Jednym z głównych wyzwań stojących przed filozofami przyrody XVII wieku było znalezienie odpowiedzi na pytanie, co sprawia, że materia w ogóle działa? Dziedzictwo ‘materii pierwszej’ i jej czystej potencjalności było wciąż żywe, a przyjęcie teorii korpuskularnej czy atomistycznej niewiele tu zmieniało, dominowało wciąż przekonanie o całkowitej bierności ciał. Ich działanie domagało się jakiegoś wyjaśnienia, które stanowiłoby odpowiednik arystotelesowskiej, niematerialnej i aktywnej, formy. Wydaje się, że jedną z tradycji filozoficznych, do których sięgano w poszukiwaniu takiego wyjaśnienia, była emanacyjna metafizyka Plotyna. W (...) systemach XVII-wiecznych ulegała ona różnorodnym modyfikacjom, ale jej główna idea, wskazująca na aktywną rolę pewnych ‘zasad’, czy ‘duchów’ odpowiedzialnych za inicjowanie wszelkich zmian w materii i kierowanie nimi zgodnie z zamysłem Stwórcy, pozostawała fundamentem ówczesnych teorii działania materii. Przykładem takich rozwiązań są systemy Henry’ego More’a i jego dobrego znajomego z Cambridge, Izaaka Newtona. W pierwszym przypadku nie ma wątpliwości co do zasadniczego wpływu neoplatonizmu, w drugim jednak zdania historyków są podzielone. Newton sięga bowiem w poszukiwaniu ‘aktywnych zasad’ do badań alchemicznych, z nadzieją odnalezienia owych zasad nie tylko przy odwołaniu się do filozoficznych spekulacji, ale także do metod eksperymentalnych. Różnica ta jednak nie zmienia faktu, że obaj filozofowie starają się odkryć sposób działania ‘duchów aktywnych’, wahając się między umieszczeniem w cząstkach materii wielu odrębnych zasad a wskazaniem na zasadę jedną, działającą uniwersalnie i będącą niejako przedłużeniem Bożego ramienia – More nazywa ją Duchem Natury, a Newton upatruje jej ostatecznie w Chrystusie. (shrink)

The seventeenth century witnessed the transition from qualitative to quantitative physics. The very process was not easy and obvious and it consisted of discussions in many fields. One of them was the question about the nature of chemistry which was at the time undergoing some changes towards the form we know now. The main argument concerned the explanatory principles one should invoke to understand properly certain outcomes of chemical experiments. The present paper is a presentation of such an argument between (...) R. Boyle, a prominent proponent of corpuscular, quantitative principles and S. Duclos, an al-chymist and a proponent of paracelsian, qualitative ones. What is interesting, Duclos knew The Sceptical Chymist, Boyle’s main work which contained a severe critique of paracelsian chemistry, and a%empted to point out some weaknesses of Boyle’s own position. Duclos scrutinized Boyle’s experiments described in his Certain Physiological Essays and other works and argued for certain shortcomings of Boyle’s laboratory skills, his failure to indicate some literature sources and, first of all, insufficiency of Boyle’s arguments for the corpuscular thesis. According to Duclos, Boyle did not follow in laboratory certain procedures recommended by himself, using unclear notions and applying the corpuscular principles without proper justification. What is more, Duclos argued also in favour of paracelsian chymistry presenting some qualitative explanations in experiments in which Boyle failed to give quantitative ones. Knowing the further development of natural philosophy, it seems interesting to realize how complex it was. The present paper shows also how much irremovable from scientific research is the theoretical component. (shrink)

