The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.
Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.
Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.
The author claims that Marx’s ideas have succeeded, the proletariat has been victorious in the class conflict but the victory is completely different from what Marx has expected. The vision of the proletariat state ended up in a total failure. The vestiges of Marx’s proposal testify to complete inapplicability of his main ideas to the circumstances of the contemporary world. The concept of a state managed by the proletariat class turned out to be defective. The ownership of the means of production has failed. The concept of private property defended itself and has even been strengthened. And where a public ownership won the upper hand, as in State Treasury, it turned out to be institutional and not collective. Moreover, the state interferes more and more vigorously in private businesses and their activities. On the other hand, however, the proletariat succeeded in the area of employment law where it won some durable legal guarantees. Thus Marx correctly perceived certain needs of the proletariat but proposed inapt solutions to them.
Artykuł jest próbą interpretacji stanowiska Platona w sporze między naturalizmem i konwencjonalizmem w sprawie języka na podstawie dialogu Kratylos. Interpretacja tego dialogu jest nadal przedmiotem sporów we współczesnej literaturze. W artykule przedstawiam następującą interpretację Kratylosa: 1) Platon nie stara się wybrać jednego tylko stanowiska, ale łączy ze sobą naturalizm i konwencjonalizm; 2) specyfika jego tezy na temat języka polega na tym, że według niego konwencjonalizm opisuje faktyczny sposób funkcjonowania języka, zaś naturalizm jest pewnym postulatem dotyczącym tego, jak język powinien funkcjonować. Sformułowanie tego postulatu powinniśmy łączyćz religijnym wymiarem myśli Platona.
Kilka przykładów metafor akwatycznych, które odnoszą się do najważniejszych pojęć filozoficznych
The author presents the concept of man in the philosophy of Erich Fromm. The article consists of two parts. In the first part, the author presents how Fromm characterised the existential situation of man; in the second part he describes love as the main factor in the action and development of a human being. Man is part of nature, subjected to the rules of its laws, but he also transcends nature by the ability to use mind. A human subject is aware of his/her limitations and weaknesses with regard to nature. He/she feels lost and lonely in relation to other people and the natural world. Therefore, s/he looks for the frame of orientation and references. This search is the most important existential problem. Love is the solution to all problems of human existence. According to Fromm, man is the subject of love.
This article provides an initial analysis, from a historical standpoint, of the problematic nature of conceptualizations of the notion of gene in molecular genetics. The starting point is an historical outline of the relation between classical genetics and molecular genetics; it is indicated how the conceptual baggage of classical genetics influenced the development of the concepts of gene used later in molecular biology. I also reveal two problems of genes in the philosophy of science, i.e., skepticism concerning genes and the concept of nominal gene. I conclude that concept of gene functioning within the framework of molecular genetics should be considered from the point of view of experimentalism and pragmatism. It seems that the concept of gene on the molecular level should be conceptualized—in order to remain functional—as broadly as possible and in relation to genetic material.
The leading purpose of this paper is to provide an answer to the question whether Karl Marx belongs to philosophy and history of philosophy, and whether placing him in these categories gives a fair picture of what he really intended to achieve. When analyzing Marx’s thought, one should remember that is his own eyes he was not a philosopher but a researcher who goes beyond the horizon of philosophy in order to undertake scientific and not ideological work aimed at organizing political battles of that time. Of course, what a particular thinker believes of himself cannot be an ultimate criterion for interpreting his/her academic output. The doubts are augmented when we consult Leszek Kołakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism – a book that is based on the assumption that “Karl Marx was a German philosopher”, and this starting point supports the critique of Marx’s thought. The problem arises from the fact that Leszek Kołakowski, who was a post-Marxist, despises science and philosophy, and sees myth as the basis of thought dynamics. Thus the question of the adequacy of his presentation of Marx aris es and strengthens the suspicion that Kołakowski did not present the real Marx’s philosophy but rather a myth of Marx’s theory centered on the idea of making people happy against their will and nature.
In the paper I present the famous argument between Peter F. Strawson and Bertrand Russell on definite descriptions. I do not go into details of the two rival solutions to the problem of definite descriptions. Instead I present the controversy against the background of two traditions within analytic philosophy, i.e. the philosophy of natural language (Strawson) and the philosophy of ideal language (Russell). In consequence, the aim of this paper is to sketch the principal features of the two traditions and to indicate their influence on the argument. In the first paragraph I discuss Russell’s theory of descriptions and present it as a result of dramatic changes that he had made in his philosophy before he finally presented them in On Denoting in 1905. The second paragraph deals with the two traditions within analytic philosophy after the linguistic turn and underlines the role of Strawson in the philosophy of natural language. In the third paragraph I analyze in detail Strawson’s arguments against the theory of descriptions and I focus on some details that are usually omitted in standard presentations. The fourth paragraph discusses Russell’s response to Strawson’s objections, i.e. the counter-arguments formulated from the standpoint of philosophy of ideal language. I end with some suggestions about how to reconcile both approaches.
P.F. Strawson and J.L. Austin approach the problem of other minds from different perspectives. Peter Strawson looks at this problem from the perspective of descriptive metaphysics, which largely disregards the concrete situations in which we use mental language. John Austin, on the other hand, believes that to understand what is happening in such situations holds the key to solving the former problem. However, as it turns out, the considerations of both authors in the key fragments rely on similar observations. In addition, Austin’s perspective, which looks at the language from the point of view of its usage, makes it possible to formulate an answer to the Strawson’s critics. This does not exclude the possibility of agreeing with Strawson on the primacy of the reference function of language, if we understand it properly. Ultimately, Strawson and Austin’s approaches do not compete, but complement each other.