Nauka

This essay (given at the PENClub Polska) deals with the relationship between constitutional matters and poetry. The essay takes a closer look at the poetry of Adam Zagajewski, Marcin Świetlicki, Julian Tuwim and Adam Bieszek. “There is nothing on us in the Constitution” – Marcin Świetlicki angrily declaims the bitterness of civil rejection in the poem “Under the volcano”. However, the poet is not right. The Constitution sometimes means more than it says directly. If it is silent about something, that does not always amount to rejection, as Świetlicki claims. The two first parts of the essay explain why the poet could have made such a mistake as to his presence in the Constitution. The third part expounds the change that is taking place in Poland: the rejection of the foundations of the Constitution without changing its text.

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.

In these remarks I recall the attempts of pointing out the relations between philosophy and modernity in sciences in three distinctively differing point of view, that is the achievements of “the Enlightened Age” (in the sense of Ernst Cassirer), phenomenological philosophy (in the sense of Edmund Husserl) and the classicist conservatism (in the sense of Allan Bloom). In each of these cases an importance of those relations is being acknowledged. However it is not just differently evaluated and justified, but also the diagnoses and forecasts related to it look differently either.

A draft of the changes to the Polish Academy of Sciences is presented, which will increase its prestige and make better use of the scientific potential of the members of the Academy and the employees of its institutes. The proposed regulations will allow for a comprehensive activation of potential of both institutes and corporate members. The aim of reform is to make the PAS an attractive scientific institution with a focus on the pursuit of fundamental research at the highest level, and to recognize that understanding and clarification of the problem must precede possible applications.

This paper examines highly paid academics – or “top earners” – employed across universities in ten European countries based on a large-scale international survey data of the academic profession. It examines the relationships between salaries and academic behaviors and productivity, as well as the predictors of being an academic top earner. While in the Anglo-Saxon countries the university research mission traditionally pays off at an individual level, in Continental Europe it pays off only in combination with administrative and related duties. Seeking future financial rewards through research does not seem to be a viable strategy in Europe – but seeking satisfaction in research through solving research puzzles is also getting difficult, with the growing emphasis on “relevance” and “applicability” of research. Thus both the traditional “investment motivation” and “consumption motivation” for research are ever-harder to be followed, with policy implications. The primary data come from 8,466 usable cases. This paper examines change processes in Western Europe and in Poland (in a European context) and its main reference point is American higher education scholarship; it is, on the theoretical plane, the founder of the conceptual frameworks to study academic salaries, and, in practical terms, the US science systems heavily draws on European scientific talents.

The article presents a series of five cultural renaissances which took place in the Western World from the 3rd century BC to the 15th–16th centuries AD. One feature which all these renaissances had in common was a type of technological turn which either triggered or helped to spread renewed interest in literature. The end of the 20th century and especially the beginning of the 21st century has been witness to a major technological revolution. Some signs of literary and philological renewal can also be observed, especially in the field of classical studies. All this has led some scholars to believe that we are currently heading for the sixth Renaissance.

The author outlines a basic framework for anarcho-capitalism, a stateless social order in which safety, law and adjudication of disputes are provided by private companies (private defense agencies) competing with each other in the free market. In the course of presentation, three fundamental problems of anarcho-capitalism are addressed. (1) Is a peaceful cooperation among agencies possible? (2) Would agencies respect the rights of their customers? (3) How would the law look like in an anarcho-capitalist society? The last problem is especially vexing, since anarcho-capitalists seem to be caught up in a contradiction here. On one hand they are proponents of a specific moral theory (based on non-aggression principle), on the other hand they do not allow for any central, monopolistic agency to impose that moral theory on society. Is it possible for the law in the anarcho-capitalist society to be simultaneously produced by competing agents and remain libertarian at the same time?

Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz (in English: Sir Thaddeus, or The Last Lithuanian Foray ), the national epic poem, was first published in June 1834. It was perceived as a patriotic work, full of very ideal heroes. However, one of the most problem of this poem is love! Pan Tadeusz is the poem about love. There are many kinds of love: erotic love and maritial love, also familiar love (between parents and their children), love for country and others. My article applies not just to love affairs, but the very essence of love. What is love in Mickiewicz’s poem – is it “love that moves the sun and other stars” (Dante)?

Bioekonomia stanowi istotny element polskiej gospodarki, a podstawą jest innowacyjna biotechnologia. Rozwój biogospodarki (zwłaszcza w obiegu zamkniętym) wymaga nowoczesnych technologii „bio”. Rezygnowanie z takich elementów w gospodarce, jak GMO – aczkolwiek jest możliwe – związane jest ze znacznym wzrostem kosztów rozwoju oraz utratą dostępu do innowacyjnych technologii, które mają zasadnicze znaczenie dla aktualnej sytuacji gospodarczej i rynku bioproduktów, biousług i bioprocesów. Konieczna jest modyfikacja ustawodawstwa wspierająca innowacyjność generalnie, a dziedzin „bio” w szczególności. Aktualny stan polskiej biotechnologii jest przedstawiony na podstawie szczegółowych opracowań opublikowanych na stronie Komitetu Biotechnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk pt. „Ośrodki biotechnologiczne w Polsce – Mapa Polskiej Biotechnologii”; na tej stronie dostępny jest również pełen tekst tej Ekspertyzy (www.kbiotech.pan.pl).

Professor Jerzy Pelc was the creator and long-time manager of the Department of Logical Semiotics, University of Warsaw. He also founded the Polish Society of Semiotics. He published six own books, among others Studies in Functional Logical Semiotics of Natural Language (1971; in English); he edited also dozens of volumes of Semiotic Studies and Library of Semiotic Thought. As Kotarbiński, his master, and Twardowski, the master of his master, Professor Pelc was a radical rationalist. This radical rationalism has linked him to atheism, anti-communism, a distance to politics, and a frown on the falsehood of public life. He was a great patriot – in his life and in his work. He considered himself a successor of the Lvov-Warsaw School tradition. In the field of metaphysics, Professor Pelc combined theoretical minimalism with anti-rationalist attitudes, including the postulate of precision and the requirement of criticism. The main field of his interest was logical – and broader: theoretical – semiotics. He advocated and largely developed the functional concept of signs. To traditional paradigms of research: historical, teleological, causal and prognostic ones – Professor Pelc has added a semiotic paradigm, determined by the question “What does it mean that p?”. Referring to the interdisciplinary fashion for interdisciplinary research, he conducted an analysis of the notion of INTERDISCIPLINARITY. In ontology, he analyzed the notions of OBJECT and CAUSALITY. In his approach, aesthetics was treated form a semiotic point of view: he sought mainly ways to logically rewrite its terminology. In particular, he reconstructed the main aesthetic notions: FORM and IDEOLOGY (of literary works), THEME, MOTIVE, METAPHOR and (literary) FICTION – as well as semiotic notions essential to the description of literary arts, namely the notions of ASSERTION and INTENSIONALITY. In the field of ethics, Professor Pelc declared himself as an advocate of the ideal of trustworthy guardian, which he took over from his teacher, Kotarbiński. In metaethics, he analyzed the notions of NORM, EVALUATION and HUMANITY. A master of Polish: beautiful Polish – he was certainly a true humanist.