Where you have freedom, the meaning of the word increases, where the word is meaningful, you presuppose freedom." Józef Tischner.

After the unexpected death of Professor Józef Kałuża at the age of 74 on the 26th of July 2003, not only Polish neuropathology but also Polish philosophy of medical investigations lost one of its most renowned minds. Beginning in 1949, Professor Kałuża studied medical sciences for five years at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. He did his Ph.D. thesis in neuropathology in the Department of Neuropathology of the Polish Academy of Science. In 1962 he received a (...) Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and spent one year at the National Institutes of Health. In 1981 Professor Kaluza was promoted to a tenured professorship in neuropathology. He is the author of more than 110 articles published in medical periodicals and coauthor of many chapters in medical handbooks. (shrink)

The Struggle for Nature outlines and examines the main aspects of current environmental philosophy including deep ecology, social and political ecology, eco-feminism and eco-anarchism. It criticizes the dependency on science of these philosophies and the social problems engendered by them. Jozef Keulartz argues for a post-naturalistic turn in environmental philosophy. The Struggle for Nature presents the most up-to-date arguments in environmental philosophy, which will be valuable reading for anyone interested in applied philosophy, environmental studies or geography.

I defend two main theses. First, I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the cause of one’s actions in virtue of being (qua) the individual one is. Aristotle contrasts voluntary action not only with involuntary action but also with cases in which one acts (or does something) due to one’s nature (for example, in virtue of being a member of a certain species) rather than due to one’s own desires (i.e. qua (...) individual). An action can be attributed to one qua individual in two distinct ways depending on whether one is a rational or a non-rational animal. One is responsible for one’s action in both cases, but only in the former case is one also responsible for being the sort of individual that performs it. Aristotle also distinguishes two ways in which an action can be compelled while still being an action of the agent. In the first case, one is compelled by (physically) external forces or circumstances to act against one’s internal impulse. In the second case, one is compelled to act on (internal) impulses that are fixed by one’s nature against one’s own individual impulse. This latter kind of compelled action is only possible in the case of rational agents. Secondly, I argue that Aristotle’s conception of what it is to be a cause of an action inevitably brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame. On Aristotle’s view, any goal-directed behavior that is properly attributable to an individual is (normally) subject to standards that pertain to behavior of that sort. At the most basic level, these standards establish what counts as a successful realization of the goal that one aims at. Thus even in the case of non-rational animals (or children), one can judge the success of what they are doing and encourage (or discourage) similar behavior by praise or blame. These standards are applicable to one’s conduct simply insofar as one is the controlling origin (or efficient cause) of one’s action qua individual. In the case of rational agents the practice of praise and blame can involve a further normative layer since they can be praised or blamed not only for acting in a certain way so as to encourage or discourage them with a view to the future, but also for being – and having become – individuals of a certain sort. Nevertheless, the applicability of such evaluative judgments and of praise and blame is still warranted by one’s being the controlling origin of one’s actions qua the individual one is (in this case, qua rational individual). (shrink)

Excerpt from A History of Formal Logic In this edition of the most considerable history Of formal logic yet published, the Opportunity has Of course been taken to make some adjustments seen to be necessary in the original, with the author's full concurrence. Only in 36, however, has the numeration of cited passages been altered owing to the introduction of new matter. Those changes are as follows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. (...) Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The primary goal of this article is to get to the specifics of Zbigniew Herbert’s work. The poet had formal philosophical education and cannot be treated merely as a writer raising existential issues. The consequence of his studies in philosophy with the most eminent Polish philosophers of the time was that he took up important philosophical questions rather than used the answers that philosophers of the past had given. This is an important feature of his poetry and distinguishes Herbert from (...) those writers who subscribed to the worldview of their era. Failure to distinguish between these two stances has led to one-sided readings of his poem To Marcus Aurelius. The interpretations of the last sixty years quoted in the article lead to the conclusion that we are dealing with a kind of “contemporary”, or modified, “stoicism”. Later scholars interpreted the work as existential. A comparison of the poem with the work of Marcus Aurelius, and above all, an analysis of the differences between the ancient and modern understanding of such concepts as “nature”, “fate”, “self”, or “suffering”, allowed us to show the internal intellectualemotional tension in Herbert’s poem, and above all, the general idea of philosophizing poetry. The poet himself believed that it resembles primary reflection, such as that of the early Ionian thinkers. This is not about philosophizing on the basis of an elaborate conceptual apparatus, but about philosophical intuition and “philosophical experience”, an intellectual and emotional tension, in which – thanks to poetic talent – beauty is born. The dialog in To Marcus Aurelius is precisely a record of such poetic agitation. (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtue of character is a state of the non-rational part of the soul that makes one prone to making and acting on decisions in virtue of that part’s standing in the right relation to (correct) reason, namely, a relation that qualifies the agent as a true self-lover. In effect, this central feature of virtue of character is nothing else than love of practical wisdom. As I argue, it not only explains how reason can hold direct (...) authority over non-rational desires but also why Aristotle defines virtue of character as hexis prohairetikē. (shrink)