W XVII wieku rozpoczął się proces przechodzenia od nauki uprawianej w aspekcie jakościowym do nauki uprawianej w aspekcie ilościowym. Był on złożony i pociągał za sobą dyskusje na wielu polach. Jedna z nich odnosiła się do natury rodzącej się nowoczesnej chemii. Główna linia sporu dotyczyła rodzaju zasad wyjaśniających, do których należy się odwołać przy wyjaśnianiu wyników eksperymentów. Obecny artykuł opisuje szczegóły dyskusji między R. Boyle’em, jednym z głównych zwolenników zasad korpuskularnych, ilościowych, i S. Duclosem, al-‘chemikiem’ i zwolennikiem teorii paracelsjańskich i (...) zasad jakościowych. Co ciekawe, Duclos znał The Sceptical Chymist, główne dzieło Boyle’a, w którym zawarł on surową krytykę ‘chemii’ paracelsjańskiej, i podjął próbę wskazania słabych punktów stanowiska Boyle’owskiego. Duclos zanalizował eksperymenty, jakie Boyle opisał w "Certain Physiological Essays" i innych dziełach i wskazał na popełnione błędy – jego zdaniem Boyle nie zna dobrze praktyki laboratoryjnej; pomija źródła, z jakich korzysta opisując niektóre eksperymenty; przede wszystkim jednak nie potrafi przekonująco argumentować na rzecz tezy korpuskularnej. Zdaniem Duclosa, Boyle nie przestrzega procedur, które sam zaleca – posługuje się niejasnym językiem i arbitralnie odwołuje się do wyjaśnień korpuskularnych. Co więcej, Duclos argumentuje na rzecz paracelsjańskiej koncepcji ‘chemii’, przedstawiając jakościowe wyjaśnienia w eksperymentach, w których Boyle nie zdołał podać wyjaśnień ilościowych. Przedstawiona krytyka poglądów Boyle’a pokazuje jak złożony był proces wyłaniania się ilościowego podejścia do filozofii naturalnej, pokazuje również istotną rolę, jaką w badaniach naukowych odgrywa składnik teoretyczny. (shrink)

Thomas Reid, twórca szkockiej szkoły zdrowego rozsądku, głosił tezę, że wszystkie wcześniejsze systemy filozoficzne obciążone są tym samym „grzechem pierworodnym” – przyjęciem (w różnych formach) reprezentacjonistycznej teorii spostrzeżenia zmysłowego. Nazywał ją „teorią idei”, której konsekwencją miało być oddzielenie podmiotu i przedmiotu poznania nieusuwalną „zasłoną idei”. Konstruowanie własnej filozofii poprzedził analizą historii tego zagadnienia od starożytności do czasów sobie współczesnych, usiłując wykazać zasadność swego stanowiska. Celem artykułu jest odpowiedź na pytanie o trafność poglądów Reida, wyrażonych w przyjmowanej teorii spostrzeżenia. Chodzi więc (...) przede wszystkim o pogląd charakterystyczny dla tradycji arystotelesowsko-tomistycznej, tradycyjnie interpretowany jako prezentacjonizm, oraz poglądy Kartezjusza dotyczące statusu „idei” w procesie poznawania tzw. świata zewnętrznego. Przeprowadzone analizy wskazują jednocześnie na uproszczenia w Reidowskiej interpretacji poglądów jego poprzedników na naturę spostrzeżenia oraz na cechy krytykowanych teorii, które w pewnym stopniu usprawiedliwiają tę krytykę. ------------------------- Zgłoszono: 28/10/2022. Zrecenzowano: 24/11/2022. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 16/12/2022. (shrink)

In this article we examine the role of vocative forms of address in shaping the political space in public/political discourse. We are particularly interested in strategic uses of forms of address by participants in political debates in order to gain legitimacy for their ideologies. Our data come from four formal television debates between Lech Wałęsa, the former Solidarity trade union leader and president of Poland, and two other Polish politicians, which were held between 1988 and 1995. Due to this historical (...) perspective, we are able to contextualize discursive patterns in the rapidly changing political and social situation in Poland, and show the diachronic development of the ideological underpinnings of discourse. (shrink)

