This article revisits the existing accounts of the early Czech Kierkegaard reception. It argues that Kierkegaard has had a greater reception than previously assumed and that one must take into account the cultural and historical contexts. Two major points are made: first, the earliest Kierkegaard reception was closely related to the Czech national political struggles and Kierkegaard was used as a political argument supporting the need for a Czech national reformed Church. Second, we provide evidence for a surprising politicized Catholic (...) reception of Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard’s critique of the Danish Lutheran Church was appropriated to attack Protestantism and support the Roman Catholic Church. (shrink)

The trend of emerging biorefineries is to process the harvest as efficiently as possible and without any waste. From the most valuable phytomass, refined medicines, enzymes, dyes and other special reactants are created. Functional foods, food ingredients, oils, alcohol, solvents, plastics, fillers and a wide variety of other chemical products follow. After being treated with nutrient recovery techniques, biofuels or soil improvers are produced from the leftovers. Economic optimization algorithms have confirmed that such complex biorefineries can be financially viable only (...) when a high degree of feedstock concentration is included. Because the plant material is extremely voluminous before processing, the farming intensity of special plants increases in the nearest vicinity of agglomerations where the biorefineries are built for logistical reasons. Interdisciplinary analyses revealed that these optimization measures lead to significantly increased pollen levels in neighbouring urban areas and subsequently an increased risk of allergies, respectively costs to the national health system. A new moral dilemma between the shareholder’s profit and public interest was uncovered and subjected to disputation. (shrink)

The production of renewable energy in agricultural biogas plants is being widely criticized because—among other things—most of the feedstock comes from purpose-grown crops like maize. These activities generate competitive pressure to other crops that are used for feeding or food production, worsening their affordability. Unique pretreatment technology that allows substitution of the purpose-grown crops by farming residues was built 6 years ago on a commercial basis in Pěčín under modest funding and without publicity. The design of the concept; financial assessment (...) and moral viewpoint were analyzed based on practical operating data. It showed that the apparatus improves economic, environmental and moral acceptance as well. However, according to the government’s view, public funding for this type of processing was shortened, “because waste materials represent a lower cost”. The impact of such governance was analyzed as well. (shrink)

From the early days of philosophy, ethics and justice, there is wide consensus that the constancy of the laws establishes the legal system. On the other hand, the rate at which we accumulate knowledge is gaining speed like never before. Due to the recently increased attention of academics to climate change and other environmental issues, a lot of new knowledge has been obtained about carbon management, its role in nature and mechanisms regarding the formation and degradation of organic matter. A (...) multidisciplinary techno-economic assessment of current composting standards and laws that took into account the current state of knowledge about carbon management was carried out as a case study. Economic and environmental damage caused by outdated laws was revealed. In addition, it was found that the introduction of the best composts into the market is permitted, causing additional negative environmental as well as economic impacts. (shrink)

The unethical overuse of antibiotics to seek to achieve a shortening of the treatment period raises the cost of health services and poses a threat to humanity due to the gradual development of antibiotic resistance. Other consequences of our modern passion for antibiotics have appeared. Small concentrations of antibiotic residues in sewage waters slow down the metabolism of anaerobic microorganism thereby reducing the overall performance of the anaerobic fermentation used to detoxify and digest sewage and other collected organic wastes. Reduced (...) biogas yields represents a serious threat to the energy self-sufficiency of some waste-water treatment plants, so it might change them from energy producers into energy consumers. Morally justifiable production of renewable energy from bio-waste is also threatened by antibiotic residues that remain in the bio-waste. (shrink)

