Since 1959, when C.P. Snow delivered his seminal lecture The Two Cultures on the lack of understanding between scholars working in the humanities and their colleagues from science departments, the gap between the two groups has been one of the most notorious clichés of contemporary Western culture. The aim of this article is to show that this seemingly insurmountable abyss between sciences and the humanities that was brought to the forefront during the mid-20th century is slowly receding into history. Literature (...) studies today is heavily indebted to modern science. Biology, physics, and ecology are among the most important subjects scholars of literature have to take into account. In order to prove this point I shortly describe literary genres which introduce modern science to the readers: science fiction, cyberpunk, solarpunk, lablit, quantum fiction, and cli-fi. I also refer to the newly-emerged schools of criticism-science fiction studies, ecocriticism and evocriticism-to show how scholars discuss these texts within the framework of the humanities. Additionally, I give a sample discussion of one of the cli-fi’s classics, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World and also shortly discuss two science fiction novels concerned with the civilisational conflict between science and humanities: Stanislaw Lem’s His Master’s Voice and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. (shrink)

This article addresses the aesthetic status of gargoyles in medieval Gothic architecture. Irreducible to the grotesque yet manifestly discrepant with the core of cathedral and monastic buildings, the gargoyle serves as an entry point for an exploration of the stylistic relations comprising the Gothic and reflecting the cultural duality of the ecclesiastic sites of its historical emergence. The relation between gargoyles and the bulk of Gothic structures and ornamentation is discussed in terms of an “aesthetics of contrast.”.

Implications of the Level of Dogmatism and Selected Psychosocial Conditions for a Propensity for Risky Behaviour among the Soldiers of the Polish Army Land Forces The article presents the results of a study concerning a propensity for risky behaviour, conducted on regular soldiers of the Polish Army Land Forces. Its aim was to verify whether a level of dogmatism and selected psychosocial conditions were related to a propensity for risky behaviour among the soldiers. The research partially confirmed the hypothesis of (...) psychosocial determinants of a propensity for such behaviour. Young and shortserving soldiers appeared to be more inclined to undertake risky behaviour than older and long-serving ones. A tendency to avoid risky behaviour was displayed by soldiers from small towns as compared to groups of respondents from larger towns. The results of the research did not indicate a significant relationship between the propensity for risky behaviour and the level of dogmatism, education, personal corps, professional position. (shrink)

Mentalization is a process of social cognition that involves making inferences about one’s own behavior and the behavior of other people on the basis of unobservable mental states. Particularly in psychodynamic approaches, mentalization is conceptualized in the context of activation of internal representation of emotional relationship. In this study, we checked whether mentalization constitutes a predictor of relational satisfaction in the context of one’s own and the partner’s specific attachment. The research sample was composed of 32 heterosexual couples living together (...) for at least two years. Three tools were applied: the Mental State Task, Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures, and the Relationship Assessment Scale. The results indicate a strong negative effect of one’s own attachment anxiety and avoidance, and a strong effect of the partner’s attachment anxiety on the relationship satisfaction for both men and women. In women, the incremental validity of mentalization in predicting satisfaction in the relationship beyond the attachment of their partners has been observed. The results are discussed in the context of the intrapsychic and interpersonal aspects of mentalization and attachment. (shrink)

The text is a fragment of the section of my doctoral dissertation. I describe the idea of sacrum in the poetry in the nineties of the 20-th century. Jacek Podsiadło, like the majority of members of so-called “bruLion” group, rejects the traditional understanding of sacrum. I describe the idea from many, very often contradictory, angles. On the one hand this is the analysis of the creation of a speaking persona as a blasphemer. On the other hand I describe how this (...) poetry draws inspiration from the mystical religions. The beliefs connected with the East tradition are a very important part of searching for the idea of sacrum in the poetry of Jacek Podsiadło, but the most important for him seems to be the Christian values. (shrink)

The sharing economy as an emerging field is characterized by unsettled debates about its shared purpose and defining characteristics of the organizations within this field. This study draws on neo-institutional theory to explore how sharing organizations position themselves vis-à-vis such debates with regard to (1) the values these organizations publicly promote to present themselves as “good” sharing organizations and (2) the business model features they make visible to appear as having the “right” organizational model. This study examines the online self-representations (...) of 62 prototypical sharing organizations in Germany with regard to value propositions and business model features. A semantic network analysis of the features reveals two distinct categories of sharing organizations: grassroots initiatives and platform-based organizations. By showing how value propositions and business model features are linked in the sharing economy, the findings indicate the different legitimation strategies of grassroots initiatives and platform-based organizations, which we term “sustainability by model” and “sustainability by feature.” These findings broaden our understanding of the strategies that organizations apply to cope with societal expectations in the emerging sharing economy. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the problem of endowing Artificial Intelligence with legal subjectivity, especially with regard to civil law. It is necessary to reject the myth that the criteria of legal subjectivity are sentience and reason. Arguing that AI may have potential legal subjectivity based on an analogy to animals or juristic persons suggests the existence of a single hierarchy or sequence of entities, organized according to their degree of similarity to human beings; also, that the place of an entity (...) in this hierarchy determines the scope of subjectivity attributed to it. Rather, it is participation or presence in social life, whatever the role, that is the true criterion of subjectivity. In addition, it is clear that even if AI is not currently a significant participant in social life, it will be in the nearest future. Despite the potential dangers associated with endowing AI with some kind of subjectivity, such a course is inescapable, and should be considered sooner rather than later. (shrink)