Genocide as a part of nation or ethnic group extermination process is not a well-defined concept. Its meaning is understood intuitively. When law intervenes, the issue of defining the term comes back. Nevertheless, the Polish nation has been recognized as subjected to genocide activities during the Second World War by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. The paper focuses on the genocide against mainly one group of Poles that is to say foresters. The martyrologic evidence proves that foresters were an (...) occupation group which for a variety of reasons suffered most. The research carried out in this respect by the National Forests in Poland has revealed that over 20% of pre-war staff of the institution actually lost their lives. They were killed by the German and Soviet occupiers, as well as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In the eastern parts of Poland foresters and their families were deported and sent to various labour and extermination camps e.g. in Siberia. The aim of the paper is to present the scale of genocide with the main emphasis on genocide against foresters. The definition of genocide provided by Lemkin, who coined the term, is a starting point for the analysis. The main research methods included the analysis of pertinent literature and source materials as well as the semiotic analysis of genocide circumstances. The thesis put forward by the authors is that foresters due to their education, practical skills, professional experience and insight knowledge turned out to be the group especially vulnerable and subjected to extermination on purpose. (shrink)

Max Weber’s thesis on the decisive influence of Protestant ethic on the formation and development of modern capitalism has become one of the best-known and widely shared canonical claims in social sciences. Since its publication at the beginning of the 20th century, this thesis, supported by subsequent great works by the German classic, has rarely been the subject of major controversy. The work of correcting Weber’s thesis was undertaken in the late 20th century by Michael Novak. Novak’s correction is not (...) confrontational, but complementary. The American thinker abandons the research area of minority Protestant communities, which caught Weber’s attention, and undertakes an analysis of the broader religious tradition, developing both before and after the Reformation. In particular, the achievements of Pope John Paul II, interpreted by Novak in terms of the renewal of a liberty current of Catholic social thought, provide important corrective data. (shrink)

Nowa Zelandia to jedno z najlepiej rozwiniętych państw świata. Pomimo ogromnej odległości od Polski zamieszkuje tam, począwszy od XIX w., wielu polskich migrantów. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie aktualnej sytuacji zachowania archiwaliów dotyczących działalności Polaków w Nowej Zelandii oraz stanu ich cyfryzacji. Materiał źródłowy do tego typu badań posiadają archiwa oraz biblioteki państwowe w Nowej Zelandii. Jest on również dostępny w niewielkiej ilości jako cyfrowy zasób polskich organizacji w Nowej Zelandii, obecny na ich oficjalnych stronach internetowych. W Polsce kilka instytucji na (...) własnych stronach internetowych także posiada cyfrowe wersje materiałów Polonii nowozelandzkiej. Dzięki zastosowanym metodom badawczym wskazano poziom cyfryzacji materiałów polonijnych. Podstawową tezą pracy jest stwierdzenie faktu znacznego rozproszenia dorobku kulturowego Polonii nowozelandzkiej, nie tylko pomiędzy instytucjami państwowymi w Nowej Zelandii i miejscowymi organizacjami polskimi, ale również poza jej granicami, w tym nad Wisłą. Głównym wnioskiem artykułu jest utworzenie na antypodach jednego, centralnego archiwum Polonii nowozelandzkiej posiadającego doświadczonych pracowników i dysponującemu środkami pozwalającymi na konsekwentne zachowywanie śladów naszej obecności w Nowej Zelandii. (shrink)

The article presents problems of intellectual intuition in metaphysics from a semiotic point of view. There are various types of intuition in philosophy: rational intuition, irrational intuition, and sensual intuition. All of them are immediate ways of cognition. Classical metaphysics uses intellectual intuition as its main method to find out and justify its statements. The main problem of intellectual intuition is an intersubjective approach to the object of metaphysics. The main aim of this paper is the objectivization and rationalization of (...) intellectual intuition in language. The semantic notion of meaning and the pragmatic notion of understanding are the fundamental tools which are used to translate the issue of intuition from the subject-ma$er level into the language level. This operation allows to look at intuition in a non-psychological manner. It enables the objectivization of the method of intellectual intuition in the light of the understanding of meanings. (shrink)

