The article presents the controversy around the concept of childhood and subjectivity of a child in past centuries - in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. One of the analyzed issues concerns the existence in medieval culture of understanding the child as a being different from an adult. According to the widespread view, formulated in the 1960s and 1970s by Philipp Ariés, childhood in the Middle Ages was not noticed, it was not considered a separate, important stage in human life, a period governed by specific rules, different from important principles of the adult community. The child entered the adult world very early and assumed the role assigned to him. The discovery of childhood did not take place until the 16th and 17th centuries, when it began to be recognized that the child was and should be the subject of special treatment. Ariés' view of the non-existence in the Middle Ages of the sense of separateness of childhood is criticized by some medievalists - they accuse the French researcher of technical defects and an analysis of unrepresentative, too scarce source materials. According to the adversaries of Ariés, the analysis of childhood in the Middle Ages cannot be based on the modern definition of this term, just as considering the relationship "children - adults" in the Middle Ages cannot refer to contemporary categories. Opponents of the thesis about the non-existence of the concept of childhood in the Middle Ages argue that this epoch had its own vision of it, but it was a vision definitely different from the present one. The early modern period bring a new approach to childhood and the subjectivity of a child - the seventeenth century, in addition to the approach that the child placed at the center of family life, promotes an attitude that places particular emphasis on the child's development and fulfilment of its mental needs, while the eighteenth century brings a "romantic" vision of the child when it becomes - as a bearer of exceptional qualities and a creature of extraordinary sensitivity - a role model for adults. The development of education has certainly contributed to the formation of a subjective approach to children; the evolution of the attitude towards children in the human mentality finds its fullest reflection in the development of education and school institutions. Today, the concepts of childhood and the subjectivity of a child are the subject of complex interdisciplinary research - scientists from various fields of science combine their efforts to develop the most complete concept of childhood, corresponding to the challenges of modern times.

The subject of the article are selected philosophical and fundamental legal (i.e., systemic and constitutional, foundations of self-governance and local democracy). The authors present a general concept and the most important pragmatic function of democracy. The subject of the analysis is also the legal principle of self-governance as a systemic postulate of the democratic state ruled by law. The theoretical inspiration for the deliberations on decentralization and local democracy are the philosophical and political concepts of Ostrom and the philosophical classics: Hobbes, Montesquieu, and de Tocqueville. Self-governance and democracy, also considered from the point of view of their merits and disadvantages, have been included as a counterweight to centralism and monocentric democracy carrying a number of threats to freedom. In order to illustrate general arguments based on the method of analysis of normative and philosophical texts, the authors also use the example of American local democracy; it was chosen as a form of self-governance and local democracy in a modern sense, yet the oldest one and very well-functioning in practice. In the conclusions, the authors state what territorial self-governance is and what role it plays in the democratic system. They also emphasize that territorial self-governance, through actual decentralization of public authority, ensures democracy and secures against the transformation of monocentric democracy into a dangerous oligarchy.

Tomasz Hobbes to myśliciel, którego społeczno-polityczna filozofia oceniana jest dziś, podobnie zresztą jak trzysta lat temu, biegunowo skrajnie -angielski twórca bywa nazywany "sługą Lewiatana" czy "apologetą totalitaryzmu", bywa też przedstawiany jako pionier liberalizmu, kiedy podkreślane są jego zasługi w formułowaniu kanonu niezbywalnych praw jednostki 1 . Hobbes jest filozofem przypisywanym do dwóch różnych prawnych nurtów -niektórzy nadają mu miano prekursora pozytywizmu prawniczego, inni wiążą jego koncepcje z nurtem prawnonaturalnym 2 , hobbesowskie idee są różnie klasyfikowane; uznawany jest za zwolennika jusnaturalizmu bądź pozytywistę w zależności od tego, którym wątkom jego twórczości klasyfikujący baczniej się przygląda i które szczególnie eksponuje 3 .Pozytywizm prawniczy i jusnaturalizm to teorie fundamentalnie różne, dzieli je przede wszystkim sposób rozumienia prawa oraz podstawy uznawania mocy obowiązującej norm prawnych. Według pozytywistów prawniczych normy prawne to takie, które zostały ustanowione przez państwo, zdaniem wyznawców prawa natury pewne normy mają status norm prawnych niezależnie od tego, czy zostały usankcjonowane przez organizację państwową 4 . Doktryny pozytywistyczne w róż-1 Zob. L. Strauss, Prawo naturalne w świetle historii, tłum. T. Górski, PAX, Warszawa 1969.2 Por. tamże oraz N.

This article shows H. L. A. Hart as a leading representative of the analytic orientation in legal philosophy. Hart proved that the methods of analytic philosophy yield generous implications to law, where they may promote new ideas and innovative solutions. The text emphasizes the linguistic aspect of Hart’s works; his achievements in legal theory are discussed in the context of the principles of ordinary language philosophy.

A seventeenth century philosopher-nominalist Thomas Hobbes's attitudes to a language are the subject of this article. Believing that there is a need to create a new philosophy competitive to scholastic approach, he adopts reasoning based on a deduction method amounting to calculation, adding (or deducting) a statement to a statement, a name to name as its basis. Assuming that the condition of correct reasoning is precise establishment of the meaning of the name being defined, he postulates a language reform that would involve clearing the language of ambiguous and unclear words. He believes that such language reform should not only heal philosophy and have favorable impact upon the quality of public discourse, but also eliminate social and political conflicts.