The article addresses the problem of critical metaphysics in the views of Otto Liebmann and Johannes Volkelt. Their view of metaphysics results from a compromise between science and philosophy. On the one hand, this compromise keeps metaphysics closely in touch with contemporary scientific theory, which means it can participate in the modern civilisation of science and technology, on the other though, it leads to the narrowing down of the universalist philosophical perspective to science, which means abandonment of non-scientific aspects of life. Although in principle open to metaphysical needs of humans, critical metaphysics, on this view, embodies scientific aspirations of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Metaphysical criticism entails self-imposed limits on metaphysical aspirations, but these limitations themselves must stay within reasonable limits; otherwise, it transforms into destructive scepticism.

The author presents his own interpretation of phenomenological reduction taking as a starting point two motives of phenomenology identified by Ernst Tugendhat: the dogmatic motive and the critical motive. In the dogmatic interpretation, phenomenological reduction is driven by the need to meet the criterion of apodictic certainty and means excluding the world from the scope of phenomenological research and limiting it to the realm of transcendental awareness. It is only transcendental awareness that can be apodictically certain; the existence of the world never is. In the critical interpretation, the starting point for philosophizing is not apodictic certainty but a minimum amount of cognitive dogmatism attained through radical criticism. Phenomenological reduction itself no longer entails a subjectivist narrowing down of the field of study, but its expansion into a new domain: the domain of awareness in which the world is being constituted, awareness freed from anonymity. The aim of this critically interpreted reduction is the uncovering of the correlation between awareness and the world, which remains invisible in the natural approach. Reduction brings this correlation to light, suspending prejudices (Vorurteile), which result from the natural approach. The fact that prejudices are suspended means that one refrains from following them blindly, since a characteristic feature of all prejudices is that they do not admit reflection. It is important to distinguish between two types of prejudices: those which enable cognition and those which distort the picture of reality. The author demonstrates that phenomenological reduction may be understood as a postulate of criticism: to suspend prejudices in order to recognize their validity (legitimacy) in their claims to truth or to expose them as false awareness.

Public opinion has it that ethics should be concerned with studying and providing precise and reliable rules of conduct. This view is based in a long philosophical tradition which begins with the Stoics and continues at least to Kant; it is, however, a false view. There are good reasons to turn our attention to these aspects of moral thinking which refer to and emphasize the element of risk and uncertainty. In the article I briefly discuss two of such reasons: the problem of moral luck and the problem of action based on ignorance. Consideration of these two problems leads to the conclusion that the most tricky element in moral thinking is the firm belief of the subject in the truth of the premises on which they base their actions and in the irrelevance of external factors to the assessment of their deeds. In this light I argue that the basic requirement for a moral justification of a particular action is not its conformity to a certain set of rules but the subject’s critical reflection on their course of action. Indeed, what turns an attitude into a moral attitude is an amoral, epistemological factor: criticism and openness to uncertainty.

The objective of this article is to determine the sources of the philosophical notion of δόξα, understood as presumption. The analyses presented here focus upon the gnoseological content of the concept of presumption as it occurs in poetry traditionally attributed to Homer (the “Iliad”, the “Odyssey”,1 the so-called “Homeric Hymns”). Two fundamental aspects of such content give the concept of δόξα its philosophical significance: its objective aspect and its subjective aspect. The complexity of the problematic mutual relationship between them manifests itself with particular clarity in lexis beloging to the semantic group of the verb Δοκέω, which, for the purposes of the present study, is hereby described as a group expressing presupposition limited to the present. The reflections and analyses presented in this article allow one to determine the critical foundations of the Greek epistemological thought, whose actual point of departure is the problem of the status of the presupposition and its relationship to the concepts of truth and knowledge. 1 Henceforth, in-text references to the “Illiad” and the “Odyssey” will be marked parenthetically as “Il”. and “Od”. (respectively), followed by the numbers of the book and the verse. Also, unless stated otherwise, dictionary references are made to the so-called “Liddell Lexicon”: Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie, “A Greek-English Lexicon: With a Revised Supplement” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). All references to this editon shall henceforth be marked as LSJR.

Leszek Kołakowski draws attention to the fact that rationalism as a philosophical method and definitive certainty as the aim are mutually irreconcilable. Each rationalist philosophy must leave a margin for uncertainty, lest it transforms into dull dogmatism. This observation of the Polish thinker becomes a source of inspiration for Hans Albert. In his work “Science and the Search for Truth”, he agrees with Kołakowski that goals of philosophical endeavours need redefining and puts forward his own metaphilosophical proposal, which specifies what philosophy can and should achieve in the framework of critical realism. The author examines and evaluates Albert’s proposal, referring to another view of the nature and role of philosophy as the assessment criterion—the one presented by José Ortega y Gasset in his study “En torno à Galileo” [“About Galileo”] and other writings.

