Papers by Andrzej Gniazdowski
Logos i Ethos
Roman Ingarden the early phenomenologist is regarded as a theorist in the area of aesthetics and ... more Roman Ingarden the early phenomenologist is regarded as a theorist in the area of aesthetics and ontology rather than being a political philosopher. The aim of the article is to reconstruct a non-existent philosophy of the state, one that could have been developed by Ingarden by taking as a starting point his ontological analysis of the structure of a literary work of art. In his book of 1931 Ingarden defined very broadly the literary work of art, including as its borderline cases among others scientific works, letters, memoirs etc. The thesis of the article is that state constitution may be also interpreted as a borderline case of that work. In reference to Ingarden’s analysis of stage play as the concretisation of a piece of drama, an attempt will be made to reconstruct in terms of his ontology the relation between the state constitution and the state itself.
The focus of this article is the quality of the Polish political culture, understood as anchored ... more The focus of this article is the quality of the Polish political culture, understood as anchored in the imagined citizenship of a lost republic. The paper attempts to reconstruct the main directions of the phenomenological criticism of this image and refer the tradition of the Polish noble republicanism to the idea of the European constitutional patriotism, postulated as rational by Jurgen Habermas. The key element of this criticism is the pursuit of the possibility of the phenomenological, and not only formal pragmatic grounding of a rationality of patriotism as political episteme in the hermeneutics of the political facticity. The main thesis of the article is the contemporary liveliness and topicality of the noble-democratic habitus of the Polish republican patriotism from the point of view of such hermeneutics, as well as its significance for the process of the building of European citizenship and common European political culture.
The objective of this paper is to analyse the psychological concept of “race” developed by the st... more The objective of this paper is to analyse the psychological concept of “race” developed by the student of Edmund Husserl, Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss. This paper analyses the psychological concept of “race” as developed by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss, by tracing its phenomenological roots in both Husserl’s Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and in the descriptive psychology of Edith Stein, Clauss’ teacher in Göttingen. We try also to show the difference between this concept and the naturalistic, National Socialist ideology of race, represented by Alfred Rosenberg and Hans Günther. We argue that in spite of the claim to work out a clear, rigorous and “presuppositionless”, non-judgemental theory of race as a “style” of the experiencing of the world, Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss’ “psychology of race” remains a form of racism that contradicts the solidarity of mankind and the principles of tolerance. http://www.orbisidearum.net/ui/article.asp?id=15
Dialogue and Universalism, 2016
The paper discusses Liberalism after Communism by Jerzy Szacki in the light of the commonly accep... more The paper discusses Liberalism after Communism by Jerzy Szacki in the light of the commonly accepted (including by Szacki himself) research method and his idea of history and the general attitude towards the past. The paper focuses on how Szacki tackles the problem of transporting the liberal ideas onto the Polish ground after 1989; on how he discloses dilemmas and restrictions of the Polish liberalism; on the historical dimension of the Polish liberalism; on whether the liberal Weltanschauung is universal or incidental. In the end, the paper attempts to look at the problem of the liberal minimum in Szacki’s analyses in the context of the Polish raison d’etat and of the question of populism, as well as the current political crisis in Poland.
Atheism Revisited. Rethinking Modernity and Inventing New Modes of Life, 2020
Gniazdowski attempts to reconstruct the historical context and political meaning of the idea of “... more Gniazdowski attempts to reconstruct the historical context and political meaning of the idea of “positive abolition of religion”, presented by Marx in his early writings. Insofar as the idea of such an abolition is usually interpreted as the expression of his not only “atheism”, but also “radicalism”, the aim of that reconstruction is the critical assessment of the priority of these ideas over each other. As Gniazdowski argues, it is by no means correct to assume, that the terms “atheism” and “abolition of religion” are for Marx just replaceable. He proposes a thesis, that Marx’ position is not to be interpreted as in so far “radical” and politically significant as it is atheistic, but rather as an expression of his “apophatic”, political religion.
