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EN
The aim of this essay is to present Zygmunt Bauman's concept of the sources of culture, as described in his book 'Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies', although that can also be found in other works. That concept incorporated in philosophical and anthropological reflections concerning people and their attitudes to death. In the Z. Bauman's opinion the source of culture and its development is that only people are aware of the possibility of death. This awareness means that to most people life is absurd, ambivalent and deprived of any sense. Thus, it imposes a need to create tools which allow that awareness to be stifled. Such an 'anti-mnemonic' tool is culture which ensures that life actually becomes worth living through. From that perspective mortality possesses an important role in the social structure and the establishment of a cultural order which also determines those aspects of life which seem to be only unrelated to death or dying.
EN
The article analyses an anonymous text about the death of Andrzej Lipski of the Grabie coat of arms (1572-1631) http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb, the bishop of Cracow and the chancellor of the Crown, one of the most influential politicians at the times of Sigismund III Vasa, an ardent supporter of the king and of the clergy’s struggle for tithes. The single surviving copy of the text was found in the records of the court of Krzysztof II Radziwiłł, the great hetman of Lithuania and the Vilnius voivode, the leader of Lithuanian protestants. The author of the article traces the origin of the text, trying to discover the motifs behind its publication and connections with historical facts. She also describes its literary form, which indicates that it was intended as a pasquinade. In conclusion she hypothesises that this and similar descriptions of disgraceful death could have been used in ideological struggles, in this case between the dissident opposition and Sigismund III’s court party.
EN
Death, being an inevitable phenomenon, belonging to a different ontic order so to speak, has always evoked various emotional reactions and has been a real challenge for human thought. Thus, it is not surprising that people have tried to respond to that challenge, starting from trying to explain the phenomenon of death, by bringing consolation to the distressed thought, and finishing with an ambition to create the best ideal attitude towards it. One of such attitudes is a philosophical attitude based on the idea of humour, irony, and wit. However, black humour of philosophical attitude means neither lack of respect for death nor contrariness, but it is rather an expression of establishing a specific cognitive distance and organizing one's experiences on different rules. Philosophical attitude towards inevitability of fate is widely recognized in the most recent writings, also in the field of philosophy of medicine and the art of healing. More and more often publications describe not only essential differences in philosophical assumptions between attitude towards death founded on humour and an attitude shaped by the classic 'ars moriendi canon', but also emphasize the therapeutic significance of these dissimilarities.
EN
The subject considered is human death and process of passing away. There are a lot of difficulties in defining these events because of troubles with definition of total human being and its complexity. Man exists in multifarious relation to external word and nobody knows which of them finally constitute human body, mind and personality, and which of them decide on human after-death and everlasting existence. The author proposes some solutions of that external mystery, apart from supernatural perspective.
Kwartalnik Filozoficzny
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2012
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vol. 40
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issue 2
85 - 106
EN
The practical and pre-philosophical understanding of reality contains two fundamental certainties, transience and death. We perceive transience through our experience of the constantly changing world. Death, although intrinsically connected with transience, is something quite different. The Platonic way of practicing philosophy can be said to reveal a real concern about dying. It is an attempt to learn to accept the mystery of death, to commit oneself to the lifelong task of preparing for this special moment, to grow aware of the transcendental reality that we perceive and experience. Plato’s pursuit of wisdom as care for the soul is a kind of continuous preparation for the moment of death. The philosopher whose attention is directed towards the ultimate things turns away from the body and is more concerned about the soul. In the Platonic view philosophy is not sterile intellectual speculation but a special method of developing the proper attitude toward the inevitable.
EN
The aim of the article is to present conceptual difficulties faced by a philosopher who studies death. It can be accepted only from a natural and logical point of view, while my own 'personal' death always remains inconceivable. Similarly, the image of life after death is an inscrutable intellectual puzzle. Moreover - contrary to the expectations expressed by some philosophers - there are hardly any chances to explore the essence of death during the process of dying. That stage of human life is not open to cognitive analysis.
