The David Lewis’s article concerns the issue of penal substitution in the dual context of the contemporary system of criminal law, in which punishment does not perform a compensatory function, and in the context of the Christian interpretation of Christ’s death as Atonement. It may seem that we do not believe in penal substitution, but in fact we do believe in it selectively. There are Christians who believe that Christ’s death is a payment of the debt of punishment owed by the sinners, but do not believe that a murderer’s friend can serve on his behalf a death sentence. Most of us believe in penal substitution with reference to fines but not other kinds of punishment. In both cases the beliefs concerning penal substitution are clearly inconsistent. However, if selective acceptance of penal substitution is so common, perhaps it makes sense after all.

In this paper, I consider an opinion concerning of resignation from the term ‘persistent therapy’ and the need to replace it with the term ‘medical futility’. I also consider the usability of the division of medical means into ordinary and extraordinary. I present my arguments against the rejection of the term ‘persistent therapy’ as well as I try to show that the classification of medical means, which it combines the concept pairs “proportionate/disproportionate” and “ordinary/extraordinary,” may serve as an effective aid in making decisions on abandoning persistent therapy both for the physician and for the patient. The subject-matter of my reflection is the definition of persistent therapy elaborated by the Polish Working Group for End-of-Life Ethics and its modified version. The basic context of the analyses consists of opinions of some authors taking part in debates on persistent therapy and medical futility held by the Polish Bioethics Society.

The article is an attempt to recreate the Greek thinking about the phenomenon of hope. Multilevel ambivalence has been found. Firstly, as expecting either something good or something bad. Then, as a negative hope (in the sense of unreasonable, irrational and leading to crisis) or a positive hope (in the sense of justified, rational and enabling salvation). Finally, as a morally good or bad hope, depending upon the ethical evaluation of its subject. Also, a correlation of fear and hope has been found. The problem of referring hope to time has been put forward. In this context, the views of Hesiod, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics have been considered.

The paradigm (example) is an inductive argument in rhetoric. However, the paradigm is not about moving from many specific cases to a certain generalization, i.e. universalization of all individual cases – as it normally happens in inductive argumentation. Instead, it is rather a transition from one detail to another similar one; with the condition being that both specific cases belong to the same type. Therefore, the paradigm is not an induction in the strict sense, but it seems more to meet the conditions of analogy. The article formulates the thesis that Aristotle distinguishes three types of inference: deduction, induction and analogy. In order to demonstrate the specific nature of inference by the paradigm, which seems to be a type of analogy, other types of inferences are also examined, i.e. apodeictic, dialectical, and inductive syllogisms. The article is an attempt to present the characteristics of argumentation by paradigm and show its specific nature in the light of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and his logical writings: Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations.

An analysis of the concept of resolution (προαίρεσις) and rational desire (βούλησις) in the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics 1111B leads Aristotle to discuss the problem of weakness of will (ἀκρασία) in the context of the relationship between reason, lust and anger. The philosophical source of the possibility of such a discussion is most likely the text of the fourth book of Politea, in which Plato founded the theory of the multipartite soul, thus making it possible to answer the question about the sources of motivation for human action that are different from reason. Thus, Plato resolves the aporia of Socratic intellectualism, in the light of which the reason responsible for human motivations is in contradiction to the phenomena of action devoid of the features of rationality and self-control. The juxtaposition of the text of Nicomachean Ethics 111B and Politea 437B–440D opens the horizon of the question about the possibility of the Platonic genesis of human volitional acts and, in the longer term, also the concept of human will. The fruit of this juxtaposition is an attempt to interpret the Platonic theory of the soul in the light of the Aristotelian concept of ὄρεξις, by means of which the Stagirite distinguishes three elements of the soul analogous to Platonic reason, lust and anger (λογισμός — ἐπιθυμία — βμολς), such as rational desire, θυμοειδές — ἐπιθυμητικόν). The perception of the possibility of the Platonic genesis of volitional acts defined later by Augustine in the context of the concept of the will (voluntas) is based on the finding of a relationship between rational desire interpreted by Aristotle as a volitional act (βούλησις) and Plato’s interpretation of reason not only as an intellect, but also as a dynamics that appears on the one hand in the form of erotic power (Symposium, Phaedrus) and on the other hand in the form of rational desire (Hippias Minor, Gorgias).

