The article proposes a new solution to the long-standing problem of the universality of essences in Spinoza's ontology. It argues that, according to Spinoza, particular things in nature possess unique essences, but that these essences coexist with more general, mind-dependent species-essences, constructed by finite minds on the basis of similarities that obtain among the properties of formally-real particulars. This account provides the best fit both with the textual evidence and with Spinoza's other metaphysical and epistemological commitments. The article offers new (...) readings of how Spinoza understands not just the nature of essence, but also the nature of being, reason, striving, definitions, and different kinds of knowledge. (shrink)

The emotion of disgust is suggested to be an adaptation that evolved to keep us away from sources of infection. Therefore, individuals from populations with greater pathogen stress should have a greater disgust sensitivity. However, current evidence for a positive relationship between disgust sensitivity and the intensity of infectious diseases in the environment is limited. We tested whether disgust and contamination sensitivity changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Disgust was assessed in 984 women in 2017 and 633 women in (...) 2020 by a set of photographs depicting sources of infection and Pathogen and Moral of Three-Domain Disgust Scale. Further, contamination sensitivity among participants in two waves was measured by Contamination Obsessions and Washing Compulsions Subscale of Padua Inventory. State anxiety was measured with the Polish adaptation of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory only during the second wave of data collection. Women from the COVID-19 pandemic group assessed the photographs depicting sources of infection as more disgusting, scoring higher on Padua Inventory, but lower on Moral Disgust Domain as compared to women from before the pandemic. In addition, anxiety levels during pandemic positively correlated with scores from Pathogen Disgust Domain, Padua Inventory, and the ratings of the photographs. The participants of the study scored higher in state anxiety than the norms determined for the Polish population. Summarizing, we present evidence for differences in individual levels of disgust sensitivity in relation to pathogen stress, supporting the idea that disgust evolved to serve as protection from pathogens. (shrink)

The article is an introduction to the issue of Polish literature written in Germany after 1989. The first part of the work focuses around the current literary discussions on defining and developing the terminology and methods enabling research into this new literature – written abroad after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Post­-emigration literature, migration literature, minority literature, multi­-, inter­-, trans­-cultural and diasporic literature – these are only a few of the suggested terms. The second part of the article refers (...) to the works of selected representatives of Polish literature written after 1989 and the issues they discuss in their works. The purpose of the article is to briefly present the complexity of an important problem in the views of Polish, German and Slavic philologists. At the same time, it aims to show that study of the phenomenon in question is still insufficient. (shrink)

The chief concern of the paper is to initiate discussion on the difference between the private and public power of judgement. The inspiration comes from Kant and his conception of the power of judgement, customs, morality and provisional law.

At least many conditionals seem to convey the existence of a link between their antecedent and consequent. We draw on a recently proposed typology of conditionals to revive an old philosophical idea according to which the link is inferential in nature. We show that the proposal has explanatory force by presenting empirical results on two Dutch linguistic markers.

The paper explores situational and dispositional underpinnings of cooperative behavior. According to psychological research, cooperation is strongly related to affective states and personality dimensions. In an experimental study we examined the conditions under which people cooperate with each other. The dispositional traits of co-workers, the contribution to a collaborative effort, and a situational factor – ambient odor condition were taken into consideration. A one-way ANOVA revealed that compared to a malodorous condition, both the pleasant odor condition and the natural odor (...) condition showed higher rates of cooperation. Further analysis indicated that only malodors influenced affective states which in turn determined social decisions. Although we found effects for the participants’ agreeableness and the coworker’s contribution to a joint work, they appeared to play a less critical role than affective states induced by the experimental odor conditions tested here. (shrink)

Explicit and implicit values of polish grandmothers and their granddaughters The authors tried to determine if and to what extent maternal granddaughters share the explicit and implicit values of their grandmothers. 80 grandmothers-granddaughter dyads were surveyed using Schwartz' SVS and Mudyń's RN-02, an instrument assigned to identify "ontological orientations". The results indicate that: 1) grandmothers differ significantly from granddaughters in all ontological orientations, especially in Theoretical and Religious orientation, 2) they differ also in personal values, except for Universalism and Power, (...) 3) regression analysis revealed two decisive factors which determine convergence of ontological orientations and values in grandmother-granddaughter dyads, i.e. and level of education and attitudes toward religion. It may mean that these are the two important transmitters of world view as well as personal values. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to show some processes of the growth of knowledge. An astrophysical case: a problem of planets around pulsars formation is studied. In the first part reasons for taking this problem are presented. Then some historical facts about discoveries of planets around pulsars are mentioned. The paper focuses on three cases: PSR1257+12, PSR1620-26 and PSR J 1719-1438. In second part of the article the changes in the theoretical point of view, which occured during the (...) last twenty years, are presented. At the end the attempt is made to describe the process of the growth of the planets around pulsars within the framework of formation. (shrink)

The book discusses a democratic legitimation for modern law. Debates on Europeanisation are taken into account. Ronald Dworkin's, Neil MacCormick's and Jürgen Habermas's standpoints on relations between the law and the public sphere are investigated. Concepts of self-reflexive polity, self-constitutionalisation, constitutional patriotism are analysed.

