Polish Journal of Philosophy

Using Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat thought experiment, this article argues that interpretations which assert that Hegel’s philosophy, or some portion of it, develops inan entirely a priori manner are incoherent. An alternative reading is then articulated.

The paper can be logically divided into two parts. In the first part I distinguish two kinds of metaphysics: basic metaphysics, which affects scientific theories, and a second kind, which is an effect of interpretations of these theories. I try to show the strong mutual relations between metaphysics and science and to point out that the basic metaphysics of science is based on realistic assumptions. In the second part of my paper I suggest that we should consider the basic metaphysics of science and its realistic foundations in order to better understand scientific realism and to properly resolve the debate around it. The methodology of Imre Lakatos is applied in the paper.

In the present paper we shall first focus on Locke’s and Reid’s understanding of primary and secondary qualities, as these two approaches mark the main dividing line in interpreting this distinction. Next, we will consider some modern approaches to the distinction and try to answer the question of whether, from theperspective of what we know about perception of sensory qualities, Locke’s ontological interpretation or Reid’s epistemological approach to the distinction are tenable ideas. Finally, we will concentrate on the relation between language and qualities of objects and, on the basis of some adjectival systems in the world’s languages, see how languages render, or code, certain distinctions and qualities apparently obvious to our cognition.

Thick concepts provide a focal point for several important issues in ethical theory. Separatists argue that the descriptive and evaluative elements of a thick concept can be separated out. Non-separatists deny this and claim that there are no descriptive boundaries delimiting a thick concept. A common strategy for both camps in the debate has been an appeal to armchair intuitions of various everyday thick concepts. My alternative strategy consists in a closer study of the professional practice of risk analysis. As a well-developed practice, it provides substantial material for analysis. Moreover, its central concepts of risk and safety are typically seen as scientific concepts fitting the separatist analysis. Still, I argue that there are several evaluative aspects in risk and safety ascription that are hard to account for on a separatist analysis. I consider three separatist strategies, and conclude that they all fail. The result is a corroboration of the general non-separatist thesis put forward by theorists such as John McDowell and Bernard Williams.

Mathematical concepts are explications, in Carnap’s sense, of vague or otherwise unclear concepts; mathematical theories have an empirical and a deductivecomponent. From this perspective, I argue that the empirical component of a mathematical theory may be tested together with the fruitfulness of its explications.Using these ideas, I furthermore give an argument for mathematical realism, based on the indispensability argument combined with a weakened version of confirmational holism

In the paper I analyse Anselm’s ontological arguments in favour of God’s existence. The analysis is an explication and formalization of Pavel Tichý’s study‘Existence and God’, Journal of Philosophy, 1979. It is based on Transparent Intensional Logic with its bi-dimensional ontology of entities organized in the ramified hierarchy of types. The analysis goes as follows. First, necessary notions and principles are introduced. They are: (a) existence is not a (non-trivial) property of individuals, but of individual offices to be occupied by an individual; (b) the notion of requisite is defined, which is a necessary relation between an office O and a property R: necessarily, if a happens to occupy O then a has the property R. (c) I demonstrate that an argument of the form “R is a requisite of O, hence the holder of O has the property R” is invalid. In order to be valid, it must be of the form “R is a requisite of O, the office O is occupied, hence the holder of O has the property R.” Finally, (d) higher-order offices that can be occupied by individual offices are defined. Their requisites are properties of individual offices. Then the analysis of Anselm’s arguments is presented. The expression ‘God’ denotes an individual office, a ‘thing to be’, rather than a particular individual. Thus the question whether God exists is a legitimate one. I analyze the expression ‘that, than which nothing greater can be conceived’. Since ‘greater than’ is a relation-in-intension between individual offices here, the expression denotes a second-order office, and its requisites are properties of first-order offices suchas necessary existence. The second of Anselm’s assumptions is that individual office that has the property of necessary existence is greater than any other office lacking this property. From these it follows that the first-order holder of the office denoted by ‘that, than which nothing greater can be conceived’ (that is God) enjoys the property of necessary existence. Thus God exists necessarily, hence also actually. Anselm’s argument is logically valid. If it were also sound, then an atheist would differ from a believer only by the former not believing whereas the latter believing in a tautology, which is absurd. Yet we may doubt the validity of Anselm’s assumption that a necessary existence makes an office greater than any other office lacking this property.

