[Marek Jawor, W stronę egzystencjalnego oblicza filozofii. Spór Józefa Tischnera z tomizmem, Wydawnictwo UWM, Olsztyn, ss. 268, ISBN 978-83-8100-175-5].

This reprint of a collection of essays on problems concerning future generations examines questions such as whether intrinsic value should be placed on the preservation of mankind, what are our obligations to posterity, and whether potential people have moral rights.

The essay presents Patočka’s intellectual relationship to Karl Jaspers on the basis of his texts from the 1960s and 1970s, with a starting point in the 1969 study What is Existence?. After introducing some general connections and differences, based in particular on the forms of heresy in both philosophers, the basic contours of the notion of existence are examined more closely. Patočka understands existence as the performance of a threefold movement that is in many respects problematic. The virtue of Jaspers’ (...) position, on the other hand, lies in its focused clarity. While both thinkers emphasize the concept of authentic performance, the key issue becomes its one-sidedness, which can be described as surrender without acceptance. (shrink)

In [2], Bar-Hillel, Gaifman, and Shamir prove that the simple phrase structure grammars (SPGs) defined by Chomsky are equivalent in a certain sense to Bar-Hillel's bidirectional categorial grammars (BCGs). On the other hand, Cohen [3] proves the equivalence of the latter ones to what the calls free categorial grammars (FCGs). They are closely related to Lambek's syntactic calculus which, in turn, is based on the idea due to Ajdukiewicz [1]. For the reasons which will be discussed in the last section, (...) Cohen's proof seems to be at least incomplete. This paper yields a direct proof of the equivalence ofFCGs andSPGs. (shrink)

An organization emits carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) through its daily operations, such as the electricity used to power its offices, manufacture products, and then fossil fuels used in vehicles to distribute them. This is referred to as an organization’s carbon footprint, and there is increasing stakeholder and regulatory pressure on management teams globally to reduce them. On other words, it is increasingly critical that the quantity of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that a company is (...) releasing into the atmosphere can be accurately measured in order to ensure that is being reduced accordingly. The European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the most crucial tool for decarbonizing Europe, but it has also become a money-making machine. States and financial investors earn; for the power industry, which pays for it, the worst thing is not the system’s presence but its instability. Huge price jumps make it impossible to plan budgets and investments sensibly. This paper provides an introduction to the EU’s Emissions Trading System. As such it provides a discussion of the historical and legal context in which the EU ETS developed and now operates. This article covers the various ways in which these market dynamics, regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations have converged to make European carbon markets a critical topic for today’s analyst. (shrink)

Nicht viele Philosophen haben eine solch große Resonanz in der Öffentlichkeit erfahren wie Hans Jonas. Das lag nicht ausschließlich an seinem Bestseller "Das Prinzip Verantwortung", der 1979/80 zu einem Medienereignis wurde. Jonas' Verdienst war es, eine ethische Debatte über die Zukunft des Menschen befeuert zu haben, die den Zeitgeist traf. Doch sind die Ideen von Hans Jonas heute noch zeitgemäß? Wie haben sich einzelne Themen weiterentwickelt? Der vorliegende Band diskutiert die Denkwege von Hans Jonas und versammelt einige Antworten von ausgewiesenen (...) Jonas-Experten. (shrink)

John Searle attempts to show through a consideration of promising that at least some ‘ought’ statements can be derived from ‘is’ statements. He thinks that you can determine on purely factual grounds that a person has made a promise, and that it follows logically from the statement that a person has made a promise that he has at least a prima facie obligation to do the thing he promised to do. I agree with but not with.

Commentary on the previous article of Stanislav Sousedík.

I shall argue here that the reason supererogatory acts are not obligatory is that they require too much personal sacrifice, and that in order for an act to be supererogatory, it must have a kind of result that you would have an obligation to bring about if you could do so with no personal sacrifice. I further argue that traditional utilitarianism should be modified so as not to treat supererogatory acts as obligatory.

This is a review of a book "Dopamine Nation: Finding balance in the Age of Indulgence" written by Anna Lembke. The author, who is a psychiatrist and a specialist in the addiction field, has made a compilation of her addicted patients stories and the results of a newest research in the neuroscience. The effect of her work is a simple description of a complicated issues of human pain and pleasure system and the influence of dopamine on the addiction problem.

