Music, as sung and listened to, has been described in many a tale as powerful and transformative. Yet, the important question is not so much if that claim is true or whether it may be verified, but what kind of power and transformation are alluded to in those mythical and literary sources? Taking these symbolic claims and elaborating on their possible meaning, alongside thinkers such as Carolyne Abbate or Roland Barthes, proceeds to find ways in which these claims may suggest (...) different roles that music and singing play in human lives. As much as current musicological and anthropological academic narratives point to the power and its negotiation in society, there is more to singing voices’ charms than this. The author points to an important transformation that happens when the human existential qualities found in the voice’s imperfections (its materiality) are matched with the music’s aesthetic qualities (its beauty, sublimity, its symmetry, its impression) to transform the listener and make her listen. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Beitrag ist als ein Versuch zu verstehen, dem polnischen Leser eine recht seltsame Position aus der Reihe der deutschsprachigen Lodzaica, nämlich die 1913 im Verlag August Grüning in Pabianice herausgegebene Sammlung von Witzen und Anekdoten mit dem Titel 'Ne Mütze voll Witze aus Lodz und Pabianice’, näherzubringen. Der Verfasser des schmalen Bändchens, der sich hinter dem Pseudonym Wilfried Spectator verbirgt, ist Reinhold Piel, ein Deutscher aus Pabianice. Als Satelitenstadt von Łódź, der sich damals sehr rasch entwickelnden Textilmetropole, bildete (...) auch Pabianice in jenen Jahren zweifelsohne ein Teil des in ganz Europa einmaligen und eigenartigen multikulturellen und multiethnischen Tigcls. Reinhold Piel stellte sich mit seinem Büchlein die Aufgabe, ein Sammelporträt der Mentalität des typischen Vertreters jenes Tigels von Kulturen und Sprachen zu zeichnen. In der mehrere disparate Elemente integrierenden Gemeinschaft funktionierte der Humor sicherlich als eine Art Sicherheitsventil, mit dessen Hilfe man bestrebt war, Fremdes zu „zähmen“ und Konflikte zu entschärfen. Scheinbar abstrakte, „auslachende“ Beispiele haben sich wahrscheinlich ebenfalls vortrefflich als Methode bewährt, andere diplomatisch zu sensibilisieren, aber auch eigene Nachteile und Unzulänglichkeiten mit Abstand zu sehen. Der universale Charakter der Anekdote als literarisches Genre beruht u.a. auf ihrer Ahistorizität und Konkretheit zugleich, ihr narratives Werkzeug hingegen - die individualisierte Sprache des multiethnischen Milieus - liefert hervorragenden StolT für sprachwissenschaftliche Forschung. Ein besonders interessanter Aspekt ist dabei vor allem die Frage nach der Übersetzbarkeit bzw. Unübersetzbarkeit von Kulturidiomatik. Um dem Leser entgegenzukommen und ihm den historischen und informativen Wert der besprochenen Sammlung bewusst zu machen, wird im Anhang - zum ersten Mal in der polnischen Sprache - eine Auswahl von besonders charakteristischen Witzen der genannten Sammlung von R. Piel präsentiert. (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł stanowi praktyczną analizę czasowników utworzonych od jednego rdzenia -sprechen przy wykorzystaniu wszystkich możliwych w tym przypadku przedrostków czasownikowych. Celem analizy było jednakże nie tylko stworzenie części praktycznego słownika, w którym oprócz przykładów łączliwości danych czasowników na wzór istniejących słowników języka niemieckiego zawarte zostały również informacje dotyczące ich walencji, lecz biorąc pod uwagę całościowo badany paradygmat, chodziło o wykazanie zależności walencyjnych pomiędzy poszczególnymi derywatami, czyli ukazanie wpływu przedrostków na zmianę walencji czasownika o rdzeniu -sprechen.

a translation of A. Schoot "Kivy and Langer on Expressivity in Music".

In this essay, the author considers intertextuality in contemporary musical work, conceptualizing it not only as a critical category and as an artistic convention, but also as an aesthetic strategy. Listening for texts, as it were, opens the work for influences and gives it new purposes. The multiple texts, which are mutually interdependent, alter each other’s meaning and are “read” and “re-read” during aesthetic experience. Depending on the listener, these meanings are more or less pronounced; some are seen as primary, (...) while others are seen as secondary. Sometimes they are co-dependent and meaningful together, but sometimes they shy each other out. The multilayered quality of the work is acknowledged and seen as important even before individual meanings can be discovered. The author proposes a look at intertextuality in reference to musical works by Steve Reich,. The author uses Ryszard Nycz’s definition of intertextuality and confronts it with Umberto Eco’s idea of interpretation and the structural openness of art. Putting forward a concept of listening-in as a necessary element of receiving and understanding certain musical works, she suggests accepting an intertextual aesthetic strategy for a satisfactory aesthetic experience. Assuming the presence of multiple texts, which are different in character and meaning, and accepting their interdependence, changes the reception of the work and colors its qualities. The challenge is not only to seek out different texts hidden behind the purely musical face of the work but to find out the way they influence each other, knowing full well that the major or minor role those texts play depend on the listener as much as on the author. (shrink)

