The article contains a Polish translation of John Duns Scotus' text: Ordinatio.

The article contains a Polish translation of Wilhelm Windelband's text: The Will to Truth.

The article contains a Polish translation of Joseph Maréchal's text: Two Paths of Criticism.

The aim of the article is to present a preliminary interpretation of Plato’s thought, based on the text of dialogues which outlines the guidelines allowing for making references to some tendencies of interpretation. The author claims that it is not about looking for a written or oral transmission of a ready made system but a dynamic interpretation of Plato’s thought as directed and problematic. In his main trend, through considerations on the most important issues the world raises in front of a human being, Plato’s philosophy methodologically aims at their ultimate solutions. Its main aim is to dialectically search the truth, set out from the beginning by a recognition of an intelligible fullness of the being uniting the ontological level with an epistemological and practical-religious one. The author reads Plato’s philosophy as esoteric in a sense that the fulfillment, i.e. a recognition of an intelligible whole of the world, takes place beyond discourse, in a mental part of the soul, whereas discourse leads to it or reports on it. Finally, to understand Plato means the effort of philosophizing, starting with a more or less clear experience of the fullness of the truth and being, the recognition of which is directed at from the very moment.

The article discusses the conception of the principle of individuation by John Duns Scotus, which is one of the most interesting analyses of this problem in the period of scholasticism. Scotus ascribed the principle of individuation an autonomous positive being correlated within the scope of the combination of a truly existing thing with the common nature. Thereby, he shows an interesting aspect of the individualization perspective in a formal sense as „something” unrepeatable and ascribed to only one real being and immediately constituting its structure. The conception of the principle of individuation became the crucial problem in the 14th century and the point of view held by Scotus was a starting point for the discussions on that issue.

The article makes an attempt to present a general outline of Hegel’s interpretation of Proclos’s philosophy contrasted with an alternative explicative model based on the fundamental for Neoplatonism assumption of Unity transcendence. Hegel’s understanding of general categories of Proclos’s Neoplatonism was presented in the context of thoughts expressed by a German philosopher and Plato’s inspirations included in them. The second part of the article constitutes an interpretation of fundamental problems of Proclos’s philosophy, especially the one of Unity and the principle of indefiniteness, referring to the source engrossment of his thought in Plato’s tradition and showing inadequacy of Hegel’s solutions.

The article touches upon the philosophical output by Stanisław Brzozowski, referred to as the period of „the fight for a viewpoint” between 1904 and 1905 when Brzozowski was in a strong opposition to a positivist naturalism, showing it in a study A monistic understanding of history and article Spencer’s ethics from 1904. Brzozowski, in the beginning a propagator of Nietzsche’s philosophy, quickly realized that the idea of the author of Also sprach Zarathustra is based on the critique and diagnosis of a social life condition of that time, and does not show any constructive suggestion to change it. Nietzsche’s search lacked in an objective and commonly acceptable theoretical foundation which would eliminate the relativist moment. Looking for the principle of the ethic certainty for an individual aware of its ontological importance, as the centre of senso-creative activity, referred to the ideas ascribed to the creator of a subjective idealism - a transcendental ego for which the sphere of the beyond-subjective world became the subject of our moral obligation. Seeing in man an active subject expressed in an unhampered and free action, Brzozowski made it responsible and introducing to the world the values early established in it. As the subject of moral activity, an individual makes valuations within an eternal world, giving it a moral shape through a given action. At that time Brzozowski made an analysis of primary world, reason, and moral obligation actions of an absolute I which was the main part of Fichtean speculations.

The conception of life as a radical and fundamental reality, which constituted the basis for the conception of ratiovitalism, is a late and mature philosophical reflection by José Ortega y Gasset. Its source is a critical attitude and willingness to overcome both vitalism and rationalism in their pure shape and form. However, one should remember that the notion of „overcoming” in this case ought not to be identified with a total rejection. Though, it is the familiarization and adaptation of thoughts of these two extremely different standpoints that can lead beyond their scope and freedom from restrictions they bring with them. To talk about a ratiovital perspective, one should, according to Gasset, begin his/her reflection from a thorough and critical analysis of the two points of view to, subsequently, make a synthesis of the important things and overcome their linearity and limitlessness.

The article raises the issue of existence in the context of the ontology of an electronic media proposed by Wolfgang Welsch. Welsch makes a diagnosis concerning a contemporary change of the paradigm of understanding the world according to which a transition from a logocentric to an aisthetic way of thinking is the effect of the appearance of electronic media. At the same time, aesthetics widely understood as a general theory of experiences, becomes the first philosophy. Deriving from a generalization of experiences of a constructive nature of media realities, the author of „artificial paradises” notices a familiarization of the conviction that each reality, also the non-electronic reality of an every-day life, being a kind of creation, is to some extent artificial. The consequence of the paradigm change is also the lack of correspondence of the category of a traditional ontology to a description of the virtual reality. The article shows that this non-correspondence results from Welsch’s analogical application of the notions of the nature and phenomenon to digital realities rather than the actual uselessness of these traditional categories. Therefore, the sense of alienation in the worlds of artificial constructions, this „tragic” awareness, being the starting point for Welsch’s considerations, turns out to be the sense of the non-obviousness of being for the first known philosophers.

