Alicja Gescinska verraste met haar kandidatuur op de Europese lijst van de Vlaamse liberalen. Op internet volgde een stortvloed aan reacties: lovende en lasterlijke. Niet enkel de keuze van de partij en het Europese project werden druk besproken, vooral ook wie aan politiek behoort te doen? en wie dus aan de zijlijn moet blijven? bleek stof voor discussie. Wat is de plaats van een filosoof in de samenleving? Zijn politiek en filosofie onverenigbare disciplines? En wat doe je wanneer uit (...) het hart van de Europese politiek het verzoek komt om uit je pen te kruipen? Politiek is meer dan dat wat politici doen. Politiek is alles en iedereen. In het gebrek van de wereld weerklinkt volgens Gescinska een moreel appel dat op ons allen wordt gedaan. 0'Intussen komen mensen om' is een essay over de persoonlijke worsteling met politieke betrokkenheid en intellectuele verantwoordelijkheid. (shrink)

The relation between bioethics and ethical methodology is the subject of this article. The author is of the opinion that bioethical considerations demand both medical and biological knowledge as well as some general ethical theory. As we know there is not one ethical theory. but many. The author asks whether we have any moral rational foundations for choosing one of the competing ethical systems, and, if this is not possible, whether normative ethics is at all necessary for the solution of (...) practical conflicts. In other words, the author poses the question whether the cultivation of normative ethics. while one is aware of the pluralism of values and variety of ethical theories, has any scientific and practical sense. Still, according to the author methodological relativism need not necessarily imply the acceptance of an axiologically relativistic stand and need not necessarily lead to moral indifference. Beauchamp and Childress work shows a fine approach to bioethical problems. (shrink)

The subject of this article is an ideological aspect of Pan Tadeusz, directed by Ryszard Ordyński as a film adaptation of Adam Mickiewicz’s poem. Picture was realised in 1928 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of regaining of national independence by Poland. Main goal of this article is to reflect in what ways filmmakers of Pan Tadeusz tried to implement a project of Polish national cinema. I also want to present how this film expressed social needs, programme specifications of political power (...) camp and how it explored national values in the cinema. (shrink)

Editorial - On the Road to Adulthood Although the picture of adolescence G. Stanley Hall drew over a hundred years ago is no longer accepted, most contemporary researchers agree that the period between childhood and adulthood poses a serious challenge to the developing individual. The developmental achievements typical of this age, such as radical changes in appearance and behaviour, severe criticism of existing reality brought about by the recent acquisition of formal thinking, first intimate relations and sexual experiences and the (...) various forms of social pressure connected with the new, age-related demands and expectations can often lead to emotional instability, disturbed parent-child relations and a propensity for risky behaviour. These are the phenomena that accompany the struggle of a young person in the process of self-discovery and self-determination. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es examinar el papel de la imagen y de la imaginación desde la perspectiva del proceso ternario místico basado en la tradición del Pseudo Dionisio Areopagita. Destaco en este proceso la etapa primera relacionada con la teología simbólica y la experiencia exterior y sensorial; la etapa intermedia relacionada con el conocimiento racional y con la experiencia interior; la etapa tercera relacionada con la teología mística, esto es con la experiencia sobrenatural. Llego a la conclusión de (...) que en la primera etapa la imaginación sobrepasa lo exterior y lo superficial que se le atribuía tradicionalmente, porque varios autores metafísicos y místicos introducen en su contexto un momento de la comprensión intuitiva. En la segunda etapa la imaginación no sólo es un fundamento del pensamiento discursivo, sino que también constituye un ejercicio espiritual que ha de intensificar el proceso pensativo. En la tercera etapa la imagen y la imaginación son un medio que ayuda a vencer la inefabilidad de la experiencia mística. The objective of the article is to examine the role of the image and imagination from the perspective of the tripartite mystical process based on the tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. I distinguish in the first stage of this process the symbolical theology related to the external and sensuous experience; in the second stage the rational cognition and internal experience; in the last stage the mystical theology related to the supranatural experience. I arrive at a conclusion that in the first stage the imagination exceed the exterior and superficial character which was attributed traditionally to it, because various metaphysical and mystical authors introduce in the context of it a moment of a intuitive comprehension. In the second stage it is not only a basis of discursive thinking but it constitutes spiritual exercise which should intensify the process of thinking. In the third stage the image and imagination are a medium which help to overcome the ineffability of the mystical experience. (shrink)

The article focuses on an analysis of Hart Crane’s essay “Note on the Paintings of David Siqueiros.” One of Crane’s few art-historical texts, the critical piece in question is first of all a tribute to the American poet’s friend, the Mexican painter David Siqueiros. The author of a portrait of Crane, Siqueiros is a major artist, one of the leading figures that marked the history of Mexican painting in the first half of the twentieth century. While it is interesting to (...) delve into the way Crane approaches painting in general and Siqueiros’ œuvre in particular, an analysis of the essay with which the present article is concerned is also worthwhile for another reason. Like many examples of art criticism—and literary criticism, for that matter—”Note on the Paintings of David Siqueiros” reveals a lot not only about the artist it revolves around, but also about its author, an artist in his own right. In a text written in the last year of his life, Hart Crane therefore voices concerns which have preoccupied him as a poet and which, more importantly, are central to modernist art and literature. (shrink)

