„Aksjologiczne zamieszanie?”

Author(s): Andrzej M. Kaniowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 27/2015

The text is a reflection on the lustration law of 2007, which imposed an obligation of submitting lustration statements on people whose professions involved significant public responsibility. Academic professors, along with journalists, or lawyers were subject to this obligation. The article, which was in the most part written in the course of these events in 2007, is a document of moral dilemmas brought by the lustration law. By posing the general question “What should I do” in the face of such state-imposed obligation, it considers a series of opposite arguments concerning the validity of this law and the reasons to submit to it, or to reject it in an act of civil disobedience.

„Az igazak emlékezete áldott”

Author(s): József Máriás / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2016

The article presents and analyzes episodes from the life of the Reformed Bishop, Sándor Makkai, who, since his early youth, was involved as a supporter of the cause of the Hungarian minority, facing the new power in Transylvania. Through his preaching, through his literary writings, including successful novels in their time, he created important moral landmarks for his contemporaries. His religious activity was combined harmoniously with extensive pedagogical activity.

„Ce-ar fi dacă?” Mitologia ca „teorie de fond” pentru experimentul de gândire

Author(s): Mona Mamulea / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 08/2012

Focusing on the Romanian hypothetical expressions mentioned by Vulcănescu and considered by Noica from an ontological standpoint, the present article shifts from ontology to epistemology in order to map out a few guidelines for their investigation as thought experiments. The benefit of such an approach is that it can contribute to the elucidation of the mechanisms by which a specific community organizes its knowledge and shapes its world view.

„Concepte deschise” în metafizica lui Constantin Noica

Meditațiile cartesiene ca schiță a „cum e cu putință ceva nou”

Author(s): Oana ?erban / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 13/2017

The main aim of this article is to examine the reception of Descartes’ Metaphysical Meditations, as forms of spiritual exercises, in the sense proposed by Ignacio de Loyola, Foucault and McGushin, in the field of the Romanian philosophy. My thesis is that this lecture is possible in Constantin Noica’s work, Sketch for the history of how is it that there is anything new (Schiţei istorice pentru cum e cu putinţă ceva nou?) in which meditations are addressed as practices of disciplining the activity of the intellect and avoiding its “laziness”, synthesized as life of the spirit, by applying the Cartesian principle ne ratio nostra finietur, that I will largely expose among this paper. The working-hypothesis is that Noica finds a proper answer for the question “how is possible for our intellect to create something new?” in Descartes’ Meditations, criticising the French philosopher’s theory on innate ideas and arguing that it provides an explanation exclusively for how is possible for a subject to get to know what is unknown. Therefore, the intellectual creation and not achievement of something now, in the terms of the so-called “logic of invention”, remains a consistent problem. In the first part of my article, I will sustain my arguments against Noica’s position, based on the assumption that these two aspects – the unknown and the invention – are part of the life of the spirit, in which the new is possible only through meditations and becomes the result of what Descartes recognized as cogitationes privatae. In the second part of my research I will apply the test of “the opened concepts”, following Noica’s terminology, in order to analyse the determinations that terms such as “new”, “innate”, “ready-made judgments” and “possibility” have in the larger context of keeping the exigencies of meditation as form of spirituality in the project of early-modern rationalism.

„Czy taki diabeł straszny?” Fenomen black metalu i wpływ muzyki metalowej na odbiorców

Author(s): Marcin Szulc / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2013

Among many kinds of rock music, Heavy Metal became the icon of rebellion. Its enthusiasts are associated with sexual, alcoholic and drug excesses, as well as often dark and iconoclastic stage spectacles and satanic rituals. The most extreme variety of this kind of music, Black Metal, is particularly infamous. Considering the fact that art is sometimes a transfer belt between the artist and the recipient, we found it interesting to try and formulate a characterization of this music genre as well as the subculture itself, describe how music preferences are shaped, and investigate the extent of influence of Black Metal/Heavy Metal on its recipients.A colloquial saying states that “you are what you eat” – if so, does the idea of death, darkness and evil propagated in the lyrics fall on fertile ground of nihilism, amplifying negative attitudes and fostering the formation of a pessimistic picture of the world? To answer these questions a wide overview of literature has been performed, revealing miscellaneous images of the listener. The results of the analysis present a more typical than atypical portrait of a teenage metal fan: capable of thinking and feeling, but above all rebelling against the reality in which he has come to live.

„Da die Tränen der Frauen stark genug sein werden…“. Zum Bild der Frau im Erzählwerk Ina Seidels

Author(s): Nina Nowara-Matusik / Language(s): German / Publication Year: 2016

The literary works of Ina Seidel, the author of one of the best-selling books in the history of German literature, the novel “Das Wunschkind”, are slowly sinking into oblivion. Called „Ernst Jünger in a skirt”, the writer did not hide her sympathies for the fascist ideology, which also echoes in her works. Not surprisingly, in previous literary studies, her writings were perceived, as a rule, through the prism of criticism of ideology and situated in the context of the literature of the Nazi Germany. However, the starting point for our dissertation is different. Shifting the research paradigm, in the theoretical part the author sums up the gender theories existing at the time of the Weimar Republic, which was also the period when most Ina Seidel’s texts were written, texts to which the main body of this dissertaion is devoted. These theories constitute a conceptual foil for the analyses conducted in its further part. The concepts discussed are founded on the model of differentiality. The author alludes to the matriarchy theory by the Swiss anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen, the notions of feminity and masculinity by the German sociologist Georg Simmel and views on a woman’s role in society from leading representatives of a moderate wing of the feminist movement in Germany – Helena Lange and Gertrude Bäumer. The analytical part of the dissertation carries an argument focused on the women characters created by Seidel. They are protagonists of both the foreground and the background, representing various types of womanhood: mothers, wives, single women, femme fatales, artists, women professionals and scholars. By way of these, Ina Seidel explores some of her central topics related to being a woman: maternity, childlessness, moral mission of a woman and her role in society. The close reading of her novels leads to the conclusion that the writer applies a specific aesthetic of a „squinting look”. The German literary critic Sigrid Weigel uses this metaphor in reference to the writings of women who, accepting the traditional patriarchal models of gender and moving within the frame of these, simultaneously search for the ways to articulate their own, specifically feminine experiences. On the one hand, Ina Seidel’s narration follows the conservative model of thinking about a woman, typical of her times, in which the superior category is motherhood. On the other hand, however, it indicates that, paradoxically, it is motherhood that can become a woman’s weapon and a starting point for her emancipation.

„Filar postawy anty-bożej”. Immanuel Kant w horyzoncie myśli filozofów rosyjskich (z Pawłem Florenskim w tle)

Author(s): Jerzy Kapuscik / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 122/2008

The article is an attempt to present the attitude of Russian religious thinkers to the teaching of Immanuel Kant on the problem of the limits of gnoseology and the critique of cognition based on the rational element, as well as to his metaphysics of morality. The interest in Kant’s philosophical system in Russia, which dates back to the visit of Nikolai Karamzin in Kant’s house in Koenigsberg in 1789, developed in the first half of the 19th century and reached its apogee at the turn of the 19th century – the Silver  Age of Russian culture. The Russians perceived the author of the Critique of Pure Reason as the inventor of “true” philosophy, which had general significance.  The article does not aim at specifying strict limits of interest in Kant, but looks for its source. Doubtless, it was the period of Romanticism, with its other popular idealistic philosophers such as F. Schelling and G. Hegel, that contributed to the reception of the great German philosopher in the spirit of universalism. They were considered to be discoverers of  a new way of thinking, oriented to individual freedom and based on two elements — reason and “ideal intuition.” Among the philosophical systems, the one developed by Kant proved to be particularly long lasting. Regardless of the contradictory assessments by Russian religious thinkers, he has been regarded as the teacher of Russians until today. They criticized him, however, for excessive confidence in human reason and for questioning the divine order of the world. The article discusses in detail the sources of the Russian “weakness” for Kant, who combined the strictly logical thinking and the idea of God as a peculiar “thing in itself” or, in other words, a postulate of practical reason. The understanding of individual freedom by the Koenigsberg scholar met with the polemic of Russian thinkers too, who represented a “we philosophy”.  The author of the article notes that the problems of Kant’s metaphysics of morality, which assumed that man “makes himself,” as well as the gnoseological issues, such as understanding of the truth and limits of cognition, evoked a sharp critique of Pavel Florensky — one of the most prominent philosophers of the Russian Silver Age.  

