[Replies to My Friends] This is an answer to the critics of my book WHAT IT'S LIKE, OR WHAT IT'S ABOUT? THE PLACE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (2017). I proceed from the least to the most serious objections. I start with Jakub Mihálik’s defense of Russellian Monism against my claim that it is not a genuine alternative to standard dualism and materialism. In reply, I claim this is a side issue to the central aim of my book, (...) which is to undermine the concept of phenomenal consciousness assumed by Russellian Monism as much as by every other standard theory. One of these standard theories is reductive materialism, pursued by Michal Polák and Tomáš Marvan. Both Polák and Marvan are worried by Dennett’s alleged eliminativism, even though their arguments somewhat differ. Polák believes in a deflationary concept of consciousness, which I am afraid lacks a definite content. Marvan offers an “innocent” concept of consciousness, on which there is supposed to be a general consensus, but I think he just assumes that the concept of phenomenal property is part of the definition of consciousness. Curiously, while Polák and Marvan take me as to be a Dennettian, Stefanie Dach argues that I misinterpret Dennett. Conversely, I believe that she overlooks weak points in Dennett’s theory. (shrink)

Modelowanie komputerowe odgrywa istotną rolę we współczesnej nauce. Epistemologiczna rola, jaką odgrywają takie modele oraz prowadzone na ich bazie symulacje skłaniają do postawienia pytań o możliwe użycie podobnych metod w filozofii. Pomysły wykorzystania narzędzi matematycznych do sformułowania koncepcji filozoficznych sięgają czasów Barucha Spinozy i Isaaca Newtona. Newtonowska filozofia przyrody stała się przykładem udanego zastosowania matematycznych rozważań do opisu przyrody na poziomie fundamentalnym. Oczywiście podejście Newtona otworzyło zarówno nowe obszary badań w fizyce, jak i stało się źródłem dla nowych rozważań o (...) rzeczywistości fizycznej. Według Michała Hellera niektóre teorie fizyczne można traktować jako specyficzne formalizacje koncepcji filozoficznych. Modelowanie komputerowe w filozofii może być traktowane jako rozszerzenie tej idei, co będę starał się ukazać w niniejszym artykule. Będę również rozważał rolę modelowania komputerowego jako źródła nowych metafor filozoficznych zgodnie z koncepcją technologii definiującej D. J. Boltera. Rozważania te wiodą do konkluzji mówiącej, że w metodologii filozofii zachodzą istotne zmiany. Nowe podejście nie sugeruje odrzucenia bądź zanegowania dotychczasowych metod, a wskazuje raczej nowe narzędzie analityczne filozofii i źródło inspirujących metafor. (shrink)

The topic of exemplarity has attracted considerable interest in philosophy, legal theory, literary studies and art recently. There is broad consensus that exemplary cases mediate between singular instances and general concepts or norms. The aim of this article is to provide an additional perspective on the logic of exemplarity. First, inspired by Jacques Derrida’s discussion of exemplarity, I shall argue that there is a kind of différance between (singular) examples and (general) exemplars. What an example exemplifies, the exemplarity of the (...) example, eludes any fixed identity and follows a logic of supplement. Second, I shall present the so-called logic of exemplarity. The received paraconsistent view has it that the exemplar of X is an X and, at the same time, is not an X. Inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s discussion of the standard metre, I would like to present an alternative paracomplete view whereby we can say of an exemplar of X neither that it is an X nor that it is not an X. (shrink)

Recenzja książki: Andrzej Pelczar, Czas i dynamika. O czasie w równaniach różniczkowych i układach dynamicznych, OBI--Kraków, Biblos-Tarnów 2003, ss. 117.

According to panqualityism, a form of Russellian monism defended by Sam Coleman and others, consciousness is grounded in fundamental qualities, i.e. unexperienced qualia. Despite panqualityism’s significant promise, according to David Chalmers panqualityism fails as a theory of consciousness since the reductive approach to awareness of qualities it proposes fails to account for the specific phenomenology associated with awareness. I investigate Coleman’s reasoning against this kind of phenomenology and conclude that he successfully shows that its existence is controversial, and so Chalmers’s (...) critique is inconclusive. I then present a critique of panqualityism that avoids this controversial posit, arguing that the panqualityist treatment of awareness faces an explanatory gap, failing to account for the intimate cognitive access to qualities which we are afforded, i.e. for our ‘strong awareness’ of qualities. The real worry for panqualityists is thus not the contested phenomenology of awareness, which Chalmers relies on, but rather the special way in which we are aware of qualities. (shrink)

This article is an overview of the philosophy of informatics with a special regard to some Polish philosophers. It juxtaposes the informationistic worldview with the long-prevailing mechanical conceptualization of nature before introducing the metaphysical perspective of the information revolution in sciences. The article shows also how ontic pancomputationalism – regarded as an update to structural realism – could enrich the philosophical research in some classical topics. The paper concludes with a discussion of the philosophy of Jan Salamucha, a philosopher from (...) the Cracow Circle whose ideas could be inspiring for today’s philosophy of informatics in Cracow. (shrink)

The article’s aim is to clear the ground for the idea of aesthetic archaeology as an aesthetic analysis of remote artifacts divorced from aesthetic criticism. On the example of controversies surrounding the early Cycladic figures, it discusses an anxiety motivating the rejection of aesthetic inquiry in archaeology, namely, the anxiety about the heuristic reliability of one’s aesthetic instincts vis-à-vis remote artifacts. It introduces the claim that establishing an aesthetic mandate of a remote artifact should in the first place be part (...) of a quest after the norms of engagement an artifact’s kind signaled to the intended audience by its appearance. Rather than advocating for a new subdiscipline, the concept of aesthetic archaeology serves to bring into theoretical focus an aesthetic engagement with an artifact’s appearance under circumstances that rule out any acquired competence in distinguishing its aesthetic mandate perceptually—and thus rule out any aesthetic expertise. (shrink)

The article presents a perspective on the scientific explanation of the subjectivity of conscious experience. It proposes plausible answers for two empirically valid questions: the ‘how’ question concerning the developmental mechanisms of subjectivity, and the ‘why’ question concerning its function. Biological individuation, which is acquired in several different stages, serves as a provisional description of how subjective perspectives may have evolved. To the extent that an individuated informational space seems the most efficient way for a given organism to select biologically (...) valuable information, subjectivity is deemed to constitute an adaptive response to informational overflow. One of the possible consequences of this view is that subjectivity might be (at least functionally) dissociated from consciousness, insofar as the former primarily facilitates selection, the latter action. (shrink)

Stanisław Lem is mostly known as a sci-fi writer and not widely perceived as a visionary of the cyber age, despite the fact that he foresaw the future of information technology better than most scientific experts. Indeed, his visions of future information-based societies have proved to be remarkably accurate. Lem’s stories fuse together elements of fantasy, philosophy, and science, but what we can really learn from them is the nature of humanity, technology, and philosophy, as well as the values of (...) technological prophecies. Moreover, Lem gave birth to, without naming it as such, the concept of philosophy in technology, which is a perspective on technology and philosophy that explores the deep implicit philosophical foundations of technology and humanity. (shrink)

This text maps the history of debate on the authenticity of Plato's or pseudo-Plato's Alcibiades I.

Understanding Hegel's account of particularity has proven to be anything but straightforward. Two main accounts of particularity have been advanced: the particular as an example or instance and the particular as a subjective perspective on a universal concept. The problem with these accounts is that they reduce particularity either to singularity or to universality. As Derrida's analyses make apparent, the ‘structure of exemplarity’ in Hegel is quite intricate. Hegel uses ‘example’ in three senses: it means (1) ‘instance’, ‘illustration’, or (2) (...) ‘model’, ‘exemplary individual’, ‘paradigm’, or (3) a by-play (a meaning derived from Hegel's neologismbeiherspielen, in whichBeispielis understood quasi-etymologically as a ‘by-play’ of accidental moments). ABeispielin the first sense can be replaced by another instance in a free play (by-play). This play of accidental moments, however, is not entirely free; it generates a series (of replacements) that ultimately leads to an example in the second sense, to an exemplary individual. I argue that particularity can be taken as exemplarity of this kind, oscillating between a singular example and a universal paradigm. Within this by-play, the universal concept, its law, is supposed to be mediated and determined. However, out of the differences between the examples the by-play induces another law, the law of non-mediation, which may, in Derrida's view, actually negate the dialectical movement towards universality. I argue, utilizing Malabou's concept of plasticity, that this disruption may be recovered. This implies that each individual example within a series is a particular determination of the universal. Hence, we can take literally Hegel's claim that the movement of the concept is play. (shrink)

The paper analyses not well known beginning of Cracow philosophy of nature originating from the 19th century. A selected number of issues formed by two founders of Cracow philosophical centre – W. Heinrich and M. Straszewski are presented. Finally, the author tries to refl ect on modern nature philosophy in the context of its relations with tradition lasting over the centuries.

This is the first chapter of my Objects of Authority: A Postformalist Aesthetics (Routledge, 2023), made freely available online thanks to the funding received from the DFG (German Research Foundation) via Freie Universität Berlin. -/- The chapter introduces the idea of a postformalist aesthetic theory of reconstructing remote artefacts aesthetic statuses. The case is immune to the misgivings about aesthetic enquiry prevalent in the humanities and social sciences, since it does not assume that recovering such statuses involves experiencing the artefacts' (...) potential to provide an intrinsically rewarding gratification of the senses, of the intellect, or of both together. Postformalist aesthetics sees itself as part of a broad investigation into the nature of evaluative attitudes towards visually conspicuous artefacts. Such a broad investigation represents a necessary step towards establishing whether an object was meant to merit aesthetic attention. (shrink)

