Roczniki Filozoficzne

Mental meaning (mental contents) is not a particular kind of object, but it is the way a conscious human mind works. By ‘meaning’ the author understands here both the extralinguistic meaning (perceptive, imaginary, etc.) and the so-called linguistic meaning. In both these senses meaning has the following properties: it is translinguistic, general, abstract, regularly interrelated, subject to modifications (extending, complementing and erasing its components), subject to schematization, it may be transferred to various physical foundations, it may be illustrated, it is directly accessible in introspection and accessible for many subjects (intersubjective). When approached negatively, meaning as a way of functioning of a conscious human mind cannot be identified with a physical sign (be it in the sense of specimen, or in the sense of type). It is neither an ideal object, nor a real one. Also, it is no kind of a perception stereotype. It is not an idea associated with a word, if idea is understood as either an image or a visual schema. Mental meaning is not a communication meaning, as the speaker may modify the meanings he found as existing ones, but he cannot create them. The author considers the following theories of meaning as insufficient: the theory, according to which meaning is an idea associated with the word and the theories saying that meaning may be identified with the conditions of truthfulness, the way phrases are used in colloquial language, or with communication meaning. Meaning is also not explained by such theories as semantics of conceptual roles, causal-historical theories, causal and teleological theories. Plato’s theory saying that existence of mental meaning in the mind consists in exemplification in the mind of ideally existing properties is considered a correct one that explains mental meaning. The source of meaning in the mind is existence of ideal qualities outside the mind. A correct solution to the problem of the nature and origin of meaning may also be Aristotle’s theory of obstraction, according to which the mind, beginning with individual objects and their properties, formulates meantal contents (meaning). Both these theories have to assume that the mind is also capable of performing the operation of transformation that converts properties existing (in a real or ideal way) outside the mind into a peculiarly mental mode of existence. In the case of Aristotle’s theory this transformation consists in dematerialization, whereas in the case of Plato’s theory transformation is tantamount to converting an ideal being into a mental existence. Additionally, the author suggests that in order to explain the intersubjective character of meaning one has to refer to a form of metaphysical harmonization of particular minds’ action. From the semantic way of acting of the human mind one may also make inferences concerning its way of existence. Translinguisticallity, generality, abstraction and other features of human semantic consciousness allow the statement that functioning of human mind does not consist in purely material actions. This immaterial character, however, does not have to be understood as a thesis about the existence of some mysterious ‘spiritual material’ of which human mind is made. It seems that immateriality has to be interpreted as radical extra-materiality.

The article contains the reporting definition for the criterion of identity, a classification of criteria of identity and the general conditions that criteria of identity should meet. The author suggests replacing the binary division of criteria of identity into one- and two-level ones with a ternary division into one level, mixed and two-level criteria. In this suggestion the key role is played by the definition of the range of relation. The article is concluded with a partial solution to the dispute between T. Williamson and E. Lowe over the value of one-level criteria of identity.

In the first part of the article S. Les´niewski’s system of ontology is characterized. It is a name system, one of the broadest systems of this type built in the first half of the 20th century. Ontology is built on the basis of only one axiom; hence definitions play such an important role in this system.The second part of the article is devoted to a characteristic of definitions in ontology. Two kinds of definitions are most often mentioned in ontology: protothetic and ontological ones. This division results from the kind of functor that the given definition introduces into the system. Protothetic definitions introduce functors that generate propositions and ontological ones introduce functors that generate names.In the third part of the article comments are made on creative definitions in ontology. An important feature of definitions in ontology is their creativity. A definition is creative if after it is included in a system it allows proving such a theorem that could not be proved without this definition. The most important motive for selecting creative definitions for building a deduction system is the postulate of formulating a minimum number of the strongest axioms and primary rules. In ontology some of the protothetic and ontological definitions are distinguished by the creative property.

