Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

There are three traditional formulations of the liar’s antinomy:
(1) (A) I lie. (B) If A, then I do not lie.
(2) (C) Proposition C is false. (D) If C is false, then C is true.
(3) (E) I lie. (F) If E is false, then not‑E is true.

The explanation for the alleged antinomiality of these formulations is as follows:
Ad (1). A – if it were to be a proposition – it should have the form: I lie (when I say) that p (where ‘p’ is a proposition). Then B should have the form: If I lie (when I say) that p, then I do not lie (when I say) that I do not lie (when I say) that p.
Ad (2). C – if it were to be a proposition – it should not contain free variables.
Ad (3). F, like A – if it were to be a proposition – it should have the form: I lie (when I say) that p.

In the paper, I offer a detailed analysis and careful reconstruction of these versions of antinomial reasoning – using logical tools and taking into account the available historical corpus, especially from the Lvov‑Warsaw School.

In the article, I present and comment on five arguments against the existence of free will: the argument from the truth of either determinism or indeterminism, the argument from the readiness potential, the argument from automatism and the illusion of control, the argument from causa sui, and the argument from the incredibility of libertarianism and compatibilism. I find these arguments strong and believe they offer support to free will scepticism. I also outline a vision of the subject of action, in which I see a chance of undermining these arguments. In this vision, the postulate of the existence of non‑causal relations between reasons, decisions and actions is crucial, which at the same time makes actions dependent on the subject and do not abandon them to chance.

Celem artykułu jest ukazanie korelacji pojęcia bytu i pojęcia filozofii (metafizyki) oraz zarysowanie propozycji analizy pojęcia bytu uwolnionej od tych heurystycznych uwikłań. Pokazuję, w jaki sposób dyskurs metafizyczny skoncentrowany na bycie (pojęciu bytu) jest uzależniony od swego statusu heurystycznego (logicznego i retorycznego). Między ważnością bytową, dekretowaną przez takie wartościujące kategorie egzystencjalne, jak „realny”, „prawdziwy”, „absolutny”, a powagą filozofii i autorytetem filozofującego podmiotu zachodzi relacja symbiotyczna, polegająca na wzajemnym uprawomocnianiu. Dewaluacja metafizyki stwarza jednakowoż nowe możliwości badania pojęć metafizycznych z metafilozoficznego punktu widzenia. Oznacza to transformację problemu bytu w problem sensu, czyli określoności.

John Locke’s thought is an important point of reference for today’s social and political philosophy. One of the most important elements of Lockean legacy is the justification of property presented in Two Treatises on Government. That justification appears in the context of many contemporary theories, especially liberal and libertarian ones. This paper aims to show that Locke’s original theory cannot be simply used to justify the present relations of production which are based on wage labour and private ownership of the means of production. The problems which Locke’s limitations face in the context of capitalist economic system and the main objections to Lockean views on the origin of money have been presented to substantiate this claim. Next the author inquires if Lockean labour theory of property can be unified with the phenomenon of wage labour and private ownership of the means of production. The views of other authors are discussed, among them by Hannah Arendt, Robert Nozick, Murrey Rothbard, C.B. Macpherson, James Tully, Thomas Hodskin and Karl Marx.

The paper discusses the relationship between the concept of the conical present, originally proposed by William Godfrey‑Smith, and the paradox of causality, commonly considered to be its main problem. This paradox can be summarized as follows. It is well known that our observational cognition is reducible to causal relations. Therefore, if we agree with Godfrey‑Smith, and recognize an event to be present in relation to another event iff the first one is observable from the standpoint of the second, then both can be causally interconnected and at present. At this point, it becomes clear that the concept of the conical present admits the possibility that events are temporally separated from each other but can yet remain at present. This, however, goes against our intuitions and leads to a paradox if we want to sustain the view that the cause always precedes the effect. The aim of the article is to show that the paradox of causality faces several difficulties that weaken its strength. The text proposes two strategies to dismiss this objection. Each of them justifies the claim that, at least, a partial defense of the concept of conical present is possible. The first strategy leads to the conclusion that it is not fair to abandon the concept of conical present because of the paradox of causality, since the concept of the present defined in Classical Mechanics is also subject to this paradox. The second strategy is to show that the consequences of the conical present are not as counterintuitive as the opponents of this view claim, because the strength of this objection depends on how we understand the causality of events.

This paper presents a new argument against the statement that all our life can be only a dream. At the beginning the author looks into how Descartes argued for that thesis. The sentence “In all moments of my life I can be wrong about whether I am sleeping or being awake” is especially significant for Descartes’ argument. This author presents an argument against that thesis. He points out that what we colloquially call ‘wakefulness’ is, according to the sceptic, a dream; and what we colloquially call ‘a dream’ is, according to the sceptic, ‘a dream in a dream’, etc. On the basis of this correspondence, the author argues that the sceptic cannot explain, why the transition (in the colloquial sense) between a dream and wakefulness is especially striking and why especially clear perceptions happen only in the period of wakefulness. In the next part the author considers some of possible counterarguments, which the sceptics can raise. The author reviews these counterarguments, and argues that they have been formulated ad hoc or bring about paradoxical consequences. The author stresses however that his arguments have not been offered to show the falsehood of the sceptics’ thesis, but rather to demonstrate the implausibility of the sceptic’s thesis.

The article aims to present philosophy of God by Mieszko Ciesielski. It shows Ciesielski’s own concept of moderate theism, which stresses the idea of self- annihilation of God. The paper emphasizes that this concept reconciles (integrates) classical theism and atheism. It shares the theistic belief that God is a personal and merciful being, existing in reality, and not only in human mind. At the same time, the plausibility of atheist orientation, that assumes non‑existence of God at present, is discussed. According to the assumptions of moderate theism, God – having created the world – ceased to exist. So God existed in the past, but is not eternal. He performed a merciful self‑annihilation, that is, committed the most radical self‑sacrifice for the benefit of man. The article also presents the ‘mercy‑based proof for the current non‑existence of God’, which is Ciesielski’s original contribution to contemporary philosophical reflection.