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articles

1. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Peter Baumann

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Human dignity seems very important to us. At the same time, the concept ‘human dignity’ is extrordinarily elusive. A good way to approach the questions “What is it?” and “Why is it important?” is to raise another question first: In virtue of what do human beings have dignity? Speciesism - the idea that human beings have a particular dignity because they are humans - does not seem very convincing. A better answer says that human beings have dignity because and insofar as they are persons. I discuss several versions of this idea as well as several objections against it. The most promising line of analysis says that human beings cannot survive psychologically without a very basic form of recognition and respect by others. The idea that humans have a very special dignity is the idea that they owe each other this kind of respect. All this also suggests that human dignity is inherently social. Non-social beings do not have dignity - nor do they lack it. It is because we are social animals of a certain kind that we have dignity - not so much because we are rational animals.
2. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Piotr Bołtuć

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The so-called Common Sense Morality (C) is any moral theory that allows, or requires, an agent to accept special, non-instrumental reasons to give advantage to certain other persons, usually the agent’s friends or kin, over the interests of others. Opponents charge C with violating the requirement of impartiality defined as independence on positional characteristics of moral agents and moral patients. Advocates of C claim that C is impartial, but only in a positional manner in which every moral agent would acquire the same relational characteristics if that agent was in a certain relationship to the given moral patient. The opponents of C reply that a theory that allows for positional characteristics is self-defeating; it violates the requirement of prescriptivity due to its inability to provide moral recommendations what should happen all things considered. Advocates of C retort that a moral theory should be prescriptive by telling every agent what to do, not what should the joint outcome of those activities be. In this paper I analyze the last two moves of this debate: the objection that C is self-defeating and the reply that there is a plausible moral theory (C) that accommodates positional characteristics of special moral reasons. I argue that the last move wins. In the process I sketch out a theory able to accommodate agent-relative moral reason.
3. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Adam J. Chmielewski

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Communitarian social philosophy was born in opposition to some tenets of liberalism. Liberal individualism has been among its most strongly contested claims. In their criticisms, the communitarians point to the Enlightenment’s sources of the individualist vision of society and morality. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that, even if the communitarian line of argument has been justified in more than one way, it is at the same time important to remember that the greatest figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, that of of David Hume, does not fit the individualistic picture too well. I shall begin with a contemporary definition of individualism, as defined by John Watkins, then I shall proceed to argue that methodological individualism is rarely an innocent philosophical position, i.e. that it is very often a preliminary step in attempts to find a solution to many other, much more important and more practically relevant issues. For methodological individualism is usually associated with ontological, as well as moral and political individualistic doctrines, and they usually go hand in hand, influencing and strengthening each other.
4. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Gerald Harrison

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Libertarians make indeterminism a requirement of free will. But many argue that indeterminism is destructive of free will because it reduces an agent’s control. This paper argues that such concerns are misguided. Indeterminism, at least as it is located by plausible Libertarian views, poses no threat to an agent’s control, nor does it pose any other kind of threat.
5. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Ishtiyaque H. Haji

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Whether indeterminism undermines moral responsibility by subverting one or more of responsibility’s requirements is something that has received close attention in the recent literature on free will. In this paper, I take issue with Gerald Harrison’s attempt to deflect various considerations for the view that indeterminism threatens responsibility either by threatening the control that responsibility requires or by posing a problem of luck.
6. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Dale Jacquette

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The liar paradox is standardly supposed to arise from three conditions: classical bivalent truth value semantics, the Tarskian truth schema, and the formal constructability of a sentence that says of itself that it is not true. Standard solutions to the paradox, beginning most notably with Tarski, try to forestall the paradox by rejecting or weakening one or more of these three conditions. It is argued that all efforts to avoid the liar paradox by watering down any of the three assumptions suffers serious disadvantages that are at least as undesirable as the liar paradox itself. Instead, a new solution is proposed that admits that if the liar sentence is true then it is false, in the first paradox dilemma horn, but denies that the liar sentence is true, but asserting instead that it is false, and refuting the second paradox dilemma horn according to which it is supposed to follow that if the liar sentence is false then it is true. The reasoning for the second paradox dilemma horn is flawed, in that is not only not supported by but actually contradicted by the Tarskian truth schema. We could only infer the second dilemma horn if it were to clasically follow from the assumption that the liar sentence is false, and from the three liar paradox conditions, that therefore it is false that the liar sentence is false. This entire sentence can be shown to be false on the basis of the standard truth schema, thus blocking the paradox. Alternative formulations of the liar sentence are discussed, and the formal proofs and counterproofs for the two paradox dilemma horns, are considered along with the further philosophical implications of maintaining a resolute stance that the liar sentence is simply false.
7. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Thomas Nys

