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Polish Political Platos in Brill’s Companion
Brill’s Companion to the Legacy of Greek Political Thought edited by David Carter, Rachel Foxley, and Liz Sawyer is one of the latest volumes in the series (vol. 8, Leiden-Boston 2024). Contributors to this volume investigated a range of responses to issues surrounding the legacy of Greek political thought, exploring the ways in which political thinking has evolved from antiquity to the present day.
One of the chapters in this book was authored by Tomasz Mróz who discussed variety of Polish interpretations of Plato’s political works in studies written by nineteenth-century Polish authors (Plato’s Political Works in Nineteenth-Century Polish Thought, pp. 335-363), including historians of philosophy, philosophers and social thinkers. Their diverse views on the Republic of Plato reflected the wealth of ideas which are present in Plato’s opus. In spite of their various intellectual backgrounds and goals, all these authors found inspiration in Plato’s work for the implementation of his political ideas into their own arguments touching upon contemporary social or political issues, including the questions of democracy, socialism and gender equality.
Let’s say a few words about the authors presented in Mróz’s chapter to give a glance of its content: Bolesław Limanowski (1835-1935), a socialist thinker, regarder Plato as a progressive philosopher, despite his disregard for democracy. For Wojciech Dzieduszycki (1848-1909), a conservative politician, Plato’s socialist and feminist ideas were too destructive for society to be implemented. Wincenty Lutosławski (1863-1954), a famous Plato scholar, considered Plato’s socialism as a natural consequence of his metaphysics and only a transitional step in his development. Stefan Pawlicki (1839-1916), a neo-Scholastic philosopher, claimed that even Plato’s most controversial political ideas (communism and feminism) had stemmed from his deep moral beliefs, but all their shortcomings were later to be corrected by Christianity. Eventually, Eugeniusz Jarra (1881-1973), a historian of legal philosophy, emphasised gender equality and the possibility of social promotion as progressive ideas supporting democracy.
PS.: this chapter was edited and improved by Una Maclean-Hańćkowiak and is presented on Kudos platform.
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.
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 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.
Plato’s Adventures with Censorship in Poland
On June, 1st, a talk by Tomasz Mróz was delivered at the Interdisziplinäre Kolloquium Osteuropäische Geschichte / Polenstudien (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle). The topic of the presentation was the interference of various types of (broadly understood) censorship with Plato scholars and research on Plato in Poland. T. Mróz discussed three (and a half) cases of such interference. The talk was a supplemented and developed version of one of Mróz’s previous papers.
The first case of censorship was relatively harmless, for only one word, namely: socialism, was removed from the title of Wincenty Lutosławski’s book, Plato as a Creator of Idealism [and Socialism], (Warsaw 1899). Imperial Russian authorities in Warsaw removed the word “socialism” from the title and from the table of contents, without even looking into the text of his book on Plato, for “socialism” occurs on many pages, being – in Lutosławski’s view, a natural consequence of idealism.
Stanisław Lisiecki represented another case of broadly understood censorship. He was an enthusiast of Plato and a translator of his dialogues, but only his Republic saw the light of day in the interwar period, while all the remaining dialogues were left unpublished in the manuscripts. His leaving the clergy and Roman Catholic church was the most probable the reason of his difficult situation in Polish academia, for some scholars were unable to accept him as a colleague and assess his works without religious prejudice. As a result, his works were not published, but some justice in this regard has been recently done by the members of the AΦR research group.
Władysław Witwicki was more succesful in his translations of Plato’s works. Soon after the Word War II he managed to publish a small book on Plato (Plato as an Educationalist, 1947) and a translation of Plato’s Republic (1948). In the book and in his commentaries to Plato’s text, he compared the post-war reality of Poland and Plato’s political project to a concentration camp, great monastery, or a totalitarian state. Some of his remarks were censored and the second edition of the Republic (1958) appeared in print in an ideologically “corrected” version.
As the additional “half” of the censorship cases, Witwicki’s struggle with his sister, who was a Catholic nun, were presented. She tried to convince him not to criticize Catholicism in his commentaries, but he replied to her with a short comic story depicting his and Plato’s imaginary meeting with her, and Plato’s escape from holy water.
Thanks to the fact that the audience consisted of specialists in East-European history, in philosophy and in the historiography of philosophy, a wide spectrum of questions appeared and the author did his best to satisfy multi-oriented demands of the public.
T. Mróz’s stay in Halle was sponsored by Aleksander-Brückner-Zentrum für Polenstudien from the funds of Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).
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.
Unknown (hitherto) Studies on Plato and Aristotle Finally Published
A new book series was initiated by Marek Derewiecki Publishing House. The series is devoted to publishing editions of source materials and studies related to the history of reception of ancient philosophy. Polish name of the series is “Studia i Teksty z Dziejów Recepcji Filozofii Starożytnej”.
Volume one of the series includes source materials retrieved from manuscripts of Stanisław Lisiecki (1872-1960). In addition, three of his Latin papers published in the interwar period were translated into Polish. Three sections constitute the whole volume. They are: Platonica, Aristotelica and Auto-Biographica, and hence the title of the collection: S. Lisiecki: On Plato, Aristotle and on Himself (O Platonie, Arystotelesie i o sobie samym). Platonica include twelve Lisiecki’s studies on individual dialogues and three papers devoted to specific issues in Plato. Aristotelica is much smaller and contains only four works, while the autobiographical section includes two Lisiecki’s autobiographical sketches (1910 and 1957) and four letters to university professors and family.
The materials collected in this volume shed light on the author’s biography and his relations to the most eminent scholars of his times. Moreover, he can finally speak in his own words to the wider public. Only now we can examine his ideas and arguments and compare them to the works of other Polish experts in ancient philosophy of the interwar period. Even if his texts can be sometimes assessed as secondary or not meeting academic standards, they provide us with an opportunity to supplement our view on the history of Polish research on Greek philosophy with works by original author.
The whole volume is a collective production. The source material was obviously written by the author, Lisiecki. His manuscripts were examined and re-typed by Adrian Habura and T. Mróz. Latin texts were translated by Adriana Bolibok (University of Life Sciences in Lublin) and T. Mróz, and their translations were looked through and refined by Barbara Brzuska (University of Warsaw). Whole collection was edited and prefaced by T. Mróz. The volume is one of the results of the research project funded by the Polish National Science Centre.
The book is available at the publisher’s bookstore here.
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