The article reviews the book The Problem of Evil, by Peter van Inwagen.

Many contemporary writers misunderstand early Christian views on philosophy because they identify the critical stances of the ante-Nicene fathers toward specific pagan philosophical schools with a general negative stance toward reason itself. Dariusz Karlowicz's Socrates and Other Saints demonstrates why this identification is false. The question of the extent of humanity's natural knowledge cannot be reduced to the question of faith's relationship to the historical manifestations of philosophy among the Ancients. Karlowicz closely reads the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, (...) Clement of Alexandria, and others to demonstrate this point. He also builds upon Pierre Hadot's thesis that ancient philosophy is not primarily theory but a "way of life" taught by sages, which aimed at happiness through participation in the divine. The fact that pagan philosophers falsely described humanity's telos did not mean that the spiritual practices they developed could not be helpful in the Christian pilgrimage. As it turns out, the ancient Christian writers traditionally considered to be enemies of philosophy actually borrowed from her much more than we think-and perhaps more than they admitted. -- back cover. (shrink)

Bu makale, Sözde-Aristoteles’in Risâletü’t-Tüffâha veya Kitâbü’t-Tüffâha’sını (Lat. Liber de Pomo) tarihçesi, muh- temel yazarı ve yazmaları itibarıyla incelemekte, içeriği hakkında genel bir bakış sunmakta ve daha önce tahkikli neşri yapılmamış olan Arapça tam versiyonunun tahkikli neşrini içermektedir. Tahkikte, risalenin orijinal Arapça versiyonuna en yakın yazma nüshası esas alınmış ve ikinci bir tam nüsha ile karşılaştırma yapılmıştır. Makalede Risâletü’t-Tüffâha’nın ilk olarak Kindî-çevresinde Arapça telif edildiği, ardından Bâtınî-İsmâilî ve Hermetik gelenek- lerde alımlandığı ve hikemiyât literatüründe ve tabakat eserlerinde dolaşıma girdiği öne sürülmektedir. (...) Bununla birlikte, bilimsellik vurguları ve risalenin sözde bir eser olduğuna dair farkındalıkları sebebiyle Meşşâî filozoflara göre Risâletü’t-Tüffâha makbul bir risale değildir. Ayrıca, İbrânî-Latin geleneğinin risaleye ilgisi felsefenin Yahudi ve Hıristiyan toplumlarında kabul görmesini kolaylaştıracak şekilde Aristoteles’in tüm eserlerini alımlamaya yönelik geniş çaplı gayretlerinin bir parçası olduğu için dikkate değerdir. Sonuç olarak, Sözde-Aristoteles’in Risâletü’t-Tüf- fâha’sı felsefeyle dinin uzlaştırılmasını kolaylaştıran dinî-felsefî bir eser olup İslâm, Yahudi ve Hıristiyan çevrelerde özellikle bu nedenden dolayı dolaşıma girmiştir. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between crisis and experience, concentrating on ‘excentric positionality’ in relation to the shared world, as presented in the work of Helmuth Plessner. A by-product of the 1920s Weimar Germany, Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, it is argued, presents us with a forgotten blueprint for transitive and compositional approaches to the social world. Instead of the familiar ‘crisis of experience’ used to diagnose ‘what has gone wrong’, it allows us to re-learn how to work with ‘the experience of (...) crisis’ itself. The latter holds the key to a different type of approach based on ‘xeno-communication’. This type of communication utilizes the productive potential of crisis in its uncertainty and hesitation before a decision, showing a way to extend and enlarge experience itself. Cultivation of these ‘excentric’ dynamics in turn suggests new ‘excentric methodologies’ based on a more flexible fit between concepts and the worlds they are meant to describe. ‘Excentric methodologies’ constitute a type of experience-based, analytical response to the shared world. They work with phenomena across spaces and problems, analytically utilizing their joint emergence from the fundamental imbalance and discontinuity characteristic of the human environment. (shrink)