In this paper, we study natural language constructions which were first examined by Barwise: The richer the country, the more powerful some of its officials. Guided by Barwise’s observations, we suggest that conceivable interpretations of such constructions express the existence of various similarities between partial orders such as homomorphism or embedding. Semantically, we interpret the constructions as polyadic generalized quantifiers restricted to finite models. We extend the results obtained by Barwise by showing that similarity quantifiers are not expressible in elementary (...) logic over finite models. We also investigate whether the proposed readings are sound from the cognitive perspective. We prove that almost all similarity quantifiers are intractable. This leads us to first-order variants, which only approximate the strong readings, but are cognitively more plausible. Driven by the question of ambiguity, we recall Barwise’s argumentation in favour of strong readings, enriching it with some arguments of our own. Given that Barwise-like sentences are indeed ambiguous, we use a generalized Strong Meaning Hypothesis to derive predictions for their verification. Finally, we propose a hypothesis according to which conflicting pressures of communication and cognition might give rise to an ambiguous construction, provided that different semantic variants of the construction withstand different pressures involved in its usage. (shrink)

L’article présente un texte inconnu de J. I. N. Baudouin de Courtenay, publié en 1872 à Poznañ, sous les initiales: „Dr. J. B.”, et intitulé: Du langage et des langues. Baudouin y introduit la distinction fondamentale du structuralisme: langue – langage – parole. Dans l’esprit de vulgarisation, après la lecture des Cours d’Oxford de Müller, il retrace l’histoire de la linguistique avec le comparatisme comme son achèvement et la figure majestueuse de Leibniz. Rejetant la recherche de la langue adamique, il (...) propose une classification des langues non selon leurs racines, mais d’après leurs structures: la structure d’une langue constitue sa „marque caractéristique”. Baudouin discute également le phénomène d’aphasie et se prononce contre la théorie des localisations cérébrales, tout comme Freud dans Zur Auffassung der Aphasien. Le rôle du „pont” entre leurs théories revient à Ernst von Brücke, maître de Freud, auteur des ouvrages traitant de la physiologie de la parole, très appréciés du linguiste. Dès ses premiers travaux de 1865, consacrés au physiologiste tchèque Purkyne, Baudouin se veut continuateur du programme linguistique de l’idéologue Volney, qui est tout simplement l’inverse du projet leibnizien. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to review some aspects of brain anatomy and neurophysiology that are important for consciousness, and which hopefully may be of benefit to philosophers investigating the conscious mind. Taking as an initial point of reference the distinction between “the hard problem” and “the weak problems” of consciousness, we shall concentrate on questions pertaining to the second of these. A putative “consciousness system” in the brain will be presented, paying special attention to diffuse projection systems. The (...) “center of gravity” will be brain connectivity, since consciousness must, critically, be dependent on coherent activity and timing. “Detectors” of synchronicity and coincidence, like NMDA receptors, also necessarily play a role here. To be conscious, we do not need an entire brain. While even large hemispherectomies need not unequivocally affect consciousness, far smaller brain-stem lesions may be devastating in this regard. Even so, the recent discovery by Matthew F. Glasser et al. of 180 separate areas in the human brain cortex is intriguing from a teleological perspective, as it is quite unthinkable that any of them could be “redundant. (shrink)

