The aim of this study was to examine whether the relationship between the ratio of job-related positive to negative emotions and job burnout is best described as linear or curvilinear. Participants were 89 police officers and 86 firefighters. The positivity ratio was evaluated using the Job-related Affective Wellbeing Scale. Exhaustion and disengagement, two components of job burnout, were measured using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. The results of regression analysis revealed that curvilinear relationships between the positivity ratio and two components of (...) job burnout appeared to better fit the data than linear relationships. The relationship between the positivity ratio and exhaustion was curvilinear with a curve point at around 2.1. A similar curvilinear relationship, but with a lower curve point, i.e., around 1.8, was observed for disengagement. It seems that beyond certain values there may be hidden costs of maintaining positive emotions at work. Also, the unequal curve points for subscales suggest that different dimensions of work-related functioning are variously prone to such costs. (shrink)

A similarity relation is a reflexive and symmetric binary relation between objects. Similarity is relative: it depends on the set of properties of objects used in determining their similarity or dissimilarity. A multi-modal logical language for reasoning about relative similarities is presented. The modalities correspond semantically to the upper and lower approximations of a set of objects by similarity relations corresponding to all subsets of a given set of properties of objects. A complete deduction system for the language is presented.

Classical phenomenology -- The transcendental tradition -- The logical investigations of the I -- From the I to the ego -- The grammar of the transcendental ego -- Strawson on the primacy of personhood -- Wittgenstein on the lure of words -- The grammar of the transcendental ego -- Zahavi on transcendental subjectivity as intersubjectivity -- Contemporary arguments for the transcendental ego : Marbach, Soffer -- Schutz, Theunissen on social phenomenology -- Husserl's later thought -- The multidiscipline of dialogical phenomenology (...) -- Sociolinguistics -- Personal pronouns : reconsidering the traditional view -- Egocentrism and polycentrism -- Person deixis and polycentrism -- Anscombe -- Wittgenstein -- Personal pronouns : reconsidering the traditional view -- I and we : a relational community -- Benveniste and I : you connectedness -- Objectification in the third person -- Castaneda's phenomeno-logic of the I -- Developmental perspectives -- Piaget's legacy -- Recent research on the sociality of children -- Proto-conversations in infancy -- The dialogic model of Jaffe and Feldstein -- From proto-conversation to conversation -- Perspectives from blindness and autism -- Polycentrism and personal pronoun acquisition: loveland and others -- An egocentric model of personal pronoun acquisition : Charney and others -- Philosophical implications and directions for future research -- Philosophy of dialogue -- Rosenstock-Huessy's grammatical method of social research -- Rosenzweig's speech-thinking -- Buber's I and you -- The primordial duality in Buber, Humboldt, Plato -- Buber and his critics -- Rosenstock-Huessy -- Levinas -- Dialogical phenomenology -- The dialogic dimension of meaning and experience -- The practice of phenomenology -- Implications for politics and feminism. (shrink)

Beata Halicka's masterly narrated biography is the story of an extraordinary man and leading intellectual in the Polish-American community. Z. Anthony Kruszewski was first a Polish scout fighting in World War II against the Nazi occupiers, then Prisoner of War/Displaced Person in Western Europe. He stranded as a penniless immigrant in post-war America and eventually became a world-renowned academic. Kruszewski's almost incredible life stands out from his entire generation. His story is a microcosm of the 20th-century history, covering various (...) theatres and incorporating key events and individuals. Kruszewski walks a stage very few people have even stood on, both as an eye-witness at the centre of the Second World War, and later as vice-president of the Polish American Congress, and a professor and political scientist at world-class universities in the USA. Not only did he become a pioneer and a leading figure in Borderland Studies, but he is a borderlander in every sense of the word. (shrink)

The paper discusses a four-valued propositional logic FOUR≤, similar to Belnap's logic, which can be used to describe incomplete or inconsistent knowledge. In addition to the two classical logical values tt, ff, FOUR≤ features also two nonclassical values: ⊥, representing incomplete information, and ⊤, representing inconsistency. The nonclassical values are incomparable, and together with the classical ones they form a diamond-shaped lattice L4 known from Belnap's logic, which underlies the semantics of FOUR≤. The set of connectives contains those of Belnap's (...) logic, together with an additional operator representing the lattice order, which decisively increases the expressive power of the logic. In the paper we develop a complete decompositional deduction system in Rasiowa-Sikorski style for FOUR≤. (shrink)

