Er(r)go, the inevitability of the inaugurating word which, of necessity, anticipates the future, but also binds us with the past. The space of “ergo” has always been there (given the complexities of the world, it may have been the first word uttered by the demiurge). Unlike “and,” “also,” “as well,” “between,” - “ergo” constitutes a complex space, full of folds and niches, where thought is forced into meandering, and from which it emerges transformed, so that it no longer recognizes itself. As Andrzej Chojecki writes (and we are already anticipating the next issue in which his paper will appear), in the space of “ergo” “the most amazing parallels, identifications and differentiations occur. It is here that the most dramatic ruptures take place. The obvious may appear in the realm of “ergo”, but it may also be doomed to non-existence and non-obviousness.” The space of “Er(r)go” emerged about twenty years ago, when the interdisciplinary seminar of the same name began its activities, which it continued for almost fifteen years. Many people, numerous voices, and numerous texts filled that space. “Er(r)go: Theory – Literature – Culture” reopens that space again, even though without the former innocence of origins. Essays by Tadeusz Rachwał and Tadeusz Sławek nostalgically bridge the now with the past. They join the voices coming from diverse realms of the humanities – that of the Nestor of scholarship, Stefan Morawski, as well as of Agata Bielik-Robson, Ewa Domańska, Ewa Rewers, Krystyna Wilkoszewska. They mix – frequently in polemics and debates – with the voices made accessible by translation or citation: those of Blake, Barthes, Bauman, Derrida, Heidegger, Levinas, Rorty, to mention only some of them. The space of “Er(r)go” absorbs “ergo”, but enriches it with the consciousness of Theory: of theoretical reflexivity and self-reflexivity, of the incessant need to question even the most obvious categories, presuppositions, axioms and criteria. In its methodological principle, it is an interdisciplinary space; it is thus hospitable, but at the same time demanding, because it requires the annihilation of the blind borders separating disciplines and calls for a dialogue of discourses and paradigms – for the listening to the voice of the Other. It is only when these requirements are fulfilled that one may grasp the relations and phenomena invisible to monodisciplinary thinking: to the non-reflexive binarity of self-conceited certainty of the obvious and the stable. Wojciech Kalaga

Problems with Postmodernism, or Can We Grasp the Essence of Postmodernity? Abstract in English Stefan Morawski takes as his starting point the problems with defining modernism and modernity as those two notions undoubtedly affect our understanding of postmodernism. While discussing four basic reasons why it is so difficult to grasp the essence of both modernity and postmodernity, the author emphasises their affinites and divergencies. Thus postmodernism can be seen either as a kind of self-rectification of modernism or as its decline/decay which must follow the modernist crisis of culture. Stefan Morawski argues that the phase of postmodernism we have entered now can be characterised by its dominant consumeristic permissivism which derives its impetus from cyber-culture. By bidding farewell to the culture we have cherished since ancient Greece, we seem to opt for taking over a destructive facet of modernism which developed under the pressure of modem civilisation.

The Position of the Subject - The Subject as Position. Who Leads the Subject out of Metaphysics? Abstract in English The essay attempts to answer three basic questions. Who leads the subject out of metaphysics? Who occupies 'my' position? What passes through the position called the subject? The first of these questions concerns the current tasks of the philosophy of subjectivity; the second one addresses the subject's functions in different traditions with particular emphasis on the incommensurability of Greek and Judaic traditions; and the third question is concerned with the effects of poststructuralist de-re-constructions of the subject.

Irony, Tragedy, Community: Richard Rorty in the Eyes of a Barbarian Abstract in English The essay is a perverse attempt at interpreting Richard Rorty from the perspective of a barbarian, that is, a person whom the author of “Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity” excludes from the conversation of civilised people. For Rorty, the basic criterion of barbarity is adherence to a culture which has retained distinctly pre-modem characteristics, i.e., those which predate “the process of civilisation.” The author, by identifying herself with the excluded "barbarian," seeks to indicate the merits of the pre-modem paradigm which has been unjustly disparaged by the leading philosopher of American postmodernism. Thus the author wants to redress the postmodernist tum from a pre-modern position; by evoking those categories that modernity has made to sink into oblivion - e.g. ritual un-differentiation and the catharsis experience – Agata Bielik-Robson argues that they are a natural supplement to Rorty's “call for universal solidarity.” Without this supplement, Rorty's call is just a vacuous declaration.

Butter and Rotten Wood / a Teardrop: Blake and the Philosophy of Friendship Abstract in English The essay sets out to explore the framework of the philosophy of friendship as a basic human relationship whose richness has not been exhaustively scrutinised yet. Taking as its starting point the memorable statement from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that” “opposition is true friendship,” the author seeks to demonstrate the fundamental and profound character of the relationship called friendship; the character which prevents it - despite its common understanding - from being defined as agreement, support or alliance. Friendship, by transcending those relationships, becomes a force which may disrupt and undermine their structures and thereby it comes to speak on behalf of desires and passions. This is why it may be called a “counter-relationship”: the notion itself alludes to a fundamental term of Blake's philosophy, i.e., “a contrary” as opposed to negation. A friend is thus a restless being; a being without a permanent address; a being who is nomadic and denies to be unequivocally defined. It is Blake, as well as Nietzsche and Emerson (who are also referred to in the essay), who makes us appreciate this extraordinary philosophical and ethical phenomenon.

Who Does Not Work Does Not Return: On the Culture of Labour Abstract in English The essay offers a view of modem European culture from the perspective of broadly understood “returning” which constitutes an economic, ethical and aesthetic principle of the mythologisation of exteriority as the main, though not exclusive, area of the creative activity of the human subject.The “sub-ject” is discursively constructed as an “e-ject” born out of the bowels of its/his/her own contraries. In the latter part of the essay the author discusses Zygmunt Bauman's distinction between anthropophagic and anthropoemic cultures. Representatives of the anthropophagic culture devour their own species in opposition to the anthropoemic culture which is a culture of emission or “vomitting,” as Bauman has it.

Adam Dziadek's Polish translation of a fragment of Roland Barthes's "L'Obvie et l'obtus."

Jacek Gutorow's Polish translation of a chapter of Christopher Norris's "Derrida."

Krystyna Wilkoszewska's commentary on Stefan Morawski's stance with respect to postmodernity.

Ewa Domańska'"kerygmatic" farewell to an eminent Polish historian, Jerzy Topolski.

A note on Saramago's metaphors of human condition .

Summaries of the feature texts of the issue.

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