We would like to present and discuss certain ideas developed by Jerzy Płonka. Jerzy Płonka was a Polish algebraist whose scientific interests included equational logics considered in terms of the structure of the identities that define them. In this paper, we present two constructions by Jerzy Płonka, which served as tools in his work on semantics for classes determined by the so-called-compatible and regular identities. We are referring to the dispersion and the Płonka sum.
The paper is devoted to the problem of the Master Argument– a historical argu ment of the Greek philosopher Diodorus Cronus. The objective of Diodorus’ argument was to evidence the correctness of the temporarily defined modalities: necessity and probability. Since the original argument was lost, many contemporary logicians have tried to reformulate it, using modern tools of logic. We present the philosophical significance of one of such reconstructions, relying on the monograph (On the Sea Battle Tomorrow That May Not Happen. A Logical and Philosophical Analysis of the Master Argument), by showing that some reconstructions of the Master Argument allowed to be interpreted in the branching time structures. This is the main argument to prove that despite the acceptance of Diodorus’ notions, the Aristotelian Sea-Battle Tomorrow may still happen or not happen. On the one hand, we focus on problems of logical tools of temporal logic and logical structures of time involved in the reconstructions of Diodorus’ argument. We mainly compare Jarmu˙ zek’s proposal with another reconstruction, also founded upon positional logic. On the other hand, we show what kind of structures must be assumed if the inferences are valid. This enables us to discuss branching and non–branching time structures that correspond to philosophical deterministic and indeterministic views on the nature of time. We conclude that logical analysis of the Master Argument raises some methodological hints for the joint use of historical and logical analysis.
My learned colleague and I tangle with each other on the libertarian analysis of crime, punishment, property rights, and unjust enrichment. I maintain an objective four-part theory of punishment: two teeth for a tooth (first one tooth and then a second tooth), third, costs of capture, and then, finally, fourth, payment for scaring the victim. But no more. Once the miscreant has undergone his full, very draconian punishment, no more should be taken from him. If he wins a lottery for $1 million after paying for the ticket with a stolen $5, he may keep this money, pro vided he has fully paid his punishment debt. Dominiak maintains, in contrast, that the law-breaker may not benefit from his crime, and this would appear to be a para digm case of just that.
The article presents the intellectual biography of Mieczysław Wallis in the light of philosophical inspirations. Numerous, unedited and previously un published archival materials of this representative of the second generation of the Lvov-Warsaw School prove that his intellectual development and scientific attitude were significantly influenced by the attitudes and views of many outstanding Pol ish philosophers of the 20th century. The article will therefore consider the following research issues: Under the influence of what philosophical inspirations did Wallis’s interests and creative achievements evolve? Who among the representatives of the philosophical milieu had the most intellectually stimulating effect on him? What was the nature of his relationships with these intellectuals? Did Wallis draw motivation for creative work only from thinkers who displayed a methodological attitude close to his own? There are many indications that resolving the above issues will open up new research perspectives for a full understanding of the phenomenon of Wallis’s creative profile, allowing for the determination of his actual contribution both to the achievements of the Kazimierz Twardowski School and to native philosophy of the 20th century.
This article reconsiders the metaphysical status of materia prima in Leibniz’s philosophy by analyzing its identification with vis passiva primitiva – the primitive passive force. Contrary to prevalent negative interpretations that reduce materia prima to mere privation or metaphysical deficiency, the paper argues that Leibniz attributes to it a real, though non-self-sufficient, function within the inter nal structure of substance. Drawing on key texts such as Specimen Dynamicum, De ipsa natura, and the correspondence with De Volder, the analysis shows that materia prima serves not only as a source of resistance, inertia, and impenetrability, but also as a principle of differentiation within the dynamics of substance. The paper further demonstrates that materia prima is implicitly connected to the law of series (lex se riei), and thus plays a crucial role in shaping the rhythm, order, and internal articula tion of perceptual development. As a result, vis passiva primitiva appears not as a pas sive remainder, but as a structural condition for the realization of monadic activity in the phenomenal world.