Tekst jest wyborem fragmentów przypisywanych Janowi Potockiemu. Jean Potocki, mistrz ironii, twardo usadowiony w nieuchwytnym na pozór miejscu pomiędzy oświeceniem a romantyzmem, pozostaje najczęściej plagiatowanym autorem Europy. Zapewne przysłużył się pośmiertnie sprawie praw autorskich, ale i stało się tak, jakby oryginalność i płodność jego myśli była na tyle inna, że nie sposób przedstawić go inaczej jak wymazując jego imię, jeśli po prostu nie niszcząc. Choć historia jego francuskich i amerykańskich plagiatów jest wyczerpująco udokumentowana, nie istnieje jeszcze definitywne wydanie jego arcydzieła: (...) Rękopisu znalezionego w Saragossie, już w 1809 roku przełożonego po części na niemiecki, a w 1847, również w Lipsku, zapewne z udziałem Societas Jablonoviana, w całości na polski. W latach pięćdziesiątych XX wieku trud przywrócenia należnego mu miejsca podjęli R. Caillois, L. Kukulski, W. Has, Emanuel Rostworowski i Maria-Ewelina Żółtowska-Weintraub, której wciąż nieopublikowany doktorat stanowi najpełniejszą biografię hrabiego Jana, powiązaną z karierą bohatera Rękopisu. Skromny ów oficer gwardii walońskiej: Alfons van Worden, po wielu straszliwych próbach, które w gruncie rzeczy niczym innym dla niego nie były jak straszliwymi, teatralnie zaaranżowanymi opowieściami, awansował na gubernatora Saragossy, gdzie wiódł spokojny żywot troszcząc się o córeczkę swą Fatimę. […]. (shrink)

Współczesna kosmologia wskazuje na pewne przejawy jedności Wszechświata, np. uniwersalność praw przyrody, globalną czasoprzestrzeń, możliwość wyróżnienia uniwersalnego czasu i jednej, wspólnej historii, czy też ścisłe zależności między parametrami kosmologicznymi i stałymi fizycznymi a faktem istnienia życia. Wykorzystanie metody abstrakcji i wnioskowania analogicznego w analizie własności Wszechświata pozwalają, bez naruszania zasady autonomiczności nauki i filozofii, zasadnie argumentować za tezą o jego nomologicznej jedności. Z drugiej strony w kosmologii przyjmuje się założenia związane z określeniem przedmiotu jej badań oraz warunkujące jej uprawianie. Ich (...) podstawą jest przekonanie o stałym, niezależnym od czasu i miejsca, sposobie funkcjonowania przyrody. Pozwala to na formułowanie opisujących ją niezmiennych czasoprzestrzennie praw i ekstrapolowanie ich na cały Wszechświat. Uzasadnieniem takiej praktyki badawczej jest zgodność konstruowanych modeli kosmologicznych z obserwacją, efektywność wyjaśniania problemów badawczych, spójność z innymi działami wiedzy przyrodniczej oraz sukcesy programów unifikacyjnych i badań interdyscyplinarnych. (shrink)

At the first stage of setting up Kinematical Relativity, Milne modified Einstein\'s Principle of Relativity and assumed that the Universe had to appear the same to all observers. He called this an \"Extended Principle of Relativity\". In order to specify this postulate, Milne defined the notion of the \"equivalence of observers,\" and then formulated a new definition of the Principle of Relativity: all descriptions of the whole system made by equivalent observers must be identical. Under Freundlich\'s influence he called it (...) the \"Cosmological Principle\" (CP). The content of Milne\'s CP was different from both Einstein\'s Principles of Relativity and the uniformity postulate of Relativistic Cosmology. Notwithstanding this, the adherents of the latter adopted this name for the isotropy and homogeneity postulate. Initially, Milne treated CP as a hypothesis about matter distribution. But when he separated model constructing from verifying to what extent it corresponded with the actual Universe, he began to emphasize that CP is not a law of nature, but a definition of the research domain. (shrink)

Psychiatrists' accounts of clinical significance in depression Clinical significance is a crucial element in the diagnosis of mental illness, yet, it is practically untheorised and significantly under-researched. This article takes up the question of how the criterion of clinical significance is translated into psychiatric practice. More particularly, it examines how psychiatrists account for the threshold between health and depression. The paper is anchored in the constructionist view of discourse underpinned by the assumptions of critically oriented discourse analysis. It is based (...) upon a convenience sample of 39 semi-structured interviews with specialist-psychiatrists in south-western Poland. There is no discursive space for clinical significance in psychiatrists' accounts. There is no boundary, no decision to be taken as to whether the symptoms are clinically significant. Depression, invariably constructed in terms of diagnostic criteria, is always represented as fully developed, appearing out of thin air, with no period of falling ill. The article raises the issue of the validity and usefulness of psychiatric diagnosis. (shrink)

