Panorama inna niż wszystkie
Book review of: Panorama współczesnej filozofii, Jacek Hołówka, Bogdan Dziobkowski (ed.), Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2016, pp. 559.
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Book review of: Panorama współczesnej filozofii, Jacek Hołówka, Bogdan Dziobkowski (ed.), Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2016, pp. 559.
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The philosophical tradition of the world famous Bulgarian philosopher Prof. Dimiter Mihalchev is considered in the paper. The author’s approach is theoretical – he would like to analyze the basic character of philosophy as regards sciences.
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The author is an expert in the problems of criminal rehabilitation. In the paper are considered some philosophical, psychological, ethical and legal dimensions of the integration of former criminals.
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Criticism and critical approach combines ideas coming from humanism, enlightenment, philosophy of life. In our contemporary critical thinking is what distinguishes a sane person of ordinary user of information. Quality of life is determined by the quality of thinking, and it is the basis of the quality of questions that we ask. Critical thinking is an important communicative and power factor in many areas of the society, in order reads. The more conscious personality is, the more likely it is to take the right decisions for yourself.
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We argue the ontological character of information, along with energy and substance, as well as the structural-phenomenological unity at all scales and levels of reality. We use an interdisciplinary, inductive-deductive methodology, within the broad framework of the naturalistic conception. We start from the current reality, which is the impact of information technology, information networks, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, insisting on the role of information in the gnosiological approach. The preponderance of the logical reductionist positivism in the scientific research and the exaggerated focus on the particle and high energy-physics, made possible that the problem of information be almost completely eluded. Even Shannon and Weaver’s information theory considers information only from a quantitative viewpoint, and only through its relation to entropy and the second law of Thermodynamics. The development in the nonlinear dynamics field of chaos theory, fractal geometry and topology, and especially the spectacular development of information technology in the last two decades, needs a systematic analysis, including the defining of information and its importance in the structuring of reality along with energy and substance. From this perspective, all our concepts, starting from physical reality to psychological imaginary reality, can be coherently understood through the same paradigms, irrespective of whether we are talking about the conservation law, the Euclidean dimension, fractal or topological dimension or the multidimensional processing mechanism through syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and hermeneutic processing of the human and artificial language and knowledge in general. This informational paradigm assumes the existence of a functional, phenomenological, potential background represented by information and which can be mathematically modeled through topology. The semantic emergent logic (semantic emergent topology when applied to the reality structuring) can help to elucidate the old mind-brain dualism, with solving other paradoxes, particularly the theory of emergence.
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The specialized understanding of natural kinds (NK) has a theoretical impact on the concept of emergent properties (EP) in particular, as well as on the understanding of the phenomenon of emergence as a whole. The problem is closely related to the tendencies towards their essentialization and theoretical demarcation. The theoretical tension is inevitably manifested in the attempts to consolidate the two concepts, which are generally considered in essentialist terms. A naturalistic, non-essentialist, approach could integrate them into a unified theoretical method, avoiding the problems of their traditional analysis. In the article, NK will be considered as reaction clusters, and EP as complexes of reaction clusters. Both will be directly related to the introduced concepts of reaction potential and stability. The relationship between these concepts will be defined and operationalized, thus explicating the result, considering the phenomenon of emergence as enhancing the reaction potential of a given structure or a complex system, which is in a proportional relation to its net stability.
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The aim of the present paper is to present the ontology of mathematical objects using the Meinongianism. Exactly in this framework we can accept abstract objects as non-existing, which are an object of knowledge, because they bear properties. We can apply these facts on mathematical objects, which are а type of abstract objects. So we can talk about non-existing math objects instead of their existence. I will use the dilemma of Benacerraf to prove the consequences of this acceptance of math objects as existing. But there is one deficiency of them being non-existing objects. First I will review the approach in the ontology and in the abstract objects. The next step will be to apply Maiong`s method to ontology of math objects and to demonstrate its strengths and weaknesses. And accordingly to the results, how far can we use this decision of the problem of abstract objects and special to math objects.
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The article shows that Ludwig Wittgenstein used mostly pragmatic analysis to study the problem of knowledge in the later period. Without giving clear definitions of epistemological concepts, he argued that our interpretations of knowledge depend on the context of language-games, ideas of truth, certainty and justification, as well as the level of education and culture that form our way of life. It was found that the ideas of pragmatics were useful to Wittgenstein in order to more clearly define the nature of true knowledge, to outline the specifics of our refleсtions about certainty, as well as to analyze in detail all aspects of the justification. It is stated that his epistemological researches and discussions around them raised a wide range of not only linguistic but also psychological, cognitive and metaphysical issues, which made our understanding of the nature of knowledge much more comprehensive.