ABSTRACT This article argues for a unique role of imagination and mental images in the moral education of students. Imagination is rendered here as a capacity oriented toward realizable and salient goals; mental images are understood as particular future-oriented self-representations (FOSRs) devised by and held in imagination. FOSRs have four moral attributes: they are 1) expressive of us as moral agents, 2) shape our moral identity, 3) serve as moral pointers, and 4) help devise mitigating strategies. FOSRs can be created (...) and utilized in educational settings to further the goals of moral education by i) fostering sensitivity to moral situations among students, ii) motivating learners to act morally, iii) facilitating environments supportive of moral practice and moral habituation, and iv) helping strengthen cross-situational consistency of moral action. The four moral attributes of future-oriented self-representations (FOSRs) (1–4) that are to be engaged in moral education to further its goals (i–iv) are correlated with four elements of moral education, namely: a) moral awareness; b) moral competency; c) moral motivation; and d) moral capacity. To argue for the special role of imagination and mental images in moral education this paper integrates philosophical research and conceptual and empirical studies in psychology and education on the morality of imagination and mental images. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new account of Richard Rorty’s interpretation of Michel Foucault, which demonstrates that in the course of his career, Rorty presented several diverse (often mutually exclusive) criticisms of Foucault’s political thought. These give different interpretations of what he took to be the flaws of that thought, but also provide different explanations as to the sources of these flaws. I argue that Rorty’s specific criticisms can be divided into two overall groups. Sometimes he saw Foucault’s rejection (...) of bourgeois democracies and bourgeois utopias as a specific case of his general critique regarding the structures of social life as inherently oppressive. At other times he seemed to attribute to Foucault a view that—while not all forms of social life are inherently oppressive—bourgeois democracies certainly are, in a very specific and radical way. In conclusion I show that Rorty’s interpretation of Foucault should be understood in the context of his approach toward the ‘American Cultural Left.’. (shrink)

This article reevaluates the origins of Kierkegaard’s concept of imitation. It challenges the general approach to the genealogy of the phenomenon in question, which privileges the influence of various religious traditions on the thinker and ignores his exposure to the non-Christian literature. I contend that a close reading of the Apology, the Sophist, the Republic, and the Phaedo alongside Kierkegaard’s texts from the so-called second authorship reveals in the dialogues of Plato the three crucial aspects of Kierkegaard’s concept of imitation, (...) namely the phenomenon of following after, the existential, and the non-imitative character of imitation. Lastly, I show that, apart from striving to be a follower/an imitator of Christ, Kierkegaard perceives himself as a follower/an imitator of Socrates. This means that the life of the imitator of Christ is the examined life in the Socratic sense. (shrink)

The article is an exploration into the problem of the ethos of modern science viewed from the representationalist and interventionist perspectives. The representationalist account of science is associated with the position of theoreticism, while the interventionist account pertains to the concept of new experimentalism. The former of these approaches is dominated by the ethos of science which Robert K. Merton defined as comprising four sets of institutional imperatives referred to as ‘Mertonian norms’: universalism, communitarism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. In the (...) latter approach, the concept of ethos is far more intricate. It can be described as a hybrid mix of elements derived from Mertonian norms and some constituents from the area of science that John Ziman calls “industrial science”. This article compares the two types of ethos, highlighting the need to identify and investigate nuances in the ethos embraced by individual disciplines within the area of the interventionist approach to science. It is argued that the need can be attributed to the escalating process of substituting the ideal of value-free science for the ideal of value-laden science. The phenomenon is especially evident in the field of laboratory sciences, as exemplified by the research conducted on synthetic mRNA technology. The author also draws attention to the problem of the social responsibility of disciplines from the interventionist approach to science. (shrink)

During the last half of the twentieth century, legal philosophy (or legal theory or jurisprudence) has grown significantly. It is no longer the domain of a few isolated scholars in law and philosophy. Hundreds of scholars from diverse fields attend international meetings on the subject. In some universities, large lecture courses of five hundred students or more study it. The primary aim of the Law and Philosophy Library is to present some of the best original work on legal philosophy from (...) both the Anglo-American and European traditions. Not only does it help make some of the best work avail able to an international audience, but it also encourages increased awareness of, and interaction between, the two major traditions. The primary focus is on full-length scholarly monographs, although some edited volumes of original papers are also included. The Library editors are assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board of internationally renowed scholars. Legal philosophy should not be considered a narrowly circumscribed field. (shrink)

The late Richard Rorty has sometimes been described as a controversial, or even outrageous, thinker. Yet the reasons that stand behind such a reputation are obviously quite different from in the ca...