This paper presents gesture as an element of aesthetic experience of musical work. It focuses on specific dialectics of gesture in musical works as that which is visual or highlighted and at the same that which speaks to the listener. The difficulty in describing what constitute musical expressive gesture is there to guide us. The gesture stands in way of recognizing meaning and providing communication but at the same time that, which speaks to the listener is the most secluded, intimate (...) part of musical experience. (shrink)

In his article untitled Messages in Art Jerrold Levinson discusses the idea of a message behind a work of art. He argues that despite certain disclaimers put forward by artists it is „hard to deny that artworks (...) very often do have messages, and far from inexpressible ones”. From given examples it would seem that Levinson assumes that musical work just as other artworks sometimes generate messages and that in order for a work of music to be successful in expression (...) this message should be comprehensible and certainly not incoherent. The author of this paper draws on Levinson's “Messages in Art” as well as his “Music as Narrative and Music as Drama” to explore further the issues mentioned above. In particular the author argues that seeing musical works through the message it may generate is somewhat reductive and that musical work as well as other artworks are prone to abiding by an aesthetic code and therefore even when they allow for interpretation in terms of messages or morals these messages are incoherent or vague at best. (shrink)

Niniejszy tekst traktuje o potencjale teorii walencji – o możliwości wykorzystania jej w różnych dziedzinach nauki o języku i dydaktyki, głównie zaś o korzyściach związanych z umieszczaniem informacji dotyczącej łączliwości poszczególnych leksemów w słownikach. Celem artykułu jest analiza przydatności opublikowanych dotychczas słowników walencyjnych, wyodrębnienie czynników powodujących, iż nie cieszą się one zainteresowaniem oraz próba weryfikacji danych zawieranych w takich słownikach, aby mogły stać się słownikami użytkowymi. Fakt, iż opracowanie dobrego słownika walencyjnego stwarza leksykografom i lingwistom ogromne trudności, nie powinien jednak (...) działać demotywująco. Nawet jeśli nie da się uniknąć błędów, koncept słownika walencyjnego oraz gramatyki opartej na teorii walencji powinny być krok po kroku korygowane i udoskonalane, tak że w końcu będzie możliwe opracowanie optymalnej wersji, która może stać się bardzo przydatnym i chętnie używanym słownikiem. (shrink)

Metaphor in Experience of Musical Work. Account of Roger Scruton's Theory Author analyses Roger Scruton's theory of metaphorical transfer outlined in his The Aesthetics of Music. Tone and a special kind of listening constitute the main elements of music in Scruton's music aesthetics. It is through the listening experience, one in which physical sound changes into musical tone, that music comes into being. The change - Scruton argues - takes place when spatial and time metaphors are employed to describe and (...) name what we listen to. Author further examines Scruton's theory, his concept of metaphor and metaphorical transfer and also his account of experience of music understood as an experience of double intentionality. In conclusions, author argues that Scruton's account of music is inspirational and phenomenologically true even if -author feels - it fails to explain what is really unique in the listening experiences of music. (shrink)

A Few Notes on Aspect Seein g in Contemporar y Aesthetics In this paper author examines the problem of aspect seeing in reference to works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Virgil C. Aldrich posing the question of whether they are applicable to experience of musical works. Drawing on examples from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, author maintains that hearing a melody as solemn, sad, et cetera is neither universal nor unequivocal. Musical work, author suggests, does not present itself spontaneously to the listener. Conversely (...) it must be sought and found. To speak of aspect hearing or hearing as (as aesthetic hearing) in reference to music, one must seek out those qualities of musical work that are perceptual but also individually grasped in contrast to what is given in experience through acculturation and training. (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł traktuje o możliwościach i powinnościach procesu nauczania fonetyki na polskich uczelniach wśród studentów germanistyki. Zważywszy na bardzo dobrą podstawę poprawnej wymowy, jaką jest korzystna baza artykulacyjna Polaków, jak też rónorodność metod, które powinny być stosowane podczas uczenia fonetyki, nie ulega wątpliwości, że studenci są w stanie sprostać bardzo wysokim wymaganiom stawianym przez wykładowców. Zawarta w artykule baza pojęciowa jest jedną z metod, które winno się wykorzystywać, aby osiągnąć rzeczony cel. A zatem obok nader świadomej artykulacji niemieckich głosek na (...) zajęciach fonetyki na kierunku germanistyki jest również miejsce dla dwóch kolejnych zdecydowanie bardziej praktycznych metod. Chodzi tu oczywiście o metodę werbo-tonalną oraz metodę zmierzającą do automatyzacji jedynie okazyjnie poprawnie artykułowanych głosek. (shrink)

