Social psychological research on youth intergroup relations has primarily examined interactions between dichotomous groups through cross-sectional and self-report measures in single contexts. Such traditional approaches, however, are not adept to capturing the dynamic nature of intergroup relations for youth growing up in multicultural societies. In this chapter, we briefly review the existing literature on youth interethnic interactions. We next discuss some theoretical and methodological limitations of this research. We then review the handful of studies focused on youths’ behaviour in diverse (...) contexts, as well as emerging research examining youth and behavioural trajectories when moving beyond the dichotomies of Black and White. We end the chapter by proposing a new research agenda which brings youth into context and extends theoretical boundaries by drawing on a range of innovative methods. We argue this broader approach is needed if we are to truly understand the implications of growing ethnic diversity for youth. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to explore the interrelation between persuasion tactics and properties of speech acts. We investigate two types of arguments ad: ad hominem and ad baculum. We show that with both of these tactics, the structures that play a key role are not inferential, but rather ethotic, i.e., related to the speaker’s character and trust. We use the concepts of illocutionary force and constitutive conditions related to the character or status of the speaker in order to (...) explain the dynamics of these two techniques. In keeping with the research focus of the Polish School of Argumentation, we examine how the pragmatic and rhetorical aspects of the force of ad hominem and ad baculum arguments exploit trust in the speaker’s status to influence the audience’s cognition. (shrink)

Microbiota-gut-brain research is a fast-growing field of inquiry with important implications for how human brain function and behaviour are understood. Researchers manipulate gut microbes to reveal connections between intestinal microbiota and normal brain functions or pathological states. Many claims are made about causal relationships between gut microbiota and human behaviour. By uncovering these relationships, MGB research aims to offer new explanations of mental health and potential avenues of treatment. So far, limited evaluation has been made of MGB's methods and its (...) core experimental findings, many of which are extensively reiterated in copious reviews of the field. These factors, plus the self-help potential of MGB, have combined to encourage uncritical public uptake of MGB discoveries. Both social and professional media focus on the potential for dietary intervention in mental health, and causal relationships are assumed to be established. Our target article has two main aims. One is to examine critically the core practices and findings of experimental MGB research and to raise questions about them for brain and behavioural scientists who may not be familiar with the field. The other is to challenge the way in which MGB findings are presented. Our positive goal is to suggest how current problems and weaknesses may be addressed, in order for both scientific and public audiences to gain a clearer picture of MGB research and its strengths and limitations. (shrink)

This article describes a new theoretical, psychological model characterizing the concept, structure and functioning of spirituality in relation to the phenomenon of religiousness. The structural and processual approaches are indispensable when examining the spiritual sphere. The theory suggests that the psychological nature of spirituality can be considered from a threefold perspective: as a cognitive scheme, as a dimension of personality, as an attitude towards life. The Threefold Nature of Spirituality model binds these perspectives together and describes the phenomena and processes (...) inherent in spiritual functioning: looking for the sacred or a-sacred, for the meaning of life, and for personal fulfilment. Theoretical and empirical examples are presented here in support of the TNS, although further exploration is necessary. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to clarifying Hannah Arendt’s concept of political freedom by the means of analysing its structure. My analysis proceeds in three steps. Firstly, I distinguish a pre-political concept of freedom as exercising spontaneity, which is at the root of Arendt’s understanding of political freedom. Secondly, I analyse her account of freedom as exercising action and indicate its relationship to the elementary freedom of spontaneity. Arendt endowed action with a distinguished importance, since she assumed that it is the (...) only activity within the vita activa, which has a special anthropological and axiological significance. According to Arendt, only action allows one to truly experience the fundamental aspect of the human condition, which is the fact of human plurality; it is also the only activity which allows one to exercise specifically public principles, such as solidarity, equality, or justice. Thirdly, I indicate how these two accounts of freedom translate into Arendt’s concept of political freedom. This analysis reveals that the Arendtian concept of political freedom is markedly original. She did not define it in a usual manner, i.e. through indicating bundles of legal and political rights which determine the accepted scope of participation in the public affairs. The inherent part of her concept of political freedom is a specific account of how it must be exercised. Political freedom understood as the participation in governance exercised through action is not merely an activity of instrumental, but also anthropological and axiological importance, which is due to the special anthropological and axiological meaning of action. In the final section, I discuss the practical dimension of Arendt’s theory. She doubted whether the traditional representative democracy is capable of accommodating her ‘rich’ ideal of political freedom, therefore she proposed an alternative account of political system based on councils. I formulate objections against this proposition and demonstrate that councils would presumably fail to accommodate Arendt’s exacting account of political freedom. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a model that allows the representation and analysis of circularity in ethotic structures, i.e. in communication structures related to the speaker’s character and in particular, his credibility. The paper studies three types of cycles: in self-referential sentences, embedded testimony and ethotic begging the question. It is shown that standard models allow the reconstruction of the circularities only if those circular utterances are interpreted as ethotic arguments. Their alternative, assertive interpretation requires enriching the (...) existing models with a purely ethotic component related to the credibility of the performer of any (not necessarily argumentative) speech act. (shrink)

We show that the variety of equivalential algebras with regularization gives the algebraic semantics for the -fragment of intuitionistic propositional logic. We also prove that this fragment is hereditarily structurally complete.

