The article presents and comments upon the book by Małgorzata Czarnocka "Droga do symbolicznej koncepcji prawdy" (The Way to a Symbolic Conception of Truth, 2009: Warsaw, Institute of Philosophy at the Polish Academy of Sciences). Polish professor of philosophy has critically examined the main contemporary conceptions of truth in the formula of correspondence. Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski and the mainstream of analytical epistemologists have been censured as resisting on, and no more than it refining, the commonsensical realism of perception, which is naive and false. Małgorzata Czarnocka proposed her own theory which she called symbolic. In the point of departure She considers varieties of transformations affecting visual perception, to begin with the miscellaneous assemblage of photons forming the sensual stimulus and to end with the mental image. Małgorzata Czarnocka maintains that the mental images in yisual perception - and afortiori all the discursive forms of cognition - are mere symbols in no way similar but rather “fitting” the physical representamen. Still, symbolic correspondence between the terms of truth is not idealism but a “thinnest realism”. With some reservations the Author points to Ernst Cassirer as a predecessor of her view.
The reviewer asks questions in his opinion not sufficiently explained in the book. What is the difference between the concepts of similarity and fitting? Is symbolism really realism? Can the fitting between science and reality gradually progress in perfection? Is the idea of absolute truth of no worth? Also the reyiewer points to another, besides Ernst Cassirer, philosophers who were confessing similar conceptions of symbolic truth - Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz, Gorge Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead and Nicolai Hartmann.
Despite some questions remaining unclear or controversial it seems that the book by Małgorzata Czarnocka is a pathbreaking and creative challenge to the epistemologists in Poland and possibly worldwide.
A man is the most excellent being in the world. Then, every man can exist in lower kind of subsistence, including animal behaviour towards other people as well. Nowadays we can observe such a human superiority during parliamentary relations of political parties. My question is as follows: do we already have a free country?
The dispute over the moral assessment of collective responsibility is carried out on methodological and normative level. On the first one, participants in the dispute focus on the question, what are the necessary conditions for collective moral responsibility, and whether any collectivity meets these conditions. On the normative level the next question is considered: whether it is just to assign individuals moral responsibility for wrong action of some members of the group simply because of their belonging to that group? In this article I reconstruct the arguments formulated by proponents and opponents of collective responsibility, pointing to the fundamental difficulties associated with the adoption of the thesis of the moral acceptance of any form of collective responsibility on the basis of the traditional understanding of moral responsibility.
In my article I present and analyse the second dialog of "Corpus Hermeticum" in which Hermes Trismegistos teaches his disciple Asclepius about the Kosmos, the space and its relations to Nous, God and Good. In the first step I consider the main philosophical problems which the master and the disciple deal with. And in the second I show that the lesson of Hermes may be an encouraging paradigm of philosophical education for teachers.
The commonplace opinion that Ludwig Wittgenstein was a colourful freak and his work is monumental is false. Quite the opposite: Ludwig Wittgenstein, the man, is monumental and his work is bizarre.
In the paper I present and analyze the most common arguments in a favor of epistemic contextualism i. e. the thesis that the truth-value of a given knowledge report varies with the context of its attribution. I point out why these arguments seem to be unsound or unconclusive. I also appeal to recent empirical studies carried out lately by Joshua May, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Jay G. Hull and Aaron Zimmerman whose resultes suggest that the contextualists’ intuitions concerning the evaluation of knowledge attributions are not so commonly shared among competent speakers and therefore probably false. It follows from the study that the most common evaluations we make contradict those predicted by the contextualists.
This article is devoted to the problem of sensuality and femininity in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. The author follows after Levinas the inevitable connection of two different worlds: solitude and community both in every house as during working time. We give both philosophical (Husserlian phenomenology, Heidegger, Rosenzweig) as nonphilosophical (horrible events of the XX-th century, the Jewish culture and religion) inspirations. The author points at the feminine status in the separation period and quote the critical discussion on this subject conducted mainly by the feminist movement. Moreover we emphasize the role of sensuality and femininity in building the subject identity and the ethical relation.
Considerations presented in the article interpret selected elements of Immanuel Kant’s transcendentalism. The author shows the actuality of some Kant’s results in the comtemporary debates on the cognitive subject role.
Maria Ossowska (1896-1974) known as the researcher of morality who was also dedicated to formulating and recommending role models of personality. She was the author of an essay on role model of a citizen, to which she made numerous references in her other works. Virtues and values presented there go beyond a description of a perfect citizen, including the characteristic features of a scientist and an ethos of the educated class. The text discussed in the article, "Przysposobienie obywatela do studenta" (1971) is based on a non-published talk adressed to her students by Maria Ossowska in her late years. It underlines the valuwe and ethical preferences she had throughout her whole life: the importance of the dignity approach, cultivating perfectionistic aspirations, gaining intellectual qualification, socialisation and the freedom of development of personality.
The article discusses historiosophical issues by Józef Bańka. In 2002 Bańka formulated conception of eurorecentivism which determines exact topic of this elaboration. The theory of eurorecentivism says that European nations should build collective present which would call to accept combined past and future. Characteristic of this conception is the distinction between European and American civilisation. In this article author’s opinion is advisable for States of the European Union to build common present with United State. It would be community based not only on economical relations but also on strong cultural bonds. In this way author developes conception of eurorecentivism and at the same time he refers to Samuel Huntington’s views who wrote about need for unity between European Union and NAFTA.
The aim of my paper is to present Henryk Elzenberg’s (Polish philosopher, axiologist and historian of philosophy, 1887-1967) justification of his ideal of escapism and disangagement from public affairs. I describe his reasoning as threefold: first argument bases on his evaluation of humanity, second on the analysis of typical interpersonal relations, third on an inquiry into the reference between a human being and the value itself. I am proving this results to have some general meaning, especially in the light of Elzenberg’s affiliation to Stoicism and philosophical currents.