Roczniki Filozoficzne

The author attempts to determine when and how man developed the notion of law, particularly law of nature, and present the evolution of the idea from the Greek antiquity to the present day He does not discuss every single stage of the notion development, selecting only more important ones.It seems that the idea of law of nature reached the human mind via two channels. One led through social and moral life, while the other followed observation of natural phenomena Initially, when the notions of order and regularity were just being shaped, the idea of law was confused with mythology and magic. Its final liberation from the influence of mythological elements occurred during the Renaissance, in the times of Galileo and Descartes.Deterministic vision of the universe expounded by Descartes was translated into mathematical terms by Newton, who formulated mechanics subsequently known as classical or Newtonian.Mechanistic conception of the universe was shaken first by the quantum theory, and then by the developments in biology as the discoverd micro-physical phenomena apperared to be governed by non-deterministic laws.

In philosophy of mathematics there are several attitudes concerning the essence and object of mathematics, the more important being as follows: 1) mathematics is the study of certain aspects of reality; 2) mathematics is the study of mathematical entities; 3) mathematics is the theory of deduction of theorems which follow from the assumed system of axioms; 4) mathematics is the study of linguistic systems. An outstanding Polish mathematician Hugo Steinhaus put forward an opinion according to which reality constitutes the object of mathematics. As there is not a thing alien to mathematics, it must be universal, The article provides the illustration of the thesis employing as examples the abstract notion of group and the idea of automaton. The former refers. to mathematics, the latter - to reality. The paper also discusses briefly the emerging problem of unity of science.

The article aims at revealing those contexts of Carnap's works which more or less explicitly present the problem of rypothesis acceptance. It does not, however, attempt to question the opinions of either Carnap himself, or of his opponents. A few contexts have been selected which may seem typical of the discussed problem. 1) Characteristics of the acceptance relation including above all its propositional clause; 2) factors determining acceptance, i.e. degree of confirmation and informative content of hypotheses; .3)inductive inference and rules of acceptance as applied to the actual decision and scientopoieticprocedures; 4) Carnap’s attitude concerning cognitivistic and behaviouristic conception of science.

Following the analysis of selectected texts by Z. Zawirski, the article attempts to present his attitude concerning the deductive method characteristic of logic and mathematics. It also gives a cursory synthesis of Zawirski’s opinions on the object and proper method of physics. The article stresses the contemporary value of his thesis on the possibility of expressing the theory of empirical sciences through axiomatic system, and the related problems. It emphasizes the inadequacy of analyses examining the role particular groups óf mathematical terms play in the systems of physics. Considering the scarcity of philosophical literature devoted to the problem, the article attemts to discuss briefly the possibility of altering the most general assumptions which precede any scientific research. The issue was mentioned by Zawirski. Zawirski’s opinions are presented against other authors’ attitudes concerning the same problems.

The River Kamienna, the 156 km. long left tributary of the Vistula, is the subject of the present monograph. Hydrogeologically it gravitates towards the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, draining their northern part. Geologically older than the Vistula (35 million years), it used to flow south towards the Miocene sea in the times when the Carpathians were rising. In the Pliocene its upper course directed north making similar use of dislocations as the Vistula. In the Quaternary two glaciations reached up to the Kamienna and one moved beyond it. Man appeared on the Kamienna in the Palaeolithic (Middle Aurignacian and Upper Maglemosian cultures). A Neolithic flint mine is situated on the river. In its 2000 years long history it produced ca. 24 million tools, as estimated from the available material, and underground corridors, ca. 4 km. in lènght. This is the biggest Neolithic underground mine in Central Europe. Later, a big centre of ancient ferrous metallurgy evolved in the same area and in the Roman period (1st to 4th centuries) it reached the peak development using the haematite mine at Rudki. The mining and métallurgie centre on the Kamienna flourished once again, in the 19th century. A river of such a complex history must have formed a particular type of man.

All living organisms are sensitive to acoustic stimuli. According to sound intensity, i.e. the amount of acoustic energy reaching the organism, we differenciate positive and negative effects of sounds. The former activate physiological and biochemical processes, and'are employed in medicine, while the latter, causing disorders of metabolic processes may result in death. Although the effects of sound wave action were already recognized in the antiquity, the research on the problem has started in this century. It is due to the developing civilization which constantly produces new devices generating sounds of various strength. This confusion of sounds commonly described as noise, apart from checking the efficiency of human work, also brings about numerous physiological dysfunctions of every living organism.As contemporary man is supposed to solve numbers of extremely complex problems, he must be protected from noise, guaranteed full regeneration during the sleep and silence at work.

Although numerous works on the philosophy of nature have appeared in this country, they deal with its epistemological and methodological status rather than more detailed problems of the philosophy of animate nature. The present paper takes up one of these issues, attempting to define the difference between the animate and inanimate Being. It examines two conceptions of the animate Being. The monistic conception concentrates on the content element of the animate Being which it considers the essence, while the pluralistic one stresses that the essence is connected with the substantial form. Both notions result from two different philosophical systems. Therefore the article does not contrast the attitudes, presenting arguments in favour of each. It seems, however, that objective reasoning justifies the pluralistic conception of Being. It should be remembered, though, that the paper is merely an introduction and not an exhaustive discussion of the problem.

The purpose of the paper is to present the sources of electromagnetic radiation existing in environment which are not the effects of man’s civilising action, and their influence upon man. In the first part of the paper the natural sources of radiation, classified as geophysical and extraterrestrial sources, are shortly rewieved. Next examples of influence of natural electromagnetic radiation upon man are presented. The main problem of the thirdpart of paper is: how can radiation of such low intensity and extremly small quanta of energy influence a living system. In author’s opinion Sedlak’s concept of bioplasma provides a good basis for understanding of this influence: the physical plasma, which exists in the whole oiganism and in its regulating systems must receive all kind of signals of field nature.