National Endowment for the Humanities . Volume 7

NATIONALHumanities ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES . VOLUME 7 NUMBER 2 . APRIL 1986 Editor's Contents Notes 3 The Philosophical Resistance of Leszek Kolakowski by Gesine Schwan Polish philosopher Leszek A philosophy that embraces the contradictions of human experience. Kolakowski will deliver the fifteenth Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 7 The Fifteenth Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities by Linda Blanken in Washington, D.C., on May 7, and Leszek Kolakowski's life and work. in Chicago on May 16. The highest honor conferred by the U.S. govern 10 A Kolakowski Anthology ment for outstanding achievement Excerpts from the major works published in English. in the humanities, the award recog nizes the combination of intellectual 16 Political Theory and Political Practice vitality and social concern Political science curricula with a healthy dose of the humanities. exemplified by Thomas Jefferson. Professor Kolakowski, a senior re 18 The European Struggle against Totalitarianism search fellow at All Soul's College, High school teachers read four heroes of the postwar resistance. Oxford, and member of the Univer sity of Chicago's department of phi 20 Yugoslavia's Memory, Vladimir Dedijer losophy and Committee on Social The World War II diaries of Tito's biographer now being published in English. Thought, has written more than I thirty books on philosophy and the 22 What Constitutes the Good Life? history of ideas. His life and work Adult learners reexamine the questions of Aristotle and Adam Smith. have exemplified the Jeffersonian I ideal of tolerance and an enduring 24 Philosophy and the Religious Quest by Thomas V. Morris commitment to the betterment of so A philosopher interprets Pascal's famous treatise on the nature of faith. ciety. In this issue we present the range of this work, from his tireless 27 Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion resistance to totalitarian oppression A new translation of the lectures that heralded the new discipline. to his explorations of religious faith. Professor Gesine Schwan of the 28 The Tradition of Religious Freedom University of Berlin explained how A conference on the origins of the separation of church and state. Kolakowski's philosophy has worked as a force for freedom in an 30 Fundamentals: Issues and Texts address, which we reprint here, Students at the University of Chicago take the Great Books a step further. honoring him as the 1977 winner of the Friedenpreis des Deutschen 33 The Humanities GUIDE Buchhandels. Kolakowski's principle The 1986 NEH Fellows and Advice for Younger Scholars. of rationalistic doubt, said Schwan, has been "a means for shattering all the spiritual and material incrusta tions that force people into con strained categories of belief." Humanities The Jefferson Lecture was estab The opinions and conclusions expressed in lished in 1972 as an opportunity for a bimonthly review published by the Humanities are those of the authors and do outstanding thinkers to explore mat National Endowment not necessarily reflect Endowment policy. ters of broad concern in a public fo for the Humanities Material appearing in this publication may be freely reproduced with appropriate credit to rum. Previous Jefferson lecturers Acting Chairman: John Agresto Humanities. The editor would appreciate cop have been Cleanth Brooks, Sidney Director of Public Affairs: ies for the Endowment's reference. The chair Susan H. Metts man of the Endowment has determined that Hook, Jaroslav Pelikan, Emily T. Assistant Director for Publications: the publication of this periodical is necessary Vermeule, Gerald Holton, Barbara in the transaction of the public business re Caroline Taylor Tuchman, Edward Shils, C. Vann quired by law of this agency. Use of funds for Editor: Linda Blanken printing this periodical has been approved by Woodward, Saul Bellow, John Hope Editorial Board: Majorie Berlincourt, the director of the Office of Management and Franklin, Paul A. Freund, Robert James Blessing, Harold Cannon, Budget through September 1988. Send re Penn Warren, Erik H. Erikson, and Richard Ekman, Donald Gibson, quests for subscriptions and other communi cations to the editor, Humanities, National Lionel Trilling. Guinevere Griest, Pamela Glenn Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Menke Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. Telephone 202/ 786-0435. (USPS —Linda Blanken Designed by Maria josephy Schoolman 521-090) ISSN 0018-7526. 