Genocide as a part of nation or ethnic group extermination process is not a well-defined concept. Its meaning is understood intuitively. When law intervenes, the issue of defining the term comes back. Nevertheless, the Polish nation has been recognized as subjected to genocide activities during the Second World War by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. The paper focuses on the genocide against mainly one group of Poles that is to say foresters. The martyrologic evidence proves that foresters were an (...) occupation group which for a variety of reasons suffered most. The research carried out in this respect by the National Forests in Poland has revealed that over 20% of pre-war staff of the institution actually lost their lives. They were killed by the German and Soviet occupiers, as well as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In the eastern parts of Poland foresters and their families were deported and sent to various labour and extermination camps e.g. in Siberia. The aim of the paper is to present the scale of genocide with the main emphasis on genocide against foresters. The definition of genocide provided by Lemkin, who coined the term, is a starting point for the analysis. The main research methods included the analysis of pertinent literature and source materials as well as the semiotic analysis of genocide circumstances. The thesis put forward by the authors is that foresters due to their education, practical skills, professional experience and insight knowledge turned out to be the group especially vulnerable and subjected to extermination on purpose. (shrink)

Max Weber’s thesis on the decisive influence of Protestant ethic on the formation and development of modern capitalism has become one of the best-known and widely shared canonical claims in social sciences. Since its publication at the beginning of the 20th century, this thesis, supported by subsequent great works by the German classic, has rarely been the subject of major controversy. The work of correcting Weber’s thesis was undertaken in the late 20th century by Michael Novak. Novak’s correction is not (...) confrontational, but complementary. The American thinker abandons the research area of minority Protestant communities, which caught Weber’s attention, and undertakes an analysis of the broader religious tradition, developing both before and after the Reformation. In particular, the achievements of Pope John Paul II, interpreted by Novak in terms of the renewal of a liberty current of Catholic social thought, provide important corrective data. (shrink)

Nowa Zelandia to jedno z najlepiej rozwiniętych państw świata. Pomimo ogromnej odległości od Polski zamieszkuje tam, począwszy od XIX w., wielu polskich migrantów. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie aktualnej sytuacji zachowania archiwaliów dotyczących działalności Polaków w Nowej Zelandii oraz stanu ich cyfryzacji. Materiał źródłowy do tego typu badań posiadają archiwa oraz biblioteki państwowe w Nowej Zelandii. Jest on również dostępny w niewielkiej ilości jako cyfrowy zasób polskich organizacji w Nowej Zelandii, obecny na ich oficjalnych stronach internetowych. W Polsce kilka instytucji na (...) własnych stronach internetowych także posiada cyfrowe wersje materiałów Polonii nowozelandzkiej. Dzięki zastosowanym metodom badawczym wskazano poziom cyfryzacji materiałów polonijnych. Podstawową tezą pracy jest stwierdzenie faktu znacznego rozproszenia dorobku kulturowego Polonii nowozelandzkiej, nie tylko pomiędzy instytucjami państwowymi w Nowej Zelandii i miejscowymi organizacjami polskimi, ale również poza jej granicami, w tym nad Wisłą. Głównym wnioskiem artykułu jest utworzenie na antypodach jednego, centralnego archiwum Polonii nowozelandzkiej posiadającego doświadczonych pracowników i dysponującemu środkami pozwalającymi na konsekwentne zachowywanie śladów naszej obecności w Nowej Zelandii. (shrink)

Jan Patočka’s extensive oeuvre contains eleven notebooks filled with randomly dated notes from 1946 to 1950. These documents originate from the so-called Strahov legacy, specifically manuscripts discovered in the 1990s in the Strahov library. This legacy includes a collection of Patočka’s manuscripts from the 1930s and 1940s. The 1980s were mainly devoted to the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, and phenomenological reflections on the concept of the world. In 1971, Patočka deposited them in this renowned library in Prague (...) without disclosing this information to anyone (Karfík 2000/2001). (shrink)

L’article présente les propositions principales de la métaphysique du réalisme axiologique de Tadeusz Czeżowski, l’un des représentants éminents de l’École de Lvov-Varsovie. La thèse soutenue par Czeżowski est que les valeurs ne sont pas des propriétés de n’importe quel genre, mais qu’elles constituent des notions transcendentales au sens de Duns Scot (et pas au sens de Thomas d’Aquin). Une des conséquences de cette position est que le réalisme de Czeżowski a la forme d’un non-naturalisme. La position prise par Czeżowski n’est (...) pas tout à fait claire ni élaborée en détails ; pour des raisons discutées dans le présent texte, il est possible de considérer les valeurs comme des sortes d’états de choses non-naturels, qui sont les correspondants des phrases axiolo-giques pertinentes. (shrink)