In the paper various ways are shown of constructing both modal and relevance logics. An attempt is undertaken of interpreting modal functors occurring in these logics. In the discussion special attention is paid to logical necessity. Connection of this necessity and tautologies of the classical sentential calculus is pointed to. Next, some intuitive considerations are quoted that resulted in accepting or refusing certain theses or rules on the ground of both modal and relevance logics. Especially much attention is paid to Gödel’s rule.It is stated that at the moment when modal and relevance logics were constructed satisfactory philosophical considerations were not made. In particular, it was not decided if the constructed systems give correct formalization of modal notions, and if they may be used for formalization of deductive ways of infering.

Bayesian confirmation theory is conceived here as a model of inductive inference. A methodological facet of Goodman’s grue paradox (MWP) constitutes a major difficulty for this theory. This could only be evaded on the grounds of philosophical assumptions such as the existence of laws of nature or natural kinds. These would unwittingly bias the theory towards some scientific hypotheses which would contradict the character of the theory. The analysis of J. Earman’s and R. Chuaqui’s formal frameworks demonstrates, however, that weaker assumptions, e.g. seemingly anti-realist admittance of the existence of symmetries alone, will not suffice to cope with (MWP). Finally then Bayesian confirmation theory faces a dilemma: either to allow for ad-hocness in narrowing down the class of its models or to defend a version of scientific realism, e.g. structural realism.

In the article an attempt is undertaken to answer the following questions: What problems are tackled by authors who want to be considered as representatives of informal logic? Is there a connection between formal and informal logic? A number of research tasks and subjects are presented that may find themselves in the field of investigations conducted on the ground of informal logic. It is stressed that at the present stage of development of this logic it is difficult to precisely separate the problems that are withing its range. Also, informal logic is not fully recognized as a scientific discipline. In the article the problem of the nature of erroneous inferences and of their typology is comprehensively covered. A lot of attention is paid to the problem of interpretation and appraisal of arguments taken from everyday language. It is noted that among those authors who write on informal logic some think that use should be made of methods and procedures worked out in formal logic, and some treat ascribing value to formal logical rules as a form of pedantry and love of generality, and at the same time as underestimation of language variety. It is shown that use of logical paradigms of inference worked out in formal logic is no form of pedantry. Infallibility of such paradigms is guaranteed by implication rules of logic that state objective relations between states of things. In the article also the thesis is formulated that practical logic is first of all the well-developed and lectured formal logic, including the contemporary non-classical logics.

In this paper I deal with the problem of rationality in the area of philosophy. The standard model of rationality proposes three conditions: 1) proper articulation, 2) respecting the requirements of logic, 3) sufficient justification. The main thesis of this paper is that the standard criteria of rationality should be reformulated in specialised areas, e.g. in philosophy or in general worldview. Simultaneously the author discusses the problem of limits of rationality as he accepts that its cognitive programme is limited. For this reasons some area of culture, e.g. literature (especially poetry) is beyond the limits of rationality.

The article is concerned with the foundations of ethics. The author takes into consideration rationalistic and universalistic conceptions of the foundations of ethics represented by Ch. Taylor and J. Habermas on the one hand, and ones based on intuition and direct moral experience on the other. In the latter current he includes the conceptions created under the influence of E. Levinas’ (J. Derrida’s) philosophy. At the same time he analyses the opposition between ethics established on reference to an actual, individual man and ethics based on universal rules. In his further considerations he also takes into account M. Bachtin’s views as well as those of the American pragmatists: J. Dewey and G. H. Mead.