Following the suggestion expressed in the title of this essay, I deal with the idea which allows for considering landscape garden as a paradigmatic indicator of our relationship with nature. Focusing on the idea of landscape garden and its aesthetics I analyze two aesthetic notions: the picturesque and sublime, which are the background of the kind of experience accompanying a perception and participation of and in the landscape and environment. I analyse the kind of experience, which captures all the aspects (...) that situate the human in the environment instead of opposing it. The analysis will be conducted within the framework of aesthetics. (shrink)

The article offers analyses of the phenomenon of copying (plagiarism) in higher education. The analyses were based on a quantitative survey using questionnaires, conducted in 2019 at one of the Polish universities. Plagiarism is discussed here both as an element of the learning process and a subject of public practices. The article presents students’ definitions of plagiarism, their strategies for unclear or difficult situations, their experiences with plagiarism and their opinions on how serious and widespread this phenomenon is. Focusing on (...) the non-plagiarism norm, that is the rule that students are not allowed to plagiarize, and in order to redefine it we have determined two strategies adopted by students. The first is withdrawing in fear of making a mistake (omitting the norm), which means not using referencing in unclear situations, e.g. when the data about the source of information are absent. The second is reducing the scope of the norm applicability (limiting the norm), characterized by the fact that there are areas where the non-plagiarism norm must be observed more closely and those where it is not so important, e.g. respondents classify works as credit-level and diploma-level texts, as in the credit-level work they “can” sometimes plagiarize since the detection rate is poor and consequences are not severe. The presented results are particularly significant for interpreting plagiarism in an international context (no uniform definition of plagiarism) and for policies aimed at limiting the scale of the phenomenon (plagiarism detection systems 1 ). (shrink)

Developing caring competences is considered to be one of the most important aims of undergraduate nursing education and the role of clinical placement is recognised as special in this regard. Students' reflection on caring, their experience and obstacles in being caring is recommended as a key strategy in the process of teaching and studying the nursing discipline. Therefore, the aim of this study was to describe the concept of caring, its manifestations and possible obstacles while caring, as perceived by first‐year (...) nursing students before and after their first clinical placement. Qualitative content analysis of 15 Polish students' narratives written before and after their clinical experience in the form of text‐diaries was undertaken. The findings revealed that students entered their nursing education with a deep humanistic vision of caring both on theoretical and practical levels and the first clinical placement has enriched this vision. Expressive caring was more appreciated by students than the instrumental one and their concept of caring was coherent with the caring behaviours as described in their narratives. Several internal and external obstacles for caring have been reported by students, indicating a specific tension between their ideal of caring and their practical experience of caring in the clinical reality. (shrink)

Dans ce travail, je souligne l’importance du phénomène de la parole vivante et de la dimension communicative de l’expérience dans la recherche phénoménologique. Spécifiquement, je considère de manière critique l’accusation de phonocentrisme adressée par Derrida à la phénoménologie, qui semble avoir discrédité toute tentative d’aborder le phénomène de la vocalité par peur de privilégier la présence et la subjectivité atomiste. Il est peut-être vrai que la phénoménologie classique de la conscience privilégie le point de vue de la première personne et (...) qu’elle est coupable d’un biais subjectiviste, mais il y a des ressources riches dans la tradiction dialogique, notamment chez Buber, de même que chez Humboldt et Platon, qui permettent de souligner la dualité fondamentale du soi et de l’autre, qui se déploie entre moi et toi dans la parole vivante et de corriger la position individualiste de la phénoménologie classique. (shrink)

There is a growing sense among translational hermeneuticists that their assumptions pertaining to the act of translation as seen from the hermeneutical perspective should align them more with a cognitive field. Taking the above view into account, the aim of this paper is to introduce the idea of translational (neuro)hermeneutics into the field of translation studies. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the concept of (neuro)hermeneutics as based on Gambino and Pulvirenti (2019) approach to literary studies, which (...) is then followed by the theoretical and methodological issues associated with philosophy of landscape taken from the perspective of new cultural geography and of embodiment. The second part of this paper presents the theoretical and methodological considerations as regards translations of landscape descriptions and their analysis, with emphasis on the concept of the (neuro)hermeneutic circle. The paper concludes with suggestions as to further advancement within the field of translational (neuro)hermeneutics. (shrink)

