History of philosophy in Poland
Encyclopedia
The history of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution of philosophy
in Europe
in general. Polish philosophy drew upon the broader currents of European philosophy, and in turn contributed to their growth. Among the most momentous Polish contributions were made in the thirteenth century by the Scholastic
philosopher and scientist Witelo
; and in the sixteenth century, by the Renaissance
polymath
Nicolaus Copernicus
.
Subsequently, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
partook in the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment
, which for the multi-ethnic Commonwealth ended not long after the partitions
and political annihilation that would last for the next 123 years, until the collapse of the three partitioning empires in World War I
.
The period of Messianism
, between the November 1830
and January 1863 Uprisings
, reflected European Romantic
and Idealist trends, as well as a Polish yearning for political resurrection
. It was a period of maximalist
metaphysical system
s.
The collapse of the January 1863 Uprising
prompted an agonizing reappraisal of Poland's situation. Poles gave up their earlier practice of "measuring their resources by their aspirations," and buckled down to hard work and study. "[A] Positivist," wrote the novelist Bolesław Prus' friend, Julian Ochorowicz
, was "anyone who bases assertions on verifiable evidence; who does not express himself categorically about doubtful things, and does not speak at all about those that are inaccessible."
The twentieth century brought a new quickening to Polish philosophy. There was growing interest in western philosophical currents. Rigorously trained Polish philosophers made substantial contributions to specialized fields—to psychology
, the history of philosophy
, the theory of knowledge, and especially mathematical logic
. Jan Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept of many-valued logic and his "Polish notation
." Alfred Tarski
's work in truth theory won him world renown.
After World War II
, for over four decades, world-class Polish philosophers and historians of philosophy
such as Władysław Tatarkiewicz continued their work, often in the face of adversities occasioned by the dominance of a politically enforced official philosophy.
The phenomenologist Roman Ingarden
did influential work in esthetics and in a Husserl-style metaphysics
; his student Karol Wojtyła acquired a unique influence on the world stage as Pope John Paul II.
in Poland
may be said to have begun in the fifteenth century, following the revival of the University of Kraków
by King Władysław II Jagiełło in 1400.
The true beginnings of Polish philosophy, however, reach back to the thirteenth century and Witelo
(ca. 1230 – ca. 1314), a Silesia
n born to a Polish mother and a Thuringia
n settler, a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas
who had spent part of his life in Italy
at centers of the highest intellectual culture. In addition to being a philosopher, he was a scientist
who specialized in optics
. His famous treatise, Perspectiva, while drawing on the Arabic
Book of Optics
by Alhazen, was unique in Latin
literature, and in turn helped inspire Roger Bacon
's best work, Part V of his Opus maius, "On Perspectival Science," as well as his supplementary treatise On the Multiplication of Vision. Witelo's Perspectiva additionally made important contributions to psychology
: it held that vision
per se apprehends only color
s and light
while all else, particularly the distance and size of objects, is established by means of association
and unconscious deduction
.
Witelo's concept of being
was one rare in the Middle Ages
, neither Augustinian
as among conservatives nor Aristotelian
as among progressives, but Neoplatonist
. It was an emanationist
concept that held radiation
to be the prime characteristic of being, and ascribed to radiation the nature of light
. This "metaphysic of light" inclined Witelo to optical
research, or perhaps vice versa his optical studies led to his metaphysic.
According to the Polish historian of philosophy, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, no Polish philosopher since Witelo
has enjoyed so eminent a European standing as this thinker who belonged, in a sense, to the prehistory
of Polish philosophy.
From the beginning of the fifteenth century, Polish philosophy, centered at Kraków University
, pursued a normal course. It no longer harbored exceptional thinkers such as Witelo, but it did feature representatives of all wings of mature Scholasticism
, via antiqua as well as via moderna.
The first of these to reach Kraków was via moderna, then the more widespread movement in Europe
. In physics
, logic
and ethics
, Terminism
(Nominalism
) prevailed in Kraków, under the influence of the French
Scholastic, Jean Buridan
(died ca. 1359), who had been rector
of the University of Paris
and an exponent of views of William of Ockham
. Buridan had formulated the theory
of "impetus"—the force
that causes a body, once set in motion
, to persist in motion—and stated that impetus is proportion
al to the speed
of, and amount of matter
comprising, a body: Buridan thus anticipated Galileo and Isaac Newton
. His theory of impetus was momentous in that it also explained the motions of celestial bodies
without resort to the spirit
s—"intelligentiae"—to which the Peripatetics (followers of Aristotle
) had ascribed those motions. At Kraków
, physics was now expounded by (St.) Jan Kanty
(1390–1473), who developed this concept of "impetus."
A general trait of the Kraków Scholastics was a provlivity for compromise
—for reconciling Nominalism
with the older tradition. For example, the Nominalist, Benedict Hesse, while in principle accepting the theory of impetus
, did not apply it to the heavenly spheres.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, at Kraków, via antiqua became dominant. Nominalism
retreated, and the old Scholasticism
triumphed.
In this period, Thomism
had its chief center at Cologne
, whence it influenced Kraków. Cologne, formerly the home ground of Albertus Magnus
, had preserved Albert's mode of thinking. Thus the Cologne philosophers formed two wings, the Thomist and Albertist, and even Cologne's Thomists showed Neoplatonist
traits characteristic of Albert, affirming emanation, a hierarchy
of being
, and a metaphysic of light
.
The chief Kraków adherents of the Cologne-style Thomism included Jan of Głogów (ca. 1445–1507) and Jakub of Gostynin
(ca. 1454–1506). Another, purer teacher of Thomism was Michał Falkener
of Wrocław (ca. 1450–1534).
Almost at the same time, Scotism
appeared in Poland, having been brought from Paris
first by Michał Twaróg of Bystrzyków
(ca. 1450–1520). Twaróg had studied at Paris in 1473–77, in the period when, following the anathema
tization of the Nominalists (1473), the Scotist school was there enjoying its greatest triumphs. A prominent student of Twaróg's, Jan of Stobnica
(ca. 1470–1519), was already a moderate Scotist who took account of the theories of the Ockham
ists, Thomists and Humanist
s.
When Nominalism
was revived in western Europe
at the turn of the sixteenth century, particularly thanks to Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
(Faber Stapulensis), it presently reappeared in Kraków
and began taking the upper hand there once more over Thomism
and Scotism
. It was reintroduced particularly by Lefèvre's pupil, Jan Szylling
, a native of Kraków who had studied at Paris in the opening years of the sixteenth century. Another follower of Lefèvre's was Grzegorz of Stawiszyn
, a Kraków professor who, beginning in 1510, published the Frenchman's works at Kraków.
Thus Poland
had made her appearance as a separate philosophical center only at the turn of the fifteenth century, at a time when the creative period of Scholastic
philosophy had already passed. Throughout the fifteenth century, Poland harbored all the currents of Scholasticism. The advent of Humanism
in Poland would find a Scholasticism more vigorous than in other countries. Indeed, Scholasticism would survive the 16th and 17th centuries and even part of the 18th at Kraków
and Wilno Universities and at numerous Jesuit, Dominican
and Franciscan
colleges.
To be sure, in the sixteenth century, with the arrival of the Renaissance
, Scholasticism
would enter upon a decline; but during the 17th century's Counter-reformation
, and even into the early 18th century, Scholasticism would again become Poland's chief philosophy.
The spirit of Humanism
, which had reached Poland by the middle of the fifteenth century, was not very "philosophical." Rather, it lent its stimulus to linguistic
studies, political thought, and scientific
research. But these manifested a philosophical attitude different from that of the previous period.
Empirical
natural science
had flourished at Kraków
as early as the fifteenth century, side by side with speculative philosophy. The most perfect product of this blossoming was Nicolaus Copernicus
(1473–1543). He was not only a scientist but a philosopher. According to Tatarkiewicz, he may have been the greatest—in any case, the most renowned—philosopher that Poland ever produced. He drew the inspiration for his cardinal discovery from philosophy; he had become acquainted through Marsilio Ficino
with the philosophies of Plato
and the Pythagoreans; and through the writings of the philosophers Cicero
and Plutarch
he had learned about the ancients
who had declared themselves in favor of the Earth's movement.
Copernicus may also have been influenced by Kraków philosophy: during his studies there, Terminist
physics
had been taught, with special emphasis on "impetus." His own thinking was guided by philosophical considerations. He arrived at the heliocentric thesis (as he was to write in a youthful treatise) "ratione postea equidem sensu": it was not observation
but the discovery of a logic
al contradiction
in Ptolemy
's system, that served him as a point of departure that led to the new astronomy. In his dedication to Pope Paul III
, he submitted his work for judgment by "philosophers."
In its turn, Copernicus' theory transformed man's view of the structure of the universe
, and of the place held in it by the earth and by man, and thus attained a far-reaching philosophical importance.
Copernicus was involved not only in natural science
and natural philosophy
but also—by his studies in the theory of value
and money
(see "Gresham's Law
")—in the philosophy of man.
In the early sixteenth century, Plato
, who had become a model for philosophy in Italy
, especially in Medicean
Florence
, was represented in Poland
in some ways by Adam of Łowicz
, author of Conversations about Immortality.
Generally speaking, though, Poland remained Aristotelian
. Sebastian Petrycy
of Pilzno
(1554–1626) laid stress, in the theory of knowledge, on experiment
and induction
; and in psychology
, on feeling
and will
; while in politics
he preached democratic ideas. Petrycy's central feature was his linking of philosophical theory with the requirements of practical national life. In 1601-18, a period when translation
s into modern language
s were still rarities, he accomplished Polish translations of Aristotle
's practical works. With Petrycy, vernacular
Polish philosophical terminology
began to develop not much later than did the French and German.
Yet another Renaissance
current, the new Stoicism
, was represented in Poland by Jakub Górski
(ca. 1525–1585), author of a famous Dialectic (1563) and of many works in grammar
, rhetoric
, theology
and sociology
. He tended toward eclecticism
, attempting to reconcile the Stoics with Aristotle
.
A later, purer representative of Stoicism
in Poland was Adam Burski
(ca. 1560–1611), author of a Dialectica Ciceronis (1604) boldly proclaiming Stoic sensualism
and empiricism
and—before Francis Bacon
—urging the use of inductive method
.
A star among the pleiade
of progressive political philosophers during the Polish Renaissance was Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski
(1503–72), who advocated on behalf of equality
for all before the law, the accountability of monarch
and government
to the nation, and social assistance for the weak and disadvantaged. His chief work was De Republica emendanda (On Reform of the Republic, 1551–54).
Another notable political thinker was Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (1530–1607), best known in Poland and abroad for his book De optimo senatore (The Accomplished Senator, 1568). It propounded the view—which for long got the book banned in England
, as subversive of monarchy
—that a ruler may legitimately govern only with the sufferance of the people.
