The paper is an attempt to consider the issue that so far has not been discussed frequently in the Polish philological current. It focuses on the endings of 18 selected articles in the field of literary studies. Authors of textbooks on academic discourse argue that it is the ending that plays a fundamental role in the scientific discourse as a concluding, summarising, and potentially memorable part. This approach to a conclusion is often shared by scholars themselves, who choose different strategies (...) with regard to endings of their articles. When studying articles published in the period of 2015‒2019, we identified about 15 different ending strategies, e.g. an apologia for a literary work selected by an author, suggestions for further research possibilities, an attractive punch line, and an quotation from another paper. As the analysis reveals, the conclusion of an academic article is not only a place for introducing conventional rhetorical figures; it also becomes the researchers’ contribution to the understanding of the role ascribed by literary-studies scholars to their own scientific practice. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century there has been an increasing awareness that software rep- resents a blind spot in new media theory. The growing interest in software also influences the argument in this paper, which sets out from the assumption that Alan M. Turing's concept of the universal machine, the first theoretical description of a computer program, is a kind of bachelor machine. Previous writings based on a similar hypothesis have focused either on a comparison of the universal (...) machine and the bachelor machine in terms of the similarities of their structural features, or they have taken the bachelor machine as a metaphor for a man or a computer. Unlike them, this paper stresses the importance of the con- text as a key to interpreting the universal Turing machine as a bachelor machine and, potentially, as a self-portrait. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present some of the results of empirical research on the communication process at a trial conducted in Polish courts. These results will concern the participation of non-professional participants of a trial and the ways in which they deal with the communication process in the courtroom. The article presents the results of the analysis of the research material conducted in accordance with the detailed research questions and analytical categories. The analysis has especially shown that: (...) (1) the non-professional participants used some legal terminology, but the statements without legal terminology were also communicatively effective; (2) the level of activity of non-professional participants related to participation at the trial varied depending on what the activity concerned; the activity in asking questions to the presiding judges regarding legal issues and the course of the court proceedings appeared to be significant; (3) the non-professional participants’ had a real and significant problem with asking questions during the examination (the proper realization of this element of the trial); (4) the statements of the non-professional participants of a trial were very protective; they used many different “linguistic means of protection” (e.g., acts of supposition or acts of doubt) which are connected with the obligation to tell the truth, the prohibition of concealing the truth and giving false testimony during examination; (5) the non-professional participants of a trial reach for adequate argumentative acts, which are suitable for influencing the perception of specific events or persons, and they strengthen their statements by using appropriate linguistic means of persuasion. (shrink)

The subject of interest of this article is procedural acts considered as double-conventionalized acts. It is assumed in this article that in the case of procedural acts, one can distinguish two levels of conventionalization: the level of a speech act and the level of a procedural act. Both above-mentioned levels affect each other in various ways, what is discussed in the article. As assumed in the article, the analysis of acts characterized by this particular trait and with due account of (...) this trait allows one to observe phenomena that can be hard or even impossible to notice in the process of analyzing acts that are deprived of this trait. Furthermore, it seems that the description of this type of acts may particularly enrich the current discussion on some properties of speech acts held on the grounds of philosophy of language or pragmalinguistics. The research material used in this article as an illustration consists of actual utterances of participants of Polish court proceedings used by them at a hearing. (shrink)

Zdania o przekonaniach nurtują filozofów od samego początku filozofii analitycznej. Wszystkie próby ujęcia języka naturalnego w ramy kompozycyjnej semantyki muszą się zmierzyć z generowanymi przez sprawozdania z przekonań łamigłówkami. Obecne w tradycji filozoficznej teorie nie tylko borykają się z różnymi problemami, ale ponadto nie uwzględniają psychologicznych aspektów przypisywania przekonań innym. W artykule formułuję postulaty, które psychologicznie adekwatna teoria powinna uwzględniać, a następnie przybliżam pojęcie ikoniczności, które stało się osią teorii zaproponowanej przez François Recanati’ego. Chociaż Recanati stara się brać pod uwagę (...) mechanizmy poznawcze odpowiedzialne za produkcję oraz interpretację języka, w świetle jego teorii sprawozdania z przekonań niesłusznie traktowane są na równi z innymi metareprezentacjami. Co więcej, Recanati nie zauważa związku pomiędzy zdolnością do przypisywania przekonań i rozumieniem kontrfaktycznych okresów warunkowych, w związku z czym w dalszej części artykułu proponuję taką modyfikację jego teorii, która będzie spełniać wspomniane postulaty. (shrink)

