Thehistory of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution ofphilosophy inEurope in general.
Polish philosophy drew upon the broader currents of European philosophy, and in turn contributed to their growth. Some of the most momentous Polish contributions came, in the thirteenth century, from theScholastic philosopher and scientistVitello, and, in the sixteenth century, from theRenaissancepolymathNicolaus Copernicus.[1]
Subsequently, thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth partook in the intellectual ferment of theEnlightenment, which for the multi-ethnic Commonwealth ended not long after the 1772-1795partitions and political annihilation that would last for the next 123 years, until the collapse of the three partitioning empires inWorld War I.
The period ofMessianism, between theNovember 1830 andJanuary 1863 Uprisings, reflected EuropeanRomantic andIdealist trends, as well as a Polish yearning for politicalresurrection. It was a period ofmaximalistmetaphysical systems.
The collapse of theJanuary 1863 Uprising prompted an agonizing reappraisal ofPoland'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 novelistBolesław 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."[2]
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—topsychology, thehistory of philosophy, thetheory of knowledge, and especiallymathematical logic.[3]Jan Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept ofmany-valued logic and his "Polish notation."[4]Alfred Tarski's work intruth theory won him world renown.[5]
AfterWorld War II, for over four decades, world-class Polish philosophers andhistorians of philosophy such asWładysław Tatarkiewicz continued their work, often in the face of adversities occasioned by the dominance of a politically enforced official philosophy. ThephenomenologistRoman Ingarden did influential work inesthetics and in aHusserl-stylemetaphysics; his studentKarol Wojtyła acquired a unique influence on the world stage as PopeJohn Paul II.
The formal history ofphilosophy in Poland may be said to have begun in the fifteenth century, following the revival of theUniversity of Kraków by KingWładysław II Jagiełło in 1400.[6]
The true beginnings of Polish philosophy, however, reach back to the thirteenth century andVitello (c. 1230 – c. 1314), aSilesian born to a Polish mother and aThuringian settler, a contemporary ofThomas Aquinas who had spent part of his life inItaly at centers of the highest intellectual culture. In addition to being aphilosopher, he was ascientist who specialized inoptics. His famous treatise,Perspectiva, while drawing on theArabicBook of Optics byAlhazen, was unique inLatin literature,[7] and in turn helped inspireRoger Bacon's best work, Part V of hisOpus maius, "On Perspectival Science," as well as his supplementary treatiseOn the Multiplication of Vision.[8] Vitello'sPerspectiva additionally made important contributions topsychology: it held thatvisionper se apprehends onlycolors andlight while all else, particularly the distance and size of objects, is established by means ofassociation and unconsciousdeduction.[6]
Vitello's concept ofbeing was one rare in theMiddle Ages, neitherAugustinian as among conservatives norAristotelian as among progressives, butNeoplatonist. It was anemanationist concept that heldradiation to be the prime characteristic of being, and ascribed to radiation the nature oflight. This "metaphysic of light" inclined Vitello tooptical research, or perhapsvice versa his optical studies led to hismetaphysic.[9]
According to the Polish historian of philosophy,Władysław Tatarkiewicz, no Polish philosopher since Vitello has enjoyed so eminent a European standing as this thinker who belonged, in a sense, to theprehistory of Polish philosophy.[10]
From the beginning of the fifteenth century, Polish philosophy, centered atKraków University, pursued a normal course. It no longer harbored exceptional thinkers such as Vitello, but it did feature representatives of all wings of matureScholasticism,via antiqua as well asvia moderna.[10]
The first of these to reach Kraków wasvia moderna, then the more widespread movement inEurope.[11] Inphysics,logic andethics,Terminism (Nominalism) prevailed in Kraków, under the influence of theFrench Scholastic,Jean Buridan (died c. 1359), who had beenrector of theUniversity of Paris and an exponent of views ofWilliam of Ockham. Buridan had formulated thetheory of "impetus"—theforce that causes a body, once set inmotion, to persist in motion—and stated that impetus isproportional to thespeed of, and amount ofmatter comprising, a body: Buridan thus anticipatedGalileo andIsaac Newton. His theory of impetus was momentous in that it also explained the motions ofcelestial bodies without resort to the spirits—"intelligentiae"—to which thePeripatetics (followers ofAristotle) had ascribed those motions.[12] AtKraków, physics was now expounded by (St.)Jan Kanty (1390–1473), who developed this concept of "impetus."[10]