A special area of human-machine interaction, the expression of emotions gains importance with the continuous development of artificial agents such as social robots or interactive mobile applications. We developed a prototype version of an abstract emotion visualization agent to express five basic emotions and a neutral state. In contrast to well-known symbolic characters (e.g., smileys) these displays follow general biological and ethological rules. We conducted a multiple questionnaire study on the assessment of the displays with Hungarian and Japanese subjects. In (...) most cases participants were successful in recognizing the displayed emotions. Fear and sadness were most easily confused with each other while both the Hungarian and Japanese participants recognized the anger display most correctly. We suggest that the implemented biological approach can be a viable complement to the emotion expressions of some artificial agents, for example mobile devices. (shrink)

Background: The concept of conscientious objection is well described; however, because of its nature, little is known about real experiences of nursing professionals who apply objections in their practice. Extended roles in nursing indicate that clinical and value-based dilemmas are becoming increasingly common. In addition, the migration trends of the nursing workforce have increased the need for the mutual understanding of culturally based assumptions on aspects of health care delivery. Aim: To present (a) the arguments for and against conscientious objection (...) in nursing practice, (b) a description of current regulations and practice regarding conscientious objection in nursing in Poland and the United Kingdom, and (c) to offer a balanced view regarding the application of conscientious objection in clinical nursing practice. Design: Discussion paper. Ethical considerations: Ethical guidelines has been followed at each stage of this study. Findings: Strong arguments exist both for and against conscientious objection in nursing which are underpinned by empirical research from across Europe. Arguments against conscientious objection relate less to it as a concept, but rather in regard to organisational aspects of its application and different mechanisms which could be introduced in order to reach the balance between professional and patient’s rights. Discussion and conclusion: Debate regarding conscientious objection is vivid, and there is consensus that the right to objection among nurses is an important, acknowledged part of nursing practice. Regulation in the United Kingdom is limited to reproductive health, while in Poland, there are no specific procedures to which nurses can apply an objection. The same obligations of those who express conscientious objection apply in both countries, including the requirement to share information with a line manager, the patient, documentation of the objection and necessity to indicate the possibility of receiving care from other nurses. Using Poland and the United Kingdom as case study countries, this article offers a balanced view regarding the application of conscientious objection in clinical nursing practice. (shrink)

School bullying also referred to as peer victimization is considered extremely harmful for all parties involved. It has been recognised as an important issue in Polish schools. This article presents the first stage of a project financed by the National Centre of Research and Development and includes the results of qualitative research conducted in groups of middle-school students, middle-school teachers and psychologists. The results highlight several factors leading to the exclusion from the dominant peer group. The results also indicate that (...) although students are aware of the consequences of bullying and excluding behaviours, they do not implement this knowledge when explaining their own excluding actions. All results are discussed in terms of designing and implementing a data-based programme which would effectively mitigate excluding behaviours during middle-school transition. (shrink)

A formal language of two-valued logic is developed, whose terms are formulas of the language of Kleene's three-valued logic. The atomic formulas of the former language are pairs of formulas of the latter language joined by consequence operators. These operators correspond to the three sensible types of consequence (strong-strong, strong-weak and weak-weak) in Kleene's logic in analogous way as the implication connective in the classical logic corresponds to the classical consequence relation. The composed formulas of the considered language are built (...) from the atomic ones by means of the classical connectives and quantifiers.A deduction system for the developed language is given, consisting of a set of decomposition rules for sequences of formulas. It is shown that the deduction system is sound and complete. (shrink)

A code of professional conduct is a collection of norms appropriate for the nursing profession and should be the point of reference for all decisions made during the care process. Codes of ethics for nurses are formulated by members of national nurses’ organizations. These codes can be considered to specify general norms that function in the relevant society, adjusting them to the character of the profession and enriching them with rules signifying the essence of nursing professionalism. The aim of this (...) article is to present a comparative analysis of codes of ethics for nurses: the ICN’s Code of ethics for nurses, the UK’s Code of professional conduct, the Irish Code of professional conduct for each nurse and midwife, and the Polish Code of professional ethics for nurses and midwives. This analysis allows the identification of common elements in the professional ethics of nurses in these countries. (shrink)