By spelling out the affective dimension of admiration, this paper challenges the view of admiration as a trustworthy means of detecting morally desirable qualities in exemplars. Such a view of admiration, foundational for the current debate on exemplars in moral education, holds that admiration is a self-motivating emotion essentially oriented toward the good and the excellent. I demonstrate that this view ignores the affective aspects of admiration explored widely in the history of philosophy on which the debate on moral exemplars (...) substantially draws. Focusing on Spinoza, Smith, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, I bring to light their largely skeptical views of the moral value of admiration. These thinkers indicate that admiration can be influenced by, and is often conflated with, other emotions, and can arise in us through behavioral mimicry; moreover, admiration is often oriented toward the mediocre and corrupt, is contagious, self-referential, collective, and has limited motivational power. Their remarks on the affective dimension of admiration call into question admiration’s applicability and usefulness in moral exemplarity. (shrink)

We propose a non-standard interpretation of Alternating-time Temporal Logic with imperfect information, for which no commonly accepted semantics has been proposed yet. Rather than changing the semantic structures, we generalize the usual interpretation of formulae in single states to sets of states. We also propose a new epistemic operator for ?practical? or ?constructive? knowledge, and we show that the new logic (which we call Constructive Strategic Logic) is strictly more expressive than most existing solutions, while it retains the same model (...) checking complexity. Finally, we study properties of constructive knowledge and other operators in this non-standard semantics. (shrink)

The article focuses on the issue of access to experimental therapy under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and more specifically in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. To date, this issue has been the subject of three cases decided by the Court. In none of these cases the Court has recognized a right to experimental therapy. The article has two main research objectives. The first is to reconstruct the arguments for (...) the validity of the right to experimental therapy provided by the applicants in the cases considered by the Court. The second objective is to assess these arguments, as well as their criticism that might be found in Court’s decisions. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur declares that “being-entangled in stories” is an inherent property of the human condition. He introduces the notion of narrative identity—a form of identity constructed on the basis of a self-constructed life-narrative, which becomes a source of meaning and self-understanding. This article wishes to present chosen instances of life writing whose subjects resist yielding a life-story and reject the notions of narrative and identity. In line with Adam Phillips’s remarks regarding Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975), such works—which I (...) refer to as fragmentary life writing—emerge out of a profound scepticism about any form of “fixing” oneself and confining the variety and randomness of experience to one of the available autobiographical plots. The primary example of the genre is Joe Brainard’s I Remember (1975)—an inventory of approximately 1,500 memories conveyed in the form of radically short passages beginning with the words “I remember.” Despite the qualified degree of unity provided by the fact that all the recollections come from the consciousness of a single person, the book does not arrange its content in any discernible order—chronological or thematic; instead, the reader is confronted with a life-in-fragments. Although individual passages could be part of a coming-of-age, a coming-out or a portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man narrative, Brainard is careful not to let any of them consolidate. An attempt at defining the characteristics of the proposed genre will be followed by an indication of more recent examples of fragmentary life writing and a reflection on its prospects for development. (shrink)

W niniejszej analizie poddane badaniu zostały szczególne działania państwa, które przeciwdziałają szkodzeniu dobru wspólnoty, a mianowicie śmiercionośne działania funkcjonariuszy policyjnych. W tym celu pokazano najpierw, czym odróżniają się one od innych typów państwowego zabijania, a mianowicie zabijania wskutek wyroku sądowego oraz zabijania w ramach konfliktu zbrojnego. Następnie, rozważone zostały dwa główne typy śmiercionośnych działań policyjnych: (1) działania niosące ryzyko pozbawienia kogoś życia oraz (2) działania zmierzające bezpośrednio do śmierci jednostki. Wskazano szczegółowo, kiedy policjanci mają uprawnienie do podjęcia się takich działań. (...) Zagadnienie śmiercionośnych działań policyjnych zostało przeanalizowane z perspektywy tomistycznej. Poza odwoływaniem się do pism Akwinaty, poddane krytycznej analizie zostały stanowiska współczesnych badaczy, czerpiących z tradycji tomistycznej – Johna Finnisa, Edwarda Fesera, Gregory’ego Reichberga, Wendy Hicks oraz Benjamina Wisniewskiego. (shrink)

