Between Textual Borrowing and Forgery. On Compilatory Practices of Medieval Universal Chroniclers Based on Martinus Polonus

The author’s goal is to add to the understanding of the issue of where the border line is that marks the passage from an enlarged copy (an augmented or developed version) of a given chronicle to an independent authorial entity. In this context a side question arises concerning the acceptability of textual borrowing in the face of medieval authorial practices and conventions, i.e. where compiling ends and falsifying begins. The aforementioned issues are discussed on the basis of five historiographical texts composed between the mid–thirteenth and the third quarter of the 15th cent. Their common denominator is their affinity with the famous Chronicle of Popes and Emperors by Martin the Pole (or of Oppavia). Examining the character of the borrowings, their ideological stance, and their political opinions, the author reaches the conclusion that it was not the copy–and–paste technique frequently employed by the chroniclers, but their intentions that decide whether the resulting works should be treated as new entities, sometimes even forgeries.

P. M. S. Hacker on Emotions, Passions, and Human Nature

The paper is a discussion of P. M. S. Hacker, The Passions: A Study of Human Nature (2018). After a general presentation of the book I mostly focus on its first part, which deals with categories and concepts essential to the philosophy of the emotions. Next I pass on to two subsequent parts of the book devoted to particular emotions. After a brief overview I say more, by way of exemplification, on the chapter on love. I end with a final assessment.

How French Mathematicians Learned about What Happened to their Polish Colleagues During WW2

This article presents an exchange of letters between Wacław Sierpiński and Paul Montel during the year 1945. This correspondence, translated here into English, provides insight into how and in what form the French learned about the dramatic fate of many Polish mathematician colleagues during the war. We also give a short biography of the two protagonists, as well as some facts about the mathematicians mentioned in the letters.

Le patrimoine scientifique des Invisibles. Reconsidérer les Petites–Mains au service de l’anatomie comparée au Muséum de Paris

Au sein du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle de Paris, les assistants naturalistes formaient une classe particulière au XIXe siècle. Ces employés produisaient une grande partie des collections de l’institution, contribuaient activement aux travaux des professeurs, et participaient même parfois à leur renommée. Néanmoins, ces assistants étaient plongés dans l’ombre des scientifiques, à tel point que nombre d’entre eux ont complètement disparu de la mémoire du Muséum. Dans certains cas, notamment pour les moulages d’après le vivant, leur travail est même attribué à de grandes personnalités, souvent à des professeurs. Les assistants naturalistes semblent historiographiquement peu étudiés; pourtant l’examen de ces employés à travers leurs productions matérielles permettrait de mieux comprendre l’histoire du Muséum et le développement de ses chaires. The Scientific Patrimony of the Invisibles: a Reconsideration of the Little Hands in the Service of Comparative Anatomy at the Muséum de Paris Within the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle of Paris, the assistant naturalists of the 19th century formed a particular class. These employees produced a large part of the institution’s collections, actively contributed to the work of the professors, and sometimes even participated in their renown. Nevertheless, these assistants were engulfed in the shadows of the scientists, to such an extent that many of them have completely disappeared from the memory of the Museum. In some cases, especially for life casts, their work is even attributed to the great personalities, often to professors. Assistant naturalists appear to be under–studied; yet the examination of these employees through their material productions would allow a better understanding of the Museum’s history and the development of its departments.

Signposts on the Page: Reading Devotional Texts Through Scribal Signs and Symbols

Medieval authors used an elaborate system of tools and techniques to organize texts in a transparent and orderly way. Toward the beginning of the 13th century, scribes adopted some of the old tools and put them to use in new functions. These measures are discernible, inter alia, in pastoral works devised to aid the clergy to carry out their duties more effectively. The goal of this paper is to analyse how the techniques were used on a microscale – in short texts of doctrinal importance – to convey complex theological notions in a visually clear and practical way.

Was John B. Watson Inspired by Anna Wyczółkowska and Her Studies in the Mechanism of Speech?

In 1913, an article by Anna Wyczółkowska entitled Theoretical and experimental studies in the mechanism of speech was published in the Psychological Review. It contains the results of her studies on internal speech and thought, which had been carried out by the author seven years earlier, in the psychological laboratory of the University of Chicago. John B. Watson was a participant in the study. Wyczółkowska believed that Watson was inspired by her research. Thanks to his participation, he gradually began to move away from his original interest in animal psychology, towards behaviourism. In his Behaviorist Manifesto published in the same year, Watson took, as one of the arguments for the rightness of his programme, the assumption that the thought process is really motor habits in the larynx, improvements, short cuts, changes, etc. According to Wyczółkowska, it was obviously inspired by her research. Her aforementioned article is still cited in the psychological literature today, and belongs to the canon of the most important early experimental studies in the field of research on thinking and speech processes. This text discusses the relationship between the research conducted by Wyczółkowska and some assumptions of behaviourism. Furthermore it presents the story of Wyczółkowska’s life, her scientific work, social commitment to women’s university education, and activities in the Polish American community.

Collections d’ethnographie et musées d’archéologie: entre désaveux muséologiques et jalons de l’histoire des sciences de l’Homme

The fact that ethnographical collections, often ancient, are preserved in archaeological museums nowadays might not be obvious. The material culture of living societies is not, indeed, the priority of archaeologists, who are mainly interested in societies of the past. However, a museological and historical approach makes it possible to study these collections and highlight their differential management according to institutions and epistemological developments in the human sciences, since the middle of the 19th century.

New Raw Materials from the New World: Transfer of Knowledge to Polish Pharmacies

Cataloguing of the natural world was started by the 16th–century scholar Ulisses Aldrovandi, who was inspired by overseas expeditions. Collectors of specimens, among whom were many doctors of medicine and pharmacists, noticed the possibilities for using exotic plants and animals in medicine. The first pharmacopoeias, however, contained very few of the previously unknown raw materials and they did not have a great impact on the contemporary therapeutic possibilities. In the Polish territories, the raw materials from the New World had already been recorded in Jan Woyna’s Krakow Pharmacopoeia of 1683, in which five American species were identified. By contrast, in the 18th–century Jesuit pharmacies, 30 such materials were already used, although they were not pharmacopoeial. In the 18th century, in the Polish lands, an important role was played by duchess Anna Jabłonowska (1728–1800), who gathered one of the richest natural history collections in Europe in Siemiatycze in Podlasie. Thanks to her support, the Polish nature literature was enriched with numerous works that were of importance for the development of the natural sciences.

Cuvier et Lamarck: deux naturalistes en miroir

Lamarck and Cuvier built opposite theories concerning the origin of living beings, their links and fate. If they could agree on the bases of the animal classification, they drastically differed in their interpretations. Lamarck claimed the reality of the transformation of species, whereas Cuvier challenged and attacked him fiercely. The two naturalists competed strongly for the leading place in natural history at the beginning of the 19th century, dialoguing indirectly through their scientific papers, which need to be reviewed in light of this debate. Their polemical discussion shows some major issues in the emergent science of biology.

Tischner’s Take on Evil on the Example of The Chekist by Aleksandr Rogozhkin

The problem of evil is unavoidable and largely incomprehensible, and it is exactly for that reason that it is of great importance for our being. This aspect of Tischner’s philosophy can be successfully shown using the example of Andrei Srubov, the protagonist of The Chekist. By looking at Tischner’s agathology we receive hope that we are not doomed to be defeated by evil within our lifetime. What seems to be crucial in opposing evil is the realization that there is always a decision to be made.