Kazimierz

Kłósak

Publishing Series

THE POLISH CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Mieczysław Gogacz

Stanisław Kamiński

Kazimierz Kloskowski

Kazimierz Kłósak

Feliks Koneczny

Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec

Piotr Lenartowicz

Tadeusz Styczeń

Tadeusz Ślipko

Józef Tischner

Karol Wojtyła

Jacek Woroniecki

Zofia Józefa Zdybicka

The Companion to the Polish Christian Philosophy in the 20th Century

Scientific Board

Artur Andrzejuk

Tadeusz Biesaga SDB

Józef Bremer SJ

Piotr Duchliński

Rev. Grzegorz Hołub

Rev. Jarosław Jagiełło

Adam Jonkisz

Rev. Jan Krokos

Anna Latawiec

Anna Lemańska

Damian Leszczyński

Rev. Ryszard Moń

Zbigniew Pańpuch

Ewa Podrez

Paweł Skrzydlewski

Rev. Jan Sochoń

Krzysztof Stachewicz

Rev. Kazimierz M. Wolsza

Rev. Władysław Zuziak

Editorial Board

Rev. Maciej Bała

Piotr Stanisław Mazur

https://pchph.ignatianum.edu.pl

Kazimierz

Kłósak

Anna Lemańska

Adam Olszewski

Adam Świeżyński

Kamil Trombik

Ignatianum University Press

Krakow 2020

© Copyright by Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie, 2020

Texts by Kazimierz Kłósa:

Copyright © by Polska Prowincja Dominikanów

Copyright © by the heirs of Kazimierz Kłósak

Copyright © by Wydawnictwo Świętego Wojciecha

Copyright © by Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II

Copyright © by Wydawnictwo Mariackie

Copyright © by Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne

Copyright © by Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego

This publication was financed within the frame of the Minister of Science and Higher Education programme: “Monuments of Polish philosophical, theological and social thought

of the 20th and 21st century,” conducted in 2016–2020.

Project no. 0033/FIL/2016/90

Editor of the volume

Adam Świeżyński

Reviewers

Kazimierz Mikucki CR

Zbigniew Wróblewski

Supervising editor

Roman Małecki

Proofreading

Aeddan Shaw

Lesław Sławiński

Typesetting

Lesław Sławiński

Cover design

PHOTO DESIGN – Lesław Sławiński

ISBN  978-83-7614-471-9

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I. KAZIMIERZ KŁÓSAK: PERSON AND WORK

1. A BIOGRAPHY OF KAZIMIERZ KŁÓSAK

Kazimierz Kłósak was born on 1 January 1911 in Skwarzawa Stara near Żółkiew (at that time, a village in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to a working-class family of Jan and Zofia nee Maćkowska.¹ He was baptized in the parish church of St. Laurence the Martyr in Żółkiew. Kazimierz Kłósak had three brothers and a sister but we do not know much about his early years.² In the autumn of 1916, his parents decided to leave Żółkiew and soon the young Kazimierz was to found in Żywiec, where he first attended a 4-year elementary school, and then 8-year Nicolaus Copernicus Junior High School for Boys.

At that time, graduating from high school was no easy matter. Although the economy of Żywiec developed rapidly after Poland regained its independence in 1918, in many regions—especially in the villages surrounding the town—poverty predominated, and children usually only completed the elementary school. Despite those difficulties, soon after taking his secondary school exams in a class with a humanities profile, the 18-year-old Kazimierz Kłósak started philosophical and theological studies at the Faculty of Theology of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow in 1929. At that time, the Krakow theological faculty had a department of Christian philosophy directed by Rev. Prof. Konstanty Michalski CM. Christian philosophy was then understood as neo-scholastic thought, the renewal of which had been postulated by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical letter Aeterni Patris of 1879. Thus, during his studies, Kłósak was mainly influenced by an intellectual environment which was closely tied to the heritage of St. Thomas Aquinas.

He graduated from philosophical-theological studies in 1934 with the degree of the Master of Arts in Theology, on the basis of the master’s thesis entitled: Nauka katolicka o grzechu pierworodnym, jej konsekwencje dla wychowania i życia społecznego [Catholic Teaching on Original Sin and Its Consequences for Education and Social Life]. He was ordained as a priest on 14 March 1934, and he started his pastoral ministry in the parish of Osielec near Maków, where he stayed until August 1935. The parish priest who managed that church at the time was Jan Rychlik. In a letter sent to the Krakow curia, Rev. Rychlik praised his young vicar, emphasizing that “he has a writer’s talent and a speaker’s intelligence.”³ Somewhat later, upon the request of Prince Adam Sapieha, the archbishop of Krakow, Kłósak went to Rome to study at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (“Angelicum”) where he stayed for two years. One of the lecturers at the University was Józef Maria Bocheński OP. However, the style of philosophy promoted in Rome did not match the intellectual needs of the young Kłósak. At Angelicum, neo-scholatsic philosophy was practiced in a conservative manner, where the faithful copying of the thoughts of the classics was appreciated more than a creative dialogue with the modern directions of science and philosophy.

Another version of neo-Thomism was presented by scholars connected with the Belgian Catholic University of Louvain. Their Institute Supérieur de Philosophie, established by cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier, was the centre of the so-called Louvain neo-Thomism that postulated more intensive contact with natural sciences. It was in this scholar community, from which the above-mentioned Rev. Michalski also came, Kłósak spent further two years of life. In 1939 he obtained a bachelor’s degree, and his thesis was graded avec la plus grande distinction (Latin: summa cum laude). At that time, Kłósak was already strongly influenced by the French philosopher Jacques Maritain, to whom he dedicated his first two articles published in Poland in Collectanea Theologica and Polski Przegląd Tomistyczny [Polish Thomist Review] in 1938 and 1939.⁴

When World War II broke out, Kazimierz Kłósak returned to Poland. In October 1939, he started his ministry as vicar of St. Joseph’s Church in Krakow-Podgórze. The parish priest of that church, Rev. Józef Niemczyński, described Kłósak in his certificate of morality in the following manner: “He studied day and night, which had a bad influence on his health.”⁵ The fact that Kłósak was an incredibly hardworking scholar was also noticed by his superiors in the Krakow Church. In 1940, he was appointed as the prefect and lecturer of the Metropolitan Seminary of Krakow, where he was also the rector for some time.

During the war period, one of his students was Karol Wojtyła.⁶ It was probably at this time that Kłósak came across the works of the Lviv-Warsaw school and its Christian branch, the so-called Krakow Circle, for the first time.⁷ He also continued working on his doctoral dissertation, written under the supervision of Rev. Michalski, defending his thesis entitled Tomizm u Jakuba Maritaina [Thomism in Jacob Maritain’s Thought]. He was promoted on 11 April 1945.⁸

Soon after the war, in the context of the new political situation in Poland, Kłósak began his ongoing polemic with dialectical materialism.⁹ He published his first critical articles in the magazines: Znak, Ateneum Kapłańskie and Tygodnik Powszechny. In 1948, his book: Materializm dialektyczny. Studia krytyczne [Dialectical Materialism. Critical Studies]appeared in Krakow. It was the first and—after the war—the only book which questioned the philosophical foundations of Marxism supported in Poland by such scholars as Adam Schaff.¹⁰ At the same time, Kłósak attempted to modernise Christian philosophy. In his work: Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorództwa [The Catholic Thought and the Theory of Spontaneous Generation] (1948), he claimed that there was no contradiction between the concept of abiogenesis and the traditional Christian doctrine of creation. It was a brave thesis, especially taking into account the conservative atmosphere of Polish Catholicism at the time. In 1949, Kłósak also published, together with Prof. Aleksander Usowicz CM, a monograph on the life and philosophy of his thesis supervisor Konstanty Michalski.¹¹

In the 1950s, Kłósak was very active in his scientific work. As early as 1951, the Philosophical Commission of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, managed by Władysław Tatarkiewcz, appointed Kłósak as an associate. At that time, Kłósak was a lecturer at the Faculty of Theology of the Jagiellonian University (UJ)—he was an assistant professor, managing the Department of Christian Philosophy. In 1954, according to the decision of the communist authorities of the Polish People’s Republic, the whole faculty was removed from the university. As a result, some employees, including Kazimierz Kłósak, started work at the temporary Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw (ATK). However, Kłósak remained connected with Krakow, continuing his scientific and didactic work in the city. The former Faculty of Theology of the Jagiellonian University lost the recognition of the communist authorities, but—due to the support of the Apostolic See, as well as bishops and Krakow scholars—it continued to function (up to 1981 as the Pontifical Faculty of Theology [PWT], then as the Pontifical Academy of Theology [PAT], and from 2009 as the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow [UPJPII]), subject directly to the authority of the Catholic Church.

On 15 November 1954, Kazimierz Kłósak was given the title of associate professor. In the same year, he started giving lectures on the philosophy of nature and theodicy at ATK, and in later years (1956–1957, 1964–1976) he worked as a dean of its Faculty of Christian Philosophy and a director of the Department of the Philosophy of Nature.¹² In 1957, he was forced to stop—for several years—giving lectures at ATK, due to the problems with the legal status of the Faculty of Theology of UJ and the unclear situation of the Warsaw university. As a philosopher connected with Krakow, he was also a member, and (in 1957–1958) the president of the Polish Theological Society (PTT)—a renowned organization involved in scientific, didactic and publishing activity, aiming at the development of church sciences in the Catholic society. Of particular importance, PTT also supported research in Christian philosophy.

In the 1950s Kłósak published numerous philosophical works in which he discussed many different issues, such as: the method of the philosophy of nature, the theory of evolution in the context of the faith, the time in which the Universe was created, and anthropogenesis or the origin of human soul. Also, he engaged in disputes with other Polish Catholic thinkers (e.g. Paweł Boharczyk, Witold Pietkun), and he was strongly criticized by Marxists, such as Leszek Kołakowski, for his works on dialectical materialism.¹³ As a result, Kłósak started to be directly attacked by communist ideologists, as well as Roman Ingarden, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz or Władysław Tatarkiewicz.¹⁴

In order to make himself familiar with the latest scientific and philosophical works, Kłósak asked the hierarchs of the Krakow Church for permission to read “forbidden books,” i.e. those which were not sanctioned by the Church law. In the pre-conciliar period, it was an ordinary practice applied in the Polish Church. At that time, Kłósak was deeply fascinated with theodicy. The two-volume work: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny [In Search of the First Cause] (volume 1: 1954, volume 2: 1957), was dedicated to the arguments for the existence of God. The publication of the books was delayed due to the actions taken by the national censorship office. A characteristic feature of Kłósak’s book was his attempt to use the achievements of the contemporary physics and biology in theodicy. In this work, Kłósak referred to the tradition of the Polish philosophy, quoting the works of thinkers connected with the Lviv-Warsaw school (Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Jan Łukasiewicz), the Krakow philosophy of nature of the inter-war period (Joachim Metallmann, Jan Salamucha, Marian Smoluchowski, Zygmunt Zawirski), and Polish neo-Thomism (Piotr Chojnacki, Konstanty Michalski, Franciszek Sawicki, Ignacy Różycki, Kazimierz Wais).

At the end of 1950s, Kłósak started to give lectures at a third Catholic university in Poland—from 1959/1960, he taught the students of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). In 1959, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education did not approve Kłósak’s position as the director of the Department of Philosophy of Nature, as a result of which he was not permitted to give lectures at KUL. Thus, he only worked for a few months there, and then—up to 1964—he only gave occasional lectures. However, he maintained ties to KUL until 1971.¹⁵ In the years 1964–1971, he was the director of the Department of the Philosophy of Nature at KUL, and for some time he was the director of its Section of the Philosophy of Nature. At that time, he travelled weekly to Krakow, where he lived, to Warsaw, and then to Lublin and back to Krakow again. His intensive didactic work ended in 1971 due to several serious health conditions.¹⁶

In this period, Kłósak was a respected scholar and organiser of academic life. He continued his work on the philosophy of nature and theodicy, publishing his articles in, i.a., Roczniki Filozoficzne [Philosophical Annuals] and collective works. Following the concepts elaborated during the Second Vatican Council, he used the latest achievements of philosophy and natural sciences, referring to the works of scientists such as: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jacques Maritain, Étienne Gilson, Louis de Broglie, Aleksander Oparin, and Svante Arrhenius. Also, he appreciated Polish postwar thought, e.g. accepting some of the solutions of Bolesław Gawecki, who was famous for his ideas related to the philosophy of natural history. Kłósak was also an active participant and organiser of philosophical conferences and symposiums. He took part in, i.a., a philosophical symposium on the analysis of the kinetic starting point and theological argument for the existence of God that was held at the residence of the cardinal Karol Wojtyła in Krakow (1968). Other participants of the symposium included scholars from PWT, ATK, KUL, as well as the professors of physics and biology from UJ.¹⁷

His involvement in the renewal of Christian thought and culture in Poland was also confirmed by the creation of two periodicals. Along with Józef Iwanicki, in 1965 he established the half-yearly of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy of ATK: Studia Philosophiae Christianae,and hewas first the vice-editor-in-chief, and then the editor-in-chief of this journal (up to 1977). The journal discussed general philosophical issues and included articles by various Polish and foreign philosophers. Kłósak was also the co-founder and editor of the annual publication of the Polish Theological Society—Analecta Cracoviensia, the first issue of which appeared in 1969 in Krakow. The journal was created after several attempts by the Krakow professors of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology (PWT) and with the great support of Wojtyła. Since PWT was not recognised by the government authorities at that time, Analecta Cracoviensia could not be called a periodical of that university.¹⁸ Despite that fact, the journal survived and—just like Studia Philosophiae Christianae—it remains in print to this day.

On 28 June 1968, Kazimierz Kłósak was given the title of a full professor. His philosophical output was impressive, and many other Polish thinkers referred to it in their works. As for neo-Thomist thought, Kłósak was brave enough to modify the traditional Aristotle-Thomist reflection. He often referred to the achievements of modern science—especially physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology and psycho-physiology and philosophy, trying to make the latter a discipline as exact as possible, though not minimalistic in the manner postulated by neo-positivists. A similar approach to philosophy was typical of the Krakow environment from which Kłósak came and with which he was connected during his scientific activity.

At that time at PWT, Kłósak was not only involved in science, but also in the organizational activity of the university. At the turn of the 60s and 70s, the Faculty grew gradually, and one of the ideas for its reorganisation was creating lecturing teams which were to coordinate the selection and scope of the didactic material. The project was approved, as a result of which a philosophical team was created, and Kłósak was appointed as the president of the team.¹⁹ Also, the first ideas to create a separate philosophical faculty appeared in Krakow at that time, and one of the initiators of that endeavour was Wojtyła. In 1970, a section of philosophy was created at PWT which was assumed to be the starting point for the creation of an autonomous scientific institute. The section included eight departments, and Kłósak directed three of them: the Department of Formal Logic, the General Methodology of Sciences and Theories of Cognition, the Department of Philosophical Anthropology, and the Department of the Philosophy of Natural History and the Philosophy of Nature.²⁰ Also, the studies at PWT included philosophical seminars, including a seminar in the philosophy of nature, which were conducted by Kłósak. One of the participants of the seminar in the 1970s was, i.a. Józef Życiński.

Kłósak enjoyed ties to PWT until the end of his life. In 1976, the Congregation for Catholic Education issued a decree that established the Pontifical Faculty of Philosophy. However, for various reasons but mainly political, the faculty only functioned as the Institute of Philosophy at PWT. Because of the problems caused by the communist authorities, the fulfilment of the above-mentioned decree had to take place partially. Its crowning was motu proprio by John Paul II—Beata Hedvigis of 1981, on the basis of which the Pontifical Academy of Theology was established. The Academy included three faculties, and one of them was the Faculty of Philosophy. Kłósak lived long enough to enjoy the Pope’s decision, although, at that time, he no longer participated in the life of the new scientific institute. However, it is worth emphasizing that he took part in organizational work which was essential to the creation of the faculty. Up to 1981, he also gave lectures in Krakow. In the academic year 1980/1981, he was still a professor of PWT, conducting scientific seminar and classes on the philosophy of nature. Despite the fact that his health had grown worse due to his long fight with rheumatism, Kłósak still maintained contact with the Warsaw scholarly environment. In 1976, he initiated a series of books at ATK: Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody [On the Philosophy of Natural Sciences and Philosophy of Nature]. As the initiator and the first editor of the series, he provided the space of philosophical discussion for his colleagues and students. In the Warsaw environment, he was also famous for publishing articles in collective works edited by Bohdan Bejze, referring to the most important issues concerning metaphysics, philosophical anthropology and theodicy. Several doctoral dissertations and master’s theses were written under his supervision. Also, he was a reviewer in habilitation and professor proceedings. He organised many scientific conferences, e.g. those related to the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. From the autumn of 1981, he was a member of the Committee of Philosophical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

In the last years of life, Kłósak mainly worked on the theory and methodology of the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of God. In 1979, the Polish Theological Society (PTT) in Krakow published the first volume of Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga [On the Philosophical Cognition of God]. Both in terms of philosophy of nature, and in terms of methodology, it was a truly innovative work in comparison to the previous, two-volume work: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny [In Search of the First Cause] of the 1950s. Kłósak constantly confronted the newest scientific knowledge with the neo-Thomist philosophy, as a result of which he changed some of his beliefs. The best example of this is the book Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody [On the Theory and Methodology of the Philosophy of Nature]of 1980, in which Kłósak presented his upgraded meta-philosophical opinions, pointing to the problems of the Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy of nature in the context of the development of the modern theoretical physics. In this work, Kłósak considered, inter alia, the opportunity to get to know nature in a philosophical manner, and the approach of the philosophy of nature to metaphysics and natural sciences, mainly referring to the thought of Maritain and disputing with the opinions of Jerzy Kalinowski or Mieczysław Krąpiec.

Simultaneously, Kłósak was working on the next books. In 1981, in an interview with Życiński published in Tygodnik Powszechny, he said that he was preparing the second volume of Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga [On the Philosophical Cognition of God]. According to the interview, he was also working on other texts.²¹ Unfortunately, at the end of 1981, his health problems intensified.²² He went to the clinic of prof. Andrzej Szczeklik, which resulted in a slight improvement, but soon his health worsened again. Kazimierz Kłósak died on 1 June 1982 in Krakow.²³ He was buried in the Salwator cemetery belonging to the parish of the Holiest Saviour in Krakow.²⁴

After the philosopher’s death, John Paul II wrote in a telegram that “the death of R.I.P. prof. Kazimierz Kłósak, a faithful servant of God and an outstanding scholar, is a great loss for the Polish, and particularly Krakow, scientific environment.”²⁵ Indeed, the Krakow scholar environment had suffered the greatest loss possible. In a natural way, he was the continuator of the Krakow philosophy of nature which had always been open to dialogue with contemporary science. He was not a dogmatist tied to particular statements, but he constantly corrected his views in light of the achievements of natural history and philosophy according to a tradition reaching back to Stefan Pawlicki CR, the first director of the Department of Christian Philosophy of the former Faculty of Theology of UJ in the second half of the 19th century. There is no doubt that Kłósak also influenced the Warsaw environment, which appreciated his style of practicing philosophy which was perceived in a realistic yet critical manner, and as one which was open to the achievements of the natural sciences (especially the philosophy of nature treated as a separate discipline). This is confirmed by the fact that Warsaw scholars continued the research that followed Kłósak’a approach (Mieczysław Lubański, Szczepan W. Ślaga, Kazimierz Kloskowski, Anna Latawiec, Anna Lemańska, Grzegorz Bugajak, Adam Świeżyński). Kłósak’s scientific output, which includes almost 150 works, including books, articles, disputes, reviews and reports from scientific events, still inspires future generations of philosophers. However, it is worth mentioning that his philosophical inheritance is sometimes subject to critical analyses.²⁶

The greatness of the scholar is also confirmed by his students. Kłósak shaped many great philosophers. He was the teacher of: Józef Życiński, Józef Tischner,²⁷ Tadeusz Wojciechowski, Mieczysław Lubański, Szczepan W. Ślaga, Józef M. Dołęga, and Kazimierz Kloskowski. He disputed with some of them for a long time, and with Wojciechowski in particular. He was a philosopher—polemicist but, at the same time, he truly appreciated scholars who had different approaches to the problems he was interested in. A good example is the situation of 1966 when, after the defence of the doctoral dissertation by Michał Heller, he was the first to recommend his employment at the Catholic University of Lublin, even though Heller did not agree with Kłósak in terms of how to practice the philosophy of nature.²⁸

Kłósak paid for his hard scientific work with his health problems. In the funeral speech given in St. Anne’s Church in Krakow, the cardinal and archbishop of Krakow of the time, Franciszek Macharski, called him a “martyr of science.” His brother, Franciszek Kłósak, on the 17th anniversary of the philosopher’s death, said that—for thirty years of his work—Kłósak

… reduced all forms of social contact to the minimum, avoided celebrations and parties, as well as unnecessary meetings, as he believed them to be the main and popular form of wasting time. His entrance door was covered with a soundproofed cloth, and he had a complicated system of doorbell ringing that was only known to the closest friends. The aim of such installations was to protect the time he dedicated to the Truth. They were to prevent him from exchanging lonely reflection into empty chats that were only variations on “actually nothing new.” The professor chose this freedom from the popular conventions not in the name of freedom itself, but in the name of the Truth—so that, in another afternoon, he could add several paragraphs to a new line of argumentation or interpret a classical text in a new way.²⁹ 

Kłósak spent most of his life in a house located at 10. St. Mark’s Street in Krakow and he hardly ever even visited his family who lived in Żywiec.

Kazimierz Kłósak was a person about whom many interesting stores were told.³⁰ A characteristic feature of his numerous publications were their long footnotes, in which he included additional biographical references and remarks enriching the text with extra contents. Also, apart from being extremely hardworking and ascetic, he impressed everyone with his firm attitude towards the communist authorities. Not only did he express such an attitude in his philosophical works, but he also refused to receive the Gold Medal for Merit from the Polish government. Kłósak did not want to accept it because “at the time when the Catholic Church was persecuted by the authorities, he could not accept any medals from the persecutors. After he sent the medal back to the government, he felt that the steps he heard in the corridor might be the steps of a Security Service officer coming to arrest him”—as Kłósak’s brother recalls.³¹

Kłósak was a pioneer of a form of Christian philosophy which was open to modern science, especially evolutionary biology. As a result, he was often criticised and also by some people of the Church. Nevertheless, he did not give up his disputes, and his polemical tendencies were taken up by his students, such as Tischner or Życiński. Thus, in post-war Poland, Kłósak became the spokesman for open philosophical debate, both within Catholicism and in its relations with government ideology. It remains a lasting achievement of this prominent Krakow scholar.

The person and philosophical views of Kazimierz Kłósak are still interesting to many people, which is confirmed by the conferences and books dedicated to his great philosophical inheritance.³² Perhaps the main attraction of his thought is the style of his intellectual quests. According to Życiński:

… Kłósak’s personality, his radical honesty and, at the same time, the lack of living resourcefulness, became a symbol of the style in which the basic factor was the care for logical conclusions void of any personal and practical benefits. His world was the world of objective values, truth and logical inferences, and not the world of a convention changed into taboo. His life confirmed Ingarden’s thesis, according to which you can only be a philosopher as an ethical personality—otherwise it is impossible. The Professor’s life, open to the world of the Truth and the axiology of the Gospel, was—for many generations of his students—the authentic life of a philosopher combining being and value, logos and ethos, into one consistent whole.³³

Życiński also wrote that: “My friendship with … father Kazimierz Kłósak was of great importance to me. I always thank God for … meeting and knowing him.”³⁴ The same opinion was expressed by Mieczysław Lubański, another of his students and colleagues: “In a natural manner, he combined serving the First Cause with serving the philosophical truth. … However, a philosopher is a human being, too. The Professor revealed it in his human approach to each problem and each person.”³⁵

2. THE SOURCES AND INSPIRATIONS OF KAZIMIERZ KŁÓSAK’S PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS

The inspirations for Kazimierz Kłósak’s philosophical views are reflected in his path of university education and further personal scientific explorations. We can indicate the primary sources which influenced him the most strongly and determined the directions of his research, and secondary sources which constituted additional intellectual impulses and points of reference for his philosophical analyses. The former include the philosophical work of Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), as well the scientific and philosophical views of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). The secondary sources that shaped Kłósak’s philosophical ideas, and which are also of importance, include the works of the following scholars: Fernand Renoirte (1894–1958), Alexander Oparin (1894–1980), Svante Arrheius (1859–1927), Pierre Descoqs (1877–1946), Konstanty Michalski (1879–1947), as well as the views of Marxist philosophers and some of the Christian Thomist philosophers with whom he disputed.

There is no doubt that the philosophical development of Kłósak’s thought was influenced the most strongly by the concepts of Maritain. The Krakow scholar became familiar with them during his studies at the Catholic University of Louvain (Leuven). We may assume that the Louvain form of neo-Thomism, which postulated a living contact with natural sciences, was particularly attractive to Kłósak, and, in a way, Maritain established philosophical standards in the neo-Thomist philosophy of nature.³⁶ Kłósak described the views of the French philosopher in a detailed manner, and he developed them in many of his works—both those written at the beginning of his scientific activity,³⁷ and those from the later period.³⁸ However, Kłósak’s approach to the works of the French neo-Thomist has never been uncritical. Kłósak often indicated the imperfection of Maritain’s ideas, especially with regard to the methodological status of the philosophy of nature.

I believe that the problem of the method of the philosophy of nature was better solved by D. Nys and J.J. Lemaire … than by Maritain. According to those authors, the philosophy of nature takes such data of natural sciences, as well as facts and laws, so that it can explain them in their final causes. It does not have to exchange “scientific” facts into “philosophical” ones. In such an approach, we are far from the data of the pre-scientific experience which, for Maritain, is of primary importance.³⁹

Although Kłósak did not fully agree at first with Maritain’s arguments concerning the postulate to make the philosophy of nature based on philosophical facts, he finally accepted it but justified it in a manner different to that of the French neo-Thomist: “The order of means should match the order of objectives, [so] facts, which are used by the cognition in the philosophy of nature, should belong to the same order”⁴⁰; “we have to explain material things from the side of their essence based on ‘philosophical’ facts, which already belong to that internal essence, as something that can be first separated from it in the act of its cognitive exploration”⁴¹; “… without taking into account the [philosophical] description [of scientific facts], it would not be possible to go beyond the implications of common or natural character.”⁴² It is worth mentioning that Kłósak, both with reference to the very idea of a fact and to a broader meaning of science, did not accept the tradition of logical empiricism, but preferred the trends derived from the criticism of the philosophy of science of the Vienna Circle.⁴³

Therefore, Kłósak criticized such a way of practicing the philosophy of nature that—first of all—is the synthetic presentation of the most general results of natural sciences (e.g. Erich Becher, Bernhard Bavink in the first phase of his concept, Polish Marxist theoreticians: Adam Schaff and Władysław Krajewski, and Raymond Ruyer); second—apart from the task of preparing the synthesis of the most general achievements of natural sciences—performs the function of the epistemological and methodological analysis of scientific cognition (e.g. Wilhelm Ostwald, Władysław Biegański); third—amounts to the epistemological-methodological analysis of cognition in natural sciences (e.g. the representatives of positivism and neo-positivism, Evert W. Beth, Augusto Guzzo); and fourth—to a certain degree—includes issues that do not belong to the area in which natural scientists and theoreticians of scientific cognition are interested (e.g. formulating theories of the cognition of nature, considering important scientific achievements in terms of their influence on the general view of the world as well as practical-cultural influence, shaping—from the general results of natural sciences—a synthetic image of the whole nature including their philosophical interpretation: Rudolf Eisler, Bernhard Bavink, Bolesław Gawecki).

Placing the issue of Kłósak’s sources and inspirations in a broader context, one needs to emphasize that he was interested in a form of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy which aimed at using the latest achievements and conclusions of particular empirical and formal sciences in its reflections. Such an approach was expressed in the so-called open Thomism, represented—apart from the above mentioned Maritain and Teilhard de Chardin—by e.g. Désiré-Joseph Mercier, Dominique Salman, and Claude Tresmontant, the works of whom Kłósak eagerly referred to. Kłósak took over this method of practicing philosophy, but, at the same time, he extended it, comparing the details of opinions of different scientists and philosophers on the same topic, as well as analysing and drawing conclusions from them. While building his philosophy and checking traditional theses of classical philosophy in the context of the new scientific data, Kłósak took into account the reflections of other authors such as: Désiré Nys, Joseph de Tonquédec, Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges, Salvatore Tongiorgi, Filippo Selvaggi, Pierre Duhem, Franciszek Sawicki, Ignacy Różycki, Kazimierz Wais, Jerzy Kalinowski, and Stanisław Mazierski. He analysed them in a critical manner and developed some of them, as a result of which an original thought concept was created related to the fulfilment of the meta-theoretical postulate of such philosophizing that is based on the idea of discovering the ontological implications for philosophical facts.

During World War II, Kazimierz Kłósak’s philosophical activity was reduced to private reading and writing texts that were not published. We may assume that at that time he took some time to analyse the achievements of the Lviv-Warsaw school and its Christian branch—the so-called Krakow Circle (Józef Maria Bocheński, Jan Salamucha, Jan F. Drewnowski, Bolesław Sobociński).⁴⁴ In Kłósak’s post-war texts, we can find the analyses and footnotes dedicated to the views of the representatives of the above mentioned trends.⁴⁵ In particular, while working on the issue of the methodological status of the philosophy of nature, Kłósak could not use the logical and meta-logical achievements of the above mentioned representatives. Thus, his neo-Thomist methodology was gradually changing towards methodology enriched with the achievements of the modern philosophy of science.

… in methodological issues, referring to the relation between the philosophy of nature and natural sciences, Rev. Kłósak remained under the influence of Maritain and the Louvain school, but, in time, he was more and more willing to take into account the results and methods of analysis of the standard (“laic”) philosophy of science, including the achievements of the Lviv-Warsaw School.⁴⁶

The second figure whose personality and scientific activity strongly influenced Kłósak was the French evolutionist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Just like in the case of Maritain, the approach of the Kraków philosopher to the concepts of the French Jesuit remained critical, despite the obvious fascination and respect for de Chardin’s scientific achievements and for his reasonable reply to the objections according to which he lacked Catholic orthodoxy. Although Kłósak shared the evolutionary approach to reality, his analytical mind could not come to terms with the nature of de Chardin’s doctrine, which was visionary and not always precise. Thus, he wished to make de Chardin’s ideas more detailed, and wanted to present them in a less exalted manner than the way in which other supporters of the pan-evolutionary vision of the world followed.⁴⁷ Connecting the openness to new interpretations with a carefulness and criticism in evaluating their justification, something which was typical of Kłósak’s ideas, is encapsualted in his studies on Teilhard. Sharing the vision of the evolving universe, the Kraków philosopher was close to “the Origen of our times,” and—just like Teilhard—he believed that the approaches of the traditional Thomism often only take into account one of many (usually the simplest) options. However, Kłósak noticed that, in the considerations of the French evolutionist, poetry is sometimes used instead of arguments, and thrilling visions are void of justifications and full of internal contradictions. “This epistemological and methodological type is still the subject of discussion, and its interpretations are sometimes very far from being adequate. The dialectics of Fr. Teilhard is highly unified, and without carrying out a specific task it would be impossible for us to get even a partial orientation in the first great stage of it.”⁴⁸ In many aspects, Kłósak accepted the possibility to adopt new suggestions of de Chardin and admitted that—in the sphere of purely philosophical analyses—there are no reasons to negate the idea that God could have created the universe eternally, and that universe could be spatially unlimited.

While discussing the creation of the world and the origin of life and human psyche, Kłósak used the research results included in the works of Teilhard de Chardin. At the same time, he did not agree with Paul B. Grenet or Olivier A. Rabut, who believed that the ideas of the French scholar were just “scientific phenomenology.”

… Not the whole “phenomenology” of Fr. Teilhard can be considered as scientific “phenomenology.” As I have already mentioned, we can question the scientific nature of the hylozoist and panpsychic thesis formulated within such “phenomenology.” And when Fr. Teilhard starts suggesting that for the maintenance, animation and full realization of the process of hominization (taken along with socialization) it is necessary that, at the end of psychic coincidence which is typical of this process, there is a transcendent, independent mean of unification, unity, irreversibility and personalization, which is God—the only true “Omega,” it becomes clear that, along with those considerations, … the epistemological and methodological type of his “phenomenology” has changed.⁴⁹

Also, Kazimierz Kłósak disputed with the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin in terms of the monogenic origin of humanity, and he indicated gaps and mistakes in the latter’s way of thinking, although—at the same time—he defended the French philosopher against the opinions he believed to be unfair and untrue.

Fr. Teilhard overlooked the fact that—while taking into account the direct and special interference of God creating an intended number of human souls and, along with them, the first people, in metaphysics we can speak about the possibility of strictly monogenistic origin of humanity. Fr. Teilhard also failed to notice that the issue related to the fact of such origin can only be discussed in the sphere of theology.⁵⁰

Since Kłósak was so critical of the ideas of the French evolutionist, why did he so ardently promote Teilhard’s thought in Poland? Perhaps he believed that Polish society, manipulated by the communist authorities, truly needed such thought. In numerous considerations, Kłósak presented the possibility and necessity of purely natural, philosophically non-influenced description of different phenomena—especially those related to the origin and development of the Homo species. He probably did so because he himself experienced the obstacles people at that time came across on their way from laboratory, factory or school to the Church—from modern science to traditional faith. Bernard Hałaczek, Kłósak’s student, described him as one the first scholars “who enriched the Polish philosophical-natural literature with the harmonious vision of God, world and man by Teilhard de Chardin. In the 60s, Kłósak played, for Poland and Polish Catholics, the same role as Teilhard had played since the 1930s for the world and the whole Catholic Church.”⁵¹

An important stimulus in the development of Kłósak’s philosophical thought was the dispute with the theses of Marxist philosophy. In this sense, we can perceive them as the inspiration for his philosophical research which, in practice, meant opposing the ideological simplifications included in the statements of the representatives of Marxism. Although he was not very interested in everyday life (which is confirmed in the memoirs of his colleagues and students), in a way he was a philosopher deeply involved in the reality in which he functioned as a scientist. In this sense, such post-war reality created by the Marxist ideology became an important inspiration for philosophical reflection in which he criticized it. Thus, he discussed the relation of dialectical materialism to natural sciences, indicating—also through the analytical method—that it is an unauthorized generalization of those sciences. It was significant, because the Marxist propaganda tried to tell the Polish society that Marxism represents the only scientific worldview. In numerous articles and one book, Kłósak criticised four theses of dialectics according to Adam Schaff, Władysław Krajewski, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, and—perhaps typical of him—the views of two other opponents of the philosophy of dialectal materialism: Narcyz Łubnicki and Stanisław Ossowski. Kłósak assessed those theses in an outstanding manner. As a graduate of the Catholic University of Louvain, he was open to the achievements of the modern positive sciences. The same sciences were the basis for Marxists, who tried to use the sciences to prove their dialectical theses. Kłósak’s criticism of Marxism was fair, as he also tried to find some valuable elements in the statements he criticised.

While studying Marxist dialectics, I tried to approach it with Catholic objectivism which admits that its ideological opponent is right—if he really is. It is obvious that—following the Catholic orthodoxy and the requirement of the scientific proof, I could not accept all the aspects of Marxist dialectics in its full original version. However, through a certain selective assimilation, I tried to elicit from it what I found a good achievement.⁵²

The fact that the representatives of Marxism constantly used the theory of evolution for anti-religious propaganda, in response to which the “Church factors” (theologians and the Church hierarchy) constantly criticised them for such anti-religious uses of the theory, encouraged Kłósak to explore the origins of the universe, the appearance of life, the idea of abiogenesis, as well as the philosophical interpretation of evolutionism and its influence on the worldview. In this sense, Kłósak also noticed the false strategy of the people of the Church who discredited the theory of evolution from the point of view of the Catholic theology. In his opinion, evolutionism was to be interpreted in such a way that it would be acknowledged as being in accordance with the theological vision of reality. What is more, he also perceived evolution as a challenge for the philosophy of nature and that is why he developed all the issues related to evolutionism until the last years of his life.⁵³ Because of that, he risked “mistrust” from the side of the “Church circles,” especially when he started promoting and continuing the idea of “accommodating” Christian thought to the evolutionary image of the world—at first with reference to the works of Teilhard de Chardin, and then in the analyses related to the nature and origin of human soul.

Another example of how Kłósak used scientific and philosophical sources in his research work includes the analyses related to the origin of life. First, he carried out epistemological and methodological analyses of selected scientific concepts of abiogenesis, then he evaluated them from the philosophical point of view, and finally he expressed his opinion on the argument for the existence of God from the beginning of organic life. According to such a procedure, he particularly valued the cosmozoic concept of Hermann Richter, the idea of panspermia of Svante Arrhenius, the eternity and pre-existence of life by William Preyer and Gustav T. Fechner, the photochemistry of Alexander Auvillier and Émile Desguin, as well as the coacervates of Alexander Oparin.⁵⁴ Finally, Kłósak came to the conclusion that such natural hypotheses (theories) of abiogenesis are only reduced to the origins of life on Earth in terms of phenomena, focusing on the appearance of life from inanimate matter. They have a value of probability resulting from the lack of a fully justified fact of abiogenesis. Therefore, the conclusions they include—both in the natural and philosophical aspect (philosophy of nature), are hypothetical. This is because there is no argument—natural or philosophical—that would prove an absolute impossibility of abiogenesis. Of course, this conclusion did not end Kłósak’s methodological reflections. On the basis of the considerations of Claude Tresmontant,⁵⁵ he decided that life—comparing to what preceded it—is a completely new quality in the ontological sense, and it could not have appeared by accident.

A specific and additional inspiration for Kłósak’s analyses and philosophical conclusions were the disputes with various authors from the circle of Christian philosophy which he criticised. The most important of them included Tadeusz Wojciechowski (1917–2000) and Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec (1921–2008). During such debates, carried out directly at scientific meetings and conferences, as well as through published works, Kłósak precised his own opinions and developed his philosophical concepts concerning issues such as: the origin of biological life, the origin of human soul, the methodological status of the philosophy of nature, the use of the results of natural sciences in the philosopher’s work, and the approach to the views of Thomas Aquinas on the proofs of the existence of God.

Especially in the case of evolutionist interpretations of the origin of the human soul, Kłósak’s ideas differed radically from the opinion that, in Poland, was mainly expressed by Tadeusz Wojciechowski. According to Wojciechowski, as well as Kłósak who assessed the former, we should put more emphasis on the immanent activity of the First Cause and, to a larger degree, take into account the meaning of secondary causes in the process of hominization. Kłósak took up such issues in numerous articles in which he tried to establish, with the use of empiriological analysis, the more precise meaning of the ontological term: “human soul.” However, in contrast to Wojciechowski, he believed that—in the philosophical aspect—the supposition that animal psychism evolved into human psychism is the sign of poetizing, as it infringes the principle of non-contradiction by claiming that there can be a transitional state between what is material and non-material.

The suggestions of Teilhard de Chardin, as well as Antonin D. Sertillanges and Karl Rahner, encouraged Kłósak to claim that the historical appearance of the first psychic properties typical of human beings has its phenomenal antecedents (empiriological aspect) or causative reasons from the circle of nature (ontological aspect). That is why, “the historical appearance of the first human souls, seen in the perspective of their whole being, was probably the result of the natural evolution of bio-cosmos …”⁵⁶, but also the result of God’s creative interference. Such concept of the origin of human soul has its deep roots in Kłósak’s definitions of the human soul derived from the philosophy of nature and metaphysics. Referring to the concepts of Thomas Aquinas (Summa theologiae I, q. 75, a. 1), the Krakow philosopher emphasized that the soul is the first principle of life in a human being, i.e. it is what all the human vital signs ultimately, albeit not directly, come from in terms of genetics.⁵⁷ Applying the idea of evolutionary creation suggested by Teilhard de Chardin, Kłósak came to the conclusion that

… if we accept two theses, and one of them says that the human soul is created by God from the nothingness of the subject, while the other thesis claims that such a soul is somehow derived from the action of secondary causative reasons, the two theses can be reconciled provided that we assume that the being of human soul comes directly from God’s creative interference, and the secondary reasons only impose a special mark on the soul.⁵⁸

And the dispute with the philosophical opinion of Krąpiec was revealed against the background of the issue of purposefulness discussed in the context of the so-called “Fifth Way” of Thomas Aquinas.⁵⁹ It was usually believed that the starting point for such theodical argumentation was the statement on the purposeful action of material beings lacking cognition. In one of his publications, Kłósak, disputing with such an approach, presented a reinterpretation of this way that included the belief according to which the starting point should be the order existing in the life of animate beings, and not purposefulness.⁶⁰ This reinterpretation was discussed by many scholars, and one of its main opponents was Krąpiec. Polemical articles of both sides appeared, and during the symposiums organised at KUL in the 1960s, fierce confrontations between both philosophers took place, after which each of them still held to one’s own opinion. It seems that the main source of the dispute concerning purposefulness between the above mentioned two professors was the imprecision of terms—especially the different meanings of the term: “purpose.” Kłósak’s great success was proving that the argumentation in the “Fifth Way” should be more precisely called nomological, and not purpose-oriented, because purposefulness in nature can only be acknowledged after the prior acknowledgement of God, the Creator. Thus, the acknowledgement of purposefulness sensu stricto, cannot serve as an argument for the existence of God.⁶¹

The above mentioned dispute can be treated more broadly as Kłósak’s debate with the representatives of the so-called existential Thomism. Both sides perceived the role of scientific and common experience in a different manner in the initial phase of philosophical reflection. That is why the concept of existential Thomism is described as one of the so-called autonomic philosophies, and Louvain Thomism, supported by Kłósak, belongs to the so-called non-autonomic and heteronomic philosophies that are strongly related to the natural sciences. Although both sides of the above mentioned methodological dispute represented the same philosophical orientation, which mainly referred to the Aristotelian-Thomist thought, Kłósak approached it in a more dynamic and developmental manner—as a reflection that is incomplete, limited in terms of contents, and, in a way, temporary.

While analysing the sources and philosophical inspirations of Kazimierz Kłósak, one may claim that he omitted certain important trends in the European philosophy. For example, he did not pay much attention to Martin Heidegger or Edmund Husserl (if he wrote about them, he was quite critical), he omitted the issues of existentialism, and the hermeneutics of the philosophy of dialogue. He probably did so on purpose, and there were two reasons for this. First, due to his analytical care for exactness, he believed that some types of philosophy were akin to poetical fantasy. Second, he was worried that some philosophers expressed opinions on every subject. His ideal of philosophy was that supported by Kazimierz Twardowski—philosophy that appreciated the precision of speaking and made sure that its discourse was not just “idle talk,” as Józef Maria Bocheński put it. Kłósak did not want philosophy to include unnecessary metaphors, parallels or poetical comparisons. The subjects he selected specified both the language and the method of philosophy, as well as the selection of authors he appreciated.⁶²

Despite the above-mentioned numerous inspirations for scientific activity, a characteristic feature of the whole intellectual attitude of Kazimierz Kłósak was the unique loneliness of his philosophical journey. Because of his criticism, insight and carefulness, he kept himself at a distance from popular schools and trends, creating his own independent style. From logical positivism he adopted its style of metalinguistic analysis and methodological clarification. However, he rejected the criticism of philosophical cognition presented by that trend and, in many areas, he disputed with the supporters of Rudolf Carnap who compared traditional philosophy to poetry.⁶³ From the natural sciences, with an erudition that was typical of him, Kłósak took a broad collection of data related to cosmology, physics of the micro-world, psychology of animals or biochemistry. This was not approved of by authors who were indifferent to the natural sciences and preferred philosophy to be shut up in an epistemological tower that would be inaccessible to other trends, a concept of philosophy that wanted to analyse the results of natural history. That is why fans of simple, unequivocal classifications were not able to mark the work of the Krakow philosopher with a single label. Kłósak’s output was varied and unconventional, both in terms of methodology and substantial openness to the results and other sciences and directions of thinking.

Two years before his death, during the symposium on the philosophical cognition of God organized at ATK in Warsaw, Kłósak shared his plan to use Whitehead’s metaphysics of the process in his work. Referring to one of the lectures by Mieczysław Lubański,⁶⁴ he emphasized that the universe seems to be a great process, and if we notice its evolutionary processes, it would be easier for us to understand the thesis on the contingency of being and on the acting God who reduces the course of such processes. He failed to fulfill this plan, but they confirm the fact that, until the end of his life, Kłósak remained open to new scientific and philosophical inspirations in which he saw the potential for his philosophical work.