Studies presenting memory-facilitating effect of emotions typically focused on affective dimensions of arousal and valence. Little is known, however, about the extent to which stimulus-driven basic emotions could have distinct effects on memory. In the present paper we sought to examine the modulatory effect of disgust, fear and sadness on intentional remembering and forgetting using widely used item-method directed forgetting paradigm. Eighteen women underwent fMRI scanning during encoding phase in which they were asked either to remember (R) or to forget (...) (F) pictures. In the test phase all previously used stimuli were re-presented together with the same number of new pictures and participants had to categorize them as old or new, irrespective of the F/R instruction. On the behavioral level we found a typical directed forgetting effect, i.e. higher recognition rates for to-be-remembered (TBR) items than to-be-forgotten (TBF) ones for both neutral and emotional categories. Emotional stimuli had higher recognition rate than neutral ones, while among emotional those eliciting disgust produced highest recognition, but at the same time induced more false alarms. Therefore when false alarm corrected recognition was examined the directed forgetting effect was equally strong irrespective of emotion. Additionally, even though subjects rated disgusting pictures as more arousing and negative than other picture categories, logistic regression on the item level showed that the effect of disgust on recognition memory was stronger than the effect of arousal or valence. On the neural level, ROI analyses (with valence and arousal covariates) revealed that correctly recognized disgusting stimuli evoked the highest activity in the left amygdala compared to all other categories. This structure was also more activated for remembered vs. forgotten stimuli, but only in case of disgust or fear eliciting pictures. Our findings, despite several limitations, suggest that disgust have a special salience in memory relative to other negative emotions, which cannot be put down to differences in arousal or valence. The current results thereby support the suggestion that a purely dimensional model of emotional influences on cognition might not be adequate to account for observed effects. (shrink)

This study explored the effect of kinesthetic motor imagery training on reaching-to-grasp movement supplemented by a virtual environment in a patient with congenital bilateral transverse upper-limb deficiency. Based on a theoretical assumption, it is possible to conduct such training in this patient. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether cortical activity related to motor imagery of reaching and motor imagery of grasping of the right upper limb was changed by computer-aided imagery training in a patient who was born (...) without upper limbs compared to a healthy control subject, as characterized by multi-channel electroencephalography signals recorded before and 4, 8, and 12 weeks after CAIT. The main task during CAIT was to kinesthetically imagine the execution of reaching-to-grasp movements without any muscle activation, supplemented by computer visualization of movements provided by a special headset. Our experiment showed that CAIT can be conducted in the patient with higher vividness of imagery for reaching than grasping tasks. Our results confirm that CAIT can change brain activation patterns in areas related to motor planning and the execution of reaching and grasping movements, and that the effect was more pronounced in the patient than in the healthy control subject. The results show that CAIT has a different effect on the cortical activity related to the motor imagery of a reaching task than on the cortical activity related to the motor imagery of a grasping task. The change observed in the activation patterns could indicate CAIT-induced neuroplasticity, which could potentially be useful in rehabilitation or brain-computer interface purposes for such patients, especially before and after transplantation. This study was part of a registered experiment. (shrink)

Building on our diverse research traditions in the study of reasoning, language and communication, the Polish School of Argumentation integrates various disciplines and institutions across Poland in which scholars are dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of the force of argument. Our primary goal is to craft a methodological programme and establish organisational infrastructure: this is the first key step in facilitating and fostering our research movement, which joins people with a common research focus, complementary skills and an enthusiasm to work (...) together. This statement—the Manifesto—lays the foundations for the research programme of the Polish School of Argumentation. (shrink)

Marianna PapastephanouUniversity of CyprusSince Plato’s allegory of the cave two educational-philosophical critical modes have stood out: the descriptive (reality as it is) and the normative (reali...

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

Przedmowa........................................................................................... . 9 I. Głosy amerykańskie Michael Walzer, Samotna polityka Michela Foucaulta (przeł. Marek Kw iek )................................................................................ 13 Richard Rorty, Moralna tożsamość a prywatna autonomia: przypadek Foucaulta (przeł. Marek K w iek )............................... 29 Martin Jay, Granice doświadczenia granicznego: Bataille i Foucault (przeł. Marek K w iek )................................................ 37 David Couzens Hoy, Foucault a teoria krytyczna (przeł. Marek Kwiek)............................................................................................ 61 Charles Taylor, Foucault o wolności i prawdzie (przeł. Marek Kwiek)............................................................................................ 81 II. Głosy polskie Jerzy Kmita, Jacy (...) moglibyśmy b y ć?................................................ 109 Tadeusz Buksiński, Historia - władza - metoda.......................... 139 Zygmunt Bauman, Nie odwzajemniona miłość: o państwie i intelektualistach (przeł. Marek Kwiek)....................................153 Jerzy Topolski, Ta „pusta” kategoria zmiany: człowiek i historia, w koncepcji Michela Foucaulta..........................................183 Marek Kwiek, Kant - Nietzsche - Foucault. Rzecz o dawaniu przykładu w f i lo z o f i i...................................................................... 199 Anna Jamroziakowa, Obraz i tekst. Głód rzeczywistości a czuła imaginatywność................................................................239 Ewa N owak-Juchacz, Nie sądząc i nie przesądzając: niemieckie „podróże” Foucaulta................................................... 255 Grzegorz Dziamski, Michel Foucault: z ducha s z tu k i................ 277 Marek Kwiek, Michel Foucault - rozdział polski (appendix mniej filozoficzny)..........................................................................289 Dane o oryginałach tłumaczeń..........................................................303 Nota o autorach...................................................................................305. (shrink)