The paper addresses the following question: why do human beings, on Aristotle’s view, have an innate tendency to badness, that is, to developing desires that go beyond, and often against, their natural needs? Given Aristotle’s teleological assumptions (including the thesis that nature does nothing in vain), such tendency should not be present. I argue that the culprit is to be found in the workings of rationality. In particular, it is the presence of theoretical reason that necessitates the limitless nature of (...) human non-rational desires. (shrink)

Józef Lipiec proposes his typology of axiological subjectivities according to levels of their commitment to values. He distinguishes 6 types of them in the order from complete passivity to full creativity. He also discusses ontological conditions of the axiological creativity. As for the problem of the origins of this kind of creativeness, the author opts for moderate determinism: the outer world provokes man to create values, but itself it is only a reservoir with raw material of which values can be (...) made out. (shrink)

I argue for a standpoint that—against various kinds of naturalism—epistemology is a complete philosophical science. Epistemology is theoretically and methodologically self-sufficient. It has its good described subject, its characteristic research methods and its exactly described goal. The subject of epistemology is broadly comprehended cognition (knowledge)—cognition (knowledge) is comprehended as action as well as result. Among various methods peculiar to philosophy it is necessary to distinguish first of all phenomenological, transcendental and analytical methods. However, the main goal of epistemology has been (...) and still is a solution of the objective cognition issue—the problem of cognition adequacy and of its transcendence. Epistemology can achieve this goal only when: (1) it resists the temptation of its subject naturalization; (2) against the propositional theory of truth it operates a broad concept of cognition; (3) against manykinds of representationism (mediatism) it does not resign from the concept of direct cognition, i.e. view of presentationism. Thanks to reference to source cognitions and direct knowledge the realistic world view is also defendable. (shrink)

Existing literature on equity considerations for climate change mitigation and adaptation has almost exclusively focused on fair burden sharing between nations. However, disparities among regions a...

The recent widespread shift in governance from the state to the market and to civil society, in combination with the simultaneous shift from the national level to supra-national and sub-national levels has led to a significant increase in the numbers of public and private players in nature policy. This in turn has increased the need for a common vocabulary to articulate and communicate views and values concerning nature among various actors acting on different administrative levels. In this article, we will (...) examine the role of concepts of nature as communicative devices in public debates and political decision-making. We try to show that the now dominant functionalist approach to concepts of nature, due to its focus on interests, threatens to narrow public and political communications to purely strategic negotiations. Instead of this functionalist approach we put forward a structuralist approach, which focuses not on interests but on values. (shrink)

I argue that on Aristotle’s account practical thinking is thinking whose origin (archē) is a desire that has as its object the very thing that one reasons about how to promote. This feature distinguishes practical from productive reasoning since in the latter the desire that initiates it is not (unless incidentally) a desire for the object that one productively reasons about. The feature has several interesting consequences: (a) there is only a contingent relationship between the desire that one practically reasons (...) about how to satisfy and the action one decides on; (b) practical thinking and action cannot be separated from the agent, whereas productive thinking and production can be outsourced to someone else. The view has consequences also for the distinction between action and production. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness and correctness of my account of practical thinking by using it to shed new light on Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous agent must decide on her virtuous actions ‘for themselves’. (shrink)

