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Ancient Φilosophy Reception at the 12th Seminar of Historians of Polish Philosophy
Seminar of Historians of Polish Philosophy (SHPPh) is a cyclical academic event held at various universities in Poland since its first edition in Warsaw in 2006. In 2025 (May 19th-20th), it was for the first time at the University of Zielona Góra (UZ) where Polish researchers of their native philosophical traditions gathered. Central topic of this edition of SHPPh was the problem of classical thinkers and epigons in the development of Polish thought. Detailed programme of the whole event can be downloaded here.
The seminar was also an opportunity to celebrate the second edition of the book Classics of Polish Philosophy by Ryszard Palacz, an essential figure for historians of philosophy at UZ, and a researcher of reception of Greek philosophy in medieaval thought, about whose passing we have informed in the autumn of 2024. Full program of the event can be downloaded here and a brief report (in Polish) on the UZ’s website can be found here (with a photo gallery). The seminar was accompanied by an exhibition devoted to Professor Palacz and many speakers referred to his work and his understanding of classical Polish philosophers.
Two AΦR group members delivered their papers during the SHPPh. Tomasz Mróz talked about Bohdan Kieszkowski (1903-1997) and about Polish and international disputes on his works on Florentine Platonism.
In the thirties in Poland Kieszkowski was engaged in a dispute with Marian Heitzman (1899-1964), who accused him of underestimating the influences of medieval neoplatonism on Ficino. Heitzman and Kieszkowski, two scholars of one generation, two researchers of Renaissance Platonism, represented two different academic centres, conservative Cracow and more progressive Warsaw, and their polemical texts were published separately in philosophical journals in Cracow (Heitzman) and Warsaw (Kieszkowski). Kieszkowski, naturally, considered Heitzman’s position to be an overestimation of medieval influences on Renaissance’s thought and labelled it as ‘medievalism’. On international niveau a polemic against Kieszkowski’s work came from a Portuguese scholar, José Vitorino de Pina Martins (1920-2010), who praised Kieszkowski’s scholarship, yet spared no words of criticism against Kieszkowski’s edition of Pico della Mirandola’s Conclusiones (Geneve 1973).
Adrian Habura’s talk smoothly concluded the whole conference focusing, on the one hand, on a paper titled Four Understandings of Classicism by Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886-1980), and on the other hand, on Palacz’s (1935-2024) arguments for including Tatarkiewicz among the classics of Polish philosophy.
Habura analysed Tatarkiewicz’s notion of classicism and supplemented Palacz’s arguments for including Tatarkiewicz among the classics, demonstrating that not only his History of Philosophy, History of Aesthetics, and History of Six Ideas, that is, basically historical studies, but also his Analysis of Happiness, the original philosophical work by Tatarkiewicz, bears the mark of classic. Ethical considerations in the Analysis of Happiness, noticeably influenced by Aristotle, not to mention Tatarkiewicz’s doctoral degree from Marburg on a thesis devoted to Aristotle, allowed Habura to highlight an additional aspect of Tatarkiewicz as a classic, for he was not only a classic among Polish philosophers, but also a classic in another understanding: as a follower or – to use the term proposed by Juliusz Domański – a user of Aristotelian philosophy. And it was Aristotle whom Tatarkiewicz himself regarded as the most classical among all the classical philosophers of ancient Greece.
Neverending Story of… Plato in Poland
This time it was at the University of Hradec Králové where the word about Plato reception in Poland was spread. Tomasz Mróz, among his activities in accordance with Erasmus+ Teaching Assignment, delivered a talk on political aspects of Plato reception in Poland. The focus was, naturally, on Plato’s Republic and on the connections between the interpretations of Plato’s political philosophy and the political situation of Poland from the 19th century to the post World War II era. This talk was delivered for international students enrolled in a course: Ancient Greek Democracy and Its Legacy taught in UHK by professor Jaroslav Daneš, with whom AΦR research group has successfully co-operated for many years.
