On the Non-atheistic and Acosmic Character of Pantheistic Philosophy of Spinoza According to Salomon Maimon The article presents Salomon Maimon’s view on the pantheistic philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and Maimon’s conviction that the system in question cannot be defined as atheism. The Jewish thinker states that Spinozian philosophy should be rather called acosmism which term is suggested by Maimon due to the fact that this system of thought affirms the sole reality of God – what, on the other hand, denies (...) the credibility of defining Spinoza’s philosophy as atheism. However, the article shows that the more addequate term with regard to the pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza would be pancosmism. The last seems to better correspond to the theses of pantheism – the determinant common for both the pantheism and pancosmism is namely the real status of reality. (shrink)

Palma Dewory Moszego Kordowera jako egzemplifikacja żydowskiej kabalistycznej doktryny etycznej pod postacią imitatio dei Artykuł podejmuje zagadnienie żydowskich kabalistycznych dyrektyw etycznych,, sformułowanych w Palmie Dewory autorstwa żydowskiego mistyka kabalisty Moszego Kordowera. Czyni to w oparciu o fundamentalną ideę mistyki judaizmu – kategorię dziesięciu sefirot, które w tutejszym systemie etycznym zostały, każda z osobna, skorelowane z pożądanymi i zalecanymi ludzkimi sposobami postępowania, zachowania się wobec bliźniego. Rezultatem zalecenia wehalachta bederachaw, tj. idei naśladowania Boga – wyrażającej się tu w regule naśladowania sefirot, (...) tj. uwewnętrz¬niania, „zaszczepiania” w sobie cnót, cech moralnych immanentnych poszczególnym sefirotycznym atrybutom – jest człowiek doskonały etycznie, ergo podobający się Bogu, co stanowi wartość najwyższą religijnego Żyda. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 57 Heft: 1 Seiten: 129-137.

The concept of the responsibility to protect has generated considerable controversy since its formulation in the 2001 Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereig...

The article applies selected concepts from the writings of Julia Kristeva to the analysis of a novel by Doris Lessing entitled The Cleft. Published in 2007, The Cleft depicts the origin of sexual difference in the human species. Its emergence is fraught with anxiety and sexually specific violence, and invites comparison with the primal separation from the mother and the emancipation of the subject in process at the cost of relegating the maternal to the abject in the writings of Julia (...) Kristeva. Lessing creates an ahistorical community of females from which the male community eventually evolves. The growing awareness of sexual difference dovetails with the emotional and intellectual development, as the nascent human subject gradually enters linear time viewed from perspective by the narrator of the novel, a Roman senator who hoards ancient manuscripts with the story of Clefts and Squirts. The article juxtaposes the ideas of Lessing and Kristeva, who have both cut themselves off from feminism, and have both been inspired by psychoanalysis. Primarily, Lessing’s fictional imaginary can be adequately interpreted in light of Kristeva’s concept of abjection as an element that disturbs the system. My interpretation of abjection is indebted to Pamela Sue Anderson’s reading of Kristeva, notably her contention that violence as a response to sexual difference lies at the heart of collective identity. Finally, the imaginary used by Lessing and Kristeva is shown to have stemmed from the colonial imaginary like the concepts of Freud and Jung. (shrink)

The field of language teaching, both TESOL and ESP, is undergo- ing rapid changes. It is responding to new educational trends and paradigms and institutions face new challenges connected with changes in the curriculum, national tests and student needs. As a result, language teachers need to update their professional knowledge by taking on new roles, such as those of teacher- researcher. The purpose of this paper is to present new developments in the area of general language teaching research, with a (...) particular focus on meth- ods of qualitative research that might be found useful while examining certain aspects of teaching in the field of ESP, such as case studies, action research, interviews or observations. The presentation of research methods is followed by a review of research practice focused on pedagogical issues published in re- cent years in ESP journals, such as English for Specific Purposes, The Asian ESP Journal or Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Of major interest are articles on Legal English. The article concludes with suggestions for further study. (shrink)

