As the well-known proverb goes, war is a continuation of politics by other means. Every realistic political perspective acknowledges the possibility of war as the last resort in solving agonal conflicts. As such, politics is to war as the threat of force is to its actual use.
With skepticism, my paper explores the presupposition that war can be a lawful, legitimate instrument of politics. Specifically, I consider two opposing “just war” paradigms- the realistic and moralistic.

The subject of the article is the concept of a man formed by a Polish philosopher and sociologist Erazm Majewski (1858—1922). The appropriate topic of the deliberations is preceded by a short reflection concerning the area of anthropological inquiry in the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis of Erazm Majewski’s views raises the question of a research perspective established by the philosopher, and then the possibility to obtain an answer to the question of human nature on basis of the theory of civilization. A special attention was paid the premises, which as defined by Majewski, enabled a man to cross the borders of the animal world.

In 1898, „Przegląd Filozoficzny” („Philosophical Review”) published Adam
Mahrburg’s polemic with Kazimierz Twardowski’s text Psychology in relation to physiology and philosophy (1897), as well as response of Twardowski and Mahrburg’s
further polemic. In the background of this dispute were discrepant views on psychology, metaphilosophy and philosophy. Mahrburg, representative of critical positivism, supporter of Kantian agnosticism and Wundtian physiological psychology, didn’t understand Brentano’s program of empirical psychology, supported by Twardowski. Besides, Mahrburg had different views on philosophy’s function: for him philosophy was theory of science. Therefore he rejected both Twardowski’s idea of philosophy as a group of sciences and his specific concept of relations between psychology and philosophy.

The paper discusses shortly the reception of W. Witwicki’s translations and commentaries to Plato’s dialogues. The emphasis is laid on the initial absence of philosophers among the reviewers of Witwicki’s works, for the overwhelming majority of the reviewers consisted of philologists and writers. In the course of time, when translations by other scholars appeared, Witwicki’s works gained wider reception among professionals and many critical assessments, which were sometimes unjust. His translations, nevertheless, still play a protreptic role as the first.

There is considerable convergence between the views of many members of the Lvov-Warsaw School and the positions endorsed in the current debate on persistence through time. But there are some significant differences, too. In this paper, I am going to reconstruct and to analyse several positions of some representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School on the issue in question. Then I shall identify and shortly describe those elements of the reconstructed accounts which are, on the one hand, specific to the Lvov-Warsaw School and, on the other hand, mostly ignored in the present-day metaphysical dispute. The general message of the paper is the contention that although there were no systematic separate research within the Lvov-Warsaw School on persistence through time, some solutions and interpretations put forward by its members can serve as an interesting enrichment of the ongoing debate.

The subject of the article is the influence of the broadly understood NeoKantianism on the assimilating of Kantians ideas of critical philosophy (critical method) in Poland. I would like to present a philosophical and historical reflection on the dissertation of professor of University of Poznan Adam Wiegner (1889—1967), entitled Zagadnienie poznawcze w oświetleniu L. Nelsona (Problem of Knowledge in the Light of L. Nelson, 1925), in which he undertook a critical analysis of Nelson’s problem of impossibility of the theory of knowledge and possibilities of the metaphysics. The main aim of the article is to present the Neo-Kantians (as well as the Neo-Friesians) context of the above-mentioned Wiegners dissertation and to reflect on the reception of Nelson’s thoughts in Poznań. I would like to show that, contrary to the schematic simplification, Neo-Kantian thought had a significant influence on the shape of philosophy in Poland.

Benedykt Bornstein belongs to a group of philosophers, who demonstrated an opportunity for development of the scientific metaphysics with the use of the axiomatic method. His general theory of existence was developed under the influence of critical discussion on the major problems related to Kant’s theory of cognition. Arguments presented in this article are to be an attempt to recognise all the assumptions and conditions which our philosopher investigated. It is stressed that in the context of native philosophy Bornstein is neo-kantian as well as a representative of Polish analytical philosophy. However, his epistemological and ontological analyses have not met the proper reception by the environment of Lvov-Warsaw School. Although, he has remained Kazimierz Twardowski’s student in terms of character of
his methodological research, strive for terminological precision and the use of formal language in his arguments.

The article deals with the history of Polish philosophy. Particular attention is given to its practical, at times even pragmatic overtone. The praxis dominates in the Middle Ages, modern philosophy and also in contemporary thought. After the appearance of Kantianism, there emerges in Poland a theoretical consciousness. These practical and theoretical dimensions lead to a synthesis that is referred as “Polish humanism”.

The present paper presents Blaustein’s critical remarks on the selected assumptions of Husserl’s phenomenological method. The analysis concerns the socalled pretranscendental phenomenology. First, I present the critique of the concept of impressons. Then, I analyze remarks upon aspects pertaining to the concept of materiality and quality of act.