The article discusses the differences between a nominalistic and sermonistic conception of universals from the perspective of recentivism. The standpoint of nominalism can be minimized to the statement that general notions do not exist, only words do (nomina) which are the signs for many units. Sermonism, on the other hand, says that general notions are just words which have no meaning beyond the human speech (sermo). General notions have the being of speech, but they do not possess the being as such. From this perspective, it is possible to return to the conception of J.L. Austin saying that a dispute on universals is an example of an inappropriate usage of words in the speech. Such a point of view would equal to sermonism. Recentivism completes this judgement with a statement that only the utterances produced in our speech in the present tense meet the condition of sermonism.

The article was devoted to Kant’s and Hegel’s attempt to define the cognitive function and role ascribed to imagination. Kant observed, among other things, that it cannot play a slavish function either with respect to senses or intellect. Kant does not perceive imagination as the power of recognition, thanks to which a synthesis of presentations takes place supporting intellect in the process of constituting notions and allowing for a stable relationship with possible experience. It means that notions cannot be used beyond the subjects of our imaginations about them. They are depicted either as a priori or give us an insight into sensual data. Thus, cognition does not have non-subject-like elements. First problems appear when Kant makes an attempt to define the conditions of synthesis, and, subsequently, the issues of „what” and „how” we learn. In this respect, Hegel considers imagination as an absolute power however the one which in its action is not fully given to us. Its existence is nothing coincidental because it gives the possibility of accessing the world of presentations. Though it is not the only power uniting the world of presentations. The presentations are rather the condition of the examination of the subject being learned. In such a way we are exposed to viewing presentations and their cognition.

In the article, Husserl’s phenomenology is presented a position being in between absolutism and relativism. According to absolutism, absolute truth is possible as a correlate of the adequacy of cognition. However, from the perspective of relativism, cognition is inadequate and, thus, absolute truth is unavailable. Husserl goes beyond the alternative of absolutism and relativism, maintaining the notion of an absolute truth as a regulative idea. Avoiding absolutism, phenomenology does not change into relativism because it treats the adequacy of cognition as a regulative idea which also leads to retaining the truth as an idea as such. In phenomenology, the truth must be understood in the perspective of the adequacy of obviousness and because such adequacy in cognition does not really happen, both the truth and adequacy shall be regarded as regulative ideas.

The article is devoted to the issue of the constitution of kosmos noetos - the sphere of being out of the prenoetic. Plotinus distinguishes the elements logically earlier than the being itself which also differ from being principles such as hen and aoristos dyas. Thus, there is a difficulty with defining an ontic status of these indirect elements which are not a being yet however differ from the Unity as such and indefiniteness per se. It concerns mainly the status of numbers and primary diversity and movement. The very difficulty derives from a connection of a dynamic perspective of reality in the categories of self-evoking power with the ontology of being understood as Unity-Multitude.

The author concentrates on the so called metaphysics of evil as a direct consequence of Nietzschean „God’s death”. Treating a libertinian philosophy of immorality as the focal point of a „wicked morality”, he proves that a „reverse interpretation of Plato” proposed by Markis de Sade, constitutes a rejection of both arche and telos of any morality. As a result, freedom of our action, without any moral objections, equals the negation of the Enlightenment reason tasks as the main perspective of „Thinking Nietzsche”. It turns out to be the moment in which transcendental attempts to build metaphysics beyond an unaware optics of sheer madness are regarded unjustified. Thus, it is not reason, but the achievements by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault in opposition to it and following the trace of considerations by de Sade that become a post Nietzschean canon of the contemporary „philosophy of the subject”.

The aim of the article is to confront normative pre-assumptions of Marx’s and Freud’s emancipatory projects. Considerations on axiological presuppositions of the projects under discussion come to the conclusion that an argument between psychoanalysis and Marxism has its source in the two mutually exclusive systems of values whereas the psychoanalytical critique of Marxism remains the legacy of a conflict dating back to the beginnings of the Enlightenment. The article claims that a confrontation of Freud’s emancipatory project with that of Marx’s means a confrontation of two traditions: according to the first one - pessimistic and referring to Hobbes - man is bad by nature, whereas the other - optimistic and deriving from Locke - man is good by nature. The final conclusion, thus, is a statement that though both Marx and Freud were certain that their emancipatory projects were devoid of not only metaphysical presuppositions, but also metaphysical conclusions, a Freudian critique of Marxism refers to an axiological argument between Locke and Hobbes. Because both in psychoanalysis and Marxism a descriptive order is intricately intertwined with a normative one. The conflict between the two emancipatory projects must remain ilsolluble owing to the antagonistic axiological presuppositions.

