Psychologické aspekty a kontexty sebaregulácie

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Lívia Barnišinová

The scientific monograph "Spirituality in Slovak Realist and Modernist Literature" reevaluates interpretative approaches to the spiritual dimension in prose texts of Slovak literature from the realist and modernist periods. The author transcends stereotypical views on spirituality, often confined to religious themes, and advocates for an interdisciplinary approach and new methodological approaches in literary-critical research. The monograph focuses on literary characters and their spiritual dimension in connection with other compositional and semantic elements of literary texts. It does not offer a definitive view on the topic but aims to open discussion and highlight the need for a reassessment of the literary canon and the openness of artistic literature to multiple interpretations. The analysis of texts from Slovak realism and literary modernism demonstrated a differentiated spirituality and its artistic portrayal. The phenomenon of spirituality is present in the texts along the axis of explicitness - implicitness - latency and has its specific manifestation in shaping literary characters through psychologization, introspection, and spiritual depth.

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Gabriel Eštok- Mária Hrehová- Jakub Bardovič (eds.)

Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Scientific Conference of Students and Young Researchers held on May 23, 2014, by the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

On May 23, 2014, the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice hosted a conference entitled “Challenges and Perspectives of Domestic and Foreign Policy.” This was the third conference for students and young researchers organized by the Department of Political Science in cooperation with the civic association Res Publica. The event featured numerous young people interested in contemporary political issues, each presenting on a topic related to domestic or foreign policy. It can be stated that these presentations were of a high professional standard and stimulated discussion on the topics and problems raised.

The publication you are holding is a collection of scholarly works by students and young experts who focused on a variety of subjects. Some authors addressed issues of foreign policy, particularly the analysis of selected countries’ policies (Slovak Republic, USA), examined the Iranian nuclear program, or explored the possibilities of federalizing Ukraine as a solution to the emerging situation. Another contribution offered a perspective on foreign policy from the viewpoint of Slovak emigrants in Australia. Despite the wide range of topics addressed in the individual contributions, a common denominator can be found: the effort to highlight a particular problem or propose its solution, thereby contributing to the fulfillment of the ideal of democracy, the improvement of policy-making and functioning, and, above all, making the world a better place for all of us.

Editors

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Štefan Jusko

The stimulus for this monograph was my two studies on Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s ideas of the will to power and eternal return of the same, published in Heidegger and Modern Metaphysics (supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency, APVV-14-0706, under the leadership of V. Leška and M. Sobotka). In the submitted monograph, I present both studies in expanded (particularly “Will to Power as Art”) and refined versions (“Eternal Return of the Same”) and add a third chapter addressing the question of the meaning of interpreting philosophical texts, which themselves are interpretations of other texts.

In seeking an appropriate approach to the meaning of interpretation, I conclude that—generally—the purpose of interpretation is to uncover the productive dimension of the interpreted text, which can only be revealed if the interpreter enters the text openly and as neutrally as possible. If the interpreter does not open themselves to the text, allowing it to interpret them in turn, interpretation remains trapped. I believe that without mutual openness between interpreter and interpreted, interpretation has no meaning and typically becomes either rejection or misinterpretation—a form of violence.

In the third chapter, which I consider foundational, I attempt to “balance” the interpretive context of “Heidegger–Nietzsche” from the first two chapters through a reversible context of “Nietzsche–Heidegger,” albeit with the risk that my interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought—specifically his ideas of eternal return and will to power—may remain subjective, even if unintended as misinterpretation. Ultimately, the ambition of the third chapter is to explore intersections between the two philosophers, one of which—a rudimentary yet significant overlap—I identify as Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world, reinterpreted through Nietzsche’s lens. It is Nietzsche who challenges us to adopt a self-defined stance toward the world, to confront what it means to be in the world.

The challenge for me—and perhaps the reader—is to remain faithful to oneself, which is only possible by persisting in the context of mutual interpretation between interpreter and interpreted, regardless of who/what is interpreting or being interpreted. For the context of being-in-the-world is always co-created by both sides.