Autorka rozważa relacje między wartościami, szczególnie moralnymi, a dziełem muzycznym. Przedstawiając najpierw rozumienie wartości w filozofii Romana Ingardena, a następnie przywołując przykładowe sformułowania moralizmu w odniesieniu do muzyki (autorstwa Rogera Scrutona, Platona i Petera Kivy’ego), autorka pyta, czy możemy uważać dzieło muzyczne za nośnik wartości moralnych. Następnie badając, w jaki inny sposób dzieło muzyczne może być związane z wartościami moralnymi, autorka dochodzi do wniosku, że relacje między wartościami moralnymi a dziełem muzycznym należą do stosunków subtelnych i być może tym, co (...) zawdzięczamy dziełom muzycznym jest umiejętność słuchania. (shrink)

The author points out to the rehabilitation of listening which occurs in Lyotard's philosophy in the field of his aesthetic analysis. The philosophical grasping of time and especially the instant is being explained in Lyotard through the listening mode and in invoking the aural experiences and the experiences of sound. The author suggests that the category of listening is often used in place of the category of aesthetic and as metaphor of the aesthetic perception. In contrast to seeing, listening can (...) be undertaken together with other sensual experiences and thus it allows for a more polyphonic experience. Listening, author maintains, is a very special type of experience, on one hand it is open and welcoming, on the other discrete and prone to solitude, qualitatively changing its course. (shrink)

Author refers to theories of mater and form, trying to find a way to establish the material grounds for musical sound. From Aristotle basic definition of physis author turns to Roger Scruton and his doubts whether what listeners hear as music, tone and even sound may be found among the physical things.

Autorka przedstawia analizę pojęcia wstrząsu jako kategorii estetycznej użytej przez Th. Adorno w kontekście niemożności odbioru muzyki nowej. Nawiązując do Filozofii nowej muzyki oraz Teorii estetycznej autorka wyznacza kilka sposobów opisu i rozumienia wstrząsu, jakie znaleźć można u Adorno. Przy okazji śledząc tok myślenia filozofa zadaje sobie pytanie o to, czy wstrząs, o którym pisze Adorno jest zasadniczo czymś negatywnym, czym też może autor widzi w tym, gwałtownym sposobie reakcji na muzykę nową – ratunek.

Author begins with setting up a problematics of relations between values and evaluation in art and aesthetics experience. Following Bohdan Dziemidok work on American Axiology and Aesthetics (2014) author offers her remarks on the subject and joins the discussion on values and qualities and the possibility of assessing and evaluating the work of art with or without grounding it in aesthetic experience. Following Ingarden’s aesthetic phenomenology and turning to Władysław Stróżewski, author suggests that the values are a necessary part of (...) any aesthetic theory yet the understanding of the work of art and its proper evaluation should also place the values in the proper if changing cultural and historical context. (shrink)

Autorka nawiązuje do artykułu J.F. Lyotarda „A Few Words to Sing” w której filozof podejmuje się analizy utworu Sequenza III Luciano Berio napisanego i śpiewanego przez Cathy Bereberian. „A Few Words to Sing” jest przykładem podejmowania przez Lyotarda tematów muzycznych „na granicy”. W tym konkretnym przypadku autorka sugeruje, że wspomniana analiza bardzo dobrze wpisuje się w postulowane przez Lyotarda kategorie figury oraz oddania głosu [ofierze] w opozycji wobec tego co [czysto]estetyczne (resisting the aesthetic). Zainteresowania muzyczne Lyotarda, być może nie tak (...) wyeksponowane jak jego zainteresowania obrazem (choć kategorie figury i gestu okazują się łatwo przekraczać granice rodzajów sztuki) także bardzo wyraźnie wskazują na szczególny rodzaj [anty]estetyki uprawiany przez Lyotrada, gdzie udzielenie głosu ofierze staje się istotnym, jeśli nie podstawowym kryterium sztuki. (shrink)

Summary: In this paper author maintains that the term “ideal border” used by Roman Ingarden several times in his writing on music perception has more to offer than its face value suggests. The term is ambiguous and in its first reading seems to imply that Ingarden's take on musical work is all but coherent. Yet author tries to show that the term itself if taken seriously in its various possible interpretations makes Ingarden's aesthetics of music more interesting and inspiring then (...) ever. The musical work seen as wobbly yet somehow graspable ideal [border] which is at the same time the point of departure and the point of destination for composers, artists and listeners in their respective experiences, makes Ingarden's music aesthetics more accessible and more telling in its attempt to discover the true nature of our aesthetic perception of music. (shrink)

