In 1913, an article by Anna Wyczółkowska entitled Theoretical and experimental studies in the mechanism of speech was published in the Psychological Review. It contains the results of her studies on internal speech and thought, which had been carried out by the author seven years earlier, in the psychological laboratory of the University of Chicago. John B. Watson was a participant in the study. Wyczółkowska believed that Watson was inspired by her research. Thanks to his participation, he gradually began to move away from his original interest in animal psychology, towards behaviourism. In his Behaviorist Manifesto published in the same year, Watson took, as one of the arguments for the rightness of his programme, the assumption that the thought process is really motor habits in the larynx, improvements, short cuts, changes, etc. According to Wyczółkowska, it was obviously inspired by her research. Her aforementioned article is still cited in the psychological literature today, and belongs to the canon of the most important early experimental studies in the field of research on thinking and speech processes. This text discusses the relationship between the research conducted by Wyczółkowska and some assumptions of behaviourism. Furthermore it presents the story of Wyczółkowska’s life, her scientific work, social commitment to women’s university education, and activities in the Polish American community.

This article presents an exchange of letters between Wacław Sierpiński and Paul Montel during the year 1945. This correspondence, translated here into English, provides insight into how and in what form the French learned about the dramatic fate of many Polish mathematician colleagues during the war. We also give a short biography of the two protagonists, as well as some facts about the mathematicians mentioned in the letters.

Medieval authors used an elaborate system of tools and techniques to organize texts in a transparent and orderly way. Toward the beginning of the 13th century, scribes adopted some of the old tools and put them to use in new functions. These measures are discernible, inter alia, in pastoral works devised to aid the clergy to carry out their duties more effectively. The goal of this paper is to analyse how the techniques were used on a microscale – in short texts of doctrinal importance – to convey complex theological notions in a visually clear and practical way.

The author’s goal is to add to the understanding of the issue of where the border line is that marks the passage from an enlarged copy (an augmented or developed version) of a given chronicle to an independent authorial entity. In this context a side question arises concerning the acceptability of textual borrowing in the face of medieval authorial practices and conventions, i.e. where compiling ends and falsifying begins. The aforementioned issues are discussed on the basis of five historiographical texts composed between the mid–thirteenth and the third quarter of the 15th cent. Their common denominator is their affinity with the famous Chronicle of Popes and Emperors by Martin the Pole (or of Oppavia). Examining the character of the borrowings, their ideological stance, and their political opinions, the author reaches the conclusion that it was not the copy–and–paste technique frequently employed by the chroniclers, but their intentions that decide whether the resulting works should be treated as new entities, sometimes even forgeries.

Within the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle of Paris, the assistant naturalists of the 19th century formed a particular class. These employees produced a large part of the institution’s collections, actively contributed to the work of the professors, and sometimes even participated in their renown. Nevertheless, these assistants were engulfed in the shadows of the scientists, to such an extent that many of them have completely disappeared from the memory of the Museum. In some cases, especially for life casts, their work is even attributed to the great personalities, often to professors. Assistant naturalists appear to be under–studied; yet the examination of these employees through their material productions would allow a better understanding of the Museum’s history and the development of its departments.

The paper is a discussion of P. M. S. Hacker, The Passions: A Study of Human Nature (2018). After a general presentation of the book I mostly focus on its first part, which deals with categories and concepts essential to the philosophy of the emotions. Next I pass on to two subsequent parts of the book devoted to particular emotions. After a brief overview I say more, by way of exemplification, on the chapter on love. I end with a final assessment.