As the concept of recognition shifts from philosophical theory to other fields of the humanities and social sciences, this volume explores the nature of this border category that exists in the space between sociological and philosophical considerations, related as it is to concepts such as status, prestige, the looking-glass self, respect, and dignity - at times being used interchangeably with these terms. Bringing together work from across academic disciplines, it presents theoretical conceptualizations of recognition, demonstrates its operationalization in historical and (...) literary research, considers recognition as a fundamental problem of sociological theory and examines the concept as a marker of social distances and redistribution. An examination and demonstration of the full potential of recognition as a category, Understanding Recognition: Conceptual and Empirical Studies explores the contemporary meanings and manifestations of recognition and sheds light on its capacity to complement the notions of status, class or prestige. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, philosophy, history and literary studies. (shrink)

I shall outline the topic from a historical perspective, placing the main emphasis on the hundred years’ period spanning 1870–1970.

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”.

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)

The letters that were found after years are the evidence of hard intellectual work that had been conducted under very infavourable conditions. They refer to the time when Wittgenstein was writing "Tractatus" while Frege was working on his articles "Thought" and "Negation". Correspondence between Frege and Wittgenstein prove the common will of communication and mutual understanding. Thus remains the question why those two close and well known to each other thinkers have not realized that willingness.

W latach 40. XIX wieku Luigi Taparelli i Antonio Rosmini wprowadzili do publicznego obiegu termin „sprawiedliwość społeczna”. Od tamtego czasu znaczenie tego pojęcia znacznie się poszerzyło. Literatura przedmiotu notuje liczne identyfikacje tego konceptu. Niniejszy tekst koncentruje się na wskazaniu kilku jego ujęć. Autor, w siłą rzeczy skrótowo zaprezentowanych analizach, stara się pokazać specyfikę kilku znaczeń nadawanych „sprawiedliwości społecznej”. Sprawiedliwość społeczna będąca przedmiotem analizy w tym artykule utożsamiana jest ze sprawiedliwością ogólną (prawną) i rozdzielczą.

In his work on the foundations of mathematics, Frege placed the problem in a wider context, namely that of science; the ontological status of thought as the carrier of truthfulness became for him the most important issue. The objectivity of truth and thought seems to require the existence of other people, which consequently requires the existence of the world. Thus, the polemics with epistemological idealism became a key issue for Frege; the topic appears in such works as The Basic Laws (...) of Arithmetic, The Logic, and The Thought. What seems to be most interesting in Frege’s work is his stress on weaknesses of both epistemological realism and immanent idealism. Reflecting upon the examples of the physiological psychology and physiology of the senses he demonstrated the process of entrapment in idealism. It is also interesting that he stressed the realistic character of language as well as the constant possibility of committing a mistake by assuming the existence of reference, and dangers of falling into traps of fiction resulting there from. Key words FREGE, SCIENCE, LANGUAGE. (shrink)