„Filozofia na uczelniach katolickich: Metafizyka i filozofia Boga”. Lublin, KUL, 18 maja 2015 roku

Author(s): Rafal Charzynski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2015

„Grzech” jako element genezy kultury

Author(s): Tomasz Kups / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 04/2012

The article briefly presents the meaning of “original sin” in the models of anthropogenesis (and the genesis of culture) in the historiosophical writings of German philosophers, such as Kant, Schiller, Schelling and others. The analysis focuses on the normative character of proposed hypotheses (as answers to questions concerning the source of evil, the origin of humanity and culture). It is also possible (although in a very limited scope) to trace a certain interpretative tendency to change the strictly model and normative use of the assumption of “original sin” into a description of the supposed real primitive state of humankind.

„Idea rosyjska” jako problem – perspektywa filozoficzna

Author(s): Marian Broda / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 14/2015

A comprehensive analysis of the ―Russian idea‖ – understood as a problem – involves realizing a wide array of the problem’s aspects. Concentrating one’s attention on the philosophical dimension, one needs to remember that the philosophical reflection should programmatically link together maximum generality and maximum (self-)criticism. In a situation where the integral element of the philosophical thought is the meta- reflection, and at the same time the integral element of the ―Russian idea‖ remains its philosophical dimension, the epistemic and epistemological level of the possible (self-) problematization is worth distinguishing. The former is connected to the viewpoint of the subject involved in the project of the ―Russian idea‖, which means that the undertaken problematization of reality – and the ways of its conceptualization – cannot in principle undermine its common sense, axiological arguments and social reality, but on the contrary, explain and legitimize them. The latter is an attempt to look at the analyzed process from the outside, which creates a possibility to problematize the general framework of the subject-object order, which the project of the ―Russian idea‖ a priori designates and recognizes in the world, de facto assuming it to be true, essential and real.

„Imperatywny znak zapytania”. Wat i dekonstrukcja

Author(s): Patryk Szaj / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 03/2017

The author tracks the affinity between the post-war writings of Aleksander Wat and Jacques Derrida's reflection. Both in the works of Wat, and in deconstruction, he finds a peculiar existential drama which consists in experiencing the chance of comprehension and the constant disintegration of sense, which both authors are honestly trying to face up to. Hence, Wat's writings and Derrida's thought are characterised by unique autobiographical qualities and by a (negative) dialectics of whole and part which aims to demonstrate openness, non-completedness, fragmentary nature or each of the existential projects. From this perspective three Wat's poems are interpreted: *** [If the word “exists”…] [Jeżeli wyraz „istnieje”…], Reminder [Przypomnienie] and Necelh ijdara, wherein the author of the paper sees a clear deconstructive “sensitivity”.

„Król jest w ciąży”. Androgyniczność a męska norma w literackim eksperymencie Ursuli K. Le Guin

Author(s): Marzena Adamiak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2017

The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the most famous novels by an American science fiction and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin, not only due to its literary qualities but also because it engages in a certain mental experiment – it introduces an androgynous community. From the perspective of gender philosophy and feminist ideas migrating over the last decades between equality and difference, the idea of incorporating a human being into the concept of androgyne and building on it an alternative vision of society and intimate relations seems worth our attention, especially since the conclusions drawn from this literary experiment are not unequivocal, and even – as some of the female critics of Le Guin demonstrate – are feministically disappointing. As Le Guin tries to illustrate, the fact of gender belonging strongly affects the whole of human existence; thus the abundance of connotations associated with such an experiment seems to be both opening and overwhelming. Despite the fact that Le Guin’s intention is fundamentally feminist, its implementation stumbles on culturally established patterns of defining both sexes, and in particular on language traps associated with privileging male grammatical forms by identifying them with a universal sense. Masculinity once again proves to be the norm of thinking about human beings in general, privileged at a subtle, linguistic level, even when attempting to speak of androgyny. On the example of the project taken up by Le Guin, I reflect on the gender involvement of the androgyne category and the possibility of its unprejudiced expression, as well as the role of science fiction literature in such undertakings.

