e-ISSN 20841043

Kraków, June 2013, volume 3, number 1

Leading theme of the issue:

The Legacy of Enlightenment

edited by Katarzyna Haremska
thematic adviser Paweł Kłoczowski

enlightenment

Editor’s note

Introduction to the issue (Katarzyna HAREMSKA & Paweł KŁOCZOWSKI)

Articles and treatises

Andrzej ELŻANOWSKI, Moral Progress: A Present-day Perspective on the Leading Enlightenment Idea (9-26)

Abstract

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Most Enlightenment thinkers believed that the World’s order (as ultimately based on divine laws) is good and thus every gain of knowledge will have good consequences. Scientific process was assumed to entail moral progress. In fact some moral progress did occur in the Western civilization and science contributed to it, but it is widely incommensurate with the progress of science. The Enlightenment’s concept of a concerted scientific and moral progress proved largely wrong for several reasons. (1) Public morality and science evolve largely independently and may either enhance or inhibit each other. (2) There are no objective values to be read in the World’s order and simply followed. Instead, our real, subjective values and the moral systems they fuel have all been generated and shaped by evolution rather than designed to be universally good, and thus ought to be managed rather than simply followed. (3) Our evolved morality is flawed, deficient, prone to doctrinal manipulation and refractory to progress. (4) The majority of people show metaethical incompetence in failing to take a reasoned critical stand toward the principles and assumptions of received morals. This makes moral progress largely dependent on those who reach metaethical competence by transcending the conventional stages of moral development.
Keywords: ethics, value, axiology, moral progress, moral development, metaethical incompetence

Dorota CZYŻOWSKA, O związkach między rozwojem poznawczym i rozumowaniem moralnym (27-35)

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On Relationship Between Cognitive Development and Moral Reasoning. Within the cognitive-developmental approach there is an assumption of structural parallelism that is an assumption of the developmental integrity of different areas of thinking. While creating his own theory of moral development, Lawrence Kohlberg formulated a hypothesis that cognitive development is a necessary – but not a sufficient – condition of moral development. The aim of this paper is to focus on the relationship between cognitive development and moral reasoning and to present the results of empirical research that intended to verify Kohlberg’s hypothesis.
Keywords: operational thinking, moral development

Katarzyna HAREMSKA, Kapitalizm – narodziny idei (37-58)

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Capitalism: The Birth of an Idea. Amongst the Enlightenment’s emancipatory slogans was a call for the liberation of economic energy, a call that was most fully expressed by Adam Smith in Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith provided a final analysis of the mercantilist system that had been prevailing from the beginning of the sixteenth century. By justifying the superiority of the free market economy models, Smith created the intellectual foundations for the capitalist order. He proposed a model for the production and distribution of goods that was based on two pillars: the right to private property and free market institutions. The vision of capitalism created by Smith was a system of power and freedom: a system of individual sovereignty over the world of objects and a system of the free circulation of goods. The combination of these two principles resulted in a coherent system which, when used in practice, has shown remarkable efficiency. Smith’s work proved to be a reliable way to achieve worldly success, one that has worked wherever it was tried out. Capitalism, and the accompanying moral philosophy, was the most commonly pursued idea of the eighteenth century.
Keywords: Adam Smith, Enlightment, free market, private property, philosophy of capitalism, Wealth of Nations, invisible hand, laissez-faire, economic freedom

Gottfried SCHWEIGER, Soziale Gerechtigkeit im Wohlfahrtsstaat. Zum normativen Gehalt materieller Deprivation (59-79)