EN
This essay attempts at interpreting selected poems and essays by Tadeusz Rózewicz, in the context of funereal/commemorative issues. These include both occasional texts devoted to the memory of individual persons as well as pieces considering the problem of Death in a universal perspective. Having assumed that the issue of Death - a death of God, man, and poetry, and reciprocal associations thereof - is one of the major threads in the poet's oeuvre, the authoress attempts at reconstructing the reply Rózewicz gives to the question of how is it possible for poetry - 'dead, as it is, ... mortal, as it is', and deprived of a metaphysical foundation - to save or preserve the memory of a dead person. She tries to prove that Rózewicz's funereal output polemicises with a consolational model of mournful or memorial poetry and its traditional topics.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2015
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vol. 70
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issue 2
94 – 106
EN
The analysis draws on Nagel´s deprivation theory and Feldman´s theory of possible worlds. These are supplemented with a specific context of feeling happy or suffering in the face of death as well as various forms of believing in life after death. Six logically possible answers have been tested via thought experiments which showed that the question of whether death means good, evil or is indifferent to a man cannot be in general answered from the first person perspective. The answer always depends on the particular context, i. e. on the man’s beliefs and hopes. Thus the article offers one possible axiological perspective from which death can be viewed in the context of dying with dignity, committing suicide or carrying out euthanasia.
EN
The article summarizes and appraises the ethnographic and ethnological studies on the funeral rites and phenomena closely interconnected with this issue, mapping the period from the end of the 19th century to the present. The authoress aims not only to provide an overview of scholarly literature on the mentioned topic and to present the methodological approaches adopted by their authors, but also to constitute a basic platform that would present an outcome for the further research in this field. The paper focuses on the ethnographic and ethnological studies dealing with the situation on the territory of Slovakia leaving aside the studies by Hungarian authors. The article also includes a list of references concerning the outlined period and the data collected in Slovakia.
Studia Historica Nitriensia
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2015
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vol. 19
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issue 1
118 – 132
EN
The death penalty is a part of human history. In describing of executions find priests or monks, in images of executions seen priests with various religious gestures. A custom was developed in Europe in the Middle age to provide sentenced to death spiritual consolation. In the middle ages and in modern times the ceremony was the some, but until the 17th century we have retained the full text of spiritual consolation of the condemned men to death by Capuchin Martin von Kochem. In the 19th century the text of the ritual was translated into Slovak. This article presents a Catholic doctrine of the death penalty, justification for the presence of the priests on the scaffold, the most famous historical reports of the presence of the priests on the scaffold and the whole ceremony spiritual consolation of the condemned men, as was used in old Hungary and Europe in the 17th – 20th centuries. The oldest known ritual has German origin and Hungarian and Slovak version prepared a military priest Francis Tannenberg. It is not certain that the ritual was always and everywhere used whole, present priests sometimes adapted it to the situation, but often managed to recover a few moments necessary to spiritually prepare inmates to death and meeting with God.
EN
In this article the authoress considers the topic of death, dying and funeral rites in Czech society in the broader European and historical context. In the first part, she presents the social-science conception of the taboo on death in early twentieth-century European society and then the gradual lifting of that taboo owing mainly to an interest in dying, which appeared from about the 1960s. She also outlines developments in funeral rites, typical of which is the transition from the traditionally Christian (particularly Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) laying of the dead body into the ground to cremation and the scattering of ashes. Against the background of these developments in Western society she then considers the situation in Czech society, which, owing to forty years of Communist rule and the high degree of secularization, was rather different from Western Europe. Indeed, questions related to dying and hospice care were generally not dealt with by Czechs till the 1990s. The great mistrust of churches has led to less than half of all present-day funeral ceremonies including a religious component. Moreover, Czech society has lost the awareness that organizing a funeral ceremony is a necessity for both the deceased and the bereaved. Consequently, about a third of all cremations in this country take place without any real ceremony.
EN
The dominate theme of the article is the motif of death in literature for children and youth. The goal is to present the existence of physical dimension in understanding of literary work as self living connected with the meaning of death in our lives and existence of death in literary works. Interconnection of these aspects, confrontation of body and its death in spiritual and physical way bring many questions and interesting themes which go into wild spectral areas. The contribution contains basic knowledge from theological, mythological, philosophic, literature and pedagogic aspect. I paid attention to historical determination of the problem and its interconnection with present literature. I connected this gained knowledge with practical research in elementary and preschool institutions. I based our research on a fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen — The little match seller. Death is a frequent motif in author’s fairy-tales and as fairy-tales are close to child’s understanding, this form of death education is the most suitable for them, at the same time it is important to make provision for recipient’s age to whom we offer this literature.
