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21. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 61 > Issue: 4
Deborah Savage Deborah Savage
The Centrality of Lived Experience in Wojtyla’s Account of the Person
Fundamentalne znaczenie przeżycia w Karola Wojtyły ujęciu osoby

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The aim of this paper is to illuminate the centrality of lived experience in Karol Wojytla’s account of the person and identify its significance for philosophy and praxis in the contemporary period. Specifically the author intends to pursue the meaning of Wojtyla’s claim that “the category of lived experience must have a place in anthropology and ethics—and somehow be at the center of their respective interpretations.” The paper seeks to recover an important insight into the task of philosophy: according to Karol Wojtyla, if philosophy is to perform its essential function in the recovery of our culture, we have no choice but to turn our attention to the subjectivity of human persons—and this can only be done by taking up the somewhat risky challenge of studying the reality of lived human experience. The paper will analyze Wojtyla’s argument that the problem of human subjectivity is at the epicenter of debates about the human person and will argue that his solution reconciles the dilemma posed by the historical antinomies that have characterized anthropology and epistemology, viz., the “objective” or ontological view of the human being and the “subjectivism” often associated with the philosophy of consciousness, and their corollaries, realism and idealism.At least in the English speaking context, where the validity of individual experience has risen to the level of almost dogmatic significance for social and political life, Father Wojtyla’s claim appears either to have gone unnoticed or to have been rejected. And perhaps, at least on the surface, this is not without reason. The modern interest in human subjectivity is blamed for many contemporary maladies, including subjectivism, relativism and the pride of place now given to any individual point of view, no matter how ill informed. Claims about the existence of truth or an objective moral order often cannot find a foothold when confronted with the argument that such realities do not resonate with a particular individual’s personal “experience.” The priority given to subjective personal experience in determining what constitutes right thinking and moral human behavior, assuming that question is even asked, is now a commonplace assumption; it is something alternately deplored or celebrated both by intellectuals and the “man on the street.”Given this situation, that a philosopher of Father Wojtyla’s stature and obvious moral authority should make such an argument is a matter of critical importance, especially for those who seek to ground human action in objective moral norms in an era where an arguably flawed account of human subjectivity clearly has taken center stage. The paper shows that Wojtyla is not adverting to experience as an adjunct to moral relativism or personal preference as an approach to questions of the true and the good. On the contrary, the author shows that the philosopher Karol Wojtyla provides a way to remain grounded in the metaphysical and ontological categories that not only comprise our intellectual heritage, but refer to real and profound truths, while simultaneously accounting for the subjectivity and dynamism of the person. The paper concludes with an argument that this account provides a key hermeneutical device for understanding the enormous importance of the work of Pope John Paul II.
22. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 61 > Issue: 4
Adam Gadoski Adam Gadoski
On Some Striking Example of Jan Czochralski, and His Scientific Achievements, Allowing to Underline His Year 2013 in Poland
Na temat uderzającego przypadku Jana Czochralskiego i jego osiągnięć naukowych pozwalających podkreślić ważność roku 2013 dla upamiętnienia tej postaci

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A question has been addressed, and then partly answered, namely, to what degree Jan Czochralski, an eminent and well-recognized abroad Polish crystallographer, chemist, and metallurgist, also a material (metal) scientist, should, when based on his achievements in research, belong to (physicochemical) metallurgy, or ought to be recognized rather as a (“pure”) chemist, working in a chemical fashion with metals and their impurities-containing alloys. The actual ground for trying to answer the intriguing question, relies on the fact that he performed his research entirely within physicochemical, or specifically, mechanochemical metallurgy of complex as well as very practical material systems that he was able to resolve successfully by his treatments. Its has been attempted to show that his type of research should be described as interdisciplinary, thus, being synergistically intermingled amongst a few crossdisciplines of technological and basic research. Astonishingly, his historical-context sensitive life, can also be viewed as the one being well networked amongst many areas of his activity, drawing him as inventor, university professor, owner, investor, art supporter, philanthropist, as well as some truly modest poetry author, or finally, husband and father of three children.
23. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 61 > Issue: 4
Antoni Szwed Freedom as an Uncertain Cause in Graham Greene’s Novels: A Philosophical and Literary Analysis
24. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 62 > Issue: 2
Ewa Odoj Ewa Odoj
Is “The Presumption of Atheism” in Fact a Neutral Procedure?: A Critical Examination of Antony Flew’s Position
Czy „domniemanie ateizmu” jest faktycznie neutralną procedurą?

