"The dangerous classes”: Hugo Grotius and seventeenth-century piracy as a primitive anti-systemic movement

Author(s): Eric Wilson / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

This essay discusses the historical and textual representations of piracy in the writings of Hugo Grotius, primarily De Indis/De iure praedae (1603-1608) and the Commentarius in Theses XI (c. 1600). Contrary to popular belief, Grotius, in stark contrast to Jean Bodin, was not an advocate of the constitutionally homogenous Nation-State. Rather, his central concept of divisible sovereignty, the lynchpin of the constitutional theory of his early writings, unambiguously presents us with the object of the heterogeneous State. In Grotian theory, the State may be “read” as a composite construction, with a residual degree of inalienable sovereignty accruing at each unit-level. Even if only unconsciously, Grotius describes a concurrent para-political sub-division of the state between institutional Government (the “magistrates”) and civil society, one that constitutes an operational system of governance within the Nation-State. Like his contemporary Johannes Althusius, Grotius’ theory allows for the emergence of a wholly “private,” albeit lawful, mode of authority. This is most apparent in Grotius’ treatment of the mercantile trading Company and its Privateering operations. The corporatist theory of sovereignty permits the Company’s private agents of violence, the legally ambivalent Privateer/Pirate, to be invested with a requisite degree of sovereignty. The Grotian theory of divisible sovereignty, investing the seventeenth-century Pirate band with legal personality, serves as a vital historical precursor to the quasi-statist (trans-) national criminal cartels of the twenty-first century. The Grotian Pirate/Privateer/Just Avenger, therefore, is a “nomad”: a liminal entity that simultaneously transverses both geographical and juro-political spaces, rendering him or herself in-determinable.

"This lofty mountain of silver could conquer the whole world”: Potosí and the political ecology of underdevelopment, 1545-1800

Author(s): Jason W. Moore / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

By the 1570’s, Potosí, and its silver, had become the hub of a commodity revolution that reorganized Peru’s peoples and landscapes to serve capital and empire. This was a decisive moment in the world ecological revolution of the long seventeenth century. Primitive accumulation in Peru was particularly successful: the mita’s spatial program enabled the colonial state to marshal a huge supply of low-cost and tractable labor in the midst of sustained demographic contraction. The relatively centralized character of Peru’s mining frontier facilitated imperial control in a way the more dispersed silver frontiers of New Spain did not. Historical capitalism has sustained itself on the basis of exploiting, and thereby undermining, a vast web of socio-ecological relations. As may be observed in colonial Peru, the commodity frontier strategy effected both the destruction and creation of premodern socio-ecological arrangements.

(Christian) Bioethical Dilemmas in Using Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnologies

Author(s): Antonio Sandu,Ana Caras (Frunza) / Language(s): English / Issue: 35/2013

Ethical dilemmas raised by the use of nanotechnology in medical practice can be viewed from several perspectives: religious spiritualist perspective, the perspective of human dignity (nanotechnologies can be thought of as an affront to human dignity), the issue of controversial choice. The article aims to expose some bioethical dilemmas in using synthetic biology and nanotechnologies. Nowadays is often brought into discussion the fact it is possible to appear in the future new human species resulted not via natural selection and evolution, but through the demiurgic effect of technology development in areas such as: synthetic biology, genetics, neurobiology and neurosciences, prosthesis technology and not least of artificial intelligence research. We will also refer into this paper at the possible raised challenges to ethicists who are oriented towards an ethics of species. Those challenges are raised right from the dawn of a consciousness of species, a social construction generated by changes of the meaning of belonging to humanity. During our article we argue that medical technology, especially genetics, medical assisted human reproduction and not least synthetic biology, require a rethinking ethical meanings of applying those technologies in everyday practices.

