Volume 64 (2009), 7

The paper examines the nature of the social fact in social knowledge on the background of the differences between sciences and social sciences. The approach applied is historical (É. Durkheim, M. Weber, M. Mauss, J. Searle), as well as one based on differentiating between Humean conception of fact and the conceptions, in which facts are seen as determining the… Read more

The aim of the paper is to discuss the account of the fact presented by Václav Černík. First, the author outlines the views of the defenders of the naîve realism, constructivism (or narrativism), and critical realism in historiography. The leading proponents of narrativism hold, that what the historians construe is not single facts, but general narrative… Read more

The paper sheds light on different approaches to normativity and on current tendencies to consider social and moral norms from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. The main objective of the paper is to show the similarities as well as differences between social and moral norms. Further, the author argues, that the differentiating characteristics, such as… Read more

The aim of the paper is to discuss the views, which approach the qualitative and quantitative methods in social sciences as either separable, or irreconcilable. First, the author gives an outline of those views and shows, how they deal with various aspects of the qualitative/quantitative divide. Next, he tries to identify the roots of that divide in the works of… Read more

The paper deals with selected philosophical and methodological problems concerning the building of the quantum theory of gravitation, which is expected to unify general relativity and the quantum field theory into a single consistent and comprehensive theory. It outlines the basic ontological characteristics of such a theory, its structure and the limitations set… Read more

Stephen Schiffer’s paradox of meaning shows that both Fregean and Russellian explanations of the individuals in thoughts-propositions are questionable. The author argues that it is Pavel Tichý’s semantical system, which offers a viable middle way between the extremes of the above mentioned approaches, solving the Schiffer’s paradox.

In the analytic tradition, the appeal to intuition has been a common philosophical practice that supposedly provides us with epistemic standards. I will argue that the high epistemological standards of traditional analytic philosophy cannot be pursued by this method. Perhaps within a naturalistic, reliabilistic frame intuitions can be evoked more coherently.… Read more

The traditional normative of the neutral style did not prove itself to be the only appropriate critical approach to the obscure style widespread in continental theories. Against the thesis about the self-reference of the text (by which some of the poststructuralists tend to defend the obscure style) the author argues, that it is not “the text self-irony”, but… Read more