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This paper aims at analyzing achievements of Tan Kah Kee, the unique figure of the overseas Chinese community in Southeast Asia. He lived up to Confucian standards, underlining the importance of knowledge that could transform the position of a country in different areas. Tan focused his attention on improving educational standards in China. Therefore he set up the Jimei Schools and Xiamen University (the first university in China founded by the overseas Chinese).
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This article is devoted to the issue of multi-ethnic relations in Western Europe, and in particular to the question of the search of Muslim nowadays identity. The so-called civilization clash, language and culture diversity, the ongoing debate about the Muslims both new comers and old settlers are the crucial issue. Muslims in Western Europe are in constant search for their new identity made out of various elements, such as influences of home tradition, new movements, including fundamentalism and modern western trends. What is more, since Europe is predominantly Christian country, a development of Muslim-Christian dialogue is essential because it will have a tremendous influence of shaping new Muslim identity.
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Homily delivered by His Holiness John Paul II during the Holy Mass celebrated in the Cathedral of Gniezno on June 3, 1979, during his apostolic journey to Poland.
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The article presents an outline of the contribution of Benedictine monks into the development of Christianity in its fi rst centuries in Poland. Four aspects are taken into consideration: historical, spiritual, cultural and ecological, the latter understood in an integral way, i.e., including economy and administration. Moreover, a wider panorama of the contemporary activities of the Benedictine monasteries in Europe is also outlined in order to show how a more intense turning towards the Benedictine tradition might be helpful in resolving some problems now faced by the Church in Poland.
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The article considers the issue of how to defi ne the Christian identity in modern culture. Due to the cultural transformations characteristic of modernity it is no longer justifi able to refer in the debates to the traditional concept of Christian identity, around which the social as well as individual life in the medieval Europe was organized. The social and political order established in the Middle Ages (the Christianitas), as well as the inherent concept of Christian identity, have been questioned with the advent of the modern times and the subsequent transformations of the notion of identity as such. However, the new concept of identity which has thus emerged precludes an adequate description of the Christian identity. Despite its appreciation of human individuality and freedom, the modern concept of identity fails to grasp the marks which are emblematic of Christianity, namely, openness to another human being and openness to God. The construction of ‘modern’ identity entails, inevitably, a relativist attitude which may lead to the loss of the meaning of life, the process which is most radically manifested in the modern idea of the ‘death of man.’ A response to the crisis of traditional and modern identities (the former, however, must not be identified with a crisis of Christianity) is the proposed concept of dialogical identity, which not only takes into consideration the contemporary cultural reality, but also incorporates the essence of the Christian message, namely the attitude of being-for-another to the extent of offering one’s life for another, which, in the Biblical sense, is considered as the fulfi llment of the commandment of love.
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My paper regards Stanisław Lem’s view on the future of the Christian doctrine. Lem is considered here primarily as a philosopher. In his works—both essayistic and fictional—he presents a certain concept of culture, religious faith, and relation between faith and science. Against the trend prevailing among other commentators of the writer’s thought, I do not focus on his idea of “lame God,” but on the prediction of the future development of the Christian doctrine expressed in The Twenty-fi rst Voyage from The Star Diaries. It may be said that the standpoint presented there is not far from Lem’s own view. It is hard to call this standpoint atheistic, for it leaves open the possibility of the existence of transcendence. However, it is hard to call it theistic as well, for the author builds it on the so-called “generalized principle of Job” which denies ontic, epistemic, linguistic or even ethical relation between the world and God.
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On the occasion of the 1050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland the author looks at the manifestations of Christianity in Polish cinema until the year 1989. In order to illustrate the evolution of this subject, the author uses the pars pro toto method applied to various periods of the national cinematography: in each case he attempts to fi nd a scene of prayer (or one related to a prayer) in a particular fi lm that might be considered as representative not only of the movie in question, but also of a broader background comprising the history of Polish cinematography as well as the social and political reality of the given period. Thus, there is a scene in the movie Pod Twoją obronę [“Beneath Thy Protection”] (1933, by E. Puchalski and J. Lejtes) in which one can clearly see a favorable climate for Polishness and for the cult of the Virgin Mary, whereas another scene showing a Rosary prayer, one from the movie Ostatni etap [“The Last Stage”] (1948, by W. Jakubowska), illustrates the ideological offensive of Marxism. The author fi nds an extremely negative assessment of religion in the times of Stalinism, particularly in the discussed scene from Uczta Baltazara [“Balthazar’s Feast”] (1954, by J. Zarzycki). Furthermore, the piece Pokolenie [“A Generation”] (1955, by A. Wajda) tells us a lot about the erosion of the religiousness of today’s artists born in the 1920’s (of the so-called generation of Columbuses). Matka Joanna od aniołów [“Mother Joan of the Angels”] (1961, by J. Kawalerowicz) in turn clearly presents the campaign against ‘clericalism’ characteristic of the 1960’s in Poland. A scene from Iluminacja [“The Illumination”] (1973, by K. Zanussi) shows how the attitude towards religion shifted in the Polish cinema. In the scenes of prayers present in the movies of the turn of the 1980’s, such as Człowiek z żelaza [“Man of Iron”] (1981, by A. Wajda), Przypadek [“Blind Chance”] (1981, by K. Kieślowski), Przewodnik [“The Guide”] (1984, by T. Zygadło), and the series Dekalog [“The Decalogue”] (1988, by K. Kieślowski), the author can see hints of the appreciation of the rank of Catholicism and the Catholic Church in Poland in the aspects of politics, society, morality and metaphysics.
