Stanisław Janeczek beschäftigt sich beruflich mit der Geschichte der neuzeitlichen Philosophie und der Geschichte der Erziehung mit dem Schwerpunkt polnische Philosophie, vor allem die der Neuzeit. Der direkte Anlaß zur Entstehung des vorliegenden, enorm umfangreichen Buches war die geschichtliche Untersuchung des Logik-Unterrichts, wie er im Schul- und Studienprogram der Kommission für Nationale Erziehung vorgesehen wurde. Die Kommission hat den Logikunterricht in den Gymnasien auf die Praxis bezogen und ihn aus den Hochschulen gestrichen. Dieselben Maßnahmen haben den ganzen Philosophieunterricht betroffen. (...) Das besprochene Buch soll dem Autor zufolge eine bisherige Lücke schließen und auf eine systematische Weise den Gesamtunterricht der Philosophie in den der genannten Kommission unterstellten Schulen darstellen. Als Hintergrund des wissenschaftlichen Unternehmens dient die Darstellung des damaligen Philosophie-Unterrichts in den anderen europäischen Ländern und auch die geschichtliche Entwicklung der philosophischen Ideen. (shrink)

Stanisław Witkiewicz himself taught his son Stanisław Ignacy, known later as Witkacy, helped by his wife and friends, among whom there were scientists, artists and professional teachers. The results of such education were amazing. At the age of eight, the boy could paint using different techniques, play the piano and compose music. His father desired for him to become a naturalist painter like himself. At a young age Witkacy became an outstanding artist, not only a painter, but also (...) a writer. However, in opposition to his father’s teaching, when he matured artistically, he rejected naturalism and joined the artistic avant-garde. Just after the first world war he published a long philosophical essay inspired probably by the work of his father’s great intellectual enemy – the Neo-Hegelian Polish philosopher Henryk Struve. Thus, Witkacy shaped himself, both in the respect of art and philosophy, in the opposition to his father, Stanisław Witkiewicz. (shrink)

A brief account of the first - unsuccessful - attemps to create research centers in the field of technical (applied) physics in Poland in the period before the outbreak of World War is given. Outstanding physicists such as Mieczysław Wolfke, Stanisław Kalinowski, Aleksander Jabłoński and Wacław Dziewulski took part in this trials. Activities in this direction continued after the war, especially after the establishment of the Polish Academy of Sciences, within whch several institutes dealing with the application of physics (...) were established. The most important of them incude the Institute of Physics and Institute of Fundamental Technological Research in Warsaw, as well as the Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery in Gdańsk and Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kraków. Outside the structure of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Industrial Institute of Electronics and the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion were established, both in Warsaw. Technical Physics center establised at the Warsaw, Wrocław and Poznań Universities of Technology and at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń are also discussed. Spectacular examples of medical applications include photodynamic therapy based on the Jabłoński diagram, optical tomography and proton radioteraphy for eye cancer. (shrink)

Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732–1798) was the last king of Poland. He reigned from 1764 to 1795 and, during this time the first Polish constitution, the first in Europe, was established. These excerpts come from Hen’s book My Friend the King (Mój Przyjaciel Król). The book is narrated by the fictional Gaston Fabre, who is a close confidant of the King and is privy to all the turmoil and machinations at Court in months and years preceding the signing of the (...) constitution. (shrink)

Faced with the loss of a part of the Polish state’s territory, that is, after the first partitioning of Poland by the neighboring countries—Russia, Austria and Prussia—and fearing even worse possible scenario of the loss of independence, the last king of Poland Stanisław August Poniatowski made a far-sighted decision, which he implemented on 14 October, 1773, by a motion, passed by the Partition Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, establishing the Commission for National Education, prefiguring the Ministry for National Education. (...) The source of funding was the post-Jesuit property obtained by the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV; the order was abolished in Poland, as well.Cracow and Vilna universities were modernized, and these were also entrusted with the direct supervision of secondary schools, created anew as secular ones. Instruction in parochial elementary schools was carried out in Polish only; few of those were set up in the countryside, though. Entries were invited for course books in natural sciences and the history of Poland. Women were included in the state’s educational effort, too. (shrink)

Charity, the core of the Gospel ethos, became one of the founding ideas of European civilization and distinguished it from others. In Polish territories, as in other Western European countries, charity work was conducted primarily by the Church, which together with its sense of Gospel duty, defended the weak by concerning itself with economic development. For this purpose, charitable credit institutions, so-called mounts of piety (montes pietatis), were established. They were continued by reformers, in a somewhat changed form, until the (...) decline of the Polish Commonwealth (Republic). The most original institution of this kind was Rev. Stanisław Staszic’s foundation: the Hrubieszów Agricultural Society, which survived until the days of the Polish People’s Republic. (shrink)