3. DETAILED THEORETICAL PROBLEMS

The following selection of the main problems analysed by Kazimierz Kłósak was based, first of all, on their significance for the philosopher’s scientific activity. In his research work and scientific publications, he mainly focused on metaphilosophy (especially the theory of the philosophy of nature), the origin of the universe and life, as well as the nature and origin of the human psyche and human soul. The presentation below is an outline of the above-mentioned collection of problems discussed by Kazimierz Kłósak, and its development includes extracts from his works matching the particular topics (II. Kazimierz Kłósak: Selected Writings), as well as the lexicon of the basic terms that most frequently appear in his works (Chapter 5).

3.1. Metaphilosophical issues

Introductory remarks

Kazimierz Kłósak analysed the method of practicing philosophy for nearly almost the entireity of his scientific activity. There is no doubt that his interest in this subject was influenced by his studies at the University of Louvain in 1936–1939⁶⁵ and the openness of that philosophical environment to the results of the natural sciences, which resulted in the creation of the so-called open Thomism. The appearance of the above mentioned version of Thomism was influenced by the development and achievements of the particular (natural) sciences, significant philosophical doctrines of the 19th century, as well as the fact that Leo XIII⁶⁶ had issued the encyclical Aeterni Patris which included the revision of the previous understanding of Thomism among the Christian philosophers. Such a version of neo-Thomism was characterised by its openness to the results of empirical sciences, especially natural ones. In contrast to the traditional mistrust of philosophers of the Thomist trend, Kłósak appreciated the achievements of the natural sciences and believed that the results of such sciences are important for philosophy—especially the philosophy of nature,⁶⁷ but also for the philosophy of God in which some arguments for the existence of God are based on premises on the properties of the world of nature.

The most important work summarizing the views of Kazimierz Kłósak in metaphilosophy is the book: Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody (1980) [On the Theory and Methodology of the Philosophy of Nature]. The professor’s best practice was that, when he started writing a scientific monograph, he first tried to sum up his previous research concerning a given area. In particular, he indicated in which points he completely changed or just modified his ideas. The book Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody also includes such indication, and in the introduction we can read that “this study is an attempt to synthesize and develop what—I suppose—remained from my articles and dissertations in which, starting from 1939, I explored the theory and methodology of the philosophy of nature.”⁶⁸

The “Foreword” to the first volume of the series Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody [On the Philosophy of Natural Sciences and Philosophy of Nature], which was initiated and edited by Kłósak, constitutes a summary of the philosopher’s opinion on the method of the philosophy of nature. Methodological issues were also discussed in the extensive introduction to the book: Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga (1979) [On the Philosophical Cognition of God]. Kłósak’s methodological views were shaped under the influence of the books by Jacques Maritain whose concept of philosophy was the subject of analyses in several articles.⁶⁹

In this part of the study, the main principles of Kłósak’s theory and methodology of the philosophy of nature shall be presented, and we shall then focus on two problems that are particularly interesting from the point of view of the contemporary theory and methodology of the philosophy of nature. The problems include: the concept of philosophical facts and the concept of ontological implications of a reductive type. The considerations will mainly be based on the above mentioned monograph: Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody.

Pluralistic theory of philosophy

From the historical point of view, the appearance of positivism and scientism stemmed from the fact that certain philosophers began to question the need for the philosophy of nature because they believed that natural sciences would take its place. The supporters of this idea claimed that the problems that natural sciences cannot solve are “unsolvable and devoid of cognitive meaning.”⁷⁰ Kłósak disagreed with this and which is why he tried to defend the need for the existence of the philosophy of nature, its independence of other philosophical and scientific disciplines, as well as its autonomy. He tried to do this from the perspective of what he called the philosophy of nature and its methodology. In a way, distinguishing the theory of the philosophy of nature from the philosophy of nature itself is the reference to distinguishing primary and secondary science, respectively. In order to treat the theory of the philosophy of nature as one of philosophical sciences, Kłósak divides sciences in the same way as Bolesław Gawecki—between philosophy understood more broadly and philosophy sensu stricto.⁷¹ Philosophy understood more broadly includes “critical reflection oh human cognition in general and on its kinds,”⁷² including scientific cognition. And the cognitive reflection on scientific cognition in general is called “epistemology,” and when it refers to detailed fields of science—as their theory and methodology—it becomes the “exact epistemology.” Kłósak classified both the theory and methodology of the philosophy of nature as part of the former type of philosophy, and the philosophy of nature—to the philosophy sensu stricto the material subject of which is the type of being found in nature.

The theory of the philosophy of nature was to be the function of two other theories: first of all, the theory of the natural sciences concerning nature and man, along with the theory of the opportunity to learn about nature through philosophical methods, and—second—the theory of metaphysics.⁷³ With his method of metaphysics, the Krakow neo-Thomist refers to one of its approaches maintained by Maritain. According to such an approach, metaphysics—in the most abstract manner—deals with a being in the aspect of beingness—“the aspect of being something that actually exists.”⁷⁴ However, such traditional metaphysics is not an absolutely prior science, as it is preceded with the science of being in the aspect of existing in any manner—actual or other.⁷⁵

After confirming the possibility of getting to know nature in a philosophical manner, with a certain concept of metaphysics, Kłósak considered the problem of the relation of the philosophy of nature to metaphysics. In this context, he took exception to an idea of Jerzy Kalinowski, according to whom there is only one method of philosophy (creating concepts that are transcendentally analogous), as well as one objective for it (explaining the existence and essence of an contingent being through the indication of its internal and external causes), as a result of which there is only one philosophy, i.e. metaphysics.⁷⁶ Kłósak believed that, in order to acknowledge Kalinowski’s idea that the philosophy of nature of the Aristotelian-Thomist type is included in the core of metaphysics, one would have to prove the thesis on the unity of philosophy—metaphysics. According to Kłósak, Kalinowski failed to prove to do so as his justification was too narrow, because the organic unity of philosophy only refers to the theses on the occidental being, on the basis of which one comes to the theses on the necessary being, i.e. God.⁷⁷ Kalinowski claims that the theses concerning the accidental being belong to the core of philosophy, while Kłósak believes that an accidental being goes beyond the cognitive horizon of the philosophy of nature, which deals with theses related to beings which are subject to physical movement. Further, when he refers to one formal subject of metaphysics, Kalinowski means an accidental being as such. Thus, one cannot conclude that metaphysics is to indicate the essence of the being through the presentation of the material and formal cause. A similar statement could be made if we rationally decided that all accidental beings are material or materially-spiritual and consist of the first matter and substantial form. Such a conviction as to the complexity of beings would not be a consequence of their accidentality, but a philosophical belief according to which, essentially, accidental beings are not simple beings.⁷⁸ And, since there are purely spiritual beings (which is very probable), those which are not so hylomorphically complex, their essence could not have been explained perfectly through giving the material and formal cause, which is one of the objectives of the only philosophy—metaphysics.

Kłósak presents a similarly critical attitude towards the ideas of Krąpiec, who believed that the philosophy of nature, in contrast to metaphysics, did not enjoy a separate formal subject, and that the first matter and the substantial form are constituents of the philosophy of being as a being, i.e. they are the subject of metaphysics and not a particular subject of the philosophy of nature.⁷⁹ Kłósak analysed these ideas in a thorough manner. First of all, he criticised the notion of metaphysics presented by Krąpiec, questioning in particular his concept of a being. The latter believed that a being is a particular material being, directly noticeable, which—according to Kłósak—is a moderate version of concretism that only takes into account the existence of things specified in time and space. This way, Krąpiec, “to a high degree”⁸⁰ mistook the material subject of metaphysics for its formal subject, which is why he included the science of the first matter and the substantial form as part of metaphysics, along with all the issues of the traditional philosophy of nature.⁸¹ According to Kłósak, it is caused by the lack of abstracting the “aspect of being something that actually exists.”⁸² The lack of such abstraction derives from the improper approach to abstraction itself, which is only understood as a variant of sensual abstraction that, “among the features connected with one another, artificially isolates them from one another.”⁸³ Krąpiec believes that such abstraction makes it only possible to create a content-based universal concept of a being, without the existential aspect of a being as such. That is why, as a consequence, Krąpiec rejected it, basing his concretist concept of a being as such on metaphysical separation sensu stricto (just like Louis-Bertrand Geiger), which included “obvious existential judgments related, first of all, to particular material beings.”⁸⁴ Kłósak claimed that it is better to use a richer approach to abstraction and separation that would make it possible to obtain an abstract concept of a being with analogical and transcendental features—a being that maintains both the essential and existential aspect.⁸⁵

The other two opinions criticised by Kłósak on the relation between metaphysics and philosophy of nature are more moderate. According to the first opinion, the philosophy of nature is particular metaphysics, and the other opinion claims that such philosophy is applied metaphysics.⁸⁶ The key role in those concepts is played by the formal subject of metaphysics, which is the aspect in which the material subject of metaphysics is analysed. Such formal subject becomes the tool (in Kłósak’s terminology—a link) with which certain detailed classes of a being are distinguished and which makes it possible to incorporate them into metaphysics. However, it is of secondary and low importance. Kłósak was against it, claiming that particular types of a real being are not taken into account in a positive manner. An example of such a real being includes a being subject to movement sensu stricto, i.e. the subject of the philosophy of nature.⁸⁷ It was similar with the philosophy of nature understood as applied metaphysics, which was supported by Stanisław Adamczyk. Kłósak claimed that “in the philosophy of nature, cognition belongs neither to the general metaphysics nor to particular metaphysics, but it is an expression of applying the principles of both forms of that science to inanimate nature.”⁸⁸ The criticism of that concept, just like the previous one, is based on the reflection that such an approach results in “the introduction [to the philosophy of nature] of a metaphysical epistemologic perspective and the discussion of metaphysical theses concerning the first causative cause and the final objective cause of the universe.”⁸⁹ The Krakow professor was very strict in defending the pluralistic concept of philosophy, and he believed that “in philosophy, we are dealing with separate fields of knowledge in terms of kinds and genres—with cognitive spheres which are clearly different from one another.”⁹⁰ One such spheres of knowledge is the philosophy of nature.⁹¹ In order to justify this opinion, Kłósak claimed that the separation of a material subject and one formal subject is enough to separate the philosophy of nature from metaphysics. To achieve this, it is enough to transfer the aspect of beingness from the material subject of the philosophy of nature—which was supported by Maritain—“to its formal subject as its most general approach.”⁹² In addition, Kłósak assumed that philosophy strictly understood, practiced according to Aristotelian-Thomist principles, “is formally constituted along with the distinction in the specific features of the aspect of beingness alien to natural sciences.”⁹³ Then, the cognition, which is characteristic of a given area of philosophy sensu stricto, can be divided depending on whether we refer it to the type of being understood in an abstract manner, or to the being as such understood in an abstract manner.⁹⁴

In the work: Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga,Kłósak emphasizes that there are at least two philosophical disciplines: metaphysics and the philosophy of nature.⁹⁵ He claims that “metaphysics analyses each individual, real being in the aspect of beingness, resulting in the maximally abstractionist approach to it,”⁹⁶ while “the formal subject of the philosophy of nature is the type of being which is characteristic of the things existing in nature,”⁹⁷ i.e. “a being existing in the stream of time.”⁹⁸ And in the book: Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, Kłósak, in the summary, formulates the specific features of the formal subject of the philosophy of nature, giving it a more broadly understood ontological content: “the philosophy of nature is a science dealing with the aspect of real existence as that type of things that constitutes nature.”⁹⁹

Finally, it should be emphasized that the philosophy of nature was not the only discipline which Kłósak indicated had an independence and separateness from metaphysics. His philosophical pluralism was reflected in the acknowledgement of many other fields of philosophy, such as philosophical anthropology or the philosophy of God.¹⁰⁰

Scientific facts and philosophical facts

The above discussed justification of the pluralism of the classical Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy in terms of the existence of different and independent philosophical disciplines, made it possible for Kłósak to distinguish the philosophy of nature as a separate scientific discipline. Another problem he faced was specifying the relation of such a philosophy of nature to sciences—especially natural sciences. As we know, neo-Thomists had two main approaches to this issue: the first one rejected any dependence of philosophy on those sciences, and the second approach supported the opinion that, in its analyses, philosophy should take into account the results of natural sciences. Kłósak was the supporter of the second approach, which, in his opinion, did not contradict supporting the autonomy of the philosophy of nature comparing with natural sciences.¹⁰¹ While analysing this problem, we should pay attention to the fact that—already at the beginning of his monograph—Kłósak expressed his opinion on “the scope of cognition within natural sciences concerning nature, including the man.”¹⁰² He distinguished two different theories of natural sciences: an empiriological and ontologizing one. The former was supported by Maritain, whose thought Kłósak accepted and creatively developed. According to the empiriological theory, “in particular sciences concerning nature, including the man, phenomena are analysed in their mutual relations, i.e. in terms of regularities and connections among them—such regularities and connections that are expressed in describing causative conditions, formulas of the laws of nature, and in different theories.”¹⁰³ The empiriological theory applies the characteristic concept of the cause, and its theoretical formulations refer to direct or indirect observations and their measurements.¹⁰⁴ The ontologizing theory leads to blurring the border between the two types of cognition—natural and philosophical cognition. According to this theory, the natural sciences are able to get to know the essence and nature of material reality in the substantial aspect through the scientific perception of different phenomena and the laws that govern those phenomena. This way, it is possible to learn about the direct causes of the phenomena. Unlike in the empiriological theory, the sciences in question use the ontological concept of the cause adjusted to those sciences in a proper manner.¹⁰⁵

Kłósak clearly supported the empiriological theory, paying attention to the fact that, in compliance with some authors, it is a kind of continuation of the Aristotelian theory of science.¹⁰⁶ The adoption of such an approach made it difficult for Kłósak to justify the opportunity to use the results of natural sciences in the philosophy of nature. The ontologizing theory was an easy solution to the problem, but the Krakow neo-Thomist chose a more difficult path, which obviously stemmed from his belief that natural sciences are of an empiriological nature. Because of this, we may describe Kłósak’s opinion as unique—also in the aspect in which he justifies his belief. The classical philosophy acknowledged the need to base philosophy on the facts of common experience, but, at the same time, it found them sufficient for practicing philosophy—especially the philosophy of nature. Kłósak also acknowledged this need and, following the idea of Maritain, he appreciated the value of common experience. However, he also indicated different shortages related to the facts of such experience, such as: insufficient precision, incomplete objectiveness and fragmentary approach to reality. Kłósak believed that such cognition may only be useful in introductory philosophical studies, and it has to be complemented with scientific cognition. As an activity, scientific cognition has its products, which were analysed by Kłósak who called them: “scientific facts,” “empiriological data” or “data of the empirical scientific phenomenology.”¹⁰⁷ The scientific facts in question mainly refer to natural sciences and humanistic-natural sciences (e.g. psychology), and they do not constitute a uniform group, but are divided into the following sub-classes: (1) the results of the direct experience expressed through proper remarks¹⁰⁸; (2) empirical laws expressed in the form of general judgments; (3) hypotheses being postulates that require confrontation with experience in order to be confirmed or rejected; (4) models, in the sense of cosmological models¹⁰⁹; (5) scientific theories perceived as sets of statements connected with the principles of logic, definitions and rules of interpretation (interpreted systems); (6) principles.¹¹⁰ While talking about scientific facts, Kłósak referred to the thought of Maritain for whom a scientific fact is “any fact which, being a well-established existential truth, includes in its essence the relation to the reason … i.e. the reason recognizes it and judges it properly.”¹¹¹ Contrary to scientific facts, philosophical facts include “the data that were established and judged in the objective light of philosophy.”¹¹² Kłósak, while analysing this idea of Maritain in a critical manner, indicated that the French philosopher distinguished those two groups of facts due to a different conceptual language in which they are expressed. Scientific facts are related to the scientific theory of empiriological nature, while philosophical facts are related to the ontologizing analysis. The difference not only included different languages (different types of concepts) that describe something that would—materially—be the same object, but it also included two actually separate groups of data.¹¹³ Scientific data refers to the aspect of nature related to properties, phenomena and quantities, while philosophical data refers to the essence of things in nature. The difference between the two kinds of data concerns being (an ontological difference). It should be mentioned that Kłósak did not treat the above mentioned scientific facts in the same way as for their application in philosophy. He preferred sentences expressing the results of direct experiences, laws, theories of nature and principles. He also claimed that one should select scientific facts and choose those that refer to significant empirical data that can be the starting point for philosophy.

Problems related to scientific facts are varied, and many of them were omitted here due to the format of this book.¹¹⁴ It is worth mentioning that, in light of the modern philosophy of science and methodology, Kłósak was right, because it seems that philosophizing within the reflection on nature, without taking into account the natural sciences, seems anachronistic.¹¹⁵

We shall now turn to the ways in which Kłósak obtained the so-called philosophical facts. Since philosophical facts are so much different from scientific facts, both in conceptual and ontological terms, the problem of transforming scientific facts into philosophical ones seems to be fundamental for Kłósak’s concept of the philosophy of nature. First, the Krakow neo-Thomist presented the arguments for the necessity to base the philosophy of nature on philosophical facts, and not on scientific facts. He referred to the sufficient reason according to which philosophical conclusions cannot come from scientific premises (scientific facts). We mean philosophical conclusions that belong to the very philosophy of nature, and not philosophical facts,¹¹⁶ as the latter—expressed in the form of judgments—should not (or even cannot) be conclusions, but (descriptive) statements.¹¹⁷ On page 139 of the dissertation Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody we can find an example of a philosophical fact.¹¹⁸ In this case, the philosophical fact expresses judgment: “In their essence, bodies—due to their materiality—are spatial-temporal beings,”¹¹⁹ and—according to Kłósak—a reductive conclusion that belongs to the philosophy of nature is the judgment that bodies are, in their essence, hylomorphic beings.¹²⁰

For scientific facts, the basic experience is noticeable—either from outside or from inside, but it is different with philosophical facts. Kłósak wrote that the source (way) of reaching philosophical facts is an intellectual dianoetic cognition. He took this term from Maritain, for whom it was a way of intellectual cognition in which the intellectual constitution of a thing is made objective in itself, or, in other words, due to which we reach the nature or essence of a thing through a sensual element.¹²¹ At this moment of our considerations, an interesting aspect of philosophical facts appears. Kłósak describes two situations in which new philosophical facts may appear. The first one is the above mentioned “from bottom to top.” In this case, the philosophy of nature is built from the beginning, “approaching nature in the most general manner in the type of being that is proper to it.”¹²² In the second situation, first, reductive conclusions are drawn from some philosophical facts, and, on the basis of those conclusions, we can “enrich the philosophy of nature with new ‘philosophical’ facts in its formal starting point.”¹²³

Another issue discussed by Kłósak with reference to philosophical facts was the question: “why are the facts of ‘scientific’ experience, transformed into ‘philosophical’ facts, necessary for the base of the philosophy of nature?”¹²⁴ The Krakow neo-Thomist explicitly speaks about transforming scientific facts into philosophical facts. It is a consistent opinion because, otherwise, the former would not be needed at all, taking into account their being different. In other words: the above question refers to the scope of the base of the philosophy of nature. In this context, Kłósak indicates detailed reasons for the methodological necessity of referring to scientific facts due to the significant insufficiency of the pre-scientific (common) experience itself. He confirms his ideas by indicating the events from the history of cosmology, in which the lack of scientific experiences led to some serious mistakes in cosmologic statements—both those related to inanimate nature, and those concerning animate nature, or even to absurdities. It refers both to the Middle Ages and to modern times. In order to illustrate this situation, Kłósak gives the example of St. Thomas Aquinas who adopts the “naive solution of the origin of life in the field of secondary causative reasons, according to which some, less perfect, animals … are born from putrefaction resulting from the activity of an active force of celestial bodies.”¹²⁵

It should be mentioned that Kłósak, following the thought of Désiré Nys, analysed the relation of the philosophy of inanimate nature to physical theories (according to the terminology of Nys). A philosopher is free to consider such theories or not. In particular, they include theories which reduce the complete reality of some physical phenomena to the properties of one type. And if such a reduction does not take place or such a theory declares something about the nature of the physical reality, the philosopher of nature should consider them. According to Nys, such theories included those which, “being philosophical theories, claim to be physical theories,”¹²⁶ e.g. Ostwald’s energetic monism, Mach’s phenomenalism, or the Cartesian mechanism.¹²⁷ Interestingly, at the same time, Kłósak seemed to agree with Nys and Maritain who believed that pre-scientific cognition could have been a sufficient source of cognition for a brilliant cosmologist, which is why we should not totally reject the value of the cosmological research that had appeared before the boom of modern natural sciences.¹²⁸

Returning to the issue of transforming scientific facts into philosophical facts, we have to notice that he used the concept of a fact established by Maritain, who treated those two groups of facts as parallel and provided an interesting classification of facts. With reference to the degree of abstraction related to human cognition, he distinguished the following facts: those related to common sense, “scientific” (natural) facts, mathematical facts, logical facts, and “philosophical” (especially metaphysical) facts.¹²⁹ Thus, philosophical facts are at the highest level of abstraction. Kłósak did not develop the way of transforming scientific facts into philosophical facts, which is strange, as this issue is of key importance for his whole concept. He only characterised this procedure in a general manner, and he provided some examples from the philosophy of inanimate nature.¹³⁰ While describing the above mentioned transformations in a general way, Kłósak indicated two “interpretative” paths: the first one is abstraction, and the other includes using the so-called philosophical vision. Kłósak distinguishes two types of abstraction: extensive abstraction (related to the scope) that makes it possible to approach a given scientific experience in the aspect of a type of being or being as such,¹³¹ and formal (Essentials) abstraction that approaches the essential content of a being. The second path of the “philosophical establishment of ‘scientific’ facts includes confronting them with certain theses from the philosophy of nature.”¹³² In this case, Kłósak referred to the ideas of Maritain, for whom philosophical facts are the “data that had been established and judged in the objective light of philosophy.”¹³³ Maritain indicated two forms of the philosophical elaboration of scientific data: changing the terminology of natural sciences into the terminology typical for philosophy, and confronting scientific data with the theses of the philosophy of nature.¹³⁴

To sum up, it should be emphasized that Kłósak was, in a way, “prophetic” in basing his philosophy of nature on the results of the natural sciences. Today it is difficult to imagine practicing philosophy without such an approach. However, it seems that he did not analyse his idea in detail, and he failed to provide more precise principles of transforming scientific facts into philosophical facts, which is why his concept did not result in a specific procedure that could be applied in more modern methodological research.¹³⁵ The reactions of some philosophers (e.g. Marian Jaworski) suggested that the necessity of that stage—i.e. transforming scientific facts into philosophical ones—was questioned in the process of building the philosophy of nature.¹³⁶

Ontological implications of a reductive type

We shall now discuss the last stage of building the philosophy of nature by Kłósak. We have data from the common experience which are philosophically interpreted, as well as selected scientific data transformed into philosophical data. The philosophical facts obtained in this way do not yet constitute a system of the philosophy of nature, but are the basis for it. Now we have to pay attention to the fact that the philosophical system used for the interpretation of scientific facts which, at the same time, is the objective of philosophical reflection, should probably be formulated before carrying out the interpretation. This may result in some methodological problems.¹³⁷

Kłósak suggests that we can use a certain type of reasoning, which he specifies as separation of ontological test implication of reductive type for philosophical facts.¹³⁸ Due to this way of drawing conclusions, we can grasp the most general theses of the philosophy of nature. This is Kłósak’s unique suggestion.¹³⁹

While preparing the presentation of his concept, Kłósak criticised the opinion of Mazierski, who treated physical abstraction as a universal tool of the philosophy of nature.¹⁴⁰ Kłósak indicated that when we carry out a “physical” abstraction, we certainly do not reason, which was suggested by Mazierski.¹⁴¹ Nevertheless, Kłósak believed that it is the method of physical abstraction that can provide us with the “most general approach to bodies,” i.e. with this method we can “separate a type of being proper to the bodies”—their temporality, spatiality, and submission to movement sensu stricto.¹⁴²

At this stage of his deliberations, the basic question of Kłósak was: “… which method should we use to reach an intersubjective confirmation of Thomist theses related to the most basic structure of bodies?.”¹⁴³ This question has certain presuppositions, and here is one of them: it is the expression “reach an intersubjective confirmation of Thomist theses.” Obviously, Kłósak was convinced that highly general (such generality is important) philosophical theses can be intersubjectively confirmed. It is worth emphasizing that such a “confirmation” does not mean “proving” on the basis of a set of “axioms,” but “confirming” if something is true. Whether the method suggested by Kłósak allows for such a confirmation (or the possibility of confirmation, as a rule) or not, seems unclear.

Returning to the main question, here is how we can answer it: “the method is based on checking whether the theses in question cannot be treated as ontological (in a broader sense) test implications of the most general statements on nature included in a philosophical elaboration, that were analysed in the perspectives of common, especially scientific—natural cognition.”¹⁴⁴ Such implications were to be of a reductive rather than a deductive nature; they were to be tested and provide a “final explanation” for the philosophical properties of bodies “in terms of their most basic structure.”¹⁴⁵ Kłósak’s requirement that the implications in question are of the test type was a reference to test implications by Carl Hempel which were deductive conclusions from hypotheses and could be subject to empirical testing. The Krakow philosopher referred to the postulate of the epistemological unity of the considerations that had been carried out, in order to justify the fact that both the premises and conclusions of reductive considerations must have the same epistemological genre. In other words, the established philosophical facts, on the basis of scientific facts, in the form of conceptually general philosophical principles and distinctions, taken as premises, make it possible to reductively draw the most general philosophical conclusions that are to refer to the basic structure of the bodies.¹⁴⁶ Kłósak believed the infringement of the above-mentioned postulate of uniformity to be a sign of irrationality.¹⁴⁷

In his works, Kłósak mainly used the classification of considerations introduced by Tadeusz Czeżowski. Within Polish philosophy and methodology, it was also done by Jan Łukasiewicz and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, and each of them provided his own classification of drawing conclusions. Czeżowski treated explaining (clarifying) as reductive consideration (from the consequence to accepting the reason), regressive consideration (from a given consequence to its reason) and discovering (from the adopted sentence to the sentence that was not accepted).¹⁴⁸ As we can see, Czeżowski did not think considerations are only of reductive types which included going from the consequences to the reasons, but he ascribed them the conjunction of three features.

According to Kłósak, in a broader sense, the method of formulating ontological implications of a reductive type can include—through making the implications more general—the method of physical abstraction, because what is established can be treated as a kind of implications on nature due to the application of abstraction.¹⁴⁹ At the same time, referring to Renoirte, Kłósak discussed the possibility of separating “reductive discursive threads” from the method of physical abstraction.”¹⁵⁰ That fragment of his considerations is not fully clear, and it leaves some interpretative doubts, especially taking into account the previous criticism of Mazierski’s opinions on physical abstraction. Although previously Kłósak clearly spoke about ontological implications of a reductive type in a broader sense, he ultimately focused on the ontological implications of a reductive type in a narrower sense.¹⁵¹ Here is what he writes: “we are introducing certain assumptions, or—more directly—certain suppositions or hypotheses concerning the most basic structure of the bodies,”¹⁵² and probably it is them that are the implications we were searching for.

In compliance with the previous view on reductive implications as explanations, Kłósak noticed that the same philosophical facts may have different reductive implications that explain data with a similar probability. Thus, a researcher should use additional means that would make it possible for him to achieve “full certainty if it is available, and if we can achieve more than just higher or lower probability.”¹⁵³ This statement is important for at least two reasons: first, Kłósak spoke about certainty, which—as it is believed nowadays—is the subject of a proof; and second, he spoke about it in a conditional manner, because perhaps philosophers might never achieve it. Finally, Kłósak enumerates three ways of reaching certainty in a given issue. The first one includes the equivalence between ontological implications of a reductive type in a narrower sense, and (all) philosophical theses of a significant nature, built on the basis of experience (common and scientific).¹⁵⁴ On the second path, “we can acknowledge that the implications related to the ontical structure of the bodies are true, because without approving those implications we would not be able to finally and definitely understand the bodies in terms of their type of being.”¹⁵⁵ Kłósak calls it an apagogic proof, in which a negation of the most general thesis of the philosophy of nature leads to a contradiction. The third way includes the following assumption: “we could confirm the truthfulness of the statements of that philosophy concerning the ontical structure of things, if we concluded that—after rejecting them—we have to treat natural things, analysed in terms of their type of being, as something totally puzzling—something that contains a fundamental irrationale.”¹⁵⁶ In other words, if the negation of the most general theses of the philosophy of nature (sentences or a sentence) results in a contradiction in philosophical sentences being interpretations of scientific data, and such a contradiction is impossible (ontological contradiction)¹⁵⁷because it refers to the data of natural and philosophical sciences, we have to consider the general philosophical thesis as truthful. The second and third ways are similar, which is why they can be treated as one philosophical method.¹⁵⁸ Interestingly, Kłósak himself questioned the effectiveness of the apagogic proof used in the latter two ways, and he was quite skeptical speaking about the dullness of the concept of the rationality of being. We can also mention that effectiveness is an interesting concept, and it does not have much in common with Kłósak’s intentions, although it has a clearly defined meaning in the modern methodology and philosophy of science.¹⁵⁹ Kłósak believed that the concept of the rationality of a being (ontical rationality) can be treated as clear and sharp if “in [its] cognitive approach no logical contradiction is included.”¹⁶⁰ Thus, the assumption of the rationality of a being makes it possible to reach the above-mentioned certainty in the issues concerning the most general theses of the philosophy of nature.

Kłósak’s method of building the philosophy of nature can also be used in the philosophy of God in which, according to the philosopher, “in order to discover God, on the basis of the maximum philosophical creativity, we are trying the ultimate explanation for such facts as the movement existing in the world, the causative action of inanimate matter, the contingency of all things, or the order that reveals itself in nature.”¹⁶¹ In the monograph published just before his death: Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, Kłósak tried to follow the “arguments leading to the assumption of the existence of God as the only reason that eliminates contradictions in our philosophical existential statements concerning the empirical world.”¹⁶²

In order to illustrate how Kłósak used his method of forming ontological implications of a reductive type in practice, we need to consider two of his kinds of reasoning. The first one refers to philosophical conclusions that can be drawn from the principle of the equivalence of inert mass and energy, and the second—to Kłósak’s analysis concerning the so-called Fourth Way of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Analysis of Einstein’s principle¹⁶³

From the methodological point of view, a particularly interesting text is Kłósak’s: Zasada “równoważności” masy bezwładnej i energii a ontyczna struktura materii [The Principle of “Equivalence” of Inert Mass and Energy and the Ontical Structure of Matter].¹⁶⁴ The author of the work analysed whether Albert Einstein’s famous formula E=mc² has ontological implications of a reductive type compliant with the statements of the Thomist theory of being.

After the necessary terminological explanations, Kłósak analyses the “subjective meaning” of the principle, i.e. “the type of unity it adopts for the physical reality,” and “cateogrial determinations that are proper to the designates of the concepts of this principle, i.e. the concepts of inert mass and energy.”¹⁶⁵ Then, he carries out an epistemological analysis of the subjective content of the concepts of inert mass and energy. After the analysis, he comes to the conclusion that “according to this principle, each physical system contains, at the same time, quantitative relations, typical of the concept of inert mass, and quantitative relations, typical of the concept of energy, and there is a constant proportionality of both kinds of relations, expressed by Einstein’s formula.”¹⁶⁶ This analysis made it possible for Kłósak to determine that: “Taking into account the qualitative bases, or the context of the mathematical formulas of the inert mass and energy, we can say that according to Einstein’s principle, in each physical system we have an aspect of something passive, inert, and—at the same time—an aspect of something dynamic and active.”¹⁶⁷ Both aspects—the passive and active one—should be understood as qualitative consequences of the quantitative relations expressed, respectively, in the concepts of inert mass and energy.¹⁶⁸ In the next part of the article, Kłósak evaluated the truthfulness of Einstein’s principle. The philosopher’s conclusions remain in the sphere of natural cognition, and his analyses are related to the research in the philosophy of science. Thus, the author does not yet step into the ontological field—he only establishes some issues in the area of the empirical phenomenology of nature.

Then, Kłósak directly confronts Einstein’s statement with the Thomist theory of a being. Since the relations in Einstein’s principle are only approached from the point of view of the phenomena, Kłósak concludes that “Einstein’s principle is, in its formal frame, alien to the ontological approach to the physical reality, i.e. to its most general approach which includes its type of being. The content of the principle of ‘equivalence’ of inert mass and energy refers exclusively to the empiriological cognition of nature.”¹⁶⁹ Thus, Einstein’s principle, considered with reference to the phenomena, is indifferent to the theory of hylomorphism according to Kłósak.

It is different when the detailed ontological implications of a reductive type are analysed, because they, “with reference to the above-mentioned principle, are significant for a Thomist with a particular general-ontological orientation.”¹⁷⁰ In order to obtain such implications, one has to transpose a scientific fact—Einstein’s thesis into a philosophical fact in which the principle is analysed in the ontological aspect.¹⁷¹ Such a transposition of the analysed scientific fact mainly includes taking into account the relations that occur in Einstein’s principle “in the aspect of their proper beingness.”¹⁷² When the given relations have been analysed in the aspect of beingness, it is possible to see everything they assume, also in this aspect. As a consequence, looking for the ultimate reason for those relations in the philosophical field, leads us to acknowledge that such a reason for being is that of substance understood the same way as in Thomism.¹⁷³ Thus, one of the possible ontological implications of a reductive type concerning a principle that was interpreted philosophically matches the Thomist thesis on the “division of physical reality into substance and accidents.”¹⁷⁴

Similarly, while carrying out an ontological interpretation of Einstein’s principle, Kłósak concludes that it assumes the existence in a physical system of two different aspects: a passive (inert) and a dynamic (active) one. In terms of ontology, it leads to the adoption of dualism of mass and energy understood ontologically. Such dualism explains the phenomena we can see. If we aim at looking for the reason for such dualism in a deeper layer of the physical reality, we can find it in the adoption of the existence, in each material being, of two different and contradictory substantial principles—the first matter and the substantial form.¹⁷⁵ “This way,” Kłósak concludes, “in a reductive manner, we come to the theory of hylomorphic composition of physical beings.”¹⁷⁶

Considerations on Thomas Aquinas’ “Fourth Way” from the degrees of perfection

Now we shall focus on a particularly original lecture of Kłósak’s concerning the proofs for the existence of God, and—in particular—the development of the so-called Fourth Way of Thomas Aquinas. The proof of Aquinas, included in Summa theologiae, is as follows:

The Fourth Way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Aristotle’s second book of Metaphysics. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.¹⁷⁷

Another version to which Kłósak referred is included in Summa contra gentiles:

Another argument may also be gathered from the words of Aristotle. In Metaphysics II he shows that what is most true is also most a being. But in Metaphysics IV he shows the existence of something supremely true from the observed fact that of two false things one is more false than the other, which means that one is more true than the other. This comparison is based on the nearness to that which is absolutely and supremely true. From these Aristotelian texts we may further infer that there is something that is supremely being. This we call God.¹⁷⁸

Kłósak presented a variant of this shorter argument in the following way: “If we ascribe different degrees of false and truthfulness to particular judgments (I), and if such evaluation may be carried out through the reference to what is supremely true (II), and if what is supremely true is also supremely being (III), there is something that is supremely being, i.e. God (IV).”¹⁷⁹ This variant became the subject of critical analysis of the Krakow philosopher, and, in his opinion, the very argument consists of three premises (I–III) and a conclusion (IV). Kłósak’s first remarks refer to premise I. According to the remarks, what the first premise says may be considered as a fact without objection. Kłósak rejects the improper way of understanding this premise, which includes relativizing the truth. The whole criticism refers to the second and third premise of the proof. As for the second premise, Kłósak noticed that it is not crucial to derive the necessity of referring to what is absolutely true from the possibility to ascribe the degrees of true or false (mistake) to judgements (simpliciter et maxime verum).¹⁸⁰ While formulating the second premise, St. Thomas does not prove it, but he only refers to the authority of Aristotle, for whom the existence of something supremely true was directly obvious. St. Thomas adopted a similar strategy, using the argument from the authority, which was also adopted by Aristotle regarding the third premise saying that what contains the maximum of truth also includes the maximum of being.¹⁸¹ The second premise is wrong, because from the assumption that we treat some judgments as true, and others as false, we cannot conclude that other judgments are more certain or truer than them. According to Kłósak, we do not even have to be aware of it—it is enough that we have other criteria due to which we can grade the judgments in terms of their truthfulness. Another problem appears due to the comparison of the concept of truth used in the second and third premise. Kłósak claims that the second premise includes the concept of an absolute truth—something that contains the maximum truth, while the third premise includes the concept of truth “in the most universal sense; truth that includes a set of all possible subjects of cognition,” a maximalist idea of truth.¹⁸² Kłósak believed that because of this something similar to the syllogistic mistake of quaternio terminorum¹⁸³ appears in Thomas’ reasoning. Besides, from the very concept of maximalist truth, we cannot deduct that this idea “mentally presents the maximum of reality to us … and it does not make us authorized to conclude that what the concept expresses truly exists.”¹⁸⁴ Thus, Kłósak justly concluded that we cannot identify the maximally approached noetic order with the maximally approached ontic order, which could be done if we knew that God exists and the argumentation based on this fact was circular.¹⁸⁵ Then, Kłósak tried to reformulate the proof from the degrees of perfection to make it correct.¹⁸⁶ He noticed that the first premise of the original proof is correct, but the fact it declares (the degrees of truthfulness and false) may only be explained through reference to the limitedness of human cognition as the closer explanation. However, on this way, he did not exlude the ultimate explanation, i.e. the cognition of the existence of God on such basis. Nevertheless, he chose another way.¹⁸⁷ In his argumentation, Kłósak used the remark on the existence of accidental truths, and the important separation of truths from their contents (he avoided talking about sentences themselves). However, he did not explain his way of understanding the contents, and he wrote about them as about the aspects (side) of truths, where the latter are probably understood as what the sentences express. Then, as a starting point, he adopted the assumption that “no truth, which we reach, is—in the aspect of its contents—fully and completely explained in the beings in the surrounding world, because such beings—despite the undoubtful degree of their relative necessity—are accidental and unnecessary in their existence.”¹⁸⁸ Thus, he concluded that only a being “which exists from itself—a being a se” can give a full and ultimate explanation for the cognized contents.¹⁸⁹ Not only from that being all true contents are derived, but the being itself has model ideas for the contents, or even it is “the model ideas” because “… if there was no such creative truth, absolutely independent and first, we would not know any dependent truth.”¹⁹⁰ Here is what Kłósak wrote further: “the content of each dependent truth may be ultimately understandable for us in terms of its existence in the perfect noetic order only if we perceive it as the reconstruction of the truth that is absolutely independent and first.”¹⁹¹ Kłósak classified the contents and their existence into the neotic order, which seems right, but this way he did not move to the metaphysical order. Surprisingly, he went further when—in the next sentence—he said: “only in the metaphysical perspective, taken into account by this thinker [Thomas Aquinas], can we speak about the occurrence in our cognition of dependent truths,” i.e. not only the contents that are the sides of the truths.¹⁹² Again, Kłósak justified his thesis referring to the irrationality (and mysteriousness) of the fact of the existence of dependent truths if the absolute and first truth did not exist. In the next part of his argumentation, Kłósak quoted a fragment from the Confessions of St. Augustine, which speaks about his meeting with the independent and first truth, starting from the eternal truths, and it is in this aspect that Kłósak saw the difference between his and St. Augustine’s concepts, as the former started from dependent, not eternal truths.¹⁹³ Kłósak specified such truth as “God of the Catholic faith” included in the aspect of the First Truth. This is an important transition towards metaphysics, although without any justification that “such truth is not limited in its being—like the truth of a human mind—to the perfect noetic order, but it is included in the sphere of the ontic order as a being that contains the maximum of reality,” because “it exists necessarily as a being a se …”¹⁹⁴ The justification for such a transition is found later, when Kłósak declared that he generalized the concept of St. Thomas’s efficient cause, and—more specifically—the dependence on the efficient cause in existence, and he introduced the concept of the dependence on the “explaining reason” in existence, which refers to the contents of the cognized dependent truths that belong to the area of perfect existence.¹⁹⁵ For Kłósak, such a transition from the gnoseological order to the metaphysical order was defective in the thought of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Descartes and many other philosophers.

The whole argumentation of Kłósak related to the “Fourth Way” of St. Thomas is, admittedly, unclear, but despite that we have managed to reconstruct it to some extent. Perhaps the author himself was unable to present the full structure of his argumentation, which can be deducted from the fact that his argument, just like his explanation of the “Fourth Way” of St. Thomas, was not presented in a concise manner.¹⁹⁶ Here is the attempt—albeit an imperfect one—to reflect what Kłósak meant: (1) there are accidental things (facts); (2) there are accidental truths; (3) there are accidental contents (of those truths); (4) those contents are derived from accidental truths; (5) the effective cause (explaining reason) of accidental contents is the unchangeable and first Truth; (6) the effective cause (explaining reason) of accidental facts is the Thought, i.e. the unchanging and first Truth; so: the unchanging and first Truth, which is that God exists.

Conclusion

Kłósak’s metatheoretical concepts resulted in fierce discussions among the philosophers of nature. They were criticised, especially by philosophers following the classical trend who rejected the possibility of using the results of the natural sciences in philosophy.¹⁹⁷ Also, they were questioned by the philosophers connected with the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Krakow. Nevertheless, Kłósak’s concept of the philosophy of nature is interesting and worth further analysis. It is true that it was formulated on the basis of the philosophy following the classical trend and it uses related notions and distinctions, and that its language is quite “hermetic,” as a result of which it is difficult to understand. Perhaps it is one of the reasons why it has not been appreciated by most scholars. The concept also fails to take into account the latest achievements of the philosophy of science. However, it is worth being popularized. Kłósak suggests a universal method of building an autonomous system of the philosophy of nature, which uses the results of the natural sciences in a significant manner. It seems that it is not just a project or collection of normative postulates, but rather a codification of the research methods of philosophy, especially the philosophy of nature. The objective of philosophical reflection is to explain the reality - to make it understandable. The method of separating ontological implications of reductive type is a tool to achieve that objective.

Some of Kłósak’s ideas were developed in the works of Zygmunt Hajduk,¹⁹⁸ Józef Dołęga,¹⁹⁹ Józef Turek,²⁰⁰ Kazimierz Mikucki,²⁰¹ Janina Buczkowska,²⁰² and Anna Lemańska.²⁰³ Also, at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, a number of MA theses were written on Kłósak’s concept of the philosophy of nature.²⁰⁴

3.2. Philosophical issues of the origin of the universe and biological life

Introduction

The philosophy of God, with its arguments proving the existence of an Absolute Being, is an area of philosophy in which referring to the properties of the world of nature takes place naturally. From its beginning, philosophy—while looking for the ultimate explanation of material reality—indicated a being that is necessary and needs no justification. Such being was often associated with God. Throughout the history of philosophy, a lot of such arguments for the existence of God have been formulated. Their starting point includes some features of the natural reality that cannot be understood provided that they are rooted in a being existing outside the physical world. For example, Aristotle explained movement in nature by indicating the unmoved Prime Mover. On a similar basis, St. Thomas Aquinas constructed his “ways” while searching for the ultimate explanation of movement, dependence and accidence of things, various degrees of perfection in beings, purposefulness in nature, i.e. the properties of the surrounding world experienced by people.

Kazimierz Kłósak was interested in theodicy and, in his numerous works, he analysed the arguments for the existence of God, referring to—inter alia—the latest results from the natural sciences. It seems that his objective was to find an unquestionable starting point for the argumentation for the existence of God.