Changing values may give rise to intergenerational conflicts, like in the ongoing climate change and energy transition debate. This essay focuses on the interpretative question of how this value change can best be understood. To elucidate the interpretation of value change, two philosophical perspectives on value are introduced: Berlin’s value pluralism and Dworkin’s interpretivism. While both authors do not explicitly discuss value change, I argue that their perspectives can be used for interpreting value change in the case of climate change (...) and the energy transition. I claim that Berlin’s pluralistic account of value would understand the value change as an intergenerational conflict and therefore provide a too narrow and static ground for understanding ongoing value change. Instead, by exploring Dworkin’s standpoint in moral epistemology, this essay distills a more encompassing perspective on how values may relate, converge, overlap, and change, fulfilling their functions in the course of climate change and energy transition. This perspective is further detailed by taking inspiration from Shue’s work on the interpretation of equity in the climate change debate. I argue that the resulting perspective allows us to see value change as a gradual process rather than as a clash between generations and their values. (shrink)

The volumes published in the series Beiträge zur Altertumskunde comprise monographs, collective volumes, editions, translations and commentaries on various topics from the fields of Greek and Latin Philology, Ancient History, Archeology, Ancient Philosophy as well as Classical Reception Studies. The series thus offers indispensable research tools for a wide range of disciplines related to Ancient Studies.

Prosthesis and the human hand have been terms used by various philosophers in order to describe the interaction that binds together the human being and the technical artefact – Martin Heide...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 383-385 [Access article in PDF] Minding Your Language:A Response to Caroline Brett and Stephen Sykes Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton THE PAPER BY Jackson and Fulford (1997), to which ours is a preliminary response, has opened up an important and much-needed conversation on the borderlands of theology, philosophy, and psychiatry. We are deeply grateful for lapidary and attentive responses to our paper (...) from Caroline Brett and Stephen Sykes, in which each have affirmed the value of this conversation, but also indicated the issues that need to be thought through in greater depth. Sykes makes the point, quite rightly in our view, that the language of both theology and psychiatry are needed to illuminate the gray area between spirituality and mental disorder. Part of the difficulty, perhaps, has been the tendencies of theologians and psychiatrists alike either to speak past each other's shoulders or to refuse to engage in conversation at all (Watts 2002).Both commentators have accurately represented the core arguments of our thesis: that genuine spirituality may involve ego disablement and that positively evaluated psychotic, action-enhancing experiences are not, by definition, spiritual. They also both agree that religious traditions may offer resources that help discrimination at the borderlands of theology and psychiatry, beyond the reach of descriptive psychopathology. However, Brett has helpfully drawn attention to a number of possible weak spots that deserve further reflection:the distinction between breaking downand breaking throughand the possible continuing value of using the criterion of preserved or enhanced functionality; our failure to appreciate the precision with which Jackson and Fulford use the language of psychosis; and the uncertain clinical value of a schema that only allows an assessment of the contribution of an experience to spiritual reorientation after the event.Although it is not appropriate in the form of a final response to engage with these issues in depth, we thought that a few brief observations might be in order. Breaking Down and Breaking Through Brett's distinction between breaking down and breaking through is helpful but may disintegrate where the breaking down itself is considered to be constitutive of spiritual experience. The Pauline insight "for when I am weak; then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10, New Revised Standard Version [NRSV] 1989) finds vivid expression, for example, in the life of the Abbe Marie-Joseph Huvelin (Williams 1994). This Parisian curate, with chronic [End Page 383] and debilitating ill health and an almost unrelieved sense of personal worthlessness that bordered on despair, managed to transmit hope to an astonishing range of people who came to him for spiritual direction. There was no obvious, schematic breaking through the rigors of ego disablement to sunlit uplands of ethical conviction or renewed sense of vocation. It is by no means clear that he would have wished his predicament on anyone else, let alone himself, notwithstanding the fruitfulness of his ministry. The breaking down was arguably part of his life-long vocation and it perhaps stretches the meaning of action enhancement a little too far to use it encompass the often paradoxical nature of sanctity. The Language of Psychosis An important feature of good conversation is mindfulness in the way language is used and guardedness against misrepresenting the position of one's conversation partner. The expression of our discomfort with the application of the language of psychosis to spiritual experience was perhaps designed primarily to signpost our concern with certain reductive and assimilating tendencies in modern psychiatry. Perhaps psychotic may be used with precision and designed to draw attention to the complexities of discriminating at the borderlands of theology and psychiatry. Words, nonetheless, have resonance—philosophically and culturally—that radiate well beyond the boundaries of precise usage. The same could be said of Brett's use of anomalous, which might refer to a range of phenomena that most people would regard as abnormal: hallucinations, synesthaesia, out-and of-body, past-life, and near-death experiences. It is legitimate, we contend, to draw attention to these resonances even if they stray... (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 21-37, Spring 2022.