This paper aims to rethink the problem of NATO burden sharing along ethical lines. It argues that the ethics of burden sharing reveals the tensions between utility of contribution and fairness of distribution. Inspired by Jarrod Hayes and Patrick James’s theory-as-thought method and using the traditions of normative ethics, this interpretive research looks at how the issues of sharing and contributing were discursively framed by its practitioners during NATO’s first decade. Focusing on one of the largest founding members, Canada, the (...) paper finds incoherence between the predominantly consequentialist discourse of government authorities with respect to Canada’s contributions and those authorities’ discourse on allied sharing in NATO, shaped by obligations and communitarian ethics. Consequently, this presence of different ethical logics points to a split discourse on NATO burden sharing in Canada. The paper sheds light on the normative roots of the burden-sharing problem and demonstrates the relevance of theoretical pluralism and eclectic methodology for foreign-policy analysis. (shrink)

The author refers to three authors, Anthony Burgess, Aldous Huxley and Stanisław Lem, who, when building their visions of a biologically ‘amended’ society, imbue them with their apprehensions of the psychological consequences of civilisation’s further development; the more or less voluntary limitation of the freedom of the individual, globalisation, the domination of ‘dumbed-down’ popular culture and advanced science and technology at the service of the ruling elite. The writers and the philosopher continually warned the reader that a combination of these (...) factors will result in the emergence of a new totalitarianism, a dictatorship disguised as an apparently permissive utopia. The author demonstrates how the writers in question are part of the pessimistic stream of reflection on humankind which dominated the Western thought of the mid-20th century and which found its fullest reflection in Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom. (shrink)

Precarity applies to people who, in order to survive, need to work in a low-quality job, which is uncertain, temporary, low-paid, with no prospect of promotion, no security and no contract. In this sense, the precariat is a category related mostly to the secondary segment of the labour market, according to the concept of a dual labour market. It is also the universal feature of Post-Fordism and the modern working conditions in which women, more often than men, are located in (...) the ‘worst’segment of the labour market. In this context, it can be noted that since the beginning of the era of globalization, women start working particularly in those sectors that were more uncertain and unstable e.g. in services and trade. It was feminization in a double sense: there were more and more working women on the one hand, and on the other hand, the flexible jobs were undertaken usually by women. Most of these kind of jobs were precarity jobs. Precarity is combined with insecurity, which does not allow the people in this group to plan anything, and wages so low that they can’t afford a decent life. In the article I would like to prove that the threat of precariat is more probable for women than men. I present data related to precarity for Poland compared to other European countries (based on data from Eurostat and the OECD). (shrink)

Jan Jakub Rousseau broni wolności człowieka w wymiarze indywidualnym i społecznym. Podstawą wolności jest wolność naturalna, właściwa człowiekowi pierwotnemu, żyjącemu w stanie natury. Wolność pierwotna jest posłuszeństwem wobec praw natury. W sferze społecznej odpowiada jej wolność jako posłuszeństwo woli powszechnej, przejawiającej się w prawie. W życiu osobistym wolność polega na wyrzeczeniu się sztucznych potrzeb.

The subject of agnosticism about the existence of God has emerged in many of the major conversations within analytic philosophy of religion, such as the debate on the nature of evidence for and against religious beliefs. In this article, I outline a map of the debate on agnosticism in religious epistemology—especially in relation to evidentialism—highlighting the significance of the problem of the ambiguity of evidence and connecting said problem to discussions of religious language and peer disagreement.

Atypical emotion interpretation has been widely reported in individuals with borderline personality disorder ; however, empirical studies reported mixed results so far. We suggest that discrepancies in observations of emotion interpretation by iBPD can be explained by biases related to their fear of rejection and abandonment, i.e., the three moral emotions of anger, disgust, and contempt. In this study, we hypothesized that iBPD would show a higher tendency to correctly interpret these three displays of social rejection and attribute more negative (...) valence. A total of 28 inpatient iBPDs and 28 healthy controls were asked to judge static and dynamic facial expressions in terms of emotions, valence, and self-reported arousal evoked by the observed faces. Our results partially confirmed our expectations. The iBPD correctly interpreted the three unambiguous moral emotions. Contempt, a complex emotion with a difficulty in recognizing facial expressions, was recognized better by iBPD than by healthy controls. All negative emotions were judged more negatively by iBPD than by controls, but no difference was observed in the neutral or positive emotion. Alexithymia and anxiety trait and state levels were controlled in all analyses. (shrink)

