The paper consists of two parts, outlined in the title.I. In the historical science time appears as an element of the historian’s workshop. The historian collects source information, evaluates them and assigns respective dates. Only on the ground of thus “processed” sources may he reproduce the past: events and longer development processes, setting them in time. This dated time is understood colloquially as something objective, which runs one way and may be measured.II. A historian who studies the past reality depends (...) on the extent to which those sources are preserved. As a result of their interpretation, with the use of increasingly excellent research methods, he reproduces that reality. He must carry out an ongoing selection of historical facts found. This exposes him to temptations of such selection of those facts so as to adjust the historical knowledge to serve well the national interests, his own political opinions, etc. In this way the historian exerts influence on social awareness, which may consists of various myths and stereotypes, which sometimes lead to negative social behaviors: aggression, chauvinism, etc. Therefore, for researcher honesty’s sake and in the sense of moral responsibility, he must be careful to be as impartial as possible in his work. (shrink)

The paper reports our research aiming at utilization of human interactive communication modeling principles in application to a novel interaction paradigm designed for brain–computer/machine-interfacing (BCI/BMI) technologies as well as for socially aware intelligent environments or communication support systems. Automatic procedures for human affective responses or emotional states estimation are still a hot topic of contemporary research. We propose to utilize human brain and bodily physiological responses for affective/emotional as well as communicative interactivity estimation, which potentially could be used in the (...) future for human–machine/environment interaction design. As a test platform for such an intelligent human–machine communication application, an emotional stimuli paradigm was chosen to evaluate brain responses to various affective stimuli in an emotional empathy mode. Videos with moving faces expressing various emotional displays as well as speech stimuli with similarly emotionally articulated sentences are presented to the subjects in order to further analyze different affective responses. From information processing point of view, several challenges with multimodal signal conditioning and stimuli dynamic response extraction in time frequency domain are addressed. Emotions play an important role in human daily life and human-to-human communication. This is why involvement of affective stimuli principles to human–machine communication or machine-mediated communication with utilization of multichannel neurophysiological and periphery physiological signals monitoring techniques, allowing real-time subjective brain responses evaluation, is discussed. We present our preliminary results and discuss potential applications of brain/body affective responses estimation for future interactive/smart environments. (shrink)

Mathematical theory of voting and social choice has attracted much attention. In the general setting one can view social choice as a method of aggregating individual, often conflicting preferences and making a choice that is the best compromise. How preferences are expressed and what is the “best compromise” varies and heavily depends on a particular situation. The method we propose in this paper depends on expressing individual preferences of voters and specifying properties of the resulting ranking by means of first-order (...) formulas. Then, as a technical tool, we use methods of second-order quantifier elimination to analyze and compute results of voting. We show how to specify voting, how to compute resulting rankings and how to verify voting protocols. (shrink)

Second-order quantifier elimination in the context of classical logic emerged as a powerful technique in many applications, including the correspondence theory, relational databases, deductive and knowledge databases, knowledge representation, commonsense reasoning and approximate reasoning. In the current paper we first generalize the result of Nonnengart and Szałas [17] by allowing second-order variables to appear within higher-order contexts. Then we focus on a semantical analysis of conditionals, using the introduced technique and Gabbay’s semantics provided in [10] and substantially using a third-order (...) accessibility relation. The analysis is done via finding correspondences between axioms involving conditionals and properties of the underlying third-order relation. (shrink)

In the current paper we consider theories with vocabulary containing a number of binary and unary relation symbols. Binary relation symbols represent labeled edges of a graph and unary relations represent unique annotations of the graph's nodes. Such theories, which we call annotation theories^ can be used in many applications, including the formalization of argumentation, approximate reasoning, semantics of logic programs, graph coloring, etc. We address a number of problems related to annotation theories over finite models, including satisfiability, querying problem, (...) specification of preferred models and model checking problem. We show that most of considered problems are NPTime- or co-NPTime-complete. In order to reduce the complexity for particular theories, we use second-order quantifier elimination. To our best knowledge none of existing methods works in the case of annotation theories. We then provide a new second-order quantifier elimination method for stratified theories, which is successful in the considered cases. The new result subsumes many other results, including those of [2, 28, 21]. (shrink)

