Nowa Zelandia to jedno z najlepiej rozwiniętych państw świata. Pomimo ogromnej odległości od Polski zamieszkuje tam, począwszy od XIX w., wielu polskich migrantów. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie aktualnej sytuacji zachowania archiwaliów dotyczących działalności Polaków w Nowej Zelandii oraz stanu ich cyfryzacji. Materiał źródłowy do tego typu badań posiadają archiwa oraz biblioteki państwowe w Nowej Zelandii. Jest on również dostępny w niewielkiej ilości jako cyfrowy zasób polskich organizacji w Nowej Zelandii, obecny na ich oficjalnych stronach internetowych. W Polsce kilka instytucji na (...) własnych stronach internetowych także posiada cyfrowe wersje materiałów Polonii nowozelandzkiej. Dzięki zastosowanym metodom badawczym wskazano poziom cyfryzacji materiałów polonijnych. Podstawową tezą pracy jest stwierdzenie faktu znacznego rozproszenia dorobku kulturowego Polonii nowozelandzkiej, nie tylko pomiędzy instytucjami państwowymi w Nowej Zelandii i miejscowymi organizacjami polskimi, ale również poza jej granicami, w tym nad Wisłą. Głównym wnioskiem artykułu jest utworzenie na antypodach jednego, centralnego archiwum Polonii nowozelandzkiej posiadającego doświadczonych pracowników i dysponującemu środkami pozwalającymi na konsekwentne zachowywanie śladów naszej obecności w Nowej Zelandii. (shrink)

In this paper, we study natural language constructions which were first examined by Barwise: The richer the country, the more powerful some of its officials. Guided by Barwise’s observations, we suggest that conceivable interpretations of such constructions express the existence of various similarities between partial orders such as homomorphism or embedding. Semantically, we interpret the constructions as polyadic generalized quantifiers restricted to finite models. We extend the results obtained by Barwise by showing that similarity quantifiers are not expressible in elementary (...) logic over finite models. We also investigate whether the proposed readings are sound from the cognitive perspective. We prove that almost all similarity quantifiers are intractable. This leads us to first-order variants, which only approximate the strong readings, but are cognitively more plausible. Driven by the question of ambiguity, we recall Barwise’s argumentation in favour of strong readings, enriching it with some arguments of our own. Given that Barwise-like sentences are indeed ambiguous, we use a generalized Strong Meaning Hypothesis to derive predictions for their verification. Finally, we propose a hypothesis according to which conflicting pressures of communication and cognition might give rise to an ambiguous construction, provided that different semantic variants of the construction withstand different pressures involved in its usage. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie sporu dotyczącego relacji filozofii i teologii w czeskiej myśli międzywojennej (Kozák, Souček, Rádl, Patočka). Omawiam różne sposoby uzasadniania teologii i Objawienia oraz ich związki z filozofią. W tym sporze z jednej strony teolodzy starają się uzasadnić wyjątkowość teologii, a także wykazać jej naukowy charakter. Z drugiej strony, filozofowie pokazują, że teologia oparta na Objawieniu nie może być częścią wiedzy. Historia sporu pokazała, że teologia musi zachować dystans do filozofii, jeśli nie chce wyrzec się swojej istoty, swojej (...) securitatis, która nadeje sens jej istnieniu, co nie znaczy, że jest niewrażliwa na codzienne problemy człowieka. (shrink)

Max Weber’s thesis on the decisive influence of Protestant ethic on the formation and development of modern capitalism has become one of the best-known and widely shared canonical claims in social sciences. Since its publication at the beginning of the 20th century, this thesis, supported by subsequent great works by the German classic, has rarely been the subject of major controversy. The work of correcting Weber’s thesis was undertaken in the late 20th century by Michael Novak. Novak’s correction is not (...) confrontational, but complementary. The American thinker abandons the research area of minority Protestant communities, which caught Weber’s attention, and undertakes an analysis of the broader religious tradition, developing both before and after the Reformation. In particular, the achievements of Pope John Paul II, interpreted by Novak in terms of the renewal of a liberty current of Catholic social thought, provide important corrective data. (shrink)

