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This is a summary of the recent research related to the issue of future contingents. It focuses on the aspects that were largely neglected in the traditional debate, such as relativism, pragmatics of assertion, probability, epistemology, and metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how the relationship between metaphysics and theology should be understood is one of the main topics of debate on the agenda of philosophers and theologians from Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) to Avicenna (d. 428/1037), from Avicenna to the late Islamic theological tradition, and even to medieval Jewish and Christian thought. Avicenna criticized Aristotle for identifying metaphysics with theology and presented a new perspective on the relationship between those two disciplines. He argues that God is not the subject but the goal of metaphysics, in other words — metaphysics is an ontological science in terms of its subject matter and a theological science in terms of its goal. In Islamic thought after Avicenna, the relationship between metaphysics and kalam continued to be one of the most heated topics of debate. Trying to explain the relationship between those two disciplines, thinkers such as Imam al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), Shams al-Din Samarqandi (d. 702/1303), and Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani (d. 816/1413) made a distinction between “Islamic science and rational science” and argued that metaphysics is an intellectual science while kalam is a religious (Islamic) science. On the other hand, Siraj al-Din al-Urmawi (d. 682/1283), who dealt with the relationship between metaphysics and kalam in his treatise On the Difference between Metaphysics (God-Science) and Kalam, revised Avicenna’s approach and criticized theologians who tried to explain the problem in terms of the distinction between religious and rational sciences. The aim of this article is to analyze Avicenna’s and Urmawi’s views on the relationship between metaphysics and theology, taking into account the historical-problematic context of the issue.

In the article I will try to show that considerations on God on the ground of philosophy not only have to start with the image of God handed down by Revelation and Tradition, but they are complementary to the latter ones. In the first part I will refer to the most prominent philosophical conceptions of the absolute being developed by Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. In the second part I will sketch the problem of God shown on the ground of Revelation, considering the question of “The God of the Fathers” and “The God of Christians.” And in the last part I will present the tools which make it possible to reconcile both approaches, indicating the basics of predicating about God as well as the problem of analogy which makes it possible to predicate about the first cause on the basis of its effects.

Human destiny itself is foremost a religious problem because, paradoxically, it stems from a distinctive sense of disbelief, or more precisely, from a radical disagreement with the randomness of life. The latter bears a resemblance to meaninglessness insufferable for human beings. On the other hand, fate presupposes a profound belief that despite the apparent reign of chaos inevitably spiralling towards nothingness, somewhere deep at the very foundations of things lies a secure harmony and a somewhat benevolent order, which ultimately governs the whole and leads all things to a happy end. Therefore, believing in fate is not so much about adopting a theory or practicing faith as embracing a profound existential stance. As a prelude to a synthesis of the history of human fate, a lexical analysis will be made to explain various approximations of the concept of fate. Subsequently, the various historical forms, or rather disguises that fate has assumed in the history of culture will be explored in a philosophical and theological manner.

This article discusses two philosophical issues the globalization ushered in in modern society: (1) Why should believers, and in particular Catholics, do science today? (2) What could be the believer’s attitude towards the multiplicity of religions? A proper understanding of the relation between science and religion is key to the first issue, and in addition, in a realistic approach, one can also see the concrete benefits of such a development. As for the second issue, the believer vis-à-vis religious diversity has four options: naturalism, exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Each has its drawbacks: in the case of naturalism and pluralism the very meaning of professing one’s faith is undermined, albeit on different grounds, while exclusivism and inclusivism differ in their level of (actual or merely perceived) disregard for other religions. Inclusivism (doctrinal and soteriological) is the option that stands out as the most intellectually mature in this set.