This article discusses pilot data for a major research project into the discursive construction of identity in three-generation families living in border communities where each generation has experienced fundamental changes in their socio-political environment. The oral data on which the analysis is based were triggered by photographs from the communities in question, and are being analysed with discourse-analytical procedures. The article demonstrates how an innovative method of using symbolically-charged photography as triggers for oral narratives can solve a major dilemma for (...) discourse analysts interested in oral data. It also demonstrates the processes of identity construction under highly conflictual circumstances. Using examples mainly taken from the narratives of three individuals from three different generations, living in a town on the border between the former GDR and West Germany, the article discusses the discursive means of coming to terms with different kinds of difficulties encountered by each generation in constructing for themselves an identity in the new Germany. (shrink)

The paper is based on the following two assumptions. Firstly, evasive utterances are those which are semantically irrelevant to the question they are an answer to. Secondly, they can be divided into two main categories — overt and covert.The question to be asked as regards covert evasion is: How is it possible that an evasive speaker can nevertheless count on her/his utterance being considered cooperative? The objective of this paper is to analyse the means which are used by evasive speakers (...) to pretend that their utterance does cooperatively answer the question and thereby meet its conversational demand.Semantic and pragmatic means were identified as serving the purpose of concealing evasive action. Within the former ones operation within the same topic as the questioner, and, secondly, equipping her/his evasive utterance with some formal characteristics which may indicate its relationship with the question, were listed. On a pragmatic level, the speaker may explicitly or implicitly indicate her/his willingness to answer the question: by statement or implication as well as licenses of uncooperativeness or hedging. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that a person has dignity, and what explains her dignity? Linda Zagzebski argues that personal dignity entails both infinite and irreplaceable value. Initially she grounds the former claim in the power of rationality and the latter in the uniqueness of one’s subjective lived experience. Later she grounds both in the power of rationality, understood in terms of reflective consciousness. I argue that the latter account is an improvement upon the former but that needless problems (...) arise from both accounts because she conflates properties considered in the abstract with properties instantiated in concrete persons and she fails to recognize an ambiguity in the notion of incommunicability or uniqueness. I also argue that the more fundamental account of rationality should be given not in terms of reflective consciousness but in terms of the ability to understand particulars in light of universals. (shrink)

In Existence and the Existent, Jacques Maritain speaks about the difficulty of knowing persons as subjects. Typically we know persons as objects, or “from without,” and this explains why we describe people as instantiations of various qualities that can be shared in common with others. But according to Maritain, “To be known as object... is to be severed from oneself and wounded in one’s identity. It is to always be unjustly known.” In this paper, I consider the epistemological means by (...) which knowing persons as subjects is possible. I argue that we can find parallels between knowing persons and what Maritain refers to as the “intuition of being”, and that reflecting on these parallels can help us to see a solution to the problem of knowing persons—just as the act of existence is not known through a concept, but through a judgment that separates what a thing is from the act by which it exists, so too, I argue, one’s subjectivity is known not through a concept but through a judgment that separates one’s shareable qualities from the self/person underlying these qualities. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to advance the state of scholarly discussion on the harms of genocide. The most obvious harms inflicted by every genocide are readily evident: the physical harm inflicted upon the victims of genocide and the moral harm that the perpetrators of genocide inflict upon themselves. Instead, I will focus on a kind of harm inflicted upon those who are neither victims nor perpetrators, on those who are outside observers, so to speak. My thesis will be (...) that when a whole community or culture is eliminated, or even deeply wounded, the world loses an avenue for insight into the human condition. My argument is as follows. In order to understand human nature, and that which promotes its flourishing, we must certainly study individual human beings. But since human beings as rational and linguistic animals are in part constituted by the communities in which they live, the study of human nature should also involve the study of communities and cultures—both those that are well ordered and those that are not. No one community or culture has expressed all that can be said about the human way of existing and flourishing. And given that the unity and wholeness of human nature can only be glimpsed in a variety of communities and cultures, then part of the harm of genocide consists in the removal of a valuable avenue for human beings to better understand themselves. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to advance the state of scholarly discussion on the harms of genocide. The most obvious harms inflicted by every genocide are readily evident: the physical harm inflicted upon the victims of genocide and the moral harm that the perpetrators of genocide inflict upon themselves. Instead, I will focus on a kind of harm inflicted upon those who are neither victims nor perpetrators, on those who are outside observers, so to speak. My thesis will be (...) that when a whole community or culture is eliminated, or even deeply wounded, the world loses an avenue for insight into the human condition. My argument is as follows. In order to understand human nature, and that which promotes its flourishing, we must certainly study individual human beings. But since human beings as rational and linguistic animals are in part constituted by the communities in which they live, the study of human nature should also involve the study of communities and cultures—both those that are well ordered and those that are not. No one community or culture has expressed all that can be said about the human way of existing and flourishing. And given that the unity and wholeness of human nature can only be glimpsed in a variety of communities and cultures, then part of the harm of genocide consists in the removal of a valuable avenue for human beings to better understand themselves. (shrink)