Książka ta ma dwa, bliźniacze, tematy: ekspresję i doświadczenie. Ma także dwoje bohaterów: nasłuchujący podmiot i improwizację. Tym, co spaja przedstawioną tu refleksję, jest audioantropologiczna perspektywa, pozwalająca odsłonić kulturowe kryteria słuchania i improwizowania. A jednak z wielu zgromadzonych tu opowieści wyłania się obraz kultury, w której „nikt nie słucha” i „nikt nie improwizuje” – a może, poprawniej, „nikt słucha” i „nikt improwizuje”. Czy jest bowiem „kimś” podmiot słuchania – wystawiany nieustannie na pokusę fantazjowania i, ostatecznie, wydany na pastwę fantazmatów? Czy (...) jest „kimś” podmiot improwizujący, który czyni wiele, by stać się samoorganizującym się procesem improwizowania? (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest analizie nowego gatunku literackiego, jakim jest fikcja klimatyczna. Termin ten rozpowszechnił sięw drugiej dekadzie XXI w. Niektórzy naukowcy postrzegają cli-fi jako odmianę science fiction ze względu na obecne w nim motywy charakterystyczne dla utworów postapokaliptycznych. Inni z kolei traktują cli-fi jako podgatunek fikcji spekulatywnych, posługujący się różnymi konwencjami (np. thrillera, science fiction, prozy realistycznej). W przeciwieństwie do fantastyki cli-fi pełni funkcję dydaktyczną i stanowi rodzaj ostrzeżenia przed grożącą ludzkości katastrofą. Do popularnych motywów występujących w cli-fi należą: (...) powodzie, deforestacje, wymieranie gatunków zwierząt, katastrofy spowodowane wybuchem w elektrowniach atomowych. W niniejszym artykule autora interesują dwie powieści zaliczane do cli-fi. Pierwsza z nich (Lot motyla) posługuje się poetyką realistyczną, opisując zjawisko globalnego ocieplenia. Druga (Jasność), będąca pierwszą polską cli-fi, wykorzystuje poetykę postapokaliptyczną, ukazując skutki eksplozji w elektrowni atomowej w miasteczku Bethlem. (shrink)

Plato did not express any single and uniform theory of meaning. The paper presents different conceptions of meaning that can be attributed to Plato. The first presents meaning of names as imitating reality. Primary names are phonetic imitations of things, secondary names are built-up with the former ones. The second presents meaning as a representation in mind. There are two kinds of representations: individual and abstract. Individual representation is an imagination of empirical thing and the abstract representation is a picture (...) of idea - a property. The third conception describes the notion of meaning as a denotation. Denotations of general names are ideas. Plato treats names in an extensional manner. If two names about different forms refer to the same thing, they are the same name. The fourth is the association conception of meaning. It is connected with the theory of anamnesis. This theory says that humans remember ideas, which they observed in the time between death and birth. In the last conception the meaning is interpreted as connotation: the meaning of a name is the feature of the object that is referred to by this name. (shrink)

Achievements of Hans Driesch (1867–1941), German embryologist and philosopher, are contemporarily viewed almost exclusively from their later metaphysical phase of development, while his earlier scientific experimental researches are not appreciated sufficiently enough. They consisted in highlighting the specifically totipotential character of biological, and especially of embryological, processes what is still methodologically inspiring in many dimensions of contemporary biological investigations. The author postulates thus a deeper analysis of Driesch’s scientific accomplishments and broader assessment of their actual significance in contemporary biology.

Divine Omniscience and the Problem of Evil from the Perspective of Open Theism In the first part of the article, I present the argument for theological fatalism consisting in the thesis that if God has an infallible knowledge of future contingents, then whatever happens in the world happens necessarily. Next, I discuss the open theism view, whose rejection of theological fatalism rests on the claim that God does not know future contingents in advance. In the second part of the paper, (...) I analyze the open theism view in the context of the evidential argument from evil. The evidential argument from evil says that the occurrence of great and pointless suffering in the world makes the existence of God very improbable. The open theism view implies that since God does not know the future contingents (great and pointless evils included), the occurrence of such evils does not compromise his omnipotence or his benevolence, and, hence, it does not make his existence improbable. In the last part of the article, I make some critical remarks on the theodicy of open theism recently put forth by William Hasker and I emphasize that this theodicy is based on axiological assumptions which are not evident enough in themselves. Keywords: problem of evil, open theism, evidential argument, divine omniscience. (shrink)

