem, arguing their invalidity in light of the “twilight” of the Baconian era in science begun by Francis Bacon’s methodological and philosophical program. Böhme polemizes with Bacon’s claim that the evolution of empirical science automatically enhances civilizational progress, and lists some contemporary negative sides of scientific progress which he criticizes from the position of philosophy of science by suggesting its cognitive “alternatives”.

Keywords: Baconian era (Baconian Age); finalization in science, scientific evolution alternatives, scientific revolutions, paradigms, rationalism/irrationalism in the context of the evolution of empirical science.

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Krzysztof Kościuszko

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Kurta Obitza 1, 10-725 Olsztyn, Poland

E-mail: loislois@interia.pl

ON THE FEEDBACK BASED TRANSCEDENTALISM

ABSTRACT

In the article I put forth a new version of transcendentalizm which takes into account the current developments in science and philosophy. Ideas behind this transcendentalism are laid down in the course of discussion with authors like P.M. Churchland, J.J.C. Smartem, K. Popper, J. Searl, S. Pinker, E. Husserl, I. Kant and J. Konorski. I argue that transcendentalism should allow for conditions of possibility of knowledge quite different from those highlighted in orthodox accounts of transcendetalism by Kant or Husserl. More precisely, it should take into account the chemical, biological (neuronal) as well as psychological, economical and cultural conditions of cognition. The thinking self (the knowledge-producing self) can emerge granted that these conditions are met. All the possibility conditions interact (e.g. biological processes influence mental processes and vice versa), and while influencing the mind, they are also created and modulated by it feedback mechanisms.

Keywords: transcendentalism, chemical, biological, psychological, economical, cultural conditions of cognition.

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Anna Michalska

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

E-mail: michalskanna@gmail.com

THE TACIT KNOWLEGE PROBLEM TODAY. A NEUROCOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT

Since its first introduction into the field of philosophy by Michael Polanyi, the problem of tacit knowledge has undergone a transformation. Nowadays the question is not so much whether the rules and assumptions governing theory choice are amenable to articulation and critical assessment, as it is if the methods of multi- and interdisciplinary research can be laid down and improved upon. The article addresses the problem of tacit knowledge in general, and the above-mentioned issue in particular, from the vantage point of cognitive neurosciences. More specifically, it considers the question of the possibility of coordination and management of corporate scientific activity in the light of the so called sensorimotor conception of learning and cognition. The paper is thought of as providing an example of the employment of neuroscientific conceptual framework in the domain of philosophy of science and epistemology.

Keywords: tacit knowledge, executive functions, interdisciplinary research, cog-nitive neuroscience.

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Andrzej Gecow

Affiliation: Centre for Ecological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Dziekanow Lesny, 05-092 Łomianki, Poland

E-mail: gecow@op.pl

INFORMATION, FORMAL PURPOSEFULNESS AND SPONTANEITY IN THE BASIS OF LIFE DEFINITION

ABSTRACT

The purposefulness appears only in the area of a life process. I generalize the no­tion of information and encoding to apply them to a physical phenomena description. I use them to define the purposeful information—its example is a biological information, its quantity is an Eigen’s information value. Next, I investigate the properties of the spontaneous process of purposeful information collecting. In effect, I get such properties of this process as: a goal “to exist”, reproduction and Darwinian mechanism of random changeability and elimination. In this process appears a natu-ral identity criterion of evolving object connected to “small change tendency” and chaotic phase of system. They looks like the properties of the natural life, they derive from its spontaneity. If we will not find a difference, then we obtain definition of natural life process. Artificial life is constructed by living objects, is a part of natural life process and its properties are not an effect of own restrictions but of external assumptions.

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Krzysztof Chodasewicz

Affiliation: Academy of Physiotherapy, Tadeusza Kościuszki 4, 50-038 Wrocław, Poland

E-mail: kchodasewicz@o2.pl

MULTIPLE REALIZATION AND LIFE

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the problem of multiple realization of life. This problem has been broadly discussed in the philosophy of mind and the general philosophy of science, but most philosophers of biology ignored it. This is astonishing, because the biology provides the majority of arguments for the thesis of multiple realization of life (argument from convergence and argument from neural plasticity). My investigations concern the fundamental properties of life. Although we have not a universal and broadly accepted definition of life, I assume, as a working hypothesis, that the most important features of life are self-maintenance and the capability of the undergoing of the Darwinian evolution. Taking into account such a view of nature of life, I present different arguments for the possibility of multiple realization of living beings. The arguments are taken from the different fields of modern biology and philosophy of biology. The arguments are the following ones: Fodor’s argument from convergence, an argument from the arbitrariness of genetic code, an argument form so-called shadow biosphere and similar argument connected with GFAJ-1 arsenic bacteria. I also show why artificial life’s objects are not of special significance, when we search for the arguments for the thesis on the multiple realization of life. Finally, I show the significance of this thesis for searching for the definition and creating the scenarios of life’s origin, exploring the universe in the searching of alien life forms and in the discussion about artificial life’s objects status and signification of this status for different branches of philosophy of science and the scientific research.

Keywords:   multiple  realization,  definition  of life,  evolution,  convergence, shadow biosphere, astrobiology.

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Włodzimierz Ługowski

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

E-mail: wlugowsk@ifispan.waw.pl

THEORETICAL MODELS OF PREBIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

ABSTRACT

The problem of philosophical foundations of the theories of prebiological evolution and life’s origin has been vividly discussed in the recent years. As it outcomes, the opinion according which a “mature” branch of science can and should be “philosophy-free” (expressed by academic philosophers of neopositivistic orientation) is, unfortunately, shared sometimes also by scientists themselves. In the present article it is argued that the lack of philosophical consciousness by some origin-of-life researchers may deeply cause an erroneous presentation of this branch of science.

Keywords: life’s origin, self-organization, theories of prebiological evolution.

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Andrzej Wilk

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

E-mail: awilk@ifispan.waw.pl

FUTURE TRUTH AND THE CONCEPT OF COMPUTABILITY

ABSTRACT

The text considers the problem of the application of the computability theory to empirical knowledge on future events. The fundamental problem examined in this paper is the following one: how to connect the intuitive concept of impredictability with the exact concept of computability? Central to this line of thought is the prob­lem: can the real world be modeled on a computer? The author assumes: firstly, that the knowledge about the future is stored in statements, secondly, that a way of its acquiring depends on the usage of mathematical formulas which describe the evolution in time, that is, which are motion equations (statements about the future are statements about the positions of objects in the future). The task is trivial: to show that the statements about the future can be formulated in a way that demands the non-algorithmic mathematics application. More precisely: to show that for every motion equation and all possible initial (input) data, there is no programme which answers yes/no to the question whether the equation has the periodic solutions or no. The scheme of reasoning is as follows: we assume (reductio ad absurdum) that the Tur­ing machine that solves every motion equation is equipped with the programme that cuts out periodic solutions. The testing of periodicity follo ws from the fact that its existence would show the computability of operation/function. It is obvious that the initial data must be computable/recursive. From that that the set real numbers is infinite/denumerable we can admit that some operation (function) will be uncom-putable (results: Banach/Mazur, Turing, Pour-El/Richards, Chaitin, Batterman). That allows to apply the “Stop-Theorem” for the Turing machine, and, in the effect, to set forth that the class of motion equations is undecidable.

Keywords: theory of computability, knowledge about the future, philosophy.

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Małgorzata Czarnocka

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

E-mail: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw.pl

THE STRONG PROGRAMME OF EDINBURGH SCHOOL FROM EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT

The conception of science postulated by the Edinburg School (the so called Strong Programme) is analysed from the philosophical perspective. It is shown that the conception has significant philosophical dimensions, being, in fact, not a ksociological, but rather typically philosophical conception of science. It is also shown that its important aspects are in close correspondence to relevant aspects of the rationalistic philosophical theories of science.

Keywords: the Strong Programme, rationalistic theories of science, realism, relativism, interests.

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Małgorzata Czarnocka

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

E-mail: mczarnoc@ifispan.waw.pl

THE STRONG PROGRAMME’S IDEAL OF SCIENCE. THE AUTONOMY OF SCIENCE PROBLEM

ABSTRACT

The paper reveals the ideal of science founding the conception of science proposed by the Strong Programme. The problem of autonomy of science as it is viewed in the Strong Programme is discussed and compared with the multi-dimensional lack of autonomy postulated in contemporary rationalistic approaches to science.

Keywords: autonomy of science, ideal of science.

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Halina Walentowicz

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, 00-047 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: halinawalentowicz@uw.edu.pl

PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, STUDYING IN MAX HORKHEMER’S VIEWS

ABSTRACT

This paper reconstructs Max Horkheimer’s views on interrelations between science and religion. It is shown that Horkheimer criticizes both the neopositivistic scientism which renders science the role of monopoly of cognition, and neo-romantic anti-intellectualism which depreciates scientific cognition by removing from it truth. According to Horkheimer, philosophy is not able to substitute science, and it should not be its instrument. He equalizes blind faith in science with blind faith in religion, treating both as equally disastrous for thinking and the development of culture, and, in consequence, for human life. He proclaims himself in favour of the autonomy of philosophical thinking towards all forms of dogmatism. He considers the lack of autonomy in modernity as leading to a cultural crisis. He sees a hope for its weakening in the postulated reform of academic education; he postulates that it should offer not only professional competencies, but also the attitude of mental maturity recommended already by Kant.

Keywords: philosophy, science, education, cultural crisis.

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Michał Piekarski

Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Wóycickiego 1/3, 01–938 Warszawa, Poland

E-mail: m.piekarski@uksw.edu.pl

ON LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN’ PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD — FROM ANALYSIS TO MORPHOLOGY

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the problem of the unity of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The author suggests that Wittgenstein uses different methods of inquiring. The modifications of his philosophy are correlated with modifications of his method of thinking and investigations. In Tractatus logico-philosophicus the only correct philosophical method is that of logical analysis of sentences. In early 30s his philosophy becomes a phenomenological description of experience. The task is to construct phenomenological language. After 1933 Wittgenstein recognizes the grammatical dimension of language, and creates tools of grammatical analysis. He introduces concepts of language games and forms of life. His philosophy becomes the morphology and descrip­tion of human linguistic practice.

Keywords: Wittgenstein, philosophical grammar, morphology, logical analysis, phenomenology, philosophy of language.

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Marek Maciejczak

Affiliation: Warsaw University of Technology, Pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661 Warsaw, Poland

E-mail: m.maciejczak@ans.pw.edu.pl

WITTGENSTEIN – SOME EXAMPLES OF LINGUISTIC ERRORS

ABSTRACT

The article presents linguistic sources of philosophical conceptions. The main reasons that lead philosophers astray are grammatical analogies and the similarity of grammatical structure. Wittgenstein points contexts of use of philosophically interesting words. Beauty, goodness, truth, time, thinking, mind…etc. — these words play a certain role in our way of speaking, but they do not denote facts.

Keywords: Wittgenstein, meaning, grammar, use, linguistic errors.

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Sebastian Bakuła

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

E-mail: sebnemo@wp.pl

THE PROBLEM OF COGNITION IN KANT’S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON AS A THEORETICAL PROPOSAL FOR CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGY

ABSTRACT

The considerations presented in the paper are an interpretation of selected elements of Immanuel Kant’s epistemology. The author shows topicality of some Kant’s conceptions, inter alia, those concerning theory-ladenness of observations, categorization and the role of cognitive subject, actively organizing the world of experience.

Keywords: transcendentalism, epistemology, subject, object, form.