Introduction -- Philosophy in the Middle Ages -- Polish philosophy in the Renaissance and Baroque -- Polish philosophy in the Enlightenment -- Polish philosophy of the Romantic era -- The philosophy of Polish positivism -- Polish philosophy in the age of modernism --Polish philosophy in the interwar period -- Polish philosophy after World War II -- A selection of post-war general literature on the subject -- Conclusion.

The paper deals with the contemporary state of semiotic ethnology in Poland (connected with New Polish Ethnology group), its internal and external influences, its specifics, subjects and its reaction to the other theoretical propositions. The “neotribe” of New Polish Ethnology was established by few younger scholars, ethnologists in the early 1980s, in an opposition to the dominant stream of positivistic ethnology. Today they have become classics of Polish anthropology, masters that have educated a new generation of their (...) students, and lead some anthropological institutes. The most inspiring set of theories that influenced the group and its heirs was taken from Soviet semiotics of culture (Lotman, Uspensky, Toporov, Ivanov), and French structural-semiotics (Levi-Strauss, Barthes), but there are some individual differences also. On that basis they have developed a specific scope, aim and methods of interpretation with as its key terms myth and mythical thinking. They have explained many cultural events (relation we-others, body image, commercials, and anthropology itself) within the framework ofmythical thinking, making it the most productive and attractive frame of interpretation within Polish humanities and social sciences. In the 1990s they had to face critical ethnography, deconstruction and postmodern anthropology and they did it with perfect flexibility that even strengthened their project, because the potential of reflexivity and self-consciousness lied within semiotics from its beginning. (shrink)

The Aesthetic Experience in Roman Ingarden’s thinking. In this article we study the ideas of the Polish philosopher, Roman Ingarden, as an essential key inthe discussion on literary reception. The notion of "aesthetic experience" is revised, especially in The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art. Ingarden begins aesthetic discussion, trying to answer two fundamental questions: How is the literary work structured? and Which procedure will lead to an understanding of the literary art work of art? These questions, besides (...) serving in his defense against psychologism and positivism of his time, also help him develop his two most popular works in Spanish: The Literary Work of Art and The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, in which the Polish philosopher clarifies the principles that of the Reception Theory. Nevertheless, the importance of the aesthetic experience in the linguistic and phenomenology dimensions of the literary text is only understood when we study both works. Ingarden, as his translator to Spanish, Gerald Nyenhuis recognizes, presupposes in his second book the first one where he performs a constant trip from ontology to phenomenology in the literary work of art. It is precisely in this search where he nails his concept of aesthetic experience that we study today in relation with other concepts, such as the aesthetic attitude, the pre-aesthetic knowledge, the role of the aesthetic values and the aesthetic object. (shrink)

This summary was delivered at the closing session of the “Korczak: A New Anthropology of Education” conference on September 21, 2002 in the Polish Culture Institute of Warsaw University’s Polish Studies Faculty. Author points that the primary goal of the conference was to set Korczak’s work against modern-day thought trends and cultural dilemmas. Summing up the result of the conference author notices that the deepest roots of the Korczak’s work lies in the Judaic and Christian traditions but it (...) also draws on European enlightenment, Polish romanticism, and positivism. (shrink)