The article is concerned with the question of rationalism and irrationalism as definitions appraising philosophical attitudes. The author takes into consideration the charge of irrationalism against the main representatives of the so-called postmodernism: J. F. Lyotard, J. Derrida, G. Deleuze. He formulates the proposition that reason is one thing and the socalled operating intellect is another. Each philosophy has to use reason in the course of studying various aspects of reality, in the course of analyses concerning the nature of man and his products. However, there are aspects of the world that cannot be ‘seen through’ by means of operating intellect. Hence the author conseders the phrase ‘irrational philosophy’ as contradictio in adiecto. No philosophical system may be constructed completely on clear definitions; there always has to remain something that is the subject of intuition, something that cannot be distinctly defined. Descartes’ rationalism may be an example illustrating this proposition. His philosophical system is ultimately based on the intuitively given cogito and the intuitively presented idea of infinity (God). Radical criticism of phenomenology offered by postmodernists has led to a vision of reality utterly depraved of foundations (anarchical). The author disagrees with such a way of philosophising. Instead, he thinks that P. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics is the best tool for describing basic human existential experiences.

The issue of rationality of religious beliefs belongs to the main problems of 20th century philosophy of religion. When posing this problem the term ‘rationality’ is often used in a way that is not precise, and sometimes it seems to be ambiguous. In order to avoid this error I define rationality of acceptance regulatively as a property consisting in being in accordance with defined epistemic rules of the ethics of beliefs. The main rule that is taken into consideration here is the following requirement: ‘Each theorem p accepted by person S should be justifiable by her in a degree proportional to the degree of assertion with which he accepts p’. Acceptances having the property of so defined rationality belong to a broader class of reasonable acts, where rationality is understood as a property consisting in being a reliable use of human cognitive abilities. I claim that although the religious faith of a ‘common’ Christian is not rational in this sense, as mysteries of faith are not justifiable by natural reason, it has a reasonable character and is precious from the epistemic point of view. I defend the proposition that the fact of not being rational in this particular sense does not involve irrationality that consists in breaking the rule that orders a change in the way of accepting a certain theorem p so as to adjust the degree of assertion to the justification one has, the borderline case being one of rejecting the theorem for which one does not have any epistemically valid justification. The proposition that one of these rules is obligatory for the believer with respect to his acceptance of the propositions of faith cannot be justified without stating that Christianity is false. This latter proposition cannot be proved philosophically.

The article is concerned with views of H. Rickert, one of the main representatives of German neo-Kantism. The author analyzes Rickert’s attitude towards the conception of philosophy, and especially the relation between Rickert’s understanding of tasks of philosophy and the views of nature that representatives of the so-called philosophy of life (Lebensphilosophie) have. According to Rickert philosophy should be a cognitive action meeting the requirements of rationality. Its subject is to be the whole of reality; it also should lead to creation of a philosophy of life and it should have the character of a system. The systemic character of philosophy meant for Rickert the necessity to use rational reasoning for the theses one puts forward, the necessity of an order and of respecting logic. From this point of view Rickert criticized the approach to philosophy that was characteristic of representatives of philosophy of life – W. Dilthey, F. Nietzsche, H. Bergson, W. James. Instead of a rational reasoning philosophy of life prefers – in Rickert’s opinion – such elements of the philosophical method as description, intuition or referring to subjective experiences.

The paper presents an overview of the development of Searle’s philosophical thinking, from Speech Acts to The Structure of Social Reality. It draws out the fundamental naturalism of Searle’s approach and illustrates the philosophical methodology that is dictated thereby.The work Speech Acts contains Searle’s general theory of regulative and constitutive rules and of brute and institutional facts – all components which play a significant role in the development of Searle’s thinking. According to Searle constitutive rules have the basic form: X counts as Y in context C. Speech acts are acts performed by uttering expressions in accordance with constitutive rules of just this type. When one performs a speech act the corresponding system of constitutive rules constitutes what Searle calls an institutional fact. Institutional facts are facts which exist because we are here to treat the world and each other in certain, special (cognitive) ways within certain special (institutional) contexts.In his The Construction of Social Reality Searle utilizes this framework as the basis for a new type of theory of the huge invisible ontology of the social world. The crucial new element in this theory is the notion of collective intentionality. Like other higher mammals, human beings enjoy a certain sui generis capacity for engaging with others in cooperative behaviour in such a way as to share the special types of beliefs, desires and intentions involved in such behaviour. The history has shown that we are able to engage in ever more complex forms of collective intentionality of seemingly inexhaustible variety to perform collaborative actions. Language is conceived by Searle as the basic social institution because it is language or language-like systems of symbolization which enables these new forms of collective intentionality to exist.Searle’s ontology of social reality is formulated against the background of the naturalism: everything that exists is part of the natural world that is studied by physics, by biology, by neurology, and by psychology. This is true even of the edifice of institutional facts we call social reality. Money and drivers licenses are parts of the natural world, since they are all portions of physical reality upon which special properties have been bestowed by collective intentionality. But there is a problem with this theory: many parts of social reality are not also parts of physical reality. This applies to debts, relations of ownership, and to many financial instruments. It may also apply to corporations, universities, governments and other higher-order social objects. Searle’s social ontology is then not compatible with Searle’s naturalism, and the paper concludes with an investigation of the consequences of this incompatibility.