Naszym dążeniem nie jest osiągnięcie ostatecznych rozwiązań w kwestii Cóż jest prawda? , obraliśmy skromniejszy cel. Podtytuł O prawdzie nie sugeruje, iż praca stanowi kompendium wiedzy o problemie prawdy w całej filozofii współczesnej. Rezygnujemy bowiem z ujęć syntetycznych i systematycznych, w zamian chcemy skupić się na obiektywnych i rzetelnych prezentacjach i interpretacjach wybranych koncepcji prawdy w poglądach Martina Heideggera, Johna Graya, Xaviera Zubiriego, Jacques'a Derridy, Johna Rawlsa i Stefana Swieżawskiego. Zdaniem autorów tekstów, poglądy tych właśnie filozofów wskazały nowe drogi myślenia (...) o prawdzie bądź twórczo nawiązywały do ujęć tradycyjnych. My ufamy, iż pozwolą one dostrzec panoramę filozoficznych dyscyplin debatujących o prawdzie (ontologia, epistemologia, filozofia polityki, historiozofia) oraz dylematy związane z prawdą, które są ważne dla innych dziedzin wiedzy i życia codziennego, w różnych jego aspektach (prywatnym, społecznym, politycznym). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to characterize a non-standard use of the method of market basket analysis in one of the areas of economy, i.e. public transport. Generally, one of the aims of the market basket analysis method is associating the consumer's market basket – in the case of public transport this being the choice of bus stops in the city area made by passengers. Owing to a new, practical use of this method, it was possible to build an (...) efficient model characterizing the movement of flows of public transport passengers, and assess the degree of transferring, thus making it possible to adapt the routes of buses to the needs of people using this particular means of transport, as well as to plot new communication lines. The data analysis was performed using the Statistica statistical package and its SAL application, i.e. the algorithms used in Data Mining. (shrink)

The goal of the article is to offer a style-focussed description of samizdat press articles from the late-1970s, which were the textual manifestation of the independent discourse at that time. The author analysed representative microstyles and conducted a functional interpretation of identified stylistic devices and phenomena, considering how they were related to the official model of public communication. The discussed texts were stylistically diverse, which was a byproduct which came from structural and genre adaptations, and mainly play on language. On (...) the one hand, one can note an expansion of the array of stylistic devices and, on the other, an inclusion into that array of the elements of newspeak in those contexts which indicated its manipulative nature. (shrink)

This study is a continuation of the work of Professor Kazimierz Wrześniewski. It concerns the role of curiositytrait in the dynamics of changes in coping and quality of life after a heart attack. The study was attended by 222 people after a heart attack, of whom 140 participated in the three stages of the study: at the beginning and at the end of cardiac rehabilitation and a year after leaving the resort. The participants aged 24-64 years. Curiosity-trait was measured by (...) Spielberger and Wrześniewski’s STPI questionnaire. To assess coping strategies a modified version of the COPE by Carver et al., was used. The specific and general quality of life were measured by the Polish adaptations of MacNew and NHP questionnaires. The level of curiosity-trait significantly differentiated changes in the dynamics of positive reinterpretation, problem solving and resignation, but did not affect the change in quality of life within the year after a heart attack. (shrink)

The author asks two questions. The first, is war really the best action of a polis how the introductory conversation of the Timaeus suggests. The second, has been the Sokrates’ desire to see his ideal polis in action fulfilled in the Timaeus-Critias sequence. The approach to the problems seems to be found in the Laws, where these two questions are turned to this one: might war be the pattern for a lawgiver.

Pythagorean Women Philosophers argues for a rewriting of Greek philosophical history so as to include female intellectuals. Dutsch presents testimonies regarding the role of women in the Pythagorean school as demonstrating their active contribution to the philosophical tradition.

The study was designed to examine whether trait emotional intelligence would moderate the impact of negative emotions at work on job burnout. A total of 188 female nurses participated in this study and completed measures of trait affectivity, emotional intelligence, anger and sadness at work [over five consecutive days, nurses rated the extent to which they experienced anger-related emotions (i.e., irritation, embitterment and anger) and sadness-related emotions (i.e., depression, disappointment and sadness)], and burnout. The results revealed significant and positive relationships (...) between both types of negative emotions and burnout above and beyond demographics and the nurses’ trait affectivity. Importantly, the study demonstrated that trait emotional intelligence buffers the effects of negative emotions on burnout. Specifically, anger- and sadness-related emotions predicted greater burnout among nurses with low trait emotional intelligence but not among nurses with high trait emotional intelligence. These results suggest that emotional intelligence training could be implemented to prevent the adverse effect of negative emotions felt at work on job burnout. (shrink)