The article presents an unknown letter by Bolesław Miciński to Fr. Augustyn Jakubisiak found in his archives at the Polish Library in Paris. It is an opportunity to call to mind these outstanding but somewhat forgotten philosophers and to present their intellectual connections. After meeting in Paris in 1937, they maintained close contact until the death of Miciński in 1943. From the beginning, they were united by their opposition to the idealistic German philosophy and neopositivism of the Vienna Circle with its materialism, scientism and scepticism. In Fr. Jakubisiak, Miciński discovered views similar to his own on space and time. In Miciński’s recent essays from the war, there are moral theses that Fr. Jakubisiak has voiced, namely individuality and self-determination. Individuality means valuing an individual in the face of everything that may threaten him, especially totalitarianism. In turn, self-determination is the granting of absolute autonomy and freedom to human beings, which acts in the previously adopted way. It was the negation of determinism and atheism. The contexts of Miciński’s statements on the subject of individuality and self-determination (as well as the less outlined problems of time and space) indicate that he not only took from Fr. Jakubisiak the concepts relevant to him, but also embedded them in a close philosophical context. The thought of a Polish clergyman must have been doubly inspirational for Miciński. First, he discovered in his works known philosophizing styles derived from St Augustine, Leibniz, Pascal or Kant. On the other hand, he expanded his own search field and found answers to relevant existential questions; he turned towards modern science (for instance Einstein’s theory), and especially to Christianity, which became for him an increasingly important intellectual and spiritual asylum.

The aim of this article is to present a characterization of Christian philosophy in terms of the notion of a research tradition. Since the work of Larry Laudan, it has been thought that the latter notion could prove useful for shedding light on the idea of Christian philosophy. To this end, the author first introduces the key concept of a ‘research tradition,’ and then proceeds to analyse the notion of an ‘image of the world,’ understood as something invariably associated with specific research traditions. The next step is the construction of a definition of Christian philosophy as a research tradition in project-based terms. The author sets out to demonstrate that Christian philosophy, as such a tradition, is both pluralistic and democratized. In conclusion, several higher-order proposals are formulated with respect to the right method for pursuing Christian philosophy. In particular, the approach adopted should be one oriented towards possibilities of discussion: i.e. a non-dictatorial game unfolding with the participation of representatives from various research traditions who endorse different images of the world.

The aim of the article is — notably more comprehensive than so far performed in the philosophy of science — analysis of representing in science as well as in its practical applications. The analysis shall consider not only the problem of representation in empirical sciences (to those sciences are limited investigations of representing in philosophy), but also in technical and computer sciences, including their practical applications. The account of practical applications of sciences technical and computer sciences is essential as they — as opposed to empirical sciences with original cognitive purposes — are mostly practical and oriented towards generating results which are useful in extra-scientific practice. The differences in relations of representing, types of represented and representing objects depict the most profound difference in natures of these sciences.

It is common for different types of mathematical structuralism that the conjunction of two statements ( a) mathematics is science about structures and b) mathematics is deductive science) is true, Distinct arguments for this two features of mathematics are exanimated therefore the main concepts (structurality and deductivity) are understood differently, the results are various types of structuralism. We claim that it is possible to establish the way of understood of this two concepts in witeh they are equivalent. We argue that can interpret mathematical structuralism as equivalence: a) mathematics is science about structures if and only, if b) mathematics is deductive science

In his seminal work “On denoting” Bertrand Russell introduces a distinction between primary and secondary occurrences of denoting phrases. The distinction enables a description of ambiguities of some statements containing denoting phrases. As Saul Kripke pointed, although Russell’s distinction seems to be dual, it is possible that some ambiguous statements containing denoting phrases can be interpreted in more than just two ways. In the present article, I argue that there are even some other possible interpretations, not mentioned neither by Russell, nor by Kripke. Furthermore, I am showing that those other possible interpretations are also distinct from so-called Fodor’s readings.

