http://hdl.handle.net/11089/40321 2026-04-03T23:06:58Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/40329 "Sensing – thinking with the Earth. An ecology beyond the Occident": Book Review: Arturo Escobar, "Sentir-penser avec la Terre. Une écologie au-delà de l’Occident", Seuil, coll. Anthropocène, 2018, 240 pp Heusghem, Corentin This book review is about the French translation of a book by the anthropologist Arturo Escobar that, though it has not been translated into English yet, deserves to be known by English readers. This book is quite important since it allows one to understand occidental, capitalist and modern hegemony not only as an economic domination but above all as a cultural, epistemological and ontological colonisation. Indeed, according to Escobar, this domination takes its roots in the Occident’s ontology which translates into hegemonic practices that are concrete threats to the other worlds and their dwellers. Thus, Escobar highlights the deep link between ontologies and practices and argues for a new field of study he calls political ontology or ontological politics. To accompany the proposition of a shift from a universal nature to a pluriverse composed of many worlds, Escobar does not only undermine the prejudices of modernity but also puts forward the relational ontologies from indigenous communities of Latin America that concretely resist colonisation, underlining the ontological dimension of their struggles. Such a framework enables one to overcome or at least minimize the distinction between theory and practice. 2021-12-08T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/40328 Rationality as the condition of individual rights in David Gauthier’s "Morals by Agreement" Saar, Marcin The topic of this paper is the foundation for individual rights proposed by David Gauthier in his seminal 1986 book Morals by Agreement, and particularly the role of conception of rationality in this foundation. The foundation of rights is a part of Gauthier’s broader enterprise: to ground morals in rationality – more specifically, in the economic conception of rationality. Because of the importance of this conception for the whole of Gauthier’s project, we reconstruct first the conception of rationality which can be found in decision theory and game theory, presenting simultaneously in a relatively non-technical way some basic concepts of the aforementioned disciplines. We proceed then to reconstruction of the foundation of rights itself – it turns on Gauthier’s interpretation of the so-called “Lockean proviso.” Lastly, we turn to the connection between rationality and foundation of rights. It is to be found in the narrow compliance – the disposition to enter only into cooperation which satisfies conditions of fairness set out in part by the Lockean proviso. 2021-12-21T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/40327 “Bodies can be compelled; minds must be turned, since they cannot be compelled”: Preaching as an “Introduction” to Law in the Ecclesiastes of Erasmus of Rotterdam Nowakowski, Dawid The recent studies on the relations between humanism or humanists and jurisprudence convince that Reneaissance, especially in XVIth century, when the national states began to raise, belonged to the periods of increased interest in the issue of law. Although Erasmus was not a layer, nor he introduced in any of his works a complete theory of law, he maintained close relations with many leading theoreticians of the law and jurists (Alciati, Budé, Cantiuncula, Zasius) and sometimes spoke in the legal discussions of his age. Among hist most important works concerning the matter of law were: Institutio principis Christiani, Ratio seu Methodus verae theologiae, Christiani matrimonii institutio, De interdicto esu carnium and Ecclesiastes. In the paper I’m going to concentrate on this latter work, in which Erasmus discusses the significance of preaching, preacher and widely understood Christian rhetoric. In the Ecclesiastes Erasmus touches the law subject with the special emphasis on historical character of law and relations between the divine law, the law of Christ and the law of Nature. After a short discussion about his understaning of law I will concentrate on the essential differentiation between the letter of law and the spirit of law, and I will point at proposed by Erasmus ways of introduction of law into human life. Erasmus, on the one hand, escaped a rigidity and abstraction of law and, on the other, he neutralised an aspect of the coercion of law. In his solution Erasmus appreciated the political dimension of preaching and acknowledged preacher as a more important guide of the people, than ruler. I’m going to interpret the Erasmian concept of preaching as an rhetorical mean of introduction of law in analogical way to “introduction” proposed by Plato in his Nomoi. 2021-12-21T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/40326 Communicative action and practical discourse to empower patients in healthcare-related decision making Napiwodzka, Karolina The aim of the paper is to reconsider Habermas’ discourse approach in terms of its usefulness in the realm of public healthcare where, on a microscale, intersubjective communicative situations arise between defined participants, i.e., patients and healthcare providers, patients’ family members, and further eligible contributors to patient-related decision making. A need for more “communicative interaction,” and explicative and practical discourse, is illustrated by two empirical examples of medical decision making which reveal both communicative and discursive deficits (Section I). To empower and enable the patient as a rational and autonomous speaker and discourse participant, a Habermasian emancipatory argument and ‘the power of the better argument’ is recalled (Section III). The possibility of equal communicative and discursive rights in the light of real inequalities is discussed in the context of a ‘competence gap’ between participants (Section IV). Further sections focus on the importance of informed consent on the side of the patient and the communicative competences as an important factor of healthcare system. 2021-12-08T00:00:00Z