The topic of God in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas will be treated in three aspects: the question of the existence of God, the essence of God, and the topic of the relations between man and God. In this article, we would like to show the key issues of Thomas’s philosophy of God in order to show how they serve as a starting point for the theology of Aquinas. With regard to the first matter, it was claimed that the only argument of Thomas for the existence of God is the reasoning conducted in De ente et essential, where Aquinas points at the existence of God (the subsistent act of existence – ipsum esse subsistens) as the external efficient cause of the existence of beings composed of two elements, the act of existence and the essence as potentiality. In this perspective, the famous ways of St. Thomas were accepted in numerous philosophical systems (Aristotelianism, Neo-Platonism, and their compilations) to be an illustration of the possibilities of arriving at the stance that the first cause exists. When it comes to the latter issue, we present a concise approach to God’s attributes in Thomas’s Compendium theologiae and show a strictly existential approach to these attributes in the Thomism of Mieczysław Gogacz. Regarding the relation of man to God, we turned our attention —following St. Thomas — to two orders of these relations: natural, related to justice, and supernatural, which is love (friendship) between man and God. As an example of the application of philosophical solutions in theology, we point to a Thomistic interpretation of the development of the religious life of man. In sum, we observe that the philosophy of God, in its version developed by Aquinas, is characterized by strict intellectualism and a naturalistic starting point for philosophical analyses.

In the last decades of psychological research, religion and spirituality have been regarded as helpful in coping with major life problems. Some existential challenges such as anxiety regarding death, meaninglessness, guilt or even feelings of condemnation call for a spiritual response. Beliefs and spiritual practices can play an important role in counteracting disease or influence it in a variety of ways. They can have an impact on how a person adheres to a treatment regime; they affect how a person follows after-treatment recommendations. Spiritual teachings invite believers to develop compassion, hope, surrender, forgiveness, and, finally, charity. A great number of research studies have addressed the healing potential of spirituality. The vast majority of them have focused on their psychological, social, and physical effects. This article gives a concise overview of this research as well as discusses remaining methodological challenges to better grasp the relationship between spirituality, religion and health.

In this research paper I focus on the question of the relationship between atheism and transhumanism. I expose the well-known thesis whereby atheism is a property of Western culture. At the same time, I show atheism as the real cause of the emergence of a multi-directional philosophical movement, i.e. transhumanism, drawing attention in particular to its understanding of man, to the dialectic it creates between the extant philosophical image of man and the concept of the “new man” promoted by transhumanists. This exposition of transhumanism concentrates primarily on the issue of “anthropological tragicism” that I detect in transhumanist thinking.

Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers (BSP) has been widely influential well beyond Thomistic circles, but its modern historical sources and logical consequences call for further investigation. The first part of this two-part article explores three modern semantic assumptions or principles without which BSP’s innovated theory of existential judgment cannot be fully appreciated: the existential neutrality of the copula ubiquitous among modern logicians; Kant’s introduction of a positing or “thetic” function of judgment, the understanding of which evolved in nineteenth-century logic; and the distinction between predication and assertion, generally accepted by late nineteenth century logicians. Part two of this paper offers a rereading of Gilson’s BSP as an implicit critique of and alternative to Maritain’s synthesis of Aquinas with these modern developments.

This article concerns the question of whether St. Thomas Aquinas can be considered a young Earth creationist. This question breaks down to three different though interrelated issues: Aquinas’s view on the origin of species, his position on the length of the six days of creation (whether they were natural days or other periods of time) and his views on the age of the earth. Each of the topics is addressed separately in the subsequent sections. The article attempts to establish Thomas’s views by his explicit statements as well as what he implies in some fragments. The conclusion presents Aquinas as a creationist with an open-ended view of the timescale of the creative events and the age of the universe.

After a cursory review of Wojtyła’s anthropology and his philosophy of freedom as self-transcendence aiming at the true good, this paper turned to his treatment of intersubjective relationships. We explained the core concept of participation, a property of the person whereby he maintains the personalistic value of his actions while also working together with others for the realization of a common end. Participation becomes reality in a community only when it has a proper subjective common good in addition to its objective common good. The former fosters the normative conditions that make participation possible. Anterior to the common good in its totality is the “common good” for all human beings constituted by the bona honesta. Building and sustaining strong communities requires the engagement and solidarity of its members, which sometimes expresses itself through opposition.