Stať se snaží analyzovat myšlenky málo známého rukopisu Sigmunda Freuda z roku 1895, v němž usiloval o nalezení biologických základů lidské psychiky. Tato práce je pozoruhodná ze dvou důvodů. Jednak představuje úvahy, které se výrazně od- lišují od toho, co je pro Freuda v oblasti psychologie tak typické. Freud se zde, až na výjimky, nezabývá psychoanalýzou či studiemi o hysterii, nýbrž popisuje, co by mohlo být základem těchto psychologických jevů na neurofyziologické úrovni. Druhým pozoruhodným faktem je, že tento manuskript byl (...) pozapome- nut až do poloviny 20. století, kdy byl vytištěn pod názvem Projekt vědecké psychologie. A jak je známo, neurofyziologická studia lidské mysli spojená s analýzou kognitivních funkcí se v ri- gorózní podobě objevují až na počátku 60. let. Stať se proto pokouší ukázat základní principy Projektu a naznačit, v čem byl Freud inspirativním průkopníkem moderních neurofyziologických přístupů k lidské mysli. (shrink)

In the sense-certainty chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, we find one of Hegel’s famous puns, which utilizes homophonic affinities and differences between the verb beiherspielen and the noun Beispiel. I argue that the effect of this pun is that the word Beispiel acquires, beyond its usual meaning of ‘example’ or ‘instance’, the meaning of a play of something inessential, a play in passing. After reviewing all available translations into English, I suggest that, in order to preserve this wordplay, one (...) can translate Beispiel as ‘by-play’. Furthermore, I analyse other occurrences of the word beiherspielen in the Phenomenology and elsewhere in Hegel’s texts. Next, I focus on the crucial importance of this pun for Derrida’s interpretation and critique of Hegel’s dialectic. Only for a certain loose translation of beiherspielen does Derrida’s reasoning appear plausible. I conclude with a discussion of the ideal of terminological uniformity in translating Hegel’s texts. In preserving the wordplay by translating Beispiel as ‘by-play’, one is forced to sacrifice the uniformity of translation. (shrink)

The paper critically discusses the treatment of Russellian monism in Tomáš Hříbek’s monograph Jaké to je, nebo o čem to je? (What It’s Like, or What It’s About?). According to Hříbek, Russellian monism, the approach to phenomenal consciousness inspired by the insights of Bertrand Russell, is not a real alternative to materialism, dualism and idealism. I argue that Russellian monism, on the contrary, can be viewed as a self-standing philosophical position which, moreover, avoids the main problems of these traditional approaches. (...) I first address the objection that the fundamental entities of neutral monism have a mental, rather than neutral nature. In connection with neutral monism, I also express some worries concerning Hříbek’s via negativa definition of physicalism. Thereafter I explain why the causal closure of the physical which poses a serious difficulty for dualism is not a problem for Russellian monism and emphasize that Russellian monism is able to tackle challenges, such as the conceivability argument and the knowledge argument, better than materialism. While then Russellian monism has certain affinities with materialism, dualism and idealism, it avoids the most serious challenges for these approaches and we therefore have a good reason to view it as a self-standing and promising approach to phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

When does art history begin? Art historiographers typically point to the Renaissance (Vasari) or, alternatively, to Hellenism (Pliny the Elder). But such origin stories become increasingly disconnected from contemporary disciplinary practices, especially as the latter try to rise to the challenge of conducting art history in a more diversified and global way. This essay provides an alternative account of art history’s origin, one that does not try to alleviate the sense of disconnect, but rather develops a global, non-Eurocentric account. The (...) account focuses less on genealogy and more on what necessitates something like an art-historical awareness or attention in the first place. Relying on examples from ancient Mesopotamia, it argues that art-historical thought can be identified whenever and wherever material objects are attended to or produced for their potential to manifest visibly and over time their meaning. (shrink)

The Polish philosophy of mathematics in the 19th century had its origins in the Romantic period under the influence of the then-predominant idealist philosophies. The decline of Romantic philosophy precipitated changes in general philosophy, but what is less well known is how it triggered changes in the philosophy of mathematics. In this paper, we discuss how the Polish philosophy of mathematics evolved from the metaphysical approach that had been formed during the Romantic era to the more modern positivistic paradigm. These (...) evolutionary changes are attributed to the philosophers Henryk Struve, Antoni Molicki and Julian Ochorowicz, and mathematicians Karol Hertz and Samuel Dickstein. We also show how implicit ideas (i.e., those not declared openly) from the area between the philosophy of science and general philosophy played a crucial role in the paradigm shift in the Polish philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Recenzja książki: Val Dusek, Wprowadzenie do filozofii techniki, tł. Zbigniew Kasprzyk, ser. „Myśl Filozoficzna: wprowadzenia, panorama zagadnień, historia myśli filozoficznej”, Wydawnictwo WAM, Kraków 2011, ss. 268.

