In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 383-385 [Access article in PDF] Minding Your Language:A Response to Caroline Brett and Stephen Sykes Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton THE PAPER BY Jackson and Fulford (1997), to which ours is a preliminary response, has opened up an important and much-needed conversation on the borderlands of theology, philosophy, and psychiatry. We are deeply grateful for lapidary and attentive responses to our paper (...) from Caroline Brett and Stephen Sykes, in which each have affirmed the value of this conversation, but also indicated the issues that need to be thought through in greater depth. Sykes makes the point, quite rightly in our view, that the language of both theology and psychiatry are needed to illuminate the gray area between spirituality and mental disorder. Part of the difficulty, perhaps, has been the tendencies of theologians and psychiatrists alike either to speak past each other's shoulders or to refuse to engage in conversation at all (Watts 2002).Both commentators have accurately represented the core arguments of our thesis: that genuine spirituality may involve ego disablement and that positively evaluated psychotic, action-enhancing experiences are not, by definition, spiritual. They also both agree that religious traditions may offer resources that help discrimination at the borderlands of theology and psychiatry, beyond the reach of descriptive psychopathology. However, Brett has helpfully drawn attention to a number of possible weak spots that deserve further reflection:the distinction between breaking downand breaking throughand the possible continuing value of using the criterion of preserved or enhanced functionality; our failure to appreciate the precision with which Jackson and Fulford use the language of psychosis; and the uncertain clinical value of a schema that only allows an assessment of the contribution of an experience to spiritual reorientation after the event.Although it is not appropriate in the form of a final response to engage with these issues in depth, we thought that a few brief observations might be in order. Breaking Down and Breaking Through Brett's distinction between breaking down and breaking through is helpful but may disintegrate where the breaking down itself is considered to be constitutive of spiritual experience. The Pauline insight "for when I am weak; then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10, New Revised Standard Version [NRSV] 1989) finds vivid expression, for example, in the life of the Abbe Marie-Joseph Huvelin (Williams 1994). This Parisian curate, with chronic [End Page 383] and debilitating ill health and an almost unrelieved sense of personal worthlessness that bordered on despair, managed to transmit hope to an astonishing range of people who came to him for spiritual direction. There was no obvious, schematic breaking through the rigors of ego disablement to sunlit uplands of ethical conviction or renewed sense of vocation. It is by no means clear that he would have wished his predicament on anyone else, let alone himself, notwithstanding the fruitfulness of his ministry. The breaking down was arguably part of his life-long vocation and it perhaps stretches the meaning of action enhancement a little too far to use it encompass the often paradoxical nature of sanctity. The Language of Psychosis An important feature of good conversation is mindfulness in the way language is used and guardedness against misrepresenting the position of one's conversation partner. The expression of our discomfort with the application of the language of psychosis to spiritual experience was perhaps designed primarily to signpost our concern with certain reductive and assimilating tendencies in modern psychiatry. Perhaps psychotic may be used with precision and designed to draw attention to the complexities of discriminating at the borderlands of theology and psychiatry. Words, nonetheless, have resonance—philosophically and culturally—that radiate well beyond the boundaries of precise usage. The same could be said of Brett's use of anomalous, which might refer to a range of phenomena that most people would regard as abnormal: hallucinations, synesthaesia, out-and of-body, past-life, and near-death experiences. It is legitimate, we contend, to draw attention to these resonances even if they stray... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 349-351 [Access article in PDF] Mystical States or Mystical Life?Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu Perspectives Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton THIS IS AN ORIGINAL and conceptually precise paper. It is a significant attempt to bring religion and psychiatry into conversation. With particular reference to three Oriental epistemologies—Tibetan and Zen Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism—Caroline Brett seeks to offer a means of differentiating mystical states (...) from psychotic ones. She is critical of reductionism in modern psychiatry that seeks either to elide religious experience into psychopathology, or seeks too sharp a distinction between them. Brett claims, by implication, to offer a more fundamental level of discrimination between religious experience and psychopathology than the "cognitive problem-solving model" that Jackson and Fulford propose (1997a).In both mystical and psychotic states, the author argues, there are radical alterations in the structure of experience. Psychotic states, however, result from failures to complete, or, at least, to negotiate smoothly, the transition from a commitment to an epistemology based on illusory reality to one structured according to ultimate reality—a reality that is brought into focus through an alignment of transcendent vision and mundane cognition. Although this epistemological "stuck-ness" can manifest itself in action as destructive behavior, for example, psychological isolation or social and occupational dysfunction, the basis of the distinction between mystical and psychotic states lies in real differences in the states themselves.In our view, there is a tendency in much psychiatric and theological literature to homogenize mystical states and to treat experiences that (arguably) occur on a number of different levels as if they were on the same level. It is still widely thought that a mystical consciousness can somehow be abstracted from the religious traditions out of which this consciousness emerges. It is assumed that we can talk about experience in abstraction from the shared consciousness produced by schooling in a specific historical religion (Shannon 1985, 493). Thus, the altered mystical state of a Zen Master or Saint Teresa of Avila in ecstasy are regarded as identical states of consciousness. Yet it is far from clear that mystical states can be talked about without explicit reference to the language and tradition in which the self is formed, or, in terms that would have different meanings in Abrahamic and Oriental religious traditions, un-selfed. [End Page 349]There is a related tendency to regard religious doctrines as attempts to interpret mystical experience, as second-order reflections on the language of experience, as if religious doctrines were local religious dialects into which core experiences could be translated. We suggest, rather, that there is an iterative relationship between a mystical experience and the religious framework out of which it emerges. Religious doctrines are better seen as sets of instructions designed to guide the movement of prayer, and the movement of prayer, in turn, exemplifies the religious doctrine that shapes it.So could mystical states within the framework of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism better be understood as exemplification's of the worldviews of those particular religious traditions? For example, the relinquishing of ego structures, the dissolution of subject/object boundaries, the yielding of the contrastive identity between experience and the world, and progress toward undifferentiated union of the self with the cosmic self, seem to exemplify the monist cosmology associated with some of those traditions. By the same token, the psychotic state could be interpreted as an exemplification of an existential stance that has for some reason defected from the movement toward transcendental cognition. The point is that the "real differences" Brett identifies in the two states cannot be understood apart from the religious epistemology and doctrines, which those states, positively or negatively, exemplify. "So far 'from mystical states' being a sort of paradigm of certainty, they have authority only within a frame of reference which is believed in on quite other grounds and are therefore properly to be tested according to their consistency with this" (Williams 1991, 149)The force of Brett's paper, like Jackson and Fulford, is to identify the boundaries... (shrink)