The Polish medieval theory of the law of nations (ius gentium) was born in the nation’s conflict with the Order of Teutonic Knights, which pursued a bloody military expansion into Eastern Europe under the pretext of converting pagans, invoking the ideology of a holy war to justify its aggressive actions. The scholars of Kraków defended not just the Polish raison d’état, but also the rights of other non-Christian peoples who were also the subject of Teutonic aggression (Lithuanians, Samogitians, and Ruthenians). Paulus Vladimiri (Paweł Włodkowic), the main founder of ius gentium, in his method argued from several levels: the legal, theological, and philosophical, thus defending basic human rights: the rights to life, freedom, equality, tolerance, and the independence of nations. Vladimiri poses a fundamental question: who is a neighbor? He states that a neighbor is every human being, not only Christians, with this, in the context of the conflict with the Teutonic Order, showing the obvious contradiction of the Order’s actions with the injunction to love one’s neighbor. Vladimiri stood consistently on the grounds of the Christian religion, from which he drew the principles of the dignity of every human being, the freedom of the will, and one’s duty to love their neighbor, invoking, inter alia, the words of St. Paul in Corinthians (13, 2) and Galatians (5, 6; 5, 14). Vladimiri used a passage from the Letter to the Galatians (5, 19-21) to demonstrate the Teutonic Order’s misappropriation of the Christian faith, for “faith cannot be useful without love.” In this context, love (caritas) appears as a political virtue in the sense of self-giving, which is reflected in the vocation of the person realised in relation to others and which serves as the root and condition for the peaceful union of different nations.

Communication can be studied from a subjective perspective, which focuses on the participants of communication and their decision-making. Human action can be considered in theoretical, practical, and artistic dimensions. In all of these, the human being is the agent, which means that they are dependent on their will. Therefore, communicative actions, which particularly distinguish humans from other actions they undertake, deserve attention. In communication, various aspects of individual and social life are concentrated, expressed in human decisions. These decisions can be understood through the message, which contains individual personal experience. The interpersonal relationship that forms in this way can deepen through communication. Then, the concept of “co-participation” becomes significant, indicating the structure of this process. Co-participation thus becomes the key to understanding interpersonal communication. The goal of the article is to show the way humans function through communication, especially by highlighting the key moment that reveals the meaning of communication in social relations.

The article is an analysis of the influence of the Platonic concept of the state on the first attempts to build a modern concept of political economy in French. Unlike the English-language economic theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the French Traité de l’économie politique by Antoine de Montchrétien is not just an attempt to analyze economic phenomena such as labor productivity, new technologies, or the development of agriculture, industry, and crafts, but is also an attempt to relate the new view of economics with the traditionally Platonic understanding of the state as a three-part structure in which each social group does only its own work. However, the understanding of Platonic justice as each social group doing its own thing is simplified in Montchrétien’s work. The French thinker relies on an archaic form of the social contract, in which individual social groups are dogmatically understood as elements of a fixed and immutable structure, of which the French monarchy system is an expression. On this point, Montchrétien diverges from the author of Republic because the Platonic state - contrary to Popper’s view - is not an example of a closed society along the lines of a feudal or aristocratic monarchy, but a flexible republic in which there is the possibility of passing from one social group to another, provided one possesses adequate personal qualities. It seems that Montchrétien’s attempt to promote the people as a new social class was not successful because his revolutionary demand was not followed by a proposal to build a new social contract through which the goods-producing class could become the real subject and source of the state’s wealth. The new social contract was introduced in Europe as a result of the Industrial Revolution and a series of political revolutions led by the French Revolution while the Montchrétien treatise remained a purely theoretical attempt to build a new concept of political economy.

Europe has a Christian soul. The values, customs, and institutions of the social life of the European nations crystallized under the animating influence of Christ’s gospel. One can speak of the inalienability of Christianity on the Old Continent. There is an inextricable bond between Europe and Christianity. Following Joseph Ratzinger, the article presents European values and ideas growing out of the Christian heritage: the humanism of the Incarnation, the primacy of spiritual values, the subordination of law and democracy to eunomy, a rational approach to reality, the dignity of conscience and recognition of its rights, the culture of love of neighbor and social justice, the idea of fraternity, and religious-political dualism in the relationship between the state and the Church. Maintaining Europe’s Christian identity is therefore a task for Christians and all those who want its characteristic ideas and institutions to survive.