Perhaps the discussion with dialectical materialism, which was treated by its supporters as the only truly scientific philosophy, inspired Kłósak to deal with the origins of the organic life on Earth. The complexity of living organisms and the 20th century rejection of the concept of abiogenesis became the starting point for the so-called biological argument for the existence of God.²⁰⁵ Also, in the biology of the 20th century, the models of biogenesis started to be created in which the scenarios of transforming inanimate matter into a living organism were presented. As a result, the biological argument was questioned, which made Christian philosophers and theologians negate the possibility of the occurrence of abiogenesis and undermine the results of natural sciences. Therefore, Kłósak started to consider whether, from the philosophical and theological point of view, the spontaneous appearance of living organisms is actually inconsistent with the Christian faith. It was included in his work entitled Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorództwa [Catholic Thought and the Theory of Abiogenesis] (1948). He continued this research in several articles,²⁰⁶ and the summary of his analyses was published in the books: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny [In Search of the First Cause] (1955) and Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga [On the Philosophical Cognition of God] (1979).²⁰⁷

Apart from the analyses on the origins of life, Kłósak dealt with the kinetic argument for the existence of God. In the article of 1949 entitled: Kinetyczny dowód istnienia Boga wobec nowych zarzutów [Kinetic Proof for the Existence of God and the New Objections],²⁰⁸ he evaluates this argument from the point of view of the scientific knowledge of matter. Later, he refers to this issue several times²⁰⁹ while answering those who criticised his opinion, and an extensive description of this opinion is included in the last part of the second volume of W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. The premises of the argument are also discussed in the article: Zagadnienie punktu wyjścia kinetycznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga [Starting Point for the Kinetic Argumentation for the Existence of God].²¹⁰

Inspired by the speech given by Pope Pius XII to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22nd November 1951, Kłósak started to analyse the origins of the universe.²¹¹ Following the Pope’s suggestions,²¹² Kłósak decided to check whether there are sufficient premises to determine that natural sciences can confirm the “temporal beginning of the world.” Kłósak dealt with this issue in 1951, in the article: Zagadnienie początku trwania czasowego Wszechświata [The Temporal Beginning of the Duration of the Universe].²¹³ He developed those considerations in the book entitled W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny (part one). Later, he frequently returned to this topic.²¹⁴

The analyses concerning the temporal and biological origins of the universe are included in the monograph: Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga²¹⁵[On the Philosophical Cognition of God] published in 1979. Professor Kłósak was going to publish the second volume of the book, in which he was to evaluate and “modify the forms of argumentation for the existence of God used by Thomas Aquinas,”²¹⁶ and to discuss the argument of Henri Bergson from the mystical experience and “the way to knowing God suggested by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin from the point of view of evolutionism.”²¹⁷ Unfortunately, his illness and death made it impossible for him to fulfill those plans.

The premises being the basis for the arguments concerning the temporal origins of the universe and organic life on Earth turned out to be insufficient, so Kłósak decided to find more conclusive arguments. The second volume W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny (1957) is dedicated to the arguments from the content dependence of the truths we are learning, from the order existing in the bio-cosmos, from the contingency of things and from movement. Those arguments are also discussed in several of his articles.²¹⁸

In the next part of this work, the arguments for the existence of God from the temporal beginning of the world and the origins of life on Earth will be presented. It is true that Kłósak analysed the origins of the universe later than the origins of life, but we shall first present the issues related to the beginning of the universe. These problems are discussed in the same order in the books: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny and Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga.

The temporal beginning of the universe

One of the arguments for the existence of God is the argument the premise of which is that there is a finite time of the universe. While analysing this argument, Kłósak first determines whether there is a necessary connection between the thesis on the finite duration of the universe and the existence of God. He rejects the possibility of the spontaneous appearance of the universe from nothingness, claiming that in such a thesis “there is … something clearly irrational.”²¹⁹ In his further argumentation, he refers to the statement of Thomas Aquinas expressed “in Sum. theol., I, qu. II, a. 3, in the words: that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing.”²²⁰ Kłósak claims that this thesis is directly obvious and it leads to the conclusion that “the universe could start to exist only due to a being different than itself—a being that had already been given an actual and real being, i.e. a certain cause.”²²¹ Such a cause must have an infinite power, so it is God.²²² Kłósak concludes that, if the universe was to have a temporal beginning, “the fact that it began to exist would only be understandable to us if we assumed the creative act of a being so powerful that only God could be associated with it.”²²³

The existence of God would be certain if the universe had a beginning.²²⁴ Thus, Kłósak analyses whether we can prove that such a beginning took place. The finite duration of the universe was mainly justified with the arguments from the area of metaphysics—in particular the paradoxes connected with the actual infinity. Starting from the 19th century, while proving the finite duration of the universe, philosophers reached for the results of natural sciences. Especially two theories seemed to confirm the impossibility of the infinity of the universe—thermodynamics and natural cosmology. Kłósak analyses whether some results of natural sciences justify the thesis concenring the finite duration of the universe, and he considers the conclusions drawn from the second principle of thermodynamics and the expansion of the universe.

The second principle of thermodynamics was used to justify the so-called heat death of the universe. It is because, according to this principle, closed systems aim at thermodynamic equilibrium. In such a state there is no thermal energy that could be exchanged into useful work. Thus, if the universe is existing without the beginning, the energy would have to be distributed in such a way that nothing would happen in the universe. Since the current state of the universe shows the opposite, the universe cannot be eternal, so it had to have a beginning in time. Thus, we can conclude that the universe was created.

Kłósak carefully analyses various versions of the above justification and concludes that they can be divided into two or three stages. The first one is the “perspective of the heat death of the universe.” Additionally, Kłósak distinguishes two ways of perceiving it: total stillness or relative stillness (only in the macroscopic scale).²²⁵ The second stage after the justification of the heat death of the universe is the adoption of the conclusion that “the course of events of the whole universe, or at least the course of the nature’s evolutionary processes we know, had a beginning in its temporal duration.”²²⁶ “The third stage of argumentation is typical of those authors, who, after accepting the idea of the temporal beginning of the whole universe, come to the conclusion that matter, being the basis of all those events, also had to have the same beginning.”²²⁷ The indication of the third stage is related to the fact that Kłósak distinguishes the situation of speaking about the temporal beginning of the universe or the beginning of the processes at the present stage of evolution from the acknowledgement that matter had a temporal beginning. This distinction is important as the priest-professor notices that the authors who acknowledge the temporal beginning of the universe “do not particularly exclude that, before our universe, there could have been another universe that was governed by different principles.”²²⁸ Thus, it seems that Kłósak distinguishes the relative beginning from the absolute beginning. It is important because the conclusion concerning the existence of God can only be drawn from the existence of the absolute temporal beginning of the world.

Then, Kłósak evaluates the “objective value of the presented opinions.”²²⁹ To do this, he uses the conclusions of natural scientists. In particular, he refers to the statistical interpretation of the second principle of thermodynamics and discusses the problem of extending it to the whole universe. In this context, he also analyses the problem of the finite size of the universe.²³⁰ He concludes that “it is hard to notice how, on the basis of the data which we now acknowledge only provisionally, we could come to the conclusion that the matter of the universe has a beginning in its temporal duration.”²³¹ While summarizing his analyses, Kłósak declares that „we cannot, on the basis of the energy degradation principle, draw any conclusions on the beginning of the changes in the universe and the beginning of its existence in time.”²³²

Kłósak comes to a similar conclusion while considering whether we can prove that the universe had a beginning by referring to the expansion of the universe. He says: “the theory of the expansion of the universe may lead us to the conclusion that the universe has an absolute beginning in its temporal duration, because, from the conclusion on the beginning of the expansion of the whole universe or its part, we cannot move directly—in the logically correct manner—to the conclusion on the absolute beginning of the temporal duration of the whole universe.”²³³

Surprisingly, Kłósak does not share the optimistic hopes of Pope Pius XII. It is because the philosopher shows that the arguments for the temporal beginning of the universe based on the results of natural sciences can be easily refuted. Thus, Kłósak once again attempts to search for the arguments for the absolute temporal beginning of the universe in the philosophy of nature. This way, he analyses the arguments for the impossibility for the infinite multitude of events to be made real in the universe.²³⁴ He concludes that there is no logical contradiction in the assumption that the infinite multitude of events is taking place currently. That is why, “we cannot present a justification for the thesis on the temporal beginning of the universe.”²³⁵ Kłósak comes to the conclusion that the argumentations for the existence of God from the temporal beginning of the universe are not conclusive, because it is impossible to definitively prove that the universe had a temporal beginning. Also, he declares that it is impossible to prove the opposite, i.e. that the universe is eternal,²³⁶ which could be an argument for the correctness of the thesis that God does not exist.

Thus, Kłósak concludes that his analyses do not confirm that “the philosophical cognition of the existence of God is impossible,”²³⁷ what they confirm is that “searching for the easiest way to the conviction of the existence of God in the acknowledgement of the absolute temporal beginning of the universe may lead us to a dead end.”²³⁸

The origin of life on Earth

Another beginning considered by Kłósak in the context of the arguments for the existence of God is the origin of life on Earth. Kłósak analyses the so-called biological argument. Its point of reference is the existence of living organisms on Earth. The complexity of living organisms and their distinctness from inanimate matter are the basis for the assumption that inanimate matter could not spontaneously transform into animate matter. Thus, there had to be an adequate cause which is identified with God.

Kłósak starts his considerations by checking whether the thesis on the spontaneous transformation of inanimate matter into animate matter, i.e. the process of abiogenesis,²³⁹ contradicts the Catholic dogma on creation. This issue is explored in the text: Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa [Catholic Thought and the Theory of Abiogenesis]. Kłosak’s way of thinking presented in the work is interesting. At the beginning, he gives his opinion on the observation conclusions by Zygmunt Szymanowski who claimed that “filterable germs,” such as the herpes virus, appear spontaneously from inanimate matter. Kłósak concludes that the experiments that had been carried out do not authorize us to claim that the theory of abiogenesis was confirmed through proper experiments.²⁴⁰ Nevertheless, in his opinion, it does not constitute the basis to claim that “abiogenesis is impossible.”²⁴¹ He writes as follows:

To be careful, we can only conclude that, until now, the scientists have not confirmed the spontaneous generation of organic life from inorganic matter, or—more generally—from inanimate matter. However, the lack of experimental data cannot be the basis for the conclusion that “there is no abiogenesis in the world,” because we cannot claim than we have scientifically analysed the whole area of life or that spontaneous generation has never taken place in the history of our Earth.²⁴²

In the next part of the work, Kłósak analyses whether the thesis on the spontaneous and sudden transformation of the inanimate matter into animate matter contradicts the dogmas of the Catholic faith. He asks the question: “Is there any article of the faith that would make a Catholic conclude that abiogenesis is impossible or, at least, that it did not take place on our Earth?.”²⁴³ After analysing the texts of the First Vatican Council, Kłósak comes to the conclusion that “the Council does not tell us to accept as de fide that life on Earth was directly originated by God through His creative inference,” and that “no utterance of the Vatican Council makes us obliged to think that organic life was directly originated by God.”²⁴⁴ The philosopher also claims that the thesis on the direct creation of organic life is not directly based on the Bible. Kłósak analyses the descriptions of creation from the Book of Genesis and comes to the conclusion that these texts do not detail “whether organic life was originated by God directly or indirectly.”²⁴⁵ According to Kłósak, the hypothesis of abiogenesis in the natural approach does not exclude God’s indirect causativeness, so it does not contradict the teaching of the Church.²⁴⁶ It is worth mentioning that, at the same time, Kłósak rejects the conclusion from the hypothesis of abiogenetic origins of life drawn by the atheists who believe that God does not exist.²⁴⁷

The analyses included in Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa are complemented by the consideration of whether the theory of spontaneous generation can be made compliant with Thomism. Disputing with most of the Thomists, who claim that abiogenesis is metaphysically impossible, Kłósak concludes

… that organic life could be generated spontaneously from inanimate matter. It is possible because God could endow inanimate matter with the possibility to produce organic life in certain conditions, and—according to God’s decision—the role of the factor leading such life from the possibility to act could even be played by bodies who do not have such life.²⁴⁸

Kłósak returns to these problems in the first volume of W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny and Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga. He separates the scientific hypothesis of spontaneous generation²⁴⁹ from the philosophical statements in which people are trying to come out with the final explanation of the origin of life in the philosophical dimension.²⁵⁰ Kłósak divides such final explanations into three groups. The first one includes those according to which the generation of life was possible due to the physical and chemical properties of the matter, as well as accidence. The second group includes the explanations which refer to the internal dynamism of inanimate matter. Kłósak calls them materialistic emergentism. The explanations from the third group indicate God as the ultimate cause for the existence of living organisms. Kłósak divides these explanations into two additional groups: direct and indirect creationism.²⁵¹ The philosopher evaluates those different kinds of explanations concerning abiogenesis and concludes that the Catholic dogma on creation can neither be reconciled with the clearly mechanistic hypothesis of abiogenesis nor with the materialistic emergentism, but the dogma is compliant with indirect creationism (Kłósak specifies this type of creationism as “emergentism of the creationistic theism”).²⁵²

For Kłósak, the analysis of the theory of abiogenesis is the starting point for the evaluation of the biological argument for the existence of God.²⁵³ Kłósak analyses this argument in the works: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, and Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga. Just like in the case of the argument for the existence of God from the temporal beginning of the universe, he evaluates the premises of the argumentation. First of all, he says that in the history of Earth there was a period in which there was no life.²⁵⁴ Second, he rejects the hypotheses of cosmic seeds (cosmozoids) and panspermy which tried to explain the origins of life on Earth.²⁵⁵ Third, he justifies the thesis that we cannot exclude the hypothesis on the direct and spontaneous generation of living organisms from inanimate matter.²⁵⁶ The impossibility of excluding the abiogenetic origins of life, both in the natural and philosophical aspect, leads Kłósak to the conclusion that the biological argument loses its force. That is why, from the beginning of the biological life on Earth, we cannot conclude that God exists.²⁵⁷

Kłósak suggests that the biological argument should be replaced with the argument from the biocosmic order. According to Kłósak, law and order existing in animate matter proves rationality that is ultimately explained by the Creative Reason.²⁵⁸

Kłósak transforms the arguments from the temporal beginning of the universe and life on Earth into the argument from the contingency of beings.²⁵⁹ He believes that the argumentations for the existence of God which he analysed are actually the arguments from the contingency—“if not formally, at least in the causative sense, as although not all of them are directly based on the aspect of contingency, all the facts that constitute their starting point are rooted in contingency.”²⁶⁰ It seems that the argument from the contingency of things is the only unquestionable argument for the existence of a necessary being. It is because, if there is something that does not have to exist, this thing must have a cause for its existence. Therefore, beings are connected with the relation of effective causality. This relation must have the first element which does not have an external cause for its existence, and which is a direct or indirect cause for all the contingent beings. This first element is a necessary being which may be identified with God.

Conclusion

Kłósak’s analyses of the arguments for the existence of God are very important for the dialogue between religion and natural sciences. According to Bernard Hałaczek: “It is he who helped many Polish biologists, philosophers and theologians to break the intellectual deadlock—the schizophrenic split between evolutionary and religious interpretation of the world and man.”²⁶¹ In his philosophical research, Kłósak uses the results of natural sciences and treats them as an important source of knowledge about the world of nature. Therefore, he tries to make them compliant with the truths of the Catholic faith. It refers to, for example, the beginning of the universe and the origin of life on Earth. Kłósak shows that the solutions provided by the natural sciences do not contradict Catholic theology, although they question some arguments for the existence of God. At the same time, Kłósak proves that the atheists’ arguments for the non-existence of God can also be refuted. For example, he shows that the assumption that the universe is of an infinite size does not lead to the conclusion that there is no God. On the contrary: “we believe that only after we acknowledge the creationist theism, we can talk about the conditional possibility of the existence of the infinite universe.”²⁶² Thus, the infinity of the universe is rather an argument for theism than for atheism. 

It seems that, according to Kłósak, the thesis that God exists can be justified in the area of philosophy rather than natural sciences. It is compliant with his empiriological concept of natural sciences. According to this concept, no philosophical conclusions can be drawn from the results of those sciences alone.²⁶³ Only a philosophical interpretation of those results (a philosophical fact), can become the basis for obtaining ontological implications of reductive type from them. It is because, in the area of philosophy, the properties of the world of nature discovered by natural sciences require explanation. One such feature indicated by Kłósak is the contingency of beings from the area of nature. Its justification leads to the acknowledgement of the necessary being—God. Thus, Kłósak shows the argument from contingency as an unquestionable argument for the existence of God. In particular, he refers to the contingency of beings while discussing the infinity of the universe with atheists:

We are not afraid to take into account this conditional possibility, because the concept of the universe that is infinitely big does not contradict the theist worldview. An infinite universe would not stop being the universe of contingent beings, and it would have nothing to do with God who is infinite not in one or two aspects, but in all aspects … Such a universe—just like the thought of the spatially finite universe—would make us acknowledge the existence of an absolutely necessary Being—God.²⁶⁴

Also, Kłósak’s conclusions related to spontaneous generation constitute a model solution to the problems that occur in the discussions among biologists, materialists and theologians. Kłósak is open to the results of natural sciences. He evaluates their “subjective value,” but he does not reject any of them provided that they are sufficiently confirmed by biologists. For example, he accuses Szymanowski that he draws hasty conclusions from the experiments carried out with the so-called filtrable germs,²⁶⁵ which is why the thesis of that scientist on their abiogenetic origin is not sufficiently justified. At the same time, Kłósak realizes that the lack of experimental proofs for abiogenesis does not mean that abiogenesis is impossible. In this respect, he disputes with the philosophers for whom the impossibility of abiogenesis is the starting point for the argumentation for the existence of God. What is more, he convincingly justifies that neither the concept of abiogenesis nor its negation contradict the most important truths of the Catholic faith.

On the basis of Kłósak’s works, we can also reconstruct the model of evolutionary creationism.²⁶⁶ This way, Kłósak gives his opinion in the dispute between evolutionists and creationists that broke out after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Kłósak does not reject, a priori, the possibility of the occurrence of the process of evolution. At the same time, he shows that the occurrence of this process does not have to negate the creative role of God. God can act through created beings which were given proper potentialities making it possible to produce life without the need to directly interfere with the natural processes. This way, Kłósak links the “classical theory of creationism with the commonly adopted processual, dynamic approach to reality.”²⁶⁷ Kazimierz Kloskowski emphasizes as follows:

K. Kłósak’s analyses concerning creation opened new research paths. In particular, they indicated the necessity to treat cosmos and bio-cosmos in a more dynamic manner—not only as a being that “receives” the actions of the First Cause, but also as a being cooperating in the creation of the world, life or man. In this context, the expression creatio ex nihilo sui et subiecti becomes more understandable and legible for the contemporary man.²⁶⁸

Regrettably, Kłósak’s research was neither appreciated by those who opposed using the results of natural sciences in theology, nor by those who postulated the radical reconstruction of dogmatics, nor by the materialists who believed that the results of natural sciences are the proof that God does not exist. In the light of Kłósak’s analyses, neither of the parties is right. Compromise is possible and it is worth to work it out. Professor Kłósak showed how, keeping the autonomy of natural and philosophical sciences, we can establish the common vision of the world that links the results obtained in both scientific areas. It is worth mentioning that—as Mieczysław Lubański put it—Kłósak’s works are the starting point for the “new approach to Cosmos which is perceived as a mega-process that contains a lot of micro-processes, and for searching its ultimate explanation that can be found in a being that is pure action and, at the same time, the highest intelligence.”²⁶⁹ And Szczepan W. Ślaga pays attention to the fact that Kłósak’s explanation of the origin of life on Earth is systemic and “deserves to be called the systemic approach to abiogenesis.”²⁷⁰

3.3. Philosophical issues of the human soul

Introduction

In the history of thought concerning the human soul, we can distinguish three basic ways of learning about it. They correspond to the main types of knowledge that can be distinguished due to methodological and content-related reasons. The first, and the earliest, way of learning about the soul is based on numerous messages and convictions (and experiences) of a religious nature, according to which—apart from the physical body—there is something more subtle and perfect than matter in the man; something that does not die with the physical death. The systematic knowledge from this source refers to theological anthropology, and one of its examples if Christian anthropology. The second way of discovering the human soul and analysing its nature is philosophical cognition through which we can analyse the existence and nature of soul rationally, on the basis of some basic data that is usually derived from the common cognition and empirical sciences. The history of the European philosophical thought concerning the human soul stretches back to the beginning of that philosophy, and the reflection on this topic is today classified as philosophical anthropology. The third way of getting to know the human soul is typical of the contemporary natural sciences, especially psychology, neurobiology and cognitive science. Scholars who preferred a scientific and materialistic approach treated that concept as typical only of the pre-scientific way of learning which uses myths, religious beliefs and legends, while other scholars adopted a neutral approach or tried to link some scientific data with the traditional philosophical reflection on the human soul, indicating the possibility or even necessity of its existence.²⁷¹

In his considerations on the human soul, Kazimierz Kłósak took two approaches into account: the philosophical and the scientific. At the same time, he did not ignore the common experience if only it could be considered as adequate. As a philosopher, in this respect he presented the views of classical philosophy with an Aristotelian-Thomist orientation open to other philosophical directions, especially phenomenology. Such a philosophy was characterized by the fact that, to some extent and in a certain way, it took into account the empirical detailed data concerning nature and the man.

When presenting Kłósak’s views on the human soul, one has to emphasize that his works were written decades ago and thus they do not take into account the results of scientific data which were published later in such important and related fields such as psychology, neuropsychology or psychiatry. That is why his concept of learning about the human soul and understanding it requires an adequate approach. Moreover, Kłósak was not interested in discovering the human soul as such, because he believed in its existence (on the basis of his religious faith) and had a particular idea of it—an idea derived from the philosophical Christian thought that especially referred to the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas.²⁷² In this case, his intention was to rethink the most important theses of the tradition in light of new philosophical interpretations and empirical data, so that one could look at the traditional approaches to the cognition, nature and origin of the human soul from a fresh perspective.²⁷³

It is also worth mentioning that the basic inspiration that made Kłósak take up the issue of the human soul was the debate on the evolutionary image of the world, including the origin of man, that was carried out in the philosophical and theological environments in Poland and abroad. At first, the Catholic Church rejected (from the point of view of theology) the strictly evolutionary genesis of the man, but in the second half of the 20th century this approach changed, and the representatives of the Christian thought started to accept the idea of the so-called evolutionary creationism as the process that originated the appearance of man. Such an idea only referred to the biological element of human nature (human body). However, in time, there were some suggestions of the need to consistently extend the evolutionary vision by the genesis of the human soul. Kłósak presented his ideas throughout these debates, i.e. from the 1950s until the end of his life.²⁷⁴ Numerous publications and utterances concerning the nature and origin of the human soul confirm the fact that it was one of the main philosophical issues he was concerned with. Apparently, he believed that it was very important from the point of view of Christian philosophy and worldview. The inquisitiveness and intellectual honesty with which he approached this issue made it possible for him to develop his own opinion which was free from ideologization and open to the achievements of the natural and psychological sciences.

General characteristics of the cognition of nature and origin of human soul

A characteristic feature of the way Kazimierz Kłósak practiced philosophy was that the issues concerning the subject were preceded with epistemological-methodological considerations.²⁷⁵ These also referred to the cognition of nature and the origin of the human soul. When it comes to purely rational methods of learning about the nature and origin of the human soul, Kłósak applied the philosophical method, using discursive utterances that were so typical of him. This method is based on reductive reasoning, and—more precisely—explanation. He called the conclusions from such explanation as “ontological implications of reductive type.”²⁷⁶ Apart from reductive reasoning, he also applied the method of (isolating) abstraction. The function of the empirical sciences dealing with the material world (including the man), as well as common experience, was, in his opinion, auxiliary for philosophy. Their only role was to provide the so-called initial data which, after the philosophical interpretation, could become the premises in reductive reasoning as the so-called philosophical facts.

Kłósak’s belief that the human soul can be cognized through philosophy (and not science) was justified by him with two reasons. First, the human soul—perceived in the way specified by the tradition of Christian philosophy—deserves ontic transcendence as compared to the physical world. This, in turn, results in its transcendence in the order of cognition, so that it is not given to the cognizing subject in a natural manner in any empirical approach. Also, it is not given to the subject through any planned external observation, experiment or introspection. Thus, the methods of the natural sciences turn out to be inadequate for the subject of the research which is the human soul.²⁷⁷ Second, Kłósak assumed that the natural sciences, by dealing with man, nature, and philosophy, were a means of reflection on the reality which are qualitatively separate and autonomous in terms of their subject, methodology and epistemology. According to their methodology, the natural sciences only take into account the phenomenal point of view within which they analyse the accidental side of the reality. Thus, in their cognition and description, they do not go beyond the sphere of phenomena, and relations among them, they omit what can be the essence or nature of a thing in terms of philosophy, and they do not take into account the reasons as understood by philosophy. The data of those sciences include the content that is relativised to “what can be directly or indirectly, in a continuous or discontinuous manner, observed or, possibly, measured”²⁷⁸ and to what can be directly or indirectly confirmed or rejected on the basis of experience. And philosophical analysis is a way of intellectual examination of things on the basis of which theses going beyond empirical data are formed. They refer to the essence of things and aspects that are necessary as for the structure of being and its cause for existence. That is why, only philosophy is able to cognize the transcendental subject with reference to the experience which includes the subject having a spiritual nature—the human soul.

It is worth noting that what is the most important from the point of view of philosophy in the cognition of the human soul, i.e. its existence and essence, source and way of origin, relation with the body, and fate after the death of a human body, is not (and cannot be) the actual subject of scientific, empirical data. According to Kłósak, the rightness of such an attitude is revealed in the very way of perceiving the term “soul” in empirical sciences and philosophy.²⁷⁹ From the point of view of the natural sciences, within the phenomenal description, the soul’s “scientific” or “empirical” definition is given. As a consequence, “soul” is associated with human psychology or psyche, and it is defined as the collection of the man’s most important psychological functions or a set of all psychological phenomena typical of a human being, which means that the occurrence of psychological phenomena is strictly connected with a particular biological organism as their material basis.²⁸⁰ However, a philosopher cannot be satisfied with such definitions, because—apart from the phenomenal layer—he notices the layer of philosophical cognition and, within ontological analysis, he speaks about soul in the aspect of its essence and being that is typical of it. That is why, from the point of view of the philosophy of nature, a philosopher should specify the soul as, e.g. a form that is substantial as compared to the first matter, or as the first principle of life—“what all vital signs ultimately, though not directly, are derived.”²⁸¹ Thus, a philosopher will define it, e.g. in the Aristotelian-Thomist perspective, as the first act, i.e. the first perfection of being with reference to that potentiality which is constituted by the first matter. Referring to the thoughts of other authors who lived and wrote at the same time as him, Kłósak specified that substantial form as “the principle of qualification and organization of our body,” “the real idea of its typical organization,” “its directorial idea,” “the perfect plan of its particular being,” “the structural and functional plan physically inscribed in his body, the internal art of his personal development, the factor of the influence that orders him, that what determines the amount of information in him, or the law of his human constitution, the law typical of his body, the law of existence that makes him a man.”²⁸² Such an understanding of the human soul as immanent to the human body is the result of abstraction within broad ontological analysis, i.e. extra-metaphysical analysis, and it does not result from common or scientific experience. And from the point of view of metaphysics which considers the nature of the human soul, we have to add—to the statements from the field of philosophy of nature—that it is an individual and immortal spiritual substance.²⁸³ In the description of the soul’s structure, we usually list its properties (accidents), such as reason or will. Also, we can speak about special abilities that facilitate the functioning of those properties.

The above-mentioned reasons (referring to ontology and the theory of science) led Kłósak to the conclusion that the cognition of the human soul sensu stricto should be included in the competences of philosophy. Therefore, we can wonder what made him, at the same time, the supporter of using (to some extent) the scientific-natural and psychological heritage in philosophical reflection on human soul. It seems that it resulted from the conviction that the above-mentioned fields of cognition share a similar subject, i.e. the same reality. The difference between philosophy and natural sciences is not substantial but formal, as it is expressed in a different aspect of the research.²⁸⁴ Because of the above mentioned substantial similarity, Kłósak decided to use some results of the empirical sciences, especially natural sciences and psychology, in his considerations on human soul (and other philosophical issues with which he dealt).²⁸⁵ Due to such approach, philosophy gains a new, much more extensive and critical empirical basis than the basis which only includes the data of the common, pre-scientific experience. However, since the cognitive possibilities of empirical sciences as for learning about the human soul are very limited, philosophy based on such experience cannot provide us with full cognition that is completely adequate to its subject. That is why, Kłósak, being aware of this limitation in the cognition of the human soul in the starting point of his research, was very careful in his philosophical conclusions concerning the subject.

The nature of the human soul

Kłósak analyses the existence and essence (nature) of the human soul together, because—according to the Aristotelian-Thomist concept—he refers to two non-independent and correlative constituents of that being. He perceives the essence of the soul as the synthesis of its four absolute properties: (1) substantiality; (2) unity; (3) spirituality; (4) immortality. All those properties are closely related to one another. In particular, substantiality is connected with unity, and spirituality—with immortality. In order to learn about them, one has to start with learning about oneself. First of all, it concerns indirect cognition during which we can acknowledge the existence and constitution of particular phenomena and psychological facts.²⁸⁶ Thanks to philosophical interpretation, through specific epistemological-ontological principles, they become a starting point for strictly philosophical considerations concerning the nature of the human soul.

The first basic property of a human soul is, according to Kłósak, its substantiality, which he analysed together with the unity of the soul. He perceived the soul’s substantialness in compliance with the Aristotelian-Thomist concept and he assumed that a soul is independent, individual, specific, real and actual. Moreover, he acknowledged that it is a sufficient basis for different properties. Also, for Kłósak, souls are something unchangeable—something that ensures the identity of a person at all stages of the man’s earthly life. The issue of the substantiality of the human soul amounts to a question about the existence—in a human being—of a subject that would fulfill the idea of unchangeable substance in itself, and that would not be rooted in any other thing, which is why it has to be recognized as the sole and ultimate basis of the properties.²⁸⁷ Since the basis for his philosophical argumentation were the phenomena of the man’s internal life, the most important role in the considerations concerning human soul was played by introspection, immanent cognition, that makes it possible for us to analyse the world of our psyche.²⁸⁸ In this case, Kłósak believed that the most useful data include the so-called higher activities of the mind and will. They are based on the subject he was searching for—the so-called pure “I.”²⁸⁹ In discovering the pure “I” and in its description, he first used direct experience, understood in a broader sense. It is because it not only included the direct data of consciousness that is available to all people, but also the activities of abstraction, some data derived from psychology and phenomenology. The pure “I” is not cognizable in a particular, essential approach from within, but it is rather experienced, felt in some of its aspects that are phenomenal and “superficial.” It is similar with the cognition of the substantiality of human soul—we cannot see it in a positive manner as such, in its essence. That is why, as we have already mentioned, its cognition is not full and perfect. Nevertheless, Kłósak believed that this “I” is real, actual, and that it is not an artificial product of our past experiences or imagination. Its actual presence was noticed in various data existing in the stream of human consciousness, in conscious experiences with which it is internally and organically connected, although it can be formally separated from them in the process of the so-called isolating abstraction. On the basis of this abstraction, we can separate this “I” as the element that is constant and, at the same time, different and transcendent as compared with the very psychological acts and their contents. This separateness and transcendence of “I” is visible in the way it really exists: it is not similar to momentary events or a process that occurs and ends, developing from an early phase to a late phase and reaching its fullness and identity after the achievement of the final stage of development. Although experiences begin and end, and psychological states constantly change, it does not undergo qualitative and quantitative changes, but has a permanent, absolute form of existence. Apart from being constant and unchangeable, it also ultimately subjectivises psychological activities as the causative factor. The above-mentioned psychological activities, having no independent existence, find full support for their being in that “I.”

Another feature that can be directly noticed is the specific property of “I” with reference to the human body from which it is separated. From the phenomenological point of view, “I” is something different and more principal that body and its organic functions. Body (brain) belongs to “I” as something that we “have” as people, but it is not the ultimate subject of psychological activities. Moreover, contrary to the body, “I” has no features of expansion (material features), but it exists as something undivided and impossible to be divided—something intangible.

According to Kłósak, there is also an indirect way of discovering “I” in the form of an indirect proof.²⁹⁰ We have to assume the existence of the pure “I” as an unchangeable subject of our psychological activities, as the opposite thesis results in the fact that many rational activities and behaviours become unclear. Such activities include, for example, the man’s acts of consciousness related to his unique and constant duration, which are typical of a human being; the processes of thinking about the future during which—from the current perspective—the man makes some plans; the process of making a decision, which often takes a lot of time and which includes many different acts related to time and content. Also, we have to take into account the typically human behaviour including taking moral responsibility for the old results of one’s own decisions, or the sense of regret for the past actions, as well as aiming at the improvement of one’s life.

According to Kłósak, the above-mentioned statements from phenomenological analysis concerning the existence and nature of pure “I” can be the empirical basis for carrying out discursive philosophical considerations on the nature of human soul. It is possible due to moving from the phenomenological layer to the philosophical (ontical) layer, with the use of principles and assumptions of a general philosophical, and especially Thomist, nature, and particularly the thesis of human soul’s division into accidences and substance (essence), as well as the thesis on the actual difference between them. Kłósak finds the fact of the existence of the human soul understandable through reductive reasoning provided that, through our psychological activities, we perceive our spiritual substance as the ultimate subject that is different from our body and void of quantitative parts. This subject is the unchangeable spiritual substance existing in human beings—the substance that is able to exist in such an independent manner that such existence does not depend on the existence of any other basis but, on the contrary, it is the basis for the existence of its additional perfections, i.e. its powers and acts.²⁹¹ Kłósak believed that the matter of our body—especially the central nervous system—that is changing with age due to our metabolism, cannot be an adequate basis for the above-mentioned experience. Also, the factor of memory fails to explain that phenomenon, as memory is based on the identicalness of the subject. Even in the case of such disorders as the so-called split personality, a certain degree of the awareness of the identity of “I” is maintained. The expression of such identity is the direct knowledge (without external information) the sick person has with reference to his/her different states of consciousness. And what appears as something new is the new personal “I” understood as the set of internal properties of a man, or a new social “I.”

Another essential feature of the human soul analysed by Kłósak is its spirituality. Since it is impossible for us to see the spirit, learning about the soul’s spirituality can only be an indirect, not a direct form of cognition. That is why he did not formulate a positive concept concerning spirituality, but rather a negative one, created in opposition to what is physical, i.e. tangible. Thus, it is a concept of something that is different from tangibility and remains distinct from what is organic, being, at the same time, transcendent as compared with the body. 

For Kłósak, the basis for formulating the thesis on the spirituality of soul includes, again, the data from the man’s internal experiences. It includes, i.a.: cognition which is typical of the man, actions of the will the formal objective of which is good, and the experience of the pure “I.”²⁹² This data proves that its proper effective cause is the spiritual human soul, and not a bodily (biological) factor of the man. According to Kłósak’s principle of research, he started by analysing the data of the internal experience, focusing, first of all, on cognitive phenomena that were detailed in e.g. experimental psychology. On this basis, he concluded that the common features of the above-mentioned phenomena in terms of their acts are: the impossibility of being seen, the lack of sensory qualities, extensibility and location in physical space, and appearing as something that is undivided and that cannot be divided. All those features are immeasurable in terms of physical units. Kłósak finally determined that an important, constitutive and characteristic feature of psychological acts is their intangibility, which may be expressed in the general formula: “a thought is not tangible.”²⁹³ Such a concept of intangibility was, however, expressed as an idea that is empiriological, autonomous and neutral from the philosophical point of view. Thus, it is different from the traditional, metaphysical concept of spirituality in terms of quality. Nevertheless, the fact that the common feature of those phenomena is intangibility, may be used by a philosopher having a certain anthropological vision which consists of the doctrine on the division of the human soul into substance, psychological powers and acts of those powers. Therefore, if, in the above-mentioned psychological actions we cannot notice any extensions or spatial (and temporal) location, we can conclude that there is no such moment in the closer or further basis for the existence of such acts. What lacks quantitative structure, in the sphere of activity cannot come from a being of a quantitative nature. Therefore, since the above mentioned intellectual and volitive actions are spiritual (i.e. non-organic), the closer or further basis for those actions (i.e. the proper powers of soul and the substance of the human soul), understood as their real subject, are—both in their action and in their existence—internally independent of the biological matter of a human being. If it were not true, there would be a disproportion between the cause and effect proving a deep irrationality within the existing being.²⁹⁴

Kłósak’s statement on the inorganic nature of man’s psychological actions, which led him to the conclusion on the spiritual nature of the human soul, does not mean that such actions do not take place within a biological organism and do not depend on the organism’s anatomic-physiological condition. Thus, it is not true that reasonable thinking or willing do not depend on the brain at all.²⁹⁵ According to Kłósak, the human spiritual soul, in many of its actions, depends on the body, and thinking cannot be separated from the brain and its functions. Without a correctly working brain, there is no basis for thinking and we cannot create images that are the starting point for intellectual life. Therefore, a thought is not a thought of the pure spirit, but the embodied spirit. Its subject is the whole man as the psycho-physical compositum. Kłósak expressed this idea in the form of an ontological implication of reductive type according to which all higher psychological actions are internally independent of bodily organs and depend on them only in an external manner. According to Kłósak, such an implication does not contradict the thesis of scientists or psychologists who claim that cortex and subcortical structures are the organs of human psychological processes. It is because their utterances only take into account the phenomenological (empiriological), i.e. purely experimental, point of view, and they should be understood as anthropological (and not philosophical) statements. Moreover, such scientific utterances do not have to be interpreted from the perspective of philosophical materialism, as they enable a metaphysical interpretation that assumes the external dependence of some psychological aspects on the body (brain). Thus, phenomenological anthropology allows for the interpretation that the only subject of the above-mentioned psychological actions is the human soul. At the same time, we have to remember that the above considerations and conclusions, resulting in the thesis on the existence of human soul, its immortality and origin understood as the creation of soul by God, are just a postulate being the subject of properly justified reasonable faith in the form of an apagogic proof, i.e. rejecting it results in rejecting the rationality of human beings confirmed by the existence of many sciences about man.²⁹⁶ Also, it is worth mentioning that Kłósak treated this issue as open, although he clearly had his own opinion on the closer and ultimate subject of the actions of human mind and will.²⁹⁷

Another important feature of the human soul analysed by Kłósak was immortality. This feature refers to this aspect of the existence and essence of soul that assumes its existence after the death of the body and independent of the body. The very issue of the soul’s immortality was not explored very thoroughly by the author. It was probably due to the fact that this problem, from the point of view of theoretical philosophy, is not autonomous and separate from other considerations on the human soul. Kłósak justified the fact of the soul’s immortality on the basis of the existence of other features of the human soul, such as substantiality and spirituality. That is why, he used the traditional argument for the immortality of the human soul, specified as metaphysical argument. It is based on the analysis of the spiritual substance which is indestructible due to its nature. For Kłósak, the thesis that the human soul is independent of the body is not just a matter of our future, because, to some extent, soul already is independent of the body and it is separated from it through the actions of its mind and will which, as it has been mentioned, do not internally depend on any bodily organ. He perceived the immortality of our “I” as a form of such immortality.²⁹⁸ Thus, the main question is whether that “I,” which we now perceive as the unchanging subject of our experiences, shall exist forever, also after the death of our body, as an indestructible source of our thinking and reasonable willing, and not as an impersonal stream of psychological phenomena. The adoption of the thesis on the substantiality of the human spiritual soul made Kłósak conclude that “I” is immortal and cannot be destroyed through the death of the human organism.

The origin of human soul

Another issue analysed by Kłósak with reference to the human soul is its origin (genesis) in terms of the source and way of appearance.²⁹⁹ He was interested in those issues in the context of the creationist theories of the origins of the human soul, the theory of biological evolution, and the statements of some authors who accepted the possibility of the creation of the human soul from an animal psyche.³⁰⁰

In the most general terms, Kłósak distinguished two qualitatively separate ways of explaining the origin of the human soul, which—in his opinion—were in a kind of relation that made it possible to approach this issue in a uniform manner. The first way of explaining referred to the aspect of scientific cognition, and the second one—to the aspect of philosophical cognition.³⁰¹ He treated the problem in this way because he used a dual concept of the human soul and of reason (respectively: for natural sciences and for philosophy).

From the scientific, phenomenal point of view, he perceived the human soul as a collection of psychological phenomena, i.e. human psyche. And from the perspective of philosophy, it was a substance of a specific essence, additionally varied because of the aspect connected with the research in the philosophy of nature and metaphysics. Therefore, the origin of the human soul can be analysed from two different points of view, depending on what approach we mean.

The second reason we can consider the issue in two ways is related to the issue of the cause for which Kłósak distinguished two basic ways of understanding: the scientific and the philosophical.³⁰² He referred the scientific way of understanding to the sphere of the phenomena available to our cognition through intuition and the methods of particular natural and psychological sciences. Such an approach to the cause is purely empiriological, as it refers to experience and is free from the philosophical content. While describing the cause from such a point of view, Kłósak specified it as a—more or less direct—phenomenal antecedent; a beginning of a phenomenon, an earlier part of the inter-phenomenal relation of a functional type. Thus, he defined the cause as a phenomenon (or a group of phenomena) that is a constantly necessary and sufficient condition for the occurrence of a specific or—more or less—probable consequence (effect), i.e. the final state, of the same phenomenon. In the aspect of the philosophy of nature, the cause is a specific being that is able to move sensu stricto (physical movement), i.e. a being that exists in the stream of time that leads to the creation of another form of such being. For Kłósak, such a philosophically understood causativeness was a certain interpretation, the so-called philosophical implication (e.g. from the scope of the philosophy of nature) within the Thomist ontology. Such an interpretation is the expression of indirect cognition and it is justified “because what we call the cause and effect from the point of view of empiriological cognition, is—for a Thomist—a phenomenal aspect of the effective cause and result taken as they are available for the cognition from the point of view of philosophical science.”³⁰³

Thus, we can see that in case of the origin of the human soul, we may be dealing with two different issues. The first one refers to strictly scientific cognition, in the external and phenomenal aspect. Its main field of interest is not the origin of the substance of the human soul, but of a collective set of psychological phenomena characteristic of humankind, and the origin of more and more perfect forms of psychological life leading to the creation of features characteristic of the first human beings. For Kłósak, the cause of soul perceived this way, included other phenomena (known or still undiscovered) of an external nature which precede psychological phenomena, but not in the sense of “the genesis of these phenomena in terms of their origin.”³⁰⁴ Such causes and effects constitute a very complicated and long collective process of changes leading to the birth of human psyche, i.e. hominization.³⁰⁵ Kłósak believed that such an evolutionary process of making the human psyche more and more perfect occurred, first of all, within the scope of the development of the central nervous system in animals—especially the development of cerebral hemispheres, which, in turn, became possible due to the enlargement of the braincase. Thus, it is clear that, according to Kłósak, a natural scientist may use the results of biological and psychological sciences for the scientific explanation of the creation of human psychology, referring to the principles of the theory of biological evolution. He can even use the theory of evolution to explain the highest reflections of that psyche, i.e. intellectual and volitive functions.³⁰⁶ According to his epistemological and methodological analyses, the empiriological approach to the origin of human soul does not solve the philosophical aspects related to the origin of soul, i.e. the interpretation of the origin of human soul from the point of view of materialistic philosophy or theistic philosophy. The philosophical aspects of the genesis of the soul are, in terms of their content, qualitatively distinct from the natural approach, because they refer to the essence of soul and its effective causes.³⁰⁷ That is why only philosophy may attempt to solve the mysterious problem of the existential genesis of human soul. However, the philosophical problem of the origin of the human soul does not belong to the philosophy of nature, but to the metaphysics of man (philosophical anthropology). It is because we are dealing with a spiritual being the expression of which are specific actions of mind and will “which take place fully and at once, in an absolute indivisible manner, and do not constitute a series of partial successive realizations which are so typical of movement sensu stricto.”³⁰⁸

Although, according to Kłósak, the problem of the origin of the human soul can be solved in the two above-mentioned ways, the ultimate manner is the one that is situated within philosophical cognition. Nevertheless, according to his way of philosophizing, philosophy should use some empirical data derived from the natural sciences so that philosophical considerations have an experiential basis. We should use them indirectly, through the philosophical interpretation of the results of empirical data. That is why, in terms of the subject, he was interested in two beings: animal soul and human soul. Those two substantial forms were subject to Kłósak’s scientific-philosophical analysis. In the end, he expressed his opinion on the possibility of the creation of the human soul from the animal psyche. The starting point of his considerations is the analysis of the essence (from the phenomenal point of view) of discovering the relation, first among people, and then among animals. The final conclusions on the nature of the human soul and the animal psyche made Kłósak assume that the human soul could not have emerged from the material soul (animal psyche) in a bodily manner at a certain moment of the biological evolution of animals as the effect of changes in their somatic sphere, or directly from the material soul of animals through God’s special interference. He determined that the human soul could only result from God’s plan of creation sensu stricto, i.e. ex nihilo.³⁰⁹ In Kłósak’s opinion, the creation of the human soul is related to the appearance of its whole being in the first man, i.e. with its absolute beginning caused by the factor that transcends nature—by God (creatio ex nihilo sui et subiecti). Such a view is the expression of direct creationism, contrary to the idea of the appearance of the soul in the evolving cosmos through the transformation of pre-human psyche by the Creator, which is called indirect creationism.³¹⁰ Kłósak justified his conclusion with the statement that the thesis that contradicts the presented one would be an example of disproportion between the effect and cause, which, in turn, cannot be reconciled with the rational nature of being postulated by science. The philosopher claimed that it is impossible to understand and rationally justify the qualitative ontic leap between the animal and the man (animal psyche and human soul). And some psychological features, which are common to people and animals, can be explained with the concept that the human body is an animal body that has been transformed by God. Through this body, human soul had to take over all the achievements of the animal soul, such as various instincts and skills. Thus, while analysing the origin of human soul, Kłósak used the statement of empiriological anthropogenesis according to which the first typically human signs of psyche were conditioned by biological factors.³¹¹ As a consequence, he adopted a double ontic condition for the creation of the human soul: from the side of nature and from God’s creative act.

