Andrzej Dabrowski

In recent decades, there has been a renewed attention to the emotions amongst scientists of different disciplines: psychology, psychiatry, neurobiology, cognitive science, computer science, sociology, economics, and many others. There are many research centers and scientific journals devoted to affective states already existing. However, studies of emotion have a very long history - especially in philosophy. Philosophers first raised many important questions about emotions and their contribution to the discovery of the nature of emotions is very important. The aim of the article is the reconstruction of the views on emotions of particular thinkers in history of philosophy.

The problem of intentionality, which constitutes the basic theme of the book, has its roots in Brentano’s philosophical and psychological reflections. Intentionality refers to mental phenomena (perceptions, beliefs, desires, judgments etc.) being directed toward something. Intentionality plays a crucial role within phenomenological epistemology. Furthermore, it is one of the most important issues of analytic philosophy, particularly within analytically-oriented philosophies of mind and language. In the latter framework, intentionality constitutes, among other things, part of the pragmatic theory of language, which explains why the author at a certain point turns his attention to pragmatics. Clearly, the author does not limit his analysis to the nature of mental intentionality, but also touches on the relationship between intentionality and semantics. Here semantics is understood as the study of sense, reference and objects of reference, and the logical values of truth and falsity, which roughly corresponds to phenomenological and analytical semantics. What is analysed is the role of intentionality in the semantics of Frege and Husserl, intensional semantics and action theory semantics (other types of semantics, e.g. generative, cognitive and possible world semantics, are not mentioned). One of the questions posed by the author has to do with what it means for language to be intentional. What is more fundamental: should we speak about the intentionality of thought or the intentionality of language? Is intentionality an indispensable component of meaning in language? The nature of reference is also addressed: How can words and sentences refer to the world? What are the “mechanics” of reference? The author pays special attention to various theories of meaning, since it appears that an integral and competent theory of meaning should involve intentionality.

The aim of the paper is to examine the nature of moral and legal norms in a broader context: first, taking into account logical and methodological assumptions, second, in the perspective of psychology of emotions and legal policy. The basic subject of the research carried out by Leon Petrażycki was represented by law. Originally, it had a psychological character, not an objective, eternal, and unchanging one. To fully understand the genesis and nature of morality and law, Petrażycki addressed the study of mental phenomena, especially emotional experiences. First, however, he developed appropriate rules of logic and scientific methodology. Then he developed a new classification of mental phenomena, among which the fundamental role is played by bilateral emotions. At some stage, emotions begin to cooperate with cognitive processes, first of all with imaginations. Imaginations of acts, such as theft, betrayal, murder, can cause repulsive emotions, and type imaginations, such as truthfulness, charity, justice can evoke apulsive emotions. On the basis of such associations, judgments are created over time, the content of which becomes a basis for fundamental rules of conduct, that is, for norms. There are two fundamentally different types of norms: moral norms and legal norms. The norms of the first type are imperative and represent the nature of validity, while the norms of the second type are imperative-attributive and they also always entitle someone to something, i.e. they give someone a right. This division determines a fundamental difference between morality and law.

Embodied cognition: assumptions, theses and challenges: The paper aims at providing a concise presentation of the concept of embodied cognition that emerged in the cognitive sciences a few decades ago and has gained great popularity among empirically and philosophically informed researchers. The term “embodied cognition” is used by the author in two senses. The narrow sense implies that the body plays an important role in the process of cognition. In the broad sense “embodied cognition” is to characterize the general tendency within cognitive science which finds its articulation in the 4E perspective on cognition. The working hypothesis of the 4E perspective is that cognition depends on the characteristics of the agent’s body and its interaction with the physical and social environment. It emphasizes that cognition is: embodied, embedded, enacted, extended. After reconstructing the key concepts and basic assumptions the author offers a brief appraisal of the views under discussion. He claims that the characteristics of such a trend are incomplete and not homogeneity since the perspective encompasses at least a few related and partly overlapping views on cognition. The author concludes that “embodied cognition” serves as a label for a variety of research programs within cognitive science rather than a strictly defined and well-established research tradition or a new paradigm.

The current discussion of the intentionality nature has become more sophisticated and complex. In this paper I will delineate a number of approaches to intentionality in contemporary philosophy: 1 mentalistic; 2 semantic / linguistic; 3 pragmatic; 4 somatic; 5 and naturalistic. Although philosophers identify and analyse many concepts of intentionality, from the author point of view, there is only one intentionality: mentalistic intentionality. Furthermore, there are the pre-intentionality in the physical world and the meta-intentionality in the world of culture.

Przedmiotem artykułu jest paradoks fikcji. Prezentuję wybrane najważniejsze próby jego wyjaśnienia i rozwiązania. Twierdzę, że ów paradoks wynika z przyjęcia silnego założenia, że do powstania reakcji emocjonalnej niezbędne jest przekonanie o realnym istnieniu czegoś. Przekonanie to wcale nie jest jednak konieczne — można bać się, że p, a równocześnie nie mieć silnego przekonania, że p. Wystarczy posiadać określoną myśl. Bronię tezy, że nasze reakcje emocjonalne zapośredniczone są przez umysł i jego reprezentacyjno-treściowe wyposażenie. Ze względu na skromne piśmiennictwo poświęcone temu tematowi w języku polskim artykuł został napisany w języku rodzimym autora. Artykuł ma zatem charakter edukacyjny i przede wszystkim popularyzacyjny.

In this article we present a clarification of the problem of intentionality that combines the psychologistic and phenomenological-logical traditions, but at the same time is naturalistic. Laird Addis's theory of intentionality, which we try to reconstruct here, falls into this category. He explains intentionality by using Ockham's concept of a natural sign. Such a sign is a property of a mental act. According to Addis, there are important arguments for the existence of such signs: scientific, phenomenological, and dialectic.