The topics covered in this talk included a brief overview of how political situation of Poland changed and how various researchers of Plato interpreted his political ideas. The lecture started with Bolesław Limanowski (1835-1935), an advocate of socialism, who used Plato’s ideas as an evidence that socialism had been present in European thought from its very beginning. The next was Wojciech Dzieduszycki (1848-1909), a conservative politician, who ridiculed gender equality and socialism as political phantasies. Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954) considered totalitarian character of Plato’s polis as a natural consequence of his idealism, but after the World War II emphasised Plato’s evolution and his affinity to Christianity. Stefan Pawlicki (1839-1916), a Christian thinker rejected the connection between socialism and Plato, but praised the idea of preventive censorship. At the dawn of Polish independence after World War I Eugeniusz Jarra (1881-1973) welcomed the idea that social promotion or demotion in the state should depend on personal capabilities, and that the elites should no longer consist of the members of aristocracy but of the most gifted individuals. After World War II, in the Stalinist period, the criticism of Plato stemmed from various premises. Tadeusz Kroński (1907-1958), on the one hand, a Marxist thinker, considered Plato’s political philosophy as an aristocratic reaction to democratic changes in Athens, and in general as an expression of obscurantism and religiosity. Władysław Witwicki (1878-1948), on the other hand, was apparently critical towards Plato’s political project, assessing it as a monastery, concentration camp and a totalitarian state, but actually it was a criticism in disguise of the then political system.
In spite of the fact that the history of Poland or Polish philosophy was completely new for the members of the audience, their questions and remarks demonstrated that they were able to see the relations between the views of Plato’s interpreters and their interpretations of Plato’s Republic. Moreover, as usually, the discussion was the evidence that more general issues related to Plato’s legacy remain topical and stimulating as, for example, the chronology of Plato’s dialogues or reliability of image of Socrates.
Stefan Pawlicki on Greek Concepts of Human Soul
On March 15th-16th 2025 the first conference of the Academic Club for Ancient Philosophy (Koło Naukowe Filozofii Starożytnej) at the University of Warsaw took place. This academic event was organised by young enthusiasts of ancient thought and gathered scholars from various Polish universitites, and students interested generally in the topic of body and soul or in the subjects of individual papers, the list of which can be found here.
AΦR, naturally, was present at the conference. Tomasz Mróz delivered a paper titled Stefan Pawlicki on the concepts of soul in Greek philosophy. Pawlicki (1839-1916) was once in his career a professor of philosophy in Warsaw, but Mróz’s paper was focused on mature period of his career, when he was a respected professor in Cracow and the author of History of Greek Philosophy. Volume I of this book appeared in print in 1890 (front page on the right) and was the first Polish handbook for ancient philosophy, while the volume III, meant to be devoted to Aristotle, was not finished by the author.
Pawlicki was an admirer of Plato, but instead of presenting well-known opinions of Pawlicki on Plato, Mróz discussed Pawlicki’s criticism of the pre-Socratic thinkers. Pawlicki was a historian of philosophy who aimed not only to provide the readers with an account of the ideas of Greek thinkers, but considered the needs of the Polish reading audiences and supplemented his discussion of the Greeks with assessments and evaluations presented from the Catholic standpoint.
One of Pawlicki’s methods was to draw far reaching conclusions from the fragments of the pre-Socratic thinkers, especially materialist philosophers like Democritus, and then present them as unacceptable. For example, he stressed pantheist traces in Heraclitus and pessimism of Democritus, while at the same time he seemed to appreciate the concept of reincarnation and Pythagorean ethics, as encouraging human beings to improve themselves.
His arguments against most of the Greek concepts of human soul allow to structure them in order of perfection, starting with Aristotle (whom Pawlicki did not manage to present), followed by Plato and Socrates, with Pythagoreanism below, and ending with Heraclitus and Democritean materialism, which was – just like 19th century materialists – a constant subject of Pawlicki’s critical remarks.
Ancient Wisdom in a Lithuanian Interpretation
Connections between Ancient Φilosophy Reception research group at the University of Zielona Góra and the scholars of Vilnius University have been many times documented on this website. This time we want to report on an Erasmus+ teaching visit of a Lithuanian scholar, Mindaugas Stoškus from Vilnius, in the Institute of Philosophy (UZ). He was our guest between 10th and 14th of April.
Among dr Stoškus’ teaching acitivities, there was a lecture titled:
What Can We Learn from the Ancient Concept of Wisdom?
This lecture was delivered twice, during the classes of Philosophical Counselling (above on the photo by A. Habura) and on the course of the History of Ancient Philosophy. At the beginning of his lecture, Dr. Stoškus discussed etymological issues, focusing on the very notion of wisdom. The he took an attempt to enumerate the attributes of the wise man, as the Greeks saw them. They included, for example, knowledge, experience, ability to justify judgments, and desire to disseminate wisdom. Dr. Stoškus discerned philosophical wisdom from its sophistic version and, in conclusion, emphasised the essential connection between theory and practice of wisdom.
Greek philosophy still fares well!