In this paper, we study natural language constructions which were first examined by Barwise: The richer the country, the more powerful some of its officials. Guided by Barwise’s observations, we suggest that conceivable interpretations of such constructions express the existence of various similarities between partial orders such as homomorphism or embedding. Semantically, we interpret the constructions as polyadic generalized quantifiers restricted to finite models. We extend the results obtained by Barwise by showing that similarity quantifiers are not expressible in elementary (...) logic over finite models. We also investigate whether the proposed readings are sound from the cognitive perspective. We prove that almost all similarity quantifiers are intractable. This leads us to first-order variants, which only approximate the strong readings, but are cognitively more plausible. Driven by the question of ambiguity, we recall Barwise’s argumentation in favour of strong readings, enriching it with some arguments of our own. Given that Barwise-like sentences are indeed ambiguous, we use a generalized Strong Meaning Hypothesis to derive predictions for their verification. Finally, we propose a hypothesis according to which conflicting pressures of communication and cognition might give rise to an ambiguous construction, provided that different semantic variants of the construction withstand different pressures involved in its usage. (shrink)

In the first part of this article, we point out and discuss these the contained in Marcin Tkaczyk’s book, Futura Contingentia, with which we agree completely or at least partially. In the second part of the paper, we seek to consider whether the solution of the futura contingentia problem, rooted in the basic intuitions of William of Ockham, is the only one possible and available for us. We argue that there is another possible approach to the problem of how to (...) reconcile divine omniscience with contingent events rather than the Ockhamist solution. The alternative view, which we suggest, is “eternalism”, meaning that God is timeless, and that temporal necessity is compatible with contingent events and free decisions. (shrink)

This article examines the evolution of Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of culture during his over-sixty-year-long scholarly activity. Bauman wrote his first books on the theory of culture (Culture and Society; Sketches in the Theory of Culture) when he was a Professor at Warsaw University. The ideas put forward at that time were later developed in his writings. This applies in particular to the critical nature of his thought, the combination of synchronic and diachronic perspectives, the inclusion of the context of the (...) social structure as well as his references to the structural dimension and to agency. Later years – starting with the publication of the book, Culture as Praxis – saw Bauman’s growing emphasis on the transcendence of the existing reality and the creative role of an individual in the transformation of cultural reality. This article shows how other theorists of culture inspired Bauman and how he critically referred to them. The article offers a holistic look at Zygmunt Bauman’s oeuvre. It also creates an opportunity for English-speaking readers to become familiar with Bauman’s writings in his mother tongue. (shrink)

Wyniki badań, jakie przeprowadziłem nad trzema napisanymi przez kobiety powieściami dotyczącymi KL Auschwitz-Birkenau: Z otchłani Zofii Kossak, Dymy nad Birkenau Seweryny Szmaglewskiej i Przeżyłam Oświęcim Krystyny Żywulskiej wskazują, że wymienione teksty mistyfikują obozową rzeczywistość, a środki do tego użyte, niezależnie od ich zróżnicowania, są literackiej proweniencji. Na tej podstawie zasadny wydaje mi się przede wszystkim ten wniosek, który wskazuje potrzebę opracowania historycznoliterackiej syntezy omawiającej literaturę obozową napisaną przez kobiety i umieszczenie jej w kontekście polskiej literatury obozowej, zwłaszcza tej, która dotyczy (...) Zagłady. W ten sposób weryfikowane rezultaty moich badań powinny okazać się użyteczne ze względu na stan wiedzy o kobiecym doświadczeniu obozu, funkcjonalność tego, co literackie w tekstach obozowych i wreszcie całościowy obraz polskiej literatury obozowej. (shrink)

