This review article presents an important, newly published study of Popper's critical method by Zbigniew Liana. The review emphasizes the very high level of the study, points to its originality, and explains why the book is recommended mainly to specialists of Popper's thought. It is also explained how the book manages to contain so many original and valuable analyses in a small volume.

Wesley Wildman's and Kate Stockly's book Spirit Tech - The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering is an interesting compilation and analysis of current research on technologies of spiritual experience. The book offers the latest in neuroscience, very bold predictions about the development of spirituality technology, and very far-reaching conclusions about the development of religion. The authors take an interdisciplinary approach to their work, touching on neuroscience, medical engineering, psychology, religion, and ethics. They do not shy away (...) from the big philosophical, psychological, and ethical questions, and they specifically focus on questions of authenticity, meaning, safety, and social responsibility arising from the marriage of technology and spirituality. Modern neuroscience along with engineering has already created new areas of science-faith and technology-faith relationships. Technological substitutes for spirituality are also increasingly becoming a new challenge to traditional spirituality and to religion. (shrink)

This article is a review of Frans de Waal's book Mama's Lust Hugs. Animal Emotions and what They Tell Us about Ourselves, which was released in Polnad in 2019. The book deals with the problem of animal emotionality. One of the conclusions reached by the author and which was emphasized in the review is the thesis that there is no such thing as unique human emotions that animals would not have. Emotions are universal; they are shared both by humans and (...) animals. The review noted that although the book is interesting, it is not new in terms of content, because it deals with issues that de Waal wrote about many times in his earlier publications. On the other hand, thanks to the collection and inclusion in one book of the issues related to emotionality in animals, the publication can be a good starting point for reflection not only on animals, but also on humans and their place in the world. It puts the reader in facing the question of human nature. For this reason, what has been tried to show in the review, Frans de Waal's book is a good example of how scientific issues lead to philosophical reflections. (shrink)

The paper outlines various concepts of rationality, their characteristics and consequences. In the first, most general part, the metaphysical, instrumental and discursive rationality is distinguished. The following part focuses on instrumental rationality and the rational choice theory and ordinal and cardinal utility, expected utility and game theory, respectively. All those concepts are summarised as being the most mathematically elegant and mostly decidable and helpful in the decision-making process. Giving primacy to individual preferences and withholding the judgment on their “objective” value, (...) they are also devoid of double standards. They are, however, strongly normative and weakly coincide with actual agents’ behaviour. Empirical findings on agents’ decision making seem to demonstrate their irrationality, unless we introduce into the analysis different concepts of rationality, namely based on costs efficient heuristics, inclusive fitness and ecological rationality. They are discussed respectively, and although they seem better to explain the set of humans’ seemingly irrational behaviour, they are likely week in predicting that behaviour. They are also losing their normative dimension and thus cease to be helpful in decision making. Applying the particular theory of rationality, either descriptively or normatively, seems to depend strongly on the environment, which can be characterised by its extension from a small to a large world. The more the small world’s features an environment reveals, the more effective is the application of the particular model of rationality. Beyond the small worlds, rule stochasticity, underspecification and misspecification and the only reasonable method are consecutive trials and errors, which eventually may reduce the large world to the small one. (shrink)

Analytic description, according to members of the Lvov-Warsaw School like Czeżowski, Ajdukiewicz, Ossowska, Tarski is a powerful and an indispensable tool, not only in philosophy but also in any natural science – in psychology especially. It should be equally respected together with empirical analysis and even it is recommended that it should precede any further research. Therefore the book Analiza i konstrukcja: o metodach badania pojęć w Szkole Lwowsko-Warszawskiej [Analysis and construction: on the methods of researching concepts in the Lvov-Warsaw (...) School] can be recommended to philosophers as well as scientists. (shrink)

Between 11–14 February 2021 the first international Philosophical Workshop organized by The Lvov–Warsaw School Research Center and Kazimierz Twardowski Philosophical Society of Lviv took place in the on–line version due to the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic. The working languages of the event were Polish, Ukrainian and English. The coordinators’ goal was to refer to the tradition of seminar of Kazimierz Twardowski, who was not only a distinguished philosopher but also a great educator, to stimulate interest and support for the young generation (...) of researchers into the heritage of the Lvov–Warsaw School. It is claimed that due to Twardowski’s unprecedented didactical engagement he managed to upbring dozens of Professors like Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Stefan Baley, Leopold Blaustein, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Izydora Dąmbska, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, tanisław Leśniewski, Jan Łukasiewicz, Władysław Witwicki. (shrink)

