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41. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 1
Karol Chrobak What Plurality of Realities? Some Critical Remarks on the Philosophy of Leon Chwistek
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This paper focuses on the theory of plurality of realities introduced by Leon Chwistek. A critical analysis of this theory and an extensional interpretation of Chwistek’s axiomatic descriptions of four realities lead to an epistemological interpretation of this theory. The word “plurality” in the title is a result of different waysof understanding the same original set of sense-data. This interpretation is contrasted with Kazimierz Pasenkiewicz’s ontological version of this theory. In the final parts of the paper the most important consequences of this theory are discussed. First, the ethical relativism postulated by Chwistek is criticized. Second, an attempt to illustrate the plurality of realities with an example of different styles of painting is discussed. Third, a critical rationalism in the form of a kind of practical attitude toward social reality, which results from the theory of plurality of realities, is outlined.
42. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 1
Hartley Slater Logic is not Mathematical
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I first show in this paper how twentieth century Set Theory got into its greatest tangle by, amongst other things, regarding relational remarks like ‘Rxy’ asbinary functions. I then show how the lack of indexicality, and of ‘that’-clauses, in Modern Logic led that subject into its intractable difficulties with the Theory of Truth. Both errors arose not only through a contempt for ordinary language, but also through the related failure to recognise that being logical is not a matter of being brainy, but of being coherent. It is not a mathematical talent, but a literary one. Later in the paper I go on to demonstrate this same conclusion with respect to Modal Logic and General Intensional Logic, and in particular with respect to fictions, since these are the central items that have been misunderstood, as is witnessed in some recent writings of Graham Priest.
43. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 2
Martin F. Fricke Rules of Language and First Person Authority
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This paper examines theories of first person authority proposed by Dorit Bar-On (2004), Crispin Wright (1989a) and Sydney Shoemaker (1988). What all threeaccounts have in common is that they attempt to explain first person authority by reference to the way our language works. Bar-On claims that in our language selfascriptions of mental states are regarded as expressive of those states; Wright says that in our language such self-ascriptions are treated as true by default; and Shoemaker suggests that they might arise from our capacity to avoid Moore-paradoxical utterances. I argue that Bar-On’s expressivism and Wright’s constitutive theory suffer from a similar problem: They fail to explain how it is possible for us to instantiate the language structures that supposedly bring about first person authority. Shoemaker’s account does not suffer from this problem. But it is unclear whether the capacity to avoid Moore-paradoxical utterances really yields self-knowledge. Also, it might be that self-knowledge explains why we have this capacity rather than vice versa.
44. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 2
Alfredo Tomasetta Knowledge of Metaphysical Necessity. A Remark on Williamson
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According to Williamson’s epistemology of modality, we know metaphysical necessities by means of our knowledge of some specific counterfactualconditionals. In particular, Williamson’s idea is that we come to have knowledge of metaphysical necessities—which have the form □A—via our knowledge ofcounterfactual conditionals which have the form ~A□→┴. In this paper I claim that there are two different ways in which Williamson’s position can plausibly bearticulated, and that both ways lead to circularity.
45. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 2
Clayton Peterson, Jean-Pierre Marquis A Note on Forrester’s Paradox
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In this paper, we argue that Forrester’s paradox, as he presents it, is not a paradox of standard deontic logic. We show that the paradox fails since it is the result of a misuse of (ROM), a derived rule in the standard systems. Before presenting Forrester’s argument against standard deontic logic, we will briefly expose the principal characteristics of a standard system Δ. The modal system KD will be taken as a representative. We will then make some remarks regarding (ROM), pointing out that its use is restricted to the standard system’s theorems, and cannot be applied to contingent conditionals. Finally, we will show that Forrester’s paradox is not a paradox of standard deontic logic, at least not in the sense he intended it to be. We show that the paradox cannot arise in KD since its semantical model is not rich enough to represent the intuitive (informal) validity of the conditional within Forrester’s paradox. We show that the paradox arises within a system that has a finer semantics.
46. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 2
Alexander James Gillett Blurring: Structural Realism and the Wigner Puzzle
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Investigating the metaphysical problem of nature requires engaging with philosophy of science. Arguments in this field, combined with metaphysical underdetermination problems in fundamental physics, have given rise to a sophisticated form of scientific realism called ontic structural realism; and the reconceptualisation of metaphysics in terms of structures. This transforms the problem of nature into the dissolution of the distinction between mathematical andphysical structures (what we shall call the “blurring problem”). To date, there has been an insufficient exploration of this problem in the literature because it has been deemed unscientific. This essay demonstrates that the problem is legitimate, important, and connects with a wider issue in the philosophy of mathematics—namely, the problem of applicability of mathematics to the sciences’ investigation of nature (the Wigner Puzzle).
47. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 2
Daniel Rönnedal Bimodal Logic
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Many interesting philosophical principles include two kinds of modalities, e.g. epistemic and doxastic, alethic and epistemic, or alethic and deontic modalities.The purpose of this essay is to describe a set of bimodal systems, i.e. systems that include two kinds of modal operators, in which it is possible to investigate some formalizations of such principles. All in all we will consider 4,194,304 logics. All logics are described semantically and proof theoretically. We use possible world semantics to characterize the logics semantically, and both axiomatic systems and semantic tableaux to characterize them proof theoretically. We show that all systems are sound and complete with respect to their semantics and we consider some relationships between the various systems.
48. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 6 > Issue: 2
Andrzej Biłat Dubito ergo non sum or the Logic of Skepticism
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The paper analyses three versions of skepticism: (1) the attitude of a general withholding of belief; (2) the attitude of general doubt and (3) the view that all beliefs are unjustified. It is shown on the basis of epistemic logic that only the first of these versions can be deemed not to be self-contradictory.
49. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 7 > Issue: 1
Renata Ziemińska Pragmatic Inconsistency of Sextan Skepticism
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Skepticism described by Sextus Empiricus faces the persistent charge that it is an inconsistent, self-refuting view. However, recently its consistency hasbeen defended in three important ways: (1) it is a thesis with weak assertion, (2) it is a practice without any assertion, and (3) it is a process developing over time.The first option is not well supported by Sextus’ texts, where even a weak assertion is not allowed. The second option cannot explain the rationality of skeptical arguments. The third option reveals two levels of Sextan skepticism; however, the developing skeptic has to accept the self-refutation charge, and the mature skeptic takes flight from the charge without any rational answer. I claim that Sextus embraces the self-refutation charge. The mature skeptic’s speech acts are pragmatically inconsistent: their content cannot be asserted without contradiction. As a result, the charge of inconsistency is not answered.
50. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 7 > Issue: 1
Joshua Rasmussen From Necessary Truth to Necessary Existence
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I introduce new details in an argument for necessarily existing propositions. The crux of the argument marks out a pathway to the conclusion that necessary truths cannot themselves be necessarily true unless they necessarily exist. I motivate the steps in the argument and then address several standard objections, including one that makes use of the distinction between ‘truth in’ and ‘truth at’. The purpose of the argument is to generate deeper insights into the nature of propositions and the logic of necessity. The argument also gives us a new reason to believe the traditional answer to the question of why there is anything: there is something because the alternative is impossible.
51. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 7 > Issue: 1
Marco Simionato Reconsidering Metaphysical Nihilism
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In contemporary analytic philosophy metaphysical nihilism is the thesis according to which there might be nothing, i.e. a possible world with no concreteobjects in it, but that can contain (or must contain) abstract objects. After summarizing the set of premises from which analytic metaphysics deals with nothing, I propose a set of premises that could fit continental metaphysics. Then I propose a new set of premises for the question of nothing that derives from a synthesis of the two above mentioned sets. By means of this new set, I try to show that nothing as a possible world with no objects at all is not a self-contradictory entity and I propose an argument for proving that an empty possible world exists.
52. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 7 > Issue: 1
Michael Blamauer The Role of Subjectivity in the Continuity-Argument for Panpsychism
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The Principle of Continuity (PC) is a major premise in what can be called the “Continuity-Argument for Panpsychism” (CAP): If we, as complex conscious organisms, are the evolutionary products of originally inorganic components and processes, and consciousness is a metaphysically irreducible feature, thenconsciousness must have already been a feature of these fundamental components, assuming there is continuity between the inorganic and the organic. This argument faces one serious objection, based on the possible vagueness of consciousness: If consciousness is a feature of organisms which is gradually gained at some later phylogenetic stage the conclusion of CAP is false. In my paper I defend the assumption that consciousness cannot be vague with the goal of concluding that CAP is sound.
53. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 7 > Issue: 1
Nicola Claudio Salvatore Skepticism, Rules and Grammar
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In his final notebook, published posthumously as On Certainty (1969, henceforth OC), Wittgenstein offers a sustained and, at least apparently, fragmentary treatment of skeptical issues. Given the ambiguity and obscurity of some of its remarks, in the recent literature on the subject we can find a number of competing interpretations of OC, particularly of the elusive concept of ‘hinges’, central to Wittgenstein’s last work. In this paper, I will discuss the dominant interpretations of OC in order to show how they fail to represent plausible renderings of his anti-skeptical thought. Finally, I will argue that the analogy between ‘hinges’ and ‘rules of grammar’, correctly understood and developed, can represent a plausible interpretation of Wittgenstein’s thought and, more importantly, a viable anti-skeptical strategy.
54. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 1
Jack M. C. Kwong Why Concepts Should Not Be Pluralized or Eliminated
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Concept Pluralism and Concept Eliminativism are two positions recently proposed in the philosophy and the psychology of concepts. Both of these theories aremotivated by the view that all current theories of concepts are empirically and methodologically inadequate and hold in common the assumption that for any category that can be represented in thought, a person can possess multiple, distinct concepts of it. In this paper, I will challenge these in light of a third theory, Conceptual Atomism, which addresses and dispels the contentious issues. In particular, I contend that Conceptual Atomism, when properly understood, is empirically adequate and can overcome difficulties that plague Pluralism and Eliminativism.
55. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 1
Voin Milevski The Utilitarian Justification of Prepunishment
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According to Christopher New, prepunishment is punishment for an offence before the offence is committed. I will first analyze New’s argument, along with theepistemic conditions for practicing prepunishment. I will then deal with an important conceptual objection, according to which prepunishment is not a genuine kind of ‘punishment’. After that, I will consider retributivism and present conclusive reasons for the claim that it cannot justify prepunishment without leading to paradoxical results. I shall then seek to establish that from the utilitarian point of view it is possible to provide a plausible justification of this practice. Finally, I shall attempt to defend the claim that the fact that utilitarianism can justify prepunishment in a satisfactory way is clearly a favourable characteristic of this ethical position.
56. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 1
Olga Poller Formal Representation of Proper Names in Accordance with a Descriptive Theory of Reference
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In this paper I present a way of formally representing proper names in accordance with a description theory of reference–fixing and show that such arepresentation makes it possible to retain the claim about the rigidity of proper names and is not vulnerable to Kripke’s modal objection.
57. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 1
Robert J. Rovetto Presentism and the Problem of Singular Propositions about Non-Present Objects – Limitations of a Proposed Solution
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In “A Defense of Presentism,” Ned Markosian addresses the problem of singular propositions about non-present objects. The proposed solution uses aparaphrasing strategy that differentiates between two kinds of meaning in declarative sentences, and also distinguishes between two truth-conditions for singularpropositions. The solution, however, is unsatisfactory. I demonstrate that both truth-conditions suffer from the same problems in spite of the examples used to support the claim that one is a proper treatment for singular propositions. Part of the difficulty is in the limited expressivity of logical formalisms, a limitation not unique to the philosophy of time, but one which calls for greater attention.
58. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 1
David Sackris It Might Not Be All That Cloudy
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Kai von Fintel and Anthony Gillies have proposed a revised contextual analysis of sentences that make use of “might” epistemically. On their view, when aspeaker uses an epistemic modal term, several propositions are made available to his conversational partners and, as a result, there are several propositions that may be picked up on by those partners. Because there is no concrete “context of utterance,” there is no one proposition that the speaker could be said to have asserted. This is meant to resolve conflicting truth evaluations by different speakers of a single utterance. I argue that the position is unworkable for two reasons: First, on their view there is no single proposition that counts as being asserted or semantically expressed by a “might” utterance; this has several counterintuitive consequences. Second, their position does not address several of the original problems that led many to abandon a contextual account.
59. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 1
Michael Shaffer The Paradox of Knowability and Factivity
60. Polish Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 2
Joshua Anderson Counterfactuals and their Truthmakers: Comparing the Relative Strengths and Weaknesses of Plato and Lewis
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This article compares David Lewis’s understanding of counterfactuals with a Platonic theory of counterfactual truthmakers. By pointing to some weaknesses in Lewis’s theory, it will highlight some of the strengths of the Platonic theory. The article will progress in the following way. First, I present David Lewis’s understanding of counterfactuals, and discuss some problems the theory has. Next, I discuss Platonic truthmakers, in general, and then show how this applies to counterfactuals. Finally, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Platonic theory, and how it is superior to Lewis’s theory.