Dorota Zygmuntowicz

The fighting polis (the Plato’s Timaeus 17 a–27c and Laws 625c–637b)
Summary

The author asks two questions. The first, is war really the best action of a polis how the introductory conversation of the Timaeus (19b–c) suggests. The second, has been the Sokrates’ desire to see his ideal polis in action fulfilled in the Timaeus-Critias sequence. The approach to the problems seems to be found in the Laws, where these two questions are turned to this one: might war be the pattern for a lawgiver.

Cyprian Mielczarski

Social and Political Thought of Sophists – Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, and Antiphon
Summary

By emphasising the role of the social factor in the human life, the sophists created the foundations of European sociopolitical thought which arose from the spirit of criticism, pervading the Athenian democratic culture in the second half of the 5th century B.C. They gave rise to the first anthropological breakthrough in the history of our civilisation by treating philosophy, education and upbringing as preparation for life in a free civil society. They also had their share in depriving the laws of their sacral status since they treated the state and the law as results of a social contract dictated by utilitarian reasons. Therefore they should be regarded as the inventors of legal-political conventionalism and utilitarianism which have formed the basis for today’s democracy. Protagoras was the author of the notion of social evolution. That notion was later to become the foundation of leftist, liberal and conservative sociopolitical attitudes. According to Protagoras, education is preparation for life in the society, and thus he might be called a patron of the modern „education for democracy”. Prodicus put forward the ideal of an individual sacrificing his interests for the sake of the community and showed the social function of work. He also regarded religion as a human invention, acquiring its shape in the course of history. Hippias and Antiphon created the notion of the law of nature and the idea of social egalitarianism, since they claimed that all human beings are naturally equal. Moreover, they formulated and contrasted the two notions: nature (phýsis) and legal convention (nómos). Later this opposition became a fundamental question of the European philosophy of law and politics. The sophists of the classical period, though they propagated relativism and epistemological sensualism, were far from preaching antisocial and immoral  individualism. Their teachings were based on antihedonistic ethical restraint. They all recognised primacy of the community over an individual which was the most important foundation of the Greek political culture in that period. They were also forerunners of those tendencies in the modern pedagogy that aim at endowing the pupil or student first of all with social and professional efficiency.

Marcin Konik

Music in Boethius and in Medieval Philosophy
Summary

The most important medieval treaty concerning the theory of music is De institutione Musica by Boethius. In this work, he presented an idea of musica mundana, which had been a predominant metaphysical conception of music until 14th century, when it was criticized by Johannes de Grocheo. Nevertheless, some aspects of Boethian doctrine were repeated even in 16th century by some theorists (Gaffurius, Jerzy Liban).

Tractatus de Successivis Attributed to William Ockham. Part III
– Treatise on Time
Summary

Tractatus de Successivis attributed to William Ockham divides in three parts: on motion, on place and on time. Considerations given in the third part, on time, plays important role in conceptualistic metaphysical theory of time. Study on Ockham prepares important conclusions concerning critical Aristotelianism in 14th century. Our translation gives also an example of the late scholastic logic and epistemology.

Aleksandra Porada

«Nation» française au XVIIIe siècle
Résumé

Il est question dans cet article de l’évolution de l’idée de «nation» en France au cours du XVIIIe siècle. Beaucoup d’historiens pensent qu’on peut identifier les débuts de la conscience nationale française déjà au sein de la population de la France médiévale, alors que pour la plupart des sociologues la nation n’est qu’une construction intelectuelle créée par les intelligentsias européennes pendant les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Les protagonists de la Révolution prétendirent d’agir au nom de la Nation Française en tant qu’une communauté ethnique, linguistique et culturelle. Cette conception moderne de la nation, quand et comment fût-elle née en ?

Stanisław Janeczek

A Conception of the Didactics of Logic According to Jean Alexis Borrelly
Summary

The paper seeks to present a conception of the didactics of logic according to Jean Alexis Borrelly (1738–1810), the author of among others Plan de réformations des etudes élémentaires (La Haye 1776) and a textbook for logic Elémens de l’art de penser, ou la logique, réduite à ce qu’elle a d’utile (Berlin 1777). The legacy of Borrelly summarises the tendencies typical of the Enlightenment with regard to 1) reforms of education, 2) redefining values in the didactics of philosophy, and 3) modification in the then logic. The presentation has a twofold structure. In part one I present some specific characteristics of Borrelly’s didactic plan against the background of school reforms. Part two is devoted to the teaching of logic: 1) the nature of logic in the didactic curriculum, 2) its realization in Borrelly’s textbook for logic, and that against the background of modern tendencies in reforming a conception of this discipline. This is in particular with regards to the theory and practice of the didactics of logic in Polish school reforms contemporary to Borrelly’s accomplishments. It has been pointed out that both at the declarative level and in the textbooks Borrelly’s conception is an example of eclectic achievements typical of the Enlightenment. They come to terms with the radical solutions (e. g. Descartes, Locke), hostile to formal logic, with school requirements, a fact that makes Borrelly’s solution to be one of the standards characteristic, for instance, of the popular Logic of Port-Royal by A. Arnauld and P. Nicole.

