Keywords: essence; existence; essentialist philosophies; istota; istnienie; filozofie esencjalne
In ancient and medieval philosophy three traditions may be pointed to, in which three conceptions were formed of understanding of the essence. One of them is the identity conception of the essence, according to which “essence” is another name for pre-element. The second one may be called epistemological; according to this conception the essence is what is signified with the definition of the thing. And the third conception may be called metaphysical (relational), where the essence is understood as one of the constitutive elements of being that may fulfill the function of the subject, and also of the correlate of the act of existence. The problem of understanding the essence of being, especially in Aristotle’s philosophy, lies at the foundations of the so-called essentialist philosophies, that is ones, for which something general, constant and unchanging, with different statuses of being, are the subject of analyses. No wonder then that the accepted conception of the object of academic study of cognition and the general conception of cognition are at the foundations of understanding of the essence (of being). For this reason the issue of understanding the essence (of being) does not occur in the noncompositional conceptions of being and interpretations of reality that tend to monism, but it does appear and assumes the form of a dispute, along with accepting the compositional conception of being and distinguishing of the cognition order and the being order, which we first of all owe to Aristotle. He tied understanding of the essence with the proper object of philosophical cognition. In the Middle Ages the issue of the essence (of being) assumed a new form of explanation owing to St Thomas Aquinas. He tied understanding of the essence and its correlate, that is the act of existence, and rejected understanding of the essence as an arrangement of necessary features, which are realized on various levels of being: in individuals, in cognitive approaches (generic), and in pure capacities that were induced by Avicenna and developed by John Duns Scott and other philosophers of that age. It is owing to these two latter ones that the issue of the essence was transferred from metaphysics to epistemology and became binding for essentialist trends in modern and contemporary philosophy.
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Keywords: name negation; indefiniteness of concepts; vagueness of concepts; negacja nazwowa; nieokreśloność nazw; nieostrość nazw
The author refers to the construction that includes two types of negation – external (~) and internal (). When we consider an object belonging to a given universe and a given set of predicates, some of them belong to it, and others do not. There may also be such predicates about which it cannot be sensibly stated that they belong to the object – and this is the third case (vagueness) that can be explained by such a construction. It is a non-classical theory of predication. In the classical theory of predication (whose standard realization is the classical predicate calculus) we only have one negation operator (external negation). The idea may be transferred to the calculus of names. In the article a certain broadening of elementary ontology is suggested, where analogous distinctions among predication operators and name negation allow (from the meta-linguistic perspective) perceiving the phenomenon of indefiniteness (vagueness) of names in a new light.
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Keywords: antinomy; Anselm; God; time; antynomia; Anzelm; Bóg; czas
Anselm of Canterbury’s method to avoid antinomies in theology is presented and analyzed. In Monologion Anselm argues in favour of God’s existing at every time and every place on one side, and in favour of God’s existing at no time and no place on the other side. But this constitutes an antinomy, because e.g. for any time t God’s existing at the time t and God’s not existing at the time t are equally provable. Anselm claims ambivalence of terms of natural languages to be responsible for the antinomy. Anselm’s solution is to introduce to theological discourse two artifical terms: „existing at a time” and „coexisting with a time”. Those terms are provided with precise meaning, which constitutes deductional relationship between them. For any x and t , if x is existing at a time t , then x is coexisting with the time t. The converse is, however, not valid. This Allows Anselm to avoid the antinomy. The anticipation of Duns Scotus’ theory of univocity and some contemporary ideas of non-classical logics is also discussed.
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Keywords: cognitive relativism; cognitive equivalence; "anything goes"; relatywizm poznawczy; równowartość poznawcza
In the article two ways of understanding cognitive relativism are presented: as a thesis about equivalence (theoretical relativism) and as a thesis about the arbitrariness of choice (normative relativism). According to the former way of understanding, relativism is the thesis saying that all, including mutually contradicting, views on a given subject are equally true (in one version) or justified (in another); and according to the latter one it is a thesis saying that any proposition on a given subject may be accepted. These two ways of understanding cognitive relativism are not systematically analyzed or used in contemporary debates. However, even a preliminary analysis of these theses and relations between them shows that there are interesting problems hidden behind them, which means that they are worth being considered in a broader range than it has been done up till now.
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Keywords: truth; certainty; theory of knowledge; self-evidence; God; prawda; pewność; teoria poznania; oczywistość; Bóg
In Balmes’ philosophical thought a significant – it seems – co-dependence is revealed, a peculiar logic of consequence that is sketched already in the starting point of his eclectic philosophy. First it is being given in purely common-sense, popular cognition (it is not quite the realism that is presented by St Thomas Aquinas, although Balmes clearly sympathizes with him). From this common-sense background (which is the influence of Reid’s thought) Balmes’ epistemology stems (here, in turn, Cartesian and Leibnitzian origins of his thought are revealed), whose foundation is not consistently realistic, either, and it rather tends towards philosophy of consciousness (philosophy of the subject). And finally, a significant role is played here by Balmes’ concept of the truth – ontic (the concept of being) and logical (epistemology). His discourse is unified by the concept of God as the first Cause of beings, the ultimate source of clarity and certainty of cognition, the ultimate justification (objective and subjective) of the obviousness of the truth, and in the end – the aim, to which the world of things and persons is heading. So, the basic categories of Balmes’ whole neo-scholastic epistemology are “the existence of God” as, in fact, the only guarantee of the truth and certainty, and “human consciousness” as a necessary condition of the possibility to recognize various types of obviousness.
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Keywords: freedom; God; modernity; natural society; Providence; responsibility; Rousseau; solidarity; wolność; Bóg; nowoczesność; naturalne społeczeństwo; Opatrzność; odpowiedzialność; solidarność
This paper seeks to show Frédéric Bastiat’s views against the backdrop of his epoch. He lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the period when the rationalistic paradigm was submitted to a revision. In line with this paradigm, the social order is constructed above all on the foundation of institutions. Hence the ideas to construct new social communities deprived of private property, communities that live in conformity with an imposed and prearranged model. Bastiat criticises such ideas and points instead to the natural forces of progress inherent in each individual human being and in natural communities that this being established. The French thinker refers – unlike Rousseau – on the one hand to the fact of evil and imperfection, and on the other to our inherent drive towards good and perfection, i.e. our perfectibility. Evil and imperfection of human nature are our driving and creative forces. On the way to progress, planned by the Creator, the individual is governed by the principles of responsibility and solidarity, and seeks to integrate the areas of knowledge and faith. The communities that individuals establish result from their struggle against evil in all dimensions.
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Keywords: syllogistic; proof; rejected axiomatization; sylogistyka; dowód; aksjomatyczne odrzucanie
Aristotle in Analytica Posteriora presented a notion of proof as a special case of syllogism. In the present paper the remarks of Aristotle on the subject are used as an inspiration for developing formal systems of demonstrative syllogistic, which are supposed to formalize syllogisms that are proofs. We build our systems in the style of J. Łukasiewicz as theories based on classical propositional logic. The difference between our systems and systems of syllogistic known from the literature lays in the interpretation of general positive sentences in which the same name occurs twice (of the form SaS). As a basic assumption of demonstrative syllogistic we accept a negation of such a sentence. We present three systems which differ in the interpretation of specific positive sentences in which the same name occurs twice (of the form SiS). The theories are defined as axiomatic systems. For all of them rejected axiomatizations are also supplied. For two of them a set theoretical model is also defined.
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Keywords: mind-body problem; epistemological argument; Natural Institution Theory; Co-extension Theory; oddziaływanie między duszą a ciałem; argument epistemologiczny; teoria Naturalnego Ustanowienia; teoria Współ-rozciągłości
The subject of the text is the problem of the mind’s effect on the body in Margaret Wilson’s interpretation. Part I presents Margaret D. Wilson’s interpretation of the Cartesian dualism against the background of the debates on dualism conducted in Anglo-American philosophy as well as that of debates that were contemporary to Descartes. In Part II Descartes’ argument is presented for the distinction of the soul and the body on the basis of analysis of cogito (epistemological argument). In Part III the problem of the soul’s effect on the body is defined from the point of view of the conception of the role played by sensual perception. In the final chapter it is stated that Descartes’ position ranges from the Natural Institution Theory to the Coextension Theory. Margaret D. Wilson herself is in favor of the former conception of the Cartesian understanding of the relation between the soul and the body, according to which sensual perception is an argument for the union of the soul and the body on the strength of the union instituted in a natural way by God. In the conclusion it is stated that the Natural Institution Theory – albeit not free from problems – is a more comprehensible explanation of the relations between the soul and the body, whereas by using the Co-extension Theory Descartes, even though he wants to ensure a close union of the soul and the body, does not give a clear solution, and what is more, he exposes his position to contradiction.
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Keywords: baroque; vanitas; theatricality; spectacle; miseen abime; spaces of theatricality
Attempting a scrutiny of Flannery O’Connor’s short story entitled “A Late Encounter with the Enemy,” the reader is by no means left in a quandary as to the experience of death, pain, and suffering percolating through the very foundations of southern culture since antebellum times. Also, the phenomenon in question appears to be deeply embedded in the aesthetics of historical baroque, which allows one to notice a striking resemblance between the nature of southern experience of the 1950’s and the essence of baroque sensibility. Such an observation assumes extraordinary importance if considered in the context of modern theatricality.Grounded upon a comparison between the seventeenth-century France of Louis XIV and the contemporary South of O’Connor’s protagonist, George Poker Sash, the article explores the transplantation of a multitude of cultural traits characterizing the baroque onto the realm of modern experience(impelled to confront southern history by the author) through the prism of such notions as the play of appearances, miseen abime, and the spaces of theatricality. These concepts, predominantly associated with the theater, are delineated in the course of William Egginton’s How the World Became a Stage: Presence, Theatricality, and the Question of Modernity and The Theater of Truth: Ideology of Neo-Baroque Aesthetics, which two works comprise the theoretical background of the discussion concerning the relationship between the contemporary South and its historical experience.The argument is supported by Guy Debord’s conceptualization of the spectacle adumbrated in The Society of the Spectacle, which presents the culture of the commodity as endowed with theatrical attributes. Bearing in mind that fact that, as Christine Buci-Glucksmann argues in her Baroque Reason, the representation of a historical subject in necessarily connected with theatricality, O’Connor reader is enabled, with the assistance of the works mentioned above, to locate the tragedy ensconced in the core of southern culture enveloped in an intricately woven web of modern appearances.
