The author tries to prove that the general tendency in the development of the thought of Nicholas of Cusa is positive as it aims at extracting from human ignorance these pieces of positive knowledge that are the most valuable. The advantage of Nicholas of Cusa’s thought is that it refers not only to philosophy but also to the formal sciences (including mathematical ones). Therefore, his thought can be represented in the form of coherent sentences. Nicholas of Cusa’s frequent references to mathematics make it possible for us to discern in the philosopher’s thought some elements of the modern research methodology. According to the philosopher from Cusa, the task of mathematics is to use geometrical models and mathematical analogy, as they are the most efficient way of presenting experience in terms of a theoretical vision of the universe.

The author of the present article has striven to prove the existence of an analogy between the ideological and theoretical premises of quantum mechanics and the theses of recentivist theory.
Quantum physics deals with single physical facts which in science are called the undulant function. It turns out that recentivism is based on the anthropological premises embedded in the context of “here-now-being”. This means the acceptance of a reductionist attitude in both quantum theory and recentivism. The author has adduced in the article a number of arguments which confirm the correspondence between the research methods of quantum physics and the premises of recentivism.

The present article is an introduction into the most recent philosophical stance taken by Józef Bańka, i.e. his quantum recentivism presented in his book, Our Father Who Are Now. This stance corresponds to the research conducted by contemporary scientists, and consisting in attempts at arrive at “general theory of everything.” Such a theory would be capable of explaining the ideas of pure presentness and the philosophy of presentness, and it would also explain what the cause for rise of the universe and its continued existence was. The quantum recentivism is a stance allowing us to solve the above problems on the basis of philosophy, and the transcendental ontology introduced there creates new possibilities for the system. Thus, the essential idea is that of “event” (the Absolute), which has changed the range it used to have. From now on, its ontological area is both the anthropic Self of the infant recential, and the Supermonad of the parallel recential. Owing to a transcendental “recoupling” between the two areas there takes place the relation described as “event - collision” (zdarzenie - zderzenie). The aim of the present article is then to discuss the development of the notion of “event” in quantum recentivism, and to emphasise its originality as the quantum theory constitutes a novelty for recentivist philosophy. In view of this fact, a new terminology has to be applied, and this matter has also been discussed here while presenting the theory.

In the article, the author deals with the problems of ontology in recentivism, where ontology plays the role of the perennial philosophy. From this perspective, the author examines the relation of ontology towards epistemology. It turns out that, having assumed the declared primacy of ontology over epistemology, the matter becomes more complicated, so the author suggests that it is hardly possible to separate these two things and give a position of prominence to one of them. The author shows the subject-object (resp. ontological-epistemological) correlation on the basis of the relationship between the one-appearance man and multi-appearance man and also on the basis of the euthyphronic (right-minded) cognition in the form of an act of the right-minded cognition. The ontological implication of departing from a right-minded act is the world’s being the world for us (cf. the anthropological consequences of recentivism). Bearing this in mind the author also examines the problem of existence itself, which in recentivism is a cognitive superstition, and the relationship between the fundamental ontology and the regional one.

It is commonly known that reductionism and holism are mutually opposed stances, which represent opposite ends of the spectrum. The question arises how those opposite notions can be related to the principles of recentivism. The author consciously used those polar ideas to demonstrate that the whole conception of recentivism appears to be a reductionist current of thought. Ultimately, the author of the article wanted to show that globalising (holistic) theories do not describe reality so precisely as reductionist conceptions of which the philosophy of recentivism is one. It has to be conceded that reductionism is the dominant stance. The author juxtaposed it on purpose with holism in order to foreground the features of reductionism itself. It is holism that is closet to various programmes of the unification of power.

The present article shows us the concept of the self-realising man as understood by A.H. Maslow, the main representative of the current called humanist psychology. The author states that the ethics of right-mindedness, devised by J. Banka, is the ethics of a self-realising human being. Thus, anyone who follows the principles of this kind of ethics makes the most of his or her possibilities. Such a person should be contrasted with a neurotic, who, in J. Banka’s terminology, is called a “mock-man” (lieczlowiek), who does not satisfy his human needs, does not develop, does not give expression to his or her personality, and prefers to put on “a mask”.
It is the author’s intention to emphasise, in the present work, the mutual relations and similarities, existing without doubt between philosophical and psychological concepts.

