Scholars in multispecies ethnography, the ontological turn, new materialisms, science and technology studies (STS), assemblage urbanism and other movements within the posthumanities broadly considered often treat cosmopolitics, initially proposed by Isabelle Stengers and subsequently taken up by Bruno Latour, as a single coherent concept. However, Stengers’s cosmopolitics differs considerably from Latour’s. The difference is most clearly visible in their contrasting positions on the concept of universality. Even though their divergence on universality could be considered a minor philosophical dispute among intellectual (...) allies, it should not be underestimated. It determines what sort of political practice each of these philosophers envisions with cosmopolitics. Their visions of political practice are substantially different. This article will examine Latour’s and Stengers’s diverging positions on universality, delineate the two types of cosmopolitics, and, finally, analyze what sort of political practice each of these cosmopolitics implies. (shrink)

The aim of this note is to analyze the problems connected with con- straints on descriptions imposed by limitations of knowledge and/or observability, and constraints imposed by the language used.

The topic of the article is the perspectives of CSR in Polish companies. The article contains the definition of corporate social responsibility, the state and dynamics of ethical reporting and the factors that can influence the dynamics of CSR in Poland – both in a favourable and adverse way.

The problem of charging interest has been discussed since the time of Aristotle. It was condemned in the Christian religion in the Middle Ages. Only when the interest was specified as a payment for productive capital was it considered that the borrower, enriched by the money lent, should let the lender benefit in accordance with the principle of fairness. The borrower should share the profit with the lender, and from this moment the percentage is no longer something shameful and neglected. (...) Religious beliefs and accepted moral values have changed over time, adapting to the circumstances, so has the approach to collecting interest from the capital lent. However, there is still a great deal of criticism of excessive interest rates. The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion related to the charging of interest presented in the tradition of economics and also to show some aspects of the problem in relation to the present times, such as excessive debt and responsible lending. (shrink)

The expansion of competition on financial services market forces to search for new ways of development. A bank-insurance cooperation, which is more and more popular in the world and in Poland, becomes an effective remedy to this problem and a factor which stimulates rivalry and competition. The final beneficent of this cooperation is a customer for whom a diverse market offer of financial services means creation of added value. The customer’s satisfaction with that kind of services is important to further (...) development of bank-insurance cooperation. The aim of this work is to estimate whether the services of an integrated bank-insurance offer and insurances with mortgage credits are friendly and useful, and also whether they assure comfort and safety or may cause risk. (shrink)

This contribution considers the question of scale in Peter Sloterdijk’s work in relation to some of the recent tendencies in contemporary French thought. It examines theoretical conditions for approaching philosophy as an exercise in constructing grand narratives and interrogates the legitimacy of such a gesture after poststructuralist critique. What is to be gained from new grand narratives?

“Representation” and “articulation” are important terms in discussions of multispecies relations. In this article, I propose the term “coarticulation” that describes a process of mutual intelligibility between a human and a nonhuman and of rendering each other capable in new ways. This article argues that the concept of “coarticulation” offers a way to enrich our understanding of our human-nonhuman relations and give ontological consistency to various types of nonhumans that matter to us. It traces the reciprocal imprints that nonhumans and (...) humans make on each other. Not least, it provides an alternative way to think about politics with nonhumans: a politics of cohabitation. (shrink)

This article attempts to respond to the fractional presence of feminist discourse around René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire. I will first briefly examine the relevant critical stands on mimesis and then proceed to rehabilitate it for feminism via an analysis of Judith Butler’s theory of performative gender. By bringing together selected aspects of Girard and Butler’s work, it will be possible to build a constructive dialogue between the two thinkers. Due to the scope of the paper I will not (...) be able to give an exhaustive account of the respective theories, and hence I will discuss only the most relevant aspects. Girard is concerned with giving an account of conflictual mimetic desire in social and cultural.. (shrink)