Part of a series of books devoted to Polish Christian Philosophy in the twentieth century, this latest study introduces the life and work of Piotr Lenartowicz. Lenartowicz, a member of the Jesuit order, held several professional positions, but spent most of his career at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow. Approaching philosophy from an Aristotelian- Thomistic perspective, his interests ranged over the philosophy of animate nature, the theory of evolution, topics in the philosophy of science, and epistemological issues, especially concerning (...) the nature of human cognition. (shrink)

Stanisław Głąbiński (1862–1941) professor at the Lvov University, the author of a two volume work entitled „National economics” is a representative of the historical-national trend in Polish economics. The subject matter of his concept of national economics is the national economy which is a higher rank entity, encompassing all economic entities in the country that are related materially and spiritually. Bonds that link individuals into a higher rank entity, i.e. a nation, are reflected in the term ‘social resources’. Głąbiński (...) understands them as moral and material heritage of past generations that influences attitudes of the contemporary generation. He divides them into moral and material resources, and especially emphasizes the importance of the former ones. In the concept of moral resources, Głąbiński included his claims concerning the whole socio-ethical conditions of economic processes. He appreciated the influence exerted by the changes in the ethical viewpoint of the society on the economic activity as well as on the shaping of the sense of duty towards the whole society. Special emphasis placed in Głąbiński’s economic theory on the role of ethical motives undoubtedly springs from the influence exerted by the German historical school and, in particular, by Bruno Hildebrand. It also is a result of the effect of Polish economic thought including in particular the views of Fryderyk Skarbek and Józef Supiński. According to Głąbiński, the most important constituent element of material resources was finance, understood by him as stocks of economic goods. (shrink)

Stanisław Kamiński (1919-1986) was a philosopher, philosopher of science and historian of science. He defended in 1949 at the Catholic University in Lublin (KUL) his PhD thesis on Frege's axiomatic system of the sentence logic in the light of the contemporary methodology of deductive science. Since 1957 he was the head of the Chair of Methodology (the first one in Poland, founded in 1952 by J. Iwanicki) at the KUL, since 1965 the associate and since 1970 the full professor (...) of KUL. He was for many years the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy KUL where he developed the methodological foundations of the »Lublin-school of philosophy«. The main interests of S. Kamiński (1919-1986) was history of science and logic, general and special methodology, methodology of philosophy and (medieval) semiotics. Himself he saw his main achievements in the domain of the theory of science and the methodology of classical philosophy, especially in the studies of the method and language of metaphysics; he gave a methodological description of general metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history and studies on religion (religiology); he investigated the beginnings of the mathematical induction in the Middle Ages and in modern times, modern history of the theory of definition (Th. Hobbes, B. Pascal, J. Locke, E. B. de Condillac, J. D. Gergonne), the theory of argumentation (reasoning), the structure and the evolution of scientific theory, the deductive method (B. Pascal, G. W. Leibniz, G. Frege), the achievements of logic and philosophy in Poland. A characteristic feature of S. Kamiński's philosophical and methodological approach was a specific historicism, consisting of referring to the heritage of the past and at the same time to the latest achievements in logic and philosophy of science. He looked to history for inspiration, for how to solve his own problems and for a partial confirmation of legitimacy of his answers. He also used history to better understand the context of the discussed problems. His methodological interests are characterized by a philosophical and historical approach. He had a broad concept of knowledge and was maximalist both in raising questions and in giving answers. He cultivated the ideal of rational knowledge. In accordance with classical philosophy he saw the substance of person as ens rationale, a being realizing himself in a disinterested search for a theoretical truth, whose highest expression is philosophy. He stressed the epistemological and methodological plurality of knowledge and distinguished (with Kant) a material and formal part of knowledge, assuming that the formal element manifests itself as the logical form in the formal procedures of the (scientific) cognitive processes, that is in the (scientific) method and the (scientific) language. Making many attempts at a methodological characterization of different types of cognition and knowledge he distinguished – besides commonsense knowledge that lies at the bottom of any other type of knowledge – the scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge. None of them can be reduced to other type of knowledge, because each of them has its own problems, goals and methods. At the top there is a kind of sapiential knowledge which is much more than a simple generalization of all particular kinds of knowledge. S. Kamiński indebted his understanding of science to contemporary philosophy and to the classical philosophy. The nature of science was determined by him from the point view of its subject matter, aims, methods, logical structure and genesis. The question of what science is concerned with, i.e. what is its subject matter, is a philosophical question, it presupposes an appropriate understanding of the nature of the world. S. Kamiński opted for a pluralistic approach to the world: the principal object of science is the objective world but so are subjective states of man and products of his mind and his language. The best diagnostic test of the scientific character of science is the scientific method. Also here – rejecting the scientism (i.e. the view, that the scientific method and knowledge is the pattern and the measure of each knowledge) – S. Kamiński takes a pluralistic attitude. Accepting that the scientific method is not simple, that there is not one uncomplicated ideal way of doing science, and that because of the multiplicity of questions and scientific aims it would be difficult to construct one universal scientific method as a uniform set of rules for every kind of science, S. Kamiński assumes that different subject matter and different goals of scientific cognition require different research strategies and types of cognitive procedures. One manifestation of S. Kamiński's methodological pluralism is his antinaturalistic position in the theory of the humanities where he supported the thesis of their methodological autonomy with regard to natural sciences. Closer to the philosophical cognition and knowledge, the humanities do not meet and can not meet the conditions imposed upon the natural sciences, as they differ from them in subject matter (the world of culture) and hence in method (understanding, interpretation) used. The publications of S. Kamiński include over 350 positions. During his life he published three books: Georgonne'a teoria definicji [Georgonne's Theory of Definition], Lublin 1958; Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], Lublin 1961, 19813; and [together with M. A. Krąpiec] Z teorii i metodologii metafizyki [On the Theory and Methodology of Metaphysics], Lublin 1962. After his death five volumes of Collected Papers have been published: vol. I: Jak filozofować? [How to Philosophize? Studies in Methodology of Classical Philosophy], edited by Tadeusz Szubka, Lublin 1989; vol. II: Filozofia i metoda. Studia z dziejów metod filozofowania [Philosophy and Method. Studies from the History of the Method of Philosophizing], edited by Józef Herbut, Lublin 1993; vol. III: Metoda i język. Studia z semiotyki i metodologii nauk [Method and Language. Studies in Semiotics and Philosophy of Science], edited by Urszula Żegleń, Lublin 1994; vol. IV: Nauka i metoda. Pojęcie nauki i klasyfikacja nauk [Science and Method. Concept of Science and Classification of Sciences], edited by Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1992); vol. V: Światopogląd - Religia - Teologia [Worldview - Religion - Theology], edited by Monika Walczak and Andrzej Bronk, Lublin 1998. (shrink)

