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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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 aim of the current paper is to discuss medicine as a unity of scientific knowledge, acquired skills, and attitude based on moral responsibility. Following an analysis of the terms ‘science’ and ‘art’, it is suggested that neither of them singlehandedly satisfies the requirements of contemporary medicine and those of medical practitioners. As a science, its focus is rather on the illness itself than on the patient and their needs and preferences. As an art, it prioritises the patients and their individual needs but risks undermining the knowledge and experience of the medical professional. The most beneficial option is a symbiosis between science and art. A dialogue between them would increase the amount of trust in the medical profession as a combination of scientific knowledge and technical skills.
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The aim of the paper is to show that the standard criticism directed to Kant that he allegedly accepted the uniqueness and objectivity of the three dimensional Euclidean geometry is irrelevant. Long before the birth of non-Euclidean geometries it occurred to Kant that extensions could exist with other properties and dimensions, which describe other possible worlds. And long before Hilary Putnam to explain the differentiation of the notion of straight line that obeys two types of laws – geometrical and physical, Kant has presented the possibility of this differentiation in his first Critique.
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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 text analyzes the role of aesthetic experience for Radoslav Tsanoff, an American philosopher of Bulgarian origin. The article is structured in the following directions: creativity and innovation in science and art (differences and analogies); art and culture as part of a new scale of values; aesthetic experience as participation in the perspective of the theory of shared values; role and importance of culture (spirit of cosmic scale and depth). The conclusion is that these are in harmony with the general direction in his work, including the need for an integral approach and a new scale of values.
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From the antiquity to nowadays the connection between philosophy and medicine is of substantive importance. One of the outstanding figures for medicine as Hippocrates of Kos, named “the father of medicine”, built the fundamental principals of medicine as rational endeavour. The other important figure in late antiquity – Claudius Galenus or Galen of Pergamon –made an important thesis that a good doctor is a philosopher too (work That the Best Physician is also a Philosopher). This work analyses the questions concerning contemporary relationships between philosophy and medicine today. One of the central topics is focused on contemporary criteria for medical theory, research and practice. In the beginning of the 90s, the so-called Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) formulated specific methodological features that medicine has to aspire to. Today, every field of medicine is based on the principles formulated by EBM. This gives grounds for a number of authors to talk about a "new paradigm" in medical science and practice and to base this idea on the EBM movement. The present paper will analyse the discussion of whether EBM is a paradigm according to Kuhn’s idea of a “paradigm shift”, and will critically analyse scientific change situation in the context of modern medicine (scientific and social aspects).
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This paper argues that what we commonly mean by “labour” in industrial democracies stems from the obsolete theoretical assumptions of neoclassical economics, which also serve as foundations for a highly entropic economic process. Therefore, to determine the new purposes and functions of what working means is necessary in order to redesign economy and, consequently, to offer an alternative to the Anthropocene. The article develops Bernard Stiegler’s take on work and discusses the way Stiegler brings up to date the theoretical reflection on the transformations of work undertaken by André Gorz. The article addresses the question of work in relation to energy crisis and work automation. Advocating for a redefinition of work beyond employment, the article envisages work automation as a new opening for what work denotes, rather than the end of work. However, two conditions must be met in order to make such a change possible; it is necessary to redefine work beyond employment and socialize benefits from work automation.
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The second article focuses on dialectical logic, biological and spiritual determination, freedom of choice, consciousness and Self-consciousness, as well as on non-evolutionary development. A correlation analysis was carried out, on the one hand: between organic structures, neurophysiology, events of the bodily organism and, on the other hand, mental processes, states and formations, especially free will or creativity, as well as cognitive functions, consciousness and self-conscious Mind. Here consciousness can be a determinant, and information is a mediator between Mind and body.
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In the article, it is argued that in order to rejuvenate critical theory we need to revive the critique of technology first and, by the same token, redefine the very concept of critique in the context of the digital reality, with an account of how digital devices impact our ability to think in general. The function and meaning of critique under new circumstances (conceptualized as technostress) is discussed in a dialogue with three thinkers: Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, and Bernard Stiegler. It also suggests how Bernard Stiegler’s philosophical critique can be fruitfully these combined with social theory developed by Hartmut Rosa.
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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 article presents one of the components of the intellectual legacy of Polish positivism, a philosophical position which proposed a new attitude towards ethical issues. Its representatives put forward the notion of scientific ethics, reducing moral philosophy to it. They strongly emphasized their critical attitude towards traditional ethics, for which there was no place in the positivist model of science, and proposed a distinction between theoretical and practical ethics. Their project was motivated by an ambition to make ethics into jurisprudence, a discipline whose accuracy would make it similar to other sciences. Their efforts were consistently motivated by the idea of making ethics into an empirical and applied science. This scientific ethics would fulfill the important task of forming a set of moral requirements, which, by referring to moral knowledge (“ethology”), would have a chance of influencing the conduct of individuals and society. The new ethics was expected to contribute to the change in social morality and thus greatly support moral progress, an issue which was hotly debated. All positivists subscribed to the idea of progress, including that of morality; however, some differences can be discerned in how they defined progress. Some defined it in realistic categories, while others focused on optimistic visions of the future. Among the first advocates of scientific ethics and of the idea of moral progress, differences notwithstanding, were Aleksander Świętochowski, Julian Ochorowicz, Feliks Bogacki, Władysław Kozłowski, and Bolesław Prus. The article gives an overview of some of their views.
