American Commonalities and Roots of European Integration

This article looks deeply into the historical parallels between the American and European experiences of state integration, which have resulted in the United States of America and the European Union, respectively. It first defines the key international relations concept of state integration and compares American and European thought on the idea. It then turns to examine some of the highpoints in the history of integration in the American and European cases. Given the remarkable historical commonalties between the two processes, the article puts forward the idea of the American experience as a chief inspiration and source for European integration. It concludes by suggesting that without the historical example of the United States, as well as massive American post-war assistance to Europe, it is highly doubtful that European integration would have commenced when and as it did.

Kształt polskiej pedagogiki narodowej według Wiktora Wąsika

The Shape of Polish National Pedagogics according to Wiktor Wąsik The article aims to demonstrate the validity of Wiktor Wąsik’s assertions regarding the existence of a national Polish pedagogy. An analysis of the views of these thinkers shows that there are many essential pedagogical features common across these scholars, even though they lived in different epochs. This analysis also allows us to see their work as both specifically Polish and simultaneously well-harmonized within European thought.

Charakter (Character)

The lexeme Charakter denotes the set of innate or acquired dispositions that make an individual or a nation distinctive, determine its behaviour, and give it psychological and moral strength. Charakter plays a central role in Goethe’s moral psychology and his ethical thought in general, as well as in his thinking on culture. His psychological and ethical thought is notoriously hard to classify or to align with the main traditions of European thought. His concern with Charakter could be said to belong to the broad classical tradition of virtue ethics, in the sense that Goethe placed moral character at the heart of ethics. However, in contrast to the classical tradition of virtue ethics, which holds that both the rational and the non-rational parts of humans contribute to a virtuous character, and that virtues can be conceptualized clearly, Goethe resists the claims of reason on our moral character. His early writings on culture and the drama Egmont have a Rousseauian flavour: Charakter represents a natural force that is endangered by civilization. After the French Revolution and in opposition to the emergence of liberalism, Goethe came to see Charakter as a political resource that was superior to political rationality. In his most sustained engagements with philosophical ethics—his essays on Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1805) and Isaac Newton (1810)—Goethe argues, in deliberate opposition to Kant, that natural Charakter has at least as much ethical force as reason and that naturalistic descriptions of human behaviour are at least as valid as moral ones. Moreover, Charakter has the advantage of leading us by a more direct and reliable route to morally good outcomes. In this sense, it can be said without risk of exaggeration that Charakter displaces rationality in Goethe’s ethical thought.

Adam Naruszewiczs Oda do sprawiedliwości im Kontext des politischen Denkens und der Gelegenheitsdichtung der Aufklärung

Summary The article discusses Adam Naruszewicz‘s famous Ode to Justice (1773) and the engagement of occasional poetry in contemporary discussions about the handling of justice in political trials. Looking at the trial of 1773 the Ode addresses the question of finding a just sentence for the abortive attempt two years earlier to abduct king Stanisław August. The article presents the pertinent aspects for such an analysis in three parts: 1) an introduction to the conceptualization of royal justice in European thought of the Enlightenment, 2) the known facts about the abduction and its historical contexts, 3) an overview of the occasional poetry written by Naruszewicz about the incident from 1771 to 1773 leading to an analysis of the Ode to Justice in regard to the political reasoning of its author.

1. World of empires

‘World of empires’ examines the emergence of America—both as an idea and as a lived reality—from the sixteenth through early eighteenth centuries. The discovery of America had dramatic intellectual consequences not only for those explorers and settlers who traveled to the New World, but also for European thought more broadly. The transplanted Europeans were as different from each other as they were from the many tribes of indigenous people they encountered. Thus, wrestling with the diversity of people, ways of life, and worldviews became the main feature of early American thought.

