An exploration of one of the most universal human obsessions charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions and enters the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality.

This paper considers the implications of precautionary restrictions against technologies, in the context of the potential for creating and sustaining rumours. It focuses on the restriction against mobile phone use at petrol stations, based on the rumour that a spark might cause an explosion. Rumours have been substantiated by precautionary usage warnings from mobile phone manufacturers, petrol station usage restrictions, and a general lack of technical understanding. Petrol station employees have themselves spread the rumour about alleged incidents, filling the information (...) gap about the basis for the restriction. (shrink)

The Catholic Church’s Social Teaching dealing with mankind is interested in the person and their way of progressing in the world. As John Paul II stated, Catholic Social Teaching “belongs [...] to the field [...] of theology, particularly moral theology” (SRS 41; CA 55). Polish moralists in the area of social moral theological studies undertake the issue of economic-social life, and in particular its anthropological dimension. Moral reflections from the theological point of view allow for an integral grasping of the (...) involvement of the person in the life of society. The goal of the presented report is to show an integral concept of the person as the fundamental dimension of social-economic life. The principle source of this work is comprised of views presented on the given topic by the nation’s moralists during over a dozen lately held yearly meetings of the Section of Polish Moral Theologians. The contents of the report are divided into three parts: (1) the integrated vision of the person as the principle element of evaluating the social-economic order; (2) threats to the human person in the context of contemporary social-political life and (3) pointing to ways of overcoming these threats. (shrink)

this seems to be an unauthorized translation from the introduction to *Philosophy in Practice*.

Numerous instruments have been developed to elicit numerical values that represent the strength of preference for different health states. However, relatively few studies have attempted to analyse the reasoning processes that people employ when they are asked to answer questions based on these elicitation methods. The lottery equivalents method is a preference elicitation instrument that has recently received some attention in the literature. This study attempts a qualitative analysis of the use of this instrument on a group of 25 relatively (...) highly educated respondents. For each of three health states considered in the study, a substantial number of respondents refused to trade the chance of survival for a possible improvement in the health state. Therefore, many respondents violated an assumption that is necessary for the lottery equivalents instrument to generate cardinal health state values. These findings place a question mark against the usefulness of the lottery equivalents method, and add weight to the suspicion that ‘preferences’ are constructed according to how questions are framed. (Published Online July 31 2007). (shrink)

How is the desk, or the room in which one works and day-dreams, a concern for critical political economy? How does this theme open onto thinking about ‘the new normal’? Marx’s concept of the consumption fund and Bachelard’s poetics of space will help us plot the basic terms of a poetical/political economy adequate to law’s involvement in the intimate topographies of post-pandemic capitalism. This paper proposes a phenomenology of intimate lived space that can provide the intellectual tools to understand the (...) topographies of bedroom offices, kitchen table desks and car/taxis where capital takes possession of daily life. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to preserve realism in both ontology and truth for the philosophy of mathematics and science. It begins by arguing that scientific realism can only be attained given mathematical realism due to the indispensable nature of the latter to the prior. Ultimately, the paper argues for a position combining both Ontic Structural Realism and Ante Rem Structuralism, or what the author refers to as Strong Ontic Structural Realism, which has the potential to reconcile realism for (...) both science and mathematics. The paper goes on to claims that this theory does not succumb to the same traditional epistemological problems, which have damaged the credibility of its predecessors. (shrink)

In this essay, the author joins a conversation started by Martin regarding gender and education seeking to extend the conversation to address sexuality. To do so, the author brings a reading of the Marquis de Sade to challenge the emphasis on reproduction in education as it relates to gendered and sexual norms. The author, following Martin’s approach in Reclaiming the Conversation, reads one particular text of Sade’s—Philosophy in the Bedroom—to argue for queer possibilities that Sade brings to the conversation around (...) gender and sexuality within twenty-first century education. The Marquis de Sade may viscerally seem an inappropriate choice to return to and use to join the conversation, but his novelic imagination incites complications in the conversation. Following in the footsteps of Martin’s re-reading of historic philosophical texts the author offers not only another layer of thinking about “female education,” but also opens up space for engaging gender and sexuality in the history and philosophy of education. As issues around gender and sexed bodies become ever more present and contested in educational discourses, does Sade continue the conversation in ways that corrupt the reproductive aims of education? (shrink)

