The paper consists of two parts. In the first one the author proposes his own formulation of the metaphysical proof of God’s existence. The point of departure in this proof is the affirmation of the existence of many different beings (things). The second part is devoted to a more detailed metaphysical determination of the nature of God.

The publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia led not only to a revolution in physics, but also gave rise to a new set of directions in natural theology. The mechanistic image of the physical universe that arose from Newton’s physics was best explained, according to Newton’s contemporaries and followers in the 18th and early 19th centuries, by an appeal to the powerful hand of a wise designing God. Despite critiques by Hume and Kant, that natural theology held broad appeal among scientifically minded people until the work of Charles Darwin proposed a new type of explanatory mechanism that radically undercut the fundamental directions of Newtonian natural theology.

Prior to the twentieth century, religious thinkers developed their understandings of the relationship between natural science and theology in contexts in which natural science presented a theoretically unified account of nature − first, for example, the Aristotelian account of nature that so powerfully influenced the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas; and later the Newtonian account of nature that influenced numerous directions in religious thought following the seventeenth century. The twentieth century, and now the twenty-first century has come to accept understandings of physical nature without a requirement of theoretical unification. This lack of theoretical unification within the natural sciences must lead religious thinkers to engage their theologies with natural science in a manner more piece-meal than in earlier times. This presents both opportunities and challenges for theological development. The nominalist tradition may be in this context seen as a source for this development.

The author argues that a historical hypothesis h is probable in so far as it is intrinsically a simple hypothesis and (1) the posterior historical evidence is such as probably would occur if h is true, but not otherwise, (2) the general background evidence makes it probable that h is to be expected under certain conditions, and not otherwise, (3) there is evidence, the prior historical evidence’ such as probably would occur if these conditions were satisfied, but not otherwise. By the ‘posterior historical evidence’ is meant the testimony of witnesses and physical traces caused by what happened at the time in question. In the case of the resurrection of Jesus the general background evidence which makes it probable that there is a God of the traditional kind who has good reason to become incarnate in order to provide atonement, to identify with us in our suffering, and to reveal teaching. The prior historical evidence that there was prophet who led the kind of life that incarnate God would need to lead if he had become incarnate for these reason. He will need to show us when some prophet has led the right sort of life that God has lived it, and that can be achieved by his life being culminated by a super-miracle such as the resurrection. The posterior historical evidence is the evidence of witnesses to the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus. The stronger is the general background evidence, and the stronger is the prior historical evidence showing that one and only one prophet (Jesus) led the right sort of life, the less our need of posterior historical evidence. Given some modest values for (1), (2), (3), there is a very high probability that the resurrection occurred. This is illustrated by feeding some artificially precise values for these probabilities into the relevant theorem of the probability calculus, Bayes’ Theorem.

Feminism is a movement that tends to change the unfavourable cultural, social, and political relations on behalf of women.The feministic movement has developed in our cultural circle since the 18th century and has taken on various forms. One should mention here the following: feminism as a right strife conducted by women to recognise their dignity, make them equal with respect to citizen rights, ensure equal (with men) access to education that would enable them to obtain a job and enlarge their opportunities in economical, social, political, and religious life – always taking into account their different sex and preserving their vocation as wives and mothers. This is true feminism, which is now defined as a new or Christian feminism, feminism – as an ideology stemming from radical liberalism, socialism, freudism, and post-modernism − strikes woman’s identity and in the most radical manifestations it regards sex as a cultural category, and advocates absolute freedom. Thus understood feminism leads to deformation in social life by undermining familial ties and the right to live for the unborn children (abortion). This is false feminism, such that undermines women's identity and dignity.

In Section 2 of his paper (which follows the introductory section) Gary Malinas „summarises three arguments that have been advanced in recent discussions of free agency and responsibility. The first concludes that free agency and responsibility are incompatible with determinism. The second concludes that free agency and responsibility are incompatible with indeterminism. The third concludes that the concept of a free and responsible agent is incoherent. Taken collectively, they entail the conclusion of the practical sceptic: No one acts freely and responsibly. If the summary case can be filled out so that it is sound, it undercuts a number of the commitments of the thick conception of persons the fulfilment of which, arguably, is required for free and responsible action. I believe that the summary case can be filled out so that it is sound. I will adopt this belief as an unargued assumption. It entails that no one acts freely and is truly responsible for their actions. I also believe that it is true that people act freely and responsibly. Once the case for practical scepticism has been put, I devote the remainder of this paper to the vindication of this latter belief. My claim is that practical scepticism is sound, yet nevertheless, it is also true that people act freely and responsibly. The onus of the vindication will be to disarm what appears to be an explicit contradiction. Section 3 proposes a definition of free and responsible action in terms of the concept of exculpation. It argues that judgements concerning agents’ responsibility for their actions are often true under the presuppositions which are in place in the settings in which the judgements are made. Those presuppositions restrict the domains over which the judgements are semantically evaluated. The practical sceptic contests those presuppositions and thereby alters the domain of semantic evaluation. Under the influence of sceptical argumentation, possibilities of exculpation which had been properly ignored can no longer be ignored. Section 4 sketches an account of presupposing and when exculpatory possibilities are properly ignored. Section 5 considers the question of whether I have conceded too much to the practical sceptic”.

