The aim of this book is to explain economic dualism in the history of modern Europe. The emergence of the manorial-serf economy in the Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary in the 16th and the 17th centuries was the result of a cumulative impact of various circumstantial factors. The weakness of cities in Central Europe disturbed the social balance – so characteristic for Western-European societies – between burghers and the nobility. The political dominance of the nobility hampered the development of cities and (...) limited the influence of burghers, paving the way to the rise of serfdom and manorial farms. These processes were accompanied by increased demand for agricultural products in Western Europe. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to paraphrase Theda Skocpol’s theory of social revolutions with the use of the conceptual apparatus of non-Marxian historical materialism. In the successive sections of this paper, the concepts of modernization, the nature of state power, an agrarian bureaucracy, and the mechanism of a victorious revolution are paraphrased. This paraphrase makes it possible to distinguish two kinds of agrarian bureaucracies, each resulting in social revolutions with different outcomes. A victorious revolution led to successful modernization in (...) the case of an economic agrarian bureaucracy, but not in the case of a political agrarian bureaucracy. (shrink)

The author in terms of idealizational theory of science explicates two approaches to history represented by positivism (Hempel) and narrativism (White). According to positivism, history is branch of science, according to narrativism, history is closer to literature. In the second part of this paper, the author paraphrases some paradoxes of historical narrative elaborated by mentioned-above representatives of these standpoints what is argument for unity of scientific methods presupposed by idealizational theory of science.

In the opinion of many Western observers (e.g. Timothy Garton Ash) as well as Polish authors (e.g., Zdzisław Kransnodębski), the political thought of Solidarność was a mixture of ideas taken from different ideological traditions (right and left). What, in the aforementioned authors opinion, was a reason for pride was an object of criticism by Leszek Nowak, the eminent Polish philosopher, engaged in the movement. One of his most important charges against the political thought of this movement was its intellectual provincialism (...) and its inability to propose something new and fresh. The purpose of this paper is to present Nowak's reflection on the political thought of Solidarność in years 1980-1981. I show that he presses three general kinds of objections. According to Nowak, the political thought of the movement had formal-internal deficiencies (it provided no clear theoretical vision), cognitive deficiencies (it was incapable of offering an adequate diagnosis of the situation) and policy deficiencies (it was incapable of indicating the appropriate course of action). (shrink)

This paper is obituary of Leszek Nowak, one of the greatest Polish philosophers of the XX century.

The author, against the background of Communist Studies developed in Poland since World War I, reconstructs theoretical orientations that explained the communist system in that country. In this paper, the division of theoretical approaches into political, economic, and cultural ones is proposed. Each of them seeks factors responsible for nature, evolution, and final decline of the communist system in a different sphere of social life. An approach of the political type was Leszek Nowak’s theory of communism as a system of (...) emancipated political power; of the economic type — Jadwiga Staniszkis’s theory of the communist system as incomplete capitalism; and of the cultural type — Micha Buchowski’s conceptualization of communism as a system of new religion. In the final part, the author considers complementary character of reconstructed approaches and analyzes reasons why some of reconstructed theories did not generate schools of thought in Polish social sciences after 1989. (shrink)

The paper conceptualizes five basic developmental paths the post-Soviet republics followed. The conceptual framework of this paper is expanded theory of real socialism in non-Marxian historical materialism, namely proposed the model of secession from socialist empire. The first developmental path was followed by societies in which an independent civil revolution took place. This path of development bifurcates into two furhter sub-variants. Namely civil revolutions in the Baltic republics (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) resulted in the independence and stable democracies. Civil revolution in (...) Caucasus republics (Armenia, Gergia) were partially succesfull because civil movement in these societies were unable to build stable democracies. Countries such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine followed next developmental path. Its characteristic feauture is active participation of republican communist nomenclatures in seceding from the Soviet Union and gaining state independence. In this variant of development, democratization - characteristic for the first period of independence was counterbalanced by the growing autocratization of political system. This path of development was divided into two developmental variants: in one group of countries (Ukraine) the growth of autocratization caused civil resistance (Ukraine), in the rest societies of this group (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova) - not. Finally the countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) followed the fith developmental path. In these societies, independence permitted to preserve dictatorship of local communist nomenclatures. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is an interpretation of the social and political thought of the Solidarity movement in the light of the political philosophy of communitarianism. In the first part of the paper, the controversies between liberalism and communitarianism are characterized in order to outline the communitarian response toward the authoritarian/totalitarian challenge. In the second part, the programme of a self-governing republic created by Solidarity is interpreted in the spirit of communitarianism. I reconstruct the ideal vision of human being (...) expressed in of ficial trade union’s documents and essays of Solidarity’s advisers e.g., Stefan Kurowski and Jozef Tischner, and the efforts of the movement for telling the truth about history and its vision of Polish history. Also, I interpret the programme of Self-Governing Republic adopted during the First National Convention of Delegates of Solidarity. In these programmatic documents of Solidarity, one may find ideas characteristic both of the communitarian and liberal political philosophy. However, the liberal ones—including, primarily, the guarantee of human and citizens’ rights, and of individual liberties—were subordinated to the postulate of reconstructing the national and social community. In the course of transformation after 1989, these communitarian elements of Solidarity programme, incompatible with liberal ideological agenda, have been erased. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze the social structure of the society in Teutonic state (1226-1525), which was distinct from structure of estate societies. The author put hypothesis that Teutonic Knight monopolised in their state political, economical and spiritual power. In the light of this thesis certain trends from history of the state of Teutonic Order are explained.