James Lovelock, who is famous for the Gaia hypothesis, has written a new book called Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. It is an extended argument about an impending new epoch on Earth called Novacene in which biological life as we know it will evolve into lifeforms based on cyber technology built from non-biological materials. Novacene may be seen as a development of the ideas presented in Lovelock’s earlier book A Rough Guide to The Future. In Novacene, the Earth will (...) be populated by cyborgs, which are self-replicating and self-improving mechanical systems that will eventually dominate and rule the Earth. These cyborgs will possess intelligence and knowledge beyond our understanding. (shrink)

In his book Wojciech Sady attempts to reconstruct the structure of the fundamental transformations that can be described as the relativistic and quantum revolution. Referring to rich historical material and Ludwik Fleck’s reflections on the development of scientific knowledge, the author tries to explain how it is possible that “scientists began to think differently than they had been taught.” Sady’s work, although not devoid of somewhat weaker points, is a brave and thought-provoking attempt to propose his own explanation of the (...) mechanisms of the aforementioned transformations. (shrink)

For millennia, philosophers have pondered the question, “Who are we?” It becomes a burning question at an age of scientific and technological civilization and a world full of conveniences, mainly because human life is still not comfortable. Adam Hart takes up the challenge of confronting the evolutionary achievements of the Homo species and the environment it has produced, showing that our life—for fundamental reasons—cannot be the realization of idyllic visions.

We live in extraordinary times for cosmologists. A vast amount of new astronomical data is pushing our model of the universe to its limits. An interest in cosmology is growing. The Little Book of Cosmology by Lyman Page is a concise up-to-date approachable introduction to the topic.

The pivotal point in the Austrian literature on homogeneity, choice and indifference was constituted by Nozick’s On Austrian Methodology. Nozick provoked a long debate on the above notions within Austrianism. The aim of this paper is to elaborate such an account of homogeneity that would take the sting out of Nozick’s challenge and allow for non-trivial formulation of the law of diminishing marginal utility. Hence, we shall first take a closer look at the debate on indifference within the Austrian camp, (...) while defending and building upon the Hoppean account vis-à-vis Block’s criticism. Our justification of the Hoppean position shall consist in showing that his account of the correct description of an action is not an ad hoc move aimed at solving just one problem of indifference but is highly intuitive and widely applicable. We conclude by restating the above-mentioned law, thus demonstrating that the Nozickian objection can be successfully replied. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology offers a fairly ‘patriarchal’ picture of sex differences, according to which men are, ‘by nature’, much more polygamously disposed, much more desirous of power over the opposite sex, and much more aggressive than women. However, the picture – at least in its components and – becomes problematic if one looks at the history of conceptions of paternity accepted by our ancestors. It is argued in the paper that the very fact that our ancestors accepted various and essentially different (...) conceptions of paternity casts a shadow of doubt on the ‘patriarchal’ picture of sex differences. (shrink)

In this review, we present the philosophical blog “Cafe Aleph”, which was founded by Witold Marciszewski in collaboration with Paweł Stacewicz. The blog contains numerous expert entries on issues from the border of philosophy, science and technology. “Cafe Aleph” is an area for developing, popularizing and discussing the idea of philosophy of computing.

Andrzej Dragan’s book Quantechism or a cage for people is a great popular science book to start a fascinating adventure with the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. It is written in an easy language, does not require from the reader a deep knowledge of contemporary physical issues, while describing, illustrating and explaining them very well. Instead, it requires broader historical knowledge and at least basic philosophical knowledge for verification, helping to bring out what is most valuable in the book. (...) Unfortunately, the book, while popularizing science, also makes a terrible mess and does a lot of damage to the deeper understanding of physics, its history, and the meaning and function of philosophy and religion. And so it can become an attractive and appealing, but nevertheless a trap-cage for thinking people. (shrink)