After the first decades of the 17th century, the war
s, invasion
s and internal dissensions that beset the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
, brought a decline in philosophy. If in the ensuing period there was independent philosophical thought, it was among the religious dissenter
s, particularly the Polish Arians
, also known variously as Antitrinitarians, Socinians, and Polish Brethren
—forerunners of the British
and American
Socinians, Unitarians
and Deists who were to figure prominently in the intellectual and political currents of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
The Polish dissenter
s created an original ethical theory radically condemning evil and violence
. Centers of intellectual life such as that at Leszno
hosted notable thinkers such as the Czech
pedagogue, Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius), and the Pole, Jan Jonston. Jonston was tutor and physician to the Leszczyński
family, a devotee of Bacon and experimental knowledge, and author of Naturae constantia, published in Amsterdam
in 1632, whose geometrical method and naturalistic
, almost pantheistic concept of the world may have influenced Benedict Spinoza.
The Leszczyński
family itself would produce an 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian
king, Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766; reigned in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
1704-11 and again 1733-36), "le philosophe bienfaisant" ("the beneficent philosopher")—in fact, an independent thinker whose views on culture
were in advance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
's, and who was the first to introduce into Polish intellectual life on a large scale the French
influences that were later to become so strong.
After a decline of a century and a half, in the mid-18th century, Polish philosophy began to revive. The hub of this movement was Warsaw
. While Poland's capital then had no institution of higher learning, neither were those of Kraków
, Zamość
or Wilno
any longer agencies of progress. The initial impetus for the revival came from religious thinkers: from members of the Piarist and other teaching orders. A leading patron of the new ideas was Bishop
Andrzej Stanisław Załuski.
Scholasticism
, which until then had dominated Polish philosophy, was followed by the Enlightenment
. Initially the major influence was Christian Wolff
and, indirectly, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
's elected king, August III the Saxon, and the relations between Poland and her neighbor, Saxony
, heightened the German
influence
. Wolff's doctrine was brought to Warsaw in 1740 by the Theatine, Portalupi; from 1743, its chief Polish champion was Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof
(1711–78), court physician to August III.
Under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski (reigned 1764–95), the Polish Enlightenment was radicalized and came under French
influence. The philosophical foundation of the movement ceased to be the Rationalist doctrine of Wolff and became the Sensualism
of Condillac
. This spirit pervaded Poland's Commission of National Education, which completed the reforms begun by the Piarist priest, Stanisław Konarski. The Commission's members were in touch with the French Encyclopedists and freethinker
s, with d'Alembert
and Condorcet, Condillac
and Rousseau
. The Commission abolished school instruction in theology
, even in philosophy.
This empiricist and positivist Enlightenment philosophy produced several outstanding Polish thinkers. Though active in the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski, they published their chief works only after the loss of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
's independence in 1795. The most important of these figures were Jan Śniadecki
, Stanisław Staszic and Hugo Kołłątaj.
Another adherent of this empirical Enlightenment philosophy was the minister of education under the Duchy of Warsaw
and under the Congress Poland
established by the Congress of Vienna
, Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1755–1821). In some places, as at Krzemieniec and its Lyceum
in southeastern Poland, this philosophy was to survive well into the nineteenth century. Though a belated philosophy from a western perspective, it was at the same time the philosophy of the future. This was the period between d'Alembert
and Comte
; and even as this variety of positivism
was temporarily fading in the West, it was carrying on in Poland.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, as Immanuel Kant
's fame was spreading over the rest of Europe, in Poland the Enlightenment philosophy was still in full flower. Kantism found here a hostile soil. Even before Kant had been understood, he was condemned by the most respected writers of the time: by Jan Śniadecki
, Staszic, Kołłątaj, Tadeusz Czacki
, later by Anioł Dowgird
(1776–1835). Jan Śniadecki
warned against this "fanatical, dark and apocalyptic mind," and wrote: "To revise Locke
and Condillac
, to desire a priori knowledge of things that human nature can grasp only by their consequences, is a lamentable aberration of mind."
Jan Śniadecki's younger brother, however, Jędrzej Śniadecki
, was the first respected Polish scholar to declare (1799) for Kant. And in applying Kantian ideas to the natural sciences, he did something new that would not be undertaken until much later by Johannes Müller
, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz and other famous scientists of the nineteenth century.
Another Polish proponent of Kantism was Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski
(1764–1843), who had been a student of Kant's at Königsberg
. But, having accepted the fundamental points of the critical theory of knowledge, he still hesitated between Kant's metaphysical agnosticism and the new metaphysics of Idealism
. Thus this one man introduced to Poland both the antimetaphysical Kant and the post-Kantian metaphysics.
In time, Kant's foremost Polish sympathizer would be Feliks Jaroński
(1777–1827), who lectured at Kraków in 1809-18. Still, his Kantian sympathies were only partial. And this half-heartedness was typical of Polish Kantism generally. In Poland there was no actual Kantian period.
For a generation, between the age of the French Enlightenment and that of the Polish national metaphysic, the Scottish philosophy of common sense became the dominant outlook in Poland. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Scottish School of Common Sense held sway in most European countries—in Britain till mid-century, and nearly as long in France. But in Poland, from the first, the Scottish philosophy fused with Kantism, in this regard anticipating the West.
The Kantian and Scottish ideas were united in typical fashion by Jędrzej Śniadecki
(1768–1838). The younger brother of Jan Śniadecki
, Jędrzej was an illustrious scientist, biologist and physician, and the more creative mind of the two. He had been educated at the universities of Kraków
, Padua
and Edinburgh
and was from 1796 a professor at Wilno, where he held a chair of chemistry
and pharmacy
. He was a foe of metaphysics
, holding that the fathoming of first causes of being
was "impossible to fulfill and unnecessary." But foe of metaphysics that he was, he was not an Empiricist—and this was his link with Kant. "Experiment and observation can only gather... the materials from which common sense
alone can build science."
An analogous position, shunning both positivism
and metaphysical speculation
, affined to the Scots but linked in some features to Kantian critique
, was held in the period before the November 1830 Uprising
by virtually all the university professors in Poland: in Wilno, by Dowgird; in Kraków
, by Józef Emanuel Jankowski
(1790–1847); and in Warsaw
, by Adam Ignacy Zabellewicz
(1784–1831) and Krystyn Lach Szyrma
(1791–1866).
ideas, Poland passed directly to a maximal
philosophical program, to absolute metaphysics
, to syntheses
, to great system
s, to reform
of the world through philosophy; and broke with positivism
, the doctrines of the Enlightenment, and the precepts of Common Sense.
The Polish metaphysical blossoming occurred between the November 1830
and January 1863 Uprisings
, and stemmed from the spiritual aspirations of a politically humiliated people.
The Poles' metaphysic, though drawing on German
Idealism
, differed considerably from it; it was Spiritualist rather than Idealist. It was characterized by a theistic belief in a personal God
, in the everlastingness of soul
s, and in the superiority of spiritual over corporeal forces.
The Polish metaphysic saw the mission of philosophy not only in the search for truth
, but in the reform
ation of life and in the salvation
of mankind. It was permeated with a faith in the metaphysical import of the nation
and convinced that man could fulfill his vocation
only within the communion of spirit
s that was the nation, that nations determined the evolution of mankind, and more particularly that the Polish nation had been assigned the role of Messiah
to the nations.
It was these three traits—the founding of a metaphysic on the concept of the soul
and on the concept of the nation
, and the assignment to the latter of reform
ative-soteriological tasks—that distinguished the Polish metaphysicians. Some, such as Hoene-Wroński
, saw the Messiah in philosophy
itself; others, such as the poet Mickiewicz
, saw Him in the Polish nation. Hence Hoene-Wroński, and later Mickiewicz, adopted for their doctrines the name, "Messianism
." It came to apply generically to Polish metaphysics of the nineteenth century, much as the term "Idealism
" does to German
metaphysics.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Poland a host of metaphysicians unanimous as to these basic precepts, if strikingly at variance as to details. Their only center was Paris
, which hosted Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński
(1778–1853). Otherwise they lived in isolation: Bronisław Trentowski
(1808–69) in Germany
; Józef Gołuchowski
(1797–1858) in Congress Poland
; August Cieszkowski
(1814–94) and Karol Libelt
(1807–75) in Wielkopolska (western Poland); Józef Kremer
(1806–75) in Kraków
. Most of them became active only after the November 1830 Uprising
.
An important role in the Messianist movement was also played by the Polish Romantic poets, Adam Mickiewicz
(1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–49) and Zygmunt Krasiński
(1812–59), as well as religious activists such as Andrzej Towiański
(1799–1878).
Between the philosophers and the poet
s, the method of reasoning, and often the results, differed. The poets desired to create a specifically Polish philosophy, the philosophers—an absolute universal philosophy. The Messianist philosophers knew contemporary European philosophy and drew from it; the poets created more of a home-grown metaphysic.
The most important difference among the Messianists was that some were rationalists, others—mystic
s. Wroński's philosophy was no less rationalist than Hegel's, while the poets voiced a mystical philosophy.
The Messianists were not the only Polish philosophers active in the period between the 1830 and 1863 Uprisings. Much more widely known in Poland were Catholic
thinkers such as Father Piotr Semenenko (1814–86), Florian Bochwic (1779–1856) and Eleonora Ziemięcka (1819–69), Poland's first woman philosopher. The Catholic philosophy of the period was more widespread and fervent than profound or creative.
Also active were pure Hegelians such as Tytus Szczeniowski (1808–80) and leftist Hegelians such as Edward Dembowski
(1822–46).
An outstanding representative of the philosophy of Common Sense, Michał Wiszniewski
(1794–1865), had studied at that Enlightenment bastion, Krzemieniec; in 1820, in France
, had attended the lectures of Victor Cousin
; and in 1821, in Britain
, had met the head of the Scottish School of Common Sense at the time, Dugald Stewart
.
Active as well were precursors of Positivism
such as Józef Supiński
(1804–93) and Dominik Szulc
(1797–1860)—links between the earlier Enlightenment age of the brothers Śniadecki and the coming age of Positivism
.
The Positivist
philosophy that took form in Poland after the January 1863 Uprising
was hardly identical with the philosophy of Auguste Comte
. It was in fact a return to the line of Jan Śniadecki
and Hugo Kołłątaj—a line that had remained unbroken even during the Messianist period—now enriched with the ideas of Comte. However, it belonged only partly to philosophy
. It combined Comte's ideas with those of John Stuart Mill
and Herbert Spencer
, for it was interested in what was common to them all: a sober, empirical
attitude to life.
The Polish Positivism was a reaction against philosophical speculation, but also against romanticism
in poetry and idealism
in politics. It was less a scholarly movement than literary
, political
and social
. Few original books were published, but many were translated from the philosophical literature of the West—not Comte himself, but easier writers: Hippolyte Taine
, Mill, Spencer, Alexander Bain
, Thomas Henry Huxley, the Germans Wilhelm Wundt
and Friedrich Albert Lange
, the Danish philosopher Höffding.