The boundary between spiritual experience and mental disorder remains unclear and should invite collaboration between psychiatry and other disciplines, including theology. Jackson and Fulford (1997), using the tools of analytic philosophy, have proposed a model allowing principled differentiation between spiritual experience and psychotic symptoms based on the personal values of the subject, a cognitive problem-solving model. Spiritual experience is described as positively evaluated psychotic experience, which enables the subject to do more than he or she normally does. In the present (...) paper, it is claimed that values and actions cannot alone always discriminate between religious experience and psychopathology. With reference to three case studies, drawn from the practice of one of us, it is argued that spirituality is not all about experience and that it cannot be understood without reference to the subject's personal history and spiritual tradition, however implicit or fragmented. This approach would allow an account of ordinary religious experience in those who have suffered ego disablement during mental illness. Drawing primarily on the Christian tradition, we argue that the use of theological criteria may allow levels of discrimination between spiritual experience and mental disorder not allowed for by philosophical psychopathology. (shrink)

In the former socialist countries the relation of philosophy to social reality, as shaped by the political interests of the State, must be considered for each particular case with a view to the historical dynamics of its own development. The Polish case is not typical in this regard — it was determined by the failure of forced sovietization at the institutional, cultural level and the maintenance of Poland''s traditional contacts with Western European culture. In this regard Polish universities played an (...) important role since they preserved normal structures of academic activity.Philosophy in Poland has been marked by three currents which managed to rebuff the advances of Marxism. Best known among them is the Lwów-Warsaw school of logic and analytic philosophy. Its contribution is especially important in the methodology of philosophical inquiry and the style of responsible philosophical discourse. Though not a bed of political opposition the school''s members mounted a spiritual opposition to Marxism, especially during the Solidarity period. Catholic philosophy, as represented by the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), has been and remains a completely independent force in Eastern and Central Europe. Doctrinally, Catholic philosophy in Poland has been divided between a more traditional, dated Thomism and the more progressive circles in Cracow where Western European philosophy, especially phenomenology, existentialism, and hermeneutics, has been influential (the significance of Józef Tischner and Karol Wojtyla, now Pope Jean Paul II). The third major current, centered in Cracow, is the phenomenology of Roman Ingarden, whose influence is manifest in a style of philosophizing that has attracted professional philosophers as well as committed intellectuals from different disciplines. (shrink)

