This is a collection of some works of Polish philosophers and physicists on philosophical problems of time and spacetime. Without restricting the thematic scope of the papers, the issue conceming objectivity of time flow runs as a uniting thread through most of them. Partly it is discussed directIy, and partly the authors focus on themes which are of paramount importance for one's attitude to that question. In the first six papers the authors deal with their topics against the background of contemporary physics, its theories, its difficulties and discussed conjectures. For the paper of S....

Many philosophers have considered logical reasoning as an inborn ability of mankind and as a distinctive feature in the human mind; but we all know that the distribution of this capacity, or at any rate its development, is very unequal. Few people are able to set up a cogent argument; others are at least able to follow a logical argument and even to detect logical fallacies. Nevertheless, even among educated persons there are many who do not even attain this relatively modest level of development. According to my personal observations, lack of logical ability may be due to various...

This book is addressed primarily to researchers specializing in mathemat ical logic. It may also be of interest to students completing a Masters Degree in mathematics and desiring to embark on research in logic, as well as to teachers at universities and high schools, mathematicians in general, or philosophers wishing to gain a more rigorous conception of deductive reasoning. The material stems from lectures read from 1962 to 1968 at the Faculte des Sciences de Paris and since 1969 at the Universities of Provence and Paris-VI. The only prerequisites demanded of the reader are elementary...

The use of the word 'structuralism', not only as a title for the present book but also as a valuable indication for outstanding philosophical and cultural developments of our century, may embarrass the English reader. The same might be the case regarding some of the philosophical thoughts developed in connexion with this structuralism. Emphasis is namely not on a set of technical operations using ideas and conceptions closely linked up with 'structural' or 'systematical' analyses, system and in formation theories, biology, psychology and even literary criticism. On the contrary, the concept...

The first section of this chapter describes the major goals of this investiga tion and the general strategy of my presentation. The remaining three sections review some requisite background material and introduce some terminology and notation used in the book. Section B contains a brief review of some of the ideas and notation of elementary logic and set theory. Section C contains an introductory discussion of kinds and at tributes. Section D presents some basic ideas about laws and law sentences. A. GENERAL PLAN OF THE BOOK Basic scientific research is directed towards the goals of...

This book is intended as a contribution to the foundations of the sciences of man, especially the social sciences. It has been argued with increasing frequency in recent years that the vocabulary of social science is to a large extent an action vocabulary and that any attempt to systematize concepts and establish bases for understanding in the field cannot, therefore, succeed unless it is firmly built on action theory. I think that these claims are sub stantially correct, but at the same time it seems to me that action theory, as it is relevant to social science, still awaits vital...

It is widely assumed that there exist certain objects which can in no way be distinguished from each other, unless by their location in space or other reference-system. Some of these are, in a broad sense, 'empirical objects', such as electrons. Their case would seem to be similar to that of certain mathematical 'objects', such as the minimum set of manifolds defining the dimensionality of an R -space. It is therefore at first sight surprising that there exists no branch of mathematics, in which a third parity-relation, besides equality and inequality, is admitted; for this would seem to...

The Royal Institute of Philosophy has been sponsoring conferences in alter nate years since 1969. These have from the start been intended to be of interest to persons who are not philosophers by profession. They have mainly focused on interdisciplinary areas such as the philosophies of psychology, education and the social sciences. The volumes arising from these conferences have included discussions between philosophers and distinguished practitioners of other disciplines relevant to the chosen topic. Beginning with the 1979 conference on 'Law, Morality and Rights' and the 1981 conference on...

This book on the structure and role of time in physical theories addresses itself to scientists and philosophers intereste:'i in the 'no man's lard' between science and philosophy, in particular between physics and philoso- phy. The p:lint of departure is physical time, Le. time as usErl 1:[yen] physicists in their theories; but the analysis is not oonfined to a purely physical level but caries the problem into the domain of philosophical in- quiry. Altoough the book presupp:lses some knowledge of physics, I have avoided, wherever p:lssible, the use of advanced mathematics and technical...