The disastrous outcome of the January 1863 Uprising
had produced a distrust of romanticism, an aversion to ideals and illusions, and turned the search for redemption toward sober thought and work directed at realistic goals. The watchword became "organic work"—a term for the campaign for economic improvement, which was regarded as a prime requisite for progress. Poles prepared for such work by studying the natural sciences and economics
: they absorbed Charles Darwin
's biological theories, Mill's economic theories, Henry Thomas Buckle
's deterministic
theory of civilization
. At length they became aware of the connection between their own convictions and aims and the Positivist
philosophy of Auguste Comte
, and borrowed its name and watchwords.
This movement, which had begun still earlier in Austria
n-ruled Galicia, became concentrated with time in the Russia
n-ruled Congress Poland
centered about Warsaw
and is therefore commonly known as the "Warsaw Positivism." Its chief venue was the Warsaw Przegląd Tygodniowy (Weekly Review); Warsaw University (the "Main School") had been closed by the Russia
ns in 1869.
The pioneers of the Warsaw Positivism were natural scientists and physician
s rather than philosophers, and still more so journalist
s and men of letters: Aleksander Świętochowski
(1849–1938), Piotr Chmielowski
(1848–1904), Adolf Dygasiński
(1839–1902), Bolesław Prus (1847–1912). Prus developed an original Utilitarian
-inspired ethical
system in his book, The Most General Life Ideals.
The movement's leader was Prus' friend, Julian Ochorowicz
(1850–1917), a trained philosopher with a doctorate from the University of Leipzig
. In 1872 he wrote: "We shall call a Positivist, anyone who bases assertions on verifiable evidence; who does not express himself categorically about doubtful things, and does not speak at all about those that are inaccessible."
The Warsaw Positivists—who included faithful Catholic
s such as Father Franciszek Krupiński
(1836–98)—formed a common front against Messianism together with the Neo-Kantians. The Polish Kantians were rather loosely associated with Kant and belonged to the Positivist movement. They included Władysław Mieczysław Kozłowski
(1858–1935), Piotr Chmielowski
(1848–1904) and Marian Massonius
(1862–1945).
The most brilliant philosophical mind in this period was Adam Mahrburg
(1855–1913). He was a Positivist in his understanding of philosophy as a discipline and in his uncompromising ferreting out of speculation, and a Kantian in his interpretation of mind and in his centering of philosophy upon the theory of knowledge.
In Kraków
, Father Stefan Pawlicki
(1839–1916), professor of philosophy at the University of Kraków, was a man of broad culture and philosophical bent, but lacked talent for writing or teaching. Under his thirty-plus-year tenure, Kraków philosophy became mainly a historical discipline, alien to what was happening in the West and in Warsaw.
, her intellectual life continued to develop. This was the case particularly in Russia
n-ruled Warsaw
, where in lieu of underground lectures and secret scholarly organizations a Wolna Wszechnica Polska
(Free Polish University) was created in 1905 and the tireless Władysław Weryho
(1868–1916) had in 1898 founded Poland's first philosophical journal, Przegląd Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Review), and in 1904 a Philosophical Society.
In 1907 Weryho founded a Psychological Society, and subsequently Psychological and Philosophical Institutes. About 1910 the small number of professionally trained philosophers increased sharply, as individuals returned who had been inspired by Mahrburg's underground lectures to study philosophy in Austria
n-ruled Lwów and Kraków
or abroad.
Kraków
as well, especially after 1910, saw a quickening of the philosophical movement, particularly at the Polish Academy of Learning
, where at the prompting of Władysław Heinrich
there came into being in 1911 a Committee for the History of Polish Philosophy and there was an immense growth in the number of philosophical papers and publications, no longer only of a historical character.
At Lwów, Kazimierz Twardowski
from 1895 stimulated a lively philosophical movement, in 1904 founded the Polish Philosophical Society
, and in 1911 began publication of Ruch Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Movement).
There was growing interest in western philosophical currents, and much discussion of Pragmatism
and Bergsonism
, psychoanalysis
, Henri Poincaré
's Conventionalism
, Edmund Husserl
's Phenomenology, the Marburg School, and the social-science methodologies
of Wilhelm Dilthey
and Heinrich Rickert
. At the same time, original ideas developed on Polish soil.
Those who distinguished themselves in Polish philosophy in these pre-World War I
years of the twentieth century, formed two groups.
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One group developed apart from institutions of higher learning
and learned societies, and appealed less to trained philosophers than to broader circles, which it (if but briefly) captured. It constituted a reaction against the preceding period of Positivism
, and included Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911), Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) and, to a degree, Edward Abramowski
(1868–1918).
The second group of philosophers who started off Polish philosophy in the twentieth century had an academic character. They included Władysław Heinrich
(1869–1957) in Kraków
, Kazimierz Twardowski
(1866–1938) in Lwów, and Leon Petrażycki
(1867–1931) abroad—all three, active members of the Polish Academy of Learning
. Despite the considerable differences among them, they shared some basic features: all three were empiricists concerned not with metaphysics but with the foundations of philosophy; they were interested in philosophy itself, not merely its history; they understood philosophy in positive terms, but none of them was a Positivist in the old style.
Following the restoration of Poland's independence in 1918, the two older universities (Kraków University
, Lwów University) were joined by four new ones (Warsaw University, Poznań University, Wilno University, Lublin University). New philosophical journals appeared; all the university cities formed philosophical associations; conventions of Polish philosophers were held; philosophy became more professional, academic, scholarly.
A characteristic of the interbellum was that maximalist
, metaphysical currents began to fade away. The dominant ambition in philosophical theory now was not breadth but precision
. This was a period of specialization
, consistent with the conviction that general philosophy would not yield precise results such as could be obtained in logic
, psychology
or the history of philosophy
.
A few individuals did develop a general philosophical outlook: notably, Tadeusz Kotarbiński
(1886–1981), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939), and Roman Ingarden
(1893–1970).
Otherwise, however, specialization
was the rule. The Kraków school, true to tradition, showed an eminently historical character and produced a medievalist of world renown, Father Konstanty Michalski
(1879–1947). The Lwów school concentrated on the analysis of concept
s; and in doing so, it considered both their aspects, the subjective
and objective
—hence, the psychological and the logical. Twardowski himself continued working at the border of psychology and logic; his pupils, however, generally split in their interests, specializing in either psychology or logic.
The analytical
program that Twardowski passed on to his pupils, and which they in turn spread throughout Poland, was affined to that of Franz Brentano
's school (Twardowski's alma mater
) in Austria
and to that of the British
analytic school
, which likewise had arisen as a reaction against speculative systems.
The alumni of the Lwów school entered three distinct fields. Some devoted themselves to psychology
: Stefan Błachowski
(1889–1962), professor at Poznań
, entirely; Władysław Witwicki (1878–1948), professor at Warsaw
, partly. Others pursued the theory of knowledge: they included Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
(1890–1963), professor at Lwów, and after World War II
at Poznań
, whose views resembled Neopositivism and who developed an original theory of radical Conventionalism
. The third group worked in mathematical, or symbolic, logic
.
The most important center for mathematical logic was Warsaw. The Warsaw school of logic was headed by Jan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956) and Stanisław Leśniewski (1886–1939), professors at Warsaw University, and the first of their pupils to achieve eminence, even before World War II
, was Alfred Tarski
(1902–83), from 1939 in the United States
, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley
; another pupil of Łukasiewicz, Bolesław Sobociński, became a professor at the University of Notre Dame
. The Warsaw logic gained a worldwide importance similar to that of the Kraków medievalism
.
Warsaw was not, however, the sole Polish venue for logic studies. These were initiated at Kraków
by the mathematics professor, Jan Sleszyński. At Kraków, too, and later at Lwów, they were conducted by Leon Chwistek
(1884–1944), a multi-faceted and somewhat eccentric thinker—mathematician, philosopher, esthetician, painter—whose name came to be associated popularly with his concept of "plural realities."
After Petrażycki
's death, the outstanding legal philosopher was Czesław Znamierowski
(1888–1967), professor of philosophy at Poznań. Another leading thinker of the period, active on the borderlines of sociology
and philosophy
, in both Poland
and the United States
, was Florian Znaniecki
(1882–1958).
In the interbellum, the philosopher members of the Polish Academy of Learning
included Heinrich
(Kraków), Kazimierz Twardowski
(Lwów), Leon Petrażycki
(Warsaw), and, from the following generation: Konstanty Michalski
, Jan Łukasiewicz and Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886–1980). Michalski's historical works revolutionized prevailing views on via moderna in late medieval philosophy
. Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept of many-valued logic and is known for his "Polish notation
." Tatarkiewicz was the first to prepare in Polish
a large-scale comprehensive history of western philosophy
and a History of Aesthetics and worked at systematizing the concept
s of esthetics and ethics
.
After World War II
, Roman Ingarden
, Tadeusz Kotarbiński
and Alfred Tarski
became members of the Academy.
For some four decades following World War II, in Poland, a disproportionately prominent official role was given to Marxist philosophy
. This, and contemporaneous sociopolitical currents, stimulated Leszek Kołakowski, writing in exile
, to publish influential critiques of Marxist theory and communist practice. Kołakowski also wrote a remarkable history of Positivist Philosophy from Hume to the Vienna Circle.
Similarly notable for his critiques of Soviet Marxism
was Józef Maria Bocheński
, O.P., a Catholic philosopher of the Dominican Order
who lectured in Rome
at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) and at the University of Fribourg
in Switzerland
. Bocheński also gained renown for his work in logic
and ethics
.
Other Polish philosophers of the postwar period included Andrzej Zabłudowski, who engaged in polemics with Nelson Goodman
; and Marek Siemek
, a historian of German
Transcendental Philosophy and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Bonn University.
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Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in general. Polish philosophy drew upon the broader currents of European philosophy, and in turn contributed to their growth. Among the most momentous Polish contributions were made in the thirteenth century by the Scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
philosopher and scientist Witelo
Witelo
Witelo was a friar, theologian and scientist: a physicist, natural philosopher, mathematician. He is an important figure in the history of philosophy in Poland...
; and in the sixteenth century, by the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
polymath
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
.
Subsequently, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
partook in the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, which for the multi-ethnic Commonwealth ended not long after the partitions
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
and political annihilation that would last for the next 123 years, until the collapse of the three partitioning empires in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
The period of Messianism
Messianism
Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...
, between the November 1830
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
and January 1863 Uprisings
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
, reflected European Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and Idealist trends, as well as a Polish yearning for political resurrection
Resurrection
Resurrection refers to the literal coming back to life of the biologically dead. It is used both with respect to particular individuals or the belief in a General Resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The General Resurrection is featured prominently in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim...
. It was a period of maximalist
Maximalist
Maximalist is a quality of excessive redundancy oft exhibited by way of the overt accumulation of appurtenances that reflect current society. In other references the term refers to either the ostentatious displays of the extensive possessions of the super-rich or the obsessive collecting as...
metaphysical system
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
s.