Cancer is an evolutionary and ecological process in which complex interactions between tumour cells and their environment share many similarities with organismal evolution. Tumour cells with highest adaptive potential have a selective advantage over less fit cells. Naturally occurring transmissible cancers provide an ideal model system for investigating the evolutionary arms race between cancer cells and their surrounding micro‐environment and macro‐environment. However, the evolutionary landscapes in which contagious cancers reside have not been subjected to comprehensive investigation. Here, we provide a (...) multifocal analysis of transmissible tumour progression and discuss the selection forces that shape it. We demonstrate that transmissible cancers adapt to both their micro‐environment and macro‐environment, and evolutionary theories applied to organisms are also relevant to these unique diseases. The three naturally occurring transmissible cancers, canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) and Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) and the recently discovered clam leukaemia, exhibit different evolutionary phases: (i) CTVT, the oldest naturally occurring cell line is remarkably stable; (ii) DFTD exhibits the signs of stepwise cancer evolution; and (iii) clam leukaemia shows genetic instability. While all three contagious cancers carry the signature of ongoing and fairly recent adaptations to selective forces, CTVT appears to have reached an evolutionary stalemate with its host, while DFTD and the clam leukaemia appear to be still at a more dynamic phase of their evolution. Parallel investigation of contagious cancer genomes and transcriptomes and of their micro‐environment and macro‐environment could shed light on the selective forces shaping tumour development at different time points: during the progressive phase and at the endpoint. A greater understanding of transmissible cancers from an evolutionary ecology perspective will provide novel avenues for the prevention and treatment of both contagious and non‐communicable cancers. (shrink)

This book draws on recent developments in research on Ferdinand de Saussure's general linguistics to challenge the structuralist doctrine associated with the Course in General Linguistics and to propose a phenomenological interpretation of Saussure's study of language.

Rediscoveries are not rare in biology. A recent example is the re-birth of the "fluctuation fit" concept developed by F. B. Straub and G. Szabolcsi in the sixties of the last century, under various names, the most popular of which is the "conformational selection". This theory offers an alternative to the "induced fit" concept by Koshland for the interpretation of the mechanism of protein—ligand interactions. A central question is whether the ligand induces a conformational change (as described by the induced (...) fit model) or rather selects and stabilizes a complementary conformation from a pre-existing equilibrium of various states of the protein (according to the fluctuation fit/conformational selection model). Straub and Szabolcsi’s role and the factors hindering the spread of the fluctuation fit theory are discussed in the context of the history of the Hungarian biology in the 1950s and 1960s. (shrink)

The major thesis developed in Sartre's L'imaginaire is that all imaginary acts can be subsumed under the heading of one "image family" and, therefore, that imagination as a whole can be theorized in terms of pictorial representation. Yet this theory fails to meet the objective of Sartre's study, to demonstrate that imaginary activity is not a derivative of perception but an attitude with a character and dignity of its own. The subsidiary account of imagination in terms of neutralization of belief (...) has the advantage of not being constrained by the requirement that imaginary activity serve a purely reproductive function of bringing an absent "original" into a quasi presence and, thus, leaves room for free creativity and fiction. It also points to a concrete lived experience of alterity at the heart of subjective life where the subject stages its life as if it were the life of an other, putting pressure onto Sartre's contention that the cogito defines subjectivity. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to present the results of a job satisfaction survey conducted on a group of Polish sworn translators. The first part of this paper discusses the state of the art of sociology of translation as well as providing a definition of job satisfaction. Then, the author of the paper moves on to the presentation of the research procedure: the methodology, the limitations of the study, the results and a discussion about the findings. This study (...) presents evidence suggesting that Polish sworn translators experience a high level of job satisfaction. Nevertheless, due to research limitations, further studies on this topic are recommended before the issue of job satisfaction among sworn translators is more clearly understood. (shrink)