The article presents the first comprehensive interpretation of the ergon argument in Aristotle’s Protrepticus. It further argues that Aristotle in this argument distinguishes the ergon of an entity from the ergon of its virtue thus presenting a complicated argumentative structure which is explicitly simplified in the Eudemian Ethics. Based on the latest attempts to reconstruct the Protrepticus, the article shows the relation of the ergon argument to its other versions in both Ethics. This account not only clarifies the relation of (...) the Protrepticus to Aristotle’s other ethical writings, it shows that Aristotle intends the argument as a transition between describing what human being does and what a good human being does well, namely a natural transition from the descriptive to the normative. (shrink)

Both Hegel and the later Wittgenstein were concerned with the problem of how to begin speculation, or the problem of beginning. I argue that despite many differences, there are surprising similarities between their thinking about the beginning. They both consider different kinds of beginnings and combine them into complex analogies. The beginning has a subjective and an objective moment. The philosophizing subject has to begin with something, with an object. For Hegel, the objective moment is pure being. For Wittgenstein, the (...) objective moment is something that cannot be doubted. As regards the subjective moment, the philosophizing subject has to decide, without any reason, to conclude her quest for the presuppositionless beginning and finally begin at the beginning. The arational moment of this decision is echoed throughout any rational thought. Any application of a (rational) rule is, ultimately, a blind decision to apply this rule. (shrink)

The Polish philosophy of mathematics in the 19th century is not a well-researched topic. For this period, only five philosophers are usually mentioned, namely Jan Śniadecki, Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, Henryk Struve, Samuel Dickstein, and Edward Stamm. This limited and incomplete perspective does not allow us to develop a well-balanced picture of the Polish philosophy of mathematics and gauge its influence on 19th- and 20th-century Polish philosophy in general. To somewhat complete our picture of the history of the Polish philosophy of (...) mathematics in those times, we here present the profiles of some lesser-known Polish Romantic philosophers of the 19th century, namely Karol Libelt, Bronisław Trentowski, and Józef Kremer. We discuss their contributions to the philosophy of mathematics and their metaphysical perspectives, and we also show how their metaphysical ideas have found some continuity in the studies of some Catholic philosophers. (shrink)

The Operator Argument against eternalism holds that having non-vacuous tense operators in the language is incompatible with the claim that every proposition has its truth-value eternally. Assuming that (1) there are non-vacuous tense operators, (2) tense operators operate on propositions and (3) tense operators which operate on eternal entities are vacuous, it may be argued that eternalism is false. In this paper, I examine the Operator Argument. The goal is threefold. First, I want to present some aspects of the debate (...) in a more elaborate way, especially those concerning formal matters. Secondly, I will argue that eternalism can escape the Operator Argument. There are two main strategies for handling the Operator Argument. The first one is based on replacing temporal operators with object-language quantifiers. The second rejects the identification of compositional semantic value with assertoric content. My third goal is to show that none of them is as good as the strategy that adopts Timestamp Semantics (Fritz in Philosl Stud 176:2933–2959, 2019). I am going to argue that the quantificational treatment of tenses is compatible with temporalism and that the arguments for rejecting the identification of compositional semantic value with assertoric content provide, in fact, a motivation for the temporalist position. At the end, I will develop Timestamp Semantics by providing a novel formalization of it, and defend it against three potential counter-arguments. (shrink)

Within theoretical and empirical enquiries, many different meanings associated with consciousness have appeared, leaving the term itself quite vague. This makes formulating an abstract and unifying version of the concept of consciousness – the main aim of this article –into an urgent theoretical imperative. It is argued that consciousness, characterized as dually accessible (cognized from the inside and the outside), hierarchically referential (semantically ordered), bodily determined (embedded in the working structures of an organism or conscious system), and useful in action (...) (pragmatically functional), is a graded rather than an all-or-none phenomenon. A gradational approach, however, despite its explanatory advantages, can lead to some counterintuitive consequences and theoretical problems. In most such conceptions consciousness is extended globally (attached to primitive organisms or artificial systems), but also locally (connected to certain lower-level neuronal and bodily processes). For example, according to information integration theory (as introduced recently by Tononi and Koch, 2014), even such simple artificial systems as photodiodes possess miniscule amounts of consciousness. The major challenge for this article, then, is to establish reasonable, empirically justified constraints on how extended the range of a graded consciousness could be. It is argued that conscious systems are limited globally by the ability to individuate information (where individuated information is understood as evolutionarily embedded, socially altered, and private), whereas local limitations should be determined on the basis of a hypothesis about the action-oriented nature of the processes that select states of consciousness. Using these constraints, an abstract concept of consciousness is arrived at, hopefully contributing to a more unified state of play within consciousness studies itself. (shrink)