The being of the human soul derives directly from God’s creative interference, and secondary causes only impose on the soul its particular mark (tale esse). In such an approach, we assign God’s creative interference an immanent nature, because the occurrence of the human soul is, in a way, a function of secondary causes. And what we ascribe to those causes does not exceed their possibilities, because it is not a being of a soul as such, but its individual features.³¹²

However, it has to be mentioned that Kłósak’s opinion on the idea of evolutionary creation was not fully uniform. It is true that he was open to the theory of evolution and he accepted the possibility of the evolutionary creation of life from inanimate matter through the matter’s causal activity (established by God), equipped with vital potentialities in the form of different forces and energies, and he approved of the thesis of man’s origin from lower animal forms, interpreting this theses in a theist manner,³¹³ but, at the same time, he believed that God interferes with the course of nature in a supernatural, exceptional manner, where natural causes are helpless in terms of achieving certain natural effects. In particular, it refers to the moment in which our spiritual human soul appeared.

Relation between the human soul and body

Kazimierz Kłósak treated the relation between the human soul and body in a very general manner, limiting it to two basic issues. First, as a representative of the Thomist philosophical anthropology, he confirmed its assumption that each man constitutes one substance in the Aristotelian-Thomist way of perceiving it, and this substance is, at the same time, a living material substance and a spiritual substance able to think and will.³¹⁴ Moreover, he believed that the ontic connection of the material and spiritual element in a person cannot be cognized through a direct scientific experience. However, it can be discovered in a philosophical reflection when we use some empirical data and—for this data—we adopt ontological implications of reductive type from the scope of the philosophical concept of the man. Thus, according to his own methodology, Kłósak went from the phenomenological, scientific cognition, to the ontological layer in a broader sense (from the scope of philosophical anthropology), through approaching such phenomenal data in the aspect of its proper type of being. Then, using reductive reasoning, he was looking for an ontological implication that would finally explain the philosophically interpreted phenomenal data. In his opinion, such an ontological implication of reductive type is the one according to which the fact of experiencing our principal unity in the phenomenal aspect is understandable and explainable if the basis of this fact includes the existence of a substance that unifies things into one and is one. And the supposition that assumes the existence of two total, accidentally connected substances in us, could not explain the above-mentioned experience. Therefore, the above ontological implication can be the basis for further ontological research in philosophical anthropology, during which we can separate the prime matter and the spiritual substantial form (soul) in man’s structure.³¹⁵

Another important issue analysed by the author in question is emphasizing the special kind of the above-mentioned unity. It is about the unity of two different elements, natures, structures and levels of existence and action, which do not lose their separateness and remain within a relation. Kłósak mentioned the relative immanence and transcendence of the soul as compared to human body, i.e. the relative immanence and transcendence of man as compared to the animate nature.

When, referring to abstraction, we look at the soul from the point of view of the Thomist philosophy of nature, it seems that—in the static and dynamic perspective—it is an element that is immanent as compared with the body and it constitutes an ontic part of the body. It is not a reality separate from the body, but connected with the physical world through which it is an ontic element of the universe. Such immanence is expressed in the close relation between the soul and body, and in the role played by the soul for the body. Thus, the soul is not a complete separate substance as compared with the body with which it would be connected only in an accidental manner. The soul and body are not two separate beings, with one of them serving the other. That is why, Kłósak believed that the human body is not purely material, but it also has a spiritual element.³¹⁶ On the other hand (from the point of view of Thomist metaphysics which is interested in an intellectual soul), the above-mentioned statements from the philosophy of nature can be complemented with the thesis that the soul is not just immanent, but also transcendental as compared to the body perceived in a specific manner, i.e. soul, to a certain degree, goes beyond the biological order. Kłósak mentioned its transcendence in a powerful sense, and its acosmic nature. This nature is expressed in the fact that, while being in the matter, the soul exists—to a certain degree—in an independent manner, irrespective of the body, and, to some extent, it is separated from that body. In its existence and functioning, the soul is internally independent of the first matter and it exists through its own nature. Kłósak determined that the human soul is not a substantial form “immersed” in the first matter and it is not overwhelmed with the matter, but it presents “existential heterogeneity and fundamental irreducibility” as compared to the physical world.³¹⁷

Conclusion

It is worth mentioning that Kazimierz Kłósak’s way of discovering and understanding the human soul is understandable after the adoption of the principles characteristic of the classical philosophy of the Aristotelian-Thomist trend. They first refer to the so-called first principles of being (especially the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of causativeness understood in a special manner, and the ultimate reason), and then—to the concept of being and the theory of the human soul. Thomist thought also underlies the important thesis that the way of acting applies to its way of existing, as well as the methodological principle that the philosophical cognition of the human soul is possible within the indirect cognition.

A characteristic feature of Kłósak’s philosophical considerations is their connection with scientific data in the starting point. Also, he uses such scientific data in a specific manner which is related to his theory of science. Adequately to this theory, the scientific data is first submitted for philosophical interpretation through the abstraction and mediation of philosophy, as a result of which we obtain so-called philosophical facts that are necessary for moving from the perspective of scientific cognition to philosophical cognition and to carrying out reductive reasoning. The latter fact has, in turn, its consequences, if we consider the value of philosophical cognition: a certain relativity refers to the above-mentioned philosophical facts and ontological implications of reductive type. Such relativity of philosophical conclusions can be limited through the use of different forms of an apagogical proof.

Kłósak was probably aware of the above-mentioned limitations, as he ultimately claimed that in the issues that are crucial to learning about the human soul (its spirituality, immortality and creation by God) we formulate theses the cognitive value of which has the nature of intellectual faith. At the same time, he assumed that the human soul is cognizable in an indirect manner, through a specific philosophical interpretation of existential and psychological phenomena available in scientific and/or possibly common cognition. Perhaps, from the point of view of philosophy and natural sciences, he was too harsh in perceiving causativeness in both fields of cognition, and he was too radical in confronting the material being with the spiritual being. Such decisions were the basis of his radical negation of the theory of the evolutionary creation of the human soul. Nevertheless, placing the material being in the opposition to the spiritual being, we sometimes forget that spiritual beings are different. For example, there is the spiritual being of God, the angels and human souls. It seems that only God’s being is in a radical opposition to the material being. Kłósak’s hypothesis, which assumes the subjectivisation of the action of mind and will in the material factor was correct, but he was mistaken in formulating the thesis on the existence of structures and activities that are to reflect the actions of the soul alone, without its internal connection with the body. At present, it is believed that—due to the connection of the brain with psychological activities—any theory of the soul should take neurobiological knowledge into account.³¹⁸ It is because the data from this field of science proves that the physical aspect, i.e. the brain and the nervous system, participate in psychological actions. At present, we cannot speak about the human soul only on the basis of the external experience, social or moral facts, because they may lead to the wrong conclusions. In light of those remarks, the fundamental teaching on the human soul—its substantiality, spirituality, immortality, origin and connection with the body—should be slightly different than the one suggested by Kłósak. Perhaps the consequence of such a new approach would be that traditional truths concerning the human soul would become even more difficult to justify rationally, and the specific “intellectual faith,” which Kłósak appreciated in the cognition of such a being, should find even weaker foundations in natural physical-psychological phenomena.³¹⁹

4. DISCUSSIONS AND DISPUTES IN THE SCHOLARLY ENVIRONMENT OF POLISH PHILOSOPHY

4.1. Introduction

After 1945, philosophy in Poland developed in reference to its pre-war traditions and in the context of the new political and social situation. Marxism enjoyed the support of the communist government from the very beginning, although it was an internally varied and heterogeneous philosophical trend. However, what the Marxists had in common was a negative approach to other intellectual directions. The group of leading trends of post-war Polish philosophy, which were criticised by the representatives of the Marxist ideology, included the tradition of the Lviv-Warsaw school, phenomenology, as well as the philosophy practiced within the Christian worldview. As a representative of the latter, Kazimierz Kłósak was a thinker shaped by the Louvain neo-Thomism, although—at the same time—he was inspired by the heritage of Kazimierz Twardowski’s school. 

The philosophical orientation of the Krakow thinker certainly influenced the shape of the disputes which he carried out in the Polish scholarly environment. Kłósak liked to dispute with other philosophers, and he was not afraid of negative responses of his adversaries, even if they were philosophers whose ideas were similar to his. That is why, his disputes were directed in two ways. First, Kłósak recognized the need to respond to the Marxist philosophy. He disputed with the dialectical materialism especially in 1940s and 1950s, and he also discussed the issues that were sensitive to Marxism later. Second, the philosopher understood the necessity to modify traditional Christian philosophy, especially in the context of the development of the natural sciences and the philosophy of science, which he mainly knew from the works of neo-positivists. Therefore, Kłósak paid special attention to correcting some aspects of the neo-Thomist philosophy of nature, theodicy and philosophical anthropology. Through such actions, he initiated a new approach to the issues from the border of science and religion (reason—faith) within the Catholic Church in Poland, trying to prove, inter alia, the non-contradiction of the Christian doctrine of creationism with evolutionism.

4.2. Dispute with dialectical materialism

The Marxist worldview was the first field of philosophical dispute for Kłósak. In the post-war period, Marxists tried to shape Polish intelligentsia according to the idea of materialistic monism and secularization. Through its connection with modern knowledge, the Marxist worldview was to appear scientific and modern. Its theoretical basis included four rights of dialectics on: (1) “the connectedness of all things and phenomena”; (2) “the commonness of movement and development”; (3) “transforming quantity into quality”; (4) “unity and fight of oppositions.”³²⁰ In the Marxist philosophy, dialectics meant both the theory of the development of the natural reality and social reality, as it explained the essence of such development with the existence and fight of the internal contradictions and oppositions.

The dispute concerning the theses of dialectical materialism was carried out in Poland from the end of World War II, through the period of Stalinism (1948–1956), up to the 20th meeting of the communist party (CC CPSU) in Moscow in 1956. Kłósak was one of the most active participants in that dispute. He expressed his ideas in numerous articles published in the magazines that represented the Christian point of view: Tygodnik Powszechny, Znak, Ateneum Kapłańskie, Roczniki Filozoficzne, Przegląd Powszechny, and Życie i Myśl. He also wrote the book: Materializm dialektyczny. Studia krytyczne [Dialectical Materialism. Critical Studies], which was published in 1948 and, for many years, was the only publication in post-war Poland in which the main assumptions of the Marxist philosophy were criticized. On the part of the community defending Marxism there are thinkers such as: Adam Schaff, Władysław Krajewski and Leszek Kołakowski, publishing in: Odrodzenie, Kuźnica, Po Prostu, Myśl Filozoficzna and Nowe Drogi.

In his works, Kłósak criticised both the materialistic monism of Marxist philosophy, and the principles of dialectical materialism. He approached the issue by keeping the standards of a scientific discussion. Starting from the theory of direct critical realism based on epistemology, he questioned the value of Marxist views, referring to the modern scientific knowledge of the material world and the man. His criticism was particularly painful to Marxists, because their worldview, according to the declarations, was to be of scientific nature. And Kłósak proved that Marxism treats science instrumentally and ideologically. His critique was reliable and thorough, and he knew the results of the contemporary scientific research and he was able to indicate serious mistakes in the considerations of Marxists, questioning the assumptions on which their main philosophical theses were based. He proved that, from the point of view of the classical logic, Marxism is full of contradictions, e.g. it postulates the existence of the spiritual sphere, perceiving it as a product of matter (so, de facto, it assumes a certain dualism of substance) and, at the same time, it maintains that the whole existing reality is material.³²¹

Kłósak addressed his critical works to, inter alia, Schaff, whose Wstęp do teorii marksizmu [Introduction to the Theory of Marxism] was, after the war, the main source of knowledge for the promoters of the communist worldview. Kłósak disputed with many theses included in the book. He defended, inter alia, the traditional evolutionism based on gradualism and the concept of quantitative changes in nature, against Schaff’s dialectical theory of evolution.³²² However, Schaff never replied to those critical texts. Other philosophers, such as Krajewski or Kołakowski, expressed their opinions by defending Marxism and opposing Kłósak. Especially Kołakowski was harsh and sometimes even malicious, accusing Kłósak of misunderstanding the Marxist philosophy and carrying out the dispute with an imaginary opponent.³²³ At that time, i.e. at the beginning of 1950s, Kołakowski was already known as a supporter of Marxism and critic of Christian philosophy. Kołakowski believed that Catholic thought not only opposed contemporary science, but it also contradicts the idea of human rights, as—in the hands of the Church’s hierarchs—was a tool of abuse and exploitation of the society.³²⁴

His harsh comments directed to Kłósak made the latter personally reply to his opponents in the magazine Życie i Myśl:

Due to the refusal of the properties of scientificalness to the Christian philosophy, I, as the professor and associated dean of the Faculty of Christian Philosophy of the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw, categorically protest against the language with which Henryk Holland, and especially Leszek Kołakowski, speaks about the representatives of the above-mentioned philosophy or about the philosophy itself. Such language is vulgar, impolite and full of contempt, as it includes such expressions as: “philosophical backwater,” “Catholic obscurantism,” “black army of obscurantism and reaction,” “pseudo-religious philosophy,” or “a bunch of corrupt priests.” In this language we can even find the statements that “Thomism is a direct defender of the darkest obscurantism, a direct apologist of mental backwardness, and a tool of a direct fight of the darkest social forces with the ideology of the revolutionary movement (Kołakowski),” and that the dream of the Thomist philosophy includes “metaphysical reasons that are to force the supernatural society to obedience—that are to maintain the power of an imperialistic body called corpus mysticum (idem).” We accept reliable criticism, but we do not accept insults.³²⁵

As we can see, the dispute between Kłósak and the Marxists was, at times, fierce, and the philosopher from Krakow had to carry out the discussion in an intellectual and political atmosphere that was hostile. Apart from reasonable arguments, the dispute included squabbles and sarcasm, which were meant to discredit the opponent. Taking into account the political situation in Poland at that time, Kłósak’s attitude was a brave attempt to oppose the official philosophical trend promoted by the communist authorities. He exposed himself to the disapproval of the government and, at the same time, he provided the Catholic intelligentsia with the tools for the discussion with the Marxist worldview. Kłósak’s works concerning dialectical materialism proved that science should not serve political purposes, and that the meeting of natural sciences and religion does not have to end with a conflict.

In later years, Kłósak avoided direct disputes with the Polish representatives of materialism. However, it does not mean that he cut himself off from the previous dispute. He discussed the issues that were “sensitive” for the Marxist propaganda at different occasions, considering, e.g. the issue of the temporal beginning of the universe or the origin and evolution of life.³²⁶

4.3. Disputes within the Christian philosophy

Post-war Christian philosophy in Poland was mainly shaped in three environments: Kraków (PWT), Warsaw (ATK) and Lublin (KUL). Discussions and disputes were often carried out among those universities, and Kłósak took part in many of them. The philosopher from Kraków was especially active in the disputes concerning the philosophy of nature, theodicy and philosophical anthropology. He was particularly interested in issues such as the status of the philosophy of nature as compared with science and metaphysics, the arguments for the existence of God, and the genesis of the human soul.

The discussions on such issues had been carried out in Poland since 1950s, and, with time, became increasingly intense. Such disputes mainly resulted from the adoption of different methodological and ontological solutions. As a result, metaphilosophical issues were of particular interest for Polish thinkers, including Kłósak.

As a representative of Louvain neo-Thomism, Kłósak emphasized the need to open philosophy to natural sciences. After the war, this was not a common attitude in the Polish Thomism. In the discussions between Kłósak and the representatives of the so-called Lublin school, it was the reason for intensifying the dispute on the way of practicing the philosophy of nature. Starting from the essential understanding of a being and the pluralistic theory of philosophy, Kłósak emphasized the independence of the philosophy of nature of other philosophical disciplines. On the contrary, the Lublin school included the philosophy of nature into the particular metaphysics (Kamiński) or general metaphysics (Kalinowski, Krąpiec), making it dependent, first of all, on the solutions from the scope of the general theory of a being.³²⁷

For the Lublin Thomists, the philosophy of nature was not independent of other philosophical disciplines, but of natural sciences. Kłósak did not accept such approach. It was because the philosopher from Kraków noticed significant connections among natural sciences, metaphysics and the philosophy of nature. Although he agreed with the Thomist thesis on different cognitive layers of science and philosophy, he acknowledged—in the philosophical experience—the meaning of the data of scientific cognition which, after the proper philosophical elaboration, can be the starting point for separating ontological implications of reductive type that make it possible to obtain the adequate image of the structure of a material being. In this approach, natural sciences played a much more important role than in the ideas of Thomists from the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) for whom the philosophy of nature was actually just an extension and detailing of metaphysics.³²⁸

The classification of philosophy, both in the approach of Kłósak and the Lublin university, was closely connected with the concept of a being as such—Kłósak’s abstractionist (essential) concept, and the Lublin thinkers’ concretistic (existential) concept. Those differences remain to this day. Even in his last book Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody [On the Theory and Methodology of the Philosophy of Nature] of 1980, Kłósak disputed with the ideas of Kalinowski and Krąpiec, who, according to the philosopher from Krakow, have not proven the existence of the epistemological and methodological specific unity of philosophy.³²⁹ Within this context, Kłósak believed that the postulate to reduce the philosophy of nature to metaphysics was an abuse, as it was not confirmed by the very nature of reality.

In his works, Kłósak also wanted to extend the subject of the research of the philosophy of nature to a being “existing in the stream of time,”³³⁰ through which he extended the traditional substantialism by the evolutionary perspective. In the light of the achievements of the contemporary science, such attitude seemed much naturalistic than the approaches of the Lublin or Warsaw school. Gogacz believed that this attitude made Kłósak fall within the scope of the “empirically oriented” philosophy,³³¹ to which the Krakow philosopher replied that his way of thinking only has an “empirical foundation.”³³²

It is worth emphasizing that in the discussions on the above-mentioned issues, Kłósak’s important point of reference was neo-Thomist philosophy. In his neo-Thomist solutions, Kłósak referred to the output of the Lviv-Warsaw school, e.g. taking over the classification of reasoning suggested by Łukasiewicz and Czeżowski. And, following Gawecki, he eagerly adopted the division into broadly understood philosophy and philosophy sensu stricto. Remarkably, Kłósak also referred to the tradition of the Krakow philosophy of nature of the interwar period (e.g. Joachim Metallmann, Zygmunt Zawirski), which probably determined the specific features of his approach towards the solutions offered by other Polish neo-Thomists of the post-war period.

The dispute concerning the theory and methodology of the philosophy of nature was only carried out in the group of Christian philosophers. The discussions were not only published in monographs, collective books and periodicals (such as Studia Philosophiae Christianae, Collectanea Theologica, Roczniki Filozoficzne), but they were also held during conferences and symposia organized at the Academy of Catholic Theology (ATK) in Warsaw and at the Catholic University of Lublin.³³³ What is important, the discussions taken up by Kłósak and the Lublin school continued after the death of the philosopher from Krakow and, until today, they are the subject of interest of the representatives of that discipline in Poland.³³⁴

Apart from the issues related to the theory of the philosophy of nature, in the environment of the Polish neo-Thomists Kłósak discussed theodicy (the philosophy of God). Also in this case, his methodological assumptions were different than those of the Lublin school for whom theodicy—due to the unity of philosophy postulated in this environment—is just a part of metaphysics. Kłósak acknowledged a greater independence of the philosophy of God from the theory of a being, and he emphasized the need to practice theodicy in the contact with natural sciences. That is why, his attitude is often called the empirising theism.³³⁵

Kłósak’s main objective in theodicy was to analyse the five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas in terms of content and methodology. Contrary to many other neo-Thomists at that time, including the Krakow theologian Ignacy Różycki, Kłósak preferred talking about arguments rather than proofs for the existence of God. It is because he believed that, in theodicy, the role of explaining (reductive reasoning) is more cognitively primary than deductive analysis which, according to Kłósak, has—in this context—a secondary nature as a logical elaboration of the previously gained knowledge of the existence of God.

Apart from the analysis of the ways of Thomas Aquinas, Kłósak worked out other arguments, e.g. from the temporal beginning of the universe, and from the origin of biological life on Earth. Kłósak’s empirising approach to the issue of God was, already in 1950s, criticized by some Christian philosophers. Witold Pietkun³³⁶ accused Kłósak of overestimating the role of argumentation in the physical aspect as compared with the metaphysical argumentation. Kłósak disputed with Pietkun in the second volume of W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, and not only did the dispute include the use of the achievements of empirical sciences in theodicy, but it also referred to the ways of reasoning in this discipline.³³⁷

Kłósak’s most important dispute concerning the philosophy of God resulted from his reinterpretation of the Fifth Way of St. Thomas Aquinas—the so-called argument from design.³³⁸ Kłósak claimed that the acknowledgement of a design in the world may, at the most, be a consequence of the belief in the existence of God. The traditional theological argument is burdened with the mistake of petitio principi, being just the attempt to a priori justify the universal finalism (from the point of view of the argumentation for theism—an insignificant attempt). The representatives of the Lublin university—especially Krąpiec—did not agree with the opinion of Kłósak. He believed that before the acceptance of the existence of God one can determine a designed action of inanimate beings, due to which the theological argument does not lose its force.

In the course of the discussion, Kłósak slightly modified his opinion,³³⁹ and he finally concluded that the starting point for the fifth argument should include the order existing in the biocosmos and the rationality of evolutionary processes, and not the purposeful design. He agreed with the scientists, such as the pre-war Krakow scholar Marian Smoluchowski, who rejected the concept of the design in the physical world. Thus, instead of the teleological argument, Kłósak postulated the need for a nomological argument, based on reductive reasoning (looking for philosophical reasons for the cosmic order having the traces of rationality) that may lead to probable, but not certain conclusions.

Kłósak worked on theodicy until his death. His last book on the philosophy of God (Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga [On the Philosophical Cognition of God], 1979) inspired a series of discussions in which Kłósak also expressed his opinions.³⁴⁰ The disputes were related to issues such as the dependence of the philosophy of God on the natural sciences, or the relation between theodicy and metaphysics, so—once again—they mainly focused on metatheoretical issues. It is worth noting that Kłósak’s book was very well received by Polish Christian philosophers, opening up broad perspectives of interdisciplinary analyses.³⁴¹

In the post-war period, Christian philosophers were truly interested not only in theodicy, but also in anthropology. Kłósak played an important role with this regard. Some of his works were of a clearly polemical nature. He was particularly interested in the genesis of human soul, although he took up many other problems. For example, he analysed Karol Wojtyła’s theory of man’s experience which he carried out during the meeting of the section of Christian professors at the Catholic University of Lublin in December 1970 while discussing the book Osoba i czyn [The Acting Person].³⁴²

Kłósak wanted the philosophy of man to develop with reference to the results of natural sciences, especially natural anthropology and neurophysiology. Therefore—contrary to Stępień or Kamiński—he claimed that philosophical anthropology has to be practiced not only in the strict connection with metaphysics, but also with the philosophy of nature (philosophical cosmology).³⁴³ He believed that those philosophers, who fail to see that man is rooted in the world of nature, are wrong. On the other hand, the scientific perspective should not decrease the value of metaphysical considerations. Although Kłósak was fond of Christian naturalism and the evolutionary vision of nature, he believed that there are such issues in anthropology that cannot be explained solely with the laws of nature.

This opinion led Kłósak to a dispute with another philosopher—and his student—from Krakow: Tadeusz Wojciechowski. The dispute was launched by the question on the origin of the human soul: was it the product of evolution or was it created by God ex nihilo as a part of His creative act? Both thinkers accepted evolutionism in anthropology, but Kłósak believed that there is a discontinuity between animal psyche and human psyche, and that the human soul is created “from nothing” directly by God, while Wojciechowski’s view was more naturalistic, as he paid attention to the possibility of the evolutionary transformation of animal psyche into human psyche.³⁴⁴ That concept—very innovative in the Christian philosophy of the time—was treated by Kłósak as “poetizing” in which the principle of non-contradiction is infringed by blurring the differences between the material and spiritual being. At the same time, Kłósak criticized Wojciechowski for the approval of indirect creationism³⁴⁵ in which God’s creative role is minimized. Wojciechowski refuted those objections, claiming that it is the evolutionary concept that more clearly postulates the necessity of the existence of God’s power without which it would be impossible to transcend the threshold of sensuality.³⁴⁶

The scholars did not manage to reach an agreement. What made them different were methodological issues—especially the fact that Wojciechowski paid less attention to the separation of science and philosophy, and terminological issues (Kłósak claimed that the utterances of his opponent were ambiguous, e.g. in the context of the idea of cause). Kłósak’s attachment to thinking in the categories of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy resulted in the fact that this philosopher did not accept the opinions of Wojciechowski, describing them as close to materialism.³⁴⁷

4.4. Conclusion

The above review of disputes Kazimierz Kłósak carried out in the environment of the Polish philosophers in the second half of the 20th century is far from complete. Nevertheless, it indicates the issues that he considered particularly important: the basic ideas of Marxism, the method of the philosophy of nature, argumentation for the existence of God, and the nature and origin of the human soul. There is no doubt that Kłósak was a polemicist who worked out his own opinions by means of dialogue, and sometimes harsh disputes, with other philosophers. He was not afraid of negative reactions of his opponents—both those who fought with the Christian philosophy officially, and those who came from Catholic circles. It is worth noting that the traces of disputes he carried out within the Polish philosophy can be found not only in the articles but also in the reports from different scientific events organized in post-war Poland.³⁴⁸

5. A DICTIONARY OF BASIC TERMS

Cause

“If we take into account the point of view of natural sciences and psychological particular sciences, we will have to express the meaning of a cause at each grade of its precision based on the category of a phenomenon, as it is required by limiting the above sciences to the phenomenal aspect of nature.”³⁴⁹

“In the given approach, a cause [understood in the way it is perceived in natural sciences—ed.] is the phenomenon A or a set of phenomena A which is a condition not only sufficient, but also necessary for the occurrence of one, strictly specified phenomenon B or a group of strictly specified phenomena B (like in the case of determinism of macroscopic phenomena), or for the occurrence of an unpredicted, more or less probable phenomenon B₁, B₂, B₃… (like in the case of determinism of microscopic, elementary phenomena)—and the appearance of B, or B₁ or B₂ or B₃…, does not result in the appearance of phenomenon A or a set of phenomena A.”³⁵⁰

“If we declare that a cause … is constantly a sufficient condition for the occurrence of one, strictly specified phenomenon B or a group of strictly specified phenomena B, or a more or less probable phenomenon B₁ or B₂ or B₃… we mean what is available to empiriological analysis—that if phenomenon A or a set of phenomena A occurred, phenomenon B or B₁, B₂, B₃ occurs …”³⁵¹

“The concept of a cause can be defined within the frames of the above indicated philosophical science [philosophy of nature—ed.] through the reference to the concept of a being subject to physical movement. Thus, in the philosophy of nature we can say that a cause is a specific form of a being able to move, and this form leads to the occurrence of another specific form of that being …”³⁵²

“The relation of the causes to be discovered by a philosopher of nature with the causes indicated by natural sciences is not similar to the relation of ultimate causes with closer causes. A scientist speaks about causes, but he defines their essence in a different way than a philosopher of nature, because what he means is such a concept of a cause that could become his first basis for speaking about the regularity of irreversible phenomena.”³⁵³

Emergentism of creationist Thomism

“According to this concept [creation of evolutionary type—ed.], the creative action of the First Cause does not place its works externally, in an obtrusive manner, among the already existing beings. Thus, such activity, which is correlated with the whole of duration, i.e. with its phenomenal transformations … does not introduce any split into the sensory world, so that new realities—even if, from the philosophical point of view they have an essentially different nature—do not lack antecedents … and do not result in any stoppages in the course of events. In the creation of the evolutionary type, we can positively talk … about the direct God’s influence on the natures of things, as a result of which new beings are born in nature, which are physically interconnected in their appearance and purpose.”³⁵⁴

“Assuming the existence of the personal God who transcends the world, they acknowledge that He is the total first cause of life. However, since they do not want to assume unnecessary special interferences of God with the history of the world due to the fact that such interferences cannot be reconciled with God’s wisdom, in their aiming at eliminating everything they consider an excessive naturalism from their worldview, they hypothetically or actually consider God not as a direct, but as an indirect cause of the vegetative life, or possibly sensory life provided that they assume that God can give or actually gave the inanimate matter the ability to produce life in specific conditions.”³⁵⁵

“If this hypothesis assumes that the vital potentialities of inanimate matter come from the special creative interference of God and that He created the conditions of their transition to the present state, it is the hypothesis of direct creationism in a broader sense.”³⁵⁶

“This hypothesis is a spiritualistic hypothesis provided that it assumes that life ultimately comes from God as its absolute first cause. However, if we define the hypothesis this way, we accept it provided that it is direct creationism in a broader sense. And if, according to this hypothesis, vegetative and, possibly, sensory life emerges—in some conditions—directly and spontaneously from inanimate matter as from its nearest cause, this hypothesis is a kind of materialistic emergentism. However, the materialism of this hypothesis has nothing to do with materialistic monism as a worldview. That is why, in order to avoid misunderstanding, I shall not call the dualistic hypothesis on the origin of life—provided that it includes the idea of abiogenesis—a mild materialistic emergentism, but I shall term it the emergentism of creationist theism.”³⁵⁷

Empirical phenomenology of nature

“The phenomenology I mean is empirical phenomenology … empirical in genetic, epistemological and methodological terms. Its objective is to express what the natural sciences—with the use of their methods—have to say about nature used in philosophical considerations.

In such ‘phenomenology’ one does not omit the real existence, as one assumes that the dispute on the existence of the world has already been solved to the benefit of realism, although approaching it does not go beyond the conceptual horizons of natural sciences.”³⁵⁸

“Phenomenology … is also a scientific phenomenology (in a narrower sense), as—in terms of its epistemological and methodological type—it is completely included in the frames of empirical sciences. As for nature, it does not provide us with a philosophical categorial description or a description of its proper type of being—even more so, it cannot provide us with a philosophical transcendental description, i.e. a description related to the transcendental properties of a real being as such. The ‘phenomenology’ we are talking about is, therefore, in its content, absolutely void of philosophical nature.”³⁵⁹

“Thus, if empirical phenomenology fulfils the purity of its epistemological and methodological being, we have to consider it free from the formal philosophical nature despite its philosophical implications … If we do the opposite, we will come to the absurd conclusion that everyone always philosophizes.”³⁶⁰

“… the empirical phenomenological description, understood quite broadly, is the first step to philosophizing or the first step we have to take before we start philosophizing.”³⁶¹

“The fact that the ‘phenomenology’ in question includes the results of the essential analysis, cannot be the basis for treating it like philosophy. It is because in our ‘phenomenology’ we are dealing with the purely empiriological approach … to the essence … It is an attempt to establish—in a more or less discursive manner—on the basis of the data of an experience, what, in a specific case, is the essence from the phenomenal … point of view.”³⁶²

“… authentic empirical phenomenology is—due to its epistemological and methodological type—a science absolutely void of philosophical nature.”³⁶³

Empiriological concept of sciences

“… the above-mentioned sciences [natural sciences—ed.], in their cognition of nature, do not go beyond what is available for their research methods—i.e. beyond the sphere of phenomena and relations among them, so they omit what could be the essence or nature of things in philosophical terms, as well as the reasons as perceived by philosophy, even if they are just closer reasons …”³⁶⁴

“In order to further explain the frame of the empiriological theory, we shall say that in the theory—in the particular sciences about nature and the man, phenomena are analysed in their mutual relations, i.e. they are analysed in terms of regularity and connections among them—that regularity and those connections that are reflected in the statement of causative conditions, in formulas of the laws of nature, and in different theories.”³⁶⁵

“… particular sciences concerning nature and the man are—if they are faithful to their methods of research—void of the philosophical nature in their formal message of the content.”³⁶⁶

“… if the empiriological theory is considered adequate, we have to note that no formulations of the exact sciences about nature and the man can directly result from the principles of a philosophy. … natural sciences and psychological particular sciences cannot directly lead to any philosophical conclusions.”³⁶⁷

“If natural sciences and particular psychological sciences have any philosophical implications of reductive type, such implications could only be a function of the above-mentioned sciences and the general philosophical vision which someone established. Only after adding that general philosophical vision we would meet the conditions necessary to separate the ontological content related to the designates possibly included in scientific formulas.”³⁶⁸

Metaphysics

“… according to the distinguished theory of metaphysics, the analysis of this basic philosophical science refers to the aspect of actually existing as the subject in general …”³⁶⁹

“Metaphysics analyses each individual real being in the aspect of beingness, placing it within the maximally abstractionist approach by eliminating any specificity as such from the field of categorial separateness and differences in the scope of the types of being, and taking into account only the most basic aspect of being something that really exists.”³⁷⁰

Ontological implications of reductive type

“This method is based on analysing whether the given theses can be considered ontological (in a broader sense) test implications taken in the philosophical elaboration of the most general statements concerning nature, perceived in the perspectives of common, and especially scientific/natural cognition. They are test implications of reductive type, which would provide—for the bodies analysed in terms of their philosophically interpreted properties, the ultimate explanation in the scope of their most basic structure.

I created the concept of those implications by extending the idea of test implications adopted by Hempel. This methodologist knows only test implications of deductive type. However, since, apart from deductive reasoning we have reductive reasoning, we can also distinguish test implications of reductive type, which we achieve through explaining. These implications do not have to belong—in terms of their contents—to scientific cognition in a narrower meaning. If cognition from the scope of strictly understood philosophy is possible (ontological cognition), we can separate test implications of reductive type that would be the expression of ontological cognition. In our case, we mean ontological—in a broader sense—test implications of reductive type.”³⁷¹

“It is a method for which the ‘material’ starting point includes certain objective data revealed during the empirical phenomenological description that uses empiriological concepts.”³⁷²

Ontologizing concept of sciences

“This theory, for which the most important thing is blurring, to some extent, the border between natural and philosophical cognition, can be expressed in a few versions. According to one of them, scientific cognition gradually changes into the cognition in the philosophy of nature or even metaphysics. Another version says that scientific cognition positively depends, in its specific content, on particular philosophical views as the factor that regulates it. There is also another version in which it is assumed that philosophical conclusions can be directly drawn from natural sciences.”³⁷³

Phenomenon

“what, as such, can be—directly or indirectly, in a continuous or discontinuous manner—noticed or even measured.”³⁷⁴

“… a phenomenon is a sequence of changing states of a system, analysed in the sense adopted by Gawecki (physical phenomenon) or it is what is directly available within the boundaries of an individual’s own experience, and it can only exist as the content of the individual’s consciousness (psychological phenomenon). In both cases, only the objectiveness of the crucial issue was taken into account—that it is given for scientific cognition, without the ultimate precision (from the philosophical point of view) of the way of its existence.”³⁷⁵

Philosophy of nature

“… the subject of research in this discipline [philosophy of nature—ed.] is a type of being characteristic of nature or—in other words—a real being falling within the scope of the terms describing all that is a part of nature. … the subject of the research of the philosophy of nature is the aspect of being something that really exists within a type of being characteristic of nature.”³⁷⁶

“… the formal subject of the philosophy of nature … is a type of being that is characteristic of the things that occur in nature, their proper particularized being … a being that is subject to movement sensu stricto (ens mobile) … However, perhaps we could express it better if we said that the formal field of the research of the philosophy of nature … is a being existing in the stream of time.”³⁷⁷

Scientific facts and philosophical facts

“… raw ‘scientific’ facts … [are—ed.] facts established and formulated by a scientist in the light of cognition which is typical of him …”³⁷⁸

“… in their case what is given has not been conceptually elaborated from the philosophical point of view …”³⁷⁹

“[The data that was not—ed.] confronted with the first principles of philosophy and its other contents in order to highlight in the data—through its philosophical judgment and interpretation—its potentially hidden philosophical (‘ontological’) value.”³⁸⁰

“… ‘philosophical’ facts include … the data which was established and evaluated in the objective light of philosophy … due to which it became its own ‘matter’—a ‘matter’ appropriated by philosophy … Thus, they are the facts which are expressed in the terms typical of the philosophy of nature, … i.e. in the terms connected with the type of ‘ontological’ explanation. The above-mentioned facts refer to the intellectually cognizable essence of things subject to physical movement.”³⁸¹

“‘Scientific’ facts are related to the ways of accidental being, … while ‘philosophical’ facts are centered, formally, directly or indirectly, around the substantial way of existing.”³⁸²

“One group of data related to the concepts of empiriological type includes the facts that only belong to the sphere of the phenomenal … aspects of nature. They include certain systems of relations taking place among particular elements of phenomena, which, in natural sciences, not only include the processes occurring in nature, but also nature’s constituent beings (including the man) perceived in a substantialist manner.

The second group of data, related to the concepts of ‘ontological’ type, includes the facts centered around the essence of things subject to physical movement—the essence taken together with the real existence and based on such existence. Such essence can be reached through intellectual dianoetic cognition. The facts of the second group are so much focused on that essence that—even if, in the philosophy of nature, we are talking about specific phenomena—we take them into account in the above discipline not for themselves, as in natural sciences, but as the expressions of a particular essence.”³⁸³

“… while practicing the philosophy of nature, we have to rely on the so-called philosophical facts, i.e. the data of the pre-scientific experience, and especially scientific experience, considered in the light of philosophy, with the help of its first principles, or just confronted with particular theses of philosophical cosmology.”³⁸⁴

“Thus, if we do not want to forget the separateness of the existential layer of the research of the philosophy of nature, and if we do not want to mix their qualitatively different conceptual languages, we have to take up ultimate explanation of material things from the side of their essence—this ultimate explanation that is possible in the perspective of ‘physical’ abstraction, not on the basis of raw ‘scientific’ facts, but on the basis of ‘philosophical’ facts that belong to the essence of material things as they are what can be first separated from that essence in the act of its cognitive analysis.”³⁸⁵

Soul

“According to the Thomist philosophy of nature, soul is in the man—like in any other organic being—the first principle of life (primum principium vitae) … i.e. it is what ultimately, though not directly … all human vital signs genetically come from … In this most general, least detailed approach, the human soul is presented as something of a specific being of a man … as a part of such being.”³⁸⁶

“… we will have to agree that if, while performing intellectual activities, our soul does not internally depend on any bodily organ, this soul, as the ultimate subject of the above-mentioned activities, does not internally depend—in its being—on our body, i.e. on the prime matter of our compositum, and it can exist independently of that matter, so it can live after ending its life in the human compositum.

The possibility of our soul’s existence, irrespective of the body it animates, is not just a matter of future for us, as it is now when our soul exists—to some extent—independently of the body and is separated from it (separata) … provided that the activities of its mind (and will) do not internally depend on any bodily organ if they are inorganic activities …

 In this way, it transpires that—if we establish the scope of the authorized application of the associationist theory of cognitive abilities of animals and the man—we will not find anything in this theory that would prove that the human soul, just like the soul of animals, is material, i.e. internally dependent, in all its action and being, on the prime matter it actualizes in the human compositum.

While opting for the spirituality of the human soul, we cannot, as a result, assume that such a soul could have—at a certain stage of the biological evolution—been born in a body as a result of the changes that took place in the somatic sphere of a particular group of animals. Neither can we take into account the hypothesis on the direct descent of the human soul from the material animal soul …

The issue of the origin of the first man’s soul remains mysterious until we think about the interference of a factor that transcends nature, which we can only identify with God. Such interference is the creation of the whole being of the first man’s soul without using any material that existed before, i.e. the creation sensu stricto. We cannot seriously think about completing the animal soul with specifically human psychological abilities, as such a completion could only lead to the creation of an artificial material-spiritual combination. Creative and perfecting completion is only possible in the somatic aspect. The body of a fossil anthropoid could have been transformed into a specifically human body if God gave that animal body the immortal human soul He created ex nihilo sui et subiecti.”³⁸⁷

II. KAZIMIERZ KŁÓSAK: SELECTED WRITINGS

Selected and edited by

Adam Świeżyński

Translated by

Justyna Figas-Skrzypulec

and Adam Świeżyński

Editorial note: The numbering of the footnotes has been changed in relation to the original—continuous excerpts from the footnotes were used in the extracts within each text. Text fragments skipped and omitted footnotes are marked. The style of footnotes and citations have not been standardized, generally leaving them in their original version, but some fragments were changed to make it more understandable and informative.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE BY JACQUES MARITAIN AND THE EVOLUTIONARY VISION OF THE UNIVERSE BY PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Kazimierz Kłósak, “Filozofia przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” Polski Przegląd Tomistyczny 1, no. 2 (1939), pp. 154–170.

Maritain holds that the philosophy of nature, besides the sciences, is necessary to gain full knowledge of the sensory world. He believes that among all systems of natural philosophy the one based on Aristotle’s and Thomas Aquinas’ principles has got the strongest base. He does not discuss particular propositions of this philosophy extensively, but he endeavors to analyze the epistemological type of natural philosophy in order to distinguish it clearly from other intellectual disciplines and to demonstrate its lasting value.

Maritain distinguishes two elements of sensory reality: changeable being as itself and natures of bodies¹ as well as particular phenomena.

According to him, the natures of bodies would be the proper subject of sciences, if it was not the case that they slip out of the range of scientific knowledge.² Therefore, sciences have to limit themselves to the phenomenal aspect of sensory reality, analysing it empiriologically. Maritain reminds us here about Meyerson’s remark that empirical sciences include a pursuit of describing changeable being in itself, but the pursuit proves futile.³ He demonstrated this himself in the critical part of his work, where he showed that, when it comes to mathematical and physical sciences, this pursuit concluded with formulating mental beings.

Consequently, Maritain considers establishing, at the first level of abstraction, a field of knowledge separate from natural sciences, i.e. philosophy of nature, in order to make knowledge of sensory world full; it would carry out an ontological analysis of the outside world and gain knowledge of changeable being as itself by proceeding intellectually thanks to such analysis.⁴ …

If we notice how clearly Maritain distinguishes philosophy of nature from metaphysics and if we take other texts into consideration,⁵ we can understand that this expression should be interpreted as meaning that peripatetic natural philosophy formulated its principled under the guidance of the purest metaphysics and is subordinate to it in a broad meaning of the word. Maritain’s idea of the organic unity of particular elements of the Thomist system resonates here in particular.

It is notable that Maritain states that Thomist natural philosophy can find more fertile ground for itself in the concepts of modern physics than it had in ancient and medieval concepts of knowledge of the sensory world. “The idea which contemporary scientists have of mass and of energy, of the atom, of mutations due to radioactivity, of the periodic classification of the elements and the fundamental distinction between the elements and solutions and composites: these ideas dispose the mind to restore their value to the Aristotelian notion of “nature” as root principle of activity, to the notion of substantial mutations which is the basis of hylemorphism, and to the notion of an ascending order of material substances, an order far richer and more significant than was realised by ancient physics.”⁶ 

After he accepted the ready-made system of philosophy of nature, Maritain does not consider himself exempt from further work in this field, neither does he exempt other Thomists from it. He notices that there is a need for deepening ontological knowledge of nature with Thomist rules, especially that he regards the foundation for further research as laid by neo-scholastics’ effort on the one hand and, first and foremost, by some of Max Scheler’s views, as well as those of Meyerson, Bergson, and phenomenologists. Unfortunately, Maritain has not carried out any analysis of these foundation preparations. He contents himself with placing on Thomists responsibility for the correct direction of today’s intensified orientation of thoughts towards the philosophy of nature.⁷ 

…

The characteristic trait of philosophy of nature, according to Maritain, is the attribute of having changeable being as its object, if it is intellectually cognisable or, in other words, changeable being as examined in the light of ontology.

Non-mathematicised sciences are interested in changeable being if it is subject open to sensual observation.⁸ But mathematicised natural sciences examine this being from the quantitative point of view, as it presents itself to our measurements.

