This volume of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus contains several works intended for scholarship in Classics. It includes discourse on the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, rhetoric, and Classical Latin, in a compendium of the handbook by Lorenzo Valla, as well as a declamation in praise of medicine.

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Juliusz Domański’s “Fausta Socyna Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Ioannis i egzegeza erazmiańska,” in his "Erasmiana minora. Studia i szkice o pisarstwie filozoficznym i religijnym Erazma z Rotterdamu" (Warsaw: Instytut Tomistyczny, Instytut Filologii Klasycznej UW, 2017), 337–63. Translated with the Author’s permission. The paper compares the method of Biblical interpretation used by Erasmus of Rotterdam with the method of Socinus, raising the question of the extent to which the method outlined by Socinus in (...) his Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Joannis can be seen as continuous and and consonant with the method of Erasmus, and to what extent it should be seen as its rejection or modification. In addition, the essay outlines similarities and differences, with respect to both method and content, between Erasmus' Adnotationes and Socinus’ Explicatio. (shrink)

Taking as a background the Plato’s model of two worlds and some categories closely associated with it, the author describes three paradigms: Tradition, Reception and Renaissance. They are linked with the human condition as means by which humans, or rather: human communities try to overcome their changeable and temporal existence.

This paper aims at highlighting the role of higher education institutions in Lodz in the regeneration of urban space and in building the international brand of a university town. Higher education institutions in Lodz are managers and administrators of many historic buildings that testify to the identity of the city and its rich historic legacy. Besides renovating these buildings, universities provide them with new functions by opening them up to local and international communities. Innovation in regenerating cultural heritage may become (...) a distinguishing feature of both Lodz universities and international city’s brand strategy. The key challenge to Lodz is to complete the global regeneration of a post-industrial city in social, cultural, economic, and spatial dimensions using EU funds. (shrink)

This article deals with basic changes in Polish society over past 20 years. On the basis of sociological surveys, the author attempts to answer the following questions: to what extent has systemic change brought about significant changes in social stratification? In which dimensions did it take place? What are the consequences of these changes for individuals and the social system? How does Polish society differ from others? As for social stratification, the only clear and unambiguous tendencies were growing inequality and (...) more marked effects of educational credentials on incomes. Contrary to expectations, barriers to mobility have not become more rigid, nor is there any clear evidence of social origins mattering more for educational achievement. Transformations in social structure have been accompanied by rising discontent with material conditions, the government, and the system as a whole. Interestingly, this wave runs counter to positive evaluations in the private sphere, displayed in relatively high self-esteem and satisfaction with friendships and family life. These optimistic attitudes contrasted with disapproval of the political class, and with the workings of democracy. The degree of legitimization of the political system in Poland appears to be the lowest among 21 European societies. When compared with the capitalist West, this constitutes one of the obstacles to modernization along Western lines. (shrink)

Aristotle’s statement that — in terms of philosophy — poetry is superior to history can be understood better, when analysed in the context of the Stagirite’s epistemology, ontology, and eudaimonic ethics. Both poetry and history deal with numerous contingent and chaotic events, but while history is only reconstructive, poetry reworks its matter more thoroughly. History attempts to recount all events and does it in accord with their contingent and chaotic nature, whereas poetry implies certain choices. By doing so, it introduces (...) uniformity and coherence thus providing a different ontic status than the one that reigned originally. Consequently, the cognitive result of poetry can be compared to the beatific value of conceptual knowledge in philosophy. (shrink)

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Husserlian phenomenology, as the study of conscious experience, has often been accused of solipsism. Husserl’s method, it is argued, does not have the resources to provide an account of consciousness of other minds. This chapter will address this issue by providing a brief overview of the multiple angles from which Husserl approached the theme of intersubjectivity, with specific focus on the details of his account of the concrete interpersonal encounter – “empathy.” Husserl understood empathy as a direct, quasi-perceptual form of (...) intentionality through which the sense of the Other is constituted. Furthermore, his account of empathy is holistically integrated with his overall theory of intersubjectivity, including his discussions of the objectivity of nature, and the social, historical, and communal aspects of subjectivity. Husserl’s theory of empathy continues to cast a long shadow, influencing both the analytic and continental approaches to the problem of other minds, as well as contemporary account of social cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

An Essay on Human Action seeks to provide a comprehensive, detailed, enlightening, and (in its detail) original account of human action. This account presupposes a theory of events as abstract, proposition-like entities, a theory which is given in the first chapter of the book. The core-issues of action-theory are then treated: what acting in general is (a version of the traditional volitional theory is proposed and defended); how actions are to be individuated; how long actions last; what acting intentionally is; (...) what doing one thing by doing another is; what basic action is; and what omitting to do something is. Attention is also given to the concepts of causation, intention, volition, deciding, choosing, and trying. Finally, a libertarian account of free action is tentatively proposed and defended. (shrink)

We develop and apply a multi-dimensional conception of explanatory depth towards a comparative analysis of inflationary and bouncing paradigms in primordial cosmology. Our analysis builds on earlier work due to Azhar and Loeb (2021) that establishes initial condition fine-tuning as a dimension of explanatory depth relevant to debates in contemporary cosmology. We propose dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy as two further dimensions of depth in the context of problems with instability and trans-Planckian modes that afflict bouncing and inflationary approaches respectively. In (...) the context of the latter issue, we argue that the recently formulated trans-Planckian censorship conjecture leads to a trade-off for inflationary models between dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy. We conclude with the suggestion that explanatory preference with regard to the different dimensions of depth is best understood in terms of differing attitudes towards heuristics for future model building. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

The paper compares the method of Biblical interpretation used by Erasmus of Rotterdam with the method of Socinus, raising the question of the extent to which the method outlined by Socinus in his Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Joannis can be seen as continuous and and consonant with the method of Erasmus, and to what extent it should be seen as its rejection or modification. In addition, the essay outlines similarities and differences, with respect to both method and content, (...) between Erasmus' Adnotationes and Socinus’ Explicatio. (shrink)