The questions the author searches the answers to concern, among other things, the relationship between euthyphronics and ethics of straight-thinking and the issue of therapy. It was looked at in a broader way, i.e. not only in reference to euthyphronics or ethics of straight-thinking, but also recentivism. From the perspective of euthyphronics, it is not only about rejecting a technique, but nivelling its negative influence, showing people ways of protecting a „mental environment”, and being against the idea of leaving life wisdom aside at the expense of knowledge. In this way, euthyphronics refers to other sciences about man, and, among others, to the ethics of euthyphronics as its axiological basis.

The article is a philosophical interpretation of the problem of an experimental murder and suicide in works by Fyodor Dostoyevski. The literary language of the Russian writer is treated here as a medium of his philosophical voice. The text is an analysis of the so called „metaphysical experiment” the literary exemplification of which is murder and suicide committed by the characters of Crime and Punishment. The exact procedure of the experiment attempting at defining its own place in the structure of beings by a free subject, as well as the consequences of the experiment treated like that were described. The analysis of a metaphysical experiment and its teleological efficiency was to show the basic mistake made by an individual conducting an experiment. The mistake itself is an unverified statement that the area of a material reality can be the proper place of constituting the theses concerning the transcendent sphere.

The article is an attempt to present a 17th century vision of the programme of building the enlightened society proposed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Inventorying of human knowledge and common access to it were one of his life aims. The condition of their realization was a rebuilt and reinforcement of the German language - largely weakened in the second part of the 17th century as a result of the French culture domination as a tool serving the purpose of discovery and archive of any human invention. The national language, though, as underlined in many places, fulfills its social and cognitive functions in the best ways. A Leibnizean project of building the enlightened society concerns, among other things, the society inhabiting the territories of the Great Empire of German Nation, but, indeed, it has a universal character too because Leibniz considered science, technology, development of new research tools the key to happiness and well-being of the whole mankind.

In general, the fundamental problem for the philosophy of politics is taking a stand in the argument: man as an individual (and the conception of ego) and community. Apriorically, this assumption is the basis for the whole thought construction of all points of view in the philosophy of politics. The author of the article makes an attempt to prove that Machiavelli, representing a nominalistic standpoint, gives the basis for the underpinnings of the philosophy of liberalism. The author of Prince „deprives the world of its illusions”. His method of perceiving the world consists in the synthesis of sensual impressions and search for the confirmation of these syntheses in the interpretation of historical events. Prince is based on this method. It constitutes a type of a catechism of behaviours by means of which we can achieve success in ruling out (success can be achieved by anyone if he/she learns well the mechanism operating in the surrounding world) and, thus, virtu is more important than a fortune. If an individual obeys the rules from Prince and rules (being bad from time to time), achieves success, but this success is at the same time the peace for the mass. It does not matter if the Prince rules out well. What matters is the plebs’ conviction that the Prince rules out well and does not rebel making any revolts. The evil (deceit, fraud, the lack of intention of realizing any values) is sometimes blissful and lead to the good (the peace of the subjects). That is what the world is, was, and will be about. It is honest in this strange sense of the word (after all one can learn this Prince).

The author of the article ponders over an unclear and controversial notion of the unity of various religions. He understands this notion as the communion of a spiritual content (e.g. images of the Highest Being that is God, a spiritual development of man, etc.) and the communion of values and actions promoted by universal religions of the world. He considers the issue in question from the point of view of mystics, theology and philosophy (especially the ethics) respectively. In his considerations, the author refers to, among others, L. Kołakowski, F. Koneczny and S.P. Huntington. The article shows the complexity of issues discussed under the label of the „unity of various religions”, as well as numerous ambiguities which have gathered around the subject matter. Undoubtedly, the conflicts between religions cannot be fully disposed of though there is a great need of underlining their common features and values nowadays. It is so, as S.P. Huntington points out, because the contemporary world and each civilization is equally endangered with the development of Barbarism (i.e. terrorism, organized delinquency, drug abuse and other phenomena).

Review of Charles Taylor's book: The Faces of Religion Today. Translated by A. Lipszyc. Krakow: Znak Publishing House, 2002.

Book review: Questions and Perspectives of Transcendentalism. On the 200th anniversary of Immanuel Kant's death. Ed. A.J. Noras. Katowice: University of Silesia Press, 2006.

Book review Jacqueline Russ: Contemporary Ethical Thought. Translated by Agnieszka Kuryś. Warsaw: PAX Publishing Institute, 2006.