The present paper consists of two parts. In the first, some issues related to the character of biological experiments conducted under in vitro cultures are portrayed. The relevant aspects of these procedures are explicated from the viewpoint of the experimental botanist. It is a case study for the considerations in the second part, which presents selected philosophical and legal issues involved in biological experiments from the general perspective of philosophical investigations concerning the problem of plants’ axiology. Obviously, the nature of (...) the considerations is limited; not all important questions from the perspective of biology and philosophy have been raised. Nevertheless, the authors hope that the analyzed issues may be interesting for both biologists and philosophers. (shrink)

Artykuł stanowi próbę analizy listu Pico della Mirandoli O języku filozofów, skierowanego do Hermolausa Barbara. W pierwszej części tekstu zaprezentowano kontekst sporu, czyli znamienne dla epoki napięcie między filozofią a retoryką, oraz krytykę filozofii scholastycznej z perspektywy humanistów. Uwyraźnienie stanowiska Barbara pozwala uchwycić sedno sporu z Pikiem, mianowicie:jakiej prawdy – prawdy o czym – powinniśmy poszukiwać? Do analizy stanowiska Pika posłużyły wypreparowane z jego tekstu opozycje: wnętrze/zewnętrze, prawda/pozór, rozum/zmysły i popędy, filozofia/retoryka-sofistyka, człowiek rozumny/człowiek pospolity. Pozwala to uchwycić myśl Pika jako (...) z założenia paradoksalną: okazuje się, że retoryka zarazem zakrywa istotę rzeczy i ją odkrywa. Jest jednocześnie przeszkodą i nieodzownym narzędziem poznania i wyrażania myśli. Dzieje się tak ze względu na nieuchronną historyczność ludzkiej myśli. (shrink)

This text focuses on the possibility of acquiring universal knowledge by individual subjective consciousness as determined both corporeally and culturally. Along with the appearance of the “question” of the cultural Other the attempts of European philosophers to establish a kind of a universal sphere—intellectual basis for an intercultural dialogue—became more intensive, but still often limited by their relation to the values and ideas of the only one culture. In other words, the attempts to search the community of human kind in (...) an intellectual sphere often led to the universality being the “universalized particularity”, maintained by the empty signifiers. But there is also another philosophical tradition, in which the “universality” of ideas, concepts or values is being perceived as a quasi-universality or pluri-versality, mediated by human organic and cultural interactions, and is being derived rather from “beyond”—from the condition of embodiment—than from “above,” the pure intellectual cognition. I focus on three instances of moving from the order of body towards the quasi-universal values: on Bartolomé de Las Casas’s posing a problem of the universal values in the context of intercultural dialogue, on Michel de Montaigne’s reflections on human nature and Walter Mignolo’s naturalistic foundation of the comparative studies. I chose these examples, because they offer a clear and expressed attempt to reformulate the very idea of possible universality in the context of the desired intercultural dialogue, but within the optics of the embodied subjectivities. (shrink)

The book is a reflection over how art functions in late modernity. It emphasizes processes of fictionalizing reality and exposes, how phenomenology can be used to extract this problem on a foundation of aesthetics. It is a panoramic outlook over existing views, but also a self-sufficient theoretical proposal.

The paper concerns a form of experiencing time which is specific for haiku poetry. Haiku is an expression of the momentary glimpse of time. Haiku poetry treats the moment uninstrumentally, neither as a result of the past nor as a transition to future deeds. Seen this way, the moment arises on the stream of time as a unique, existential experience. It is my attempt to explain the phenomenon of this experience of “now” as I explore the metaphors of “background”, “figure” (...) and “composition”. (shrink)

A new theory of time; Events and observability; Multimedial units and language: verbal and nonverbal communication; Judgment formation and problems of description; Memory and perception: some new models; Stochastic models of expertise formation, opinion change, and learning.