Tadeusz Kroński (1907—1958) was one of the most influential representatives of Polish post-war  Hegelianism. He was also regarded as the spiritual father of the Warsaw school of the history of ideas. In the 1950s, Kroński published historico-philosophical analyses focused on the ideas propounded by 19th century
Polish Messianists of the inter-uprising period, presenting an outright negative view on the movement. Kroński does not see any significant features of theoretical continuity between the tradition of 19th century Polish Hegelianism, shaped by historical influences of the Romantic Messianic ideology (as formulated by Libelt and Cieszkowski), and his own philosophical position. The present study is aimed at a critical verification of Kroński’s analyses. It seeks to investigate the origins of the assumption regarding the fundamental discontinuity of both historical lines of development of Polish Hegelianism. Also, an attempt is made to delineate the actual extent of realization of the postulate of radical rejection of Messianic ideas.

In this article I deal with Czeslaw Milosz’s relationship to Catholicism in the social dimension. We can see in his position an ambivalence, not only in his life, but also in relation to the civilization and political role of the Church: from the strong acceptance on the historical and civilization level (“radical Catholicism”), to a strong dislike of the unions of Catholicism with the nationalism in various countries, especially in Poland; from  sympathy for Catholic modernism, to a strong dislike of some post-Vatican II rulings, which was, to some extent, a legacy of modernism. Moreover, Milosz did not want the Christian religion and the Catholic Church to be used politically (either through the left-wing politics, progressive politics, or nationalist politics), but also feared the dominance of the Church, the theocratic attempts. He did not want to subordinate the political sphere to religion or to subordinate religion to the political sphere. I treat this text as contributing to a more general theme, namely the attitude of Polish intellectuals to Catholicism in the 20th century

In my article I intend to analyze L. Kołakowski’s departure from Marxism. I will conduct my reflections in the context of his relationship with Adam Schaff. It is precisely this that A. Schaff was the promoter of the dissertation of Master and Candidate (PhD) Leszek Kołakowski.Both these philosophers in the sixties of the
twentieth century revisited their views on Marxism by entering into a current called revisionism. Leszek Kołakowski, however, criticized Marxism and became his leading critic, while Adam Schaff attempted to reform it by enriching the existing ideology of man’s philosophy. The views of both philosophers differed from the official version of Marxism. While Kolakowski had completely escaped from Marxism, Schaff tried
to defend him. Schaff did not particularly approve the assessment of Marxism embodied in Mainstream Marxism of Kołakowski. It is not by chance, therefore, that both philosophers can be regarded as the most outstanding representatives of Marxism before 1968 in Poland.Their views were not always contradictory, but they were often similar because Schaff approached Kolakowski talking about ecumenical Marxism — and therefore their antagonism was primarily personal and less philosophical.

Anna Teresa Tymieniecka’s (1923—2014) concept of phenomenology of life appears as a cosmological perspective of the development of phenomenology in general. Although Polish philosopher elaborated this conception in polemic with Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological view and in co-operation with the natural sciences, she tried to keep all the gains of classical phenomenology. Ultimately, she subjected the transcendental consciousness to verification, pointing its stability as a result of the intentionality of cognition, which Husserl considered as the constitutive function of the subject. By changing the perspective, Tymieniecka was striving to demonstrate that the subject — the living human being — gives the world the sense of meaning and knows it as originally inspired and motivated by his imagination. Therefore, the
creative imagination — Imaginatuio Creatrix — should be established as a dynamic source of the constitution of the human world.

For some time now in the modern world there is a debate on higher education, conditioned by various factors about the nature of globalization and the new challenges with the increasing role of the market. Various possible positions on the shape of the university, its scientific research, academic cooperation and academic education at the highest level are presented. They speak on the subject by representatives of the humanities, natural sciences and engineering. One of the representatives of the humanities, who shared his reflections on this subject, was Stefan Folaron, a scholar not yet known in modern Polish philosophy and science. Their views and comments on the twenty-first century vision of the university presented mainly in
his work: Etos profesora XVI wieku. Uniwersytet — człowiek (Professors Ethos of the Sixteenth Century. University — Man). He demanded the necessity of seeking a model of a university that would be adequate to changing reality but would remain faithful to its centuries-old mission.

The article presents the situation of Polish philosophy in the post-war period, when there was an attempt to dominate science by Marxists. The culmination of this process happened during the session of the First Congress of Polish Science (29.06—2.07.1951). The Congress had a symbolic meaning for the Polish philosophy because along with the Congress independent philosophical magazines were closed, pre-war professors were dismissed, and also a social scientific movement was liquidated. The state authorities considered philosophy, next to law and history, as disciplines which were essential for the promotion of Marxist ideology. As a result, the pre-war research and didactic professors at universities were replaced by “educated Marxists”, for whom philosophy was only a discipline which served for ideological tasks. For many years it changed the way of practicing philosophy in Poland, the consequences of which can be felt to this day.

This article shows the leading role of the elite in creating cultural heritage. Since the subject of reflection has been the society, carried out on the search for distinctive features of outstanding individuals. Many thinkers emphasized the culture-forming, nation-forming and political importance of the elites. Most often in the concepts of the elitist his influence on the direction of social development. The elitist tendencies culminated in the early twentieth century. Also in the works of Polish thinkers can be found threads of elitism.