The article analyzes Bertrand Russell’s distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description contained in his writings from 1910 to 1912. I point to some problems that arise from Russell’s concept of direct knowledge if they are observed in the light of modern psychological and neuroscientific research. In some cases knowledge by acquaintance may be mediated by certain unconscious operations and by mental representations of conceptual nature. I point out however that some of the examples given in The Problems of Philosophy can be characterized by a different degree of indirectness. Consequently, I propose to view Russell’s distinction as a typology. Because Russell narrows knowledge by description to specific descriptions, Russell’s division is not exhaustive and therefore is not a logical one. The article also shows that there are reasons for both narrowing his category of direct knowledge (e.g. by excluding universals) and for expanding it (e.g. by unconscious experiences).

The article is a critical analysis of Ingarden’s theory of how we learn about other people’s mental states. The author discusses arguments that have been offered by Ingarden against competing theories and highlights their shortcomings. Next, he presents Ingarden’s original theory, underlining its strengths and weaknesses. He shows that Ingarden’s theory, apart from giving an insight into the mechanisms underlying the cognition of other people’s mental states, has a limited explanatory power even if treated as a phenomenological description of a select class of cognitive situations.

The article is an attempt to evaluate accuracy of Marx’s predictions and to present some reasons for Marx’s ineffectiveness as a forecaster. The article discusses contemporary research on forecasting, uses the results to Marx, and analyses the dialectic aspect of laws in order to explain forecasting weaknesses of Marx. The author of Capital turns out to be – in P.E. Tetlock’s typology – a ‘hedgehog’, i.e.: a bad forecaster, who uses questionable methods to defend his predictions at all costs.

The aim of this article is a critical analysis of Peter F. Strawson’s theory of primitiveness of the concept of person contained in the third chapter of the Individuals. The problems associated with the distinction between M-predicates and P-predicates are pointed out. The article shows different ways of understanding primitiveness of the concept of person, and points to gaps in Strawson’s argumentation and to the dubious potential of the theory if it is used to solve some basic problems in philosophy of mind. It also deals with some of the difficulties outlined, but does not propose to solve them all.

W artykule analizuję Elzenberga koncepcję wartości ujemnej w świetle jego aksjologii. Ukazuję konsekwencje teorii Elzenberga, przedstawiam jej zalety i wady. Te ostatnie staram się zminimalizować, dokonując – w duchu Elzenberga – uzupełnień oryginalnej koncepcji. W ostatniej części artykułu pokazuję, jak można stworzyć jednolitą teorię wartości ujemnej – i wartości w ogóle – która obejmowałaby zarówno wartości perfekcyjne, jak też wartości utylitarne, a także uwzględniała stopniowalność cech.