What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities (...) in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent. In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the methods of hypersequents and display sequents in the proof theory of non-classical logics. In contrast with existing surveys dedicated to hypersequent calculi or to display calculi, our aim is to provide a unified perspective on these two formalisms highlighting their differences and similarities and discussing applications and recent results connecting and comparing them.

We perform a proof-theoretical investigation of two modal predicate logics: global intuitionistic logic GI and global intuitionistic fuzzy logic GIF. These logics were introduced by Takeuti and Titani to formulate an intuitionistic set theory and an intuitionistic fuzzy set theory together with their metatheories. Here we define analytic Gentzen style calculi for GI and GIF. Among other things, these calculi allows one to prove Herbrand’s theorem for suitable fragments of GI and GIF.

Recent research has documented that affect plays a crucial role in risk perception. When no information about numerical risk estimates is available (e.g., probability of loss or magnitude of consequences), people may rely on positive and negative affect toward perceived risk. However, determinants of affective reactions to risks are poorly understood. In a series of three experiments, we addressed the question of whether and to what degree mental imagery eliciting negative affect and stress influences risk perception. In each experiment, participants (...) were instructed to visualize consequences of risk taking and to rate riskiness. In Experiment 1, participants who imagined negative risk consequences reported more negative affect and perceived risk as higher compared to the control condition. In Experiment 2, we found that this effect was driven by affect elicited by mental imagery rather than its vividness and intensity. In this study, imagining positive risk consequences led to lower perceived risk than visualizing negative risk consequences. Finally, we tested the hypothesis that negative affect related to higher perceived risk was caused by negative feelings of stress. In Experiment 3, we introduced risk-irrelevant stress to show that participants in the stress condition rated perceived risk as higher in comparison to the control condition. This experiment showed that higher ratings of perceived risk were influenced by psychological stress. Taken together, our results demonstrate that affect-laden mental imagery dramatically changes risk perception through negative affect (i.e., psychological stress). (shrink)

This paper sketches the emergence of, and shifts within, the social, legal, and political figurations of sex workers in Poland. By adopting a genealogical perspective, I investigate how sex workers have been (re)constituted as subjects of governance and unimaginable social justice claimants in legislation, political debates, and law enforcement strategies. With a broad temporal scope, this article traces continuities, transformations, and disruptions within modes of sex work governance in Poland from the adoption of the first laws relating to sex work (...) enacted during the early 19th century to the present day. Through analysis of policy documents, scholarly work on the history of sex work policies in Poland, and personal accounts by sex workers, I identify and examine two dominant discursive and legal figurations of a sex worker: as a threat, and as a victim in need of rescue and protection. While analysing the emergence of and interplay between these two figurations, this article demonstrates how these seemingly contradictory frames of recognition gradually conjoined within 20th-century Polish sex work governance strategies, rendering sex workers unimaginable subjects of rights and social justice claimants. (shrink)

There is a longstanding discussion whether wide-scope indefinites denote choice functions that are existentially bound or remain free. Data from Ga, an under-researched language spoken in Ghana, show that there are wide-scope indefinites denoting existentially bound skolemized choice functions whose parameter is bound by a higher quantificational NP, free skolemized choice functions with the speaker or a higher quantificational NP as a parameter, and narrow scope quantificational indefinites. Thus the data show that both existentially bound and free skolemized choice functions (...) are attested in natural language shedding new light on the semantics of indefinites. (shrink)

We introduce necessary and sufficient conditions for a (single-conclusion) sequent calculus to admit (reductive) cut-elimination. Our conditions are formulated both syntactically and semantically.

Tarot cards are one means to unlocking an image. In this article, the image is that of the Albanian writer and political dissident Musine Kokalari at her 1946 trial. Her photograph features in Albanian discourses about its communist past. I argue that the image provides clues as to the manner in which the country has faced up to its own history. For what is certain is that the Albanian account of the Enver Hoxha dictatorship remains incomplete. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s (...) notion of ‘here-and-now in a flash’, and Roland Barthes’ and Italo Calvino’s reflections on photography and the power of the visual, we can identify at least two distinct memory regimes in the relevant historical, legal and political narratives. (shrink)

