5979895854

następnie - poprzez lata powojennej odbudowy w warunkach systemu komunistycznego, na wyzwaniach czasów współczesnych (symbolizowanych chociażby przez tzw. muzea narracyjne, których istnienie w Polsce zapoczątkowało utworzenie Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego w Warszawie) refleksję autorską konkludując.

Lecture is devoted to the briefly summarised and overviewed history of national heritage protection system in Poland. The extraordinary contcxt such a ‘prolegomena* is the centenary of the Poland* Independence Day (Nov. 11. 1918). The main plot of the historical narration is related to the following ‘mile stones’: Intcrwar Period (1918-1939), World War the Second (1939-1945), Post-War Time and Communism-oriented Autocracy (1945-1989) and finally - contemporary time, after re-building Poland* Independence (after 1989).

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Dominie Mitchell (University of Bath)

Language: Technological in Use, Poliiical in Origin.

In modem human society it is elear that language has a crucial technological function in enabling and extending the potential for communication; it is hard to imagine how societies such as those we see around us now could be possible otherwise. However study of the evoiution of other traits, such as the eye, challenges the assumption that current function and function at origin must always be identical. There is good reason to believe that the same caution is justified in the case of language. Language involves arbitrary symbols, this means that the practical use of language pre-supposes agreement on use. Of course in a society in which language already exists it is easy to imagine why there might be advantagc to an individual in spending time and energy in leaming the language. However at the point of origin the task at hand is not to leam a pre-existing agreement, but to form one. Other kinds of communication make use of correlation and thus Meaming-on-the-job’ is possible, but as language is arbitrary this option is ruled out. Why then, should individuals take part in an agreement-forming activity which is essentially useless? It is tempting to say that this could be done in the knowlcdgc that, oncc-formed, agreement would be valuable, but such a forward-looking account is not acceptable as evolutionary explanation. It is at this moment that the virtue of an altemative to the technological account becomes apparent. It is easy to imagine threats to the existence of a population. whether from inside or outside. becoming sufficiently serious such that acting in agreement becomes advantageous to individuals, not for some possible futurę benefit, but immediatcly for its own sake. Such action taken to achieve agreement, initially for the public

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