The aim of this paper is to extend Leszek Nowak's theory of power in non-Marxian historical materialism by such categories as civil collapes, elite absorption and balanced revolution.

This article presents the political theology of Martin Luther King. I analyze the notion of political theology, King's argumentation in favour of non-violence strategy in politics and reconstruct a standard model of non-violence action. Finally, I discuss some philosophical and political controversies arising around passive resistance.

The book "Idealization XIV: Models in Science" offers a detailed ontological, epistemological and historical account of the role of models in scientific practice. The volume contains contributions of different international scholars who developed many aspects of the use of idealizations and models both in the natural and the social sciences. This volume is particularly relevant because it offers original contributions concerning one of the main topic in philosophy of science: the role of models in such branches of the sciences and (...) the humanities like comparative historical sociology, economics, history, linguistics and political philosophy. -/- Contributors are: Giacomo Borbone, Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Mieszko Ciesielski, Adam Czerniak, Xavier de Donato Rodríguez, José L. Falguera, Adolfo García de la Sienra, Lidia Godek, Igor Hanzel, Łukasz Hardt, Krzysztof Kiedrowski, Barbara Konat, Zenonas Norkus, Piotr Przybysz, Piotr Szwochert. (shrink)

Francesco Coniglione , “Special Issue: Mirrors: Science and Knowledge Society”, Axiomathes. An International Journal in Ontology and Cognitive Systems 19 , 4, pp. 351-523.

The book reveals different dimensions of modeling in the historical sciences. Papers collected in the first part (Ontology of the Historical Process) consider different models of historical reality and discuss their status. The second part (Modeling in the Methodology of History) presents various forms of idealization in historiographic research. The papers in the third part (Modeling in the Research Practice) present various models of past reality (e.g. of Poland, Central Europe and the general history of the feudal system) put forward (...) by historians. Other papers consider the status of scientific laws and historical generalizations. The volume will be of interest to those who study analytical philosophy of history, methodology of history and social sciences, social philosophy as well as theory and history of historiography. (shrink)

The first part of this book contains a selection of Leszek Nowak’s (1943-2009) works on non-Marxian historical materialism, which are published here in English for the first time. In these papers, Nowak constructs a dynamic model of religious community, reconstructs historiosophical assumptions of liberalism and considers the methodological status of prognosis of totalitarization of capitalist society. In the second part of the book, new contributions to non-Marxian historical materialism are presented. Their authors analyze mechanisms of the oligarchization of liberal democracy, (...) the democratization of real socialism, and the development of early modern Ottoman and post-war Chinese societies. The volume will be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as specialists who deal with the development of capitalist society, philosophy of history, the philosophy of social sciences and the political philosophy of liberalism. (shrink)

The authors of this book reconstruct the philosophical, methodological and theoretical assumptions of non-Marxian historical materialism, a theory of historical process authored by Leszek Nowak (1943-2009), a co-founder of the Poznań School of Methodology. In the first part of the book, philosophical assumptions of this theory are compared with the concepts of Robert Nozick, Immanuel Wallerstein, André Gunder Frank and analytical Marxism. In the second part, non-Marxian historical materialism is compared with the concepts of Eva Etzioni-Halevy, Andrzej Falkiewicz, Robert Michels, (...) Vilfredo Pareto, Theda Skocpol and Karl August Wittfogel. (shrink)