A general trait of the Kraków Scholastics was a provlivity forcompromise—for reconcilingNominalism with the older tradition. For example, the Nominalist, Benedict Hesse, while in principle accepting the theory ofimpetus, did not apply it to the heavenly spheres.[10]
In the second half of the fifteenth century, at Kraków,via antiqua became dominant.Nominalism retreated, and the old Scholasticism triumphed.[11]
In this period,Thomism had its chief center atCologne, whence it influenced Kraków. Cologne, formerly the home ground ofAlbertus Magnus, had preserved Albert's mode of thinking. Thus the Cologne philosophers formed two wings, the Thomist and Albertist, and even Cologne's Thomists showedNeoplatonist traits characteristic of Albert, affirmingemanation, ahierarchy ofbeing, and ametaphysic oflight.[10]
The chief Kraków adherents of the Cologne-style Thomism includedJan of Głogów (c. 1445 – 1507) andJakub of Gostynin (c. 1454 – 1506). Another, purer teacher of Thomism wasMichał Falkener ofWrocław (c. 1450 – 1534).[13]
Almost at the same time,Scotism appeared in Poland, having been brought fromParis first byMichał Twaróg of Bystrzyków (c. 1450 – 1520). Twaróg had studied at Paris in 1473–77, in the period when, following theanathematization of theNominalists (1473), the Scotist school was there enjoying its greatest triumphs. A prominent student of Twaróg's,Jan of Stobnica (c. 1470 – 1519), was already a moderate Scotist who took account of the theories of theOckhamists,Thomists andHumanists.[14]
WhenNominalism was revived inwestern Europe at the turn of the sixteenth century, particularly thanks toJacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (Faber Stapulensis), it presently reappeared inKraków and began taking the upper hand there once more overThomism andScotism. 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 wasGrzegorz of Stawiszyn, a Kraków professor who, beginning in 1510, published the Frenchman's works at Kraków.[14]
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 ofScholastic philosophy had already passed. Throughout the fifteenth century, Poland harbored all the currents of Scholasticism. The advent ofHumanism 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 atKraków andWilno Universities and at numerousJesuit,Dominican andFranciscan colleges.[15]
To be sure, in the sixteenth century, with the arrival of theRenaissance,Scholasticism would enter upon a decline; but during the 17th century'sCounter-Reformation, and even into the early 18th century, Scholasticism would again become Poland's chief philosophy.[16]
The spirit ofHumanism, which had reached Poland by the middle of the fifteenth century, was not very "philosophical." Rather, it lent its stimulus tolinguistic studies,political thought, andscientific research. But these manifested a philosophical attitude different from that of the previous period.[17]
Empiricalnatural science had flourished atKraków as early as the fifteenth century, side by side with speculative philosophy. The most perfect product of this blossoming wasNicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543,Polish:Mikołaj Kopernik). He was not only a scientist but a philosopher. According toTatarkiewicz, 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 throughMarsilio Ficino with the philosophies ofPlato and thePythagoreans; and through the writings of the philosophersCicero andPlutarch he had learned about theancients who had declared themselves in favor of the Earth's movement.[18]
Copernicus may also have been influenced by Kraków philosophy: during his studies there,Terministphysics had been taught, with special emphasis on "impetus." His own thinking was guided by philosophical considerations. He arrived at theheliocentric thesis (as he was to write in a youthful treatise) "ratione postea equidem sensu": it was notobservation but the discovery of alogicalcontradiction inPtolemy's system, that served him as a point of departure that led to the new astronomy. In his dedication toPope Paul III, he submitted his work for judgment by "philosophers."[19]
In its turn, Copernicus' theory transformed man's view of the structure of theuniverse, and of the place held in it by the earth and by man, and thus attained a far-reaching philosophical importance.[19]
Copernicus was involved not only innatural science andnatural philosophy but also—by his postulation of aquantity theory of money[20] and of "Gresham's law" (in the year, 1519, ofThomas Gresham's birth[21])—in the philosophy of man.[19]
In the early sixteenth century,Plato, who had become a model for philosophy inItaly, especially inMediceanFlorence, was represented in Poland in some ways byAdam of Łowicz, author ofConversations about Immortality.[19]
Generally speaking, though, Poland remainedAristotelian.Sebastian Petrycy ofPilzno (1554–1626) laid stress, in thetheory of knowledge, onexperiment andinduction; and inpsychology, onfeeling andwill; while inpolitics he preacheddemocratic ideas. Petrycy's central feature was his linking of philosophical theory with the requirements of practical national life. In 1601–18, a period whentranslations intomodern languages were still rarities, he accomplished Polish translations ofAristotle's practical works. With Petrycy,vernacular Polish philosophicalterminology began to develop not much later than did the French and German.[22]