The collapse of the January 1863 Uprising
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
prompted an agonizing reappraisal of Poland's situation. Poles gave up their earlier practice of "measuring their resources by their aspirations," and buckled down to hard work and study. "[A] Positivist," wrote the novelist Bolesław Prus' friend, Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Leopold Ochorowicz was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, inventor , poet, publicist and leading exponent of Polish Positivism.-Life:Julian Ochorowicz was the son of Julian and Jadwiga, née...
, was "anyone who bases assertions on verifiable evidence; who does not express himself categorically about doubtful things, and does not speak at all about those that are inaccessible."
The twentieth century brought a new quickening to Polish philosophy. There was growing interest in western philosophical currents. Rigorously trained Polish philosophers made substantial contributions to specialized fields—to psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, the history of philosophy
History of philosophy
The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...
, the theory of knowledge, and especially mathematical logic
Mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...
. Jan Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept of many-valued logic and his "Polish notation
Polish notation
Polish notation, also known as prefix notation, is a form of notation for logic, arithmetic, and algebra. Its distinguishing feature is that it places operators to the left of their operands. If the arity of the operators is fixed, the result is a syntax lacking parentheses or other brackets that...
." Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski was a Polish logician and mathematician. Educated at the University of Warsaw and a member of the Lwow-Warsaw School of Logic and the Warsaw School of Mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of...
's work in truth theory won him world renown.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, for over four decades, world-class Polish philosophers and historians of philosophy
History of philosophy
The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...
such as Władysław Tatarkiewicz continued their work, often in the face of adversities occasioned by the dominance of a politically enforced official philosophy.
The phenomenologist Roman Ingarden
Roman Ingarden
Roman Witold Ingarden was a Polish philosopher who worked in phenomenology, ontology and aesthetics.Before World War II, Ingarden published his works mainly in the German language...
did influential work in esthetics and in a Husserl-style metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
; his student Karol Wojtyła acquired a unique influence on the world stage as Pope John Paul II.
Scholasticism
The formal history of philosophyPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
may be said to have begun in the fifteenth century, following the revival of the University of Kraków
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
by King Władysław II Jagiełło in 1400.
Witelo
Witelo was a friar, theologian and scientist: a physicist, natural philosopher, mathematician. He is an important figure in the history of philosophy in Poland...
(ca. 1230 – ca. 1314), a Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
n born to a Polish mother and a Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
n settler, a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
who had spent part of his life in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
at centers of the highest intellectual culture. In addition to being a philosopher, he was a scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
who specialized in optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
. His famous treatise, Perspectiva, while drawing on the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
Book of Optics
Book of Optics
The Book of Optics ; ; Latin: De Aspectibus or Opticae Thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis; Italian: Deli Aspecti) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Muslim scholar Alhazen .-See also:* Science in medieval Islam...
by Alhazen, was unique in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
literature, and in turn helped inspire Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
's best work, Part V of his Opus maius, "On Perspectival Science," as well as his supplementary treatise On the Multiplication of Vision. Witelo's Perspectiva additionally made important contributions to psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
: it held that vision
Visual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision...
per se apprehends only color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
s and light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
while all else, particularly the distance and size of objects, is established by means of association
Association (psychology)
In psychology and marketing, two concepts or stimuli are associated when the experience of one leads to the effects of another, due to repeated pairing. This is sometimes called Pavlovian association for Ivan Pavlov's pioneering of classical conditioning....
and unconscious deduction
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning, also called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypothesis...
.
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
was one rare in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, neither Augustinian
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
as among conservatives nor Aristotelian
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
as among progressives, but Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
. It was an emanationist
Emanationism
Emanationism is an idea in the cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious or philosophical systems. Emanation, from the Latin emanare meaning "to flow from" or "to pour forth or out of", is the mode by which all things are derived from the First Reality, or Principle...
concept that held radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
to be the prime characteristic of being, and ascribed to radiation the nature of light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
. This "metaphysic of light" inclined Witelo to optical
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
research, or perhaps vice versa his optical studies led to his metaphysic.
According to the Polish historian of philosophy, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, no Polish philosopher since Witelo
Witelo
Witelo was a friar, theologian and scientist: a physicist, natural philosopher, mathematician. He is an important figure in the history of philosophy in Poland...
has enjoyed so eminent a European standing as this thinker who belonged, in a sense, to the prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
of Polish philosophy.
From the beginning of the fifteenth century, Polish philosophy, centered at Kraków University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
, pursued a normal course. It no longer harbored exceptional thinkers such as Witelo, but it did feature representatives of all wings of mature Scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
, via antiqua as well as via moderna.
The first of these to reach Kraków was via moderna, then the more widespread movement in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. In physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, Terminism
Terminism
Terminism is the Christian doctrine that there is a time limit for repentance from sin, after which God no longer wills the conversion and salvation of that person. This limit is asserted to be known to God alone, making conversion urgent...
(Nominalism
Nominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
) prevailed in Kraków, under the influence of the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Scholastic, Jean Buridan
Jean Buridan
Jean Buridan was a French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe. Although he was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the late Middle Ages, he is today among the least well known...
(died ca. 1359), who had been rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
of the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
and an exponent of views of William of Ockham
William of Ockham
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of...
. Buridan had formulated the theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
of "impetus"—the force
Force
In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...
that causes a body, once set in motion
Motion (physics)
In physics, motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time. Change in action is the result of an unbalanced force. Motion is typically described in terms of velocity, acceleration, displacement and time . An object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force, as...
, to persist in motion—and stated that impetus is proportion
Proportionality (mathematics)
In mathematics, two variable quantities are proportional if one of them is always the product of the other and a constant quantity, called the coefficient of proportionality or proportionality constant. In other words, are proportional if the ratio \tfrac yx is constant. We also say that one...
al to the speed
Speed
In kinematics, the speed of an object is the magnitude of its velocity ; it is thus a scalar quantity. The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance traveled by the object divided by the duration of the interval; the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as...
of, and amount of matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
comprising, a body: Buridan thus anticipated Galileo and Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
. His theory of impetus was momentous in that it also explained the motions of celestial bodies
Celestial Body
Celestial Body is a Croatian film directed by Lukas Nola. It was released in 2000....
without resort to the spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
s—"intelligentiae"—to which the Peripatetics (followers of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
) had ascribed those motions. At Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, physics was now expounded by (St.) Jan Kanty
John Cantius
Saint John Cantius was a renowned Polish priest, Scholastic philosopher, physicist and theologian. He is also known as John of Kanty or John of Kanti.-Biography:...
(1390–1473), who developed this concept of "impetus."
Compromise
To compromise is to make a deal where one person gives up part of his or her demand.In arguments, compromise is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms—often involving variations from an original goal or desire.Extremism is often considered as...
—for reconciling Nominalism
Nominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
with the older tradition. For example, the Nominalist, Benedict Hesse, while in principle accepting the theory of impetus
Impetus
Impetus may refer to:* Impetus , a re-release of the EP Passive Restraints* Impetus , a concept very similar to momentum* Jean Buridan#Impetus Theory, middle-ages treatment on impetus and its originator Jean Buridan...
, did not apply it to the heavenly spheres.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, at Kraków, via antiqua became dominant. Nominalism
Nominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
retreated, and the old Scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
triumphed.
In this period, Thomism
Thomism
Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...
had its chief center at Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, whence it influenced Kraków. Cologne, formerly the home ground of Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus, O.P. , also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl...
, had preserved Albert's mode of thinking. Thus the Cologne philosophers formed two wings, the Thomist and Albertist, and even Cologne's Thomists showed Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
traits characteristic of Albert, affirming emanation, a hierarchy
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
of being
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
, and a metaphysic of light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
.
The chief Kraków adherents of the Cologne-style Thomism included Jan of Głogów (ca. 1445–1507) and Jakub of Gostynin
Jakub of Gostynin
Jakub of Gostynin was a Polish philosopher and theologian of the late 15th century, and Rector of the University of Krakow in 1503–4.-Life:Jakub of Gostynin was one of the chief adherents of the Cologne-style Thomism, a philosophical school that upheld the legacy of work and thought of Thomas...
(ca. 1454–1506). Another, purer teacher of Thomism was Michał Falkener
Michał Falkener
Michael Falkener was a Polish Scholastic philosopher..-Life:Michał Falkener was born in Silesia. In Latin—the language favored by medieval European scholars, and used in his works—he is sometimes referred to as "Vratislaviensis" or "Wratislaviensis" in addition to "Michaelis de Vratislauia"...
of Wrocław (ca. 1450–1534).
Almost at the same time, Scotism
Scotism
Scotism is the name given to the philosophical and theological system or school named after Blessed John Duns Scotus. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Opus Oxoniense was one of the most important documents in medieval philosophy and Roman Catholic theology, defining what would...
appeared in Poland, having been brought from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
first by Michał Twaróg of Bystrzyków
Michał Twaróg of Bystrzyków
Michał Twaróg of Bystrzyków was a Polish philosopher and theologian of the early 16th century.-Life:Michał Twaróg studied at Paris in 1473-77, during the period when, following the anathematization of the Nominalists , the Scotist school of philosophy enjoyed its greatest triumphs there...
(ca. 1450–1520). Twaróg had studied at Paris in 1473–77, in the period when, following the anathema
Anathema
Anathema originally meant something lifted up as an offering to the gods; it later evolved to mean:...
tization of the Nominalists (1473), the Scotist school was there enjoying its greatest triumphs. A prominent student of Twaróg's, Jan of Stobnica
Jan of Stobnica
Jan of Stobnica , was a Polish philosopher, scientist and geographer of the early 16th century.-Life:He was educated at the Jagiellonian University , where he taught as professor between 1498 and 1514...
(ca. 1470–1519), was already a moderate Scotist who took account of the theories of the Ockham
William of Ockham
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of...
ists, Thomists and Humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
s.
When Nominalism
Nominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
was revived in western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
at the turn of the sixteenth century, particularly thanks to Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples or Jacob Faber Stapulensis was a French theologian and humanist. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France. The "d’Étaples" was not part of his name as such, but used to distinguish him from Jacques Lefèvre of Deventer, a less significant contemporary, a...
(Faber Stapulensis), it presently reappeared in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
and began taking the upper hand there once more over Thomism
Thomism
Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...
and Scotism
Scotism
Scotism is the name given to the philosophical and theological system or school named after Blessed John Duns Scotus. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Opus Oxoniense was one of the most important documents in medieval philosophy and Roman Catholic theology, defining what would...
. It was reintroduced particularly by Lefèvre's pupil, Jan Szylling
Jan Szylling
Jan Szylling was a Polish Scholastic philosopher.-Life:Jan Szylling, a native of Kraków, studied with Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples in Paris, France, in the first years of the 16th century...
, a native of Kraków who had studied at Paris in the opening years of the sixteenth century. Another follower of Lefèvre's was Grzegorz of Stawiszyn
Grzegorz of Stawiszyn
Grzegorz of Stawiszyn , was a Polish philosopher and theologian of the mid 16th century, Rector of the University of Krakow in the years 1538-1540....