Assuming the importance of Alfred Schutz’s “protosociology” in social theory as a given, the paper tries to explore its philosophical core, treating Schutz’s sociophenomenology as an answer to the most fundamental questions of phenomenology, such as evidence and phenomenological reduction. It analyses Schutz’s point of departure – the problematization of Max Weber’s concept of the meaning of social action and its deepening by means of Henri Bergson’s and Edmund Husserl’s notion of time – and tries to unravel the double structure (...) of consciousness, revealing increasingly its complex temporal character. Brentano’s and Husserl’s double intentionality, seeming to offer a kind of “decent realism” in modern philosophical context, in Schutz turns out to be marked by the profound pastness of reflexive consciousness, reaching the primary stream experience only by means of primary and secondary acts of remembrance, re-effectuated intersubjectively in acts of phantasying about future, thus constituting the very core of meaning, with its reference to external objects. It appears that only analysing this mode of phantasying in reference to its motives that we can solve the conundrum of realism in its modern shape. (shrink)

Throughout 19th and the first half of 20th centuries, Polish thinkers largely supplanted political philosophy with the philosophy of history. Such an approach produced an essential continuum, despite marked differences of concepts in different political and theoretical contexts. This continuity finds a particular expression in two ideas, nascent already in the 15th and 16th century Polish political thought, i.e. the idea of Poland’s Historical Mission , and a notion of a specifically Polish Love of Freedom.The author approaches this phenomenon by (...) way of presenting three sets of concepts: the late-Enlightenment one of S. Staszic, the Romantic attempt of A. Cieszkowski, and M. Zdziechowski’s Neo-Romantic take. (shrink)

Truth seems to be an indispensable element of authority which presents itself as being based on more than just power and efficiency. In the domain of law,there is not only and primarily the problem of establishing the truth about the facts which are to be judged; there is also the problem of norms—does their authority rest solely on the act of establishing them, or is there “something behind”, a truth which contributes to the strength of law, and which provides legitimacy (...) to both legislator and to the legal norms themselves. In theoretical reflection, the very possibility of talking about true norms or true evaluations is under challenge, and this view dominates in the academic education of lawyers and other professionals. At the basis of this project lies the conviction that the problem of true norms, and the more general problem of the place of truth in law, is worth re-examining. In the course of such a re-examination, it is also worth returning to certain points in the tradition of thinking about the foudations of law. In the tradition recalled by the papers presented here—by both Italian and Polish authors—a prominent place is occupied by Polish thinkers such as Leon Petrażycki, Czesław Znamierowski, and Zygmunt Ziembiński. The book consists of three major parts. The titles—Tradition, Theory, Practice mark important points of reference in the reflection on truth in the context of law. The contributions relate to these points in different degrees, and each, though placed in one of these parts, also refer to the others. (shrink)

The origin and early evolution of animals marks an important event in life's history. This event is historically associated with an important variable in Earth history – oxygen. One view has it that an increase in oceanic oxygen levels at the end of the Neoproterozoic Era (roughly 600 million years ago) allowed animals to become large and leave fossils. How important was oxygen for the process of early animal evolution? New data show that some modern sponges can survive for (...) several weeks at low oxygen levels. Many groups of animals have mechanisms to cope with low oxygen or anoxia, and very often, mitochondria – organelles usually associated with oxygen – are involved in anaerobic energy metabolism in animals. It is a good time to refresh our memory about the anaerobic capacities of mitochondria in modern animals and how that might relate to the ecology of early metazoans. (shrink)