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This article examines the concept of “The Presumption of Atheism” by Antony Flew. Flew claims that at the beginning of a debate on the existence of God we should adopt a standpoint of atheism and the opus of proof lies on the theists. I question different requirements that Flew puts on the representatives of theism and atheism. In responding, I raise an epistemological issue concerning how strong evidence for a particular belief should be in order for one to hold that belief. I claim that this depends on a subject’s circumstances and on his or her individual conditions. By means of these deliberations I try to reveal how various persons could reasonably demand from a theistic belief a different degree of probability than they do from an atheistic one. This shows, I think, that Flew’s procedure does not have to be rational for others, although it could be in his own case.
25. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 62 > Issue: 3
Urszula Czyżewska, Grzegorz Głąb Urszula Czyżewska
Robert Louis Stevenson Philosophically: Dualism and Existentialism within the Gothic Convention
Robert Louis Stevenson filozoficznie

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Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) has often been regarded as a direct text in its dealings with a multi-dimensional conception of dualism, insecurity, anxiety and weakness. In the constrained moral atmosphere of Victorian England, where such issues were consciously or even intentionally avoided, the novel seemed to be articulating difficult themes about which society preferred to remain silent. A specific literary tradition, the history of Great Britain, scientific discoveries and lively, scientific debates of the 19th-century are ones of the most significant factors which make The Strange Case so original and memorable.The study poses a number of questions: Why does the history of the double return? What is a meaning of a double in a given context? What is so significant about this concept that it has inspired many others successors (e.g. Stephen King’s The Dark Half, 1989)? Why this motif is so popular? The project of delivering the answers to these questions in a one paper is not straightforward. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is limited to presentation and analysis of a conditionof men in the face of emerging Modernism with a close reference to philosophical ideas of the turn of the century. On such basis, it investigates the foundations of Stevensonian philosophy of dualism.
26. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 62 > Issue: 4
Adam P. Kubiak, Piotr Lipski Adam P. Kubiak
Getting Straight on How Russell Underestimated Frege
O tym, w jaki sposób Russell nie docenił Fregego

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Bertrand Russell in his essay On Denoting [1905] presented a theory of description developed in response to the one proposed by Gottlob Frege in his paper Über Sinn und Bedeutung [1892]. The aim of our work will be to show that Russell underestimated Frege three times over in presenting the latter’s work: in relation to the Gray’s Elegy argument, to the Ferdinand argument, and to puzzles discussed by Russell. First, we will discuss two claims of Russell’s which do not do justice to Frege: that we speak of a sense by means of quotation marks, and that all Frege does to cope with phrases that might denote nothing is define an arbitrary object as their reference. Second, we will show that Russell omitted the fact that Frege’s theory provided some answers for the puzzles presented by Russell in his essay.
27. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 62 > Issue: 4
Marian Kurdziałek, Hugh McDonald Mediaeval Doctrines on Man as Image of the World
28. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 63 > Issue: 1
Ibo van de Poel, Eulalia Smuga-Fries Teaching Ethics to Engineering Students: Interview with Professor Ibo van de Poel Made on 25th September, 2014 at the Technical University of Delft by Eulalia Smuga-Fries during Her Internship There
29. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 63 > Issue: 2
Agnieszka Kijewska Agnieszka Kijewska
Mystical Interpretation of the Exile and Return to Paradise in Eriugena’s Periphyseon
Mistyczna interpretacja wygnania i powrotu do raju w Periphyseon Eriugeny