Tadeusz Zatorski

„Das Leben ist weder Zweck noch Mittel; das Leben ist ein Recht”
Zur Geschichtsphilosophie Heinrich Heines
Zusammenfassung

Etwa im Jahre 1833 verfasst Heinrich Heine einen kurzen, Fragment gebliebenen Essay Verschiedenartige Geschichtsauffassung (der hier in polnischer Übersetzung mit abgedruckt wird), in dem er zwei Interpretationen des historischen Geschehens einander gegenüberstellt: Die Anhänger der einen legen dieses als „trostlosen Kreislauf” aus, in dem sich alle Vorgänge und Prozesse wie Jahreszeiten wiederholen, die Anhänger der anderen Geschichtsdeutung, „die mehr mit der Idee einer Vorsehung verwandt ist”, geben sich der Täuschung hin, als würden „alle irdischen Dinge einer schönen Vervollkommenheit entgegenreifen”. Obwohl Heine an beiden Auffassungen Kritik übt, bekennt er sich doch selbst zehn Jahre später zu ebenso utopischen Ideen, indem er die künftige „Emanzipation des Fleisches” und den Anbruch einer „Demokratie gleichherrlicher, gleichheiliger, gleichbeseligter Götter” verkündet, d. h. einer neuen, glücklichen, sich selbst vergottenden Menschheit, die sündenlos das Leben und alle seine Freuden genießen soll. Diese naiven Vorstellungen verwirft er allerdings schnell und warnt nun als einer der ersten vor den Gefahren der anbrechenden kommunistischen Utopie. Offen bleibt bis heute die Frage, inwieweit Heines Essay auch Friedrich Nietzsche und dessen Idee von der „Wiederkunft des Gleichen” beeinflusst haben mag. Auch wenn Nietzsche hier mit Sicherheit aus verschiedenen Quellen geschöpft hatte, lässt sich doch nicht ausschließen, dass Heines Essay die Rolle einer Art Katalysator hätte spielen können, zumal nachgewiesen ist, dass er Adolf Strodtmanns Ausgabe von Heines Letzten Gedichten und Gedanken aus dem Jahre 1869 (wo die Schrift zum ersten Mal abgedruckt wurde) in seiner Bibliothek besaß.

Jacek Połuszny

Friedrich Nietzsche und das Problem des Fanatismus
Zusammenfassung

Der Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle, die der Fanatismus in der Philosophie und Psychologie Friedrich Nietzsches spielt. Er wirft die These auf, dass Fanatismus mit Ressentiment und Nihilismus verbunden ist und interpretiert den deutschen Denker in folgendem Sinne: Fanatismus ist der Abwehrmechanismus eines Menschen, der Ressentiment empfindet. Durch ein Einsatz dieses Abwehrmechanismus schützt sich der Mensch vor den Konsequenzen der nicht gut durchgeführten Fälschung der Werte auf den Weg seiner ressentimentalen Umwertung- d. h. vor dem Nihilismus.

Dariusz Adamski
Un texte inconnu de J. I. N. Baudouin de Courtenay
Résumé

L’article présente un texte inconnu de J. I. N. Baudouin de Courtenay (1845–1929), publié en 1872 à Poznañ, sous les initiales: „Dr. J. B.”, et intitulé: Du langage et des langues. Baudouin y introduit la distinction fondamentale du structuralisme: langue – langage – parole. Dans l’esprit de vulgarisation, après la lecture des Cours d’Oxford de Müller (1862–1864), il retrace l’histoire de la linguistique avec le comparatisme comme son achèvement et la figure majestueuse de Leibniz. Rejetant la recherche de la langue adamique, il propose une classification des langues non selon leurs racines, mais d’après leurs structures: la structure d’une langue („budowa jêzyka”) constitue sa „marque caractéristique” („znamiê”). Baudouin discute également le phénomène d’aphasie et se prononce contre la théorie des localisations cérébrales, tout comme Freud dans Zur Auffassung der Aphasien (1891). Le rôle du „pont” entre leurs théories revient à Ernst von Brücke, maître de Freud, auteur des ouvrages traitant de la physiologie de la parole, très appréciés du linguiste. Dès ses premiers travaux de 1865, consacrés au physiologiste tchèque Purkyne, Baudouin se veut continuateur du programme linguistique de l’idéologue Volney, qui est tout simplement l’inverse du projet leibnizien.

