Abstract

The aim of this essay is to show Cezary Wodziński to be a thinker of evil. First, I discuss the difference between a thinker and a scientist. The latter develops various abstract ideas. The former produces literature as a kind of protective coating against a single destructive and dangerous thought which is haunting him. The thought that was haunting Cezary Wodziński is the idea that the being itself is evil. Since the thought of being is also a part of this, it inevitably participates in the malice of existence. According to Wodziński, the 20th century was the epoch characterized by the epiphany of evil. Thinking is not innocent in the face of this epiphany. This thesis has important political implications. Both the affirmation and the critique of the existing political order appear to be tainted with evil.