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AΦR at the 11th Seminar of the Historians of Polish Philosophy in Częstochowa
Seminar of the Historians of Polish Philosophy is a cyclic academic meeting which gathers philosophers and historians of philosophy who focus on the history of philosophy in Poland. 11th edition of this seminar was held in Częstochowa at Philosophy Department of Jan Długosz University on May 15th-16th, 2023, and it was focused, not surprisingly, on the topics of war and peace.
Two AΦR members delivered their papers there. Adrian Habura’s paper was not directly devoted to the reception of ancient philosophy, for he focused on the first edition of Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s (1886-1980) work O szczęściu [Analysis of Happiness] (1947), and took an attempt to analyse the content of the book and search for the topics related to war issues to determine possible origin of each chapter, that is, to divide the chapers into two groups: those composed by Tatarkiewicz before the outbreak of the World War II and those compose after it.
Tomasz Mróz, in turn, presented a largely unknown biography of a 20th century Polish researcher of Florentine neo-Platonism. His presentation had a long title: Bohdan Kieszkowski (1904-1997): a Researcher of Renaissance neo-Platonism and His Career Destroyed by the War (with the materials collected by Professor Czesław Głombik).
Kieszkowski published his works in Polish, Italian and French, and edited Conclusiones by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Geneve 1973). His opus vitae was the book Platonizm renesansowy [Renaissance Platonism] (Warszawa 1935), subsequently published in Italian as Studi sul platonismo del rinascimento in Italia (Firenze 1936). His studies were discussed mostly in Poland, Italy, France and Spain, but existing sources allowed only to reconstruct his biography to the first years after the World War II.
Materials collected by prof. C. Głombik (1935-2022) from family archives shed some light on Kieszkowski’s life on an exile in France. He was meeting there his former supervisor from the University of Warsaw, W. Tatarkiewicz, who was able to visit Paris several times in the sixties and considered Kieszkowski to be his best student. The letters from Tatarkiewicz to Kieszkowski’s sister, Wanda, reveal the facts concerning the details of a difficult life of a scholar on the exile. To Tatarkiewicz’s disappointed Kieszkowski was considering a turn in his focus from Renaissance studies to military history, yet he was very compassionate about his former student because he was aware of Kieszkowski’s physical and psychological limitations, resulting from his war and after war experiences. His legs, for example, were severely injured by German air raids already in 1939, he narrowly avoided amputation and throughout his life he experienced the negative effects of this until the end of his life. Communication between Tatarkiewicz and Kieszkowski was also affected by the fact that the former’s hearing was impaired and the latter spoke very quietly, as if he was afraid that someone could overhear them. Nevertheless, Kieszkowski’s works on Renaissance Platonism won recognition in the academic world and it is an interesting task to research their reception and impact.
Erasmus Teaching Visit in Vilnius University
In April, 18th-22nd, 2023, Tomasz Mróz enjoyed his third Erasmus teaching visit in Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University.
Vilnius University is a unique research and teaching institution in Central-Eastern Europe. It has a long and sometimes turbulent Polish-Lithuanian history. Some of the lectures delivered by T. Mróz to philosophy students in Vilnius concerned a part of this history and, naturally, reception of ancient philosophy.
One of the lectures discussing the issues of ancient philosophy reception had Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954) as its topic. The focus was on his Vilnius period and his vision of a philosophical development of Plato from idealism to spiritualism. Since Lutosławski considered Polish Romantic Messianism to be founded on spiritualism, consequently he could consider this unique tradition to be rooted in Plato, who was presented by Lutosławski as an ancient philosophical predecessor of Polish 19th century literary and philosophical tendency.
Another lecture in which ancient philosophy reception appeared was 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 and the theory of four elements. Vitello’s philosophical investigations were presented against the background of the 13th century developments in philosophy.
Teaching duties were supplemented with meetings with the Faculty members and discussions on the plans of a future co-operation activities between philosophers of Vilnius University and University of Zielona Góra.
Consultation Visit in FF UHK
As we have already announced here, AΦR actively cooperates in pursuing a research project funded by the Faculty of Philosophy University of Hradec Králové (FF UHK) and it is necessary to discuss issues appearing in the initial phase of our cooperation. A meeting devoted to identifying and solving such problems took place on March 28th, 2023, in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, UHK (photo of the Faculty main building on the right).
Jaroslav Daneš and Tomasz Mróz (both on the photo) agreed on the criteria of selecting scholars, Polish experts in ancient philosophy, who will be invited to share their unique, personal experiences of developing their decade long careers. It will be both interesting and instructive for young scholars and researchers to learn the objectives that previous generations had to overcome, support they received etc. Moreover, preliminary schedule of interviews was arranged and various technicalities were discussed.
A Report in “Études Platoniciennes”
We are delighted to inform that a concise review of T. Mróz’s book, Plato in Poland 1800-1950 (Academia Verlag, 2020), composed by Professor Luc Brisson, was published in Bulletin Platonicien of “Études platoniciennes” (vol. 17, 2022).
Plain text of the report by prof. Brisson is available here in open access.
There is no need to introduce Professor Brisson, a Canadian-French scholar, researcher and translator of Plato and neo-Platonic philosophers, to anyone who has even a vague idea on the current state of research in ancient Greek philosophy.
Currently Professor Brisson is an Emeritus Research Director (Ancient Philosophy Group) at The Centre Jean Pépin (Villejuif, France), a research laboratory of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the École Normale Supérieure of Paris.
