Quelle est la place du philosophe dans son environnemen social (societe civile) en general et aux moments des grands bouleversements sociopolitiques en particulier? S'il doit en parier, doit-il agir en acteur aussi? Ne risque-t-il pas de perdre son identite professionnelle? 1 Ä son habitus intellectuel et scientifique s'ajoute ainsi une dimension ethique allant d'une attitude de sagesse et de distance ä une interpretation axiologique et essentialiste des phenomenes politiques. Toutefois, le philosophe n'est pas politicien et s'il lui arrive ä s'engager (...) sur le plan politique, il risque de perdre son identite professionnelle, son autorite morale, et sa liberte. (shrink)

Quelle est la place du philosophe dans son environnemen social (societe civile) en general et aux moments des grands bouleversements sociopolitiques en particulier? S'il doit en parier, doit-il agir en acteur aussi? Ne risque-t-il pas de perdre son identite professionnelle? 1 Ä son habitus intellectuel et scientifique s'ajoute ainsi une dimension ethique allant d'une attitude de sagesse et de distance ä une interpretation axiologique et essentialiste des phenomenes politiques. Toutefois, le philosophe n'est pas politicien et s'il lui arrive ä s'engager (...) sur le plan politique, il risque de perdre son identite professionnelle, son autorite morale, et sa liberte. (shrink)

The paper deals with one of the basic concepts of the classical ethical conception of French moral philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch . Although tolerance is one of the so called “little virtues”, it is not less important; it has its own philosophy based on two presuppositions: 1) we have to abandon the knowledge of the thing in itself; 2) we have to conceive of every person as a purpose in itself, “an imperium within an imperium”. The symbiosis of body and mind, (...) this “living paradox”, can serve as a model of how to resolve an irresolvable problem of tolerance. In the same way the “paradox” of a community of people sharing common faith and forced by it to act together could be brought to existence . And if convivial moments and moments of enthusiasms are affiliated, maybe one day they will start to love one another. (shrink)

The presented paper focuses on the analysis of strategic documents at the level of the European Union concerning the regulation of artificial intelligence as one of the so-called disruptive technologies. In the first part of the article, we outline the basic terminology. Subsequently, we focus on the summarizing and systemizing of the key documents adopted at the EU level in terms of artificial intelligence regulation. The focus of the paper is devoted to issues of personal data protection and cyber security (...) included in these strategic documents. The final part contains recommendations for future research and evaluation of its key features. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than (...) the soul of the uncontrolled agent. (shrink)

I argue that on Aristotle’s account practical thinking is thinking whose origin (archē) is a desire that has as its object the very thing that one reasons about how to promote. This feature distinguishes practical from productive reasoning since in the latter the desire that initiates it is not (unless incidentally) a desire for the object that one productively reasons about. The feature has several interesting consequences: (a) there is only a contingent relationship between the desire that one practically reasons (...) about how to satisfy and the action one decides on; (b) practical thinking and action cannot be separated from the agent, whereas productive thinking and production can be outsourced to someone else. The view has consequences also for the distinction between action and production. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness and correctness of my account of practical thinking by using it to shed new light on Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous agent must decide on her virtuous actions ‘for themselves’. (shrink)

The paper defends three claims about Aristotle’s theory of uncontrolled actions (akrasia) in NE 7.3. First, I argue that the first part of NE 7.3 contains the description of the overall state of mind of the agent while she acts without control. Aristotle’s solution to the problem of uncontrolled action lies in the analogy between the uncontrolled agent and people who are drunk, mad, or asleep. This analogy is interpreted as meaning that the uncontrolled agent, while acting without control, is (...) still in possession of her knowledge but she is unable to use it as knowledge due to the temporary disablement of her reason by appetite. Due to this disablement, the uncontrolled agent is temporarily unable to be motivated to act by her knowledge and acts merely on her appetite. Second, I argue that the second part of NE 7.3 provides an analysis of the particular mental state from which the uncontrolled action issues. Its central passage is a description of the uncontrolled agent’s state of mind before the uncontrolled action and not, as it has been traditionally understood, a description of her state of mind during the uncontrolled action. Third, I argue that, on Aristotle’s view, the transition from the state before the uncontrolled action to the state in which the agent already acts without control does not involve any psychological state that would constitute the agent’s choice to abandon her decision and give in to her desires but proceeds on a purely physiological level. (shrink)

