Poland, philosophy in

4. Contemporary Polish philosophy

At the present time, philosophy in Poland represents a wide range of schools and perspectives. Phenomenology, Thomism, various schools of positivism and post-positivism, Marxism and the philosophy of dialogue (encounter) are all represented. The influences of Augustinianism, Hegelianism, hermeneutics and process philosophy can also be noted (see Hermeneutics; Process philosophy).

Phenomenology owes its position in Poland especially to Roman Ingarden, who continued to teach and whose thought flourished in Cracow after the Second World War. Notables among his students include Władysław Stróżewski, who connected phenomenology first with existential Thomism and later with certain elements of Platonism and Hegelianism in a ‘dialectical phenomenology’, and Józef Tischner who, in the end, departed far from the thought of his mentor. In phenomenological circles one also finds Karol Wojtyła (later Pope John Paul II), whose personalism combines the philosophy of being in the existentialist Thomistic spirit with the philosophy of subject in the spirit of classical phenomenology.

The primary centre of Thomistic philosophy is at the Faculty of Philosophy at KUL, and this philosophical orientation also prevails in the Faculty of Christian Philosophy at the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw (Mieczysław A. Krąpiec, Stefan Swieżawski, Mieczysław Gogacz). Existential Thomism, borrowing from Gilson and Maritain while emphasizing the importance of the theory of being, supplies the intellectual framework, with the more traditional school of Thomism declining in prominence in recent years. At the Pontifical Academy of Theology (PAT) in Cracow, the philosophy of dialogue has been promulgated, while Andrzej Nowicki formulated a Marxist version of the philosophy of encounter (‘inkontrologia’). PAT, under the banner of philosophy in science, fosters a programme of interdisciplinary research (based upon identification and resolution of philosophical problems in the context of particular sciences) employing ideas from Platonism and from process philosophy. Since the death of Izydora Dąmbska in 1983, the Lwów–Warsaw School has been less prominent than in former years.

Marxism in Poland, although primitive, doctrinaire and Stalinist after the Second World War, later differentiated itself into various orientations. These have included humanist (invoking the young Marx), scientific (appealing to Engels), moderate, Leninist/revisionist, open Marxism (invoking modern scientific methodology and certain post-positivistic trends), and those who promoted a programme of eclectic ‘universalism’. ‘Individualistic’ philosophers include Andrzej Grzegorczyk (a logician whose philosophy connects elements of scientism, existentialism and a Christian world view) and Jerzy Szymura (who defended a version of Hegelianism close to that of Bradley). Prominent Poles living abroad include Józef M. Bocheński (d. 1995) (following a Thomistic period, he later identified himself as an analytical philosopher who cherished the Aristotelian tradition), and Leszek Kołakowski who has changed from Marxist to critic of Marxism and whose current views can be characterized as a post-Hegelian, post-Marxist historicism and sociologism with a positivistic version of rationalism.