The article deals with the anthropological and ethical aspect of one of the most urgent contemporary problems i.e. globalisation and planetary society. Through the course of analysis the author presents the selected dilemmas of globalisation and then forms a statement that according to the ethics of the right-minded thinking it is theoretically possible to reduce the ambivalence of the above-mentioned processes. Human life is important in ‘here-now-being’ and no human being can put off indefinitely resolving his or her acute problems, including the possibility of experiencing happiness. Such a possibility has been presented here in the context of the ethical postulate of the protection of the spheres of privacy and intimacy, irrespective of other macro scale activities. Although the above is not the only or sufficient level of activity, nevertheless it is valuable being ready for use almost right away, a recentiori. What is also necessary are the solutions on a macro-ethical scale. Recentivism itself offers new possibilities like recentivist philosophy of history which leads to the postulate of creating the optimal social prognoses based on properly formulated directive of historicism, and in keeping with the principle of recentivism: whatever is, is now.

The author of the present article has attempted to point to the focal point around which both the Greeks’ ontological research, and the fundamental problem of European philosophy. Therefore, he has taken into consideration the first sentence from his poem Peri Physeos: “Being and thinking are the same”. According to the author of the article, the above formula expresses the fundamental relation between being and thought which are thus ascribed to each other. Essential here is the fact that this formula - although it is not justified in itself - justifies not only all of Parmenides’s statements, but also provides a foundation for the whole of Greek philosophy, and the whole of the later philosophical reflection.

The present article is an attempt at analysing E. Levinas’s attitude towards ancient philosophy as exemplified by the views of Parmenides of Elea. Levinas, while criticising the ontological tradition of Western philosophy, identifies its source in Parmenides’s philosophy, which is thus indirectly held responsible for a totalising way of thinking that negates the transcendental. Levinas sharply contrasts this tradition with the metaphysics of the Infinite, he also opposes otherness to identity, and autonomy to heteronomy. It is then worth our while to consider the sources of this criticism, and the grounds for Levinas’s objections against Western ontology.

The purpose of this article is to present an outline of Platonic and Aristotelian henology in the light of differences and dissimilar consequences that follow from them mainly with respect to ontology. The author claims that the essence of the Platonic henology, which is fundamentally based on the principle of the difference (binarity), is a dialectical exploration of one-many relationship and a disclosure of the basic role that this relationship plays in the structure of reality. On the other hand Aristotelian henology, which is mainly grounded on the systematical analysis of different meanings of oneness is based on the idea of sameness (identity) and on Aristotle’s doctrine of substance.

The main theses of the present article can be reduced to the presentation of its four principal aims:
1. A discussion of the strategy of choosing a form of being, and the reconstruction of the two fundamental meanings Dasein as:
- an exemplary being (being),
- a straightforward being here and now (be-ing).
2. The drawing of the reader’s attention to the two different senses of the term “ontological difference.” As a result of this the category “ontic” is occasionally used by Heidegger as an inner category of the fundamental ontology (ontic = existential), or as a category that is external with regard to the fundamental ontology and belongs to the traditional metaphysics (ontic = creaturely).
3. An attempt at a polemic with the Derridean interpretation of the exemplary nature of being.
4. A demonstration of the coherence of Heidegger’s philosophical discourse, and, particularly, of the fact that the analysis of Dasein constitutes a kind of prolegomena to the late thought (from after the “turn”) of the author of Being and Time, that is to the analysis of the truth of being and event (Ereignis).

The article presents an outline of the philosophical opinions of Adolf Reinach (1883-1917). The branch of phenomenology, besides Husserl’s transcendental and Heidegger’s existential one, that has been recently the most systematically developed is the ontological phenomenology represented by Husserl’s Munich and Göttingen students. The most outstanding representative of ontological phenomenology was Adolf Reinach. His project of common ontology was clearly motivated by Husserl’s idealism and his conception of the state of affairs, i.e. the material state a priori, became the foundation of modern ontology.

The present article consists in a detailed analysis of Mieczysław Porębski’s, nowhere so far published, comprehensive stance towards the work of art. His approach, presented here, is called iconic, and is characterised by the treatment of a work of art as a picture, constituting an element of the general iconosphere, and a response to the expectations created by the time honoured way of treating works of art as texts, that is from a semiotic point of view. The article shows the way the work of art is structured, and analyses its subsequent layers. Three ways of understanding the work of art as an image are distinguished: in the sense of projecting the world of represented objects, in the sense of a complex trace betokening the underlying zone of actions and motivations, and in the sense of its own representative structure and the systemic context of that structure. The author strives also to define the essence of the work of art with reference to its spatial and temporal dimensions seen as its attributes.