En la Constitución de la República de Polonia del 2 de abril de 19971 se reconocía el carácter objetivo de ciertos valores y un cognoscitivismo axiológico. Si tomamos las disposiciones constitucionales en serio tenemos que aceptar que algunas valoraciones morales o que algunas proferencias [utterances] valorativas pueden ser verdaderas o falsas y que nos informan acerca de una realidad objetiva. Por otro lado, en la teoría del derecho polaca y en los cursos universitarios de lógica para abogados se encuentran definiciones (...) de la justificación axiológica de las normas y de normas axiológicas (normas que poseen una justificación axiológica) que presuponen que ningún valor es objetivo y que no pueden ser conocidos — se presupone un no-cognoscitivismo axiológico. De acuerdo con el no-cognoscitivismo, ninguna valoración y ninguna proferencia valorativa puede ser verdadera o falsa, ni puede informar acerca de la realidad. En este trabajo se analiza la concepción no-cognoscitivista de Zygmunt Ziembiński tal y como ha sido formulada en su libro de texto lógica práctica [Logika praktyczna] — el cual ha formado intelecTraduddo del inglés por Jorge Cerdio; título original: «True Norms in the Light of Axiological Justification of Norms». Relectura: Germán Sucar. La Constitución de la República de Polonia [Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej] del 2 de abril de 1997, Dziennik Ustaw, 1997. No. 78, item 483. Versión en inglés en Gierach, 2009: 21. 6S6 Mark Piechowiak tualmente a dos generaciones de abogados polacos y ha establecido el estándar bajo el que se entienden las justificaciones axiológicas y las normas axiológicas2. Su definición de valoración y de normas excluyen la posibilidad misma de un discurso significativo acerca de las valoraciones o acerca de las normas en términos de verdad o falsedad. (shrink)