Galileo's paradox of infinity involves comparing the set of natural numbers, N, and the set of squares, {n2 : n ∈ N}. Galileo sets up a one-to-one correspondence between these sets; on this basis, the number of the elements of N is considered to be equal to the number of the elements of {n2 : n ∈ N}. It also characterizes the set of squares as smaller than the set of natural numbers, since ``there are many more numbers than squares". (...) As a result, it concludes that infinities cannot be compared in terms of greater--lesser and the law of trichotomy does not apply to them. Cantor's cardinal numbers provide a measure for sets. Cantor gives a definition of the relation greater–lesser between cardinal numbers and establishes the law of trichotomy for these numbers. Yet, when Cantor's theory is applied to subsets of N, it gives that any set can be either finite or of the power ℵ0. Thus, although the set of squares is the subset of N, they are of the same cardinality. Benci, Di Nasso introduces specific numbers to measure sets called numerosities. With numerosities, the following claim is true: numerosity of A < numerosity of B, whenever A ⊈ B. In this paper, we present a simplified version of the theory of numerosities that applies to subsets of N. This theory complies with Galileo's presupposition that when A ⊈ B, then the number of elements in A is smaller than the number of elements in B. Specifically, we show that as the numerosity of N is the number α, the numerosity of the set of squares is the integer part of the number √α, that is ⌊√α⌋, and the inequality ⌊√α⌋ < α holds. (shrink)

he article is a review of Kamil Trombik’s book, in which he presents particular concepts of the philosophy of nature at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków in the years 1978 to 1993. It was the first and decisive period in the formation of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Academy. The goal of the monograph was to demonstrate the factors that contributed to philosophy of nature becoming one of the most prominent and representative trends in this academic center, (...) as well as to attempt to answer the question of why “philosophy in science,” developed initially by Michał Heller and Józef Życiski, became the main style of doing philosophy of nature there. In the reporting part of the review main problems that the author raises are presented. They are collected in three chapters of his work, which corresponds to three initial phases of the formation of the philosophical department at the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Then, in the critical part, some aspects of Trombik’s work are assessed. First of all, the attention is paid to the part concerning the determination of the sources of “philosophy in science” which—although it seems to be the most interesting—is also the least original part of the work. Next, the contribution of Karol Wojtyła and many other lesser-known scientists and philosophers to the formation of an interdisciplinary atmosphere and the promotion of “philosophy in science” in the structures of The Pontifical Academy of Theology and the Krakow intellectual milieu is also appreciated. Many hypotheses and research perspectives in Trombik’s book are highlighted in the review, demonstrating the importance of this Krakow research center for the history of Polish science and philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to investigate the philosophical and theological validity and coherence of the classical concept of a miracle within the contemporary scientific world view. The main tool in this process will be the cognitive standard model of the formation of religious beliefs operative in the cognitive science of religion. The application of this model shows why an intentional agent is assigned as responsible for the occurrence of events with no visible cause such as a miracle: miracles (...) are events that violate the intuitively expected behaviors observable in the physical reality. It will become evident that much of the conceptual content of the classical understanding of miracles can be retained despite of the ontological and epistemological challenges of the contemporary science. In particular, this concerns the semantic view of miracles in which a miracle does not occur as an objective Divine intervention but qualifies as religious interpretation of the natural course of events always in reference to a cultural and personal context that is unique to those who directly experience these events either as direct recipients or as observers. (shrink)

The Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Cracow has a very rich tradition that has been studied by many and recently by Kamil Trombik. The very difficult period for the Church and for philosophy during the materialistic Marxist ideology was an opportunity for card. K. Wojtyła to outline a new mode of dialog between science and religion. The future Center, organized by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński not only captured this idea but transformed it into an academic institution centered on the (...) idea of philosophy in science, which was also developed at the Vatican Observatory by W.G. Stoeger et al. Trombik’s book is an excellent study of the historical context and initial years of activity of the Center and its development. (shrink)

The Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Cracow has a very rich tradition that has been studied by many and recently by Kamil Trombik. The very difficult period for the Church and for philosophy during the materialistic Marxist ideology was an opportunity for card. K. Wojtyła to outline a new mode of dialog between science and religion. The future Center, organized by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński not only captured this idea but transformed it into an academic institution centered on the (...) idea of philosophy in science, which was also developed at the Vatican Observatory by W.G. Stoeger et al. Trombik’s book is an excellent study of the historical context and initial years of activity of the Center and its development. (shrink)

Presented here is a review of the book by Michael Wooldridge The Road to Conscious Machines: The Story of AI. The book was published in 2021 by Pelican Publishing Company. The book presents a philosophical exploration of the AI-related quest to understand the essence of our minds, ethics, and consciousness. Nonetheless, the book is unconventional as it focuses on failures of past AI programs rather than on AI success stories. The author also indicates the possible pathways to develop new, more (...) efficient AI paradigms. The short technical section at the end of the book offers more in-depth information on topics like Prolog, Bayesian, and deep neural networks. (shrink)

We present the consequences of the assumption of the classical and quantum nature of information storing and processing in the brain. These assumptions result in different behaviours of consciousness under a hypothetical brain copy experiment. The subject is important in the context of ‘mind uploading’ considerations.