The paper discusses Liberalism after Communism by Jerzy Szacki, in the light of the commonly acce... more The paper discusses Liberalism after Communism by Jerzy Szacki, in the light of the commonly accepted research method (including by Szacki himself), and his idea of history and the general attitude towards the past. The paper focuses on how Szacki tackles the problem of transporting the liberal ideas onto the Polish ground after 1989; on how he discloses the dilemmas and restrictions of Polish liberalism; on the historical dimension of Polish liberalism; and on whether the liberal Weltanschauung is universal or incidental. In the end, the paper attempts to examine the problem of the liberal minimum in Szacki’s analyses, in the context of the Polish raison d’état and the question of populism, as well as the current political crisis in Poland.
Colloquium: New Philologies, 2021
The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the main premises of the notion of “homeland” as analyzed ... more The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the main premises of the notion of “homeland” as analyzed by Kurt Stavenhagen, the significant Latvian-German philosopher of the first half of the twentieth century. The paper points out the differences in Stavenhagen’s approach to the notion of homeland between the first and second edition of his study, Heimat als Grundlage menschlicher Existenz (Homeland as the Basis of Human Existence) from 1939 and Heimat als Lebenssinn (Homeland as the Meaning of Life) from 1948. The paper informs about the biographical and political background of Stavenhagen’s analysis and argues that his philosophical thought belongs to the so-called phenomenological movement. The thesis of the paper is that Stavenhagen’s definition of the homeland as a kind of community presupposes Ferdinand Tönnies’ distinction between community and society, which was fundamental for German sociology of that time. The author argues that Stavenhagen follows Max Scheler’s ideological mis...
Ruch Filozoficzny, May 11, 2018
W swoich rozważaniach na temat losów ducha niemieckiego w epoce narodowego socjalizmu, napisanych... more W swoich rozważaniach na temat losów ducha niemieckiego w epoce narodowego socjalizmu, napisanych w 1934 roku na wygnaniu w Holandii, Helmuth Plessner nie poświęcił duchom narodowym niemieckich sąsiadów na wschodzie na dobrą sprawę żadnej uwagi. Chyba, żeby za taką uznać stwierdzenie, że "na wschód od Łaby rozciąga się obszar kolonizacyjny" 1. Trzydzieści lat później Witold Gombrowicz podczas swego pobytu w Berlinie w drodze z argentyńskiej emigracji wypowiedział na głos milczącą tezę, która zdaje się leżeć u podstaw tego pominięcia. Patrząc w zimowy wieczór z piętnastego piętra swego mieszkania oddalonego o kilometr od Kurfürsterdamm, zauważył: "ta błyskotka, Berlin Zachodni, ostatnia kokieteria luksusowej Europy-poza nią pustka, jak gdyby nie było tam już żadnego miasta, tylko jedna wielka przestrzeń, daleko aż do Chin" 2. Jaki obraz powstanie, jeśli te dwa spojrzenia na miejsce Niemiec we wschodnioeuropejskim kosmosie spróbować złożyć ze sobą? Poza ich na pozór tą samą rzeczą, analiza niemieckiej Sonderweg w historii Europy, podjęta przez twórcę dwudziestowiecznej antropologii filozoficznej jeszcze przed Drugą Wojną Światową, i literacka impresja stypendysty Fundacji Forda na temat atmosfery powojennego Berlina wydają się nie mieć ze sobą wiele wspólnego. Także publiczność, do której zwracali się Plessner i Gombrowicz, okazuje się w obu wypadkach różna. Adresatem
Sztuka i Filozofia
