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The article is based on a lecture given by the author as a PP-presentation on the occasion of her election to the academic rank of professor in 2015. The reference to the popular proverb “Friendship is friendship but cheese costs money”, does not evoke the usual opposition of ethics and business, but, quite to the contrary, illustrates business ethics. It is assumed that the statement gives a good idea of: (1) business ethics – i.e., the possibility to apply ethical standards to business; (2) the specificity of this application; (3) the specificity of ethical standards applied to business. The elucidation of these three questions not only clarifies important issues of business ethics but shows that the proverb is relevant to them. This ultimately helps understand (4) the actual place of friendship in business and why, even for friends, cheese costs money. The structure and content of the article follow this logical order. The conclusion refers to some hazards associated with the extrapolation of the understanding of friendship in business to all human relationships.
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The article analyzes the content of the concepts of professional ethics and professional morals in terms of PR as a profession. The author examines different aspects of the activity of PR specialists in relation to the moral assessment of their work. The author attempts to show how professional morality impacts on the practice and functions of professional communicators
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The article analyzes the situation created by the presence of asylum-seekers in Bulgaria in the context of the global refugee crisis. The first part of the article examines the global dimensions of the refugee problem – the size and dynamics of the refugee flows, the main countries of origin and recipient countries. The second part presents the situation in Bulgaria from 2011 to 2017 in terms of quantitative parameters of the refugee flow and the socio-demographic profile of the asylum seekers. The subjective perceptions and assessments of the Bulgarian population about the refugee crisis are presented. The differences in opinions and attitudes in the country as a whole and near locations of refugee camps are outlined. The third part examines the problems generated by the presence of asylum seekers in the country in terms of the objective reality and the subjective perceptions and assessments. The analysis is based on statistical data provided by SAR and the results of two empirical sociological surveys conducted in December 2017, including a nationally representative survey and a survey in two areas where refugee camps are located. Information drawn from interviews with refugees is also used.
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In this short article, I will explore John Searle’s social ontology project from the perspective of social epistemology. The outcome of my analysis is that language is decisive for the collective acquisition and production of knowledge. I agree with Searle regarding the exposure of language as a central constitutive component of social forms of knowledge, a component that plays a significant role in the development of social epistemology.In Searle's account, all institutional facts are linguistically created and maintained. I agree that language should play a central role in any social ontology, in social epistemology, as well as for our understanding of society. But when we bring in language and make it the central focus and foundation in explaining how society is created and functions, it becomes inevitable to bring in the diversity of views in theories of meaning and to analyze how these contribute to the creation and maintenance of society. Other questions also need to be addressed, including those related to the so-called “problem of group belief justification”, as it is not clear how it fits into Searle’s project and how individual convictions become convictions of the community.
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Uncertainty is a universal form of human attitude towards the life-world, but it is in any case contextual or historically defined. At the beginning of the modern age, uncertainty was thematized and problematized. Man is at the center of his own life-world. The main question is, what can become human – not what it was; what can become society, not what it was or what it is. The fundamental assumption is that people and society can cope with uncertainty and achieve certainty. Social development is considered linear. The later modern age imposes the principle of non-linear social development. The place of Man changes substantially in the post-human society. Humans are cohabiting with, and dependent on, non-humans. Uncertainty becomes virtually permanent and certainty can not be a final goal. New living conditions require new solutions to the new problems of Man and society.
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The article discusses commercialization as an essential characteristic of contemporary art, related not only to popular culture but also to so-called “high” art. The author looks for ways in which art can emancipate itself from its direct dependence on the market through networks of foundations that, while varying in their objectives and interests, are willing to finance art projects. Still, taking too much account of these sources of funding may likewise be a kind of commercialization.
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The article argues that archaization and aesthetic genres of fear are “legitimate children” of the risk society. The galloping technology of the risk society causes growing anxiety and pushes many people to seek revenge against fear. Horror films, vampire saga novels and movies, zombies and other horrifying creatures, are forms of an aestheticized virtual surmounting of fear.