Contemporary argument studies in Poland began with the research of the Lvov-Warsaw School and its successors in Artificial Intelligence and legal theory, as well as with the studies of Polish rhetoricians . The last decade has witnessed a major transformation in the Polish landscape, beginning with several landmark publications which have attracted an ever-growing number of young researchers and students. As a result, the research movement of the Polish School of Argumentation has begun to emerge .In 2008, the nationwide initiative (...) ArgDiaP was established in order to provide infrastructure facilitating the networking process and to foster res .. (shrink)

Ethotic arguments, such as arguments from expert opinion and ad hominem arguments, play an important role in communication practice. In this paper, we argue that there is another type of reasoning from ethos, in which people argue about actions in the world. These subspecies of ethotic arguments are very common in public debates: societies are involved in heated disputes about what should be done with monuments of historical figures such as Stalin or Colston: Should we demolish the building they funded? (...) Should we revere their statues? Should the street named after them be renamed?; and the general public vividly argue about what should be done with the legacy of producers, directors and actors in debates of the #MeToo movement: Should their new movies be distributed? Should their scenes be deleted from motion pictures? Should their stars from the Hollywood Walk of Fame be removed? Many arguments in these debates boil down to the character of the public figures: He was a slave trader!—But he is a part of our history; He harassed a young girl!—But he is an important actor. The reasoning step here is legitimised by the association between a person and an extra-linguistic object: the association between a historical figure and their statue or between an actor and their movie. The nature of this association is explained in the paper using Peirce’s theory of signs. We propose to extend an existing approach to patterns of reasoning from ethos that will help us to shed new light on ethotic argumentation and open an avenue for a systematic account of these unexplored argument forms. (shrink)

In this article, I make an attempt to elucidate the problem of violence in Foucault’s genealogy that, following Nietzsche’s genealogy, seems to be based on the concept of a conflict of forces. Thus, the war of forces that constitutes history is the first dimension in which the presence of violence can be described in Foucauldian philosophy. The second dimension refers to violence taken as the effect of an interplay between forces. Both aspects allow us to think on violence, not in (...) terms of natural objects, but in terms of relations and simultaneously to challenge the established concept of violence as something necessarily related to brute force or aggression. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the origins of Polish Romanticism as born partially out of German idealist philosophy. I examine the influence exerted by the ideas of the most significant thinkers, such as Kant, Fichte and Schelling on both professors and students living in Vilnius at the beginning of the nineteenth century (particularly Jan Śniadecki, Józef Gołuchowski and Adam Mickiewicz). As an adherent of Enlightenment and empirical epistemology Śniadecki was critical towards Kant as well as Romantic poetics. On the contrary, in (...) the works of young Gołuchowski, who was well acquainted with German ideas, there are frequent references to Kant, Fichte, and Schelling’s philosophy of life. The same ideas—such as vital nature, feeling, and faith as opposed to “dead” knowledge based on “pure terms”—can be found in Mickiewicz’s early works. This convergence of motifs is due to the fact that they both have the same source of inspiration: German idealism. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest wykazanie, że filozofia może sięgać po ustalenia neuronauki, w tym psychologii, w zakresie poczucia winy i wstydu, w czym mają pomóc postawione w artykule pytania i poruszane zagadnienia. Autorka przywołała dane na temat neuronalnych korelatów poczucia winy i wstydu i neuropsychologiczne interpretacje niektórych z nich. Szczególną uwagę zwróciła na kwestie związane z oceną moralną i moralnymi sankcjami.

