The article confronts key notions framing our understanding of modernity, such as rationality, knowledge, freedom and democracy, opening the space of a critical interpretation undermining the superficial take on modernity as an embodiment of integrity, putting together the noble principles of knowledge and liberty. Drawing on the thought of Max Weber, exploring the symbolism of his metaphor of “iron cage of rationality”, the article emphasizes a paradoxical sense of the experience of modernity. In concluding statements it defies and calls into question a standard reading of democracy, viewed as an embodiment of freedom and rational self-definition.

Major works by Leon Koj deal with the issues of semiotics, logics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and ethics. Many of them refer to aspects of communication, however, this is not the main subject of his considerations. These references relate to the problems of satisfying: 1. the logical criteria, 2. the methodological criteria, 3. the ethical criteria, 4. the semiotic criteria. This article is dedicated to defining the semiotic criteria. It briefly covers basic semiotic notions present in Koj’s works. On the basis of Koj’s assumptions the concept of semiotics conditions for the realisation and functions of the communication process is defined.

The author presents the method of philosophizing practiced by Bogusław Wolniewicz. He subsequently discusses the sources of his philosophizing, the objectives he has set for himself, his rationalism as well as his method of making philosophy scientifically sound. The author also mentions Wolniewicz’s use of history of philosophy and substantive philosophy, his method of working with students in classes, and finally his work on texts. In many places, the author expands this presentation by adding elements of his own meta-philosophy.

Realised since the 1980’s, the project of the “city rebuilding” presupposes an environmental turn in city reform programmes and policies. & e purpose of this article is to demonstrate, how the agenda of the Country’s City Politics is being inspired by, and assimilates, the ideas of “being together” that have been worked out by city (social) movements. The society has come to be perceived as a source of “innovation”, or as possessing a certain, so far neglected, potential of development. In the governmental agendas, the ideals and claims of the social movements are operationalised” in such a way, as to identify society as a new resource of economic growth. The assimilation of the claims and ideals of the city movements into the governmental agendas becomes part of a new political rationality.

The article presents a particular mechanism of political decision making in contemporary democratic systems. It is called here ‘ad hoc democracy’. This notion refers to the phenomenon of making political decisions (that are general and abstract) on the basis of premises that are individual and situational. After defining ad hoc democracy, the author reconstructs a typical scenario of the phenomenon, demonstrates selected examples of ad hoc democracy and discusses its main consequences. The analysis of ad hoc democracy construction process follows. The main cause of ad hoc democracy is defined as the interference of internally inconsistent logic of actions taken by three types of actors in political sphere: media, society (treated as an audience) and political decision-makers. In the last part of the article it is hypothesized that the systems experiencing rapid social changes and democratization processes are particularly prone to the emergence of ad hoc democracy. The hypothesis is justifi ed and substantiated by referring to an example of Poland during the systemic transformation process.

In the present article, the author attempts to solve the paradox hidden in the declaration pronounced by Bogusław Wolniewicz who referred to himself as a ‘Non-Confessional Roman Catholic.’ First, the author analyses (1) the way Wolniewicz understood the sources of religion, and then, (2) how he defined the minimum of Christianity. (3) The author investigates whether it is possible to reconcile his acceptance of euthanasia with the teaching of the Church, and finally, (4) the author focuses on his evangelical aesthetics. By way of conclusion the study traces on similarities between the tychistic rationalism and Christianity.

The works of Bogusław Wolniewicz contain a philosophical system. It needs to be extracted and revealed through a recomposition of his output which comprises close to 600 individual publications and auditions. It is a system of Pythagorean-Manichean kind, or, to put it differently, Leibnizian-Augustinian kind. The Professor described his philosophy as a rational ‘tychism’. It claims that the world and man are governed by chance (especially human nature in which an element of evil has some influence) and that mind, even though it uses logic to reflect the world, is barely an irrelevant addition in the vast universe. Such a stance is unusual in modern thought, though not in the history of thinking. It is in clear opposition to the scientifically bended rationalism and irrationalism that dominate contemporary thought. The logical coherency and extensiveness of Wolniewicz’s concerns constitute the essence of his philosophical system, though it goes largely unnoticed, due to the meaninglessness of several of his claims to his opponents. At its foundation lies the metaphysics of situations developed by L. Wittgenstein but further elaborated by Wolniewicz. The contribution by Wolniewicz is not his greatest accomplishment, however. The metaphysics of situations is his organon – merely a thinking tool – used to extract the most crucial and deeply hidden truths about the world. Due to these circumstances and the modern achievements in logic when it is practiced in Wolniewicz’s style, new discoveries are made that were not possible in the past. For example, it is possible to incorporate both Christian axiology and anthropology with Marx’s sociology in one system. It evocates widespread amazement but also fierce resistance from conservative readers, but their protests are ungrounded. ‘Truth always agrees with truth’ – said Wolniewicz. When it comes to Wolniewicz’s system, its coherence counts most, and it is best manifested in the objectivistic and absolutistic philosophy of values as well as pessimistic philosophy of the human condition (both being of Christian provenance). One can depict Wolniewicz’s system as a cathedral with numerous towers, persistently built over 70 years of his active academic life. The main towers are: ontological-theological, anthropological and axiological (of practical philosophy, describing human duties). Standing shoulder to shoulder with them are smaller turrets corresponding to such subfields as epistemology, philosophy of culture, philosophy of religion, esthetics etc. The metaphysical aspect of Wolniewicz’s philosophy is blended from specific classic theorems and original claims expressed in synthetic a priori propositions. They are supported by the logical structure of language, and language itself is supported by the structure of human genotype (DNA). Technically one can reach the most general truths about the world by continuous thinking, but the ability to use that skill is a privilege reserved for exceptional geniuses.