Novel precision oncology trial designs, such as basket and umbrella trials, are designed to test new anticancer agents in more effective and affordable ways. However, they present some ethical concerns referred to scientific validity, risk-benefit balance and informed consent. Our aim is to discuss these issues in basket and umbrella trials, giving examples of two ongoing cancer trials: NCI-MATCH (National Cancer Institute – Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice) and Lung-MAP (Lung Cancer Master Protocol) study. We discuss three ethical requirements for (...) clinical trials which may be challenged in basket and umbrella trial designs. Firstly, we consider scientific validity. Thanks to the new trial designs, patients with rare malignancies have the opportunity to be enrolled and benefit from the trial, but due to insufficient accrual, the trial may generate clinically insignificant findings. Inadequate sample size in study arms and the use of surrogate endpoints may result in a drug approval without confirmed efficacy. Moreover, complexity, limited quality and availability of tumor samples may not only introduce bias and result in unreliable and unrepresentative findings, but also can potentially harm patients and assign them to an inappropriate therapy arm. Secondly, we refer to benefits and risks. Novel clinical trials can gain important knowledge on the variety of tumors, which can be used in future trials to develop effective therapies. However, they offer limited direct benefits to patients. All potential participants must wait about 2 weeks for the results of the genetic screening, which may be stressful and produce anxiety. The enrollment of patients whose tumors harbor multiple mutations in treatments matching a single mutation may be controversial. As to informed consent – the third requirement we discuss, the excessive use of phrases like “personalized medicine”, “tailored therapy” or “precision oncology” might be misleading and cause personal convictions that the study protocol is designed to fulfill the individual health-related needs of participants. We suggest that further approaches should be implemented to enhance scientific validity, reduce misunderstandings and risks, thus maximizing the benefits to society and to trial participants. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Conditional Non-Contradiction (CNC), conditionals of the form “If p, q” and “If p, not q” cannot both be true, unless p is inconsistent. This principle is widely regarded as an adequacy constraint on any semantics that attributes truth conditions to conditionals. Gibbard has presented an example of a pair of conditionals that, in the context he describes, appear to violate CNC. He concluded from this that conditionals lack truth conditions. We argue that this conclusion is (...) rash by proposing a new diagnosis of what is going on in Gibbard’s argument. We also provide empirical evidence in support of our proposal. (shrink)

The experimental philosophy of law is a recent movement that aims to inform traditional debates in jurisprudence by conducting empirical research. This paper introduces and provides a systematic overview of the main lines of research in this field. It also covers the most important debates in the literature regarding the implications of these findings for the philosophy and theory of law. It argues that three challenges arise when addressing (old) legal-philosophical questions in (new) experimental ways by drawing normative implications from (...) empirical data: such implications are value-driven, depend on explanations of empirical findings and vary across legal systems. (shrink)

In the original publication of the article, the paragraph beginning “We begin with two steps or lawyers…” should read as “We begin with two steps or layers privileging jurisdictio as potestas.

The chief concern of the paper is to initiate discussion on the difference between the private and public power of judgement. The inspiration comes from Kant and his conception of the power of judgement, customs, morality and provisional law.

The coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic impacted the lives of children and adolescents, leading to many changes in their routines, especially in education. Face-to-face physical education classes during COVID-19 were affected in organization, possibly conditioning students' participation, motivation, and learning. In the extreme conditions of the coronavirus, it may be assumed that daily physical activity became much less than before, partly because students are learning outside the school environment and PE lessons taught using remote forms do not fulfill their purpose. The aim (...) of the study was to assess the pupil's perception of inclusion in school education during the remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare the results with the control group. Moreover, the physical activity of respondents during social isolation due to the coronavirus was examined. The sample consisted of 111 pupils of both genders, aged 14–21 years. The Perceptions of Inclusion Questionnaire was used to measure the perception of inclusion in school education. The structure of the participants' physical activity was examined using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Long Form for adolescents. It was observed that the pupils' gender did not differentiate their perception of inclusion in school education. It was proved that respondents participating in research during the COVID-19 pandemic obtained statistically significantly lower results in the case of “emotional wellbeing in school” but a higher mean was observed in relation to “social relationships with other pupils” than the control group. Girls achieved a higher mean in the case of walk Metabolic Equivalent of Task than boys. In addition, it was observed that the recommendation of vigorous physical activities was achieved by 37.78% of boys and 34.85% of girls. In turn, 69.70% of female pupils and 77.78% of male respondents met the recommendations for medium physical activities. It was also noted that 87.88% of girls and 86.67% of boys participating in the research achieved the recommendation for total physical activities. The analysis showed negligible and low positive correlations between examined variables. (shrink)

