This interview with Paul Roth was conducted after a symposium dedicated to his latest book The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation, which took place at the European Network for Philosophy of Social Sciences conference on August 30, 2019. This interview is authorised. Translation from English and all footnotes – Piotr Kowalewski Jahromi.

The main goal of this paper is to present a fully developed concept of Paul A. Roth’s philosophy of history to the Polish reader. Of course, it is just an introduction, but with the interview it should be a good starting point for further analysis. These seem desirable given Roth’s very ambitious programme, which in addition is based on “old facts”; that is, an analytical philosophy of history and science. The rapprochement between the two “visions” is not only a philosophical consideration, but also responds to the often-raised voices of practitioners. This introduction refers primarily to Roth’s latest book, indicating a possible interpretation. This “reading” is conducted by indicating the historical context, recalling philosophical analyses and determining the validity of the proposed solutions in order to decide how much science there is in history and vice versa.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II spent just nine days in his home country, Poland. This historic pilgrimage lead to a ‘spiritual revolution’ that culminated in the peaceful collapse of the authoritarian regime in Poland, and eventually to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Could leaders of the Christian churches today spark a similar ‘spiritual revolution’ to combat manmade climate change?

Paul Valéry (1871-1945) was considered in the 1930s one of the greatest French poet and essayist. He was the author of the famous poems: La Jeune Parque (The Young Fate) and Le Cimetiere marin (The Graveyard by the Sea). Many times in different situations he spoke very highly of Poland and Poles. Wednesday, October 28th 1936, Valéry arrived in Warsaw. He delivered two lectures during his brief stay. They met with great interest, they were in the papers, they have been mentioned by Polish writers: Wacław Grubiński, Zofia Nałkowska, Tadeusz Breza. Also, Czesław Miłosz and Ludwik Hieronim Morstin have written about meetings with Paul Valéry. Poet`s visit, although very short, was a significant event in Polish cultural life.

This study focuses on potential athletic language in Phil 3:12-16. The main focus is the question what the assumption of the presence of athletic language in this text contributes to understanding it and especially its theological meaning better. The study consists of three parts. In part 1, the author analyses the preceding and the subsequent context of Phil 3:12-16 joining the defenders of a concentric structure: 3:1-11 (A), 3:12-16 (B), 3:17-4:1 (A’). The two framing sections (A and A’) focus on the opposition between Paul and his opponents, but the main point is Paul’s command to the Philippian addressees to “stand firm in the Lord”. Part 2 contains a brief exegetical analysis of 3:12-16. Our analysis focuses on the most important words (gaining/attaining; movement; thinking) and the goal of heavenly perfection with which they are connected. In the third part we analyse the potential athletic images in 3:12-16 which finds its “anchor point” in the noun τὸ βραβεῖον in 3:14. Based on the acceptance of this noun as an agonistic terminus technicus, other verbs and nouns which are not in and of themselves referring to athletics are interpreted as having an athletic meaning in our context. The study concludes with the caution that Paul counterbalances the “effort-reward scheme” of athletic language with the “giving-receiving scheme” of his call language. In this way, Paul introduces an emphasis on the future-orientedness of the message which is characteristic of his preaching and living.

The primacy of the Bishop of Rome is the term for the highest office in the Church. It consists in carrying out a mission appointed to St. Peter and his successors by Christ. The truth about the primacy is a theoretical plane, dogmatically defined at the I Vatican Council in 1870. It also has a practical dimension, which depends on the individual popes and the particular historical context. A characteristic feature of the pontificate of John Paul II was the implementation of the reforms of the II Vatican Council and the Church’s preparation for the Great Jubilee of the third millennium. John Paul II realized the primacy function in accordance with the tradition of the Church, on the grounds of the biblical image of Peter the Apostle, and continuing the line of his predecessors – John XXIII and Paul VI. The leading element of his pontificate was the openness to the world, to man and his dignity, or sensitivity to the signs of the times. The priority at the level of ecclesial unity was a concern for the community at all levels, including the ecumenical field. John Paul II realized the primacy ministry as Servus servorum Dei, in the ancient formula – priority in love .

The Theology Department was opened in January 1918. It came into existence as one of the first four departments of the Catholic University of Lublin. Its activity became part of the university’s mission which is conducting research in harmony with science and faith, educating the catholic intelligentsia and contributing to christian culture.

The identity of the Department manifests itself in the high standard of scientific research and academic education as well as in deepening and promoting the christian concept of the world and man in the context of challenges of the present time.

This article presents an outline history, organization and the main trends in scientific research carried out in the Theology Department of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.