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The article examines Ludwig Wittgenstein’s views on the world and human beings in it. It is emphasized that the philosopher, in addition to paying a lot of attention to the study of language, which determined the basis of his method of cognition, followed a number of worldview ideas about reality. They were supported by the achievements of physics of that time, although Wittgenstein himself argued that the study of reality is not possible without understanding the metaphysical issues concerning the unspeakable, supernatural, spiritual, and so on. It shows how Wittgenstein interpreted the world and reality, distinguished between different levels of being, studied logical atoms, not laws, analyzed facts, not things, comprehended not only the macrocosm but also the microcosm, and as a result built a pragmatic ontological-cosmological conception, in which human and the way of their being in the world occupied a significant place.
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An extended approach to the comprehension of virtual reality is developed in the article. Virtual reality is understood not only as a logically possible or cybernetically constructed reality but also as continuous turbulence of potencies of the complex natural and social world we live in, the wandering of complex systems and organizations over a field of possibilities, such a realization of forms and structures in which many formations remain in latent, potential forms, and are in the permanent process of making and multiplying a spectrum of possibilities, lead to the growth of the evolutionary tree of paths of development. It is shown that such an understanding of virtual reality corresponds to concepts and notions developed in the modern science of complexity. The most significant concepts are considered, such as the nonlinearity of time, the relationship of space and time, the uncertainty of the past and the openness of the future, the choice and construction of the future at the moments of passing the bifurcation points. Some cultural and historical prototypes of these modern ideas of virtual reality are given. It is substantiated that the vision of virtual reality being developed today can play the role of a heuristic tool for understanding the functioning and stimulation of human creativity.
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Aristotle defined the ethical and intellectual virtues which are recognized as fundamental even today. Contemporary virtue ethics still takes into account Aristotelian virtues. The modern moral philosophers have tried to find new ethical values in a society in which religions are in decline and the old values lost their meaning. The starting point of their research has been Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” which has remained the most important work in ethics influencing the philosophical thinking until nowadays. This paper seeks to explain the actual importance of the cardinal Aristotelian virtues and how they are seen today.
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The article presents a critique of the commonly held assumption about the practical advantage of endurantism over perdurantism regarding the problem of future-directed self-concern of a person. The future-directed self-concern of a person crucially depends on the possibility of the right differentiation of diverging futures of distinct persons, therefore any theory of persistence that does not entail a special non-branching relation of a person to only their future self seems to be counterintuitive or unrealistic for practical purposes of personal persistence. I argue that this pragmatic rationale about future-directed self-concern is equally challenging for both theories of persistence. Moreover, I indicate, that both of these theories fall and stand on the practical feasibility of hidden ontological presuppositions about specific second-order notions of concerns of persons for their future.
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The article is the third part of a study concerned with vocabulary in autism spectrum disorders. The subject of interest in this article is the category of relations and its lexical exponents. The author presents various types of linguistically expressed relations. She discusses how they are represented in the language of people with autism spectrum disorders and devotes a separate fragment to parts of speech. The acquisition of relational concepts and their lexical exponents is a significant development challenge; especially difficult for people with autism. In the category of relations the differences between the vocabularies of typically developing people and people with autistic disorders are the most pronounced. Other conclusions from the analysis carried out are in line with those in the second part of the study concerning the category of things and events.
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Metacognition is a complex construct widely investigated in SLA studies, also those that focus on reading skills and reading comprehension. Ample research points to metacognition as a strong predictor in developing foreign language reading skills, thus promoting metacognitive strategies in FL education is highly recommended. This paper presents a report on a study in which Polish FL learners kept a diary for a period of one month and wrote comments in reference to the reading classes in which they participated. The data obtained from the students’ narrations allowed to examine the learners’ metacognitive beliefs defined in the study as knowledge about cognition, consisting of three components: person knowledge, task knowledge, and strategy knowledge (Flavell, 1981). The diary data were analyzed in a global narrative way, which enabled the researcher to examine a complex character and a dynamic nature of metacognition in relation to the reading lessons. The findings underline a double role that learner diaries played in this study: as a research tool useful in investigating learners’ metacognition and an effective task that seemed to facilitate the learners’ reflection skills.
