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History of Philosophy in Poland in Martin-Luther-Universität Halle
Selected Topics in the History of Philosophy in Poland was the title of the course, which was delivered in May and June 2022 by Tomasz Mróz for the students of Martin-Luther-Universität (MLU) Halle in the building of the Steintor Campus (on the left). T. Mróz was appointed at MLU as Gastprofessor (funded by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD) for a month at the Aleksander-Brückner-Zentrum für Polenstudien (Institut für Geschichte).
The course had a form of “Blockseminar” meetings and consisted of lectures, seminars and students’ presentations, focusing on various ideas, currents and problems in the history of philosophy in Poland. A course like this could not, obviously, do without a closer insight into some issues of ancient philosophy reception. For example, reception of Aristotle’s philosophy of nature in Vitello’s theory of demons and Pythagorean and Platonic inspirations in Copernicus were discussed. During one of the final lectures the problems of Plato reception in Poland were presented, as they were previosuly structured in the book Plato in Poland 1800-1950. The works of the following authors were briefly examined: A.I. Zabellewicz, F.A. Kozłowski, W. Tatarkiewicz, P. Semenenko, B. Limanowski, W. Dzieduszycki, E. Jarra, S. Pawlicki, W. Lutosławski, S. Lisiecki and W. Witwicki.
All the students attending the course in Polish philosophy should be thanked for their dilligence, co-operation and their presentations. The lectures, however, wouldn’t have taken place without the granting decision of professor Yvonne Kleinmann, who holds a chair in the East-European history at MLU and is the head of the Aleksander-Brückner-Zentrum für Polenstudien, and without co-ordinating work of doctor Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel, to both of whom the lecturer is extremely grateful.
Adrian Habura’s Visit at the University of Edinburgh
In the second half of April, a member of our research group, Adrian Habura, travelled to Edinburgh to visit the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Science (PPLS) at the University of Edinburgh and attend two conferences there.
The first conference was organized by the Northern Association for Ancient Philosophy (NAAP) and took place on the 19th and 20th of April. Habura had there an opportunity to listen to talks focused on various issues in the history of ancient philosophy and its reception. At the end of the first day, there was a special session devoted to the memory of Sarah Broadie (1941-2021), an English philosopher and expert in ancient philosophy, focusing on both ancient and contemporary ethics.
The second conference was organized by the British Society for History of Philosophy and took place in the building of the Royal Society of Edinburgh between 21th and 23th of April. Some sessions there were focused on issues in ancient philosophy. This conference too had a special section devoted to Sarah Broadie and especially to her book, Plato’s Sun-Like Good (2021).
Although A. Habura did not deliver his paper at the conferences, he gave a talk: Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886-1980). Life and Writings – Reception of Aristotle – Ethics, which was presented at the research seminar to Dr. Damian Caluori and Ph.D. students. Habura outlined Tatarkiewicz’s biography and his works referring to Aristotle’s thought. The main point was to sketch the Stagirite’s influence on Tatarkiewicz’s ethical considerations. The paper was subjected to a discussion and Habura received a valuable and helpful feedback, especially from D. Caluori.
A. Habura’s visit in Edinburgh was possible thanks to the grant from The W. Bednarowski Trust, and was co-funded by the Institute of Philosophy (University of Zielona Góra, Poland) and from the overheads of the past AΦR project.
A Visit of a Guest from Vilnius University
Jonas Čiurlionis, Ph.D., who started to co-operate with AΦR research group in the autumn of 2021, has paid us a visit under the Erasmus agreement between Vilnius University (Lithuania) and University of Zielona Góra. Dr. Čiurlionis researches philosophical principles of ancient scientific ideas, including those of Aristotle, their development and reception. More information on his activities can be found here.
At the University of Zielona Góra dr. Čiurlionis has delivered English lectures for graduate students in the doctoral school, for undergraduate students of philosophy and for students of physics. All his talks were devoted to various aspects of mathematical, harmonical and musical foundations of scientific theories of antiquity, for example, concept of four elements, Platonic theory of creation of the world, or Aristotelian theory of movement and change. What was of special significance for the members of the AΦR group, was that dr Čiurlionis explored extensively reception and development of these concepts later in antiquity, in the middle ages and Renaissance.
One of the aims of dr. Čiurlionis’ visit in Zielona Góra was to take an essential part in doctoral seminar (in Polish) and consult the progress of Adrian Habura, M.A., who is composing his disseration on reception of Aristotle’s philosophy in works of Władysław Tatarkiewicz, for dr. Čiurlionis was appointed as an auxiliary supervisor for A. Habura’s thesis.
Ancient Philosophy in Academic Curriculum of Władysław Tatarkiewicz
A paper by Adrian Habura, discussing Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s (1886-1980) works on ancient philosophy, which had been published by him by 1947, was published in “Ruch Filozoficzny” (vol. 77, 2021, iss. 3), the second oldest Polish philosophical journal. The paper is structured chronologically and presents results of careful sifting of all Tatarkiewicz’s works published before 1947.
Władysław Tatarkiewicz was a historian of philosophy and a philosopher, who studied ancient Greek philosophy throughout his entire research career. It is not surprising to say that he considered ancient philosophy to be the foundation of European philosophy. Furthermore, his original philosophical works indicate that the investigations of ancient Greeks were his major inspiration. The aim of this article is to provide an outline of those of Tatarkiewicz’s works in which Greek philosophy was explored by him as a topic of his historical research or used as the source of inspiration for his original philosophical reflection. The analysis of Tatarkiewicz’s works that were focused on Greek philosophy is related to Tatarkiewicz’s methodology. All this taken together allows to give a preliminary answer to the question of the significance of ancient Greek philosophy for his philosophical development and for philosophy in Poland in general.