Andrzej Zotow

Analysis of Socialism in the Work of Vilfredo Pareto
Summary

The article is devoted to Vilfredo Pareto’s reflections on socialism and dicusses thoroughly his important work Les syst`emes socialistes, especially its first part dealing with so called real socialist systems. This large treatise edited in 1901-1902 played an important role in the evolution of Pareto’s ideas. It brought the early version of his famous theory of social elites that was strictly connected with his refutation of historiosophical progressivism. Pareto examined many historical examples– from ancient to some tendencies in contemporary policy – in order to elaborate the precise typology of the systems of real socialism. He tried to demonstrate that real socialism was an obstacle to economic and cultural development. Socialism was for him on the one hand utopian, and on the other hand – immoral (as the apology of plunder and as a riot against social hierarchy). He didn’t exclude however that in the future the well organized socialist movement would come into power.

Przemyłław Parszutowicz

Cassirer’s „Concept of reality”
Summary

The essey The concept of Reality is a part of the first systematic work of Ernst Cassirer, the alumnus of the Marburg school, titled Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff. Untersuchungen über Grundfragen der Erkenntniskritik (1910). It developed certain position concerning the problem of reality, which is representative for this school. This conception, and especially the shift of cognitive perspective, from substantial to functional, contained in it, is crucial as far as the whole later Cassirer’s work is concerned and it comes as the foundation for the subsequent theory of symbolic forms.

Krzysztof Sołoducha

Der Begriff der hermeneutischen Logik in der Philosophie von Georg Misch
Zusammenfassung

In meinem Artikel versuche ich die theoretische Verbindung zwischen dem Programm der diltheyschen Kritik der historischen Vernunft und dem Einsatz der hermeneutischen Logik von Georg Misch zu finden. Diese Relation ist eher kompliziert. Da gibt es sowohl Kontinuität als auch einen radikalen Bruch. Georg Misch, von einer Seite, weiter entwickelt Wilhelm Diltheys Programm von Lebensphilosophie als Herstellung des theoretischen Zusammenhanges von Logos und Ethos, von anderer Seite aber findet eine ganz neue Form dafür. Und zwar die Form der Logik des Ausdrucks – hermeneutischen Logik. Damit ist Mischs neue Lebensphilosophie sehr tief verbunden mit dem sprachphilosophischen Bruch in der Philosophie des XX Jahrhunderts.

Maciej Soin

On Witkiewicz Critique of Wittgenstein
Summary

The article is concerned with the most important threads of criticism of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as it was presented in Zagadnienie psychofizyczne by Stanis³aw Ignacy Witkiewicz. The main objection refers to the formal character of Wittgenstein’s ontology, which – says Witkiewicz – ignores the basic distinction between the aspects of the dualistic structure of being. The objection is closely connected with the problem of relation between logic and philosophy. At this point Witkiewicz criticized not only Wittgenstein, but also the Lvov--Warsaw school, highly influential in Polish philosophy.

Tomasz Sahaj

Social Eugenics of XIX and XX Centuries in Historical and Philosophical Context
Summary

The article, is aimed at presenting the main conceptions of eugenics movement and its social consequences. ‘Improvements of societies’ were often executed at the expense of individuals or the whole social groups which were considered inferior species Thousands of people were sterilized (e. g. in the ) or eliminated (as in fascist ). That is why the word ‘eugenics” arouses negative feelings nowadays. Unexpectedly however, eugenics is again in favour in a completely new social context.

Janusz Goćkowski

Revolutionary and Counter-revolutionary World-views: Two Models of Understanding Sociotechnics as an Overall Therapy of Interhuman Life
Summary

Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary world-views are presented as 'militant and competing outlooks' - zero-sum game players' world-views in the war over a character of communal life system. These are antithetical views. Their subjects are social forces acting in their antagonistic interests and aspirations. The world-views are presented as two, fundamentally different models of understanding sociotechnics as an overall therapy of human life. A therapy through social engineering model deriving from the revolutionary world-view could be named a model under the banner of 'utopia' (the therapy is a well thought-out alternative order) and a therapy through social engineering model deriving from counter-revolutionary world-view could be named a model under the banner of 'ideology' (the therapy consists in applying a tried-and-tested pattern form the past, which enables to preserve identity and to combine change with continuity).