The volume addresses a problem rarely discussed by philosophers - the question of provincialism in science (in the broadest sense of the term). There are only a few great centers of science, which attract funding and provide almost ideal opportunities for research and development. They also attract some of the best researchers. Some - but not all. For a variety of reasons, some of the best researchers, or ones who have that potential, may do science outside these centers, in the (...) provinces. The volume is devoted to the problems they face. What is an intellectual province? Who are the provincial thinkers? What is the mark of provincialism? Do provincial (or central) thinkers have any special duties? Are there ways of overcoming one's own provincialism? The authors address these questions across different disciplines, cultures, locations and time periods. -/- . (shrink)

The purpose of _Towards a Revival of Analytical Philosophy of History: Around Paul A. Roth's Vision of Historical Sciences_ is to discuss the revival of analytical philosophy of history proposed by Paul A. Roth. The authors characterize the status of philosophy of history and discuss its ontological, epistemological and explanatory dimensions.

In the opinion of many Western observers as well as Polish authors, the political thought of Solidarność was a mixture of ideas taken from different ideological traditions. What, in the aforementioned authors opinion, was a reason for pride was an object of criticism by Leszek Nowak, the eminent Polish philosopher, engaged in the movement. One of his most important charges against the political thought of this movement was its intellectual provincialism and its inability to propose something new and fresh. The (...) purpose of this paper is to present Nowak's reflection on the political thought of Solidarność in years 1980-1981. I show that he presses three general kinds of objections. According to Nowak, the political thought of the movement had formal-internal deficiencies, cognitive deficiencies and policy deficiencies. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is an extension of the idealizational theory of science in order to explicate intuitions of historians and philosophers of history about unpredictability and contingency of history. The author identifies two types of essential structures: the first kind dominated by the main factor and the second kind which is dominated by a class of secondary factors. In an essential structure dominated by the main factor, the power of influence it exerts is greater than the sum of (...) the power of influence of secondary factors. In an essential structure dominated by secondary factors, their total influence is greater than the influence exerted by the main factor, although the power of the latter influence is greater than the power of influence of each secondary factor taken separately. In the latter kind of essential structure the so-called cascade effect can occur which means that at certain moment the power of influence of secondary factors can be greater than influence of main factor. In the further part of this paper, the author examines consequences of cascade effect for construction of scientific theory and historical narrative. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider the standard objections put against the construction of metanarratives in the philosophy of history. The author distinguishes following intelectual sources questioning the grasp of Entirety in the philosophy of history: anti-naturalistic German philosophy of science, dogmatic Marxism, liberalism and postmodernism. Analysis of the content of these stances allows for disclose of hidden methodological and theoretical premises which are responsible for misunderstanding and critique of the historiosophical discourse.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the beginnings and growth of civil movements in the Baltic republics in years 1985-1991, which led to their state independence. Proces of liberation of Baltic societies will be analyzed according to the following criteria: size and range of the civil movement and forms of its institutionalization (i), political concession made by republican authorities (ii) and level of control over the republican structure of power exercised by the civil movements (iii). Finally, I will (...) try to consider why evolution of the Baltic societies resulted in building of the stable democracies, whereas these same efforts are still unsuccesful in Belarus and were unsuccesful in Ukraine. This analysis will not be a chronicle's presentation of events from current history of the Baltic states but will be based on a coherent theoretical framework achieved by employing models and conceptual apparatus of non-Marxian historical materialism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to paraphrase, using the terminological framework of the idealisational theory of science, the issue of the accuracy of explanation. Chris Lorenz, describing the “theoretical historical debate” on the status of scientific laws, mentioned the standpoint of Nancy Cartwright. According to him, this post-positivistic approach introduced new perspectives on understanding lawfulness. The purpose of this paper is to present assumptions of another post-positivistic approach to science, namely an idealizational theory of science and to paraphrase in (...) the terminological framework of this approach some problems posed by Lorenz like the issue of accuracy of explanation. In this paper Hempel’s explanatory sketch is paraphrased using the terminological framework of the idealisational model of science which provides a solution to the problem of the accuracy of explanation posed by Lorenz. (shrink)