2 The Philosophical Resistance of Leszek Kolakowski Any young German at the beginning general ideological differences be of the 1960s who considered himself tween the East and West; despite "leftist" felt his political commitment the bitterness over the incomprehen less as a condemnation of the West sible atrocities of the past, which ern political or socioeconomic transcended all else; and despite system—in general he scarcely unresolved territorial questions. thought in categories of the One of the ways that Germans be "system"—than as a moral burden came reacquainted with neighboring For years in the past, intellectuals of guilt bequeathed by the recent Poland was by reading an officially of leftist origins who came from past. This burden not only rested on published magazine distributed Eastern Europe and criticized the so the older generation, but was inher abroad and entitled "Poland." It at cialism established there were ostra ited by the younger. National social tempted to provide representative cized by the very people from whom ism, not yet categorized as a special glimpses of the political, social and they expected empathy and produc case in the general phenomenon of cultural events of the nation. Here tive discussion: from, as Kolakowski "fascism" and not yet approached, Germans met a promising young called it, the humanistic Left. In therefore, with academic distance, representative of the Polish intellec those years, however, these people, was part of the reality concretely ex tual scene and an already influential especially in Germany, were aban perienced or retold. Preoccupation academic instructor of the young doning humanist thought, believing with it was of primary importance in generation, a philosophy professor it to be politically noncommittal and shaping political consciousness. from Warsaw: Leszek Kolakowski. too moralizing, in favor of an appar The most pressing political task— Now, Kolakowski has not taught ently less ambiguous division of besides the theoretical debate on in Warsaw since 1968, but rather at people into friend and foe, the ex how national socialism could have Berkeley, Montreal, Yale, Chicago, ploited and the exploiter—two come about—was the practical re and Oxford, and yet the magazine neatly divided political camps. Who paying of the debt, or to put it more was correct in honoring him as an ever broke out of this pattern, who prudently, the attempt to come to an outstanding representative of Polish ever discriminatingly refused to ac understanding, and perhaps even to intellectual life. With extraordinary cept the boundaries by criticizing a reconciliation with the deeply international resonance, he embod socialism as a socialist, was either ravaged neighboring countries. Be ies the resurrected vitality of the dropped from memory or high cause the West German government postwar Polish spirit. This vitality is handedly assigned to one of the two focused efforts at reconciliation on not characterized by a narrow na camps—when in doubt, that of the the most important Western neigh tionalism, but by an expansive, cos enemy. This censure approximated bor, France, the attention of the mopolitan awareness of European the same mechanism that Kolakow "leftists" of the day came to be in history and of the European present. ski has described and criticized in creasingly directed toward the In Kolakowski's work, one sees the his own country after 1956 as "extor East—not as an opposition but as a philosophical tradition of Europe. tion by the sole alternative." It is supplement to government policy. His command of this tradition encouraging that Kolakowski's Besides Czechoslovakia, Poland in pushes to the background the issue unwavering nonconformity, his foil particular came to be the center of of national origins. And yet he is un ing of every intellectual fashion, is their interest. Communication began mistakably a Polish patriot—even meeting with an increasingly posi to be reestablished between Poland outside the geographical borders of tive response from the West. and Germany despite the barriers of his country. Admittedly, it is not entirely in comprehensible that independent losophy. ity, even if it remains unclear in thinkers like Kolakowski were con Kolakowski's theoretical, and at which concrete forms these values sidered inconvenient in the wake of the same time existential, analysis of are to be realized." the policy of detente between East German national socialism and So "That something does constitute a and West. After years of Cold War viet Stalinism elevates the phenome value ...": This very statement can and an anticommunism, which in non of responsibility in his thinking not be justified within the bounds of Germany fed on the remains of anti to the category of Grunderfahrung, a rational, discursive, historical argu democratic thinking, fear of a re fundamental philosophical experi mentation; to get there, the bounds lapse into sterile Western self-right- ence. "Our primary relationship to must be crossed into a transcenden eousness might have played a

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