Summary. Religious differences may rise and actually historically rose tensions and even wars. In the history, Christians also caused wars and were a threat to social integration and peace, despite the fact that Christianity is a religion of peace. God in Christians’ vision is a God of peace, and the birth of Son of God was to give peace «among men in whom he is well pleased». Although Christians themselves caused wars, died in them, were murdered and had to fight, (...) the social doctrine of Christianity is focused on peace. Also the social thought of the Roman Catholic Church strives to build peace. Over the years, the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was formed, which sees the conditions and foundations for peace. These are: the dignity of the human person, the natural law, human rights, common good, truth, freedom, love and social justice. The development of the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on peace was contributed by popes of XX century: Pius XI, Pius XII, with high impact – John XXIII, Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. After Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the most important role of the preceptor in the Church of Rome fulfills Francis – the pope from Argentina. Although his pontificate is not long, and teaching is not complete, but you can tell that he continues to build the social doctrine of the Roman Church in matters of peace through the development of so-called «culture of encounter». Based on selected speeches and letters of two years’ pontificate of Francis, the first figure of «culture of encounter» can be lined out as a way of preventing and resolving tensions in the contemporary world. Fundamentals of the concept of dialogue Francis created in the days of being a Jesuit priest and professor at Jesuit universities. He based it on the concept of Romano Guardini’s dialogue. Foundations of the look at the dialogue – in terms of Jorge Mario Bergoglio are strictly theological: God enters into dialogue with man, what enables man to «leaving himself» and enter into dialogue with others. Bergoglio dealt with various aspects of the dialogue: the Church and the world, culture and faith, dialogue between religions and cultures, dialogue inter-social and inter-national, dialogue rising solidarity and co-creating the common good. According to him the dialogue is a continuous task, not a single event; is overcoming widespread «culture of effacement» and «culture of fight» towards a «culture of encounter»; it releases from autism, isolation, gives strength and meaning of life, renews the ability to listen, lets looking at community in the perspective of the whole and not just selected units. As Bishop of Rome Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues and develops his idea of «a culture of dialogue and encounter». In promoting dialogue, he sees his own mission and permanent commitment imposed on him. He promotes the atmosphere – a kind of «music» – of dialogue, by basing it on emotions, respect, intuition, lack of threat and on trust. The dialogue in this sense sees a partner in each person, values the exchange always positively, and as a result it leads to making life ethical, bringing back respect for life and rights of every human being, granting the world a more human face. «Culture of encounter» has the power of social integration: it removes marginalization, the man is the goal not the means of actions, it does not allow a man to be reduced to a mere object, tools for profit or authority, but includes him into a community that is created by people and for their benefit. Society integrated in this way, constantly following «culture of encounter» rule, renews itself all the time and continually builds peace. All people are called to such building: believers and those who do not believe, all of good will. Also, the heads of state have in this effort of breaking the spiral of violence and a «culture of conflict» – both in economic and political dimension – big task and responsibility. Pope Francis reminded about this in a special letter to president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on September 14, 2014 year. In the letter he wrote: «it is clear that, for the world’s peoples, armed conflicts are always a deliberate negation of international harmony, and create profound divisions and deep wounds which require many years to heal. Wars are a concrete refusal to pursue the great economic and social goals that the international community has set itself, as seen, for example, in the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, the many armed conflicts which continue to afflict the world today present us daily with dramatic images of misery, hunger, illness and death. Without peace, there can be no form of economic development. Violence never begets peace, the necessary condition for development». On thebasis of the current teaching of PopeFrancisthe following conclusion can be drawn, thatthe key topeace in the worldin many dimensions- evenbetweenreligions–isadialoguedeveloped under «cultureof encounter». (shrink)

W artykule prezentuję pogląd, że ocena moralna osób modlących się w sytuacjach skrajnych powinna być formułowana w oparciu o znajomość pewnych nierzeczywistych okresów warunkowych. Chodzi tu o okresy warunkowe opisujące sytuacje, w których osoby modlące się mogłyby wybrać, gdyby zechciały, inne niż modlitwa sposoby ocalenia siebie lub najbliższych. Jednakże ponieważ nie znamy wartości logicznej takich zdań, nie mamy wystarczających podstaw do oceny moralnej takich osób. W dalszej części artykułu rozważam ogólne założenia racjonalności modlitw wstawienniczych w kontekście różnych odmian teizmu i (...) sugeruję, że pojęcie Bożej odpowiedzi na takie modlitwy może mieć sens literalny w teizmie otwartym i probabilistycznym, a metaforyczny tylko w teizmie klasycznym. (shrink)

