This is the introductory essay to a collection commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication in Mind of Bertrand Russell’s paper ‘On Denoting’.

Marian Wesoły devoted a considerable part of his life and research to studying the philosophical thought of antiquity. He is, therefore, widely known to scientific community as an admirer of Hellas, outstanding scholar and expert on ancient philosophy, which is reflected in his many publications in the field. Importantly, however, Marian Wesoły, has also been a pioneer of research into a much lesser known field of research, namely Greek philosophy in Byzantium. While this neglected and often disdained area of research (...) has been the subject of Marian Wesoły’s numerous publications, this article presents an over view of his most important findings. (shrink)

Since the twenties of the last century in various fields of the Greek culture one may see development of a tendency which may be characterized in a first approximation as “Neo-Byzantinism. In a measure with movement might be connected with a failure of the political project that had its beginning in the Greek revolution of 1821 and its tragic result in the destruction of Greek communities in Asia Minor in 1923. In general the principle of Neo-Byzantinism might be formulated as (...) following: Greece is not an ordinary nation and cannot build its identity according to the model of a neo-European national state. Paradoxically the fundamental principle of Greek culture is recognized in Byzantine Orthodoxy as supra-territorial and moreover supra-ethnic cultural model. Many of mentioned Greek authors find the detailed development of philosophical, theological, artistic aspects of this model in the writings of Russian religious philosophers and byzantinists of 19 and 20th c. from the early Slavophiles up to Russian emigrate authors like G. Florovsky, V. Lossky, L. Ouspensky. It’s very meaningful that Greek intellectuals “recognize in writings of representatives of “the Third Rome the image of “the Second Rome’s culture; they receive it as own. So Basil Tatakis discovers the Byzantine type of spirituality in the works of I. Kirejevsky, F. Dostoevsky, N. Berdiaeff. So Ch. Yannaras recognizes the Byzantine type of sociality in a Russian Orthodox parish in Paris. (shrink)