Subjective determiners of treating the final secondary school examination as a threat The article discusses the findings of the research carried out basing on the investigation procedure originating from the function-action approach to psychological defense developed by A. Senejko, where every reaction to threat can be considered as a defensive reaction. A nation-wide final secondary school examination was employed as the threat in the study and the reactions to such a threat were diagnosed twice: in January 2005 and two weeks (...) before the exam in April 2005.The participants were 177 students of secondary schools of the Lower Silesian and Upper Silesian regions of Poland.In the she study two questionnaires were employed. Part one of The Psycho-Social and Psychic Defenses Questionnaire and the Questionnaire of Personal Judgements developed by Kinga Lachowicz-Tabaczek and Alicja Senejko for identifying the following psychological dispositions: self-esteem, social anxiety, depressiveness, obligation will, emotional reactivity, sensitivity, activity and endurance.The basic research questions concerned the effect which the diagnosed factors had on the two dimensions of the subjects' attitude to their final exam as a threat as well as how they influenced their reactions to it, that is their psychological defenses. The multiple regression analyzes showed that the two dimensions of the participants' approach to their exam as a threat were the most substantially influenced by endurance, self-esteem, gender and reactivity. However, the way the examinees reacted their exam was the most substantially influenced by their obligation will, depressiveness and endurance. (shrink)

Hans Wagner (1917–2000), using the achievements of German transcendental philosophy, gives a transcendental argument for the idea of human dignity. He claims that to ground the validity of human thinking and all its products (e.g. culture), we must accept the validity of the idea of human dignity. The structure of my paper is as follows: First, I consider what it means to give a transcendental justification of something. I reconstruct the neo-Kantian’s understanding of transcendental method. Then I argue that Wagner’s (...) idea of human dignity as a foundation of every ethics and law is nothing other than a fruitful interpretation and continuation, perhaps only making explicit Kant’s main ethical ideas. To make this more clear I present the relation between Kant’s ethics and the material ethics of values and, following Wagner, I argue that grounding ethics on the idea of self-determination of human will does not necessarily lead to formalism in the form in which it was criticised by the representatives of the material ethics of values. Finally, I reconstruct Wagner’s argument for the claim that the idea of human dignity is a transcendental condition for the possibility of ethics and law in general. (shrink)

This work is comprised of personal essays by some of the most noted Holocaust educators working in or with Holocaust museums, resource centers, or educational organizations across the globe.

Klanken uit mijn kindertijd -- Het goede van het schone -- Empathie -- De eenden van Stravinsky -- De grond onder onze voeten -- Slotakkoord.

The article presents an analysis of the position taken by Lenin with respect to revolutionary violence applied by the Russian proletariat in their struggle for obtaining and keeping political power. The analysis is introduced by reflections concerning the ethical content of Lenin’s works, a general localization of the problem of violence against the background of various types of relationships between morals and politics and by presentation of Lenin’s classification and moral evaluation of wars, since socialist revolution is a particular kind (...) of war. (shrink)

The article, which is a fragment of a larger whole, presents the typical traits of the moral attitudes among the prisoners at the Concentration Camp in Auschwitz. The source on which the present reconstruction of the picture of the camp morality is based is the published memoirs of Polish prisoners of that camp.

The present research investigates gender gaps in the results of secondary school exit exams in mathematics in Poland in 2015. The analysis shows that, in the basic level exam, males are highly overrepresented at the upper end of the score distribution. The same pattern did not exist in the extended-level Matura. Two explanations are offered here. The differences are driven by gender self-selection in high school programs. Students who decide on maths-related tracks have more maths lessons than other students. Secondly, (...) a student who takes the extended Matura also has to take the basic Matura exam. As a result, the population of students taking the basic Matura is highly differentiated in terms of maths competence and motivation. Additionally, the analysis of differential item functioning shows that only a few items were flagged as having DIF. (shrink)

Maria Kokoszyńska‑Lutman, the outstanding female member of the Lvov‑Warsaw School, played an important role in the rise of the modern version of semantics. She very early noticed the importance of Alfred Tarski’s results for the established tradition of Lvov‑Warsaw investigations on truth, including Twardowski’s refutation of relativism. She contributed to the common recognition of these results, among others in Vienna and during the Congress for the Unity of Science in Paris in 1935. In the paper, I examine some Kokoszyńska’s semantical (...) views. They are supplemented by the translation of Kokoszyńska’s letters to Kazimierz Twardowski written from Vienna and Paris. (shrink)

The paper examines the Renaissance philosophy of love, grasped as a “metaphysics of love.” Alongside its metaphysical interpretation, the phenomenon of Renaissance philosophy of love was subject to two other kinds of analysis: it was viewed either through the prism of its spiritual form, or as a fashionable social game which demanded that “every courtier recognise knowledge about how many and what varieties of love there are as necessary for his trade.” The author of the Renaissance theory of love was (...) the philosopher Marsilio Ficino, an “alter Plato;” so it is his views on love which are examined in this paper. (shrink)

Some theories of rational belief assume that beliefs should be closed under conjunction. I motivate the rejection of the conjunction closure, and point out that the consequences of this rejection are not as severe as it is usually thought. An often raised objection is that without the conjunction closure people are unable to reason. I outline an approach in which we can – in usual cases – reason using conjunctions without accepting the closure in its whole generality. This solution is (...) based on the notion of confidence levels, which can be defined using probabilities. Moreover, on this approach, reasoning has a scalable computational complexity adaptable to cognitive abilities of both rationally bounded and perfectly rational agents. I perform a simulation to assess its error rate, and compare it to reasoning with conjunction closure. (shrink)