Stanisław Kamiński (1919-1986) was a philosopher, philosopher of science and historian of science. He defended in 1949 at the Catholic University in Lublin (KUL) his PhD thesis on Frege's axiomatic system of the sentence logic in the light of the contemporary methodology of deductive science. Since 1957 he was the head of the Chair of Methodology (the first one in Poland, founded in 1952 by J. Iwanicki) at the KUL, since 1965 the associate and since 1970 the full professor of (...) KUL. He was for many years the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy KUL where he developed the methodological foundations of the »Lublin-school of philosophy«. The main interests of S. Kamiński (1919-1986) was history of science and logic, general and special methodology, methodology of philosophy and (medieval) semiotics. Himself he saw his main achievements in the domain of the theory of science and the methodology of classical philosophy, especially in the studies of the method and language of metaphysics; he gave a methodological description of general metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history and studies on religion (religiology); he investigated the beginnings of the mathematical induction in the Middle Ages and in modern times, modern history of the theory of definition (Th. Hobbes, B. Pascal, J. Locke, E. B. de Condillac, J. D. Gergonne), the theory of argumentation (reasoning), the structure and the evolution of scientific theory, the deductive method (B. Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, G. Frege), the achievements of logic and philosophy in Poland. A characteristic feature of S. Kamiński's philosophical and methodological approach was a specific historicism, consisting of referring to the heritage of the past and at the same time to the latest achievements in logic and philosophy of science. He looked to history for inspiration, for how to solve his own problems and for a partial confirmation of legitimacy of his answers. He also used history to better understand the context of the discussed problems. His methodological interests are characterized by a philosophical and historical approach. He had a broad concept of knowledge and was maximalist both in raising questions and in giving answers. He cultivated the ideal of rational knowledge. In accordance with classical philosophy he saw the substance of person as ens rationale, a being realizing himself in a disinterested search for a theoretical truth, whose highest expression is philosophy. He stressed the epistemological and methodological plurality of knowledge and distinguished (with Kant) a material and formal part of knowledge, assuming that the formal element manifests itself as the logical form in the formal procedures of the (scientific) cognitive processes, that is in the (scientific) method and the (scientific) language. Making many attempts at a methodological characterization of different types of cognition and knowledge he distinguished – besides commonsense knowledge that lies at the bottom of any other type of knowledge – the scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge. None of them can be reduced to other type of knowledge, because each of them has its own problems, goals and methods. At the top there is a kind of sapiential knowledge which is much more than a simple generalization of all particular kinds of knowledge. S. Kamiński indebted his understanding of science to contemporary philosophy and to the classical philosophy. The nature of science was determined by him from the point view of its subject matter, aims, methods, logical structure and genesis. The question of what science is concerned with, i.e. what is its subject matter, is a philosophical question, it presupposes an appropriate understanding of the nature of the world. S. Kamiński opted for a pluralistic approach to the world: the principal object of science is the objective world but so are subjective states of man and products of his mind and his language. The best diagnostic test of the scientific character of science is the scientific method. Also here – rejecting the scientism (i.e. the view, that the scientific method and knowledge is the pattern and the measure of each knowledge) – S. Kamiński takes a pluralistic attitude. Accepting that the scientific method is not simple, that there is not one uncomplicated ideal way of doing science, and that because of the multiplicity of questions and scientific aims it would be difficult to construct one universal scientific method as a uniform set of rules for every kind of science, S. Kamiński assumes that different subject matter and different goals of scientific cognition require different research strategies and types of cognitive procedures. One manifestation of S. Kamiński's methodological pluralism is his antinaturalistic position in the theory of the humanities where he supported the thesis of their methodological autonomy with regard to natural sciences. Closer to the philosophical cognition and knowledge, the humanities do not meet and can not meet the conditions imposed upon the natural sciences, as they differ from them in subject matter (the world of culture) and hence in method (understanding, interpretation) used. The publications of S. Kamiński include over 350 positions. During his life he published three books: Georgonne'a teoria definicji [Georgonne's Theory of Definition], Lublin 1958; Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], Lublin 1961, 19813; and [together with M. A. Krąpiec] Z teorii i metodologii metafizyki [On the Theory and Methodology of Metaphysics], Lublin 1962. After his death five volumes of Collected Papers have been published: vol. I: Jak filozofować? [How to Philosophize? Studies in Methodology of Classical Philosophy], edited by Tadeusz Szubka, Lublin 1989; vol. II: Filozofia i metoda. Studia z dziejów metod filozofowania [Philosophy and Method. Studies from the History of the Method of Philosophizing], edited by Józef Herbut, Lublin 1993; vol. III: Metoda i język. Studia z semiotyki i metodologii nauk [Method and Language. Studies in Semiotics and Philosophy of Science], edited by Urszula Żegleń, Lublin 1994; vol. IV: Nauka i metoda. Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Science and Method. Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], edited by Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1992); vol. V: Światopogląd - Religia - Teologia [Worldview - Religion - Theology], edited by Monika Walczak and Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1998. (shrink)