In the article, first I present the atheistic argument from pointless evil and the argument from chance. The essence of the argument from chance consists in the incompatibility of the existence of purposeless events and the existence of a God who planned the universe to the last detail. Second, I would like to show that there is a relation between the evidential argument from evil and the argument from chance. An analysis of the theistic argument from small probabilities is a (...) helpful starting point for the presentation of how the two arguments are related. (shrink)

Opatrzność Boża a przypadek w świecie Celem artykułu jest obrona dwóch tez: pierwszej, że istnienie zdarzeń przypadkowych jest do pogodzenia z istnieniem Boga oraz tezy drugiej, że przypadek może być częścią Bożej opatrzności. Koniunkcja obu powyższych tez nazwana jest w artykule tezą kompatybilizmu. Argumentacja w obronie kompatybilizmu opiera się na danych współczesnej nauki oraz na idei wszechmocnego Boga Stwórcy. Porządek argumentacji w artykule jest następujący. W części drugiej przedstawiony jest historyczny kontekst oraz podstawy doktrynalne pojęcia opatrzności. W części trzeciej omówiony (...) jest argument za nieistnieniem Boga oparty na założeniu głoszącym istnienie zdarzeń przypadkowych w świecie oraz przedstawiona jest krytyka tego argumentu. W części czwartej prezentowane są możliwe modele działania Boga w świecie, w ramach których przyjmuje się istnienie zdarzeń przypadkowych. W części piątej i ostatniej rozważana jest idea Bożej doskonałości obejmującej takie atrybuty jak wszechmoc, wszechwiedzę, doskonałą dobroć i suwerenną wolę Bożą. (shrink)

BackgroundThe emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine has prompted the development of numerous ethical guidelines, while the involvement of patients in the creation of these documents lags behind. As part of the European PROFID project we explore patient perspectives on the ethical implications of AI in care for patients at increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD).AimExplore perspectives of patients on the ethical use of AI, particularly in clinical decision-making regarding the implantation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).MethodsSemi-structured, future scenario-based (...) interviews were conducted among patients who had either an ICD and/or a heart condition with increased risk of SCD in Germany (n = 9) and the Netherlands (n = 15). We used the principles of the European Commission’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI to structure the interviews.ResultsSix themes arose from the interviews: the ability of AI to rectify human doctors’ limitations; the objectivity of data; whether AI can serve as second opinion; AI explainability and patient trust; the importance of the ‘human touch’; and the personalization of care. Overall, our results reveal a strong desire among patients for more personalized and patient-centered care in the context of ICD implantation. Participants in our study express significant concerns about the further loss of the ‘human touch’ in healthcare when AI is introduced in clinical settings. They believe that this aspect of care is currently inadequately recognized in clinical practice. Participants attribute to doctors the responsibility of evaluating AI recommendations for clinical relevance and aligning them with patients’ individual contexts and values, in consultation with the patient.ConclusionThe ‘human touch’ patients exclusively ascribe to human medical practitioners extends beyond sympathy and kindness, and has clinical relevance in medical decision-making. Because this cannot be replaced by AI, we suggest that normative research into the ‘right to a human doctor’ is needed. Furthermore, policies on patient-centered AI integration in clinical practice should encompass the ethics of everyday practice rather than only principle-based ethics. We suggest that an empirical ethics approach grounded in ethnographic research is exceptionally well-suited to pave the way forward. (shrink)

