A la fin du XIIIe siècle plusieurs ouvrages écrits par les dominicains présentent une forte empreinte de la formation thomiste.

Jest to tłumaczenie Zarysów Pyrrońskich Sekstusa Empiryka. W pliku znajduje się początek wstępu oraz I sposób powściągnięcia sądu. This is a complete Polish translation of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism. In the file you may find the beginning of the Preface and the translation of the I mode of suspension of judgment.

Jest to początek Zarysów Pyrrońskich Sekstusa Empiryka, ks. I (1-30) w nowym przekładzie. Całość tekstu ukaże się w Wydawnictwie UMK w połowie roku 2019. -/- This is the opening part of Sextus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism (I 1-30). The translation of the treatise will be published by Wydawnictwo UMK in the 2019.

The paper discusses the debate on the human nature in the sophistic thought. Focusing on the "nature-culture" controversy it presents the evolution of the views of the sophists: from Protagoras' optimistic contention of the progress of mankind and his appraisal of culture to its criticism and the radical turn to nature in Antiphon, Hippias, Trasymachos, and Callicles. The paper aims at presenting the analysis of the ongoing discussion, with the stress laid on reconstruction of the arguments and concepts as well (...) as the attitudes that are associated with various positions of this debate. -/- . (shrink)

The article deals with Witold Gombrowicz’s autocreational efforts to bring the readers and critics to believe in his own uniqueness, greatness and genius. In Gombrowicz’s opinion literature, having its roots in pure artistic contemplation, is also a fight of writer to establish his position among others. Author of Diary takes it as a rule to “ self-mitologize” in his receivers minds and according to this rule he ostentatiously makes a great writer of himself. When his writing at last achievers true (...) recognition and acclaim, he tries in turn to depreciate his strategy. (shrink)

The author aims at evaluating the activities on the Facebook profiles of three regional media editorials – namely the ‘TVP 3 Łódź’ TV channel, the ‘Radio Łódź’ radio channel, and the Express Ilustrowany daily – particularly in terms of including local and regional information in their posts. Another objective was to attempt to quantify and compare these activities. The used research method is the analysis of profile content on Facebook, and the study was conducted within the period of one month.

Rozważania o moralności i etyczności uczonych oraz wiedzy będącej efektem ich prac, sugerują, że twórcy i ich dzieła powinni być obdarzeni jakimiś wyjątkowymi predyspozycjami moralnymi, poznawczymi oraz intelektualnymi, a zatem muszą funkcjonować jakieś pożądane i akceptowane wzorce „cnót”, którymi powinien szczycić się uczony, a także sama nauka. Pojawia się pytanie, jakie miałyby one być? Powyższa kwestia jest interesująca w kontekście dyskursu kształtującego oblicze nauki nowożytnej, dyskursu, w którym formułowano oczekiwania, co do etyczności, moralności nauki i uczonych. Można byłoby powiedzieć, że (...) te oczekiwania mają znaczenie także i dzisiaj, mimo że zmieniła się nauka, społeczeństwa i ustroje oraz wymagania ludzi wobec nauki. Uprawianie nauki wymagało (i nadal wymaga) swobody twórczej. Jednakże instytucjonalizacja środowiska akademickiego zakładała podległość wobec władz, podległość, która generowała (i generuje) napięcie między potrzebą niezależności naukowej, a wymaganiami „sponsorów”. Także relacje między nauką, a polityką były przedmiotem rozważań wielu uczonych i filozofów, szczególnie gdy uwzględnimy aspekt moralności nauki i moralnej odpowiedzialności uczonych. Rozważania na ten temat są efektem lektury książki Richarda Holmesa Wiek cudów. Jak odkrywano piękno i grozę nauki, w której autor – opisując życiorysy uczonych, ale przede wszystkim ich dokonania oraz przeciwności, na jakie natrafiali – nieustannie podkreśla moralne i etyczne aspekty związane z osobowością uczonych i ich działalnością. (shrink)

Brzezinski predicts that the interface between ethics and science will be the new frontier of politics, and it will place on the shoulders of democratic leaders and those concerned with human rights, the obligation to be at least part-time scientists and philosophers.