Este manual sobre tecnologías para un envejecimiento activo y saludable, también conocido como Vida Asistida Activa (Active Assisted Living – AAL en sus siglas en inglés), ha sido creado como parte de la Acción COST GoodBrother, que se ha llevado a cabo desde 2020 hasta 2024. Las Acciones COST son programas de investigación europeos que promueven la colaboración internacional, uniendo a investigadores, profesionales e instituciones para abordar desafíos sociales importantes. GoodBrother se ha centrado en las cuestiones éticas y de privacidad (...) relacionadas con la monitorización empleando cámaras y micrófonos en entornos de provisión de cuidados. El objetivo ha sido garantizar que, mientras las tecnologías AAL ayudan a las personas mayores y a los individuos vulnerables, sus derechos de privacidad y protección de datos se mantengan como una prioridad. Este manual está diseñado para guiar en el papel que juegan las tecnologías AAL en la mejora de la calidad de vida de personas mayores, sus cuidadores y personas con discapacidades. Las tecnologías AAL ofrecen herramientas para quienes enfrentan desafíos cognitivos o físicos. Pueden mejorar la independencia, asistir en las rutinas diarias y promover un entorno de vida más seguro. Sin embargo, el aumento de estas tecnologías también plantea preguntas importantes sobre la protección de datos y la autonomía del usuario. A~través de estudios de casos prácticos, este manual explora escenarios reales en los que se aplican las tecnologías AAL. Ofrecen información sobre sus beneficios y desafíos. Se discuten situaciones en las que personas mayores han recuperado su sentido de independencia, por ejemplo, mediante el uso de sistemas de detección de caídas o dispositivos de monitorización de salud. Estas historias ofrecen una perspectiva humana de la tecnología, mostrando cómo pueden mejorar el bienestar mientras plantean cuestiones sobre la privacidad y el uso ético. El manual también destaca la importancia de tomar decisiones informadas al elegir e implementar sistemas AAL. Se enfatiza la~necesidad de que estas tecnologías equilibren seguridad y conveniencia con respeto a los derechos individuales. Encontrará información sobre cuestiones clave, incluyendo cómo seleccionar dispositivos adecuados, gestionar la configuración de privacidad y garantizar que la tecnología se integre de manera fluida en la vida diaria. Además de estos casos de estudio, el manual aborda temas importantes, como la seguridad de los datos, las consideraciones éticas y el papel de las normativas europeas, como el Reglamento General de Protección de Datos (RGPD), en la protección de la privacidad del usuario. Comprender estos aspectos es esencial para asegurar que los sistemas AAL no solo sean efectivos, sino también respetuosos de los derechos y la dignidad de los usuarios. Este recurso está destinado a una amplia audiencia, incluidos usuarios finales, cuidadores, profesionales de la salud y responsables de políticas. Proporciona orientación práctica sobre cómo integrar las tecnologías AAL en entornos de cuidados mientras se protege la privacidad y se garantiza un uso ético. Las ideas presentadas aquí buscan empoderar a los usuarios y cuidadores para que tomen decisiones informadas que mejoren tanto la calidad del cuidado como el respeto por la autonomía personal. (shrink)

Attitudes towards elder people in society depend on the pace of its technological and economical development. Fast changes not only encourage discrimination on the ground of age but also blur the perception of both individual and collective benefits from the extension of life length. This article emphasizes the necessity of finding new ideas of elders’ active social participation. Furthermore it points out the conceptions of creating city areas that favor development and integration of all age groups. It underlines the significance (...) of older generations in process of sustaining cultural continuity in information and knowledge societies by contrasting those ideas with the wisdom society project. ** Ocena obecności ludzi starych w społeczeństwie zależy od tempa rozwoju technologicznego i gospodarczego. Szybkie zmiany sprzyjaj¸a} dyskryminacji ze wzglȩdu na wiek oraz przyczyniaj¸a} siȩ do niedostrzegania jednostkowych i zbiorowych korzyści płyn¸a}cych ze wzrostu długości życia ludzkiego. Artykuł zwraca uwagȩ na niezbȩdność poszukiwania pomysłów aktywnego uczestnictwa seniorów w życiu społecznym, jak też przybliża koncepcjȩ kreowania przestrzeni miejskich sprzyjaj¸a}cych rozwojowi i integracji wszystkich grup wiekowych. Praca podkreśla znaczenie starszego pokolenia w procesie utrzymania ci¸agłości kulturowej w społeczeństwach informacyjnych i społeczeństwach wiedzy poprzez przeciwstawienie tych idei projektowi społeczeństwa m¸adrości. (shrink)

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

Obóz Kultury 2.0 Mirosław Filiciak, Alek Tarkowski, Agata Jałosińska, Andrzej Klimczuk, Maciej Rynarzewski, Jacek Seweryn, Stunża M., D. Grzegorz, Marcin Wilkowski & Anna Orlik .