The article treats about a forgotten play Zaduszki (All Souls’ Day) by Stefan Grabiński, widely known as the author of fantastic literature and horror stories. The play Zaduszki consists of three parts: 1. Strzygoń. Klechda zaduszna; 2. W dzień zaduszny; 3. Sen Krysty. Misterium zaduszne. First of them is written in folk dialect. The second one, sometimes named „the longest one-act play ever staged in Polish theatre”, considers a problem of a fault and a punishment. The third one, similarly to the first one, presents folk beliefs in supernatural phenomena which take place on All Souls’ Day. Moreover, it partly resembles a mystery play. Although the trilogy got an unfavourable reception (it was shown only seven times in Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków), it may be considered as an ambitious attempt to match the heritage of Stanisław Wyspiański – according to Grabiński, the greatest authority in the field of theatre.

Contrary to a widespread thesis about the non-cognitive character of religious beliefs, I argue that it is beneficial to highlight and not marginalize the place of religion in the epistemic sphere. At least some religious beliefs (especially theism) can be qualified as true or false. Holding them as true is usually based on the evidence which is not widely accepted. This, however, does not entail that these beliefs are not true. If they are true, then holding them to be true should be seen as rational, despite of the fact, that the supporting evidence does not seem to be strong in the light of current epistemic standards of justification. It does not mean, however, that such beliefs can be hold with the highest assertion if they evoke serious doubts. Changes in religious doctrines and religious pluralism do not constitute a sufficient reason for excluding religion from the epistemic sphere, as a similar situation concerns many academic disciplines, such as philosophy, or psychology.

The paper discusses political philosophy of Bogusław Wolniewicz. The leading idea of his general philosophy was rationalism of a specific type that he called ‘tychistic’ (meaning ‘based on fate’), or ‘transcendental’ (meaning ‘transgressing the limits of nature by reliance on human reason’). This self-description presents Wolniewicz as an author respecting his Christian background, though personally he did not espouse the complete body of precepts postulated by the Church. As a nonconfessional catholic he spoke in favor of Christian civilization which he identified with Western culture. This led him to the reject of liberalism, libertarianism and leftist ideologies. He wanted to be perceived as a democrat who supported civil and republican democracy based on the virtue of patriotism. He emphasized the essentiality of the possession of its own political state by each independent nation, and the most important circle of loyalty was for him a national community. Thus he undertook to defend a conception of cautious xenophobia that was expurgated of hate but dedicated to the defense of a national territory.

Henri Bergson as well as Gaston Milhaud undertake a radical critique of the conception of radical determinism because they both think that mind is able to act in a free and creative manner. In the article, I examine to what degree their arguments, aimed to prove this autonomy, converge. I inquire whether their endorsement of freedom of the mental acts led the two philosophers to the same conclusions regarding the cognitive extent of the intellect and therefore the parallel description of the status of scientific cognition.

Joseph Ratzinger binds together the triptych “theology – the university – science” by the common issue of a search for the truth and the service to the truth. Theology is being done “in the Church and with the Church”, it belongs to the Church and depends upon her. Thus, theology is ecclesial in its essence, it teaches not in its own name but on behalf of the Church.

The ethos of the university – particularly of a Catholic university – consists in the common witness to the truth and in forming the transcendent dimension of man. Thus, the service to the human person is expressed by the university in developing “a new humanism” as a response to cultural and spiritual desires of the humankind. The mission of the university is not only its service to knowledge but also to the education, which means bearing witness to the truth that has been found.

According to Benedict XVI both theology and the university with science should know how to unite the two ways of knowing – faith and reason into one common tone, with its unique enhancing of reason. In a characteristic way Ratzinger gives special attention to rationality which leads to the ultimate Truth.

Science means here mathematics and those empirical disciplines which avail themselves of mathematical models. The pragmatic approach is conceived in Karl R. Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery (p. 276) sense: a logical appraisal of the success of a theory amounts to the appraisal of its corroboration. This kind of appraisal is exemplified in section 6 by a case study—on how Isaac Newton justified his theory of gravitation. The computational approach in problem-solving processes consists in considering them in terms of computability: either as being performed according to a model of computation in a narrower sense, e.g., the Turing machine, or in a wider perspective—of machines associated with a non-mechanical device called “oracle” by Alan Turing (1939). Oracle can be interpreted as computer theoretic representation of intuition or invention. Computational approach in another sense means considering problem-solving processes in terms of logical gates, supposed to be a physical basis for solving problems with a reasoning.

Pragmatic rationalism about science, seen at the background of classical rationalism (Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz etc.), claims that any scientific idea, either in empirical theories or in mathematics, should be checked through applications to problem-solving processes. Both the versions claim the existence of abstract objects, available to intellectual intuition. The difference concerns the dynamics of science: (i) the classical rationalism regards science as a stationary system that does not need improvements after having reached an optimal state, while (ii) the pragmatical version conceives science as evolving dynamically due to fertile interactions between creative intuitions, or inventions, with mechanical procedures.

The dynamics of science is featured with various models, like Derek J. de Solla Price’s exponential and Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm model (the most familiar instances). This essay suggests considering Turing’s idea of oracle as a complementary model to explain most adequately, in terms of exceptional inventiveness, the dynamics of mathematics and mathematizable empirical sciences.