Après avoir présenté la conception spécifique de l'idéologie et de l'utopie qui apparaît chez Ricœur en tant que catégories anthropologiques, je passe aux difficultés liées à la compréhension du concept ricœurien d'utopie. En différenciant les utopies “pratiques” de celles “littéraires,“ Ricœur introduit entre elles également une hiérarchie, puisque les utopies présentées comme irréalisables constituent pour lui une distorsion de la fonction de l'utopie. Or, afin qu'une utopie puisse être conçue comme réalisable déjà au moment de sa rédaction, une nouvelle conception (...) de l'histoire est nécessaire, qui n'apparaît que dans la seconde moitié du 18 ième siècle. Une dimension historique doit donc être incluse dans la conception anthropologique de l'utopie. Finalement, en évoquant les catégories méta-historiques de Reinhart Koselleck, horizon d'attente et champ d'expérience, j'amorce une interprétation de la domination du genre littéraire de l'anti-utopie sur l'utopie au 20 ième siècle. (shrink)

The detailed story of the passionate and secret love affair between two of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century--Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Drawing on their previously unknown correspondence, Elzbieta Ettinger describes a relationship that lasted for more than half a century, a relationship that sheds startling light on both individuals.

The Temporal-Order Judgment (TOJ) paradigm has been widely investigated in previous studies as an accurate measure of temporal resolution and sequencing abilities in the millisecond time range. Two auditory TOJ tasks are often used: (1) a spatial TOJ task, in which two identical stimuli are presented in rapid succession monaurally and the task is to indicate which ear received the first stimulus and which ear received the second one ( left-right or right-left ), and (2) a spectral TOJ task, in (...) which two tones of different frequencies are presented asynchronously to both ears binaurally and the task is to report the sequence of these tones ( low-high or high-low ). The previous literature studies conducted on young volunteers indicated that the measured temporal acuity on these two tasks depended on the procedure used. As considerable data are now available about age-related decline in temporal resolution ability, the aim of the present study was to compare in elderly subjects the pattern of performance on these two tasks. A total of 40 normal healthy volunteers aged from 62 to 78 years performed two TOJ tasks. The measurement was repeated in two consecutive sessions. Temporal resolution was indexed by the Auditory Temporal-Order Threshold (ATOT), i.e., the minimum time gap between successive stimuli necessary for a participant to report a before-after relation with 75% correctness. The main finding of the present study was the indication of differences in the elderly in performance on two tasks. In the spatial task, the distribution of obtained ATOT values did not deviate from the Gaussian distribution. In contrast, the distribution of data in the spectral task deviated significantly from the Gaussian and was spread more to the right. Although lower ATOT values were usually observed in Session 2 than in Session 1, such difference was significant only in the spectral task. We conclude that although temporal acuity and sequencing abilities in the millisecond time range are probably based in neuronal oscillatory activity, the measured ATOTs in the elderly seem to be stimulus-dependent, procedure-related, and influenced by the perceptual strategies used by participants. (shrink)

Translated here into Polish is Tim Maudlin’s “Distilling Metaphysics from Quantum Physics,” which is a chapter of The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics. The author discusses six important metaphysical issues on which quantum physics sheds new light. He shows how differently each of the three main intepretations of quantum theory (von Neumann’s and GRW collapse theory, Bohm’s hidden variable theory, and Everett’s many-worlds theory) views each of them. The issues discussed are determinism, determinateness, the role of the observer, uncertainty and complementarity, (...) quantum logic, and entanglement and non-locality. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the changes referred to as the “fourth industrial revolution” and the role of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in accelerating the technological revolution in relation to Polish companies. The ongoing economic downturn has different causes and much broader effects than previous crises. Hence the need to analyze trends (megatrends) in the emergence of innovations initiated or significantly accelerated by the pandemic crisis, and consequently, among other things, the intensification of the (...) digital transformation process. The study has a theoretical and empirical character. For the research, the authors used the descriptive method with elements of statistical data analysis. The analysis was based on reports of such institutions as the World Intellectual Property Organization, the European Commission and the Central Statistical Office. (shrink)

. Taking vaccine regret and hesitancy seriously. The role of truth, conspiracy theories, gender relations and trust in the HPV immunisation programmes in Ireland. Journal for Cultural Research: Vol. 25, What should academics do about conspiracy theories? Moving beyond debunking to better deal with conspiratorial movements, misinformation and post-truth., pp. 69-87.

