In Defence of Utopia: Józef Tischner’s Thinking about the Social Ethos
Abstract
An important trend in Tischner’s philosophical output was the observation of the phenomena that would occur in the current social life of Poles. The trend gained particular significance at the turn of the 1970s and the 1980s, when the processes that finally led to the systemic transformation began. During this period, Tischner made a successful attempt to reconstruct the Polish social ethos. It turned out that its integral element is the presence of utopian projects to rebuild the social order in the country. Tischner stated in his analyses that these utopias play a constructive role in the social life because they motivate people to engage in the political struggle for deep system reforms. The article presents the content of Tischner’s reconstruction of Polish utopias from the 1970s and the 1980s and the correlation between social ethics, ideological discussions, and political practice of the declining period of the Polish People’s Republic.
Keywords
Józef Tischner; utopia; social ethos; Polish political system; criticism of the socialist regime,; solidarity
References
Baczko, Bronisław. Les imaginaires sociaux. Mémoires et espoirs collectifs. Paris: Payot, 1984.
Baczko, Bronisław. Lumieres de l’utopie. Paris: Payot & Rivages, 2001.
Baczko, Bronisław. Światła utopii. Translated by Wiktor Dłuski. Warszawa: IFiS PAN, 2016
Baczko, Bronisław. Wyobrażenia społeczne. Szkice o nadziei i pamięci zbiorowej. Translated by Małgorzata Kowalska. Warszawa: PWN, 1994.
Bonowicz, Wojciech. “Od Wydawcy.” In Józef Tischner, Etyka solidarności. Kraków: Znak, 2000.
Czapliński, Przemysław. “Wątpliwe rozstanie z utopią.” Teksty Drugie, nr 4 (40) (1996): 92–105.
Czapliński, Przemysław. Resztki nowoczesności. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2011.
Czapliński, Przemysław. The Remnants of Modernity. Two Essays on Sarmatism and Utopia in Polish Contemporary Literature. Translated by Thomas Anessi. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition, 2015.
Czubernatowa, Wanda, and Józef Tischner. Wieści ze słuchanicy. Kraków: Znak, 2001.
Dymarski, Zbyszek. “Debata księdza Józefa Tischnera ze szkołą lubelską.” Logos i Ethos, no. 1 (1998): 239–245.
Fedorowicz, Jacek. W zasadzie tak. Warszawa: KAW, 1975.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Die Unfähigkeit zum Gespräch.” Universitas, vol. 26 (1971): 1295–1304.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Niezdolność do rozmowy.” Translated by Bogdan Baran. Znak, no. 3 (309), (1980): 369–376.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “The Incapacity for Conversation.” Continental Philosophy Review 39 (2006): 351–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-006-9041-2.
Głowiński, Michał. Nowomowa po polsku. Warszawa: PWN, 1990.
Głowiński, Michał. Zła mowa. Jak się nie dać propagandzie. Warszawa: Wielka Litera, 2016.
Graczyk, Marian. “Jana Pawła II idea pracy nad pracą.” Seminare. Poszukiwania naukowe, 11 (1995): 169–188.
Jawor, Marek. “Spór Józefa Tischnera z tomizmem — między konfrontacją a dialogiem.” Filozofia Chrześcijańska, vol. 10 (2013): 211–227.
Kamosiński, Sławomir. “Praca jako obowiązek a praca jako źródło satysfakcji. Studium historyczne roli i znaczenia pracy w dziejach Polski po 1945 roku.” Annales. Etyka w życiu gospodarczym, vol. 19, no. 2 (2016): 63–79.
Klemperer, Victor. LTI — Notizbuch eines Philologen. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1947.
Nowak, Leszek. Polska droga do socjalizmu. Pisma polityczne 1980–1989. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University, 2011.
Nycz, Ryszard. “Literatura polska w cieniu cenzury: wykład.” Teksty Drugie, nr 3 (51) (1998): 5–27.
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.
Tischner, Józef, and Anna Karoń-Ostrowska. Spotkanie. Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska. Kraków: Znak, 2003.
Tischner, Józef. “Czym jest filozofia, którą uprawiam,” 9–13. In Myślenie według wartości. Kraków: Znak, 1982.
Tischner, Józef. Etyka solidarności. Kraków: Znak, 1981.
Tischner, Józef. “Filozofia i ludzkie sprawy człowieka.” Znak, no. 1 (223) (1973): 18–30.
Tischner, Józef. Il pensiero ei valori. Bologna: CSEO Biblioteca, 1980.
Tischner, Józef. “Myślenie o ethosie społecznym.” In Myślenie według wartości, 453–465. Kraków: Znak, 1982.
Tischner, Józef. Myślenie według wartości. Kraków: Znak, 1982.
Tischner, Józef. “Niepodległość pracy.” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 38 (1981): 1.
Tischner, Józef. “Schyłek chrześcijaństwa tomistycznego.” Znak, no. 1 (187) (1970): 1–26.
Tischner, Józef. “Solidarność sumień.” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 43 (1980): 1.
Tischner, Józef. “Z ducha Konstytucji.” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 19 (1981): 1–2.
University of Silesia in Katowice Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7987-168X
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.
1. License
The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
2. Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.
If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".
ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).
3. User Rights
Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
4. Co-Authorship
If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.