Ewolucjonizm–kreacjonizm. Poszukiwanie płaszczyzny dialogu W artykule przedstawiona została próba wskazania płaszczyzny dyskusji ewolucjonistów z kreacjonistami, która umożliwiałaby dialog zwiększający szansę wypracowania spójnego światopoglądu łączącego elementy wiedzy naukowej i wiary religijnej. W odniesieniu do różnych typów wiedzy zaproponowane zostało wyróżnienie trzech poziomów: 1) przedmiot badań, 2) wiedza o tym przedmiocie, 3) interpretacja tej wiedzy. Dialog może być prowadzony już na poziomie drugim, lecz z poszanowaniem wzajemnej autonomii i ukierunkowaniem raczej na inspirację, niż na integrację. Właściwą płaszczyzną dialogu jest poziom trzeci: interpretacja (...) wiedzy oraz budowanie wizji świata i człowieka. Celem dialogu na tym poziomie jest integracja wszystkich elementów światopoglądu i dążenie do wyjaśnienia i zrozumienia całej rzeczywistości. (shrink)

BackgroundRemotely provided psychotherapy due to the COVID-19 pandemic became common. One of the most significant changes related to providing online psychotherapy services is that clients no longer travel to their sessions.AimsIn the article we are interested in the narrated experience of the absence of journey to psychotherapy sessions. We study clients' stories of past journeys and how their absence, resulting from the change of the mode of therapy provision, is coped with and replaced by other activities in their narratives.MethodsThe study (...) takes a constructionist approach to discourse and focuses on the lexico-grammatical form of the notes. The data come from 12 semi-structured interviews with people who declared attending remote psychotherapy sessions after the national lockdown had been introduced.ResultsIn the collected data, the physical journey is constructed not only as travel time, solitude which can be used for reflection, but, importantly, as an active process which ends with a resolution. In contrast, in narratives of the time before an online session, constructions of unfettered agents are replaced with those of people whose actions are hedged and qualified.ConclusionWe argue that in the informants' narratives the journey to psychotherapy is meaningful and is part of the therapeutic process. We propose that it is a time of passing between two states—one before therapy and one in session. The journey therefore is experienced as a process of change, and not only a process of traveling. (shrink)

Psychiatrists' accounts of clinical significance in depression Clinical significance is a crucial element in the diagnosis of mental illness, yet, it is practically untheorised and significantly under-researched. This article takes up the question of how the criterion of clinical significance is translated into psychiatric practice. More particularly, it examines how psychiatrists account for the threshold between health and depression. The paper is anchored in the constructionist view of discourse underpinned by the assumptions of critically oriented discourse analysis. It is based (...) upon a convenience sample of 39 semi-structured interviews with specialist-psychiatrists in south-western Poland. There is no discursive space for clinical significance in psychiatrists' accounts. There is no boundary, no decision to be taken as to whether the symptoms are clinically significant. Depression, invariably constructed in terms of diagnostic criteria, is always represented as fully developed, appearing out of thin air, with no period of falling ill. The article raises the issue of the validity and usefulness of psychiatric diagnosis. (shrink)

In the article, I present the main assumptions of the natural-order theodicy and the free-will theodicy defended by William Hasker. Next, I pose the question of whether Hasker’s theodicies are compatible with the Christian doctrine of continuous creation accepted by Hasker himself. I consider several different ways of how the doctrine of continuous creation can be understood and the difficulties associated with them. Finally, I propose a modified conception of continuous creation and I claim that it is consistent with the (...) main assumptions of William Hasker’s theodicies. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie stanowiska zwanego twardym inkompatybilzimem i porównanie go z teistyczną, a w szczególności współczesną chrześcijańską koncepcją wolności woli ludzkiej. Twardy inkompatybilizm głosi, że wolność woli ludzkiej, rozumiana zarówno w sposób libertariański,jak i kompatbilistyczny, nie istnieje. W artykule zwraca się uwagę na pewną zbieżność między tezą twardego inkompatybilizmu a opartą na Biblii mądrością chrześcijańską, głoszącą zależność ontyczną i aksjologiczną człowieka od Boga. Zarazemjednak argumentuje się, że jednym z najważniejszych składników teologii i filozofii chrześcijańskiej jest doktryna owol- ności woli (...) ludzkiej i ludzkiej odpowiedzialności za zło. Doktryna ta jest niespójna z twardym inkompatybilizmem. W części końcowej artykułu przedstawionajest syntetycznie propozycja,jak można uzgodnić ze sobą tezę indeterminizmu metafizycznego, która jest spójna z twardym in- komatybilizmem, z tezą libertarianizmu, którajest niespójna z twardym inkompatybilizmem. (shrink)