Przedmiotem artykułu jest rekonstrukcja wczesnej filozofii politycznej Aurela Kolnaia, a w szczeg... more Przedmiotem artykułu jest rekonstrukcja wczesnej filozofii politycznej Aurela Kolnaia, a w szczególności jego stanowiska wobec relacji pomiędzy marksizmem a psychoanalizą, przedstawionego w jego pierwszej książce Psychoanaliza a socjologia. Celem artykułu jest analiza historycznego i teoretycznego kontekstu tego stanowiska, głównych linii argumentacyjnych, które je uzasadniają, a także jego znaczenia w rozwoju myśli filozoficznej Aurela Kolnaia przed Drugą Wojną Światową. W myśl głównej tezy artykułu, wczesna filozofia polityczna Aurela Kolnaia, której zręby zostały ukształtowane w toku dyskusji, prowadzonych w salonie liberalno-lewicowej młodzieży węgierskiej o nazwie Krąg Galileusza, stanowi część szerszego zjawiska historyczno-ideowego, określanego mianem budapeszteńskiej szkoły psychoanalizy, skupionej wokół jej głównego przedstawiciela, Sándora Ferencziego. Zgodnie z tą tezą, o specyfice wczesnej filozofii Kolnaia zadecydowała podjęta przez niego próba wykorzystania dorobku teoretycznego Zygmunta Freuda w dziedzinie socjologii, a w szczególności w interpretacji psycho-społecznego tła tzw. bolszewizmu węgierskiego, którego ucieleśnieniem stało się objęcie na trzy miesiące władzy w Budapeszcie przez Węgierską Partię Komunistyczną Beli Kuna. Uzasadnieniem tej tezy stała się w artykule analiza różnic pomiędzy stanowiskiem Aurela Kolnaia a, z jednej strony, zastosowaniem psychoanalizy w badaniach socjologicznych w ramach tzw. szkoły frankfurckiej i, z drugiej strony, ontologią społeczną, rozwijaną w tym samym czasie przez przedstawicieli ruchu fenomenologicznego, m.in. Maxa Schelera, Edith Stein i Dietricha von Hildebranda. Głównym wnioskiem, wypływającym z tych analiz, stała się teza, że podstawą zachodzących pomiędzy nimi różnic było odmienne rozumienie przez Kolnaia socjologicznej kategorii „mas społecznych”, które nawiązywało w większym stopniu do stanowiska Hegla niż Marksa, a także odwoływanie się przez niego w badaniach społecznych do systemu socjologii raczej Emila Durkeima niż Ferdynanda Tönniesa. Zgodnie z tą tezą, w tej mierze, w jakiej główną ideami wczesnej filozofii politycznej Aurela Kolnaia stała się nie tyle ogólnoludzka emancypacja społeczna i walka klas, ile budowa krytycznej osobowości i kultury solidarności, jego stanowisko określone zostało w artykule jako bliskie liberalnemu socjalizmowi, opartemu na podstawach indywidualizmu, personalizmu i pluralizmu wartości.
Visnyk of the Lviv University Series Philosophical Sciences
The aim of this paper is to compare the approaches of Ernst Cassirer and Aurel Kolnai on the idea... more The aim of this paper is to compare the approaches of Ernst Cassirer and Aurel Kolnai on the idea of the nation state in its most radical form, which consists of identifying national sovereignty with an unrestricted right of the nation to political, external, and internal self-determination. What the comparison attempted here focuses on, is the criticism on the conditions for the possibility of specific German nationalism, presented by Cassirer in his Myth of the State and by Kolnai in his War Against the West. According to the main thesis of this paper, insofar as both Cassirer and Kolnai recognized the role played in politics by emotions and considered political phenomena as being constituted by not only rational or at least calculable mechanisms, but also affective factors, like beliefs, religion, and myth, they tended to consider nationalism in terms of the politics of «regression,» understood, psychoanalytically, as a reversion of mental life, in some respects, to a former, or less developed, psychological state, characteristic of not only individual mental disorders, but also social psychosis. It will be argued, that Cassirer and Kolnai, not unlike the representatives of the Frankfurt School, considered the contemporary preponderance of mythical thought in political philosophy to be an expression of the dialectic, which consisted in «relapsing» of the Enlightenment into mythology. As a main motive for the comparison of their political philosophies, an assumption will be presented in the paper, that, while taking into account the contemporary tendency to oppose national sovereignty to the sovereignty of international law, the approach to the idea of nation state, as presented by Cassirer and Kolnai, seems to be by no means out of date.
