After a brief outline of the history of the catholic doctrines of natural law the author concludes that although the doctrine itself has not changed, changes in its official interpretation and in the conclusions drawn from it are traceable. A rigid, invariable catholic natural law, universally binding for all times, all societies, and all men, has transformed into a natural law of variable content. It has become variable depending on both the socio-historical circumstances and on the different situations and different (...) mutual relations of various groups in the society. In this way the function of law has changed. Whereas to Pius XI natural law was still an expression of a static attitude towards society contributing to the restitution of a statical medieval system and securing the control of morality by the church, nowadays it should fulfil the two following functions: owing to its variability it should facilitate the dynamics of development, and owing to the fundamental invariability of its basic principles it should secure only a single consistent direction of development. (shrink)

O presente artigo aborda o problema do fracasso da cristianização da Escandinávia nos séculos iniciais da missão, especialmente entre a segunda metade do século IX e início do século X, a partir da narrativa apresentada por Adam de Bremen. O trabalho parte de uma abordagem ligada à Vorstellungsgeschichte, uma proposta originada no contexto historiográfico alemão no intuito de incorporar as contribuições da reflexão antropológica nas análises históricas referentes ao troisième niveau. Nesse sentido, a narrativa de Adam é analisada primeiramente enquanto (...) testemunho da visão de mundo de seu autor, sendo o conteúdo narrado entendido como plataforma para a expressão das ideias do cônego bremense. Destacam-se as estratégias utilizadas pelo historiógrafo medieval para lidar com acontecimentos delicados na história da diocese e seus catedráticos enaltecidos na obra de Adam. A forma como ele trabalha os fracassos e retrocessos, assim como opõe a esses os sucessos da empresa missionária refletem principalmente os problemas enfrentados por Hamburgo-Bremen no século XI. A visão retrospectiva apresenta-se como potencial-legitimadora das ações contemporâneas à composição da obra. (shrink)

Europe is the community of nations which, in the favorable conditions of a small yet extremely diversified continent, took over and developed the legacy of Greco-Roman civilization transformed and enriched by Christianity. Philosophy, theology, liturgy, religion, national culture and tradition are still manifestations of this heritage. Europe is not merely a region or geographical location. It is an idea that expresses cultural and social ideals. The nature of Europeanness is not defined by race or place but by freedom and culture (...) in the broad sense. Latin Europe created a sphere of civilization. Though ridden by contrasts and differences, not merely an organic unity was established but also a unity of a spiritual kind by accentuating and merging of values all Europeans have in common. This was also made possible by Christianity whose ethos came to pervade a multiplicity of socio-cultural phenomena. (shrink)

Politics is on the one hand an attempt to implement certain good, a desire for achieving agreed objectives, on the other hand – as Max Weber says – a simultaneous a#empt to avoid a particular evil. If in defining the notion of politics there are references to good and evil, purpose and desire, it has to include the non-political spheres – culture, axiology, religion. Mark Lilla argues that for decades we have been aware of the great and final separation that (...) has taken place in Western Europe between political and religious life. This awareness implies a conviction, which is obligatory today in most countries and societies, that to separate politics from religion is a great achievement. For many thinkers and politicians this is an undisputed success from which the West learns to benefit while preparing other regions of the world for such separation. Therefore it seems that modern politics should be free from religious inspiration and temptation. On the other hand, many sociologists and political scientists show the vitality of religious attitudes, proving that in its deepest essence religion is an expression of human behaviour. Each person and each community always has an element of irreducibility which is an internal defence against reducing man to “here and now”, restricting his world to what is useful and usable. We experience that in man there is a natural opening to what is transcendent. Thus, if man is ever to achieve individual and social reconciliation with himself, he will always look for rational and moral meanings. This situation creates a platform for the emergence of a completely new a#itude in society and politics – to seek and pursue spirituality in a world without religion. Increasingly, the understanding of religion reveals itself in a wide etymological sense, sociological and ethnological: religare – “to connect”, “to bind”, “to build community ties”. Religion so understood would be a great solution to the dilemma of separation – the adoption of religion (bonds) without the doctrine, while ensuring social cohesion, strengthening the feeling of being together, maintaining a spiritual connection. Many thinkers are convinced that we cannot base social life only on fear, discipline and economy; we need a deeper and stronger foundations for Community Cohesion. But is such a project possible at all? Is politics becoming a place for the formation of relationships, education and conservation of values, a narrative space which tells citizens what is good and right and what is wrong and alien? Can it replace religion in its deepest essence – in its intimate sense of an exploration and discovery of transcendence? Will it not become a caricature of religion, and a caricature of politics, and ultimately a trap for freedom? (shrink)