Explicit and implicit values of polish grandmothers and their granddaughters The authors tried to determine if and to what extent maternal granddaughters share the explicit and implicit values of their grandmothers. 80 grandmothers-granddaughter dyads were surveyed using Schwartz' SVS and Mudyń's RN-02, an instrument assigned to identify "ontological orientations". The results indicate that: 1) grandmothers differ significantly from granddaughters in all ontological orientations, especially in Theoretical and Religious orientation, 2) they differ also in personal values, except for Universalism and Power, (...) 3) regression analysis revealed two decisive factors which determine convergence of ontological orientations and values in grandmother-granddaughter dyads, i.e. and level of education and attitudes toward religion. It may mean that these are the two important transmitters of world view as well as personal values. (shrink)

Artykuł przedstawia okoliczności wyboru Augusta na przewodniczącego kolegium pontyfików (pontifex maximus). Chociaż August konsekwentnie sięgał po kolejne uprawnienia (imperium proconsulare, tribunicia potestas, censoria potestas), nie zdecydował się, aż do śmierci Lepidusa, na pozbawienie go funkcji pontifex maximus. Nasuwa się pytanie, dlaczego August tolerował taką sytuację przez prawie ćwierć wieku, jakie były powody, dla których nie pozbawił swojego byłego przeciwnika politycznego tej ważnej godności kapłańskiej. W momencie wyboru na pontifex maximus pozycja polityczna Augusta była niezachwiana; zakres jego władzy obejmował władzę sprawowaną (...) niegdyś przez najwyższych urzędników republikańskich. Czy powodem sięgnięcia po zwierzchnictwo kolegium pontyfików była jedynie kwestia prestiżu? Wydaje się raczej, że wybór ten był ostatnim ogniwem w pewnym łańcuchu wydarzeń, wyrazem konsekwentnej polityki Augusta zmierzającej do zbudowania, a następnie utrwalenia przez princepsa panowania charyzmatycznego. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze technical and internal aspects of one particular type of human moral enhancement, i.e. enhancement of moral motivation via direct emotion modulation. More precisely, it challenges the assumption that modifying certain emotions will have the results desired by the advocates of this theory. It is argued that neuropsychological understanding of the role and function of emotions, as well as of underlying cognitive mechanisms, might be relevant for the discussion about biomedical enhancement of moral capacities. Moreover, typical (...) claims about direct emotion modulation seem to be contradicted, or at least seriously challenged, by available neuroscientific data. Particular attention is paid to the theory that emotions are evolved and functionally specialized programs whose task is to coordinate other adaptive mechanisms of human psychology in order to promote one’s fitness. If this view of emotions is plausible, it can be argued that several difficulties for moral bioenhancement theory ensue. Neuroscientific and evolutionary-psychological perspective seem to indicate that emotions don’t fulfill necessary requirements to serve as the vehicles of moral enhancement and it should, therefore, take into account role and function of entire cognitive modules associated with moral decision-making. (shrink)

This article examines the historical background, proliferation, and later internationalization of public declarations of forgiveness and remorse, first made in Europe a few decades after the end World War II. The author suggests that these declarations should be understood as a political practice, and bases her claim on three premises: after 1945, politicians began apologizing not only for their own crimes but mainly for those perpetrated by the communities they represented; these declarations implied a tacit acceptance of responsibility of both (...) the group that declares its remorse and of the group that accepts and possibly forgives the former for its past crimes; apart from representing a shared collective moral responsibility, declarations of forgiveness and remorse imply the continuity of a nation. These three premises apply if declarations of forgiveness and remorse are not banal and conventional, but function as a political ritual. The au... (shrink)