Si la praxéologie mérite aujourd’hui notre attention, c’est parce qu’elle permet de remonter aux origines des « théories de l’action », des sociologies de l’action ou des philosophies de l’action qui ont marqué le xxe siècle. Que veut dire, au fond, étudier l’action, en proposer ensuite une théorie, à visée soit descriptive soit normative? Dans ce qui suit, on va étudier la question en compagnie de Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886-1981), philosophe analytique, et de Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011), sociologue hétérodoxe. Ce texte défend (...) l’idée selon laquelle parmi les conséquences les plus marquantes du travail de Garfinkel se trouve la démystification de la « théorie de l’action », et que certaines intuitions similaires sont déjà très présentes chez Kotarbiński (dont les travaux sur l’action constituent, selon Garfinkel, un « échec extrêmement important »). La praxéologie chez les deux auteurs n’est pas une discipline, mais une façon de voir la pratique étudiée comme un tout, à l’instar des recherches menées par les théoriciens de la Gestalt. La dimension athéorique de l’étude de l’action humaine proposée ici permet d’espérer qu’un jour, les phénomènes qui nous entourent vont pouvoir être étudiés pour ce qu’ils sont, et non pas pour ce qu’une théorie élégante permet d’en dire. (shrink)

Artykuł jest próbą empiriokrytycznej wykładni filozofii krytycznej Immanuela Kanta w ujęciu zaproponowanym przez Józefę z Krzyżanowskich Kodisową. Polska myślicielka czerpiąc z filozoficznego programu Kanta, próbując określić znaczenie Kanta dla filozofii współczesnej, wskazuje zarówno zalety jak i wady jego doktryny. Szczególną uwagę skupia na Kantowskiej epistemologii, zwłaszcza problemie apercepcji (empirycznej i tanscendentalnej), pojęciu samorzutności, poznawczym znaczeniu doświadczenia i empirycznej psychologii. Sięgając po empiriokrytyczny problemat energetyki i mechaniki, w artykule analizuję Kodisowej wykładnię filozofii jako nauki sprzyjającej rozeznaniu człowieka w otaczającym świecie.

Time, history and culture are the main factors which influence a man’s identity. The article presents the views of the Polish philosopher Julian Ochorowicz concerning the development of the Polish national character. It also discusses the problem of patriotism and stereotypes, which often distort the perception of a nation and its history. One of the interesting notions suggested by Ochorowicz is the so-called “collective national soul”. He also analyses the problem of the Poles’ “selfness”, which he believes to be an (...) obstacle preventing the development of an efficient state organisation. (shrink)

The most famous medieval controversy over the power and the temporal dominion took place between the papacy and the empire. One of the greatest advocates of the imperial domination was Marsilius of Padua, the author of an original work that demonstrated the advantage of acknowledging the emperor’s superiority over the Pope’s. The Defensor pacis, written between 1319 and 1324, was devoted to the dispute on such sovereignty issues as proving that the Pope should be subordinate to the Emperor, and not (...) vice versa. The Defensor pacis takes issue with numerous arguments and views uttered by the papal camp and uses the appropriate quotations from the Bible and Aristotle to show their weakness and inconsistency. The work comprises three parts. The first part is a description of the ideal system, i.e., an elective monarchy, with the specified role of a ruler and a clear indication of the sovereignty of the people. The second and third parts present a challenge to the arguments of the papal camp and analyze the general situation of the Church, suggesting the necessary reforms. Thus, the whole work becomes a compendium of knowledge on appropriate governance. (shrink)