This essay explores the notion of moral exemplarity, positing that our morality is underpinned by moral exemplars – paradigmatic examples of virtuous individuals or actions. Theoretical precepts of moral exemplarity are explored across historical and contemporary contexts, including the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Stoic and Christian ethics, and recent works of Alexandro Ferrara and Linda Zagzebski. This essay debates the necessity of moral exemplars, the intrinsic moral and epistemic exemplarity, and the distinction between categorical and hypothetical exemplarity, as well as (...) referencing the paradoxical Kantian dismissals of moral exemplarity. It critiques current accounts of moral exemplarity and proposes a transcendental explanation, culminating in an examination of the “exemplarist categorical imperative.”. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest pokazanie konsekwencji przyjęcia longtermizmu w wersji skrajnej dla postrzegania obowiązku likwidacji skrajnej biedy w świetle zasady równego rozważania interesów. W artykule argumentuję na rzecz hipotezy, że konsekwentny zwolennik myśli etycznej Petera Singera skorygowanej o postulaty long- termizmu musi przyjąć, iż obowiązki wobec przyszłych ludzi uchylają obowiązki wobec obecnie żyjących ludzi, nawet znajdujących się w tak niekorzystnym położeniu jak skrajna bieda. W pierwszej części artykułu szkicuję argumenty Singera na rzecz moralnego obowiązku likwidacji skrajnej biedy za pomocą efektywnych metod (...) aż do znacznego obniżenia własnego poziomu życia. Przybliżenie tych szeroko znanych poglądów stanowi ramy argumentacji na rzecz hipotezy badawczej. Następnie krótko charakteryzuję efektywny altruizm, na gruncie któ- rego wyrosło nowe podejście w ramach konsekwencjalizmu: longtermizm. Postulaty i założenia longtermizmu w ujęciu W. MacAskilla i T. Orda zestawiam z myślą Singera, aby doprowadzić ich argumentację do logicznych wniosków, które wspierają hipotezę badawczą artykułu -/- Moral duties towards the poor and longtermism The aim of the article is to show the consequences of adopting strong longtermism for the perception of the obligation to eliminate extreme poverty in the light of the principle of equal consideration of interests. In the article, I argue in favor of the hypothesis that a consistent supporter of Peter Singer’s ethical thought adjusted to the postulates of longtermism must assume that obligations towards future people abrogate duties towards current people, even those in such an unfavorable situation as extreme poverty. In the first part of the article, I sketch Singer’s arguments for the moral obligation to eliminate extreme poverty using effective methods, up to significant decrease in one’s level of life. An outline of these widely known views constitutes the framework of arguments in favor of the research hypothesis. Then I briefly characterize effective altruism, which is the basis for a new approach within consequentialism: longtermism. I compare the postulates and assumptions of longtermism as presented by W. MacAskill and T. Ord with Singer’s thought in order to bring their argumen- tation to logical conclusions that support the research hypothesis of this article. (shrink)

A commentary on Whitney Davis's essay 'Visuality and Vision: Questions for a Post-culturalist Art History' published in the same issue of Estetika.

Robert Saudek, a Czech graphologist, journalist, diplomat, playwright, and novelist, was heavily influenced in his youth by Fritz Mauthner’s critique of language. Saudek later became a pioneer in the field of psychological graphology. In this article, I examine the impact of Mauthner’s critique on Saudek’s work and evaluate whether Saudek’s approach to graphology aligns with Mauthner’s ideas. I argue that, although Saudek’s graphology is rooted in Mauthner’s critique of experimental psychology, there remains room for further development in the field of (...) psychological graphology, centering on the analysis of language. With this in mind, I compare Saudek’s method and contemporary conceptual metaphor theory. I further suggest that Saudek’s extensive use of the autographs of well-known figures follows a method of working from examples, or specimens, which is not uncommon in the philosophy of science. Based on these findings, I propose a way of understanding Saudek’s graphology that challenges its characterization as a pseudoscience. (shrink)

