It appears that we know surprisingly little about how judges frame linguistically the rationale behind their decisions and how such texts are structured. Using the concept of rhetorical moves, this paper adopts a genre-based approach to examine the rhetorical structure of legal justifications provided in the decisions of the Polish Constitutional Court. The goal of the study is to verify the claim that the way justifications are drafted is becoming more and more uniform and conventional. The results show that there (...) is a common core of rhetorical structure realized by means of recurrent functional segments of text. This paper proposes a prototypical move structure of a Constitutional Tribunal justification and it argues that that the way justifications are drafted are subject to very concrete, even if not explicitly stated constraints. (shrink)

Historically, Ehrenfest’s theorem is the first one which shows that classical physics can emerge from quantum physics as a kind of approximation. We recall the theorem in its original form, and we highlight its generalizations to the relativistic Dirac particle and to a particle with spin and izospin. We argue that apparent classicality of the macroscopic world can probably be explained within the framework of standard quantum mechanics.

There are many different ways in which modern Corpus Linguistics can be used to enrich and broaden our understanding of legal discourse. Based on the central principle of co-occurrence and co-selection in language construction, this paper reviews current applications of Corpus Linguistics in the area of legal discourse focusing on issues ranging from phraseology, variation in legal discourse, legal translation, register and genre perspectives on legal discourse, legal discourse in forensic contexts to evaluative language in judicial settings. It revisits the (...) notion of ‘corpus’ and it highlights the relevance of various types of legal corpora and computer tools in legal linguistic research. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 51-67.

This paper investigates the role of (DIS)RESPECT a value premise in two landmark civil rights cases given by the United States Supreme Court. It adopts a corpus-assisted approach whereby a keyword analysis and the analysis of key semantic domains are used to identify potential values relied upon by judges in their justifications. The two categories of NO RESPECT and RESPECTED have been selected and examined as one domain of (DIS)RESPECT. (DIS)RESPECT turns out to be the only value marked by strong (...) evaluative polarity and it is found in the majority, as well as in dissenting opinions. The analysis shows how the notion of (DIS)RESPECT has been integrated into the arguments of judges and it highlights the central importance of values and the related evaluative language for legal argumentation. (shrink)

Marxism accepted the notion of social justice, but realized it through liquidation of private property and violence of the totalitarian state. Liberalism and neoliberalism, in the name of maximal economic liberalism, reject the idea of social justice and postulate a minimal state. Republicanism and communitarianism accept ideas of common good and social justice. The social teaching of the Church proposes a subsidiary state which is not a protective one. Contemporary popes – Pius XI (Quadragesimo anno), John XXIII (Mater et Magistra), (...) Paul VI (Populorum progressio), John Paul II (Sollicitudo rei socialis, Centesimus annus) – postulate participation of the state in social justice. The main of its obligations are: protection and financial aid for key sectors of economic life (including agriculture), profamily policy, fighting against unemployment and providing fair salary, limited economic intervention (while respecting the rules of the free market economy at the same time), medical and social care. (shrink)

Artykuł pokazuje źródła filozoficznych inspiracji Andrzeja Maryniarczyka, jednego z najwybitniejszych przedstawicieli trzeciego pokolenia Lubelskiej Szkoły filozoficznej. Szkoła ta nawiązuje do tradycji arystotelesowsko-tomistycznej, w której centralną rolę odgrywa metafizyka. To właśnie myśl Stagiryty i Akwinaty stała się dla Maryniarczyka przedmiotem badań oraz źródłem inspiracji. Autor Metody metafizyki realistycznej sięgał także do myśli Mieczysława Alberta Krąpca i Karola Wojtyły, współczesnych reprezentantów nurtu tomistycznego, a zarazem przedstawicieli Lubelskiej Szkoły Filozoficznej. Maryniarczyk uczył się od swoich poprzedników rozumienia, czym filozofia jest, co jest jej przedmiotem (...) i jak należy ja uprawiać. Myślicieli tych traktował jako swoich przewodników w realistycznym filozofowaniu, czerpiąc od nich inspirację do bycia filozofem w XXI wieku poprzez zajmowanie określonej postawy wobec rzeczywistości i toczącego się dyskursu. (shrink)

