Looking for the best natural language equivalents to various functors in logic, I turned my attention to the Polish connective “tudzież” (equivalent to “as well as” in English). Its normative synonyms are “i”, “oraz”, “a także” (equivalent to “and” or “also” in English). The Polish connective “tudzież” may be a suitable equivalent to the functor of conjunction in logic. However, one can also point out examples in various texts in which “tudzież” is used, meaning “lub”, “albo” (equivalents to the inclusive and exclusive “or” in English). Incorrectly used in this way, “tudzież” is the equivalent of both inclusive and exclusive disjunction.

In this paper I discuss the problem of a referent of a principle, deemed by some as “Kant’s Law”, which states that if one ought to do X, then one can do X. I argue that in Kant’s philosophy this principle does not apply to man as a phenomenon, but only to man as a noumenon. I show that if we stick to the idea of a “man” as a unified center of reference for this principle, then we will end up with a contradiction, since Kant ostenesibly says both: that people can act in a certain way, provided that they ought to, and that moral law legislates regardless of what man can or cannot do.

Tu Weiming (born 1940) is one of the most famous contemporary confucianists. In this article his views concerning Confucianism in contemporary times presented in essay Confucius: The Embodiment of Faith in Humanity (Konfucjusz: uosobienie wiary w ludzkość) are discussed. The author presents his comment from the point of view of Christianity and Western philosophical tradition.

The author distinguishes between the individual’s reference to his parent group (family, tribe, nation). He distinguishes solidarity with the nation (parapatriotism, patriotism, nationalism) and the lack of solidarity (individualism, cosmopolitanism, internationalism). He focuses on the difference between patriotism and nationalism. For the nationalists the supreme value is the power of the nation. The nationalists demand that all members of the nation sacrifice all their strength to strengthen the national power. For patriots, the supreme value is the glory of a homeland. In the end part of the book, the author presents the forms of patriotism during the war and during peace.

The paper aims at discussing Wolniewicz’s polemics with naturalistic abolitionism. At first, the division of positions regarding the main punishment and then the arguments of naturalistic abolitionists are discussed. The main features of the latter are utilitarianism, anthropological meliorism and anti-nativism. Wolniewicz’s arguments are completely different: he recognizes the concept of equal repayment as the only concept of justice (rigoristic one) possible to be defended. His position is characterized by anti-meliorism and nativism. Finally, the problem of maintaining the concept of freedom and responsibility on the ground of radical anthropological nativism is taken up. The author evokes Elzenberg’s theory of tragedy to highlight the problem

The aim of this essay is to place the so-called hypermodernist attitude in the context of the problems of late modernity as well as the broader context of the inherent ambivalence intrinsic to the very condition of philosophising. This ambivalence is not only upheld by late modern philosophical thought but also – due to the many radical changes in the field of contemporary experience – enhanced by it. Hypermodernism is supposed to be an answer to the need to uphold the faith that activities aimed at improving the world are not pointless despite the erosion of beliefs and the depletion of meanings of the ideas which comprised the modernist project, and despite the exhaustion of postmodern paradigms. In the text, I present selected discussions around ideas that are currently being developed to intellectually manage this state of awareness.

In the article, first, I refer to several texts containing term “hypermodernism” and then comment on the semantics of prefix “hyper-”. Second, I analyze a few examples of theories which address the relation between modernism and postmodernism (Siemek, Habermas, Dobrowolski, Lyotard, Welsch, Bauman, Leder). I make use of some elements of these theories in order to explicate the meaning of the term “hypermodernism”.

Posteuropocentric and postcolonial animus in French intellectuals’ criticism of the Western intellectual tradition is genetically tied to the experience of decolonization, which was not just a political, military and economic process, but also one of philosophy and worldview. All those aspects were closely woven together. I am polemical towards the outlook treating the shaping of the then-contemporary postcolonial tone in the criticism of European sciences and their metaphysical grounding in separation with the aspect of the political experience of the decolonization process. If we take under consideration the biographies of intellectuals who have left the biggest mark on the humanities of the second half of the XXth century (e.g. Jacques Derrida), then the debate on post-modernity and the end of metaphysics has, in spite of the common view, less to do with abstract criticism of the Cartesian subject than with political realities of the collapse of the French colonial empire, and the Algerian War of Independence in particular. Derrida, who highlighted his hybrid cultural status, gave a lot of attention to the liminal character of his philosophy, making nonidentity one of his main objects of interest. By deconstructing europocentrism and widely-understood occidentalism, Derrida understood criticism of a global system of domination. Derrida’s philosophy, stemming from the experiences of an intellectual raised on the periphery of a colonized world is a tool he used to take away from the metropole the metaphysical groundings of the power it held. Anticolonial or postcolonial timbre in analyzed Derrida’s works is not limited to a single theory, but is at home at the heart of the entirety of contemporary humanities. It gives it its dynamism, but also blows it up, allowing no stable identity. In searching for ways that Western critical thought can follow after the works of Derrida, we find evidence that it is not, and maybe has never been “Western” in the sense that the language of identity implies, and that it is its nonidentity that makes it positive.

In this paper I will defend the idea of the success of post-truth as one of the main features of hypermodernity. In order to understand such a claim, I will start by defining “post-truth” and showing the key differences that separate it from simple manipulation or lies. I will explain how post-truth characterizes a whole new way of understanding the difference between truth and falsity: a new attitude of indifference to the sharp distinction that moderns and ancients had placed between these two notions. I will contend that this new attitude had been announced by the work of at least three recent philosophers: Harry Frankfurt, Gianni Vattimo and Mario Perniola. They give different names to “post-truth”, though, and attribute it to different causes (from anti-intellectualism to the new media and to sheer carelessness). After that, I will explore how two key aspects of hypermodernity (according to Gilles Lipovetsky), i.e. hyperindividualism and hyperconsumption, cohere with this spread of post-truth. Finally, I will summarily refer to some political and geopolitical events that corroborate the relevance of post-truth in our hypermodern world.

In this paper I refer to and comment on some diagnoses concerning the current state of modernity. I present and argue three statements: 1) today’s modernity is not accelerated, but decelerated; 2) today’s “liquid” modernity seems to be seeking fixed points; 3) we went beyond postmodernity or postmodernism to reach over-modernity (hypermodernity) or over-modernism (hypermodernism). Within the considerations devoted to the last thesis I offer my own definition of hypermodernism (as a kind of reconciliation of modernism and postmodernism) and discern it i.a. from metamodernism. In the last part I also briefly outline the problem of truth in the hypermodern approach.

The aim of this work is to try to discuss with the author of the text Patriotism on patriotism and patriotic education. This text supplements some of the theses set out in Patriotism as well as a polemic on the subject of nationalism and patriotism and their elements.