Even though a gender perspective, in reference to various aspects of museums and their exhibits, permeates the reflection on museums, gender is not explicitly taken up as a category of knowledge within the self-reflective narratives about the core exhibition or the conceptualization of the Holocaust gallery in POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jewish, which opened in Warsaw, Poland in 2014. Building upon the research gendering the memory of the Holocaust, especially with regard to historical exhibitions, and using a (...) cultural studies framework to the study of representation, this article asks how femininities are framed by the representation of masculinities and how museum technologies work to produce gendered meanings. It concludes that most of the Holocaust gallery in POLIN problematically instrumentalizes gender relations to underpin a chronological historical narrative. In a dialogue with queer research on temporality, underscoring the coincidence of normative gender/sexuality and linear progressive narrative, it analyses this strategy as gender chronotechnology. (shrink)

This book offers a welcome synthesis of what we may tentatively label as ancient Greek conceptions regarding the world after death. It assumes a dual methodological perspective, that of historical anthropology and that of the history of religions. It is aimed at a general reader, especially Italian (e.g., p. 11), but scholars of many disciplines will undoubtedly benefit from the variety of interesting observations and the perspective on the topic it provides. The book opens with an introducti...

The book discusses a democratic legitimation for modern law. Debates on Europeanisation are taken into account. Ronald Dworkin's, Neil MacCormick's and Jürgen Habermas's standpoints on relations between the law and the public sphere are investigated. Concepts of self-reflexive polity, self-constitutionalisation, constitutional patriotism are analysed.

The emotion of disgust is suggested to be an adaptation that evolved to keep us away from sources of infection. Therefore, individuals from populations with greater pathogen stress should have a greater disgust sensitivity. However, current evidence for a positive relationship between disgust sensitivity and the intensity of infectious diseases in the environment is limited. We tested whether disgust and contamination sensitivity changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Disgust was assessed in 984 women in 2017 and 633 women in (...) 2020 by a set of photographs depicting sources of infection and Pathogen and Moral of Three-Domain Disgust Scale. Further, contamination sensitivity among participants in two waves was measured by Contamination Obsessions and Washing Compulsions Subscale of Padua Inventory. State anxiety was measured with the Polish adaptation of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory only during the second wave of data collection. Women from the COVID-19 pandemic group assessed the photographs depicting sources of infection as more disgusting, scoring higher on Padua Inventory, but lower on Moral Disgust Domain as compared to women from before the pandemic. In addition, anxiety levels during pandemic positively correlated with scores from Pathogen Disgust Domain, Padua Inventory, and the ratings of the photographs. The participants of the study scored higher in state anxiety than the norms determined for the Polish population. Summarizing, we present evidence for differences in individual levels of disgust sensitivity in relation to pathogen stress, supporting the idea that disgust evolved to serve as protection from pathogens. (shrink)

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama prielaida, kad skaitmeniniame amžiuje vis daugiau laiko praleidžiant elektroninėje erdvėje blanksta riba tarp realaus gyvenimo ir gyvenimo internete bei perskyra tarp fizinės ir virtualios tapatybės. Tai reiškia, kad tapatybė skait­meniniame amžiuje skaidosi ir formuojasi iš naujo. Taigi tapatybės transformacija vyksta ne fiziniame ar virtualiame pasaulyje, bet realizuojama kontinuume tarp šių dviejų pasaulių. Straipsnyje bandoma pagrįsti, kad tapatybė, veikiama medijų skaitmeninėje kultūroje, tampa transmedijuota ir drauge išsklaidyta, epizodiška ir interaktyvi, kitaip tariant, ji virsta transmedijos produktu.

