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History of Classics Discussed at UHK
An essential part of the Oral History and the Classics project was a conference held in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Hradec Králové. This academic meeting which took place on June 1st-2nd and was titled Classics: the Past, the Present, and the Future. It gathered specialists reflecting on various issues related to the development of classical studies including history of ancient philosophy.
The head of the project and the conference was professor Jaroslav Daneš, with some help from Tomasz Mróz (University of Zielona Góra), a researcher in the project. Participants of the conference focused on historical developments of the classics, including their own experiences, “personal paths”, on recent problems, e.g. with teaching classics, and on the perspectives of future research in this area of studies.
Platonic Inspirations was the title of the session during which an AΦR member,T. Mróz, delivered his paper: Plato in post-war Poland. Continuities and novelty. His talk was devoted to three Polish Plato scholars, who survived the World War II and attempted to include their experience of war and the post-war political situation of Poland into their studies on ancient philosophy. They were, starting with the oldest: Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954), Stanisław Lisiecki (1872-1960), Władysław Witwicki (1878-1948). It is sufficient to mention that it was the Marxist interpretation of Plato that was pushed in Poland after the war by Polish Marxist philosophers (e.g. by T. Kroński) and in general works on philosophy translated from Russian. In these circumstances Lutosławski planned to published a volume on Plato presenting him as an intellectual and moral remedy for Europe, Witwicki, quite the opposite, blamed the philosopher for inventing totalitarianism, and Lisiecki turned from Plato to Aristotle, who was more acceptable then as a naturalist and a critic of Plato.
Vitello’s Anthropology and Its Aristotelian Roots
On May 28th-29th 2024 a conference titled Polish Philosophical Anthropology took place in Częstochowa. This event was organised by the Department of Philosophy, Jan Dlugosz University. It was another conference held in Częstochowa that aimed at shedding some new light on selected aspects of the history of philosophy in Poland.
AΦR member, Tomasz Mróz, has participated in this conference with a paper devoted to the philosopher with whom all the histories of philosophy in Poland usually begin. It was Vitello, a 13th century scholar, who is well-known from his theory of demons as animals built from the four elements with air as a dominant factor. Vitello argued that the demons were superior physically and intellectually to all the other animals, including human beings. Human beings, consequently, could only be considered as an intermediary species between apes and demons. In this way Vitello, with the aid of Aristotle, demonstrated that human being can’t be regarded as a crowning creature in the terrestrial world. Let us add on the margin that Vitello took advantage of his expertise in philosophy, natural sciences, medicine and life’s experience to depict vividly various interactions between humans and demons, not all of which can be presented to the minors 😉
Philosophy and Poetry in Gorzów Wielkopolski
On May 13th-14th 2024 the Jacob of Paradies Academy in Gorzów Wielkopolski held an international conference Poesis Philosophorum – Philosophia Poetarum. The head, heart and the soul of this symposium was professor Marian Wesoły with whom Oral history team, including AΦR member, had conducted an interview in December 2023, as it was announced here.
Detailed program of the conference can be downloaded here. Tomasz Mróz was one of the speakers on the first day of the conference. In his presentation he took an attempt to demonstrate how Polish poets referred to philosophers, or how philosophers used poetry to explain philosophy.
T. Mróz discussed both ancient and modern philosophers, whose ideas had been referred to by poetic means. Apart from various verses on Copernicus or Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s poem on Immanuel Kant, T. Mróz presented Ignacy Krasicki’s (1735-1801) satire on Plato and Stanisław Lisiecki’s (1872-1960) use of a church anthem to explain the predominant character of the Good in Plato’s philosophy.
Krasicki was a leading representative of the Enlightenment literature in Poland. The aim of his poem was to ridicule Plato’s philosophy and the figure of an ancient sage in general: Plato, pompously speaking to his disciples as a possessor of wisdom, is ultimately bitten by a flea who in this way declares its possession over Plato. No philosopher, then, can escape nature!
Lisiecki was not a poet, but over a century later classics scholar and translator of Greek philosophy into Polish. He used the lyrics of a church song, praising inexhaustibility, inexplicability and God’s predominance over the created world. His intention was to demonstrate Polish audience that Plato’s highest Good had a similar character to Christian God, the highest being, and could be easily comprehended by means of analogy.