EN
The aim of the article is to investigate the relationship between the consciousness of one's own death, of the death of others, as well as the mode of existence which is commonly called authentic in the existential philosophy. The core of the investigation is the 'dispute' of Martin Heidegger and Emanuel Levinas concerning death, which is complemented by the insights of other philosophers and psychologists. The attention is paid to common people's attitudes towards death and mortality rather than to pure theoretical considerations. Everyman is understood as that side of all of us, which does not aim at an intense cogitation and self-reflection. The questions of personal and impersonal attitudes towards death, the fear of death, the otherness of death and the others are the topics discussed in the article together with non-physical aspect of death.
EN
In Martin Heidegger's philosophy human life is not defined essentially, on the contrary it is contingent. This means that it does not count among numerous existing entities, but is Dasein, ie. a searching and undetermined form of being. As such it is limited in time and space, and it strives towards something beyond its current condition. Although Dasein perceives itself mainly by remembrance of its past, it also permanently transcends itself. Thereby it loses its past. Forgetting about oneself is the form of life characteristic for Dasein. It is also characteristic for Dasein to realise that it is mortal, and that by reaching out to the future it reaches out to death. It its elusiveness and incessant anticipation Dasein confronts its own non-existence in at least two ways. Forgetting obliterates its past identity, anticipation brings it to ultimate termination. The author surmises that this double confrontation with non-existence can breed a sense of ecstasy.
15
Content available remote

Filozofia jako meditatio mortis (Platon – Montaigne)

80%
Filo-Sofija
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2006
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vol. 6
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issue 6
43-58
EN
The idea of philosophy as meditatio mortis is illustrated with the examples of Plato’s and Montaigne’s views. According to Plato, life within body is a kind of evil, and death is the way of release and return to divine life. Philosophy regarded as seeking the truth is at the same time an exercise in dying because it consists in taking off reason from body and senses. Philosophy as meditatio mortis is then preparing to true and eternal life. According to Montaigne, death is the necessary end of human existence, which we should accept without reservation and fear. Philosophy lies in preparing to death as a natural biological event, common to all living creatures. Human dying should be liberated from all ceremonies and cultural rituals because they are the main reasons of our fear and prevent us from accepting death as a natural event.
EN
The article investigates the longevity of adult men in the magnate families of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th-18th c. and the consequences of their age at death for their relatives. The research concerned representatives of three magnate houses: the Radziwiłł, Ogiński and Chodkiewicz families. The database was assembled on the basis of published biographies, articles, family monographs, genealogical tables and manuscripts from Polish and Lithuanian archives. Data was gathered on 175 men: 85 of the Radziwiłł, 56 of the Ogiński and 34 of the Chodkiewicz family. In order to describe the consequences of a magnate’s death it is important to consider the average marrying age. The average was calculated for 104 men; taking into consideration first and subsequent marriages it was almost 32 years in the period researched. For first marriages the average was 27, while for subsequent marriages ca 42. It is also important to calculate the average length of marriage. In the 16th-18th c. it was 14.5 years, with first marriages lasting 16 years and subsequent ones 12 years on the average. The average for first marriages with children was 17 and for subsequent marriages with children – 14 years. The average death age, calculated for 96 adults, including married and unmarried men, was just under 50 for the whole period in question (in the 17th c. it was 46, while in the 18th c. it was over 50). For married men (79 persons) the average was 53, and for married men with children (54 persons) – 54 years. Thus, a man in a magnate family was married for the first time at the age of 27 on the average, and a man with progeny lived to 56 years on the average. The first marriage having children lasted 17 years on the average, and subsequent marriages with children - even shorter. In magnate families 70% of children survived, and these were often not first children. This indicates that at the time of the father’s death children were often still under age. This often meant that children were taken care of by the father’s relatives, especially if the widow remarried. In this case mothers usually lost custody of their children and their emotional bond with them was broken. Hence, one of the consequences of a magnate’s death was that the widow had to choose between remarrying and keeping custody of her children and their property. The latter choice meant no further procreation for many young women. A man in a magnate family often decided to marry after his father’s death, whether following or disregarding his earlier suggestions as to the choice of the wife. The death of a childless magnate lead to the extinction of the family or one of its lines, which resulted in transferring property to other families or lines. The research indicates that the average lifespan was longest in the Ogiński family: for the period in question it was 57 years both in general and for married men with children. To compare, the married Radziwiłłs with children lived for 53.5 years on the average. It can be supposed that the better health condition of the Ogińskis, especially in the 17th c., might have resulted from their late advancement to the country’s political elite (in the second half of the 17th c.), which meant that the circle from they chose their life partners was limited to the narrow sphere of magnate families relatively late.