Ecological life choices, influenced by the individual morality-driven reflection on nature, ecosophy, seems to be a perfect embodiment of Charles Taylor’s strong evaluations. The purpose of the following text is to establish the linkage between these two, seemingly entirely separate concepts, which have never before been brought side by side. The article portrays ecosophy as a possible part of the strong evaluations. It also indicates the relationship between the theoretical and practical dimension of the two concepts, which not only have the possibility of coexisting within the same person, but also mutually reinforce each other’s realizations. To explore the issue, I primarily used selected publications by the authors mentioned in the title: Arne Naess and Charles Taylor. It was the analysis of these works that led me to the thesis of the application of one term in the other and to the final conclusions and doubts. The latter, concerning, among other things, the differences in the understanding of particular words used by the two contemporary philosophers, will become a trigger for further consideration of the applications of strong evaluations. These doubts will also open the door to a discussion of ecosophy on a different ground than up until now.

In the old days, taxing a commodity meant setting its price (i.e., its "rate") through negotiation, to keep it within the reach of as many people as possible. Taxation was an exceptional measure granted by royal authority to the public, who cherished it. In the name of a freedom that would be enjoyed only by merchants, the Enlightenment movement argued that taxation was theft, and the Revolution rigorously prohibited it from the outset. Prices soared. Whereas yesterday we taxed a product to prevent it from going up in price, today the tax is what increases the price to the benefit of the State or a community. History has changed the meaning of words.

Primer Ethics by Carol Wojtyła originated from a book titled OSOBA I CZYN (THE ACTING PERSON), translated by Andrzej Potocki and Edited by Anna Teresa Tymieniecka. It was published in 1979 by D. Reidel Company, part of Springer in Dordrecht, Netherlands. The translated version has over 300 pages. PRIMER ETHICS is an informal alternate title with the Polish equivalent, ELEMENTARZ ETYCZNY. It is bilingual, translated by Hugh McDonald, and Copyrighted by Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, Lublin 2017. It has 241 pages.

Information has been omnipresent and all-powerful for almost two centuries, and now possesses sophisticated and invasive means of imposing itself and creating opinion. It was crucial in the Enlightenment and in the preparation of the French Revolution by the intellectual and bourgeois elites. Its characteristic is to be the opposite of intangible truths, to be moving, malleable and adaptable. It is the new replacing the old. It is bracketed by history, because it ignores tradition and no longer needs the past. The creation of opinion in the 18th century introduced a concept of freedom that in fact conceals totalitarianism. People are told what to think. Information is a weapon against all forms of personal reflection and inner life. It imposes itself and imposes, making it impossible to distance oneself. It even kills the democracy it boasts about.

Abbé Lionel Groulx (1878-1967) is the most influential intellectual in Quebec history. A historian and nationalist activist, he asserted that the French language was the guardian of the Catholic faith in North America. He edited L'Action française de Montréal (1917-1928), a magazine inspired by the traditionalist thinking of Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras. Groulx advocated Quebec independence as early as 1922. He denounced Anglo-Saxon cultural infiltration of French-Canadian society, through both British imperialism and American capitalism. He harshly criticized the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s, which de-Christianized Quebec under the pretext of modernizing it, and in particular the educational reform that distanced French culture in America from the living axis of ancient Greco-Latin civilization.

The word "school" has never been so commonly used as it is today. But do we really think about what it means? What reality(s) lie(s) behind this apparently neutral term? Originally encompassing a wide range of different meanings, the noun gradually became confined, in the wake of the Renaissance and the French Revolution, to common or public education, associated with simultaneous teaching. Older, more traditional forms of child-rearing, more domestic in nature, have steadily declined. The consequences of this anything but trivial phenomenon are numerous for individuals, families, societies and even the Church. It's important to be aware of them, to be conscious of them, and to take stock of them, which is what this two-part post hopes to contribute to.

The word "school" has never been so commonly used as it is today. But do we really think about what it means? What reality(s) lie(s) behind this apparently neutral term? Originally encompassing a wide range of different meanings, the noun gradually became confined, in the wake of the Renaissance and the French Revolution, to common or public education, associated with simultaneous teaching. Older, more traditional forms of child-rearing, more domestic in nature, have steadily declined. The consequences of this anything but trivial phenomenon are numerous for individuals, families, societies and even the Church. It's important to be aware of them, to be conscious of them, and to take stock of them, which is what this two-part post hopes to contribute to.

