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Talks on W. Tatarkiewicz’s Lectures on Greek Philosophy

A series of conferences called Seminars of Historians of Polish Philosophy continues and develops. The latest edition (the 13th) was organised in Toruń by the Institute of Philosophy of the Nicolaus Copernicus University on May 28th-30th, 2026. The title of the meeting was Polish Historiography of Philosophy. Methods – Problems – Representatives. The members of Ancient Φilosophy Reception research group were obviously present there. It should be only briefly mentioned here that the 12th edition of the Seminar took place in May 2025 in Zielona Góra, and the initiative came from AΦR.
Those were Tomasz Mróz and Adrian Habura who represented Institute of Philosophy (UZ). Both their papers were presented in the panel New Sources for the History of Polish Philosophy, and both were focused on various aspects of the same archival material. This material cosisted of excerpts, reports and notes taken by Bohdan Zawadzki (1902-1966, photo on the right) from lectures delivered in Warsaw in the early 20’s of the 20th century by Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886-1980). They remained unknown before Habura’s short research visit in Vilnius.

The paper by T. Mróz was titled Bohdan Zawadzki’s reports from Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s lectures on Greek philosophy. Mróz made a general presentation of Zawadzki as a student of Władysław Witwicki (1878-1948) in Warsaw and a professor in Vilnius, and his relations to Tatarkiewicz. Then he focused on the manuscript materials and the representation of Plato in them. His conclusion was that even a preliminary analysis of Zawadzki’s notes, especially in parts devoted to Plato, demonstrates that Tatarkiewicz as a lecturer of Greek philosophy was still influenced by his studies in Marburg and he had provided his students with much richer material than he later included in volume I of his History of Philosophy.
A. Habura, in his paper titled Two images of Aristotle in Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s works in the light of Bohdan Zawadzki’s notes, examined a more detailed issue related to Zawadzki’s manuscripts. A starting point of his paper was a distinction between the two “images” of Aristotle that Tatarkiewicz developed before the WWII. The first was the result of his doctoral studies in Marburg (1910), while the second was included in his History of Philosophy (1931). An analysis of these two “images” leads to the conclusion that, although they are formally different, they do not differ so much in the content. Zawadzki’s manuscripts from Tatarkiewicz’s lectures are valuable in this case, because they allow to demonstrate that in the 1920s, while writing his History of Philosophy, Tatarkiewicz’s studies on Aristotle were more developed than they appeared until now.
Participation of both scholars in the Seminar was sponsored from the funds of “Small Grant” (UZ).
Archival Survey in Special Collections of the Catholic University of Lublin

Two members of AΦR group. Mariam Sargsyan and Tomasz Mróz, took a research trip and visited Lublin to do an archival query in the Special Collections section in the University Library of the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). Research work in Lublin took place at the turn of June and July 2022 and was focused on the legacy of Henryk Jakubanis (1879-1949), who had been a professor of KUL for over two decades, and was planned and funded as part of the doctoral project Preludium Bis 2.

A preliminary archival survey in Jakubanis’ collections was carried out by T. Mróz in the autumn of 2010, but only now the entire collection has been searched through and it has been done by M. Sargsyan. Her doctoral thesis is devoted to Jakubanis and Lublin collections are in this regard essential. Jakubanis translated and studied ancient Greek philosophers and his work on Empedocles is his most important achievement. M. Sargsyan had a great opportunity to put her hands on the materials that have been produced and accumulated throughout the whole life of this historian of ancient philosophy, including his Kyiv period. The documents ranged from small personal details through official records, letters to manuscript drafts of his works in the history of philosophy.


In the special collections of KUL M. Sargsyan had a unique opportunity to take her first steps in researching manuscripts and archival resources. This experience will be crucial for her further development as a historian of philosophy working in the field of AΦR. Her work was possible thanks to the consent of the Head of the KUL Library, Katarzyna Kołakowska, Ph.D., and proceeded smoothly, without difficulties for the Special Collections Reading Room staff spared no efforts to help and facilitate M. Sargsyan’s research.
Covers of Jakubanis’ notebooks with his comments
and preparatory notes on Seneca’s letters.
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