The ways of argumentation analysed in the present article are meant to satisfy the postulate of investigating into what is first; they are based on the assumption that it is possible to arrive at what is first, and, while describing what is first, they refer to the opposition of light vs.
darkness. Such ways of argumentation can be found, inter alia, in the works of the Pre-Socratics, in the Platonic metaphor of the cave, in Aristotle’s texts, where he develops a theory of arriving at what is the first, in Plotinus’s vision in, and in many later conceptions referring in one way or another to the above mentioned Greek sources. Additionally, the author takes into consideration various problems arising from modem changes in philosophy and connected with the traditional questions about the function of the opposition between light and darkness and related ideas from the circle of metaphysics and theory of cognition. Paramount, in the argumentation of the first philosophers, is the relationship between pairs of opposite ideas such as light vs. darkness, or finite vs. infinite. The said relationship is one of the sources of the categories used in metaphysic and in theory of cognition. The Greeks put forward a model of the world in which light is partly responsible for the visible order; they made light penetrate the realm of cognition. Many fundamental philosophical terms (such as “the light of reason,” “idea,” “theory,” “intuition,” “clarity,” “obviousness”) are permeated with metaphors originating from the opposition between light and darkness. The terms in question are derived from figures involving the action of light, the relationship between murkiness and luminosity, the function, the function of eyesight and optical effects. The role of the discussed opposition is particularly remarkable in the current of thought known as “the metaphysics of light.” Changes in light metaphors are strictly connected with changes in ontological models. This correlation can be traced back to Greek models. The opposition between light and darkness has always been interpreted within a specific metaphysical framework.

The topic of the present article is the historical and philosophical investigation into the source of civilisation and its course of development. The history of social thought is the history of the still unresolved disputes on whether the development of civilisation is intermittent or continuous, deterministic or voluntaristic. There are other similar problems such as: is the development of civilisation heading for a universal, unitary pattern? or is it pluralistic in its nature? is it governed by necessity or by accident? is it consonant with the universal laws of nature? or does it follow only its own laws? does it derive its creative energy from itself? or from some external factor? can it be evaluated as progressive? or is it just a development, a directional change, the evaluation of which is hazardous?
It is impossible to present in the present article all the answers to the questions posed above, especially because, as far as the topics in question are concerned, it is hard to provide any unequivocal answers. Bearing this in mind, the author has been striving to avoid arbitrary judgements, presenting, instead, the arguments of selected thinkers on the problem of the development of civilisation. Because of the tensions and contradictions following in the wake of modern civilisation, these disputes do not die down but rather flare up. The thoughts of the selected philosophers are presented rather sketchily and in a simplified way, but the author feels that even so, a presentation of this kind will let the reader grasp the crucial importance of the problems that these thoughts touch upon, and will show the discussed thinkers as precursors of certain topical ideas.

The present article contains a survey of selected aspect of modem philosophising that are of crucial importance for the philosopher’s “responsibility” mentioned in the title. The author points to such phenomena as the philosopher’s self-alienation being a consequence of his or her failure to carry out the initial “self-alienation”, or of its inadequacy. What is particularly emphasised is the negative influence of the currently dominant apriorism of
philosophical thinking that makes it impossible for the philosopher to establish contact with the reality of existing beings.
The variety of the problems touched upon by modern philosophy cannot disguise its fundamental failures originating, as it seems, among other things, from the philosophers’ insufficient sense of responsibility. The great “projects” aimed at a renewal of philosophy turned out to be impracticable because, to speak in the most general terms, their universalist envoy was incompatible with their exclusionist and individualistic essence. Oscillating
between “neo-scientism” and “neo-gnosis”, the philosophical thought of the previous century was undergoing a gradual alienation, losing its original power of expressing the essential - and, at the same time, commonly realised - experiences of human life. Without attempting to provide extensive descriptions of the situation (such descriptions can be, after all, found in numerous texts devoted to “metaphilosophy”, and to historical,
philosophical, and critical reflection), the author focuses on the personal “moral conditions” of the modern philosopher’s responsibility. What is meant here is also the didactic and educational aspect of philosophical reasoning, which can by treated, in a sense, as a criterion of its validity, while the possibilities of overcoming the discrepancy, which can be observed in philosophy, between “objectivity” and “axiology” has been merely hinted at.

The author shows that the postulate of rationality in teaching philosophy seems to be so obvious that it is hardly possible to voice any reservations against it. But this is true only of the varieties of philosophy that are closely related to science. Some problems may appear in the case of a broader understanding of philosophy, that is the one that oversteps the limits of pure science. What is emphasised in such a convention, and is particularly important in the philosophical education, is rather the role of experience, intuition or even feelings and emotions. They are assigned a different meaning in educational theory and a different one in educational pragmatics. In keeping with this broader interpretation of the process of the teaching of philosophy, the role of the description of rationality against the background of educational factors becomes more important. It is the precisely the latter that are the subject of the author’s present analysis.