On Karol Wojtyła’s Aristotelian Method Part II Induction and Reduction as Aristotelian Induction (ἐπαγωγή) and Division (διαίρεσις)

This is the second of a two-part study treating Karol Wojtyła’s Aristotelian methodology. Having presented Aristotle’s method of induction (ἐπαγωγή/epagoge) and analysis (ἀνάλῠσις/analusis) or division (διαίρεσις/diairesis) in Part I, Part II discloses the logical form and force of Wojtyła’s method of induction and reduction as Aristotelian induction and division. Looking primarily to the introduction to The Acting Person, it is shown that Wojtyła utilizes the logical forms of reductio ad impossibile and reasoning on the hypothesis of the end, or effect-cause reasoning, which is special to the life sciences and the power-object model of definition as set down by Aristotle. By use of this Aristotelian methodology, Wojtyła obtains definitive knowledge of the human person that is necessary and undeniable: he discloses the εἶδος (eidos) or species of the person in the Aristotelian, Thomistic, and Phenomenological sense of the term.

Job's Final Insight, Narratives, and the Brain

In continental philosophy of religion, the hermeneutics of narratives takes a central role. Analytic philosophy of religion, on the other hand, considers religious statements mostly as assertions of fact. It examines the logical form and semantics of religious statements, addresses their logical commitments, and examines their epistemological status. Using the example of a passage in the Book of Job, it is investigated whether the methods of analytic philosophy are also suitable for analyzing religious narratives. The question is explored whether there is a genuine form of knowledge, besides propositional factual knowledge, which is bound to the form of narration. Particular attention will be paid to the inter-personal pragmatic embeddedness of narratives. The connection between second-personal knowledge and narratives is examined. Using the historical example of Ignatius of Loyola's theory of religious knowledge, it is argued that propositional argumentative knowledge is only one form of religious knowledge among others. The others are second-personal and narrative in character. Having thus established this distinct form of knowledge, it is asked whether our best empirical knowledge of the neurophysiological basis of intuitive and non-argumentative cognition provides a foundation for better understanding inter-personal religious cognition within narratives.

Implicitness, Logical Form and Arguments

In the paper I suggest that a loose notion of logical form can be a useful tool for the understanding or evaluation of everyday language and the explicit and implicit content of communication. Reconciling ordinary language and logic provides formal guidelines for rational communication, giving strength and order to ordinary communication and content to logical schemas. The starting point of the paper is the idea that the bearers of logical form are not natural language sentences, but what we communicate with them, that is, their content in a particular context. On the basis of that idea, I propose that we can ascribe logical proprieties to what is communicated using ordinary language and suggest a continuum between semantic phenomena such as explicatures and pragmatic communicational strategies such as (particularized) conversational implicatures, which challenges the idea that an implicatum is completely separate from what is said. I believe that this continuum can be best explained by the notion of logical form, taken as a propriety of sentences relative to particular interpretations.

Explicit Import Revisited: A Critical Appraisal of Explicatures

The main goal of this paper is to argue that the way explicitly communicated content is approached in leading pragmatic theories is flawed, since it is posited that explicature generation involves pragmatic enrichment of the decoded logical form of the utterance to full propositionality. This kind of enhancement postulated to underlie explicature generation appears to be theoretically inadequate and not to correspond to the psychological reality of utterance interpretation. Drawing on earlier critique of extant pragmatic positions on explicatures, mainly by Borg (2016) and Jary (2016), I add further arguments against modelling explicitly communicated import in the way leading verbal communication frameworks do. It is emphasized that the cognitively plausible theory of communicated meaning is compromised at the cost of theory-internal concerns.

HO- and OH-, Reason and Tradition

Writing OH- is so widespread that one hardly notices that there no logical reason, apart from being accustomed to so, not to write HO- instead. Scientists should be educated to spot irregularities, since often they mean something. Chemistry professors, in particularly at graduate level, when teaching pH, should make their students notice such discrepancy. Albeit pH is not a complex topic it is intriguing the number of misconceptions, and even plain errors, associated. For example, the limits of the pH scale, it is not uncommon to find students (and not just undergrads) believing pH values cannot be lower than 1 or higher than 14, or that negative pH values do not exist. Herein, it is addressed the odd exception of writing OH- instead of the most logical form of HO-. It is fascinating that chemists are so accustomed to see OH- that they do not longer find it to be an oddity. First, it is important to highlight why it is a nomenclature exception, i.e., the lack of reason to write OH-.

The Legal Regulation in the Context of the Paired Operation of the Law and Opposition to its Implementation

Legal reality examination reveals contradictions and uncertainties that make the researcher think about the correctness of the tasks and tools of doctrinal cognition. In modern science, a wide range of means of cognition have been developed, which makes it possible to overcome such situations and achieve the expected outcomes. One of the jurisprudence methodological resources includes the logical form of paired categories. This method is used to reveal the interaction between non-polar elements in any phenomenon, to form the most complete model of the process or mechanism functioning, etc. In the paper, the author proposes to examine the process of legal regulation through the linkage of the concepts "action of the law — opposition to the implementation of the law." The phenomena under consideration possess not only the distinctive properties, but also the properties that conciliate them. This made it possible to consider the interaction between the operation of the law and the counteraction to it within the framework of legal regulation. On the basis of the algorithm of categories pairing, the study concludes that the action of the law and the opposition to it are subordinate to the law of the unity and struggle of opposites. The development of the unity of the opposites under consideration is taking place in the course of legal regulation representing a contradiction expressed in two mutually exclusive statements: "legal regulation is determined by the operation of the law," "legal regulation is determined by opposition to the law."