Fiodor Dostoyevsky in his oeuvre indicates certain attitudes, which are often recognized in the process of man's thinking and behavior. They are conditioned by the manner he perceives reality and they in themselves appoint simultaneously this way of world perception. Some of those occurrences resemble in a great manner the defense mechanisms, which are described in the later literature. A first mechanism that was analyzed is pursue simplification, which causes a man to believe that thanks to the achieved knowledge he (...) will be able to set in order and fix imperfect reality. Such attitude enforces simplified vision of the world, which in turn helps in self-deception. Dostoyevsky's heroes have problems to recognize true motives of their own behaviors or they intentionally attribute nobler incentives to themselves. Therefore the next described attitude is reluctance to acknowledge the truth. The Russian writer rejects generally accepted disjunctivity of the 'truth and false' category and he attributes the final might to acknowledge something as true or false to the man's will. On account of innate laziness and refractoriness, man chooses the simplest solutions, which in point of fact dismiss possibility to see real reasons for all failures. It makes impossible to undertake activities, which could indeed change something. Man is characterized by irresponsibility for his actions and words. A word looses its causative meaning and becomes purely a decoration, an ornament. All these make that learning the truth, as one of the elements propelling development of the philosophy, was not impossible but it was unwanted. (shrink)

The article analyses the scientific work of Bohdan Jałowiecki, highlighting his influence on the development of interdisciplinary urban studies in Poland. By integrating elements of sociology, geography and spatial planning, Jałowiecki contributed significally to the internationalisation of Polish scientific thought, including the intoduction of the French concepts of Henri Lefebvre and Manuel Castells. The introduction of the idea of social production of space and rational electicism in research methodology allowed for a deeper understanding of socio-spatial processes. The article discusses Jałowiecki's (...) assessment of development policies during socialism and systematic transformation, incuding his early warnings against the uncritical adoption of the dogma of economic growth. Jałowiecki emphasised the importance of socialising spatial planning and citizen participation in decision-making processes, stressing the need to integrate economic and spatial planning in order to fully reflect the public interest and shape the spatial order. (shrink)

Cathartic-Compensatory Role of an Artwork -/- This article raises the problem of catharsis and its role in arts. It is intended first of all to present, in brief, the controversy about this term in the history of literature and other forms of art and then give a short review of its most important aspects. The article intends to look at catharsis, taking into account its various aspects and different positions as to its role in literature as well as socio-cultural life. (...) It particularly emphasizes the role of Bohdan Dziemidok, who as one of the first researchers to draw attention to the cathartic-compensatory function of art and the role of the recipient’s experience in it. The article, following this trail, presents the latest results of contemporary research on the cathartic-compensatory function of art. A the author argues, they are not only confirmation of Dziemidok’s apt research intuitions but also contribute to the reformulation of our general thinking about art and its role in a contemporary world. (shrink)

Recent debates within broadly considered posthumanities have been populated by various conceptual personae. One such figure is the diplomat. First proposed in this context by Isabelle Stengers in her Cosmopolitics series, the diplomat has been subsequently taken up and further developed by Bruno Latour, particularly in his AIME project, and most recently by Baptiste Morizot in Les Diplomates. This article traces the metamorphosis of this conceptual character in the work of Stengers, Latour and Morizot. As all three versions are relatively (...) close to each other, this article proposes three companion figures: the heretic (for Stengers), the designer (for Latour) and the amateur (for Morizot) that allow us to carefully examine the differences between, and the specific stakes of, each iteration of the diplomat. Furthermore, the article critically evaluates the theoretical pertinence of the diplomat figure for each philosopher’s project and considers its potential for thinking about the future of our more-than-human worlds. (shrink)