This paper contributed to the variety of topics discussed during the conference, presenting various relations between philosophy and poetry. The conference in general demonstrated that even smaller academic institutions can gather international participants, organise significant academic events and thus contribute to philosophical life, granted that there is some spiritus movens behind them.
(Another) Erasmus Teaching Visit in Vilnius
In April, 15th-19th, 2024, Tomasz Mróz enjoyed his fourth Erasmus teaching visit in Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University.
This year, some issues connected to the reception of ancient philosophy were addressed during the lecture on Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886-1980) and his History of Philosophy. It was ancient philosophy as a subject of various problems in historiography of philosophy.
More important, however, was a talk devoted to Vitello (ca. 1230-1300) and his theoretical reflection on the nature of the daemons. Vitello’s demonology stemmed from his research in natural sciences and it employed neo-Platonic and Aristotelian elements, such as a belief in a mathematical structure of the universe, the theory of four elements and natural creatures. Vitello’s philosophical investigations were presented against the background of the 13th century developments in philosophy, especially the Averroist controversy.
Teaching duties were supplemented with meetings with the Faculty members and discussions with students extra universitatis muros. Hopefully, this was not the final chord in the co-operation between Vilnius University and the University of Zielona Góra.
A Visitor from Vilnius and Plato as a Teaching Subject
In March 4th-8th an Erasmus exchange visitor from Vilnius University stayed at the University of Zielona Góra and delivered some talks here. Our guest was dr. Mindaugas Stoškus who is an assistant professor at the Department of Theoretical Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Philosophy, VU.
Among M. Stoškus’ presentations there was one on the methods of teaching ancient philosophy, as a part the reception of ancient philosophy, and it was delivered to the students in the Doctoral School of Humanities and Social Sciences and to invited guests. The central topic of his lecture was Plato’s Republic and Plato’s political project which, resulting from Stoškus’ interactive co-operation with the audience, turned out to be a tricky and problematic issue. The lecturer demonstrated to the audience, consisting mostly of non-philosophers, how superficial reading of Plato’s opus magnum may lead to misunderstanding of the true nature of his political aims, one of which was disjoining wealth and personal success from political power and responsibility.
We hope that M. Stoškus’ visit at UZ is not the final chord of the co-operation between our two partner institutions and that our mutual collaboration will develop.
AΦR at the Twelfth Polish Congress of Philosophy in Łódź
In September (11th-16th) 2023 the 12th Polish Congress of Philosophy took place in Łódź. Three members of AΦR took part in this great event, and they delivered four papers there. Tomasz Mróz spoke about three traditions of doing philosophy and three interpretations of Plato at the ancient philosophy section, and the other three papers were presented in the section of Polish philosophy: on the influence of Aristotle on the works of W. Tatarkiewicz (Adrian Habura); on H. Jakubanis’ arguments for the reneval of philosophy in accordance to its ancient roots (Mariam Sargsyan); and on B. Kieszkowski, a researcher of Renaissance Platonism, on his life, works and their reception (again T. Mróz).
T. Mróz’s paper, Three Traditions of Doing Philosophy and Three Interpretations of Plato, was devoted to presenting three Plato scholars of the turn of the 20th century, Paul Natorp (1854–1924), a German, Paul Shorey (1857–1934), an American, and Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954), a Pole, and their interpretations of Plato. Mróz attempted to relate these three personalities of one generation and their Platonic studies with their native, dominant philosophical traditions: neo-Kantianism, Emersonian tradition and Polish Romantic Messianism. Their methodologies, views on the chronology of the dialogues and the status of ideas were discussed, as a starting point for future comparative research of their Platonic studies and reciprocal references.
M. Sargsyan’s presentation was titled: Arguments of Henryk Jakubanis (1879-1949) for Renewal of Philosophy and Culture on the Ancient Model. It started with an introductory part about the biography of Jakubanis to familiarise the audience with his personality. Then the main part followed and it consisted in discussing Jakubanis’ work The Significance of Ancient Philosophy for the Modern View of the World (1910). Historical and philosophical research methods of Jakubanis were analysed and compared with those of his academic supervisor in Kyiv, Alexei Gilarov. Another comparative perspective was provided by the works of Tadeusz Zielinski, who was an internationally recognised scholar, and a kind, older colleague for Jakubanis.