Aristotle’s subtle distinction between the forms of friendship and his concept of loving friend as one’s other self propose a solution to the fundamental objection to any eudaimonian theory of slavery, namely that friendship – as basically non-moral phenomenon – is but an egoistic device of one’s happy life. Aristotelian theorems are based on his concept of analogy and on a philosophically specific notion of “self”. Since both of these are rooted in Platonism, Aristotle has toevolve them dialectically in a (...) critical distance to Plato. Still, his dialectical theory of friendship needs to be rooted not in metaphysics but in political theory after all. Political friendship as a utopian perspective taken by each of the citizens in their pursuit of a close relationship with any other indicates a notion of “infinity as perfection” which presents the decisive step beyond Plato and toward the later course of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to defend the proposition that bewilderment can contribute to the interest we take in artworks. Taking inspiration from Alois Riegl’s underdeveloped explanation of why his contemporaries valued some historically distant artworks higher than recent art, I interpret the historical case of the European audiences’ fascination with the Fayum mummy portraits as involving such a bewilderment. I distinguish the claim about effective bewilderment from the thesis that aesthetic meaning resists discursive understanding and seek to establish that (...) bewilderment can figure positively in art appreciation, drawing on Richard Wollheim’s argument—developed in engaging Sigmund Freud’s essays on art—that posing obstacles to our understanding can actually contribute considerably to art’s effect: it prolongs and intensifies our engagement with the work. Riegl’s observation that some historically distant artworks have an especially strong effect is thus explained in terms of their anachronism: the effect is caused by the difficulties experienced in making sense of their contemporary look and their distant origin. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to formulate a universal characterization of consciousness, despite the conceptual vagueness of that term. The fundamental aspects of this phenomenon as studied by science consist of four features: its being accessible from the inside and the outside (subjectively and objectively), its being about something (referential), its being bodily determined, and its possessing a certain function (being useful). Approached in this way and in broad terms, consciousness seems to be a graded rather than all-or-none phenomenon. (...) However, it is argued that the main problem for the gradational approach is to establish reasonable, empirically justified limits on how extended (locally and globally) the range of a graded consciousness could be. Such constraints should then help to avoid the counterintuitive consequences of IIT (Integrated Information Theory), which ascribes consciousness even to such simple artificial systems as photodiodes. The article introduces global limits for conscious systems by pointing to the ability to individuate information as a necessary developmental condition of subjective perspectives. Local limits, meanwhile, are determined on the basis of a hypothesis about the action-oriented nature of the processes that select states of consciousness. Ultimately, the limits put forward imply that consciousness is to be characterized as individuated information in action. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether a general method is capable of accommodating the vast array of contexts in which art objects are studied. I propose a framework for such a general method, which is, however, limited to a specific research task: reconstructing the circumstances under which a culturally and/or temporally distant or “exotic” art object becomes interesting (or menacing) to look at. The proposed framework is applied to evaluate Anthony Forge’s essays on the visual art of the Abelam. (...) The essays played a central role in the rekindling of anthropological interest in visual art, but they have also been subject to criticism for forcing on Abelam art Western categories that distort the role art objects play in the Abelam world. Assessing the corpus in terms of the proposed framework allows me to exemplify the main differences between a pragmatic and a semantic approach to gaining access to the efficacy of culturally or temporally distant art. (shrink)

We present a theoretical view of the cellular foundations for network-level processes involved in producing our conscious experience. Inputs to apical synapses in layer 1 of a large subset of neocortical cells are summed at an integration zone near the top of their apical trunk. These inputs come from diverse sources and provide a context within which the transmission of information abstracted from sensory input to their basal and perisomatic synapses can be amplified when relevant. We argue that apical amplification (...) enables conscious perceptual experience and makes it more flexible, and thus more adaptive, by being sensitive to context. Apical amplification provides a possible mechanism for recurrent processing theory that avoids strong loops. It makes the broadcasting hypothesized by global neuronal workspace theories feasible while preserving the distinct contributions of the individual cells receiving the broadcast. It also provides mechanisms that contribute to the holistic aspects of integrated information theory. As apical amplification is highly dependent on cholinergic, aminergic, and other neuromodulators, it relates the specific contents of conscious experience to global mental states and to fluctuations in arousal when awake. We conclude that apical dendrites provide a cellular mechanism for the context-sensitive selective amplification that is a cardinal prerequisite of conscious perception. (shrink)

This essay re-examines the once promising idea that style analysis can provide an independent source of insight into an artifact's non-stylistic context. The essay makes explicit the consequences of treating collective style as such a source in archaeology and anthropology of art, and further develops a new framing for the idea that avoids the criticisms largely responsible for the decline in theoretical interest in the epistemic import of visual style analysis since World War II. This re-framing proposes that inference from (...) style to context is permissible on those occasions when a collective style signals by its morphology its suitability to serve a certain function. And it does so because it prescribes publicly certain modes of behavior or spectatorship. Furthermore, the public nature of the signaling may be such that it allows even uninitiated spectators to get a sense of it and thus to gain access to some of the motivations and norms informing the collective's form of life. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to defi ne a certain type of argumentation, which has been scarcely described so far in either Polish or foreign literature in the fi eld of argumentation theory, and thus to systematize the problems of research on semantic procedures in argumentation. The analysis of the ways in which a modifi cation of meaning can affect the power of arguments inclines to distinguish a new type of argumentation - semantic argumentation. The concepts of persuasive defi (...) nition and classifi cation as well as methods of their application in the formulation of an argument will also be analyzed. The defi nition of semantic argumentation proposed here may give rise to some problems, typical when introducing a new concept, which is why the second part of the article is devoted to the issues related to the proposed shape of the defi nition. The defi nition is necessary for further research on semantic argumentation, its typology and for the assessment of its correctness. (shrink)