Referat wskazuje na trudną do ukazania w pełni relację między wykonawcą muzyki wokalnej a jego ciałem. Autorka sugeruje, że różnice w traktowaniu (nazywaniu, określaniu i ukazywaniu) roli ciała w tej relacji wynikają z kulturowych nawyków. Z łatwości bądź trudności w odwoływaniu się do ciała jako ważnego elementu ekspresji, produkcji i ugruntowania twórczości artystycznej w tym twórczości muzycznej. Odwołując się do trzech tradycji wokalnych, do wokalizy, improwizacji i zabawy muzycznej, w których ciało traktowane było zawsze jako element tworzenia muzyki, czy to (...) poprzez instrumentalne potraktowanie ciała (np. jako elementu rezonującego) czy poprzez oparcie się na cielesnym ugruntowaniu dźwięku w postawie, w wykorzystaniu rąk i tradycyjnych rezonatorów piersiowego i głowowego w tradycji śpiewu operowego, autorka porównuje różny sposób odkrywania i zakrywania roli i znaczenia ciała. Analiza przykładów pochodzących z różnych tradycji i stylów muzycznych wskazuje na niezwykle silne cielesne osadzenie śpiewu. Różnica polega tutaj na uwidocznieniu tego osadzenia. Zależności pomiędzy wykonywaniem muzyki wokalnej a przygotowaniem i odpowiednim wykorzystaniem ciała są bardziej widoczne np. w tradycji afrykańskiej czy kanadyjskich Inuit, a zdecydowanie zakrywane (tj. np. czynione sprawą „techniki” i przygotowania wykonawcy) w europejskiej tradycji artystycznej śpiewu operowego. (shrink)

Wydane w latach 1782-1786 Niemieckie baśnie ludowe Johanna Karla Augusta Musausa, znanego oświeceniowej publiczności autora poczytnych Podróży fizjognomicznych, przyjęto początkowo entuzjastycznie, uznając je za wyjątkowo udaną formę literaryzacji elementów baśniowej tradycji ustnej i pisanej oraz podkreślając walory "dowcipnej" narracji. W wieku XVIII pojęcie "baśni" (Miirchen) miało szerokie znaczenie. Słowniki i leksykony wskazują na to, iż pojęcia: "bajka" (Fabel), "baśń" (Mcirchen), "podanie" (Sage) i "legenda"(Legende) mogły być używane zamiennie. Musaus definiuje we wstępie do swego zbioru zatytułowanym Słowo wstępne do pana Dawida (...) Runkela, będącym humorystyczną autoprezentacją pisarza i jego baśni, pojęcie "baśni" jako "poetę cudowną" (wunderbare Dichtung), przemawiającą w sposób szczególny do wyobraźni czytelnika. Taka definicja baśni pozwoliła zebrać Musausowi w swym zbiorze teksty, które według dzisiejszych kryteriów określono by w większości jako podania. Ukazanie się w roku 1812 pierwszego tomu Baśni dziecięcych i domowych braci Jakuba i Wilhelma Grimmów było wydarzeniem epokowym w historii baśni. Baśnie braci Grimmów na długo stały się normą o uniwersalnym znaczeniu, według której oceniano baśniowość tego typu utworów. Podług romantycznej miary Grimmów oceniano również oświeceniowe baśnie Musausa, a ocena ta najczęściej nie wypadała pozytywnie. Artykuł przedstawia recepcję Niemieckich baśni ludowych Musausa u braci Grimmów, Ludwika Tiecka, Achima von Arnima i u nawiązującego bezpośrednio do romantycznych koncepcji Grimmów Ludwika Bechsteina, uwypuklając na ich przykładzie różnicę w ujęciu fenomenu baśniowości w oświeceniu i romantyzmie. (shrink)

The main focus of this article is the question of the aesthetics of an unaesthetic ruined space.The author also pays particular attention to the ambivalence that exists in contemporary derelict architecture, referred to as ‘modern ruins’, and tries to show that such locations can be viewed as an ‘in‑between’ space.

English title: Change for praktike. Minor Comments to Evagrius Ponticus’ Philosophy of Life. The paper elucidates the evolution in understanding of a life phenomenon, which took place in the writing of the early Christian authors who referred to the heritage of the ancient philosophy trying to define their own position in relation to it. In this perspective the present author discusses the thought of Evagius Ponticus who undertakes some currents typical of Socrates’ concept of life, known from Plato’s dialogues. As (...) Bogaczyk argues, among the common points for both philosophical traditions, the ancient Greek and early Christian, there are, first of all, the understanding of life as change and as the exercise in accepting this change and mortality it inevitably implies. That is only the dialectics of life and death, or hope and pessimism, which makes the phenomenon of life accessible to us, and its concept possible to be grasped. Thus, this dialectics can be applied either in contemporary currents of philosophy of life or in psychological and medical approach towards the problem of depression. (shrink)

Drawing on phenomenological literature author presents understanding of the aesthetic experience of the musical work pointing to several things: 1. the deep grounding of the experience in myth and Orphic tradition, 2. to the metaphor of building worlds and 3. to being in the moment as one of the most important description of the experience of musical work. Further on author underlines the dynamic as well as fickle character of the experience of musical work, suspended between the sensual audio experience (...) and the conscious mental one. Phenomenological descriptions capture the aesthetic experience of musical work as processual, subjective, emotional, quality based and unfinished, in which they realize perfectly the complexity of the experience, claims the author. (shrink)