SPIS TREŚCI Ryszard Moń Wstęp -/- Rozdział 1: Lękam się świata bez filozofii. O nieodzowności humanistyki w dobie techniki i globalizacji -/- 1.1 Konieczność filozofii 1.2 Narodziny sztuk wyzwolonych 1.3 Uniwersytet domem humanistyki 1.4 Upadek humanistyki 1.5 Uniwersytet – biznes i korporacyjna logika 1.6 Kognitywny kapitalizm 1.7 Złowroga moc etatyzmu 1.8 Pragmatyzm a ideały kształcenia 1.9 Demokracja – dialog, kultura, światopogląd 1.10 Humanistyka na straży demokracji 1.11 Edukacja filozoficzna w szkole 1.12 Podsumowanie – filozofia jako fundament -/- Rozdział 2: Czy (...) starożytna paideia może być alternatywą dla współczesnej pedagogiki? Antyczne metody wychowawcze i ich obecna rola -/- 2.1 Filozofia jako sposób życia 2.2 Rola ćwiczeń duchowych w paidei starożytnej Grecji oraz starożytnego Rzymu 2.3 Antyczna paideia a aktualne wzorce kształcenia -/- Rozdział 3: Problem ujawniania przez nauczyciela własnej tożsamości moralnej w nauczaniu etyki i filozofii -/- 3.1 Nauczyciel na lekcjach filozofii i etyki 3.2 Etyka, moralność i tożsamość 3.3 Matthew Lipmana filozofowanie z dziećmi i młodzieżą 3.4 Filozofia! Ale jaka? 3.5 Nauczyciel-filozof 3.6 Tożsamość moralna nauczyciela -/- Rozdział 4: Język i filozofia. O Naturalnym Metajęzyku Semantycznym i jego związkach z filozofią -/- 4.1 Naturalny Metajęzyk Semantyczny – rozważania wstępne 4.2 Inspiracje filozoficzne koncepcji NMS 4.3 Naturalny Metajęzyk Semantyczny – cel i założenia koncepcji 4.4 Kierunki rozwoju NMS 4.5 Jak wykorzystać NMS w dydaktyce filozofii? -/- Rozdział 5: Metody problemowe na lekcji etyki i filozofii jako możliwe działanie prewencyjne -/- 5.1 Metody rozwiązywania problemów – informacje ogólne 5.2 Rozwiązywanie problemów poznawczych 5.3 Rozwiązywanie problemów decyzyjnych 5.4 Rozwiązywanie problemów praktycznych 5.5 Nauczanie i uczenie się metodą „układanki” 5.6 Metoda wychowania bez porażek 5.7 Rola nauczyciela 5.8 Kształcenie umiejętności rozwiązywania problemów 5.9 Oceny i wartościowania 5.10 Podsumowanie Rozdział 6: Trudności w uczeniu się – profilaktyka i terapia -/- 6.1 Trudności w uczeniu się 6.2 Specyficzne trudności w uczeniu się 6.3 Niepowodzenia szkolne 6.4 Profilaktyka i terapia -/- Aneks – konspekty lekcji o tematyce filozoficznej i etycznej. (shrink)

Question about values asked in a community life context, is therefore a kind of a political question. It is especially noticeable in interpretations and relations made by institutions of European Union towards legal and moral regulations of member countries. At present, in the European Union, the principle of legalissation and legislation based on a idea of value syncretism is proposed. Because in the EU, which is a specific national-state conglomeration of infl uences and traditions, different systems and moral judgments possessing (...) equal rights exist and compete, the principle of discourse and agreement based on alignment of common positions is promoted. As a result, there is a political, social and public debate on values. And the axis of this dialogue and dispute is, in Author’s opinion, question of specific social status of values – are they universal or relative. It seems that, in the age of hermeneutics as a language of contemporary culture, axiology is finally transformed into a personal matter, relating only to individual opinions. Postmodern man is becoming an object responsible no more to God or to his own rational nature, but just to himself and others, therefore to the project of democracy as an ideal interpretation. Contemporary understanding of the democratic system demands not the objective truth, but public discourse, in which it is moral, how people really act, not how they should act. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to illustrate the ethical foundations of psychoanalysis and to outline the ethical origins of Freudian theory. To this end, Jürgen Habermas' conception of knowledge-constitutive interests is discussed, which draws on psychoanalysis as an example of science justified in its form through an underlying emancipatory interest. The analysis of the position of the German philosopher is complemented by Charles Taylor's reflections on the sources of the contemporary conceptions of subjectivity and related ethical conceptions considered in (...) their relation to the history of the discourse on madness - including psychoanalysis. The research results in showing the continuing validity of the conception proposed by Freud in the context of the development of the philosophical theories of subjectivity, as well as more detailed, conceptual problems concerning mental disorders. (shrink)

