The article identifies the discursive characteristics of news media texts covering Poland’s ‘constitutional crisis’. Following the conception of discourse presented in Laclau and Mouffe (1985), i.e. as an articulatory practice that conveys meaning through a structured system of positions and differences, the article highlights some features of English-language news media texts (e.g. from the Guardian, Telegraph, Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post) that can be described as typical. The following features are identified: a lecturing tone, the use of structural oppositions, immediate rebuttals, misrepresentation, appeals to expertise, and the sovereignty taboo. These features are diagnosed as contributing to the narrow discursive range covered by news articles. To broaden the considerations, the article presents three conflicting positions from Polish legal theory that address the issues of constitutional courts, the rule of law and national sovereignty: Ryszard Piotrowki’s legal constitutionalism, Paweł Bała and Adam Wielomski’s Schmitt-inspired position, and Adam Sulikowski’s reading of the constitutional courts as an instrument of hegemonic discourse. In the conclusion it is suggested that news media discourse would benefit from demonstrating a greater awareness of other discourses, and from developing a more generous, balanced approach to presenting and addressing their claims.
The Copernicus constructed by Thomas S. Kuhn in The Copernican Revolution (1957) is a decidedly non-revolutionary astronomer who unwittingly ignited a conceptual revolution in the European worldview. Kuhn’s reading of Copernicus was crucial for his model of science as a deeply conservative discourse, which presented in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). This essay argues that Kuhn’s construction of Copernicus and depends on the suppression of the most radical aspects of Copernicus’ thinking, such as the assumptions of the Commentariolus (1509-14) and the conception of hypothesis of De Revolutionibus (1543). After comparing hypothetical thinking in the writings of Aristotle and Ptolemy, it is suggested that Copernicus’ conceptual breakthrough was enabled by his rigorous use of hypothetical thinking.
The Copernicus constructed by Thomas S. Kuhn in The Copernican Revolution (1957) is a decidedly non-revolutionary astronomer who unwittingly ignited a conceptual revolution in the European worldview. Kuhn’s reading of Copernicus was crucial for his model of science as a deeply conservative discourse, which presented in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). This essay argues that Kuhn’s construction of Copernicus and depends on the suppression of the most radical aspects of Copernicus’ thinking, such as the assumptions of the Commentariolus (1509-14) and the conception of hypothesis of De Revolutionibus (1543). After comparing hypothetical thinking in the writings of Aristotle and Ptolemy, it is suggested that Copernicus’ conceptual breakthrough was enabled by his rigorous use of hypothetical thinking.
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