Alfred North Whitehead is a prominent contemporary philosopher and scientist. He was an active participant of the scientific revolution in the two very first decades of this century. In a concise book dedicated to his philosophy the Author considers the concept of beauty elaborated by Whitehead, especially in his two principal works: Process and Reality and Adventures of Ideas.

The idea of social justice belongs to a narrow group of philosophical concepts which have been frequently and eagerly discussed by moderns. Many different authors, not only philosophers, have recognized this idea as being crucial to any social approach - others have applied it with considerable enthusiasm to their own discourses on the social order. To mention Karl Marks and Frederic Engels is enough. Unfortunately, professional philosophical works dedicated to the idea of social justice have been scarce. It is so (...) not only because the main issue of humanistic production on social justice up to now belongs mostly to writers, columnists or even politicians rather than to systematic thinkers, but also because the question itself is wide, complicated and laden with problems of application. The idea of social justice seems even to be somehow ideologically biased. Prof. Stanisław Kowalczyk, a fertile scholar of the Catholic University in Lublin, Poland, presents in his recent book the past and the present of the idea of social justice, doing so with good methodology and without ideological prejudices. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead is a prominent contemporary philosopher and scientist. He was an active participant of the scientific revolution in the two very first decades of this century. In a concise book dedicated to his philosophy the Author considers the concept of beauty elaborated by Whitehead, especially in his two principal works: Process and Reality and Adventures of Ideas.

The idea of social justice belongs to a narrow group of philosophical concepts which have been frequently and eagerly discussed by moderns. Many different authors, not only philosophers, have recognized this idea as being crucial to any social approach - others have applied it with considerable enthusiasm to their own discourses on the social order. To mention Karl Marks and Frederic Engels is enough. Unfortunately, professional philosophical works dedicated to the idea of social justice have been scarce. It is so (...) not only because the main issue of humanistic production on social justice up to now belongs mostly to writers, columnists or even politicians rather than to systematic thinkers, but also because the question itself is wide, complicated and laden with problems of application. The idea of social justice seems even to be somehow ideologically biased. Prof. Stanisław Kowalczyk, a fertile scholar of the Catholic University in Lublin, Poland, presents in his recent book the past and the present of the idea of social justice, doing so with good methodology and without ideological prejudices. (shrink)

Democracy was never praised in unanimity. Nor was it praised by everybody. Its greatest supporters were usually its greatest critics. Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of famous Democracy in America, used to call political parties an „evil inherent in free governments". Being so impressed by the enthusiasm of Americans for joining associations, probably he would never expect that some generations later Jonathan Rauch will call the same genuine American spirit „demosclerotical" and „hyperpluralistic". Stanislaw Kowalczyk writes about democracy from a far (...) different prospective. He completely ignores all factual data and tries to convince the reader that democracy is predominantly a philosophical quest. And Kowalczyk is right. He is right at least to the extent that he discusses several political ideas and popular Ideologies always underlying all the controversies of our modern society. Since he does it very carefully and accurately, Kowalczyk reveals them very effectively. (shrink)

The encyclical Fides et ratio: On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason, written by Pope John Paul II in the summer of 1998 and published in the Vatican City 14th September of the same year, received considerable amount of commentaries in Poland. Several different volumes have already appeared: there are proceedings of some scientific meetings, some collected works, and a special, philosophical edition of the monthly review „Znak".