Dynamics of perceiving oneself on femininity and masculinity dimensions in diverse contexts The article is about issues related to gender perceived as a result of social context and thus fits in the current, processual gender paradigm. Two studies have been conducted verifying hypotheses about perceiving oneself on the femininity and masculinity dimensions in various types of contexts. Expectations were that generic contexts would make perceiving oneself within the psychological gender dimensions more dynamic. Women were expected to perceive themselves as more (...) feminine and less masculine in contexts matching their gender, i.e. "feminine", comparing to "masculine", and men were expected to perceive themselves as more masculine and less feminine in "masculine" contexts comparing to "feminine" contexts. Research results do not confirm the above hypotheses and indicate dynamism in perceiving oneself on femininity and masculinity dimensions. However, the dynamism is perceived only on dimensions inconsistent with biological gender - situation affects women's perceiving of themselves on the masculinity dimension and men's - on femininity dimensions. (shrink)

In dem Artikel wird sich mit Patienten-Arzt-Verhältnis in Bezug auf polnische Zwangsarbeiter im Deutschen Reich befasst. Die Analyse der Dokumente aus der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkrieges zeigte, dass dieses Verhältnis hauptsächlich von ideologischen und ökonomischen Faktoren geprägt war. Zudem waren daran mehrere Akteure beteiligt, die über unterschiedlich große Handlungsspielräume verfügten: Neben dem deutschen Arzt nahmen auch Arbeitgeber und Krankenkassen Einfluss auf den Umfang der medizinischen Versorgung polnischer Zwangsarbeiter. Anstatt sich an Prinzipien der ärztlichen Ethik zu orientieren, verfolgten diese eine rein (...) ökonomisch motivierte Strategie. In deren Mittelpunkt stand nicht die Genesung der Patienten, sondern die Wiederherstellung der Arbeitskraft bei minimalem Aufwand. In den allermeisten Fällen geschah dies über den Kopf der Betroffenen hinweg. (shrink)

(1998). Collectivism on the horizon: A challenge to Pettit's critique of collectivism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 165-181.

Building on our diverse research traditions in the study of reasoning, language and communication, the Polish School of Argumentation integrates various disciplines and institutions across Poland in which scholars are dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of the force of argument. Our primary goal is to craft a methodological programme and establish organisational infrastructure: this is the first key step in facilitating and fostering our research movement, which joins people with a common research focus, complementary skills and an enthusiasm to work (...) together. This statement—the Manifesto—lays the foundations for the research programme of the Polish School of Argumentation. (shrink)

Pragmatics and dialectics are two disciplines which have been amongst the first and most important partners for argument studies in the exploration of the complex realm of communication. Treating argumentation as a construct consisting of premises and conclusion allows for investigating some interesting properties of the phenomenon of reasoning, but does not capture a variety of aspects related to the usage of natural language and dialogical context in which real-life argumentation is typically embedded. This special issue explores some of the (...) fascinating research questions which emerge when we move beyond logic into the territory of the pragmatics and dialectics of argument. (shrink)

The research concerned the determinants of social competencies, which are significant indicators of the quality of interpersonal relations. The aim of the study was to verify the connection between social competencies and temperamental traits. The respondent group included 220 university students of different faculties aged 19-24. Social competencies were measured with the use of a Social Competencies Questionnaire by Anna Matczak, while temperamental traits were measured with The Formal Characteristics of Behaviour-Temperament Inventory, by Bogdan Zawadzki and Jan Strelau. The research (...) proved that activity, emotional reactivity and sensory sensitivity are significant predictors of social competencies. The predictive value of these traits differs depending on the kind of measured competency. (shrink)

Objectives Study participants are 46 women with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome. Occurrence of the M-R-K-H syndrome is one in 4000-5000 female children. It was investigated whether coping styles mediate the effect of neuroticism on positive and negative affect, and whether this mediation is moderated by the level of N as well as whether this moderated mediation is moderated by length of awareness of illness. Methods: Neuroticism, coping style as well as positive and negative emotions were assessed using the Polish version of NOE-FFI, (...) CISS and Scale of Emotional State. Results: Emotion coping style fully or partly mediated the relationship between neuroticism and emotions and these mediations were moderated by the level of N. Additionally, direct effect of neuroticism on NA was moderated by the time for which a patient has been aware of the disease. Conclusions: The level of neuroticism and the length of illness are important factors for the psychological functioning of women with M-R-K-H Syndrome. In women with medium and high neuroticism, effect of N on NA was indirect and also direct - but only in those who have been aware of the diagnosis for 6 years or more. Relations with positive emotions were different: the indirect effect was observed only in women with a moderate and low neuroticism. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 96 Heft: 1 Seiten: 49-66.