Habura traces Tatarkiewicz’s academic biography back to his Ph.D. thesis from Marburg, which was devoted to Aristotle – and later reviewed by D. Ross – and Aristotelian inspirations in his subsequent paper on Weltansichten. One of the results of Tatarkiewicz’s stay in Marburg was his research on Plato, largely inspired by his Marburg teachers, Paul Natorp and Hermann Cohen. Later works by Tatarkiewicz in ethics, including his habilitation thesis, reveal his continuous direct and indirect references to Greek philosophers. In 1931 two volumes of his History of Philosophy saw the light of day, his opus magnum in historiography of philosophy, including, obviously, chapters on the Greeks, and in 1947 his treatise On Happiness appeared, with numerous references to ancient ethical systems.
This paper offers not only a mere report of Tatarkiewicz’s references to the ancients, but moreover, Habura succeeded in indicating connection between Tatarkiewicz’s historical interest in ancient philosophy and his own original research in philosophy and ethics.
Full paper in Polish is available on the journal’s website here.
A Biography of a Classics Scholar: Stanisław Lisiecki (1872-1960)
The latest issue of “In Gremium” annual journal (15/2021) includes a paper by Tomasz Mróz who took an attempt to compose a biographical sketch of Stanisław Lisiecki (1872-1960). The course of his life can be reconstructed from scraps of information in letters, official documents and only few printed materials.
This is the most extensive biography of Lisiecki so far and it was based on handwritten documents from the Archive of Polish Academy of Sciences, the Manuscript Section of the Jagiellonian Library, and from private collections. A turning point in his life was his decision to abandon his church career and start living as a layperson. In the interwar Poland his choice was not met with acceptance of the members of the then academia.
Although he cannot be counted among the top Polish historians of ancient philosophy or classics scholars, he was unjustly disregarded as a historical figure with a considerable, though unpublished legacy, coinsisting of translations of and commentaries to a number of Plato’s and Aristotle’s works.
The paper (in Polish) can be downloaded from the journal’s website here.
On W. Tatarkiewicz’s (Mis)fortunes
The Days of Foreign Languages took place again at the University of Zielona Góra, and it was their VIIth edition. Their general topic this year, that is, lack, absence, deficiency, violence, exclusion etc., did not come as a surprise in current circumstances.
Two members of AΦR group took part in this event. Mariam Sargsyan delivered a paper in Russian on various metaphors with which the notion of “consciousness” is described, but it was Adrian Habura whose presentation was devoted to the reception of ancient philosophy.
His paper discussed the problem of happiness and well-being in Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s (1886-1880) life and his autobiographical notes, esp. the chapter titled Beneficial misfortunes (Korzystne niepowodzenia). Habura confronted it with Tatarkiewicz’s treatise Analysis of Happiness and some other of his ethical writings. He attempted to demonstrate that Tatarkiewicz, almost like a Homeric hero, many times in his life turned his misfortunes into success, and how Aristotle’s philosophy and Tatarkiewicz’s own research on Aristotle – from his Ph.D. thesis in Marburg to mature works in Warsaw – helped him develop his attitude to the problems of human life in general, and how his theory of happiness was rooted in Greek philosophy, above all in Aristotle.
AΦR at Classical Studies Workshop in Greece
Two members of AΦR Group, together with an AΦR friend, took part in Classical Studies Workshop in Greece. This tour event took place in the first ten days of October and was organised by The Sant-Tech Foundation in co-operation with Catholic University of Lublin (KUL).
It was an unforgettable tour of Greece from Athens to Thessaloniki, including Delphi, Marathon, Meteora, Pella, Stageira and many more places of archeological interest, many of which being extremely important for philosophers and historians of philosophy, e.g. Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lycaeum, ancient Stageira or Nymphaeum in Mieza. The whole stay and the journey were carefully planned by Katarzyna Kołakowska and Lesław Lesyk (both of KUL and Sant-Tech Foundation), who smoothly adapted the workshop’s schedule to unexpected conditions.
The chronological order of the papers delivered by participants from Zielona Góra is: 1) Was the First Computer Designed by the Greeks? (M. Kurzawa, at the footsteps of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens; third from the left in the photo below). The speaker focused on the history of research on the Antikythera mechanism, which is preserved in this Museum, and its unbelievable construction. 2) Aristotle in the Lycaeum (T. Mróz, in the archeological site of… Aristotle’s Lycaeum; first on the right) discussed briefly the excavations in this location and presented the outlines of the history of the Philosopher’s school.
Due to unfavourable weather conditions the following presentations were delivered en route to Thessaloniki, that is, on the bus: 3) Aristotle on the Beach (M. Kurzawa) was a paper devoted to Aristotle’s works in natural sciences and focused on his anecdotal scientific curiosity which gave rise to his theories, which still amaze us to this day. 4) Aristotle as the Greatest Teacher of Happiness (A. Habura; second from the left in the photo). The speaker presented the most essential Aristotle’s instructions on achieving happiness from the Nicomachean Ethics and highlighted their universal character, which was additionally substantiated by the studies of W. Tatarkiewicz, a recognised Polish historian of philosophy and ethician, on the same subject. 5) Polish Historians of Philosophy and Classics Scholars on Their Journeys to Greece (T. Mróz). This was rather a loose speech than academic paper and it presented three Polish scholars (W. Dzieduszycki, T. Sinko, W. Witwicki) and their memories of visiting historical places, some of which at the times of their journeys looked differently then they do today, and their observations on modern Greeks, which in turn appear sometimes to tally with today’s impressions of Greece.
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