Platonism in Polish Romantic Poetry
On November 18th-19th an interdisciplinary conference took place in the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), with the University of Warsaw (UW) as a coorganising institution. The title of the event was: The Romantic Tradition. Poetry, Community, Sources. Most of the papers presented during the meeting were focused on Polish poetry and literature of the 19th century Romanticism, nevertheless papers on various philosophical aspects of the epoch constituted a significant contribution to the conference topic.
A member of AΦR research group, Tomasz Mróz, took part in the conference and delivered a talk titled Plato in the Works of Słowacki. Some Observations. Mróz discussed references to Plato in the works by Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849), a major figure in the period of Polish Romanticism, one of the three poets considered as the National Bards.
The speaker aimed to demonstrate that most of Słowacki’s references to Plato were incidental, that the poet mixed up Plato’s dialogues (the Phaedrus and the Phaedo) and his knowledge of Plato’s works was limited to their French translations or paraphrases. It was the idea of reincarnation that seemed appealing to Słowacki, but he could have learned it from other sources. The poet used and transformed, however, Plato’s myths and it was the myth of Er from the Republic that became the metaphysical foundation of Słowacki’s great poetic work The Spirit-King. The conclusion of the paper was that in spite of the fact that the name of Plato is present in Słowacki’s legacy, Platonism as a system of philosophical ideas is absent there.
A Guest from Vilnius University
In the last week of November Institute of Philosophy hosted an Erasmus+ visitor from Vilnius University, prof. Jonas Čiurlionis, a long-time collaborator of Ancient Φilosophy Reception research group. It was his second visit in Zielona Góra. One of the tasks of our guest was to consult conclusions of the dissertation by Adrian Habura, the topic of which is a multifaceted reception of Aristotle in Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s oeuvre. It is sufficient to add that prof. J. Čiurlionis is Habura’s auxiliary supervisor.
The most important, however, were Čiurlionis’ lectures and talks for students of philosophy and related fields of study. During the first of them he discussed Aristotle’s Physics. He focused not only on the most significant problems of this work, as, for example, the theory of four elements, but also presented the broader context of Stagirite’s reflection, his fundamental premises and his general view of the world. At the end of the lecture, prof. Čiurlionis referred to Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist, who considers Aristotelian physics to be still topical and not outdated.
The second lecture on ancient philosophy was devoted to the subject of harmony, broadly considered. Starting with Pythagorean and Platonic concepts, prof. Čiurlionis moved on to other authors dealing with this issue and demonstrated how harmony manifested itself in various aspects of ancient Greek philosophy and, more broadly, in Greek culture, and in subsequent centuries, in music and astrology.
American Platonism and ISNS Dublin Conference
International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, in accordance with its name, promotes studies and academic work on Platonism, Neoplatonism and Platonic tradition broadly considered. In co-operation with various academic centres throughout the world ISNS organises annual conferences with large number of panels covering a wide spectrum of what can be called Neoplatonism. In 2024 the conference was held in Trinity College, Dublin on June 19th-23rd.
Among numerous panels of the Dublin conference there was one on the American Platonic tradition, its title was: Transcendental Echoes: Neoplatonism’s Influence on American Renaissance Thought. The aim of this panel was described by its originator, prof. Sonya Isaak, as follows: “this interdisciplinary panel endeavors to explore the dynamic intersections between Neoplatonism and American Transcendentalism, elucidating the profound philosophical, spiritual, and literary amalgamations that defined this vibrant movement in the 19th century…”. The panel had only three speakers (prof. Jay Bregman, prof. S. Isaak and T. Mróz), but it gathered many participants in the audience who wanted to learn bout the developments of Platonism in the 19th century American thought.
T. Mróz’s paper was titled Paul Shorey as a Plato Scholar and his Influences from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Shorey (1857–1934) was the most eminent and internationally recognised American Plato scholar at the turn of the 20th century. He took part in the then international disputes on interpreting Plato’s philosophy and the very methods of reading and researching the dialogues.
As an American Plato scholar, Shorey, in his works on Plato, did not avoid referring to American writers, with a particular emphasis on Emerson (1803–1882), the author of Representative Men (with a significant essay on Plato). Shorey, naturally, included Emerson in a long line of thinkers inspired by Plato, but the aim of Mróz’s paper was to focus on the influence exerted by the Transcendentalist writer and philosopher, Emerson, on the classics scholar and academic researcher, Shorey. Although he did not hold Emerson as a philosopher in high regard, there are some traits of his thinking of Plato which may be ascribed with Emersonian origins, for example, reading Plato as a moral philosopher and tendency toward unity. Thus the connection between American Transcendentalist movement and academic studies on Plato in American tradition was demonstrated.
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