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In the interwar period, the fight against noise pollution was as present in Polish society as it was in developed Western countries. Anti-noise committees and leagues emerged, weeks of silence were organised and levels of noise were measured in the streets. Łotysz uses reports from these measurements as well as other textual sources from the epoch to show that the noise in Polish cities was not a measure of progress, but on the contrary– of backwardness. The main cause of noise pollution was not an excess of cars, as in the Western cities that served as a benchmark, but the disastrous condition of the streets and tracks, outdated means of transport and archaic road traffic regulations.
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The problems raised in the article concern the famous figure of the Grand Inquisitor, with whom we meet in the philosophical reflections of Joseph Tischner; of course, a figure taken directly from the pages of Fiodor Dostoyevsky's novel. This is not the only way to refer Tischner's thought to the "philosophical imaginarium" created by the author of The Brothers Karamazov. It is worth taking a closer look at what is hidden in the "shadow" that the Grand Inquisitor has around him. Considerations, nolens volens, must therefore refer to the "gifts" of the Grand Inquisitor: apparent goodness and freedom. In other words: we will ask for the figure of the Grand Inquisitor as – an alarming, still dangerous – "central figure of the modern philosophy of power." Both, Dostoyevsky and Tischner invoke questions that cannot be removed in a simple way, furthermore, in a way they invalidate this gesture, they continue to put us (and inevitably pose) against the danger of a political "illusion" in which the highest values remain at stake.
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This article describes a short history of the intellectual contacts of Józef Innocenty Maria Bocheński and Leszek Kołakowski (the youthful, orthodox Marxist criticism of Bocheński’s book Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus written in 1952 and Bocheński’s friendly review of Kołakowski’s book Główne nurty Marksizmu (‘Main Currents of Marxism’) are not analysed here). I focus on a definite polemic that shows differences in their philosophical positions and philosophising styles. It begins with a dispute at a conference in Rapperswil in 1986 over the significance of Erasmus of Rotterdam; its continuation was a critical evaluation of Bocheński’s book Sto zabobonów (‘A Hundred Superstitions’). In his letter to Kołakowski, Jerzy Giedroyc remarked: "It is indeed difficult to destroy the author with greater elegance. I imagine Bocheński’s reaction." Indeed, Bocheński’s reaction was violent. He published two articles in the following year, which were a definite – and usually indirect – polemic with Kołakowski and an attempt to precisely present his own position. This dispute can be treated as an illustration of Kołakowski’s famous distinction of two types of activity in culture: that of a priest and that of a clown.
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Wojciech Dzieduszycki (1848-1909) was a philosopher and politician. He modeled himself on Socrates and shared his behavior and views with Socrates. Dzieduszycki saw Socrates as a political thinker, a devoted citizen, and read him in the spirit of conservative values. In Socrates, he saw the cure for a changing reality.
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Opposing ecology to Catholicism, or vice versa, has no dogmatic, theological or philosophical foundations – it is a purely rhetorical and political maneuver. Catholicism is, and must be, deeply ecological – although this necessity has not always been properly displayed (but it should also be admitted that circumstances did not require this). This is clearly evidenced by both biblical testimonies confirming the value of every being and the reflection of Tradition within the theology of creation. Similarly, in this context, there are no grounds for invoking the “holy property right” (as some conservative liberals and “libertarians” are willing to do) to justify the robbery and destruction of nature. Within the Catholic doctrine, property law is by no means holy, only conditional, and does not absolve us from treating property as a common good at the same time. Of course, this does not mean that Catholic teaching promotes in any way formal and legal restrictions on the right to property – such ideas have been repeatedly and decisively rejected by the Church. The limitation of the right of ownership is moral here – it is a postulate of justice and responsibility. At the same time, it is an expression of anthropological realism: we, all individual people, die, all families and nations expire and the earth, air and water remain. We are obliged to respect it. Opposing the good of the environment to the welfare of human communities makes no sense. Only extremely shallow and superficial reflection can build and invoke such oppositions. In general, this is not a reflection at all, but only an attempt to create ad hoc justifications for obtaining an easy income at the expense of the environment. With the current population of our planet, no one can perceive themselves or their immovable property as absolutely autonomous. We will be able to meet most of the most serious challenges related to environmental changes only when we understand our own responsibility for all living creatures along with their and our entire environment.