Autorka kieruje swoją uwagę na estetyczne doświadczenie, sztukę oraz procesy estetyzacji w warunkach późnej nowoczesności. Estetyczne ukierunkowanie pracy nie oddala nas jednak od ważnych problemów współczesnej humanistyki. Łączy się bowiem z płaszczyzną filozoficznych pytań o kondycję człowieka zmagającego się z problemami skończoności istnienia, kontyngencji, braku pewności ontologicznej w dzisiejszym świecie. Wykłady prezentują trzy późnonowoczesne funkcje doświadczeń estetycznych, w tym sztuki. Iwona Lorenc sięga w swej prezentacji głównie do narzędzi fenomenologicznych, wskazując na przydatność fenomenologii do tego typu analiz. Jej odniesienia (...) filozoficzne są jednak znacznie szersze: nawiązuje do Kanta, do współczesnych sporów o aktualność niedokończonego projektu moderny w ujęciu Habermasa, przywołuje myśli Nietzschego, Husserla, Heideggera, Merleau-Ponty`ego, Vattima, Ricoeura, Adorna, Rancière`a, Lyotarda i wielu innych. (shrink)

Das Ziel der von mir vorgestellten Arbeit ist zu beweisen, dass Nie-Boska komedia (Die ungöttliche Komödie) von Zygmunt Krasiński eine romantische Moralität ist. In Beziehung auf das mittelalterliche Gattungsmodell weise ich nach, dass dieses Drama des polnischen Romantikers in Anlehnung and Moralitätsschema konstruiert worden ist. Dieses Schema gibt die Voraussetzung für die im Werk enthaltene Vision der Welt und des Menschen. Die Anfangskapitel widmen sich der Rekonstruktion und Analyse der im Werk des Authors von Irydion vorgestellten Visionen von außerirdischen Gegenden (...) des Universums, weil die Erde, wie in einer typischen Moralität, nur sein Teil ist. Aus dieser übernatürlichen Wirklichkeit kommen sowohl gute, als auch böse Kräfte, die sich im Laufe des Dramas bemühen, einen Einfluss auf den Helden zu erobern. Sie möchten ihn entweder zur Errettung oder zur Verdammung bringen, was in Konsequenz eine Übermacht im ewigen Ringen zwischen Gott und seinem großen Widersacher - Satan erreichen lässt. Im weiteren Teil meiner Arbeit versuche ich die Kreationsweise der in Nie-Boska komedia auftretenden Engel- und Dämonwesen zu bestimmen und auch auf eventuelle Inspirationsquellen und Entlehnungen zu weisen. Ich will auch die Methoden und Mittel zeigen, mit Hilfe deren sie auf ihr Hauptziel - den Grafen Henryk einwirken. Besonders interessant scheint die Gestalt von Pankracy zu sein, der vielleicht ein Instrument in Händen der metaphysischen Mächte ist. Das Drama von Krasiński halte ich für geistliche Geschichte vom Grafen Henryk. (shrink)

The access of Poland to the EU caused the creation of the consumer protection system which consists of legal controls and different institutions such as e.g. UOKiK, BA, RZu. The aim of the study is to show problem of protection of bank services market consumer. The range of bank services is limited here to mortgage loans. Changes on the mortgage loan market in Poland during 2005–2008 are analysed in this work. The crisis on financial markets and its consequences have also (...) been considered. The author presents the bank actions in the face of consumers during the crisis and the possibilities of the solving the disputes with dissatisfied consumers. (shrink)

The question of politics is underdeveloped in René Girard's mimetic theory. This can be fairly easily accounted for. First, mimesis is essentially an ethical mechanism. In Girard, it pertains both to a set of moral prescriptions and to an ethos, understood here as a way of being that exchanges harmful repetitions for favorable ones.1 Throughout his work, Girard advances an ethics of generosity that steers clear of reciprocity, which, in his framework, would lead to violence.2 Second, Girard concentrates on social (...) structures and religious institutions that have been developed over the ages to deal with mimetic crises. These structures of containment protect communities from an all-consuming outbreak of violence by... (shrink)

One of the generalizations of R. W´ojcicki’s concept of referential matrix is so-called pseudo-referential matrix . G. Malinowski, who introduced that concept, also considers a particular case of pseudo-referential matrices called discrete pseudo-referential matrices . In this note we want to show how any generalized matrix determines a semantically equivalent discrete pseudo-referential matrix.