(Mock-)Thinking about the Same

Author(s): Alberto Voltolini / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2017

In this paper, I want to address once more the venerable problem of intentional identity, the problem of how different thoughts can be about the same thing even if this thing does not exist. First, I will try to show that antirealist approaches to this problem are doomed to fail. For they ultimately share a problematic assumption, namely that thinking about something involves identifying it. Second, I will claim that once one rejects this assumption and holds instead that thoughts are constituted either by what they are about, their intentional objects, or by what determines their proposition-like intentional contents, one can address the problem of intentional identity in a different way. One can indeed provide a new solution to it that basically relies on two factors: a) what sort of metaphysical nature intentional objects effectively possess, once they are conceived as schematic objects à la Crane (2001, 2013); b) whether such objects really belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is. According to this solution, two thoughts are about the same nonexistent intentional object iff i) that object satisfies the identity criterion for objects of that metaphysical kind and ii) objects of that kind belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is, independently of whether they exist (in a suitable first-order sense of existence). As such, this solution is neither realist nor antirealist: only if condition ii) is satisfied, different thoughts can be about the same nonexistent intentionale; otherwise, they are simply constituted by the same intentional content (provided that this content is not equated with that intentionale). Third, armed with this solution, I will hold that one can find a suitable treatment of the specific and related problem of whether different people may mock-think about the same thing, even if there really is no such thing. Finally, I will try to show that this treatment can be also applied to the case in which different thoughts are, according to phenomenology, about the same intentionale and yet this intentionale is of a kind such that there really are no things of that kind. For in this case, such thoughts are about the same intentionale only fictionally.

(Nie)obiektywna podmiotowość

Author(s): Piotr Piotrowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 36/2016

In this article, I analyze the issue of subjectivity in the form in which it appears in Charles Taylor’s and Richard Rorty’s writings. Positions of these philosophers are generally regarded as contradictory. I will, however, argued that the position on subjectivity represented by Rorty finds its complementation in Taylor’s concept. To do this, I will show firstly that both Rorty and Taylor use the category of contingency, presenting some common thesis about subjectivity. This way I will show that the location of the category of subjectivity and the scope of its use in each of them concept is closely related to the understanding of objectivity accepted by each of them. This will allow then to reconstruct the concept of subjectivity presented by Taylor and Rorty. Next, in the conclusion, I will present such a summary of those two standpoints, which will include justification of the thesis of their complementarity.

(rec.) Zygmunt Hajduk, Struktury metodologiczne w nauce. Słowa klucze filozofii nauki, Wydawnictwo KUL, Lublin 2016

Author(s): Anna Lemanska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2017

(spr.) Sprawozdanie z konferencji naukowej „Wokół poszukiwania życia w kosmosie”. Instytut Filozofii UKSW, Warszawa, 16 grudnia 2015 r.

Author(s): Adam Swiezynski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2016

20th Cracow Methodological Conference: Philosophy in Science

Author(s): Piotr Urbanczyk / Language(s): English / Issue: 61/2016

The 20th Cracow Methodological Conference took place on May 30-31, 2016, at the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków. The meeting brought together physicists, cosmologists, mathematicians and philosophers interested in research program called philosophy in science started and popularized by Michał Heller. It is worth noting that the 20th Cracow Methodological Conference was dedicated to Professor Heller and can be considered as a contribution to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of his birthday.

A Bottom-up Discursive Approach to Genetically Modified Organisms

Author(s): Camelia-Mihaela Cmeciu / Language(s): English / Issue: 11/2017

The debate on genetically modified foods has been characterized by a heteroglosia of voices, ranging from experts, authorities, to scholars, community organizations, media, or consumers. Within such a context where there have been observed various food safety scares over the past decades or some public ignorance regarding the use of biotechnology related to food issues, the Debating Europe platform launched debates on arguments for and against GMOs. Thus citizens turn into prosumers of content regarding food safety and (de)legitimators of EU policies and/or other social institutions. In our study of the comments posted by e-citizens on four debates on GM foods launched on the Debating Europe platform, we will use framing theory (Goffman, 1974; Entman, 1993; Wynne, 2001; Cook et al., 2004) and the Integrated Crisis Mapping Model (Jin et al., 2012) for negative emotions and Plutchik’s wheel of emotions (2001) for positive emotions to determine the salience of (de)legitimating frames employed by the supporters and opponents of GM foods, and to examine the role of affective stance in the evaluation of the social actors related to GMOs. Using QDA miner and WordStat, computer assisted qualitative data analysis softwares, we will conduct a content, cluster and correspondence analysis of the (de)legitimating frames and emotion valences. Whereas the content analysis provides an insight into the frequency of frames used by e-debaters and into the key lexical items that express evaluation and affective stance related to GM foods, the explorative analyses reveal the types of (sub)clusters which prevail in the e-debaters’ comments on GM foods. The findings of this study suggest that e-citizens mainly perceive the issue of GMO through a political frame associated with anger and a health frame associated with fright.

