The text is a commentary to the phenomena in Polish modern art in the final years of the 20th century. It constitutes a “first-hand” account by a participant of the events and the host of the location. The location was the author’s private workshop in the attic of a Łódź tenement house in the very centre of the city, in the circles of artists creating situations, meetings, events and objects, which established Kultura Zrzuty [the Whip-round Culture], a phenomenon which described (...) the activities of artists independent of state institutions and officials patrons in the 1980s. The analysis of the events within the area of independent Okolice Sztuki inspired the author to discuss the form of other artists and his own, who created art in Strych [literally: attic] in an unchanging conflict between physical and social existence and freedom in art. (shrink)

The subject of this article are the definitional and regulatory aspects of experimental (or innovative) therapies, understood either as new and unproven treatment methods that can be tested – and for this purpose used – also in clinical trials, or as applications of these new and unproven procedures in medical practice. After a short introduction, recalling one of the important sources of the concept of experimental or innovative therapy, which was the Belmont Report, I first discuss the problems related to (...) the definition of experimental therapy (as a new and nonvalidated medical procedure used to improve the patient's health), and then the controversial issues related to its regulation (including in particular the required control to which each such therapeutic intervention should be subject). Finally, I point out the importance of the discussions on experimental therapy reported in this article, conducted in other countries or in international contacts, for the necessary revision or reinterpretation of Polish regulations regarding therapeutic experiments. (shrink)

Przedmiotem tego artykułu jest zakres i charakter obowiązków, które w ujęciu Tomasza z Akwinu należą do szczególnej podklasy aktów dobroczynności lub czynienia dobra, noszącej u niego nazwę eleemosyna. Tłumacząc ten termin przez „pomoc potrzebującym” lub „pomoc w potrzebie”, biorę pod rozwagę pytanie, w jakich okolicznościach udzielanie tej pomocy jest według Tomasza działaniem obowiązkowym, a w jakich tylko zalecanym lub nawet niewłaściwym. W szczególności staram się ustalić, jak wiele z naszego osobistego dobra jego etyczna teoria każe nam przeznaczać na wspieranie innych, (...) nawet przy założeniu, że oni tego wsparcia potrzebują. (shrink)

Definicja geniusza jest definicją warunkową – jest to osoba o nieprzeciętnych zdolnościach. Zdolności takie związane są ze strukturą i fizjologią mózgu, które są zdeterminowane genetycznie, a środowisko i edukacja mogą co najwyżej przeszkodzić w rozwoju geniusza. Na przykładzie prostego modelu przestrzeni fazowej mózgu formułujemy dwie hipotezy dotyczące dynamiki procesów myślowych w mózgu geniusza i różnicy między myśleniem geniusza a chorobą psychiczną lub szaleństwem.

An option available to an agent is stable if it maximizes expected utility on the hypothetical assumption that the agent is going to choose it. As is well known, some decision problems lack a stable solution. Paul Weirich (1986 and 1988) has recently proposed a decision principle which prescribes that the option chosen should be at least weakly stable--or "weakly ratifiable", to use his terminology. According to him, full stability is an excessively strong demand. I shall argue that Weirich's proposal (...) conflicts with the familiar condition of dominance. But I shall also prove that this difficulty can be avoided if we replace weak stability by "moderate" stability--where the latter property is somewhat stronger than the former. It will be seen, however, that this modification does not help against other ailments connected with stability. In particular, to heed the demand of stability (of any kind) is to engage in a form of "wishful acting". Also, the different stability demands all conflict with a close relative of the dominance condition: the condition of "indifference". According to this condition, two actions are equally choiceworthy if they would always lead to the same outcomes--whatever state the world is in. On the other hand, the conditions of dominance and indifference would both be satisfied if we replaced a demand for stability (of some kind) by a related but distinct principle of "retrievability". Retrievability and (full) stability are mutually independent properties of options, but each of them entails moderate stability. The paper ends with a discussion of the relevance of retrievability to theories of choiceworthiness and practical reason. (shrink)

"Traum des Seins, Todt des Seiendes" sketches centuries-old history, transformations, and consequences of the baroque identification of dream and reality. The first part of the essay demonstrates that, despite commonly accepted opinion this identification originates with Descartes. In the second part of the essay, the main theme – the claim that ontological positions are dependent on the grammar of ethic languages – is introduced within the context of Schopenhauer's remarks on life and dreams. The third part of the essay further (...) develops the main theme in the course of an analysis of Descartes' "Meditation II". From a linguistic point of view, there are two following consequences for ego and cogito: either the subject (ego) does not exist, or its existence is temporarily non-continuous; either it does not exist as consciousness; or it is an unconscious being. Obviously, Descartes would accept neither. In the last analysis, ego exists merely grammatically, while (conscious) being differs from being in that it happens but is not. Since conscious being, only occurs in speech directed to somebody, death touches merely being, while being either dreams or remains silent. (shrink)

It is argued in this note that the word quattuor in line 15 of the “Ciris” should be emended to quatenus. A possible cause of error is also suggested.

