Polish Axiology the 20Th Century and Beyond
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CULTURAL I iERITAGE AND C:ONTEMPORARY CHANGE SERIES IVA, CENTRAI, AND EASTERN EUROPE, VOLUME 25 POLISH AXIOLOGY: The 20"' Century and beyond Polish Philosophical Studies, V edited by STANISU IV JKD YNAK THI-: COUNC/L FOR RFSFARCHIS’ VALUES AM) FHU.OSORHY Copyrighted material CULTURAL HERITAGE AND CONTEMPORARY CHANGE SERIES IVA, CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, VOLUME 25 General Editor George F. McLean POLISH AXIOLOGY: The 20"' Century and beyond Polish Philosophical Studies, V edited by STANISLAW JEDYNAK THE COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH IN VALUESAND PHILOSOPHY Copyrighted material Copyright © 2005 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D C, 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Polish axiology: the 20'*' century and beyond, Polish philosophical studies, V / edited by Stanislaw Jedynak. p. cm. " (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IV A, Eastern and Central Europe; vol. 25) Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Values—Poland— History--20th century. 2. Ethics—Poland-- History— 20th century. 3. Aesthetics, Polish-20th century. I. Title: Polish axiology: the 20"’ century and beyond. II. Title: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, II. Jedynak, Stanislaw, 1939- III. Series. B4690.V.34P65 2001 00-050910 I2l’.8’09438-dc21 CIP ISBNl-56518-141-7(pbk.) Copyrighted material TABLE OF CONTENTS PRHI-ACE Y INTRODlICTinN 1 PART I. THE STRUGULES l-OR A HISTORY Chapter I. Polish Aesthetic Axiology in the twentieth Century (1890-1999) Tadcus: Szknlut 9 Chapter H. Elements Of Twentieth Century Polish Ethics Lcszck Gawor and Lech Zdyhel 37 PART 11. ON niSIU.VSION AND CATASTROPHE Chapter 111, Stanislaw Brzozovvski-a Romantic Pragmatic Anna Zuk 65 Chapter IV. The Axiological Foundations of Polish Catastrophic Thinking in the Interwar Period 7d:i\lw.l. Czarnecki 75 PART III. IV.SVrjMV OE AN AHSOU/TE Chapter V On Absolute Truth: K Twardowski and W Tatarkiewicz JozefDehowski 95 Chapter VI. Kazimierz Twardowski ’s Ethical Approach Anna Draharak LU Chapter VII. The Conception of Goodness as an Absolute and Objective Property in Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz’s Ethics Anna Draharck L53 iv Table of Contents PART n: PATHS FOR A PU.CRIM PEOPLE Chapter VIII. The Axiological System of Henryk Elzenberg Leslaw Hostymki 179 Chapter IX. Crucial Problems of Roman Ingarden’s Axiology Zofta Majewska 213 Chapter X. God and Goodness: The Evolution of I.eszek Kolakowski’s Ethical Views Cezary Mordka 239 Chapter XI. Astonished by Man: Karol Wojtyla’s Theory of Values Jadwifia Mizinska 253 INDEX 269 Copyrighted material PREFACE This volume presents the characteristics of Polish axiology in the twentieth century. Attention is focused on the essential axiological problems discussed in Polish philosophy by its most outstanding representatives. This is supplemented with a comprehensive account of Polish ethics and aesthetics in the twentieth century. The authors of these essays are research scholars of the Institute of Philosophy at the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. This was founded in September 1944 (as the second university in Lublin, the first being The Catholic University, founded in 1918). The first philosophy lecturers were two positivistically orientated professors: Narcyz Lubnicki and Stefan Harassek. The Department of Philosophy and Sociology was founded as late as 1990. The Institute of Philosophy with its ten chairs functions within the Department and employs twelve professors and nearly sixty other academics. It presents courses in theoretical philosophy, philosophy of culture and the cognitive sciences. Together with the Institute of History it mounts a joint program of philosophical and historical studies. The Institute carries out research in ail the basic fields of philosophy, including ethics, aesthetics and axiology. Many works are concerned with the research on the history of Polish and Slavonic philosophy. The Institute has published numerous books, including^ Lillie Dictionary^ of Ethics and A iJitle Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. This volume contains some of our most recent works on Polish axiology in the 20"' century. Each author presents his/her own original approach, based on his or her own research thereby introducing the problems of Polish axiology at the turn of the millennia. 