Dealing with counter-revolution is a tricky business. For while the word "counter-revolution" signifies opposition to revolution, it is first important to get to grips with the principles of revolution. And while principles are ideas, their application and implementation presuppose a terrain capable of receiving them - in other words, a society ready for revolution. It's in this sense that we need to think about a counter-revolution. It's one thing to know the contours and guiding ideas, but quite another to be able to apply and realize them in a society. This is where a good counter-revolution, like a revolution, must unite the philosopher and the politician, the man of ideas and the man of realizations.

Between the French Revolution and the Second Vatican Council, alongside a magisterium of anathemas against the modern world born of this Revolution and against the concessions made to political modernity by liberal Catholics, culminating in Pius IX's Quanta Cura, another operation unfolded on the part of Rome, describable as "diplomatic" in a broad sense. One thinks in particular of the instructions for rallying to the modern Republic given by Leo XIII to French Catholics in his 1892 encyclical Au milieu des sollicitudes. But there have been other acts before and since that enter into this perspective, by which the Holy See seemed to contradict, for the benefit of established liberal powers, its condemnation in principle of the institutions on which these same powers rested: the coronation of Napoleon, the "second Ralliement" of the 1920s, the abandonment of the Cristeros for "reasons of Church".

This paper aims to highlight Joseph de Maistre's pioneering work in anthropology, which 150 years before Girard came to the same conclusions as Girard: the importance of sacrifice in human societies, the logic of violence and its resolution, and the particular character of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which comes as a fulfillment and definitive end to the logic of bloody sacrifice. This little-known aspect of the counter-revolutionary thinker gives us a better understanding of the issues of matriarchy, patriarchy and Christian patriarchy, right up to contemporary developments with gender. He also gives us an example of the application of Catholic realism, based on theology and nourished by sound Thomistic metaphysics, and how a return to this Catholic realism in the human sciences is a key to understanding contemporary phenomena.

The Vendée War (1793-1795) was an essential part of the French Revolution (1789-1799). A region of western France, south of Nantes, the Vendée, refused to continue obeying the new authorities of the Republic (1792), against a backdrop of forced military mobilization and anti-Catholic religious persecution. This peasant insurrection, led by nobles like Charette, suffered terrible repression, beyond military counter-insurgency. The Convention, the assembly governing the Republic, was very frightened in 1793, in a context of difficult foreign war and multiple domestic disputes. It took revenge by organizing a populicide in the Vendée. Carrier's infamous massacres in Nantes, carried out to order, were the norm, not a pathological exception. The infernal columns of the Republican army carried out the Vendée genocide. We propose to rediscover these historical facts, sometimes still hidden.

Grandson of King Charles X, the earl of Chambord, Henry V (1820-1883), incarnated during his life the hopes of monarchical restoration of French legitimists, exercising a true moral royalty. In his speeches and letters, he presented a political program for to counter the ideas of French Revolution. The reflection of the earl of Chambord appears, during the third quarter of the XIXth century, like the most completed expression of counter-revolutionary thinking. To restore social harmony disturbed by the Revolution, the earl of Chambord wanted to embody a Christian monarchy tempered by a new definition of representation rules, the recovery of local freedoms and the concern to restore social justice by improving the workers conditions of life. This political program encountered opposition from circles liberal-conservative who wanted to guard against the restoration of king adhering to the principles formulated by Pius IX in the Syllabus. They put to their support unacceptable conditions for the earl of Chambord, demanding to him to accept “the principles of 89”. The White flag crystallized this frontal opposition, failing the third restoration.

My chief aim in this article is to call upon the research of some exceptional scholars to make some refinements to Étienne Gilson’s teaching about the nature of Christian philosophy. In the process of so doing, I also aim to make as comprehensible as I can why Gilson, from 1931 through the rest of his academic life, had so much difficulty making intelligible to himself and to others precisely what he had meant by the term ‘Christian Philosophy.”

In this article, the author discusses the issue of the understanding of so-called relationes secundum dici in St. Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysical thought. This is a specific type of relations with which commentators and continuators of Aquinas’ philosophy have usually had some difficulties. The very name of the relations – relationes secundum dici – has caused problems, since, at first sight, it indicates that at stake there is just a problem of predication about things (beings) and it has nothing to do with the ontic problem of the beingness of being as such. Until now, there has been no common agreement as to how we should interpret the kind of relations under discussion. And the issue is extremely important, since this is a key element of St. Thomas’ metaphysics, because it is the interpretation of secundum dici relations that the solution of many basic metaphysical questions depends on. In the article, an attempt is made to reach an understanding of secundum dici relations – i.e., the understanding of St. Thomas himself. At the beginning, some of Aquinas’ statements are presented in which he directly speaks about secundum dici relations. Next, the most prominent interpretations of these relations throughout the history of philosophy are sketched. Finally, the author tries to specify how the secundum dici relations should be understood.