Autorka chciałaby prześledzić niektóre schematy cielesnych zachowań i podstaw w odniesieniu do indywidualnego śpiewu oraz do gry na wiolonczeli w odniesieniu do pojęć piękna, wolności i przemocy. W rezultacie tych analiz chciałaby wskazać na przełamywanie zastanych cielesnych schematów na rzecz muzyki (lepszej gry, lepszego dźwięku, lepszego brzmienia) np. u wirtuozów instrumentalistów Mstislava Rostropovicha czy 2 Cellos a także we współczesnej pedagogice muzycznej oraz u śpiewaków wirtuozów muzyki popularnej, np. Whitney Houston. Zastanawianiu się nad tym, jak dochodzi do przełamania oraz „uwolnienia (...) się” ciała, o ile rzeczywiście z tym mamy do czynienia, w ekspresji wykonania towarzyszyć będzie pytanie o to, w jaki sposób i o ile to właśnie ciało/cielesność (rozumiana tutaj organicznie i funkcyjnie) dyktuje konkretne zachowania wyzwalając się stopniowo z nawyków i dyktatów kultury, a na ile należałby tutaj mówić o rewolucji estetycznej i zastępowaniu jednych schematów (a może ideałów) przez inne. (shrink)

Music presents itself as a process, a continuation, following through. Musical works and music experience is perceived as development, succession, dialogical reaching out and harmonizing. Not one process but many. Among those various processes that make music the author focuses on a specific process of human development, which occurs during listening as much as during performing music. This is a process of growing and self-realization. In the course of the paper following the processual character of music, author turns to Maurice (...) Merleau-Ponty and Mikel Dufrenne in the phenomenological tradition, to Jerrold Levinson and his understanding of music through a listening moment to moment process and also to Theodor Adorno and his way of explaining music as a process of dialectical development. (shrink)

Escribir hoy en día un libro sobre hermenéutica, que tal hermenéutica se refiera a la desarrollada por G. Gadamer en su conocido Verdad y método y que se pretenda añadir algo nuevo a lo mucho escrito sobre el tema parecería, a primera vista, empresa irrealizable. Que ambas pretensiones inspiren la sólida monografía de María G. Navarro —titulada Interpretar y argumentar— constituye empresa audaz y arriesgada, plena de coraje innovador, que provoca admiración, curiosidad e interés. Contra lo que pudiera parecer a (...) primera vista, el libro contiene un alto componente de originalidad y creatividad, debido a la estratagema metodoló-gica de que se sirve la autora. A saber, una hermenéutica in obliquo, estrategia consistente en interpretar a la hermenéutica gadameriana a través del prisma de la lógica de la argumentación. (shrink)

Interview with the author of "why We are in Need of Tails." Iguana Books, Toronto, Canada.

Lekarski obowiązek niesienia pomocy pacjentom wynika nie tylko z zapisów Kodeksu Etyki Lekarskiej, lecz przede wszystkim z przepisu art. 30 ustawy o zawodach lekarza i lekarza dentysty (u.z.l.), nakazującego lekarzowi udzielenie pomocy „w każdym przypadku, gdy zwłoka w jej udzieleniu mogłaby spowodować niebezpieczeństwo utraty życia, ciężkiego uszkodzenia ciała lub ciężkiego rozstroju zdrowia, oraz w innych przypadkach niecierpiących zwłoki”. Zastosowania przepisu art. 30 u.z.l. nie wyłącza również klauzula sumienia, zawarta w przepisie art. 39 u.z.l. stanowiącym, iż lekarz może co prawda odmówić (...) wykonania świadczenia niezgodnego z sumieniem, jednak tylko wtedy, gdy nie spowoduje to niebezpieczeństwa utraty życia, ciężkiego rozstroju zdrowia oraz w innych przypadkach niecierpiących zwłoki. Z kolei, w pozostałych okolicznościach, w przypadku odmowy udzielenia świadczenia, lekarz musi wskazać realne możliwości jego uzyskania u innego lekarza lub w innym podmiocie leczniczym. Dalsze rozważania mają zatem odpowiedzieć na pytanie, czy obecny kształt przepisu art. 39 u.z.l., z zastrzeżeniem zapisów art. 30 u.z.l. nie stawia lekarza przed dylematem: odpowiedzialność prawna czy sumienie. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a way of characterizing human agency in terms of the concept of a two‐way power. I outline this conception of agency, defend it against some objections, and briefly indicate how it relates to free agency and to moral praise‐ and blameworthiness.