After these remarks, we can give a full definition of philosophy of nature, as appears in the book on philosophy of nature: “The sphere of intelligibility proper to the philosophy of nature is therefore ens secundum quod mobile, sub modo definiendi per intelligibilem quidditatem (et non per operationem sensus), seu sub lumine ontologico.”⁹

Maritain bases philosophy of nature not on scientific facts but on “philosophical” facts.¹⁰ By “philosophical” facts he means facts of common, pre-scientific observation, subjected to philosophical analysis. In his opinion, they comply with the way of forming concepts and definitions which is proper for philosophy. Maritain gives them predominance over scientific facts, since they are simpler, more universal, easier to predict, and more certain. He indicates the existence of things, substantial changes, successive persistence, immanent acts in living organisms, etc. as examples of “philosophical facts.” Maritain bases his philosophy of nature on “philosophical” facts, because he conjectures that philosophical conclusions can be derived only from facts belonging to the same sort of order, that is “philosophical” facts. “… because more does not come out of less, a fact can give only what it contains and philosophical conclusions can only be drawn from premises or facts which themselves possess philosophical value.”¹¹

…

Kazimierz Kłósak, “Spór o Orygenesa naszych czasów,” Znak 12, no. 2–3 (1960), pp. 253–268.

Recently, there have been few Catholic authors who have aroused as much passionate controversy as Fr. Piotr Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (†1955). These controversies, which have been termed la querelle du teilhardisme, were not provoked by the French Jesuit through his scientific work in the fields of geology, paleontology and prehistory.¹² He became a source of controversy because of what he was above all, namely as a thinker, visionary and a kind of prophet,¹³ for which the theory of evolution was the base, but not a theory of evolution bound to the transformation of species, but the theory of evolution centered on something that Fr. Nicholas Corte¹⁴ defines the law of the entire universe.¹⁵

…

If we do not see Fr. Teilhard as the Thomas Aquinas of the 20th century, who will we compare him with? It seems that Fr. Corte is right to some extent when he juxtaposes him with Origen, noting that just as there was once a passionate dispute around Origen, so today there is a passionate dispute around Fr. Teilhard, and that as the Church was once shaken and disturbed by Origenism, so in our eyes it is shaken and disturbed by Teilhardism.¹⁶ Let us add to the analogies indicated by Fr. Corte is that Fr. Teilhard, like Origen, passed away with the stigma of a largely heterodox thinker, although he undoubtedly wanted to remain in Catholic orthodoxy. …

Comparing Fr. Teilhard to Origen, I would not overstate his significance as a thinker. So far, I do not see the quality of philosophical speculation by Fr. Teilhard gave some grounding for Jean Piveteau’s theorem,¹⁷ that he was one of the greatest minds of all time. Nor would I say that the French Jesuit was, like once Origen, persecuted for his ideas, because it never happened.

…

Unable to follow much of the works of Fr. Teilhard, I would not like to be unfair to him. It turns out, as it has not been noticed so far, that Fr. Teilhard can portray more than any of the orthodox Catholic evolutionists, what is the purely natural understanding of biological evolution. This understanding is certainly not without significance for those who have not yet gone beyond the philosophical or theological interpretation of biological evolution, because the discovery of its purely natural understanding will enable them to take up a common platform with naturalists at the beginning of the discussion with them. To draw attention to this positive response of the work of Fr. Teilhard may soften the impression of the sharp philosophical criticism presented here.

…

The doctrinal failures of Fr. Teilhard we are talking about are largely due to the lack of a sufficiently deep and correct philosophy of biological sciences that would let him understand what is the proper sense of speaking in these sciences about phenomenal effects of occurrences the human, also included in the phenomenal aspect. However, it seems that the main source of the deficiencies of Fr. Teilhard in understanding of the origin of the human soul, was that he did not come to understand what the spirituality of the human soul really is. Fr. Teilhard knew that of the living things on Earth, only man is endowed with reflective consciousness and the ability to cognitively reach reality,¹⁸ but he treated this fact only as a harsh scientific fact, which as such, without proper philosophical interpretation, could not of course teach him about the nature of the human soul.

No wonder that having no understanding of the authentic spirituality of the human soul, Fr. Teilhard, in the fourth part of the work of Le Phénomène humain discussing the issue of human “survival” (la survie), limited himself to collective “survival,” without addressing the issue of individual immortality, and when he later expressed his beliefs about this immortality, his statement was very vague.

…

Taking a negative view of the theses of Fr. Teilhard in the field of the philosophy of nature and metaphysics, however, we must note, that he can introduce us, at least in the framework of it, to the specific sense of a purely natural understanding of biological evolution. In this way we will use from Fr. Teilhard, as far as he came to certain kind of philosophy of biological sciences. Admittedly, his philosophy is not, as I have already pointed out, deep enough, however, having obtained from Fr. Teilhard general orientation hint on philosophical subject, we can go further alone, introducing all the necessary precision that we did not find in this author.

Let us consider as an example the issue of the origin of the human soul.

A metaphysician, who approaches this issue from the side of the essence vested in individual human souls, will be asking about something individual in this issue, namely the origin of the first or first individual human souls, taking their being as a whole, that we ascribe to them from the philosophical position.

Reading the works of Fr. Teilhard shows us, however, that the issue of the origin of the human soul can be considered in another way, from a natural point of view, on an external-phenomenal plane. Putting the human soul on this plane just as it is available for natural methods of research, i.e. as a set of mental processes, as a variable coupled by the ratio of some relation to the second variable represented by the somatic factor, we ask about the conditioning of psychic phenomena characteristic of the human species as such, by other known or presumed phenomena.

…

Considering the issue of the origin of the human soul in the way presented here, we are not yet reaching any specific metaphysical position. If Fr. Teilhard has come to the genetic anchoring of human thought to “pre-existence” and “pre-consciousness,” it happened like this because he did not quite clearly realize in what sense a naturalist can talk about conditioning psychic phenomena, specific to the human species as such. Henri Gouhier accused Fr. Teilhard during the “decade” in Cerisy-la-Salle, that this thinker did not include in his “phenomenology” a human subject taken as a whole.¹⁹ This accusation is, however, unfounded, because it does not take into account the need to preserve the purity of an epistemological type with an external-phenomenal approach to issues related to man. Fr. Teilhard was right to treat man as part of his “phenomenology” only as a phenomenon, and what we can accuse him is that by extending the theory of biological evolution to the issue of the origin of the human soul, failed to consistently maintain a purely natural, external and phenomenal plan.

THE THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE

Kazimierz Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody (Poznań: Księgarnia Świętego Wojciecha, 1980), pp. 6–160 (excerpts).

1.

What I have finally kept from Nys’ and Lemaire’s methodological proposition, is the idea that possibly the broadest use of the achievements of the contemporary natural sciences is necessary for the philosophy of nature¹ and that reductive reasoning, the ultimate explanation, should be regarded the fundamental type of natural-philosophical reasoning. I have abandoned, however, the idea of basing the philosophy of nature on “scientific” facts; instead, I have decided to accept Maritain’s postulate concerning the necessity of taking “philosophical” facts as a starting point for the mentioned discipline. This decision was conditioned by my observation that there is more to the initial base of the philosophy of nature than just determining the essence or nature of phenomena and giving ultimate explanations to physical realities which are understood the way natural sciences understand them and for which those sciences seek proximate explanations. The “more” casts a different conceptual light on phenomena and facts than natural sciences shed, as well as new dimensions of material reality, dimensions from the scope of ontic structure, not included in the mentioned sciences. For it is the case that knowledge characteristic of the philosophy of nature does not begin only with looking for the essence or nature and with ultimately explaining empirical data, but it emerges already with “reading” phenomena and empirical data as such, and even with their first conceptualisation.

What has not changed since my first metatheoretical research is my negative attitude towards both a rule for the classification of the “theoretical” sciences of the natural order accepted by Thomas Aquinas and a partial modification of the rule by Maritain. As we know, forms of the immateriality (according to a level of formal abstraction) of objects of the mentioned sciences were Aquinas’ reason for their specific differentiation. Maritain, on the other hand, held that these sciences are specifically divided depending on a distinct way of defining, which may be characterised by full autonomy from an order or level of formal abstraction. In contrast to the first and the second rule of classification, I have demonstrated in my papers that neither of them allows for the specific differentiation of all natural sciences from the philosophy of nature. For it is a fact that, in both cases, that if one wants to be completely consistent, one cannot specifically differentiate from philosophical cosmology those natural sciences in which the quantitative approach to nature is the only one or at least the prevalent one.

Because I wanted to avoid this inconvenience, which is incompatible with contemporarily accepted assumptions concerning distinguishing natural sciences and philosophical disciplines, I have taken Thomas’ rule of the classification of science in its wholly modernised sense, not linking it (as Maritain has been doing recently) to the theory of three levels of abstraction, but interpreting the formal object simply as a separate point of view which makes a way of defining identical to the objective abstraction and positive immateriality of an object of a given science.

…

What we are undertaking here, then, in the framework of the theory of the philosophy of nature, is giving the ultimate characteristic of the philosophical knowledge of nature from the perspective of its adequacy, scope, and basic conditions of possibility. Such a characteristic of the natural-philosophical knowledge is somewhat analogical to the characteristic of nature we give when we do philosophical cosmology. This is why we can say that the theory of the philosophy of nature is, in a sense, philosophy itself, even though it is philosophy in a broader sense than metaphysics and the philosophy of nature, because only the similarity of their cognitive frameworks, and not the similarity of their object, is what connects them.² For it is the case that in the theory of philosophy of nature we have also to do with the maximally basic or fundamental cognitive approach to its object, just as in metaphysics, the philosophy of nature, and their objects.

When it comes to the methodology of the philosophy of nature, its formal philosophical character in the broad sense can be subject to debate because it concerns a somewhat technical aspect of the mentioned level-one discipline. But because in our case there would not be a full level-two discipline without the methodology of the philosophy of nature, we can treat this methodology, as well, with some reservation, as philosophy in the broader sense, or at least as something which has an organic interconnectedness with such a kind of philosophy.

2.

If the empiriological concept of the natural sciences and special psychological sciences is basically in accord with the Aristotelian idea of science, then, when we follow (not without some reservations) the line of this old understanding of science,³ we are also confronted with an observation that limiting the mentioned sciences to empirical statements and understanding them as les sciences de la constatation empirique⁴ cannot be call semi-positivism, as Klubertanz, among others, does,⁵ when he writes about the positivist understanding of those natural sciences accompanied by the lack of a positivist attitude on the plane of philosophical thinking.⁶ It is not justified to suspect that the interpretation of natural sciences of nature and man we are assessing right now is positivist, because Thomist followers of the interpretation do not hold that the theory of the mentioned sciences is the theory of science in general, and this is why they do not maintain that there is no other scientific method but the method of those sciences, and that what is inaccessible to their appropriate method, is absolutely unknowable. Positivism, in its proper or broad sense,⁷ is a minimalistic view on the entirety of scientific knowledge, its object, and its limits. Hence, similarities between the empiriological concept of natural sciences and special psychological sciences, and the obligatory framework of every physical hypothesis assumed by August Comte,⁸ which are unimportant from the general point of view, are not enough to call the empiriological concept a positivist concept and call its Thomist followers semi-positivists. This objection largely also applies to Selvaggi, when he writes⁹ that such authors as Maritain, Amerio and Renoirte stick to the traditional Scholastic doctrine on the nature and capabilities of philosophy but they mainly follow the positivistic and neo-positivistic critique raised in the last few decades in relation to natural sciences. If we would like to be clear here, we should say that only some similarities can be found between Maritain, Amerio, and Renoirte, and the epistemological conception of natural sciences proposed by authors whose philosophical beliefs are, or were, positivistic or neo-positivistic. Even some kind of methodological positivism cannot be attributed to the aforementioned Thomists.

…

When declaring against some more or less ontologising theory and for the empiriological one, it ought to be specially underlined that the particular sciences of nature and man, if they are faithful to their research methods, are devoid of philosophical character when it comes to the tone of their form and content. It is obvious that the empirical analysis proper to them, as it has been defined before, cannot grant them such character. … Having accepted the aphilosophical character of the mentioned sciences, one needs to accept, consequently, that those sciences cannot directly provide any solution to any philosophical problem.

Moreover, if one considers the empiriological theory an adequate theory, it needs to be noticed that no statements given by particular sciences of nature and man can directly result from principles of any philosophy. And they cannot follow like this because only philosophical conclusions can directly result deductively from philosophical principles. The principle of sufficient reason, which does not allow for assuming something as irrational as direct resulting of natural-scientific statements from philosophical statements, requires this. It is worth quoting here an answer given by Roman Stanisław Ingarden to Włodzimierz Fock, who asked him at the III Polish Conference of Physicists in Spała (1952) if the reason why he was defending Imre Fényes’ interpretation of quantum mechanics was that he thought this interpretation follows from principles of dialectical materialism. This is how Ingarden presented his stance: “It seems to me that nothing here results from principles of dialectical materialism even if only for the reason that dialectical materialism is not identical to physics and, as a certain theory of knowledge (a general philosophical method and worldview), it cannot, it seems, interfere in scientific details. …”¹⁰

It also needs to be added that natural sciences and psychological sciences cannot lead directly to any philosophical conclusions. The idea of such direct philosophical conclusions, sometimes authentically philosophical and sometimes only seemingly philosophical, appeared in Bohr who claimed that “In our century, the study of the atomic constitution of matter … has thrown new light on the demands on scientific explanation incorporated in traditional philosophy.”¹¹ Gawecki, as well, holds that the error of the mechanistic concept of the biological organism results directly from the indeterminism of modern physics, since “the most important organic phenomena take place at the atomic or molecular level, where classical determinism does not apply,” and it “is also applicable to … genes through which hereditary traits are transmitted.”¹²

What is the problem with Bohr’s and Gawecki’s meta-theoretical views? Without immersing ourselves in elaborate polemics, we could say, taking the whole thing generally, that arguments analogical to those which have been proposed against the possibility of deriving scientific statements from philosophical principles also support the thesis that philosophical conclusions cannot result directly from particular real sciences. Let us notice, then, that premises provided by those sciences can virtually comprise only scientific conclusions in the strict sense. Were it different, some particular real sciences would be some kind of epistemological hybrids when it comes to their formulations: something largely irrational in its escape from the principle of sufficient reason. The mentioned sciences can only indirectly lead to certain specific philosophical conclusions. If we take this sort of indirect conclusions into consideration, we can talk about philosophical problems set forth, for example, by quantum mechanics without creating any conflict with correct methodology.

…

While considering epistemological and metaphysical realism true, I do not, however, think that it is entirely impossible to do physical sciences and other real sciences when not following it. Ernst Mach, who reduced the world to “elements,” interpreted them, in an idealistic fashion, as sensations, and yet those idealistic overtones of his unsuccessful effort to go beyond realism and idealism have not completely undone his contribution to the domain of physics.

Even if the idealistic theory of knowledge was not a factor which makes doing particular real sciences entirely impossible, the minimalistic standpoint of the so-called scientific objectivism in its strict sense would be even less of such a factor; this kind of standpoint could be adopted by a scientist who does not feel prepared well enough, with respect to methodology, to solve the issue of realism and idealism responsibly and critically enough, and who believes that even the methodical realism proposed by Dessauer¹³ surpasses their scientific competence. We mean here a standpoint which leaves the ultimate description of the way the object of particular real sciences exists to deeper epistemological research and limits itself to a not very specific epistemic conception, i.e. only to what is given to the research methods of the mentioned sciences, what constitutes an object which is a correlate of knowledge that aims at ever greater objectivism in an indirect way: via eliminating subjective elements in its content, that is elements changing along with changes in research methods. When we want to describe the object, we can follow the example of formulations proposed in relation to physics by Robert Blanché,¹⁴ of formulations which, by and large, express well the standpoint represented by Février,¹⁵ among others. There is no trait of Mach’s neutralism in those formulations.

Désiré Mercier’s Critériologie général ou traité général de la certitude may be a Thomist philosophical contribution to our preparations for the currently discussed understanding of the topic. To be precise, it is the part of the mentioned work¹⁶ in which the author puts a question concerning our ability to formulate propositions like the one stating that the synthesis of a subject and a predicative is not a result of a completely subjective intelligent individual’s dispositions but is based on a motive independent of the mental act (the problem of the objectivity of propositions in which the issue of reality of objects of concepts embodied in our propositions has not been included yet). While Mercier, in order to make the discussion simple, limited the indicated problem to directly evident truths of the ideal order, to truths independent from experience, we can still extrapolate them to directly or indirectly evident truths which are dependent on experience and function in the framework of natural sciences and particular psychological sciences.

But to make this extension, we would have to be sure, in accord with what Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz termed epistemological immanent realism,¹⁷ that we already can talk about being when we are stating no more than that something exists purely intentionally as an object of someone’s thought, suitably qualified by it and differing from “intentive” (as Roman Ingarden expressed it)¹⁸ conscious experience. We have to, therefore, have a partially different concept of being than Krąpiec does; he, starting from an epistemological standpoint called the epistemological immanent idealism by Ajdukiewicz,¹⁹ holds that purely intentional beings do not exist and that only real beings are true beings.²⁰ Only when we apply a broad enough conception of being, that is a conception which would fully recognise existential pluralism while also allowing for a rich enough theory of knowledge, will we be able to adjust our idea of true propositions to it so that we will not claim with the existential Thomist from Lublin²¹ that in physical sciences we do not endeavour to formulate authentic propositions but only provisional sets of thoughts, favourable for a time, when we put the problem of real existence vs. our convictions about existence aside.

…

Having established this, we can proceed to a partial solution of the problem of the potential philosophical implications of the reductive type of the particular sciences of nature and man. First of all, let us point out that if one thinks that any philosophical knowledge, be it significantly reduced, is available to us, they will not doubt that the mentioned sciences do have some particular philosophical implications of the reductive character, and relativized to this scheme of philosophical knowledge. For a Thomist of any school and for followers of many other philosophical trends, those implications will consist of a theory of metaphysical and gnoseological realism, as well as a general concept of science, especially a theory of natural sciences and particular psychological sciences. They are, therefore, mostly philosophical implications broadly understood, from among which I was specially concentrating on the general concept of science, especially the empiriological theory of particular sciences of nature, including man, in my hitherto presentations of the topic. When I gave some ground for the empiriological theory, I argued, ipso facto, that that theory is reductively implied by the mentioned sciences.

Do those sciences have any philosophical implications strictly understood, that is ontological implications, besides the theory of metaphysical realism? I mean especially here ontological implications in a broad sense and of the reductive type, which would be expressed as a philosophical theory of nature. The problem of those implications requires an elaborate investigation. …

3.

… Now, from the epistemological point of view, the theory of the philosophy of nature, according to which the type of being characteristic of nature, or, to express it otherwise, real being limited to names appropriate to everything that is a part of nature, is an object of the discipline, is, for sure, the most adequate. If we adopted the existentialist perspective, we could also say that the aspect of being something really existing within the type of being characteristic of nature is an object of inquiries of the philosophy of nature. This aspect shows that existence realises itself step by step and distributes itself in time, which results in matter presenting itself to us totally as a process. Thus, a different kind of real existence is characteristic of it than the kind we observe in our pure “self” which, because of its complete immutability, does not reveal any temporal moments in its duration.²²

The conceptualisation of the formal object of the philosophy of nature adopted in this book is in part completely traditional but in part new. It is traditional when it comes to the type of being characteristic of nature. Such understanding of the object of the natural-philosophical inquiries is just a generalisation of its old definition as being in motion in the strict sense (ens mobile). What is new in the just given presentation of the object of natural-philosophical inquiries is that it takes a mode of existence specific for it into consideration. … This temporal mode of existence needs further analysis which will have to make significant modifications of Thomas’ concept of time, relative to the accidental kinetic aspect, in order to move on to what is most fundamental in material objects, namely to their existence. But even now … we can already say that matter can be conceptualised wholly evolutionistically and that with such an interpretation one does not need to go in an antisubstantialist direction of Henri Bergson and Alfred Whitehead.

We could describe the formal object of the philosophy of nature in a more contemporary way if we were able to grant not only ontological content in the strict sense but also ontological content in the broader sense to the term “object.” Then, we could say that the philosophy of nature is a science of the aspect of real existence and of existence as the type of objects which compose nature. When I define the domain of inquiry of philosophical cosmology, I am inspired, to some extent, by Łukasiewicz’s terminological propositions. Although this author distinguished only “definite kinds of objects” investigated by particular real and formal sciences, apart from the object in general, but his understanding of the term “object” as a synonym for the classical term “being” gives some space for distinguishing such types of beings which go beyond the cognitive horizon of the just mentioned sciences but can be studied by particularised philosophical disciplines, including the philosophy of nature.²³ …

4.

… As we may think, there is no doubt that the character of what we call the philosophy of natural sciences is philosophical in a way: to the extent it applies a general theory of knowledge to the natural-scientific knowledge. It is, indeed, an endeavour to analyse the natural-scientific knowledge ultimately: from the viewpoint of its value, from the perspective of the most fundamental conditions of its realisation. This is why the epistemological character of the philosophy of natural sciences and the theory of the philosophy of nature is the same, even though the theory expresses the critical reflection on the philosophical cosmological knowledge, while the philosophy of natural sciences focuses on the natural-scientific knowledge which is aphilosophical.

However, as far as the philosophy of natural sciences is the methodology of natural sciences, its formal tenor is less visible. When it comes to this aspect, there are two ways of perceiving it. If it relates to the technical aspect of acquiring natural-scientific knowledge, it is hard to seek any authentic philosophy in it. The fact that we are talking here about the methodology of natural sciences, and not philosophical sciences, is irrelevant. What is decisive, when it comes to this view on the methodology of natural sciences, is that it relates to the technical aspect (as such) of the natural scientific knowledge. However, as far as the methodological analysis of the natural-scientific knowledge presents an understanding as general and fundamental as the epistemological analysis of such knowledge, it can be, it seems, called a philosophical analysis. Let us also add that another argument for calling it philosophical is that it is a necessary supplement to the theory of natural sciences. The situation of the methodology of those sciences is not the same as the situation of the methodology of the philosophical cosmology.

The philosophy of natural sciences, while having some authentic philosophical character, at least in some of its aspects, is philosophy in the broad sense. This is the case because there is no similarity between what can be accurately called philosophy in the strict sense: metaphysics and the philosophy of nature, among others, and the philosophy of natural sciences, when it comes to objects of their inquiry; they are similar only with regards to their epistemic approach.

Seeing that the philosophy of natural sciences is a different kind of philosophy than philosophical cosmology, we cannot perceive it as the part of this cosmology which does not belong to its “core” and is merely some peripheral problem. We could present the philosophy of natural sciences as a whole of the philosophy of nature even less. This discipline is not a secondary-level science, some kind of meta-science, but a primary-level science.

…

The Thomist side also took the issues of applying abstract geometry to various physical distances (the philosophy of knowledge of physical distance) into consideration in their philosophy of natural sciences. I am talking here about analyses performed by Hoenen.

Studies in the philosophy of biology have not been conducted on a large scale, however; they are crucial for eliminating opinions not critical enough from the area of the philosophy of animate beings. Maritain was only superficially interested in distinguishing the epistemological type of biological sciences. In his framework analysis of the area of the natural-scientific study of the biocosmos, he distinguished the empiriological biology, or the physico-mathematical biology—which, apart from life itself, investigates physico-chemical resources it uses from the mathematical point of view—as well as typological biology, or formally experimental biology, which takes life in itself as an object of its studies but limits itself to concepts and definitions of the empiriological type exclusively. On the other hand, within the philosophical branch of studying the biocosmos, Maritain distinguished philosophical biology, i.e. the philosophy of organism, which describes living beings from the viewpoint of their essence and reason of existence, producing the most general and most fundamental knowledge of them.²⁴

Having made this distinction within biology from the epistemological point of view, Maritain assumed that facts of biological finality seem irrational to the empiriometric (i.e. physico-mathematical) biology and something which that part of biology wishes to restrict as greatly as possible. What may be included in the framework of typological biology: formally experimental biology, in Maritain’s opinion, is the empiriological concept of finality which, by the simple stating of facts and ignoring the philosophical aspect of the causal explanation, expresses the idea that the functions of a living being and how it can use structures typical to itself, serve to sustain its life.²⁵ …

5.

The specific conceptual viewpoint of the philosophy of nature was taken into account when we were determining the type of its base facts. This viewpoint is established by defining nature according to the type of being characteristic to it. This viewpoint has to be continued in the whole philosophy of nature, since its epistemological unity would be shattered if the viewpoint was disturbed.

Because of this conceptual viewpoint, it may seem that developing philosophy on the basis of “philosophical” facts will proceed by the so-called physical abstraction which ignores individual attributes of bodies. Mazierski, following the Thomistic tradition, treated this abstraction as a universal method of the philosophy of nature.²⁶ This author stresses that “the physical abstraction consists of various mental acts.” “Even within the traditional philosophy of nature itself,” he writes, „those acts are diverse and produce authentically different results. Indeed, sometimes cosmology distinguishes quantity, which²⁷ is considered a real category, that is an attribute of material being, from the metaphysical substrate of bodies, but sometimes it also abstracts from particular properties related to senses and goes from individual attributes to specific ones, and from specific attributes to interspecific ones. On the other hand, it studies the nature of those attributes, presents uncontradicting conditions of the possibility of their existence, as well as explains the existence of specific-individual structures. The physical abstraction is also applied in studying physical movement, time, and space. Because bodies exist in time and space, and always and everywhere so, we can talk about their substantial spatial and temporal attributes. The physical abstraction gives us succour again: it lets us distinguish those attributes of bodies which are ontically connected to substance as those bodies’ basis from the attributes whose essence is manifested in their relation to space and time. The local movement (ens fluens), from which we intellectually detach successive moments, is the starting point of the abstraction (and analysis) of time. The physical abstraction circulates here within the changeable sensible matter, among realities we can imagine (if not directly, then indirectly, e.g. we associate the passing of time with spatial extent). Even though time is closely connected with movement and quantity, it is not identical with them. We formulate the result of abstraction applied to changeable beings studied in their temporal aspect, as a definition of time. The latter includes elements different from the element of the concept of quantity, spatiality, and changeability. Therefore, the physical abstraction is a set of various acts.”²⁸ 

…

What can we do for the philosophy of nature with the unambiguously understood method of “physical” abstraction?

Undoubtedly, we can distinguish the type of being characteristic of bodies: that in their case it is something extended, having spatial and temporal nature, being subject to movement in its strict sense etc. It occurs, as a consequence of applying the “physical” abstraction, that the type of being assigned to bodies by the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, is no fiction, since we find the most general definition of bodies possible within the philosophy of nature in it. Going any further in generalisation would mean changing over to the metaphysical viewpoint, to describing bodies according to the aspect of their beingness as such. When we conceptualise bodies in the way proper to the philosophy of nature, we can also determine the essence of their quantitative and qualitative attributes by the “physical” abstraction, using ontological concepts in the broad sense, which we obtained by distinguishing the type of being realised in nature, to express this essence. …

What method should we use to get an intersubjective test for Thomistic theses concerning the most fundamental structure of bodies? The method consists in checking if the mentioned theses could be considered ontological (in the broad sense) test implications of the most general statements about nature, philosophically elaborated and discussed in the perspectives of the common knowledge and especially the natural-scientific knowledge. I mean reductive-type test implications which would grant the ultimate explanation of the most fundamental structure of bodies, when it comes to their philosophically interpreted attributes. …

What kind of epistemological character does an epistemic description of nature need to have in order to be the formal basis for distinguishing those implications, which relate to the most fundamental structure of bodies? Such an epistemic description has to consist, first and foremost, of considering bodies according to the type of being proper to them. That epistemic description will include all more general conceptual philosophical differentiations and philosophical principles one might have had before, which can be applied to an initial ontological analysis of bodies. Without the indicated philosophical elaboration of empirical data, it would be impossible to go beyond reductive implications, be they common or natural-scientific. It is the case because we can directly seek only aphilosophical implications for aphilosophical statements, and we can talk about philosophical reductive implications only when it comes to philosophical statements. The postulate of the epistemological homogeneity of employed reasonings requires this. According to the postulate, not only deductive reasonings, but also reductive reasonings have to belong to the same epistemological kind in their entirety, if they are not to contain an irrational element.

Renoirte had already considered the method of determining ontological implications in the broad sense, as well as those of reductive type, when he was writing on the tasks of the philosophical cosmology. This author’s general methodological indications only need to be characterised more precisely. The method he suggested originates from distinguishing those mental acts, of which explanation as a reductive reasoning consists, within the “physical” abstraction broadly defined by tradition. This distinction of reductive discursive threads from the “physical” abstraction can only be advantageous for the more precise justification of philosophical statements relating to the most fundamental structure of bodies. When those reductive discursive threads are woven into the “physical” abstraction, they remain largely unused, so that we reach the determination of the ontic structure of bodies by some unclear intuition, which is a very unsatisfying way to do this.

…

When developing philosophy and establishing strictly understood ontological implications of the reductive type, we introduce some assumptions, or let us express it more emphatically: some conjectures or hypotheses concerning the most fundamental structure of bodies. Those assumptions, hypotheses, or conjectures cannot be considered true on the mere basis of their initial foundation. It cannot be ruled out a priori that the same data could be explained otherwise with no less probability. Additional logical work is needed to achieve complete certainty in this area of research, if it is achievable at all, if we are not left with a greater or lesser probability. It seems quite obvious that there are three possible ways to look for certainty in the sphere of ontological implications of the reductive type distinguished for the philosophy of nature.

The first way is to check if there is equivalence between implications concerning the most fundamental structure of bodies and statements which relate to them if we reflect on them according to the type of being proper to them. If we discovered such equivalence and accepted statements relative to the type of being proper to bodies as true, we could consider implications about the ontic structure of things true. Both sections of the equivalence have the same logical value, after all, and if one of the sides has a truth value, the other has to have it, as well.

…

There is a second way, as well: the one in which we could deem implications concerning the ontic structure of bodies true because if we did not accept those implications, it would be impossible to understand bodies according to the type of being proper to them, ultimately and unambiguously. It is the way of the apagogical argument, which can be used by any Thomist who is convinced of the absolute value of the law of contradiction from the propositional calculus, since the law is the basis of the argument. This way could also be chosen by someone who, like Łukasiewicz,²⁹ would be convinced that the indicated law of contradiction turns out to be only possible and permitting its antithesis after the third logical value, namely the possibility, is introduced. It is the case because the state of affairs considered by Łukasiewicz entails introducing propositions about non-necessary future events and we do not take them into account when we examine the statements of the Thomistic philosophy of nature concerning the ontic structure of bodies.

The third way could give us certainty about the truthfulness of the philosophical statements concerning the ontic structure of things if we stated that, after we rejected them, we would need to treat natural objects, understood according to their type of being, as something utterly mysterious: something that contains a fundamental irrationale. But we cannot treat those objects in this manner, since they are objects of various natural and philosophical sciences and, as such, constitute the domain of rational study; therefore, as we have no basis for including any fundamental irrationale in their being, we have to consider statements (justification of which we are discussing here) relating to their ontic structure true.

…

The concept of ontic rationality can be judged sharply and clearly in only one case. I mean the situation when we accept that if there is no logical contradiction in the epistemic description of something, it is, indeed, ontically rational. Contrary to the above-mentioned understanding of the ontic rationality, what would be ontically irrational is a thing in a mental presentation of which a logical contradiction would occur. Apart from the indicated definition of the ontic rationality and irrationality, no other sharp and clear understanding of them can be determined. We have no choice but to assume that what can be understood and explained is ontically rational and what appears to be completely obscure and mysterious, and impossible to be fully explained, is ontically irrational. But, as it can easily be noticed, this kind of definitions leaves much space for quite arbitrary interpretations, which will depend on a given individual’s opinions or a certain stage of studies within some philosophical school.

…

I would like to now raise a critical issue, namely that of the methodically correct way of switching from the empirical “scientific” phenomenology to the philosophy of nature.

It is not hard to notice that the material which can be collected by describing nature empirically-phenomenologically, is heterogenic, “external” to everything that may constitute the philosophy of nature. It is so both when it comes to the conceptual language and the method of collecting the material. Switching from this material to the philosophy of nature is possible exclusively through changing the empiriological conceptual perspective for the ontological perspective in the broad sense, which correctively entails taking philosophical method of study up. When we make the indicated transposition of the empiriological knowledge, at the same time, we anchor formulations and reasonings of philosophical cosmology firmly to existentially understood experience.

Understanding the basis of the indicated transposition is enough in order not to consider it unjustified or arbitrary. First of all, it is a grasp of experiential data so general that the type of being proper to it can be distinguished by elimination of individual and common features in which special natural sciences are interested via the process of abstraction. We do not mean, then, any fictions in the first stadium of the ontological (in the broad meaning) conceptual perspective; what we mean are the most fundamental aspects of nature, defined more or less abstractly, which are only conceptually different from “phenomenological” data.

After the indicated point of view on “phenomenological” data about nature was presented, further work, aimed at starting philosophical cosmology, cannot consist in deriving direct or indirect conclusions from statements which relate to those data, through deductive reasoning. Developing what is already virtually included in premises, such conclusions could only broaden the empirical, “scientific” phenomenology of nature. Philosophical cosmology cannot be established in a methodically correct way, when it comes to its further development, differently than by distinguishing (in relation with the fundamental philosophical vision we share) ontological implications, both in the broader sense and of the reductive type, for statements of the empirical “scientific” phenomenology we are discussing here. The ontic structure of material objects can be determined that way and so we reach the object situated beyond data brought by the empirical “scientific” phenomenology of nature. Although philosophical cosmology developed in the way described above and on the basis of a certain fundamental philosophical vision will always include the factor of relativity to some extent, this factor can be toned down, more or less, by efforts to give carefully selected reasons for the validity of this fundamental philosophical vision. …

PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE AND BIOLOGICAL LIFE

Kazimierz Kłósak, “Czy mamy dowód filozoficzny za początkiem czasowym wszechświata?” Roczniki Filozoficzne 11, no. 3 (1963), pp. 31–44.

 … I joined the discussion on the issue of the rational provability of the universe’s time beginning. I have broadly presented my point of view in the first part of my book: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny (Warszawa 1955),¹ in which I tried to show that this thesis cannot be proved either based on the second law of thermodynamics,² nor by reference to the theory of the expansion of the universe,³ or on the basis of astronomy data, which is additionally referred to by Fr. Różycki,⁴ but that a convincing philosophical argument can be made in terms of what, while still under the influence of Christian Wolff, I called particular metaphysics.⁵

…

Although I didn’t see any contradiction in the content of the thesis about the eternal existence of the universe, I nevertheless tried to prove that the universe must have a temporal beginning in the above-mentioned sense on the plane of philosophical arguments. As a starting point for my argumentation, I did not take any requirements that the subject would be time as such, time taken in its specific reality. I thought that when we consider time as such—time understood as “a measure of change understood as a certain order, expressed by adverbs: earlier, later”⁶ (numerus motus secundum prius et posterius⁷)—it is nothing of the specific properties of time that forces us to have an absolute beginning before any of its specific episodes, just as nothing makes us accept its final end after one or another series of past moments.⁸ Hence, I based the philosophical arguments for the beginning of the time of the universe not on the specific properties of time, but on the assumption that within the events that make up the past history of the universe, the currently infinite set could not find realization.⁹

…

In my opinion, the effectiveness of this line of argumentation was limited to that in space, which is expressed in a series of consecutive events of finite time span. For I thought that my reasoning did not prove the impossibility of the eternal existence of entities in whose existence no substantial and accidental changes can be distinguished, no sequence of time-limited events.

…

My philosophical arguments for the beginning of the time universe met with opposition, particularly from Fr. Paweł Boharczyk,¹⁰ Zdzisław Ziemba,¹¹ Władysław Krajewski,¹² and lately Fr. Granat.¹³ I think my opponents are right, although I cannot agree with all their critiques. The positive argumentation which I took in the first part of my book W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, should logically conclude that it is impossible to prove in a philosophical plane that the universe has a beginning in its temporal duration. Why?

If before considering the past of the universe in terms of the length of its time extension we first consider the future of the universe in the same way, we have to admit that when it comes to the future history of the universe, this history, taken in its gradual, successive realizations in relation to the present time, will always be measured by some finite period of time duration. It can not be otherwise, since the future history of the universe have some first event or rather some first events beginning to materialize at present, and they will always develop on every episode—as we have to conclude from the non-existence in nature of momentary, timeless changes¹⁴—successively for a limited number of new events, found, one way or another, reference to finite periods of time, and—following this kind of its successive implementation since some first event or some first events—they will always have ex parte post a makeshift end in the event or in events that are currently the last events, the end of which will be separated from the present by a finite string of time.

But although the future history of the universe, considered in its subsequent realizations in relation to the present time, will always be measured by a finite period of time, however, this history could develop endlessly, so that they would not cover absolutely any last event or any absolutely recent events, since each last event would be temporarily followed by further new events. It is an opportunity against which we cannot raise any objection from the concept of time, because if we define time as I defined it above, nothing of its specific properties will make us take its final end after a series of past moments, which would include any absolutely recent event or any absolutely recent events. This possibility also cannot be opposed by taking the concept of successive set as a starting point, because for the nature of this multitude one or another number of its successive components is indifferent and hence nothing prevents the amount of these elements from increasing forever. When we eliminate the perspective of the thermal death of the universe from the position of relativistic thermodynamics,¹⁵ we must say that only its complete annihilation could put an end to its history. Well, if it were so that the future history of the universe could develop endlessly, lengthening by new events, the universe would have no definite limit in its existence in time ex parte post.

…

So if time as such, and successive multitudes as such, do not exclude the fact that the past history of the universe could include an infinite number of events, in that case, we no longer find anything within nature that would not allow such a quantity. We don’t know anything about the event or events with such properties that it would have to be said that before this event or before these events nothing could happen. Even the universe in its present form, for which E.J. Opik from the astronomical observatory in Northern Ireland begins no more than 6 billion years ago, could have been preceded by a series of other structures, and we can’t see why their number would have to be finite.

So, we conclude, the past history of the universe could include a parte ante an infinite number of events, and consequently, they could have no absolutely first event or any absolutely first events, so that they would develop for centuries with no time beginning. Therefore, the universe, considered not only from the side of emerging new events, but also from the side of their living ground, could have no limit in its temporal existence a parte ante, and could have existed for centuries, without any time beginning.¹⁶

The arguments that lead us to this conclusion could be simplified by omitting the first part, which deals with the future of the universe, because, without the mediation of this part, the prerequisites that are necessary for the second, decisive part of reasoning can be introduced. These are premises, the first of which refers to the nature of time, the second to the nature of successive plurality, and the third to the fact that we do not know within nature of events that, because of their properties, would have to be the absolute beginning of the entire history of the universe. If in the new argumentation I preceded the arguments about the past of the universe with the arguments about its future, I did so because I wanted to present what course the reasoning should have taken, which I took in the first part of my book W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, that it fully meets the requirements of formal correctness.

Kazimierz Kłósak, Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Mariackie, 1948), pp. 10–30.

Empirical data do not demonstrate the impossibility of abiogenesis. But is there not any article of faith which might lead a Catholic to the conclusion that abiogenesis is impossible or, alternatively, that at least it did not take place on our Earth?

The Vatican Council demands that we accept “mundum resque omnes, quae in eo continentur, et spirituales et materiales secundum totam suam substantiam a Deo ex nihilo esse productas.”¹⁷ We need to assume on the basis of this canon that any portion of being in all categories of creatures has its origin in God’s creative act. It has not been said what kind of being is concerned when it comes to its relation to life: is it inanimate as well as animate being, or is it only inanimate being. The Vatican Council does not say at all that living creatures and non-living beings were two different objects of the creative act. In other words, the Council does not order that we accept de fide the immediate initiation of life on Earth by God by means of His creative intervention. All the more, the Council does not order accepting that God created the world of plants and the world of animals, with their particular classes, separately.

The Church has not declared solemnly that organic life was directly initiated by God’s creative act. The Vatican Council cannot be blamed of an interpretation stating that if we do not accept direct initiation of the organic life by God, we assume in this case that there is something in the world which does not come from the divine creative act. The above cannot be argued for, because it would mean that we miss the following factor: to attribute the creation of life to God, it is sufficient to assume that God has endowed inanimate matter with the power to produce organic life in suitable conditions. While it is true that from this point of view God would only be the indirect creator of life, nevertheless no statement of the Vatican Council forces us to accept direct initiation of organic life by God.

Now, even if we are not obliged to accept fide catholica that God directly initiated organic life on our Earth, will we not have to accept this proposition fide divina seu theologica insofar as it is included in the Divine Revelation? We need to examine the relation of this proposition to the Divine Revelation now.

In the Book of Genesis, we find two descriptions of the initiation of organic life by God: the first one in the chapter 1, verses 11 to 13 and 20 to 25, and the second one in the chapter 2, verses 4 to 9 and 19 to 20.

Having assumed, after J.M. Lagrange OP, that these two descriptions have been derived from two different sources, let us ask if authors of these descriptions might have claimed that God initiated organic life on our Earth directly. Because there is no necessary reason which would force human mind to accept such a relationship of organic life to God’s creative action, therefore authors of both descriptions could only claim that God initiated organic life directly if they knew this particular from the Divine Revelation. However, we know nothing about such Revelation. The opinion of J.H. Kurtz, Schaefer and Hummelauer SJ, that Hexameron is about the events revealed by God to Adam in a series of visions, has no foundation. Similarly, there is no ground for Augustine’s claim that Hexameron consists of the knowledge of creation which was revealed to angels by God.¹⁸

Therefore, all we can do is assume that the authors of both descriptions somehow relate the origin of the organic world to God, yet they do not want to say which way of initiation of organic life by God is implied, the direct initiation or the indirect initiation.¹⁹ In that way we reach the conclusion that the idea of the direct initiation of organic life by God is not included in the Divine Revelation. Considering that, we are not obliged to accept this idea fide divina seu catholica.

If this is how the “immediatist” thesis is related to fides catholica and to fides divina, therefore the theory of abiogenesis is not in conflict with the Catholic orthodoxy provided that it is presumed that God has endowed inanimate matter with the power to produce organic life in suitable conditions. Were the origin of this capability of inorganic matter expresse negated, the theory of abiogenesis would become an unorthodox theory: the theory contradicting both the teaching from the Book of Genesis and the statement of the Vatican Council mentioned above. Putting the divine source of the life-giving power, which may, perhaps, be attributed to inorganic matter, aside cannot be qualified as something unorthodox as such, because putting religious explanation aside does not equal negating this explanation, after all.

…

It is not out of the question that God could organize the laws of nature so that some system of material agents, which do not contain organic life in act in themselves, has the ability to transfer the substantial form of a living being from the state of potentiality to the state of actuality. Material agents should be considered not only from the point of view of their natural efficacy, but also in terms of the efficacy they may have according to God’s intention. What a chisel can do in a gifted sculptor’s hand goes beyond what it can do otherwise, and amazingly so. Nothing prevents us from accepting that, although agents which are formed from inanimate matter do not have the power to generate life in its actual form, they have been endowed with that power by God’s special ruling. While it is true that the connection between cause and effect would be contingent in that case, that is it would not have any characteristics of something necessary, do we not observe such relations constantly in the world we live in? David Hume has already pointed to the fact of the existence of such relations a long time ago.²⁰ We may say, after this author, that “there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of … necessary connexion,”²¹ and that “every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause, and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary. And even after it is suggested, the conjunction of it with the cause must appear equally arbitrary; since there are always many other effects, which, to reason, must seem fully as consistent and natural.”²² Given that individual forms of chemical synthesis within inorganic matter result in compounds that are something new when it comes to their properties, compared to elements which are a starting point of the synthesis, is it surprising that if organic life came into existence autogenously from inorganic matter, life itself would seem something new, compared to the whole of inorganic matter? Surely, all activity in nature is “invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new.”²³ Having presumed the spontaneous generation of life in inorganic matter by some actions performed within it, I do not deny the principle of actualising the potential by that what is in act. The only thing I want to state is that in nature, a being in act does not need to be completely identical to a being to be brought from potentiality to actuality, because God can complete a natural agent from within Himself, when He plans the right course of natural phenomena. This completion done by God does not necessarily need to be understood as God’s new, special, and direct intervention in the already existing order of the world, since it is enough to presume that God’s will to call living creatures into existence is exercised by normal laws, imposed on nature from its beginnings in creation. If we turn our attention to the fact that God’s will is the eternal present in its duration, we have to admit that its actual intervention in the moment when living creatures emerged is not more special than its intervention in the moment of generating some chemical compound by the synthesis of the given elements. God’s influence on the emergence of living creatures in this sense can be called creation in its wider meaning, because its result is the creation of living creatures ex nihilo sui, but it is an indirect creation, since God uses instrumental causes to implement His thought. If we want to remain in agreement with the principle of the sufficient cause, we are in no way forced to assume, as Erich Wasmann SJ did, that the emergence of the first living beings, possibly understood as eductio formarum e potentia materiae was brought about by God who organised the already existing matter through His special and direct intervention, beyond the activity of any instrumental causes.²⁴ Yet, whereas the solution I adopted, i.e. the activation of the vital potentialities of matter, might be called indirect creation in its wider meaning from God’s point of view, from the point of view of our world it may be called abiogenesis (generatio spontanea), since I assume direct, spontaneous emergence of life from inorganic matter in my theory. My solution could not be called a theory of abiogenesis only if theories of abiogenesis were conceptualised as theories which claim that inorganic matter itself, completely independently reaches the ability to generate living creatures. But theories of abiogenesis such understood are in conflict with the principle of the sufficient cause, as it has been demonstrated by E. Wasmann and A. Gemelli.