Opatrzność Boża a przypadek w świecie: odpowiedzi W artykule przedstawiam odpowiedzi do zarzutów, zawartych w innych artykułach tego numeru, wobec proponowanej przeze mnie w artykule otwierającym oraz monografii z roku 2014 koncepcji opatrzności i przypadku. Argumentuję, że istnienie różnie rozumianych zdarzeń przypadkowych nie implikuje tezy, że Bóg Stwórca świata nie interesuje się losem indywidualnych bytów stworzonych, w tym istot ludzkich. Staram się w swoich odpowiedziach pokazać, że powodem, dla którego Bóg może dopuszczać występowanie zdarzeń przypadkowych jest Boża wola stworzenia świata (...) względnie autonomicznego, który ma zdolność samodzielnego rozwoju. W świecie takim może występować zło bezcelowe, za które Bóg nie ponosi bezpośredniej odpowiedzialności. (shrink)

Genocide as a part of nation or ethnic group extermination process is not a well-defined concept. Its meaning is understood intuitively. When law intervenes, the issue of defining the term comes back. Nevertheless, the Polish nation has been recognized as subjected to genocide activities during the Second World War by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. The paper focuses on the genocide against mainly one group of Poles that is to say foresters. The martyrologic evidence proves that foresters were an (...) occupation group which for a variety of reasons suffered most. The research carried out in this respect by the National Forests in Poland has revealed that over 20% of pre-war staff of the institution actually lost their lives. They were killed by the German and Soviet occupiers, as well as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In the eastern parts of Poland foresters and their families were deported and sent to various labour and extermination camps e.g. in Siberia. The aim of the paper is to present the scale of genocide with the main emphasis on genocide against foresters. The definition of genocide provided by Lemkin, who coined the term, is a starting point for the analysis. The main research methods included the analysis of pertinent literature and source materials as well as the semiotic analysis of genocide circumstances. The thesis put forward by the authors is that foresters due to their education, practical skills, professional experience and insight knowledge turned out to be the group especially vulnerable and subjected to extermination on purpose. (shrink)

Many contemporary writers misunderstand early Christian views on philosophy because they identify the critical stances of the ante-Nicene fathers toward specific pagan philosophical schools with a general negative stance toward reason itself. Dariusz Karlowicz's Socrates and Other Saints demonstrates why this identification is false. The question of the extent of humanity's natural knowledge cannot be reduced to the question of faith's relationship to the historical manifestations of philosophy among the Ancients. Karlowicz closely reads the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, (...) Clement of Alexandria, and others to demonstrate this point. He also builds upon Pierre Hadot's thesis that ancient philosophy is not primarily theory but a "way of life" taught by sages, which aimed at happiness through participation in the divine. The fact that pagan philosophers falsely described humanity's telos did not mean that the spiritual practices they developed could not be helpful in the Christian pilgrimage. As it turns out, the ancient Christian writers traditionally considered to be enemies of philosophy actually borrowed from her much more than we think-and perhaps more than they admitted. -- back cover. (shrink)

Jan Patočka’s extensive oeuvre contains eleven notebooks filled with randomly dated notes from 1946 to 1950. These documents originate from the so-called Strahov legacy, specifically manuscripts discovered in the 1990s in the Strahov library. This legacy includes a collection of Patočka’s manuscripts from the 1930s and 1940s. The 1980s were mainly devoted to the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, and phenomenological reflections on the concept of the world. In 1971, Patočka deposited them in this renowned library in Prague (...) without disclosing this information to anyone (Karfík 2000/2001). (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between crisis and experience, concentrating on ‘excentric positionality’ in relation to the shared world, as presented in the work of Helmuth Plessner. A by-product of the 1920s Weimar Germany, Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, it is argued, presents us with a forgotten blueprint for transitive and compositional approaches to the social world. Instead of the familiar ‘crisis of experience’ used to diagnose ‘what has gone wrong’, it allows us to re-learn how to work with ‘the experience of (...) crisis’ itself. The latter holds the key to a different type of approach based on ‘xeno-communication’. This type of communication utilizes the productive potential of crisis in its uncertainty and hesitation before a decision, showing a way to extend and enlarge experience itself. Cultivation of these ‘excentric’ dynamics in turn suggests new ‘excentric methodologies’ based on a more flexible fit between concepts and the worlds they are meant to describe. ‘Excentric methodologies’ constitute a type of experience-based, analytical response to the shared world. They work with phenomena across spaces and problems, analytically utilizing their joint emergence from the fundamental imbalance and discontinuity characteristic of the human environment. (shrink)