„Le mur du langage” – samotność według Jacques’a Lacana (inność, porozumienie, miłość)

Author(s): Bogna Choinska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 15/2011

In my article I discuss the concept of the subject from the Lacanian psychoanalysis point of view. My aim is to show that the subject seen from such a perspective is condemned to total loneliness. I refer to three different points: otherness, comprehension and love. In Lacan’s psychoanalysis the difference is referred to as the Real (subject as je). The Real is in opposition to the Symbolic and Imaginary (subject as moi). Therefore, the world, other people and oneself can be understood as absolutely different. Taking such a definition of the otherness, the comprehension is impossible, because it takes place within symbolic sphere, which is false and alien to the subject (je). The otherness and inability of understanding determine treating love as transferred and always directed to imaginary subject. What is important, the theory of the subject as homo symbolicus, even though seemingly in agreement with anti-positivist theory, does not allow to cross lingual and to direct approaching to the otherness. The otherness may be deciphered only within the Imaginary as a disturbance within it, as a temporary lack of sense.

„Les études philosophiques”, 4 (2011)

Author(s): Beata Spieralska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: XVIII/2012

Czwarty zeszyt kwartalnika „Les études philosophiques” z roku 2011 poświęcony jest w większej części fragmentowi De Re publica Cycerona, znanemu powszechnie pod nazwą Sen Scypiona. Oprócz sześciu artykułów zajmujących się tym dziełem i jego tradycją, w tomie zamieszczono również cztery teksty napisane w hoł- dzie Jacques’owi Brunschwigowi, francuskiemu historykowi filozofii, filologowi i tłumaczowi zmarłemu w roku 2010.

„Metodą — nauka, celem — religia”: Idee okultystycznej alternatywy religijnej w ujęciu genetycznym

Author(s): Maciej B. Stepien / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2017

This paper discusses the origins of occultism as a current of Western esotericism based on recent academic studies on Gnosis and esoteric traditions in Western culture. Such studies are now carried out from the standpoint of a new approach to this interdisciplinary field of research, formulated in the last decade of the 20th century. It is argued that E.A. Tiryakyan’s sociological apprehension of occultism as ‘practice’ of that which is ‘esoteric’ is outdated, and needs to be replaced with a new one, taking into account the most recent, source-based studies on western esotericism: occultism was both theory and practice, and constituted a distinct, spiritual (and magical) alternative to Christianity, conceived and developed in the late 19th century in the West as a response to mesmerism and spiritualism. The origins of occultism are explained in terms of the ideas that gave birth to it (mesmerism, Swedenborgianism, romanticism). Next, the main concepts of occultism are presented, and three of the key figures (P.B. Randolph, É. Lévi, and A. Crowley) are characterized to showcase what the essential content of occultist doctrines was. Styled as a ‘system’ and ‘a science’ occultism sought to formulate a coherent teaching regarding the training of intuitive powers of its adepts, and set as their end-purpose an open chance of entering higher, spiritual worlds and dimensions personally and freely, without hypnotic trances and mediations from the ‘mediums’ of the day. Occultists were also promised the possibility of joining higher cosmic hierarchies, believed by them to be the custodians and guardians of humankind, intervening in the history to ensure human progress and promote ever new candidates (that is, the occultists themselves) to the status of godlike entities, equal members of these cosmic, exclusive circles.

„Mieszkańcy gwiazd” według Karla Rahnera

Author(s): Jacek Rodzen / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2016

In his enormous literary-production Karl Rahner (1904–1984) did not omit the question of intelligent extraterrestrial beings. Despite the fact that his statements about this issue are sporadic, fragmented and scattered, they nevertheless give a fairly clear and original philosophical and theological picture of this problem. Rahner presents the question of hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligence in a metaphysical perspective in which the cosmos is constantly coming into being as a self-transcending reality. According to Rahner the cosmos with its physical laws and in accordance with the purposeful plan of its Creator is oriented not only towards humans (anthropocentrism), but also towards other embodied spiritual beings (subjectivity-centrism). In this perspective there is a real possibility that other intelligent beings besides us exist. From the theological point of view, according to Rahner these hypothetical beings, just like humans, are exposed to the self-communicating God-Trinity through the Logos-Christ-Redeemer (christocentrism).

„Mroczna kraina złudzeń”. Conradowskie krajobrazy kolonialne

Author(s): Marek Pacukiewicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2017

The complexity of the colonial discourse in the works of Joseph Conrad has been the topic of multiple discussions, but the key to deciphering the problem consists of the manner in which the writer constructed the landscape. In this particular case we are dealing both with enormous frescoes, such as the ones encountered in The Heart of Darkness, and with extremely intimate landscapes, which appear to be the outright leitmotif of such short stories as The Lagoon. The landscapes in question are not reduced exclusively to the function of a backdrop since each comprises a structural model of the world and takes into account the dynamic of a variable, intercultural perspective – a clash of divergent taxonomies. The change of viewpoints applied by the author emphasises the role played by the cultural context conceived as the stuff of the colonial system.