Karol Wojtyła understood that the turn to the subject had beneficially augmented traditional metaphysics by revealing the uniqueness of each person. Nevertheless, he also knew that for those investigations into personhood to resist devolving into mere relativism, the analysis had to be grounded in the metaphysical principles of Thomism. One contemporary illustration of an ungrounded subjectivism is the rise of identitarianism; that is, the idea that people can choose their own identity based on a peculiar property as distinct from our common human nature. In this paper, I will examine both the Thomistic metaphysical and phenomenological personalist bases for critiquing identitarianism. I will argue that the analogy of being, distinguishing substance from dependent modes of being, is the necessary metaphysical foundation for the personalist integration of actions in a subject who, while unique, must be recognized primarily as an instance of a common human nature.

This article examines the relationship between the theologies of St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope St. John Paul II with respect to their accounts of the state of original innocence or “original justice.” The author contends that, in his “Theology of the Body,” John Paul II presumes and builds upon the Thomistic account by demonstrating their continuity of thought; the second contention is that the pontiff develops the Thomistic account by emphasizing the teleological nature of the self-mastery characteristic of the prelapsarian state as ordered toward self-gift as well as in the interpersonal dimension of that primitive beatitude.

Abstract: One might wonder whether the essence of love involves self-transcendence. If it does, then philosophers who speak of self-love could not really be addressing love at all. Perhaps they address a related phenomenon, maybe even a good, positive reality, but not love itself. Since St. Thomas Aquinas speaks to the legitimacy of the love of self, philosophers who argue the essence of love involves self-transcendence criticize the scholastic’s position. This is the exact criticism Dietrich von Hildebrand advances in The Nature of Love. This paper defends Aquinas against von Hildebrand’s suggestion that “self-love” is not really love at all. I will argue that, based on both natural and supernatural principles, Aquinas’s notion of the love of self, as far as it relates to the love of God, involves transcendence.

The main purpose of this essay is to defend moral principles in the light of their critique by advocates of anti-theory in ethics. Moral principles, according to critics, cannot realize the main aim of principle-based ethics, which is providing a decision procedure. Abstract, general character of rules cannot correctly recognize an action’s moral value. The relation between normative and descriptive cannot be captured by principles. The above arguments were critically analyzed. For our moral judgments to remain rational and justifiable, they must assume the necessary relationship between what is non-moral (descriptive) and what is normative. Without that, moral evaluation would be arbitrary. Attention was drawn to the fact that rules are the result of the general (abstract) nature of human cognition, which takes place in particular situations. The principles themselves are revealed as specific regularities discerned in particular instances. The limited usefulness of principles requires the development of a moral theory to complement their deficiencies.

The aim of the article is to show the unique relationship of master and disciple in the concept of Father Jacek Woroniecki. First, the characteristics of the master and his or her features were mentioned, then the profession of a teacher and educator was analyzed, with particular emphasis on the problem of underestimating this profession on the one hand, and on the other hand, showing the teacher’s qualities per Woroniecki’s writings. An important element of the article is the issue of requirements from the educator and the obedience of the student, because at this point Woroniecki’s pedagogy responds in a special way to the needs of contemporary culture permeated by permissiveness, arbitrariness and extreme freedom. The central part of the article refers to the master-disciple relationship and the conditions of this unique communication. Since the most effective and desirable educational method is witness, the analyses contained in the final part of the article focus on Father Woroniecki as an example, an authority, a master who, with his life, confirmed the fundamental theses that he proclaimed and included in his rich achievements focused on the process of human upbringing.