, a Kraków professor who, beginning in 1510, published the Frenchman's works at Kraków.
Thus Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
had made her appearance as a separate philosophical center only at the turn of the fifteenth century, at a time when the creative period of Scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
philosophy had already passed. Throughout the fifteenth century, Poland harbored all the currents of Scholasticism. The advent of Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
in Poland would find a Scholasticism more vigorous than in other countries. Indeed, Scholasticism would survive the 16th and 17th centuries and even part of the 18th at Kraków
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
and Wilno Universities and at numerous Jesuit, Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
and Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
colleges.
To be sure, in the sixteenth century, with the arrival of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, Scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
would enter upon a decline; but during the 17th century's Counter-reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
, and even into the early 18th century, Scholasticism would again become Poland's chief philosophy.
Renaissance
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, which had reached Poland by the middle of the fifteenth century, was not very "philosophical." Rather, it lent its stimulus to linguistic
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
studies, political thought, and scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
research. But these manifested a philosophical attitude different from that of the previous period.
Empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
natural science
Natural science
The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
had flourished at Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
as early as the fifteenth century, side by side with speculative philosophy. The most perfect product of this blossoming was Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
(1473–1543). He was not only a scientist but a philosopher. According to Tatarkiewicz, he may have been the greatest—in any case, the most renowned—philosopher that Poland ever produced. He drew the inspiration for his cardinal discovery from philosophy; he had become acquainted through Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
with the philosophies of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and the Pythagoreans; and through the writings of the philosophers Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
and Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
he had learned about the ancients
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
who had declared themselves in favor of the Earth's movement.
Copernicus may also have been influenced by Kraków philosophy: during his studies there, Terminist
Terminism
Terminism is the Christian doctrine that there is a time limit for repentance from sin, after which God no longer wills the conversion and salvation of that person. This limit is asserted to be known to God alone, making conversion urgent...
physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
had been taught, with special emphasis on "impetus." His own thinking was guided by philosophical considerations. He arrived at the heliocentric thesis (as he was to write in a youthful treatise) "ratione postea equidem sensu": it was not observation
Observation
Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...
but the discovery of a logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
al contradiction
Contradiction
In classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical, usually opposite inversions of each other...
in Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
's system, that served him as a point of departure that led to the new astronomy. In his dedication to Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation...
, he submitted his work for judgment by "philosophers."
In its turn, Copernicus' theory transformed man's view of the structure of the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
, and of the place held in it by the earth and by man, and thus attained a far-reaching philosophical importance.
Copernicus was involved not only in natural science
Natural science
The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
and natural philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
but also—by his studies in the theory of value
Value theory
Value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how, why and to what degree people should value things; whether the thing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. This investigation began in ancient philosophy, where it is called axiology or ethics. Early philosophical...
and money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
(see "Gresham's Law
Gresham's Law
Gresham's law is an economic principle that states: "When a government compulsorily overvalues one type of money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear from circulation into hoards, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation." It is commonly...
")—in the philosophy of man.
In the early sixteenth century, Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, who had become a model for philosophy in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, especially in Medicean
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, was represented in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
in some ways by Adam of Łowicz
Adam of Łowicz
Adam of Łowicz was a professor of medicine at the University of Krakow, its rector in 1510–1511, a humanist, writer and philosopher.-Life:Adam studied in the Department of Liberal Arts at the University of Krakow, earning a baccalaureate in 1488 and...
, author of Conversations about Immortality.
Generally speaking, though, Poland remained Aristotelian
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
. Sebastian Petrycy
Sebastian Petrycy
Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno was a Polish philosopher and physician. He lectured and published notable works in the field of medicine but is principally remembered for his masterful Polish translations of philosophical works by Aristotle and for his commentaries to them...
of Pilzno
Pilzno
Pilzno is a town in Poland, in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in Dębica County. It has 4,484 inhabitants . It is located at the junction of important roads - West-East European E40 Highway, and National Road 73 Pilzno is a town in Poland, in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in Dębica County. It has...
(1554–1626) laid stress, in the theory of knowledge, on experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
and induction
Inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
; and in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, on feeling
Feeling
Feeling is the nominalization of the verb to feel. The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences, other than the physical sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of...
and will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
; while in politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
he preached democratic ideas. Petrycy's central feature was his linking of philosophical theory with the requirements of practical national life. In 1601-18, a period when translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
s into modern language
Modern language
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication and dead classical languages such as Latin, Attic Greek, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, which are studied for...
s were still rarities, he accomplished Polish translations of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's practical works. With Petrycy, vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
Polish philosophical terminology
Terminology
Terminology is the study of terms and their use. Terms are words and compound words that in specific contexts are given specific meanings, meanings that may deviate from the meaning the same words have in other contexts and in everyday language. The discipline Terminology studies among other...
began to develop not much later than did the French and German.
Yet another Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
current, the new Stoicism
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
, was represented in Poland by Jakub Górski
Jakub Górski
-Life:Jakub Górski was an early Polish representative of Stoicism. He wrote a famous Dialectic and many works in grammar, rhetoric, theology and sociology. A professor at Kraków University, he was an erudite man whose Dialectic gives evidence of extensive acquaintance with new currents and...
(ca. 1525–1585), author of a famous Dialectic (1563) and of many works in grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
, theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
. He tended toward eclecticism
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
, attempting to reconcile the Stoics with Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
.
A later, purer representative of Stoicism
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
in Poland was Adam Burski
Adam Burski
Adam Burski or Bursius was a Polish philosopher of the Renaissance period.-History:Burski was a leading Polish representative of Stoicism. He wrote a Dialectica Ciceronis that boldly proclaimed Stoic sensualism and empiricism and—before Francis Bacon—urged the use of inductive method...
(ca. 1560–1611), author of a Dialectica Ciceronis (1604) boldly proclaiming Stoic sensualism
Sensationalism
Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers...
and empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
and—before Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
—urging the use of inductive method
Inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
.
A star among the pleiade
Pleiades (star cluster)
In astronomy, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters , is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky...
of progressive political philosophers during the Polish Renaissance was Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski
Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski
Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski was a Polish Renaissance scholar, humanist and theologian, called "the father of Polish democracy." His book De Republica emendanda was widely read and praised across most of Renaissance Europe.-Life:Modrzewski was born in Wolbórz Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (ca....
(1503–72), who advocated on behalf of equality
Social equality
Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
for all before the law, the accountability of monarch
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
and government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
to the nation, and social assistance for the weak and disadvantaged. His chief work was De Republica emendanda (On Reform of the Republic, 1551–54).
Another notable political thinker was Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (1530–1607), best known in Poland and abroad for his book De optimo senatore (The Accomplished Senator, 1568). It propounded the view—which for long got the book banned in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, as subversive of monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
—that a ruler may legitimately govern only with the sufferance of the people.
After the first decades of the 17th century, the war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
s, invasion
Invasion
An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a...
s and internal dissensions that beset the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
, brought a decline in philosophy. If in the ensuing period there was independent philosophical thought, it was among the religious dissenter
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...
s, particularly the Polish Arians
Polish Brethren
The Polish Brethren were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, a Nontrinitarian Protestant church that existed in Poland from 1565 to 1658...
, also known variously as Antitrinitarians, Socinians, and Polish Brethren
Polish Brethren
The Polish Brethren were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, a Nontrinitarian Protestant church that existed in Poland from 1565 to 1658...
—forerunners of the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Socinians, Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
and Deists who were to figure prominently in the intellectual and political currents of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
The Polish dissenter
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...
s created an original ethical theory radically condemning evil and violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
. Centers of intellectual life such as that at Leszno
Leszno
Leszno is a town in central Poland with 63,955 inhabitants . Situated in the southern part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999, it was previously the capital of the Leszno Voivodeship . The town has county status.-History:...
hosted notable thinkers such as the Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
pedagogue, Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius), and the Pole, Jan Jonston. Jonston was tutor and physician to the Leszczyński
Leszczynski
Leszczyński , plural: Leszczyńscy is the surname of a Polish noble family. Some Polish surnames have different forms for the genders, Leszczyńska is the form for a female family member.-History:...
family, a devotee of Bacon and experimental knowledge, and author of Naturae constantia, published in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
in 1632, whose geometrical method and naturalistic
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
, almost pantheistic concept of the world may have influenced Benedict Spinoza.
The Leszczyński
Leszczynski
Leszczyński , plural: Leszczyńscy is the surname of a Polish noble family. Some Polish surnames have different forms for the genders, Leszczyńska is the form for a female family member.-History:...
family itself would produce an 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
king, Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766; reigned in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
1704-11 and again 1733-36), "le philosophe bienfaisant" ("the beneficent philosopher")—in fact, an independent thinker whose views on culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
were in advance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
's, and who was the first to introduce into Polish intellectual life on a large scale the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
influences that were later to become so strong.
Enlightenment
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. While Poland's capital then had no institution of higher learning, neither were those of Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Zamość
Zamosc
Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...
or Wilno
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
any longer agencies of progress. The initial impetus for the revival came from religious thinkers: from members of the Piarist and other teaching orders. A leading patron of the new ideas was Bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
Andrzej Stanisław Załuski.
Scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
, which until then had dominated Polish philosophy, was followed by the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
. Initially the major influence was Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (philosopher)
Christian Wolff was a German philosopher.He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant...
and, indirectly, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
's elected king, August III the Saxon, and the relations between Poland and her neighbor, Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, heightened the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
. Wolff's doctrine was brought to Warsaw in 1740 by the Theatine, Portalupi; from 1743, its chief Polish champion was Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof
Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof
Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof was a Polish physician, historian, publisher, printer, and precursor of the Polish Enlightenment.-Life:...
(1711–78), court physician to August III.
Under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski (reigned 1764–95), the Polish Enlightenment was radicalized and came under French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
influence. The philosophical foundation of the movement ceased to be the Rationalist doctrine of Wolff and became the Sensualism
Sensationalism
Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers...
of Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was a French philosopher and epistemologist who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of the mind.-Biography:...
. This spirit pervaded Poland's Commission of National Education, which completed the reforms begun by the Piarist priest, Stanisław Konarski. The Commission's members were in touch with the French Encyclopedists and freethinker
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
s, with d'Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie...
and Condorcet, Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was a French philosopher and epistemologist who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of the mind.-Biography:...
and Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
. The Commission abolished school instruction in theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, even in philosophy.
This empiricist and positivist Enlightenment philosophy produced several outstanding Polish thinkers. Though active in the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski, they published their chief works only after the loss of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
's independence in 1795. The most important of these figures were Jan Śniadecki
Jan Sniadecki
Jan Śniadecki was a Polish mathematician, philosopher and astronomer at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.-Life:Born in Żnin, Śniadecki studied at Kraków University and in Paris...
, Stanisław Staszic and Hugo Kołłątaj.
