Jan Wolenski

This paper argues that science is not dependent on philosophical assumption and does not entail philosophical consequences. The concept of dependence and entailment is understood logically, that is, are defined via consequence operation. Speaking more colloquially, the derivation of scientific theorems does not use philosophical statements as premises and one cannot derive philosophical theses from scientific assertions. This does not mean that science and philosophy are completely separated. In particular, sciences leads to some philosophical insights, but it must be preceded by a hermeneutical interpretation

Władysław Witwicki was first of all a psychologist, but he graduated in philosophy from Lvov University, being one of the earliest pupils of Kazimierz Twardowski. He was a representative of the descriptivistic branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School. In the area of phsychology he put into practice the important postulate of his teacher, who persuaded his students to write original handbooks, giving Polish scholar contributions their due: it is how the work on Witwicki's Psychology began. In the area of philosophy he was particularly interested in the foundations of (descriptive) psychology. Witwicki's ontological and epistemological views are close to realism. In ethics he defended the absolute character of moral norms against scepticism and relativism. In general, Witwicki subscribed to anti-irrationalism, the common standpoint in his School

Globalization consists in the universality of the web of international economic and cultural interactions; this means that they comprise the entire world, not only its particular regions. Globalization processes are evaluated in various manners. Whereas some consider them to be an essential danger, others maintain that globalization is a device for solving many problems worrying humanity. This second perspective assumes that globalization will contribute to a relative equilibrium of the social structure of the world. The problem of the distribution of deficit goods, e.g. food or water, is a good example of questions related to globalization. The claim that distribution should be just seems natural. This paper introduces the category of participatory justice as a conceptual device which can help in considerations about the just distribution of goods.

Non-existence provides big problems for ontology and modest for logic. Logical problems of non-existence consist in licensing inferences in which sentences with empty terms are involved. The standard predicate logic solves this question by presupposing that every individual constant has an object to which it refers. This means that empty domains are excluded from semantics for the first-order logic. However, there is a temptation to consider logic without existential presuppositions.The ontological problem of non-existence leads to the question of the meaning of 'nothing'. We encounter "various conceptions of nothing" in the history of philosophy from Parmenides to our times. However, nothing (or nothingness) is always a negation of being. Since we have distributive and collective (mereological) concepts of being, we also should distinguish nothing in the distributive and mereological meaning. This difference is important because only the former leads to the paradox of nothing of all nothings, analogical to the paradox of all sets. A closer analysis of the nothing in the distributive sense shows that any meaningful talk about non-existence requires a relativisation to a fixed domain of discourse. This seems; to entail that the empty set is the formal model of nothing what means that the concept of absolute nothing in the distributive sense is simply inconsistent. To some extent, being and nothing are mutually dual. This motivates that the concept of nothing is governed by so-called dual logic connected with processes of rejection. More specifically, statements on "nothing" are not asserted but rejected.

This paper compares Kotarbiński’s reism and naturalism. It argues that basic ontological and epistemological reistic principles fit naturalism very well. In particular, the thesis claiming that there are only spatiotemporal things (bodies) gives a very simple naturalistic account of reality. Radical realism defended by Kotarbiński is a version of direct realism, a view about perception which is very accurate for naturalism. On the other hand, since difficulties of reism are also problems for naturalism, the former illuminates typical challenges for the latter

The paper is a reply to Jan Czerniawski's paper „On epistemic impotence of analytical philosophy” (Filozofia Nauki 3-4/1998). Czerniawski argues that the analytic method consists either in arbitrary stipulations or in the appeal to linguistic intuitions. He claims that the latter are subjective and moreover they cannot help deciding objective problems, while the former are an arbitrary creation of truth. Hence, the analytic method has to be assisted by an intuitive insight into objective situations. However, Czerniawski forgets one quite elementary circumstance. For there is something else between linguistic intuitions and arbitrary terminological stipulations - namely precisation of intuitions. And this is what the analytic philosophers care for the most; those analytic philosophers who are logicians at the same time, in particular. According to the analytic philosophers philosophically relevant intuitive insight into objective situations is always achieved through language. Therefore, we do not need an epistemic viagra in the form of the extra-linguistic insight directly into the objective situation

Poland has played an enormous role in the development of mathematical logic. Leading Polish logicians, like Lesniewski, Lukasiewicz and Tarski, produced several works related to philosophical logic, a field covering different topics relevant to philosophical foundations of logic itself, as well as various individual sciences. This collection presents contemporary Polish work in philosophical logic which in many respects continue the Polish way of doing philosophical logic. This book will be of interest to logicians, mathematicians, philosophers, and linguists.

Metalogic (as a part of metamathematics) deals with the properties of formalised mathe- matical theories. Its applicability to empirical theories is an object of debate. The paper defends the moderate view that although it is difficult to expect such spectacular results, as have been obtained on mathematical theories, nevertheless the metalogical analysis of the first two gives us some benefits. Empirical theories may be understood as axiomatised sets of propositions closed with the operation of logical consequence. Two questions illustrate the thesis of this paper, namely the question of the elimination of theoretical terms and the question of the so- called philosophical presuppositions of science. As regards the second problem, a negative thesis is defended here: science is not based on philosophical presuppositions as premises of scientific reasonings