Prezentowana tu książka jest poświęcona relacjom między filozofią a polityką, politycznemu zaangażowaniu filozofii bądź jej ucieczce przed owym zaangażowaniem. W moim ujęciu pytania o autowizerunek filozofa w XX wieku są pytaniami o jego uwikłania, i uwikłania jego filozofii, w politykę. Nigdy wcześniej filozofowie nie żywili takich nadziei na przemodelowanie społeczeństwa z pomocą polityki (i tym się różnili od licznych wcześniejszych utopistów) zgodnie ze swoją filozoficzną wizją jak właśnie w XX wieku. Jest to zarazem książka o tradycyjnych antynomiach i opozycjach filozoficznych: (...) bios teoretikos i bios praktikos, teoria i praktyka, myśl i działanie, interpretowanie świata i jego zmienianie, człowiek kontemplacji i człowiek czynu, wieża z kości słoniowej i zaangażowanie etc. etc. I dlatego, pisząc tu o autowizerunku filozofa, mam na myśli jego autowizerunek ujmowany z punktu widzenia polityki. Interesują mnie tu odpowiedzi na pytanie o stosunek między filozofią a polityką, bowiem to pytanie uważam dzisiaj z racji historycznych za fundamentalne. Dlaczego pytam tu o autowizerunek filozofa? Uważam, że w filozofii (pytającej o swoje uwikłania w politykę) sposób ujmowania siebie determinuje sposób ujmowania świata. Im bardziej filozofia zostaje odniesiona do „teraz”, tym wymaga większej precyzji, dokładniejszego usytuowania siebie w ramach dostępnych bądź wyobrażonych w kulturze możliwości. Autowizerunek to platforma, z której korzysta filozof, to pewien horyzont konstytuujący jego tożsamość, podający zakres możliwych do przyjęcia ról w kulturze. Zupełnie inny jest autowizerunek filozofa w filozofii odniesionej do „teraz”, a zupełnie inny w filozofii nastawionej na uniwersalność, wieczne i niezmienne prawa, na spoglądanie na świat sub specie aeternitatis. Kluczowe słowa w takiej perspektywie to choćby rewolucja intelektualna, przemoc, nowy świat, nowy człowiek, nowa era, zmiana, postęp, konstruktywny wkład, przyłączenie się i zaangażowanie czy wymogi chwili. Pytam tutaj o chęć wywoływania zmian politycznych mocą filozofii i poprzez filozofię jako narzędzie, pytam o filozofa jako politycznego „zbawcę” (Habermas o Martinie Heideggerze), o filozofa jako egzekutora wyroków historii dysponującego pełną świadomością doniosłości chwili, która nikomu poza filozofami nie może się w pełni odsłonić i ujawnić. Dlaczego jednak filozofia potrzebuje siły? Skąd bierze się jej odwieczne marzenie o wykroczeniu poza uniwersum teorii, myśli, kontemplacji - ku realnemu światu, w którym filozof działa? Książka ta w pewnej mierze stanowi analizę marzeń o filozofii działającej, o filozofii czynu - o filozofie przekonanym o swoim posłannictwie jako posłannictwie człowieka działania. Filozof działający to człowiek oddany wspólnocie - przekonany o politycznie sprawczej roli wypowiadanego, filozoficznego słowa; zwierciadlanym odbiciem tego ideału jest filozof oddany tekstowi, czyli (bezpośrednio) lekceważący społeczne powinności i zobowiązania — przekonany o politycznej i społecznej bezsilności tegoż słowa, skoncentrowany na dostarczaniu interpretacji kolejnych interpretacji tekstów filozoficznych. Jednak oprócz nich w perspektywie autowizerunku politycznego pojawiają się i inni: tekstualiści marzący o drobnych, choć społecznie wpływowych wspólnotach czytelników; wspólnotowcy pragnący działać poprzez filozoficzne słowo, a jednak zarazem pozbawieni złudzeń co do swojej historycznej skuteczności, poniekąd z góry świadomi, że tą drogą świata (przynajmniej w przewidywalnym horyzoncie czasowym) zmienić się nie da; miłośnicy tekstu budujący programy społecznej naprawy świata, a poszukujący wśród tekstualistów (na przykład genealogicznej czy dekonstrukcjonistycznej) „metody”, którą można by wprost zastosować w praktyce, na sposób działających w historii wspólnotowców. Tekst, wspólnota - to jedynie ogólne hasła wywoławcze mające ewokować pewne marzenia o miejscu filozofii i filozofa w kulturze. Z jednej strony stoi autowizerunek, w ramach którego naczelnym hasłem jest „robienie historii” (Emil Cioran) czy „robienie rewolucji”, z drugiej autowizerunek z naczelnym hasłem „robienia tekstów”, czyli bycia uważnym czytelnikiem tekstów filozoficznych i uważnym ich autorem. A oprócz tego, pomiędzy nimi, jest miejsce na autowizerunki pośrednie, mieszane i mniej czy bardziej skłaniające się ku któremuś ze skrajnych wyborów oraz na autowizerunki, których powyższe przeciwstawienie nie uchwytuje. Oba motywy mają do pewnego stopnia organizować prezentowaną książkę, ale nie mają stać się jakimś nowym kluczem pozwalającym na zupełnie nową odsłonę filozoficznego pejzażu. Stoi przecież za nimi długa, filozoficzna tradycja, korzystająca na przestrzeni dziejów z określeń pochodzących z różnych słowników. Kto powiedział, że filozofia ma „robić rewolucję”, tzn. gruntować ją i przygotowywać, promować i usprawiedliwiać, znajdować dla niej wielki intelektualny kontekst, stanowić jej awangardę i magazyn niezbędnych pojęć, legitymizować jej przemoc i uzasadniać jej terror, dawać jej broń w walce i podtrzymywać marzenia o jej nieuchronności, wyjątkowości, celowości i wartości? Kojeve, Heidegger, de Man, Sartre, Bataille (w analizowanych tu przeze mnie tekstach i w ściśle określonych okresach) - byli o tym przekonani. Dlaczego odpowiadał im właśnie taki autowizerunek? Co więcej - albo co innego - daje filozofowi „filozofia wspólnoty” niż „filozofia tekstu”, by sięgnąć do dwóch skrajności w ramach długiego continuum? Czym jest owa nadwyżka? Uczuciem spełnienia, świadomością realizacji marzeń, wcielenia w życie filozoficznych ideałów? Przejściem do świata rzeczywistego - a może wreszcie „pracą”, w mocnym sensie tego terminu? Jednak im filozofia była bliżej świata, tym większe rodziła napięcia. Tym większe miała wyrzuty sumienia. Kluczowy problem analizowanych tu propozycji filozoficznych można by podsumować tak: czy szukać przejść — a jeśli tak, to jakie powinny one przyjmować formy - między uniwersum. zagadnień filozoficznych a światem rzeczywistym? Jaka relacja wiąże filozofa ze światem realnym: z historią, postępem, zmianą? Kim jest filozof zanurzony w historii, kim jest filozof „robiący historię”? W jakiej mierze filozofia jest niezbędnym fundamentem społecznych transformacji i społecznych rewolucji? Jak związać filozofię z czynem i z działaniem? Jak związać spekulację i kontemplację z aktywizmem? Jaki stosunek wobec gwałtownych i radykalnych zmian w świecie społecznym ma zajmować filozof - i w jakim charakterze? Filozofa? Obywatela? Obywatela-filozofa? Czy umieszczać filozofię w głównym nurcie zmian społecznych - w ramach toczących się rewolucji — czy przyjmować w niej postawę wyczekującą, obserwującą, niezaangażowaną, która pozwala spoglądać na akcydentalne zawirowania świata rzeczywistego z perspektywy jego istoty? Czy filozofia ma brać na siebie odpowiedzialność za zmienianie świata? Czy ma się do niego dostosowywać, czy może wręcz je ugruntowywać, znajdując dla niego szeroki, metafizyczny kontekst? Spis treści Wprowadzenie. „TYRANIA HEGLA” I MYŚLENIE PONOWOCZESNE W KONTEKŚCIE PYTAŃ 0 AUTO WIZERUNEK FILOZOFA (9) „Uwolnić się od Hegla”? (10) Panorama (15) „Przyszłość świata” a „interpretacja pism Hegla” (24) Podsumowanie: filozof czynu, filozofia działania (27) Rozdział 1. Przykład wspólnotowy: Alexandre’a KOJEVE’A filozof zmieniający świat (FRANCUSKI HEGEL) (37) Antropologia, panowanie, niewola (41) Kojeve-Strauss: debata stulecia? (44) Filozof wedle Straussa (47) Filozof wedle Kojeve’a (50) Historia, filozofia, przemoc. „Humanizm” i „terror” (57) Rządzenie: zdolności i powinności (61) Kres historii (63) Podsumowanie (68) Rozdział 2. PRZYKŁAD TEKSTUALNY: DELEUZE’A 1 KLOSSOWSKIEGO FILOZOF TWORZĄCY TEKST (francuski Nietzsche) (70) „Jakiegoż to adwersarza, jakiegoś wroga należy pokonać?” (73) „Między Heglem a Nietzschem nie może być kompromisu” 77 Nietzsche, Freud, Marks 90 Historia i genealogia 96 Kwestia stylu 99 Rozdział 3. PRZYPADEK GEORGESA BATAILLE’A: MIĘDZY HEGLEM A NlETZSCHEM? 106 „Człowiek integralny” a działanie 110 Rewolucja, ekstaza, krew 115 W towarzystwie Nietzschego 124 Ekonomia nadmiaru 128 Rozdział 4. WOKÓŁ ZAANGAŻOWANIA. OD WSPÓLNOTY DO TEKSTU I DALEJ: SARTRE, BARTHES, BLANCHOT, FOUCAULT 133 „Umiłowanie mądrości” a polityka 133 Filozofia, polityka - tekst, wspólnota 136 Pisarze i piszący 138 „Co to znaczy pisać?”142 Pisanie - czysta bierność na marginesie historii? 151 Poza opozycję esteta/pisarz zaangażowany 157 Intelektualiści - władza 161 Książki-doświadczenia i książki-prawdy 166 „Tyrania prawdy”168 Rozdział 5. FILOZOF A CZASY PRZEŁOMU. FRANCUSKIE BURZE WOKÓŁ MARTINA HEIDEGGERA W PERSPEKTYWIE SPORU O MIEJSCE FILOZOFII W SFERZE OBYWATELSKOŚCI. 172 Początki 172 Heidegger - francuski „mistrz myślenia”180 „Czy można jeszcze wierzyć filozofom?” 184 Heideggera sen o przywództwie 188 Dyskusje, dyskusje 205 Specyficzna aura filozofa? 210 „Przyjdźcie do nas, a będziecie mogli przekuć waszą myśl w czyn” 230 Rozdział 6. WOKÓŁ PAULA DE MANA - EUROPEJSKIE PYTANIA O SŁOWA JAKO CZYNY 233 Kontekst europejski - rewolucja intelektualna 238 Nowy porządek, nowy początek 248 „Konstruktywne” podejście do rewolucji a „humanizm” 255 Europejski cień człowieka czynu 257 Ideologia estetyczna 262 Rozdział 7. W STRONĘ ESTETYKI EGZYSTENCJI: MICHEL FOUCAULT 266 „Dać żyjącym exempla...” 271 Kanta i Nietzschego „troska o siebie” 272 Etyka jako estetyka 283 Foucault, Kant i „ontologia teraźniejszości” 291 „Troska o siebie” jako praktyka wolności 302 Myślenie - niebezpiecznym aktem? 310 Bibliografia 313 SUMMARY 331 CONTENTS. (shrink)