The notion of fundamentalism refers mainly to religious attitudes, worldview, ideological and political tenets. It is an attitude that enforces certain social, or even individual, behaviours, and does not respect the subject-orientation in man. It is often referred to the ways of philosophising in which one tends to grasp the fundamental principles of the existence of the world and of man’s action. This manner of philosophising is set in opposition to any kind of free choice and relativism. It cannot be treated as „fundamentalism” if amongst the principles of action there is a principle of freedom, subject-orientation, that is, there is room for human conscience; or, when it is approved that human reason that discovers the principles of the world and action – as being contingent and limited – is not infallible. One should also bear in mind the difference between the practical attitude, including the social way of behaviour, and the theoretical attitude, one that is determined by the methodological and systemic principles of philosophy.

Mental meaning (mental contents) is not a particular kind of object, but it is the way a conscious human mind works. By ‘meaning’ the author understands here both the extralinguistic meaning (perceptive, imaginary, etc.) and the so-called linguistic meaning. In both these senses meaning has the following properties: it is translinguistic, general, abstract, regularly interrelated, subject to modifications (extending, complementing and erasing its components), subject to schematization, it may be transferred to various physical foundations, it may be illustrated, it is directly accessible in introspection and accessible for many subjects (intersubjective). When approached negatively, meaning as a way of functioning of a conscious human mind cannot be identified with a physical sign (be it in the sense of specimen, or in the sense of type). It is neither an ideal object, nor a real one. Also, it is no kind of a perception stereotype. It is not an idea associated with a word, if idea is understood as either an image or a visual schema. Mental meaning is not a communication meaning, as the speaker may modify the meanings he found as existing ones, but he cannot create them. The author considers the following theories of meaning as insufficient: the theory, according to which meaning is an idea associated with the word and the theories saying that meaning may be identified with the conditions of truthfulness, the way phrases are used in colloquial language, or with communication meaning. Meaning is also not explained by such theories as semantics of conceptual roles, causal-historical theories, causal and teleological theories. Plato’s theory saying that existence of mental meaning in the mind consists in exemplification in the mind of ideally existing properties is considered a correct one that explains mental meaning. The source of meaning in the mind is existence of ideal qualities outside the mind. A correct solution to the problem of the nature and origin of meaning may also be Aristotle’s theory of obstraction, according to which the mind, beginning with individual objects and their properties, formulates meantal contents (meaning). Both these theories have to assume that the mind is also capable of performing the operation of transformation that converts properties existing (in a real or ideal way) outside the mind into a peculiarly mental mode of existence. In the case of Aristotle’s theory this transformation consists in dematerialization, whereas in the case of Plato’s theory transformation is tantamount to converting an ideal being into a mental existence. Additionally, the author suggests that in order to explain the intersubjective character of meaning one has to refer to a form of metaphysical harmonization of particular minds’ action. From the semantic way of acting of the human mind one may also make inferences concerning its way of existence. Translinguisticallity, generality, abstraction and other features of human semantic consciousness allow the statement that functioning of human mind does not consist in purely material actions. This immaterial character, however, does not have to be understood as a thesis about the existence of some mysterious ‘spiritual material’ of which human mind is made. It seems that immateriality has to be interpreted as radical extra-materiality.

The article contains the reporting definition for the criterion of identity, a classification of criteria of identity and the general conditions that criteria of identity should meet. The author suggests replacing the binary division of criteria of identity into one- and two-level ones with a ternary division into one level, mixed and two-level criteria. In this suggestion the key role is played by the definition of the range of relation. The article is concluded with a partial solution to the dispute between T. Williamson and E. Lowe over the value of one-level criteria of identity.

In the first part of the article S. Les´niewski’s system of ontology is characterized. It is a name system, one of the broadest systems of this type built in the first half of the 20th century. Ontology is built on the basis of only one axiom; hence definitions play such an important role in this system.The second part of the article is devoted to a characteristic of definitions in ontology. Two kinds of definitions are most often mentioned in ontology: protothetic and ontological ones. This division results from the kind of functor that the given definition introduces into the system. Protothetic definitions introduce functors that generate propositions and ontological ones introduce functors that generate names.In the third part of the article comments are made on creative definitions in ontology. An important feature of definitions in ontology is their creativity. A definition is creative if after it is included in a system it allows proving such a theorem that could not be proved without this definition. The most important motive for selecting creative definitions for building a deduction system is the postulate of formulating a minimum number of the strongest axioms and primary rules. In ontology some of the protothetic and ontological definitions are distinguished by the creative property.

In the paper various ways are shown of constructing both modal and relevance logics. An attempt is undertaken of interpreting modal functors occurring in these logics. In the discussion special attention is paid to logical necessity. Connection of this necessity and tautologies of the classical sentential calculus is pointed to. Next, some intuitive considerations are quoted that resulted in accepting or refusing certain theses or rules on the ground of both modal and relevance logics. Especially much attention is paid to Gödel’s rule.It is stated that at the moment when modal and relevance logics were constructed satisfactory philosophical considerations were not made. In particular, it was not decided if the constructed systems give correct formalization of modal notions, and if they may be used for formalization of deductive ways of infering.

Bayesian confirmation theory is conceived here as a model of inductive inference. A methodological facet of Goodman’s grue paradox (MWP) constitutes a major difficulty for this theory. This could only be evaded on the grounds of philosophical assumptions such as the existence of laws of nature or natural kinds. These would unwittingly bias the theory towards some scientific hypotheses which would contradict the character of the theory. The analysis of J. Earman’s and R. Chuaqui’s formal frameworks demonstrates, however, that weaker assumptions, e.g. seemingly anti-realist admittance of the existence of symmetries alone, will not suffice to cope with (MWP). Finally then Bayesian confirmation theory faces a dilemma: either to allow for ad-hocness in narrowing down the class of its models or to defend a version of scientific realism, e.g. structural realism.