A brief history of international trade thought: From pre-doctrinal contributions to the 21st century heterodox international economics

Author(s): Carmen Elena Dorobat / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

The present paper outlines the development of international trade thought, from the pre-doctrinal contributions of Greek philosophers and scholastic theologians, through the theories of the first schools of economic thought, and up to modern and contemporary trade theories. I follow filiations of ideas in a chronological order, and show how theoretical investigation into the causes and effects of international trade—and the rationale for government intervention—has evolved over the last two centuries.

A comment on scarcity

Author(s): M. Northrup Buechner / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2014

Modern economics is based on the idea that every good and service is scarce, but the standard defenses of this premise by reference to zero prices and infinite resources are invalid. The concept of scarcity is defined and used to show that ordinary scarcities are not economic scarcities. The errors regarding scarcity are traced to the methodology of modern economics, and an alternative method is suggested for a science whose subject matter is real human beings. The concept of relative scarcity is explained, and used to illuminate some important aspects of the functioning of a market economy. Some of the consequences are identified for economics if economists recognized that universal scarcity is not a fact.

A Contextual Concept of Science

Author(s): Sumei Cheng / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

The contextual concept of science regards a scientific theory as a whole simulation for the mechanism of natural world under the given context. It argues that a scientific theory is to understand the reality only in the sense of intentionality in the process of reality simulation, rather than to describe reality in the sense of one-to-one correspondence. This concept of understanding reality is totally different from that of describing reality.Compared with the realist approaches and the anti-realist approach, the contextual approach has the following advantages: (1) it contributes to bridge the communication between the preachers of scientism and the humanists;(2) it has helped to solve the problem of underdetermination faced by scientific realism; (3) it is relatively easy to understand the correction about the concept and theory; (4) it could reflect the true process of science more properly. Therefore, it is a more promising and convincing new perspective to understand science.

A criterion for realism, with an application to behavioral economic models

Author(s): Gustavo Marques,Diego Weisman / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

Many economists working within the framework of behavioral economics (BE) label the conventional way of modeling as unrealistic, and consider their own approach as more realistic than the standard practice. However, a criterion for realism is lacking in behavioral economics literature. This paper offers a simple criterion for predicating realism to economic models, and provides an illustration of such criterion at work on a particular BE model.

A Critique of Compound Presentism

Author(s): Tabitha Taylor / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2016

In this paper I argue that Barry Dainton’s proposed Compound Presentist view in (Dainton, 2010) is unsuccessful in solving two of the problems that Presentism incurs; firstly, the relation/relata problem and secondly, the clash with Truthmaker Theory. I begin by outlining Presentism, and describing its advantages and disadvantages. I then describe Dainton’s Compound Presentism in Section Two before critiquing it in Section Three. Finally, I conclude that Presentists must do more work to defend their view against the two problems I explore.

A Different Take on Humanities

Author(s): Wlodzimierz Bolecki / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

The foreword to this issue focuses on the core functional differences between the humanities and hard sciences (i.e. different approaches to such phenomena as language, translation, teamwork, writing, discipline.s history, publishing, tradition, innovation). Yet, this dichotomy is questioned in the conlusion. The author argues that whenever human artifacts are at stake, both the humanites and experimental sciences are equally hard, because they inquire the same matter, ie. how the products of human cognitive activities were created and what are their social functions. Therefore, the author calls for a new model for interdisciplinary studies.