This article reminds the reader of the views of Voltaire, one of the most prominent and influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. Voltaire’s radicalism manifested itself mainly in anticlericalism which was consistent, uncompromising and voiced without mincing words. A general aim of this article is to demonstrate to his contemporary imitators, who can be found in different countries including Poland, that they are in fact more or less accurate copies of him and they are not always aware of whom (...) they imitate and what value this imitation has. Perhaps this article can make them, if not more restrained in their statements and practical actions, at least more self-critical and taking into account what is expressed in public discourse. (shrink)

How to Read Descartes's Meditations consists of seven independent studies of Descartes's Meditations. The discussion in each chapter is organized around one problem which either has never or very seldom been explored in Cartesian scholarship. For example, in the study of the Letter to the Sorbonne, Janowski centers his discussion around the decree of the Lateran Council, showing the unorthodox character of Descartes's conception of the soul. Further, in his chapter devoted to the notoriously difficult proof for the existence of (...) God in the Third Meditation, Janowski shows that to understand properly Descartes's explicitly Scholastic proof is to read it as a reformulation of Duns Scotus's own proof. And in the final chapter on the Sixth Meditation, the author shows that Modern (Cartesian) Man ? the man whose soul is no longer the Scholastic anima but blood that animates his bones, veins, and muscles - germinated in the writings of Francis Bacon, a predecessor never properly acknowledged by Descartes. How to Read Descartes's Meditations is the first collection of essays on the Meditations that makes a conscious effort to read Descartes's philosophy as a reaction against or an acknowledgment of Scholastic, Renaissance, and the Reformation sources. It will become a standard book for students of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Artists and history : ideas of philosophy of history in the Polish modernism.

Scanlon grounds all moral principles in claims about "what individuals have reasons to agree to." Analyzing Scanlon's groundwork, I discuss his central reason for being concerned with morality and why personal and impersonal reasons for moral conduct cannot co-exist in his contractualism. I demonstrate that personal values and reasons are incommensurable with impersonal values and reasons. Thus, Scanlon needs to exclude impersonal reasons from the moral theory he advocates. But I argue that there may be a means of inclusion of (...) both the personal and impersonal values and reasons. I propose Aristotelian virtue ethics as a plausible foundation for subordinating the impersonal values and reasons to the value of human rationality in its full capacity. This subordination may provide the defensible condition that Scanlon's contractualism requires to justify moral principles to each person on the grounds of respect for human rationality. (shrink)

In the paper, I present the achievements of the outstanding female representative of the Lvov‑Warsaw School Izydora Dąmbska in the field of philosophy of science. The following issues are analysed: the concept of the philosophy of science, the question of irrationalism in scientific cognition, the problem of scientific laws, and the meaning and role of analogy in science. Following the development of the issues classified as the philosophy of science in Dąmbska’s works, it is easy to notice that she takes (...) a realistic view as far as the concept of knowledge is concerned. However, she also has a tendency to emphasize the importance of subjective factors and the role of so‑called operators in scientific cognition. (shrink)

W niniejszym artykule (bardzo wybiórczo) chciałbym przedstawić poglądy Jana Jonstona (Johannes Jonstonus) 1603-1675 na dzieje przyrody i człowieka oraz pokrótce przedstawić jego sylwetkę. Rekonstruując owe filozoficzne i metodologiczne kwestie, warto także przytoczyć kilka zagadnień związanych z życiorysem tego uczonego oraz z recepcją jego dzieł. Jonston był przyrodnikiem, lekarzem i filozofem. Obecnie jest mało znany i zapomniany, a w konsekwencji jego filozofia przyrody i filozofia człowieka, jego wizja świata, a więc w pewnym sensie i Kosmologia, uległy zapomnieniu i marginalizacji. Uległa także (...) zapomnieniu jego filozofia i metodologia nauki. Jonston należał do pokolenia Kartezjusza, jednakże jego poglądy na przyrodę i na naukę były bliższe filozofii brytyjskiej niż kontynentalnej i nawiązywały do idei, które sformułował Francis Bacon, a potem kontynuował Robert Boyle. Zapewne stanowisko Jonstona zostało ukształtowane w trakcie jego studiów na uniwersytetach w Wielkiej Brytanii. Owe inspiracje metodologią nauk zasługują, by były się przedmiotem osobnych rozważań, ale ze względu na ograniczony charakter pracy zostaną tu pominięte. Jonston w pracy O stałości natury (An history of the Constancy of Nature…) formułuje swoją wizję przyrody. Owa filozofia przyrody kształtuje się w konfrontacji z poglądami chiliastów dotyczącymi natury człowieka i pośrednio całej przyrody. Poglądy chiliastów wynikały ze specyficznej interpretacji Biblii mówiącej o „starzeniu się” świata człowieka, kultury, a w konsekwencji i przyrody. W związku z tym, że idea chiliastów obejmuje zjawiska przyrodnicze i antropologiczne, a w dodatku maja historyczny charakter, Jonston w swoich kontrargumentach musiał odwoływać się i do empirii, i do historii: Biblijnej, oraz naturalnej. Tym samym, współuczestniczył nie tylko w tworzeniu nowożytnej filozofii przyrody, ale także nowożytnej „historii naturalnej” i nowożytnej metodologii, postulującej matematyzację wiedzy o przyrodzie. (shrink)