I defend two main theses. First, I argue that Aristotle’s account of voluntary action focuses on the conditions under which one is the cause of one’s actions in virtue of being (qua) the individual one is. Aristotle contrasts voluntary action not only with involuntary action but also with cases in which one acts (or does something) due to one’s nature (for example, in virtue of being a member of a certain species) rather than due to one’s own desires (i.e. qua (...) individual). An action can be attributed to one qua individual in two distinct ways depending on whether one is a rational or a non-rational animal. One is responsible for one’s action in both cases, but only in the former case is one also responsible for being the sort of individual that performs it. Aristotle also distinguishes two ways in which an action can be compelled while still being an action of the agent. In the first case, one is compelled by (physically) external forces or circumstances to act against one’s internal impulse. In the second case, one is compelled to act on (internal) impulses that are fixed by one’s nature against one’s own individual impulse. This latter kind of compelled action is only possible in the case of rational agents. Secondly, I argue that Aristotle’s conception of what it is to be a cause of an action inevitably brings in certain normative features which support evaluative judgments and the practice of praise and blame. On Aristotle’s view, any goal-directed behavior that is properly attributable to an individual is (normally) subject to standards that pertain to behavior of that sort. At the most basic level, these standards establish what counts as a successful realization of the goal that one aims at. Thus even in the case of non-rational animals (or children), one can judge the success of what they are doing and encourage (or discourage) similar behavior by praise or blame. These standards are applicable to one’s conduct simply insofar as one is the controlling origin (or efficient cause) of one’s action qua individual. In the case of rational agents the practice of praise and blame can involve a further normative layer since they can be praised or blamed not only for acting in a certain way so as to encourage or discourage them with a view to the future, but also for being – and having become – individuals of a certain sort. Nevertheless, the applicability of such evaluative judgments and of praise and blame is still warranted by one’s being the controlling origin of one’s actions qua the individual one is (in this case, qua rational individual). (shrink)

I argue that, for Aristotle, virtue of character is a state of the non-rational part of the soul that makes one prone to making and acting on decisions in virtue of that part’s standing in the right relation to (correct) reason, namely, a relation that qualifies the agent as a true self-lover. In effect, this central feature of virtue of character is nothing else than love of practical wisdom. As I argue, it not only explains how reason can hold direct (...) authority over non-rational desires but also why Aristotle defines virtue of character as hexis prohairetikē. (shrink)

The paper addresses the following question: why do human beings, on Aristotle’s view, have an innate tendency to badness, that is, to developing desires that go beyond, and often against, their natural needs? Given Aristotle’s teleological assumptions (including the thesis that nature does nothing in vain), such tendency should not be present. I argue that the culprit is to be found in the workings of rationality. In particular, it is the presence of theoretical reason that necessitates the limitless nature of (...) human non-rational desires. (shrink)

The main purpose of the paper is to criticize materialism in the philosophy of mind and to search for alternative approaches to the problems of mind, consciousness and body. According to the author, materialism does not present a satisfactory explanation of the mental life of human beings, because it fails to explain phenomena such as conscious experience, sleep, unconsciousness, death. These phenomena point to the fact that consciousness is not identical with the body and can be detached from it. The (...) author adopts the conclusion that the solution to the problem of consciousness is closely connected to the problem of identity of a human individual. A human being plays certain social roles, he or she possesses a body, he or she possesses a mind, but is not identical with them. In its essence, the human being is identical with consciousness. (shrink)

