The article concerns the metaphysical dimension of Jan Srzednicki’s epistemology. It is claimed that the metaphysical perspective of cognitive “normatives” (e. g. norm, form and presence) does not remove paradoxes of self-reference. It is especially difficult to separate the ontic and the cognitive dimensions.

The fundamental problem of Jan Srzednicki’s new epistemology is the question: how thoughts surpass the resistance of that what is ontologically present, how this process is possible? In Srzednicki’s opinion, thinking is a process of distancing from the pressure of ontological presence. His ideas offer a splendid inspiration for philosophy of medicine which attempts to answer the question “whether (and how) a disease is cognizable?” This question refers directly to and is translated into the question of the capacity to diagnose particular diseases. Answering to the above stated question whether disease is cognizable we should answer in the affirmative, however, in a “modified” form that its pre-cognitive resistance to reality is formed at the articulated level. Somewhat intuitively we feel the presence of a disease before we express it in words as a disease according to our scientific or informal thought style.

Whereas at the roots of the Western way of thinking, in particular, at the roots of philosophy and epistemology lies a notion of the one/over/many, in Asiatic cultures, it is an idea of one/and/many, represented by Japanese (Chinese) Ma. In the paper it is argued that Japanese Ma is not only broader than epistemological reality (the world) but also more basic. To overcome Wittgenstein’s skepticism we have to return to a noncognitive idea of the ontic presence. Our thinking and cognition is deeply rooted in the imperceptible and indiscernible ontic flexibility and generality which is not conceptual or linguistic. This essay presents another interesting aspect of my metaphysical project showing that we cannot infer cognition either from the object level or from a meta-level.

In the article the author tries to find some similarities and differences between phenomenological tradition and Srzednicki’s project of the new epistemology. He mostly refers to the thought of a French philosopher, Merleau-Ponty. Especially representative to the arguments is his late turn to metaphysical perspective presented in the work, Visible and Invisible, where he made an attempt to express a kind of logic which may reveal the world and ourselves in its mutual interconnections.

The paper investigates Jan Srzednicki’s epistemological conception with its main Kantian problem on the very possibility of cognition. Investigating Srzednicki’s conception the paper refers to its interpretation elaborated by Grażyna Żurkowska.

Some problems concerning transcendental epistemic arguments are raised on the basis of Jan Srzednicki’s epistemological conception presented in the bookEpistemology after Wittgenstein. Jan Srzednicki’s New Epistemological Perspective by Grażyna Żurkowska. The problem of the cognition immediacy is briefly discussed. The great philosophical importance of many other relevant topics is indicated, i.e. the internal similarity of Jan Srzednicki’s philosophical challenge to the project of Heideggerian hermeneutics or the problem of mutual relations between language and cognition.

In the book Kłopot z istnieniem.[The Trouble with the Existence (1963).Ed. Toruń 2002] Henryk Elzenberg formulates valuable philosophical remarks about suffering. I present them here as “statements”. They provoke many questions defining here as „problems”.At the end in appendix I confront briefly the epistemological position of Elzenberg with that postulated by Jan Srzednicki in the book Kłopoty pojęciowe [Notional Troubles], Warszawa 1993.

The greatest challenge with which the Readers of my book had to cope with was the problem of ontological presence. In Srzednicki’s conception ontological presence has two dimensions: a logical and an onto-factual one.Every cognitive perspective is always contingent but this contingency must be limited somehow. Srzednicki restores the ontological dimension of cognition (crossed out by traditional epistemology and philosophy), but avoids ontological fundamentalism. His conception gives rise to a new model of metaphysics understood not as the most general theory of being or a general theory of cognition but as the non-epistemic closure of all epistemological projects and theoretical discourses.The main parameters of the epistemic closure can only be reconstructed theoretically in the logical space of the observer. This non-epistemic closure is marked by three categorical constraints: ontological, formative and normative.Srzednicki overcomes Wittgenstein’s skepticism by understanding transcendentalism much more deeply.

The term “transcendental” means something which is a necessary and a priori condition of knowledge. In other words, “the transcendental” refers to all presuppositions of a knower who is ready for knowing. These presuppositions are sometimes called “epistemic assumptions”. The paper presents author’s interpretation of the knowledge necessary conditions. The theoretical background for this interpretation is Kazimierz Twardowski’s theory of actions and products, and John Searle’s theory of human action.