More Info: M. Filiciak, A. Tarkowski, A. Jałosińska, A. Klimczuk, M. Rynarzewski, J.M. Seweryn, G.D. Stunża, M. Wilkowski, A. Orlik, Digitalizacja dziedzictwa (Digitisation of Heritage), Fundacja Ortus, Warszawa 2010.

Listening and polyphony lead us directly to reflection on the musical form of the fugue. Starting with M. Heidegger’s considerations about the juncture of beyng, we will phe-nomenologically ask about the essence of the fugue, and the musical work put under analysis will be The Art of Fugue by J.S. Bach. The article aims to show the convergence between Heidegger’s philosophy and the essence of the musical form of fugue as an artis-tic mode of the essential occurrence of beyng as (...) an event. (shrink)

This booklet on Active Assisted Living (AAL) technologies has been created as part of the GoodBrother COST Action, which has run from 2020 to 2024. COST Actions are European research programs that promote collaboration across borders, uniting researchers, professionals, and institutions to address key societal challenges. GoodBrother focused on ethical and privacy concerns surrounding video and audio monitoring in care settings. The aim was to ensure that while AAL technologies help older adults and vulnerable individuals, their privacy and data protection (...) rights remain a top priority. This booklet is designed to guide you through the role that AAL technologies play in improving the quality of life for older adults, caregivers, and people with disabilities. AAL technologies offer tools for those facing cognitive or physical challenges. They can enhance independence, assist with daily routines, and promote a safer living environment. However, the rise of these technologies also brings important questions about data protection and user autonomy. (shrink)

More Info: M. Filiciak, A. Tarkowski, A. Jałosińska, A. Klimczuk, M. Rynarzewski, J.M. Seweryn, G.D. Stunża, M. Wilkowski, A. Orlik, Digitalizacja dziedzictwa (Digitisation of Heritage), Fundacja Ortus, Warszawa 2010.

A. Klimczuk, D. Borowski, M. Skarzyński, Wnioski i rekomendacje, [in:] M. Juchnicka, Formalnoprawne aspekty modernizacji szkolnictwa zawodowego, Izba Rzemieślnicza i Przedsiȩbiorczości, Białystok 2014, pp. 161-170.

At the beginning of the XXI century, human societies are entering a period of "late modernity" characterized by new forms of trust and risk, untransparent social situations and economic, political and cultural globalization. These processes are associated with the presence of abstract systems that surround people and which require support of people with expertise in the fields which include transport, telecommunications, finance, security, media, energy. At the same time, it is noted that the expertise cult is born and specialists not (...) only meet the identified needs, but also produce new, thus contributing to the development of a culture of narcissism. Article aims to explain the characteristics of expert systems and cultural narcissism, experts role as a participant in social change, model types and kinds of experts with their arcane in to ontological and epistemological structures of the social world. I also highlight the problems associated with the suppression of restrictions in to the access of expertise knowledge. ** Wraz z początkiem XXI wieku społeczeństwa ludzkie wchodzą w okres „późnej nowoczesności” cechujący się nowymi formami zaufania i ryzyka, nieprzejrzystością sytuacji społecznych oraz postępującą globalizacją ekonomiczną, polityczną i kulturową. Procesy te wiążą się z obecnością systemów abstrakcyjnych, które otaczają ludzi i do funkcjonowania wymagają wsparcia osób z wiedzą specjalistyczną z zakresu m.in. transportu, telekomunikacji, finansów, bezpieczeństwa, mediów, energetyki. Jednocześnie zauważa się, iż rodzi się kult ekspertyzy a specjaliści nie tylko zaspokajają rozpoznane potrzeby, ale też wytwarzają nowe, przyczyniając się tym samym do rozwoju kultury narcyzmu. Artykuł ma na celu przybliżenie specyfiki systemów eksperckich i narcyzmu kulturowego, roli eksperta jako uczestnika przemian społecznych, modelowych typów ekspertów i rodzajów ich wtajemniczeń w struktury ontologiczne i epistemologiczne świata społecznego oraz zwrócenie uwagi na problemy związane ze znoszeniem ograniczeń dostępu do wiedzy specjalistycznej. -/- . (shrink)

A. Klimczuk, Adaptacja szkół zawodowych do trendów społeczno-gospodarczych, [in:] M. Juchnicka, Doradcze i edukacyjne aspekty reorientacji zawodowej i wsparcia zatrudnienia zwalnianych pracowników oświaty, Izba Rzemieślnicza i Przedsiȩbiorczości, Białystok 2015, pp. 37-68.