The author opposes two kinds of rationalism to irrationalism. The first kind of rationalism, approved by the author, considers as rational these cognitive procedures that can be communicated and verified intersubjectively. The author calls this view – after K. Ajdukiewicz – anti-irrationalism. On the other hand, irrationalism is a position that negates the need of ability to communicate intersubjectively and to verify cognitive procedures. The views of mystics or of H. Bergson could be an example of irrationalism. The second kind of irrationalism is apriorism, i.e. the position that ascribes certainty to cognitive results achieved by intuition. Data coming from intuition are not intersubjectively communicable, intersubjectively verified and they are not subject to falsification, hence the second kind of rationalism, i.e. apriorism, is in fact irrationalism. Phenomenology, stressing the importance of apriori cognition, would then have many things in common with irrationalism.

The article analyzes the problem of the truth in John’s Gospel. The author proposes the thesis that in the background of John’s statement there is the ‘classical conception of the truth’, that is the correspondence one. However, the range of this correspondence is broadened and encloses the existential relation. The first and fundamental pole of this relation of truthfulness is the ethos stated in the logos of John 3,14ff. The second pole of the relation is the catechumen. His existential entrance into the logos is the condition of being in the truth. John’s being in the truth is not an unattainable ideal but a state achieved in the process of initiation as soon as the stage of catechumenate. This ‘being in’ is of a different kind than moralistic, of a different category than pantheistic, and of a different type than Gnostic. We are dealing here with with sort of existential truth that reduces the problem of man to the deepest layer of being where man existing in separation from God, that is on the plane of existential falsehood, has an opportunity of being in the truth, on condition that he will submit to the process of ‘reanimation’. This is a process of initiation leading to existential salvation.

The term „analytical Thomism” was coined by John Haldane of the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). Haldane characterizes analytical Thomism as „a broad philosophical approach that brings into mutual relationship the styles and preoccupations of recent English-speaking philosophy and the concepts and concerns shared by Aquinas and his followers.” In addition to Haldane, the most prominent philosophers, whose philosophical training and general philosophical perspective are rooted in English-speaking analytical philosophy but who are very much interested in the thought of Thomas Aquinas include: Peter Geach, Elisabeth Anscombe, Anthony Kenny, Norman Kretzmann, Brian Davies, Scott MacDonald, Eleonore Stump, and Christopher Martin.In the first part of the paper I consider the question whether it is possible to be both a Thomist and an analytic philosopher. I set forth reasons why the alliance between the two views does not seem to be possible and I try to make clear that such impressions are often based on misconceptions. In fact, I try to show in the paper that the alliance between Thomism and analytic philosophy may prove beneficial for both sides.The goal of the second part of the paper is to present some specific problems characteristic of contemporary analytic philosophy and to show how they are approached from a Thomistic perspective. First of all, I present Robert Pasnau’s analysis of Aquinas’ position on the nature of human thinking. I also argue that Aquinas’ account of our knowledge of our own mental states can be an attractive alternative to currently still popular models of self-knowledge as a type of perception. On the latter accounts, introspection, which is a very special type of causal mechanism, reliably produces corresponding second-level beliefs or judgments about our first-level mental states. In this special type of observation no intermediate and fallible organ of perception is involved, and this is what guarantees the truth of second-level statements.The principal problem facing such inner sense accounts of self-knowledge is that they do not provide us with a satisfactory explanation of why a causal mechanism should always produce true statements in the case of knowledge of mental states where similar mechanisms sometimes fail in the case of external perception. It is exactly at this point, as we shall see, that Aquinas’ reflective model of self-knowledge turns out to be attractive.