The article presents ethical dimension of Gabriel Marcel’s philosophical thought. Concerning several categories that it contains (including trial, betrayal, community, sacrifice, presence, availability, intersubjectivity, love) it is described as heterocentric. This term, taken from the very writings of Marcel, is here applicated in order to distinguish it from the terms already well-established in the literature (yet related mainly to later ideas), such as “philosophy of the other” or “identity-difference dialectics”; in general, it points to an attitude towards the other, which, however, leads to internal self-recovery. There is a task in front of a man on the road: to answer a call coming from both the inside and the outside; ultimately the aim is to anchor one’s own existence in the depth of reality which exceeds it. It is also shown that Marcel's ethics does not evade ontology, and that the answer to the question of how to live is inextricably linked with the reflection over being.

The article presents some threads of interesting philosophical and ethical analyses by Robert Spaemann on the animal world, undertaken by him in the Aristotelian spirit. They concern issues that seem to be of particular interest to both: experts on the subject and contemporary man. These are: nature (its specificity) and the ontic status of animals, suffering and its sources (including experiments and training), killing animals and eating their flesh. Spaemann not only did not question, but also, in the spirit of classical and contemporary thought (Helmuth Plessner), originally emphasised the essence of man over animals. He did it, among others, by emphasising the human ability to self-relativizing. According to the eminent German thinker, the ethical principles regulating our relationship to animals are closely related to the metaphysical understanding of their being. These principles are based on the teleological nature of our smaller brothers and the subjective form of their existence. Spaemann emphasised the role of kindness, responsibility and care, the utilitarian principle of the profit and loss account, Kant’s categorical imperative and the personalistic norm. On the other hand, he developed the obligation to protect animals and responsible for them in the context of human dignity. The article attempts to show the importance of the teleological perspective, which no one has shown so clearly and convincingly in relation to animals in contemporary German philosophy. The article also compared his position on the animal world with the vision of Peter Singer. First of all, the article attempts to reconstruct Spaemann’s thought on the ethical and metaphysical aspects of man’s relationship to animals.

Today in Europe we are witnessing a populist turn, we could even speak of a “populist moment” that signals the crisis of neoliberal democracy. According to Chantal Mouffe, “the populist moment” is the expression of a set of heterogeneous demands, which cannot be formulated in traditional right/left frontier. The battles of our time will be between right-wing and left-wing populism. Although the current state of liberal societies appears to favor the development of a Right project, Mouffe proves that just a left-wing one can uphold any kind of radicalisation of democracy. The aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for the increasing success of populist parties in European countries and to consider whether the way the present crisis is manifesting is conducive to the growth of a populist narrative, especially in its right-wing variant.

The subject of this paper is the scope and nature of duties to help others which Thomas Aquinas believes to belong to the subclass of acts of beneficence he calls eleemosyna. I consider to what extent and under which circumstances, according to his account, aid lent to people in need of support is obligatory, merely praiseworthy or even improper. In particular, I try to establish how much of our personal resources (possessions, well-being, or free time), on Aquinas’s view, we should sacrifice for others, provided they need our support.

The article seeks to elucidate the sense of Aristotle’s proairesis on the basis of selected fragments of the translation and commentary by Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno. Petrycy renders proairesis as “choice or undertaking”. The author shows that the expression is used for a reason and demonstrates that proairesis in the full sense of the word creates: (1) undertaking in the sense of designating the goal to be achieved; (2a) own choice in the sense of a preferential choice, that is, choosing one course of action rather than another; (2b) own choice in the sense of the decision about proceeding with accepted course of action; (3) undertaking in the sense of starting (and continuing) the action leading to the achieving of the designated goal. In so doing, the author proves that Aristotle’s proairesis, according to Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno, is constituted by “choice” and “undertaking” which are its features or elements. Furthermore, he shows that the activity of proairesis does not end before the action because it does overlap with action, at least in the sense that it starts the action.