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E-publication

Lucia Tóthová

The monograph offers a comprehensive perspective on the theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions of participatory visual research within the field of social work. It is grounded in the understanding that social work plays a crucial role in amplifying the voices of vulnerable groups and promoting social justice, with particular attention paid to persons with disabilities who frequently encounter limited opportunities for participation as well as persistent social, communicative, and environmental barriers. The author analyses the concept of participation in alignment with the principle of “Nothing about us without us” and presents the PhotoVoice method as an interdisciplinary tool that integrates participatory action research, critical pedagogy, feminist epistemologies, and documentary photography. The method is understood not only as a research technique but also as a form of visual advocacy, enabling participants to articulate their experiences, needs, and perspectives in ways accessible to both professional audiences and the wider public. The monograph reflects on the development of PhotoVoice in international scholarship and highlights its potential to transcend traditional academic boundaries toward participatory and transformative practice in social work. The empirical section comprises three projects conducted by the author in the Slovak context, focusing on diverse groups of persons with disabilities and their families, who face specific social needs and everyday barriers. The findings demonstrate the potential of PhotoVoice to strengthen participation through accessible and meaningful visual tools. The monograph also addresses methodological, ethical, and terminological considerations and adopts an inclusive understanding of disability consistent with contemporary approaches in social work.

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Gabriel Eštok - Gabriela Szabariová - Matúš Béreš (eds.)

Presented publication is an outcome from the scientific conference for students and young scientists that took place on 12th and 13th May 2016 at the Department of Political science, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. The main aim of the presented is to bring up outcomes of research of young scientists and students from Slovakia, as well as from abroad. Many of the presented papers have become integral part of qualification theses of their authors.

This conference proceedings contains 22 papers in Slovak, Czech and English language thematically creating four different parts.

Papers regarding international relations or issues exceeding a level of state power are dealing with issues of globalization, counterculture, international terrorism, extremism and a role of the EU in the Arctic. Papers dealing with the situation in the Slovak republic and abroad cover reform of security in Slovakia and in Romania, issue of dealing with totalitarian history of the states of the Visegrad group as well as development of funding of education system in Slovakia since 1919. In case of authors focusing on the socio-political situation in Slovakia we can find papers analyzing role of a reeve in city of Košice, first great political conflict during a rule of Vladimír Mečiar in Slovakia, role of Roma population in political environment in Slovakia, but also those concerning local activist or action groups and examining attitude of nursing care students towards euthanasia. The conference proceedings contents also four papers regarding theoretical or philosophical issues.

Their authors focused on topic of social state, social equality, democratic theories and transformation of human nature in “post-human” era.

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Margita Mesárošová - Jozef Bavoľár - Miriam Slavkovská 

The current situation in the world education system, which declares the need to educate students for knowledge society, for improving the graduate employability is behind the motivation of authors to address competencies and key competencies for the knowledge society.

The authors present theoretical and empirical investigations based on the application of scientific methods of competency assessment and the use of contemporary scientific paradigms. The starting point is the concept of competencies in the context of current approaches of scientific psychology, which resonates in the official documents of the European Union and has been elaborated and enriched by the authors. The monograph focuses on a selected set of competencies, namely: competence to act as a self-regulated person, self-development, decision-making competencies, social and metacognitive competencies in the context of motivation. Knowledge about nature, the structure of competencies are presented, as well as their relations with personal and environmental variables.

The effort of the authors is also aimed at making available knowledge about the possibilities of assessing these competencies using current methods. Authors communicate the results of the creation and verification of competency assessment methods. The implementation of the research results presented in the monograph is perspective in the education and counseling of the target group of university students.

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Eva Žiaková (ed.)

Proceedings of the Scientific Conference with International Participation within the VEGA Project No. 1/0282/12 Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Meaning of Life and Its Components in Socially Significant Groups of Adolescents in Terms of Its Formation and Possible Intervention.

The introductory word is a very good opportunity for us to jointly evaluate what we have managed to achieve in addressing our common scientific research task focused on the study of the meaning of life in socially at-risk groups of adolescents. First and foremost, we asked ourselves what we have discovered about the meaning of life so far, that is, what we know about it.

