The aim of this article is to analyse the on‑going dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland from the perspective of legal philosophy. The author first posits that an argument from the Rechtsstaat idea is inadequate for a prospective solution to this dispute, then that the dispute is based on the assumptions of outdated paradigms, such as legal positivism and post‑totalitarian models of law. In order to resolve the dispute, the author proposes reflection based on the model of a communicational concept of law and the idea of a civil community.

This article argues that the challenges to political legitimacy currently encountered by liberal democracies affected by populist anti-centrism imply a crisis of theoretical understanding. This is because the competing claims made by recent and contemporary political thinkers reflect common underlying assumptions that put them  radically at odds with the perspectives of at least some of those now embracing political populism. As a consequence, the latter find themselves excluded from any justifications for preferring certain sorts of political institution – such as liberal-democratic ones – over others.

In his article ‘Is Meaning Fraught with Ought?’ (2009), Daniel Whiting advanced quite a battery of refurbished arguments for the claim that linguistic meaning is intrinsically normative. He ended the paper with the conclusion that he had managed to achieve two of his stated aims: to defend normativism and to show how the normativist can turn the innocent platitude that meaningful expressions possess conditions of correct use into an argument in favour of normativism. In the present article, I show that Whiting failed on both counts, although his failure reveals an important issue which has been overlooked by both parties to the debate. The issue in question is one of methodology: to wit, the plausibility of semantic normativism turns on the theory of practical normativity to which a particular philosopher tacitly or explicitly subscribes. To put my main criticism in a nutshell: semantic normativism cannot be defended without a plausible account of the nature of semantic reasons.

This article is the second part of my defence of a non-classical descriptive theory of reference-fixing for proper names against objections raised by Kripke. In part I (in the previous issue), I defined the notion of descriptivism, showed how taking the parameter of time into account influences the formulation of theses of descriptivism and explained why Kripke’s modal objection does not apply to descriptive theory of reference. I then formulated theses of the defended descriptive theory of reference-fixing and answered Kripke’s epistemic objection. In this paper, I answer Kripke’s semantic objection against descriptivism, considered to be his strongest and most persuasive argumentation (Salmon 2005, p. 29), because it concerns the use of proper names in simple contexts without epistemic or modal operators. The semantic objection consists of a number of arguments, which I answer in turn. In section II.1, I explain the notion of knowledge required by the defended version of descriptivism. Next I argue that the only moments when knowledge of descriptions is required are those when a name is bestowed or learned, and I show that, in light of the defended theory, knowledge of descriptions at those moments is necessary and sufficient for knowing a name. In section II.2, I answer all the strands of the semantic objection. In section II.3, I show that the defended version of descriptivism has all the virtues traditionally associated with descriptive theories.

In this article, I show that contemporary individualism is strongly rooted in Christian thinking about the person (divine and human). I endeavour to demonstrate the gradual aspiration to the utmost individualisation and separation of the human subject, beginning with the first definitions of the person. I outline the process of self-authorisation, whereby moral and cognitive powers formerly ascribed to God are transferred to the human subject. That process ultimately leads to (divine) transcendence becoming fixed in (human) immanence, and so to the full individualisation of the subject. In this article, I focus in particular on St Thomas Aquinas, generally seen as a precursor of personalism, and on Søren Kierkegaard, as a thinker in whom one can observe almost first-hand the emergence of self-authorisation and its various consequences. I end by looking at individualism and singularity in terms of mythology and the myth of Western culture, yet grounded on real existential foundations.

This article is a polemic with Roman Godlewski’s text on Donald Davidson’s theory of interpretation and with his critique of Jerzy Kmita’s reading of the American neo-pragmatist’s ideas. The aim of this article is to rebut the arguments against Kmita’s proposed interpretation of Davidson’s theory. I find those arguments to be  inconclusive, in some cases even inadequate, and I formulate a strengthening of Kmita’s standpoint.

This article surveys the main issues of definitions and argumentation relating to the debate over human enhancement. We note the existence of a sort of notional cascade: seeking to provide a definition of enhancement, authors attempt to distinguish it from therapy. Defining therapy requires the notion of normality, which in turn  refers – explicitly or implicitly – to the notion of human nature. In this article, 1) we present the complexity and lack of clarity displayed by the notion of enhancement 2) we analyse the main arguments in favour of distinguishing the notions of “therapy” and “enhancement”, 3) we analyse the notion of normality, 4) we refer to  problems of interpretation relating to the notion of “human nature”, 5) noting that fears over human enhancement are grounded on the phenomenon known as neophobia, we explore that phenomenon in one of its manifestations, 6) we outline the issue of criteria for the categorisation and classification of methods of enhancement – a problem embroiled in a number of implicit assumptions.