Deliberative Democracy and "Human Nature": An Empirical Approach

The idea of deliberative democracy is based upon an implicit and questionable assumption that the ability for a meaningful participation in deliberation is a common characteristic of citizens of democratic countries. This paper discusses that assumption and describes the results of empirical research aimed at finding out (1) whether ordinary people are able to solve important ideological and moral controversies by means of deliberation, (2) what factors may facilitate this process, and (3) what are the effects of the deliberation. The research consisted in studying 20 small groups of parents of school-aged children who were asked to participate in a debate about sex education in Polish schools (N  =  195). The debates were conducted by a facilitator. Before and after the debate participants filled out questionnaires testing their attitudes and some psychological variables. The debates were recorded on videotapes. We found that it is possible to conduct a debate on ideologically contentious issues that meets some criteria of the deliberative functioning and such a debate may have some of the effects postulated by deliberative theorists.     

Pëtr Chaadaev and the Rise of Modern Russian Philosophy

I present and argue for twotheses: the first concerns the degree to whichChaadaev's thought represents a breakthrough inthe development of Russian social philosophyand the second concerns the Hegelian characterof this thinking. I also show that Chaadaev'stheory retained an open character closely tiedto the crisis character of the social realityof his time and that it depended for itsjustification on the further course of thehistorical process, which is impossible topredict. All this leads to an interpretation ofChaadaev's view according to which the standardopposition of Chaadaev's two best-known texts,The Philosophical Letters, with theirpredominantly pessimistic picture of Russia,and the Apology of a Madman, whichrefutes this evaluation, is rejected.     

The expression of c-Fos and colocalisation of c-Fos and glucocorticoid receptors in brain structures of low and high anxiety rats subjected to extinction trials and re-learning of a conditioned fear response

We designed an animal model to examine the mechanisms of differences in individual responses to aversive stimuli. We used the rat freezing response in the context fear test as a discriminating variable: low responders (LR) were defined as rats with a duration of freezing response one standard error or more below the mean value, and high responders (HR) were defined as rats with a duration of freezing response one standard error or more above the mean value. We sought to determine the colocalisation of c-Fos and glucocorticoid receptors-immunoreactivity (GR-ir) in HR and LR rats subjected to conditioned fear training, two extinction sessions and re-learning of a conditioned fear. We found that HR animals showed a marked decrease in conditioned fear in the course of two extinction sessions (16 days) in comparison with the control and LR groups. The LR group exhibited higher activity in the cortical M2 and prelimbic areas (c-Fos) and had an increased number of cells co-expressing c-Fos and GR-ir in the M2 and medial orbital cortex after re-learning a contextual fear. HR rats showed increased expression of c-Fos, GR-ir and c-Fos/GR-ir colocalised neurons in the basolateral amygdala and enhanced c-Fos and GR-ir in the dentate gyrus (DG) in comparison with LR animals. Our data indicate that recovery of a context-related behaviour upon re-learning of contextual fear is accompanied in HR animals by a selective increase in c-Fos expression and GRs-ir in the DG area of the hippocampus.     

Neoplatonic tendencies in Russian philosophy

The Absolute is a basic and fundamental issue for philosophy as such. I present different concepts of the Absolute (substantialism, energetism, escapism, methodologism). We can say that contemporary European philosophy “orphaned” the neo-Platonic tradition. Thereafter Russian philosophy developed in an intensive and turbulent as well as relatively uniform fashion, in view of the well-established Neo-Platonist context. This makes Russian philosophy not only part of a lasting universally acknowledged tradition; not only has Russian philosophy continued to develop currents of thought abandoned by modern European philosophiers, but it is also heir to a philosophical tradition of particular quality and value in the universal history of thought.     

Assessment of postural control in patients with Parkinson’s disease: Sway ratio analysis

Analysis of the postural stability impairments in neurodegenerative diseases is a very demanding task. Age-related declines in posturographic indices are usually superimposed on effects associated with the pathology and its treatment. We present the results of a novel postural sway ratio (SR) analysis in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and age-matched healthy subjects. The sway ratios have been assessed based upon center of foot-pressure (CP) signals recorded in 55 parkinsonians (Hoehn and Yahr: 1-3) and 55 age-matched healthy volunteers while standing quiet with eyes open (EO) and then with eyes closed (EC). Complementing classical sway measure abnormalities, the SR exhibited a high discriminative power for all controlled factors: pathology, vision, and direction of sway. Both the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) sway ratios were significantly increased in PD patients when compared to the control group. An additional SR increase was observed in the response to eyes closure. The sway ratio changes documented here can be attributed to a progressive decline of a postural stability control due to pathology. In fact, a significant correlation between the mediolateral SR under EO conditions and Motor Exam (section III) score of the UPDRS was found. The mediolateral sway ratios computed for EO and EC conditions significantly correlated with the CP path length (r = .87) and the mean anteroposterior CP position within the base of support (r = .38). Both indices reflect postural stability decline and fall tendency # in parkinsonians. The tremor-type PD patients (N = 34) showed more pronounced relationships between the mediolateral SR and selected items from the UPDRS scale, including: falls (Kendall Tau = .47, p < .05), rigidity (.45, p < .05), postural stability (retropulsion) (.52), and the Motor Exam score (.73). The anteroposterior SR correlated only with tremor (Kendal Tau = .77, p < .05). It seems that in force plate posturography the SR can be recommended as a single reliable measure that allows for a better quantitative assessment of postural stability impairments.     

Local deductions theorems

The notion of local deduction theorem (which generalizes on the known instances of indeterminate deduction theorems, e.g. for the infinitely-valued ukasiewicz logic C ) is defined. It is then shown that a given finitary non-pathological logic C admits the local deduction theorem iff the class Matr(C) of all matrices validating C has the C-filter extension property (Theorem II.1).The content of this paper was presented in a talk at the Bulgarian-Polish Conference of Logic held at Sofia, Bulgaria, in September 1985 and in a talk given at the XXXI Conference of the History of Logic, Cracow, October 1985.