Another adherent of this empirical Enlightenment philosophy was the minister of education under the Duchy of Warsaw
Duchy of Warsaw
The Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...
and under the Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
established by the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
, Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1755–1821). In some places, as at Krzemieniec and its Lyceum
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...
in southeastern Poland, this philosophy was to survive well into the nineteenth century. Though a belated philosophy from a western perspective, it was at the same time the philosophy of the future. This was the period between d'Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie...
and Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
; and even as this variety of positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
was temporarily fading in the West, it was carrying on in Poland.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, as Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
's fame was spreading over the rest of Europe, in Poland the Enlightenment philosophy was still in full flower. Kantism found here a hostile soil. Even before Kant had been understood, he was condemned by the most respected writers of the time: by Jan Śniadecki
Jan Sniadecki
Jan Śniadecki was a Polish mathematician, philosopher and astronomer at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.-Life:Born in Żnin, Śniadecki studied at Kraków University and in Paris...
, Staszic, Kołłątaj, Tadeusz Czacki
Tadeusz Czacki
Tadeusz Czacki , was a Polish historian, pedagogue and numismatist. Czacki played an important part in the Enlightenment in Poland.-Biography:...
, later by Anioł Dowgird
Anioł Dowgird
Anioł Dowgird was a philosopher of Polish Enlightenment.Dowgird studied in Jesuit and Piarist schools, then joined the Piarist Order and took holy orders...
(1776–1835). Jan Śniadecki
Jan Sniadecki
Jan Śniadecki was a Polish mathematician, philosopher and astronomer at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.-Life:Born in Żnin, Śniadecki studied at Kraków University and in Paris...
warned against this "fanatical, dark and apocalyptic mind," and wrote: "To revise Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
and Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was a French philosopher and epistemologist who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of the mind.-Biography:...
, to desire a priori knowledge of things that human nature can grasp only by their consequences, is a lamentable aberration of mind."
Jan Śniadecki's younger brother, however, Jędrzej Śniadecki
Jedrzej Sniadecki
Jędrzej Śniadecki was a Polish writer, physician, chemist and biologist. His achievements include the creation of modern Polish terminology in the field of chemistry.-Life and work:...
, was the first respected Polish scholar to declare (1799) for Kant. And in applying Kantian ideas to the natural sciences, he did something new that would not be undertaken until much later by Johannes Müller
Johannes Müller
Johannes Müller, Johann Müller or Hans Müller may refer to:* Johannes Müller von Königsberg , known as Regiomontanus, German mathematician and astronomer* Johannes von Müller , Swiss historian...
, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz and other famous scientists of the nineteenth century.
Another Polish proponent of Kantism was Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski
Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski
Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski was a Polish philosopher and politician.-Life:During the Kościuszko Uprising Szaniawski was a Polish Jacobin...
(1764–1843), who had been a student of Kant's at Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
. But, having accepted the fundamental points of the critical theory of knowledge, he still hesitated between Kant's metaphysical agnosticism and the new metaphysics of Idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
. Thus this one man introduced to Poland both the antimetaphysical Kant and the post-Kantian metaphysics.
In time, Kant's foremost Polish sympathizer would be Feliks Jaroński
Feliks Jaroński
Feliks Jaroński was a Polish Catholic priest and philosopher.-Life:In 1809–18 Jaroński was a professor at Kraków University. A follower of Kantism, he postulated a renewal of philosophy through the rejection of empiricism and a return to metaphysics...
(1777–1827), who lectured at Kraków in 1809-18. Still, his Kantian sympathies were only partial. And this half-heartedness was typical of Polish Kantism generally. In Poland there was no actual Kantian period.
For a generation, between the age of the French Enlightenment and that of the Polish national metaphysic, the Scottish philosophy of common sense became the dominant outlook in Poland. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Scottish School of Common Sense held sway in most European countries—in Britain till mid-century, and nearly as long in France. But in Poland, from the first, the Scottish philosophy fused with Kantism, in this regard anticipating the West.
The Kantian and Scottish ideas were united in typical fashion by Jędrzej Śniadecki
Jedrzej Sniadecki
Jędrzej Śniadecki was a Polish writer, physician, chemist and biologist. His achievements include the creation of modern Polish terminology in the field of chemistry.-Life and work:...
(1768–1838). The younger brother of Jan Śniadecki
Jan Sniadecki
Jan Śniadecki was a Polish mathematician, philosopher and astronomer at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.-Life:Born in Żnin, Śniadecki studied at Kraków University and in Paris...
, Jędrzej was an illustrious scientist, biologist and physician, and the more creative mind of the two. He had been educated at the universities of Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
and Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
and was from 1796 a professor at Wilno, where he held a chair of chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and pharmacy
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
. He was a foe of metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, holding that the fathoming of first causes of being
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
was "impossible to fulfill and unnecessary." But foe of metaphysics that he was, he was not an Empiricist—and this was his link with Kant. "Experiment and observation can only gather... the materials from which common sense
Common sense
Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
alone can build science."
An analogous position, shunning both positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
and metaphysical speculation
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, affined to the Scots but linked in some features to Kantian critique
Critique
Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse. Critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgement, but it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a methodical practice of doubt...
, was held in the period before the November 1830 Uprising
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
by virtually all the university professors in Poland: in Wilno, by Dowgird; in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, by Józef Emanuel Jankowski
Józef Emanuel Jankowski
Józef Emanuel Jankowski was a professor of philosophy at Kraków University.-Life:Jankowski was Feliks Jaroński's successor as professor of philosophy at Kraków University from 1818 and author of a Logic....
(1790–1847); and in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, by Adam Ignacy Zabellewicz
Adam Ignacy Zabellewicz
Adam Ignacy Zabellewicz was a professor of philosophy at Warsaw University.-Life:Zabellewicz was professor of philosophy at Warsaw University from 1818 to 1823....
(1784–1831) and Krystyn Lach Szyrma
Krystyn Lach Szyrma
Krystyn Lach Szyrma was a professor of philosophy at Warsaw University.-Life:Szyrma was professor of philosophy at Warsaw University from 1824 to 1831...
(1791–1866).
Messianism
In the early nineteenth century, following a generation imbued with EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
ideas, Poland passed directly to a maximal
Maximalism
The term maximalism is sometimes associated with post-modern novels, such as by David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, where digression, reference, and elaboration of detail occupy a great fraction of the text....
philosophical program, to absolute metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, to syntheses
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
The triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel never used the term himself, and almost all of his biographers have been eager to discredit it....
, to great system
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
s, to reform
Reform
Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....
of the world through philosophy; and broke with positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, the doctrines of the Enlightenment, and the precepts of Common Sense.
The Polish metaphysical blossoming occurred between the November 1830
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
and January 1863 Uprisings
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
, and stemmed from the spiritual aspirations of a politically humiliated people.
The Poles' metaphysic, though drawing on German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, differed considerably from it; it was Spiritualist rather than Idealist. It was characterized by a theistic belief in a personal God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, in the everlastingness of soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
s, and in the superiority of spiritual over corporeal forces.
The Polish metaphysic saw the mission of philosophy not only in the search for truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
, but in the reform
Reform
Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....
ation of life and in the salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
of mankind. It was permeated with a faith in the metaphysical import of the nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
and convinced that man could fulfill his vocation
Vocation
A vocation , is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. Though now often used in non-religious contexts, the meanings of the term originated in Christianity.-Senses:...
only within the communion of spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
s that was the nation, that nations determined the evolution of mankind, and more particularly that the Polish nation had been assigned the role of Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
to the nations.
It was these three traits—the founding of a metaphysic on the concept of the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
and on the concept of the nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
, and the assignment to the latter of reform
Reform
Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....
ative-soteriological tasks—that distinguished the Polish metaphysicians. Some, such as Hoene-Wroński
Józef Maria Hoene-Wronski
Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński was a Polish Messianist philosopher who worked in many fields of knowledge, not only as philosopher but also as mathematician, physicist, inventor, lawyer, and economist. He was born Hoene but changed his name in 1815.-Life:...
, saw the Messiah in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
itself; others, such as the poet Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, saw Him in the Polish nation. Hence Hoene-Wroński, and later Mickiewicz, adopted for their doctrines the name, "Messianism
Messianism
Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...
." It came to apply generically to Polish metaphysics of the nineteenth century, much as the term "Idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
" does to German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
metaphysics.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Poland a host of metaphysicians unanimous as to these basic precepts, if strikingly at variance as to details. Their only center was Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, which hosted Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński
Józef Maria Hoene-Wronski
Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński was a Polish Messianist philosopher who worked in many fields of knowledge, not only as philosopher but also as mathematician, physicist, inventor, lawyer, and economist. He was born Hoene but changed his name in 1815.-Life:...
(1778–1853). Otherwise they lived in isolation: Bronisław Trentowski
Bronisław Trentowski
Bronisław Ferdynand Trentowski was a Polish "Messianist" philosopher, pedagogist, journalist and Freemason, and the chief representative of the Polish Messianist "national philosophy."-Life:...
(1808–69) in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
; Józef Gołuchowski
Józef Gołuchowski
Józef Gołuchowski was a Polish philosopher.Gołuchowski, a professor at Wilno University, was co-creator of the Polish Romanticist "national philosophy." He preached the concept of the nation as a creation of God, with a peculiar "national spirit," that realized the ideal of a hierarchical society...
(1797–1858) in Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
; August Cieszkowski
August Cieszkowski
Count August Cieszkowski was a Polish philosopher, economist and social and political activist...
(1814–94) and Karol Libelt
Karol Libelt
Karol Libelt was a Polish philosopher, writer, political and social activist, social worker and liberal, nationalist politician, president of the PTPN.-Life and work:...
(1807–75) in Wielkopolska (western Poland); Józef Kremer
Józef Kremer
Józef Kremer , was a Polish historian of art, a philosopher, an aesthetician and a psychologist.-Life:He studied at Kraków, Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris....
(1806–75) in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
. Most of them became active only after the November 1830 Uprising
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
.
An important role in the Messianist movement was also played by the Polish Romantic poets, Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
(1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–49) and Zygmunt Krasiński
Zygmunt Krasinski
Count Napoleon Stanisław Adam Ludwig Zygmunt Krasiński , a Polish count, is traditionally ranked with Mickiewicz and Słowacki as one of Poland's Three National Bards — the trio of great Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness during the period of Poland's political bondage.-Life and...
(1812–59), as well as religious activists such as Andrzej Towiański
Andrzej Towianski
Andrzej Tomasz Towiański was a Polish philosopher and Messianist religious leader.-Life:Towiański was born in Antoszwińce, a village near Wilno, which after Partitions of Poland belonged to the Russian Empire. He was the charismatic leader of the Towiańskiite sect, known also as Koło Sprawy Bożej...
(1799–1878).
Between the philosophers and the poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
s, the method of reasoning, and often the results, differed. The poets desired to create a specifically Polish philosophy, the philosophers—an absolute universal philosophy. The Messianist philosophers knew contemporary European philosophy and drew from it; the poets created more of a home-grown metaphysic.
The most important difference among the Messianists was that some were rationalists, others—mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
s. Wroński's philosophy was no less rationalist than Hegel's, while the poets voiced a mystical philosophy.
