When Freud wrote his classic Civilization and its Discontents, he was concerned with repression. Modern civilization depends upon the constraint of impulse, the limiting of self expression. Today, in the time of modernity, Bauman argues, Freud's analysis no longer holds good, if it ever did. The regulation of desire turns from an irritating necessity into an assault against individual freedom. In the postmodern era, the liberty of the individual is the overriding value, the criterion in terms of which (...) all social rules and regulations are assessed. Postmodernity is governed by the 'will to happiness': the result, however, is a sacrificing of security. The most prominent anxieties in our society today, Bauman shows, derive from the removal of security. The world is experienced as overwhelmingly uncertain, uncontrollable and frightening. Totalitarian politics frightened by its awesome power; the new social disorder frightens by its lack of consistency and direction. The very pursuit of individual happiness corrupts and undermines those systems of authority needed for a stable life. This book builds imaginatively upon Bauman's earlier contributions to social theory. It consolidates his reputation as the interpreter of postmodernity. The book will appeal to second-year undergraduates and above in sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and anthropology. (shrink)

Contemporary understanding of human subjectivity has come a long way since the Cartesian 'thinking thing' or Freud's view of the self struggling with its unconscious. We no longer think of ourselves as stable and indivisible units or combinations thereof - instead, we see the self as constantly reinvented and reorganised in interaction with others and with its social and cultural environments. But the world in which we live today is one of uncertainty where nothing can be taken for granted. (...) Coping with change is a challenge but it also presents new opportunities. Uncertainty can be both liberating and oppressive. How does an individual understand her or his position in the world? Are we as human beings determined by our genetic heritage, social circumstances and cultural preferences, or are we free in our choices? How does selfhood emerge? Does it follow the same pattern of development in all people, all cultures, all ages? Or is it a socio-cultural construction that cannot be understood outside its historical context? Are the patterns of selfhood fundamentally changing in the present world? Does new technology allow us more autonomy or does it tempt us to give up the freedoms we have? (shrink)

"Filozofjo po ślōnsku, czyli heft do historje filozofje Dziadka Kika" to podróż przez dzieje filozofii światowej napisane ze śląskiej perspektywy przez doktora filozofii Marcina Kika. Tyn heft niy jest tak ruby jak niywtore buchy, ale to jest heft, w kerym wjela ciykawygo i ważnygo możno znolyź… I to żech tam znoloz dlo siebje. Ale najsamprzōd musza pedzieć, że jest to heft, w kerym dziadek szukoł som siebje i chcioł sie dowjedzieć czegoś ô sobje samym i śwjecie, w kerym –szczynśliwje lub (...) niy, jak sie to wto forszteluje – prziszło mu żyć. A napisane na niym było "Filozofjo" – prawje jak heft do jakigoś przedmjotu we szkole. Wstęp dr hab. Jacek Surzyn: "Autor przeprowadza czytelnika przez historię filozofii, opowiada ją po śląsku, pewnym siebie głosem zatrzymując go tam, gdzie trzeba na chwilę przystanąć. Jest to historia nie w sensie faktograficznym, ale historia jako proces rozwoju problematyki filozoficznej, to znaczy jest to wędrówka przez odpowiedzi na najważniejsze i podstawowe filozoficzne pytania." Strony: 257 SPIS FILOZOFÓW Presokratycy 24 Sokrates 32 Sofiści, cynicy, cyrenaicy i megarejczycy 36 Platon 41 Arystoteles 45 Sceptycyzm, stoicyzm i epikureizm 49 Plotyn 56 Aureliusz Augustyn z Hippony 59 Tomasz z Akwinu 63 William z Ockham 68 Jean Buridan 70 Mikołaj z Kuzy 72 Francis Bacon 75 Kartezjusz (René Descartes) 79 Baruch Spinoza 83 Blaise Pascal 87 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 90 John Locke 94 George Berkley 98 David Hume 100 Jeremy Bentham 103 John Stuart Mill 106 Bernard de Mandeville 108 Jean Jacques Rousseau 110 Immanuel Kant 114 Arthur Schopenhauer 122 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 126 Ludwig Feuerbach 131 Max Stirner 134 Karol Marks 136 Sigmunt Freud 143 Søren Kierkegaard 149 Friedrich Nietzche 155 Henri Bergson 162 Edmund Husserl 166 Martin Heidegger 172 Max Scheler 177 Nicolai Hartmann 181 Karl Jaspers 187 Egzystencjalizm 191 William James 198 Helmuth Plessner 202 Arnold Gehlen 206 Ludwig Wittgenstein 209 Emmanuel Mounier 213 Karol Wojtyła 217 Gabriel Marcel 221 Emmanuel Lévinas 224 Jozef Tischner 228 Jean-François Lyotard 232 Zygmunt Bauman 236 Karl Raimund Popper 239 Viktor Emil Frankl 243. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman is one of the leading figures in contemporary social thought. His work ranges across issues of ethics, culture and politics. It never forgets that social thought ought to help men and women make sense of their lives and aspire towards something different. His books and essays always focus on the here and now: violence and moral indifference, globalization, consumerism, politics and individualization. They cast a sharp eye on the panaceas of ‘there is no alternative'; the embrace of (...) community and the fads of the ‘counselling boom'; through which men and women are told that they can achieve biographical solutions to what are, in fact, systemic problems. In this new book, Zygmunt Bauman and Keith Tester engage in five accessible conversations that uncover and explore the assumptions and commitments underpinning Bauman's ground-breaking social thought. The conversations show how those commitments have influenced Bauman's analyses of modernity, postmodernity and ‘liquid modernity'. The book ranges widely, from autobiographical reflection through to pointers for the understanding and future of Bauman's social thought. The conversations illustrate the moral substance of Bauman's refusal to accept that the world cannot be made different. They show why social thought is a human necessity. Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman is a book which will offer fresh insight into Bauman's work for those who are familiar with it, and provide an engaging and helpful entry point for those who are new to it. (shrink)

In Culture, Modernity and Revolution a group of distinguished sociologists and social philosophers reflect upon the major concerns of Zygmunt Bauman. Their essays not only honour the man, but provide important contributions to the three interlinked themes that could be said to form the guiding threads of Bauman's life work: power, culture and modernity. Culture, Modernity and Revolution is both a remarkable sociological commentary on the problems facing East-Central Europe and an exposition of some of the key, hitherto neglected, (...) features of the modern cultural universe. (shrink)

Zygmunt Zawirski (1882-1948), an eminent and original Polish philosopher, belonged to the Lwow-Warsaw School (LWS) which left an indelible trace in logic, semiotics and philosophy of science. LWS was founded in 1895 by K. Twardowski, a disciple of Brentano, in the spirit of clarity, realism and analytic philosophy. LWS was more than 25 years older than the Vienna Circle (VC). This belies, inter alia, the not infrequently repeated statement that LWS was one of the many centres initiated by VC.

Introduction: Morality in Modern and Postmodern Perspective Shattered beings are best represented by bits and pieces. Rainer Maria Rilke As signalled in its ...

We are spurred into action by our troubles and fears; but all too often our action fails to address the true causes of our worries. When trying to make sense of our lives, we tend to blame our own failings and weaknesses for our discomforts and defeats. And in doing so, we make things worse rather than better. Reasonable beings that we are, how does this happen and why does it go on happening? These are the questions addressed in this (...) new book by Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most original and perceptive social thinkers writing today. For Bauman, the task of sociology is not to censor or correct the stories we tell of our lives, but to show that there are more ways in which our life stories can be told. By bringing into view the many complex dependencies invisible from the vantage point of private experience, sociology can help us to link our individual decisions and actions to the deeper causes of our troubles and fears - to the ways we live, to the conditions under which we act, to the socially drawn limits of our imagination and ambition. Sociology can help us to understand the processes that have shaped the society in which we live today, a society in which individualization has become our fate. And sociology can also help us to see that if our individual but shared anxieties are to be effectively tackled, they need to be addressed collectively, true to their social, not individual, nature. The Individualized Society will be of great interest to students of sociology, politics and the social sciences and humanities generally. It will also appeal to a broader range of readers who are interested in the changing nature of our social and political life today. (shrink)

Life in Fragments is a continuation of the themes and motifs explored in Zygmunt Bauman's acclaimed study, Postmodern Ethics (Blackwell, 1993).

The word "globalization" is used to convey the hope and determination of order-making on a worldwide scale. It is trumpeted as providing more mobility--of people, capital, and information--and as being equally beneficial for everyone. With recent technological developments--most notably the Internet--globalization seems to be the fate of the world. But no one seems to be in control. As noted sociologist Zygmunt Bauman shows in this detailed history of globalization, while human affairs now take place on a global scale, we (...) are not able to direct events; we can only watch as boundaries, institutions, and loyalties shift in rapid and unpredictable ways. Who benefits from the new globalization? Are people in need assisted more quickly and efficiently? Or are the poor worse off than ever before? Will a globalized economy shift jobs away from traditional areas, destroying time-honored national industries? Who will enjoy access to jobs in the new hierarchy of mobility? From the way the global economy creates a class of absentee landlords to current prison designs for the criminalized underclass, Bauman dissects globalization in all its manifestations: its effects on the economy, politics, social structures, and even our perceptions of time and space. In a chilling analysis, Bauman argues that globalization divides as much as it unites, creating an ever-widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Rather than the hybrid culture we had hoped for, globalization is creating a more homogenous world. Drawing on the works of philosophers, social historians, architects, and theoreticians such as Michel Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Alfred J. Dunlap, and Le Corbusier, Globalization presents a historical overview of the methods employed to create and define human spaces and institutions, from rural villages to sprawling urban centers. Bauman shows how the advent of the computer translates into the decline of truly public space. And he explores the dimensions of a world in which--through new technologies--time is accelerated and space is compressed, revealing how we have arrived at our current state of global thinking. Bauman's incisive methods of inquiry make Globalization an excellent antidote to the exuberance expressed by those who stand to benefit from the new pace and mobility of the modern life. (shrink)