The playwright Edward Bond has recalled the impact of seeing photographs of Nazi atrocities at the end of World War Two: “It was the ground zero of the human soul.” He argues we need a different kind of drama, based in “a new interpretation of what it means to be human.” He has developed an extensive body of theoretical writings to set alongside his plays. Arguably, his own reflections on “what it means to be human” are based in his reaction (...) to the Holocaust, and his attempt to confront “the totality of evil.” Bond argues we are born “radically innocent.” There is a “pre-psychological” state of being. The neonate does not “read” ideology; it has to use its own imagination to make sense of the world. To enter society, however, the child must be corrupted; its imagination is “ideologized.” Bond claims that “radical innocence” can never wholly be lost. Through drama, we can escape “ideology” and recover our “autonomy.” It leads us to confront extreme situations, and to define for ourselves “what it means to be human.” The terms of Bond’s theory are Manichean. His arguments are based in the assumption that there is a fundamental “humanity” that exists prior to socialization. In fact, the process of socialization begins at birth. As an account of child development, “radical innocence” does not stand up to close scrutiny. Arguably, however, Bond’s work escapes the confines of his own theory. It can be read, not in terms of the “ideologized” vs. the “autonomous” mind, but rather, in terms of “conscious” and “unconscious.” In Coffee, Bond takes character of Nold on a journey into the Dantean hell of his own unconscious. He does not recover his “innocence,” but, rather, he has to face the darkness of both history and the psyche. (shrink)

Ce livre de Barbara Klich-Kluczewska est sans aucun doute un des ouvrages les plus marquants des dernières années en histoire culturelle de l’État polonais communiste. Barbara Klich Kluczewska, qui est rattachée à la faculté d’histoire de l’université Jagellonne de Cracovie, est une des figures dirigeantes de l’histoire anthropologique et de l’histoire du genre en Pologne. Intéressée par les méthodes de l’histoire orale, visuelle et comparative, elle a publié une micro-histoire de la vie priv...

First published in 1962, Reason and Imagination presents collection of fourteen essays dedicated to Marjorie Hope Nicholson and is divided equally between works of her colleagues and of her former students. It contains themes like noble numbers and poetry of devotion, Cromwell as Davidic King, the isolation of the renaissances hero, Milton's dialogue on Astronomy, music, mirth and galenic traditions in England, the Augustan conception of history, Locke and Sterne, and literary criticism and artistic interpretation, to weave a narrative of (...) the history of ideas in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of literary history, philosophy, comparative literature, and English literature in general. (shrink)

The central dogma of molecular biology dictates that, with only a few exceptions, information proceeds from DNA to protein through an RNA intermediate. Examining the enigmatic steps from prebiotic to biological chemistry, we take another road suggesting that primordial peptides acted as template for the self-assembly of the first nucleic acids polymers. Arguing in favour of a sort of archaic “reverse translation” from proteins to RNA, our basic premise is a Hadean Earth where key biomolecules such as amino acids, polypeptides, (...) purines, pyrimidines, nucleosides and nucleotides were available under different prebiotically plausible conditions, including meteorites delivery, shallow ponds and hydrothermal vents scenarios. Supporting a protein-first scenario alternative to the RNA world hypothesis, we propose the primeval occurrence of short two-dimensional peptides termed “selective amino acid- and nucleotide-matching oligopeptides” (henceforward SANMAOs) that noncovalently bind at the same time the polymerized amino acids and the single nucleotides dispersed in the prebiotic milieu. In this theoretical paper, we describe the chemical features of this hypothetical oligopeptide, its biological plausibility and its virtues from an evolutionary perspective. We provide a theoretical example of SANMAO’s selective pairing between amino acids and nucleosides, simulating a poly-Glycine peptide that acts as a template to build a purinic chain corresponding to the glycine’s extant triplet codon GGG. Further, we discuss how SANMAO might have endorsed the formation of low-fidelity RNA’s polymerized strains, well before the appearance of the accurate genetic material’s transmission ensured by the current translation apparatus. (shrink)

Ce compte rendu a déjà paru dans la revue Perspectives médiévales, 35 | 2014. Nous remercions Agata Sobczyk de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. F. Pomel (dir.), Cloches et horloges dans les textes médiévaux, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2012. Le recueil fait suite à trois autres, consacrés à des objets que l'on peut considérer comme emblématiques pour un certain nombre de textes médiévaux, tous parus sous la direction de Fabienne Pomel aux Presses Universitaires de Rennes : (...) (...) - Recensions. (shrink)