Artykuł został poświęcony dziewiętnastowiecznym opisom z podróży przedstawiającym Cypr. Dotyczy przede wszystkim polskich autorów, choć we wstępnej części uwzględniono również teksty Alphonse’a de Lamartine’a, François-Renégo de Chateaubrianda Géramba, które zaistniały na rodzimym gruncie w tłumaczeniu, inspirując również polskich podróżników. W wieku pary i elektryczności, podobnie jak i we wcześniejszym stuleciu, Cypr rzadko kiedy był głównym celem wyprawy, odgrywając najczęściej rolę przystanku na długiej trasie pielgrzymkowej do Ziemi Świętej. Z tego też względu znajomość wyspy ograniczała się jedynie do Larnaki. Wśród polskich (...) pielgrzymów XIX wieku, których statek przybijał do cypryjskiego wybrzeża, a swój pobyt na wyspie uwzględnili w swych relacjach, wspomnieniach z podróży do Ziemi Świętej, znaleźli się: ks. Ignacy Hołowiński (1839), Stanisław Tarnowski (1857–1858), ks. Feliks Gondek (1859), ks. Marcin Tyburcy (ok. 1860), Ignacy Żagiell (1863–1868), ks. Józef Pelczar wraz z ks. Kazimierzem Dorszewskim (1872), ks. Tadeusz Kegel (1872), Adam Sierakowski (1883). Ich opisy i wrażenia zostały podane analizie w niniejszym artykule. (shrink)