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Over the recent years we have welcomed a number of significant publications (in particular the contributions by Peter T. Struck and Mikołaj Domaradzki) highlighting the importance of allegory and allegorical interpretation in ancient literary culture. The allegorical approach to literary text identifies the literary work as a puzzle, the solving of which introduces the reader to a profounder kind of knowledge, a knowledge that is hidden from the eyes of the “uninitiated.” This kind of interpretation implies a special understanding of the function of language, which “by revealing— conceals”. Allegorical interpretation assumed paramount importance in Neoplatonism, the philo- sophy which attributed religious functions to the philosophical endeavor of man (such functions as assimilation to God and return to man’s (spiritual) fatherland). The most salient features of the Neo- platonic allegorism have been presented by Peter T. Stuck in his article Allegory and ascent in Neoplatonism complete with the account of the role attributed to allegory as a guide along the path leading to mystical union.In this article attention has been focused upon those elements of the Neoplatonic allegorical exegesis, which may be of use in exploring the specifics of Eriugena’s interpretation of the themes of the exile from and return to the paradise.
30. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 63 > Issue: 2
Tomasz Stępień Tomasz Stępień
The Understanding of Symbols and Their Role in the Ascent of the Soul to God in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa
Rozumienie symboli i ich roli w drodze duszy ku Bogu u Pseudo-Dionizego Areopagity i Mikołaja z Kuzy

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This article considers the issue of changes in the understanding of symbols as an integral part of spiritual life in Neoplatonic philosophy. It seems that ancient Neoplatonic philosophers were the first who clearly realized the importance of symbols to spiritual life. However, it happened due to the influence of the mystical Chaldean and Egyptian thought transferred to philosophical investigation by the Chaldean oracles and Corpus hermeticum. The late Neoplatonic thought of Iamblichus and Eastern Neoplatonic schools used symbols and rituals as integral parts of philosophical investigation, understood as having a mystical goal. Especially mathematical symbols played a significant role, because they were used in the most advanced theurgical rituals. This analysis of the pagan Neoplatonic philosophy permits us to show properly the thought of Pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite, who creatively transformed the teaching of his pagan predecessors, by incorporating ancient Neoplatonic tradition into Christian theology. Pseudo-Dionysius excludes liturgical symbols from the order of the cosmos and transfers them to the plane of Salvation grounded in Biblical Revelation. Only true symbols are used in the liturgy of the Church, and thus mathematical symbols are no longer needed in the ascent of the soul to unity with God. The third part analyzes the meaning of symbolism in the thought of Nicolas of Cusa. Thanks to the rediscovery of ancient pagan Neoplatonism and Pythagorean thought, Cusanus also brings new life to the mystical meaning of mathematics. Mathematical symbols once again become an im- portant part of the mystical ascent of the soul, but this time without their ritual context.
31. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 63 > Issue: 2
Barbara Grondkowska Barbara Grondkowska
The Stages of Love in Cusanus’ Sermon VII Remittuntur ei peccata multa
Stopnie miłości w Kazaniu VII Mikołaja z Kuzy Remittuntur ei peccata multa

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The article discusses one of the early sermons by Nicholas of Cusa—Sermo VII Remittuntur ei peccata multa, written in a dialogue form, uncharacteristic of the sermon genre. The main protagonist is Mary Magdalene, who was described on the basis of biblical and apocryphal stories. According to Sermo VII she is an allegory of the soul’s love for God. The article contains the analysis of Cusanus’ concept and terminology of love (amor, caritas, dilectio) as well as the description of the image of three and seven stages of love. Moreover, there have been identified intertextual relations between the sermon and sources attributed to Bonaventura such as De diaeta salutis by Guillaume de Lanicia and De septem itineribus aeternitatis by Rudolf von Biberach. Finally, there are also deeper semantic analyses of more difficult fragments.
32. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 64 > Issue: 2
Karolina Rozmarynowska Karolina Rozmarynowska
Civil Disobedience and Its Ethical Meaning
Obywatelskie Nieposłuszeństwo i Jego Etyczne Znaczenie

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The goal of the discussion presented in the article is to recognize the ethical dimension of civil disobedience. Setting out to achieve that goal, the author analyses the difference between civil disobedience and other forms of social protest, and attempts to define its essential substance. With that goal in view, she identifies the key features and the subject matter of an act of disobedience. Having explained the civil character of disobedience, she then goes on to discuss its moral and ethical significance. Emphasizing the personal character of civil disobedience, the author presents it as an expression of ethics.
33. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 64 > Issue: 3
Marek Słomka Uniqueness of Man in Nature and Some Examples of Its Questioning
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There are often mentioned specific features of human consciousness and culture: metaphysical reflection, ability of self-consciousness, moral sensitivity, aesthetical and religious experience. One can express the role of the similar contents, stressing the role of modern sciences in the human development or the worth of altruism in the acts of man, who—existing for others— transcends the biological struggle for existence revealing in such a way the rich world of culture that gives right to assert his unique role in the nature. On the other hand, man still remains the element of nature, by the corporeality subordinated to its physical and biological rules. Taking this fact into account, we are not permitted to speak about the absolute transcendence of man over nature but only about relative one. The latter consists in the biological bond of man with the rest of nature and his cultural openness toward supernatural values.There is also methodologically accepted confirmation for the thesis concerning the coexistence of physical continuity with ontological discontinuity in the evolutionary interpretation of nature. The ontological thesis surely can’t be definitively justified. Therefore, the opposite thesis will be also able to enlist new sympathisers. On the one hand, they would come from the groups that don’t acknowledge the difference between ontological and scientific form of evolutionism; on the other, they would occur among the thinkers capable of the future formulation of a new version of monism making the contemporary opposition between materialism and spiritualism totally pointless.Apart from above mentioned aspects of the debate, the statement emphasizing that man transcends nature is still being criticized by some intellectual circles depending on methodological presuppositions or ontological declarations. Nevertheless, the basic problem of these explanations consists in the lack of an interpretation of features of the human psyche, adequate to the actual data, that express the relative autonomy of the contents of the human psyche in reference to biological determinants.
34. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 1
Zbigniew Kaźmierczak Zbigniew Kaźmierczak
A Trial of Interpretation of Meister Eckhart’s Thought on God and Man through the Analysis of Its Paradoxes
Próba Interpretacji Myśli Eckharta O Bogu I Człowieku Poprzez Analizę Jej Paradoksów

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This article interprets Eckhart’s contradictions by presenting them as a result of an existential search for salvific power. It is shown that power is ambivalent in nature: it is the power of what is and the power of (self)overcoming (of what is). Just because power is in itself ambivalent and the process of searching for it existentialist (so not completely conscious), Eckhart’s mystical texts are full of contradictions and the German mystic is apparently not aware of it. The sample of them is shown in this article with regard to his ideas on God and man. Three other interpretations of Eckhart’s (“apophatic,” “educational,” “methodological”) are presented and argued against.
35. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 2
Przemysław Gut Przemysław Gut
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: An Intellectual Portrait
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

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The aim of this paper is to set out the following: firstly, the most important facts from Leibniz’s biography; secondly, the position of Leibniz’s philosophy within the philosophical thought of the 17th century; thirdly, the diverse ways to explicate Leibniz’s philosophical thought that are still in use in literature today; fourthly, basic features which define the general spirit as well as the methods ofLeibniz’s philosophizing.
36. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 2
Krystyna Krauze-Błachowicz Krystyna Krauze-Błachowicz
Content Analysis of the Demonstration of the Existence of God Proposed by Leibniz in 1666
Analiza Treściowa „Dowodu Na Istnienie Boga” Zaproponowanego Przez Leibniza W 1666 Roku

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Leibniz’s juvenile work De arte combinatoria of 1666 included the “Proof for the Existence of God.” This proof bears a mathematical character and is constructed in line with Euclid’s pattern. I attempted to logically formalize it in 1982. In this text, on the basis of then analysis and the contents of the proof, I seek to show what concept of substance Leibniz used on behalf of the proof. Besides, Leibnizian conception of the whole and part as well as Leibniz’s definitional method have been reconstructed here.
37. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 2
Martyna Koszkało Martyna Koszkało
Scholastic Sources of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s Treatise Disputatio metaphysica deprincipio individui
Scholastyczne Źródła Traktatu Gottfryda Wilhelma Leibniza Disputatio Metaphysica Deprincipioindividui