Using the categories of the epistemic and epistemological field of theory the author is trying to show on the basis of Bled presentations of Mihailo Markovic and Milan Kangrga that their conceptions belong to two separated theoretical fields, which are incompatible with each other. Therefore even in that period we could not speak about a common praxis-philosophy nor a common vision of Marxism. Koristeci kategorije epistemickog i epistemoloskog polja teorije autorica na osnovu bledskih referata Mihaila Markovica i Milana Kangrgi pokusava (...) pokazati da njihove koncepcije pripadaju dvema razlicitim filozofskim poljima koje se ne mogu sloziti, tako da ni u to vreme se nije moglo govoriti o nikakvoj zajednickoj praxis-filozofiji ni zajednickoj viziji marksizma. (shrink)

In the paper I want to give a new account of notions of reasoning, argumentation, and persuasion. The aim of it is to resolve problems of the traditional accounts. The investigation uses the issue of circular reasoning. These types of arguments are considered a fallacy in informal logic, whereas formal logic holds that they are valid. The new account suggests a possibility of reconciliation of the informal and formal perspective.

The aim of the paper is to propose a framework for the structure of persuasive communica-tion based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo, the Inference Anchoring Theory by Budzynska and Reed and the Interpersonal Argumentation Model by Budzynska. The ELM suggests that there are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. IAT assumes that com-munication acts generate their contents and inferences by means of illocutionary connections. The model of IP-argumentation provides the general representation of arguments in which (...) the proponent refers to com-munication acts of some participant of communication. The paper discusses where exactly means of the central and peripheral routes operate in the structure of persuasive communication and argumentation. (shrink)

Wolfgang Merkel’s concept of rooted democracy in the context of contemporary populism and the crisis of democracy: The article presents the concept of “rooted democracy” by Wolf‐ gang Merkel, which was presented in the context of the democratic crisis. The German poli‐ tical scientist indicates what democracy is — specifying the proper functioning of the regula‐ tions of the democratic system. Speaking of the weakness or strength of democracy, we must have a well‐described set of system principles that determine the (...) degree of strength of democracy or its erosion. The above set of principles of the democratic system is thoroughly discussed in the article. In particular, the functional model of civil society is analysed. The text also explores how the crisis of democracy is understood and Merkel’s view of the impact of global capitalism on democratic institutions, which contributes to the transformation of democracy into an oligarchy. The topics discussed in the article also concern alternative, non‐ ‐liberal forms of democracy and populism. The question is whether Merkel’s concept is useful in explaining populism and its political consequences. (shrink)

This contribution argues that the principal object of interest in Plutarch’s “Greek Questions” is language and its uses, including rare words, curious phrases, local names, dialectal idiosyncrasies, proverbs, etc. The abundance of uncommon terms, frequently unattested elsewhere, and overlap in their use between Plutarch’s work and Hesychios’ “Synagoge”, suggests there is an affinity between “Greek Questions” and the ancient glossographic and lexicographic traditions.

It is widely accepted that the machinery of multicultural societies and liberal democratic systems is dependent upon various forms of dialogue - dialogue between political parties, between different social groups, between the ruling and the ruled. But what are the conditions of a democratic dialogue and how does the philosophical dialogic approach apply to practice? Exploring the multifaceted nature of the concepts of dialogue and democracy, and critically examining materializations of dialogue in social life, this book offers a variety of (...) perspectives on the theoretical and empirical interface between democracy and dialogue. (shrink)

The main aim of this study was to examine whether the economic status determined pro-ecological attitudes and behaviour. The survey involved 207 adults with different economic status. Both economic status in childhood and the present were taken into consideration. Analysis of the results indicated that people raised in families with low and medium material status have not only more eco-friendly attitudes but also have a greater tendency towards various ‘green’ behaviours. The differences among people with different current material status concerning (...) their eco-friendly attitudes and behaviours are not so obvious. The most wealthy seem to have a less pro-ecological attitude, but on the other hand they are ready to put more money towards ecologically-friendly household expenses. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It is more than probable that the Commonwealth Games in 2014 will be used by the Scottish government as a tool in the battle for independence. For the Scottish National Party, sport events constitute another opportunity to underline Scottish autonomy. During the last Olympic Games, SNP ministers refused to use the name “Team GB” in their message to the Scottish athletes. Nurturing Scottish pride during the Games has already begun, with the official mascot-the Clyde Thistle, which is Scotland’s national (...) flower and emblem. The mascot of the Commonwealth Games has never waved the patriotic flag as it does now. (shrink)

Denise Meyerson has recently argued that the adaptational account of false consciousness must appeal to a psychological element, contrary to explicit declarations of its proponents. In order to explain why the rulers genuinely hold ideological beliefs, one must take them to desire to think well of themselves. She concludes that the desire to think well of oneself causes the ideological beliefs. The article defends the adaptational account from Meyerson's attempt to ground it in the psychology of the rulers. Meyerson is (...) wrong both in thinking that the desire in question is explanatorily necessary and in thinking that its explanatory role would consist in its causing ideological beliefs. (shrink)