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The Self is the first Polish translation of an excerpt from Shaftesbury’s notebooks entitled Askêmata. The text proves that these notebooks not only complement the contents of his Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, the three-volume set which made Shaftesbury a famous and influential philosopher but is to be seen mainly as a kind of moral exercises and soliloquies in which Shaftesbury comments the works of the stoics: Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. In one of the previous issues of „Folia Philosophica” three other excerpts from the same set were published: Character and Conduct, Attention and Relaxation, and Improvement; the present one is a continuation of the series.
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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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What is the strength of the museum? The answer can be summarized briefly by listing two strong and distinctive points that define this institution in its essence. The museum is a device that generates time and, on the other hand, operates with the authentic object, giving the possibility of a direct interaction with the reality of visitors. Even in case of considerable intervention by contextualization of the museum object, the visitor has the possibility to establish a direct, present and sufficiently intimate connection with at least a fraction belonging to the object itself, which intervenes in the knowledge of the truth. In contrast stand replicas or copies of objects with which we are continuously bombarded in a time of constant processing and manipulation of reality through computers and their software. In this paper I argue for the two fundamental features of the museum and I try to prove that they have an indispensable role from a cultural point of view, which cannot be replaced by other media, considered by some, competitors.
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The aim of the article is to analyze Gaston Bachelard’s psychoanalysis of the scientific mind in its practical dimension. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, Bachelard deployed his own method to analyze the scientific unconscious, populated by epistemological obstacles inhibiting scientific cognition. As this article seeks to demonstrate, Bachelard’s psychoanalysis aims to purify, and thereby streamline the cognitive mind on two levels: individual and historical. Bachelard’s methodological experiment, transferring psychoanalysis into the spheres of the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science, turns out to be, at the same time, an instance of the architecture of a scientific mind, a polemic with cognitive realism and empiricism, and a postulate of analytical therapy in the field of cognition.
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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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The paper argues that the standard pro- and anti-Kantian reception of the Critique of Judgment has largely misconstrued the relationship between Part I and Part II of the book by failing to recognize that the former is primarily providing a series of stepping-stones laying the groundwork for the elaboration of reflective-teleological reasoning in Part II. Instead of its dominant reading as foremost relevant to the study of biological nature, the paper distils from the reflective-teleological judgment a universal principle by which we typically interpret any complex set of particulars. As such, the reflective-teleological judgment of 1790 is shown to have done away with interpretive truth, replaced by Kant with the more modest claim of intelligibility.
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This paper tries to develop a tenable philosophical idea of Ubuntu as an endogenous construct for African socioeconomic and political development. The search for an African endogenous paradigm for sociopolitical and economic development is urgent given the real consequences of some dominant paradigms of alienation, exploitation, and marginalization. These values have altered or affected African behaviour and thinking. This transformation of the human person has raised issues about agency and the values underlying same. So, a development paradigm or philosophy of development for Africa or even the world at large requires an ethical basis for human existence in economic, political, and social order. Generally, social order in most parts of Africa is beset by the problem of a negative dominant social paradigm (DSP) or core social values of hatred, intolerance, the abuse of human rights, dehumanization, exploitation, authoritarianism, poverty, and oppression. This often leads to tension, violent conflicts, and wars. So, to build a viable and stable endogenous paradigm for development in most African sociopolitical environments we attempt to use the main pillar of interconnectedness among human beings which is central to Ubuntu as a social system and value system to underscore some key moral and democratic values required for human liberation and transformation. The research question is: What concrete elements or values of Ubuntu can be useful as paradigms of an endogenous African development? Specifically, our findings suggest that Ubuntu ethics is defined by a set of human values or qualitative correlates central among which are reciprocity, common good, peaceful relations, emphasis on human dignity and the value of human life as well as consensus, tolerance and mutual respect.
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The article discusses the concept of science proposed by Andrzej Trzciński (1749–1823), a Krakow professor of physics during the Enlightenment era. In 1811, he published Uwagi na Rozprawę o krytyce Stanisława Kostki Potockiego [Remarks on Stanisław Kostka Potocki’s Treatise on Critique]. Typically, this text has been perceived by researchers as insignificant, malicious remarks directed at Potocki (1755–1821) and his dissertation.The aim of this article is to show that behind the arguments presented in Uwagi... lies a vision of science, as well as culture and art, distinct from Potocki’s.Firstly, the article introduces the Krakow scholar and explains why he remains relatively unknown. Then, based on an analysis of Uwagi... and comparisons with Potocki’s Critique, it indicates that Trzciński was an advocate of empiricism, a critic of classicism (advocated by Potocki), and a scholar who drew inspiration from sentimentalism and the views of J. J. Rousseau. True to Enlightenment ideals, Trzciński advocated research into Nature, believing that the natural sciences take precedence over other disciplines because they are useful (by facilitating life, improving the quality of life, and serving the common good). Fine arts and aesthetics, according to Trzciński, are reserved for the few and bring limited benefits to society, primarily providing pleasure and entertainment.Moreover, the article also raises the issue of Polish scientific and academic language.
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