A Paper on Vilnius’ Plato Scholar in a Lithuanian Journal
In “Logos” (issue 112), a Lithuanian journal, a paper was published on Józef Jeżowski (1793-1855) and his assessment of a Russian translation of Plato’s Laws. Subtitle of the paper, Classics scholar from Vilnius and his Plato between Germany and Russia, or Italy and Lapland, stems from Jeżowski’s deliberations on the future of classical and Platonic studies on the outskirts of Europe.
Who was Jeżowski? A partly forgotten figure among excellent scholars in the humanities, who were affiliated to Vilnius University in the first decades of the 19th century, an expert in classical languages and literatures, a scholar recognised for his edition of Horace’s Odes, an outstanding student of G. E. Grodek, moreover, a founding member of the Philomath Society, and a friend of A. Mickiewicz. Considering today’s political borders, his life’s path encompassed three countries, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine, though in the 19th century Jeżowski was a Pole and a citizen of Russian Empire.
In a word, Jeżowski’s assessment of a translation of Plato’s Laws, produced by a Russian scholar, V. Obolensky, was not favourable, though somewhat superficial. Jeżowski, however, was rather focused on expressing his neo-classical manifesto rather than on a fair and insightful evaluation of the Russian text. His work bore a long title, which could be translated as follows: On the Progress of Philological Research Concerning the Writings of Plato. A Critical Piece, Composed Due to a Publication of the “Dialoues on the Laws”, Attributed to Plato. This study was actually addressed to Polish reading audiences, yet it was published in Moscow in 1829, during his years of exile in Russia. Jeżowski’s most important argument in his criticism was a complete lack of Obolensky’s references to German scholars, whose merits were considered by Jeżowski too significant to be passed over in silence. In his criticism, he was nevertheless optimistic, hoping that even in the most inhospitable circumstances it is possible for the humanities to flourish, and hard work can transform Lapland-like academic desert of Russia into blossoming Italy-like scenery, to which he compared German scholarship.
Considering the fact that Jeżowski was born in Uman and died in vicinity of Kaniv, both places being located in today’s Ukraine, and considering present war, Russian aggression on Ukraine, the paper was dedicated by the author to his fellow Ukrainian historians of philosophy.
A Cooperation in a Research Project with the University of Hradec Králové
In January 2023 at the Faculty of Philosophy University of Hradec Králové (FF UHK) a new research project starts. It is one of the winners of the Internal Grant Competition of FF UHK for International Research Teams. The aim of this competition was to stimulate and develop international research collaboration of FF UHK scholars with partners abroad.
Principal investigator in the project is doc. Mgr. Jaroslav Daneš, Ph.D. who works as an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences (FF UHK). His research interests include ancient Greek political theories, esp. theory of war in philosophy and tragedy, and related issues. Doc. Daneš has visited Institute of Philosophy, University of Zielona Góra, several times on various occasions (as Erasmus+ teacher, as a conference participant, and recently as a member of an academic committee of the International Workshop for Doctoral Students in Philosophy).
The title of doc. Daneš’ project is Oral History and Classics. In short, the project aims to record and collect individual histories of European classical scholars from various countries, including those who devoted their careers to researching ancient philosophy, and thus to uncover the history of this discipline in the experience of scholars. A database of interviews with distinguished scholars will be assembled and subsequently analysed to reveal the connections between personal histories and the history of the discipline, including historiography of ancient philosophy. A Polish collaborator of doc. Daneš in this project is Tomasz Mróz (UZ), whose share in project is estimated as 30%.
A Monograph Book on Stanisław Lisiecki (and his Plato)
In a book series published by Marek Derewiecki a new volume has appeared. T. Mróz is the author and the title of the book is Stanisław Lisiecki (1872-1960) and His Plato (pp. 150). This book is a second one in the series and it complements volume one, which consisted mostly of unpublished materials produced by S. Lisiecki during his long and laborious life.
Apart from the foreword and concluding remarks, the book is divided into two main parts. The first part presents Lisiecki’s biography as fully as it has never been presented before. Numerous sources from the archival and manuscript collections from the libraries of Warsaw and Cracow were deployed to compose this chapter. Private, family materials were also used, including the photograph inside the book, an essential part of which was artistically remade to depict Lisiecki on the cover. His biography was divided into three chapters, which are separated from each other by two important facts in his life: leaving the clergy in 1921 and the outbreak of the World War II in 1939. The longest chapter is the middle one, between these two dates, because it was Lisiecki’s most productive period and it was possible to use numerous testimonies to document it.
Part two of the book discusses Lisiecki’s interpretation of Plato’s philosophy and its development. This part is divided into three parts as well. It presents Lisiecki’s views on the philosophical and spiritual evolution of Plato in three stages: Plato as a Socratic thinker, Plato in his mature works and Plato as an old sage. It was not possible to present Lisiecki’s views on all the important dialogues, for example on the Symposium or the Phaedrus, because his legacy is fragmentary and his comprehensive synthetic study on Plato had been destroyed during the war. Nevertheless, Plato in Lisiecki’s views is a half-religious thinker, an inspired poet and a visionary, whose creative personality was most fully expressed in his theory of the Good. The Good was sometimes identified by Lisiecki with God or with Providence and it transgressed dialectical formulation. Although Plato’s theory of reincarnation was assessed by Lisiecki as going too far, he found in it a consolation and an explanation of many phaenomena, for example, the inequality of talents among people.
Despite his admiration for Plato, Lisiecki did not avoid criticising him. Plato was for him a topical thinker and his dialogues – an intellectual challenge. We may say that Lisiecki, as many before him, was carried away by Plato’s enthusiasm, but he never lost sight of the deficiencies of Platonism.
This book is the final result of the research project on S. Lisiecki as a researcher of ancient Greek philosophy, sponsored by National Science Centre.
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