„Muszę mieć maskę, wściekłą maskę”. Polemika z Marią Anną Potocką

Author(s): Stefan Okolowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 14/2010

Polemicising with Maria A. Potocka’s view, the author reflects on the problem of mask and facial expression in the life and work of S.I. Witkiewicz. They appear here as an expression of philosophy of man, a specific feature of the personality of the author of Szewcy [The Shoemakers] whose whole life, artistic and philosophical activity was marked by “facial expression”. The article also reminds the unusually important texts of Stefan Szuman, Witkacy’s friend, who points to the essence of Witkacy’s portraits. The last question discussed in this article is the problem of ascribing to Witkacy of the authorship of most of the photographs in which he is presented (since they are a documentation of his artistic creations) while actually the authors of these photographs are a dozen or so photographer friends of Witkacy.

„Natura jest tylko jedna, przez którą Bóg wszystko stworzył…” Alchemiczno-filozoficzna koncepcja Natury Michała Sędziwoja

Author(s): Milena Cygan / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 14/2015

Nature was the central idea on which Michael Sendivogius based his alchemico- -philosophical system. Therefore, the aim of this article is to show what the Polish alchemist understood as Nature and what was its function in the world according to him. Sendivogius believed that the material world originated from the will of the good God. However, the act of divine creation was reduced to the moment of its coming into being through the creation of the matter (ex nihilo) and general organization of its universum. Nature, on the other hand, is responsible for the present form of the material world. For Sendivogius, Nature is an element with which the world has been enriched by the will of God, and which is responsible for its permanent creation. According to our alchemist, the world is constantly being created and transformed, and Nature is its creative principle. This article explains how Nature creates this world and particular beings existing in it. Furthermore, it discusses the problem of the nature of Nature itself. Sendivogius considered Nature to be not only a creative principle but also a kind of law determining interactions of beings which ensured their unity and harmony. Nature is not everlasting but created in the same way as the world. Therefore, the article presents also what the Alchemist thought about the Nature’s relation to its Creator, that is to God. Nature was the central idea on which Michael Sendivogius based his alchemico- -philosophical system. Therefore, the aim of this article is to show what the Polish alchemist understood as Nature and what was its function in the world according to him. Sendivogius believed that the material world originated from the will of the good God. However, the act of divine creation was reduced to the moment of its coming into being through the creation of the matter (ex nihilo) and general organization of its universum. Nature, on the other hand, is responsible for the present form of the material world. For Sendivogius, Nature is an element with which the world has been enriched by the will of God, and which is responsible for its permanent creation. According to our alchemist, the world is constantly being created and transformed, and Nature is its creative principle. This article explains how Nature creates this world and particular beings existing in it. Furthermore, it discusses the problem of the nature of Nature itself. Sendivogius considered Nature to be not only a creative principle but also a kind of law determining interactions of beings which ensured their unity and harmony. Nature is not everlasting but created in the same way as the world. Therefore, the article presents also what the Alchemist thought about the Nature’s relation to its Creator, that is to God.

„Nie ma materii martwej – martwota jest jedynie pozorem”. O ambiwalencjach Schulzowskiego materializmu

Author(s): Agnieszka Dauksza / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2013

The present essay is an attempt to consider the status of rubbish, debris, remains, cuttings,and scrap paper, so often to be found in Schulz’s fiction. Such apparently useless trash seem to be the main substance that organized Schulz’s reality. Sometimes it makes a significant substitute for more complex or sophisticated forms of the material world, on other occasions it point to the general condition of modern culture. In Schulz’s stories, waste is almost never just useless excess of ready-made forms, but very often it makes the main component of more complex structures – both strictly physical,material, and linguistic, whenever it inspires an imaginary search, triggers metaphors or provides a core around which the language of description can start growing.The formlessness and potentiality of such forms, just as the “porousness” or “plasticity”of matter as such, seduce the artist and tempt him to shape them, to make an epistemological and creative effort.