Yet anotherRenaissance current, the newStoicism, was represented in Poland byJakub Górski (c. 1525 – 1585), author of a famousDialectic (1563) and of many works ingrammar,rhetoric,theology andsociology. He tended towardeclecticism, attempting to reconcile theStoics withAristotle.[23]
A later, purer representative ofStoicism in Poland wasAdam Burski (c. 1560 – 1611), author of aDialectica Ciceronis (1604) boldly proclaiming Stoicsensualism andempiricism and—beforeFrancis Bacon—urging the use ofinductive method.[23]
A star among thepleiade of progressivepolitical philosophers during thePolish Renaissance wasAndrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503–72), who advocated on behalf ofequality for all before the law, the accountability ofmonarch andgovernment to the nation, and social assistance for the weak and disadvantaged.[24] His chief work wasDe Republica emendanda (On Reform of the Republic, 1551–54).
Another notable political thinker wasWawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (1530–1607), best known in Poland and abroad for his bookDe optimo senatore (The Accomplished Senator, 1568). It propounded the view—which for long got the book banned inEngland, as subversive ofmonarchy—that a ruler may legitimately govern only with the sufferance of the people.[25]
After the first decades of the 17th century, thewars,invasions and internaldissensions that beset thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, brought a decline in philosophy. If in the ensuing period there was independent philosophical thought, it was among the religiousdissenters, particularly the PolishArians,[26] also known variously asAntitrinitarians,Socinians, andPolish Brethren—forerunners of theBritish andAmerican Socinians,Unitarians andDeists who were to figure prominently in the intellectual and political currents of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.[27]
The Polishdissenters created an originalethical theory radically condemning evil andviolence. Centers of intellectual life such as that atLeszno hosted notable thinkers such as theCzechpedagogue,Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius), and the Pole,Jan Jonston. Jonston was tutor and physician to theLeszczyński family, a devotee of Bacon and experimental knowledge, and author ofNaturae constantia, published inAmsterdam in 1632, whosegeometrical method andnaturalistic, almostpantheistic concept of the world may have influencedBenedict Spinoza.[26]
TheLeszczyński family itself would produce an 18th-centuryPolish-Lithuanian king,Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766; reigned in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 1704–11 and again 1733–36), "le philosophe bienfaisant" ("the beneficent philosopher")—in fact, an independent thinker whose views onculture were in advance ofJean-Jacques Rousseau's, and who was the first to introduce into Polish intellectual life on a large scale theFrench influences that were later to become so strong.[28]
In 1689, in an exceptional miscarriage of justice, a Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher,Kazimierz Łyszczyński, author of a manuscript treatise,De non existentia Dei (On the Non-existence of God), was accused of atheism by a priest who was his debtor, was convicted, and was executed in most brutal fashion.[29][30]
After a decline of a century and a half, in the mid-18th century, Polish philosophy began to revive. The hub of this movement wasWarsaw. While Poland's capital then had no institution of higher learning, neither were those ofKraków,Zamość orWilno any longer agencies of progress. The initial impetus for the revival came from religious thinkers: from members of thePiarist and other teaching orders. A leading patron of the new ideas wasBishopAndrzej Stanisław Załuski.[26]
Scholasticism, which until then had dominated Polish philosophy, was followed by theEnlightenment. Initially the major influence wasChristian Wolff and, indirectly,Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. ThePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth'selected king,August III the Saxon, and the relations between Poland and her neighbor,Saxony, heightened theGermaninfluence. Wolff's doctrine was brought to Warsaw in 1740 by theTheatine, Portalupi; from 1743, its chief Polish champion wasWawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof (1711–78), court physician toAugust III.[31]
