Filozoficzne rozważania na temat cywilizacji w ostatecznym rozrachunku stoją pod znakiem zapytania o ich prawomocność. Zdawałoby się, iż studia cywilizacyjne winnioemy zostawiæ antropologom, historykom, politologom i innym przedstawicielom nauk szczegółowych. Filozofie cywilizacji natomiast powinny zostać odłożone do antykwariatu doktryn spekulatywnych. Odpowiedź filozofów na takie pytanie da się łatwo przewidzieć: każda teoria cywilizacji zakłada jakąś jej filozofię. Ale typów tej filozofii jest ledwie kilka, przeto zasadne jest pytanie, czy wobec postępów kulturoznawstwa istnieją jakieś powody – poza antykwarycznymi,które usprawiedliwiałyby referowanie dawnych koncepcji (...) tego czy innego rodzaju, skoro mamy nowsze, w domyśle: zbudowane przy pomocy wyników aktualnych badań, a przede wszystkim jakoś uwzględniające wydarzenia, które zaszły na przełomie XX w. A jednak kumulatywny postęp nauk szczegółowych, szczególnie społecznych nie zawsze koreluje z dopracowywaniem ich paradygmatów. Bywa wręcz odwrotnie, przez co pierwotna postać jakiejś idei filozoficznej może okazać się bogatsza i po prostu ciekawsza niż jej późniejsze formy. Czasami postać pierwotna lepiej ujawnia swój aspekt spekulatywny, zamaskowany późniejszymi, kolejnymi próbami „naukowego udowodnienia”. Zdarza się i tak, że oryginalna idea filozoficzna zostaje zarzucona z przyczyn politycznych albo przeciwnie, ulega upolitycznieniu. Przykładami są dwie doktryny, które zestawiamy w niniejszym artykule. W naszym pojęciu egzemplifikują przeciwstawne a uzupełniające się paradygmaty nauki o kulturze. To, że stworzyli je Polacy: Feliks Koneczny i Erazm Majewski jest z historycznego punktu widzenia znamienne, choć rzecz jasna nie wpływa na ich analizę. Zresztą, o ile wiemy, doktryny Konecznego i Majewskiego nie były jeszcze systematycznie porównywane. A jest to chyba porównanie interesujące samo w sobie, skoro z jednej strony Majewski był, obok Spencera i Znanieckiego, jednym z głównych źródeł inspiracji doktryny Konecznego, a z drugiej sam jest godzien uwagi, niezależnie od paradygmatu, który reprezentuje. […]. (shrink)

The subject of the article is the concept of a man formed by a Polish philosopher and sociologist Erazm Majewski. A special attention was paid the premises, which as defined by Majewski, enabled a man to cross the borders of the animal world. Anthropological studies conducted by Majewski contributed to a deeper understanding of an exceptional being, i.e. man. Majewski made an attempt to solve the riddle of man from the perspective of both natural history (...) and sociology. (shrink)

In this paper we define the relation t of elementary extension of topological models in the language L t and show a Back and Forth criterion for t. We introduce some new operations on partial homeomorphisms preserving Back and Forth properties. Some properties of t are proved by the Back and Forth technique.

The article is a critical comment on the contemporary condition of the university and the reform of higher education introduced in Poland in 2018. The management culture imposed by the reform, focused on “scientific productivity” and bibliometrics, is in conflict with the university’s ethos of striving for truth and open discussion, constitutive for the community of learners and scientists. The author argues that attachment to these values is not only a matter of tradition, but a special task of the university (...) within the contemporary public sphere, torn by axiological conflicts, and disintegrating into a number of digital “tribes”. The university as an institution developed along with the culture of axiological pluralism and rational doubt, which is supported itself. However, these values cannot be maintained if the academic doxa adopts the assumptions of radical cognitive relativism. “Anti-relativistic cognitive minimum” and the assumption of relative translatability of languages are necessary if the university is to continue to play the socially important function of supporting critical dispositions and intellectual independence. (shrink)

Syndrom uprzedmiotowienia narodowego Polaków jest systemem hamowania aktywności zbiorowej i jednostkowej. Wytwarzany jest poprzez redukcje instytucjonalnych podstaw samostanowienia obywateli, a pogłębiany z powodu niemożności akumulacji osobistej własności i gospodarowania dobrem wspólnym przez pojedyncze podmioty. Polega tez na blokowaniu personalnej dyspozycji do rozpoznania narzucanych zależności. W okresie transformacji politycznej w Polsce po 1989 roku takie strategie zostały skutecznie zastosowane.

This book explores the representations of Central and Eastern European histories in digital games. Focusing on games that examine a range of national histories and heritages from across Central and Eastern Europe, the volume looks beyond the diversity of the local histories depicted in games, and the audience reception of these histories, to show a diversity of approaches which can be used in examining historical games - from postcolonialism to identity politics to heritage studies. The book includes chapters on Serbia, (...) Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia, Czechia, Finland, and (a Western guest with regional connections) Luxembourg. Through the lens of videogames, the authors address how nations struggle with the legacies of war, colonialism and religious strife that have been a part of nation-building - but also how victimized cultures can survive, resist, and sometimes prevail. Appealing primarily to scholars in the fields of game studies, heritage studies, postcolonial criticism, and media studies, this book will be particularly useful for the subfields of historical game studies and postcolonial game studies. (shrink)