The idea of the activation of the vital potentialities of matter, which I adopted, actually originates from saint Thomas Aquinas. The only thing I did was purge it from accidental connections with Medieval astrology. … Such a natural-historical approach to the factor able to awaken the organic life is pretty naïve and primitive, still there is an underlying correct intuition that even inanimate bodies could be endowed by God with the ability to generate organic life from the accordingly prepared inorganic matter by their activity. This idea may be separated from the naïve Medieval view on the natural world and assimilated into the explanation of the intricate problem of the beginning of life.

As a result of our deliberations, we reach the conclusion that organic life could come into existence autogenously from inorganic matter. Such a possibility exists because God could endow inanimate matter with the ability to produce organic life in some conditions and even bodies which have no life in themselves could be agents that bring life from potentiality to actuality by God’s will.

Everything that has been said here about the genesis of organic life, needs to be repeated when it comes to sensitive life, if only this life is understood according to scholastic psychology. Among neo-scholastics, Édouard Hugon O.P. spoke in favour of this statement. In his opinion, the only thing that cannot be brought into existence by actions of inanimate matter is intellectual life independent of matter in its existence and activity. “Vegetative and sensitive life, however, although it transcends what simple matter is able to do, when left to bare chemical and physical powers …, it yet belongs to the material order and God could infuse matter with some active force which would contain life mentioned before in potentiality. Then, matter would not transcend abilities characteristic of its kind (non ageret ultra genus suum), but life would emerge from the power matter was primarily endowed with by God.”²⁵

Having taken such a stance, Hugon could say that “from the scholastic point of view, spontaneous generation, although it does not actually happen, it is not inconsistent as a metaphysical idea, either.”²⁶ Instead of stating too boldly that abiogenesis so understood does not actually happen, it would be better to say more carefully that, although this kind of abiogenesis has not yet been scientifically demonstrated in a reliable way, it is not self-contradictory.

I was demonstrating the possibility of abiogenesis with arguments derived from scholastic metaphysics. I supported them with the theory of potency and act, in particular. Ones who would find this way of argumentation strange, could reason in the following way. If organic and sensitive life emerged in some period of the history of Earth, in that case, given that one no longer wants to take Arrhenius’ theory of panspermia into consideration, there are two options: either the forms of life mentioned above emerged from inanimate matter by abiogenesis, or they were initiated directly by God’s creative act. However, the possibility of abiogenesis, which we are discussing here next to the possibility of the direct creation of vegetal and animal organisms, is not an ontological possibility but the logical one: the possibility which presents itself to us from the point of view of our cognition. But this logical possibility does not settle the question of the (im)possibility of abiogenesis as such. This [logical—editor’s note] possibility could present itself to us together with the possibility of direct creation of the first organisms by God, even if abiogenesis as such was impossible. Hence, if we want to prove the real possibility of abiogenesis in the current situation in scientific research, which have not discovered autogenous emergence of life as a certain fact, we have to resort to metaphysical reflection; and I cannot think of any other way to do this outside of the conceptual apparatus of the peripatetic-scholastic theory of potency and act.

An anti-metaphysical mind could reach the claim about the real possibility of abiogenesis by means of scientific research only if it observed at least a single instance of the autogenous emergence of life. On the basis of this case and using a formula which in Prof. Łukasiewicz’s ideography form is expressed as “CpMp”,²⁷ they could say that abiogenesis is something truly possible. Otherwise, a naturalist who does not want to go down to the area of metaphysical considerations will not be able to determine whether or not spontaneous generation is something realistically possible.

Kazimierz Kłósak, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1 (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1979), pp. 433–440.

In my book Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa (Kraków 1948)²⁸ I pointed out that the absolute opposition to the hypothesis of abiogenesis of such Thomists as Wais, Bernard M. Mariani, F.X. Maquart and Jolivet …, has its source in the fact that they sought for the natural hypotheses and the theory of abiogenesis such ontological implications in the broader sense and the type of reduction, which are not imposed at all by the acceptance of the philosophy of nature, shaped in one way or another under the doctrinal influences of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Namely, they thought that the natural hypotheses and theories of abiogenesis assume the spontaneous and direct emergence of organic life from what is in the inanimate matter actual, so what is structurally and functionally less perfect, and for this reason, fundamentally different from what we find in living organic entities. Meanwhile, nothing compels us in the plane of natural philosophy to such a truly ridiculous understanding of science hypotheses and the theory of abiogenesis in terms of their ontological reduction implications. It can be assumed that organic life developed under certain conditions spontaneously and directly from the specific potentialities of inanimate matter.

These potentialities, in the language of scholasticism, would be about treated as subjective and active potency of inanimate matter (subiectiva potential operativa et activa). This possibility would be something that would lead to the appearance in time of organic life in actu, belonging in a reduction and in a certain proportion to the same kind as it.²⁹ To be more precise, it would have to be said that the hypothetical reality that is being considered here would be an indicated possibility in some respects only, namely in relation to the forms of organic life which they would lead to, while, if it were the talent of inanimate matter to release under certain conditions of this life, it would already belong to the sphere of the current real being.

This approach to hypothetical vitalities has a very frame-work character. It is easier to say what they cannot be than what they could be.

And so we notice that their existence cannot erase the difference between inanimate matter and living matter. It has been said about them that in a reduction and in a certain proportion they belong to the same kind as organic life in actu, but this statement does not go down the path of the hypothesis of hylozoism. And it doesn't go down even because the potentialities mentioned are not meant to be the active forces of the kind present in the egg or grain. These potentialities would be something that completely belongs to the equipment of inanimate matter, something that would only lead on the way of further evolution to the emergence of forces acting in the egg or grain with time.³⁰ 

There should also be no spiritual factor in the hypothetical vitalities. When we take the concept of materiality in a concrete colloquial meaning as something that exists or takes place in space and time, we must say that if a concrete entity is endowed only with organic life itself, it is material in the given sense in everything that constitutes it. And as a consequence, it must be assumed that the same material character must also have vital potentialities if they fall to the existential basis of organic life, to some extent.

The essence of these potentialities should also not be understood as if they were something like Augustine’s seed principles devoid of biological character. So we can’t express them the way I used to,³¹ that they could “transform qualitatively internally so that they would be able to become independent from the substantive form of the dead entities by replacing part of their accidental being with a qualitatively more perfect substantive form characteristic of living entities.” Vital potentials are not meant to give biological life any abiotic pre-existence. They would only be such an active equipping of inanimate matter that in certain conditions of its development it could rise by a qualitative leap in the whole of its accidental and substantial being to the level of living matter.

The essence of vitality potential can be simply expressed positively in these words that they include such properties of inanimate matter, due to which it vitalizes itself at a certain degree of its organization. In principle, it would be possible to capture these properties of inanimate matter in nature. However, at the current stage of development of natural sciences, no researcher can do it, and probably it will never be possible. Now, we can only get a very basic determination of the vitality of inanimate matter. Consequently, their concept must be treated as a concept in the field of philosophy of nature, because this discipline is limited to a maximum frame of the material object of all his research.³²

With such epistemological affiliation, the concept of vitality must contain some irrationale in the sense of what has not been fully explained. After all, the horizons of the philosophy of nature are necessarily limited, because it is only a theory of this specific reality, which is nature. For example, within the philosophical cosmology, he does not deal with the existence of God the Creator. By addressing this issue, definitive explanations would be made to the existential and essential status of the vital potential of inanimate matter. But we cannot do this at the current stage of our arguments unless we want to make a mistake petitionis principii in our search for the first cause of organic life. In the concept of the vital potentials of inanimate matter, there must therefore remain for us a large dose of irrational factor, taken in the given sense, with which factor we descend to a broad extent on the path of agnosticism which are appropriate for our current theodicy studies borrowed from philosophical cosmology.

…

However, despite the lack of this obviousness, as well as the obviousness previously indicated, we must admit that the assumption of active vital potentialities as the nearest and direct source of organic life does not put us in any conflict with a very intuitive principle which declares that what is in potency can be brought to the “act” only by what is already in the “act” (quod est in potentia non reducitur in actum, nisi per ens actu).³³ There is no conflict here, or at least there is no obvious conflict, because according to the aforementioned principle, the factor bringing the possibility to the corresponding “act” does not have to be in the same “act” and in some cases can only show a certain proportion to the “act” derived by itself from a given potency³⁴—we just want to consider the possibility of one of these cases. Admittedly, we do not know positively if any active vital potentialities of inanimate matter could respond to the action of an appropriate set of stimuli deprived of organic life by their internal dynamism in the form of one or other rings of organic life in actu but we can say at least that this hypothesis is supported in some way by the principle that everything that is accepted is accepted in the way of the host.³⁵ Whoever takes this principle into account will not say that the eventuality we take into account is incompatible with such a conclusion derived from the metaphysical formula of the principle of causality, such as that the effect cannot excel in perfection its causative cause, because although in the hypothesis we count with, the effect, taken in its concrete unity, is of an absolutely more perfect nature than its external causative cause but it does not exceed in perfection its total causative cause, which next to the external causative cause is also the internal dynamism of vitality itself, directed at organic life in actu.³⁶

THE ISSUE OF THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL

Kazimierz Kłósak, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, ed. K. Kłósak (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976), pp. 191–236.

When we stand on the ground of a “natural-scientific” definition of the human soul, which is an expression of the phenomenal point of view taken by the empiriological analysis of reality¹—then, as a consequence, we have to present the origin of the mentioned soul to ourselves on the phenomenal plane, as well. Because the “natural-scientific” formulation of the human soul consists in collective gathering of psychological phenomena characteristic of the human species as itself—hence, the origin of the human soul cannot be understood from the “natural-scientific” viewpoint other than as a complicated, arduous, and extremely long collective process within megaevolution and macroevolution which leaded to hominization and the last stage of which can be found when individual human beings have long marked their presence in the historical arena. When conceptualised within such a spectrum, we will understand the origin of the human soul, from the “natural-scientific” point of view, as a causal determination of psychological phenomena typical of humans by other phenomena, be they known or supposed. First of all, we will look for these phenomena in the progressive development of the central nervous system, especially cerebral hemispheres, in animals, including the development which could happen only thanks to increase in the neurocranium volume that had been made possible by elevating the head above the neck when the body posture had become vertical. But we will also look for the mentioned phenomena on the undoubtedly human level of existence, that is in progressive socialization, and in speech which started to function when the upright posture allowed for its articulation and was later being improved by collective work.²

When I am talking about the causal determination of psychological phenomena typical for humanity as such, I mean the causal determination which is taken into account by biological sciences and psychological sciences with their characteristic interpretation of cause. … To highlight the fact that this interpretation of cause in its pure form has nothing to do with ontological analysis of reality, I am going to compare it with a philosophical interpretation of cause we reach on the ground of metaphysics and natural philosophy. I will first take formulas proposed by Thomas Aquinas as a starting point for this philosophical interpretation.

If I take up, once again, after so many authors, the work of comprehensive analysis and assessment of the metaphysical concept of cause which was accepted by the aforementioned thinker, I do this because the Thomist school has not so far issued any study of the concept that would reckon methodological requirements taken into consideration by Jan Łukasiewicz in his dissertation Analiza i konstrukcja pojęcia przyczyny,³ as well as because even in recently issued monographies we can find quite a few incorrect statements on the topic of Thomas’ idea of cause.⁴ When, in opusculum De principiis naturae, Thomas characterised a principle (principium) as generally everything from which movement begins (omne id a quo incipit motus), he emphasised right away that only the kind of principle from which something that is subsequent emerges (sed causa solum dicitur de illo principio, ex quo consequitur esse posterioris) is a cause.⁵ And, skipping referring to the concept of principle, in the same opusculum, he defined cause as that from the existence of which something secondary follows (id ex cuius esse consequitur aliud).⁶ In Sum. theol., I, qu. XXXIII, a. 1, ad 1, Thomas says that the term “cause” seems to carry in its content the difference of substance and the dependence on something else (hoc nomen causa videtur importare diversitatem substantiae, et dependentiam alicuius ab altero).

…

From these descriptions, applied by Thomas to all kinds of causes, it follows that his metaphysical concept of cause was a complex one, composed of the concept of substance according to its peripatetic interpretation, as well as—as we will see more clearly further in our analysis—the concept of difference of an individual kind of this substance from other individual substances. The text from Summa Theologica quoted above states this particularly clearly. However, since Thomas has not systematically discussed the logical construction of the concept of cause in that text, nothing allows us to hold that in SummaTheologica he deliberately treated the attribute of substantiality as the primary constitutive attribute characteristic of what expresses the concept of cause. Other texts we have quoted leave no room for doubts as to something entirely different being such a primary constitutive attribute. Even though, in Summa Theologica, he mentioned the attribute of substantiality in the first place, he did it, undoubtedly, in order to point to emblematic “material” from which cause is formed in some cases. Łukasiewicz has done the same when—after having listed, in the work quoted before, the absolute attribute, i.e. a real, actual object as the third constitutive attribute of cause—he formulated its definition, which advances the indicated attribute to the very front, as follows: “Cause is a real object, necessarily bringing another real object about but not brought about by it in a necessary way.”⁷

…

When he was talking about action in the context of cause, Thomas was not considering it just for itself. The concept of action has been included to his concept of cause only if such action, which amounts to determining and existence of something secondary, is its object.

Has Thomas succeeded in conceptualising action such understood—insofar as it would occur in case of natural causes which are inanimate, or animate but devoid of any psychic life—in the way free from anthropomorphic elements implying physical or psychological struggle and overcoming resistance of some kind? Indeed, in the context of Thomas’ formal statements, nothing supports an opinion that the expression influxus quidam ad esse causati should necessarily be interpreted as such an influence which is connected to attributes specific for humans or a creature inferior to a human but endowed with some psychic life. Undoubtedly, Thomas’ idea was that this matter should be taken into consideration in its various analogical realizations, including the domain of behaviour of inanimate matter and animate, but lacking any inner psychology, matter. And yet, it seems that Thomas failed to prove effectively that the concept of action can be so widely applied. […]

If we, in turn, consider the point of view characteristic of natural sciences and psychological sciences, we will have to express the content of the concept of cause at each level of precision and on the basis on the notion of phenomenon, because limitation of the mentioned sciences to the phenomenal aspect of nature demands such a strategy from us. … It turns out, however, that at the current stage of our knowledge we are not able to reach, in the framework of natural sciences and psychological sciences, any final formulation which could be considered a completely adequate expression of the purely empiriological concept of cause even if, as we do in the hitherto study, we only look at what animate and inanimate nature have in common when we discuss the concept. … From the perspective of natural sciences and psychological sciences, a cause should be defined (if we take into consideration these of its attributes which it seems to possess within the limits of animate and inanimate nature) as a phenomenon A, or a certain set of phenomena A, such as this phenomenon A, or, relatively, this set of phenomena A, constantly is/are not only a sufficient but also necessary condition for the occurrence of one, strictly defined phenomenon B, or a group of strictly defined phenomena B, the occurrence of the phenomenon B, or the group of phenomena B, not bringing the occurrence of the phenomenon A or the set of phenomena A.⁸ The wording of this definition would not change in any fundamental way did we treat cause as the original state of some more or less complex phenomenon and effect as its final state. The purely empiriological framework of the proposed definition allows for such an interpretation.⁹

…

The concept applied by Teilhard of the creation of an evolutionary type is characterised by a seemingly high level of accuracy when it comes to expressing the relationship between a creative act in a strict sense and phenomena. What I mean here is the French Jesuit’s highly convincing conciliation of God’s creative intervention with the effectuality of secondary causes in themselves, as studied from the natural-scientific perspective and considered with their physical interconnectedness.¹⁰ Teilhard’s concept of the creation of an evolutionary type, however—if it is supposed to express the shaping of the human soul—should be freed from the non-necessary connection to the attempt to metaphysically define a creative act strictly understood through the “mechanism” of unification.¹¹ Consequently, the concept of “the God of the cosmos,” i.e. the “maker-Creator,” should be given back its proper place, but without any neglect when it comes to anything within the range of relation between a creative act and phenomena of psychogenesis that could justify the additional use of the concept of “God of cosmogenesis,” i.e. the “unifying Creator.” … When we understand that, in the “phenomenological” perspective, we can talk about the emergence of human soul from matter, we no longer have any difficulties with taking a positive attitude, in the same perspective, to the related Teilhard’s formulations concerning matter as a “harmonious source of souls,” as “the matrix of the spirit.” We have to admit that, in the framework of the empirical scientific phenomenology and when the spiritual is identified with the psychological,¹² the French Jesuit could speak about matter as something endowed with “spiritual” power. Indeed, the statement means that from the empirical point of view matter is endowed with the power to cause phenomenal emergence of psychological processes which culminate in phenomena of human type.

It occurs, therefore, that Teilhard’s statements we have analysed, as statements referring mostly (or only) to empirical, and not ontological order, do not reduce anything from the metaphysical thesis about bringing the human soul into existence ex nihilo sui et subiecti, if their objective content is considered. After all, it is known¹³ that Teilhard accepts thesis that the human soul did not originate from matter or from pre-existing life,¹⁴ but rather occurred on the basis of both of those factors and, together with them, forms one organic and hierarchic whole human being in which the superior and the inferior elements do not mix but determine one another, so that the superior element, as the more unified one, supports the inferior element, and the latter enables the former to release its power of unification.

Nevertheless, we need to accuse Teilhard of introducing to his description of the initial hominization (that is, hominization which resulted in the emergence of reflective consciousness,¹⁵ for the first time), some concepts suggesting, in their objective content, an ontic genesis of the first human’s soul that is unacceptable.

The concept of a thorough recasting of animal psychism and its self-consolidation—the recast and consolidation which was supposed to result in the emergence of human reflective consciousness, is such a concept above all else. It is, as it seems, a concept of an empirical-ontological kind, which denotes the process, phenomenologically grasped, of an ontic transformation of the animal soul, considered from a philosophical point of view, into the specifically human soul. … Since Teilhard was really keeping the theoretical programme mentioned in the footnote in mind … he should have described the step from animal psychology to human psychology from the purely “phenomenological” point of view, referring to a different concept than the one he introduced. The concept relating to a series of more and more perfect psychological states succeeding one another could exclusively be such a concept.

…

In the subject of metaphysical or philosophical-anthropological research, when it comes to the issue of the origin of the human soul, we will not ask about the process taken into consideration so far, regarding paths that could lead to the occurrence of psychological phenomena, characteristic of the human species as such, in the phenomenological sphere. More or less probable suggestions in the subject of such collective process show clear epistemological discontinuity when compared to problems connected with genesis which throw themselves on us basing on what I once called metaphysical definition of the human soul considered together with the underpinning definition derived from natural philosophy.

Both definitions, via their general and abstract formulations, refer to something individual, that is to individual human souls and also, thanks to completion of content brought by “metaphysical” definition to the definition given by cosmological philosophy, take into account not only phenomenal, “superficial” aspects (as the “natural-scientific” or, more precisely, empiriological definition does) of human soul, but the entirety of its manifold being. Therefore, a metaphysician or a specialist in philosophical anthropology will consider something individual as well when it comes to the human soul, that is the issue of the origin of the very first human soul, or a number of the first human souls, looked at in their entire ontic richness. It is a circumstance which would be sufficient in itself to qualitatively differentiate the philosophical formulation of the discussed issue from its notion within the limits of natural sciences and psychological sciences. But the qualitative difference of the philosophical formulation of our problem also occurs in a different area.

Metaphysics, as well as philosophy appropriately limited, or philosophical anthropology, confronts us with causes of coming of something that did not exist into existence and hence with effective causes unknown to natural sciences and psychological sciences. This is why the concept of origin has entirely different content for metaphysics, natural philosophy, or philosophical anthropology than it does for sciences which employ empiriological analysis. An idea of ontic genesis of everything that makes up the first human soul or souls of a number of first humans will occur instead of an idea of phenomenal antecessors of the human psyche. Indeed, from a philosophical point of view our problem comes down to the question of which effective cause or causes can sufficiently explain the coming of the first, or a number of first, soul(s) into existence, if they are to be considered in the entirety of their being. This is the second moment which qualitatively differentiates the philosophical formulation of our issue from its definition by means of concepts of empiriological kind.

Kazimierz Kłósak, “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 8, no. 3 (1960), pp. 53–123 (excerpts).

In arguing for the spirituality of the human soul, we cannot further assume that this soul could at some stage of biological evolution appear through bodily birth as a result of changes that took place in the somatic sphere of a specific group of animals. We also cannot consider the hypothesis of the direct origin of the spiritual human soul from the material animal soul.

For us—because of our assumptions—it is unacceptable to say that the work of hands released as a result of verticalization of the body from supporting activities led the monkey through the formation of speech and the development of the brain and sensory organs to its transformation into a human. For although we agree that in monkeys “there is a fundamental premise for interaction with one object on another and the use of objects as tools” constituting “one of the simple moments of the work process” and although we assume that the listed animals have more or less permanent and at the same time plastic directional attitudes conditioning the emergence of purposeful work and its development, we do not see how the development of work in the animal world could have ended in the qualitative leap of humanization of the monkey, because we think that the indirect recognition of simple relations within a phenomenal concrete is a border achievement for all animals. From the theory in question, however, we can take such a detailed claim that our speech arose “from work and with work.” However, we do not understand how work at the level achievable for animals could lead to the appearance of speech using the sentence as its independent functional unit, since such speech taken even in its beginnings, which were probably one-word sentences, is connected in one way or another with concepts and is an external manifestation of judgments and various forms of reasoning. Schaff writes that for animals to be able not only to communicate with each other, i.e. to pass on certain states and psychological experiences, but to be able to talk to each other, they would have to get to the right abstract thinking.¹⁶ Well, in the context of the obviousness we take into account, we believe that animals with a material soul cannot detach themselves from individual objects in their cognition and, as a result, cannot go beyond their “speech of shouts or slogans”¹⁷ at any stage of development which is accessible to them and which can be completely explained by an indirect approach to simple relations within a sensual particular. So we must honestly and openly say that we are not convinced by the thought expressed in this concise sentence: “Work first, and then with it speech—these are the two most important stimuli under the influence of which the monkey brain gradually transformed into human.”

The issue of the origin of the soul of the first man does not lose aspect of mystery for us, as long as we do not think about the interference of the transcendent factor in the nature, and this factor can only be identified with God. This interference cannot be described in any other way than as a calling to the existence the whole being of the soul of the first man without using any pre-existing material, i.e. as a creation in the strict sense. We cannot seriously think about supplementing the animal soul with specifically human mental abilities, because such supplementation could only lead to the creation of some artificial material-spiritual conglomerate. Perfecting creative supplementation is possible only in the somatic sphere. The body of some fossil anthropoid could has been transformed into a specifically human body, if God connected the immortal human soul to this animal body—the soul created ex nihilo sui et subiecti.

Adopting the creation in the strict sense of the first man, we will not say that the cognitive manifestations of animals expressed in their “cognition and orientation” constitute the prehistory of our mind. For us, the issue of the genesis of the human mind is not a comparative psychology issue. But although in animals we do not look for “psychological premises for the emergence of specifically human psychic activity,” we can in full accordance with experience that man in his psyche exhibits many animal features. If it is true what we take from the hypothesis that the human body is a processed animal body by God, then the human soul had to indirectly, through inherited somatic properties, especially through inherited anatomical and physiological properties of nerve tissue, subcortical centers and the cerebral cortex, take over all previous achievements of the animal soul in the form of various drives and aspirations, in which the mnemic attitude of instincts is manifested after the loss of its lateral (gnostic and kinesthetic) parts during the phylogenetic “journey of nervous activities forward,” and in the form of special talents.¹⁸

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Published works by Kazimierz Kłósak

Books, articles, reviews, polemical texts (in chronological order)

Kłósak, K. “Maritainowa analiza stosunku ﬁlozoﬁi moralnej do teologii,” Collectanea Theologica 19, no. 2 (1938), pp. 177–220.

—. Maritainowa analiza stosunku ﬁlozoﬁi moralnej do teologii. Lwów: Drukarnia Karola Doroszyńskiego, 1938 (excerpt of PhD thesis: Tomizm w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina).

—. “Filozoﬁa przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” Polski Przegląd Tomistyczny 1, no. 2 (1939), pp. 154–170.

—. Filozoﬁa przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina. Lwów: Wydawnictwo oo. Dominikanów, 1939 (excerpt of PhD thesis: Tomizm w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina).

—. “Ks. Konstanty Michalski CM,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 47, no. 3 (1947), pp. 313–316.

—. “Materializm dialektyczny a ﬁzyka współczesna,” Znak 2, no. 7 (1947), pp. 719–732.

—. “Nowy podręcznik psychologii” [Review of the book: ks. dr Józef Pastuszka, Psychologia ogólna, vol. 1, Lublin 1946], Tygodnik Powszechny 3, no. 18 (1947), p. 8.

—. “Twórczość naukowa ks. Konstantego Michalskiego CM,” Tygodnik Powszechny 3, no. 44 (1947), pp. 4–5.

—. “Czy materializm jest wyrazem nauki?” Tygodnik Powszechny 4, no. 6 (1948), p. 2.

—. “Dialektyczna interpretacja ruchu i jej krytyka,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 48, no. 1 (1948), pp. 1–13.

—. “Dialektyka a tradycyjna teoria ewolucji,” Znak 3, no. 4 (1948), pp. 316–325.

—. “Materializm dialektyczny wobec zagadnienia życia,” Tygodnik Powszechny 4, no. 42 (1948), p. 5.

—. Materializm dialektyczny. Studia krytyczne. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Mariackie, 1948.

—. “Metaﬁzyczna i ﬁzyczna zasada przyczynowości wobec relacyj niedokładności W. Heisenberga,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 1 (1948), pp. 198–213.

—. Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorództwa. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Mariackie, 1948.

—. “Nowy typ cywilizacji chrześcijańskiej w ujęciu J. Maritaina,” Przegląd Powszechny 226 (1948), 213–222.

—. “Sprzeczność w materializmie,” Tygodnik Powszechny 4, no. 21 (1948), p. 4.

—. “Teoria indeterminizmu ontologicznego a trójwartościowa logika zdań prof. Jana Łukasiewicza,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 49, no. 5 (1948), pp. 209–230.

—. “Zasada ‘komplementarności’ N. Bohra i relacje niedokładności W. Heisenberga a zagadnienie indywiduów ﬁzykalnych,” Polonia Sacra 1 (1948), pp. 311–314.

—. [Review of the book: Adam Schaff, Pojęcie i słowo, Łódź 1946], Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 2–3 (1949–1950), pp. 292–293.

—. “Czy upadek ewolucjonizmu antropologicznego?” Znak 4, no. 4 (1949), pp. 300–307.

—. “Dialektyczne prawo jedności i walki przeciwieństw,” Przegląd Powszechny 228 (1949), pp. 161–168.

—. “Dialektyczne prawo przechodzenia ilości w jakość,” Przegląd Powszechny 228 (1949), pp. 69–79.

—. “Dialektyczne prawo wszechzależności rzeczy i zjawisk,” Przegląd Powszechny 228 (1949), pp. 203–213.

—. “Kinetyczny dowód istnienia Boga wobec nowych zarzutów,” Znak 4, no. 5 (1949), pp. 393–401.

—. “Konﬂikt nowożytnej ﬁzyki teoretycznej z perypatetycką ﬁlozoﬁą przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” Przegląd Powszechny 227 (1949), pp. 24–39.

—. “Konieczność wyjścia poza logikę dwuwartościową,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 50, no. 2 (1949), pp. 105–116.

Kłósak, K., Usowicz, A. Ksiądz Konstanty Michalski (1879–1947) (Analecta Historica Congregationis Missionis Provinciae Polonorum, vol. 3). Kraków: Drukarnia “Powściągliwość i Praca,” 1949.

Kłósak, K. “Materializm dialektyczny,” Homo Dei 18, no. 3–4 (1949), pp. 357–373.

—. “O. Jacek Woroniecki,” Przegląd Filozoﬁczny 45, no. 3–4 (1949), pp. 437–440.

—. [Review of: Roczniki FilozoﬁczneI (1948)], Ateneum Kapłańskie 50 (1949), pp. 378–386.

—. [Review of: Roczniki Filozoﬁczne I, Lublin 1948, pp. VIII + 364], Tygodnik Powszechny 5, no. 10 (1949), p. 11.

—. “Summa o szczęściu” [Review of the book: Włodzimierz Tatarkiewicz, O szczęściu, Kraków 1947], Tygodnik Powszechny 5, no. 11 (1949), p. 3.

—. “Życie psychiczne a synteza białek w neuronach,” Przegląd Powszechny 227 (1949), pp. 115–123.

—. Skrypt do teorii poznania. Kraków [ca. 1949].

—. “Dialektyczne prawo ruchu materii,” Znak 5, no. 4 (1950), pp. 296–308.

—. “Hipoteza Oparina o powstaniu życia,” Przegląd Powszechny 229 (1950), pp. 45–56.

—. “Katolik wobec dialektyki marksistowskiej,” Tygodnik Powszechny 6, no. 21–22 (1950), p. 10.

—. “Metoda badań natury duszy ludzkiej,” Znak 5, no. 1 (1950), pp. 13–26.

—. “Substancjalność duszy ludzkiej ze stanowiska doświadczenia bezpośredniego,” Przegląd Powszechny 229 (1950), pp. 1–20.

—. “Teoria samorództwa wobec dogmatu o stworzeniu,” Tygodnik Powszechny 6, no. 33 (1950), pp. 2–3.

—. “Podział kierunków ﬁlozoﬁcznych u diamatyków,” Znak 6, no. 2 (1951), pp. 126–140.

—. “Z historii krytyki argumentu kinetycznego na istnienie Boga,” Polonia Sacra 4 (1951), pp. 117–154, 277–328.

—. “Zagadnienie początku trwania czasowego Wszechświata,” Polonia Sacra 4 (1951), pp. 1–25.

—. “Hipoteza samorództwa wobec badań nad wirusami,” Znak 7, no. 1 (1952), pp. 1–16.

—. “Pierwszy argument kinetyczny na istnienie Boga ze Sum. c. Gent., lib. I, c. 13, part I,” Polonia Sacra 5 (1952), pp. 89–131.

—. “Hipoteza kosmicznych początków życia,” Tygodnik Powszechny 9, no. 43 (1953), pp. 3–4.

—. “O pewnych trudnościach hipotez samorództwa,” Tygodnik Powszechny 9, no. 36 (1953), pp. 6–7.

—. “Pierwszy argument kinetyczny na istnienie Boga ze Sum. c. Gent., lib. I, c. 13, part II,” Polonia Sacra 6 (1953), pp. 1–45.

—. “Augustyńska teoria biogenezy (próba jej unowocześnienia),” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 52 (1954), p. 8.

—. “Dwie teorie rzeczywistości,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 17 (1954), pp. 1–2.

—. “Hipoteza ewolucjonizmu antropologicznego w świetle odkryć R. Darta i R. Brooma,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 34 (1954), pp. 3–4.

—. “Jak pojąć w neoscholastyce przedmiot i metodę ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody?” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 4 (1954), pp. 1–31.

—. “Katolicka myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna w Polsce Ludowej,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 30 (1954), pp. 5–6.

—. “O doświadczalnym poznaniu duszy,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 37 (1954), pp. 3–4.

—. “Teologiczne aspekty zagadnienia antropogenezy,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 50 (1954), pp. 3, 8.

—. “Życie organiczne a istnienie Boga,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 26 (1954), p. 6.

—. “Bóg ostateczną podstawą prawd zależnych,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 23 (1955), pp. 7–8.

—. “Czy dusza ludzka powstała w drodze naturalnej ewolucji,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 36 (1955), pp. 1–3.

—. “Czy synteza chemiczna żywej materii?” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 52 (1955), pp. 5–6.

—. “Czy tomizm nie zna obiektywnej prawdy?” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 50 (1955), pp. 3–4.

—. “Czy Wszechświat jest przestrzennie nieskończony?” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 42 (1955), pp. 1–2.

—. “Na tropach stwórczego Rozumu,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 14 (1955), pp. 1, 7.

—. “Od dowodu ‘ex possibili et necessario’ ze Sum. Theol., I, q. II, a. 3 do współczesnych form argumentacji za istnieniem Boga z przygodności rzeczy,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 4 (1955), pp. 632–660.

—. “Orientacja studiów na Wydziale Filozoﬁcznym ATK,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 23 (1955), p. 7.

—. “Początek czasowy Wszechświata a zagadnienie istnienia Boga,” Życie i Myśl 2–3 (1955), pp. 1–25.

—. “Poznawalność istnienia Stwórczego Rozumu,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 3 (1955), pp. 465–490.

—. “Teoria rozszerzania się Wszechświata a zagadnienie jego początku czasowego,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 6 (1955), pp. 4–5.

—. “W obronie argumentu nomologicznego za istnieniem Boga,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 34 (1955), pp. 4–5.

—. “W odpowiedzi ks. Boharczykowi,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 40 (1955), pp. 4–5.

—. “W odpowiedzi ks. Pietkunowi,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 4 (1955), pp. 820–824.

—. “W poszukiwaniu Bytu bezwzględnie koniecznego,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 20 (1955), pp. 4, 11.

—. W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Part I: Argumentacja za istnieniem Boga z początku trwania czasowego wszechświata i z początku życia organicznego. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1955.

—. “W sprawie metodologicznej problematyki w teodycei,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 3 (1955), pp. 568–580.

—. “Doświadczenia w Berkeley a zagadnienie biogenezy,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 15 (1956), pp. 1–2, 4.

—. “Granice supremacji praktyki nad poznaniem teoretycznym,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 3 (1956), p. 8.

—. “Próba oceny,” Życie i Myśl 3 (1956), pp. 82–91.

—. “Bóg ostateczną podstawą prawd zależnych,” Collectanea Theologica 28, no. 1 (1957), pp. 87–113.

—. W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Part II: Argumentacja za istnieniem Boga z zależności treściowej poznawanych przez nas prawd, z porządku panującego w biokosmosie, z przygodności rzeczy oraz z ruchu, jaki występuje w przyrodzie. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1957.

—. “Kościół wobec teorii ewolucji,” Tygodnik Powszechny 15, no. 52 (1959), pp. 2–4.

—. “Zagadnienie współistnienia ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody z nowożytną ﬁzyką teoretyczną,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 7, no. 3 (1959), pp. 5–38.

—. “Aktualne kontrowersje w zakresie prolegomenów do ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody,” Zeszyty Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego 3, no. 2 (1960), pp. 15–30.

—. “Czy człowiek jest maszyną,” Tygodnik Powszechny 16, no. 18 (1960), pp. 5–6.

—. “Dowód św. Tomasza na istnienie Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej. Analiza i próba krytycznej oceny,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 8, no. 1 (1960), pp. 125–160.

—. “Natura człowieka w ‘fenomenologicznym’ ujęciu ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” Znak 12, no. 11 (1960), pp. 1464–1483.

—. “O właściwą interpretację i krytykę dzieła ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” Znak 12, no. 6 (1960), pp. 823–841.

—. “Spór o Orygenesa naszych czasów,” Znak 12, no. 2–3 (1960), pp. 253–268.

—. “Z zagadnień ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” Zeszyty Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego 3, no. 4 (1960), pp. 3–20.

—. “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 8, no. 3 (1960), pp. 53–123.

—. “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” Znak 13, no. 9 (1961), pp. 1181–1234.

—. “Zagadnienie metody ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody we współczesnej neoscholastyce,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 9, no. 3 (1961), pp. 5–36.

—. “Czy kosmos materialny jest w swych rozmiarach skończony lub nieskończony?” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 10, no. 3 (1962), pp. 67–101.

—. “Problem odwieczności wszechświata. Próba oceny argumentacji Władysława Krajewskiego za odwiecznym istnieniem wszechświata,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 65, no. 3 (1962), pp. 198–210.

—. “Program i metoda nauczania ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 10, no. 4 (1962), pp. 96–100.

Kłósak, K., Pastuszka, J., Krąpiec, M.A. et al. “Sprawozdanie z konferencji naukowej Sekcji Filozoﬁcznej Profesorów Wyższych Zakładów Teologicznych w Polsce,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 10, no. 4 (1962), pp. 87–126.

Kłósak, K. “Antropogeneza w empiriologicznym ujęciu ks. Piotra Teilharda de Chardin,” Zeszyty Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego 6, no. 4 (1963), pp. 3–18.

—. “Czy mamy dowód ﬁlozoﬁczny za początkiem czasowym wszechświata?” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 11, no. 3 (1963), pp. 31–44.

—. “Ks. Piotr Teilhard de Chardin a zagadnienie monogenistycznych początków ludzkości,” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 1, no. 2 (1963), pp. 83–114.

—. “‘Fenomenologia’ P. Teilharda de Chardin w ramowej analizie epistemologicznej i metodologicznej,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 12, no. 1 (1964), pp. 93–105.

—. “Maritainowe próby wyodrębnienia filozofii przyrody od metafizyki i nauk przyrodniczych,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 12, no. 3 (1964), pp. 17–29.

—. “Sprostowanie w sprawie mojej polemiki z o. prof. A. Krąpcem OP,” Znak 16, no. 10 (1964), pp. 1264–1268.

—. “Zagadnienie teleologicznej interpretacji przyrody we współczesnej neoscholastyce,” in Pod tchnieniem Ducha Świętego. Współczesna myśl teologiczna, ed. M. Finke, pp. 25–60. Poznań: Księgarnia Świętego Wojciecha, 1964.

—. “Stosunek filozofii przyrody do metafizyki w ujęciu współczesnych neoscholastyków polskich,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 13, no. 3 (1965), pp. 5–30.

—. “Zagadnienie stworzenia Wszechświata w ujęciu P. Teilharda de Chardin,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 1, no. 2 (1965), pp. 276–293.

—. “Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 1, no. 1 (1965), pp. 75–123.

—. “Pojęcie przedmiotu filozofii przyrody u autorów spoza nurtu neoscholastycznego,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 14, no. 3 (1966), pp. 17–26.

—. “‘Przyrodnicza’ definicja duszy ludzkiej, jej uprawnienie i granice użyteczności naukowej,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 2, no. 1 (1966), pp. 173–204.

—. “Immanencja i transcendencja człowieka w odniesieniu do przyrody,” in O Bogu i o człowieku, vol. 1, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 165–177. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1968.

—. “Poznanie istnienia Boga z pozycji ewolucjonizmu w ujęciu ks. P. Teilharda de Chardin,” in Teodycea – Istnienie Boga i Jego natura, ed. W. Granat, pp. 262–272. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1968.

—. “Zagadnienie punktu wyjścia kinetycznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 4, no. 2 (1968), pp. 75–112.

—. “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” Analecta Cracoviensia 1 (1969), pp. 32–56.

—. “Zagadnienie możliwości filozoficznego poznania przyrody,” Analecta Cracoviensia 2 (1970), pp. 81–103.

—. “Chrześcijańska filozofia historii w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina (studium krytyczne),” Analecta Cracoviensia 3 (1971), pp. 125–170.

—. “Ogólna teoria filozoficzna sztuki w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” in Logos i ethos. Rozprawy filozoficzne, ed. K. Kłósak, pp. 221–264. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1971.

—. “Czy i w jakim zakresie Tomaszowe ujęcie duchowości duszy ludzkiej można bardziej uściślić, poszerzyć, a zwłaszcza pogłębić?,” in: Teologia a antropologia. Kongres teologów polskich 21–23 IX 1971, eds. M. Jaworski, A. Kubiś, pp. 176–183. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1972.

—. “Przejawy współczesnego kryzysu klasycznej teorii duchowości duszy ludzkiej,” in Teologia a antropologia. Kongres teologów polskich 21–23 IX 1971, eds. M. Jaworski, A. Kubiś, pp. 175–176. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1972.

—. “Teoria duchowości duszy ludzkiej w ujęciu św. Tomasza z Akwinu: próba jej dalszego rozwinięcia,” Analecta Cracoviensia 4 (1972), pp. 87–99.

—. “Próba rewizji metodologicznych podstaw wyodrębnienia przedmiotu badań filozofii przyrody u Jakuba Maritaina,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 9, no. 1 (1973), pp. 55–84.

—. “Próba uwspółcześnienia Tomaszowej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej,” in Studia z filozofii Boga, vol. 2, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 204–222. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1973.

—. “Zagadnienie sfinalizowania przyrody a koncepcja bytu,” in Z zagadnień kultury chrześcijańskiej, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 241–254. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1973.

—. “Teoria doświadczenia człowieka w ujęciu kardynała Karola Wojtyły,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1974), pp. 81–84.

—. “Z metodologii filozofii Boga,” in Aby poznać Boga i człowieka, vol. 1: O Bogu dziś, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 39–49. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1974.

—. “Zagadnienie przygodności człowieka,” in Aby poznać Boga i człowieka, vol. 2: O człowieku dziś, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 51–60. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1974.

—. “Zagadnienie sensowności pytania o początek czasowy wszechświata,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1974), pp. 291–297.

—. “Próba argumentacji za substancjalnością duszy ludzkiej,” Analecta Cracoviensia 7 (1975), pp. 511–520.

—. “Wypowiedź na uroczystym posiedzeniu Rady Wydziału Filozofii Chrześcijańskiej ATK, poświęconym prof. Bolesławowi Gaweckiemu,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 11, no. 2 (1975), pp. 233–236.

—. “Nauki przyrodnicze a filozofia,” Analecta Cracoviensia 8 (1976), pp. 25–38.

—. “Próba wykorzystania ‘fenomenologicznej’ antropologii P. Teilharda de Chardin do uzasadnienia tomistycznej filozofii człowieka,” in: W kierunku prawdy, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 485–496. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976.

—. “Przyrodnicze i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” in: Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, ed. K. Kłósak. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976, pp. 191–236.

—. “Słowo wstępne,” in: Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, ed. K. Kłósak, pp. 5–13. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976.

—. “Koncepcja bytu a filozofia Boga,” in Studia z filozofii Boga, vol. 3, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 11–26. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1977.

—. “Teoria ekspansji przestrzennej wszechświata a zagadnienie istnienia Boga,” in Studia z filozofii Boga, vol. 3, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 414–430. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1977.

—. “Z teorii filozofii Boga,” Analecta Cracoviensia 9 (1977), pp. 61–66.

—. “Zagadnienie filozoficznej argumentacji za początkiem czasowym wszechświata,” Analecta Cracoviensia 9 (1977), pp. 29–48.

—. “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” Analecta Cracoviensia 10 (1978), pp. 29–47.

—. “Próby argumentacji za początkiem czasowym Wszechświata w oparciu o drugą zasadę termodynamiki i ich krytyczna ocena,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 3, ed. K. Kłósak, pp. 55–120. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1979.

—. Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1979.

—. “Zasada ‘równoważności masy’ bezwładnej i energii a ontyczna struktura materii,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 2, ed. K. Kłósak, pp. 173–216. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1979.

—. Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, Poznań: Księgarnia Świętego Wojciecha, 1980.

—. “Chcę poznać Boga i duszę… Z ks. prof. K. Kłósakiem rozmawia ks. prof. J. Życiński,” Tygodnik Powszechny 35, no. 26 (1981) [n.p.].

—. “Próba konfrontacji,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 17, no. 1 (1981), pp. 172–178.

—. “Próba uściślenia argumentacji za realnością aspektu przygodności rzeczy,” in W kierunku Boga, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 204–219. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1982.

—. “Zagadnienie podstaw kinetycznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga,” in W kierunku Boga, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 180–203. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1982.

—. “Konwencjonalizm w dziedzinie zagadnień metafilozoficznych,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 32, no. 1 (1984), pp. 203–206 [posthumous edition].

—. “Problem psychizmu ludzkiego w materializmie dialektycznym,” Znak 39, no. 1 (1984), pp. 21–32 [posthumous edition; edited by J. Życiński].

—. “Warianty argumentacji kinetycznej za istnieniem Boga,” Analecta Cracoviensia 17 (1985), pp. 21–96 [posthumous edition; edited by J. Życiński].

Kłósak, K., Usowicz, A., Bima, F. “Bibliographie,” in Die Philosophie im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert: In Memoriam Konstanty Michalski (1879–1947), ed. O. Pluta, pp. 19–46. Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner Publishing Company, 1988 [posthumous edition].