There is not much disagreement that the recent spectacular establishment of parliamentary democracies and market economies in Eastern Europe and the even more breathtaking events in most Soviet republics – which should culminate in the reemergence of the Baltic nations as independent states – may be convincingly conceived of as the triumph of civil society over the Marxist-Leninist system. Both the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist system and the reemergence of civil society may be discussed in terms of theories which deal (...) with the relationship between human nature and sociopolitical systems. (shrink)

This paper discusses the resolution principle in the context of non-classical logics.

The paper centers on philosophy's major trends and trials at the turn of the XXt h and XXIs t century, its leading idea is based on several basic assumptions which can be summarized as follows: 1) the title is a query after XXt h-century philosophy's main achievements and their usefulness in the XXIs t ; 2) speaking about philosophy's achievements, the author particularly means its critical role in condemning and de-mystifying evil, dispelling illusion and myth, and disclosing untruth; 3) the (...) answer to the titular question is based on the entire paper's main assumption that there are three main problems of XXt h-century thought which - as a heritage - will be carrying over into the XXIs t. These problems are the problem of being (Sein), the problem of reason, and the problem of humanity (man). In connection with these problems the author formulates his main thesis that the twentieth century philosophy is characterized by three features which are the following: (a) anti-metaphysical disposition, (b) anti-rationalism, and (c) anti-humanism. (shrink)

This is the interview with Prof. Stefan Swieżawski, an eminent medievist and enthusiast of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy.

We aim to show from a new perspective that Quine’s ontological relativity, based largely on his so-called “proxy-function argument”, falls short of being a rigorously coherent philosophical conception, as it exhibits significant formal defects. This new perspective enables exposing the shortcomings of Quine's position and suggests a possible reformulation of the original position. Moreover, we argue that his ontological relativity is inconsistent with the empirical data associated with some of our best physical theories, such as quantum mechanics. We refer to (...) fundamental concepts of philosophy and the foundations of mathematics in order to clarify our critique of Quine’s position concerning the relation between formalized theories and both what we can know about the real world and how we come to know it. (shrink)

Jest to wybór z pracy Gadamera "Idea dobra..." Zawiera Przedmowę, Zakres problemu, Rozdział I (Sokratejska wiedza i niewiedza) oraz Posłowie tłumacza. This is the opening part of the Polish translation of Gadamers' The idea of the good... with the Translator's afterword.

This article questions the belief expressed in various histories of pharmacy that the tenth-century Arab physician Avicenna introduced the tradition of coating pills with gold and silver. Although an examination of his Canon documents Avicenna's interest in the medicinal application of gold and silver, no mention is made of coating pills. Nor do other Islamic physicians seem to have been familiar with this practice, any more than such medieval European authors as Arnaldus of Villanova, Raymund Lull or Johannes de Rupescissa. (...) The same is true of medicinal compendia representative of later periods, such as the Ortus sanitatis, Valerius Cordus' Dispensatorium or the Secrets of Alessio Piemontese. The earliest known mention of coating pills with precious metals occurs in a non-medical book, The Golden Fleece , and the earliest mention in the professional literature seems to appear only in the second half of the seventeenth century. The practice of coating pills with gold and silver was to be practiced in Europe into the first half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

When power is exercised in the enterprise some ethical issues might occur with business ownership, personnel policy, working conditions etc. These issues and ways of addressing them were depicted and interpreted from the perspective of the Church’s social teachings included in papal encyclicals, viz.: Rerum novarum, Laborem exercens, Centesimus Annus. In the Church’s social teachings a number of principles were noticed that are favourable for the ethical corporate management including the principle of the primacy of work over capital, right to (...) private ownership, right to establish professional associations, right to fair pay, right to fulfil religious obligations and having rest during holidays, a duty to support the weak and the needy (solidarity principle). The analysis of the social content of papal encyclicals showed two faces of power. On the one hand it is necessary and has positive effects (introduction of corporate governance, taking right decisions, prevention of theft and assets devastation etc.); on the other hand improper power exercise may lead to a number of undesirable effects (corruption, worker discrimination, thriftlessness etc.) The paper identifies also sources, forms and power exercising planes in the enterprise. (shrink)