The question of [metaphysical logic] is how cogitatio is possible in the first place (Überhaupt – Kant) as it constitutes reaction to the real (whatever that may be) by the Ego (a subject possessed of cognitive potential). Is that reaction dependable?Ego can only react to the World. All systems of thought/cognition come from this only impact of reality.The question is its own reliability and legitimacy. The first can deliver reliably something quite illegitimate (the whole art of propaganda (advertising) is based on this simple fact).The ability to cognize/think, at least at the level of [modern Ego] assumes the technique/capacity’s independence from that come from [categorical truisms]. To manipulate this is to think/cognize. Possible just when, the (shape of) the real resonates with Ego’s cognitive sensitivity. This needs to be shown to obtain.(Assuming per impossibile that the contrary obtains at the [archetypal] beginning our thinking could not find an adequate basis so it could not occur—which supposition is absurd.)

The article juxtaposes Jan Srzednicki’s conception of cognition with Jean Piaget’s psychology of cognition. Human’s (child’s) cognition is syncretic. Various cognitive data are confused, systematized, dogmatized or become chaotic, and mistakes appear. These mistakes can be overcome thanks to analytical, intuitive or logical perspectives. Cognition moves from the sphere of “children’s dogmatism” to the world of “mature skepticism”. The syncretic cognition can be overcome thanks to various cognitive procedures, e.g., analytical, logical or intuitive. The intuitive cognition is primary and synthetic—it is present in the acts of analytical cognition. Syncretism may lead to dogmatism if it is uncritical or to skepticism if it is connected with logical procedures. It is explained to a different extent both by Piaget’s epistemology of development and also by epistemology of Srzednicki’s logical gap.

The paper tries to show that the theory of Srzednicki and Żurkowska can be viewed as an new and interesting solution of the classical problem: Can we cognize the objective reality? The theory discussed here conquer the cognitive skepticism on the condition, that there is not a impassable gap between the pre-ego experiencing without the notions and the subject cognizing by using the notions.

Jan Srzednicki’s metaphysical conception of epistemology lies in radical opposition to the whole epistemological tradition. The main problem of his new epistemology is to find a non-linguistic (non-cognitive) idea of reference to an ontological presence.Srzednicki finds the prototype of such a completely new, non-linguistic perspective in Brentano’s Doppelurteile. Brentano’s idea cannot be mechanically adopted, however, because on the whole it still remains within the traditional theory. To avoid the problemsrevealed by Wittgenstein we need a more sophisticated strategy. Srzednicki achieves this goal by scripting the epistemological scenario for two dimensions: theoretical and pre-theoretical. The first one represents the logical space of observer, the second one, the theoretically discernible logical requirements of cognition (called cognitive potential, pre-Ego or arche of the possibility of cognition).Srzednicki’s idea was born in the space of three theoretical challenges: Brentano’s, Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s. He begins where each of these three theorists broke off, which is to say, entangling his endeavors at he end in dilemmas which cannot be resolved by means available from his perspectives.

This article presents J. Srzednicki’s epistemological conception and confronts it generally with contemporary versions of epistemological relativism.

In the comments presented below, I consider critically to Srzednicki’s epistemological realism, and his modernistic and anti-dialectical fundamentalism

Henryk Elzenberg (1887–1967)—a Polish philosopher, axiologist and existentialist claimed that creativity concealed the secret of life and death. Creativity connects many extremities and contradictions, it requires sacrifices, asceticism, perfectionism, but also yearning, liberty, sensuality and desire.

Values are relational properties that can be defined only in relation to a goal-directed system. Biological values originated with living systems and subjective values originated with the origin of vertebrate (and possibly others’) mind through a conversion (subjectivization) of biological values. While this conversion is understandable in adaptive (functional) terms, the evolutionary mechanism whereby positive and negative meanings in the mind were assigned to molecular and/or neuronal configurations in the brain, so far defies our comprehension. Whatever their origin, the primary subjective values are experienced by most if not all vertebrates, and the hominid conceptual values are all ultimately derived from experiential values.