Data involving epistemic modals suggest that some classically valid argument forms, such as _reductio_, are invalid in natural language reasoning as they lead to modal collapses. We adduce further data showing that the classical argument forms governing the existential quantifier are similarly defective, as they lead to a _de re–de dicto_ collapse. We observe a similar problem for disjunction. But if the classical argument forms for negation, disjunction and existential quantification are invalid, what are the correct forms that govern the (...) use of these items? Our diagnosis is that epistemic modals interfere with hypothetical reasoning. We present a modal first-order logic and model theory that characterizes hypothetical reasoning with epistemic modals in a principled manner. One upshot is a sound and complete natural deduction system for reasoning with epistemic modals in first-order logic. (shrink)

the article presents Jean Paul Sartre’s idea of the human body and the bodiliness described in his book Being and nothingness (1943). In this book, Sartre argued that every human relation is based on the objecti cation of one human by another, and entering into empathic contact is basically impossible. the author of the article has con onted this thesis with contemporary psychological and neuropsychological thought (mirror neuron theory) and has investigated how the category of empathy functions in literary studies. (...) A very important part of this article is the re ection on the presence and topicality of Sartre’s beliefs in the literature. the author has conducted an interpretation of Witold gombrowicz’s story Tancerz mecenasa Kraykow‐ s ego (1926) om the collection Bakakaj (1957), and has shown that the ideas presented by Sartre are re ected there in a very interesting way. Sartre’s philosophy turns out to be abso‐ lutely up‐to‐date right now, more than many psychological theories — it not only supplies a philosophical base for the analysis of human relations (those also presented in literature), but also gives a certain tool for describing them in the form of speci c language and terminology. (shrink)

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What’s Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to (...) social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development results from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether. (shrink)

In 1969 Harry Frankfurt published his hugely influential paper 'Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility' in which he claimed to present a counterexample to the so-called 'Principle of Alternate Possibilities' ('a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise'). The success of Frankfurt-style cases as counterexamples to the Principle has been much debated since. I present an objection to these cases that, in questioning their conceptual cogency, undercuts many of those debates. Such cases (...) all require a counterfactual mechanism that could cause an agent to perform an action that he cannot avoid performing. I argue that, given our concept of what it is for someone to act, this requirement is inconsistent. Frankfurt-style alleged counterexamples are cases where an agent is morally responsible for an action he performs even though, the claim goes, he could not have avoided performing that action. However, it has recently been argued, e.g. by John Fischer, that a counterexample to the Principle could be a 'Fischer-style case', i.e. a case where the agent can either perform the action or do nothing else. I argue that, although Fischer-style cases do not share the conceptual flaw common to all Frankfurt-style cases, they also fail as counterexamples to the Principle. The paper finishes with a brief discussion of the significance of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. (shrink)

Readers are awaiting a new encounter with stories united under the common title Why We Are in Need of Tales. Let me remind you that these deep philosophical books were written by Maria daVenza Tillmanns, a professional philosopher dedicated to the study of philosophizing with children, who has gained valuable experience in this field. Maria’s books are inspired by her work with her students at El Toyon Elementary School in National City (California), with whom Maria held philosophy (...) with children classes for three years before COVID-19. With parental permission, the children provided their drawings, which are used as illustrations for the books. I read Why We Are in Need of Tales, Part III with great pleasure. The focus of this book is on making decisions, sometimes very hard decisions. In Part II, the focus is on dreams — hopes and wishes we have for life. This book looks at how we may best decide how to make those hopes and wishes come true. And the answer Huk and Tuk suggest is deceptively easy: by making decisions “with your eyes wide open.” (5, p. ix). The author of this excellent book managed to describe how to make decisions with your eyes wide open through the playful dialogue between Huk and Tuk. The books are written in dialogue so the reader immediately plunges into the context of a lively conversation. Dialogue not only sharpens attention, but also invites the reader to participate in the conversation. In this way, the reader becomes a listener at the same time. (shrink)

This paper focuses on negative exemplarity-related emotions (NEREs) and on their educational implications. In this paper, we will first argue for the nonexpendability of negative emotions broadly conceived (section 2) by defending their instrumental and intrinsic role in a good and flourishing life. In section 3, we will make the claim more specific by focusing on the narrower domain of NEREs and argue for their moral and educational significance by evaluating whether they fit the arguments provided in the previous section. (...) In section 4, we will propose three educational strategies to foster NEREs’ positive moral role. In conclusion, we will point out that an exemplarist approach to character education would greatly benefit from a more fine-grained account of the emotions involved in the educational process and from a broader perspective on which of these emotions should be taken as valuable for educational purposes. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the topics of trust and expertise from the perspective of political epistemology. In particular, it addresses four main questions: (§1) How should we characterise experts and their expertise? (§2) How can non-experts recognize a reliable expert? (§3) What does it take for non-experts to trust experts? (§4) What problems impede trust in experts?

