Warsaw Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences – serie

The basic aim of the study is to describe the ambiguity of the term legal ethics in the context of different traditions and conceptions. The three most important traditions of legal ethics are: the French, with the categories of virtue and independence, the American, with the ideas of loyalty and professional duties, and the German, with professional roles and obedience. On that base, a theory of critical legal ethics is developed. It claims that the subject of legal ethics consists of three planes deontological, social and moral. Further it is examined, whether chosen legal-philosophical conceptions contain any legal ethics conceptions and what could be the interdisciplinary research program of legal ethics.

This book is a collection of essays, weaving together cognitive psychology, psycho-linguistics, developmental psychology, modern philosophy and behavioural sciences. It raises the question: how does grammar relate to our remarkable ability to cooperate for future needs? The author investigates the interconnections between the mechanisms governing cooperation and reciprocal altruism on the one hand and the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of syntactically structured elements on the other. Based on these premises, the specific character of cognitive explanations, possible architectures of mind, non-formal grammar and tacit knowledge are explored. Furthermore the author deals with the role of conceptual representations in explaining grammar, the modular structure of mind and the evolutionary origins of human language ability and moral authority.

The philosophical influence is a concept, a methodological tool and a process worth inquiring, because it sets the frame for the philosopher’s contribution into tradition. This study takes a close look at the philosophical influence on the dependence and inter-dependence between ideas and concepts, currents and tendencies and the experiences that every philosopher inherited from past tradition. It also presents four philosophers in order to identify the roots of influence: Arthur Schopenhauer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche and Emil Cioran.

Descartes gave the human intellect the central role in rationalism, his system therefore is a variant of intellectual rationalism. Other forms of rationalism had emerged in scholastic philosophy and the ancient philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. While Descartes had reservations with respect to all of them, he still adopted some of their elements: not even such a self-directed and critical philosopher as Descartes could have proceeded on the difficult journey towards truth without any baggage of tradition whatsoever. Those who treated this baggage as a useless burden and have attempted to pursue truth without carrying it, have only discovered things which had long been known.

This book is an empirical study of a central European city focused on the political process. The authors use the example of the city of Wroclaw to present a condition of the urban public sphere in the context of local governance. Contemporary specificity of the public sphere is a result of a long process of system transformation in this part of Europe as well as of the impact new global challenges have had on the political process in self-governmental institutions. The book presents the practice of governance as a form of the political in both institutional and civic spheres of the city. The cases provided (related to politics of memory, the symbolic, sports, subcultures and urban movements) show how circulations of governance practices are created and how they influence the institutional borders of the political.

The book contributes to the ongoing discussion and research on civil society in the context of democracy and democratization. It provides a theoretical analysis of civil society, participation, the public sphere and democratic consolidation in light of normative democratic theory and the challenges of democratic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. It also offers a novel approach to some of the key issues in that debate including corruption and democratic consolidation, active citizenship, civic unity and the rule of law as well as theories of democratization. Finally, it asks the question as to whether a properly functioning democracy must be complemented with civil society and the numerous roles it plays in a political community of free citizens.

The human world is an area of countless places and spaces. This book focuses on the variety of places, on their genuine features, and on their specific form of creating social relations. It discusses spaces inside or outside ourselves and the social relations we are able to find and create there.The authors of the book attempt to describe and analyze different spaces and social relations created within them. They look at the social relations and their types, observe the functioning of neighborly relations, relationships on social networks, at home or in museums. Each of these places is different and forms and creates social relations differently. The book offers an interesting study of selected cases over spaces of our everyday lives that help or hinder us build social relationships. (From the introduction by Anthony Giddens)

This book explores and critically evaluates conceptual and justificatory models related to paternalism in the context of moral philosophy. Paternalistic interventions promoting someone’s good or protecting the person from self-harming actions raise controversial questions from a legal and an ethical perspective. The tension between the benevolent character of paternalism and its interference with personal autonomy seems to hinder the development of a coherent theory that could specify the «proper» limits of protective state interventions. The theoretical investigation is complemented by selected cases from the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of Hungary.

This book seeks to analyse the categorial structure of sociological theory. The analysis is based on three assumptions: first, sociological theory is in a state of structural crisis; second, one of the symptoms of the crisis is the existence of many theoretical dichotomies which hinder the unification of sociological knowledge; and third, sociology of knowledge may analyse the causes of sociological theory’s structural crisis. Drawing on Foucault’s work, the author defines the source of theoretical crisis as an anthropological paradox: the involvement of man in a dialectic of being created and defined by what is objective while, at the same time, transcending this condition into the subjective. This study argues that insights found in works by Luhmann, Latour, Collins, Shapin, and others provide a chance for a formulation of a theoretical language for sociology that escapes the anthropological paradox.

The aim of the book is to outline and discuss a way of thinking about the limits of juristic power. In terms of research methodology, the authors’ approach entails relating the topography of such limits to selected theoretical frameworks developed within the Polish sociological tradition. The argument draws, above all, on the works of Leon Petrażycki, Jerzy Lande, Bronisław Wróblewski, Adam Podgórecki, Florian Znaniecki, Jacek Szmatka, and Piotr Sztompka. Striving to have each aspect shed light on the other, the authors seek out theoretical arguments which support their account of these limits. They present their model of the limits of juristic power, which includes the following constitutive factors: 1) politico-legal culture, 2) legal texts, 3) juristic culture, and 4) subjective factors (i.e. an individual, axiological sense rooted in ethical and aesthetic judgments)

Social and human sciences are currently in a special position. On the one hand, they are subject to frequent doubts and mistrust while on the other hand, there is a view that the 21st century will be a century of social and human sciences, addressing their importance in solving key cultural and social issues of humanity. In general, however, we can observe a decreasing interest in human and social sciences. The authors of the book believe that the rejection of the importance of human sciences is based on a fundamental misconception of facts. Society's education and culture is a prerequisite for the economic level of each country. Innovation is not only a matter of technical importance; it is equally important to understand human cultural behaviour in the broadest possible context. This book presents studies in selected topics from social, human and historical sciences that demonstrate the relevance of the research in the area under consideration. The contributors to this book are researchers in the departments of Archaeology, Ethnology and Folklore, History, Culture and Tourism Management of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra.