Człowiek podziemny w prozie konfesyjnej oraz wspomnieniowej Fiodora Dostojewskiego i Marii Komornickiej. Przypadek Notatek z podziemia i Biesów

This paper considers the idea of an underground man. It attempts to answer why writers reach for such a type of heroes and their position in the face of contemporary novel solutions. Maria Komornicka and Fyodor Dostoyevsky see in fallen individuals a source of creative inspiration. The confessional prose of these writers is an attempt to talk about the nihilist heroes who have chosen to live in a place of the metaphorical underground. The underground space becomes a construct of these works, and it is also a symbolic place where individuals desire chaos and darkness. The heroes of Demons and Notes from the Underground escape from where “everyone” lives and go underground, devoting themselves to underground mysticism because only such space protects them against the total collapse of the universe. Underground imagery governs the research process and shows how it determines the structure of a work and influences the methodology and ways of reading these works

Getto bardzo miejskie, czyli raz jeszcze o określeniach warszawskiej żydowskiej dzielnicy zamkniętej

The article examines the specific linguistic expressions used to name the phenomenon of the Warsaw ghetto established in November 1940 and existing until May 1943. The common denominator of the terms analyzed here is their semantic components that directly refer to the urban character of the ghetto. The range of meanings of the expressions presented here and their simultaneous urban connotations reflect how Jewish and non-Jewish residents of Warsaw who were directly affected by the city’s division conceptualized the phenomenon of the ghetto. The article supplements the already known diagnoses concerning the metaphors of the Warsaw ghetto and provides a commentary on a more general level about ways of naming the space of oppression.

Dyskretny urok burżuazji u schyłku wielkiego konania. Czas, pamięć i cywilizacja w dwóch powieściach Tomasza Manna – Buddenbrookowie. Dzieje upadku rodziny oraz Czarodziejska góra

The paper aims to juxtapose and compare the notions of temporality, memory and civilization in Thomas Mann’s two seminal novels: Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. It sheds light on a range of Mann’s topics and motives, such as the tension between cyclic and linear time in the bourgeois milieu, the artefact mediated memory, the unobvious relationship of familial and social history and the role that fate plays within them, possible concepts of temporality in a metaphorically ill and weakened civilization. These analyses serve the aim of sketching out a philosophy of history which Mann tacitly but steadily employs throughout his oeuvre.

Rewokacje antyczne w poezji Wacława Iwaniuka

The recallings to antiquity in Vaclav Iwaniuk’s poetry assume the reinterpretations in most cases. The above review of the mythological and historical motifs taken from the Greek or Roman antiquity allows us to conclude, first of all, that they were brought up to date owing to the use of the method we have called a reinterpretation. The poet, referring to the Greek myth or the history, tried to find the patterns and the symbols that make it possible to understand the history of his nation, its past and present situation, and his own life and fate.

O moralnych następstwach nadsprawności poznawczej. Casus modafinilu

The article aims to answer the question of whether a healthy person who takes a registered medication containing modafinil may be considered responsible for behaviours, for which he or she would not be responsible without the cognitive enhancement. For this purpose, three specific questions are analysed. First, it is analysed whether liability is connected to competence in such a way that the increase in an individual’s cognitive competence increases his or her responsibility. Second, if the answer to the previous question is affirmative, under which conditions the person who has taken medications to extend his or her responsibility may be held responsible for conduct which he or she would not have committed without the cognitive improvement. Third, can the conditions referred to in the previous sentence be satisfied in the case of a healthy person who acts under the influence of a drug containing modafinil.

O ograniczeniach teorii semiotycznej w badaniach późnego PRL-u na przykładzie Semiotyki Solidarności Pawła Rojka

The article analyses the limitations of the semiotic approach to the studies of late socialism in Poland through the critique of Semiotic of solidarity: an analysis of the discourses of the Polish Unites Workers' Party and the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarność in 1981 written by Paweł Rojek in 2009. This paper questions the assumption made by Rojek about the historical continuity of the Russian ancien régime and Soviet modernisation project as supposedly constituting the same system of intelligibility. There is an alternative approach of reading the discursive relationship between Eastern and Western bloc through the genealogy of discursive practices instead of the duality of two semiotic systems as described by the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School. Finally, the article assesses the applicability of Rojek’s interpretation of Solidarity as belonging to the ternary system and the Party as belonging to the binary system.

Teza o sekularyzacji Karla Löwitha w świetle krytyki Hansa Blumenberga

The article aims to defend Karl Löwith’s secularization thesis from the criticism made by Hans Blumenberg. Löwith’s thesis claims that modern philosophy of history is a secularized Christian eschatology. Blumenberg accuses Löwith’s thesis of substantialism. Following Sjoerd Griffioen, the article shows that this criticism fails. The article presents Blumenberg’s arguments that the idea of progress cannot be derived from eschatology. These arguments are refuted by the analysis of the work of Joachim of Fiore and providing a distinction between two kinds of progress. The article is written from the perspective of intellectual history, detaching from the dispute over the judgement of modernity.

Esej napisany z inspiracji książką Niny Witoszek Korzenie antyautorytaryzmu

A remarkable book by Nina Witoszek, an outstanding compatriot of ours, originally published in the USA, where it has aroused well-deserved interest among both professional and avid readers, forms the background for this essay. Populist nationalist tendencies growing within existing, but also well-established democracies, having authoritarian thinking at their core, constitute a threat not only to individual freedom but also to the effective functioning of societies. The strengthening of democracies, i.e. systems that are fundamentally democratic but significantly imbued with authoritarian elements, is a serious challenge for contemporary states (Hungary, Belarus, Poland, the USA under Donald Trump, Taiwan, Turkey, Liberia, Hong Kong and others). Overcoming these authoritarian tendencies is seen in Witoszek’s book as an initiative taken by small social groups releasing social energy to build grassroots democracy known from history as constructive and effective initiatives, e.g. KOR and later “Solidarity” in Poland. The book is an apotheosis of the friendship of groups of so-called ‘humanist renegades’ who evoke the impulse of change and their energy and way of thinking are instilled in the broad masses of society thus delivering the anti-authoritarian message of sustainable modernity.

Nigeria – państwo kruche czy upadłe? Dyskurs katastroficzny w Rybakach Chigozie Obiomy

The article aims to characterize the multidimensional crisis of Nigeria on the basis of the novel Fishermen written by Chigozie Obioma. Obioma, a representative of the third generation of Nigerian writers, constructs a narrative around a self-fulfilling prophecy about the annihilation of interpersonal relations, as well as the macrosocial, the political, and ecological crisis in West Africa. Finally, the ethnic and political views of Obioma in the context of the collapse of statehood in Africa are characterized.

Dylematy poznawcze Krzysztofa Kolumba

The text analyses the inner life of Christopher Columbus based mainly on his writings and the literature on the subject. It is an attempt to reconstruct the mentality of the great explorer against the background of his turbulent biography and the historical context of the turn of the Middle Ages and modern times.