Już w latach sześćdziesiątych zjawisko walencji znacznie zyskało na znaczeniu. Przyczyną tego mógł być fakt, iż gramatyka oparta na teorii walencji w coraz większym stopniu znajdowała swoje miejsce w nauczaniu języków obcych. W procesie uczenia się języka obcego istnieje bowiem zależność pomiędzy przyswajaniem znaczeń słów a zapamiętywaniem ich struktur syntaktycznych, co niewątpliwie bazuje na zjawisku walencji. Punktem wyjścia tej tezy jest zasada, według której wyrazy o podobnym znaczeniu tworzą konstrukcje o podobnej składni, co z kolei wypływa z faktu, iż wyrazy (...) bliskoznaczne wykazują podobne cechy walencyjne. Problem pojawia się podczas przyswajania języka obcego, albowiem język ojczysty w większym lub mniejszym stopniu wpływa na proces uczenia się. Chodzi tu oczywiście o zjawiska: transferu (pozytywnego oddziaływania języka ojczystego na język obcy) oraz interferencji (negatywnego wpływu), z czego zjawisko interferencji zaistniałe poprzez przenoszenie konstrukcji języka ojczystego na konstrukcje w języku obcym prowadzi do tego, że uczący się popełniają błędy. Biorąc pod uwagę sposób przedstawiania składni i konstrukcji językowych w oparciu o teorię walencji, nie da się zaprzeczyć, iż wzrasta zapotrzebowanie na informacje o cechach walencyjnych głównych części mowy (czasowników, rzeczowników oraz przymiotników). Językoznawcy starają się wyjść temu naprzeciw i redagują słowniki walencyjne, w których oprócz takich właśnie informacji zawierane są również modele poprawnych konstrukcji zdaniowych z danym słowem. W Niemczech od połowy XX w. istnieją dwa instytuty, gdzie prowadzone są badania nad zjawiskiem walencji poszczególnych części mowy: das Herder-Institut der Universität Leipzig oraz das Institut für deutsche Sprache Mannheim. W prezentowanym artykule przedstawione zostały słowniki zredagowane przez językoznawców działających w tych instytutach, jak również inne koncepcje słowników walencyjnych. Na uwagę zasługują tu przede wszystkim prace kontrastywne, jak np. opisany w artykule Słownik walencyjny niemieckich i polskich czasowników (N. Morciniec, L. Cirko i R. Ziobro). Analizie poddane zostały każdorazowo: budowa słownika, informacje zawarte przy poszczególnych hasłach, adresat, założenia oraz praktyczność danej pozycji. (shrink)

In English, discourse reference to time involves grammatical tenses interpreted as temporal anaphors. Recently, it has been argued that conditionals involve modal discourse anaphora expressed by a parallel grammatical system of anaphoric modals. Based on evidence from Kalaallisut, this paper argues that temporal and modal anaphora can be just as precise in a language that does not have either grammatical category. Instead, temporal anaphora directly targets eventualities of verbs, without mediating tenses, while modal anaphora involves anaphoric moods and/or attitudinal verbs.

Trans is usually defined as the set of practices and identities outside of the binary gender system and includes individuals who identity as genderqueer, transgender or transsexual. Trans theories refer to a range of approaches including medical and psychiatric theories, performativity and social constructionist theories, and queer theory, that are used to explain transgender practices and identities.

It is generally agreed that for blame to be appropriate the wrongdoer must be blameworthy. However, blameworthiness is not sufficient for appropriate blame. It has been argued that for blame to be appropriate the blamer must have standing to blame. Philosophers writing on the topic have distinguished several considerations that might defeat someone’s standing to blame. This paper examines the underexplored consideration of how personal relationships can influence who has the standing to express blame. We seem to assume that if (...) we do not stand in the right relation to the wrongdoer, it is not our business to blame them. I identify three challenges to this view. First, we do not know what is wrong with meddling (whether it is morally or prudentially wrong). Second, there are cases where we have no close relation to the wrongdoer, but where we seem to have standing nonetheless – murder and other serious moral offences are examples of this. Third, we don’t seem to have a clear conception of what ‘standing’ means, and this makes it hard to see how discussion on standing can help us determine the propriety of blame. This paper defends the notion of standing as a propriety condition on blame in cases of meddling. I argue that personal relationships influence who has the standing to blame through constitution of relationship-specific norms; and that the role these norms play in developing and regulating our relationships can explain why meddlesome blame is morally wrong. (shrink)