1 wish to thank the authorities of the Department of Philosophy and Sociology for their financial support of the translation of this collection into English and The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy for carrying through the editing and publication. Stanislaw Jedynak Institute of Philosophy Maria Curie Sklodowska University I.uhlin, Poland Copyrighted material Copyrighted material INTRODUCTION This work follows the recent publication of the landmark study edited by Leon Dyczewski of the Catholic University of Lublin entitled, Values in the Polish Cultural Tradition: Polish Philosophical Studies III. That work focused upon the heritage of values borne in the Polish tradition. This was shaped especially through the Christianization of Poland a thousand year ago and hammered out on the anvil of the partitions into a valiant sense of Polish identity and its universal mission: “for our freedom and yours.” Its democratic charter, contemporary with the American “Delcaration of Independence”, and participation in the American Revolutionary war by K. Pulawski and T. Kosciuszko and other Polish patriots bear witness to the visionary democratic character of the Polish tradition. It is no accident therefore that in the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from its enslavement during the last half of the XXth century it was Poland which played the key role. United as a Catholic people in opposition to a foreign occupation and the regime it imposed, Poland was able to bear up under the most intense repression, struggle to its feet, burst the bonds of an alien materialist ideology, and with its first free election in 1989 spearhead the liberation of the entire region. By the end of that year all its sister countries in the region had been liberated; within two years even the Soviet Union toppled to be succeeded by the Russian Federation. This is the glorious story of values in Polish culture. The present work: Polish Axiology: the 20''’ Century and Beyond, Polish Philosophical Studies, IV, edited by Stanislaw Jedynak, tells a much more troubled story. The work comes from the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University built post World War II. It looks back to the brief period of inter-war independence through post World War II glasses. Its message is indicative of the struggle of the Polish soul to reestablish an identity as it embarks upon the new millennium. The insight it provides is unique and essential for understanding the tangled effort to employ the heritage of the past in constructing the future. The work is organized into four parts. The first reflects at once the complex manifold of work in axiology and the difficulty in finding direction today. The second is painted with the somber more pessimistic colors reflecting the thought of Nietzsch and Spengler Copyrighted material 1 2 Introduction on the collapse of European civilization. The third, in contrast, reflects the optimism of those who would see light in this world reflecting and be guided by an absolute ideal. The fourth is situated between these, pointing out positive ways for ethics and aesthetic in and through the reasons for pessimism described in the catastrophic thinking of Part II; this is a path of salvation. Part 1, “The Struggles for a History of Polish Axiology,” consists of two valiant efforts at assembling a vision of this vast field. In Chapter 1, “Polish Aesthetic Axiology in the Twentieth Century ( 1 890- 1 999),” Tadensz Szkolut unveils the amazing richness of Polish thought in this area. He pays tribute to the many Polish thinkers noting that there was hardly a position on the subject which they did not intensively elaborate, defend and critique. Szkolut surveys the vast panorama of work on aesthetic values. The work on ethical values is documented bibliographically in Chapter II, “Elements of Twenties Culture Polish Ethics,” by Leszek Gawor and Lech Zdybel. Both establish the intent with which Polish intellectuals followed the modem struggles to find and create meaning through the harsh, even catastrophic, history ofPoland in the twentieth century. Part II, “Disillusion and Catastrophe,” shows a more pessimistic side of Polish work on axiology. Chapter III by Anna Zuk, “Stanislaw Brzozowski a Romantic Pragmatic,” describes the assumption of Nietzsche’s critique of values by a key Polish intellectual, and his search in exile, through the thought of John Henry Newman, to rediscover meaning through an interior path. Stanistaw Brzozowski would claim after Nietzsche that struggle is the context for the realization of value, then Poland has had an ample window through which much has been seen and Chapter 111 shows how great a toll these tragic circumstances have taken. One remarks that in that history the dimensions of confusion and nihilism often are overlaid or underlaid by other compensating currents. But one finds as well the elaborate, if not entirely willing, engagement of scholars in the development and application of ideologies. Perhaps most disconcerting, one finds that today the ability to understand the classical metaphysical underpinnings of such key 20"“ century Polish axiologists as Roman Ingarden have been lost. This renders simply unavailable some