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The article focuses on Tadeusz Styczeń’s approach to the issue of the autonomy of ethics. Styczeń held that the source of the autonomy of ethics is the subject’s experience of the moral duty to act (or, in other words, the direct cognitive grasp of this duty by the subject). The experience in question makes ethics—in the aspect of its object—methodologically independent of other disciplines, and thus autonomous. The nature of the autonomy of ethics is therefore a corollary of the conception of the moral experience. Apart from the moral experience, there is also another determinant of the autonomy of ethics, namely, the relation between ethics and anthropology. One may point to two conceptions of experience in Styczeń’s ethics: ‘dignitas based’ (characteristic of his early views), built upon the recognition of the directness that characterizes the experience of the duty to affi rm the dignity of the human person, and ‘veritas based’ (worked out in the fi nal period of his research work), referring to the experience of the assertion inherent in the subject’s cognitive act and demonstrating that it is only the assertion in question that enables the subject to grasp the dignity of the person. Accordingly, two different concepts of the autonomy of ethics may be distinguished in Styczeń’s thought. During the period he developed the concept of the ‘dignitas based’ experience Styczeń held that the problem of the autonomy of ethics involves a consideration of the three aspects of the ethical judgment (the duty, the right means of action, the existential dimension). Each of these calls for a different justifi cation. Duty judgments have justifi cation in the experience, while judgments concerning the right means to act are justifi ed based on anthropological knowledge. Therefore, while ethics is autonomous at its starting point, it depends on anthropology in the aspect of the right means to act, and in this sense loses its autonomy. In the existential aspect, the duty judgment demands a metaphysical justifi cation, which, however, does not violate the autonomy of ethics. In the light of the ‘veritas based’ conception of the moral experience, the problem of the autonomy of ethics is formulated no longer within the plane of ethical judgment, but rather within that of the act of experience of truth on the part of the cognitive subject. In this approach the primacy of duty (of the normative power of truth) makes ethics epistemologically and methodologically autonomous. The experience of the normative power of truth, or the starting point of ethics, is simultaneously the starting point of anthropology, since the experience in question comprises a self-discovery of the subject, as well as the subject’s self-constitution as a moral subject. Styczeń sums up this argument in Latin, saying: Primum anthropologicum et primum ethicum convertuntur. In the case of the ‘veritas based’ conception of the moral experience the autonomy of ethics consists in the ‘interchangeability’ of the starting point of ethics and that of anthropology.
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Against the background of some methodological distinctions introduced by Stanisław Kamiński the paper advances the claim that the issue of the autonomy of a scientifi c discipline concerns cognitive rather than institutional autonomy. The former requires that a discipline have a subjectual rather than meta-subjectual character. Ethics, as conceived of by Tadeusz Styczeń, fulfils this requirement: it has its own empirical data in the form of individual ethical judgments concerning moral oughtness; those judgments grasp normative facts, i.e., real and objective relationships between persons. The operation of ‘exchanging’ persons in a judgment: “I ought to do X to C,” allows us to generalize judgments and thereby to form a general ethical judgement taken to be true: Any person as person deserves affi rmation from any person as person. Styczeń distinguishes three dimensions in this judgement, concerning, respectively: existence (the oughtness captured in the judgement is a real relationship), oughtness (the ‘content’ of the oughtness is affi rmation, i.e., love), and rightness (what should be done as an ‘expression’ of affi rmation). Explaining the existential dimension belongs to metaphysics. Ethics is cognitively autonomous in its oughtness dimension, for it has its own empirical data, although the ultimate explanation of those data belongs to the anthropology of the personal ‘I.’ In the dimension of rightness ethics is not autonomous, for determining what is a right realization of affirmation depends on a ‘total’ anthropology. Distinguishing oughtness and rightness of the ethical judgement, or—as I suggest in the paper—decomposing that judgement into two: “I ought to affi rm the person,” and “I ought to do X as a way of affi rming,” does not solve the cognitive autonomy of ethics, as a few problems appear. First, according to Styczeń, ethics must have a proprium in order to capture the fact of inconsistent judgments about what is the right way of affirming the person. This means that the anthropology of the personal ‘I’ must be complemented by some anthropological theses. Two questions arise then: What sources do those additional theses have? Does this mean that ethical judgments are true only within a system of ‘total anthropology’? Secondly, it needs to be determined what kinds of beings can be put as terms of the oughtness relationship. Styczeń concentrates on persons but there are good reasons to claim that other beings, such as the family, the state or institutions, can be oughtness-creating. What status does the judgement “I am morally obliged to do X to my university” have? Is this judgement empirical or deduced from other theses? Thirdly, the contemporary philosophy of science claims—with good reasons—that observation is theory-laden or that observation depends on background beliefs. An ethicist faces then an alternative: he needs either to show that ‘ethical observation’ is not theory-laden or to recognize its theoryladenness and indicate the sources of the background beliefs. Solutions to these problems will infl uence the understanding of the cognitive autonomy of ethics. The paper ends with the issue of cognitive autonomy as an epistemic value when seen against the background of the idea that research should have an inter- and transdisciplinary character.