The aim of the paper is to consider the notions of economy, redundancy and optimality, with regard to language structure and its functioning in time and with regard to certain principles of the Universal Grammar. I argue that the notion of optimality needs not to be congruent with economy, and at odds with redundancy. On the contrary, if we hold realistic premises regarding the ontology of language (as Chomsky does) and think of language as a natural system existing in time, (...) then we should expect similar principles of organization in language as in other natural systems (cf. system theories: von Bertalanffy, Laszlo, Kauffman). In that approach, connecting optimality with economy is untenable. That stance is contrary to Chomsky's Minimalist Program, in which economy has become the actual principle of the Universal Grammar. I discusses a major inconsistency in Chomsky's assumptions about the nature of the language faculty and trace its possible origin. Key words: language system; language faculty; systems theory; economy principle; redundancy; optimality; edge-of-chaos theory; Minimalist Program. (shrink)

COVID-19 pandemic occurred as an unexpected experience affecting all countries around the globe. In addition to the obvious health, economic and political effects, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered immense changes in the social spheres. People and institutions were forced to adjust to the new circumstances, change habits and move most or all of their activity online. In the completely virtual world, pandemic became a fertile ground for the bloom of the conspiracy theories already existing, but struggling for the global attention. The (...) aim of the paper is to present three main conspiracy theories rapidly gaining popularity during the pandemic (the QAnon, anti-vaccination movements and anti-5G movements) and to analyse how they developed since the pandemic had been announced. In particular, the rising activity of the representatives of the movements will be analysed, as well as its acceleration in connection with pandemic and the resulting influence on social and political life. Finally, the paper will try examine whether the rapid development of conspiracy theories within societies has had any relations to the level of trust towards government-made decisions. The thesis being verified hereto is that pandemic accelerated the development of conspiracy theories due to the diminishing level of trust towards governments operating in the most difficult period in recent history. There are variety of reasons for the belief in conspiracy theories and they depend on the specificity of the theory and specificity of group of people it originates from. In general, it can be noted that all kind of conspiracies are developed by either (1) people who actually believe in them and are sharing them with good intentions (to warn other about the dangers hidden behind certain actions or institutions) or (2) malignant individuals whose aim is to discord or discredit an opponent or critic or, alternatively, distract attention from misconduct or lack of competence. (shrink)

La pédagogie est constitutive d’une relation de formation portée par une intention de développement de la personne mobilisant une configuration de savoirs afin d’inscrire cette personne dans un parcours de développement. La mise en oeuvre de cette relation dans une situation organisée et instrumentée produit la matière du développement, en réalité ce qui fait la valeur de la formation. L’alternance est une manière particulière d’organiser ce processus de valorisation. Dans cette contribution est analysé un dispositif faisant cohabiter deux populations en (...) alternance : des jeunes apprentis et des adultes en activité professionnelle. Une double enquête auprès de trois promotions de cette formation permet de comprendre la négociation des savoirs qui s’opère dans le cours de cette action et la résonnance que produit la pédagogie mise en oeuvre. On perçoit alors la construction de leur parcours par les alternants et les évolutions de leur rapport à l’activité. (shrink)

This article takes up, but in a different key, an argument of postmodernists that the over-rationalized conception of society tends to ignore important phenomena such as those belonging to the symbolic domain. It is suggested that the emerging programme of symbolic sociology may contribute toward a new synthetic and interdisciplinary thinking in social sciences. The concept of symbolism as a social phenomenon rather than as an autonomous linguistic or semiotic system is presented; and the argument is made that if social (...) knowledge is constitutive of society, similarly collective sentiments, temporality and collective memory are also symbolically produced. They are created from and create discursive symbolism, symbolic objects and symbolic behaviours. Finally, the article focuses on collective actions where the sociology of symbolic processes is most promising. (shrink)

Cloninger's Psychobiological Model of Personality and Strelau's Regulative Theory of Temperament - analysis of their associations in a Polish sample The present study explores the relationship between Cloninger scales and Strelau's Regulative Theory of Temperament traits. Cloninger's psychobiological model identifies four dimensions of temperament and three dimensions of character. RTT proposes the traits of Briskness, Perseveration, Sensory Sensitivity, Emotional Reactivity, Endurance and Activity as the basic dimensions underlying individual differences. The relationships between the dimensions of Cloninger's Temperament and Character and (...) Strelau's Regulative Theory of Temperament are investigated in a sample of 282 participants. Data analysis demonstrated some significant correlations between the two models. The strongest associations were found between the dimension of Harm Avoidance from Cloninger's concept and Strelau's RTT traits. However, there is not enough evidence to suggest that the two models offer an alternative way of explaining individual differences. According to RTT, temperamental traits are expressed in formal characteristics of behavior and every kind of behavior can be described in the same formal categories. In the Psychobiological Model of Personality the traits are characterized rather by the content or goals of behavior. In this model, in addition to underlining the biological variation of heritable traits, the social, cultural and phenotypical levels of behavior are reflected. (shrink)

Perceived social support and life-satisfaction The article concerns the relationship between life-satisfaction and the features of interpersonal relationships and social support. The research presented in this paper concerned the satisfaction with the relationships with family members, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, the extent of the relationships among these groups, and the perceived social support. The aim of the presented research is to assess the impact of these characteristics on life-satisfaction. In addition, the changes that occurred after the social skills training in (...) the level of life-satisfaction and its determinants were examined. The study group consisted of 60 participants. The results show that the strongest determinants of life-satisfaction are practical support and the satisfaction with the relationships with friends. After the social training the structure of the determinants changed. The factors which were relevant before the training appear to be insignificant now; however, the emotional support, satisfaction with family relationships and the number of friends gain in importance. The social skills training was also effective and increased the level of life-satisfaction. (shrink)

In this essay the author defends the traditional view of science: science as an activity of approaching the truthful knowledge about real world. Accepting this, she then analyses the main topics of contemporary philosophy of science, such as language of science, scientific laws, differences between empirical theories and models, and the question of truthfulness in science.

