The paper addresses a contemporary Polish debate on the limits and functions of juristic interpretation of law. After presenting the main theses and features of Jerzy Wróblewski’s clarificative theory of juristic interpretation and Maciej Zieliński’s derivational theory of juristic interpretation, the author critically discusses various arguments used in the debate. Finally, a tentative solution of the controversy, based on the criticism of Zieliński’s conception of legal norm, is proposed. It is argued that his conception is utopian and not recommendable, due (...) to unacceptable conceptual and practical consequences. (shrink)

Jak wiadomo, teksty biblijne czyta się wielorako. Jednym z uprawnionych, aczkolwiek niewykorzystanych sposobów ich lektury jest odczytanie w klu­czu antropologicznym. Wtedy całe partie Biblii można traktować jako wynik rzeczywistej refleksji nad człowiekiem, jego naturą, kondycją, losem, którą przeprowadzili archaiczni myśliciele i wyrazili przemyślnym, symbolicznym językiem. W perspektywie takiego interpretacyjnego założenia Pismo Święte staje się tyle wyjątkowym, ile niedocenionym źródłem wiedzy o człowieku. Nigdzie indziej nie zgromadzono tak konsekwentnie i w takiej liczbie opi­sów ludzkich losów uwzględniających żywe i bogate doświadczenie religijne. (...) Uznając swoistość tego doświadczenia, zyskuje się ogrom materiału do badań w ramach filozoficznej antropologii. Metodami tej dyscypliny, za pomocą jej systemu pojęciowego można czytać i interpretować mit adamiczny, historię patriarchów, sędziów. Można medytować nad losami bohaterów biblijnych: królów, proroków, uczniów Jezusa w planie antropologicznym, a wynik tej refleksji wyrazić za pomocą siatki pojęciowej filozofii człowieka. (shrink)

This book presents the theory of the validity of legal norms, aimed at the practice of law, in particular the jurisdiction of the constitutional courts. The postpositivist concept of the validity of statutory law, grounded on a critical analysis of the basic theories of legal validity elaborated up to now, is introduced. In the first part of the book a contemporary German nonpositivist conception of law developed by Ralf Dreier and Robert Alexy is analysed in order to answer the question (...) whether the juristic concept of legal validity should include moral standards or criteria. In the second part, a postpositivist concept of legal validity and an innovative model of validity discourse, based on the juristic presumption of the validity of legal norms, are proposed. The book is a work on analytical legal theory, written from a postpositivist, detached point of view. (shrink)

Commentary by the translator on the publication of HLA Hart, ‘The New Challenge to Legal Positivism ’ 36 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 459.

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

The famous theory of undecidable sentences created by Kurt Godel in 1931 is presented as clearly and as rigorously as possible. Introductory explanations beginning with the necessary facts of arithmetic of integers and progressing to the theory of representability of arithmetical functions and relations in the system (S) prepare the reader for the systematic exposition of the theory of Godel which is taken up in the final chapter and the appendix.

The objective of the paper is a presentation and an interpretation of Władysław Stróżewski’s views on aesthetics. Built upon the foundation provided by classical metaphysics, Stróżewski’s aesthetics is simultaneously a continuation of the tradition of phenomenological interpretation of art. Stróżewski extends Roman Ingarden’s aesthetic theory by including the idea of numinous concretion, largely inspired by the works of Rudolf Otto. As a result, this new phenomenological perspective transcends the narrowly understood ‘aesthetics’ of the work of art towards the inherent dimension (...) of the sacred. Moreover, Stróżewski’s scrutiny of the aspect of art that goes beyond the aesthetic reveals an important relationship obtaining between his insights and the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Thus Stróżewski’s ideas turn out to be of significance to contemporary aesthetic and theological debates. In particular, he shows the movement of beauty from aesthetic to transcendental, and ultimately towards the sacred, where numinosum is manifested as Mystery. (shrink)

There are many religions in the human world, and people manifest their religiousness in many different ways. The main problem this paper addresses concerns the possibility of sorting out this complex world of human religiousness by showing that it can be phenomenologically reduced to a few very basic existential attitudes. These attitudes express the main types of ways in which a human being relates to his or herself and the world, independently of the worldview or religion professed by the individual. (...) I use Kierkegaard’s theories of the stages of existence and subjective truth as a model. The theory of the stages of existence provides five basic existential attitudes on the basis of which religious attitudes can develop: spiritlessness, the aesthetic, the ethical, religiousness A, and religiousness B. The theory of subjective truth shows how the concept of truth functions in an ethical and existential sense as the personal truth of an individual engaged in building their religious identity. In turn, I discuss the problem of the relation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy to phenomenology, briefly introduce his concept of subjective truth and the stages of existence, and show how existential attitudes can be transformed into religious ones. I also consider the problem of the demonic as the inverted order of this anthropological and existential model. Finally, I argue that the model developed herein may be useful for further research into the phenomenology of religious attitudes. (shrink)

In the paper, pre-Hilbert algebras are defined as a generalization of Hilbert algebras (namely, a Hilbert algebra is just a pre-Hilbert algebra satisfying the property of antisymmetry). Pre-Hilbert algebras have been inspired by Henkin's Positive Implicative Logic. Their properties and characterizations are investigated. Some important results and examples are given. Moreover, positive implicative pre-Hilbert algebras are introduced and studied, their connections with some algebras of logic are presented. The hierarchies existing between the classes of algebras considered here are shown.

