The paper presents the importance of discursive argumentation in school education. Based on theoretical assumptions and previous extensive empirical studies the authors propose the case of a joint class of mathematics and the mother tongue, and discuss the results of a workshop with a group of 10–14 y-o students. The findings show that: 1) it is possible to develop young students’ autonomous argumentation and at the same time follow a formal school programme; 2) this requires students’ engagement in intensive class discussions in pairs, in small groups, and in the class as a whole; 3) discursive rather than formal argumentation allows children to develop mathematical reasoning, as well as broadening their understanding and interpretation of a poem. A key factor in students’ engagement is the teachers’ subtle support of the students’ independent discussion. We call this the student-teacher micro-relation to distinguish it from a broader classical term of relations.

Lem began his writing career during the Second World War under the German and Soviet occupation (in Polish Lviv) and during the early postwar years. The war and the subsequent period of Stalinism in Poland had a deep impact on him. Lem is the most famous Polish writer, not Jewish, but first of all he is par exellence a great philosopher, like Schopenhauer, Russell, Popper or Kotarbiński. I call his position in the philosophy as „rationalistic naturalism with metaphysical extensions”. Lem agreed with this opinion. One can call his outlook an enlightened anthropological manichaeism or the philosophy of inequality. Lem gave ideas, which relate to the problem of evil to issue of community (human propensity for evil and the temporal-social nature of man). I repeat my main proposition (2010): the philosophy of Stanisław Lem is Neo-Lucretianism and Lem can be called the Lucretius of 20th century. The philosophical system of Lem is parallel to the ancient poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), written in the first century B.C. by the famous Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus. The Antireligiosity of both philosophers doesn’t concern all religions; it opposes the one which propagates a false outlook upon life. Therefore, their antireligiosity goes together with apologetics of religion. Lucretius and Lem don’t negate the religiousness, i.e. religious disturbance of the soul. In opinion of Lucretius gods are necessary for people, Lem is of the opinion that God is “the beneficial power”. Lem also says that the Christian system of values is the most proper from the point of view of human nature. He repeats after Schopenhauer and Feuerbach (also Lucretius) that religion is a remedy for the fearful certainty of death. Lem – the atheist in common parlance – from the Christian point of view is the man of ‘strange faith’. There is an eschatology in his outlook, though a worldly (finitistic) one, which clearly has a Lucretian nature. In opinion of both there are two attributes of the Cosmos: extermination (Lucretius says mors immortalis, Lem – holocaust), and creation. A mortal human finds comfort in the idea that ‘other worlds’ come into being in the dead Cosmos eternally and ‘different minds’ are born in them.

Viktor Emil Frankl is the founder of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, a psychotherapeutic approach combining in a new way psychological results with philosophical analysis. An important aspect of Frankl’s psychotherapeutic program is education, which in his approach should focus on the categories of responsibility, meaning, and values.

This article is a voice in the debate on the supposed change of the Edwardian stance on the question of the ontological status of a disposition to moral evil in human nature. According to a common interpretation the young philosopher had upheld a privative standpoint on the matter however, as an adult Edwards claimed the opposite, Paulinistic view. The author of the paper proves this opinion to be false to the philosopher’s concept. It is evident that since his earliest notes Edwards has agreed with both these explanations, treated by him as two aspects of the same corruption, and did not change his mind through his lifetime. On the one hand, Edwards thinks that the deprivation of a human heart consists in the want of moral good, that is a lack of moral restraints and active disposition to moral good, which is a negative cause of evil. On the other hand, he is sure that it is positively or effectually caused by morally indifferent natural self love together with malevolence as its part. This means for Edwards that even natural social dispositions like love of persons (Edwardean love of complacence), and love of intersubjective values and matters (Edwardean love of benevolence), naturally come from private interest. Although these dispositions are often mistaken with true virtue, they are morally indifferent too, and can cause evil actions turning into evil dispositions. Only a community focused on the moral good can suppress the latter.

This article presents Kant’s typology of the concept of will. The following Kantian concepts fall under scrutiny: free will, good will, power of choice, pure will, holy will, life, and the power of desire. In the course of the analysis a relation is brought to light in which these foregoing kinds of will incline towards moral worth. This in turn allows a discussion about differences between good and pure will as well as between moral possibility and moral necessity. Beside this, the article applies a typology (formulated in advance) of Kant’s will-concept to the manifold definitions of will simpliciter that one finds in Kant’s writings. This implementation shows that in the Kantian philosophy it is hard to ascribe a clear cut meaning to the concept of will as such and that one is rather advised to conceive of it always in terms of its modalities (enumerated above).

In the paper I discuss the legacy of Donnellan’s famous theory of definite descriptions in which he distinguishes between attributive and referential uses of these expressions. On the one hand I sketch the philosophical context within which Donnellan developed his theory. I put emphasis on the innovatory aspect of the theory by comparing it to a slightly older account proposed by Strawson. On the other hand, I discuss one of the main debates that have their source in Donnellan’s work. Namely, the debate between so called semanticists, who claim that the distinction between two uses of descriptions is of semantic nature, and so called pragmaticists, who believe that two ways of using descriptions is a pragmatic phenomenon while the semantic properties of descriptions have been analysed correctly in Russsell’s theory of descriptions.

The paper discusses some questions arising on the margins of the article Does Polish law guarantee the conscience clause for physicians? by Father Andrzej Szostek. The author of the paper indicates essential doubts as to the scope of the validity of norms and their limiting clauses even if these norms and clauses are formulated very generally. These doubts concern, in particular, the method of establishing operational definitions for notions that come here into play.

The article is critical of the theses presented in J. Stanisławek’s article "Współczesna rewolucja obyczajowa" [The contemporary revolution of manners] (hereafter WRO), which introduces the categories of (1) ‘traditional culture’ and (2) ‘contemporary culture’, to which attributes are assigned: to the former, elitism, idealism, and asceticism; to the latter, egalitarianism, utilitarianism, and hedonism. It also characterises traditional culture as being oriented towards the realisation of ideals, contemporary culture towards pleasure. The beginning of the collapse of the values of traditional culture is supposed to have been determined by the appearance in Western Europe of rock and roll and the bikini. The main objections to WRO concern: (1) omission of a historical-cultural context; (2) failure to base the analysis on factual data; (3) dichotomous division of categories; (4) ethnocentric evaluation of categories. Stanisławek’s article is part and parcel of the war of cultures, i.e. the conflict between conservative and liberal visions of the world (social relations).

In Connection with the Article by R. Boroch