The development of hormonal contraception introduced a new era in medical practice, marked by the suppression of female fertility by interventions in the hormonal system. The interventions are very grave, as sex hormones are of existential importance both to preserve human life and to preserve the human species. This article conducts an ethical evaluation of the use of hormonal contraception through two ethical theories: natural law theory and virtue ethics. Based on philosophical reflection, the author examines what effects hormonal contraception (...) has on primary goods and whether its use is congruent with the cardinal virtues. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 14.3 : 491–524. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian (...) decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature. (shrink)

Codes of governance have mushroomed in contexts operating under a single, dominant institutional logic, such as publicly listed corporations. These codes act as institutional prescriptions that help spread best practices throughout industries. More recently, in some countries, specific codes have been developed for hybrid organizations that integrate multiple, conflicting institutional logics simultaneously, such as cooperative enterprises. Drawing on an extensive set of qualitative data, we ask how such institutional prescriptions may (fail to) address governance challenges in organizations with multiple, conflicting (...) institutional demands. In doing so, we extend current literature on governance of hybrid organizations, which has so far focused on individual and organizational levels, to include institutional-level strategies. While governance codes are often inspired by deontological ethics to solve issues in a single institutional logic, we find that governance codes for hybrid organizations should not prioritize a single institutional logic, nor follow a deontological approach to improving governance, but should, on a more pragmatist take, remain open to continuous learning. (shrink)

Większość analiz i wątków niniejszego artykułu była inspirowana lekturą książki Kena Goldberga The Robot in the Garden… (KenGoldberg (red.), Robot in the Garden. Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of Internet, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2001). Dotyczy to zwłaszcza rozmaitych rozszerzeń systemu poznawczego człowieka, możliwości i faktu poznawania na odległość oraz nowej filozoficznej subdyscypliny, jaką jest dzisiaj teleepistemologia. Główny motyw jest jednak starszy, bardziej podstawowy i niezależny od koncepcji Goldberga oraz opisanego przezeń eksperymentu Telegarden. Stanowi go obawa przed nastaniem epoki (...) powszechnej, interaktywnej halucynacji – lęk przed ucieczką od świata realnego w stronę rozmaitych środowisk wirtualnych, obawa przed pełnym zanurzeniem się (imersją) w świat Matrixa. To z tego powodu od kilku dekad poszukuję coraz lepszych określeń poznania źródłowego, a problematyka źródłowości i granic wiedzy źródłowej, nieodmiennie, jest według mnie największy wyzwaniem każdej epistemologii: w każdej jej odmianie i na każdym etapie jej rozwoju. (shrink)

W niniejszym artykule rozważam możliwość orzekania prawdy i fałszu o wytworach aktywności artystycznej człowieka, czyli dziełach sztuki. Rozważania te zawierają trzy ograniczenia: w polu moich zainteresowań pozostają przede wszystkim literackie dzieła sztuki; chodzi mi przede wszystkim o czysto poznawczy sens prawdy i fałszu, w szczególności, możliwość aplikacji tzw. klasycznej definicji prawdy; za podstawę swoich rozważań biorę przede wszystkim ustalenia wypływające z rozważań fenomenologów, w szczególności: W. Stróżewskiego, R. Ingardena, M. Heideggera i E. Husserla. Ustalenia te pozwalają mi ostatecznie przyjąć, iż (...) dzieła sztuki nie mogą być wprawdzie nosicielami prawdy klasycznie pojętej, ale są i mogą być siedliskiem „prawdy jako manifestacji”. (shrink)

The author takes the contemporary theatre performance of Mátohy [The Spooks] and maps out the use of original folk theatre masks in a new theatrical context. He describes and characterizes the changes that occur as a consequence of transposing folk masks from their traditional environment to the contemporary stage.

Our paper focuses on the recent incorporation of pop music into torture rituals at Guantánamo. After placing the violent intersection of sound and the sacred in historical perspective, we argue that Guantánamo’s so-called “disco” underscores a significant break with the past: whereas sonic weapons were traditionally called upon to conquer and control, they are now being enlisted in the wasteful pursuit of obliterating the religious devotion of an already captured enemy.