Department of Philosophy and Sociology

It was observed as early as the mid-twentieth century that aesthetics as a philosophical theory of art differs from its objects. The products of contemporary artistic practice go beyond the horizon of traditional aesthetics. Artists are involved increasingly often and on a wide scale in the actions aimed at transforming and constructing the common space. In the face of such activities as took place, for example, as part of the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art in 2012, traditional aesthetics seems to be helpless. That is why, if art is to continue to be the focus of aesthetic investigations, it must, as it were, redefine itself. Jacques Rancière is one of the authors who have outlined the new horizon of aesthetics. In my paper I will briefly present his conception. It provides some theoretical tools which I will use for the description and interpretation of some selected examples of contemporary socially engaged artistic practices. I will show that his distinction of the „aes...

The problem of the demarcation of art and the efforts of analytical philosophy to work out the definition of art were the key issues in aesthetics through most of the 20th century. Those issues emerged from recognizing the impossibility of indicating any sufficient or substantial attributes to being art. Instead of working out the definition the theorists eventually focused on the context which can by essential for recognize some actions or objects as an art. In my paper I cite one of the contemporary efforts of solution of that issues. I am referring to Jaques Rancière’s “regimes of art,” which can be consider as frames for not only interpretation of art but mostly as condition for recognition of art as visible. In other words: the dominant discourse decides what is recognized as art or what is visible as art. I will briefly present his “regimes of art” and I will try to confront them with one of the examples of contemporary socially engaged art.

The aim of the paper is to determine how metaphors tackle the probable nature of information and uncertainty in the structure of the communication process. Since the cognitive theory of conceptual metaphors holds that metaphoric thinking and doing are unavoidable, they are employed often in explaining the communicating domains. The metaphorical conceptualizing is recognized in Shannon and Weaver’s Mathematical Theory of Communication where such abstract concepts as freedom of choice, choosing probabilities (possibilities), and uncertainty ware conceived in that way. It is described in accord with Reddy’s conduit metaphor and Ritchie’s toolmakers paradigm. In the paper the issue of both the advantages and disadvantages of metaphors is considered: mainly, how they can explain and predict ways in which people communicate their expectations or uncertainties as well as, more practically, how the probable/informational metaphors enable the management of knowledge in libraries or databases.

Expert knowledge - a concept associated with Ryle’s distinction of knowledgethat and knowledge-how - functions in distinct areas of knowledge and social expertise. Consisting of both propositional (declarative) and procedural (instrumental) knowledge, expertise is performative in its essence. It depends not only on expert’s experience and cognitive competences, but also on his or her social and institutional position. The paper considers the role of heuristic and intuitional abilities, including particular experts’ cognitive biases, as the vital and indispensable part of expertise. On the basis of selected managerial and juridical examples (procedures, standards, norms and institutional regulations) it analyzes the epistemological issues: the autonomy versus dependence of expert knowledge as well as the influence of social-cognitive circumstances on expertise.

The semantics of metaphor has been discussed by numerous theoretician1 who approached the problem from the perspective of general sign theory (semiotics) but also in relation to other subfields thereof – syntactics and pragmatics. Such positioning of analyses pertaining to metaphors is also evoked by Urszula Żegleń whose monographic study Wprowadzenie do semiotyki teoretycznej i semiotyki kultury [Introduction to Theoretical and Cultural Semantics]2 raises the issue of the specificity of

Metaphors are common in various types of discourse; even natural sciences are engaged with the figurative way of expression mostly characteristic of the humanities. They are also suited, to an astonishing extent, to the exact, strict and formal theories of information, as has been presented in the first part of the paper, on the example of the Shannon & Weaver’s Mathematical Theory of Communication. The metaphoric entanglement of the information category shows that its commonsensical and figurative conceptualization is unavoidable. Nevertheless, it also opens certain crucial questions concerning the ways of conceptualizing the probable, uncertain events which happen in the course of communication and deciding.

The aim of the paper is to determine how metaphors tackle the probable nature of information and uncertainty in the structure of the communication process. Since the cognitive theory of conceptual metaphors holds that metaphoric thinking and doing are unavoidable, they are employed often in explaining the communicating domains. The metaphorical conceptualizing is recognized in Shannon and Weaver’s Mathematical Theory of Communication where such abstract concepts as freedom of choice, choosing probabilities (possibilities), and uncertainty ware conceived in that way. It is described in accord with Reddy’s conduit metaphor and Ritchie’s toolmakers paradigm. In the paper the issue of both the advantages and disadvantages of metaphors is considered: mainly, how they can explain and predict ways in which people communicate their expectations or uncertainties as well as, more practically, how the probable/informational metaphors enable the management of knowledge in libraries or databases.