This paper is critical analysis of book by Anna Sosnowska, "Zrozumieć zacofanie. Spory historyków o Europę Wschodnią (1947-1994)" [To Understand Backwardness: Historians' Deabates about Eastern Europe (1947-1994)]. Warszawa 2004.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the political development of the Belarusian society in the years 1986–2006 in order to answer the following questions: (i) what was the impact of support the nomenclature of the Belarusian Communist Party gave to the Belarusian independence after August 1991 on the process of decrease in power regulation (or in other words – democratization), (ii) why initial period of decrease in power regulation was replaced by its growth and (iii) why this growth (...) of power regulation did not encounter efficient civil reaction like in the neighbouring republics (ex. Ukraine). Finally, I would like to consider further political development in Belarus, especially the perspective of civil revolutions. Presented analysis will not be a chronicler’s presentation of facts from the current history of this country but will be based on a social theory – non–Marxian historical materialism, which will serve as a basis for answering these questions and considering posed problems. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider the influence of the methodological status of the concept of the totalitarian syndrome on the strategy of its development. It is argued that the totalitarian syndrome as put forward by Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski represented a kind of social modelling. However, there are different approaches to modelling in the social sciences. Modelling, when perceived from a neo-Hegelian perspectives, leads to the elaboration of dependencies between social phenomenon and their main factors. (...) Modelling, when seen from a neo-Weberian perspective, relies on the construction of notions which systematize and order social phenomena. This hypothesis is illustrated by a methodological analysis of the extension of the totalitarian syndrome authored by Achim Siegel and Mark R. Thompson. (shrink)

The author interprets the emergence of the manorial-serf economy in Central Europe on the basis of the concept of the cascadeness of historical process. The course of development in the XVIth century Central Europe relied on many insignificant factors which their joint influence gradually outweighed the impact of developmental regularities according to which societies in Central and Western Europe evolved from the XIth to circa the XVIth centuries. Factors that appear in the cascade of European differentiation are divided by the (...) author into its core, i.e., a set of factors which operated in each of the societies under study, i.e., Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian societies, and specific factors responsible for the development of each of those Central European societies. (shrink)

In the opinion of many Western observers as well as Polish authors, the political thought of Solidarność was a mixture of ideas drawn from different ideological pedigrees. What, in the aforementioned authors’ opinion, was a reason for pride, was an object of criticism by Leszek Nowak, the eminent Polish philosopher, engaged in the Solidarność movement. One of his most important charges against the political thought of this movement was its intellectual provincialism and its inability to propose something new and fresh. (...) The purpose of this paper is to present Nowak’s reflection on the political thought of Solidarność in years 1980–1981. I show that he raises three general kinds of objections. According to Nowak, the political thought of the movement had formal-internal deficiencies, cognitive deficiencies and policy deficiencies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is analyse the notion of Central Europe used in historiography. The author reconstructs different meanings of this term used in the works of George Schopflin, Peter Burke, Oskar Halecki, Piotr Wandycz. This notion has not only geographic but also social and historical meaning.

The aim of this paper is to extend the Leszek Nowak's theory of socialist empire by introducing weaker forms of intersocial relation, e. gr. unsuccessful attempt at conquest and subordination. In the light of concretization of the model of socialist empire some facts from history of Soviet Union (intervention of the Entente and World War II) and socialist countries (autonomy of Albania and Romania in socialist bloc) are explained.

The decline of communism in Eastern Europe in years 1989-1991 was a big surprise for Western Sovietology. The sudden disappearance of the object of research would undermine the reason of existence of the whole science. For this reason, in the first half of the 90s Western scientists tried to answer following question: why Sovietology was not able to predict the demise of communism. The purpose of my paper is not to make one more analysis of factors responsible for this failure (...) of social sciences but reconstruction of theories which accurately predicted the demise of communism. It is possible to point out two scholars whopredicted the collapse of communism at the turn of the 70s and 80s. One of them is Randall Collins, an American sociologist who elaborated in 1978 Geopolitical Theory. The second of them is Leszek Nowak, Polish philosopher, who in 1979 elaborated theory of historical process – non-Marxian historical materialism. In the last part of my paper I compare these two theories. Despite obvious differences, these theories share striking similarities: model status, antagonistic vision of society, grand scope of applicability and belonging to the periphery rather than to mainstream of social sciences. Maybe, this last feature is one of the necessary conditions of making accurate predictions in social and historical sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present political development of the Ukrainian society in years 1991-2004 in the light of conceptual apparatus of non-Marxian historical materialism.