The article attempts to define the concept of “post-neo-Kantianism” based on the nature of its relationship to the concept of “neo-Kantianism”. Concerning this matter, the author poses the following tasks: to characterize the phenomenon of neo-Kantianism, to point out the problems of its definition, to identify the relevance of the term “post-neo-Kantianism” and its relation to the philosophy of I. Kant in particular. The author emphasizes the need to introduce this term in the classification of philosophy of the XX century (...) with the appropriateness of building the model of “Kantianism - Neo-Kantianism - Neo-Neo-Kantianism - Post-Neo-Kantianism”, where each new stage is determined by the nature of the reflection of thinkers of a certain period over the fundamental philosophical problems articulated in Kant's “Critics”. Among the post-Neo-Kantians, A. Noras names thinkers traditionally considered to be german phenomenologists, such as E. Husserl and M. Heidegger: it is from the philosophical concept of Husserl that one can speak of the emergence of post-Neo-Kantianism, and the semantically correct interpretation of Heidegger, according to author, is most clearly understood in the framework of Baden Neo-Kantianism. Investigating the phenomenon of post-Neo-Kantianism, the need is established for answering a question regarding the preceding Neo-Kantian tradition, within which there is still a number of contradictions unresolved in the history of philosophy regarding the classification of Neo-Kantian schools and the distinction between the two periods of Neo-Kantianism: early and late. Neo-Kantianism shows the relevance of Kantian philosophy, highlighting the ongoing debate about understanding the Kantian “Critique of Pure Reason”. Post-Neo-Kantianism plays an important role in terms of the perspectives of modern Kant studies, which include Gottfried Martin, Manfred Brelage, or Hans-Michael Baumgartner. (shrink)

Artykuł opisuje wybrane aspekty sporów, jakie zajmowały część osiemnastowiecznych filozofów. Zostały one zainspirowane niektórymi Locke’owskimi propozycjami, a dotyczyły sposobu rozumienia osoby i zagadnienia tożsamości osobowej. Wymiana poglądów na temat osobowej identyczności odnosiła się do kwestii jej substancjalnego charakteru i roli, jaka jest w niej przypisywana świadomości. W tej pierwszej sprawie Leibniz, Butler i Reid opowiadają się za substancjalnym charakterem tożsamości człowieka, zaś Locke uchyla się od zajęcia stanowiska. Drugi problem w dużej mierze związany jest z poprzednim, na co wskazuje m.in. (...) podobny rozkład poglądów. Locke uznaje świadomość za zasadnicze kryterium tożsamości osobowej, a Leibniz, Butler i Reid się temu stanowisku przeciwstawiają. (shrink)

In this paper† we will treat mereology as a theory of some structures that are not axiomatizable in an elementary langauge and we will use a variable rangingover the power set of the universe of the structure). A mereological structure is an ordered pair M = hM,⊑i, where M is a non-empty set and ⊑is a binary relation in M, i.e., ⊑ is a subset of M × M. The relation ⊑ isa relation of being a mereological part . We (...) formulate an axiomatization of mereological structures, different from Tarski’s axiomatization aspresented in [10] . We prove that these axiomatizations are equivalent . Of course, these axiomatizations are definitionally equivalent to thevery first axiomatization of mereology from [5], where the relation of being aproper part ⊏ is a primitive one.Moreover, we will show that Simons’ “Classical Extensional Mereology”from [9] is essentially weaker than Leśniewski’s mereology. (shrink)

A. Klimczuk, M. Skarzyński, Modernizacja szkół zawodowych w oparciu o programy rozwojowe, [in:] M. Juchnicka, Formalnoprawne aspekty modernizacji szkolnictwa zawodowego, Izba Rzemieślnicza i Przedsiȩbiorczości, Białystok 2014, pp. 119-144.

