This article concerns “living zones of the imagination”—areas of social life in which intensive “interpretive labor” is underway. Thanks to these zones, it is possible to engage in universally accepted exercises that enable a person to “see the world through the eyes of another person” and that yet do not disturb the current socio-cultural order. They provide an important basis for understanding among people, for harmonizing meanings in the sphere of social realities, and for integration that goes beyond certain permanent boundaries and hierarchies. The basic aim of the article is to prove that hospitality, understood as a value in Polish culture, could contribute to a considerable degree to the creation of such zones. The author analyzes the zones’ character, function, and meaning, paying attention to how they resist the expansion of bureaucratic ways of organizing social life. He also draws attention to the influence that an axio-normative pattern could have within specific models of behavior and cultural practices. Key words: hospitality, resistance practices, social imagination, interpretive labor

We wszystkich obszarach aktywności twórczej wyobraźnia, jest niezbędnym elementem w życiu i funkcjonowaniu człowieka. W wielu sytuacjach życiowych jest ona nieodłącznym elementem wykorzystywanym w sposób mniej lub bardziej świadomy. Pozwala tworzyć wyobrażenia, które nie mają odpowiedników w żadnym z wrażeń, stanowiąc podstawę twórczości wszelkiej aktywności człowieka. Wyobraźnia jest naturalnym przedłużeniem wzroku, specyficzną zdolnością do wywoływania obrazów, pobudzającą do twórczego myślenia i działania. W dzisiejszych czasach człowiek nieustannie bombardowany jest coraz większą ilością dźwięków i obrazów, które „zagłuszają” naturalny rozwój wyobraźni. Szybki postęp technologiczny, którego jesteśmy świadkami, nie pozostaje bez wpływu na rozwój twórczego myślenia, tworzy bariery ograniczające człowieka.

The author reconstructs the Romantic concept of imagination, drawing attention to its relations with the esoteric tradition, and then presents the significance of the idea of imagination for pedagogical reflection in the period of Romanticism. What is also undertaken is the motif of the continuity of Romantic ideas in the 20th century, with special regard to the 20th century youth counterculture and the relations between the countercultural concept of imagination and the discourse on education.

This article analyzes the key characteristics of Olga Tokarczuk's fiction, whose structure appears to embody the epistemological metaphor of a network of fungal threads (mycelium). The article attempts to demonstrate that throughout her fictional world this non-binary principle integrates the whole and the fragment, identity politics and the politics of becoming, life and death, the personal and the impersonal, words and actions. The roots of the approach must be sought in the posthuman(ist) imagination, the influence of which in Tokarczuk's writing can be traced back to the 1990s, rather than her indebtedness to the aesthetic theories of postmodernism.

The main task for imagination in Roman Ingarden’s theory of literary work is to reconstruct fictional objects and their appearances, as well as to furnish details even not mentioned in the work but compatible with the schematic description contained in the work. Imagination, therefore, plays an essential role in the act of Ingardenian ‘concretization’, that is in an inner presentation of the written work by the mind of the reader. According to the program of anti‑psychologism, the imaginative activities do not belong to the literary work. In particular, the creative imagination of the author and the free inspirations experienced by a reader must not be regarded as part of the work. Ingarden understands imagination traditionally, as the ability of visualizing mental images. It is possible, however, to understand imagination in a different way, that may be called semiotic, when it becomes an art of giving meaning to fictitious, fantastical, metaphorical and symbolical sentences. Adopting such a conception of imagination reveals imaginative features in all the four levels of literary work indicated by Ingarden. In particular, the notorious Ingardenian ‘quasi‑judgment’ could be defined as the imaginative sentence.

Sophie de Grouchy in her Letters on sympathy analyses the notion of sympathy, as a starting point using a critique of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. She also points out that sympathising with other people’s joys brings us pleasure, other people’s good experiences make us happy (especially if we are the ones who contribute to their well-being) and we want to see other people happy and not suffering. As she assumes, we naturally seek other people’s well-being and not their harm. De Grouchy underlines the role of imagination and reason, discerning coincidental good deeds and those that are an effect of intended actions. The paper aims to reconstruct a way in which de Grouchy seeks the grounds for morality in sympathy that is based on feeling and observation of physical pain and pleasure. This presentation of her theory that Polish readers are not closely accustomed with is a good starting point to inquire whether the argumentation presented by the author of the Letters on sympathy is coherent within her theory and whether it has proper justification.

W transcendentalnej dedukcji kategorii, w drugim wydaniu Krytyki czystego rozumu, Kant wprowadza termin „formalna naoczność” (formale Anschauung), ukazując w ten sposób, że określenie to zawiera bogatszą treść niż „forma naoczności” (Form der Anschauung). Wiąże się to z określaniem, tj. determinowaniem czystej formy naoczności, które dokonuje się za sprawą syntezy postaciowej, będącej wytworem wyobraźni, ale przy współudziale kategorii. Rozważam m.in. kwestię, jak należy rozumieć jedność przestrzeni i co jest źródłem owej jedności. Przy okazji analizuję ważne i trudne pojęcie różnorodności (Mannigfaltigkeit), które – jak się wydaje – leży u podstaw różnicy między dwoma sposobami ujęcia przestrzeni jako czystej naoczności.