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The paper contains some remarks on Tadeusz Styczeń’s paper Problem autonomii etyki [“The Problem of the Autonomy of Ethics”]. First, I describe the historical circumstances in which the text was written and place it within the context of its author’s investigations concerning the methodological and epistemological status of ethics. Next, I propose two observations: the fi rst concerns the concept of the autonomy of the moral agent, while the second refers to the relation between ethics and philosophical anthropology. I conclude that the relation in question is closer that Tadeusz Styczeń suggests in the discussed article.
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The year 2016 is the year of the 1050th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland, but it also saw the end of the year of consecrated life proclaimed by Pope Francis. Religious life is deeply relevant way to both these events. “A Frock Made from the Habit” comprises the memories of S. Jadwiga Jóżak, a Benedictine nun and Mother Superior, which I wrote down in 1981. She shared them with me on a summer day during the recreation hours I spent with her on the patio in the Benedictine Sisters cloister in Wołów. Soon after being ordained I was serving there as a chaplain replacing the priest who was absent during the summer. It was then that Mother Superior shared with me the story of her life. After the second world war the Armenian Benedictines, sisters practicing strict enclosure, were forced to leave their convent in Lviv due to the closure of monasteries and convents in the Soviet Russia. Departing from Lviv they deeply believed that—as Abp. Józef Teodorowicz had predicted—after the period of 70 years Benedictine Sisters would return there. Indeed, the prediction came true: in 2016, Abp. Mieczysław Mokrzycki, the Latin Rite Metropolitan Bishop of Lviv, reinstituted the Benedictine Sisters there. S. Jadwiga Jóżak’s memories show her life in exile, her efforts to adapt to the secular reality outside the enclosure, and her longing for the return to religious life. They show her fi delity to her vocation as well as her sacrifi ce which was necessary so that she could overcome the obstacles and accomplish her goal: return to the religious life.
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Review of David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy Jr.’s, Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom. A New Translation, Redaction History, and Interpretation of “Dignitatis Humanae”, Grand Rapids, Michigan–Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015.
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Review of Karol Wojtyła–Jan Paweł II: Artysta słowa [“Karol Wojtyła – John Paul II: The Artist of the Word”], ed. by Mirosława Ołdakowska-Kuflowa and Wojciech Kaczmarek, Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2015.
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Review of Robert T. Ptaszek’s Nowa era religii? Ruch New Age i jego doktryna. Aspekt filozofi czny [“A New Age of Religion? The New Age Movement and Its Doctrine, as seen in the Philosophical Aspect”], Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL– Wydawnictwo Academicon, 2015.
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Report on the 10th Polish Philosophical Congress, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, 15-19 Sept. 2015.
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A feuilleton inspired by the 1998 production, by Jossie Wieler and Sergio Morabito, of Georg Friedrich Händel’s Alcina, revived this season in Stuttgart. The production serves as a springboard for refl ection on man’s connection to the world of values, the interpretations they are given in culture, and the human rebellion against such value systems, as well as the quest for new ones.
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The study entitled Romanian clergymen and schoolmasters with change surnames from the historical region of Banat (1721-1865) treats the abusive change of Romanian patronymics by the foreign ecclesiastical authority of the time in order to demonstrate – allegedly – that not the Romanians were in the majority within their native province Banat, but the people whose surnames ended in –vić. Nothing more deceitful and untrue ! Therefore, this article aims at restoring the historical reality.
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