The aim of this article is to give a comprehensive introduction to the philosophical thought of Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish exegete of Scripture who was born and lived in Alexandria between ca 15-10 BC – 45-50 CE. The main part is preceded by short remarks concerning the state of research on Philo in Poland, Philonic nomenclature, his life and works. Then Philo’s philosophy is examined, with special reference to its sources (Jewish and Greek), the conception of God, Logos, and other intermediaries, Philo’s view of the world, man and ethics (including here the notions of assimilation to God, virtue, ideal of sage, freedom, conscience, contemplation of God and life after death) and Philo’s influence on Gnostics, Middle Platonists and Church Fathers. Each issue is supported by references to Philo’s works and placed in the context of scholarly discussion. The author puts forward his view that Philo’s philosophical originality primarily consists in harmonizing Jewish and Greek tradition, and, as a result, reinterpreting them both in a thoroughly new manner. Accordingly, Philo can be regarded as the main predecessor of the patristic and medieval quest for synthesis of faith and reason. The bibliographical part includes main editions and translations of Philo’s treatises including also scholarly literature not mentioned in the text. At the end the general bibliography as well as the bibliographies on Philo are given.

The article discusses Socrates’ views on what the Good is that are presented by Plato in his Politea. It takes into consideration two interpretations: Socrates’ statements contained in Politea on the one hand, and interpretation of the Good that functions in the so-called indirect tradition, that is in doxographic texts by Aristotle, Theophrast and other authors (Testimonia Platonica). According to Socrates the Good is the most fundamental principle of all that exists (arche), but Socrates did not define further what it is. According to the ‘indirect tradition’ the Good is also a positive principle, and its essence is One. Besides the Good as One the ‘indirect tradition’ also assumed existence of an unspecified duality. Mutual determining of these principles leads to the origin of reality. The author of the article tries to find an answer to the question: which of these interpretations of the Good is more accurate.

Russian philosophy appeared the in the 19th century on the basis of christian patristic, Ancient Greek thought, German idealism and world outlook ideas of the Orthodox Church. In ontology it is inclined to platonism. Most of all it is interested in a problem of belief and intellect, and also anthropological problematics of suffering, freedom, good and evil, sense of life. The presence of realism an ontology and personalism in anthropology is conditioned by a religious context.

Alexander of Aphrodisia in his treatise attempts to present his own conception of destiny, which – as he stresses – is to be in line with the teaching of Aristotle. Fate is identified with one of the efficient causes, namely with nature. The greater part of the work is devoted to a polemic with Stoics, whom he regarded as his main opponents. What is characteristic, he does argue with those representatives of the Stoic school who were his contemporaries (New Stoa), but with the founders of this philosophical trend. From this point of view, the treatise is one ot the main sources to study the views represented by the old Stoic school.

The paper proposes a system of formal logic, called Relative-Identity Logic (RI-logic). It is shown how to translate a large class of sentences using the vocabulary of Trinitarian theology into the language of RI-logic. This class includes sentences containing singular terms like „God” and „the Holy Spirit”. It is argued that no contradiction is derivable from this class in RI-logic. This treatment differs from the work of P.T. Geach and others in its detailed attention to singular terms and its use of „is the same being as” in place of the more specific „is the same God as”.