The article employs music to describe the dynamics of Central European identity at the turn of the 20th century. Conceptually, the analysis is based on the notion of cultural resonance and the distinction between political territories, which isolate identity, and cultural landscapes which let it escape. This theoretical understanding is derived from the acoustic philosophy and musical practice of two Central European composers, Leoš Janáček and Béla Bartók. Exemplified here is artistic ‘extra-territorial’ identity, which is indeed how Theodor Adorno at (...) one point referred to the ‘peripheral’ sound coming from the region. This process of identity construction amplifies paradoxical middle spaces, which Jean Luc Nancy describes evocatively as a cultural mêlée. The vitality of cultural resonance is fuelled by this primary contact with mundane reality and the ‘navigational hesitation’ underpinning identity and its many trajectories. (shrink)

Psychiatrists' accounts of clinical significance in depression Clinical significance is a crucial element in the diagnosis of mental illness, yet, it is practically untheorised and significantly under-researched. This article takes up the question of how the criterion of clinical significance is translated into psychiatric practice. More particularly, it examines how psychiatrists account for the threshold between health and depression. The paper is anchored in the constructionist view of discourse underpinned by the assumptions of critically oriented discourse analysis. It is based (...) upon a convenience sample of 39 semi-structured interviews with specialist-psychiatrists in south-western Poland. There is no discursive space for clinical significance in psychiatrists' accounts. There is no boundary, no decision to be taken as to whether the symptoms are clinically significant. Depression, invariably constructed in terms of diagnostic criteria, is always represented as fully developed, appearing out of thin air, with no period of falling ill. The article raises the issue of the validity and usefulness of psychiatric diagnosis. (shrink)

The paper is based on the following two assumptions. Firstly, evasive utterances are those which are semantically irrelevant to the question they are an answer to. Secondly, they can be divided into two main categories — overt and covert.The question to be asked as regards covert evasion is: How is it possible that an evasive speaker can nevertheless count on her/his utterance being considered cooperative? The objective of this paper is to analyse the means which are used by evasive speakers (...) to pretend that their utterance does cooperatively answer the question and thereby meet its conversational demand.Semantic and pragmatic means were identified as serving the purpose of concealing evasive action. Within the former ones operation within the same topic as the questioner, and, secondly, equipping her/his evasive utterance with some formal characteristics which may indicate its relationship with the question, were listed. On a pragmatic level, the speaker may explicitly or implicitly indicate her/his willingness to answer the question: by statement or implication as well as licenses of uncooperativeness or hedging. (shrink)

Jednym z głównych wyzwań stojących przed filozofami przyrody XVII wieku było znalezienie odpowiedzi na pytanie, co sprawia, że materia w ogóle działa? Dziedzictwo ‘materii pierwszej’ i jej czystej potencjalności było wciąż żywe, a przyjęcie teorii korpuskularnej czy atomistycznej niewiele tu zmieniało, dominowało wciąż przekonanie o całkowitej bierności ciał. Ich działanie domagało się jakiegoś wyjaśnienia, które stanowiłoby odpowiednik arystotelesowskiej, niematerialnej i aktywnej, formy. Wydaje się, że jedną z tradycji filozoficznych, do których sięgano w poszukiwaniu takiego wyjaśnienia, była emanacyjna metafizyka Plotyna. W (...) systemach XVII-wiecznych ulegała ona różnorodnym modyfikacjom, ale jej główna idea, wskazująca na aktywną rolę pewnych ‘zasad’, czy ‘duchów’ odpowiedzialnych za inicjowanie wszelkich zmian w materii i kierowanie nimi zgodnie z zamysłem Stwórcy, pozostawała fundamentem ówczesnych teorii działania materii. Przykładem takich rozwiązań są systemy Henry’ego More’a i jego dobrego znajomego z Cambridge, Izaaka Newtona. W pierwszym przypadku nie ma wątpliwości co do zasadniczego wpływu neoplatonizmu, w drugim jednak zdania historyków są podzielone. Newton sięga bowiem w poszukiwaniu ‘aktywnych zasad’ do badań alchemicznych, z nadzieją odnalezienia owych zasad nie tylko przy odwołaniu się do filozoficznych spekulacji, ale także do metod eksperymentalnych. Różnica ta jednak nie zmienia faktu, że obaj filozofowie starają się odkryć sposób działania ‘duchów aktywnych’, wahając się między umieszczeniem w cząstkach materii wielu odrębnych zasad a wskazaniem na zasadę jedną, działającą uniwersalnie i będącą niejako przedłużeniem Bożego ramienia – More nazywa ją Duchem Natury, a Newton upatruje jej ostatecznie w Chrystusie. (shrink)