Under thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's last king,Stanisław August Poniatowski (reigned 1764–95), thePolish Enlightenment was radicalized and came underFrench influence. The philosophical foundation of the movement ceased to be theRationalist doctrine of Wolff and became theSensualism ofCondillac. This spirit pervaded Poland'sCommission of National Education, which completed the reforms begun by thePiarist priest,Stanisław Konarski. The commission's members were in touch with the FrenchEncyclopedists andfreethinkers, withd'Alembert andCondorcet,Condillac andRousseau. The commission abolished school instruction intheology, even in philosophy.[32]
Thisempiricist andpositivist Enlightenment philosophy produced several outstanding Polish thinkers. Although active in the reign ofStanisław August Poniatowski, they published their chief works only after the loss of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's independence in 1795. The most important of these figures wereJan Śniadecki,Stanisław Staszic andHugo Kołłątaj.[33]
Another adherent of this empirical Enlightenment philosophy was the minister of education under theDuchy of Warsaw and under theCongress Poland established by theCongress of Vienna,Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1755–1821). In some places, as atKrzemieniec and itsLyceum in southeastern Poland, this philosophy was to survive well into the nineteenth century. Although a belated philosophy from a western perspective, it was at the same time the philosophy of the future. This was the period betweend'Alembert andComte; and even as this variety ofpositivism was temporarily fading in the West, it was carrying on in Poland.[34]
At the turn of the nineteenth century, asImmanuel 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: byJan Śniadecki,Staszic,Kołłątaj,Tadeusz Czacki, later byAnioł Dowgird (1776–1835).Jan Śniadecki warned against this "fanatical, dark and apocalyptic mind," and wrote: "To reviseLocke andCondillac, to desirea priori knowledge of things that human nature can grasp only by their consequences, is a lamentable aberration of mind."[35]
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 thenatural sciences, he did something new that would not be undertaken until much later byJohannes Müller,Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz and other famous scientists of the nineteenth century.[36]
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Another Polish proponent of Kantism wasJózef Kalasanty Szaniawski (1764–1843), who had been a student of Kant's atKönigsberg. But, having accepted the fundamental points of the critical theory of knowledge, he still hesitated between Kant's metaphysical agnosticism and the new metaphysics ofIdealism. Thus this one man introduced to Poland both the antimetaphysical Kant and the post-Kantian metaphysics.[37]
In time, Kant's foremost Polish sympathizer would beFeliks 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.[38]
For a generation, between the age of theFrench Enlightenment and that of the Polish nationalmetaphysic, the Scottish philosophy ofcommon sense became the dominant outlook in Poland. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, theScottish 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.[39]
The Kantian and Scottish ideas were united in typical fashion byJędrzej Śniadecki (1768–1838). The younger brother ofJan Śniadecki, Jędrzej was an illustrious scientist, biologist and physician, and the more creative mind of the two. He had been educated at the universities ofKraków,Padua andEdinburgh and was from 1796 a professor atWilno, where he held a chair ofchemistry andpharmacy. He was a foe ofmetaphysics, holding that the fathoming offirst causes ofbeing was "impossible to fulfill and unnecessary." But foe of metaphysics that he was, he was not anEmpiricist—and this was his link with Kant. "Experiment and observation can only gather... the materials from whichcommon sense alone can build science."[40]
An analogous position, shunning bothpositivism andmetaphysical speculation, affined to the Scots but linked in some features to Kantiancritique, was held in the period before theNovember 1830 Uprising by virtually all the university professors in Poland: inWilno, by Dowgird; inKraków, byJózef Emanuel Jankowski (1790–1847); and inWarsaw, byAdam Ignacy Zabellewicz (1784–1831) andKrystyn Lach-Szyrma (1791–1866).[41]
In the early nineteenth century, following a generation imbued withEnlightenment ideas, Poland passed directly to amaximalist philosophical program, to absolutemetaphysics, tosyntheses, togreat systems, toreform of the world through philosophy; and broke withPositivism, the doctrines of the Enlightenment, and the precepts of theScottish School of Common Sense.[42]
The Polish metaphysical blossoming occurred between theNovember 1830 andJanuary 1863 Uprisings, and stemmed from the spiritual aspirations of a politically humiliated people.[42]
The Poles' metaphysic, although drawing onGerman idealism, differed considerably from it; it was Spiritualist rather than Idealist. It was characterized by atheistic belief in a personalGod, in the immortality ofsouls, and in the superiority of spiritual over corporeal forces.[42]