Alexius Meinong's specific use of the term "self-presentation" had a significant influence on modern epistemology and philosophical psychology. To show that there are remarkable parallels between Meinong's account of the self-presentation of experiences and Lehrer's account of the exemplarization of experiences is one of this paper's main objectives. Another objective is to put forward some comments and critical remarks to Lehrer's approach. One of the main problems can be expressed by the following: The process of using a particular experience as (...) a sample, that is, an exemplar that we use to stand for and refer to a plurality of experiences, Lehrer calls "exemplarization". As concrete experiences are multifarious (red and round, for example), how can we single out a specific sort of experiences (the red ones) by the process of exemplarization when we use such a multifarious experience as a sample? (shrink)

The years in which Piłsudski headed the Polish state marked his “golden age” in Polish history, a period considered as the least controversial in his career despite the failure of his federation concept and troubles with Polish national leaders in the west, especially Upper Silesia. Piłsudski’s achievements in those years are numerous and important, they include among others: the definition of Poland’s borders after military victories over the Ukrainian, Bolshevik and Lithuanian armies and in result of insurgencies in Wielkopolska and (...) Silesia, the securement of international recognition for Poland, the construction of parliamentary democracy and local government, the promotion of a national service ethos through schools, the church, the armed forces and the media. (shrink)

This book offers a novel critique of public-private partnerships in public health. The author argues these relationships create webs of influence that undermine the integrity of public health agencies, and imperil public health. He makes a compelling case that the paradigm interaction between governments and corporations should be at arm's length: separation, not collaboration.

An examination of split-brain syndrome, and whether split-brain patients have two minds.

This book challenges the widespread assumption that the ethical life and society must be moral in any objective sense. In his previous works, Marks has rejected both the existence of such a morality and the need to maintain verbal, attitudinal, practical, and institutional remnants of belief in it. This book develops these ideas further, with emphasis on constructing a positive alternative. Calling it “desirism”, Marks illustrates what life and the world would be like if we lived in accordance (...) with our rational desires rather than the dictates of any actual or pretend morality, neither overlaying our desires with moral sanction nor attempting to override them with moral strictures. Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire also argues that atheism thereby becomes more plausible than the so-called New Atheism that attempts to give up God and yet retain morality. (shrink)

A defense of amorality as both philosophically justified and practicably livable. While in synch with their underlying aim of grounding human existence in a naturalistic metaphysics, this book takes both the new atheism and the mainstream of modern ethical philosophy to task for maintaining a complacent embrace of morality. It advocates instead replacing the language of morality with a language of desire. The book begins with an analysis of what morality is and then argues that the concept is not instantiated (...) in reality. Following this, the question of belief in morality is addressed: How would human life be affected if we accepted that morality does not exist? The book argues that at the very least, a moralist would have little to complain about in an amoral world, and at best we might hope for a world that was more to our liking overall. An extended look at the human encounter with nonhuman animals serves as an illustration of amorality’s potential to make both theoretical and practical headway in resolving heretofore intractable ethical problems. (shrink)

Reason and Ethics defends the theoretical claim that all values are subjective and the practical claim that human affairs can be conducted fruitfully in full awareness of this. Joel Marks goes beyond his previous work defending moral skepticism to question the existence of all objective values. This leads him to suggest a novel answer to the Companions in Guilt argument that the denial of morality would mean relinquishing rationality as well. Marks disarms the argument by conceding the irreality (...) of both morality and logic, but is still able to rescue rationality while dispensing with morality on pragmatic grounds. He then offers a positive account of how life may be lived productively without recourse to attributions and assertions of right and wrong, good and bad, and even truth and falsity. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Reason and Ethics will be of interest to scholars and students working in metaethics as well as to the generally intellectually curious. (shrink)

The paper outlines ongoing research on logic-based tools for the analysis and representation of legal contracts, of the kind frequently encountered in large-scale engineering projects and complex, long-term trading agreements. We consider both contract formation and contract performance, in each case identifying the representational issues and the prospects for providing automated support tools.