The paper examines a relatively neglected element of Spinoza's theory of mind-body relations: the intentional relation between human minds and bodies, which for Spinoza constitutes their “union”. Prima facie textual evidence suggests, and many readers agree, that because for Spinoza human minds are essentially ideas of bodies, Spinoza is also committed to an ontological and explanatory dependence of certain properties of human minds on properties of bodies, and thus to a version of materialism. The paper argues that such dependence would (...) contradict Spinoza's key epistemological commitments, including the explanatory closure of mental and physical realms, and Spinoza’s claim that all knowledge is knowledge of a thing's causes. The paper argues that Spinoza's dual-reality theory of representation allows us to interpret the intentional relation between human minds and bodies in a way that does not commit Spinoza to a problematic dependence of minds on bodies. This is possible if we take Spinoza's references to properties of bodies in his account of the human mind as references to objectively real bodies, that is as references to the immanent representational content of human minds. (shrink)

A pertinent concern in the human enhancement debate is that human enhancement technologies (HET) are intrinsically bad and, hence, morally impermissible. This article evaluates the related claims about the intrinsic badness of HET by looking into philosophical theories of intrinsic value. It investigates how well-established conceptions of intrinsic value map onto typical bioconservative arguments about HET's intrinsic badness. Three predominant variants of these arguments are explored and found wanting: (i) HET are intrinsically bad owing to their unnaturalness; (ii) the pursuit (...) of HET reveals intrinsically bad character (“the desire for mastery”); and (iii) HET will necessarily undermine intrinsically valuable things (e.g., human dignity). My analysis shows that the debate on intrinsic value places serious constraints on claims about the intrinsic badness of HET. More specifically, the analysis shows that bioconservative arguments are, for the most part, inconsistent, misconceived, and overly speculative. Enhancement interventions cannot be bearers of intrinsic value on any of its plausible understandings, and, even if we could grant such a possibility, there are no compelling reasons to presume that the intrinsic value of HET would be necessarily negative. As a result, claims regarding their moral impermissibility are unwarranted. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 2 Seiten: 196-233.

The aim of this article is to present some of the results of empirical research on the communication process at a trial conducted in Polish courts. These results will concern the participation of non-professional participants of a trial and the ways in which they deal with the communication process in the courtroom. The article presents the results of the analysis of the research material conducted in accordance with the detailed research questions and analytical categories. The analysis has especially shown that: (...) (1) the non-professional participants used some legal terminology, but the statements without legal terminology were also communicatively effective; (2) the level of activity of non-professional participants related to participation at the trial varied depending on what the activity concerned; the activity in asking questions to the presiding judges regarding legal issues and the course of the court proceedings appeared to be significant; (3) the non-professional participants’ had a real and significant problem with asking questions during the examination (the proper realization of this element of the trial); (4) the statements of the non-professional participants of a trial were very protective; they used many different “linguistic means of protection” (e.g., acts of supposition or acts of doubt) which are connected with the obligation to tell the truth, the prohibition of concealing the truth and giving false testimony during examination; (5) the non-professional participants of a trial reach for adequate argumentative acts, which are suitable for influencing the perception of specific events or persons, and they strengthen their statements by using appropriate linguistic means of persuasion. (shrink)

The subject of interest of this article is procedural acts considered as double-conventionalized acts. It is assumed in this article that in the case of procedural acts, one can distinguish two levels of conventionalization: the level of a speech act and the level of a procedural act. Both above-mentioned levels affect each other in various ways, what is discussed in the article. As assumed in the article, the analysis of acts characterized by this particular trait and with due account of (...) this trait allows one to observe phenomena that can be hard or even impossible to notice in the process of analyzing acts that are deprived of this trait. Furthermore, it seems that the description of this type of acts may particularly enrich the current discussion on some properties of speech acts held on the grounds of philosophy of language or pragmalinguistics. The research material used in this article as an illustration consists of actual utterances of participants of Polish court proceedings used by them at a hearing. (shrink)