The study is an intercultural comparison of the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior to predict students’ intentions for academic cheating. The sample included university students from 7 countries: Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, Switzerland, United States, and New Zealand. Across countries, results show that attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and moral obligation predict students’ intentions to engage in academic dishonesty in the form of cheating. The extended modified version of the theory of planned behavior emerged as the (...) best explanatory model predicting intentions to cheat. Significant cross-cultural differences were found and discussed. (shrink)

In the article I consider Hume's arguments against miracles and the notion of miracle. From Hume's perspective, miracles are violations of the laws of nature caused by the supernatural being or beings. In Part I of On Miracles Hume argues that miracles can never be believed by a rational person. In Part II he attempts to demonstrate that there is actually no evidence for a miracle. Using distinction between laws of nature and scientific laws, and the deductive-nomological model of explanation, (...) I come to some conclusions. (shrink)

Książka stanowi wprowadzenie do twórczości Richarda Rorty'ego, a także próbę osadzenia jej na szerszym tle filozofii współczesnej, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem filozofii postmodernistycznej. Obecne są w niej szersze analizy stanu kultury współczesnej, a także relacje z istotnych koncepcji obecnych we współczesnej humanistyce, bez których nie można zrozumieć ewolucji współczesnej humanistyki i specjalnej roli, jaką odegrała w niej filozofia Richarda Rorty'ego.

The paper consists of two parts, outlined in the title.I. In the historical science time appears as an element of the historian’s workshop. The historian collects source information, evaluates them and assigns respective dates. Only on the ground of thus “processed” sources may he reproduce the past: events and longer development processes, setting them in time. This dated time is understood colloquially as something objective, which runs one way and may be measured.II. A historian who studies the past reality depends (...) on the extent to which those sources are preserved. As a result of their interpretation, with the use of increasingly excellent research methods, he reproduces that reality. He must carry out an ongoing selection of historical facts found. This exposes him to temptations of such selection of those facts so as to adjust the historical knowledge to serve well the national interests, his own political opinions, etc. In this way the historian exerts influence on social awareness, which may consists of various myths and stereotypes, which sometimes lead to negative social behaviors: aggression, chauvinism, etc. Therefore, for researcher honesty’s sake and in the sense of moral responsibility, he must be careful to be as impartial as possible in his work. (shrink)

We classify two of Bertrand Russell's theories of events within the point-free ontology. The first of such approaches was presented informally by Russell in ‘The World of Physics and the World of Sense’ (Lecture IV in Our Knowledge of the External World of 1914). Based on this theory, Russell sketched ways to construct instants as collections of events. This paper formalizes Russell's approach from 1914. We will also show that in such a reconstructed theory, we obtain all axioms of Russell's (...) second theory from 1936 and all axioms of Thomason's theory of events from 1989. Russell's work certainly influenced the works of Stanisław Leśniewski, his student Alfred Tarski, and Czesław Lejewski – prominent members of the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS). We see our work in the tradition of the research of Leśniewski and Tarski. Building on the technical tools developed in this environment and in the spirit of the traditional research of the LWS, we engage here, in particular, with two classic works by Russell on fundamental ontology. (shrink)

Dowód pierwszej tezy Gorgiasza jest dedukcyjnym wnioskowaniem nie wprost, skon-struowanym przez wielokrotne użycie schematu modus tollens. Te z jego przesłanek, które przyjęte są bez dowodów, są łudząco podobne do niektórych prawd logicznych lub analitycznych. Gdyby rzeczywiście nimi były, w dowodzie musiałyby pojawić się sprzeczności. W czasach Gorgiasza dowód mógł uchodzić za poprawny; możliwość jasnego wskazania i opisania jego defektów poja-wiła się dopiero z wynalezieniem logiki formalnej. Gorgiasz mógł ogłosić swą tezę serio –jako tezę skrajnego nihilizmu metafizycznego –nie obawiając się kompromitacji. (...) Jeżeli dowód jest sofizma-tem, to wśród sofizmatów jest arcydziełem, najwybitniejszym osiągnięciem sofistów w tej dziedzi-nie. (shrink)

In this paper, we want to present the genesis of Stanisław Leśniewski’s mereology. Although ‘mereology’ comes from theword ‘part’, mereology arose as a theory of collective classes. That is why we present the differences between the concepts of being a distributive class and being a collective class. Next, we present Leśniewski’s original mereology from 1927, but with a modern approach. Leśniewski was inspired to create his concept of classes and their elements by Russell’s antinomy. To face it, Leśniewski had to (...) define the concept of being an element of based on the concept of being part of. Leśniewski showed that in his theory, there is no equivalent to Russell’s antinomy. We will show that his solution has nothing to do with the original approach because, in both cases, we are talking about objects of a different kind. Russell’s original antinomy concerned distributive classes, and Leśsniewski’s considerations concerned collective classes. (shrink)