A methodological analysis of the scientific research

Author(s): Kadzik OGANYAN / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The article addresses the structure of scientific research in the context of the methodology of science. This goal is realized through the concrete material of physical theory, detailing the structure of scientific research and its elements; its process and the laws it obeys; its results, which leadthe process; its motives, e.g. the "driving forces" of research and the role of philosophy in the process.The paperexamines the theoretical phase of researches as a synthesis of the empirical and the speculative,in contrast to the existing literature that presents the opposition between theoretical and empirical research. The steps of knowledge of the objective laws in a particular area are analysed: the empirical research,the non-fundamental theoretical,the speculative, and the fundamental theoretical; this analysis allows the generalization of the patterns of scientific research. Particular attention is paid to the speculative research and its main elements. The“methodological mechanism” of formation of new fundamental conceptions in science is unravelled. The essence of this mechanism consists of some non-logical cognitive operations (idealization, choice of “Gestalt”, substitution, generalization). The knowledge of corresponding combinations of these operations made by the investigator facilitates the process of research, decreases the probability of errors in the scientific cognition.

A Minimalist Framework for Thought Experiment Analysis

Author(s): Marek Picha / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2016

Thought experiments are frequently vague and obscure hypothetical scenarios that are difficult to assess. The paper proposes a simple model of thought experiments. In the first part, I introduce two contemporary frameworks for thought experiment analysis: an experimentalist approach that relies on similarities between real and thought experiment, and a reasonist approach focusing on the answers provided by thought experimenting. Further, I articulate a minimalist approach in which thought experiment is considered strictly as doxastic mechanism based on imagination. I introduce the basic analytical tool that allows us to differentiate an experimental core from an attached argumentation. The last section is reserved for discussion. I address several possible questions concerning adequacy of minimalistic definition and analysis.

A new framework for the analysis of contemporary financial markets: the need for pluralistic approaches

Author(s): Mitja Stefancic / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2009

Interdisciplinary approaches are essential to properly evaluate an economic and financial system that is increasingly complex and globally interrelated. With reference to the work of the philosopher Peter Godfrey – Smith, it is argued that a more pronounced interdisciplinarity in the social sciences would enable a flourishing of pluralism in economics. By adopting clearly defined research strategies and objectives, scholars with different academic backgrounds can successfully work on common projects. A better integration of economic, social and behavioural sciences will favour the establishment of new frames of thinking and new analytical tools which are much needed in contemporary financial regulation. Financial markets, defined as competitive markets in financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, loans and derivatives, represent a research subject that may be analysed from a plurality of angles and frames, including a sociological one. In practice, such a plurality of perspectives could favour sustainable wealth creation and contribute to maximizing the benefits from economic globalization.

A Pessimistic Induction against Scientific Antirealism

Author(s): Seungbae Park / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2014

There are nine antirealist explanations of the success of science in the literature. I raise difficulties against all of them except the latest one, and then construct a pessimistic induction that the latest one will turn out to be problematic because its eight forerunners turned out to be problematic. This pessimistic induction is on a par with the traditional pessimistic induction that successful present scientific theories will be revealed to be false because successful past scientific theories were revealed to be false.

A philosophical investigation in machine understanding. The case of implicit meaning

Author(s): Maria Wilkowska / Language(s): English / Issue: 12/2013

The question of machine thinking and understanding, once initiated by Alan Turing, has puzzled scholars from various disciplines. This paper aims at investigating some of the facets involved in the topic of machine language understanding with particular interest devoted to indirect meaning comprehension (more specifically, the implicature). So far as the subject under examination – the chatbot – manages to understand directly conveyed information, still much is to be done with respect to implicit data in which everyday messages (formulated in ordinary language) abound. This situation generates a number of not only hard-science questions but also, more importantly, given the viewpoint of this paper, it gives rise to a considerable amount of philosophically- oriented and frequently neglected issues and dilemmas too. This study is a brief investigation of exactly those phenomena.