The incidence of obesity, defined as the fraction of persons with BMIs exceeding 30·0, was examined in two birth cohorts of 401996 decade obesity increased dramatically among males with trade school education only; concomitant shifts were much smaller or absent in the college-educated groups. The contrast in obesity between the opposite ends of the educational scale has widened markedly in both genders; and the between-gender gap has declined somewhat.

Perception and conceptualization of space are some of the most basic elements of human cognition. It has been long assumed that human spatial thinkingand frames of reference used to grasp and describe the location of an object in relation to other objects are of universal nature and so are projected in naturallanguages in basically the same manner; three principal dimensions in egocentric perceptual space were distinguished: up-down, front-back and left-right, reflecting our biological make-up. If differences in spatial terminology were observed, (...) they were relegated to surface structure phenomena, but were not regarded as differences in perceptual and conceptual representations in the human mind. That belief in the universal perception of spatial relations among humans was ofconsiderable importance for some philosophical theories, also for Husserl’s conception of the Lebenswelt a priori and his defence of the validity of scientificpropositions and of absolute truth. It now appears that the extent of the diversity in spatial thinking has been drastically underestimated (Levinson 2003), but it does not follow that Husserl’s intuitions regarding the existence of universal constituents in incompatible Lebenswelt experiences were necessarily wrong. (shrink)

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”. As a result, cultural rights have been understood as inseparable from human rights and require protection mechanisms within particular international legal systems. The European continent is proud to have developed one of the most effective mechanisms of the human rights protection by establishing the Council (...) of Europe and adopting the European Court of Human Rights. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 reformulated many concepts of access to human rights and possibilities to enjoy freedoms. Even if access to culture has been available online for many years, it is the time of globally occurring lockdowns that forced people to stay home and found themselves in a situation when all of a sudden online access to culture became the only way of access to culture. The article aims to analyze the current situation in Europe by asking questions if and how online access to culture is recognized and protected under the Council of Europe’s mechanisms with special emphasis on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in this field. (shrink)

The article is devoted to reception of Austrian literature before the Second World War in Wiadomości Literackie. It was the most popular letter, whose aim was to educate society, and popularize foreign literature and culture. The literature that was most often promoted was French literature, but also German-speaking authors were discussed. Austrian literature was not treated as distinct from German literature during that time but nontheless, the articles presents artists, of Austrian origin: Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo (...) von Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Odon von Horváth, Franz Werfel and others. The article examines interviews with these writers as well as reviews their books and other texts which appeared in Wiadomości Literackie. (shrink)

The fast changing business environment and the ever-growing de- mand facing professional communicators in the 21st century pose new challenges to language learners and teachers alike. Competitive business organizations at- tempt to recruit employees who have excellent linguistic competence coupled with nonlinguistic competences and skills. It is not easy to acquire these addi- tional competences and skills. However, most of them are transferable and can be greatly improved if students are provided with adequate teaching materials and appropriate input from the (...) teacher. The aim of the paper is to address the complexity of ESP teaching today. Firstly, it presents an overview of the changes that have occurred in the practice of teaching ESP in the last few decades. It also sheds some light on the increasing importance of needs analysis. Then it presents new developments in teaching English for professional communication at the ter- tiary level of education. These developments include content-and-language integrated learning, use of didactic case studies, corpus studies con- ducted for teaching purposes and aimed at identifying high-frequency language elements: terms, specialized lexis items, collocations, formulae, acronyms, etc., that need to be prioritized in language courses, more effective course-books with higher terminology indexes, extended use of online materials, teach- ing writing for specialized purposes, and teaching cross-cultural and social skills. The new approach is more challenging for ESP teachers and requires much higher qualifications, such as content knowledge and transferable skills. In order to increase students’ employability and promotion opportunities, we need teaching materials and approaches that help streamline students’ efforts, economize on time, and increase the effectiveness of language courses. (shrink)

In the article the possibility of an access to reality, and thus the possibility of an attainment of truth is discussed. In the contrary of Adam Grobler's claims it is argued that the problem with the relation language-reality is not an interpretation of a language in a way fitting the reality, but a search for an appropriate language, a conceptual frame to grasp recognized phenomena. So a recognition of reality is primary, not a language.