When selecting between applicants for a job, when and how should we take into account the reactions that they elicit from others? On one hand, applicants’ “reaction qualifications” often speak to their merit, in which case we seem required to consider them. On the other hand, others’ reactions are often rooted in prejudicial attitudes, in which case considering reaction qualifications can make the hiring process prejudicial. According to a popular view, we should refrain from considering reaction qualifications just in case (...) there are weighty moral reasons against doing so. I argue that this morality-based approach fails. Instead, we should refrain from considering reaction qualifications just in case considering them would render a selection procedure non-transparent or discriminatory. If consideration of a reaction qualification would have either effect, the reaction qualification does not confer merit and so should not be considered by selectors. (shrink)

The article proposes a new solution to the long-standing problem of the universality of essences in Spinoza's ontology. It argues that, according to Spinoza, particular things in nature possess unique essences, but that these essences coexist with more general, mind-dependent species-essences, constructed by finite minds on the basis of similarities that obtain among the properties of formally-real particulars. This account provides the best fit both with the textual evidence and with Spinoza's other metaphysical and epistemological commitments. The article offers new (...) readings of how Spinoza understands not just the nature of essence, but also the nature of being, reason, striving, definitions, and different kinds of knowledge. (shrink)

This essay is about the role of visual surveillance technologies in the policing of the external borders of the European Union. Based on an analysis of documents published by EU institutions and independent organizations, I argue that these technological innovations fundamentally alter the nature of national borders. I discuss how new technologies of vision are deployed to transcend the physical limits of territories. In the last twenty years, EU member states and institutions have increasingly relied on various forms of remote (...) tracking, including the use of drones for the purposes of monitoring frontier zones. In combination with other facets of the EU border management regime, these technologies coalesce into a system of governance that has enabled intervention into neighboring territories and territorial waters of other states to track and target migrants for interception in the “prefrontier.” For jurisdictional reasons, this practice effectively precludes the enforcement of legal human rights obligations, which European states might otherwise have with regard to these persons. This article argues that this technologically mediated expansion of vision has become a key feature of post–cold war governance of borders in Europe. The concept of transterritory is proposed to capture its effects. (shrink)

We live in an era when increasing numbers of babies are conceived through assisted reproduction technologies (ART). Using a comprehensive approach, the present research seeks to contribute to the understanding of gender differences in experiencing and coping with infertility, and in dealing with ART treatment. Our sample consisted of 10 heterosexual couples aged 24 to 43 and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews. In the studied sample, gender differences existed not only in experiences of infertility, but also in understanding (...) it, and in dealing with ART treatment. Responses to stress caused by infertility were stronger in women and they also perceived this stress more intensely than men. For women the central aspect of infertility was the desire for a child, while for men it was perceived more as a socially imposed obligation to fulfill the male role. (shrink)

In the following paper sources of a constitution are put in question in general, and more specifically, the constitutional culture of the European Union Law is being investigated in-depth with regard to principles of deliberative democracy and rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The change of a law application paradigm as well as the change of a legal systems’ nature are taken into account.

At least many conditionals seem to convey the existence of a link between their antecedent and consequent. We draw on a recently proposed typology of conditionals to revive an old philosophical idea according to which the link is inferential in nature. We show that the proposal has explanatory force by presenting empirical results on two Dutch linguistic markers.

The main aim of this article is to show how the notion of refutation has been changing in logic for the last few years. The idea of refutation was known to Aristotle, but the formal concept was introduced by Jan Łukasiewicz. Afterwards this notion was investigated by the Polish group of logicians headed by Jerzy Słupecki. Several interesting articles about refutation have appeared in the last years. In this article, I present in outline the history of the notion of refutation (...) and I discuss recent applications of refutation systems both in the theoretical and practical approach. (shrink)

Przedmiotem rozważań podjętych w artykule jest rola języka w tworzeniu powinności moralnej. W nawiązaniu do klasycznej teorii aktów mowy J. Austina i J. Searle’a, autorka, na przykładzie czynności obiecywania, bada, na czym polega „powinnościorodna” moc słów. Zastanawia się również, jakie warunki muszą zostać spełnione, aby określona wypowiedź nakładała na jej autora moralne zobowiązanie. Przeprowadzone analizy, obejmujące również stanowisko krytyczne wobec koncepcji Searle’a, ujawniają ograniczenia, jakie wynikają z tezy, mówiącej, że to język tworzy powinność. Odwołując się do funkcji performatywnej, jaką pełni (...) język, możemy wyjaśnić jedynie przedmiotowy wymiar obietnicy. Zrozumienie jej podmiotowego źródła wymaga zajęcia odmiennej perspektywy badawczej. (shrink)

The paper presents the question of relations between Galileo Galilei and the polish establishment and cultural world. Taking the departure from the classical essay by Biliński, and preserving its structure, the present paper describes these relations in the larger perspective of recent polish publications dedicated to this question.