Since 1959, when C.P. Snow delivered his seminal lecture The Two Cultures on the lack of understanding between scholars working in the humanities and their colleagues from science departments, the gap between the two groups has been one of the most notorious clichés of contemporary Western culture. The aim of this article is to show that this seemingly insurmountable abyss between sciences and the humanities that was brought to the forefront during the mid-20th century is slowly receding into history. Literature (...) studies today is heavily indebted to modern science. Biology, physics, and ecology are among the most important subjects scholars of literature have to take into account. In order to prove this point I shortly describe literary genres which introduce modern science to the readers: science fiction, cyberpunk, solarpunk, lablit, quantum fiction, and cli-fi. I also refer to the newly-emerged schools of criticism-science fiction studies, ecocriticism and evocriticism-to show how scholars discuss these texts within the framework of the humanities. Additionally, I give a sample discussion of one of the cli-fi’s classics, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World and also shortly discuss two science fiction novels concerned with the civilisational conflict between science and humanities: Stanislaw Lem’s His Master’s Voice and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. (shrink)

This review discusses the content of Mateusz Hohol’s new book Foundations of Geometric Cognition. Mathematical cognition has until now focused mainly on human numerical abilities. Hohol’s work tackles geometric cognition, an issue that has not been described in previous investigations into mathematical cognition. The main strength of the book lies in its critical analysis of a huge amount of results from empirical experiments. The author formulates his theoretical proposals very carefully, avoiding radical and one-sided solutions. He claims that human geometric (...) cognition is based mainly on two core systems, both being phylogenetically hardwired, namely the system of layout geometry and the system of object geometry. The interaction of these systems becomes amplified in the individual development of the mind, which, in turn, is supported by the use of language. The second part of the review contains the reviewer’s remarks concerning the history of geometry, experiments related to spatial representations, and the role of geometry in mathematical education. (shrink)

This review discusses the content of Mateusz Hohol’s new book Foundations of Geometric Cognition. Mathematical cognition has until now focused mainly on human numerical abilities. Hohol’s work tackles geometric cognition, an issue that has not been described in previous investigations into mathematical cognition. The main strength of the book lies in its critical analysis of a huge amount of results from empirical experiments. The author formulates his theoretical proposals very carefully, avoiding radical and one-sided solutions. He claims that human geometric (...) cognition is based mainly on two core systems, both being phylogenetically hardwired, namely the system of layout geometry and the system of object geometry. The interaction of these systems becomes amplified in the individual development of the mind, which, in turn, is supported by the use of language. The second part of the review contains the reviewer’s remarks concerning the history of geometry, experiments related to spatial representations, and the role of geometry in mathematical education. (shrink)

The paper briefly presents a genesis of the research project called the theology of science initiated by Michał Heller in early 1980s, but also enriched by the remarks of Józef Życiński. Then the main features of the new Heller’s book Science and theology – not necessarily exclusively on one planet are discussed. The book develops and strengthens the early ideas of theology of science. The paper draws also attention to another author—C.B. Kaiser who—since a dozen years—has been developing a similar (...) project: theology of scientific endeavor. It is also suggested that the Heller’s project, especially in its axiological and praxeological aspects, could take advantage of the achievements of several Francophone authors who once developed a field of the so-called theology of earthly realities. (shrink)

Biosemiotics deals with the processes of signs in all dimensions of nature. Semiosis is the primary form of intelligence. Intelligent behaviour becomes immediately understandable in this approach because semiosis combines causality with the triadic structure of the semiotic sign. Intelligence is a process created in a given context. In the course of evolution organisms have learned to create increasingly sophisticated internal representations of external state. Semiosis is the precursor of the emergence of a feature we consider intelligence. Biosemiotics also draws (...) attention to the distributed intelligence, which relies on external semiotic scaffoldings as much as on the subject’s abilities and knowledge. (shrink)