Why obey the state? Dorota Mokrosińska presents a fresh analysis of the most influential theories of political obligation and develops a novel approach to this foundational problem of political philosophy, an intriguing combination of the elements of natural duty and associative theories. The theory of political obligation developed in the book extends the scope of the contemporary debate on political obligation by arguing that political obligation can be binding even under the jurisdiction of unjust states. The arguments pursued in (...) the book are illustrated with the results of sociological research concerning the reasons that governed people's attitudes to the authoritarian communist regimes in East Europe viz. communist Poland. This book provides the first detailed argument of how a theory of political obligation can apply to subjects of an unjust state. (shrink)

In this work, a system for the classification of liver dynamic contest- enhanced CT images is presented. The system simultaneously analyzes the images with the same slice location, corresponding to three typical acquisition moments. At first, the texture features are extracted separately for each acquisition mo- ment. Afterwards, they are united in one “multiphase” vector, characterizing a triplet of textures. The work focuses on finding the most appropriate features that characterize a multi-image texture. At the beginning, the features which are (...) unstable and dependent on ROI size are eliminated. Then, a small subset of remaining features is selected in order to guarantee the best possible classification accuracy. In total, 9 extraction methods were used, and 61 features were calculated for each of three acquisition moments. 1511 texture triplets, corresponding to 4 hepatic tissue classes were recognized. As a classifier, an adaptive boosting algorithm with a C4.5 tree was used. Experiments show that a small set of 12 features is able to ensure classification accuracy exceeding 90%, while all of the 183 features provide an accuracy rate of 88.94%. (shrink)

This book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover the wide-ranging scope of Shusterman’s pragmatist thought, divide into three sections: Literary Theory and Philosophy of Art; Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics; and Somaesthetics. Written by an international group of authors from different philosophical perspectives, the book’s essays not only provide a good introduction to Shusterman’s innovative (...) pragmatist theories, but show their useful applications to important and controversial topics in philosophy, politics, religious and gender studies, the arts, and somaesthetics. The book also includes two new texts by Shusterman: an introductory essay in which he explains the trajectory of his intellectual development and a detailed response to the other contributors, which closes the book. (shrink)

Artykuł zajmuje się problemem struktury i specyfiki twierdzeń dyscyplin praktycznych wyodrębnionych obok teoretycznych w naukach empirycznych. Wymieniony problem, jak i kwestia dychotomicznego podziału nauk empirycznych, jest ciągle powodem licznych kontrowersji. Aktualnie rozpowszechniona jest, różna od pozytywistycznej, koncepcja prawa empirycznego jako zdania ściśle ogólnego, gwarantującego prawdziwość odpowiednich warunkowych zdań kontrfaktycznych. W poglądach metodologów i badaczy, uprawiających refleksję metodologiczną, zarysowały się dwa główne stanowiska o dyrektywalnej i niedyrektywelnej - opisowej strukturze twierdzeń nauk praktycznych. W ramach pierwszego stanowiska decydujący wpływ na poglądy wielu (...) metodologów wywarły koncepcje T. Kotarbińskiego i A. Podgóreckiego. W obu przypadkach kwestią wielce problematyczną jest wartość logiczna tak podejmowanych twierdzeń, analiza przykładów wykazuje, że nie są one zdaniami w sensie logicznym. Pozostałe propozycje w ramach dyrektywalnej koncepcji twierdzeń posiadają wymienione i inne niedopatrzenia natury metodologicznej. Zwrot w poglądach dotyczących twierdzeń nauk praktycznych datuje się od stwierdzenia H. Stonerta, iż nauki empiryczna nie różnią się pod względem twierdzeń. Stanowisko to nie zyskało aprobaty, ale skierowało poszukiwania uzasadnienia wyróżniania nauk praktycznych na płaszczyznę idealizacyjnej teorii nauki, również kontrowersyjnej. Zwolennicy tej koncepcji stoją na stanowisku niedyrektywalnej postaci twierdzeń i przyjmują, iż są to twierdzenia idealizacyjne, spełnione w dziedzinie typów idealnych bądź faktualno-idealizacyjne. Twierdzenia idealizacyjne są wg L. Nowaka w naukach praktycznych twierdzeniami optymalizacyjnymi, podającymi warunki realizacji ideałów i wzorów. Analiza przykładów twierdzeń optymalizacyjnych w pedagogice przeprowadzona w artykule wykazała, iż twierdzenia te charakteryzują się podrzędnością instrumentalną i aksjologlozną. Wgląd w czynności badawcze prowadzone w ramach nauk praktycznych pozwolił na ustalenie etapów poprzedzających formułowanie twierdzeń optymalizacyjnych, będących podstawą projektowania modeli realnych, a tychże modelach twierdzenia optymalizacyjne dotyczą kolejnych rozwiązań postawionego problemu optymalizacji, czyli realizowania przyjętego kryterium efektywności, równoznacznego np. z kryterium jakości w naukach technicznych. Twierdzenia optymalizacyjne są elementami teorii optymalizacyjnej, określają zależność i między wartością postulowaną w kryterium efektywności a czynnikami, od których zależy jej realizacja. Przedstawione rozważania wskazują na fakt, że metodologia nauk praktycznych jest dziedziną aktualnie rozwijającą się. Należy przypuszczać, iż wyniki jej badań znajdą zastosowanie w doskonaleniu procedury badawczej i budowanych teorii w poszczególnych naukach praktycznych. (shrink)

