Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

The author develops a non‑literary, theistic Weltanschauung. It is based on the acceptance of the role of ‘did’ and ‘knows’ as non‑empirical conceptual (indefinable) ‘primes’. The basic argument of this paper is derived from a detailed linguistic observation of the idiosyncratic behaviour of the concepts ‘why’ and ‘because’ vis‑à‑vis other questioners and the functor ‘can’. The item ‘because’ presupposes a conjunction with a clause indicating an obligatorily altogether different state of affairs than one that is given in ‘a because ...’, as an expression patterned on * ‘a because a’ that constitutes a case of one of the most extreme linguistic deviances. Such a putative phrase cannot belong to any natural linguistic code, nor can it be its real product (that is no other than a quip in a purely perlocutionary utterance in J.L. Austin’s sense). Similarly, a generalized version of ‘did’ or ‘knows’ ( someone did / knows something without any specification) cannot be positioned in such a conjunction on pain of engaging in a destructive infinite regress, unless they are coupled with some further, different concept (i.e. a concept other than ‘did’ resp. ‘know’) in a concatenation with ‘because’. According to the author, this shows that precisely the two indicated concepts are conceptual ‘primes’, or the fundamental synthetic a priori’s whose denotata underlie the whole of the reality. The author tries to show that it is unacceptable to reduce Reality to a single and unique empirical universe conceived of as an effect of ‘doing’. He claims that Ockham’s idea of multiplicity of universes represents a logical necessity. But he rejects the mystical höheres in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as including „pure logic”, ethics and aesthetics. All the three areas, he claims, belong to the created natural realm of speaking beings. Reality, grasped by logic, is broader than that realm.

The aim of this article is to show that philosophy of Blaise Pascal can be interpreted as defeating skepticism not by supernatural intuition but by pragmatic reasoning. For this purpose, I present in the article: (1) the geometrical method as the best available method for justifying statements, (2) circumstances that make human reason fallible, (3) the defense against skepticism pointing out that besides reasoning we still have intuitive knowledge of first principles, (4) remarks indicating that intuition cannot be a source of certainty, (5) the resulting contradictions are not problematic for Pascal because they serve the apologetic purpose of his work, and that the skeptical arguments presented do not prevent rational action.

The author explicates the concepts of nihilism and the meaning of life as they have been presented by Ivan Turgenev in his masterpiece Fathers and Sons. She examines in detail the question whether Bazarov’s attitude, the novel’s main protagonist’s, challenges traditional ways of living and points to a deeper and more objective meaning of life, or whether his challenge is intended as an attempt to eliminate all prospect of objective meaning attributable to life, and leaves only one viable option, namely that life must be interpreted in purely subjective terms. Relying on her own analysis of Bazarov’s existential outlook, the author contrasts his qualms with the outlook of the main protagonist of the short story Rudin, which shows a man of a completely different character from Bazarov’s. These two incompatible conceptions of life adopted by entirely different characters evoke a somber image of Russian nihilism and help to illuminate ethical assumptions and practical implications of that attitude.

The article offers an existential interpretation of Roman Polanski’s movie: Two men and the wardrobe (1958). Despite a large number of publications dealing with Polanski’s work, there is still no single study that would directly and primarily show the philosophical and existential potential of this short film. This article aims to amend this situation and reveal this potential. The paper is divided into five parts. Firstly, it depicts the issue of loneliness presented in Polanski’s film, referring – secondly – to the recognition of selected existential philosophers (J. Ortega y Gasset, E. Lévinas, J.‑P. Sartre, A. Camus). Thirdly, the article presents the specificity of the grotesque and absurd motifs characteristic for the film, exposing their connection with the problem of loneliness raised in it. Fourthly, the paper interprets the Polish director’s short film in the context of an authentic way of existence. It refers to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and emphasizes the gap between ‘being oneself’ and belonging to community (society). Finally, the article presents a psychological‑existential reading of Polanski’s short film, paying attention to the psychological determinants of human existence.

The aim of this article is to offer an in‑depth analysis of the quality of the basic act of phenomenological cognition. By juxtaposing arguments by Jan Patočka and Paul Ricoeur, the author concludes that neither negation (as Patočka claims) nor affirmation (as Ricoeur believes) but only fundamental questioning contributes to the development of fundamental phenomenological experience. From this perspective, the ‘thing of thinking’ is neither non‑Being (nothingness), nor Being, but the attitude of inquisitiveness. Philosophical acts of affirmation and negation, the correlates of which are Being and non‑Being, are responses to the basic experience of questioning. Persistence in the belief that questions have a leading role in philosophy strengthens the position of written communication as the proper medium of expression in philosophical inquiry.

This paper is a polemic with the book by R. Kuliniak, M. Pandura and Ł. Ratajczak, entitled Filozofia po ciemnej stronie mocy („Philosophy on the Dark Side of the Force”), published in three parts by the Marek Derewiecki Publishing House in the years 2018–2021. The book presents Marxist forays against the Lvov Philosophical School established by Kazimierz Twardowski. This author does not question the view that such attacks were launched, nor that they were politically motivated. But he raises some doubts about accuracy of the presentation of the Lvov Philosophical School by the three authors, and particularly about their placing Roman Ingarden within that informal group. Moreover, the picture of Polish philosophy in the last 30 years – or roughly after 1989 – makes current philosophy look like a continuation of the downfall that had been sustained in the years 1940–1950. This is a misleading picture, argues the author.

Professor Juliusz Domański, a renowned classical scholar and neo‑Latinist, has published Wykłady o humanizmie („Lectures on humanism”, 2020). He starts from Plato and makes Erasmus of Rotterdam the terminal point of his intellectual voyage. This itinerary comprises the story of the conflict between philosophy and liberal arts concerning the question how poetry is to be taught. Platonic objections against poets met with eager welcome in Christianity. Yet even in the Middle Ages scholars remained devoted to the study of the ancient literature, although the dominant model of education was at that time more and more resolutely ‘scientific’. The goal of education was defined as developing astute abilities in specific ‘arts’ ( artes) rather than studying classical ‘authors’ ( auctores). In order to understand different views on the relation between philosophy and poetry I recall Bogusław Wolniewicz’s remark that human activities can be developed in four different fields: naturalistic rationalism, metaphysical rationalism, naturalistic irrationalism and metaphysical irrationalism.