The present article attempts to reconstruct Polish philosopher and aesthetician Roman Witold Ingarden’s views concerning his understanding of the concept of artistic style. Starting from the hypotheses provided by the content of the outline of his ultimately unwritten work, Poetics, I have chosen selected threads of the discussions held by Ingarden in Lviv before the war, supplemented by the content of the phenomenologist’s lectures from the 1960s, as essential substantive background. Analyzing the material indicated, I demonstrate that it is appropriate (...) for Ingarden’s understanding of artistic style to correlate this concept with the category of aesthetic concretization. Consequently, I draw a conclusion as to the primary role of some aspects of a literary work – appearances, which allow us to inquire into the properties of artistic style practically as a result of their function of decorativeness and polyphony. A condensed comparative analysis of the two functions, as related to excerpts from Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s Insatiability, concludes the account of Ingarden’s conception of artistic style, which turns out to be a unique aphenomenal phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the concept of translation competence as seen from the perspective of translational hermeneutics. The first part of the article provides a short survey of how translation competence and its develop- ment has been described so far, with a particular focus on the legal translator’s skills and abilities. The second part of the paper briefly presents the notion of translational hermeneutics together with its main concepts. The aim of this part of the article is also to (...) show similarities between the translation phenomenon and hermeneutical studies. Finally, building on Stolze’s hermeneutical model of translation, the last part of the paper presents the main features of a hermeneutical model of legal translation competence. (shrink)

This study investigated the relationship between disorders of the body self and personality defence mechanisms of women with bulimia nervosa. It was hypothesized that women with bulimia nervosa would not form a homogeneous group in terms of the body self disorder and that the extent of this disorder would be significantly related to personality functioning in terms of the defence styles adopted. The hypothesis was investigated with the aid of two questionnaires: the Body Self Questionnaire and the Defence Style Questionnaire (...) by Andrews, Singh and Bond. 36 women aged between 15 and 25 years, who fulfilled the DSM IV criteria for bulimia nervosa participated in the study. Conclusions from the study were that: the body self of bulimic women is differentially disordered at three levels: profound, moderate and minimal. the degree to which the body self was found to be disordered is significant in psychological terms as it is related to the defence style adopted by the bulimic personality. The profound and moderate levels of body self disorder related to immature defence styles, while minimal levels of disruption to body self were associated with neurotic and mature styles. (shrink)

Regional media have numerous functions towards the local community. It is owing to them that the inhabitants of a given area acquire knowledge about current events from all areas of life in the regional dimension. Sport is a special sphere – information about competitions at the regional level appears only in local media. The article analyses the contents of two Lodz-based media – namely printed press and television – in terms of the presence of information about local sports competitions.

In _The distinctive terminology in Šarḥ al-Kāfiya by Raḍī l-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī_ Beata Sheyhatovitch offers a comprehensive and systematic study of terminology used by a highly perceptive and original Arab grammarian from 13th century C.E.

The present study investigates linguistic choices and strategy selection of American speakers of English, Russian native speakers, and American L2 learners of Russian in their complaints by exploring the interaction of social factors and gender. The data was elicited through an open-ended discourse completion questionnaire and an assessment questionnaire. The qualitative analysis shows significant differences between genders in the group of Russian speakers. The major finding was that Russian males were more judgmental and direct in their complaints, but they were (...) also more humorous and ironic than Russian females. Fewer differences were observed in the group of American speakers and American L2 learners of Russian. The findings indicate similar gender differences within each group and across groups in terms of strategy selection and the number of words. Some of the differences were statistically significant.The findings of the interlanguage analysis open areas for pedagogical intervention so that L2 learners better understand how to address males and females, as well as which linguistic strategies to use to minimize offense while negotiating a problem in Russian culture. (shrink)

In this essay, I follow the lead of recent scholarship in Saussure linguistics and critically examine the Saussurean doctrine associated with the Course in General Linguistics, which later became a hallmark of structuralism. Specifically, I reconstruct the history of the concluding sentence in the Course which establishes the priority of la langue over everything deemed external to it. This line assumed the status of an oft-cited ‘famous formula’ and became a structuralist motto. The ‘famous formula’ was, however, freely inserted by (...) the editors of the Course who effectively ghostwrote the book after Saussure’s death, and authored a series of early book-reviews of the same text in dedicated scholarly venues. I argue that the editorial success turning their vision of Saussure’s teaching into official doctrine was enabled in part by the dominant social structures regulating twentieth-century European academia. (shrink)

This study is a philosophically sociological and pedagogical reflection on the current status of universities as institutions and the profile of university education. It draws attention to the original characteristics that made up the idea and essence of university, which should not be forgotten at a time when higher education institutions are being diversified. It analyzes the development of higher education in terms of its functions and value in the context of societal change in the era of industrialization and globalization. (...) It contemplates the university’s loss of identity at a time when financial capital prevails over science and technology, and educational preferences favor the market and practice. It considers paradigmatic change in university education as well as the future role of universities. The paper reflects on global trends through the eye of transforming countries, although it does not directly cover these countries directly. (shrink)