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The object of this article is the scholastic inspirations found in the metaphysical disputation De principio individui by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The purpose ofthis study was, on one hand, a reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory concerning the principle of individuation, and on the other hand, a presentation of some texts by medieval scholastic authors (Henry of Ghent, Peter of Falco, Thomas Aquinas, Aegidius of Rome, Robert Kilwardby, William of Ockham) to whose ideas Leibniz refers in the named work, even though he had, for the most part, only second-hand information concerning them. In his juvenile treatise, Leibniz states that the individuating principle has to be universal, which means relevant to all kinds of being; it has to be metaphysical in character and not merely epistemological. He regards individuality as synonymous with unity combined with difference. He resolutely takes sides with nominalism and rejects the reality of all kinds of universal beings and beings whose unity is weaker than numerical unity. As a consequence of this assumption, he rejects the conceptions in which the principle of individuation is formed by: double negation, existence or the haecceity. By contrast, he embraces the solution (close to the tradition originated by Ockham and also related to Suarez), according to which the whole entity (tota entitas) of an individual thing is the principle of individuation. In effect, for Leibniz, any real thing is simply singular, which comes down to the thesis that a thing is singular owing to its own metaphysical subcomponents, which are singular by themselves.
38. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 2
Przemysław Gut Przemysław Gut
Leibniz: Personal Identity and Sameness of Substance
Leibniz — Osobowa Identyczność I Tożsamość Substancji

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Leibniz’s theory of personal identity has been the object of numerous discussions and various interpretations. In the paper I contrast my view on Leibniz’s solution to the problem of personal identity with the view of Margaret Wilson and Samuel Scheffler. They both claimed that Leibniz failed to formulate a coherent, uniform and tenable theory of personal identity. His stance - as they state - contains so many inconsistencies that it cannot be adopted as a satisfactory solution to this problem. I disagree with this opinion. It is my conviction that a more inquisitive analysis of Leibniz’s texts leads to the conclusion that such severe criticism of the results of Leibniz’s studies of personal identity is ill-founded. My paper consists of two parts. In the first part— drawing on suggestions made by Vailati, Thiel, Noonan, and Bobro—I attempt to present the essential arguments against the interpretation offered by M. Wilson and S. Scheffler. In the second part I address two issues. First, I try to discuss the reasons which Leibniz listed to support his thesis that personal identity requires both the continuity of substance and the continuity of some psychological phenomena. Then, I turn to identifying Leibniz’s arguments which support the thesis that what ultimately provides a person with identity is their substantial principle, i.e. the soul or “I.”
39. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 2
Marek Piwowarczyk Marek Piwowarczyk
The Leibnizian Doctrine of vinculum substantiate and the Problem of Composite Substances
Leibnizjańska Koncepcja Vinculum Substantiale A Problem Substancji Złożonych

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This paper is devoted to the late Leibnizian doctrine of vinculum substantiale. In the first section I sketch the old problem of possibility of composite substances. This possibility is refuted on the ground of Monadism (presented in section two). However Leibniz’s correspondence with Des Bosses contains new thoughts concerning composite substances. A vinculum enters the stage as a real unifier, transforming aggregates of monads into genuine substances (section three). In the last section I give a systematic interpretation of a vinculum.I start with the thesis that every composed thing, which is not a pure plurality of objects, must have two structures: the whole-parts structure and the subject-properties structure. In the case of substances the latter is ontologically prior over the former. A vinculum is a subject-of-properties (accidents) determining such a way of composition which makes a compound entity a true substance. Since Leibniz still thought a vinculum unifies independent (existentially and with regard to activity) substances he was inclined to separate a vinculum from the integrated monads and finally conceived it as an additional relatively independent monad-like substance.
40. Roczniki Filozoficzne: Volume > 65 > Issue: 2
Bogusław Paź Bogusław Paź
The Principle of Reason according to Leibniz: The Origins, Main Assumptions and Forms
Zasada Racji W Interpretacji G.W. Leibniza

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The subject of this article is Leibnizian interpretation of the principle of reason. Although the German philosopher called it principium grande of his philosophy, we do not find its systematic exposition in Leibniz’s works. The main aim of my paper is to present a short exposition of the principle. The article consists of three parts: in the first I present systematic exposition of the principle of reason with particular emphasis on explication of terms “principle” and “reason,” in the second, I show the origins of the principle, finally, in the third part, I discuss in detail three forms of it: the principle of sufficient reason, the principle of determining reason and the principle of rendering reason. I accept two main theses: firstly, a proper interpretation of this principle requires taking into account the whole context of Leibnizian philosophy, i.e. one cannot limit oneself (as it is usually happens among researchers) to only one discipline, e.g. logic. Secondly, the ultimate methodological and heuristical foundation of the principle of reason is Leibnizian metaphysics, especially natural theology.