The present article attempts to shed light on the sources of philosophical criticism of early Greece and on the origins of the critical attitude adopted by the thinkers of the period. Above all, however, reflections presented hereby are meant to serve as a backdrop for analyses of a much broader scope. The study seeks to identify the defining characteristics of early Greek criticism, upon which basis
the author puts forth a proposition for a general typology of its forms. Complementing the present comments is a brief discussion of the suggested types of philosophical
criticism in light of the views of some of the leading philosophers of the time.

The article builds on the observation made by Josef Pieper, who writes about the critical attitude: “‘kritisch’ sein besage für den Philosophierenden so viel wie: sich darum bekümmern, daß nur ja nicht etwas ausgelassen wird.” Thus, the focus of the article is on the attempts to define philosophy through the prism of criticism, undertaken by some of the most significant philosophers of the first half of the 20th century, such as Leonard Nelson, Max Scheler, Karl Jaspers and Nicolai Hartmann.

The article concerns some aspect of the impact which psychoanalysis (depth psychology) had on the research practice of historiography. The author asks in what ways “psychoanalytic thinking” modified the handling of a historical source. He argues that the basis for the modification was a unique “hermeneutics of suspicion,” embedded in depth psychology. At the core of this hermeneutics is the attitude of a psychoanalytic therapist—a search for “a deeper meaning” of a particular psychopathological symptom, a meaning cunningly concealed but at the same time indirectly (and perversely) enacted and communicated by this symptom. The article identifies the main reasons for hermeneutics of suspicion penetrating historians’ way of thinking: “ontological” (connected with the specific view of the historical process adopted by historiographers of psychoanalytic sympathies) and “methodological” (related to the discovery and affirmation of the methodological “kinship” between researching history and practicing psychoanalysis). The author further argues that, contrary to superficial readings, psychoanalytic hermeneutics of suspicion is not just a radicalized version of the critical attitude towards the source, which by default marks scientific historiography in its various forms, but that it goes beyond it in important ways. The article considers also various practical consequences of the presence of this kind of hermeneutics in handling historical sources.

The article considers some aspects of Richard Feynman’s philosophy of science. The basic assumptions of Feynman’s views on science refer back to the tradition of Greek scepticism. Interestingly, Feynman was probably unaware of this relation, still he became an outstanding modern continuator of this tradition. The analysis is based on Feynman’s lectures included in The Character of Physical Law.

The article discusses modern theories of individualism as the basis of the social contract and hence as the source of the modern state. The author analyses N. Machiavelli’s and Th. Hobbes’ concepts of the state, which emerged as a response to a situation where scholastic visions of the state and the human being had lost their appeal. He also draws attention to the fact that the study of human nature and the ways to control it is the goal of modern political philosophies and that passion as the driving force of human actions first appeared in political philosophical thought thanks to Machiavelli, later to be taken up and developed by Hobbes. According to Machiavelli, individualism is based in a specific self seeking fulfillment, which can attain set goals thanks to two driving forces: virtue and fortune. Machiavelli’s individual treats others as objects; the goal of their actions is the desire for profit. Machiavelli’s thought—a prince establishes the state and devotes himself entirely to it (which is also good for the others as it takes them out of the state of war)—is taken up by Hobbes. A human being is guided by the senses—men have wants and desires. The life’s goal is self-fulfillment; the highest good, self preservation. As in Machiavelli, the pursuit of self realization (striving for peace, that is avoiding war for fear of death) leads to the social contract. The social contract is not the common will of the society but a consensus reached by the parties regarding giving up some of the individual rights, that is a consensus reached by all individuals. Hence, by realizing the self, people realize peace, that is the highest good for individuals (of course, both the state of war and the state of peace are only hypothetical— constructs which justify the State, not empirical facts). In both views the prince is one (for himself), everybody can be the prince, and it is impossible not to want to be the prince (quitting the pursuit means death). The pursuit of the fulfillment of the ego is the only course of action for the prince, and at the same time a course of action good for all other princes by virtue of the social contract. This is the meaning of the state— a contract between princes: always together and always apart.

The author’s aim is to analyse the problem of criticism in the context of political sciences, in particular in the context of political philosophy. The issue is considered in the light of two basic epistemological standpoints: contextualism and presentism. These two approaches are often regarded as mutually exclusive; however, the author presents arguments for their possible complementarity and demonstrates that their concurrence is the necessary point of departure for critical attitudes in political philosophy.

The article presents characteristic features of the critical approach in management—Critical Management Studies—which keeps gaining popularity in the global management studies discourse. The authors point out the major paradigmatic assumptions of this line of inquiry, its intellectual sources and its critical tools, emphasizing in particular the role of education as the key to effective emancipation. The article closes with a criticism of CMS, which falls into line with the demand of the critical approach that the practice of scientific research should be accompanied by autocriticism.