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.

The authors investigate the contemporary idea of noosphere (the conceptual and ideological basis for considering the coming ecological crisis). The authors arrive at the conclusion that the concept of human plays the central role in ecology as all the ecological problems rest upon the problem of mankind’s moral imperative. Therefore the authors claim, applying among others Vernadsky’s views, that the idea of human in the field of ecology should be today revised.

The spontaneity of natural life is the only property which differs this type of life from artificial life. However, it may be the main basis to understand life. Artificial life is constructed by living beings; it is a part of the natural life process, and its properties are not an effect of its own restrictions but of external assumptions. Therefore the investigation of artificial life is not a safe way of searching for basic properties of natural life. The purposefulness appears only in the area of a life process. We generalize the notion of information and encoding to apply them to the physical phenomena description. We use them to define the purposeful information—its example is a biological information, its quantity is an Eigen’s information value. Next we investigate properties of the spontaneous process of purposeful information collecting. In effect we get such properties of this process as: a goal “to exist”, reproduction and the Darwinian mechanism of randomchangeability and elimination. In this process a natural identity criterion of the evolving object connected with the “small change tendency” appears.

The subject of the article is the conception of the Universe quantum origin. According to this conception, the Universe was formed as an effect of the quantum fluctuation of physical vacuum and can just be considered as such fluctuation. The first suggestion of such an origin of the Universe was made by M.G. Albrow. The views of A. Vilenkin, S.W. Hawking and J.B. Hartle, who combined this conception with the inflationary Universe theory, made the basis for the analysis of the contemporary version of the conception of the Universe quantum origin. Consequently, a new version of this conception was elaborated, which assumed that the Universe was formed from nothing as an effect of quantum tunneling passage. Followers of the conception of the Universe quantum origin suggest that the solution of the problem of the origin of the Universe on the basis of this conception is of absolute character. However, the philosophical analysis of the problem discussed in the article, which includes cosmological consequences of the idea of inexhaustibility of matter, proved that the solution of the problem proposedin the conception of the Universe quantum origin is not and cannot be of absolute character. In fact, the solution is a cosmological hypothesis describing one of theoretical variants of the relative origin of the Universe. At the end of the article, it was remarked that the development of the 20th century cosmology results in the necessity of modification of philosophical terminology used so far for the purpose of the analysis of the problem of the origin of the Universe.

The subject of the paper is the social function of the philosophy of nature. The author presents briefly his own position in this topic and gives an evaluation of the literature on the philosophy of nature in the recent decades. According to him, the opposition against the abuse of science for the purpose of social mystification stems mostly from (philosophizing) scientists themselves and sociologists of knowledge. Academic philosophers—regardless of the variety of their ontological orientations—are prone rather to cultivate the metaphilosophical mythology (of positivistic origins).

The paper analyzes philosophy of nature viewing it as this part of philosophy which investigates the foundations of nature and the limits of its existence. The paper concerns the following issues: the historical forms of the philosophy of nature, its modern context and the embracing philosophy of nature in the frame of co-evolution strategy determining that nature is only a moment of interaction between mankind and the world outward. It is shown that “philosophy of nature” is an extremely general notion being filled with various historical, social and cultural senses. Nature is involved into the smithery of human activity and human relations. In cannot be understood beyond these relations, as well as beyond the historical and cultural spheres. Nature becomes the participant of human questioning which grows in certain social and cultural context and carries on itself its signs. Philosophy of nature begins to be built up on the basis of ontology of history, or, in other words, on the basis of the comprehension of ultimate characteristics of historic processes.

An inspection into the contemporary theory of knowledge shows that a new methodological stance, that is, the so called evolutionary epistemology or, equivalently, evolutionary theory of knowledge, which is a version of “naturalistic” turn has been established. This stance tends to consider various philosophical problems from concrete scientific positions and by means of scientific knowledge. This interdisciplinary enterprise has determined as its purposes the researches of biological preconditions of human knowledge and the explanation of its features on the basis of the modern synthetic theory of evolution.The paper discusses the ideas of K. Lorenz, G. Vollmer, D.T. Campbell, H.R. Maturana, F.J. Varela. Especially, the paper concerns the thesis that the reality cognizable by man is the reality designed, created during his personally involved communicative activity. In this perspective, the question “What is the object of knowledge?” becomes inappropriate. The reliability of knowledge consists in being able to behave adequately in individual enterprising and in co-operation with other subjects.

In the article I undertake the question of the Ockham’s razor. I consider the basic version of this methodological postulate: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. I propose to interpret this postulate as a criterion of non-existence. In this context I analyse the matter of accidental entities as well as the ontological principle of economy.

In everyday life, people grasp mainly short term events of their natural surroundings, since our perception of broad and long term behavior of natural systems has been, and still is, rather limited. Throughout our history there are numerous cases of unheeded environmental warnings. This paper provides an overview of earlier era forewarnings, to illustrate how understanding of past responses to natural predicaments may help enhance future curriculum and policy discussions.