The Messianists were not the only Polish philosophers active in the period between the 1830 and 1863 Uprisings. Much more widely known in Poland were Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
thinkers such as Father Piotr Semenenko (1814–86), Florian Bochwic (1779–1856) and Eleonora Ziemięcka (1819–69), Poland's first woman philosopher. The Catholic philosophy of the period was more widespread and fervent than profound or creative.
Also active were pure Hegelians such as Tytus Szczeniowski (1808–80) and leftist Hegelians such as Edward Dembowski
Edward Dembowski
Edward Dembowski was a Polish philosopher, literary critic, journalist, and leftist independence activist.-Life:...
(1822–46).
An outstanding representative of the philosophy of Common Sense, Michał Wiszniewski
Michał Wiszniewski
Michał Wiszniewski was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, and literary historian.- Life :Wiszniewski graduated from the celebrated Krzemieniec Lyceum , where he subsequently taught for a time....
(1794–1865), had studied at that Enlightenment bastion, Krzemieniec; in 1820, in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, had attended the lectures of Victor Cousin
Victor Cousin
Victor Cousin was a French philosopher. He was a proponent of Scottish Common Sense Realism and had an important influence on French educational policy.-Early life:...
; and in 1821, in Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, had met the head of the Scottish School of Common Sense at the time, Dugald Stewart
Dugald Stewart
Dugald Stewart was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and mathematician. His father, Matthew Stewart , was professor of mathematics in the University of Edinburgh .-Life and works:...
.
Active as well were precursors of Positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
such as Józef Supiński
Józef Supiński
Józef Supiński was a Polish philosopher, jurist, economist and sociologist.-Life:...
(1804–93) and Dominik Szulc
Dominik Szulc
Dominik Szulc was a Polish philosopher, historian, and a significant precursor to Polish positivism.In 1814 he began studies at the University of Vilnius. In 1818 became a teacher of Polish language in high school in Vilnius , and from 1823 a teacher of eloquence and logic in the gymnasium of...
(1797–1860)—links between the earlier Enlightenment age of the brothers Śniadecki and the coming age of Positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
.
Positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
philosophy that took form in Poland after the January 1863 Uprising
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
was hardly identical with the philosophy of Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
. It was in fact a return to the line of Jan Śniadecki
Jan Sniadecki
Jan Śniadecki was a Polish mathematician, philosopher and astronomer at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.-Life:Born in Żnin, Śniadecki studied at Kraków University and in Paris...
and Hugo Kołłątaj—a line that had remained unbroken even during the Messianist period—now enriched with the ideas of Comte. However, it belonged only partly to philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. It combined Comte's ideas with those of John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
and Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....
, for it was interested in what was common to them all: a sober, empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
attitude to life.
The Polish Positivism was a reaction against philosophical speculation, but also against romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
in poetry and idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
in politics. It was less a scholarly movement than literary
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and social
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. Few original books were published, but many were translated from the philosophical literature of the West—not Comte himself, but easier writers: Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
, Mill, Spencer, Alexander Bain
Alexander Bain
Alexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher and educationalist in the British school of empiricism who was a prominent and innovative figure in the fields of psychology, linguistics, logic, moral philosophy and education reform...
, Thomas Henry Huxley, the Germans Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physician, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology"...
and Friedrich Albert Lange
Friedrich Albert Lange
Friedrich Albert Lange , was a German philosopher and sociologist.-Biography:Lange was born in Wald, near Solingen, the son of the theologian, Johann Peter Lange. He was educated at Duisburg, Zürich and Bonn, where he distinguished himself in gymnastics as much as academically...
, the Danish philosopher Höffding.
The disastrous outcome of the January 1863 Uprising
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...
had produced a distrust of romanticism, an aversion to ideals and illusions, and turned the search for redemption toward sober thought and work directed at realistic goals. The watchword became "organic work"—a term for the campaign for economic improvement, which was regarded as a prime requisite for progress. Poles prepared for such work by studying the natural sciences and economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
: they absorbed Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's biological theories, Mill's economic theories, Henry Thomas Buckle
Henry Thomas Buckle
Henry Thomas Buckle was an English historian, author of an unfinished History of Civilization.- Biography :...
's deterministic
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
theory of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
. At length they became aware of the connection between their own convictions and aims and the Positivist
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
philosophy of Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
, and borrowed its name and watchwords.
This movement, which had begun still earlier in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n-ruled Galicia, became concentrated with time in the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-ruled Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
centered about Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and is therefore commonly known as the "Warsaw Positivism." Its chief venue was the Warsaw Przegląd Tygodniowy (Weekly Review); Warsaw University (the "Main School") had been closed by the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
ns in 1869.
The pioneers of the Warsaw Positivism were natural scientists and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
s rather than philosophers, and still more so journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s and men of letters: Aleksander Świętochowski
Aleksander Swietochowski
Aleksander Świętochowski was a Polish writer, educator, and philosopher of the Positivist period that followed the January 1863 Uprising.He was widely regarded as the prophet of Polish Positivism, spreading in the Warsaw...
(1849–1938), Piotr Chmielowski
Piotr Chmielowski
Piotr Chmielowski was a Polish philosopher, literary historian and critic.-Life:...
(1848–1904), Adolf Dygasiński
Adolf Dygasinski
Adolf Dygasiński was a Polish novelist, publicist and educator. In Polish literature, he was one of the leading representatives of Naturalism....
(1839–1902), Bolesław Prus (1847–1912). Prus developed an original Utilitarian
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
-inspired ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
system in his book, The Most General Life Ideals.
The movement's leader was Prus' friend, Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Ochorowicz
Julian Leopold Ochorowicz was a Polish philosopher, psychologist, inventor , poet, publicist and leading exponent of Polish Positivism.-Life:Julian Ochorowicz was the son of Julian and Jadwiga, née...
(1850–1917), a trained philosopher with a doctorate from the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
. In 1872 he wrote: "We shall call a Positivist, anyone who bases assertions on verifiable evidence; who does not express himself categorically about doubtful things, and does not speak at all about those that are inaccessible."
The Warsaw Positivists—who included faithful Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s such as Father Franciszek Krupiński
Franciszek Krupiński
-Life:Krupiński was an early representative of Polish Positivism. He preached "organic work" and fought against Catholic and Romantic philosophy.-Works:*Filozofia w Polsce...
(1836–98)—formed a common front against Messianism together with the Neo-Kantians. The Polish Kantians were rather loosely associated with Kant and belonged to the Positivist movement. They included Władysław Mieczysław Kozłowski
Władysław Mieczysław Kozłowski
-Life:Kozłowski lectured at Brussels' Université Nouvelle and at Geneva University. In 1919–28 he was professor of the theory and methodology of science at Poznań University.His philosophical views were a synthesis of Positivism and Neo-Kantism.-Works:...
(1858–1935), Piotr Chmielowski
Piotr Chmielowski
Piotr Chmielowski was a Polish philosopher, literary historian and critic.-Life:...
(1848–1904) and Marian Massonius
Marian Massonius
Piotr Marian Massonius was a Polish philosopher and teacher who was born into a family of expatriates during the Partitions of Poland.-Life:...
(1862–1945).
The most brilliant philosophical mind in this period was Adam Mahrburg
Adam Mahrburg
Adam Mahrburg was a Polish philosopher—the outstanding philosophical mind of Poland's Positivist period.-Life:Adam Mahrburg was a philosopher and theoretician of knowledge. He taught in Warsaw's secret university and published in learned and popular journals.He reduced philosophy to the theory of...
(1855–1913). He was a Positivist in his understanding of philosophy as a discipline and in his uncompromising ferreting out of speculation, and a Kantian in his interpretation of mind and in his centering of philosophy upon the theory of knowledge.
In Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Father Stefan Pawlicki
Stefan Pawlicki
Stefan Zachariasz Pawlicki was a Polish Catholic priest, philosopher, historian of philosophy, professor and rector of Kraków's Jagiellonian University.-Life:...
(1839–1916), professor of philosophy at the University of Kraków, was a man of broad culture and philosophical bent, but lacked talent for writing or teaching. Under his thirty-plus-year tenure, Kraków philosophy became mainly a historical discipline, alien to what was happening in the West and in Warsaw.
20th century
Even before Poland regained independence at the end of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, her intellectual life continued to develop. This was the case particularly in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-ruled Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, where in lieu of underground lectures and secret scholarly organizations a Wolna Wszechnica Polska
Wolna Wszechnica Polska
Free Polish University , founded in 1918 in Warsaw, was a private high school with different departments: mathematics and natural sciences, humanities, political sciences and social pedagogy.From 1929, its degrees were equivalent to those of university....
(Free Polish University) was created in 1905 and the tireless Władysław Weryho
Władysław Weryho
Władysław Weryho was a Polish social activist, popularizer of learning, especially of philosophy and psychology, and organizer of learned life in partitioned Poland.-Life:Weryho created a center of the philosophical movement in Warsaw...
(1868–1916) had in 1898 founded Poland's first philosophical journal, Przegląd Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Review), and in 1904 a Philosophical Society.
In 1907 Weryho founded a Psychological Society, and subsequently Psychological and Philosophical Institutes. About 1910 the small number of professionally trained philosophers increased sharply, as individuals returned who had been inspired by Mahrburg's underground lectures to study philosophy in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n-ruled Lwów and Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
or abroad.
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
as well, especially after 1910, saw a quickening of the philosophical movement, particularly at the Polish Academy of Learning
Polish Academy of Learning
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning , headquartered in Kraków, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences....
, where at the prompting of Władysław Heinrich
Władysław Heinrich
Władysław Heinrich was a Polish historian of philosophy, psychologist, professor at Kraków University and member of the Polish Academy of Learning.-Life:...
there came into being in 1911 a Committee for the History of Polish Philosophy and there was an immense growth in the number of philosophical papers and publications, no longer only of a historical character.
At Lwów, Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...
from 1895 stimulated a lively philosophical movement, in 1904 founded the Polish Philosophical Society
Polish Philosophical Society
The Polish Philosophical Society is a scientific society based in Poland, founded in 1904 in Lwów, whose statutory goal is to practice and promote philosophy, especially onthology, theory of knowledge, logic, methodology, ethics, history of philosophy as well as the history of social science.The...
, and in 1911 began publication of Ruch Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Movement).
There was growing interest in western philosophical currents, and much discussion of Pragmatism
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
and Bergsonism
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
, psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, Henri Poincaré
Henri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...
's Conventionalism
Conventionalism
Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on agreements in society, rather than on external reality...
, Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
's Phenomenology, the Marburg School, and the social-science methodologies
Methodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
of Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of...
and Heinrich Rickert
Heinrich Rickert
Heinrich John Rickert was a German philosopher, one of the leading Neo-Kantians.-Life:He was born in Danzig, Prussia and died in Heidelberg, Germany.-Thought:...
. At the same time, original ideas developed on Polish soil.