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Learner-centered approaches to learning and teaching alongside education for sustainable development (ESD) emphasize the education of engaged and active global citizens (UNESCO, 2017). The development of students’ reflective skills and metacognitive strategies is the center of this study that aims at investigating the learner language of a group of adult learners at an upper-intermediate level. It sets out to investigate to what extent learners are able to notice and correct their errors after reflecting on their spoken production. Moreover, it seeks to examine the students’ perception of their self-reflection and their attitude towards using speaking tasks for grammar learning. Comparative error analysis showed that the participants were able to amend 34.6% of total errors. These were made mainly in noun phrases (30% of total errors in Task 1 and 31% in Task 3) and verb phrases (40% of total errors in both tasks). Although no general conclusions could be drawn, the results seem to suggest that after critical, evidence-based reflection, the participants were able to notice and correct some errors, namely, in determination and the use of the past simple. The results of the survey analysis showed that all participants reported on an improved awareness of the gaps in their interlanguage, and all of them considered speaking tasks beneficial to grammar development. The study indicates that carefully planned, repeated speaking tasks might be helpful for learners’ language processing, consolidation of their grammatical knowledge and the improvement of their reflection skills and metacognitive strategies.
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In the article, Anna Musioł, by referring to the assumptions of Marian Massonius’s doctoral dissertation and taking into account the assumptions of his several smaller works, considers Massonius’s approach to the Kantian system of critical philosophy. Analyzing, inter alia, the problem of analytical and synthetic judgments, and a priori synthetic judgments, Musioł addresses the issue of the possibility of pure mathematics. She considers the problem of time and space and analyzes the ways of presenting Kantian antinomies and the theory of cognition developed in the context of idealism and realism as well as the realism of time and space. Additionally, Musioł focuses on the problem of Massonius’s moderate agnosticism and his scientific approach to philosophy. Finally, she proposes an answer to the fundamental question, Why did Massonius, like the early neo-Kantist Liebmann in 1865, challenge a return to Kant (Zurück zu Kant!) and advocate as necessary the development of a critical formula of the a priori forms of the mind?
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The Culture series created by Scottish author Iain (M.) Banks consists of nine novels, one novella and a couple of short stories situated in the same fictional universe. The eponymous Culture is a space-faring (and spacedwelling) civilization, a conglomeration of several humanoid species and sentient machines, most intellectually powerful beings called The Minds. Technological advances made the Culture a post-scarcity society focused on the maximization of personal freedom. The character of its socio-political structure, however, is somewhat unclear. Based on the differences between its internal and external politics, scholars have mostly placed the Culture within the categories of Utopia and Empire. This is, as the present paper argues, a false dilemma since the Culture is simultaneously both and neither of those. The main argument is that the truly adequate label for the political complexities of the Culture civilization was coined only after the untimely death of the author himself – around 2015, when the far (or, some would say, radical) left activists on the Internet coined the phrase Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. Using both writings of Marx and Engels on the features of communism and Ollman’s systematization of these features, I will try to show that this is indeed the case.
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This article aims to present a detailed analysis of the “Christian natural philosophy” elaborated by the German humanist philosopher and theologian Otto Casmann (1562–1607) in his various works. To this end, Casmann’s general idea of philosophia Christiana is discussed and critically evaluated. Regarding natural philosophy, or physics, attention is paid mainly to topics such as cosmogony and cosmology, which Casmann promised to have developed biblically and independently of the pagan (namely Aristotelian) tradition. However, when Casmann’s natural philosophy is analyzed in detail, his resolute emphasis on the literal reading of the Bible, the cornerstone of his entire concept, turns out to be problematic. Similarly, despite his resolutions, his natural-philosophical views are, to a considerable extent, still dependent on Aristotelian terms and concepts.
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The complexity of cultures in the modern world is beyond human comprehension. Cognitive sciences cast doubts on the traditional explanations based on mental models. The core subjects in the humanities may lose their importance. The humanities have to adapt to the digital age. New, interdisciplinary branches of the humanities emerge. Instant access to information will be replaced by instant access to knowledge. Understanding the cognitive limitations of humans and the opportunities opened by the development of artificial intelligence and interdisciplinary research necessary to address global challenges is the key to the revitalization of the humanities. Artificial intelligence will radically change the humanities, from art to political sciences and philosophy, making these disciplines attractive to students and enabling them to surpass current limitations. The main goal of this article is to alert people working on different branches of humanities that a new wave of very advanced technology is quickly coming, enhancing human intellect in an unprecedented way.
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