The typical philosophy curriculum in my country completely ignores non-Western traditions of thought. Apparently the latter are viewed as primarily religious in nature and so not properly philosophical, when in fact the very distinction has little significance in those other traditions. Or perhaps they are simply not considered at all; after all, if the teachers themselves were never exposed to such material in graduate school, they are not likely to incorporate it into the syllabi they devise for their students.

Joel Marks discusses the philosophical aspects of a question recently in the news: is Pluto a planet, or not?

Despite the apparently universal recognition of a pervasive "success at any cost" amorality in the professional and business world, and the need to do something about it, attempts to establish a campus-wide professional ethics curriculum continue to encounter resistance at many colleges and universities. The main stumbling block seems to be a purely practical one: How do you fit a course on professional ethics into academic worksheets that are already over-crowded with essential technical courses in every professional discipline? I maintain, (...) to the contrary, that the real problem is one of attitude and will, and these in turn rest upon a set of mistaken notions about the nature of professional ethics. In this essay I highlight what I take to be a number of fallacies about professional ethics and then suggest a better way to think about its place in the formal education of professionals. (shrink)

This article argues that from a territorial perspective a certain coherence and continuity can be identified in the Estonian cultural-theoretical tradition – a discursive body based on common sources of influence and similar fundamental attitudes. We understand Estonian theory as a local episteme – a territorialized web of epistemological associations and rules for making sense of the world, which favours some premises while discouraging others. The article focuses on the older layers of Estonian theory, discussing the work of Karl Ernst (...) von Baer, Victor Hehn, Gustav Teichmüller, Jakob von Uexküll, Hermann Keyserling, Johannes Gabriel Granö, Juri Lotman a.o. We examine the philosophical foundations of Estonian theory as well as its main epistemic facets. The article concludes that the conceptualization of Estonian theory could contribute to a general transformation of contemporary (cultural) theory, a redefining of the relations between the centre and the peripheries. (shrink)

This article looks at Deleuze and Guattari's understanding of molecular biology, focusing particularly on their reading of two highly influential works by the eminent French molecular biologists François Jacob and Jacques Monod, La logique du vivant and Le hasard et la nécessité. In these two works, Jacob and Monod present the significance of molecular biology in broadly reductionist terms. What is more, the lac operon model of gene regulation that they propose serves to reinforce the so-called Central Dogma of molecular (...) biology, according to which information passes from DNA to RNA to proteins, with no reverse route. However, Deleuze and Guattari discover intensive potentials within the descriptions of molecular biology offered by both writers. It is argued that Jacob's work in particular, as it has developed in the years since the publication of La logique du vivant in 1970, has itself developed these intensive potentials. (shrink)

Despite the periodic table having been discovered by chemists half a century before the discovery of electronic structure, modern designs are invariably based on physicists’ definition of periods. This table is a chemists’ table, reverting to the phenomenal periods that led to the table’s discovery. In doing so, the position of hydrogen is clarified.

In this chapter, the author reflects on her long personal association with the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning /Council for Assisting Refugee Academics and many of its South African grantees. The academic refugees who came to the SPSL's notice in the 1960s, specially the South Africans, bent the ‘rules’ and signalled the new ways in which the SPSL was going to have to work in a very changed social and educational environment in Britain, and equally great changes (...) in the nature of the academic refugees. Before the rise of Hitler, German scholars had advanced the frontiers of knowledge in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. And in many of these fields the Jews of Central Europe had played a crucial role. Increasingly from the 1960s, however, many of the refugee academics to the UK were from the so-called ‘third world’, especially Latin America and countries just emerging from colonialism in Africa. Academic refugees from South Africa formed something of a bridge between the old and the new. While most of the South African grantees were white and from institutions modelled on British universities, they were on the whole younger and less highly qualified than the earlier generation of grantees. The very small number of Africans assisted at this time were in fact far more eminent; significantly, however, they were the very first Africans to be assisted by the Society. (shrink)