Mariusz Grygianiec

In the debate on personal identity, different criteria of identity are proposed and defended. The criteria of identity have usually been taken to state the necessary and sufficient conditions of identity and are interpreted as providing truth conditions for relevant identity statements. The Simple View of personal identity is the thesis that there are no noncircular and informative metaphysical criteria of identity for persons. The paper intends to first deliver a precise and general formulation of the Simple View, and, second, to present the various arguments in favour of the doctrine in question. It argues that there are no other facts of the matter than identity itself which could serve as the truth-conditions of identity statements. The considerations presented in the paper lead to the conclusion that, although the Simple View is faced with many theoretical difficulties, it is still a lively intellectual position in the debate on personal identity.

Mereologcal essentialism is a metaphysical doctrine formulated and defended originally by Roderick M. Chisholm. The main principle of mereological essentialism states, that for any objects x and y - if x is ever a part of y, then y is necessarily such that x is a part of y, i.e. that all parts of y are essential to it (y has them at any time that y exists). The principle may also be put by saying, that every object has the parts that it has necessarily. In the paper the above mentioned doctrine is reconstructed and analysed. Some consequences of the theory in question as well as many variants of it are examined. The main purpose of the text is to provide a critical analysis of mereological essentialism in order to make this radical doctrine more acceptable

The paper presents a rejoinder to Katarzyna Paprzycka's critique of my defence of Davidson's ontology. According to Paprzycka the epiphenomenalists objection to the doctrine of anomalous monism, considered as an internal objection, is unquestionably flawed, but when it comes to some external interpretations of the objection in question — it is justified. The text provides a couple of arguments and comments which are intended to show that in most cases the external objection to anomalous monism is in fact either uncharitable or inaccurate, thus unsound one

The metaphysical explanations of genidentity are very important both for scien-tific researches and for everyday human activities. Endurantism, perdurantism and exdurantism (stage view and point-eventism) are the standard metaphysical theo-ries, which provide descriptions and explanations of relations of change and persistence. The descriptions and explanations in question give simultaneously the truth-conditions for statements about an identity of objects, which persist and undergo changes in time. The main aim of the paper is to formulate the above-mentioned metaphysical stances and to give the general account of the relation of genidentity within a conceptual framework of these theories. The second aim is to provide a suitable reconstruction of criteria of genidentity, which are appropriate for the three metaphysical doctrines

The paper aims at presenting Dowgird’s attitude toward various topics in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant – its main objective is to specify and characterise those of Dowgird’s convictions which are of a direct relevance to the issues posed within transcendental idealism. The paper delivers the most important information concerning Dowgird’s life, a general outline of his philosophical conceptions against the background of Polish Enlightenment philosophy, and – in the main part – an articulation of these elements in Dowgird’s philosophy which stand in a clear opposition to Kant’s views. The main aim of analyses presented in the paper is to justify the thesis that Dowgird’s attitude toward Kant’s philosophy was a complex, highly critical one, though different from that of other Polish philosophers of the nineteenth century. Dowgird’s uniqueness lies in the fact, first, that his analyses of Kant’s theories – in comparison with efforts of his Enlightenment contemporaries – were much more substantial, very scrupulous and exceptionally sophisticated, and second, that many of the problems discussed by Kant were approved by Dowgird as rightful philosophical issues.

The paper is an attempt to formulate some consequences of the metaphysical doctrine of mereological essentialism (ME) and the assumption that persons persisting through time remain identical in the strict and philosophical sense (Chisholm, following Butler and Reid). Those consequences are substantiality , non-constitutivity , constantiality , anti-identism ( non-bodility ), and simplicity of persons. The author tries to show that although the above stance has a great theoretical appeal, it leads to the many further difficulties, which remain without reasonable answers

The main aim of the paper is to reconstruct and analyse two methodological approaches to the problem of universals, presented in Bocheński’s papers “Powszechniki jako treści cech w filozofii św. Tomasza z Akwinu” and “The Problem of Universals.” It is argued that, although these approaches are rather different from historical and methodological points of view, they are still based on the same ontological ground, viz. on immanent realism. The article provides a detailed analysis and comparison of the respective views. Justification is provided for the claim that Bocheński was an immanent realist and some of Bocheński’s detailed solutions are highlighted that may be of particular importance for further debate over the problem of universals. A couple of minor critical comments concerning some of Bocheński’s analyses are presented at the end of the paper

Sophie Gibb has recently invented a very interesting strategy against Kim’s causal exclusion argument. This strategy adopts the powers theory of causation and an interpretation of mental causation in terms of double prevention. Gibb’s strategy results both in invalidating the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain in most of its formulations and in disarming the argument in question. In my paper, I present a general procedure for the opponents of reductive physicalism which enables them to _grapple successfully_ with the mentioned principle. I also argue that although it could be possible to adopt Gibb’s strategy as a part of this procedure, there is a simpler one to obtain a similar outcome. This strategy is mainly based on Uwe Meixner’s causal argument against physicalism and it leads to the conclusion that if one accepts the principle of sufficient cause, then one should reject the principle of causal closure in the light of some empirical data. This alternative proposal is more attractive than Gibb’s solution, since it is independent of any conception of causation, does not make any distinction between causal relevance and causal efficacy, and does not refer to the notion of _double prevention_.

The paper is an attempt to defend the Chisholm's metaphysical doctrine called mereological essentialism. The main thesis of mereological essentialism states that for any objects x and y - if x is ever a part of y, then y is necessarily such that x is a part of y, i.e. that all parts of y are essential to it (y has them at any time that y exists). This radical theory gives a categorisation of all objects via entia per se and entia successiva. The paper contains a critical survey of the theory of mereological essentialism: it deals with some important arguments against it and answers as well. The author tries to show that in defence of the theory and the categorisation in question the applicability of the doctrine of mereological essentialism must be somehow limited. He suggests that the best way in doing so is to restrict theses of mereological essentialism either only to objects qua occurrents or only to objects qua continuants or only to persons

The ontological theory of point eventism appears in the Polish philosophical literature as Zdzisław Augustynek's original work, belonging to the glorious philosophical tradition of the Lvov-Warsaw School. The author concentrates exclusively on "weak points" of Augustynek's eventism (skipping simultaneously all its unquestionable advantages); he examines basic notions and statements of the analysed doctrine. The main aim of this critical survey is to prepare a ground for a proper reconstruction of this ontological stance

There are several faces of Four-Dimensionalism. Sometimes 4D-ism is formulated as the thesis that the material world is composed of spatial as well as temporal parts. Another version of 4D-ism states that persisting objects are extended over time in the same way that they are extended over space. Some Four-Dimensionalists defend the thesis that all objects persist by perduring i.e. by having different temporal parts at different times. Sometimes 4D-ism means the same as eternalism - the thesis that past and future objects (and times) are just as real as currently existing ones. Finally it can mean the thesis that all objects are in fact four-dimensional i.e. they are in every case a filling of some subregions of space-time. The author examines some varieties of 4D-ism and tries to formulate both a precise meaning of those doctrines and an evaluation of them