'Community' is one of those words that feels good: it is good 'to have a community', 'to be in a community'. And 'community' feels good because of the meanings which the word conveys, all of them promising pleasures, and more often than not the kind of pleasures which we would like to experience but seem to miss. 'Community' conveys the image of a warm and comfortable place, like a fireplace at which we warm our hands on a frosty day. Out (...) there, in the street, all sorts of dangers lie in ambush; in here, in the community, we can relax and feel safe. 'Community' stands for the kind of world which we long to inhabit but which is not, regrettably, available to us. Today 'community' is another name for paradise lost - but for a paradise which we still hope to find, as we feverishly search for the roads that may lead us there. But there is a price to be paid for the privilege of being in a community. Community promises security but seems to deprive us of freedom, of the right to be ourselves. Security and freedom are two equally precious and coveted values which could be balanced to some degree, but hardly ever fully reconciled. The tension between security and freedom, and between community and individuality, is unlikely ever to be resolved. We cannot escape the dilemma but we can take stock of the opportunities and the dangers, and at least try to avoid repeating past errors. In this important new book, Zygmunt Bauman takes stock of these opportunities and dangers and, in his distinctive and brilliant fashion, offers a much-needed reappraisal of a concept that has become central to current debates about the nature and future of our societies. (shrink)

Why do most of us consider ourselves free but also believe there is little we can change in the way the world is run - individually, severally, or even collectively? Why has the growth of individual freedom coincided with the growth of collective impotence? Bauman argues that this condition hangs on the agora - the space where private and public meet to seek the creation of 'public good', a 'just society', or 'shared values'. The problem is that little remains of (...) such old style spaces. We cannot, he argues, overcome our collective impotence without resorting to politics and using the vehicle of political agency. Three orientation points for a reconstruction of politics are suggested: the republican model of the state and of citizenship, basic income as a universal entitlement, and re-enabling the institutions of autonomous society by catching up with the controlling extraterritorial powers in an age of globalization. (shrink)

In this major work, Zygmunt Bauman seeks to classify the meanings of culture. He distinguishes between culture as a concept, culture as a structure and culture as praxis and analyzes the different ways in which culture has been used in each of these settings. For Bauman, culture is a living, changing aspect of human interaction which must be understood and studied as a universal of human life. At the heart of his approach is the proposition that culture is inherently (...) ambivalent. With a major new introduction to this new edition, this classic work emerges as a crucial link in the development of Bauman's thought. By his own admission, it was the first of his books to grope towards a new kind of social theory, in contrast to the fals. (shrink)

The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity. The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' (...) to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity. (shrink)

In its original formulation, ‘culture’ was intended to be an agent for change, a mission undertaken with the aim of educating ‘the people’ by bringing the best of human thought and creativity to them. But in our contemporary liquid-modern world, culture has lost its missionary role and has become a means of seduction: it seeks no longer to enlighten the people but to seduce them. The function of culture today is not to satisfy existing needs but to create new ones, (...) while simultaneously ensuring that existing needs remain permanently unfulfilled. Culture today likens itself to a giant department store where the shelves are overflowing with desirable goods that are changed on a daily basis - just long enough to stimulate desires whose gratification is perpetually postponed. In this new book Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most brilliant and influential social thinkers of our time - retraces the peregrinations of the concept of culture and examines its fate in a world marked by the powerful new forces of globalization, migration and the intermingling of populations. He argues that Europe has a particularly important role to play in revitalizing our understanding of culture precisely because Europe, with its great diversity of peoples, languages and histories, is the space where the Other is always one’s neighbour and where each is constantly called upon to learn from everyone else. (shrink)

One subject which captured the imagination of sociologists, philosophers, political scientists and writers on culture in the 1980s was postmodernism. This text considers the meaning and importance of postmodernity.

VSEBINA Uredniška opomba I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI Dodatki A Modifikacije prejšnjih stališč a) Odpor in nasprotna investicija b) Tesnoba iz preoblikovanja libida c) Potlačitev in obramba B Dopolnilo k tesnobi C Tesnoba, bolečina in žalovanje.