This paper refers to the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri in commemoration of which Pope Francis released a special apostolic letter highlighting the genius and significance of the Italian poet. We should praise his genius, the Pope writes, because it is he who was able to express, much better than most of the others, the depth of the mystery of God and His love. The Commedia is the fruit of deep religious inspiration. This is why Francis repeats (...) after Benedict XV – „Dante is our own!” Why is it so? Because there breathes in Alighieri the devotion that we too feel and his faith resonates with ours. Dante’s work continues to be a meaningful and valid exemplar for Christ’s followers. However, in today’s pop culture Dante is mainly seen through his depiction of hell – the artistically described eternal punishment. The truth about hell which Dante made the subject of his narrative does not find acceptance even between Christians. Many people are really outraged and scandalized because hell is for them the symbol of sadism and distorted image of God – a vengeful tyrant who condemns human souls to eternal perdition. But hell is present in the biblical message. The early Church Fathers spoke of hell in their sermons, wrote about it in treatises, disputed the dwelling place of the condemned souls, the position of Satan and other demons, and the imminence of God’s judgement. In this way in the Catholic dogmatic theology consolidated the truth of the reality of hell and eternal punishment. This was also in accord with the views of the prominent medieval theologians. Therefore, why the ancient and well-known truth about hell is rejected today as outrageous and Dante’s vision does not gain recognition? The heart of the matter is the understanding of the idea of justice and atonement. In their denial expressed through the notion of the empty hell and rejection of eternal punishment for angels’ and people’s sins, we have to do with misunderstanding of the significance of human intellect and will. The refusal to accept responsibility for our free choices entails the uninhibited rejection of seriousness of our earthly life. If we believe that our fate, and what is more, out eternal fate – the salvation or damnation – depends on what we were able to do in our lifetime, Dante’s poetic vision strongly illustrates this standpoint. The power of free will is deeply and inalienably present in The Comedy’s stanzas. In the Dante’s poem the essence of hell lies in the ultimate rejection of the goal that man longs to achieve from his very nature – the happiness which is the union with the infinite Good – God, the Creator and the Redeemer of the world. How is it possible? It happens due to the existence of free will which is innate to all people and no one can deprive them of it or minimise it. This rejection of the sublime happiness is the result of human free decision – the condemned did not say to God: “Thy will be done!” but “my will be done!”. The existence of hell becomes the guarantee of human dignity, the evidence that a perfectly Good and Omnipotent God treats the man whom He had created seriously and preserves him for the eternity in the same state in which he wanted to remain in his earthly life. (shrink)

Dziewiętnaste stulecie to jeden z najbogatszych w wydarzenia i treści okresów historii myśli ludzkiej. Jeśli popatrzymy na ten czas pod kątem wydarzeń o znaczeniu ideowym, to uzmysłowimy sobie, że symbolicznie otwiera je wielka rewolucja francuska, a kończy wybuch I wojny światowej. Naukowe teorie i filozoficzne przesłania, jakie zrodziły się w tym okresie – kantyzm, heglizm, materializm, marksizm, społeczny i biologiczny ewolucjonizm, pozytywizm, radykalny ateizm – wypełniły uniwersyteckie sale wykładowe, gabinety polityczne i izby parlamentów. Nie wszyscy żyjący wówczas intelektualiści zdawali sobie (...) sprawę z przemożnej siły filozoficznych nowinek czy przełomowego znaczenia ideowych propozycji. Tylko uważny namysł nad tym, co wtedy dokonywało się w europejskiej myśli, co działo się w kulturze, nauce, historii, filozofii i religii, pozwalał zauważyć, że nadchodzą bardzo poważne zmiany. Jedną z kluczowych postaci, która dostrzegła moc filozoficznych idei, rozbrzmiewających w dyskusjach tego stulecia, był włoski duchowny Gioacchino Vincenzo Raphaelo Luigi Pecci, późniejszy papież Leon XIII. Właśnie świadomy wagi i mocy ideowych skutków nowych prądów pod koniec XIX wieku, w bardzo trudnych dla Kościoła katolickiego czasach, we wrogiej chrześcijaństwu światopoglądowej atmosferze, spowodowanej wpływem idealistycznych filozofii i fascynacją rodzącym się marksizmem, ogłosił w 1879 roku encyklikę Aeterni Patris. Papież wskazywał sposoby intelektualnego wspomagania i odbudowywania znaczenia teologii i religii w życiu społecznym, zachwianego przez nurty postoświeceniowe i modernistyczne. Leon XIII przekonywał, że jeśli misją Kościoła jest nauczanie, to jest on odpowiedzialny także za ocenę treści, jakie pojawiają się w życiu społecznym i politycznym. Narody, państwa i wspólnoty nie żyją jedynie sprawami ekonomicznymi czy bytowymi, ale przede wszystkim tym, co dokonuje się w kulturze, sztuce, filozofii. Papież proroczo dostrzegł, jak wiele zależy od filozofii. W świetle wciąż powracającego pytania o zasadność i potrzebę filozofii chrześcijańskiej warto spojrzeć retrospektywnie na znaczenie wspomnianej encykliki i zawartej w niej wizji roli filozofii w ludzkim poszukiwaniu odpowiedzi na pytania, wynikające z aktualnego postępu cywilizacyjnego, naukowego i kulturowego. -------------- Zgłoszono: 26/07/2020. Zrecenzowano: 18/09/2020. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 27/10/2020. (shrink)