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Social Justice in the Welfare State. The Normative Content of Material Deprivation. The issue of global poverty is one of utmost importance and has gained increasing attention from political and social philosophy. In philosophical literature, severe forms of poverty and inequality between rich and poor countries are central, while ‘relative’ poverty, which is common in richer countries, has gained much less attention. In an attempt to fill this gap, I will explore the philosophical substance of poverty and social exclusion in the context of welfare states. I discuss David Miller’s theory of social justice and the concept of material deprivation as it is used by the European Union. My main assumption is that material deprivation is socially unjust because it violates the three principles of social justice: need, desert, and equality. This finding will be explored on a theoretical level as well as considering empirical insight. Against this background, I will conclude with remarks on the possible contribution of social and political philosophy to poverty research.
Keywords: social justice, poverty, material deprivation, David Miller

Konrad PYZNAR, Koncepja realności w późnej filozofii Nietzschego (81-96)

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The Concept of Reality in the Late Philosophy of Nietzsche. The paper presents the considerations on question of reality and the related epistemological topics in the third period of development of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. While analysing this area of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the author of the paper pays special attention to the issue of life, which can be described as an ever-ascending spiral. The author elaborates on this metaphor by putting it in the context of a concept of an ecstatic kratophanic dance, as presented by Zbigniew Kaźmierczak. The author begins his considerations with an interpretation of Nietzsche’s views on three cognitive organs, consciousness, reason and metaphysical language, and their role in creation of the concept of reality. The next step is a description of the structure of the will. In the last part of the paper, the author presents an analysis of the concept of reality by comparing the results with the metaphor of an ever-ascending spiral.
Keywords: spiral metaphor, will to power, will to life, will to truth, awareness, reason, ecstasy, art, ecstatic kratophanic dance

Markus LIPOWICZ, Ponowoczesność jako nowa szansa dla Oświecenia, czyli o konieczności przezwyciężenia nowoczesności (97-114)

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Post-modernity as a New Chance for the Enlightenment: On Necessity of Overcoming Modernity. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the end of modernity does not necessary comprise a cultural regress but can also be seen as new stage of the process of Enlightenment in Western history. After the presentation of popular and commonly recognized definitions of modernity and postmodernity, the author will attempt to demonstrate the main limitations of modernity on the basis of philosophies of Max Stirner and Frederic Nietzsche. The author’s main objection to modernity is its tendency to reproduce the centralistic structure of pre-modern traditional communities in which one metaphysical term designated the universally obligatory norms. By way of crashing this structure, postmodernity opens new possibilities to an individual for creating new, particular values, thus enabling the individual to discover new forms of self-realization. To make human life in such a decentralized society possible, the individual would have to attain a new mental level. Civil education, therefore, has to go beyond the borders of modernity and be open to new ways of learning and solving social conflict.
Keywords: socialization, social integration, socio-cultural unity, Middle Ages, Christianity, norms, citizen

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Leszek PYRA, Powstanie i rozwój filozofii środowiskowej w USA na podstawie poglądów Johna Muira, Aldo Leopolda i J. Bairda Callicota (115-132)

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The Origin and Development of Environmental Philosophy in the US according to John Muir, Aldo Leopold and J. Baird Callicot. The publication refers to environmental philosophy, which is also called ecological philosophy or ecophilosophy. It shows in what way philosophical reflection on the environment has been shaped in the American tradition. In this context, the views of the thinkers listed below have been presented, analysed and evaluated. John Muir, an astute observer of wild nature, has been presented as an enthusiast and a prophet persuading a return to nature. Muir was a forester under the strong influence of the representatives of transcendentalism. As an activist, he founded national parks that served to preserve virgin areas, and as a writer he popularized the concept of the preservation of wild areas. For many representatives of ecophilosophy, the views of Aldo Leopold, as expressed in his well-known work, A Sand County Almanac, constituted a new pattern of thinking about wild nature. The book itself is almost generally regarded as a bible of environmental philosophy. Leopold, a forester interested in philosophy, created the fundamentals of holistic environmental philosophy, but the theory he developed is not without defects, to which some attention has been paid in this paper. The theory of J. Baird Callicot presents the attitude of an academic philosopher with regard to wild nature. His attitude is fully professional as regards the applied method, thus allowing the author to avoid committing a naturalistic fallacy. Callicot reinterprets the issues of facts and values, because he thinks that the discoveries of the dynamically developing ecology make possible the reformulation of the traditional approach to such issues by utilising a spirit of acceptance, and lead to a shift from is to ought to be.
Keywords: naturalistic fallacy, wild nature, ecology, land ethic, holistic environmental philosophy