: The aim of the study was to establish whether any relation exists between depression symptoms and the extent to which adolescents accept the changes their bodies undergo, and if the connection does exist - is it gender-related. Method: Data were collected from four sub-groups: younger girls, older girls, younger boys, and older boys. The participants were asked to complete questionnaires that allow to measure the subjective intensity of depression symptoms, the current stage of biological changes and whether these changes (...) are accepted by the individual who experiences them. Results: The less adolescents accept the changes in their bodies, the higher depression symptoms they demonstrate. For younger girls, older girls and older boys, no links were established between levels of accepting bodily changes and early/late maturation. For younger boys, the later the stage of their development, the less likely they are to accept the changes in their bodies. Girls report more intense depression symptoms than boys do, but their levels of accepting changes that occur around puberty are significantly lower only when compared to those of older boys. Conclusions: Whether biological changes during puberty are accepted or not, was proven to be a significant predictor of more intense depression symptoms. (shrink)

This article tackles one of the most burning issues discussed by adherents of the dynamically developing movement in ethics which bears on political and legal philosophy, that is value-pluralism. In particular, the article is devoted to an investigation into the highly controversial issue of the relationship between pluralism and liberalism, based upon the three crucial, divergent approaches represented by Isaiah Berlin and his two main opponents, John Gray and George Crowder. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the two concepts (...) in question are neither mutually exclusive nor logically connected, but actually overlapping, which signifies the existence of a loose, de facto connection between them. Such a final thesis proves to be consistent with the position of Isaiah Berlin, and contrary to the final statements endorsed by his critics, John Gray and George Crowder. (shrink)

This is a detailed exposition and development of some of the epistemic implications of John R. Searle's ontology of the "Background" of communication. Detailed references are made to Searle's more recent and therefore lesser known relevant works, including his 1992 text. The Rediscovery of the Mind, and The Construction of Social Reality, published in 1995. 'Communication' refers to the intentional action of an individual speaker to let another individual know the contents of the speaker's subjective conscious mental state, by way (...) of producing a linguistic utterance made in one or the other conventional language, as well as to the intentional action of the addressee to interpret the contents of the speaker's subjective conscious mental state expressed in the production of the speaker's utterance. The notion of "Background" occupies a central position in Searle's work: it is defined as a speaker's own set of nonconscious, innate and/or acquired neurophysiological capacities that ultimately determine the contents of the speaker's intended utterance meaning on a particular occasion. The speaker is not aware of the actual set of Background capacities effective on a particular occasion, and so the Background is wholly inexplicit in the utterance produced publicly. All members of the human species share some fundamental Background capacities which makes communication at all possible. However, the interpreter's attribution of his/her own Background to the interlocutor--the primary method employed in communication--is not always justified, given the potential dissimilarities in individual speaker's own Backgrounds. This work provides a detailed assessment of how speakers' Backgrounds both enable and at the same time potentially undermine the possibility of successful communication. (shrink)

Philosophia means love of wisdom. If the way of access to wisdom is love, then the quest for wisdom does not appear as a purely cognitive enterprise but also and primarily as an affective one. Rather than reducing the one who searches for wisdom to a pure contemplative mind, it engages the entire person in the inquiry; the affective, and correlatively, sensitive and corporeal being of the self are put into play. Put simply and naïvely, one needs to be implicated (...) in the philo-sophical quest with one’s heart and one’s body. Still, does not such implication prevent this quest from being “scientific”? Should not the inquiry be dispassionate if it is to remain “objective”, for otherwise it may obscure the hypotheses we formulate and the experiments we perform with subjective, personal input and cloud them with a halo of affective indeterminacy? After all, the thesis of objectivism stipulates that we should efface not only all preconceptions andpresuppositions in order to have an unprejudiced view of the matter in hand, but also dispose of the entire affective baggage of the individual engaged in a scientific enterprise. This procedure of bracketing of affectivity allows one to scrutinize the object of study from the standpoint of an external observer who adds nothing to the object in order to let its inherent character manifest itself. Hence the supposed detachment and disinterest typical of the strategies employed by science, living and inanimate beings alike being all ranked amongst possible objects for study. (shrink)