Taking its cue from modern debates on the expressive function of punishment, this paper discusses the stigmatizing effect of penalties in classical Athens. It focuses on corporal punishment, which was discursively associated in the Athenian public discourse with slaves and other fringe groups of the citizen community, despite the fact that in reality, with only certain restrictions, it was meted out to all social tiers making up the polis-community. Unlike other penalties, those affecting the body were not only public, but (...) not infrequently spectacular. This turned them into versatile devices of stigmatization whereby the punishment itself was no longer considered a one-off event, but a permanent mark branding the person who suffered it as a social outcast. (shrink)

Controversy over the possibility of detecting design in natural sciences: According to intelligent design theory, certain biological and cosmic phenomena are designed by an intelligent being and this design is scientifically detectable. However, critics refuse to regard this theory as scientific, thereby suggesting that it does not deserve serious discussion in scientific circles. The article presents main methodological objections to intelligent design theory, indicating its unscientific or pseudoscientific character and impossibility of scientific design detection. Critics try to show that this (...) theory: 1) violates the principle of methodological naturalism ; 2) is empirically untestable; 3) it does not invoke natural laws, says nothing about the designer and the designing mechanism; 4) it does not offer predictions; 5) it is an argument from ignorance, and 6) it does not lead to fruitful research program and hence is not useful for science. These objections will be analyzed from the perspective of methodological thesis of design theorists that the sufficient condition of design inference are the characteristic effects leaved by the activity of the designer, which indicate the final cause, although they do not have to be the basis for determining the designer’s identity. If this thesis is sound, then the objections that intelligent design theory is not scientific are rebutted or weakened. Moreover, it turns out that, basically, detecting design of supernatural beings does not differ from detecting design of natural beings. For that reason, there is no qualitative difference between these two procedures and both can be regarded as scientific. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to test hypotheses that meaning in life can be a mediator in the relations between religiousness expressed in terms of a meaning system and subjective well-being. Previous research on religion and well-being has left some questions unanswered. Associations of the religious meaning system and subjective well-being turn out to be complex and suggest the possibility of meaning-oriented mediators in their relations. The results obtained in the current study demonstrated that personal meaning and presence of (...) meaning were partial mediators between the religious meaning system and the cognitive dimension of subjective well-being. In contrast, search for meaning did not have a significant mediational role in those relations and there were no direct or indirect relationships between the religious meaning system and the affective dimension of subjective well-being. The findings suggest indirect relations between religiousness and well-being which are partially mediated by structures of meaning and purpose. (shrink)