The chapter relates Alcibiades's speech in the Symposium to the dialogue Alcibiades I. I believe, the encomium on Socrates in the Symposium should be interpreted together with the Alcibiades I. There, Plato offers a fuller picture of the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, one that gives a possible explanation of Alcibiades' failure and moral collapse, while keeping Socrates' position as a moral teacher intact. This approach presupposes that Plato wrote some of the dialogues in a deliberate order of the fictional (...) chronology. Interpreting the Symposium together with the Alcibiades I allows me then to make a broader claim concerning Plato's conception of the personal self. (shrink)

The article shows a difference in Aristotle’s ethical theory between the Protrepticus and Eudemian Ethics on the one hand and the Nicomachean Ethics on the other. The difference is explicated by means of the interpretation of the concept of ὅρος (standard) in these writings. The Protrepticus and Eudemian Ethics present ethical theory as an expertise which – together with other sciences – has a standard for decisions and actions taken from nature and the divine. The ethical theory presented in the (...) Nicomachean Ethics does not entail such a strong concept of ὅρος and it treats ethics in contrast to other, more exact, sciences. Finally, the article presents a tentative suggestion as to why it seems that the Nicomachean Ethics VI,1 raises hopes that it will provide a detailed account of ὅρος when in fact there is no discussion of it. (shrink)

In their Anachronic Renaissance, Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood identify two principles upon which, in fifteenth-century Europe, a work of art might establish its validity or authority: substitution and performance. It has become established wisdom that the dual schema of substitution and performance follows Hans Belting's dualism of the medieval cult of the image and the modern aesthetic system of art. This, I submit, is not just a mistake, but also prevents from evaluating one of the book's most ambitious contributions (...) to art-historical theory on its own merits. An analysis of the structure of the claims made by Nagel and Wood brings to light that the two concepts—substitution and performance—do not play the same role as the conceptual pair of Bild and Kunst in Belting's influential work. (shrink)

The following article is a contribution to the rich debate concerning happiness or fulfilment (eudaimonia) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It argues that eudaimonia is theōria in accordance with what Aristotle repeatedly says in Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics. However, happy life (eudaimōn bios) is a complex way of life which includes not only theoretical activity but also the exercising of other virtues including the so-called moral or social ones. The article shows that Aristotle differentiates between eudaimonia on the one (...) hand and the happy or fulfilled life (eudaimōn bios) on the other, and shows how this distinction clarifies Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia. (shrink)

This paper is my last word, in the present journal, in the debate I have been having with Walter Block on the subject of evictionism as an alleged libertarian “third way,” capable of transcending the familiar “pro-life” and “pro-choice” dichotomy. In this debate, I myself defended what might be regarded as a qualified “pro-life” position, while Block consistently argued that the mother is morally allowed to expel the fetus from her womb provided that no non-lethal methods of its eviction are (...) available. While my position articulated in this paper contains an element of what Block might consider a concession on my part—i.e., an explicit declaration that abstaining from lethal evictions of fetuses conceived as a result of rape is a libertarian duty, but only an imperfect one—I continue to regard the unqualified support of evictionism as indefensible on libertarian grounds. (shrink)

I argue that Hegel and Wittgenstein, each in their own specific way, used the idea of God at the beginning of creation as a complex analogy for other kinds of beginning, most notably the beginning of philosophical thought. Hegel’s Logic describes God’s mind before the creation of the world, i.e. God’s pure thinking. For a philosopher, beginning afresh means resolving to consider this kind of abstraction from the existence of the world. Wittgenstein, by contrast, says that the idea of a (...) creator of the world does not explain anything. It marks the terminus ad quem of asking for explanations; we must not ask further who created the creator of the world. Wittgenstein generalizes this for any kind of reasoning: “Explanations come to an end somewhere.” (Philosophical Investigations: §1) Any sort of explanation must eventually arrive at its terminus ad quem, which means only that any kind of reasoning must have its logical beginning. (shrink)

According to Phillips, (1) genuine perception is attributable to the individual (i.e. it’s a personal state/event, as opposed to sub-personal states/events in the individual’s brain); (2) since unconscious perceptual representations are ill-suited to guide action, there’s no good reason to attribute them to the individual; (3) not being attributable to the individual, they don’t instantiate genuine perception, thereby failing to support the hypothesis that genuine perception can occur unconsciously. I argue that this reasoning is flawed and can’t be easily fixed. (...) Phillips contends that unconscious perceptual representations don’t guide action because they fail to meet certain conditions that are sufficient for action guidance. But those conditions may not be necessary for action guidance. Consequently, unconscious perceptual representations may guide action even if they don’t meet Phillips’ conditions. Furthermore, due to his commitment to the distinction between personal and sub-personal states/events, Phillips isn’t in a position to argue that his conditions are necessary for action guidance. For the distinction applies to action as well as to perception, and when genuine action is identified by personal-level criteria, Phillips’ conditions turn out unnecessary for action guidance. (shrink)

The following article reconstructs Plato’s argument for the existence of god in Laws X. The article starts with interpreting the argument for the priority of soul and continues with a discussion of the argumentation for rationality of the soul in charge of heavens . The view defended here is that Plato first defines the essential characteristics of the divine, namely self-motion and rationality, and then shows that there are entities which possess these characteristics and therefore deserve to be called gods (...) or divine. The article further shows that several sub-arguments mirror the structure of the overall proof. (shrink)