The second question we asked was: what surprised us about the results we have obtained so far. The third question was about what we want to do to resolve the discrepancy between what we have discovered and what we want to achieve.

The final question in evaluating the solution of the scientific research task was: what do we (not) know about the meaning of life of adolescents and want to know in the future, or what should we focus on to develop the most effective logotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic methods for social workers working with socially at-risk groups of adolescents.

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Jozef Bavoľár - Ladislav Lovaš - Simona Ďurbisová

The process of achieving goals is one that has traditionally received significant attention in psychology. This attention is not only directed by researchers focused on motivation, with which the process of achieving goals is classically associated, but also from a wide range of other areas (e.g., emotions, personality). One aspect of goal-directed behavior that has received minimal, if not virtually no, attention is decision-making.

It is surprising to realize that various aspects of decision-making are present throughout the entire process of achieving goals - from evaluating different aspects of multiple alternative goals, through selecting among them, deciding on resource allocation (effort, time, finances, relationships...), continuously monitoring progress, to evaluating the outcome and its impact on future goal-directed behavior.

Even more surprising is that decision-making is directly addressed by one of the dominant theories explaining goal-directed behavior - the theory of mental action phases (mindset theory of action phases; Gollwitzer 1999, 2012). This theory distinguishes the pre-decisional and post-decisional phases as the first two phases of this behavior, separated precisely by the decision about which goal to pursue.

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Martin Škára

Philosophy is interwoven throughout its history with several principles that bring light and order to this kind of thinking, whether it is a systematic or a non-systematic form of philosophizing.

Each of the principles represents in its own way the origin (ἀρχή) of all deductive reasoning, but not all philosophical statements and conceptions are obliged to proceed in the same way, for not all philosophical statements and conceptions are calculus. Actually, such a form of rationalist philosophizing is really a minority in the history of philosophy. But in spite of its minority presence, it will always attract attention to some extent, whether by becoming a pillar of thought itself and finding a permanent place in its foundations, or by becoming an indispensable mainstay of philosophical reasoning. In fact, there are not many principles in the history of philosophical thought.

The state of affairs is primarily due to the heterogeneous and in many cases irrationalist nature of philosophical thinking.

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Simona Ďurbisová

Metodická príručka vznikla ako praktický výstup projektu APVV-19-0284 „Faktory výberu a dosahovania dlhodobých cieľov u mladých ľudí v období prechodu do dospelosti“ Katedry psychológie Filozofickej fakulty Univerzity Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach. Obdobie prechodu do dospelosti je charakteristické mnohými zmenami, nestabilitou a neistotou, ktoré sú úzko spojené aj so snahou o dosiahnutie cieľov z rôznych oblastí života – či už ide o vzdelávanie, rodinu/vzťahy, kariéru alebo osobný rast. V rámci projektu bola preto pozornosť venovaná bližšiemu preskúmaniu procesu dosahovania týchto cieľov u ľudí v období nastupujúcej dospelosti. Výskumné zistenia pomohli doplniť doposiaľ chýbajúce informácie o špecifikách tejto problematiky, ako aj poskytnúť účelný základ pre potenciálnu aplikáciu intervenčných aktivít.

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Eva Žiaková (ed.) 

The 5th edition of the Košice Days of Social Work

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on November 25, 2016, in Košice

The issue of re-education and resocialization is not new, but it is an increasingly urgent problem as various types of dependencies grow in both scope and content. It can be said that this issue represents one of the central themes of social work in its theoretical foundations as well as practical contexts.

This was the main reason for selecting this topic as the central theme of the 5th edition of the Košice Days of Social Work, which was the sixth continuation of the professional community’s gatherings to address social problems currently troubling our society. The presented proceedings include nearly three dozen contributions from more than twenty authors from Slovakia, as well as Poland and the Czech Republic. The content of the contributions deals not only with theoretical foundations and perspectives on the issue of resocialization and re-education but also with the consequences of these processes in various client social risk groups—whether it involves the addicted, aggressive, chronically ill, convicted, divorced, bullied, cyberbullied, etc.

I believe that such a wide range of contributions will enrich all those who work and study in the theoretical, research, and practical fields of social work.