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In this paper I argue that Isaiah Berlin’s theory of freedom should not be interpreted in a reductive sense. The distinction between negative and positive freedom, as different concepts and possibly conflicting values, truly holds (thereby excluding reductive interpretations that claim there is only one concept of freedom). Moreover, Berlin’s theory as a whole leaves room for both a comprehensive liberalism which advocates autonomy, critical reflection and personal judgement, as well as a liberalism of fear which defends a minimal level of decency and modesty aims at a modus vivendi. I think Berlin’s liberalism is one of hope and fear.
8. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Władysław Stróżewski

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The axiological structure of man is by its nature defined by its relation to values. Its main task consists in their “implementation.” In this sense, the axiological structure has a teleological character. Its most important determining factor is the attitude of its subjects, man, towards values, or, to be more precise, towards the choice of values and their realisation within oneself. The arguments present a proposition of a multi-aspect stude of man in the context of values. It is remarkable that so far this background has not been taken into consideration, or at least not satisfactorily enough, in attempts aiming at explaining the essence of personality. Yet it does seem that what we call “man’s axiological structure” significantly affects an individual’s personality, and possibily constitutes it.

book reviews

9. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Robert Barnard

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10. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Daniel Massey

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11. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Monika Piotrowska

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12. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Paweł Kawalec

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13. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Piotr K. Szałek

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14. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Marek Rembierz

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15. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Robert Poczobut

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16. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Jan Woleński

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articles

17. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 1
Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Jan Woleński

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18. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 1
Francesco Coniglione

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Scientific philosophy is a sui generis project and it is not possible to assimilate it into analytic philosophy tout court, nor, a fortiori, into the philosophy of science. Scientific philosophy was practised during the early stage of the Vienna Circle before the influence of Wittgenstein’s thought became decisive. Afterwards, there was a quick transition to philosophy intended as subsidary to science, as a mere classification of meaning, coming, in the end, to its liquidation with Carnap’s logical syntax. Different was the path of the Lvov-Warsaw School, which remained committed to Brentano’s original programme and never abandoned the idea of the possibility of scientific philosophy. Decisive, here, was the absence of Wittgenstein’s influence and the utter irrelevance of that of Mach. It is in Poland that at the present days it has its strongest roots and there we find considerable trends of thought inspired by it.
19. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 1
Susan Haack

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Part of Kant’s legacy to Peirce was a lasting conviction that metaphysics is not irredeemable, but can and should be set “on the secure path of a science”. However, Peirce’s “scientific metaphysics”, unlike Kant’s, uses the method of science, i.e., of experience and reasoning; but requires close attention to experience of the most familiar kind rather than the recherché experience needed by the special sciences. This distinctively plausible reconception of what a genuinely scientific metaphysics would be is part of Peirce’s legacy to philosophy today, enabling us to steer clear of both apriorism and of scientism - the Scylla and Charybdis of recent metaphysics.
20. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 1 > Issue: 1
Jan Hauska

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Questions concerning casual involvement of empirican properties have recently given rise to a lively philosophical controversy known as the debate about dispositions. I begin with a description of the focal points of the debate: the issue of the viability of the conditional analysis of dispostions, the question of whether or not they ultimately constitute a distinct kind of properties, the conundrum concerning their causal efficacy, and finally the bold suggestion that all properties are dispositional. Along the way I sketch current theories of the anture of dispositions. Then I draw a fuller picture of dispositionalism, i.e. of the family of positions united by embracing the ontological distinctness of dispositions and their causal efficacy. I conclude by defending dispositionalism against the objection, raised by David Armstrong, that it is committed to the existence of Meinongian objects.