This article is an attempt at a synthetic study of Political Philosophy. Through a rearrangement of the way that particular discipline of philosophy has been described and understood, it proposes the placement of Political Philosophy within the entirety of philosophical thinking , and to define its subject and its issues . It also overviews the history of political philosophy and its role in human life.

Good Clinical Practice is an international quality standard for conducting trials that involve participation of human subjects. Currently, the most widely accepted international document forming the base for GCP is the ICH Harmonised Tripartite Guideline for GCP, which defines in detail the responsibilities and obligations of parties engaged in clinical research. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how compliance with GCP provides protection of the trial subjects and assures quality and credibility of the data obtained.

Quality in clinical research may be defined as compliance with requirements together with credibility and reliability of the data obtained. Sponsors usually apply Quality Management Systems (QMS) to ensure, control, maintain, and improve quality. These systems encompass several preventive measures, tools, and controls. Standard QMS applied by clinical research sponsors may be based on ISO 9000.

An icon known as Panagia Amirou is still used and venerated at the monastery of Panagia Amirou, near the Cypriot village of Apsiou. The icon consists of two panels inserted one into the other and thus belongs to the rare category of so-called “composite icons.” This essay analyses this unusual form giving special attention to the inset icon, which, the study concludes, should be dated to the second half of the fourteenth century and, hence, is much older than the embedding (...) panel, which dates to the sixteenth century. By pointing to details that reveal the previous use of the inner panel and by referring to different notions of movability, the icon emerges as an active object that was meant to be touched, moved, opened, and otherwise interacted with. (shrink)

This exploratory study aims at integrating the psychometric approach to studying creativity with an eye-tracking methodology and thinking-aloud protocols to potentially untangle the nuances of the creative process. Wearing eye-tracking glasses, one hundred adults solved a drawing creativity test – The Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) – and provided spontaneous comments during this process. Indices of visual activity collected during the eye-tracking phase explained a substantial amount of variance in psychometric scores obtained in the test. More importantly, however, clear (...) signs of methodological synergy were observed when all three sources (psychometrics, eye-tracking, and coded thinking-aloud statements) were integrated. The findings illustrate benefits of using a blended methodology for a more insightful analysis of creative processes, including creative learning and creative problem-solving. (shrink)

One of the most influential views in privacy scholarship is that privacy protects individual autonomy. On the early liberal view, the exercise of autonomy requires detachment from social and political life and privacy facilitates it. This view of privacy still informs current legal and political practice. As this view of privacy presupposes a tension between privacy and society, it is responsible for the underrating of privacy in legal and political practice. Over the last decades, liberal reflection on autonomy has shifted (...) from the early liberal understanding of autonomy as calling for detachment from social life to the idea of autonomy as socially embedded. This development has brought about a corresponding adjustment in the liberal concept of privacy: privacy has come to be seen as a social rather than merely an individual interest. The social turn in thinking about privacy has gone a long way to change the problematic image of privacy in legal and political practice. It has not gone far enough, however, to draw conclusions regarding the political relevance of privacy. I argue that we should understand autonomy as politically embedded. Revised along these lines, privacy has a political value: when we claim privacy, we do not make a claim to withdraw from political life, but rather make a claim to protect certain forms of political engagement. (shrink)

Rethinks the existing definitions of aesthetics and ethics and the relations between them.