Ekskluzywizm to pogląd, zgodnie z którym filozofia jest praktyką specyficzną dla kultury europejskiej i nie występuje nigdzie poza nią. W niniejszym artykule podejmę próbę wyjaśnienia pochodzenia ekskluzywizmu. Postaram się wykazać, że – wbrew jego popularności – jest on poglądem stosunkowo młodym. Wykluczenie myśli nieeuropejskiej z zakresu pojęcia filozofii było obce autorom starożytnym, średniowiecznym i wczesnonowożytnym. Za Peterem Parkiem uznam, że korzeni poglądu wykluczającego należy upatrywać w metodologicznej reformie historii filozofii jako dyscypliny, której z kolei towarzyszyło powstanie pojęcia kanonu filozoficznego. Historyczny przegląd poglądów na historię filozofii oraz na dopuszczalny zakres jej treści zakończę analizą trzech najpopularniejszych w Polsce podręczników akademickich. Poprzez rekapitulację poglądów Władysława Tatarkiewicza, Frederica Coplestone’a i Giovanniego Reale w sprawie istnienia filozofii nieeuropejskiej postaram się pokazać, jak ekskluzywizm reprodukuje się w swojej naiwnej, bezrefleksyjnej formie.
The aim of this paper is to elicit the phenomena of responsibility and non-responsibility (non-responsibility seems to be better word than irresponsibil ity) in Martin Heidegger’s philosophical project and analyze them as ways of Being that form the indispensable part of the meaning constitution carried out by human being. As included into human Being, responsibility and non-responsibility become ontological structures. The first part of the paper focuses on revealing the primordial responsibility understood as a responding to the call of Being as the source of mean ing. In the second part, the emphasis is put on non-responsibility, which essentially accompanies responsibility. Concomitantly, an additional dimension of responsibil ity (and non-responsibility) is distinguished, understood as the way in which the play of primordial responsibility and non-responsibility takes place.
Between 1907 and 1910, Władysław Tatarkiewicz studied at the Uni versity of Marburg. In 1910, he defended his doctoral thesis there, and in 1912, he published an article in the festschrift dedicated to one of his mentors, Hermann Co hen. In both texts, the young Polish philosopher addresses the problem of the natural view of the world (natürliche Weltansicht). On this occasion, he modifies the concept of the transcendental method, which serves as the methodological foundation of the Marburg philosophical research program, in an intriguing way. This approach was a complete novelty within the Marburg intellectual circle during that period. This is particularly noteworthy, as similar modifications were later adopted by other repre sentatives of the Marburg School.
This study argues that Kant’s logic lectures around 1782 can be seen not only as the ‘seedbed’ (“Keimzelle”) of his critical philosophy but also as the preparatory ground of his philosophy of history. By examining Samuel Grosser’s Pharus intellectus and Christian Wolff’s Philosophia rationalis sive logica as major sources, it shows how allegories of a collective voyage, the extension of teleology into history, and the example of Poland’s “bear child” informed Kant’s reflections on the development of reason. The central claim is that the passage from logica naturalis (natural state of thinking) towards logica artificialis (scientific state of logic) provides the structural schema for Kant’s later conception of historical progress. Logic thus becomes both a completed instance of the unfolding of natural dispositions and the analogue by which Kant conceptualized the hidden regularities of human history.
According to Pierre Bayle (1696–1697), a precursor of the French En lightenment, best known for his Dictionnaire historique et critique, traditional theod icy is flawed in that it uses human free will to explain the existence of moral evil. In his view, God could eliminate sin by endowing sinners with divine grace, thereby biasing their will towards good. In response to Bayle’s critique of theodicy, Bogusław Wolnie wicz1 concludes that sinners must exist according to the laws of logic, and that the freedom of the human will is an obstacle that God’s omnipotence cannot overcome.
The text presents the translators’ commentary on a fragment of Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury’s notebooks entitled Life. These notebooks, never intended for publication, significantly complement the contents of the philosopher’s published works by highlighting their Stoic elements and by drawing analogies between Shaftesbury’s own life and the writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.
I have replied individually to five scholars who criticize my evictionist theory: Dominiak and Wysocki on Redundancy, Wąsiak on Negative Homesteading, Wiśniewski on Praxeology, and Wójtowicz on Peril. In the present paper, I respond to all of them together. They have each raked me over the goals, in different ways, to be sure, but they are all united in rejecting my thesis on the libertarian view on abortion. I am grateful for their attention to this theory of mine; it cannot but help to better publicize it.
Wójtowicz argues that when a person puts another in danger, he owes the latter the obligation to help him. He maintains that by creating a fetus, the mother is placing him in a state of peril. Therefore, she is obligated to protect him. How so? By bringing him to term after a full nine months of pregnancy. Therefore, my theory of evictionism is erroneous, since I maintain the mother has a right to evict her pre-born baby at any time during her pregnancy.
Walter Block argues that the correct libertarian approach to abortion is evictionism. In his view, it follows from the fact that a woman has the right to self-ownership that she has the right to evict an unwanted child from the domain of her body. But according to libertarian theory, one can acquire a positive duty if, among other things, one's actions endanger another person. Therefore, it can be argued that the woman does not have the right to evict the foetus because by conceiving the child she has endangered it and therefore has a positive duty to carry the pregnancy to term (until the child is able to survive outside the womb). Łukasz Dominiak has presented a critique of this argument, pointing out that conceiving a child cannot generate positive obligations on the part of the parents because it is not a trespass and because one cannot endanger someone who does not exist. In this paper I argue that his criticism is unconvincing: to generate a positive duty, an act does not have to be a trespass. Nor is it true that one cannot endanger someone who does not exist. Consequently, if we accept Block's assumption that the child is a human being with a right to self-ownership from the moment of conception, then, according to libertarian ethics, eviction should be prohibited and the mother should carry the pregnancy to term.
Praxeological economics has proven itself to be a potent source of universally valid insights capable of circumscribing and deepening our normative intuitions. In view of this, in the present paper, I argue that invoking economic concepts such as the general conditions of action, complementary capital goods, and long-term transactional relationships allows for articulating a critique of evictionism that is grounded in more than deductions derived from essentially contestable normative intuitions. By doing so, I intend to approach the subject of evictionism from the perspective of positive science, thus hopefully demonstrating that there is still an untapped interdisciplinary potential to be unleashed in discussions on fundamental ethical issues.
In “Evictionism: The Only Compromise Solution to the Abortion Controversy”, Walter Block defends a position in the abortion debate known as “evictionism”. According to this view, a woman has the right to evict a fetus from her body for whatever reason at any time she wishes during the pregnancy, provided it is done in the gentlest manner possible. In the present article, I analyze the relationship between evictionism and negative homesteading – another well-known theory proposed by Block. I argue that these two views are incompatible, i.e., that holding both simultaneously leads to contradiction. I also suggest a way to resolve this contradiction by presenting an argument against negative homesteading.
The present paper is a response to Walter Block’s critique (Block 2024, 57–66) of our recent argument (Dominiak & Wysocki 2023, 527–540) against his theory of partial impermissibility of abortion called evictionism. This time, however, instead of targeting Block’s thesis that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser again, we take it for granted – merely arguendo, to be sure – and argue that even if this problematic thesis is admitted, evictionism should still be rejected as either unlibertarian or redundant vis-à-vis the otherwise well-established doctrine of killing and letting die. Our main argument focuses on the problematic nature of eviction and shows that requiring eviction as the gentlest method of stopping the unwanted fetus’s invasion of the woman’s rights involves burdening her with positive duties, an anathema to libertarianism. Presumably, the notion of eviction could be interpreted in a way that does not introduce positive duties into libertarianism. However, then eviction would be reduced to letting the fetus die, rendering the entire project of evictionism essentially superfluous as compared with the age-old doctrine of doing and allowing.
Dominiak and Wysocki are willing to stipulate, arguendo only, that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser. That is a major claim of mine in this intellectual battle I have been having with these two authors. So I greatly appreciate their attempt to show that my evictionist thesis should “still be rejected as either unlibertarian or redundant” even under conditions very favorable to my own view. Nonetheless, I persist in my proposition despite the very thorough, intelligent, reasonable, well thought out criticism they make of it.