The Polish metaphysic saw the mission of philosophy not only in the search fortruth, but in the reformation of life and in thesalvation of mankind. It was permeated with a faith in the metaphysical import of thenation and convinced that man could fulfill hisvocation only within the communion of spirits that was the nation, that nations determined the evolution of mankind, and more particularly that the Polish nation had been assigned the role ofMessiah to the nations.[42]
These three traits—the founding of a metaphysic on the concept of the soul and on the concept of thenation, and the assignment to the latter ofreformative-soteriological tasks—distinguished the Polish metaphysicians. Some, such asHoene-Wroński, saw the Messiah inphilosophy itself; others, such as the poetMickiewicz, saw him in thePolish nation. Hence Hoene-Wroński, and later Mickiewicz, adopted for their doctrines the name, "Messianism".Messianism came to apply generically to Polish metaphysics of the nineteenth century, much as the term "Idealism" does toGerman metaphysics.[43]
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 wasParis, which hostedJózef Maria Hoene-Wroński (1778–1853). Otherwise they lived in isolation:Bronisław Trentowski (1808–69) inGermany;Józef Gołuchowski (1797–1858) inCongress Poland;August Cieszkowski (1814–94) andKarol Libelt (1807–75) inWielkopolska (western Poland);Józef Kremer (1806–75) inKraków. Most of them became active only after theNovember 1830 Uprising.[44]
An important role in the Messianist movement was also played by the PolishRomantic poets,Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855),Juliusz Słowacki (1809–49) andZygmunt Krasiński (1812–59), as well as by religious activists such asAndrzej Towiański (1799–1878).[43]
Between thephilosophers and thepoets, the method of reasoning, and often the results, differed. The poets desired to create a specificallyPolish philosophy, the philosophers—an absoluteuniversal philosophy. The Messianist philosophers knew contemporary European philosophy and drew from it; the poets created more of a home-grown metaphysic.[45]
The most important difference among the Messianists was that some wererationalists, othersmystics. Wroński's philosophy was no less rationalist thanHegel's, while the poets voiced a mystical philosophy.[43]
The Messianists were not the only Polish philosophers active in the period between the 1830 and 1863 uprisings. Much more widely known in Poland wereCatholic thinkers such as FatherPiotr Semenenko (1814–86),Florian Bochwic (1779–1856) andEleonora Ziemięcka (1819–69), Poland's first woman philosopher. The Catholic philosophy of the period was more widespread and fervent than profound or creative.[46] Also active were pureHegelians such asTytus Szczeniowski (1808–80) and leftist Hegelians such asEdward Dembowski (1822–46).[47]
An outstanding representative of the philosophy of Common Sense,Michał Wiszniewski (1794–1865), had studied at that Enlightenment bastion,Krzemieniec; in 1820, in France, he had attended the lectures ofVictor Cousin; and in 1821, in Britain, he had met the head of theScottish School of Common Sense at the time,Dugald Stewart.[48]
Active as well wereprecursors ofPositivism such asJózef Supiński (1804–93) andDominik Szulc (1797–1860)—links between the earlier Enlightenment age of the brothers Śniadecki and the coming age ofPositivism.[49]
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ThePositivist philosophy that took form in Poland after theJanuary 1863 Uprising was hardly identical with the philosophy ofAuguste Comte. It was in fact a return to the line ofJan Śniadecki andHugo Kołłątaj—a line that had remained unbroken even during the Messianist period—now enriched with the ideas of Comte.[50] However, it belonged only partly tophilosophy. It combined Comte's ideas with those ofJohn Stuart Mill andHerbert Spencer, for it was interested in what was common to them all: a sober,empirical attitude to life.[51]
The Polish Positivism was a reaction against philosophical speculation, but also againstromanticism in poetry andidealism in politics. It was less a scholarly movement thanliterary,political andsocial. 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 GermansWilhelm Wundt andFriedrich Albert Lange, the Danish philosopherHöffding.[50]
The disastrous outcome of theJanuary 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 thenatural sciences andeconomics: they absorbedCharles Darwin's biological theories, Mill'seconomic theories,Henry Thomas Buckle'sdeterministic theory ofcivilization. At length they became aware of the connection between their own convictions and aims and thePositivist philosophy ofAuguste Comte, and borrowed its name and watchwords.[52]
This movement, which had begun still earlier inAustrian-ruledGalicia, became concentrated with time in theRussian-ruledCongress Poland centered aboutWarsaw and is therefore commonly known as the "Warsaw Positivism."[53] Its chief venue was the WarsawPrzegląd Tygodniowy (Weekly Review);[52]Warsaw University (the "Main School") had been closed by theRussians in 1869.