The question of how the relationship between metaphysics and theology should be understood is one of the main topics of debate on the agenda of philosophers and theologians from Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) to Avicenna (d. 428/1037), from Avicenna to the late Islamic theological tradition, and even to medieval Jewish and Christian thought. Avicenna criticized Aristotle for identifying metaphysics with theology and presented a new perspective on the relationship between those two disciplines. He argues that God is not the subject but the goal of metaphysics, in other words — metaphysics is an ontological science in terms of its subject matter and a theological science in terms of its goal. In Islamic thought after Avicenna, the relationship between metaphysics and kalam continued to be one of the most heated topics of debate. Trying to explain the relationship between those two disciplines, thinkers such as Imam al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), Shams al-Din Samarqandi (d. 702/1303), and Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani (d. 816/1413) made a distinction between “Islamic science and rational science” and argued that metaphysics is an intellectual science while kalam is a religious (Islamic) science. On the other hand, Siraj al-Din al-Urmawi (d. 682/1283), who dealt with the relationship between metaphysics and kalam in his treatise On the Difference between Metaphysics (God-Science) and Kalam, revised Avicenna’s approach and criticized theologians who tried to explain the problem in terms of the distinction between religious and rational sciences. The aim of this article is to analyze Avicenna’s and Urmawi’s views on the relationship between metaphysics and theology, taking into account the historical-problematic context of the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is an introduction to the collection of articles, published in the current issue of “Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia”, on both the subject matter conceived (as broadly as possible) as Islamic metaphysics and on the very studies of this research area (the current state of knowledge, conjunctures, tendencies, prospects etc.). It attempts to provide presentation of discussion of topics and problems, which can be included in this area, but offers also first drafts of tentative and “work-in-progress definitions” of how Islamic metaphysics can be understood with its orientation on the most recent contexts, inspirations and applications, internal structures and dynamics relating to its interpretations and evolutions, as well as its original, historical versions. One of the inspirations for the project of studying the Islamic metaphysics presented here is rooted in Jasser Auda’s ambitious works on Islamic law, not narrowed to a technical, specialized domain of research about foundations (fundamentals), sources, jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) or specific legislation related to the Shari’a. The paper sketches a general orientation map introducing basic concepts and methodological strategies used by Auda with the prospects of their further application to the study (and potential rethinking) of Islamic metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicholas Cusanus is often seen as a pivotal figure in the history of Western philosophy. His writings are sometimes viewed as an attempt to reject the traditional scholarly knowledge, troubled by manifold tensions and crises, in order to prevent the collapse of Western Christianity under the weight of its complex architecture of knowledge. In this paper, I try to refute this mode of interpretation by highlighting the roots and structure of Cusanus’s theory of knowledge that serve as the basis of his concept of docta ignorantia. I present the concept of docta ignorantia as being intended to serve the purpose of a unifying framework for academic discourse.

In this article, Étienne Gilson analyzes the notions of dogmatism and tolerance in the light of the analysis of various contemporary historical facts. He defines dogmatism as the philosophical position that affirms that there are certain propositions that can be considered absolutely necessary. Similarly, he defines tolerance in direct relation to dogmatism: for Gilson, there can only be tolerated where there is dogmatism since one can only tolerate the falsity of a position as long as one is sure that another true position exists. Likewise, Gilson succeeds in showing that there is no necessary link between what is called philosophical dogmatism and political tyranny, just as there is no necessary link between philosophical scepticism and political freedom.

This article considered the correlation between freedom, conscience, and self-fulfillment. The analysis began with the properties of human action and how action differs from happening. The primary theme was an exposition of freedom which lies at the root of “man-acts.” The fundamental meaning of freedom is self-dependence, but there is a deeper meaning. Freedom is independence from the objects of choice that is achieved by rising above oneself (vertical transcendence) to choose the bonum honestum, the true good that fulfills the self. Freedom, therefore, ultimately depends on truth and especially on moral truth that is apprehended by conscience. Conscience transforms that normative truth into concrete duties that objectivize the bona honesta. Only when someone follows a moral duty understood and accepted as such can he reach the summit of freedom and authentic self-determination.

The text presented aims to illustrate the thesis of E. Gilson derived from his work “The Unity of Philosophical Experience” on the impersonal necessity linking philosophical ideas, as exemplified by Porphyry and his work Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes. E. Gilson puts forward a thesis that the philosopher is free at the moment of choosing the first principles of their philosophy, then they must accept the consequences that necessarily follow from these principles. Porphyry’s Sentences are a fairly synthetic account of Plotinus’ metaphysics and allow for a quite clear grasp of both the starting point and the above-mentioned consequences. In addition, for contrast, the paper presents the position of Alexander of Aphrodisias, similar in several points to that taken by Porphyry, but ultimately completely different.