For my part I seek the metaphilosophical in universalism in the interdisciplinariness concept typical for ecology and system and information theory. I reject monologue as a form of hegemony and propose dialogue as an interpersonal path for seekers and cocreators of truth. I accept relational and reject substantialistic ontologies and all absolutism, including virtues, in an attempt to make room for the quest for common values attainable by those who identify with them on multiple levels (the universalism of Paul of (...) Tarsis). Hence, basing on humanity’s cultural and civilizational multiplicity, I analyze the Europeanism idea through the prism of centripetal and centrifugal forces, locating “Polish” elements on this path. On one hand I approach Europeanism as the most immediate of the environments which reflect and make understandable the spiritual aspects of Polishness, on the other hand I suggest that many of its aspects should be avoided.Nonetheless I commend the disclosure and sustainance of the separateness of ethical norms developed by the ancient Greek from the legal norms instituted by Rome and the religious norms imposed on our western civilization by Christianity. This is something other civilizations lack and what bars them from more intensive participation in humanity’s advancement towards universal civilization—no longer seen as monopolistic, as in the ecological perspective this would only enhance mankind’s destruction. From the Polish perspective the most valuable Europeanism aspects are diversity, methodology in the quest for truth in philosophy, religion and science, openness to the objective products of the human spirit (which Islamic civilization opposed), and a strong accent on praxis.To close I will allow myself reference to Janusz Kuczyński’s Polishness Decalogue, an attempt to analyze the Polish “national spirit” and pinpoint those universal aspects of “Polishness” which—as clusters of empirical, social, theoretical and cultural facts—still fill Polish hearts with pride. Here, as we can see, the initially concretized universality criterion ultimately becomes an applied valuation category. Hence, universalism as a meta-philosophy appears to be a philosophy of essence, not fact, and therefore not subject to valuation. (shrink)

This book consists of the edited proceedings of a debate among Jurgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and Leszek Kolakowski that was held in Warsaw in May of 1995. It includes also commentary from those in attendance, including extensive remarks by Ernest Gellner. The debate marked the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and focussed primarily on topics related to historicism and cultural relativism.

The paper presents research into the effects of the use of negations in directives. Three experiments are described that tested the effects of instructions formulated in various ways: direct and negated commands to focus the attention. Indicators of attention focusing that were used include: the correctness of answers to questions about a selection of comic book pages ; the time needed to name the colours of stimulus words and the level of recall of these words after completion of the colour (...) naming task. The results showed that a direct command influenced all indicators of attention focusing. However, a negated command increased the level of recall of details about the comic book pages, as well as the level of key word recall. Both the automatic process that generates the paradoxical effects of negated commands, as well as the controlled process of reasoning, may be responsible for the results of the memory task. (shrink)

We examine the intentional processes that correspond to conceptualizations of activities performed by subjects with the intention of achieving an objective. Taking as its basis a general framework of intentional processes, two types of such process are considered: epistemic ones, aimed at acquiring knowledge about something, and poietic ones, aimed at bringing about something. The “something” is understood as anything that the processes can pertain to: a physical, mental or abstract object, a phenomenon, a state of affairs, etc. The generic (...) features of such processes are discussed, with focus on: features that are common for epistemic and poietic intentional processes as well as on features that differentiate them, the dynamic and static features of the processes, and on issues involved in controlling the progression of the processes towards intended objectives. The latter issue is the essential part of our considerations, the two former establish the necessary conceptual framework. The presented analysis aims at shedding light on these aspects of human intentional activities which can be considered virtually independent of any specific area of human intentional activity, be it natural sciences, humanities or technology. (shrink)