EN
The text is conceived as a tribute to Walter Benjamin as one of the founders of theory of photography, whose thought was moving on the borders of science and essayistic writing. The author shows that Benjamin, who noticed the connection of photography with death in his 'Brief History of Photography', is one of the first to bring forward fixation that can be considered the fundamental for the art of photography. In this way, he created a theoretical base of new mimetic aesthetics for this kind of art. Benjamin's over-interpretation of the art of photography, however, in the sense of anticipation ability, also shows its affinity to the magic evoking an effect of fascination in the recipient. Thus Benjamin entered the ground of anthropology in his reflection, and also of psychoanalysis, since as one of the first at all he considered the function of unconsciousness in photography, the function that turned out to be crucial in creation of theories of photography.
EN
The authoress discusses the presence of death in the social public sphere in the context of Polish national identity. She describes the area of popular collective imagination that is part of a broader category: religiousness arising from folk culture. In the Polish public sphere the traditions of death are represented by two trends: the myths of the Passion and Martyrdom. The internal ties of the Polish tribe are sustained by the cult of ancestors and the practice of mourning, the symbol of which is Our Lady of Dolours from the pictures in Czestochowa and Lichen. As a consequence of the dolorous aspect of Polish fundamental tribal emotions people spontaneously organize themselves during religious and national festivals which commemorate the events that entailed a heavy toll of human life. The arche of the Polish death is terror, mourning and redemption by a sacrifice of blood.
EN
Contemporary Arab women poets deal in their works with the tanatic subjects as a continuation of the old Arabic poetess Al-Khansa tradition. The death motifs in their poetry can be divided into the three groups. The first group consists of the motifs which exemplify the attitude of the individual towards herself which means the reflection on the nature of existence and the inevitability of the passing away and as a consequence resulting from it the attitudes towards own death. The second group embraces the threads characterized by the attitude of the individual towards the group. The authoress classified here the war motif and connected within it strongly the thread of the heroic death. There is also a third group which embraces the motifs of grief, sorrow and despair after the loss of the close one which represent the attitude of the individual towards the individual. These we can find mainly in the elegies.
EN
History is not propelled by sin, argus E.M. Cioran, but by a disease operating as a principle of individuation. In the past human beings were one with nature. We became separated from one another and from nature by pain. We have been awakened from our slumber and forced to acquire consciousness which puts us in the same row with animals. The moment of the gaining of self-consciousness is presented by Cioran as a cosmic tragedy. The invasion of mental processes into bodily tissue is a 'biological scandal', a pathology which came to rule of nature. Other animals suffer in peace reconciled with their fate and prepared to bear all damages that their bodies sustain. Humans try to rebel, fully aware of the infirmity of the corporeal structures, and they make their misery a thousandfold more painful. We understand that our death is imminent and unavoidable. Moreover, death will not meet us unexpectedly at the end of our life, but it is heralded to us in every hour of our life, and marks our ordinary acts with finality and agony. Human life is a pilgrimage to oblivion, or perhaps even more emphatically it is a 'walking in daily death towards the ultimate death'. Every step we take brings us closer to annihilation. Cioran eagerly seeks a remedy for our plight but finds none. Precipitating our death is not a viable cure against it, putting it off is futile, and forgetting about it is no more that self-induced deception.
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