A. Habura’s paper was titled Aristotle in the Works of Władysław Tatarkiewicz and divided into two parts. In the first one, following Tatarkiewicz’s own statement, Habura distinguished two “images” of Aristotle’s philosophy which Tatarkiewicz had developed during his research career. Habura took into account various works of Tatarkiewicz and demonstrated that these two images were not contradictory, but rather complementary to each other. In the second part of his presentation Habura distinguished five aspects of Aristotle’s inspiration in Tatarkiewicz’s works, in accordance with Tatarkiewicz’s own reflection on this topic, and proved a significant, substantial and lasting impact of Aristotle on Tatarkiewicz’s original philosophical investigations.
Second paper by Mróz was a presentation of a further development of his research on Bohdan Kieszkowski, a Polish scholar who was a specialist on Renaissance Platonism and Pico della Mirandola. Earlier this year Mróz discussed Kieszkowski’s biography, but this time the focus was on Kieszkowski’s works and their reception, that is, his polemic with another Polish expert in Renaissance philosophy, M. Heitzman (1899-1964), on the sources of Renaissance Italian Platonism, and a critical reception of Kieszkowski’s edition of Pico’s Conclusiones (1973) by a Portuguese researcher, José Vitorino de Pina Martins (1920-2010). Heitzman searched for the roots of philosophy in Florentine Academy in medieval thought, while Kieszkowski tended to emphasise the role of ancient sources. As for Pina Martins, he praised Kieszkowski’s erudition, yet pointed to a large number of errors in Conclusiones, resulting from various reasons, including Kieszkowski’s lack of precision in reading Latin texts.
Bertrand Russell, His Views on Ancient Philosophy and Critical Reaction on Them in Poland
In August 17-18th T. Mróz took part in the sixth annual History of Analytic Philosophy Workshop organised by Tilburg Center for Moral Philosophy, Epistemology and
Philosophy of Science. This year’s meeting was devoted to Global Reception of Russell’s Scientific Philosophy.
T. Mróz’s paper was prepared in co-operation with Paweł Polak (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków), who presented his part in an on-line form. The title of their presentation was The Early Reception of Russell’s Philosophy among Polish Philosophers – a Diversity of Perspectives. P. Polak focused in particular on reception of Russell’s ideas among the representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School, while T. Mróz discussed two cases of reception of Russell’s History of Western Philosophy (1945) among Polish historians of philosophy, and some other issues, e.g. the censorship of Russell’s texts in Poland.
What matters here is ancient philosophy. The first Polish critic of Russell’s History was Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954), who expressed his views on Russell’s Plato in a letter (Lutosławski’s draft on the left) to the author (a paper in “Russell” on the letters between the two philosophers has been announced here). Despite the differences between them, Lutosławski declared in his letter: “Your History proves that we agree in our esteem of Plato”. Moreover, he praised Russell, “In your six chapters on him [=Plato] I did not discover a single error and I agree with everything you say”. In fact, both authors set themselves different goals in discussing Plato and this resulted in disparate methods in their presentations of Platonism, yet Lutosławski’s opinion was so important for Russell that he passed it immediately to his publisher.
Marian Heitzman (1899-1964) was not a philosopher of a similar recognition to Lutosławski, he was an expert in Renaissance philosophy and in F. Bacon. His views on Russell’s History were published as an extensive review study in the oldest Polish philosophical journal „Philosophical Review” [Przegląd Filozoficzny]. His general opinion on Russell’s book was the following: “it is worth to read the book and it is worth to have it on a bookshelf, but it cannot be recommended as a handbook or a synthetic study of the history of philosophy”. He appreciated Russell’s style and his „humour coloured by a bit of Volterian scepticism”. His focus was Renaissance philosophy, but he remarked on many deficiences in Russell’s chapters on ancient topics. For example, the missing or too shortly discussed subjects, according to Heitzman, included Gorgias, Zeno and the logic of the Stoics. Although Russell intended to emphasise issues in political and social philosophies, in Heitzman’s eyes he missed the cosmopolitanism of the Cynics and misrepresented the problem of the Sophists and democracy. Finally, Russell aimed to present various philosophers as the effects of their social conditions, but he failed to illustrate this with Antisthenes of Athens (not an Athenian citizen) and his philosophy of cynicism.
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