The argument from hiddenness developed by John L. Schellenberg is one of the most discussed philosophical arguments for atheism. It assumes that there is a conflict between the existence of a perfectly loving God and the existence of nonresistant nonbelief. In his recent book titled Hiddenness and the Incarnation. A Theistic Response to John L. Schellenberg’s Argument for Divine Nonexistence (2020), Marek Dobrzeniecki presents a novel defence against the hiddenness argument, employing the Christian doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God. In my paper, I argue that this defence fails. It is based on an incorrect claim that the Incarnation makes God hidden to humans. This allows one to formulate a new problem of hiddenness, related to the fact that there are nonresistant human beings who do not accept the divinity of Christ. The problem of hiddenness as described by Schellenberg forms an essential part of this new problem.

Studies conducted by political philosophers focus typically on the normative dimension. Grounded in decisions concerning the understanding of the world, sometimes with the participation of a personal God, and of man as a part of it, they lay the foundations of the order constituting an analogue of the cosmos, or the result of God’s will or evolution, or the effect of decisions made consciously by the ruling or those who legitimize them. The second dimension is of less interest to philosophers, as opposed to lawyers and political scientists who are interested also in political philosophy. This dimension has an institutional value and is connected with the investigation of “mechanisms” enabling the achievement of normative order. My considerations will involve various propositions in the two dimensions, made by two Polish authors from the 17th century.

The article presents twentieth-century Polish philosophical discussions of rationality, especially in the cognitive context. Discussed are diverse viewpoints, from those presented by Kazimierz Twardowski, the Lvov–Warsaw School founded by him to those of post-war thinkers: Leszek Kołakowski and Marian Przełęcki. In the second part, three systematic issues concerning the rationality of beliefs are discussed and analyzed: the problem of their binary nature, rationality criteria, and the issue of justifying the choice of rationality.

Concepts have always been one of the most important objects of philosophical investigations. A special contribution to the theory of conceptual analysis was made by the representatives of the Lvov–Warsaw School, representing the Polish branch of analytic philosophy. Philosophical research in this school was governed by the postulate of clarity of thought and speech. Analysis and improvement of concepts and the existing philosophical language as the carriers of these concepts naturally expressed the methodological program proposed by the founder of the School, Kazimierz Twardowski. In the article, the procedure of reconstructing concepts is presented as it was commonly applied in Twardowski’s School. Although the differences between individual school members were sometimes significant (reflected e.g. in the psychologism–antipsychologism opposition), one may indicate some common elements of conceptual research. These are, first of all, the categorial element and the constructive element, because of which the procedure in question is called “reconstruction”. Two examples of the reconstruction of concepts are examined closer: Łukasiewicz’s work on the concept of cause and Tarski’s results concerning the conceptof truth.

Kotarbinski’s analysis of psychological sentences constitutes one of the main elements of his scientific programme known as reism in a semantic version. The program aimed to eliminate all expressions and grammatical forms that reify relations, properties, events and contents of mental acts from natural language. In order to eliminate the contents of mental acts and alleged intentional objects from semantics and ontology, Kotarbiński invented an original paraphrase of utterances of psychological sentences reducing them to pairs of logically independent utterances. In this paper, I briefly present Frege’s and Russell’s solutions of the problem of intentional contexts comprising psychological sentences; I also indicate the philosophical inspirations of Kotarbiński’s reism. The analysis of psychological sentences proposed by Kotarbiński not only solves the semantic problem of the lack of extensional substitutivity in psychological sentences, but also sheds additional light on his reistic ontology. In the end, I briefly compare Kotarbiński’s solution of psychological sentences with Donald Davidson’s apparently similar paratactic analysis and indicate that the differences between the two are the consequence of different versions of monism and different approaches to the problem of truth.