A. Klimczuk, Historia Żydów na Podlasiu, czyli żyliśmy razem przez wieki: od zróżnicowania kulturowego do wielokulturowości. Oddolne techniki budowania kapitału społecznego, [in:] I. Wrońska, M. Rusiłowicz, Wielokulturowe Podlasie w Unii Europejskiej, Prawo i Partnerstwo, Białystok 2012, p. 152-163.

M. E. Rudin proved, under CH, that for each P-point p there exists a P-point q strictly RK-greater than p. This result was proved under ${\mathfrak {p}= \mathfrak {c}}$ by A. Blass, who also showed that each RK-increasing $ \omega $ -sequence of P-points is upper bounded by a P-point, and that there is an order embedding of the real line into the class of P-points with respect to the RK-ordering. In this paper, the results cited above are proved under (...) the assumption that $\mathfrak { b}=\mathfrak {c}$. A. Blass asked in 1973 which ordinals can be embedded in the set of P-points, and pointed out that such an ordinal cannot be greater than $ \mathfrak {c}^{+}$. In this paper it is proved, under $\mathfrak {b}=\mathfrak {c}$, that for each ordinal $\alpha < \mathfrak {c}^{+}$, there is an order embedding of $ \alpha $ into P-points. It is also proved, under $\mathfrak {b}=\mathfrak {c}$, that there is an embedding of the long line into P-points. (shrink)

M. Klimczuk-Kochańska, A. Klimczuk, Podregion białostocko-suwalski a podregiony: krośnieńsko-przemyski, obwód zakarpacki i obwód grodzieński, [in:] B. Plawgo, Współpraca transgraniczna małych i średnich przedsiȩbiorstw jako czynnik rozwoju regionalnego. Na przykładzie podregionu białostocko-suwalskiego i podregionu krośnieńsko-przemyskiego w Polsce, obwodu zakarpackiego na Ukrainie oraz obwodu Grodzieńskiego na Białorusi, Białostocka Fundacja Kształcenia Kadr, Białystok 2015, pp. 29-85.

This article compares the thinking of Andrzej Walicki and Isaiah Berlin on the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia and on Soviet totalitarianism. It suggests that Berlin saw totalitarianism as an externally imposed political system, whereas Walicki understood totalitarianism to depend both on external pressure and inner coercion. The article draws on a variety of published and unpublished sources, including personal interviews with Walicki and Berlin’s archives at the New Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.

DARWIN’s (1859, 1871) discoveries have profound ethical implications that continue to be misrepresented and/or ignored. In contrast to socialdarwinistic misuses of his theory, Darwin was a great humanitarian who paved the way for an integrated scientific and ethical world view. As an ethical doctrine, socialdarwinism is long dead ever since its defeat by E. G. Moore although the socialdarwinistic thought is a hard-die in the biological community. The accusations of sociobiology for being socialdarwinistic are unfounded and stem from the moralistic (...) fallacy that is, a false assumption that morality is good by definition. Both social and developmental psychology demonstrate that the moral agency is a motivational device for executing reciprocity that remains at the core of any morality across all studied societies and throughout the ontogeny of moral judgment. The level of true universalizing ethical reflection (KOHLBERG’s postconvential stages or GIBBS’s existential phase) is achieved by a small minority of humans, thus showing that Homo sapiens is a moral but not an ethical animal. While the origin of reciprocity has been perfectly explained by sociobiology, the evolutionary assembly of affective and cognitive elements that make up the moral agency is being successfully studied by the social/personality/developmental psychology as extended to non-human primates. As DARWIN (1871) expected, the key innovation for the evolution of moral agency was the emergence of empathy that evolved independently at least three times: in elephants, dolphins and primates. Empathy has a motivational power of its own; it is also necessary for moral agency that requires two cognitive abilities: reflective self-consciousness and understanding of causality; the two make possible the attribution of responsibility. All these requirements are met by the chimpanzees whose moral agency operates in dyads. In contrast, the human moral agency allows for a third party intervention that opens up vast opportunities for ideologies, especially religions, to use and misuse the moral agency to enforce a reciprocation that may be harmful to both individuals and the entire group. Also, the moral agency is known to enforce enhanced intragroup cohesion and loyalty in response to conflict and war, which suggests that the two prima facie opposed human universals, morality and warfare, may have coevolved. The most important ethical consequence that follows from the increasing understanding of the primate moral agency is that every received morality is ethically flawed, none can be taken as a paragon of goodness, and each needs corrections by science-informed ethics. In fact, Darwin pioneered the integration of science and ethics, an approach that has come to be appreciated only recently under the heading of consilience. (shrink)