Polnische und sowjetische Zwangsarbeiter, die in der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie als „Untermenschen“ galten, waren die am stärksten diskriminierten Nationalitäten unter den ausländischen Beschäftigten in der Kriegswirtschaft des „Dritten Reiches“. Ihre gesamten Lebens- und Arbeitsbedingungen waren der Rassenideologie untergeordnet. Diese Ideologie vertrug sich in hervorragender Weise mit der systematischen Ausbeutung ihrer Arbeitskraft. Das Ergebnis des Zwangsarbeitersystems war ein völlig repressives, sogar unmenschliches System mit miserablen Lebensbedingungen und minderwertiger medizinischer Versorgung. Sowohl die Lebensbedingungen als auch die medizinische Behandlung zeigen wie in einem Brennglas (...) die Hauptziele des NS-Staates und seinen rassistischen und entmenschlichten Charakter. Die im Nordosten Westfalens gelegene Stadt und der Landkreis Bielefeld sind aufgrund ihres gemischt industriellen und landwirtschaftlichen Charakters ein repräsentatives Beispiel für das brutale und repressive System der Zwangsarbeitsindustrie und spiegelt so das gesamte Spektrum der mit der Zwangsarbeit verbundenen Probleme wider. Die Analyse der medizinischen Versorgung im Raum Bielefeld ermöglicht die Unterscheidung zweier Gruppen polnischer Zwangsarbeiter. Die erste Gruppe besteht aus Personen, die in der Industrie beschäftigt sind, während die andere Gruppe eine gemischte Kategorie ist, die Arbeitnehmer aus den Bereichen Landwirtschaft, Dienstleistungssektor und Haushaltshilfe in Privathaushalten umfasst. In der ersten Gruppe war der Status der Arbeitnehmer in der Regel standardisiert. Die meisten von ihnen wurden in den Lagern untergebracht und einer brutalen und systematischen Ausbeutung unterzogen, die darauf ausgerichtet war, die Produktionseffekte zu maximieren und gleichzeitig Personen infolge widriger Arbeits- und Unterbringungsbedingungen und minimaler medizinischer Versorgung zu vernichten. Diese unmenschliche Behandlung war ein Derivat der rassistischen Ideologie. Status, Beschäftigungsbedingungen und medizinische Versorgung in der zweiten Gruppe waren viel uneinheitlicher und stärker von ganz unterschiedlichen Bedingungen abhängig. Wir haben es hier mit einer breiten Palette von Problemen zu tun, oft verbunden mit extrem unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen von Zwangsarbeitern mit dem medizinischen Personal und unterschiedlichen Einstellungen der Arbeitgeber zu den Zwangsarbeitern. Begrenzt wird die Aussagekraft unserer Darstellung durch die oft beschränkte Quellenlage. Insbesondere betrifft das den begrenzten Fundus an schriftlich festgehaltenen Erinnerungen der Zwangsarbeiter. Heute ist es praktisch unmöglich, das Quellenreservoir zu erweitern, da die Zeugen dieser Ereignisse nicht mehr zur Verfügung stehen. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Richard Rorty’s views on intercultural hermeneutics as presented in his essay “Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens” and in his correspondence with the Indian philosopher Anindita Niyogi Balslev. In doing so, I focus primarily on Rorty’s presumption that instead of providing an “authentic” picture of another culture, the goal of intercultural studies or hermeneutics should be to look if there is anything “of use” that a given culture offers and that is not offered by ours.

In this paper, I propose a specific version of theism which I would call apophatic theism. In the first part of the paper, I argue that this in the only tenableversion of theism. Due to the fact that it may seem indistinguishable from a very strong form of agnosticism (or atheism understood in the etymological sense of the word: as a-theism where ‘a’ means ‘without’), in the second part of my paper, I try to distinguish apophatic theism from agnosticism (or (...) a-theism), and from so called “Wittgensteinian” view of religion, which also may seem similar to the position I propose. (shrink)