The pioneers of the Warsaw Positivism werenatural scientists andphysicians rather than philosophers, and still more sojournalists andmen of letters:Aleksander Świętochowski (1849–1938),Piotr Chmielowski (1848–1904),Adolf Dygasiński (1839–1902),[54]Bolesław Prus (1847–1912). Prus developed an originalUtilitarian-inspiredethical system in his book,The Most General Life Ideals;[55] his 1873 public lectureOn Discoveries and Inventions, subsequently printed as a pamphlet, is a remarkably prescient contribution to what would, in the following century, become the field of logology ("the science of science").
The movement's leader wasPrus' friend,Julian Ochorowicz (1850–1917), a trained philosopher with a doctorate from theUniversity 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."[52]
The Warsaw Positivists—who included faithfulCatholics such as FatherFranciszek Krupiński (1836–98)—formed a common front against Messianism together with theNeo-Kantians. The PolishKantians were rather loosely associated with Kant and belonged to the Positivist movement. They includedWładysław Mieczysław Kozłowski (1858–1935),Piotr Chmielowski (1848–1904) andMarian Massonius (1862–1945).[56]
The most brilliant philosophical mind in this period wasAdam Mahrburg (1855–1913). He was aPositivist in his understanding of philosophy as a discipline and in his uncompromising ferreting out of speculation, and aKantian in his interpretation of mind and in his centering of philosophy upon thetheory of knowledge.[57]
InKraków, FatherStefan Pawlicki (1839–1916), professor of philosophy at theUniversity 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.[58]
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Even before Poland regained independence at the end ofWorld War I, her intellectual life continued to develop. This was the case particularly inRussian-ruledWarsaw, where in lieu of underground lectures and secret scholarly organizations aWolna Wszechnica Polska (Free Polish University) was created in 1905 and the tirelessWładysław Weryho (1868–1916) had in 1898 founded Poland's first philosophical journal,Przegląd Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Review), and in 1904 a Philosophical Society.[59]
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 inAustrian-ruledLwów andKraków or abroad.[59]
Kraków as well, especially after 1910, saw a quickening of the philosophical movement, particularly at thePolish Academy of Learning, where at the prompting ofWładysław 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 ahistorical character.[60]
AtLwów,Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938) from 1895 stimulated a lively philosophical movement, in 1904 founded thePolish Philosophical Society,[61] and in 1911 began publication ofRuch Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Movement).[60]
There was growing interest in western philosophical currents, and much discussion ofPragmatism andBergsonism,psychoanalysis,Henri Poincaré'sConventionalism,Edmund Husserl'sPhenomenology, theMarburg School, and thesocial-sciencemethodologies ofWilhelm Dilthey andHeinrich Rickert. At the same time, original ideas developed on Polish soil.[60]
Those who distinguished themselves in Polish philosophy in these pre-World War I years of the twentieth century, formed two groups.
