A summarized fragment of an interview conducted on April 22, 2016, as an installment of the cycle “Conversations with Mentors,” sponsored by the Centre for Film Documentation of Polish Scholarship, Pedagogical University of Kraków and the Polish Society of Ancient Studies. Available online at the Oral History Archive of the Polish Society for Ancient Studies (SHS). The summary covers only Prof. Wipszycka’s biography until the change of regime.

A summary of an interview conducted by Adrian Szopa and Andrzej Gillmeister on April 22, 2016, in the cycle “Conversations with Mentors,” sponsored by the Centre for Film Documentation of Polish Scholarship, Pedagogical University of Kraków and the Polish Society of Ancient Studies. Available online at the Oral History Archive of the Polish Society for Ancient Studies (SHS). Translated by ElŻbieta Olechowska.

The conflict between religion and science is considered from the point of view of a tension between two types of knowledge: religious and scientific. These are indicative of a fundamental conflict between two attitudes towards the world: looking at the world either from the point view of revelation or natural knowledge. I argue that religion and science can be seen as complementary, not threatening the views of each other. Science itself is neither theistic nor atheistic. It becomes such due to (...) ideological interpretation. Scientific propositions and theories neither directly support nor threaten religion; the problem of existence of God and the supernatural is beyond the capabilities of science. The argument for the neutrality of science can be grounded in the fact that both theism and atheism derive support from science. (shrink)

To elaborate the intention of previous contribution, this paper opens again the problem of reception of Kant's definition of the category sublime. Variations which perform Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Adorno represent some innovative approaches. Bridging the history of this aesthetic category in the 20th century in theirs thinking, represents functionality of the sublime, which we observe through the transformations in artistic and aesthetic discourse and which encourages us to an contemporary revaluation of this concept.

Les règlements de compte en Pologne après la chute du communisme ont pris un tour particulier. Entre les désirs d'une réconciliation nationale et d'une justice publique, les Polonais ont oscillé. A partir de 1997, s'est finalement mis en place un processus dit de « lustration » qui consiste à demander aux diffé­rents titulaires de responsabilité publique de déclarer leurs activités sous le communisme. Un débat s'est instauré à ce propos, dans lequel les médias, s'appuyant sur les sondages ont joué un (...) rôle important. Autre signe du désir de la Pologne de changer de mémoire, la modification des noms des villes et des rues : où l'on voit que l'on n'efface pas facilement le passé.The settling of accounts in Poland after the fall of Communism took a specific turn as the Polish popu­lation hesitated between its desire for national reconciliation and for public justice. Eventually, from 1997, the process known as "lustration" was introduced, whereby the various holders of public office were required to state their activities under Communism. This gave rise to a debate in which the media, drawing on opinion polls, played an important part. Another sign of Poland' s desire to alter its memory was the changing of street and city names, which shows that it is not so easy to erase the past. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to systematize the de re/de dicto distinctions that are most frequently used in philosophy. The paper highlights the main contexts in which these distinctions may be found and their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic definitions. The article consists of four points, which are discussed in turn: 1) the principal moments in the early history of the distinction between de re and de dicto; 2) the main theoretical contexts of this distinction; 3) contemporary attempts to systematize (...) the various versions of this distinction, derived from Thomas McKay and Michael Nelson; and 4) a similar attempt, conducted by the author, to make McKay and Nelson’s systematization more precise. (shrink)

Recently, the EU enacted provisions that could lead to a tendency that restrictions of competition are appraised more and more by economic criteria, such as socialor consumer welfare or in short, under efficiency criteria. Furthermore, many academic scholars are proposing that the function and purpose of competition law shall no longer be that of ensuring the freedom to compete but rather the promotion of economic and social welfare. This article deals with the question on what grounds the primary goal of (...) antitrust policy should be the enhancement of social- or consumer welfare. Therefore, the article first gives an overview of the economic efficiency criteria. Then, the different justifications of economic efficiency are discussed, including the utilitarian approach, consensus theory and pragmatism. The article ends with personal conclusions. (shrink)

Heidegger’s thinking, according to his own testimony, is rooted in two traditions of philosophy: Platonic-Aristotelian ontology and Husserl’s phe­nomenology. Heidegger’s claim that the original understanding of Being is lost and has to be rediscovered conjoins the phenomenological claim that there is a certain mode of seeing that enables a revelatory philosophical insight. I would like to show how Heidegger combines both these claims in his supposition that the original philosophical conceptuality, as developed by Plato and Aristotle, was lost but can (...) be retrieved by means of applying the phenomenological method to the interpretation of texts. Furthermore, I would like to interpret this retrieval in the context of Heidegger’s project of “overcoming metaphysics” and Nietzsche’s suggestion that “Plato was essentially a pantheist, yet in the guise of a dualist”. (shrink)

Artykuł jest próbą analizy pojęcia „wstępnego rozumienia”, i stanowi próbę odtworzenia i wyjaśnienia hermeneutyki Arendt, tzn. zrozumienia, o ile to możliwe, problemu wiedzy w sensie w jakim rozumie ją Arendt, na historycznym i filozoficznym gruncie jej myśli. Dokonanie tego zwrotu w hermeneutyce polityki Arendt, a ściślej w jej epistemologicznym aspekcie związanym z pojęciem „wstępnego rozumienia” możliwe stało się na tle odkrycia przez Heideggera „prestruktury rozumienia”.

In this paper we find upper estimations of cardinalities of models of monadic predicate logic. We also present, by a method of semantical nature, a certain description of the expressive power of this logic.

The idea of rational understanding lays very close to the heart of Professor Janusz Kuczyński, an advocate of universalism as well as dialogue between diverse philosophical schools and worldviews, and doctoral advisor to the present paper’s author. This idea’s theoretical conceptualisation—a conceptualisation that has proven to be convincing and adequate to the conditions of the modern world—was developed by Professor Jürgen Habermas, whose ideas and theories were also the subject of a doctoral thesis written by this paper’s author in the (...) latter half of the 1970s under Professor Kuczyński’s tutelage. The author shares some grateful memories of his doctoral tutor, and also sets his one-time attempts to apply the theory of communicative action to two experiences of the real socialism era in Poland against his efforts to analyse contemporary Polish realities through the prism of the communicative rationality conception. This comparison shows that the application of a conception of rationality funded by communicative action to the turbulent transformations under real socialism was to a certain extent naïve—though not devoid of critical significance—and also reveals the preconditions for the implementation of the rules of communicative rationality in social and political reality.The paper is in part dedicated to the memory of Professor Kuczyński, therefore it contains a somewhat extensive account of the circumstances which led the author to study the thought of Habermas under Kuczyński’s tutelage, as well as the consequences of this choice, which proved of considerable significance for his further life. However, the main themes are, first, the validity of applying a conception of rationality funded by communicative action to two significant experiences of the real socialism era, and, secondly, the need—revealed by diagnosing contemporary Polish reality with the help of the communicative rationality conception—for certain preconditions enabling the implementation of this type of rationality in social and political reality. One such precondition is the transition of sufficiently broad parts of society from thinking in terms of worldviews to post-metaphysical thinking in terms of the “lifeworld”. (shrink)