Cartesius dissoluto / Dissolute Cartesius

Resumo: No romance Catatau, de Paulo Leminski, uma personagem reconhecível se projeta: Renatus Cartesius, produtor do imenso solilóquio que constitui a totalidade do texto, parece corresponder a René Descartes, o famoso matemático francês do século XVII. Postado sob uma árvore do Jardim Botânico de Recife, entre as lentes de sua luneta e o cachimbo de erva narcótica que vorazmente aspira, Cartesius toma contato com a selvagem natureza brasileira, ainda que (cartesianamente) organizada sob as formas de um jardim zoobotânico. Este artigo pretende investigar, a princípio, o modo pelo qual o romance- ideia de Leminski agencia esse inevitável contraste entre dois Descartes: o Descartes da história da filosofia, autor das Regras para a direção do espírito, e o desregrado Cartesius da situação ficcional engendrada por Leminski. Para realizar tal investigação, este artigo procurou se ater a algumas passagens do romance, com o intuito de checar os modos pelos quais a paródica e carnavalesca figuração de Descartes se baseia em uma anticartesiana dissolução da integridade egoica da personagem, gerando, com isso, muito mais que superficial humorismo. Antes, o artigo defende a hipótese de que, com a dissolução da figura de Descartes, o romance esboça antropofágica reação aos processos coloniais a que o Brasil teria sido exposto, ao longo de sua história. Tal reação, contracolonizadora, se sustenta na medida em que associa o esfacelamento egoico de Cartesius ao impacto causado por uma exuberante natureza que, por sua hiperbólica constituição, não se submete às quadraturas impostas pelo pensamento europeu – de que Descartes se faz emblema.Palavras-chave: Paulo Leminski; Catatau; René Descartes; literatura brasileira; estudo de personagem; filosofia.Abstract: In Paulo Leminski’s novel, Catatau, a recognizable character is projected: Renatus Cartesius, the immense soliloquy’s producer that constitutes the entire text, seems to correspond to René Descartes, the famous 17th century French mathematician. Standing under a tree at the Recife Botanical Garden between the lenses of his bezel and the narcotic weed pipe he voraciously smokes, Cartesius makes contact with the wild Brazilian nature, although (Cartesian) organized in the form of a zoobotanical garden. This article intends to investigate at first the way in which Leminski’s novel-idea handles this inevitable contrast between both Descartes: Descartes from the History of Philosophy, author of Rules for the Direction of the Mind and the intemperate Cartesius from the fictional situation engendered by Leminski. To conduct such an investigation, this article sought to stick to some passages of the novel in order to check the ways in which Descartes’s parody and carnival figuration are based on an anticartesian dissolution of the character’s egoic integrity, thus generating much more than superficial humor. Rather, the article defends the hypothesis that with the dissolution of Descartes’s figure, the novel outlines an anthropophagic reaction to the colonial processes to which Brazil would have been exposed throughout its history. This counter-colonizing reaction is sustained insofar as it associates Cartesius’s egoic disintegration with the impact caused by an exuberant nature, which due to its hyperbolic constitution, does not submit to the quadratues imposed by the European thought – of which Descartes becomes an emblem.Keywords: Paulo Leminski; Catatau; René Descartes; Brazilian literature; character study; philosophy.

Linguistic Philosophy in the Context of the Anthropological Turn of Culture

The article considers the role of the ideas of linguistic philosophy in the context of the anthropological turn of culture that happened in the middle of the 20th century. Culture has constantly been developing on the horizon of man, and all its initiations have always met at the point of “life of man”, which is impossible without language as an essential anthropological attribute of man. The purports of linguistic philosophy (ordinary language philosophy) are relevant as never before. The study presented is based on the phenomenology of Nietzsche’s ideas of returning a new European thought to the origins of modern culture –the idea of a sovereign individual, which is determined by power over himself and his destiny, the ideas of the representatives and founders of linguistic philosophy, the slogan by I. Kant “Sapere aude!” (“Dare to think for yourself!”), on the historical excursus concerning the origin of the term “anthropological turn”. The anthropological turn in the culture of the 20th century together with the purports of linguistic philosophy brought back and developed further the main idea of new European culture – the idea of the self-worth of life, individuality, and freedom. These events gave a new value meaning to this idea.

Aquinas and “I”

A reified self (“the self,” “the I”) is absent from medieval European thought. Nonetheless, medieval Scholastic authors do have something to say about the subjective dimension of human experience that the later concept of the reified self was intended to address. Focusing on Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), this chapter examines the two key themes of self-consciousness and personal identity, in order to explore how Aquinas developed his notion of the human individual as a subject of experience who can speak about herself as “I,” in the first person. This episode illustrates a key moment in the development of medieval European thought on selfhood, in the confluence of philosophical and theological traditions from the Greek, Islamic, and Latin worlds.

PUBLIC ORDER AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE POLICE

Реконструируется генеалогия полиции в истории европейской мысли. Отмечается, что своим появлением полиция обязана существенным сдвигам, как институциональным, так и иным, произошедшим в Европе периода Нового времени. Полиция возникает как институт национального государства, в противовес институтам и практикам обеспечения безопасности феодального общества. Национальное государство и присущие ему практики управления и контроля насилия нуждались в инструменте для обеспечения порядка, репрезентирующем всех граждан. В логике отношений с Другим это проявляется в упорядочивании, которое возможно только в отношении такого Другого, который предстает и понимается как универсальный Субъект, субъект права, а также жертва. The article reconstructs the genealogy of the police in the history of European thought. It is noted that the police owe their appearance to significant changes, both institutional and otherwise, that occurred in Europe during the modern period. The police emerge as an institution of the nation state, as opposed to the institutions and practices of ensuring the security of a feudal society. The nation-state and its inherent practices of managing and controlling violence needed an instrument to enforce order that would represent all citizens. In the logic of relations with the Other, this manifests itself in yorderliness, which is possible only in relation to such an Other, who appears and is understood as a universal Subject, a subject of law, and also a victim.