This book explores the representations of national Asian histories in digital games. Situated at the intersection of regional game studies and historical game studies, this book offers chapters on histories and heritages of Japan, China, Iran, Iraq, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Turkey, and Russia. The volume looks beyond the diversity of the local histories depicted in games, and the audience reception of these histories, to show a diversity of approaches which can be used in examining historical games- from postcolonialism (...) to identity politics to heritage studies. It demonstrates various methodological approaches to historical/regional game studies: case studies of nationally produced historical games that deal with local history, studies of media reception of history/heritage-themed games, text-mining methods studying attitudes expressed by players of such games, and educational perspectives on games in teaching cultural heritage. Through the lens of videogames, the authors explore how nations struggle with the legacies of war, colonialism and religious strife that have been a part of nationbuilding - but also how victimized cultures can survive, resist, and sometimes prevail. Appealing primarily to scholars in the fields of game studies, heritage studies, postcolonial criticism, and media studies, this book will be particularly useful for the subfields of historical game studies and postcolonial game studies. (shrink)

There were few Marxist sympathizers among Polish classicists decimated during World War II. How they fared during the tense and uncertain first postwar decade depended on their Communist connections and personality. Kazimierz Majewski (1903–1981), a classicist from Lviv, commanded quasi-universal respect in the academic community – despite his Communist views – because of his scholarly, organizational, and didactic achievements. Tasked with organizing and inaugurating a new Polish University in Wrocław in 1945, he contributed to creating three thriving classical departments (...) – philology, ancient history, and archaeology – a scholarly society, academic journals, and a vibrant academic community. When he moved to Warsaw four years later, he founded an institute for material culture, developed a multidisciplinary research team, and launched within the Soviet bloc two major archaeological excavation projects, in Olbia and in Novae, where generations of archaeologists learned how to perform fieldwork and communicate its results internationally through regular publications and cooperation. Through his Party connections, he protected and ensured support for colleagues less fortunate in this respect. (shrink)

Did Erasmus of Rotterdam reject all philosophy, or rather did he have a very special understanding of it as, at its best, a way of life? This study attempts to answer this question. The work reconstructs his concept of philosophy.

‘Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea.’ But when is a mens rea? In the last twenty years discussions of this question have been stimulated by controversial decisions in the English House of Lords in the cases of Smith, Morgan and Majewski.The case of Smith decided that a man might be guilty of murder if a reasonable person, knowing the circumstances, would have foreseen that death would result even if the agent himself did not so foresee. This appeal (...) to the ‘reasonable person’ imports what is known as the ‘objective test’ as opposed to the ‘subjective test’ of the agent's actual foresight or knowledge. The case of Morgan inclined per contra to the subjective test. (shrink)

Discussions of the object as a key to understanding central aspects of modern and contemporary art. Artists increasingly refer to "post-object-based" work while theorists engage with material artifacts in culture. A focus on "object-based" learning treats objects as vectors for dialogue across disciplines. Virtual imaging enables the object to be abstracted or circumvented, while immaterial forms of labor challenge materialist theories. This anthology surveys such reappraisals of what constitutes the "objectness" of production, with art as its focus. Among the topics (...) it examines are the relation of the object to subjectivity; distinctions between objects and things; the significance of the object's transition from inert mass to tool or artifact; and the meanings of the everyday in the found object, repetition in the replicated or multiple object, loss in the absent object, and abjection in the formless or degraded object. It also explores artistic positions that are anti-object; theories of the experimental, liminal or mental object; and the role of objects in performance. The object becomes a prism through which to reread contemporary art and better understand its recent past. Artists surveyed include Georges Adéagbo, Art in Ruins, Iain Baxter, Louise Bourgeois, Pavel Büchler, Lygia Clark, Claude Closky, Brian Collier, Jimmie Durham, Fischli & Weiss, Luca Frei, Meschac Gaba, Isa Genzken, Gruppe Geflecht, Eva Hesse, Mike Kelley, John Latham, Antje Majewski, Gustav Metzger, Cady Noland, Gabriel Orozco, Adrian Piper, Falke Pisano, Eva Rothschild, Aura Satz, Kenneth Snelson, Hito Steyerl, Josef Strau, Alina Szapocznikow, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Erwin Wurm Writers include Homi K. Bhabha, Jack Burnham, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Lynne Cooke, Gillo Dorfles, Jean Fisher, Ferreira Gullar, Charles Harrison, Paulo Herkenhoff, Julia Kristeva, Bruno Latour, Bracha Lichtenberg-Ettinger, Jean-François Lyotard, Lev Manovich, Ursula Meyer, Bruno Munari, Georges Perec, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Dieter Roelstraete, Howard Singerman, Nancy Spector, Marcus Steinweg, Anne Wagner, Gérard Wajcman, Slavoj Zizek. (shrink)

Through a direct reference to Louis Marin’s theory of the visual representation, in the article some filmic and non-filmic images (Biblical episodes, paintings, tapestry, movies and digital images) are analysed as they all display the character of a screen. The convergence between visual representations and screens is then generalized in order to show that, at least during Western Modernity, image vision often functioned as an absorption into a screen space, where the spectator was not only able to reorganize his optical (...) experience, but was also empowered, through the relationship established with the figures in the representation, to act and display his/her agency, desires and claims. Considered as screens, images show thus the coincidence between an aesthetic and a political experience, where the spectator is not a passive consumer, but an actor on the stage. (shrink)