The study was aimed at validating the Polish version of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form. Our findings confirm the reliability and validity of the scale. With respect to reliability, internal consistency coefficients of the TEIQue-SF were comparable to those obtained using the original English version. The evidence of the validity of the TEIQue-SF came from the pattern of relations with the other self-report measure of EI, personality measures, as well as affective and social correlates. We demonstrated that the TEIQue-SF (...) score correlated positively with scores on the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. The TEIQue- SF score correlated negatively with Neuroticism and positively with Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. In addition, scores on the TEIQue-SF were related to dispositional affect, i.e., correlated positively with positive affectivity and negatively with negative affectivity. The TEIQue-SF score correlated positively with social competencies as measured with the Social Competencies Questionnaire. We also found that trait EI, as measured with the TEIQue-SF, was positively related to the richness of one’s supportive social network and this relationship remained statistically significant even after controlling for Big Five variance. We also demonstrated that scoring on the TEIQue-SF was positively related to satisfaction with life and negatively related to perceived stress and these relationships remained significant, even after controlling for positive and negative affectivity. Taken together, these findings suggest that the Polish version of the TEIQue-SF is a reliable and valid measure that inherits the network of associations both from the original version of the TEIQue-SF and the full form of the Polish TEIQue. (shrink)

Supply chains are an indispensable element of any global economy. At the same time such supply chains create a societal and environmental burden. Drastic actions are required to mitigate these effects. Supply chains should become responsible and sustainable (where responsibility and sustainability are understood in a broad sense) addressing economic, political, societal, legal, human rights, ethical and environmental concerns. This research shifts from the question of why companies should implement responsibility and sustainability into supply chains, to how they should do (...) so effectively. Illustrated by a case study of Sedex, a collaborative platform for buyers and suppliers, this paper proposes three solutions for responsible and sustainable supply chain management (SCM). Firstly, supply chains have to be supported by research and innovation (R&I). Secondly, supply chains should be based on multi-stakeholder efforts of industry, governmental and non-governmental organisations. Thirdly, the responsibility should lie not only with an individual company and its employees, but also with organisations of companies (supra-agency). As a result, responsible and sustainable supply chains require technological, political and ethical solutions involving the development of sound, multi-stakeholder business and governance models. These models should be based on the equal consideration of all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental and social), the cooperation of the partners in the chain, strengthening long-term relationships and legitimate requirements of the stakeholders of a supply chain. (shrink)

What moral status should we attribute to stem cells? To answer this neglected question, we look in this essay at the properties of embryos and other entities that could develop into beings who have uncontested moral status, namely, adult humans. Our analysis indicates that those who grant moral status to embryos should also grant it to stem cells. This has implications that verge on absurdity, since even if we were to try to do what we can to protect these entities, (...) we would face the dilemma that the development of any embryo requires the destruction of other potential beings. We respond to objections, including the claim that the destruction of human embryos is wrong not because of the potential of human embryos but because human embryos are actual beings with a rational nature. We conclude that the more plausible position is to deny moral status to embryos, and thus to stem cells as well. (shrink)

The “New Biology” that arose in the Eastern Block during Stalinist times was based on the idea of the heritability of acquired characteristics. In rejecting the paradigm of Mendelian chromosome genetics as well as science-based farming, the New Biology led to a deterioration of scientific life and the free exchange of ideas. In imposing Lysenko’s ideas onto zoology, the New Biology adopted the totalitarian language of Newspeak, which dominated public discourse in communist countries. Newspeak had several defining elements: a limited (...) dictionary, strong valuations, binary oppositions, the magical function of language, militarization, and ritualization of language. In this study, the concept of Newspeak is used to analyze primary sources in Polish zoology in the period between 1948 and 1956. Once the practice of Newspeak began to wane, so did the New Biology that had been founded on this specific ritualistic language. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty has serious consequences for human lives, social values, and economy. The main aim of the study was to explore a model of relations between personal and cultural variables and academic dishonesty. The participants in the study were N = 2,586 individuals from nine countries (Pakistan, Israel, Italy, India, the USA, Peru, Romania, Ghana, and Poland). The authors administered the Academic Dishonesty Scale to measure academic dishonesty, the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale to measure distress, the Almost Perfect Scale – (...) Revised to measure perfectionism, the Brief Self-Control Scale to measure self-control, and the Singelis Scale to measure independent self-construal. The results showed that the theoretical model was well fitted to the dataset in six countries: Pakistan, the United States, Romania, Ghana, Israel, and Poland. However, it was not well fitted in Italy, India, and Peru. Our results also showed that perfectionism significantly predicted academic dishonesty, but not in all countries. Self-control significantly predicted cheating, falsification, and plagiarism in the USA. Moreover, we found that distress was related to cheating o0nly in Ghana. Finally, independent self-construal predicted academic dishonesty. Our findings provide a cross-cultural contribution to the debate on academic dishonesty by highlighting its significant predictors and may inform interventions aimed at eliminating it. Our results can be used in preventing and curbing academic dishonesty. Knowledge on cross-cultural differences can be useful in international education for example, as an indicator accepting or relaxing attitude toward academic dishonesty in students from different countries. (shrink)