Motivational internalism is a view about the connection between motivation and moral judgment. The debate over internalism has long focused on establishing the nature of the connection between moral judgment and motivation. In this paper I argue that recent studies regarding personality disorders such as psychopathy and VM damage, which have been traditionally seen as providing a counter argument to internalism, indicate that motivational deficiencies in the moral sphere are linked to motivational deficiencies in other normative spheres such as prudence. (...) This observation suggests that internalism focus of internalism should not be moral judgments simpliciter but rather the nature of the connection between motivation and the general normative sphere. If this is correct then psychopathy and VM damage should not be treated as disproving internalism, but rather as emphasizing a problem with the traditional ways it has been phrased. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to reconsider Habermas’ discourse approach in terms of its usefulness in the realm of public healthcare where, on a microscale, intersubjective communicative situations arise between defined participants, i.e., patients and healthcare providers, patients’ family members, and further eligible contributors to patient-related decision making. A need for more “communicative interaction,” and explicative and practical discourse, is illustrated by two empirical examples of medical decision making which reveal both communicative and discursive deficits. To empower and enable (...) the patient as a rational and autonomous speaker and discourse participant, a Habermasian emancipatory argument and ‘the power of the better argument’ is recalled. The possibility of equal communicative and discursive rights in the light of real inequalities is discussed in the context of a ‘competence gap’ between participants. Further sections focus on the importance of informed consent on the side of the patient and the communicative competences as an important factor of healthcare system. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to show how the notion of refutation has been changing in logic for the last few years. The idea of refutation was known to Aristotle, but the formal concept was introduced by Jan Łukasiewicz. Afterwards this notion was investigated by the Polish group of logicians headed by Jerzy Słupecki. Several interesting articles about refutation have appeared in the last years. In this article, I present in outline the history of the notion of refutation (...) and I discuss recent applications of refutation systems both in the theoretical and practical approach. (shrink)

This book offers a welcome synthesis of what we may tentatively label as ancient Greek conceptions regarding the world after death. It assumes a dual methodological perspective, that of historical anthropology and that of the history of religions. It is aimed at a general reader, especially Italian (e.g., p. 11), but scholars of many disciplines will undoubtedly benefit from the variety of interesting observations and the perspective on the topic it provides. The book opens with an introducti...

This essay is about the role of visual surveillance technologies in the policing of the external borders of the European Union. Based on an analysis of documents published by EU institutions and independent organizations, I argue that these technological innovations fundamentally alter the nature of national borders. I discuss how new technologies of vision are deployed to transcend the physical limits of territories. In the last twenty years, EU member states and institutions have increasingly relied on various forms of remote (...) tracking, including the use of drones for the purposes of monitoring frontier zones. In combination with other facets of the EU border management regime, these technologies coalesce into a system of governance that has enabled intervention into neighboring territories and territorial waters of other states to track and target migrants for interception in the “prefrontier.” For jurisdictional reasons, this practice effectively precludes the enforcement of legal human rights obligations, which European states might otherwise have with regard to these persons. This article argues that this technologically mediated expansion of vision has become a key feature of post–cold war governance of borders in Europe. The concept of transterritory is proposed to capture its effects. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Conditional Non-Contradiction (CNC), conditionals of the form “If p, q” and “If p, not q” cannot both be true, unless p is inconsistent. This principle is widely regarded as an adequacy constraint on any semantics that attributes truth conditions to conditionals. Gibbard has presented an example of a pair of conditionals that, in the context he describes, appear to violate CNC. He concluded from this that conditionals lack truth conditions. We argue that this conclusion is (...) rash by proposing a new diagnosis of what is going on in Gibbard’s argument. We also provide empirical evidence in support of our proposal. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to study the level of knowledge and declared behaviour towards the environment among academic teachers at one of the Polish universities. In the theorertical part the main assumptions of the grounded theory are presented. Next, research methodology is presented. The research was conducted in September 2017 among twenty academic teachers in the faculty of humanisties and natural sciences. As the result of the analyses of the data, two hypotheses were verified. They concerned knowledge and (...) attitudes. Academic teachers of the natural sciences presented broader natural knbowledge than the academic teachers of the humanities. The declared behaviour of respondents did not depend on the state of their knowledge. Both naturalists and humanists advocated for the need to protect environment and take action for the environment. As the result of the analysis two hypotheses were adopted. (shrink)

The paper offers a new account of Spinoza's conception of “substance”, the fundamental building block of reality. It shows that it can be demonstrated apriori within Spinoza's metaphysical framework that (i) contrary to Idealist readings, for Spinoza there can be no substance that is not determined or modified by some other entity produced by substance; and that (ii) there can be no substance (and hence no being) that is not a thinking substance.