The Catholic image of Martin Luther in the course of the centuries evolved from the literally negative one during the time of the Reformation and the centuries that followed, through the theological attempts and historically in-depth analyses inspired by the ecumenical movement up to contemporary acceptance of several theological postulates. Contemporary movements of Roman-Catholic thinking of Luther well summarize historically vulnerable and dogmatically deepened opinions of the recent popes: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. Following the agreement texts of the Lutheran-Catholic Commission at the world forum, ecumenically open popes can find out in Martin Luther a profoundly religious man, the witness of the Gospel whose theological thought is still relevant and a challenge for the presently secularized world.

This article was prompted by a joint declaration made on 28 September 2015 by the Archbishops of Cracow and Warsaw and the state authorities of the two cities that they would provide means for publishing project ‘A Critical Edition of the Literary Works of Karol Wojtyła – John Paul II’. This decision, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Karol Wojtyła in May 2020, signalizes the importance of the project which goes beyond a standard publication of an author’s complete works. The series was inaugurated by the publication in 2018 of Volume One (Juvenilia, 1938–1946), whose editors are expected to continue working on the following volumes. The author of this article takes a look at the first collected works edition of The Poetry and Dramas of Karol Wojtyła – John Paul II, published in 1979 (it actually went to press in 1980) under the directorship of Jacek Woźniakowski and authorized by John Paul II himself. It was in fact a complete edition as its editors succeeded in collecting all of Karol Wojtyła literary works from the moment he enrolled at the Seminary until his election as Pope in 1978. All the texts used for that edition were collected at source and in that respect can hardly be surpassed. For over forty years it offered a reliable store of Karol Wojtyła’s poems and plays to ordinary readers, translators, producers of plays and public ceremonies. In this article we can find a first-hand account of the story of that first edition from its inception, the role of the editors of the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, the decisions taken at the Znak head office and the author’s own contribution as editor. It is at this point that he explains the decision to exclude from their edition Karol Wojtyła’s juvenila from his student years.

The author argues that the philosophical position of Karl Marx was primarily shaped by three determinants. The first was the traditional Jewish culture, with its high esteem for intellectual effort, for the genius reflected in intellectual discoveries, and for the ambition that influenced interesting life plans and culminated in some visions of an ultimate end in life. The second was neo- -Hegelianism, which Marx himself recognized as a dominant factor in his thought. Thirdly, Marx was affected by Martin Luther, and this influence is in the focus of this paper. The author clams that both Luther and Marx believed that the essential trait of specifically human existence arises from hard work of any kind except the dullest. Both were bewildered by ideological gullibility and blindness of the masses. Both were convinced that this boundless credulity was sustained by fear of eternal damnation spread by the official church and by slave mentality. Finally both claimed that this noxious influence could only be overcome by a revolution in life conditions and by new social ideas. Each, however, entertained a different conception of that desirable revolution.

This article presents little known facts sampled from the notes and personal records of Professor Stanis$aw Pigoń and Karol Wojtyła. The two met for the first time in 1938, when young Wojtyła began his studies at the Polish Department of the Jagiellonian University. A bond of mutual liking and respect, based on similar personalities and similar war experiences, morphed into an abiding friendship in the years after the war. The article chronicles that friendship on the basis of documents and private papers held in the Jagiellonian Library (Professor Pigoń’s Archives) and the Archives of the Metropolitan Curia in Cracow. Wojtyła, when he became Pope John Paul II always spoke warmly about his university teachers, especially about Professor Pigoń.

The article attempts to outline Adam Mickiewicz’s concept of subjectivity. He introduces it in his visionary poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) where a radically ambivalent situation is presented through the duality of the main character Gustaw/Konrad. The article describes this duality in terms of Paul Ricoeur’s distinction between cogito exalté and cogito brisé. In Dziady Mickiewicz dramatizes the transition from exaltation to dejection, the condition of cogito brisé (living with a wound). His romantic subject cannot throw away his past, but because he is acutely aware of his failings and his inadequacy he is able to free himself from delusions of grandeur and self-centered pride. The condition of uncertainty, inadequacy and chronic insatiability is like a gaping wound or a lack which may lead the ‘I’ to open up and seek the Other. It is a vision of man who knows he is deeply flawed but capable of pursuing a noble desire; vulnerable and fallible, beset by ‘endless error’ and yet able to act and get his act together; self-centered and yet, because of the relational nature of the human identity, capable of redirecting his emancipatory energy to Others. It can be summed up the concept of homo capax (homme capable) which, as this article argues, provides the key to Mickiewicz’s anthropology.