The objective of the paper is to present the role of the non-professional judge in Poland as an important manifestation of civic culture based on citizens’ activity in the sphere of justice among other things. The paper also highlights the importance of an appropriate selection of citizens who are to adjudicate and possibly place restrictions on access to judicial functions using the example of Polish law. The last part addresses the problem of the gradual reduction of the participation of lay (...) judges in the Polish justice system and the controversial attempts to halt this trend, such as the introduction of lay judges to the Supreme Court and the start of discussions on the introduction of the justice of the peace to common courts. (shrink)

W artykule prezentowane są zagadnienia związane z wydawniczymi losami całości literackiego dorobku Stanisława Grzesiuka. Składają się nań trzy autobiograficzne powieści: _Pi__ęć__ lat kacetu_, _Boso, ale w ostrogach _oraz _Na marginesie __ż__ycia_. Wydania, które ukazały się za życia pisarza były poddawane różnego typu ingerencjom. Najważniejszym czynnikiem, który miał wpływ na ostateczna postać tekstu była instytucjonalna cenzura. Ponadto autor zmieniał swoje utwory pod wpływem nacisków wydawcy, rodziny oraz w ramach realizacji sądowej ugody. Redaktorzy nowej edycji dzieł Grzesiuka, która ukazała się w 2018 (...) roku w wydawnictwie Pruszyński i S-ka, podjęli próbę rekonstrukcji tekstów sprzed pozaautorskich zmian. Zestawienie tych wydań z pierwodrukami i rękopisami dowodzi, iż wydawnictwo podjęło wiele niezrozumiałych decyzji, które mogą mieć wpływ na błędną recepcję autorskiego przekazu. (shrink)

We provide a computational model of semantic alignment among communicating agents constrained by social and cognitive pressures. We use our model to analyze the effects of social stratification and a local transmission bottleneck on the coordination of meaning in isolated dyads. The analysis suggests that the traditional approach to learning—understood as inferring prescribed meaning from observations—can be viewed as a special case of semantic alignment, manifesting itself in the behaviour of socially imbalanced dyads put under mild pressure of a local (...) transmission bottleneck. Other parametrizations of the model yield different long-term effects, including lack of convergence or convergence on simple meanings only. (shrink)

The article presents problems of intellectual intuition in metaphysics from a semiotic point of view. There are various types of intuition in philosophy: rational intuition, irrational intuition, and sensual intuition. All of them are immediate ways of cognition. Classical metaphysics uses intellectual intuition as its main method to find out and justify its statements. The main problem of intellectual intuition is an intersubjective approach to the object of metaphysics. The main aim of this paper is the objectivization and rationalization of (...) intellectual intuition in language. The semantic notion of meaning and the pragmatic notion of understanding are the fundamental tools which are used to translate the issue of intuition from the subject-ma$er level into the language level. This operation allows to look at intuition in a non-psychological manner. It enables the objectivization of the method of intellectual intuition in the light of the understanding of meanings. (shrink)

In this article we examine the role of vocative forms of address in shaping the political space in public/political discourse. We are particularly interested in strategic uses of forms of address by participants in political debates in order to gain legitimacy for their ideologies. Our data come from four formal television debates between Lech Wałęsa, the former Solidarity trade union leader and president of Poland, and two other Polish politicians, which were held between 1988 and 1995. Due to this historical (...) perspective, we are able to contextualize discursive patterns in the rapidly changing political and social situation in Poland, and show the diachronic development of the ideological underpinnings of discourse. (shrink)

This article seeks to show that E.A. Milne’s philosophy of science has its roots in the philosophy of Aristotle and it could be an inspiration for Popper’s philosophy. The similarities with Aristotle’s concept are as follows: 1) the aim of science is to explain phenomena by discovering general principles; 2) the mind is responsible for discovering them, although experience guides the search; 3) deducing detailed statements from general assumptions is the most important element of research. On the other hand, Milne’s (...) proposal is consistent with Popper’s main ideas: 1) criticism of the principle of induction; 2) preference for the hypothetical-deductive method ; 3) appreciation of falsification and confidence in the effectiveness of deductive logic. (shrink)