The experimental philosophy of law is a recent movement that aims to inform traditional debates in jurisprudence by conducting empirical research. This paper introduces and provides a systematic overview of the main lines of research in this field. It also covers the most important debates in the literature regarding the implications of these findings for the philosophy and theory of law. It argues that three challenges arise when addressing (old) legal-philosophical questions in (new) experimental ways by drawing normative implications from (...) empirical data: such implications are value-driven, depend on explanations of empirical findings and vary across legal systems. (shrink)

Artykuł prezentuje analizę badań pilotażowych przeprowadzonych w październiku 2018 roku w Puszczy Augustowskiej w odniesieniu do Konwencji UNESCO w sprawie ochrony niematerialnego dziedzictwa kulturowego. Celem pilotażu było „wejście do środowiska bartników” oraz zebranie materiału empirycznego poprzez prowadzenie etnograficznych badań terenowych. Podczas kilkudniowego pobytu autorka miała możliwość uczestniczenia w warsztatach bartniczych. Efekt wyjazdu terenowego to pozyskany materiał źródłowy, dokumentacja fotograficzna oraz filmowa, dziennik badań terenowych, wywiady nieustrukturyzowane. Niniejszy artykuł przedstawia zjawisko współczesnego bartnictwa na tle wybranych założeń sformułowanych w ramach przyjętej w (...) 2003 roku Konwencji UNESCO w sprawie ochrony niematerialnego dziedzictwa kulturowego. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic impacted the lives of children and adolescents, leading to many changes in their routines, especially in education. Face-to-face physical education classes during COVID-19 were affected in organization, possibly conditioning students' participation, motivation, and learning. In the extreme conditions of the coronavirus, it may be assumed that daily physical activity became much less than before, partly because students are learning outside the school environment and PE lessons taught using remote forms do not fulfill their purpose. The aim (...) of the study was to assess the pupil's perception of inclusion in school education during the remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare the results with the control group. Moreover, the physical activity of respondents during social isolation due to the coronavirus was examined. The sample consisted of 111 pupils of both genders, aged 14–21 years. The Perceptions of Inclusion Questionnaire was used to measure the perception of inclusion in school education. The structure of the participants' physical activity was examined using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Long Form for adolescents. It was observed that the pupils' gender did not differentiate their perception of inclusion in school education. It was proved that respondents participating in research during the COVID-19 pandemic obtained statistically significantly lower results in the case of “emotional wellbeing in school” but a higher mean was observed in relation to “social relationships with other pupils” than the control group. Girls achieved a higher mean in the case of walk Metabolic Equivalent of Task than boys. In addition, it was observed that the recommendation of vigorous physical activities was achieved by 37.78% of boys and 34.85% of girls. In turn, 69.70% of female pupils and 77.78% of male respondents met the recommendations for medium physical activities. It was also noted that 87.88% of girls and 86.67% of boys participating in the research achieved the recommendation for total physical activities. The analysis showed negligible and low positive correlations between examined variables. (shrink)

Magical healers and physicians were among those who provided healing in the medical market of pre-modern Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia. Using newspaper texts published in the region about local occurrences of magical healing as source material, this article examines through discourse analysis how magical healing was stigmatized in public discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. Two main discourses that stigmatize magical healing are evident from the data: the religious and enlightenment discourses. These show the power relations involved in the condemnation (...) of magical healing as an example of the rural population’s superstition and naivity. This article offers new information about stigmatizing discourses on healing methods and practices that were considered witchcraft in a period when a community was undergoing cultural changes that affected health beliefs and power relations. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the collection of the Northern Irish poet Frank Ormsby entitled A Northern Spring published in 1986. On the basis of selected poems, the author of this paper aims to examine the poet’s reflections about World War II, the lives of the soldiers, and the things that remain after a military combat, which are both physical and illusive. The poems included in the volume present the author’s reflections upon the senselessness of war and dying, short lives of the (...) soldiers, the awareness of their own meaninglessness in comparison to the broader picture, and the contradictory and desperate need to be remembered nevertheless. They also show what is left of the soldiers and the war, as well as how life goes on, with or without them. (shrink)

Zrozumienie i zastosowanie zasad projektowania graficznego w plakacie naukowym może dostarczyć korzyści praktycznych, takich jak przyciągnięcie i utrzymanie uwagi odbiorców, a także korzyści merytorycznych, czyli pomocy w komunikowaniu treści. Te drugie opierają się między innymi na koncepcji wizualnej gramatyki (opisanej przez Kress i Van Leeuwen [2006] i zastosowanej do analizy plakatu naukowego przez D’Angelo [2010]), wedle której elementy wizualne przekazują znaczenie w sposób podobny do języka, i tak jak język posiadają swoją gramatykę: zasady ich zastosowania i prezentacji, które mają wpływ (...) na wyrażany przez nie sens. Poster pokazuje zastosowanie wizualnej gramatyki w plakacie naukowym na przykładzie jednego z elementów wizualnych plakatu, który często jest niedoceniany: pustej przestrzeni. (shrink)