What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities (...) in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent. In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted. (shrink)

Bauman analyzes freedom as a social relation rather than as an idea or postulate. Throughout history, he shows, freedom was a privilege enjoyed in relation to either superior or weaker power. Today, "seduction" tends to replace repression as a means of social control, and individual freedom is, above all, freedom of the consumer. A paper edition is available. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966) came from a distinguished Swiss psychiatrist dynasty which had run the internationally-renowned sanatorium Bellevue in Kreuz-lingen for generations. In 1907 he spent a year at the Zurich Burgh lzli under Bleuler and Jung, and indeed it was Jung who took Binswanger with him to Vienna that year for his first visit to Freud.

The global financial crisis has shattered the illusion that all was well with capitalism and forced us to confront the great challenges we face today with a new sense of urgency. Few are better placed to do this than Zygmunt Bauman, a social thinker whose writings on liquid modernity have pioneered a new way of seeing the world in which we live at the dawn of the 21st Century. Our liquid modern world is characterized by the transition from a (...) society of producers to a society of consumers, the natural extension of which is the society of perpetual debtors. The ruling idea of the society of consumers is to prevent needs from being satisfied and to create demand; its natural extension is to enable consumers to consume more by borrowing. Debt was transformed into a crucial profit-earning asset of capitalism in liquid modern times. The present-day 'credit crunch' is not the outcome of the banks' failure but rather the fruit of their success in transforming the majority of men and women, young and old, into a race of debtors. They got what they were looking for: a society of debtors whose condition of being in debt was made self-perpetuating, with more debts being offered, and more undertaken, as the only way of escaping from the debts already incurred. Starting from this reflection on the current global financial crisis and prompted by the probing questions of his interlocutor, Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo, Bauman examines in an historical perspective some of the most pressing moral and political issues of our time, from international terrorism and the rise of religious and secular fundamentalism to the decline of the nation-state and the threats posed by global warming, issues whose seriousness and urgency attest to the fact that we are living today not only on borrowed money but also on borrowed time. (shrink)

The application of law means making use of his competence by a subject of law in order to perform in a ”valid” way a definite legal act, basing on a given legal system. The legal act, in a wide meaning of this term, is every act of a conventional character by the adequate performance of which legal obligations of certain subjects, which previously were potentially in force, arise or are actualized. The manner of making use of a granted competence can (...) be unanimously determined, or – and that is of interest in our reasoning – certain limits may be granted to the subject who may decide what use he is willing to make of the awarder competence. (shrink)

W artykule jest suponowana opozycja między statyką i dynamiką nauki. Przez naukę rozumiemy głównie nauki empiryczne, zwłaszcza przyrodnicze, lub nauki ścisłe (sciences), inaczej: matematyczne przyrodoznawstwo. Przy doborze kategorii jako przedmiotu podjętych analiz kierowano się racjami badawczymi oraz odwołującymi się do praktyki naukowej i metanaukowej. Kontekstowe objaśnienia tych obiektów relatywizowano do sytuacji poznawczej potencjalnych odbiorców. Uwzględniano zarówno adeptów, jak i profesjonalnie zainteresowanych refleksją nad czynnościowo i wytworowo ujmowaną nauką. Podjęte zagadnienia są rozpatrywane poprzez stopniowe dyskusje aspektywnie wyselekcjonowanych problemów. W rozpatrywanej perspektywie (...) należą do nich: ramowe stanowiska; terminy-klucze; statyka/dynamika nauki; rewolucje w filozofii nauki; dwa konteksty; nowa filozofia nauki; nurt normatywny i deskryptywny; kategoria rewolucji naukowych; super-, supra- i maksiteorie jako jednostki ponadteoretyczne; problematyka aksjologiczna; pluralizm filozofii nauki; problem / teoria problemu; wartość — kategoria z zakresu aksjologii epistemicznej; dalsze zagadnienia filozofii nauki; charakterystyka opracowania. (shrink)

This article explores ethical theories as variations on two biblical stories of the origins of morality: morality as the necessity to make choices and assume responsibility and morality as conformity to a rule set by a supreme power. It looks at Knud Løgstrup's and Emanuel Levinas's theories as the most prominent examples of the first approach — and thus best fit to grasp the realities of moral life under contemporary conditions of existential uncertainty and the only ones which perceive in (...) the plurality of choices the natural home of the moral self, rather than a threat to morality. The meaning of Løgstrup's `unspoken demand' and Levinas's `unconditional responsibility'; responsibility to the weaker versus obligations to the stronger; moral choice as the aspect of human condition versus justice as the outcome of social action are also explored. (shrink)

One of 15 volumes in this series, this title is part of a plan to generate non-specialist Freud titles for a wide readership - beyond the institutional/clinical ...

A proposal for individual responsibility in communal life.

This paper describes the work of the Polish logician Jan Kalicki (1922?1953). After a biographical introduction, his work on logical matrices and equational logic is appraised. A bibliography of his papers and reviews is also included.

Notes on the life of Adolf Lindenbaum, a complete bibliography of his published works, and selected references to his unpublished results.