In Plato’s dialogue ‘Gorgias’, which is a polemic with rhetoric as an ability to choose the unfair, Socrates proves that it is better to experience the injustice rather than to cause it. A few centuries later, this idea was further exploited by a Roman Empire Stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca, also called Seneca the Younger or Philosophus. The basic idea of Seneca’s political thought is hatred towards the tyranny and a simultaneous acceptance of a fair sovereign who can control his anger (...) and look after his country. Through his work Seneca is encouraging a just life that is in accordance with god’s laws. For him, justice is the core for the functioning of a society. Seneca also claims that human relations should be based on natural reasoning rules. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse the simplest possible three-dimensional model of endogenous growth to account for the relationship between financial intermediation and economic growth. In our setting, households maximize an interim utility function and firms maximize profit. Households can save money only through banks which offer firms investment loans. We show that under very general assumptions, investments realized by firms depend not only on savings accumulated by banks but also on financial intermediation technology ϕ(θ). Using mathematical methods of dynamical systems, (...) we found stationary states of the system and study their stability. (shrink)

The paper intends to identify some particular basic assumptions, approaches and means of proceeding, which are spontaneously shared by philosophers, sociologists and historians of science, besides the common interchange of meta-notions describing science. To this end, the specific subject matter, scope, meta-cognitive goals and methodological background of each of the three domains of science study is first outlined. Only two shared proceedings are further discussed in details: the objective attitude, called 'playing a stranger', and the historiographers' involvement in demarcational problem (...) resolution. A far-reaching prospect is finally suggested for philosophers and historiographers: methodological partnership, leading towards the elaboration of an impending integral metatheory of science. (shrink)

The validity of three premises, set as foundational pillars of modern sociological approach to science, is contested, namely: (i) the postulate, stating that science is devoid of whatever generis specifical; (ii) it is liable to the usual empirical study; (iii) the practicing scientist's self-reflexive judgements must be disbelieved and rejected. Contrariwise, the ignored so far quaint nature of knowledge, escaping even from the elementary empirical treating - discernment and observation - is revealed and demonstrated. This peculiar nature requires, accordingly, a (...) specific meta-cognitive dealing for positing it as 'empirical object', unfortunately missed still by the Strong Programme. The inadequate approach adopted led to a substitution of 'scientific' for common knowledge. The tacit thus far alternative, setting the foundations of meta-science, is suggested. (shrink)

The validity of three premises, set as foundational pillars of modern sociological approach to science, is contested, namely: the postulate, stating that science is devoid of whatever generis specifical; it is liable to the usual empirical study; the practicing scientist's self-reflexive judgements must be disbelieved and rejected. Contrariwise, the ignored so far quaint nature of knowledge, escaping even from the elementary empirical treating - discernment and observation - is revealed and demonstrated. This peculiar nature requires, accordingly, a specific meta-cognitive dealing (...) for positing it as 'empirical object', unfortunately missed still by the Strong Programme. The inadequate approach adopted led to a substitution of 'scientific' for common knowledge. The tacit thus far alternative, setting the foundations of meta-science, is suggested. (shrink)

Fleck’s social theory of science refers to many ethnological examples in order to explain how collective thinking and acting constructs certain systems of belief and knowing. According to Fleck, scientific concepts and practices are comparable with magic terms and ceremonies. This essay aims to identify the ethnological sources that Fleck’s epistemology is using. By confronting them with other relativistic theories that were circulating in Lemberg during the interwar period, the originality of Fleck’s own position can be contextualized and explained as (...) well. (shrink)

This article presents research on the scale of the phenomenon of sexual violence against students at selected 33 universities across Poland, the mechanisms used to combat the problem and the awareness of students on the subject. The study focuses on the practical dimension of combating sexual violence against students in the Polish academic environment. It looks at the existence and functioning of both specialised bodies and the procedures used to help the victims and punish the perpetrators. Additionally, the paper describes (...) how the diversity of available legal measures to address the problem by both helping the victims and holding perpetrators accountable creates the issue of the coexistence of two systems—criminal and intra-university. Presenting preliminary results of gathered opinions of universities’ officials regarding functioning of the bodies specialised in combating sexual violence shows not only the most dominant observations and conclusions the professionals have regarding the functions they hold at their home universities, but also main challenges that have to be considered in both creating sufficient policies in order to deal with sexual violence and conducting comprehensive research on said phenomenon. (shrink)

I.Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political (1927; revised 1932 and 1933) has come to be widely recognized as a work of rare insight into the formative logic of the state. Much less apparent is that implicit within this theoretical distillation is a new type of political history. There is every indication—given the philosophical, theological, and aesthetic aspects of Schmitt's writings, no less than his overtly personal beliefs in this regard—that a history of the political relative to the modern state, (...) which is the focus of his historical interest, would entail more than the mere rarefaction of traditional, pragmatic…. (shrink)