One group developed apart frominstitutions of higher learning andlearned 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 ofPositivism, and includedStanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911),Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) and, to a degree,Edward Abramowski (1868–1918).[62]
The second group of philosophers who started off Polish philosophy in the twentieth century had an academic character. They includedWładysław Heinrich (1869–1957) inKraków,Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938) inLwów, andLeon Petrażycki (1867–1931) abroad—all three, active members of thePolish Academy of Learning. Despite the considerable differences among them, they shared some basic features: all three wereempiricists 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.[63]
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.[64]
A characteristic of theinterbellum was thatmaximalist, metaphysical currents began to fade away.[65] The dominant ambition in philosophical theory now was not breadth butprecision. This was a period ofspecialization, consistent with the conviction that general philosophy would not yield precise results such as could be obtained inlogic,psychology or thehistory of philosophy.[66]
A few individuals did develop a general philosophical outlook: notably,Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981),Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939), andRoman Ingarden (1893–1970).[67]
Otherwise, however,specialization was the rule. The Kraków school, true to tradition, showed an eminently historical character and produced amedievalist of world renown, FatherKonstanty Michalski (1879–1947).[68] The Lwów school concentrated on the analysis ofconcepts; and in doing so, it considered both their aspects, thesubjective andobjective—hence, thepsychological and thelogical. 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.[66]
Theanalytical program that Twardowski passed on to his pupils, and which they in turn spread throughout Poland, was affined to that ofFranz Brentano's school (Twardowski'salma mater) inAustria and to that of theBritishanalytic school, which likewise had arisen as a reaction against speculative systems.[69]
Thealumni of the Lwów school entered three distinct fields. Some devoted themselves topsychology:Stefan Błachowski (1889–1962), professor atPoznań, entirely;Władysław Witwicki (1878–1948), professor atWarsaw, partly. Others pursued thetheory of knowledge: they includedKazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963), professor atLwów, and afterWorld War II atPoznań, whose views resembledNeopositivism and who developed an original theory of radicalConventionalism. The third group worked inmathematical, or symbolic, logic.[68]
The most important center for mathematical logic was Warsaw. The Warsaw school of logic was headed byJan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956) andStanisław Leśniewski (1886–1939), professors atWarsaw University. The first of their pupils to achieve eminence, even beforeWorld War II, wasAlfred Tarski (1902–83),[68] from 1939 in theUnited States, where he became a professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. Another pupil of Łukasiewicz, Bolesław Sobociński (28 June 1906 – 31 October 1980), became a professor of philosophy at theUniversity of Notre Dame. The Warsaw logic gained a worldwide importance similar to that of the Krakówmedievalism.[68]
Warsaw was not, however, the sole Polish venue for logic studies. They were initiated atKraków byJan Śleszyński (aka Ivan Śleszyński,aka Ivan Vladislavovich Sleshinsky, 1854–1931), professor of mathematics and logic. At Kraków also, and later atLwów, logic studies were conducted byLeon 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."[70]
AfterPetrażycki's death, the outstandinglegal philosopher wasCzesław Znamierowski (1888–1967), professor of philosophy at Poznań.[71] Another leading thinker of the period, active on the borderlines ofsociology andphilosophy, in both Poland and theUnited States, wasFlorian Znaniecki (1882–1958).[72]
In theinterbellum, the philosopher members of thePolish Academy of Learning includedWładysław Heinrich (1869–1957; Kraków),Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938; Lwów),Leon Petrażycki (1867–1931; Warsaw), and, from the following generation:Konstanty Michalski (1879–1947),Jan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956), andWładysław Tatarkiewicz (1886–1980). Michalski's historical works revolutionized prevailing views onvia moderna in latemedieval philosophy. Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept ofmany-valued logic and is known for his "Polish notation." Tatarkiewicz was the first to prepare inPolish a large-scale comprehensive history ofwestern philosophy and aHistory of Aesthetics and worked at systematizing theconcepts ofaesthetics andethics.[73]
AfterWorld War II,Roman Ingarden (1893–1970),Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981), andAlfred Tarski became members of thePolish Academy of Sciences.[3]
For some four decades following World War II, in Poland, a disproportionately prominent official role was given toMarxist philosophy. This, and contemporaneous sociopolitical currents, stimulatedLeszek Kołakowski (1927–2009), writing inexile, to publish influential critiques ofMarxist theory andcommunist practice. Kołakowski also wrote a remarkable history ofPositivist Philosophy from Hume to the Vienna Circle.[74]
Similarly notable for his critiques ofSovietMarxism wasJózef Maria Bocheński (1902–95),O.P., aCatholic philosopher of theDominican Order who lectured inRome at thePontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (theAngelicum) and at theUniversity of Fribourg inSwitzerland. Bocheński also gained renown for his work inlogic andethics.
Other Polish philosophers of the postwar period includedAndrzej Zabłudowski (1938–2008), a logician andanalytic philosopher of world influence, especially in the theory ofinduction, working at Warsaw University except for a three-decade hiatus beginning in 1968;Marek Siemek (1942–2011), a historian ofGermantranscendental philosophy and recipient of anhonorary doctorate fromBonn University; andJan Woleński (born 1940), a broadly erudite thinker at theJagiellonian University inKraków, specializing in the history of theLwów-Warsaw school and inanalytic philosophy.[75][76]
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