Consciousness can be measured in various ways, but different measures often yield different conclusions about the extent to which awareness relates to performance. Here, we compare five different subjective measures of awareness in the context of an artificial grammar learning task. Participants expressed their subjective awareness of rules using one of five different scales: confidence ratings , post-decision wagering , feeling of warmth , rule awareness , and continuous scale . All scales were equally sensitive to conscious knowledge. PDW, however, (...) was affected by risk aversion, and both RAS and SDS applied different minimal criteria for rule awareness. CR seems to capture the largest range of consciousness, but failed to indicate unconscious knowledge with the guessing criterion. We close by discussing the theoretical implications of scale sensitivity and propose that CR’s unique features enable a finer assessment of subjective states of awareness. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 1 Seiten: 13-38.

In this article we examine the role of vocative forms of address in shaping the political space in public/political discourse. We are particularly interested in strategic uses of forms of address by participants in political debates in order to gain legitimacy for their ideologies. Our data come from four formal television debates between Lech Wałęsa, the former Solidarity trade union leader and president of Poland, and two other Polish politicians, which were held between 1988 and 1995. Due to this historical (...) perspective, we are able to contextualize discursive patterns in the rapidly changing political and social situation in Poland, and show the diachronic development of the ideological underpinnings of discourse. (shrink)

Addressing the recent call to rethink history as a form of presence, the essay works toward a recovery of a space in which such presence of history is encoded. I argue that history as a form of active perception is akin to virtual witnessing of the past in the moment of our encounter with historical artifacts, be they texts, photographs, or buildings.To this end, I engage with the conceptual and material aspects of historical perception, deriving a model of history as (...) “inhabited ruins,” the way it emerges together with historical consciousness and finds an especially dynamic expression in Georg Simmel's philosophy of culture. Throughout, I work with the notion of distance and trans-dimensional presence as the forces that shape and reshape historical awareness.Ruins, intimately connected to the modern historical imagination, are approached not as sites of commemoration or nostalgia, but as spaces of active exchange between presence and disappearance. As such, they are taken to be the models for the transitive character of history itself, blurring the division between perception and thought. In other words, ruins are taken as structures that evoke and summon the past to an encounter with contemporary reality—a type of co-appearance that opens the possibility of virtually witnessing the past. I conclude that the logic of “inhabited ruins” constitutes the event-horizon of modern identity, always placing history right at the threshold of fragmentation. (shrink)

At the first stage of setting up Kinematical Relativity, Milne modified Einstein\'s Principle of Relativity and assumed that the Universe had to appear the same to all observers. He called this an \"Extended Principle of Relativity\". In order to specify this postulate, Milne defined the notion of the \"equivalence of observers,\" and then formulated a new definition of the Principle of Relativity: all descriptions of the whole system made by equivalent observers must be identical. Under Freundlich\'s influence he called it (...) the \"Cosmological Principle\" (CP). The content of Milne\'s CP was different from both Einstein\'s Principles of Relativity and the uniformity postulate of Relativistic Cosmology. Notwithstanding this, the adherents of the latter adopted this name for the isotropy and homogeneity postulate. Initially, Milne treated CP as a hypothesis about matter distribution. But when he separated model constructing from verifying to what extent it corresponded with the actual Universe, he began to emphasize that CP is not a law of nature, but a definition of the research domain. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies” considers how the ultramodernist aesthetics of Central Europe has related to and reacted against the region's political history and cartography. Central Europe has been a rich source of “soluble” realities that can be observed as they emerge, mature, and rapidly decay. Central European modernism, represented here by Adolf Loos in architecture and by Arnold Schoenberg and Leoš Janáček in music, experimented with blurry regions between presence and absence, light and shadow, sound (...) and silence. Loos disrupted the logic of architecture, while Schoenberg and Janáček nearly dissolved the acoustic paradigm of sound. This essay argues that the curious positioning of Central Europe, with its frequently changing borders and national entities, conduced both to positive experiments in cultural vagueness and to a corrosive reaction against existing and potential identities, parameters, distinctions, foci, and logics. (shrink)