The linguistic studies written by Anna Wierzbicka have been an occasion for the remarks on the relationship between linguistics and philosophy and for the question whether linguistic enquiries entitle us to put forward philosophical theses. In particular, whether and to what extent we indeed learn something philosophically significant about the world (of culture) and the nature man and his mind by examining language. Defining here position as interdisciplinary, Wierzbicka draws on the studies of the relationship between language and culture, language (...) and mind (language is a mirror of the mind - Leibniz). She claims that philosophy can be made a reliable science, provided it is based on linguistics, and the results of linguistic analyses can be found at the grounds of philosophical theses. Such philosophical references are A. Wierzbicka\'s attempts to combine semantics with generativism (Chomsky). Her intention to bring about a holistic description of language through defining elementary expressions (concepts, meanings), the so-called indefinibilia (\"primitives\") can also be called philosophical in character. They suffice to define all the remaining expressions, and basic universal syntactic constructs in the form of a grammar of elementary units, i.e. the ways of combining elementary units into greater wholes. We think that Wierzbicka\'s procedure, her quest after primary elements (of language) are reducing. A. Wierzbicka\'s main idea, with regard to the relationship between language and mind, may be understood as follows: this is a Janus-faced relationship - one face (empirically accessible) is language, the other one is the mind accessible through investigations on language. Both \"faces\" (spheres) are somehow functionally \"glued together\". In fact, however, Wierzbicka speaks little about the philosophically comprehended nature of man, whereas she speaks much about linguistic varieties and similarities among people. Generally speaking, while she declares herself to be a linguist, she has a philosophical temper and ambitions to generalise, i.e. she conducts linguistic studies with an intention to arrive at philosophical theses (by examining language she wants to obtain knowledge about the world and man). She issues statements which go beyond a purely linguistic knowledge and strictly linguistic data, hence they are not made legitimate by the linguistic material itself. A. Wierzbicka does not explain in more detail her way of understanding philosophy, assuming its intuitive comprehension. From some contexts it can be deduced that she takes it to mean a worldview. Should we call some parts of her reasoning a philosophy, it is then not a realistic philosophy but subject-oriented (first-person philosophising), such that touches upon the problems of the borderline between linguistics and philosophy, more concerned with the axis language-user than language-the world. Simultaneously, it is a non-demarcated and non-autonomic philosophising, exactly within the context of science, for it takes advantage of the results of empirical sciences to pose philosophical theses. The belief that philosophy can be pursued within a linguistic context coincides with the approach of analytical philosophy with its linguistic turn. Despite her declarations to make philosophy more scientific, Wierzbicka\'s arguments on behalf of the generalised (philosophical) theses are more their illustration and explication than a decisive legitimacy. Her belief that one can find some common, primitive linguistic units (simplicia) in the form of a complete set of independent concepts for all languages of the world seems Utopian. It is difficult to do it even in deductive systems, constructed by way of the axiomatic method and with a finite set of initial expressions. (shrink)

Problems with animal morality: The paper aims at discussing the category of animal morality in the light of contemporary scientific findings and theories. First, the issue of moral development is reconsidered in the context of evolutionary anthropology and primatology, then the main positions in this debate are presented. The author proposes a typology which is based on a distinction between various senses of morality, namely a descriptive, neutral, and normative sense. These three aspects of morality are explained in detail and (...) used when analyzing the problems specific to animal morality. The idea of morality applied by the leading participants of ongoing debates is also discussed. The article concludes with an observation that the main problem of these debates is not the very definition of morality and, at the same time, answering the question as to whether animals are moral beings or not, but rather what is essentially problematic are the consequences to be implied from a specific understanding of morality. (shrink)

This is a study about man who is a part of the world of physical events, including actions. As a bunch of actions which are conditioned by beliefs and other attitudes, man co-creates communities which emerge and vanish along time. While generating and undergoing changes man is potentially a dynamic and flexible creature who at least partially manages relations with the world, including other men. This study is of an interdisciplinary nature, where the author merges philosophy and cultural anthropology with (...) insight into sociology and communication studies. At the same time, the author takes an anti-essentialist position, where the study is a hypothetical construct. While doing this, the author assembles a particular vocabulary, where action, belief and community are addressed by communication, culture, thickness and the like concepts. (shrink)

There are many religions in the human world, and people manifest their religiousness in many different ways. The main problem this paper addresses concerns the possibility of sorting out this complex world of human religiousness by showing that it can be phenomenologically reduced to a few very basic existential attitudes. These attitudes express the main types of ways in which a human being relates to his or herself and the world, independently of the worldview or religion professed by the individual. (...) I use Kierkegaard’s theories of the stages of existence and subjective truth as a model. The theory of the stages of existence provides five basic existential attitudes on the basis of which religious attitudes can develop: spiritlessness, the aesthetic, the ethical, religiousness A, and religiousness B. The theory of subjective truth shows how the concept of truth functions in an ethical and existential sense as the personal truth of an individual engaged in building their religious identity. In turn, I discuss the problem of the relation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy to phenomenology, briefly introduce his concept of subjective truth and the stages of existence, and show how existential attitudes can be transformed into religious ones. I also consider the problem of the demonic as the inverted order of this anthropological and existential model. Finally, I argue that the model developed herein may be useful for further research into the phenomenology of religious attitudes. (shrink)