Folia Philosophica

What Does It Mean to Be a Critical Realist? Two Different Answers: Nicolai Hartmann’s and Richard Hӧnigswald’s

Iwona Alechnowicz-Skrzypek — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Iwona Alechnowicz-Skrzypek’s aim in this paper is to compare the two non-specific Neo Kantians, admittedly both representing critical realism. Nicolai Hartmann, a follower of the Marburg School, was an idealist before becoming a critical realist, while Richard Hӧnigswald, a student of Alois Riehl, held on to the position of critical realism from the beginning of his philosophical career. There are many similarities between Hartmann and Hӧnigswald in terms of their understanding of the concept of realism. There are also
several differences, which mostly relate to how they addressed the question of the thing-in-itself. The most important difference concerns their solution of the problem of empirical data as a basis for the mental representation of objects. A comparison of Hartmann’s and Hӧnigswald’s approaches to this problem helps us to understand why both are considered non-specific neo-Kantians.

Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy. Marian Massonius’s Approach to Immanuel Kant’s Critical Philosophy

Anna Musioł — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In the article, Anna Musioł, by referring to the assumptions of Marian Massonius’s doctoral dissertation and taking into account the assumptions of his several smaller works, considers Massonius’s approach to the Kantian system of critical philosophy. Analyzing, inter alia, the problem of analytical and synthetic judgments, and a priori synthetic judgments, Musioł addresses the issue of the possibility of pure mathematics. She considers the problem of time and space and analyzes the ways of presenting Kantian antinomies and the theory of cognition developed in the context of idealism and realism as well as the realism of time and space. Additionally, Musioł focuses on the problem of Massonius’s moderate agnosticism and his scientific approach to philosophy. Finally, she proposes an answer to the fundamental question, Why did Massonius, like the early neo-Kantist Liebmann in 1865, challenge a return to Kant (Zurück zu Kant!) and advocate as necessary the development of a critical formula of the a priori forms of the mind?

The Concept of Scientific Ethics and Visions of Moral Progress by Main Representatives of Polish Positivist Thought

Włodzimierz Tyburski — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The article presents one of the components of the intellectual legacy of Polish positivism, a philosophical position which proposed a new attitude towards ethical issues. Its representatives put forward the notion of scientific ethics, reducing moral philosophy to it. They strongly emphasized their critical attitude towards traditional ethics, for which there was no place in the positivist model of science, and proposed a distinction between theoretical and practical ethics. Their project was motivated by an ambition to make ethics
into jurisprudence, a discipline whose accuracy would make it similar to other sciences. Their efforts were consistently motivated by the idea of making ethics into an empirical and applied science. This scientific ethics would fulfill the important task of forming a set of moral requirements, which, by referring to moral knowledge (“ethology”), would have a chance of influencing the conduct of individuals and society. The new ethics was expected to contribute to the change in social morality and thus greatly support moral progress, an issue which was hotly debated. All positivists subscribed to the idea of progress, including that of morality; however, some differences can be discerned in how they defined progress. Some defined it in realistic categories, while others focused on optimistic visions of the future. Among the first advocates of scientific ethics and of the idea of moral progress, differences notwithstanding, were Aleksander Świętochowski, Julian Ochorowicz, Feliks Bogacki, Władysław Kozłowski, and Bolesław Prus. The article gives an overview of some of their views.

Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury: Self

Adam Grzeliński — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Self is the first Polish translation of an excerpt from Shaftesbury’s notebooks entitled Askêmata. The text proves that these notebooks not only complement the contents of his Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, the three-volume set which made Shaftesbury a famous and influential philosopher but is to be seen mainly as a kind of moral exercises and soliloquies in which Shaftesbury comments the works of the stoics: Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. In one of the previous issues of „Folia Philosophica” three other excerpts from the same set were published: Character and Conduct, Attention and Relaxation, and Improvement; the present one is a continuation of the series.

Gottlob Frege’s Letters. A Few Remarks on the Polish-Language Edition of Frege’s Scientific Correspondence [rev. Gottlob Frege: Korespondencja naukowa]

Krystian Bogucki — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The present article reviews the Polish-language edition of Gottlob Frege’s scientific correspondence. In the article, I discuss the material hitherto unpublished in Polish in relation to the remainder of Frege’s works. First of all, I inquire into the role and nature of definitions. Then, I consider Frege’s recognition criteria for sameness of thoughts. In the article’s third part, I study letters devoted to the principle of semantic compositionality, while in the fourth part I discuss Frege’s remarks concerning the context principle.