Remarks on the handbook Logic and Argumentation by Andrzej Kisielewicz The paper contains some critical comments on Andrzej Kisielewicz’s handbook of critical thinking (Logika i argumentacja. Praktyczny kurs krytycznego myślenia, Warszawa 2017). The comments generally refer to two main topics of the handbook: a) the definite rejection of formal logic as a tool of critical thinking, and b) the support for the so-called analysis of reasonable possibilities as an essential method of critical thinking. The paper shows that these topics are not suf ficiently clearand the support is not convincing enough.
The paper is a review of the book Przewodnik po metafizyce (ed. S. Ko³odziejczyk, WAM, Kraków 2011). The book consists of fourteen essays concerning key issues of metaphysics, mostly written by leading Polish experts. The review contains a number of critical and polemic comments on some of the essays.
The contemporary versions of the ontological argument originated from Charles Hartshorne are formalized proofs (in the metalogical sense of the word) based on unique modal theories. The simplest well-known theory of this kind arises from the system B of modal logic by adding two extra-logical axioms: (AA) “If the perfect being exists, then it necessarily exists” (Anselm’s Axiom) and (AL) “It is possible that the perfect being exists” (Leibniz’s Axiom). In the paper a similar argument is presented, however none of the systems of modal logic is relevant to it. Its only premises are the axiom (AA) and, instead of (AL), the new axiom (AN): “If the perfect being doesn’t exist, it necessarily doesn’t”. The main goal of the work is to prove that (AN) is no more controversial than (AA) and - in consequence - the whole strength of the modal ontological argument lays in the set of its extra-logical premises. In order to do that, three arguments are formulated: ontological, “cosmological” and metalogical.
The article concerns the paradigm of ontology based on the principle that there is a universal conceptual scheme determining the general structure of the world. The main goal of the article is to set this principle in the context of the history of philosophy, to clarify it, and to evaluate its credibility in the context of modern ethnolinguistics. It consists of six parts: 1.1. Aristotle's theory of categories and Wolff's metaontology, 1.2. Reid's linguistic universalism, 1.3. The semantic paradigm of ontology and analytic philosophy, 2.1. The linguistic categorizations of the world, 2.2. Criticism of some assumptions of Wierzbicka's program, 2.3. Discursive languages and the special principle of universalism.
The article is a polemical response to Kordula Świętorzecka's paper On the Modal Nature of St. Anselm's Argument. Remarks on Andrzej Biłat's Article Modal Logic vs Ontological Argument (O modalnej naturze argumentu w. Anzelma. Uwagi do artykułu Logika modalna a dowód ontologiczny Andrzeja Biłata), in the same issue.