Although we are not aware of many spontaneous sensual experiences, we learn about the surrounding world through our senses. One of the objects of sensual experience is smell. It influences our decisions, shapes social interactions and is also a carrier of social meanings. Unfortunately, long-term conviction about the domination of sight over smell led to a belief in the pictorial character of our contemporary culture. Moreover, constant fluctuations between the promotion and ignoring of olfactory data have played a role in (...) the neglect of the importance of smell in social studies. In this article I show how important the sense of smell has been through many centuries of science, and point out that the alleged linguistic and methodological difficulties of this topic, as well as the subjective interpretation of smell, should not be an obstacle in the development of research on smell in social studies. (shrink)

Garden and melancholy have been analysed by Alicja Kuczyńska from the standpoint of Renaissance Neoplatonism. I try to work out a common denominator for them, and attempt to compare Renaissance and Romantic melancholy—in the garden space. I see a positive moment in the notions developed by Kuczyńska, namely in that melancholy, as an expectation, acquires a positive dimension, approaching hope.

I engage phenomenological and empirical perspectives on dialogical relations in infancy in a mutually enlightening and challenging relation. On the one hand, the empirical contributions provide evidence for the primacy of first-to-second person interrelatedness in human sociality, as opposed to the claim of primary syncretism heralded by Merleau-Ponty, and also in distinction from the ego-alter ego model routinely used in phenomenology. On the other hand, phenomenological considerations regarding the lived affective experience of dialogical relatedness enrich and render intelligible the psychological (...) accounts of dialogue in terms of observable behavior. Phenomenological and empirical perspectives on dialogical relatedness thus combine to offer an affectively charged and conversationally patterned notion of primary intersubjectivity in the I-you mode. (shrink)

Stawarska considers the ambiguities surrounding the antagonism between the phenomenological and the structuralist traditions by pointing out that the supposed foundation of structuralism, the Course in General Linguistics, was ghostwritten posthumously by two editors who projected a dogmatic doctrine onto Saussure’s lectures, while the authentic materials related to Saussure’s linguistics are teeming with phenomenological references. She then narrows the focus to Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with Saussure’s linguistics and argues that it offers an unusual, if not an uncanny, reading of the Course, (...) in that it identifies a phenomenological dimension within the text, against the grain of the dominant structuralist claim. This phenomenological dimension is corroborated by the authentic sources of Saussure’s linguistics, even though the latter were beyond the philosopher’s own power to know. Merleau-Ponty’s unorthodox reading of the Course as being broadly compatible with the tradition of Husserlian phenomenology has been dismissed as an error and a contresens , but Stawarska proposes that such deviant appropriations of foundational texts are the ones to cherish the most, since they effectively dismantle the received dogmas and official doctrines stuffing the cabinets of canonical philosophy. She argues specifically that Merleau-Ponty’s contested distinction between “a synchronic linguistics of speech ” and “a diachronic linguistics of language ” , which gives primacy to la parole over la langue, and raises the possibility of a systematic study of la parole, contains a more faithful response to Saussure’s own project than the received structuralist view that la langue alone constitutes the proper object of linguistic study. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Two objects o1, o2 of an information system are said to be complementary with respect to attribute a if α(o1) = -α(o2), where α(o) is the set of values of attribute a assigned to o. They are said to be complementary with respect to a set of attributes A if they are complementary with respect to each attribute α ε A. A multi-modal logical language for reasoning about complementarity relations is presented, with modalities [A] and ?A? parameterised by subsets (...) of a given set ATTR of attributes. Two complete deduction system for the language are presented: a Rasiowa-Sikorski style system using signed formulae, and an equivalent sequent calculus system in Gentzen style complete for theories. (shrink)

Memory is a privileged context for inquiry into subjective life; no wonder that the way philosophers theorize memory is indicative of their conception of subjectivity as a whole. In this essay, I turn to Sartre and Husserl with the aim of unveiling how their accounts of recollection resolve the question of identity and difference within the temporality of one's life. Tracing Sartre's arguments against Husserl's, as well as Husserl's and Sartre's own presentations of recollection, I inquire into the reasons that (...) incited them to bring either the aspect of sameness or otherness at the heart of subjective life into view. (shrink)