Roman Ingardens frühe Schriften zur Erkenntnistheorie, die hier als Band 6 der von Rolf Fieguth und Guido Küng geleiteten »Gesammelten Werke« vorliegen, umfassen seine Dissertation über »Intuition und Intellekt bei Henri Bergson« und drei andere, zum Teil hier erstmals veröffentlichte Arbeiten aus der Frühperiode des hervorragenden polnischen Phänomenologen. Insgesamt bieten sie ein gutes Bild von dem auch für Ingardens Gesamtwerk sehr wichtigen und bisher nicht gebührend beachteten erkenntnistheoretischen Projekt, mit dem Ingarden in Anknüpfung an Edmund Husserl und andere Phänomenologen, aber (...) auch unter Verwendung eigener origineller Ideen die Möglichkeit einer autonomen Epistemologie nachzuweisen versucht. (shrink)

BL With a new preface by the authors This is an important work of original scholarship by two of the most distinguished East European economists now working in the West. The authors, both of whom were involved in the Planning Office of the Polish economy in the 1950s and 1960s, present here the results of their efforts to develop theoretically a system of economic management which could in practice avoid the worst excesses of both market capitalism and central planning. The (...) conclusions derived from this analysis are shown to open up a new dimension to the `socialism versus capitalism' controversy which has dominated much of the world throughout the twentieth century and which is especially significant as the countries of East and Central Europe re-structure their economies. (shrink)

[…] redaktorom udała się rzecz dość rzadka w tego typu publikacjach, mianowicie stworzyli imponujących rozmiarów księgę pamiątkową, która jednak, poza walorami okolicznościowymi, charakteryzuje się wysokim poziomem naukowym i zawiera sporo oryginalnych, wartościowych treści, z konieczności prezentowanych w krótkich formach, co jednak nie obniża ich rangi teoretycznej. Ponadto […] udało się w tej publikacji zgromadzić bardzo liczne, a jednocześnie reprezentatywne grono najwybitniejszych polskich filozofów, którzy ofiarowali profesorowi Tyburskiemu swoje cenne teksty, co czyni tę książkę tym bardziej wartościową i spowoduje, jak można (...) przypuszczać, że jeszcze po wielu latach będzie się do niej sięgało jako o źródła oryginalnych i bardzo ciekawych przemyśleń. Prof. dr hab. Jarosław Rolewski. (shrink)

In his Tractatus and Notebooks 1914-1916, Wittgenstein develops some themes concerning the nature of the subject, transcendentalism, solipsism and mysticism. Though Wittgenstein rejects a naive, psychological understanding of the subject, he preserves the idea of the metaphysical subject, so-called “philosophical I”. The present investigations exhibit two ways of grasping the subject: (1) subject as a boundary (of the world); (2) subject (I) as the world. The author of the paper aims to analyze different methods of conceiving the subject, both logical (...) and transcendental. Then he discusses the naturalistic or reductionist consequences of solipsism which were derived by Wittgenstein. Moreover, he refers to the concept of ‘subject of will’ introduced in the Tractatus. Finally, the author puts a question whether the metaphysical subject is a boundary of the world identified with the subject of will. While trying to answer this question one can point to the essential difficulties of Wittgenstein’s standpoint. These difficulties become especially evident if we examine Wittgenstein’s statements concerning mysticism. The category of subject seems to gain a new dimension when reconsidered in this context. In the conclusion, the author offers an interpretation inspired by Schopenhauer’s conception of the double aspect of the subject that is to overstep these difficulties. (shrink)

The following text is a voice in the discussion around normative problems of innovative therapies. It particularly refers to problems related to the contribution of experimental therapies to the development of medical knowledge, also discussed in this issue in the article by Olga Dryla "Expanded access programs as a source of cognitive data.".

The question of the relation between the economic reforms introduced in or contemplated by the East European communist countries (including now a days the Soviet Union as well) and China, and the pattern of income distribution is obviously of great interest: how will the increased use of market mechanisms affect the degree of inequality? Strong views on the matter are frequently voiced both by proponents and opponents of market-oriented reforms, but there is surprisingly litde empirical evidence based on systematic research. (...) To my knowledge the work under review is the first book with such an explicit objective. (shrink)