Ustanowienie w zrodzonym z Boga Ojca Synu-Logosie idealnych wzorów jest pierwotnym aktem stwórczym Boga, ujętego przez Jana Szkota Eriugenę jako Niestworzona Natura Stwarzająca, która powołuje do istnienia Stworzoną Naturę Stwarzającą. Bóg dokonał całości stworzenia jednym aktem. Stworzenie zaistniało jako proste i doskonałe według woli Boga. Eriugena uważa, że stworzenie w Logosie przyczyn prymordialnych zostało w Księdze Rodzaju opisane w formie procesu. Ten alegoryczny zapis stanowi źródło informacji o stworzonej rzeczywistości. Dla Eriugeny całe Pismo Święte jest pełnoprawnym źródłem informacji, ponieważ autorem (...) Pisma jest zawsze prawdomówny Bóg. Stwórca pragnie, aby człowiek, który dokonał błędnego wyboru i utracił doskonałość, mógł powrócić do tego stanu, więc otwiera przed człowiekiem Księgę Natury, którą jest stworzony wszechświat oraz Księgę Pisma, którą jest Pismo Święte. Biblia, zawierająca symbole, nauki i opisy, została dana również współczesnej ludzkości, aby rozumna natura człowieka mogła nakierować go na drogę powrotu do Boga i stanu doskonałości. Analiza stworzenia oraz analiza Pisma Świętego powinny zbliżać człowieka do Boga. Wypowiedź egzegetyczna stanowi ważny aspekt interpretacji Pisma, więc Eriugena stawia warunki, które są konieczne lub stanowią wsparcie dla poprawnego wnioskowania. Warunki te dotyczą niesprzeczności pomiędzy wspomnianymi Księgami, roli ludzkiego intelektu w prowadzonych badaniach oraz znaczenia ludzkich autorytetów. Autor artykułu omawia wymagania, określone przez Eriugenę i dokonuje ich interpretacji uwzględniając fakt rozwoju różnych dziedzin współczesnej nauki. ----------------------- Zgłoszono: 29/03/2022. Zrecenzowano: 12/05/2022. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 31/05/2022. (shrink)

Kartezjanizm i antykartezjanizm locke’owskiej koncepcji tożsamości osobowej Niniejszy artykuł koncentruje się na zależnościach pomiędzy Locke’owskim i kartezjańskim pojmowaniem tożsamości osobowej. Wbrew częstym odczytaniom, różnica pomiędzy nimi nie daje się sprowadzić do prostego przeciwstawienia substancjalizmu i empiryzmu. Locke nie rezygnuje ze stanowiska substancjalistycznego, jednakże rozgranicza dwie sfery — naturalnego, bazującego na doświadczeniu poznania oraz filozoficznych spekulacji, w których stara się przedstawić racjonalną i zgodną ze swym programem epistemologicznym interpretację dogmatów religijnych. Krytyka Locke’a dotyczy możliwości istnienia rzeczy myślącej jako substancji istniejącej niezależnie (...) od ciała, natomiast rozbudowaniu w stosunku do filozofii kartezjańskiej ulega opis różnicowania się doświadczenia i ludzkiej subiektywności, zaś pojęcie tożsamości osobowej zyskuje eksplikację na czterech uzupełniających się poziomach: psychologicznym, biologicznym, społeczno-prawnym i religijnym. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that the moral norms of “everyday” or “traditional” morality apply uniformly in all business contexts. However, Joseph Heath has recently argued that this is not the case. According to Heath, the norms of everyday morality apply with respect to “administered” transactions, but not “market” transactions. Market transactions are, he argues, governed by a distinct, “adversarial” morality. In this essay, I argue that Heath’s attempt to show that competitive contexts are governed by a distinct, adversarial morality does (...) not succeed. I then undertake the task of showing that, contrary to what is commonly thought, competitive actions can be reconciled with the norms of traditional morality. (shrink)

What grounds the moral significance of the intend/foresee distinction? To put the question another way, what reason do we have for believing that moral absolutes apply with respect to intended effects, but not foreseeable but unintended (bad) effects? Joseph Boyle has provided an answer that relies on the idea that persons can find themselves in situations of “moral impossibility”—situations in which every available option foreseeably will give rise to bad effects. However, Robert Anderson has put Boyle’s answer into question by (...) arguing, in essence, as follows: the choice to do nothing gives rise to no effects at all; one can always simply choose to do nothing; therefore, it is not the case that situations of moral impossibility obtain. In response, Boyle has argued that Anderson’s conception of the effects of the choice to do nothing is implausible and, further, that the choice to do nothing gives rise to effects just as do other choices. In this essay, I address and extend this debate. (shrink)

[t. 1.] 1750-1830 -- [t. 2.] 1831-1864 -- [t. 3.] 1865-1895 -- [t. 4., zesz. 1.-2.] 1896-1918.

Contemporary world on one hand is a place of unknown never before abundance but on the other hand it is a place where so much poverty, unsatisfied people’s needs, destabilization of natural and socio – economical systems has been happening. Neglecting human rights and basic political needs are the most important threats for development. The idea of sustainable development, playing one of the meaningful answer developmental threats requires such development which would satisfy needs of present generations without depriving future generations (...) abilities and satisfactions of their needs. A. Sen’s concept of development, being treated as a process of widening basic civil rights and freedoms, effective-ness of social security networks play fundamental role for intellectual reflection on the idea of sustainable development. (shrink)

This article explores the critical history and reception of Charles Churchill, the mid-eighteenth century satirist, looking in particular at his skepticism towards all authority as a questioning of traditional ideas of `enlightenment', and at the reasons for the meteoric but short-lived nature of his poetic success.