The aim of the work is to present the conservative views of the journalist and historian Henryk Lisicki and the role he played in the community with which he collaborated, i.e. the Krakow conservatives called the Stańczyk Circle. The source of the article are monographs, brochures, dissertations, essays and articles published in „Przegląd Polski“ by Lisicki. In order to evaluate to what extent Lisicki’s political thought was original, and to what extent it was in conformity with the Stańczyk Circle, the (...) publications of Walerian Kalinka, Stanisław Tarnowski, Michał Bobczyński, Józef Szujski and Stanisław Koźmian were also used. While working on the topic, the author made use of the works specializing in the history of Polish and Western conservative thought published by Ryszard Ludwikowski, Bogdan Szlachta, Jacek Bartyzel, Józef Szacki and the views expressed by the members of the Stańczyk Circle such as Michał Jaskólski, Wojciech Dutka, Stanisław Filipowicz, Henryk Michalak. When examining the above issues, a comparative method was used, tracing both the similarities and differences in the ideas of Lisicki and his colleagues from the Stańczyk Circle. The main thesis formulated in the work is that although Lisicki did not belong to the group of leaders, his close intellectual ties with Stanisław Koźmian gave him a respected position among Krakow conservatives. The analysis of his works confirmed that he was also capable of original reflections which focused on the attitude of the conservatives to the nineteenth-century democratization processes, the evolution of Western absolute monarchies towards the constitution democracies and the expansion of electoral rights. Hence, it was symptomatic for Lisicki and his community to argue, inter alia, for the necessity of rapprochement with moderate liberals, the aim of which was to weaken the danger coming from the revolted masses which were being under the influence of radicals. (shrink)

Le livre traite de la philosophie enseignee au XVIᵉ siècle dans les collèges des jesuites en Pologne et en Lituanie, c'est-a-dire de l a philosophie strictement „scolastique" et de la philosophie liee directement a I'enseignement, done de la nhilosonhie an sens strict du mot.

1. Wprowadzenie i idea wiodąca -- 2. Człowiek i jego działanie -- 3. Wartościowanie moralne: prawo, sumienie, dobro, zło.

część I. Natura logiki -- część II. Kultura logiczna.

The paper presents some principal motives that made I. Kant take the position of transcendental idealism. They are the following: the question of a priori synthetic judgements, the question of the cognitive and ontic status of space and time, the problem of the constitution of the phenomenal world, and the problem of the objectivity of empirical judgments (the so-called transcendental deduction). In relation to Kant’s solutions some objections have been formulated and a thesis that neither separately nor in combination can (...) the main four motives be treated as conditions sufficient for idealism and agnosticism. The author also seeks to show the relationship between transcendental idealism and Kant’s belief of the impossibility to solve the “great” metaphysical problems, therefore the problem of the existence of God, soul, and freedom. (shrink)

The origin of modern christian Aristotelianism founded first, in the positive and negative sense, the Renaissance philological-historical humanism. In the first case it provided hermeneutic methods which ensured a study of authentic Aristotelianism covered by the medieval scholastic syntheses. The application of Renaissance hermeneutics brought forth the revival of Aristotelian studies. They made efforts to read out the authentic heritage of Aristotle, therefore they referred to more literal interpreters, such as Alexander of Aphrodisia or Averroës. This practice aroused anxiety about (...) the conformity of the Aristotelian doctrine to the Christian doctrine and called for some steps to use the interpretations that satisfied this condition, i.e. the times of golden scholasticism in the form of the so-called of via antiqua. At the same time the role of Christianised Aristotelianism was stressed vis-à-vis philosophical pluralism which threatened the unity of Christian theology, especially neo-Platonism involved in various naturalistic trends. They made religion philosophical and threatened its identity through the relativization of the Biblical revelation. The latter was treated as one of the elements of mystic wisdom. On the other hand Renaissance humanism by stressing the role of philological-historical studies reduced the importance of philosophy, treated at most as a praxistic ethical reflection. No wonder then that the reform of the mid-15th century – initiated by Pope Nicholas V, a prominent humanist – made efforts to preserve the unity of the church doctrine in which philosophy would play the role of a rational foundation of religious faith. This reform tended on the one hand to the revival of the philosophical spirit, especially the maximalistically understood philosophy of Aristotelianism, on the other it sought to conform this Aristotelianism to Christianity. (shrink)

The paper discusses the impact of the thought of Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) on several Polish emigré writers, including Józef Czapski and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, but first of all Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) and Aleksander Wat (1900–1967). Miłosz’ approach oscillated between early fascination through an unjust rejection during the war, due to the “appropriation” of Brzozowski’s thought by the right wing publicists, to the new phase of fascination after the war, culminating in the publication of a book on Brzozowski ( A (...) Man Among Scorpions , 1962) and prolonged in several important articles till the very end of his life. Wat’s approach shifted from the communist practice of “overcoming” Brzozowski through the affirmation of his criticism and rejection of catholic obscurantism to the process of the internalization of the catholic faith. (shrink)

Część I. Koncepcje metafizyki -- Część II. Zarys teorii bytu.