Edited works

Kłósak, K. (ed.), Analecta Cracoviensia 1–14 (1969–1982).

—. Studia Philosophiae Christianae 1–15 (1965–1982).

—. Logos i ethos. Rozprawy ﬁlozoﬁczne. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1971.

—. Z zagadnień ﬁlozoﬁi przyrodoznawstwa i ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody, vol. 1. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976.

—. Z zagadnień ﬁlozoﬁi przyrodoznawstwa i ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody, vol. 2. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1979.

—. Z zagadnień ﬁlozoﬁi przyrodoznawstwa i ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody, vol. 3. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1979.

Kłósak, K., Lubański, M., Ślaga, S.W. (eds.), Z zagadnień ﬁlozoﬁi przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 4. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1982.

—. Z zagadnień ﬁlozoﬁi przyrodoznawstwa i ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody, vol. 5. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1983 [posthumous edition].

Selected works on Kazimierz Kłósak

Anderwald, A. “Znaczenie nauk przyrodniczych dla ﬁlozoﬁi Boga w ujęciu profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Teologiczno-Historyczne Śląska Opolskiego 19 (1999), pp. 39–53.

Bocheński, J.M. [Review of the article: Kazimierz Kłósak, “Teoria indeterminizmu ontologicznego a trójwartościowa logika zdań prof. Jana Łukasiewcza (The theory of ontological indeterminism and the three-valued logic of propositions of Prof. Jan Łukasiewicz),” Ateneum Kapłańskie 49 (1948), pp. 209–320], The Journal of Symbolic Logic 14, no. 4 (1950), p. 263.

—. [Review of the article: Kazimierz Kłósak, “Konieczność wyjścia poza logikę dwuwartościową (The necessity of going beyond the two-valued logic),” Ateneum Kapłańskie 50 (1949), pp. 105–116], The Journal of Symbolic Logic 14, no. 4 (1950), p. 263.

Brzychcy, A. Autonomia ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody wobec nauk przyrodniczych w ujęciu ks. K. Kłósaka, Warszawa 2004 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 146155].

Buczkowska, J. “Kilka uwag o Kazimierza Kłósaka sposobie rozumienia pojęcia ‘faktu ﬁlozoﬁcznego’,” in Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. G. Bugajak, A. Latawiec, pp. 99–116. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004.

Budzyński, S. “Ksiądz prof. Kazimierz Kłósak 1911–1982,” Kierunki 15 (1982), p. 4.

Chudy, W. “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak,” Edukacja Filozoﬁczna 25 (1998), pp. 149–165.

—. “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak,” in Polska ﬁlozoﬁa powojenna I, ed. W. Mackiewicz, pp. 412–427. Warszawa: Agencja Wydawnicza Witmark, 2001.

—. “Problem pochodzenia człowieka z perspektywy ewolucjonizmu teistycznego,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 44, no. 1 (2008), pp. 192–205.

Czarnecki, M. Kazimierza Kłósaka i Michała Hellera koncepcje uprawiania ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody, Warszawa 2007 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 153253].

Dłubacz, W. “O koncepcji ﬁlozoﬁcznego poznania Boga u ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Roczniki Filozoﬁczne 29, no. 2 (1981), pp. 142–149.

Dołęga, J.M. “Biogram Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Ruch Filozoﬁczny 42, no. 1–2 (1985), pp. 112–116.

—. “Epistemologia i metodologia ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Collegium Polonorum 7 (1983), pp. 173–195.

—. “Poznawanie relacji przez człowieka a zagadnienie hominizacji według K. Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 139–148.

—. “Z problematyki naukowo-badawczej ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Biuletyn Informacyjny ATK 6 (1985), [n.p.].

—. “Zagadnienia kreacjonizmu w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Teologiczne. Białystok–Drohiczyn–Łomża 4 (1986), pp. 201–217.

Dzwonkowska, D. Filozoﬁa a nauki przyrodnicze. Analiza koncepcji Stanisława Kamińskiego i Kazimierza Kłósaka. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2014.

Filozoﬁa a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. Z. Liana, A. Michalik. Kraków–Tarnów: OBI; Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2004.

Gadacz, T. “Krytyka materializmu dialektycznego w pracach Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Znak 36, no. 1 (1984), pp. 33–48.

—. “Ks. Kłósaka spór z materializmem i jego znaczenie,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 109–125.

Grzeszczuk W. “Wartość biologicznych argumentów na istnienie Boga i ich wykorzystanie w procesie kształtowania religijnych postaw młodzieży: (na podstawie ﬁlozoﬁi ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka),” Zarządzanie i Edukacja. Dwumiesięcznik Wyższej Szkoły Zarządzania i Przedsiębiorczości im. Bogdana Jańskiego 87 (2013), pp. 277–295.

—. Zagadnienie argumentu “biologicznego” za istnieniem Boga w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka, Warszawa 1995 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 115203].

Hajduk, Z. “Kłósak Kazimierz,” in Encyklopedia ﬁlozoﬁi polskiej, vol. 1, pp. 654–655. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

—. “Kłósak Kazimierz,” in Powszechna encyklopedia ﬁlozoﬁi, vol. 5, pp. 667–669. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2004.

Hałaczek, B. “Kazimierz Kłósak: czego chciał, kim był?” in Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. A. Latawiec, G. Bugajak, pp. 19–28. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004.

—. “Ksiądz Kłósak – polskim Teilhardem de Chardin,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 9–13.

Heller, M. “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak – myśliciel na rozdrożu,” in Filozoﬁa a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. Z. Liana, A. Michalik, pp. 15–24. Kraków–Tarnów: OBI; Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2004.

Jakubowska, M. Biologiczny dowód na istnienie Boga w ujęciu księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, Warszawa 1996 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 115841].

Jadczak, M. Problem pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej w koncepcjach ks. K. Kłósaka i ks. T. St. Wojciechowskiego: analiza porównawcza, Warszawa 2007 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 152332].

Jaworski, M. “Ks. prof. dr Kazimierz Kłósak – człowiek i dzieło,” Analecta Cracoviensia 14 (1982), pp. 21–25.

—. “Problem koncepcji ﬁlozoﬁi,” Analecta Cracoviensia 14 (1982), pp. 1–9.

Kaźmierczak, L. Pierwsze trzy drogi św. Tomasza w interpretacji ks. K. Kłósaka, Płock 1998 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 117155].

Kloskowski, K. “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka koncepcja kreacjonizmu,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 61–75.

Kłósak, F. “W siedemnastą rocznicę śmierci ks. prof. K. Kłósaka,” Wspólnota. Tygodnik Paraﬁi Narodzenia Najświętszej Maryi Panny w Żywcu, [n.d.] 29, no. 273 [Special issue], pp. 3–4.

Kołakowski, L. “Metodologia księdza Kłósaka. Felieton ﬁlozoﬁczny,” Myśl Filozoﬁczna 1–2 (1951), pp. 316–322.

Kowalski, W. “O właściwe miejsce teodycei w ﬁlozoﬁcznych dociekaniach Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Sosnowieckie Studia Teologiczne 6 (2003), pp. 315–324.

—. Aby poznać Boga: ﬁlozoﬁczne podstawy poznania Boga w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2002.

Koźbiał, J. Dyskusje ﬁlozoﬁczne Kazimierza Kłósaka z przedstawicielami marksizmu, Warszawa 2006 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 150554].

Kurkowski, P. Zastosowanie ewolucyjnego modelu kreacjonizmu w wyjaśnianiu rozwoju duchowego człowieka w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka, Warszawa 1999 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 117935].

Lemańska, A. “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka metoda uprawiania ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 23, no. 1 (1987), pp. 133–149.

—. “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka metoda uprawiania ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody,” in W poszukiwaniu prawdy. Pamięci Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. M. Heller, M. Lubański, S.W. Ślaga, pp. 29–43. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1987.

—. “Zagadnienie faktów naukowych i ﬁlozoﬁcznych,” in Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. G. Bugajak, A. Latawiec, pp. 83–98. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004.

—. “Zagadnienie przejścia od ‘empirycznej fenomenologii przyrody’ do ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody,” in Filozoﬁa a nauka w myśli księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. Z. Liana, A. Michalik, pp. 27–39. Kraków–Tarnów: OBI; Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2004.

Lubański, M. “Moje spotkania z ks. prof. Kazimierzem Kłósakiem,” Zagadnienia Filozoﬁczne w Nauce 6 (1984), pp. 57–61.

—. “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka analizy kosmologiczno-teodycealne (próba odczytania),” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 17, no. 1 (1981), pp. 155–164.

Mikucki, K. Filozoﬁa a nauki szczegółowe w ujęciu ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka, Warszawa 1996 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: D.251].

—. “Kazimierza Kłósaka koncepcja empirycznej fenomenologii naukowej,” Zeszyty Historyczno-Teologiczne 12 (2006), pp. 303–323.

—. “O abstrakcji i jej roli w myśli Ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Zeszyty Historyczno-Teologiczne 7 (2001), pp. 224–245.

—. “Odkrywanie implikacji ontologicznych w koncepcji ﬁlozoﬁcznej Ks. Prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” in Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. A. Latawiec, G. Bugajak, pp. 117–138. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004.

—. “Problem punktu wyjścia ﬁlozoﬁi w ujęciu Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” in Między ﬁlozoﬁą przyrody a ekoﬁlozoﬁą, eds. A. Latawiec, G. Bugajak, pp. 15–54. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 1999.

—. “Problem sposobu poznania duszy ludzkiej według Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 48, no. 1 (2012), pp. 5–41.

—. “Rozumowania i ich znaczenie w koncepcji ﬁlozoﬁcznej Ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Zeszyty Historyczno-Teologiczne 9 (2003), pp. 221–241.

—. “Spór o typ doświadczenia w bazie wyjściowej ﬁlozoﬁi: Kazimierz Kłósak i tomizm egzystencjalny,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 38, no. 2 (2002), pp. 31–53.

—. “Zarys teorii metaﬁzyki w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 37, no. 2 (2001), pp. 13–32.

Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka. W dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. A. Latawiec, G. Bugajak. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004.

Nowaczyk, J. “Profesor Kazimierz Kłósak wobec kwestii racjonalności bytu,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 149–158.

Olędzki, A.E. Kazimierza Kłósaka interpretacja współdziałania pierwszej przyczyny z przyczynami wtórnymi, Warszawa 2007 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 153340].

Olszewski, A. “Uwagi ﬁlozoﬁczno-logiczne na temat Kłósakowskich implikacji ontologicznych typu redukcyjnego,” in Filozoﬁa a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. Z. Liana, A. Michalik, pp. 97–116. Kraków–Tarnów: OBI – Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2004.

Płaczek, T. Metoda uprawiania ﬁlozoﬁi przyrody w ujęciu ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka, Warszawa 2003 [MA thesis manuscript, UKSW Library, signature: 145172].

Polak, P. “Konferencja: Filozoﬁa przyrody ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka. W dwudziestą rocznicę Jego śmierci (sprawozdanie),” Semina Scientiarum 2 (2003), pp. 73–78.

“Pologne – Kasimir Kłósak,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain 81, no. 49 (1983), p. 169.

Rutowski, T. “Problematyka celowości w publikacjach księdza profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Płockie 33 (2005), pp. 107–116.

—. “Wartość argumentacji na istnienie Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej według ks. K. Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 27–44.

Siemianowski, A. “Myśliciel, który bardziej cenił prawdę niż popularność (pamięci ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka),” Więź 8 (1982), pp. 117–122.

Ślaga, S.W. “Kierunki pracy naukowej i organizacyjno-dydaktycznej Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 15, no. 1 (1979), pp. 9–26.

—. “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak – ﬁlozof i organizator nauki,” in W kierunku Boga, ed. B. Bejze, pp. 167–179. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1982.

—. “Problem abiogenezy w ujęciu K. Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 17, no. 1 (1981), pp. 164–172.

—. “Szkic do portretu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 15–26.

Turek, J. “Implikacje ontologiczne typu redukcyjnego jako metoda uprawiania ﬁlozoﬁi przez Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” in Filozoﬁa a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. Z. Liana, A. Michalik, pp. 63–88. Kraków–Tarnów: OBI; Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2004.

W poszukiwaniu prawdy. Pamięci Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. M. Heller, M. Lubański, S.W. Ślaga. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1987.

Więckiewicz, R. “Sprawozdanie z konferencji ‘Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w XX rocznicę śmierci’, UKSW, 5.06.2002 r.,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 38, no. 2 (2002), pp. 209–220.

Wojciechowski, T. “Geneza duszy ludzkiej w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 127–137.

Wolak, Z. “Kilka uwag krytycznych o terminologii ﬁlozoﬁcznej ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia z Filozoﬁi Polskiej 7 (2012), pp. 227–250.

Życiński, J. “Antropogeneza ewolucyjna w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka i w nauczaniu Jana Pawła II,” in Myśl ﬁlozoﬁczna Ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. A. Latawiec, G. Bujak, pp. 53–66. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004.

—. God and Evolution: Fundamental Questions of Christian Evolutionism. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2006.

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—. “Vivere non est necesse, philosophari necesse est. O Ks. Kazimierzu Kłósaku,” Tygodnik Powszechny 36, no. 25 (1982), p. 3.

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  Biographical data concerning the early life of Kazimierz Kłósak was based on the archival materials available in the Metropolitan Curia in Krakow (ArKM), file: Pers A 1362.

Not only is this reflected in the gaps in the previous books about him, but it can also be seen in important discrepancies related to, e.g. his place of birth (in almost all biographies of Kłósak, Żółkiew is mentioned as the place in which he was born), or—while talking about the further life of Kłósak—the place of his priestly ministry just after finishing seminary, the dates of the obtainment of the doctoral degree, and other details. Cf. S.W. Ślaga, “Kierunki pracy naukowej i organizacyjno-dydaktycznej księdza profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 15, no. 1 (1979), pp. 9–26; S. Budzyński, “Ksiądz prof. Kazimierz Kłósak 1911–1982,” Kierunki, no. 15 (1982), p. 4; J. Życiński, “Vivere non est necesse, philosophari necesse est. Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak,” Tygodnik Powszechny 36, no. 25 (1982), p. 3; A. Siemianowski, “Myśliciel, który bardziej cenił prawdę niż popularność (pamięci ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka),” Więź 25, no. 8 (1982), pp. 117–122; W. Chudy, “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak [Biografia i poglądy filozoficzne],” Edukacja Filozoficzna 25 (1998), pp. 149–165; idem, “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak,” in Polska filozofia powojenna I, ed. W. Mackiewicz (Warszawa: Agencja Wydawnicza Witmark, 2001), pp. 412–427; “Pologne – Kasimir Kłósak,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain 81, no. 49 (1983), p. 169; Z. Hajduk, “Kłósak Kazimierz,” in Powszechna encyklopedia filozofii, vol. 5 (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2004), pp. 667–669; idem, “Kłósak Kazimierz,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 1 (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011), pp. 654–655.

ArKM, Pers A 1362: List z 20 sierpnia 1935 roku proboszcza x. Jana Rychlika do Najprzewielebniejszej Książęcej Kurii Metropolitalnej w Krakowie.

K. Kłósak, “Maritainowa analiza stosunku filozofii moralnej do teologii,” Collectanea Theologica 19, no. 2 (1938), pp. 177–220; idem, “Filozofia przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” Polski Przegląd Tomistyczny 1, no. 2 (1939), pp. 154–170.

ArKM, Pers A 1362: Świadectwo moralności z dnia 29.03.1940 do Książęco-Metropolitalnej Kurii w Krakowie.

“As a seminarian clandestinus I got the handbook of metaphysics by prof. Kazimierz Wais from Lviv and Father Kazimierz Kłósak said: “Learn! If you learn, you shall pass the exam.” I was making my way through this text for a few months. I took the exam and I passed it. And it was a turning point in my life. A new world opened for me. I started studying theological books.” Jan Paweł II, Wstańcie, chodźmy! (Kraków: Wydawnictwo św. Stanisława, 2004), p. 78. Cf. A. Reimers, “Karol Wojtyła’s Aims and Methodology,” in Christian Wisdom Meets Modernity, ed. K. Oakes (London–New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2016), p. 130.

Such a supposition can be found in: M. Heller, “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak – myśliciel na rozdrożu,” in Filozofia a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. Z. Liana, A. Michalik (Kraków–Tarnów: OBI; Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2004), p. 18. Cf. Z. Wolak, “Naukowa filozofia Koła Krakowskiego,” Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce, no. 36 (2005), pp. 97–122. See more in Chapter 2.

K. Kłósak, Tomizm u Jakuba Maritaina: I. Maritainowa analiza stosunku filozofii moralnej do teologii (Lwów: Drukarnia Karola Doroszyńskiego, 1938); II. Filozofia przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina (Lwów: Wydawnictwo oo. Dominikanów, 1939), cf. footnote 4. See S. Piech, “Doktorzy teologii Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w latach 1945–1954,” Saeculum Christianum: Pismo Historyczno-Społeczne 5, no. 1 (1998), p. 188.

Despite the above-mentioned criticism, Kłósak was, for some time, a member of the Committee of Catholic Intellectuals and Activists organised by Bolesław Piasecki. It was a group of Catholic priests and lay people which functioned in Poland in 1950–1953 as part of the Polish Committee of Peace Defenders. The group was willing to cooperate with the communist authorities and it is believed that the priests who belonged to the committee were “patriot priests.” See Ł.P. Matyjasiak, “Między wiernością Kościołowi a służbą państwu. Działalność katolików „społecznie postępowych” na przykładzie Komisji Intelektualistów i Działaczy Katolickich przy Polskim Komitecie Obrońców Pokoju (1950–1953),” in Letnia Szkoła Historii Najnowszej 2009. Referaty, eds. Ł. Kamiński, T. Kozłowski (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2010), p. 119. Kłósak was also one of those who signed an open letter sent to French intellectuals concerning the remilitarisation of Germany. See Słowo Powszechne, no. 290 (1950), p. 1.

See A. Schaff, Wstęp do teorii marksizmu. Zarys materializmu dialektycznego i historycznego (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1947).

Kłósak was the author of the chapter: Analiza twórczości naukowej ks. K. Michalskiego [Analysis of the Scientific Work of Rev. K. Michalski]. See A. Usowicz, K. Kłósak, Konstanty Michalski (1879–1947) (Kraków: Drukarnia “Powściągliwość i Praca, 1949), pp. 129–212.

In 1957, he was forced to quit his position as dean, and in 1958 the communist authorities dismissed him from his state-sponsored post at the university. This period of Kazimierz Kłósak’s life, related to the way he was treated by the government, is worth emphasizing as symbolic and typical of numerous Polish scholars who disagreed with the Marxist worldview. Kłósak had a critical scientific approach to the philosophy of Marxism (strictly: to dialectical materialism) and he often expressed it in public utterances and published texts, as a result of which, for many years, he experienced different kinds of obstacles in his scientific activity, which bore the marks of persecution for political opinions and worldview. See Wydział Filozofii Chrześcijańskiej na ATK 1954–1999, eds. J. Bielecki, J. Krokos (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2001), pp. 11–12.

See Chapter 4, point 4.2.: Dispute with Dialectical Materialism.

This situation of Polish philosophy after World War II was described by, i.a. J. Tischner. See J. Tischner, Polski kształt dialogu (Paris: Editions Spotkania, 1981), pp. 11–41.

See H. Piersa, “Filozofia przyrody w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim,” Summarium 45, no. 65 (2016), pp. 29–33.

See J. Życiński, “Kazimierz Kłósak (1911–1982),” in Złota księga Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, ed. S. Piech (Kraków: Papieska Akademia Teologiczna, 2000), p. 533.

A detailed report from this event: E. Morawiec, “Sympozjum filozoficzne poświęcone analizie punktu wyjścia kinetycznego i teleologicznego argumentu na istnienie Boga,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 4, no. 2 (1968), pp. 225–270.

See A. Kubiś, Papieski Wydział Teologiczny w Krakowie w latach 1954–1981 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2005), p. 271.

Archive of the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków (ArUPJPII), PWT-0022: Protokoły z posiedzeń Rad Wydziału, vol. 2 (10.06.1968–25.06.1974), Załącznik nr 1 do protokołu z posiedzenia Rady Wydziału z dnia 31.01.1970 roku, k. 51.

ArUPJPII, PWT-0022: Protokoły z posiedzeń Rad Wydziału, vol. 2 (10.06.1968–25.06.1974), Protokół z posiedzenia Rady Wydziału z dnia 30.01.1970 roku, k. 47; ibidem, Załącznik nr 2 do protokołu z posiedzenia Rady Wydziału z dnia 30.01.1970 roku, k. 54. Cf. A. Kubiś, Papieski Wydział Teologiczny w Krakowie w latach 1954–1981, p. 101.

“Chcę poznać Boga i duszę… Z ks. prof. K. Kłósakiem rozmawia ks. prof. J. Życiński,” Tygodnik Powszechny 35, no. 26 (1981), [n.p.].

“In the last years his health was getting worse. He was forced to work less intensively. But he could not stop working, because work was his life. We can say he was overwhelmed with work. The disease made him suffer. He did not complain or feel sorry for himself. When—because of the disease—he did not manage to do his work on time, he explained that the delay was something he could not prevent. He was very patient. He did not show how much he suffered and how hard it was for him not to be able to move freely.” M. Lubański, “Moje spotkania z księdzem profesorem Kazimierzem Kłósakiem,” Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce 4 (1984), p. 60.

On his deathbed he was still dictating his two reviews. One of them included the request to award the title of professor to Rev. Michał Heller, PhD.

The same grave also contains the body of Rev. Prof. Tadeusz Wojciechowski, whose dissertation supervisor was Kazimierz Kłósak and with whom Kłósak engaged intensively on the origin of human soul. See, i.a. K. Kłósak, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” Analecta Cracoviensia 1 (1969), pp. 32–56; T. Wojciechowski, “Geneza duszy ludzkiej w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 127–137.

ArKM, Pers A 1362: Letter of John Paul II to Cardinal F. Macharski of 04.06.1981.

It was confirmed by the Krakow conference Filozofia przyrody ks. prof. K. Kłósaka [Philosophy of Nature by K. Kłósak], organized on 28.11.2002. During the conference, there were many lectures suggesting that the solutions of Kłósak are archaic. See P. Polak, “Konferencja: Filozofia przyrody ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka. W dwudziestą rocznicę Jego śmierci [sprawozdanie],” Semina Scientiarum, no. 2 (2003), pp. 73–78.

According to the memoirs of J. Tischner: “Father Kazimierz Kłósak was the greatest professor who had the idea to combine positive sciences with the Christian philosophy, i.e. with a kind of reformed Thomism. He taught us biology, physics and chemistry, showing that the achievements of those sciences do not contradict the dogmas. For example, it is possible to reconcile evolutionism with God’s act of the creation. That was impressive. During his lectures we felt that we had, and we would continue to have, something interesting to say to the people. Also, the Professor disputed with dialectical materialism, as—at that time—he was not allowed to refute historical materialism. He gave us strong intellectual support and he extended our horizons by looking at science, at the reality that surrounded us. Leszek Kołakowski disputed with him fiercely. This dispute made us really excited.” J. Tischner, A. Karoń-Ostrowska, “Byliśmy przekonani, że mamy rację,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 17 (2015) (appendix) [n.p.].

See M. Heller, Wierzę, żeby rozumieć. Rozmawiają W. Bonowicz, B. Brożek, Z. Liana (Kraków: Znak, 2016), pp. 147–148.

F. Kłósak, “W siedemnastą rocznicę śmierci ks. prof. K. Kłósaka,” Wspólnota. Tygodnik Parafii Narodzenia Najświętszej Maryi Panny w Żywcu, no. 29(273) [n.y.] [appendix], pp. 3–4.

Some of them were told by J. Życiński who took care of Kłósak in his last years of life. “Within his last years, when together we spent long hours in the Krakow Clinic of Intensive Therapy, I described some of those funny situations to him, because I wanted him to forget the pain and the sad reality of martial law. He listened to my stories as to normal memories of the past, and he sometimes added some details or made the context more precise. ‘It is said’, I told him, ‘that one day, quoting your doctor friend, you claimed that the human body only needs 4 hours of sleep per day, as a result of which you slept from 10 p.m. until midnight, because another doctor said that it is much better to go to sleep before midnight. Is it true?’. ‘Not really’, he said. ‘Those were the words of the same doctor’.” J. Życiński, “Philosophari necesse est. Filozoficzna sylwetka Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Znak 36, no. 1 (1984), pp. 18–19. In 1971 Kłósak was proud to emphasize that he had not been to see a doctor for 25 years.

F. Kłósak, “W siedemnastą rocznicę śmierci ks. prof. K. Kłósaka,” p. 4.

See, e.g. Filozofia a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka; Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, eds. G. Bugajak, A. Latawiec (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2004). More: see Chapter 7, Sub-chapter 7.2.

J. Życiński, “Kazimierz Kłósak (1911–1982),” p. 540.

D. Zaborek, Życie. Przewodnik praktyczny. 16 wywiadów na każdy temat (Warszawa: Agora, 2009), p. 61.

M. Lubański, “Moje spotkania z księdzem profesorem Kazimierzem Kłósakiem,” p. 60. More memories of Kazimierz Kłósak, see, e.g.: Ocalić od zapomnienia. Profesorowie Akademii Teologii Katolickiej w Warszawie we wspomnieniach wychowanków, eds. J.M. Dołęga, J. Mandziuk (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2002), pp. 82–87.

Heller noticed that Kłósak, in the period in which his philosophical views were being shaped, did not have the chance to meet the philosophical-scientific thought of the Polish scholars from outside the neo-Thomist circle directly (Z. Zawirski, H. Mehlberg, J. Metallman), which, according to Heller, deprived Kłósak of the opportunity to shape one’s way of thinking in a slightly different manner. See M. Heller, “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak – myśliciel na rozdrożu,” pp. 16–17.

For example: K. Kłósak, “Konflikt nowożytnej fizyki teoretycznej z perypatetycką filozofią przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” Przegląd Powszechny, no. 227 (1949), pp. 24–39.

For example: idem, “Maritainowe próby wyodrębnienia filozofii przyrody od metafizyki i nauk przyrodniczych,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 12, no. 3 (1964), pp. 17–29.

Idem, Filozofia przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina (Lwów: Wydawnictwo oo. Dominikanów, 1939), p. 19.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody (Poznań: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha, 1980), p. 137.

Idem, “Aktualne kontrowersje w zakresie prolegomenów do filozofii przyrody,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 3, no. 2 (1960), p. 29.

Idem, “Słowo wstępne,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, ed. K. Kłósak (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976), p. 12.

Kłósak referred to, i.a. the opinion of C.G. Hempel. See idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 150.

See Z. Wolak, “Naukowa filozofia Koła Krakowskiego,” pp. 97–122.

For example: K. Kłósak, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Argumentacja za istnieniem Boga z początku trwania czasowego wszechświata i z początku życia organicznego (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1955), pp. 7, 78; idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II. Argumentacja za istnieniem Boga z zależności treściowej poznawanych przez nas prawd, z porządku panującego w biokosmosie, z przygodności rzeczy oraz z ruchu, jaki występuje w przyrodzie (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1957), pp. 47, 178–180, 273–276.

M. Heller, “Ks. Kazimierz Kłósak – myśliciel na rozdrożu,” p. 22. It is confirmed by another utterance of Heller’s: “Another post-war Krakow philosopher of nature, Rev. Kazimierz Kłósak, often referred to those thinkers from Krakow of whom we are speaking. He probably did not meet them personally. He studied in Krakow before the war, but when the so-called ‘Krakow Group’ was forming, he went to study in Rome, and then to Louvain. In 1936 there was a philosophical meeting in Krakow; Rev. Michalski and Rev. Łukasiewicz initiated the meeting at Bernardyńska. The participants also included Salamucha and Bocheński. According to the idea of Łukasiewicz, who supervised the event, modern philosophy was a failure in comparson to Medieval philosophy, because in the Middle Ages philosophers applied logic to their research, which was later rejected. Fr. Kłósak, as far as we know, did not meet the Kraków group at that time. He returned to Krakow just before the war broke out. He loved science and, during the war, he could not even access books. The only texts he could read were the works of the Krakow school, which is why his works later referred to those publications.” A. Strzałkowski, J. Janik, A. Pelczar [et al.], “Dyskusja po referacie Michała Hellera ‘Krakowska filozofia przyrody w okresie międzywojennym’,” Prace Komisji Historii Nauki Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności, no. 6 (2004), p. 248.

See K. Kłósak, “O właściwą interpretację i krytykę dzieła ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” Znak 12, no. 6 (1960), pp. 823–841.

Idem, “‘Fenomenologia’ P. Teilharda de Chardin w ramowej analizie epistemologicznej i metodologicznej,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 12, no. 1 (1964), p. 93.

Ibidem, pp. 103–104.

Idem, “Ks. Piotr Teilhard de Chardin a zagadnienie monogenistycznych początków ludzkości,” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 1, no. 2 (1963), pp. 112–113.

B. Hałaczek, “Kazimierz Kłósak: czego chciał, kim był?” in Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, p. 22. Cf. idem, “Ksiądz Kłósak – polskim Teilhardem de Chardin,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 9–13.

K. Kłósak, “Katolik wobec dialektyki marksistowskiej,” Tygodnik Powszechny 6, no. 21–22 (1950), p. 10.

Cf. J.M. Dołęga, “Zagadnienia kreacjonizmu w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Teologiczne. Białystok–Drohiczyn–Łomża, no. 4 (1986), p. 201–217; K. Kloskowski, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka koncepcja kreacjonizmu,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 61–75.

K. Kłósak, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, pp. 107–185; idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1 (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1979), pp. 314–432.

C. Tresmontant, Sciences de l’univers et problèmes métaphysiques (Paris: Seuil, 1976).

K. Kłósak, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” p. 45.

Idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” Analecta Cracoviensia 10 (1978), p. 29.

Idem, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” p. 53.

The disputes of K. Kłósak with M.A. Krąpiec refer to many other problems, e.g. the concept of being, the unity and multiplicity of philosophies, understanding abstraction and separation, the role of scientific and common experience in the process of philosophizing.

Idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 71–98.

Cf. T. Rutowski, “Problematyka celowości w publikacjach księdza profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Płockie 33 (2005), pp. 107–116.

It is worth adding that, among the contemporary philosophical trends, Kłósak truly admired the phenomenology of Roman Ingarden. Ingarden’s influence is noticeable in his formulation of the concept of being and the reception of the idea of ontology as the most general science that precedes general metaphysics.

See, e.g.: K. Kłósak, “Zagadnienie możliwości filozoficznego poznania przyrody,” Analecta Cracoviensia 2 (1970), pp. 81–103.

M. Lubański, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka analizy kosmologiczno-teodycealne (próba odczytania),” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 17, no. 1 (1981), pp. 155–164.

Before, as a young man, Kazimierz Kłósak studied historical Thomism in Rome for a short time. Cf. D. Dzwonkowska, Filozofia a nauki przyrodnicze. Analiza koncepcji Stanisława Kamińskiego i Kazimierza Kłósaka (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UKSW, 2014), p. 122.

What was also important was the personal activity of Pope Leo XIII for the fulfilment of the concept of re-activation of Thomism and the appointment of Désiré-Joseph Mercier for the creator of the whole school of Louvain neo-Thomism. In this context, it becomes clear why the University of Louvain was chosen: Leo XIII knew it from his time in Belgium as a papal nuncio.

“Now, when we know that the world of common experience is just a small piece of reality, and that the world of scientific experience is much larger, we cannot analyse philosophical issues related to the whole universe that we can possibly know, without taking into account the contribution of natural sciences. If, while building the philosophy of nature, we only took into account the data of the pre-scientific experience, not only would we significantly and unjustly impoverish the subject of our analysis and lose the opportunity to introduce new clarifications and solutions, but we would also risk both overestimating the philosophical value of what is shown by the common experience, and objectivising our subjective point of view, not to mention the fact that we would be accused of escaping from the difficulties that former philosophical terms meet in the area of modern natural sciences, and of the attempt to save old-fashioned ideas which is dommed to failure.” K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 143.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 5. (As a principle of quoting works in this book, we omit the so-called spaced-out print applied by Kłósak as a kind of emphasis—cf. Chapter 6, p. 6.2).

Idem, “Filozofia przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” Polski Przegląd Tomistyczny 1, no. 2 (1939), pp. 154–170; idem, “Konflikt nowożytnej fizyki teoretycznej z perypatetycką filozofią przyrody w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina,” pp. 24–39; idem, “Maritainowe próby wyodrębnienia filozofii przyrody od metafizyki i nauk przyrodniczych,” pp. 17–29; idem, “Chrześcijańska filozofia historii w ujęciu Jakuba Maritaina (studium krytyczne),” Analecta Cracoviensia 3 (1971), pp. 125–170; idem, “Próba rewizji metodologicznych podstaw wyodrębnienia przedmiotu badań filozofii przyrody u Jakuba Maritaina,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 9, no. 1 (1973), pp. 55–84.

See D. Dzwonkowska, Filozofia a nauki przyrodnicze. Analiza koncepcji Stanisława Kamińskiego i Kazimierza Kłósaka, p. 125.

See K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 9. Cf. B. Gawecki, “Co to jest filozofia przyrody?” in Księga Pamiątkowa ku czci Profesora W. Heinricha, ed. F. Znaniecki (Kraków: Księgarnia Jagiellońska, 1927), pp. 31–42. Cf. A. Lićwinko, “Teoria filozofii przyrody w ujęciu Bolesława Gaweckiego,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 17, no. 3 (1969), pp. 157–165.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 9.

Cf. ibidem, p. 12.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 49–50. Kłósak indicated that Maritain presented three approaches to metaphysics. Trying to make his language more “modern,” Kłósak claimed that—according to the adopted theory of metaphysics—its subject includes “the aspect of actually existing as a subject in general” (ibidem, p. 52).

Cf. ibidem. Kłósak accepted intentional beings which have a different—weaker—way of existing.

Cf. D. Dzwonkowska, Filozofia a nauki przyrodnicze. Analiza koncepcji Stanisława Kamińskiego i Kazimierza Kłósaka, p. 137.

See K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 55–58. It is worth to emphasize the term “prove” that Kłósak uses with reference to philosophical theses. At present, this word has a quite established meaning and it is not used with reference to philosophical views (arguments).

Cf. ibidem, p. 56.

Such ideas, which are only outlined here, are derived from the works: M.A. Krąpiec, Realizm ludzkiego poznania (Poznań: Pallottinum, 1959) and M.A. Krąpiec, S. Kamiński, Z teorii i metodologii metafizyki (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1962).

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 62.

Cf. ibidem.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2015), p. 87.

Cf. ibidem. Dzwonkowska calls them direct or primary existential jugdements. See D. Dzwonkowska, Filozofia a nauki przyrodnicze. Analiza koncepcji Stanisława Kamińskiego i Kazimierza Kłósaka, section 3.1.

The first of those opinions was defended in Poland by Franciszek Kwiatkowski, Marian Kowalewski, Stanisław Mazierski, Stanisław Kamiński, and in Europe—Andrew van Melsen. The second view was promoted by Stanisław Adamczyk.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 75.

Ibidem, p. 76.

Ibidem, p. 77.

Cf. K. Mikucki, “Zarys teorii metafizyki w ujęciu ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 37, no. 3 (2001), pp. 13–32. Kłósak dedicated many of his works to this issue.

According to Kłósak, the philosophy of nature “is clearly separated from metaphysic if we perceive it as a science on, abstractly understood, real being as such. The philosophy of nature takes up an ontological type of analysis, but it is not ontological analysis sensu stricto, but ontological analysis in a broader meaning, as it does not refer to a real being as such, but to the type of being that exists in nature.” K. Kłósak, “Słowo wstępne,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, p. 10.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 94.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, p. 56.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 57.

Ibidem.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 108.

See idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, pp. 58–60.

“Also, my research shows that the philosophy of nature I am dealing with is separated from natural sciences as they carry out an empiriological analysis of nature.” Idem, “Słowo wstępne,” p. 10.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 13.

Ibidem, p. 15.

Ibidem, pp. 17–20. Thus, in natural sciences the phenomenon is the cause, and—in the philosophical perspective—the cause is a being which leads to the occurrence of another being.

See ibidem, pp. 23–24.

See ibidem, pp. 30–33.

See idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, chapters X–XII.

The issue of the “purity” of such expereinces is questioned from the point of view of modern methodology of science.

Kłósak did not think that hypotheses and scientific models were of great value for philosophical analyses. Cf. K. Mikucki, Filozofia a nauki szczegółowe w ujęciu ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 1996), p. 66.

Kłósak believed that principles are important, so he used them in his philosophical considerations, an example of which are his reflections on Einstein’s principles on the equivalence of mass and energy. Such sub-classes of scientific facts were excerpted from different works of Kłósak by K. Mikucki, Filozofia a nauki szczegółowe w ujęciu ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka, pp. 63–69.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 124–125.

Ibidem, pp. 126–127.

See ibidem, p. 133.

An ex ample of such problem is the issue of the “rawness” of such facts, mentioned by Maritain, or the related problem of theoretizing such facts. As Mikucki notices, different philosophers, including Kłósak, “confirmed the common view that the data of a scientific experience (including a common experience) is not a pure and simple transcription of reality, but are modified in diferent ways: through the factor of convention, cognitive powers (active creative nature of each cognitive act, especially in analysing micro-physical phenomena), hypotheses, and previously adopted theoretical statements related to, e.g. measured things and measuring instruments.” K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, p. 226.

Cf. ibidem, section 2.2.2.

See K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 136–137.

Kłósak did not consider this issue, although it is quite important. Nevertheless, on page 142 of Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, he calls philosophical facts the facts “we would face.”

In the monograph in question, Kłósak presented his ideas in a very general manner. That is why, any examples he gives are precious. Mikucki presents the articles and places in which Kłósak gives specific examples of philosophical facts derived from scientific facts. See K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, section 2.2.2.2.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 139.

Cf. ibidem, p. 139. Kłósak gives that example after Fernand Renoirte.

Cf. ibidem, p. 134.

Ibidem, p. 142.

Ibidem.

Ibidem. Kłósak consistently used the terms “philosophical” and “scientific” with reference to the facts in inverted comas. Perhaps it was caused by the fact that such terms sounded like slogans.

Ibidem, p. 143.

Ibidem.

Cf. ibidem, p. 146.

See ibidem, p. 145.

Cf. ibidem, p. 125.

Cf. K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, pp. 240–242.

Cf. K. Kłósak, “Próba wykorzystania ‘fenomenologicznej’ antropologii P. Teilharda de Chardin do uzasadnienia tomistycznej filozofii człowieka,” in W kierunku prawdy, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976), p. 490.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 128.

Ibidem, pp. 126–127. The analysis of the ways of interpreting the scientific data is presented by K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, pp. 237–238.

Cf. K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 127–130.

This issue was analysed by Józef Turek in the book Filozoficzne interpretacje faktów naukowych [Philosophical interpretation of scientific facts]. He distinguishes four elements of transformations: interpretandum (scientific fact, starting point); interpretans (knowledge due to which interpretation is carried out); rules of interpretation (principles, assumptions of interpretation); result of interpretation (philosophical facts). See J. Turek, Filozoficzne interpretacje faktów naukowych (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2009), chapter 2.

More see K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, pp. 234–235.

One of the problems of such approach is the issue of “creativity” of particular theses of the philosophy of nature. Also, A. Lemańska indicates the possible appearance of a “vicious circle”: “Zagadnienie przejścia od ‘empirycznej fenomenologii przyrody’ do filozofii przyrody,” in Filozofia a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, pp. 27–39.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 150.

Kłósak refers to a similar concept of ontological implications of reductive type at F. Renoirte. Cf. idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 151.

See ibidem, p. 148. Cf. S. Mazierski, Prolegomena do filozofii przyrody inspiracji arystotelesowsko-tomistycznej (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1969).

Cf. K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 148–150.

Cf. ibidem.

 Ibidem, p. 150.

 Ibidem.

 Ibidem.

 Cf. ibidem, p. 151.

 The opinion of such irrationality was perhaps formulated too strongly. In the 1960s, Paul Grice indicated the phenomenon of natural languages called implicature. It includes drawing conclusions—implicatures which are not directly related to the premises. This is something Kłósak had in mind. In the work: A. Olszewski, “Uwagi filozoficzno-logiczne na temat Kłósakowskich implikacji ontologicznych typu redukcyjnego,” in Filozofia a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, pp. 97–116, the author tried to reduce the issue of ontological implications of a reductive type to the issue of presupposition. Cf. concerning implicatures: M. Tokarz, Elementy pragmatyki logicznej (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1993), pp. 210–242.

Kłósak mentions reduction as explaining or clarifying. Cf. K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 151. Cf. T. Czeżowski, “Klasyfikacja rozumowań,” in idem, Odczyty filozoficzne. Prace Wydziału Filologiczno-Filozoficznego, vol. 7 (Toruń: Towarzystwo Naukowe w Toruniu, 1958), pp. 128–145.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 151.

Ibidem.

Perhaps the difference between them should include their relation to physical abstraction.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 151.

Ibidem, p. 152.

Ibidem. The philosopher from Krakow idicated the weak points of this situation himself, although he did not exclude it a priori.

Ibidem, p. 153.

Ibidem.

It is an incompliance with the rationality of a natural being. See ibidem, p. 153.

Cf. ibidem.

Kłósak frequently uses this concept.

Ibidem, p. 154.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, p. 79.

Ibidem, p. 85.

For more, see A. Lemańska, “Zagadnienie przejścia od ‘empirycznej fenomenologii przyrody’ do filozofii przyrody,” pp. 27–39.

K. Kłósak, “Zasada ‘równoważności’ masy bezwładnej i energii a ontyczna struktura materii,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 2, ed. K. Kłósak (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1979), pp. 178–216.

Ibidem, p. 182.

Ibidem, p. 190.

Ibidem, p. 191.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 202.

Ibidem, p. 200.

“Although the principle of the ‘equivalence’ of inert mass and energy is, in its formal frame, indifferent to the Thomist ontical theory of the structure of physical reality, the one who is for this or another version of the classical philosophy of being in its most general theses, may be surprised to conclude that ontological implications in a broader and reductive sense that he/she may obtain for the principle in question, are not different than what—from the Thomist side—is adopted in the subject of the ontical differentiation of nature” (ibidem, p. 211).

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 212.

Ibidem.

See ibidem, pp. 213–216.

Ibidem, p. 216.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, 2, 3c. This version of the Fourth Way is most frequently the subject of possible formalization, and it is this way that, e.g. Józef M. Bocheński was dealing with.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, book I, chapter XIII.

K. Kłósak, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 43–44.

Cf. ibidem, p. 48.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 43–46.

Idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 49–50. (On page 49 of the text an editorial mistake appeared—probably a fragment of the original text was omitted, due to which Kłósak’s argumentation is not very clear and easy to reconstuct in a consistent manner).

Cf. ibidem, p. 80 (the unclearness of this fragment is a consequence of the above mentioned mistake).

Ibidem, pp. 51–52.

Cf. ibidem, p. 52.

What Kłósak wanted to improve in his argumentation was the issue of reconciling the noetic (epistemological) order with the metaphysical order.

Cf. ibidem, p. 53. We can doubt whether Kłósak’s argument really is a version of the “Fourth Way” of St. Thomas. However, both arguments are quite similar in a general manner.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, pp. 53–54. St. Thomas wrote in De veritate: „nihil est cognoscibile nisi per similitudinem primae veritatis” (quoted after: idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, p. 54).

Ibidem.

Ibidem. It is because the truths pressupose the objective reality.

Such as, e.g. the rights of arithmetics or natural numbers. Cf. ibidem, p. 57.

Ibidem, p. 55.

See ibidem, p. 67. Descartes made a similar transition with reference to the concept of God, which was criticised by Kłósak.

This argument should be analysed more thoroughly, but it is impossible in this work.

The related opinion of Kłósak and Kamiński is described and analysed in the doctoral dissertation by D. Dzwonkowska, Rola nauk przyrodniczych w uprawianiu filozofii klasycznej w ujęciu K. Kłósaka i S. Kamińskiego, op. cit. K. Mikucki, in his doctoral dissertation: Filozofia a nauki szczegółowe w ujęciu ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka, op. cit., discusses the relations between philosophy and natural sciences.

Z. Hajduk, Filozofia przyrody. Filozofia przyrodoznawstwa. Metakosmologia (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2004).

J. Dołęga, “Epistemologia i metodologia filozofii przyrody w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Collegium Polonorum 6 (1983), pp. 173–196.