We introduce an effective translation from proofs in the display calculus to proofs in the labelled calculus in the context of tense logics. We identify the labelled calculus proofs in the image of this translation as those built from labelled sequents whose underlying directed graph possesses certain properties. For the basic normal tense logic Kt, the image is shown to be the set of all proofs in the labelled calculus G3Kt.

In my essay, I offer an interpretation of Giorgio Agamben’s political thought as a case of philosophical perversion. According to Lacan, perverse practice is based on a structural non-personal enjoyment, in which a pervert assumes the role of an executioner, meticulously executing his task. My analysis will focus on Agamben’s perverse use of the messianic discourse, the aim of which is to explode it from within: while applying all elements of the messianic idiom, Agamben assumes a mission the goal of (...) which is to deactivate all mission and revoke all vocations. As he states in reference to Bartleby the Scrivener as the possible figure of the Messiah, to fulfill the Torah, i.e. the religious law, is to “destroy it from top to bottom.” I will thus claim that Agamben’s strategy of deactivation – a vocation to end all vocation – can be interpreted as a deliberate methodical use of perversion, that is, a position which simultaneously obeys and destroys the law. Although critical of Agamben’s method, I will not use the Lacanian frame of perversion in a value-charged manner. I want to present it as one of the late-modern philosophical modes of thinking, which became so widely seductive precisely of its powerful perverse component. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo consiste en analizar las definiciones del término terrorismo que preponderan en el discurso académico occidental. Este análisis permitirá constatar una intrínseca imposibilidad de formular una definición consensuada de dicho término. A lo largo del texto se defenderán las siguientes tesis: a) Las definiciones analizadas del término describen, de manera general, el modo en que operan las relaciones capitalistas de producción dentro de su actual etapa histórica. b) Dichas definiciones constituyen, en realidad, la proyección de los (...) elementos insostenibles del propio mundo social en el enemigo, puesto que la figura del terrorista islámico es construida como su reflejo. Se sostiene que el dispositivo del “terrorista islámico” responde a la urgencia de estabilizar las relaciones de poder existentes, demostrando las dificultades de las sociedades capitalistas de conservarse sin la figura del enemigo. (shrink)

Since ancient times, philosophers have recognised that truth comes in many 'modes', so that a proposition can be not only true or false, but also, for example, 'necessary' or 'possible'. These ideas led to the modern field of modal logic, a lively area of research at the interface of philosophy, mathematics and computer science. -/- Nowadays, the term 'modal logic' is understood in a broad sense, allowing it to encompass logics for reasoning about seemingly unrelated phenomena such as knowledge, obligations, (...) time, space, and proofs, among many others. Contemporary research in modal logic draws on techniques from many disciplines, including complexity theory, combinatorics, universal algebra, category theory, topology, and proof theory. -/- These proceedings record the papers presented at Advances in Modal Logic 2024, the 15th in a series of biennial conferences that aim to report on important new developments in pure and applied modal logic. Topics in this issue include epistemic modal logic, constructive and many-valued modal logic, unification, alge aic and neighbourhood semantics, proof theory and complexity of modal logics, conditional and quantified modal logic. (shrink)

Recent years have brought enormous growth in the number of women-only art exhibitions. These exhibitions are accompanied by discussions that concentrate on curatorial feminist activism. In this text, I propose a different perspective by taking into consideration all exhibitions where the participants were determined by social category and which were organized in one country during one year. This perspective not only allows us to remark on and analyse activities that otherwise remain unnoticed but also encourages us to extend our understanding (...) of politics behind women-only initiatives. These exhibitions are generally intended to increase the capital of women artists, and to shift forces within the art and social fields in favour of women. However, as my analysis demonstrates, the organizers of different exhibitions occupy different places both in the art field and in the social field, and it is their position that determines, to a large extent, what changes they envision, what objectives they – in consequence – have and how they formulate their politics. This text also offers a reflection on whether the objectives behind organizing women-only shows has been constant or if they are a result of the current situation of women. (shrink)