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Mária Mičaninová - Ivica Hajdučeková (eds.)

In the framework of the project VEGA of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic 1/0330/12 The Function of Metaphor in the Philosophy of Shlomo ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol and Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi, project leader Assoc. Prof. Mária Mičaninová, CSc., under the patronage of the rector of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, The Slovak Republic, Prof. MUDr. Ladislav Mirossay, DrSc., and of The Department of Philosophy and History of Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts of the same University, took place on 4th – 5th October 2013 an International conference on The Function of Metaphor in Medieval Neoplatonism. Two days´conference was opened by Dean of the Faculty of Arts of P. J. Šafárik University, Prof. PhDr. Ján Gbúr, CSc.,in the presence of Prof. PhDr. Vladimír Leško, CSc., Head of The Department of Philosophy and History of Philosophy, and of foreign guests and students of the University.

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E-journal

Juraj Schenk et al.

The scientific journal Sociálne a politické analýzy (Social and Political Analyses) serves as an interactive electronic platform for communication and the presentation (publication) of experts and their work in the fields of basic and applied research and analyses within sociological, psychological, political, and methodological contexts. It is a medium focused on intensively supporting research activities and analyses within an interdisciplinary framework, facilitating the exchange of experiences, fostering collaboration, and revitalizing the production of scientific work in this area.

The publication section of the journal offers space for works such as:

- Original sociological, psychological, and political studies and analyses in any areas of social life

- Methodological studies

- Research reports

- Studies from qualification theses Research and analysis projects

- Reviews

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Alexander Onufrák - Ján Ruman - Jana Šutajová - Peter Getlík

The presented textbook aims to introduce students to the issue of political extremism from various perspectives—namely, normative, historical, and discursive-empirical.

It addresses the significance and role of active citizenship, which, as one of several potential solutions, has the capacity to a certain extent to eliminate the rise of manifestations of political extremism in society by deepening democratic principles in practice.

The presented textbook is a direct output of the KEGA grant project "Innovative Model of Education Leading to Active Citizenship as a Prevention of the Rise of Political Extremism among Students" (014UPJŠ-4/2020). The principal investigator of the project is Assoc. Prof. Mgr. Gabriel Eštok, PhD. The project was carried out in the years 2020–2022.

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Gabriel Eštok

The university textbook Citizenship of the European Union is structured into four parts. The first chapter focuses on the characteristics of citizenship in a historical context (concepts of citizenship in the ancient, medieval and modern periods).

The second chapter deals with a theoretical introduction to citizenship. It comes up with the characteristics of citizenship, introduces the ways of acquiring and losing citizenship and the transformations of citizenship in the context of globalization and multiculturalism.

The third chapter focuses on European Union citizenship itself, its historical development and the process of introducing and strengthening citizenship in the European Union.

The fourth chapter presents the specific rights of citizens deriving from European Union citizenship - the right to free movement, the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal and European Parliament elections, the right to diplomatic and consular protection in the territory of a third country, the right to petition the institutions of the European Union, the right of access to documents of the institutions and bodies of the Union, and the right of initiative of the citizens of the European Union.

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár

Issues of punishment are directly linked to a state’s criminal policy, which is an inseparable part of its social policy. Historically, the state has held a unique dominant position in the realm of punishment. Once the conditions for imposing a penalty are met, the state fulfills its obligation by sentencing through independent courts. However, it does not address questions of satisfaction, which belong to the victim. The victim may be a specific physical person or legal entity that suffered harm due to the criminal act. This harm simultaneously affects civil society as a whole. The state prioritizes its duty to punish and decide on the matter over compensating the harmed individual or civil society.

By mediation in criminal cases, we mean extrajudicial facilitation of resolving disputes between the offender and the harmed party, with the assistance and personal participation of a mediator. The mediator, as an independent and impartial person, helps parties identify their interests and supports them in finding shared, practical, and realistic solutions to the points causing their conflict. Probation refers to monitoring, supervising the accused, defendant, or convicted individual, as well as providing individual assistance to the offender and encouraging them to lead a lawful life. This reduces the risk of recidivism, or repeated criminal behavior.

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