J. Turek, Filozoficzne interpretacje faktów naukowych, op. cit.

K. Mikucki, Tomizm w Polsce po II wojnie światowej, op. cit.; idem, “Spór o typ doświadczenia w bazie wyjściowej filozofii: Kazimierz Kłósak i tomizm egzystencjalny,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 38, no. 2 (2002), pp. 31–53; idem, “Odkrywanie implikacji ontologicznych w koncepcji filozoficznej Kazimierza Kłósaka,” in Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, pp. 117–138.

J. Buczkowska, “Kilka uwag o Kazimierza Kłósaka sposobie rozumienia pojęcia ‘faktu filozoficznego’,” in Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, pp. 99–116.

A. Lemańska, Filozofia przyrody a nauki przyrodnicze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1998); A. Lemańska, “Zagadnienie przejścia od ‘empirycznej fenomenologii przyrody’ do filozofii przyrody,” pp. 27–39; A. Lemańska, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka metoda uprawiania filozofii przyrody,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 23, no. 1 (1987), pp. 133–149; K. Kloskowski, A. Lemańska, “Empiriologiczna teoria nauk szczegółowych,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 15, eds. M. Lubański, S.W. Ślaga (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1996), pp. 183–226; A. Lemańska, “Zagadnienie faktów naukowych i filozoficznych,” in Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, pp. 83–98; A. Lemańska, “Filozofia przyrody a wyniki nauk przyrodniczych,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 43, no. 1 (2007), pp. 115–123; A. Lemańska, “Słowo wstępne,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 20, eds. A. Lemańska, M. Lubański, A. Świeżyński (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 2011), pp. 11–30.

T. Płaczek, Metoda uprawiania filozofii przyrody w ujęciu ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 2003); A. Brzychcy, Autonomia filozofii przyrody wobec nauk przyrodniczych w ujęciu ks. K. Kłósaka (Warszawa: UKSW Libray, 2004); M. Czarnecki, Kazimierza Kłósaka i Michała Hellera koncepcje uprawiania filozofii przyrody (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 2007).

Such arguments fall within the scope of the following scheme: if abiogenesis is impossible and living organisms are significantly different than inanimate matter, there had to be an adequate cause able to create life. This cause is God.

K. Kłósak, “Hipoteza Oparina o powstaniu życia,” Przegląd Powszechny, no. 229 (1950), pp. 45–56; idem, “Teoria samorództwa wobec dogmatu o stworzeniu,” Tygodnik Powszechny 6, no. 33 (1950), pp. 2–3; idem, “Hipoteza samorodztwa wobec badań nad wirusami,” Znak 7, no. 1 (1952), pp. 1–16; idem, “Hipoteza kosmicznych początków życia,” Tygodnik Powszechny 9, no. 43 (1953), pp. 3–4; idem, “O pewnych trudnościach hipotez samorodztwa,” Tygodnik Powszechny 9, no. 36 (1953), pp. 6–7; idem, “Augustyńska teoria biogenezy (próba jej unowocześnienia),” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 52 (1954), p. 8; idem, “Życie organiczne a istnienie Boga,” Tygodnik Powszechny 10, no. 26 (1954), p. 6; idem, “Czy synteza chemiczna żywej materii?” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 52 (1955), pp. 5–6.

Kłósak also returned to those issues in the article: “Doświadczenia w Berkeley a zagadnienie biogenezy,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 15 (1956), pp. 1–2 and 4.

Idem, “Kinetyczny dowód istnienia Boga wobec nowych zarzutów,” Znak 4, no. 5 (1949), pp. 392–401.

Idem, “Z historii krytyki argumentu kinetycznego na istnienie Boga,” Polonia Sacra 4 (1951), pp. 117–154, 277–328; idem, “Pierwszy argument kinetyczny na istnienie Boga ze Sum. c. Gent., lib. I, c. 13,” Polonia Sacra 5 (1952), pp. 89–131; idem, “Pierwszy argument kinetyczny na istnienie Boga ze Sum. c. Gent., lib. I, c. 13,” Polonia Sacra 6 (1953), pp. 1–45.

Idem, “Zagadnienie punktu wyjścia kinetycznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 4, no. 2 (1968), pp. 75–112.

See idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, p. 6.

In the speech, the Pope says: “Facts from natural sciences, to which we referred in this lecture, are waiting for further analysis and confirmation, and the theories built on those facts—if they are to be the starting point for the considerations going beyond the sphere of natural sciences—require new development and new proofs.” Quoted after: Wiadomości Archidiecezjalne Warszawskie 36, no. 2–3 (1952), pp. 41–57.

K. Kłósak, “Zagadnienie początku trwania czasowego Wszechświata,” Polonia Sacra 4 (1951), pp. 1–25.

Idem, “Czy Wszechświat jest przestrzennie nieskończony?” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 42 (1955), pp. 1–2; idem, “Początek czasowy Wszechświata a zagadnienie istnienia Boga,” Życie i Myśl, no. 2–3 (1955), pp. 1–25; idem, “Teoria rozszerzania się Wszechświata a zagadnienie jego początku czasowego,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 6 (1955), pp. 4–5; idem, “Czy kosmos materialny jest w swych rozmiarach skończony lub nieskończony,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 10, no. 3 (1962), pp. 67–101; idem, “Problem odwieczności Wszechświata. Próba argumentacji Władysława Krajewskiego za odwiecznym istnieniem Wszechświata,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 65, no. 2 (1962), pp. 198–210; idem, “Czy mamy dowód filozoficzny za początkiem czasowym Wszechświata,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 11, no. 3 (1963), pp. 31–44; idem, “Zagadnienie sensowności pytania o początek czasowy wszechświata,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1974), pp. 291–297; idem, “Teoria ekspansji przestrzennej wszechświata a zagadnienie istnienia Boga,” in Studia z filozofii Boga, vol. 3, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1977), pp. 414–430; idem, “Zagadnienie filozoficznej argumentacji za początkiem czasowym wszechświata,” Analecta Cracoviensia 9 (1977), pp. 29–48; idem, “Próby argumentacji za początkiem czasowym Wszechświata w oparciu o drugą zasadę termodynamiki i ich krytyczna ocena,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 3, ed. K. Kłósak (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1979), pp. 55–120.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, op. cit.

Ibidem, p. 6.

Ibidem.

Idem, “Na tropach stwórczego Rozumu,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 14 (1955), pp. 1 and 7; idem, “Poznawalność istnienia Stwórczego Rozumu,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 3 (1955), pp. 465–490; idem, “W obronie argumentu nomologicznego za istnieniem Boga,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 34 (1955), pp. 4–5; idem, “Bóg ostateczną podstawą prawd zależnych,” Collectanea Theologica 28, no. 1 (1957), pp. 87–113; idem, “Od dowodu ex possibili et necessario ze Sum. Theol., I, qu.II, a.3 do współczesnych form argumentacji za istnieniem Boga z przygodności rzeczy,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 4 (1955), pp. 632–660; idem, “Dowód św. Tomasza na istnienie Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej. Analiza i próba krytycznej oceny,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 8, no. 1 (1960), pp. 125–160; idem, “Próba uwspółcześnienia Tomaszowej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej,” in Studia z filozofii Boga, vol. 2, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydanwictwo ATK, 1973), pp. 204–222.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, p. 130.

Ibidem, pp. 130–131.

Ibidem, p. 133.

Ibidem, p. 137.

Ibidem, p. 129.

Kłósak claims: “On the basis of different utterances of the contemporary authors, we may get the impression that—for today’s minds, the easiest way to the conviction of the existence of God could lead through the assumption of the temporal beginning of the universe” (ibidem, p. 111).

Idem, “Próby argumentacji za początkiem czasowym Wszechświata w oparciu o drugą zasadę termodynamiki i ich krytyczna ocena,” pp. 56–58.

Ibidem, p. 58.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 60.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, pp. 140–146.

Idem, “Próby argumentacji za początkiem czasowym Wszechświata w oparciu o drugą zasadę termodynamiki i ich krytyczna ocena,” pp. 80–111.

Ibidem, p. 79.

Ibidem, p. 118.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, pp. 240–241.

See ibidem, pp. 244–265.

Ibidem, p. 266.

See ibidem, pp. 266–283.

Ibidem, p. 284.

Ibidem.

In his early works, Kłósak does not use the term “abiogesesis” but “spontaneous generation,” using it both in terms of the naive spontaneous generation and the abiogenetic origin of life. The process of abiogenesis may be called natural spontaneous generation (to make it different from naive spontaneous generation).

Idem, Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa, p. 5.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 8.

Ibidem, p. 10.

Ibidem, p. 11.

Ibidem, p. 12.

Idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, pp. 252–254.

“The one who adopts the natural hypothesis of abiogenesis may, due to his metaphysical views, even reject God’s indirect inference, but there is a difference between the atheistic use of the spontaneous generation thesis and the fact that this hypothesis, as such, irrespective of being a part of the atheistic worldview, does not include a positive exclusion of the idea of God as the direct cause of vegetative and sensory life” (ibidem, p. 254).

Idem, Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa, p. 28.

Kłósak claims that the “scientific hypothesis of spontaneous generation of life … is limited to the phenomenal aspect of biogenesis. It assumes direct, spontaneous creation of beings living from inanimate matter, withouth the philosophical, i.e. ultimate explantaion of such origin of life.” K. Kłósak, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, pp. 471–472.

Ibidem, p. 473.

Idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, p. 234.

Ibidem, pp. 255–256. “The emergentism in question attaches to the Catholic dogma its own philosophical interpretation—it claims, or possibly does not exclude, that God is just an indirect giver of life to plants and animals—but this interpretation stays within the boundaries of the freedom of views that is acceptable for a Catholic” (ibidem, p. 256). This opinion of Kłósak is important because it is the basis for formulating an interesting suggestion of evolutionary creationism.

Kłósak’s analyses of the biological argument, as well as the three ways of Thomas Aquinas, were the topics of MA theses written at ATK: W. Grzeszczuk, Zagadnienie argumentu “biologicznego” za istnieniem Boga w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 1995); M. Jakubowska, Biologiczny dowód na istnienie Boga w ujęciu księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 1996); L. Kaźmierczak, Pierwsze trzy drogi św. Tomasza w interpretacji ks. K. Kłósaka (Płock: UKSW Library, 1998).

K. Kłósak, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, pp. 114–126.

See ibidem, pp. 127–140.

See ibidem, p. 142.

“Since neither from the side of natural cognition nor from the side of metaphysical cognition the scholar have not proved the absolute impossibility of abiogenesis sensu stricto, bearing in mind the possibility of abiogenesis we cannot be certain—just like the authors of the ‘biologica’ argument—that the appearance of organic life on Earth can be explained by the direct, special action of a being such as God” (ibidem, p. 213).

Kłósak’s argumentation is in: W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 89–98.

T. Rutkowski emphasizes the fact that Kłósak transforms the argumentation for the existence of God from effective causality (Thomas Aquinas’s “Second Way”) to the argumentation from the contingency of things. See T. Rutkowski, “Wartość argumentacji na istnienie Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej według ks. K. Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 28, no. 2 (1992), pp. 30–38.

K. Kłósak, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, p. 284. Kłósak makes similar remarks regarding the biological argument: “We only have to move the whole reasoning to the area of the argument from the contingency of things. It is because it seems that the ‘biological’ argument can only be convinving if we perceive it as an argument from the contingency of things limited in its starting base to the living organic beings” (ibidem, p. 453).

B. Hałaczek, “Ksiądz Kłósak – polskim Teilhardem de Chardin,” p. 9.

K. Kłósak, “Czy kosmos materialny jest w swych rozmiarach skończony lub nieskończony?” p. 96.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 35.

Idem, “Czy kosmos materialny jest w swych rozmiarach skończony lub nieskończony?” p. 96.

Idem, Myśl katolicka wobec teorii samorodztwa, p. 3.

See: K. Kloskowski, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka koncepcja kreacjonizmu,” pp. 61–75; J. Dołęga, Kreacjonizm i ewolucjonizm. Ewolucyjny model kreacjonizmu a problem hominizacji (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1988). At ATK/UKSW were also prepared some MA papers: P. Kurkowski, Zastosowanie ewolucyjnego modelu kreacjonizmu w wyjaśnianiu rozwoju duchowego człowieka w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 1999); A.E. Olędzki, Kazimierza Kłósaka interpretacja współdziałania pierwszej przyczyny z przyczynami wtórnymi (Warszawa: UKSW Library, 2007).

K. Kloskowski, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka koncepcja kreacjonizmu,” p. 71.

Ibidem, p. 74.

M. Lubański, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka analizy kosmologiczno-teodycealne (próba odczytania),” p. 164.

S.W. Ślaga, “Problem abiogenezy w ujęciu K. Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 17, no. 1(1981), p. 172.

See K. Mikucki, “Problem sposobu poznania duszy ludzkiej według Kazimierza Kłósaka,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 48, no. 1 (2012), pp. 6 and next. Cf. S. Judycki, “Istnienie i natura duszy ludzkiej,” in Dydaktyka filozofii. Antropologia, ed. S. Janeczek (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe KUL, 2010), pp. 117–173; A. Siemianowski, “Problem duszy dzisiaj,” Filozofia Chrześcijańska 7 (2010), pp. 9–36.

See K. Kłósak, “Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 1, no. 1 (1965), p. 103.

“… in this research I shall only collect raw material from the field of natural sciences. Then, it shall be subject to philosophical analysis due to which we shall learn the nature of cognitive acts of the animals and people … Such a material shall become the formal empirical basis for the philosophical argumentation focused on the origin of human soul.” Idem, “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 8, no. 3 (1960), p. 59.

See J. Życiński, “Antropogeneza ewolucyjna w ujęciu Kazimierza Kłósaka i w nauczaniu Jana Pawła II,” in Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, pp. 53–66.

See K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, op. cit. Cf. A. Lemańska, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka metoda uprawiania filozofii przyrody,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 23, no. 1 (1987), pp. 133–149; K. Mikucki, “Zarys teorii metafizyki w ujęciu ks. prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” pp. 13–32.

See K. Mikucki, “Odkrywanie implikacji ontologicznych w koncepcji filozoficznej ks. Prof. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” pp. 117–138; J. Turek, “Implikacje ontologiczne typu redukcyjnego jako metoda uprawiania filozofii przez Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka,” in Filozofia a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, pp. 63–88; J. Życiński, “Problem pewności implikacji ontologicznych typu redukcyjnego w ujęciu Ks. Kazimierza Kłósaka,” in Filozofia a nauka w myśli Księdza Kazimierza Kłósaka, pp. 89–86; A. Olszewski, “Uwagi filozoficzno-logiczne na temat Kłósakowskich implikacji ontologicznych typu redukcyjnego,” pp. 97–116.

See K. Kłósak, “Natura człowieka w ‘fenomenologicznym’ ujęciu ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” Znak 12, no. 11 (1960), pp. 1468ff.

Idem, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” p. 33 (footnote 8).

Cf. idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” pp. 29–47. Cf. J. Bremer, “Pojęcie duszy w naukach kognitywnych,” Filozofia Chrześcijańska 7 (2010), pp. 37–63.

K. Kłósak, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” Znak 13, no. 9 (1961), pp. 1182–1186.

Idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” p. 29.

Ibidem, p. 32.

See ibidem, pp. 29–31. Cf. K. Kłósak, “Substancjalność duszy ludzkiej ze stanowiska doświadczenia bezpośredniego,” Przegląd Powszechny, no. 229 (1950), p. 3; idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1182–1183.

See idem, “Zagadnienie punktu wyjścia kinetycznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga,” p. 96; idem, “Warianty argumentacji kinetycznej za istnieniem Boga,” Analecta Cracoviensia 17 (1985), p. 91.

See idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1181–1188; idem, “Natura człowieka w ‘fenomenologicznym’ ujęciu ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” pp. 1464–1483; idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, p. 191; idem, “‘Przyrodnicza’ definicja duszy ludzkiej, jej uprawnienie i granice użyteczności naukowej,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 2, no. 1 (1966), p. 186.

See idem, “Immanencja i transcendencja człowieka w odniesieniu do przyrody,” in O Bogu i o człowieku, vol. 1, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1968), pp. 173–174; idem, “Przejawy współczesnego kryzysu klasycznej teorii duchowości duszy ludzkiej,” in Teologia a antropologia. Kongres teologów polskich 21–23 IX 1971, eds. M. Jaworski, A. Kubiś (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1972), pp. 175–176; idem, “Teoria duchowości duszy ludzkiej w ujęciu św. Tomasza z Akwinu. Próba jej dalszego rozwinięcia,” Analecta Cracoviensia 4 (1972), pp. 93–94; idem, “Czy i w jakim zakresie Tomaszowe ujęcie duchowości duszy ludzkiej można bardziej uściślić, poszerzyć, a zwłaszcza pogłębić?” in Teologia a antropologia. Kongres teologów polskich 21–23 IX 1971, pp. 180–181; idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1205–1227; idem, “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” pp. 54–81; idem, “Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 75–123.

See idem, “Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej,” p. 103.

See idem, “Metoda badań natury duszy,” Znak 5, no. 1 (1950), pp. 13–26.

See idem, “Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej,” p. 120.

See idem, “Próba argumentacji za substancjalnością duszy ludzkiej,” Analecta Cracoviensia 7 (1975), pp. 511–520.

See idem, “Substancjalność duszy ludzkiej ze stanowiska doświadczenia bezpośredniego,” p. 4.

See ibidem, p. 3–17; idem, “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” pp. 113–114; idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1204–1205, 1230–1232; idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” pp. 40–41, 44–45.

Idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” p. 41.

See idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 1231.

See idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” pp. 41–45.

See idem, “Teoria duchowości duszy ludzkiej w ujęciu św. Tomasza z Akwinu. Próba jej dalszego rozwinięcia,” p. 96.

Kłósak believed that what required further analysis was whether “the signs of thought and will, phenomenally separate from the cerebral physiological signs, genetically derive—as from their direct and indirect subject (basis)—from what we have from a tangible or intangible nature.” Idem, “Próba wykorzystania ‘fenomenologicznej’ antropologii P. Teilharda de Chardin do uzasadnienia tomistycznej filozofii człowieka,” p. 493.

Cf. K. Kłósak, “Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 102–103.

See idem, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” pp. 32–53; idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 191–236.

The group of Polish philosophers who supported such approach includes T. Wojciechowski, K. Kloskowski and A. Świeżyński.

See idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1181–1234.

See idem, “Kościół wobec teorii ewolucji,” Tygodnik Powszechny 15, no. 52 (1959), p. 3; idem, “Z zagadnień filozofii przyrody ks. Teilharda de Chardin,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 3, no. 4 (1960), p. 13; idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 192–222.

Idem, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” p. 44.

Idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 221.

See idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 1188; idem, “Spór o Orygenesa naszych czasów,” Znak 12, no. 2–3 (1960), pp. 266–268.

See idem, “‘Przyrodnicza’ definicja duszy ludzkiej, jej uprawnienie i granice użyteczności naukowej,” p. 188; idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1195–1196; idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 191.

See idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 234–236; idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 93–97.

Idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 1200.

See idem, “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” p. 121; idem, “Próba rozwiązania problemu pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” pp. 1232–1234.

See idem, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” p. 36.

See ibidem, p. 45.

Ibidem, p. 53.

Cf. idem, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 109–256; idem, “Próba uwspółcześnienia Tomaszowej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej,” pp. 220–222; idem, “Czy upadek ewolucjonizmu antropologicznego?” Znak 4, no. 4 (1949), pp. 300–307.

See idem, “Próba wykorzystania ‘fenomenologicznej’ antropologii P. Teilharda de Chardin do uzasadnienia tomistycznej filozofii człowieka,” pp. 492–493.

See idem, “Immanencja i transcendencja człowieka w odniesieniu do przyrody,” pp. 165–177.

See idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywach filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” p. 36.

Ibidem, p. 37

See for example: What About the Soul? Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology, ed. J.B. Green (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2004); M. Beauregard, D. O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul (New York: Harper Collins, 2009); Neuroscience and Religion: Brain, Mind, Self, and Soul, ed. V.P. Gay (Lanham, MD–New York: Lexington Books, 2009); Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science, and Theology, eds. T.M. Crisp, S. Porter, G.-A. Ten Elshof (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016).

See K. Mikucki, “Problem sposobu poznania duszy ludzkiej według Kazimierza Kłósaka,” p. 40.

See A. Schaff, Wstęp do teorii marksizmu. Zarys materializmu dialektycznego i historycznego, pp. 85–154.

See K. Kłósak, Materializm dialektyczny. Studia krytyczne (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Mariackie, 1948), p. 21.

Idem, “Dialektyka a tradycyjna teoria ewolucji,” Znak 3, no. 4 (1948), pp. 316–325.

See L. Kołakowski, “Metodologia księdza Kłósaka. Felieton filozoficzny,” Myśl Filozoficzna, no. 1–2 (1951), pp. 316–322; idem, “Igraszki z diabłem,” Po Prostu, no. 15 (1954), p. 2.

Later Kołakowski withdrew from his commitment in the defense of the Marxist philosophy. See idem, Główne nurty marksizmu, vol. 3 (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1978), p. 179.

K. Kłósak, “Próba oceny,” Życie i Myśl, no. 3 (1956), p. 89.

See, e.g.: idem, “Problem odwieczności wszechświata. Próba argumentacji Władysława Krajewskiego za odwiecznym istnieniem wszechświata,” pp. 198–210; idem, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” pp. 32–56.

See: J. Kalinowski, “O istocie i jedności filozofii,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 6, no. 1 (1958), pp. 5–17; M.A. Krąpiec, Metafizyka. Zarys teorii bytu (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1985). Cf. Z. Hajduk, “Współczesna postać sporów o koncepcję filozofii przyrody,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 30, no. 2 (1994), pp. 115–134; A. Latawiec, “W poszukiwaniu obrazu współczesnej filozofii przyrody,” in Filozofia przyrody współcześnie, eds. M. Kuszyk-Bytniewska, A. Łukasik (Kraków: Universitas, 2010), pp. 29–42. Krąpiec’s later views underwent some modification—he treated the philosophy of nature, like Kamiński, in accordance with the idea of particular and applied metaphysics, emphasizing the analogy of all philosophical knowledge due to the common and fundamental method of research. Cf. M.A. Krąpiec, “Byt materialny żyjący. Niektóre aspekty filozofii przyrody,” in Wprowadzenie do filozofii, eds. M.A. Krąpiec, S. Kamiński, Z.J. Zdybicka, A. Maryniarczyk, P. Jaroszyński (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 1998), pp. 229–230.

See, e.g. S. Kamiński, “Teoria bytu a inne dyscypliny filozoficzne. Aspekt metodologiczny,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 23, no. 1 (1975), p. 12.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 53–72.

Idem, “Słowo wstępne,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, p. 9.

M. Gogacz, “Panorama aktualnych ujęć Boga i człowieka,” Znak 24, no. 6 (1975), p. 792.

K. Kłósak, “Próba uściślenia argumentacji za realnością aspektu przygodności rzeczy,” in W kierunku Boga, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1982), p. 212.

See, e.g. the report from the VII Philosophical Week at KUL: S. Grygiel, “O dorobku filozofii polskiej w dwudziestoleciu 1944–1964. VII Tydzień Filozoficzny KUL (24–28.02.1964),” Znak 16, no. 7–8 (1964), pp. 1003–1012. It is worth adding that the text of this report made Kłósak write his own comment on the dispute with M.A. Krąpiec. See K. Kłósak, “Sprostowania w sprawie mojej polemiki z o. prof. A. Krąpcem OP,” Znak 16, no. 10 (1964), pp. 1264–1268. Remarkably, the disputable issues were even raised during doctoral examinations. Heller said that during the defense of his doctoral dissertation he discussed the way of practising the philosophy of nature with Kłósak. See M. Heller, Wierzę, żeby rozumieć. Rozmawiają W. Bonowicz, B. Brożek, Z. Liana, pp. 147–148.

See, e.g. A. Lemańska, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka metoda uprawiania filozofii przyrody,” in W poszukiwaniu prawdy. Pamięci Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka, eds. M. Lubański, S.W. Ślaga (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1987), pp. 29–43; A. Lemańska, K. Kloskowski, “Empiriologiczna teoria nauk szczegółowych,” pp. 183–226.

S. Kowalczyk, Nurty filozofii Boga w Polsce w latach 1880–2008 (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2009), p. 133.

W. Pietkun, “Dowód kinetyczny wobec teorii kwantów,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 42, no. 52 (1950), p. 186.

See K. Kłósak, W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny. Część II, pp. 26–39. Cf. K. Kłósak, “W odpowiedzi ks. Pietkunowi,” Collectanea Theologica 26, no. 4 (1955), pp. 820–824.

See idem, W poszukiwaniu pierwszej przyczyny. Część II, pp. 71–98.

See idem, “Zagadnienie teleologicznej interpretacji przyrody we współczesnej neoscholastyce,” in Pod tchnieniem Ducha Świętego, ed. M. Finke (Poznań: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha, 1964), pp. 25–60.

See idem, “Próba konfrontacji,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 17, no. 1 (1981), pp. 172–178.

Such attitude was expressed in the reviews of Kłósak’s book published in the Warsaw Studia Philosophiae Christianae, written by M. Lubański, S.W. Ślaga (Studia Philosophiae Christianae 16, no. 1 [1980], pp. 163–165) and R. Forycki (Studia Philosophiae Christianae 16, no. 2 [1980], pp. 174–177).

See K. Kłósak, “Teoria doświadczenia człowieka w ujęciu kardynała Karola Wojtyły,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 81–84.

Idem, “Próba rewizji metodologicznych podstaw wyodrębnienia przedmiotu badań filozofii przyrody u Jakuba Maritaina,” pp. 55–56.

See T. Wojciechowski, “Z problematyki ewolucyjnej koncepcji genezy duszy ludzkiej,” in Zarys filozofii przyrody ożywionej, ed. S. Mazierski (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1980), pp. 297–320. Cf. A. Świeżyński, “Tadeusza Wojciechowskiego ewolucyjna koncepcja struktury bytu zmiennego,” in Myśl filozoficzna Księdza Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka w dwudziestą rocznicę śmierci, pp. 195–214; K. Trombik, “Koncepcja uprawiania filozofii przyrody w ujęciu Tadeusza Wojciechowskiego – próba rekonstrukcji historyczno-filozoficznej,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 66, no. 1 (2018), pp. 133–152.

K. Kłósak, “Teoria kreacjonistycznych początków duszy ludzkiej a współczesny ewolucjonizm,” pp. 36–37.

See T. Wojciechowski, “Teilhardowska koncepcja transcendencji duszy ludzkiej i jej wpływ na chrześcijańską antropologię filozoficzną,” Śląskie Studia Historyczno-Teologiczne 7 (1974), pp. 215–244.

Cf. “‘Opowiadam się za teistyczną formą ewolucji.’ Z ks. prof. Tadeuszem Wojciechowskim rozmawia ks. Kazimierz Wolsza,” in Czas, ewolucja, duch. Księga pamiątkowa dedykowana Księdzu Profesorowi Stanisławowi T. Wojciechowskiemu z okazji 80. rocznicy urodzin, (Opolska Biblioteka Teologiczna, vol. 20), ed. K. Wolsza (Opole: Wydział Teologiczny UO, 1997), pp. 53–62.

See, e.g. J. Nowaczyk, “Sprawozdanie z sesji poświęconej zagadnieniu pochodzenia mowy ludzkiej, ATK 26 IV 1976 r.,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 13, no. 1 (1977), pp. 265–268.

K. Kłósak, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 204.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 17.

Ibidem, p. 17.

Ibidem, p. 107.

Ibidem, p. 108.

K. Kłósak, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, ed. K. Kłósak (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo ATK, 1976), p. 230. In this place, Kłósak summarizes the view of P.Teilhard de Chardin. It seems that this opinion is close to the ideas of Kłósak himself. See K. Kloskowski, “Profesora Kazimierza Kłósaka koncepcja kreacjonizmu,” pp. 61–75.

K. Kłósak, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, pp. 475–476.

Ibidem, p. 476.

Ibidem, pp. 476–477.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 155.

Ibidem, p. 156.

Ibidem, p. 157.

Ibidem, p. 158.

K. Kłósak, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, pp. 64–66.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 159.

Ibidem, p. 14.

Ibidem, p. 15.

Ibidem, p. 35.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 40.

K. Kłósak, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 52.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, p. 56.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 150. Cf. idem, “Słowo wstępne,” in Z zagadnień filozofii przyrodoznawstwa i filozofii przyrody, vol. 1, p. 11.

Idem, “Próba uściślenia argumentacji za realnością aspektu przygodności rzeczy,” pp. 204–205.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 22.

Ibidem, p. 20.

Idem, “‘Przyrodnicze’ i filozoficzne sformułowanie zagadnienia pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej,” p. 215.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 105.

Idem, Z zagadnień filozoficznego poznania Boga, vol. 1, p. 57.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 124.

Ibidem, p. 125.

Idem, “Zagadnienie metody filozofii przyrody we współczesnej neoscholastyce,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 9, no. 4 (1961), p. 7.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, pp. 126–127.

Ibidem, p. 135.

Ibidem, p. 134.

Idem, “Zagadnienie punktu wyjścia kinetycznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga,” p. 85.

Idem, Z teorii i metodologii filozofii przyrody, p. 139.

Idem, “Dusza ludzka w perspektywie filozofii przyrody i metafizyki,” Analecta Cracoviensia 10 (1978), p. 29.

Idem, “Zagadnienie pochodzenia duszy ludzkiej a teoria ewolucji,” pp. 53–123.

  “Les natures spécifiques du monde des corps.”

Les degrés du savoir, pp. 216–218.

La philosophie de la nature (A), p. 244.

Ibidem, pp. 243–246.

“La métaphysique est nécessaire à la constitution d’une saine philosophie de la nature à laquelle elle est surordonnée,” La philosophie de la nature, p. 241.

La philosophie de la nature (A), p. 257. …

La pilosophie de la nature (A), pp. 255–256.

“L’être sensible comme observable—ens secundum quod mobile sub ratione phaenomenalitatis id est sub modo definiendi per operationem sensus, or: ens secundum quod mobile sub lumine empiriologico.”

La philosophie de la nature, p. 132.

Compare Maritain’s views with Paolo Geny’s SJ ideas expressed in the paper Metafisica ed esperienza nella Cosmologia (Gregorianum, an. I. vol. 1, 1920, pp. 91–116).

La philosophie de la nature, p. 144.

  …

  Descriptions from Albert Vandel and Nicholas Corte.

La vie et l’âme de Teilhard de Chardin, Paris 1957, pp. 32–33.

  …

  …

Expressed in the preface to the book of Fr. Teilhard: Le groupe zoologique humain, structure et directions évolutives, Paris 1956, p. XIV.

  …

Devaux, La décade Teilhard de Chardin, p. 63.

  For the time being, I do not specify how achievements of natural sciences can be applied in philosophy in a methodically correct way I will address this issue in the third part of this study.

I am starting here with a more general statement that knowledge as such and being (being in general and its types) differ radically from each other. While one could conceptualize knowledge in its ontic aspect, this would miss all that make it special. We are not able to straightforwardly describe or positively define this specificity, anyway. As Joseph de Tonquédec aptly noticed in La critique de la connaissance, Paris 1929, pp. 3–8, 464–465, knowledge, as something immaterial, can only be expressed with negative formulations; besides that, we are left with a turn to personal experience and incomplete metaphors, like look, grasp, spiritual ownership or understanding of being.

  Talking about reservations towards the Aristotelian concept of science, I mean, first of all, the necessity of narrowing its descriptive adequacy only to those sciences which aim at unoriginal knowledge. I intend, as well, to check if the Aristotelian concept of science needs some corrections even in relation to such sciences considered in their present form.

  It is, as we already know … a Maritain’s term.

  …

Klubertanz himself supports the empiriological theory of special real sciences and criticises only a certain version of it, probably inappropriately understood, which, in his opinion, is an expression of the positivist concept of the mentioned sciences. What the professor of St. Louis University seems to omit, when discussing the sort of the empiriological theory he questions, is some explicative advantage it assumes, according to Maritain (The Degrees of Knowledge, op. cit., p. 43), when it comes to special real sciences.

Cf. A. Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, Presses universitaires de France, Paris 1947, pp. 773–774.

A. Comte, The Positive Philosophy, transl. by H. Martineau, vol. I, Batoche Books, Kitchener 2000, pp. 225–230.

F. Selvaggi, Filosofia delle scienze, op. cit., p. 55.

Cf. L. Infeld (ed.), Materiały z konferencji fizyków w Spale, Warszawa 1954, p. 96.

N. Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, New York–London 1958, p. 9 (cf. also pp. 30, 33–34, 40–45, 120, 125, 132).

B.J. Gawecki, Zagadnienie przyczynowości w fizyce, p. 79.

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R. Blanché, La science physique et la realité, Presses universitaires de France, Paris 1948, 131–148.

P. Février, La structure des théories physiques, Presses universitaires de France, Paris 1951, pp. 312–316, 335–336; eadem, Déterminisme et indéterminisme, pp. 137, 142–148, 223–227; eadem, L’interprétation physique de la mécanique ondulatoire et des théories quantiques, pp. 78–79, 149, 197.

8th edition, Institut Supérieur de Philosophie–Felix Alcan, Louvain–Paris 1923, pp. 46–49, 126–335.

… Taking the term suggested by Ajdukiewicz, I realise that it has its shortcomings. The phrase “epistemological realism” objectively narrows down its sense to the theory of scientific knowledge, even though it concerns the theory of pre-scientific knowledge, as well. The second phrase, “immanent realism,” is obscure without a special comment and it seems to carry a logical contradiction within itself. Moreover, the name “realism” indicates knowledge of things, real beings which exist independently from the individual consciousness, yet there is no hint of such knowledge in the case we are discussing. Perhaps, we will express it best if we say: the theory of the epistemic transcendentalism in the weak sense, which is opposed to the theory of the epistemic transcendentalism in the strong sense, i.e. to what is simply called gnoseological realism and what Ajdukiewicz rather unfortunately defined as the epistemological transcendental realism. …

  … By intentive conscious experiences, Ingarden understood experiences enclosing the so-called intention. They are experiences oriented towards something else, towards an object beyond the range of the act of consciousness and located at a distance from a subject who is performing this act. …

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Cf. A. Krąpiec, Analysis formationis conceptus entis existentialiter considerati, “Divus Thomas” (Piacenza) 1956, no. 59, p. 348; idem, Próba ustalenia struktury bytu intencjonalnego (Egzystencjalno-ontyczna interpretacja aktu poznania), “Collectanea Theologica” 28 (1957), pp. 340, 343–365; idem, Realizm ludzkiego poznania, Poznań 1959, pp. 451, 453–470.

Idem, Próba ustalenia struktury bytu intencjonalnego, p. 358; idem, Realizm ludzkiego poznania, pp. 464–465.

I presented a more precise characteristic of the mode of existence of our pure “self” in the paper Zagadnienie wyjściowej metody filozoficznego poznania duszy ludzkiej, “Studia Philosophiae Christianae” 1, no. 1 (1965), pp. 113–119.

See Łukasiewicz, op. cit. (“Przegląd Filozoficzny,” p. 164; Z zagadnień logiki i filozofii – Pisma wybrane, pp. 53–54).

Les degrés du savoir, pp. 128–130, 379–386; La philosophie de la nature…, pp. 108–112.

In Maritain’s opinion, finality seems as irrational to the typological, or formally experimental, biology, as it does to the empiriometric, or physico-mathematical biology. But while the latter form of biology looks at the irrational from the perspective of physical and chemical concept, the former form of biology grasps it with strictly biological experimental concepts. When he was talking about the irrational factor, Maritain meant “(…) a datum, which is not explanatory, but which is accepted once for all by empiriological analysis, leaving it to philosophy to establish its ontological value” (Les degrés du savoir, p. 238, footnote 2).

S. Mazierski, Prolegomena do filozofii przyrody inspiracji arystotelesowsko-tomistycznej, Lublin 1969, pp. 141–179; idem, Elementy kosmologii filozoficznej i przyrodniczej, Poznań–Warszawa–Lublin 1972, pp. 60–64.

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S. Mazierski, Prolegomena do filozofii przyrody, pp. 172–173. The same thought in Elementy kosmologii filozoficznej, p. 61.

J. Łukasiewicz, O logice trójwartościowej, “Ruch Filozoficzny” 5 (1920), pp. 170a–171a.

What I wrote in this work, pp. 11–106, is a further development and partial correction of my article: Zagadnienie początku trwania czasowego wszechświata, który ogłosiłem w “Polonia Sacra” 4 (1951), pp. 1–25.

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These are the words of Zygmunt Zawirski from the article Rozwój pojęcia czasu (“Kwartalnik Filozoficzny” 12 (1935), p. 56, a summary of this author’s larger work L’évolution de la notion du temps, Cracovie 1936. Zawirski thought that with these words the content of the Aristotelian definition of time could be more correctly expressed.

S. Thomae Aquinatis, Sum. theol., I, qu. X, a. 1.

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P. Boharczyk, O początku czasowym wszechświata, “Tygodnik Powszechny” (2.10.1955), pp. 4–5.

Z. Ziemba, Logica contra ksiądz Kłósak, “Po Prostu,” no. 15(377) (8.04.1956), pp. 6–7.

W. Krajewski, O wieczności materii i jej ruchu, Warszawa 1956, pp. 23–28.

W. Granat, Teodycea…, pp. 220–221; ibidem, Dogmatyka katolicka, vol. 2, pp. 68–69.

If there were momentary, timeless changes in nature, as not only Saint Thomas Aquinas, but also Johannes Kepler and René Descartes are convinced (see my article Dowód św. Tomasza z Akwinu na istnienie Boga z przyczynowości sprawczej – Analiza i próba krytycznej oceny, “Roczniki Filozoficzne” 8, no. 1 (1960), pp. 138–139), the history of the universe could even progress gradually over an infinite number of new events.

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After these arguments, a critical review of my shorter philosophical argument for the beginning of the time of the universe, which I presented in the first part of my book W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny (p. 85, footnote 42), no longer presents any difficulties. Asking “could a series of successive events be prolonged so parte ante that it would not have any first event,” we must admit what I wrote loco citato, that “with no event extending aparte ante series of events could we not stop claiming that what we are about has already happened, since we have in mind a series of successive events without any border a parte ante.” However, this conclusion does not follow the conclusion that I have drawn: “In that case a series of successive events could never have been realized without the first event.” If we faced the prospect of going backwards forever in a series of events that make up the completed history of the universe, this fact would only result in the conclusion that the history of the universe has been developing for centuries, that the universe has no beginning in its existence in time.

H. Denzinger, J.B. Umberg, S.J., Enchiridion Symbolorum, Friburgi Brisgoviae MCMXXXII, no. 1805. Cf. ibidem no. 1783, where the Vatican Council repeats after the Lateran Council IV, that God „simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam.”

See a critical evaluation of the visionary theory in Augustin Bea’s SJ work De Pentateucho, Romae 1933, p. 144.

J. Paquier has already expressed the opinion that the Book of Genesis does not specify if God is the direct or indirect originator of life: „Sans doute la Bible dit: C’est Dieu qui a créé la vie. Mais elle ne précise pas si, pour produire la première vie, Dieu est intervenu directement, immédiatement, ou si, au contraire, longtemps auparavant, il n’avait pas simplement déposé dans la matière l’énergie suffisante pour la produire. Fréquemment, et tout particulièrement dans le récit de la Création, la Genèse supprime volontiers les intermédiaires, pour remonter directement à Dieu.” La création et l’évolution (La Révelation et la science), Paris 1932, p. 48.

In An enquiry concerning human understanding, especially in Section VII.

  Ibidem, Section VII, Part I, paragraph 6.

  Ibidem, Section IV, Part I, paragraph 11.

I characterized the action in nature here with words that H. Bergson referred to “duration.” See Creative Evolution, transl. A. Mitchell, New York 1944, p. 14.

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Cf. Filippo Selvaggi, Il problema filosofico delle origini e delle’evoluzione, in: Problemi delle origini, a cura di V. Marcozzi e F. Selvaggi, Roma 1966, pp. 312–313.

In the first part of the book W poszukiwaniu Pierwszej Przyczyny, p. 208.

The material subject of the study was taken here in the understanding of Thomistic methodology.

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The content and value of the “natural-scientific” definition of the human soul were subjects of my closer study in the article “Przyrodnicza” definicja duszy ludzkiej, jej uprawnienie i granice użyteczności naukowej, “Studia Philosophiae Christianae” 2, no. 1 (1966), pp. 173–204. I have put the formulation of the mentioned definition, which determines its epistemological classification, in inverted commas, because this definition has been proposed by nomothetic psychological sciences that are not purely natural sciences but are natural-humanistic sciences. …

  In this “natural-scientific” framework, we will treat progress in domains of socialization and speech as ultimate stimuli determining the development of the central nervous system.

“Przegląd Filozoficzny” 9 (1906), pp. 105–179; Z zagadnień logiki i filozofii – Wybór pism, ed. Jerzy Słupecki, Warszawa 1961, pp. 9–62.

See Théodore de Régnon, La métaphysique des causes d’après St. Thomas et Albert le Grand, 2 éd., Paris 1906; G. Schuleman, Das Kausalprinzip in der Philosophie des Hl. Thomas von Aquino, in: „Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters,” vol. 13, no. 5, Münster i. W. 1915; Franco Amerio, La formulazione del principio di causalità e la nozione di causa in S. Tommaso, “Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica” 29 (1937), pp. 388–400; idem, Il principio di causalità in San Tommaso, ibidem, 30 (1938), pp. 44–61; Giuseppe Morabito, L’essere e la causalità in Suarez e in San Tommaso, ibidem, 31 (1939), pp. 18–46; Alexander Rozwadowski, De principio causalitatis secundum doctrinam S. Thomae, “Acta Pontifciae Academiae Sancti Thomae Aquinatis et Religionis Catholicae” 5 (1939), pp. 136–152; Pierre Garrin, Le problème de la causalité et Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Paris 1958, p. 26; Marian Jaworski, Arystotelesowska i tomistyczna teoria przyczyny sprawczej na tle pojęcia bytu, Lublin 1958, p. 52; Albert M. Krąpiec, Realizm ludzkiego poznania, Poznań 1959, pp. 202–203; Stanisław Adamczyk, Metafizyka ogólna czyli ontologia, Lublin 1960, pp. 159–162. It is striking how little space in these works has been dedicated precisely to the analysis of Thomas’ metaphysical concept of cause.

Opuscula omnia, cura et studio Petri Mandonnet, Paris 1927, vol. 1, p. 12.

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“Przegląd Filozoficzny,” p. 162; Z zagadnień logiki i filozofii, p. 52.

In the definition I am giving, I am following, in general, a formulation proposed by Bolesław Gawecki in his study Przyczynowość i funkcjonalizm w fizyce, “Kwartalnik Filozoficzny” 1, no. 4 (1923), p. 498. Biegański has given a very broad definition of cause which is much less precise than Gawecki’s one and proposed from the empiriological point of view, in the spirit of determinism: “By cause in the proper sense of the word we understand all conditions altogether which give rise to an effect; in other words, the whole part of an event after the realization of which its second part comes into existence, can be called cause.” (W. Biegański, Pojęcie przyczynowości w biologii, Warszawa 1906, p. 56).

This state of affairs, taken into consideration by Gawecki (op. cit.), is highlighted clearly in the recently quoted version of the Biegański’s formulation.

It is hard not to deem reservations raised by Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg (Evolution und Schöpfung – Eine Antword auf den Evolutionismus Teilhard deChardins, München 1963, p. 147) towards a Teilhard’s formulation from How the Transformist Question Presents Itself Today to be a sign of a misunderstanding: “… God, as one might say, does not so much «make» things as «make them make themselves»” (in: P. Teilhard de Chardin, The Vision of the Past, transl. by J.M. Cohen, New York–Evanston 1966, p. 25). Cf. a good commentary relevant to this formulation, presented by Smulders in his article Schöpfung, Entwicklung und Vollendung – Zum Anliegen Teilhard de Chardin, “Wissenschaft und Weisheit” 27 (1964), pp. 17–19.

This connection occurred in his essay Un seuil mental sous nos pas: du cosmos à cosmogenèse, in Oeuvres, vol. 7, Paris 1963 p. 271.

Hengstenberg has pointed out this identification already (op. cit., p. 93).

The discussed author’s letter from May 1920, quoted by Émile Rideau in La pensée du Père Teilhard de Chardin, Paris 1965, p. 335.

In the original: Elle n’est pas crée avec de la Matière ou de la Vie préexistante.

Le phénomène humain, pp. 185–186, Cf. L’hominisation…, p. 104; La place de l’homme dans la nature…, p. 91.

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