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Dialogue and Universalism

Volume 17, Issue 3/4, 2007
Universalism In Polish Thought

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Displaying: 1-14 of 14 documents


1. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Eugeniusz Górski Foreword
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2. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Ewa Starzyńska-Kościuszko Bronisław Ferdynand Trentowski’s Universal and National Philosophy
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In the article I present the fundamentals (the conception, the structure and the method) of universal philosophy of Bronisław Ferdynand Trentowski, the eminent Polish philosopher of romanticism. I show the origin of the idea of universalism and the difference between Trentowski’s method of differentiating identity and Hegel’s dialectics. In the last part of the article, Trentowski is revealed as a philosopher who united universalism of his philosophy with its national character.
3. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Bogumiła Truchlińska Polish Universalism in the Interwar Period (1918–1939)
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The interwar decades in Poland (1918–1939) were characterized by plurality and diversity. The purpose of the paper Polish Universalism in the Interwar Period is to show the foundations of the socio-philosophical trend, which is universalism. In modern philosophy universalism was in permanent conflict with individualism, but in the interwar period the reality became more complicated. It was “collectivism”—the trend based on the cult of the State, nation, race, and class—that started to aspire to be called universalism. The author does not classify these trends as universalist, and universalism itself criticized them. Different varieties of universalism can be found in the interwar period. The author indicates the literary-philosophical universalism of J.N. Miller, and the socio-conservative universalism of W.L. Jaworski, but she focuses on J. Braun’s conception of the universal subject and the idea of absolute union, and on Christian universalism,showing the importance of the emerging Polish personalism for universalist philosophy. In these proposals the author sees the germs of the later (2nd half of the 20th c.) conception of ecumenism, dialogue, and the primacy of person over things.
4. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Stanisław Borzym “Universalism” According to Władysław Leopold Jaworski and Othmar Spann
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Polish conservative thinker Władysław Leopold Jaworski developed an interest for the theories of Austrian philosopher Othmar Spann. Both accepted universalism, both also believed that universalism was inspired by romantic tradition, although Spann sought its roots much further back in history, even as far as Aristotle. Both authors staunchly criticized modern-day individualism and liberalism, which they considered fatal. In their opinion individualism and liberalism upset the primacy of totality in social thought, which led to multiple pathologies. Despite their accentuation of totality, both philosophers displayed very decided anti-totalitarian convictions typical for many conservatives.
5. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Grażyna Cetys-Ratajska Roads and Roadless Tracts of the Interwar Literary Criticism. About Jan Nepomucen Miller’s Universalism
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In this paper I present Jan Nepomucen Miller’s universalism, i.e. his own conception of literature, which pursues the right to compete with its Romantic model. Universalism, whose elaboration of the philosophical premises took place in the years 1923-1925, never received a complete and finite form; it only indicated a certain option for which the whole, universality and universum was more important than a part. Although this conception proved to be a Utopian project, without its driving force, being too far from the reality to support the spiritual values of the Polish culture, it constitutes (especially in our interwar thought) one of unique attempts to create a culture based on a non-Romantic canon of values.
6. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Lucyna Wiśniewska-Rutkowska Unionism According to Jerzy Braun
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Jerzy Braun formulated the principles of unionism in forty five points constituting a concise, twenty-four-page manifesto entitled “Unionism. Basic Principles”. The text was published anonymously by a conspiratorial publishing in 1943. After over fifty years, on the initiative of All-Poland Club of Lithuania’s Lovers, it was reprinted—this time with the author’s name and lengthy explanations.My main objective is the analysis and interpretation of Braun’s text.Unionism, according to Braun, does not mean separatism, it is a principle and attitude based on integrating values that deserves definite ethics according to which activity directly derives from “voluntary accepted commitments”. Braun neither questions nor overestimates fight. Unionism means dialogue, agreement, but also this type of rivalry that remains in contradiction to a well-known saying “homo homini lupus est”. Unionism perceived as universalism, allows, according to the words of a romantic poet, “to differ beautifully”.The first part of the unionist principles comprises philosophical considerations inspired with the thought of Józef M. Hoene-Wroński. They constitute an introduction to more specific problems concerning the social and political life in the future Poland. Braun paid a lot of attention to “ideocratic” system in which emphasis moves from “persons, dynasties, reason of state to ideas”. He stressed the importance of economic and cultural dynamism, though economic achievement, in his opinion, should only serve the development of culture. The final parts of the unionist program present the necessity to unify the world in which Poland will find her proper position.
7. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Rafał Łętocha National and Universal in the Philosophy of Jerzy Braun
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Jerzy Braun (1901–1975) began as a scout activist, in subsequent years he became known as a politician, poet, prose writer, playwright, screenwriter, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian. In the inter-war years he founded and edited the periodicals Gazeta Literacka [Literary Gazette] and Zet, he also headed the Hoene-Wroński Society which propagated the thought of Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński. Under the Nazi occupation he founded and headed the underground organization Unia grouping Poland’s leading intellectuals. Unia propounded a universalistic program of integrating nations and states whose outlines Braun had laid down before the war. Braun’s unionism theory, in which he strove for a harmonious combination of national and universal ideas, was based on 19th-century concepts developed by, among others, Bronisław Trentowski, August Cieszkowski and, of course, Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński. Imprisoned by the communists after the war, in the 1960s Braun attended the Vaticanum II sessions as an unofficial ecumenism expert.
8. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Eugeniusz Górski Globalization, Universalism and Changes in the World--System
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The author outlines several globalization theories, focusing on those best represented in Polish literature. He clearly disagrees with the general definitions and interpretations of today’s globalization process, which he sets against the Polish universalistic tradition and its views on the world’s growing internationalization and universalization. Polish universalism embraces several nationally-oriented and Christian-universalistic philosophical schools.
9. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Robert Piotrowski Globalization and Universalist Ideologies
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Globalization is defined as reduction in world’s diversity due to cultural Gleichschaltung and compactification. A question is asked how the process is linkedwith the presence of universalist ideologies as great religions, utilitarianism, Socialism or ecologism. Some suggestions concerning further research are made.
10. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Ryszard Stefański, Adam Zamojski The Universal Character of Andrzej Wierciński’s Concepts and Their Use in Social Sciences
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It is an attempt to exemplify the style of Wierciński’s scientific approach. The first part (A. Zamojski) presents his concept of the peculiarity of the specific human nature which is polarized into the animal side versus the human potential. The second part (R. Stefański) describes the anthropological concept of ideological development with the focus on the notion of ideological control subsystem. The latter can be employed as a tool of surveying the internal consistency of social organizations.
11. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Zbigniew Wolak Universalism of Christianity, Logic, Philosophy and Science
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In this article I present a special contribution to universalism by the Cracow Circle (Bocheński, Drewnowski, Salamucha). Presented thinkers were scientists, philosophers and theologians, and tried to combine these disciplines in their works. They took standards of rationality from logic and other sciences, and applied them to Christian philosophy and theology. This kind of rationality can be considered universal and when we use this rationality in dialogue between religion and other worldviews, the dialogue has a chance to be really universal.
12. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Arkadiusz Modrzejewski Karol Wojtyła’s Universalistic Vision of the History and Civilization
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Despite Karol Wojtyła later to become Pope John Paul II was firstly a moral and anthropological philosopher, his reflection also concerns in historiosophical and civilizational issues. This part of his intellectual activity is rather less known. But Wojtyła was an author of original conception of history and civilization. Among different ways of historiosophical and civilizational interpretations we can find him as a representative of moderate universalism. He joined the belief in existence of universal history as well as the common values with a need of clear definition of human “ego” that could be realized thanks to concrete communities. He saw history in theological and philosophical aspects. Firstly, for him it was a universal history of salvation that is a participation of all nations and cultures as well as every real man. In a philosophical sense he emphasized the universal desire of getting to know the ultimate truth and gaining absolute good. His ethical model of universal civilization is based on the acceptation of cultural diversities. That is why it could be named as “ecumenical civilization”. Its main method is a dialogue that leads to truth and peace. We can find the source of Wojtyła’s universalism in a personalistic philosophy, which sees a proper subject of history and culture aswell as civilization in a person.
13. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Artur Paszko Unionism and Universalism in Jerzy Braun’s Thought. Some Remarks on Rafał Łętocha’s Book on Jerzy Braun
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14. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3/4
Subsequent Information On The Uw D&U Project: International Virtual University of Dialogue and Universalism (UW D&U)
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