The paper analyzes the cognitive functions of metaphors present in both colloquial and scientific discourse. First, presented is the history of research into linguistic metaphors, followed by a discussion of the psycholinguistic turn towards metaphors as thought schemas (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson), as well as metaphoricality embodied in gestures, images and behaviors and their socio-cultural contexts. Based on the analysis of metaphors in the natural sciences, mainly in physics (Max Black, Mary Hesse, Thomas Kuhn) as well as in psychology (Douwe Draaisma), the heuristic and methodological functions of metaphors in science are discussed. Finally, on this basis, a general model of the cognitive functions of metaphor is constructed in which, apart from the cognitive communicative functions, emphasized are also the pragmatic aspects of metaphorical thinking.

The main aim of this paper is to explain how one can talk about information asfunctioning ontologically within the mind. From the cybernetic point of view,coding is essential to such functioning-transforming information from one systemof symbols of signs into another. Information coding takes place within the body(brain), in human use of instruments and tools, as well as in the manifold relationsbetween humans and the environment. Using the work of Arbib, Gibson, Batesonand Dennett, this paper present a model of the manifold functioning of informationwithin the human mind, with particular stress placed upon its signifi cance forpractical-cognitive behaviour.

The aim of the paper is to determine how metaphors tackle the probable nature of information and uncertainty in the structure of the communication process. Since the cognitive theory of conceptual metaphors holds that metaphoric thinking and doing are unavoidable, they are employed often in explaining the communicating domains. The metaphorical conceptualizing is recognized in Shannon and Weaver's Mathematical Theory of Communication where such abstract concepts as freedom of choice, choosing probabilities (possibilities), and uncertainty ware conceived in that way. It is described in accord with Reddy's conduit metaphor and Ritchie's toolmakers paradigm. In the paper the issue of both the advantages and disadvantages of metaphors is considered: mainly, how they can explain and predict ways in which people communicate their expectations or uncertainties as well as, more practically, how the probable/informational metaphors enable the management of knowledge in libraries or databases.

The paper analyzes, on the basis of Ryle's concepts of knowledge that and knowledge how, both objectified (verbalized, justified and verified) forms of expert knowledge and the performative (procedural, interactional) nature of expertise. Both theoretical and practical aspects of the identified categories are studied from historical and social (institutional) perspectives as phenomena characteristic of post-modern information society. In virtue of the selected social examples an epistemological model of performative expert knowledge and expertise is constructed in which crucial elements are distinguished: experts' cognitive attitudes and dispositions, intellectual skills, intuition and mistakes as well as types of interactional versus contributory expertise. Also considered are the epistemological consequences derived from the research concerning expertise in psychiatric treatment where both expert knowledge and expertise fall into line with institutional requirements (medical or juridical) as well as procedures (correspondence with facts and/or other procedures).

The text discusses various meanings attributed to the categories of body and corporeality, depending on the ways they are either commonly or scientifically defined and spoken about, as well as on the context in which they function. The philosophical concepts of corporeality developed by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty are analyzed, the assumptions of which are continued in contemporary cognitive and linguistic studies of embodied cognition and mind, present in the concepts of Zahavi, Lakoff and Johnson. The linguistic determinants of human experience of corporeality are also examined, especially the metaphorical phrases that capture such experience. The main part of the text is devoted to metaphors speaking about physical bodies, the human body, the bodily experience of the environment, and embodiment in the sense of the realization of ideas. On this basis the broad sense of the title term "embodied metaphors" is shown, which is proper not only for the metaphorical expressions of colloquial and scientific language, but also refers to behaviors, gestures and sign-symbolic representations of different kinds of human experience. ciało i ciała-ujęcie ontologiczne i epistemologiczne P ojęcia ciała, ucieleśnienia, cielesności, różnych ich rodzajów i modalności, stały się w przeciągu ostatnich dekad przedmiotem wielu analiz, badań i koncepcji rozwijanych tak w naukach szczegółowych, jak w filozofii. W każdej z nich punktem odniesienia jest zasadniczo, chociaż nie wyłącznie, ciało człowieka, jego fizyczna i biologiczna natura, w tym jego funkcje organiczne (fizjologiczne, neurologiczne), ale także psychiczne (umysłowe, poznawcze) traktowane jako realizacja życiowych procesów. O ciele ludzkim nie mówi się dzisiaj już inaczej jak o ciele świadomym, doznającym siebie samego, będącym podłożem wszelkiej aktywności człowieka.