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Keywords: Asian American fiction; assimilation; immigration; the Dillingham Flaw
The goal of this article is to discuss the use of history in Bharati Mukherjee’s short story “Orbiting” from the collection The Middleman and Other Stories (1988). It is argued that Mukherjee refers back to the controversies that accompanied Italian immigration to the US at the turn of the 20th century in order to provide the background for the present day immigrants (the post-1965 wave), and challenge the view that their assimilation is impossible. The historical context of American attitudes towards the so called “controversial” European immigrants is provided. The essay makes also use of sociological concepts of the Dillingham Flaw (Parillo) and assimilation (Alba and Nee).
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Keywords: South Asian American women’s fiction; immigrant narrative; first- and second-generation immigrant writing; Meena Alexander; Bharati Mukherjee; Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; Jhumpa Lahiri
In numerous immigrant narratives by South Asian American women writers, the process of immigration is construed as the crossing of a line, or of several lines, to be more specific. The act of crossing the geographical line of the border precedes the crossing of more metaphorical boundaries, for example those between the two cultural scenarios operative in the writers’ native and adopted cultures. In the process, yet another metaphorical line is drawn between first- and second-generation immigrants, two groups that inevitably experience immigration in two completely divergent ways. The purpose of this article is to discuss several literary texts based on the construction of a literal or metaphorical line written by first- and second-generation South Asian American women writers (namely, Meena Alexander, Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Jhumpa Lahiri) to map the different standpoints from which first- and second-generation writers explore the issue of migration. This analysis will be situated in the context of what Meena Alexander, a first-generation South Asian American poet and novelist, terms “fault lines” when she writes in her memoir: “In Manhattan, I am a fissured thing, a body crossed by fault lines” (Fault Lines 182). The concept of the geological fault line serves as a powerful metaphor for the fractures and discontinuities inherent in the process of immigration that will be discussed in this article.
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Keywords: Charles Williams; the apocalyptic; 20th-century British fiction; the spiritual in literature
The study examines Shadows of Ecstasy (1933), the earliest novel of Charles Williams (1886-1945)—British poet, playwright, theological writer, literary critic, bibliographer, and author of seven works of fiction—in the context of the apocalyptic as discussed by Barry Brummett (1991), Douglas Robinson (1998), and other scholars. Based on the characteristics presented by Brummet, Andrzej Sławomir Kowalczyk traces apocalyptic motifs in the novel, drawing attention to both its socio-political and religious/spiritual aspects. Kowalczyk comes to the conclusion that despite some evident allusions to the biblical apocalyptic, Williams’s text is more ambiguous than its biblical hypotext in terms of its ideological/moral significance, raising a number of open-ended questions. This, in turn, extends its apocalyptic “revelation” onto the reader, who is invited to rethink her/his perception of Western culture/civilization, making room for some spiritual/metaphysical elements in the materialistic outlook predominant in the 20th century.
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Keywords: Kaye Gibbons; Ellen Foster; literature of the American South; the poor white/white trash; the Other; whiteness; racism; narrative voice; film adaptation; recontextualization
The main theoretical aim of this article is to analyze the ways in which the narrative discourse and thematic concerns of Kaye Gibbons’s best-selling novel Ellen Foster (1987), the literary original, are creatively re-worked in a different medium—its cinematic adaptation, the Hallmark Hall of Fame film. Therefore, I seek to show how the narrative point of view of the novel Ellen Foster is transcoded to the film of the same name, and to what degree the thematic concerns of the literary precursor find their way into a different medium. I will also analyze the final words uttered by the narrator within the rhetoric and narrative logic of both media to see whether they are consistent with the cultural discourse the texts are engaged in.
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Keywords: Jim Crace; chronotope; utopia; dystopia;
Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s assumptions concerning the literary chronotope, the article explores spatio-temporal relationships in The Pesthouse (2007), a novel by contemporary British writer Jim Crace (b. 1946). Katarzyna Pisarska contends that the dominant, post-apocalyptic chronotope of the novel arises from the interaction of two generic chronotopes, utopian and dystopian, which question the American myth of manifest destiny towards its ultimate reassertion. The topos of “a city on a hill”, which presupposes the conflation of America’s past (Eden) and future (New Jerusalem), is reworked as the eponymous pesthouse—the place of disease and recovery of not only the novel’s protagonist but also, implicitly, of the American dream. In the end, Pisarska argues, the novel expresses a revisionist nostalgia (sensu James Berger), as it produces the shock of the past invading the present in order to bring forth a utopian impulse.
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