Strawson offers three accounts of singular predication: a grammatical, a category and a mediating account. I argue that the grammatical and mediating accounts are refuted by a host of counter-examples and that the latter is worse than empty. In later works Strawson defends only the category account. This account entails that singular terms cannot be predicates; it excludes non-denoting singular terms from being logical subjects, except by means of an ad hoc analogy; it depends upon a notion of identification that is too vague; and it is unnecessarily complicated, relying on analogies where a more uniform explanation should be possible. But I show how the account can be corrected to avoid all these difficulties and to provide an accurate account of singular predication.

In this paper several assumptions concerning omniscience and future contingents on the one side, and omniscience and self-reference on the other, areexamined with respect to a classical and a three-valued semantic setting (the latter pertains especially to Łukasiewicz’s, Kleene’s and Blau’s three-valued logics).Interesting features of both settings are highlighted and their basic assumptions concerning omniscience are explored. To generate a context in which the notion of omniscience does not deviate from some basic intuitions, two special futurity operators are introduced in this article: one for what will definitely take place and another one for what is indeterminate as to whether it will take place. Once these operators are introduced, some puzzles about omniscience in combination with future contingents are removed. An analogous solution to some puzzles concerning omniscience and selfreferentiality is also provided.

The paper concerns mutual relations between two metaphysical positions: “superessentialism,” claiming that all properties of every object are essential, i.e.necessary, and “necessitarianism,” claiming that everything is necessary, i.e. there is only one possible world. The theories of Spinoza and Lewis serve as examples. In section I the two positions are characterized. In section II and III interpretations of Spinoza’s and Lewis’s metaphysics are presented, and it is explained to what extent they can both be considered superessentialists and necessitarians. In section IV the two theories are compared. In section V three possible ways of arguing for superessentialism are presented. It is then shown that the premises of these arguments appear, at least implicitly, in both of the theories. In section VI additional premises are numbered which have to be further assumed to prove necessitarianism. In the final section it is shown how Lewis can claim that there are contingent facts, while being a superessentialist and a necessitarian. It is argued that his claim of contingency is a matter of semantics, not of metaphysics.

Part I in this two-part series employed a perspectival interpretation to argue that Kant’s epistemology serves as the philosophical grounding for modern revolutions in science. Although Einstein read Kant at an early age and immersed himself in Kant’s philosophy throughout his early adulthood, he was reluctant to admit Kant’s influence, possibly due to personal factors relating to his cultural-political situation. This sequel argues that Einstein’s early Kant-studies would have brought to his attention the problem of simultaneity and the method of solving it that eventually led to the theory of relativity. Despite Einstein’s reluctance to acknowledge his Kantian grounding, a perspectival understanding of Kant’s philosophy of science shows it is profoundly consistent with Einstein’s views on both synthetic apriority and the nature of scientific theory. Moreover, Kant and Einstein share quasi-mystical religious tendencies, relying on an unknowable absolute as the ultimate boundary of our scientific understanding of nature.

In this text the author draws on two contemporary accounts of power—by Michel Foucault and Ernesto Laclau—and, on the basis of thorough analysis and comparison, he argues for “the discursive account of power” (DAP) as a new concept reflecting the novel approach to the theory of power developed by these two philosophers. He opens with a broad methodological outline of contemporary concepts of power, distinguishing between the “classical” and the “modern” approaches. Basing his findings on Laclau’s and Foucault’s work, he then presents DAP as a theory characterized by decentralizing, non-normative, and conflict-based tendencies that does not exhibit many of the limitations that usually characterize both classical and modern concepts of power. In the second part of the article the author presents a detailed methodological analysis of Foucault’s and Laclau’s concepts of power, focusing on three axes: power, discourse, and the subject. The author dedicates the last section to a comparison of both approaches, concluding that DAP is an inspiring project that exceeds the limits of traditional liberal theories of power and politics.