The present paper was written as a contribution to ongoing methodological debates within the NCC project. We focus on the neural correlates of conscious perceptual episodes. Our claim is that the NCC notion, as applied to conscious perceptual episodes, needs to be reconceptualized. It mixes together the processing related to the perceived contents and the neural substrate of consciousness proper, i.e. mechanisms making the perceptual contents conscious. We thus propose that the perceptual NCC be divided into two constitutive subnotions. The (...) main theoretical idea that emerges as a consequence of this reconceptualization is that the neural correlate of a perceptual episode is formed in the neural interaction between content-processing and consciousness-conferring mechanisms. The paper elaborates this distinction, marshals some initial arguments in its favour, and tests it against some of the most debated theories of consciousness. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Gegenstand der Arbeit ist das Konzept der metaphorischen Be-deutung, soweit dessen Ursprung in der analytischen Philosophie zu finden ist. In der Ein-leitung der Untersuchung werden jedoch auch ältere Theorien der Metapher vorgestellt, die aus der Perspektive der metaphorischen Bedeutung relevant sind oder als relevant be-trachtet werden können. Allen diesen Theorien liegt die Definition zugrunde, dass in der Metapher etwas als etwas anderes gesehen wird. Daher kann von einer Wahrnehmungs-metaphorik die Rede sein. Das erste Kapitel meiner Arbeit behandelt die Frage, (...) wie Metaphern in der Sprache zu erkennen sind. Es wird die Schlussfolgerung gezogen, dass eine Metapher, anstatt erkannt zu werden, vielmehr als solche akzeptiert werden muss. Im zweiten Kapitel werden zwei der bedeutsamsten zeitgenössischen Theorien der Metapher, nämlich von Max Black und Donald Davidson, erörtert und kritisch ausgewertet. Der Argumentation Davidsons zufolge muss die metaphorische Bedeutung als etwas All-gemeines verstanden werden, das nicht einer bestimmten Metapher, sondern der Metapher überhaupt zukommt. Dabei bleibt Davidson aber der Wahrnehmungs-metaphorik verhaftet, die bei ihm wie bei Black keine Erläuterung findet. Gegen Ende des zweiten Kapitels und hauptsächlich im dritten Kapitel werden drei Arten des Herangehens an die Wahrnehmungsmetaphorik vorgeschlagen: Sie kann entweder verworfen oder interpretiert oder aufgehoben werden. Die zwei letztgenannten Zugänge werden anhand der Schriften von Ludwig Wittgenstein, José Ortega y Gasset und Wallace Stevens weiter ausgearbeitet. -/- Abstract: This thesis investigates the concept of the metaphorical meaning originating in analytical philosophy. Also, in the Introduction are considered older theories of the meta-phor, which can be seen from the perspective of the metaphorical meaning. All these ac-counts are based on a definition that in the metaphor is something seen as something else. Therefore, all our understanding of the metaphor issues from a visual perception. But that’s a metaphor, too. Chapter I. examines the question, how to detect metaphors in lan-guage. It is concluded that metaphors must be accepted instead of detected. The chapter II. aims at introducing and criticizing the two nowadays prominent analytical theories of metaphor given by Max Black and Donald Davidson. The consequence of the argumenta-tion by Davidson is that the concept of the metaphorical meaning has to be applied to the metaphor as such, not to any particular one. In their theories, Davidson and Black are still likening the metaphor to the visual perception but this simile or rather metaphor remains unexplained. The final chapter III. presents three approaches how to deal with the visual perception metaphor in explanations of the metaphor: it can be rejected, interpreted or sublated. The last approaches are elaborated on the basis of writings by Ludwig Wittgen-stein, José Ortega y Gasset and Wallace Stevens. (shrink)

Conceptual Metaphor Theory makes some strong claims against so-called Classical Theory which spans the accounts of metaphors from Aristotle to Davidson. Most of these theories, because of their traditional literal-metaphorical distinction, fail to take into account the phenomenon of conceptual metaphor. I argue that the underlying mechanism for explaining metaphor bears some striking resemblances among all of these theories. A mapping between two structures is always expressed. Conceptual Metaphor Theory insists, however, that the literal-metaphorical distinction of Classical Theories is empirically (...) wrong. I claim that this criticism is based rather on terminological decisions than on empirical issues. Conceptual Metaphor Theory focusses primarily on conventional metaphors and struggles to extend its mechanism to novel metaphors, whereas Classical Theories focus on novel metaphors and struggle to extend their mechanisms to conventional metaphors. Since all of these theories study metaphors from the synchronic point of view, they are unable to take into account any semantic change. A diachronic perspective is what we need here, one which would allow us to explain the role of metaphor in semantic change and the development of language in general. (shrink)