Those who distinguished themselves in Polish philosophy in these pre-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
years of the twentieth century, formed two groups.
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
and learned societies, and appealed less to trained philosophers than to broader circles, which it (if but briefly) captured. It constituted a reaction against the preceding period of Positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, and included Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911), Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) and, to a degree, Edward Abramowski
Edward Abramowski
Edward Abramowski was a Polish philosopher, libertarian socialist, anarchist, psychologist, ethician, and supporter of cooperatives....
(1868–1918).
The second group of philosophers who started off Polish philosophy in the twentieth century had an academic character. They included Władysław Heinrich
Władysław Heinrich
Władysław Heinrich was a Polish historian of philosophy, psychologist, professor at Kraków University and member of the Polish Academy of Learning.-Life:...
(1869–1957) in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...
(1866–1938) in Lwów, and Leon Petrażycki
Leon Petrazycki
Leon Petrazycki was a Polish philosopher, legal scholar and sociologist. He is considered one of the important forerunners of the sociology of law.- Life :Leon Petrażycki was born into the Polish gentry of the Vitebsk region in the Russian Empire...
(1867–1931) abroad—all three, active members of the Polish Academy of Learning
Polish Academy of Learning
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning , headquartered in Kraków, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences....
. Despite the considerable differences among them, they shared some basic features: all three were empiricists concerned not with metaphysics but with the foundations of philosophy; they were interested in philosophy itself, not merely its history; they understood philosophy in positive terms, but none of them was a Positivist in the old style.
Following the restoration of Poland's independence in 1918, the two older universities (Kraków University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
, Lwów University) were joined by four new ones (Warsaw University, Poznań University, Wilno University, Lublin University). New philosophical journals appeared; all the university cities formed philosophical associations; conventions of Polish philosophers were held; philosophy became more professional, academic, scholarly.
A characteristic of the interbellum was that maximalist
Maximalist
Maximalist is a quality of excessive redundancy oft exhibited by way of the overt accumulation of appurtenances that reflect current society. In other references the term refers to either the ostentatious displays of the extensive possessions of the super-rich or the obsessive collecting as...
, metaphysical currents began to fade away. The dominant ambition in philosophical theory now was not breadth but precision
Precision
Concepts* Accuracy and precision, measurement deviation from true value and its scatter* Precision , the number of digits from which a value is expressed* Precision , the percentage of documents returned that are relevant...
. This was a period of specialization
Academic specialization
In academia, specialization may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field that a specialist practices in....
, consistent with the conviction that general philosophy would not yield precise results such as could be obtained in logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
or the history of philosophy
History of philosophy
The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...
.
A few individuals did develop a general philosophical outlook: notably, Tadeusz Kotarbiński
Tadeusz Kotarbinski
Tadeusz Kotarbiński , a pupil of Kazimierz Twardowski, was a Polish philosopher, logician, one of the most representative figures of the Lwów-Warsaw School, and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning as well as the Polish Academy of Sciences...
(1886–1981), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939), and Roman Ingarden
Roman Ingarden
Roman Witold Ingarden was a Polish philosopher who worked in phenomenology, ontology and aesthetics.Before World War II, Ingarden published his works mainly in the German language...
(1893–1970).
Otherwise, however, specialization
Academic specialization
In academia, specialization may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field that a specialist practices in....
was the rule. The Kraków school, true to tradition, showed an eminently historical character and produced a medievalist of world renown, Father Konstanty Michalski
Konstanty Michalski
Konstanty Michalski was a Polish Catholic theologian and philosopher.-Life:Michalski was a member of an order of missionary priests. From 1918 he was a professor of philosophy at—from 1931 rector of— Kraków's Jagiellonian University. From 1927 he was a member of the Polish Academy of...
(1879–1947). The Lwów school concentrated on the analysis of concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
s; and in doing so, it considered both their aspects, the subjective
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
and objective
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
—hence, the psychological and the logical. Twardowski himself continued working at the border of psychology and logic; his pupils, however, generally split in their interests, specializing in either psychology or logic.
The analytical
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
program that Twardowski passed on to his pupils, and which they in turn spread throughout Poland, was affined to that of Franz Brentano
Franz Brentano
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
's school (Twardowski's alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
) in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and to that of the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
analytic school
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
, which likewise had arisen as a reaction against speculative systems.
The alumni of the Lwów school entered three distinct fields. Some devoted themselves to psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
: Stefan Błachowski
Stefan Błachowski
Stefan Błachowski was a Polish psychologist and professor at Poznań University.-Life:Błachowski was the son of a military physician, Konstanty Błachowski, and Maria Niklas. He graduated from Gymnasium no. V in Lwów and in 1907 began studying philosophy, psychology and philology at Lwów University...
(1889–1962), professor at Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, entirely; Władysław Witwicki (1878–1948), professor at Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, partly. Others pursued the theory of knowledge: they included Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz was a Polish philosopher and logician, a prominent figure in the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic. He originated many novel ideas in semiotics, including the "categorial grammar" used by many formal linguists...
(1890–1963), professor at Lwów, and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
at Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, whose views resembled Neopositivism and who developed an original theory of radical Conventionalism
Conventionalism
Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on agreements in society, rather than on external reality...
. The third group worked in mathematical, or symbolic, logic
Mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...
.
The most important center for mathematical logic was Warsaw. The Warsaw school of logic was headed by Jan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956) and Stanisław Leśniewski (1886–1939), professors at Warsaw University, and the first of their pupils to achieve eminence, even before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, was Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski was a Polish logician and mathematician. Educated at the University of Warsaw and a member of the Lwow-Warsaw School of Logic and the Warsaw School of Mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of...
(1902–83), from 1939 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
; another pupil of Łukasiewicz, Bolesław Sobociński, became a professor at the University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
. The Warsaw logic gained a worldwide importance similar to that of the Kraków medievalism
Medievalism
Medievalism is the system of belief and practice characteristic of the Middle Ages, or devotion to elements of that period, which has been expressed in areas such as architecture, literature, music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and various vehicles of popular culture.Since the 18th century, a...
.
Warsaw was not, however, the sole Polish venue for logic studies. These were initiated at Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
by the mathematics professor, Jan Sleszyński. At Kraków, too, and later at Lwów, they were conducted by Leon Chwistek
Leon Chwistek
Leon Chwistek was a Polish avant-garde painter, theoretician of modern art, literary critic, logician, philosopher and mathematician.-Logic and philosophy:...
(1884–1944), a multi-faceted and somewhat eccentric thinker—mathematician, philosopher, esthetician, painter—whose name came to be associated popularly with his concept of "plural realities."
Leon Petrazycki
Leon Petrazycki was a Polish philosopher, legal scholar and sociologist. He is considered one of the important forerunners of the sociology of law.- Life :Leon Petrażycki was born into the Polish gentry of the Vitebsk region in the Russian Empire...
's death, the outstanding legal philosopher was Czesław Znamierowski
Czesław Znamierowski
Czesław Znamierowski was a Polish philosopher, jurist and sociologist.-Life:In 1924–39 and in 1945–65 Znamierowski was professor of law theory at Poznań University...
(1888–1967), professor of philosophy at Poznań. Another leading thinker of the period, active on the borderlines of sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, in both Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, was Florian Znaniecki
Florian Znaniecki
Florian Witold Znaniecki was a Polish sociologist. He taught and wrote in Poland and the United States. He was the 44th President of the American Sociological Association and the founder of academic sociology studies in Poland...
(1882–1958).
Polish Academy of Learning
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning , headquartered in Kraków, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences....
included Heinrich
Władysław Heinrich
Władysław Heinrich was a Polish historian of philosophy, psychologist, professor at Kraków University and member of the Polish Academy of Learning.-Life:...
(Kraków), Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...
(Lwów), Leon Petrażycki
Leon Petrazycki
Leon Petrazycki was a Polish philosopher, legal scholar and sociologist. He is considered one of the important forerunners of the sociology of law.- Life :Leon Petrażycki was born into the Polish gentry of the Vitebsk region in the Russian Empire...
(Warsaw), and, from the following generation: Konstanty Michalski
Konstanty Michalski
Konstanty Michalski was a Polish Catholic theologian and philosopher.-Life:Michalski was a member of an order of missionary priests. From 1918 he was a professor of philosophy at—from 1931 rector of— Kraków's Jagiellonian University. From 1927 he was a member of the Polish Academy of...
, Jan Łukasiewicz and Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886–1980). Michalski's historical works revolutionized prevailing views on via moderna in late medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
. Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept of many-valued logic and is known for his "Polish notation
Polish notation
Polish notation, also known as prefix notation, is a form of notation for logic, arithmetic, and algebra. Its distinguishing feature is that it places operators to the left of their operands. If the arity of the operators is fixed, the result is a syntax lacking parentheses or other brackets that...
." Tatarkiewicz was the first to prepare in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
a large-scale comprehensive history of western philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
and a History of Aesthetics and worked at systematizing the concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
s of esthetics and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Roman Ingarden
Roman Ingarden
Roman Witold Ingarden was a Polish philosopher who worked in phenomenology, ontology and aesthetics.Before World War II, Ingarden published his works mainly in the German language...
, Tadeusz Kotarbiński
Tadeusz Kotarbinski
Tadeusz Kotarbiński , a pupil of Kazimierz Twardowski, was a Polish philosopher, logician, one of the most representative figures of the Lwów-Warsaw School, and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning as well as the Polish Academy of Sciences...
and Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski was a Polish logician and mathematician. Educated at the University of Warsaw and a member of the Lwow-Warsaw School of Logic and the Warsaw School of Mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of...
became members of the Academy.
For some four decades following World War II, in Poland, a disproportionately prominent official role was given to Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms that cover work in philosophy that is strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory or that is written by Marxists...
. This, and contemporaneous sociopolitical currents, stimulated Leszek Kołakowski, writing in exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
, to publish influential critiques of Marxist theory and communist practice. Kołakowski also wrote a remarkable history of Positivist Philosophy from Hume to the Vienna Circle.
Similarly notable for his critiques of Soviet Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
was Józef Maria Bocheński
Józef Maria Bochenski
Józef Maria Bocheński was a Polish Dominican, logician and philosopher.-Life:...
, O.P., a Catholic philosopher of the Dominican Order
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
who lectured in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) and at the University of Fribourg
University of Fribourg
The University of Fribourg is a university in the city of Fribourg, Switzerland.The roots of the University can be traced back to 1582, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg. In 1763, an Academy of law was founded by the state of Frobourg...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Bocheński also gained renown for his work in logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
.
Other Polish philosophers of the postwar period included Andrzej Zabłudowski, who engaged in polemics with Nelson Goodman
Nelson Goodman
Henry Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism and aesthetics.-Career:...
; and Marek Siemek
Marek Siemek
Marek Jan Siemek was a Polish philosopher and historian of German transcendental philosophy...
, a historian of German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Transcendental Philosophy and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Bonn University.
See also
- History of philosophyHistory of philosophyThe history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...
- Polish philosophers
- List of Poles
External links
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