Reasons can play a variety of roles in a variety of contexts. For instance, reasons can motivate and guide us in our actions (and omissions), in the sense that we often act in the light of reasons. And reasons can be grounds for beliefs, desires and emotions and can be used to evaluate, and sometimes to justify, all these. In addition, reasons are used in explanations: both in explanations of human actions, beliefs, desires, emotions, etc., and in explanations of a (...) wide range of phenomena involving all sorts of animate and inanimate substances. This diversity has encouraged the thought that the term 'reason' is ambiguous or has different senses in different contexts. Moreover, this view often goes hand in hand with the claim that reasons of these different kinds belong to different ontological categories: to facts (or something similar) in the case of normative/justifying reasons, and to mental states in the case of motivating/explanatory reasons. In this paper I shall explore some of the main roles that reasons play and, on that basis, I shall offer a classification of kinds of reasons. As will become clear, my classification of reasons is at odds with much of the literature in several respects: first, because of my views about how we should understand the claim that reasons are classified into different kinds; second, because of the kinds into which I think reasons should be classified; and, finally, because of the consequences I think this view has for the ontology of reasons. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that a proper understanding of what Leibniz meant by “hypercategorematic infinite” sheds light on some fundamental aspects of his conceptions of God and of the relationship between God and created simple substances or monads. After revisiting Leibniz’s distinction between (i) syncategorematic infinite, (ii) categorematic infinite, and (iii) actual infinite, I examine his claim that the hypercategorematic infinite is “God himself” in conjunction with other key statements about God. I then discuss the issue of whether the (...) hypercategorematic infinite is a “whole”, comparing the four kinds of infinite outlined by Leibniz in 1706 with the three degrees of infinity outlined in 1676. In the last section, I discuss the relationship between the hypercategorematic infinite and created simple substances. I conclude that, for Leibniz, only a being beyond all determinations but eminently embracing all determinations can enjoy the pure positivity of what is truly infinite while constituting the ontological grounding of all things. (shrink)

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in (...) outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history. (shrink)

Ignorance is often a perfectly good excuse. There are interesting debates about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake subvert obligation, but little disagreement about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake exculpate. What about agents who have all the relevant facts in view but fail to meet their obligations because they do not have the right moral beliefs? If their ignorance of their obligations derives from mistaken moral beliefs or from ignorance of the moral significance of the facts they have in (...) view, should they be excused for failing to meet their moral obligations? It is not obvious that they should. In this paper we argue that the best non-skeptical accounts of moral responsibility acknowledge that factual ignorance and mistake will diminish moral responsibility in a way that moral ignorance and mistake will not. That is because factual ignorance is often non-culpable so long as it meets certain merely procedural epistemic standards but the same is not true of moral ignorance. Our argument is that the assumption that it is gets the standards of culpability for moral ignorance wrong, and that the mistake is encouraged by the thought that culpability in general requires an instance of known wrongdoing: that acting wrongly requires de dicto unresponsiveness to one’s obligations at some stage. We deny this and conclude that, therefore, ignorance and mistaken belief are indeed often perfectly good excuses – but far less often than some philosophers claim. (shrink)

Faced with current urgent calls for more trust in experts, especially in high impact and politically sensitive domains, such as climate science and COVID-19, the complex and problematic nature of public trust in experts and the need for a more critical approach to the topic are easy to overlook. Scepticism – at least in its Humean mitigated form that encourages independent, questioning attitudes – can prove valuable to democratic governance, but stands in opposition to the cognitive dependency entailed by epistemic (...) trust. In this paper, we investigate the tension between the value of mitigated scepticism – understood as the exercise of reason-based doubt in a particular domain – and the need for trust in experts. We offer four arguments in favour of mitigated scepticism: the argument from loss of intellectual autonomy; the argument from democratic deficit; the argument from the normative failures of science; and the argument from past and current injustices. These arguments highlight the tension between the requirements for trust and justified scepticism about the role of experts. One solution, which we reject, is the idea that reliance, rather than trust, is sufficient for the purposes of accommodating experts in policy matters. The solution we endorse is to create a ‘climate of trust’, where questioning experts and expertise is welcomed, but the epistemic trust necessary for action upon information which the public cannot obtain first-hand is enabled and encouraged through structural, institutional, and justice-based measures. (shrink)

The term ‘human nature’ can refer to different things in the world and fulfil different epistemic roles. Human nature can refer to a classificatory nature (classificatory criteria that determine the boundaries of, and membership in, a biological or social group called ‘human’), a descriptive nature (a bundle of properties describing the respective group’s life form), or an explanatory nature (a set of factors explaining that life form). This chapter will first introduce these three kinds of ‘human nature’, together with seven (...) reasons why we disagree about human nature. In the main, this chapter focuses on the explanatory concept of human nature, which is related to one of the seven reasons for disagreement, namely, the scientific authority inherent in the term ‘nature’. I will examine why, in a number of historical contexts, it was attractive to refer to ‘nature’ as an explanatory category, and why this usage has led to the continual contestation of the term within the sciences. The claim is that even if the contents of talk about ‘nature’ varied historically, the term’s pragmatic function of demarcation stayed the same. The term ‘nature’ conveys scientific authority over a territory; ‘human nature’ is a concept used to divide causes, as well as experts, and thereby conquer others who threaten to invade one’s epistemic territory. Analysing this demarcation, which has social as well as epistemic aspects, will help us to understand why the explanatory role has been important and why it is unlikely that people will ever agree on either the meaning or the importance of ‘human nature’ as an explanatory category. (shrink)