The Philosophical Fragments (Lambeth Fragments) of St. Anselm of Canterbury are a kind of dictionary that explains the meaning of certain terms, such as: facere, velle, posse, necesse, debere, or agere. They include a discussion, conducted on the intersection of logic and ethics, of such deontic concepts as “obligation” and “goodness.” Through the explication of meanings, Anselm attempts to create a conceptual apparatus for rational proofs of the main tenets of the Christian doctrine and, even more broadly, for the exegesis of Scripture. In addition, this new apparatus allows him to examine some purely philosophical topics, including free will, causation, and the relationship between human freedom and divine foreknowledge. Recently attempts have been made (by D. Walton at the level of syntax and by S. Uckelman at the level of neighborhood semantics) to reconstruct the logic of agency presented in the Philosophical Fragments. The article will briefly introduce the main issues discussed in the Philosophical Fragments. The paper shows that the description and analysis of the verb “facere” mainly in the Philosophical Fragments, but also in Anselm’s other treatises, can be well described within the Aristotelian logical square; however, the article shows some problems in trying to describe the concepts of causation, agency, and action in the language of logic. Thus, the article examines the thesis of the applicability of logic to the fundamental problems of metaphysics, namely causality, especially in the context of human free will and God’s action.

The paper analyzes the argumentation that the representatives of Polish neo-scholasticism, Gabryl and Wais, used to justify the existence of God and the immortal human soul. The analysis shows the high intellectual requirements observed by both thinkers. Not only have they avoided naive confessional apologetics, but they were critical when choosing arguments from different philosophical traditions as well. The scientific activity of the two scholars was a reflection of the program of the renewal of scholasticism formulated in Leuven. The features of this program were both restraint in using the term “Christian philosophy” and avoiding confessional apologetics on the one hand and the preservation of its specificity on the other. This specificity was expressed in undertaking the traditional tasks of Christian philosophy: undertaking the justification of preambula fidei and the observation of the negative role of faith.

This paper aims to present the specific functioning of the emotion of hatred from the point of view of the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of emotions. This perspective is particularly relevant to the issue at hand because of its holistic and integral view of understanding human beings, including their emotional functions. In this paper, I consider the issue of the emotion of hatred in relation to other emotions against the backdrop of the structure of human action. When analyzing how hatred functions, I consider the notion of good and evil, which are linked to emotions and acts of will that play a vital role in the sphere of emotions. By correctly channeling one’s will towards the good, one is able to notice hatred arising within, and thus reflect upon it. Understanding how the emotion of hatred functions is essential for further research into how it is expressed.

This paper presents the sociological research carried out among Polish and Ukrainian students concerning the importance of family within their life. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the differences and similarities in the perception of this fundamental group unit of society. The research was conducted at a unique time, as it was during the ongoing period where Ukraine has been a country at war, in addition to the epidemic outbreak of COVID-19. It was assumed that these special circumstances as well as the cultural differences would influence the perception of marriage and family. In a threatening situation, a person can change their former value system, priorities, and the most important life goals. In addition, the observed social and cultural changes that are taking place in both countries - albeit not at the same time and to the same extent - affect the way young people see their vision of the world, and in particular in what family model they would like to spend their future, and also whether they think about starting a family at all.

Karol Wojtyła’s seminal essay, “Thomistic Personalism,” presents an integral theory of the human person that may serve as the foundation for an authentically personalist psychology. Relevant to the contemporary field of psychology, which appears fragmented and in search of a unifying paradigm, Wojtyła considered theory (anthropology), research (epistemology), and practice (ethics). In terms of research, he identified four complementary methods of understanding the human person: revelation (theology), reason (philosophy), observation (empiricism), and introspection (experience). In terms of theory, Wojtyła addressed the rudiments of Rychlak’s four dimensions of a personality theory: structure, motivation, development, and personality. In terms of practice, he described four guiding ethical principles: freedom for morality, freedom for love, personal good and common good, and transtemporal values. Wojtyła thus offered an outline for the project of a comprehensive psychology of persons with significant implications for the theory, research, and practice of psychology.