Jan Wolenski

Gaunilo argued that Anselm could prove the existence of many perfect objects, for example, the happiest island, that is, happier than any other island. More formally, Gaunilo’s arguments were intended to show that the sentence “God exists‘ does not follow from premises accepted by Anselm. Contemporary versions of the ontological proof use the maximalization procedure in order to demonstrate that God exists as the most perfect being. This paper argues that this method, which is based on maximalization, is not sufficient to prove God’s existence. Thus, a “contemporary Gaunilo‘ can repeat objections raised by his ancestor.

The author opposes two kinds of rationalism to irrationalism. The first kind of rationalism, approved by the author, considers as rational these cognitive procedures that can be communicated and verified intersubjectively. The author calls this view – after K. Ajdukiewicz – anti-irrationalism. On the other hand, irrationalism is a position that negates the need of ability to communicate intersubjectively and to verify cognitive procedures. The views of mystics or of H. Bergson could be an example of irrationalism. The second kind of irrationalism is apriorism, i.e. the position that ascribes certainty to cognitive results achieved by intuition. Data coming from intuition are not intersubjectively communicable, intersubjectively verified and they are not subject to falsification, hence the second kind of rationalism, i.e. apriorism, is in fact irrationalism. Phenomenology, stressing the importance of apriori cognition, would then have many things in common with irrationalism.

Abstract.The authors concentrate on the analysis of the concept of permission. After a general account of differing concepts of permission both with regard to different legal theories and to different legal ideologies, they argue in favour of a “radical” imperativism which leaves no place for permissive norms. Thus, in contrast with the logic of normative language (LNL) purported by Alchourrón and Bulygin, the authors figure out a system of deontic logic ‐ supplemented by devices of the possible world semantics ‐ according to which a normative system (N) is conceived as a set of logical consequences of a certain finite set of basic obligations and no room is left either for the concept of weak permission or for the concept of strong permission. Finally the authors raise some criticisms concerning the view maintained by Alchourron and Bulygin on strong permission.*