Intelligent design theory claims that certain biological and cosmic phenomena point to the activity of some unspecified intelligent being behind them and that it is a fully scientific conclusion. Critics often respond that, in fact, intelligent design is a religious idea because the real agenda of proponents of the theory is to reintroduce supernatural, Christian beliefs into science, public education, and other domains of western culture. In other words, it is said that the source of inspiration for the theory reveals (...) its religious, and therefore unscientific, nature. The purpose of this article is to evaluate validity of this objection, both with regard to the actual views of intelligent design proponents, as well as from the perspective of philosophy and history of science. It is argued that to express this objection is to commit the so-called genetic fallacy — evaluating the merits of an idea solely on the basis of its origin — and it can be easily applied to the proponents of naturalistic theories as well. Moreover, it is clear that intelligent design can be and is formulated without reference to any kind of religious doctrine. Hence, it is concluded that from methodological point of view the objection concerning the putative religious motivations of design theorists is an illegitimate rhetorical strategy in order to exclude intelligent design from serious scientific consideration and that the proper critical reaction to the theory requires a different basis for counter-argumentation. Key words RELIGION, INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORY. (shrink)

Addressing the recent call to rethink history as a form of presence, the essay works toward a recovery of a space in which such presence of history is encoded. I argue that history as a form of active perception is akin to virtual witnessing of the past in the moment of our encounter with historical artifacts, be they texts, photographs, or buildings.To this end, I engage with the conceptual and material aspects of historical perception, deriving a model of history as (...) “inhabited ruins,” the way it emerges together with historical consciousness and finds an especially dynamic expression in Georg Simmel's philosophy of culture. Throughout, I work with the notion of distance and trans-dimensional presence as the forces that shape and reshape historical awareness.Ruins, intimately connected to the modern historical imagination, are approached not as sites of commemoration or nostalgia, but as spaces of active exchange between presence and disappearance. As such, they are taken to be the models for the transitive character of history itself, blurring the division between perception and thought. In other words, ruins are taken as structures that evoke and summon the past to an encounter with contemporary reality—a type of co-appearance that opens the possibility of virtually witnessing the past. I conclude that the logic of “inhabited ruins” constitutes the event-horizon of modern identity, always placing history right at the threshold of fragmentation. (shrink)

The aim of the article was to develop the thesis that patient’s decisions about truth and responsibility are central to the process of psychotherapy and yet they are rarely explicitly articulated. In the first part of the text, I outlined the anthropological context of the thesis, according to which human intentionality and psychological mechanisms have the status of domains of objective reality that are ontologically separate, although in the patient’s experience they combine with one another. Next, with reference to the (...) classical opinions of psychotherapy, I identified two aspects of patient decisions related to her/his psychopathology: adaptive (more pronounced in childhood) and moral (more pronounced in adulthood). I went on to isolate groups of psychological operating mechanisms involved in both truth- and responsibility-avoidance choices and, using clinical illustration, showed how the therapist can support alternative decisions. Finally, I further clarified the understanding of the proposed working model by indicating the different therapeutic consequences of revealing psychological mechanisms vs. decision-making based on the type of patient disorder and the anthropological-moral character of his/her choices. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between crisis and experience, concentrating on ‘excentric positionality’ in relation to the shared world, as presented in the work of Helmuth Plessner. A by-product of the 1920s Weimar Germany, Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, it is argued, presents us with a forgotten blueprint for transitive and compositional approaches to the social world. Instead of the familiar ‘crisis of experience’ used to diagnose ‘what has gone wrong’, it allows us to re-learn how to work with ‘the experience of (...) crisis’ itself. The latter holds the key to a different type of approach based on ‘xeno-communication’. This type of communication utilizes the productive potential of crisis in its uncertainty and hesitation before a decision, showing a way to extend and enlarge experience itself. Cultivation of these ‘excentric’ dynamics in turn suggests new ‘excentric methodologies’ based on a more flexible fit between concepts and the worlds they are meant to describe. ‘Excentric methodologies’ constitute a type of experience-based, analytical response to the shared world. They work with phenomena across spaces and problems, analytically utilizing their joint emergence from the fundamental imbalance and discontinuity characteristic of the human environment. (shrink)