W 2021 roku przypada 700. rocznica śmierci Dantego, jednego z największych twórców literatury światowej. Polska tradycja klasyczna, romantyczna i katolicka przez wieki czerpała pełnymi garściami z jego dzieł, a szczególnie z _Boskiej Komedii. _Dante był bliski wielu pokoleniom naszych przodków, towarzysząc im na kolejnych szczeblach edukacji: gimnazjalnej, licealnej i uniwersyteckiej. Dla uczącej się młodzieży był mentorem i nauczycielem ukazującym naturę ludzką w pełnym jej wymiarze – od bestialstwa po heroizm i świętość. W czasach zamętu, którego obecnie doświadczamy, kiedy nie tylko (...) jednostki i wspólnoty, ale wręcz cała zachodnia cywilizacja znalazły się w „ciemnym lesie” i zostały wydane na łup trzech bestii : pychy, chciwości i pożądliwości, Dante Alighieri pozostaje drogowskazem i natchnieniem dla ludzi podzielających przekonanie, że istnieje prawda obiektywna oraz wartości uniwersalne, które wiążą wszystkich ludzi bez względu na rasę, narodowość i status społeczny. (shrink)

In Belgium the multiple preferential voting system was for the first time applied to parliamentary elections in 1995. Since then the electorate has the possibility to cast a vote for several candidates figuring on the same party list.As a result of this voting system change, more voters used the possibilities offered by the preferential voting system than during the 1991 elections: almost 57% of the electorate of 1995 cast a multiple vote on candidates for the House of Representatives - this (...) was an increase of 8,6% compared to the 1991 results. For the Senate, the trend is even clearer: 59% of the electorate expressed their preference for one or more candidates of the Senate, resulting in an increase of 18,3% compared to 1991. Though one has to add that the above mentioned increases are only partly due to the election system change. Part of the increase is actually also due to a more accurate handling by the Ministery of Internal Affairs of the multiple preferential voting data figuring on the ballot-papers.Compared to previous elections the use of preferential voting was for the first time higher for the Senate than for the House of Representatives. Furthermore, the analysis showed that the use of the multiple preferential vote is varying from one constituency to another, from Flemings to Walloons and from one political party to another. (shrink)

From 19th January 2013 there have been changes in the operation of driver training centres due to the legislation regarding vehicle drivers coming into force. Changes related to the conduct of driving schools concern four major areas. The first one is a new form of enrolment on driving courses by candidates for drivers, which is done by using the so-called Profile of Candidate for Driver (PCD) generated by the county authorities. The second aspect is the new formula of the theoretical (...) state examination. The third issue is the introduction of cash registers for the operators conducting drivers’ education. The fourth feature is the introduction of new categories of the driving license, in particular a category including two-wheeled vehicles. The existing regulations, as well as the huge competition in the market, have contributed to the fact that the activity of training of candidates for drivers has been dominated by the principle according to which the service must be performed in a cheap and fast way. It automatically translates into the low quality of training and the disregard of procedural steps associated with it. In practice, the lack of adequate control on the part of the state is the reason for the fact that driving has become an arbitrary function based on ruthless marketing and low-cost services. In this situation, ethical dilemmas arise that, in the author’s opinion, will not necessarily be resolved by the new legal standards for drivers. (shrink)

Professional Ethics Code in Accounting constitutes a set of principles and values of everyday conduct of people whose work is connected with accounting. Accounting is an information system of enterprises, so it forms the basis of reliable management. Therefore information generated by accounting must be credible. Otherwise, the managing process would be based on false reports, which in consequence could lead to a fall of an economic subject, or it would at least cause the loss of clients, cooperators and associates` (...) trust. Accounting Association in Poland as an organization with more than one hundred years` tradition for people connected with enterprise accounting out of concern for reliability and fairness of carried out and registered economic transactions, recommended the first in Poland ethics code directed to accountants as a professional group. Professional Ethics Code in Accounting is a set of norms which aim is to help people connected with accounting solve ethical dilemmas appearing in their job. It can be said that this code is, so to speak, an answer to unfair accusations formulated against accountants being (in some people`s opinion) a group of “criminals in white collars”. It is obvious that there are different people with different characters in each society. Pathologies were and will be present everywhere. Accountants` environment is not free of them, which is proved by accounting scandals in Poland and abroad (for example the case of Enron company in the United States). In order to avoid generalizing, it must be underlined that among the ones connected with accounting, there are a lot of honest people caring about the company`s good name. (shrink)