Ramkrishna BHATTACHARYA, The Base Text and Its Commentaries: Problems of Representing and Understanding the Cārvāka/Lokāyata (133-149)

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The base texts of most of the philosophical systems of ancient India are in the form of a collection of aphorisms (sūtra-s). The aphorisms are so brief and tersely worded that their significance can seldom be understood without the help of a commentary or commentaries. Sometimes, the literal meaning of an aphorism needs to be qualified or modified by an explanation found in the commentary. If a reader relies exclusively on the literal meaning of the aphorisms in the base text without having recourse to any commentary or disregards all commentaries, he or she may miss the point. Contrariwise, if a reader relies exclusively on a commentary and disregards the literal meaning of an aphorism, he or she will commit another kind of blunder. Ideally, equal attention should be paid to the base text as well as the commentary or commentaries. Even then, all problems are not automatically solved, for it is an uphill task to decide when to go by the literal meaning of the aphorisms and when to follow the commentary. In their polemics against the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Jayantabhaṭṭa (c. ninth century C.E.) and Hemacandra (eleventh century C.E.) erred because they did not follow the golden rule stated above and consequently misunderstood and misrepresented their opponents’ contentions.
Keywords: base text, the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, Indian philosophy, commentary, inference, perception

Joshua Ryan FARRIS, Pure or Compound Dualism? Considering Afresh the Prospects of Pure Substance Dualism (151-159)

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Substance dualism has received much attention from philosophers and theologians in contemporary literature. Whilst it may have been fashionable in the recent past to dismiss substance dualism as an unviable and academically absurd position to hold, this is no longer the case. My contention is not so much the merits of substance dualism in general, but a more specified variation of substance dualism. My specific contribution to the literature in this article is that I argue for the viability of pure substance dualism as a more satisfactory option in contrast to compound or composite varieties of substance dualism. I put forth one argument and tease out the implications that make compound dualism less than satisfactory. I conclude that, minimally, more work is required on compound variations of dualism to make it a more appealing and a philosophically satisfactory option.
Keywords: concept, soul, substance dualism, pure dualism, compound dualism

Teaching philosophy, lecturing

Jacek FILEK, Podstawowe pytanie etyczne w horyzoncie prawdy, wolności i odpowiedzialności (161-175)

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ethics, philosophical ethics, way of living, sense of responsibility, summons

Translations into Polish

Rolf DARGE, Suareza Disputationes Metaphysicae i średniowieczne teorie transcendentaliów – transl. Seweryn BLANDZI (177-197)

Keywords & Acknowledgement

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philosophia transcendentalis, ontology, God, being, passiones entis, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas
Acknowledgement: DARGE Rolf (2010): Suarez’ Disputationes Metaphysicae (1597) und die mittelalterlichen Transzendentalienlehren. [In:] „Archiwum Historii Filozofii i Myśli Społecznej”, vol. 55, 67—90.

Reviews

Hannah ARENDT, Wykłady o filozofii politycznej Kanta; Manfred GAWLINA, Grundlegung des Politischen in Berlin. Fichtes späte Demokratie-Theorie in ihrer Stellung zu Antike und Moderne – Wojciech HANUSZKIEWICZ (199-204)

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universal communication, Enlightenment, reason, sensus communis, education, enlarged thinking

Stephen BATCHELOR, Wyznania buddyjskiego ateisty – Krzysztof JAKUBCZAK (205-208)

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modern Buddhism, new atheism, new humanism, existentialism

Dariusz CZAJA, Lekcje ciemności – Łukasz SOCHACKI

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evil, literature, anthropology, theology, language

Notes (217-224)