The German philosopher Robert Spaemann proposed a complex but incomplete concept of philosophy. It has features of a classical approach, but it is difficult to define what is classical in it. Its comparison to the contemporary version of classical philosophy developed by the Lublin School of Philosophy shows that Spaemann may be considered as a representative of a classical, though not metaphysical, manner of philosophizing. Both in philosophy, systematically perceived as a type of cognition, and history, perceived as a type (...) of discourse, classical influences can be observed in terms of the concept of philosophy, its object, purpose, and method. Despite the tension between philosophy as the cognition and philosophy as the discourse, in his concept these two aspects cannot be reduced one to another and cannot be separate from each other. The awareness that philosophy is an endless and controversial discourse on ultimate problems does not relieve philosophers from their efforts to pursue the truth about reality. And this is how Spaemann looks at his own philosophising. (shrink)

The book by professor Stanisław Kowalczyk, renowned scholar in the field of social philosophy, is, without doubt, one of the most important studies on the idea of freedom. The concept of freedom is as old as mankind. It has many meanings and has been interpreted in many different ways. For instance, we also have the word „liberty," which means „freedom or right" and is synonymous with the word freedom, which means „the condition of being free." The author indicates that (...) in our times the notion of freedom is most frequently used; however, it is often misused or deceptive. Mass media and people of all walks of life talk of liberty; everyone talks of freedom and, for many, it is the highest value. Longing for freedom is rooted in the heart of every human being, for freedom is an existential correlate and the fulfilment of the rational human being. The semantic confusion about the notion of freedom leads to many misuses of the concept. Personalism, as a philosophical concept in which a person stands in the centre of all discussion, serves as a framework for the author's delineation on the concept of freedom. He further states that the appropriate understanding of this value is possible in the context of the personalistic interpretation of a human being. This is the focus of this informative and insightful book. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Philosophia Vitam Alere. Prace dedykowane Profesorowi Romanowi Darowskiemu SJ z okazji 70-lecia urodzin, edited by Stanisław Ziemiański S.J.

But beyond this central theme, the two books are quite disparate. D'Entrèves gives us a classical study of political theory. It is a history of ideas and of classics of political theory. There are neither new ideas, or new authors, or nearly so. It is also a superb literary exercise.

Sport plays today an eminent role in man's life and in societies. Various sciences have made it the subject-matter of their reflection, i.e. psychology, sociology, the natural and humanistic sciences, art, philosophy, and theology. The present work seeks to answer some fundamental questions connected with the phenomenon of sport: what is it for man? whether and when does it serve the social integration of a community? what are the premises and principles of the ethics of sportive activity? what is the (...) aesthetic dimension of sport? what are the relations between sport and religious faith? The philosophical profile is dominant in the book, taking into consideration various aspects of sport: anthropological, social, axiological, and theological. (shrink)

This edited book explores diverse contestations and transformations of sovereignty around the world. Sovereignty plays a central role in modern political thought and practice, but it also remains fundamentally contested. Depending on the context and perspective, it seems either omnipresent or elusive, liberating or oppressive, fading or resilient. Indeed, if in recent decades sovereignty has been expected to wane, today it is back on the agenda; not as the solid bedrock of modern - international - politics, which it never was, (...) but as variations on a concept and institution that are ever contested and, as a result, constantly transforming. Bringing together perspectives from various disciplines, including International Relations (IR), political theory, geography, law, and anthropology, this volume: - goes beyond debates over the resilience or decline of sovereignty to instead emphasize how precisely the inherent ambiguities, tensions, and contestations in scholarship and practice spark sovereignty's manifold transformations; - offers three theoretical chapters that examine the illusions, contradictions, transformation, and lasting appeal of sovereignty and the nation-state; - explores sovereignty from various disciplinary perspectives in 11 empirical chapters that highlight its role in different contexts around the world, from the European Union (EU) to the South China Sea, to Western Sahara and Palestine; - problematizes the interplay between theory and practice of statehood and sovereignty, as in the perception of Northern Cyprus as a 'fake state', scholars' promotion of Kurdish 'statehood' in Iraq, and studies affirming the 'Islamic State'. This book will be of much interest to students of statehood, sovereignty, conflict studies and International Relations. (shrink)