Dialogue and Universalism
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the relation between phenomenology and ph... more The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the relation between phenomenology and philo-sophical anthropology by analyzing it in the selected, theoretical as well as historical contexts. The author focuses primarily on the problem of Husserl’s criticism of anthropologism and analyzes the practical meaning of the rejection by Husserl of anthropology as a true foundation of philosophy. The thesis of the paper is that already by rejecting anthropologism in logic and theory of knowledge, Hus-serl presupposed some idea of philosophical anthropology in the “foundational” sense he criticized, and that this implicit idea was pursued by him not only from pure theoretical reason. In reference to Leszek Kołakowski and the methodology of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas, which he applied in his interpretation of the idea of phenomenology, the author of the article attempts, unlike Kołakowski, to reveal not only the „religious” (in a vague sense), but also the specific political meaning of this idea. What is argued here is that the only possible reconciliation between anti-anthropologism on the one hand and the outspoken humanism of transcendental phenomenology on the other lies in the adoption by Husserl of Fichte’s ideal of humanity as its practical, world-view framework. The practical, if not directly political, motif of Husserl’s radical criticism of anthropologism is, in author’s interpretation, Husserl’s attempt to answer, in the reference to this ideal, to the main political question of his times as consisting in the rising racist and anti-Semitic tendencies in the German naturalistic anthropology.
Les Études philosophiques
The subject of this article are Cartesian motifs in the thought of Leszek Kołakowski, one of the ... more The subject of this article are Cartesian motifs in the thought of Leszek Kołakowski, one of the most important Polish philosophers of the 20th century. The author of this article aims to show, that the critical reflexion on the legitimacy and limits of Cartesian search for knowledge based on the intuition of evidence and at the same time objectively true has organized not only philosophical, but also political thought of Kołakowski. He argues, that Leszek Kołakowski and the whole intellectual formation he belonged to, called Warsaw School of History of Ideas, interpreted Cartesianism as an attempt of establishing the integral, both philosophical and political, radicalism. The main thesis of this article is that Cartesianism was for Kołakowski and his colleagues, former Marxists, a radical philosophy not only of truth, but also of freedom. The question about the possibility of the unshakable, absolutely unquestionable foundations of knowledge, put by Kołakowski to Descartes and Husserl, is interpreted in the article as a part of his strategy of overcoming Marxism, understood as an ideology, that reduces human freedom to a mere epiphenomenon.
Etyka, 1995
HANS KUNG AND ETHICS OF BELIEF Andrzej Gniazdowski tries to de cribe and analize some ideas of a ... more HANS KUNG AND ETHICS OF BELIEF Andrzej Gniazdowski tries to de cribe and analize some ideas of a famous German theologian Hans Kung. Kung strive for more enlightened and democratical system inside the catholic church . He says that what matters in a modern world is not a „ free church" but the „church of freedom".
The foundations of Ingarden’s aesthetics were formed in the context of his polemic with edmund hu... more The foundations of Ingarden’s aesthetics were formed in the context of his polemic with edmund husserl’s transcendental idealism (Ingarden 1929). The critical function and productive employment of the phenomenological method determines the autonomy and theoretical relevance of his aesthetics. Aesthetics is a basic domain of his ontology (i.e., investigations into the necessary connections between pure ideal qualities by means of intuitive analysis of the contents of ideas). He first offered this definition in Das literarische Kunstwerk (1931), where he also indicated its object, thereby determining his later investigations: aesthetics should be a realm of intentional objects, as contrasted with objects of the real world (1973a: lxii). The eidetic investigations of the literary work of art prepared the starting point for an analysis of the idea and mode of real being in Ingarden’s fundamental work, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt (1964).
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Papers by Andrzej Gniazdowski