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Man and specifically human experiences define the space of Józef Tischner’s philosophy. The main thread of thinking about man is “the experience of the other” through which is born the “I”, the subject of Tischner’s philosophy of drama, in which fundamental issue is the meeting. Contemporary man, usually locked in his narrative of monadic life, is wary of the other. However, personal growth does not happen alone, but with the other. Man is not enough for himself, he needs confirmation and recognition of the other. From the meeting with the other begins a drama which cannot be predicted. Through the drama that happens between “I” and you, the participants are open to the world of values and the agathological and axiological horizon of existence is before them. From the other, as Tischner notes, a call is coming to save him. By axiological thinking, one should try to solve the problem of the tragedy of the situation in which the other was found. This is thinking about the other according to value. The primacy of good over evil is revealed in the recognition of human freedom which is the essence of the relationship with the other.
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The aim of the article is to compare two concepts of the social contract – formulated by Immanuel Kant and Jean Jacques Rousseau respectively – in the context of their philosophical diagnoses regarding human nature, culture, politics and the historical dynamics of civilization. The author focusses on the essence of the impact Du contrat social has on Kant and the extent to which he manages to overcome the tension between the modern Republican idea – which he develops on this basis – and the tradition of classical liberalism, which he continues to follow. He considers Rousseau’s model with regard to the conflict between the democratic principle of people’s sovereignty and the Republican rule of law in discussions with Hegel, Arendt, Habermas and in reference to the French Revolution. Next, he conducts a critical analysis of the Kantian project of Rechtsstaat in light of its conceptual dependence on Rousseau – the founding of this project on the liberal tradition turns out to be problematic and burdened with ideological symptoms. Since Kant’s thought lies at the root of the modern concept of liberal rule of law, these symptoms show the limitations of Rechtsstaat resulting from its own normative assumptions.
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The author examines the critique of the epoch, which German philosopher of law and political theoretician Carl Schmitt worked out in the 1920s. Since this topic is present in most of Schmitt’s works from that period, author chose to discuss three, in which this subject isn’t considered on the margins, but on the foreground: a text concerning the poem by Theodor Däubler Nordlicht, Political Romanticism and Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations. While the latter is well known in Poland, the first two – a little worse, as well as the whole reflection and biography of Carl Schmitt in that period. The consistency with which Schmitt engaged in the criticism of the times in which he lived, allows us to show how he was born as a political thinker: main ideas of his political theology have their source in the criticism of the era. In addition, the author presents criticism created by Schmitt on the background of that one developed by other thinkers, to point out the differences between this two approaches to the same epoch. The aim of the study is, first, to bring Polish reader closer to the not-so-well-studied period of Schmitt’s reflection and biography (by reaching beyond the above-mentioned works also to the journal of Carl Schmitt, as well as his youthful literary work Schattenrisse, written together with Fritz Eisler), secondly: to present Schmitt as an original thinker of his era.
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Na temelju Božije riječi da se sve kreće do roka određenog moglo bi se i zaključiti da ono što se kreće, a sve se kreće, neminovno doživljava i promjene koje bivaju svjedocima protiv onih koji posumnjaju i uzdaju se u kontinuitet nepromjenjivosti i kao takvi svjedoče protiv sebe, jer i sami se mijenjaju. Pandemijsko doba je izazvalo potres i promjene kojim je dosadašnja slika svijeta, sklopljena od puzli, gotovo potpuno rastresena. Očigledno je da smo tim potresom stavljeni u poziciju da presložimo te puzle, u nadi da ćemo dobiti neku bolju sliku svijeta. [...]
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