Nawiązując do artykułu polemicznego Jolanty Koszteyn Problem poczucia a problem kreacji dusz ludzkich. Refleksje na temat artykułu Stanisława Ziemiańskiego pt.: Jedna czy wiele dusz? trzeba stwierdzić, że jest w nim wiele cennych doprecyzowań, za które dziękuję, m.in. jest w nim odróżnienie traducjanizmu i generacjonizmu. Termin „traducjanizm" jest czyściej używany, ale dla tematu duszy rzeczywiscie lepszy byłby termin „generacjonizm". Ewolucja poglądów św. Augustyna na genezy duszy jest interesująca, choć w artykule idzie głównie o traducjanizm.

Nawiązując do artykułu polemicznego Jolanty Koszteyn Problem poczucia a problem kreacji dusz ludzkich. Refleksje na temat artykułu Stanisława Ziemiańskiego pt.: Jedna czy wiele dusz? trzeba stwierdzić, że jest w nim wiele cennych doprecyzowań, za które dziękuję, m.in. jest w nim odróżnienie traducjanizmu i generacjonizmu. Termin „traducjanizm" jest czyściej używany, ale dla tematu duszy rzeczywiscie lepszy byłby termin „generacjonizm". Ewolucja poglądów św. Augustyna na genezy duszy jest interesująca, choć w artykule idzie głównie o traducjanizm.

This article discusses the problem of movement. The meaning of the term “movement” has undergone more changes in the course of history than any other term. The main change has been the immobilizing of movement. To show this, the author briefly presents the vicissitudes of its development from antiquity to the present. The relation between force and movement is also considered. In this matter the author follows the approach of Fr. John Dorda SJ, who proves that forces are not efficient (...) causes, but rather formal causes. The fields of forces do not influence movement generally, but only its shape and trajectory. To illustrate this, four cases are presented and the Lorentzian equation is adduced. The problem of the ontological status of movement has been discussed at some length. It is argued that movement cannot be reduced to geometrical relations alone. (shrink)

The conception of time, presented by St. Augustine, unites within itself the physical-philosophical views of Aristotle, and its own psychological view concerning the lived experience of the flow of sensory impressions from the past towards the future. H. Majkrzak underlines, in Augustine, the existential moment of time. The time of a human life is limited: it is situated within borders stretching from the day of birth to the day of death. This faithful and precise representation of the Augustinian conception of (...) time, nevertheless brings the reader up against a problem: What value does it have today? (shrink)

RD, a 32-year-old male, was admitted to the hospital with hypoxic COVID pneumonia–a potentially life-threatening condition characterized by dangerously low levels of oxygen in the body- during one of the pandemic’s surges. While RD’s age gave the clinical team hope for his prognosis, his ability to recover was complicated by his being unvaccinated and having multiple comorbidities, including diabetes and obesity. His condition worsened to the point that he required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a machine that maintains the functioning of (...) a person’s heart and lungs. -/- Given its scarcity–only 264 of the over 6,000 hospitals in the United States offer ECMO, according to the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization–as well as its high cost and the inadequate supply of staff required to maintain it, ECMO primarily serves as a bridge to support critically ill patients until they can receive an organ transplant or implanted medical device. For RD, ECMO was started to support him until he could be evaluated for, and possibly receive, a bilateral lung transplant. Despite its intended use as a treatment of last resort, some patients can remain on ECMO for weeks or months. And some are awake, alert, and capable of medical decision-making. -/- RD was one such patient. However, the transplant evaluation committee ruled out RD’s candidacy for bilateral lung transplantation, based on his poor potential for recovery and a lack of family and friends to provide post-transplant support. This determination raised the prospect of continued ECMO treatment being a bridge to nowhere. But RD was comfortable on ECMO and wanted to remain in the ICU. The ICU intensivist contacted the ethics consult service with questions about whether continued ECMO support was medically and ethically inappropriate. (shrink)

In The Conditions for Ethical Chemical Restraint, Crutchfield and Redinger (2024) propose ethical standards for the use of chemical restraints, which they consider normatively distinct from physica...